The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour

by James D. Hornfischer

A torpedo attack, uniquely dangerous, required a pilot to fly low, slow, and perfectly straight. The mantra, drummed into every torpedo bomber pilot during flight training, was “needle-ball and airspeed.” The challenge was to keep his eyes focused on two instruments, the needle-ball, which indicated the plane’s orientation on the horizontal plane, and the airspeed indicator. If the pilot could keep both instruments within the narrow parameters needed for a successful drop, the torpedo would enter the water like a free-style swimmer hitting the water from a racing podium: flat, straight, and true. A pilot who flew too fast, or with any degree of pitch, yaw, or bounce, or at an altitude that caused the torpedo to enter the ocean with excessive force, was likely to see his torpedo veer off course or “porpoise.” The cruelty of the torpedo pilot’s trade was that the greater his proficiency at straight, slow, and exquisitely stable flight, the greater his chances of being blown from the sky.