The Last Ride of Susie-Q
By Jonathan Abbott
first appeared in Ghost Wings Issue 13

The stars were so beautiful, shining above. Jim Muri had not been able to see them so clearly since leaving home. Since the war had started it had been nothing but tireless travel: Langley, Muroc, and March Fields; Sacramento, San Francisco, Honolulu, to here, Midway Atoll.

A slight tropical breeze kissed his cheek as the sound of the surf beat with a steady, pulsing rhythm against the atoll’s white sandy beach. The stars were magnificent above him, undiluted by light. He could look into the heavens and get lost, just like in Montana, where the sky seemed endless.

He glanced at his watch—nine o’ clock p.m.—one in the morning back home. Mom and the kids would be asleep. Maybe Dad would be up late, listening quietly to the war news, hoping he could catch a small snippet about his pilot son, off fighting somewhere.

It did not seem like long ago, when he had been a child riding horses on his family’s cattle ranch in Carterville, Montana, a town so small that all it was was a post office and a country store. As a kid, his passion had been horses and, in Carterville, to get a new one, all a boy had to do was go into the hills where the wild horses ran, waiting to be broken-in.

The old Northwest Airlines Tri-Motors flew right over his father’s ranch-house, as they navigated along the railroad tracks, carrying mail and passengers on their way to Billings. They would fly so low, it seemed as if they were almost level with him, and he would shake his head and marvel at how, before the day was out, those beautiful machines would be in Spokane or Seattle.

Henry Swarts, his best friend, had gotten a pilot’s license at the airport in Miles City and Muri would spend the 60 cents to take the passenger train 35 miles into town to watch his friend fly and wish that his parents had the money to let him fly, too.

Now, as the waves lapped at the beaches of Eastern Island, one of two main islands that comprised Midway Atoll, Muri realized his dream had come to fruition. He was 23, a 1st lieutenant, and a bomber pilot who had a sleek, 21,000-pound Martin B-26 Marauder under his command and the lives of a six-man crew within his care.

He had been sent to Hawaii with the 22nd Bomb Group as a stopover place on their way to Australia. He had received his new plane at Hickam Field, B-26 # 21391. An old ground crewman who had painted for Walt Disney asked him if he would like to name her anything. Muri thought about it for a moment. “Susie-Q,” he said, in honor of the cute brunette with pretty blue eyes who waited for him back home. Alice was her real name, but he teased her and called her “Susie-Q.”

At Hickam, the Army brass had come up with the idea to stick a torpedo on a B-26. They stuck one on Susie-Q’s belly and taxied her around to see how she looked. They stopped her in front of a group of officers and asked Jim Collins if he wanted to fly her. Jim Collins, in Muri’s book, was the best pilot the Air Corps ever had.

“No, I . . . I’d prefer not to,” Collins said, with a slight southern inflection.

So they turned to Muri and he had said, “Sure.” Jim Collins offered to fly as co-pilot. He knew Susie-Q was Muri’s girl. Susie-Q lifted from the runway with the torpedo under her and flew as Muri knew she would, beautifully.

Having spent four years as an enlisted man getting to know airplanes inside and out, Muri had been held in reserve at Hickam Field and placed in charge of putting his unit’s airplanes back together as the 22nd shipped out to bases down under.

When rumor of a Japanese invasion of Midway came around, only two bombers from Muri’s group remained in Hawaii. Muri took one and it came with a new crew. His and the other 22nd Bomb Group B-26 joined two more Marauders from the 38th Bomb Group as part of an emergency force sent to help bolster Midway’s defenses. The crews had little training in gunnery and had never actually dropped a torpedo, but they were confidant and happy-go-lucky even though they got lost flying out to Midway. Once there, they grew Clark Gable-esque mustaches to distinguish themselves from the Navy boys.

Nobody had told Muri and his crew much and they did not ask a lot of questions. They just kept Susie-Q ready to fly at a moment’s notice and spent the rest of the time chasing Goony birds and playing cards.

Today, Wednesday, June 3, 1942, had been no different. It was their fifth day of waiting. The coral revetments where Susie-Q was parked had been the crew’s home since they had gotten here. The men laid out their sleeping bags under the wings and shaped the coral sand to their bodies. Muri thought of Honolulu, where a young man could have his fill of fun as long as he was off the streets before six p.m. He drifted off to sleep, with dreams of Waikiki beach and the luaus at the Royal Hawaiian and the Moana Hotels. Muri slept well under Susie-Q, his six-foot, four-inch frame snuggled like a child to its mother.

Muri woke prior to dawn, on June 4, while the tropical sun still hid below the dark horizon. He lit a cigarette, breathing in its warmth. His squadron was probably in Australia by now and he wondered what they were doing.

It was nearly 6 a.m. when Joe Warner, the liaison officer for the B-26 contingent, drove up. “Japanese planes are inbound—enemy fleet’s been spotted—PBYs made a torpedo run against some ships last night!” he said, his eyes blinking. “We got a target for you—320 degrees, 150 miles out—go!”

Inside, the planes were still cool from the night. Muri was glad to be with Susie-Q again. He had always felt his plane was his home and his cockpit was the living room. The engines of the three B-26s ahead coughed to life and the coral sand swirled behind them creating a vortex that plastered his cockpit window with fine particles.

With the PBYs and B-17s already airborne, nearly every plane that Midway had lined up to take off and stem the tide of the Japanese onslaught. First, the fighters, F2A Buffaloes and F4Fs, took off, followed by the Navy TBFs. The B-26s lined up before the Marine SB2U Vindicators and SBDs.

Collins led the Army boys aloft, followed by William Watson, then Herbie Mayes. Muri opened the throttle and Susie-Q barreled down the runway . . . 30 MPH . . . 40 MPH; Susie-Q shuddered as she accelerated. The buildings, Goonies, and coral became a blur as she streaked by them . . . 70 MPH . . . 80 MPH . . . Susie-Q’s nose pointed skyward, grasping for air, her airframe clanking and creaking, 90 MPH . . . and, then, silence, as she embraced the wind, her body earthbound no longer.

The TBF Avengers were a speck in the distance as Susie-Q climbed effortlessly. Collins leveled the flight off at 800 feet and the four bombers gathered in a diamond formation: Collins up front, Mayes on the left, Watson on the right, and Muri in the slot.
“What’s the target, Lieutenant?” Frank Melo asked from the radio room. “Probably some freighter,” Muri replied.

With the atoll some 10 miles behind his flight, Muri watched as 12,000 feet above him, Marine fighter pilots met the enemy, hoping against hope to turn back the tide of Japanese bombers and fighters that had been sent to attack Midway. Streaks of black and orange stained the sky. From his vantage point, Muri could only watch as little dots jinked and banked and fell to the sea.

“Can I shoot ‘em, Lieutenant? Can I shoot ‘em?” shouted John Gogoj, the engineer, as parachutes drifted close to his turret.

“Hell, no! We don’t know who they are!” Muri replied, “and, besides . . .” he reflected, “Save your ammo; the sharks will eat them anyway.” Knowing that downed fliers from both sides were floating in their parachutes, Muri wished to God that he could go out and pluck each American from the sky.

The B-26s flew on, leaving the carnage behind them. In his cockpit, Muri adjusted his headphones and shifted his weight a little. He reached down to the tin he kept between the pilots’ seats and pulled out a Chesterfield cigarette. They must be getting close to the target coordinates. He put the cigarette in his mouth. On his right, his co-pilot, P.L. Moore, stroked his mustache and scanned the instrument panel. The engines droned on in a monotonous, steady rhythm. Benny Goodman’s “Let’s Dance” echoed in Muri’s head. The Chesterfield bobbed in the corner of his mouth as he hummed the melody under his breath.

He smiled as he thought about the first time he had seen Alice. She had been a blind date: quiet, sweet, and feminine. They had gone dancing in Pomona, California that night and he had looked into her eyes—blue—like the sky he loved and he had gotten lost in them.

Out in the distance, Muri saw six little specks, peacefully drifting closer. Then they began to twinkle. Tracers whipped past his window as the specks entered firing range. They were Zeroes and they were shooting at him. In front of the B-26 formation, the Japanese fleet suddenly appeared, stretching for miles.

Thinking there was armor plating on Susie-Q’s belly, Muri pulled her nose up and dropped the tail, exposing the bomber’s underside to enemy fire. P.L. Moore gave Muri a stunned look. The Zeroes whizzed passed. Collins, up ahead, dropped his nose and crash-dived to 200 feet, with Mayes close on his tail. The Zeroes turned around and came in for another pass.

Muri pushed the yoke down; Susie-Q dove to the left. Five destroyers appeared right in front of him, their guns glistening. The Japanese battleships and heavy cruisers opened up and he could see the cannon shells leaving their barrels and arcing over the water toward him. As each round impacted the ocean, it shot up a solid wall of sea like a geyser. Another flight of Zeroes then dove in for a pass.

“Get the torpedo ready, P.L.! Get it ready!” Muri shouted

“I’m trying! I’m trying!” he replied, with the round, five-way launcher plug in his hand as he tried desperately to connect the torpedo.

The naval barrage intensified and the Zeroes flew through their own flak to shoot at the bombers. “How am I gonna get away with this?” screamed in Muri’s mind. Bullets buffeted the plane as Susie-Q and a destroyer closed at 260 miles an hour.
“Dammit, Johnson! Shoot! Shoot!” Muri cried. In the nose, bombadier Russell Johnson’s gun stayed silent.

Muri pulled Susie-Q up from wave top level. As the destroyers got larger in his canopy window, he pulled the stick back and cleared them, then dropped back down. A large, open space, three miles long, lay between the destroyer escort and the two closest carriers: Kaga on the left, and Akagi on the right. Collins led the way; Mayes ran ragged behind him. Muri pushed Susie-Q to the right and headed after them.

“If only my Mom could see me now!” someone screamed over the intercom.
The carriers loomed ominously ahead. Watson was gone from Muri’s sight. Mayes banked left and dove toward the Kaga, skimming close to sea level. Collins gunned for the Akagi, inching his way forward under the murderous fire.

“Stick with Collins; stick with him,” Muri thought as he followed his leader, “If Collins is making it, I can, too….” Collins climbed as he bore down on the Akagi. He dropped his torpedo at an angle and broke away, climbing for the clouds. The hellfire began to focus on Mayes; his B-26 rocked under the impact of 20mm cannon shells. Trailing smoke and fire, Mayes plowed his bomber toward the Kaga.

Muri could not watch Mayes’ aircraft. Every ounce of his focus went to lining himself into position, north, then east, until the Akagi lay ahead, all 820 feet of her. Muri remembered what the Navy had told him about launching torpedoes: “45 degrees, 800 yards, 150 mph . . . 45 degrees, 800 yards, 150 mph . . . 150 mph . . . wait, the plane doesn’t fly that slow!” The Akagi turned her massive bow into her attacker. “Punch her loose! Punch her loose!” Muri screamed. P.L. Moore pushed the switch and nothing happened

“C’mon! Do it! Do it!”

“I did!” Moore pushed again, desperately.

“Gimme that!” Muri jammed the trigger. Neither felt the torpedo leave.

Tracers spat everywhere, hosing the sky with orange. Frank Melo stumbled to the cockpit, a bullet gash on his head. “Everyone’s wounded back there . . . intercom’s shot out, radio’s dead!”

P.L. Moore unbuckled his belt and disappeared aft with Melo to man the tail guns. Now, Muri was alone in the cockpit. The enemy combat air patrol turned their attention to Susie-Q, the closest threat to their flagship.

Within the bomber, the enemy bullet strikes sounded like a tin roof in a hailstorm. Desperation set in, for Muri, the kind of desperation where even diving into the ocean seemed like a good option to escape the inferno surrounding him. He frantically looked for a safe spot to be, if for only a moment. Ahead, the Akagi beckoned to him, her battle flags billowing defiantly in the wind.

Muri kicked the rudder toward the bow of the 102-foot tall behemoth. Pulling Susie-Q upward, he raced across the bow and down the center of the Akagi’s deck. The rattling of bullets, the explosions of cannon shells, the whine of passing Zeroes, all went mute in Muri’s head. The Akagi seemed as tranquil as the mountain for which she had been named. Then, the moment was over. Susie-Q vibrated as the bombardier, Johnson, opened fire with his machine gun, its hot brass shell casings littered the nose as he shot at sailors, killing several and knocking out an anti-aircraft battery. In the Akagi’s island command center, Admiral Nagumo, Commander of the Carrier Fleet, ducked instinctively from the window, thinking the B-26 sought to ram him.

Susie-Q dove off the Akagi’s stern. Free of her torpedo, the bomber picked up speed at wave top level, heading northward. Susie-Q had delivered a shot across the enemy’s bow and now Muri sought freedom beyond the flotilla. The Japanese, moved by such courage, uttered a silent prayer for the pilot with the spirit of the Samurai. Nagumo knew where the land-based bomber had come from. He immediately ordered a second strike on Midway, and, unknowingly changed the course of the war in the Pacific.

The Zeroes again gathered and, with them, returned Muri’s sense of desperation. “Safety . . . safety . . . safety,” the words beat in his head as he scanned the world for some way to survive. In the corner of his eye, Muri spotted a cloud base hanging at 1,800 feet. He rammed the throttle to the hilt and climbed.

The cloud base dangled a few hundred feet away and, with it, salvation. They looked so soft and smooth. “Go! Go!” he said, adding on speed with sheer willpower. Then, a flight of Zeroes dove in front of him and reversed, coming at him head on.

Muri rolled Susie-Q over with full rudder.

“No good . . . no good . . . ,” he whispered. He turned Susie-Q around, having been forced back toward the fleet. Adrenaline pumped through Muri’s veins, such adrenaline where a man could ram his foot clear through the floor of the plane or roll the yoke all the way around.

The Zeroes kept coming. Everywhere Muri looked the sky was full of them. Tracers flitted past; Muri rolled left and kicked the rudder. For twenty minutes, he jinked and banked, rolled and climbed, the Japanese with him for every second until their fuel and ammo ran low.

The enemy suddenly broke away and it was quiet. Muri cut back on the throttle, slowing Susie-Q down. In his ducking and dodging, he had broken past the outer ring of destroyers and into the open range. While the fracas seemed to have ended, 10,000 feet above him, the Japanese planes that Muri had passed on his way out from Midway were coming home to their carriers. The enemy peeled off and dove on Susie-Q. As the planes got closer, Muri could see the rising sun insignia on the Zero’s wings. The Japanese pilots dove with incredible speed, opening up with their machine guns to get the range, then using their cannons and walking their shots across the water. Muri kicked his rudder and raised the throttle to full. The Zeroes leveled out over the ocean and, in turning, lost speed and trailed behind.

One Zero pulled out of its dive and flew parallel with Susie-Q, the pilot pushing his plane to its speed limit to get ahead and turn in for a pass. He was so close, Muri wanted to reach out of the cockpit window and shoot at him with his .45 pistol, but he lacked a free hand. With Susie-Q zooming at 320 mph, a miracle considering her damage, the Japanese pilot slowly fell behind in the rat race and reluctantly broke for home.

Muri’s heart pounded in his chest and his arms were numb from flying. He ached and it took all his remaining strength to keep Susie-Q steady. The fuel tanks had been shot full of holes; Gogoj emerged from the back of the plane, covered in blood, to transfer fuel from the auxiliaries to the main tanks. Otherwise, the crew’s efforts so far could come to an abrupt and fiery end. Muri gained altitude, lowering the throttle. He knew two things: they were losing fuel and they were lost.

“Give me a heading!” he yelled down to the navigator.

“I have no idea where we are,” came William Moore’s reply.

All the twisting and turning Muri had done to evade the Zeros had thrown them off course.

“Well,” Muri figured, “Let’s take the reverse route back and hope for the best.” Susie- Q pushed on, the wind whistling through the holes in her skin.

It was nearly nine o’clock a.m. As the bright Pacific sun rose higher and higher in the eastern sky, it glinted off the peaceful waves below. In the distance, clouds floated obliviously by, casting a shadow over the emerald blue below. Brushing his hand against his mouth, Muri found his Chesterfield cigarette, bitten in half.

There was smoke on the horizon; it came from the familiar turquoise atoll and whitewashed spit of land that Muri had left in what seemed a lifetime ago. Midway was in shambles. The tower and power station on Eastern Island were on fire; bomb craters littered its the sandy face.

To Muri, however, the sight was beautiful. He circled the island twice because the Marines had fired at him the first time he had tried to land. The Japanese had shot his left main gear to ribbons, so Muri came in heavy with his right aileron and left rudder and sailed in at an odd angle.

The landing was not a soft one and the brakes did not work. When Susie-Q came to an abrupt stop, the instrument panel broke from its fastenings and fell into his lap. Slowly the adrenaline left his body, replaced by overwhelming fatigue. Outside, ambulances, fire crews, and gawking Marines had gathered. Muri took his headphones off, stuck a Chesterfield in his mouth, and stepped out into the sunlight.

He lit his smoke and inspected the damage. Susie-Q’s windows were shattered; hydraulics and oil dripped onto the ground. Gogoj’s turret was covered in blood, as was Earl Ashley’s tail gun position. The radio had been shot out, the elevators were gone, and the wing tops were in tatters.

Reviewing the damage, Muri thought about his first solo landing as a pilot cadet. He had been forced to come in downhill and through power lines. The prop had gotten bent when the plane had ground-looped and the wings had torn off. He had ended up in an irrigation ditch. Muri wondered what his instructors would think if they could see him now. He counted over 500 bullet holes in one side of the aircraft alone and gave up.
Someone asked Muri if he was hungry and offered him the only delicacies to survive the Japanese attack: hot pears and warm beer.

About 20 minutes after Muri, Collins made it back, his plane’s hydraulics shot out and his nose wheel shot away. His crew huddled in the back of the plane to try to keep the weight off the nose as long as possible. As the bomber slid along the runway, Collins popped open the skylights, climbed from the cockpit, and, clinging to the radio mast, rode his plane to a stop like a cowboy on a horse.

Midway quietly burned behind Muri as the Goony birds came out of hiding. Susie-Q lay still, her broken body having been dragged to the side of the field. Watson was gone and Mayes had never made it back. Muri would later visit Mayes’ widow, a college girl at Stanford, who had convinced herself that her husband had landed safely on an island in the Pacific, because the truth would hurt too much.

The war had just started, and Muri did not know when or if he would get back to his wife and the endless skies of Montana. For now, though, he was just glad to be alive. Jim Muri walked over to Susie-Q, patted her on the nose for the last time, and thanked her.

Epilogue
The Midway-born strike on the Japanese fleet resulted in drastic loss of life for the American airmen. The real success of the attack came not from the damage that the island-based aircraft inflicted on the Japanese fleet, but from the veracity of their attacks, which convinced Admiral Nagumo to arm his planes with bombs for a second strike on Midway. When the American fleet was later spotted, Nagumo was forced to re-arm his planes with torpedoes before attacking. This delay allowed American dive-bombers to catch the Japanese carriers with their aircraft, loaded with fuel and ordnance, on their decks. The resulting loss of four Japanese carriers turned the tide of the war in the Pacific.

Then and Now
1st Lieutenant Jim Muri and the surviving B-26 crewmembers were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for their actions during the Battle of Midway. After the battle he became a squadron commander for a B-26 torpedo training squadron in Florida, and he later commanded an air base in South Dakota. He served overseas with the Air Force after WWII, in Japan and at the U.S. Embassy in Belgium. He moved back to Montana in 1970 with his wife and made a career in real estate. After his retirement, he relocated to a ranch in the mountains where he raised cattle, pigs, and overall, “enjoyed life.” Today, a celebrated hero of the city of Billings, Muri is 88. He looks forward to attending air shows in the coming season.