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

Two days later the American invasion force came under attack by some seventy Japanese bombers and torpedo planes. Leonard Moser, an aviation machinist’s mate first class, was standing on a catwalk near the after elevator. Leaning on the rag mop he had forgotten he was holding, he watched the Japanese planes bear down on the Fanshaw Bay. Intense fire from her gunners and the surrounding destroyers knocked three Japanese planes into the sea. A sleek Tony fighter plane survived the barrage, flew over the ship, puffs of smoke reaching back from its fuselage into its slipstream as the shells struck home. Moser thought the plane would explode in midair, right above the ship. But then he saw the bomb. It fell from the plane’s wing, arced downward, and struck the Fanshaw Bay smack on the after elevator. The bomb penetrated the elevator and exploded in midair above the hangar deck below, where plane handlers were fueling and arming their aircraft for battle. The bomb’s detonation burst Leonard Moser’s eardrums and set aflame the business end of his mop. But the most serious damage was belowdecks. When the bomb exploded, Lt. (jg) Tommy Lupo, a TBM Avenger pilot from New Orleans, and his roommate were running across the hangar deck to the ladder that led up to the flight deck. Lupo and his buddy were talking as they ran, and when Lupo turned to say something to him, his roommate was headless. The pilot ran at least five steps without his head. Fire consumed the aft part of the hangar...