Avenger Pilots

Jesse Taylor

Lt. Commander Jesse Taylor flew off the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Bogue on the night of June 23, 1944. The mission was to look for Japanese or German submarines and attack if any were sited. Taylor’s Avenger was armed with two depth bombs and one Mark 24 acoustic torpedo, nicked named “Fido” for fidelity. The Fido was one of the navy’s most secret ASW weapons. At approximately 2347 hours radar operator Ed Whitlock reported a blip at ten miles to the starboard. At one mile from the target Whitlock launched two smoke light attached by a parachute and a purple coded sono-buoy. Taylor then ordered Andy Emmons, the gunner, to release a flare. Taylor began his attack by dropping two hydrostatic depth bombs narrowly missing I-52 starboard side. Taylor dropped an orange coded sono-buoy and came around to drop deploy the Fido. He could immediately here the propeller beats coming from the sono-buoys.

Actual recording from the sonobuoy below.

.Click Here to hear the sound recording of the attack on I-52

Andy Emmons—William “Flash” Gordon—Ed Whitlock

Pictured above on the Carrier USS Bogue

Approximately 28 00hre (28 minutes after midnight JG William Gordon took off from the deck of the USS Bogue. Gordon had been waiting in the ready room in the event the other pilots made contact, that call came. Gordon had chosen not to wear his red goggles (standing orders) and was slightly blinded when his eyes could not properly adjust to the night-time conditions.

Gordon had a special passenger on his flight to the contact area with I-52. Price Fish, a civilian from the Underwater Sound Laboratory in New London , Connecticut. He received special commission from Captain Vosseller to accompany Gordon on this flight operation so he could get a first hand experience in the deployment and operation of the sono-buoys.

At the time of Taylor’s attack it was believed that there may be two submarines in the area. It was likely, they believed that they were going to attempt a rendezvous.

Gordon arrived at the scene of the attack at 0100hrs.

Another aircraft, TBM number 12, piloted by JG Hirsbrunner was launched at 2203hrs. At 2245hrs his radar picked up a “Disappearing radar contact” bearing 130 degrees distance 50 miles. He was ordered to assist Taylor and did not pursue the contact.

After putting all the documents together from the USS Bogue Group 22.2 and the action reports from all the pilots, Tidwell was able to create a master map of where everyone was located. He then referred to the German U-530 logs and discovered the captain had entered into the log that he was submerged when the attack on I-52 took place, 0245hrs (their ships clock was on Irish Time– 3 hours difference)

This was a a little puzzeling at first because how could Hirsbrunner’s radar pick up another target, supposedly U-530. In addition his report indicates he was between 15 and 20 miles from the attack. The problem is if he was submerged how did he travel the distance in little over an hours time of his departure from I-52. I laterdiscovered another Radio Intercept that shows that U-530 had a snorkel installed before her mission to rendezvous with I-52.

This explains both points. The disappearing radar contact, which is common because snorkels were hard to detect when swells were present and , secondly, a snorkel allows the U-boat to travel at near surface speed running on it diesel engines, while staying submerged.

Although at the time, the pilots were given little intelligence and were unaware of the importance of sinking I-52.

The illustration above was copied from the official report of the original Naval Intelligence records. This shows exactly how Jesse Taylor maneuvered through the attack, first dropping two Mark 54 depth bombs and one Mark 24 acoustic torpedo.

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