The Japanese bombers were approaching from a side of the task force that had been left relatively exposed by the pursuit of the first wave.
Seven Wildcats were reportedly chasing remnants of the earlier attack in the opposite direction.
Another group was low on fuel and waiting to recover.
O’Hare and Dufilho were the fighters that could respond immediately. (Lịch Sử Hải Quân)
This was not a planned one-man interception.
The Navy had not intentionally placed O’Hare alone against the formation.
The carrier-defense system had become temporarily stretched across a large area of ocean.
O’Hare happened to be in the correct place.
Dufilho happened to be with him.
Then Dufilho’s guns failed.
Four .50-caliber machine guns became zero.
He could still fly.
He could still potentially distract the enemy.
But he could not perform the main task: breaking up the bomber attack.
O’Hare now had to decide whether to attack immediately or wait for additional help that might arrive too late.
He attacked.
The historical “nine bombers” require one correction
O’Hare’s Medal of Honor citation describes nine attacking twin-engine bombers.
American wartime reports were based on what pilots, radar operators, and shipboard observers believed they saw during a very fast engagement.
For decades, the famous story was therefore one fighter against nine bombers.
Modern Naval History and Heritage Command analysis using Japanese records indicates that the second formation actually contained eight aircraft.
The first Japanese group contained nine.
The second contained eight.
Together, the two formations totaled seventeen G4Ms. (Lịch Sử Hải Quân)
This correction does not diminish O’Hare’s situation in any meaningful way.
Eight twin-engine bombers were still only minutes from the carrier.
He still had one functioning fighter.
The important historical distinction is that official wartime victory credits and later reconstructed losses are not always identical.
Combat happens quickly.
Pilots see smoke, flames, diving aircraft, and explosions.
More than one pilot may fire at the same target.
A damaged aircraft may appear doomed and later recover.
An aircraft disappearing below the horizon may have crashed or returned at low altitude.
Wartime victory claims should therefore be understood as wartime assessments, not perfect accounting.
O’Hare’s official credit remained five destroyed and one badly damaged.
Postwar Japanese records allow a more complicated reconstruction.
Both stories need to be preserved.
O’Hare reached the bombers with altitude in hand
O’Hare and Dufilho approached the formation from above.
Modern Navy reconstruction places them roughly 1,500 feet higher when they reached the Japanese aircraft, about nine nautical miles from Lexington. (Lịch Sử Hải Quân)
That altitude was O’Hare’s most important resource.
Altitude can be converted into speed.
A fighter above an opponent can dive, accelerate, fire, and use the energy gained in the descent to move through or away from the defensive fire zone.
A fighter at the same altitude behind a bomber must instead chase.
The second situation is dangerous because the bomber gunner knows almost exactly where to aim.
The attacker remains in the same part of the sky for too long.
O’Hare avoided that.
He did not simply sit on the Bettys’ tails.
He moved above and to the side.
Then he attacked across them.
The high-side approach created a deflection problem for O’Hare, but it also created one for the Japanese gunners.
A fighter crossing rapidly from one side of the formation to another is a much harder target than one remaining directly astern.
This was not risk-free.
Several bombers could still fire at him.
The formation was compact.
O’Hare would have to come close enough for his .50-caliber guns to be effective.
But the approach gave him a better chance to use his strongest skill: accurate short bursts.
He could not afford to waste ammunition
The early F4F-3 configuration carried four .50-caliber machine guns with approximately 450 rounds per gun.
That sounds like a large amount of ammunition.
In time, it was not.
At typical firing rates, O’Hare possessed only about thirty-four seconds of continuous fire. (Lịch Sử Hải Quân)
He needed to attack multiple aircraft.
He might need ammunition for a final pass near the carrier.
He had no guarantee that another Japanese formation was not nearby.
If he held the triggers for ten or fifteen seconds during the first attack, he could consume an enormous portion of his available ammunition without producing proportionate results.
The solution was disciplined firing.
Approach.
Aim.
Fire briefly.
Stop.
Move.
Reposition.
Attack again.
The difference between a pilot who fires because the enemy is visible and a pilot who fires only when the geometry is correct can be the difference between thirty-four seconds of useful ammunition and thirty-four seconds of noise.
O’Hare’s Medal of Honor citation later emphasized the efficiency of his shooting.
That detail was not ceremonial language.
His ammunition supply was an actual tactical limit.
He could not fight eight bombers through volume.
He had to fight them through accuracy. (Lịch Sử Hải Quân)
The Betty formation was designed to punish a tail chase
The G4M’s rear cannon changed how a fighter should attack it.
A tail-mounted 20 mm weapon had much greater destructive potential than rifle-caliber defensive guns.
A hit from a cannon projectile could tear apart structure, damage an engine, or kill a pilot quickly.
The Japanese bomber formation multiplied the problem.
If O’Hare remained behind one aircraft, another bomber might have a better angle on him.
The safest-looking firing position could therefore become the most lethal.
This helps explain why the high-side deflection attack was so important.
O’Hare crossed the bomber formation instead of following it.
His time inside the best Japanese firing arcs was reduced.
His speed increased during the dive.
He could choose a target, fire, and leave before the defensive gunners fully adjusted.
Then he could attack from another direction.
The same bombers that protected one another against a predictable rear attacker now had to track a fast fighter moving across several relative angles.
O’Hare was using one airplane to create multiple perceived threats.
That would become the central pattern of his attack.
The first pass hit the rear of the formation
On his first firing run, O’Hare attacked from the high side.
He used deflection shooting against the trailing part of the Japanese formation.
Navy reconstruction indicates that he hit two of the rear bombers hard enough to knock them temporarily out of formation.
One caught fire.
For a moment, the result may have looked decisive.
But combat damage is not always final.
The Japanese crew managed to control the fire.
Both aircraft were eventually able to move back toward the formation before the bombing point. (Lịch Sử Hải Quân)
This is important because it shows why later victory accounting became complicated.
From O’Hare’s cockpit, a bomber leaving formation with flames visible could reasonably appear destroyed.
Seconds later, he was already setting up another attack.
He could not follow every damaged aircraft down to the ocean to confirm a crash.
His mission was not to count kills.
His mission was to stop bombs from reaching Lexington.
A damaged bomber that recovered was still a threat.
The fact that O’Hare immediately returned to the formation instead of chasing one damaged aircraft demonstrates his priorities.
The carrier mattered more than the individual victory.
The second pass came from another direction
After crossing through and clearing the Japanese fire, O’Hare repositioned.
This time he attacked from the opposite side.
Again, the objective was to avoid becoming predictable.
He struck aircraft in a trailing V.
One bomber crashed in flames.
Another was damaged badly enough that it abandoned the attack and released or dumped its bomb load rather than continue toward Lexington. (Lịch Sử Hải Quân)
That second result mattered enormously even if the damaged aircraft did not crash.
A bomber that turned away before reaching the carrier had effectively been removed from the attack.
Carrier defense does not require destroying every aircraft.
It requires preventing weapons from being delivered accurately.
A pilot who forces a bomber to release early can achieve the same immediate defensive outcome as one who shoots it down.
This is one reason the number of confirmed kills tells only part of O’Hare’s contribution.
Every damaged aircraft that fell behind, changed formation, jettisoned its bombs, or forced neighboring planes to maneuver made the formation less effective.
One Wildcat could not physically occupy every lane of approach.
It could make the formation progressively less capable of coordinated bombing.
O’Hare kept attacking instead of following the first success
Many inexperienced fighter pilots faced a dangerous temptation after seeing an aircraft fall.
They could become fixated on the victim.
They might follow it.
They might watch it burn.
They might continue firing long after the target was already disabled.
This behavior consumes ammunition and, more importantly, time.
O’Hare did not have time.
The surviving bombers continued toward Lexington.
Every second he spent watching one aircraft descend was a second the others moved closer to bomb-release range.
He therefore broke away and set up another run.
The discipline is easy to overlook because later accounts naturally focus on the spectacular number of victories.
The more significant tactical behavior was his refusal to let individual success interrupt the defensive mission.
He was not fighting eight separate duels.
He was fighting one formation.
That mental distinction made the repeated slashing attacks possible.
The third pass reached the center of the attack
By the time O’Hare began another firing run, the Japanese formation was getting dangerously close to the carrier.
He attacked again.
Navy historical reconstruction credits this pass with destroying another aircraft in the trailing formation and then striking the bomber associated with the Japanese mission commander, Lieutenant Commander Takuzo Ito. (Lịch Sử Hải Quân)
Ito’s aircraft was badly damaged.
Its situation deteriorated rapidly.
According to the modern Navy reconstruction, as the command aircraft went down, its pilot attempted to direct the damaged bomber toward Lexington.
The attempt failed.
The aircraft did not strike the carrier. (Lịch Sử Hải Quân)
This episode has sometimes been described through the later vocabulary of “kamikaze” tactics.
That wording can be misleading.
The organized Japanese special-attack program associated with the term kamikaze did not begin until much later in the war.
A damaged pilot attempting to crash into an enemy ship in 1942 was an individual combat action, not part of the later institutionalized suicide-attack system.
The distinction matters.
The Pacific War changed enormously between 1942 and 1944.
Using later terminology can make early-war actions appear to belong to a doctrine that did not yet exist.
The carrier was now entering its own antiaircraft battle
As the surviving Bettys closed on Lexington, the geometry became even more dangerous for O’Hare.
He was no longer simply flying between enemy bombers.
He was entering airspace that the carrier’s gunners were about to fill with defensive fire.
Shipboard antiaircraft crews were under enormous pressure.
They could see Japanese aircraft approaching.