The Goblin Killers

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Academically, Jimmy Thach ('27) was a less than middling middy, but his first plane ride, in a yellow twin-engined H16 seaplane, sent him soaring into a pilot's career. In 1930 he became a member of the U.S. Navy's famous Fighting Squadron 1, the High Hat Squadron (skipper of the High Hats: Lieut. Commander Arthur W. Radford). Nine of the High Hats, including Thach and Radford, barnstormed the nation in Curtiss F8C4 Hell-divers, tied wingtip to wingtip with Manila rope. Bound thus, Thach and some of his comrades astonished crowds with loops, snap rolls and high wing overs—and never snapped a rope or a wing. When Hollywood filmed Hell Divers in 1931, the High Hats flew all the stunt scenes. Clark Gable's flying standin: Art Radford, now retired after topping his career with four years of service as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Jimmy Thach lived airplanes. He was an ace test pilot, flew patrol duty in the Aleutians in Martin PBM-15 ("The bearskin flying suits stank like hell"), catapulted off a turret top of the cruiser U.S.S. Cincinnati in SOC-15, patrolled the Canal Zone in PBYs. Stationed in San Diego in the 19305, Thach met and married Madalyn Jones (they have two sons, John Jr., an experimental psychologist, and William Leland, about to enter William and Mary), became gunnery officer of Fighting Squadron 3. He set up mock dogfights, gave new pilots the advantage of altitude and invited them to "stay on my tail." Few could. Invariably. he sat in his cockpit eating an apple as a gesture of contempt for his foe, almost invariably evaded his pursuer before the apple was eaten.

Tactics from Matchsticks. He was also working relentlessly at solving tactical problems, and late one night, after jockeying matchsticks across his table for hours, he arrived at a memorable maneuver. Based on the premise that the traditional three-plane fighter element was an inefficient formation for aerial battle, Thach had figured out a two-plane weave pattern. It was soon to be used. Within hours after Pearl Harbor, Lieut. Commander Thach, now in command of Fighting 3, sailed out across the Pacific aboard the Saratoga. The carrier took a torpedo before the airmen ever got into a fight. Switching to the Lexington, Thach got his chance in combat off the Gilbert Islands. He and his squadron climbed into the sky, knocked down 19 out of 20 Japanese planes; Thach himself got three, and then-Lieut. Edward ("Butch") O'Hare, whose performance that day won him the Congressional Medal of Honor, killed five, damaged a sixth within six minutes. Used exclusively was the now famous "Thach weave."

"An Unfortunate Speech." Jimmy Thach finished out the war as air operations officer of the loo-ship Fast Carrier Task Force, first under Admiral Marc Mitscher, then under Admiral John S. McCain. Five years later, he commanded the escort carrier Sicily off Korea, and in 1955 he went to the Pentagon as senior naval member of the Defense Department's Weapons Systems Evaluation Group. "Forget the Navy," Arleigh Burke told him then, "and think Defense."