A Hero and an Argument

World War II started out as an uphill battle for the United States. We were unprepared. Our allies had been, or were on the verge of being, defeated by the Axis juggernaut - the Nazis in Europe and the Japanese warmongers in the Pacific. Once we were in the war, the news was bad as we lost one possession after another in the early months of the war. We were strictly on the defensive, never on the offensive.

Then came a bit of good news that gave us a ray of hope. We had a hero.

Edward "Butch" O'Hare in the cockpit of his F4F Wildcat

On February 20, 1942 - two and a half months after Pear Harbor - Edward "Butch" O'Hare suddenly became a household name, praised and lauded from coast to coast, toasted at the White House by FDR himself, and awarded the Medal of Honor.

Edward Henry O'Hare was born in 1914 and reared in St. Louis, Missouri. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy after graduating from high school. Then he graduated from the Academy and was commissioned on June 3, 1937.

O'Hare and his wingman in their F4F Wildcats

O'Hare served as an ensign aboard the battleship USS New Mexico for two years before volunteering to be trained to become a Navy pilot. Following successful flight training, he served aboard the aircraft carriers USS Saratoga and USS Enterprise, flying the F4F Wildcat fighter plane.

On February 20, 1942, O'Hare was in the air searching for a formation of Japanese bombers that had been detected on radar approaching the Saratoga on which to aim their attack. Upon sighting them - nine Japanese medium "Betty" bombers - and although he was alone - O'Hare attacked them. He hoped to destroy as many of the enemy planes as he could, thereby preventing damage to his ship and its crew.

Mitsubishi "Betty" medium bomber

He shot down five of them. The other four managed to reach their target and drop their bombs, but they all missed, falling harmlessly into the ocean.

FDR congratulating O'Hare upon awarding him the Medal of Honor

O'Hare had become the Navy's first fighter ace in one engagement on one day and thereby the nation's hero. He was brought home to the States for a morale-boosting tour that included an audience with the president, and he was awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award.

But there was still a war to be won, and O'Hare was sent back to the Pacific. There he taught other pilots what he had learned about flying against the enemy, and he continued to fly combat missions, leading his own squadron, this time in the new and improved F6F Hellcat.

O'Hare and his squadron took off on yet another sortie against the enemy on November 26, 1943. During the resulting dogfight, his plane was shot down. His plane disappeared, never to be found despite extensive searching. O'Hare perished.

But his name lives on even today, 84 years after he became the first Navy ace of the war. O'Hare International Airport was named for him. So was the destroyer USS O'Hare (DD-889).

***

On the other side of the world, another great and historic event took place in the European theater of the war on this date. Beginning on February 20, 1944, and lasting the next six days, the Allies unleashed Operation Argument, also known as "Big Week." It was a succession of "continuous, coordinated strikes" on the German aircraft industry by British Bomber Command and the U.S. 8th and 15th Army Air Forces, based in England and Italy, respectively.

The operation involved about 1,300 planes, including more than 900 fighter planes, more than 300 of which were the new, long-range P-51 Mustangs.

The goal of the operation was ambitious - to annihilate the Luftwaffe, knocking its fighters from the sky and destroying the aircraft industry's capacity to replace them. The strategy was to "bait 'em and kill 'em" using overwhelming and unrelenting force.

B-17 Flying Fortresses bombing German manufacturing facilities during "Big Week"

The first strikes came on the early morning of February 20, and they continued nonstop for the next six days. The Brits bombed by night, the Americans by day. Their targets ranged all across Western Europe.

The first day's target was an aircraft assembly complex in the Brunswick-Leipsig area of central Germany. Three American airmen won Medals of Honor that day.

During the whole of Big Week, "10,000 tons of explosives were dropped on eighteen German airframe and ball bearing manufacturing centers" by American planes. The Brits dropped even more. So surely the operation was a success, right?

Hardly.

Bomb damage inflicted on German aircraft factory

Operation Argument, Big Week, delayed German aircraft production by only two months at most because most German plants were small and "ingeniously well hidden" in forests. The Nazis actually produced more planes after the bombing. Production wouldn't be seriously hurt until later that year, when the Allies turned their focus from attacking production facilities to hitting the German transportation network, especially the railroads.

And what was the cost of Operation Argument? Estimates vary among the different sources, but here's one: In more than 6,000 sorties, the United States lost 357-365 bombers, 28-30 fighters, and 2,600-2,700 personnel.

If there was any bright spot in the week's statistics, it involved German losses, which included approximately a third of the Luftwaffe's available fighters and one-fifth of its pilots. They could replace the planes; pilots were harder to replace. Operation Argument forced the Luftwaffe "into a battle of attrition it could not win." Hitler's war machine couldn't match America's industrial output.

And that's how it was on this date during World War II.

(For more information on "Big Week" and for the story of the American air war in Europe, I highly recommend Masters of the Air by Donald L. Miller.)