Aircraft Action Report #11 for 15 Jun 1944

Ens Williams was assigned photographic duties (carried no bombs) on the June 15th 1944 strike against Chichi Jima. The squadron lost a plane and three men on this mission. Ltjg Keeler's plane was hit by the enemy fire and ditched south of the island "in a heavy sea and strong wind". Ltjg John Keeler, AOM2c Alfred Normandin, and ARM2c Edward Webster were observed in their life raft and looked to be in good condition. Additional rescue gear was dropped to them and calls made to the "nonexistent" rescue submarine. Ens Williams and a couple others remained overhead until fuel considerations finally forced them to leave. The rescue submarine was sent to look for them the next day but they were never found.

In his 1995 Rutgers interview Mr. Williams discussed dropping an additional life raft to Ltjg Keeler and his crew: "We stayed around to … to call for submarine and rescue sub to come and get a dumbo in there, a flying boat, because the Japanese were coming off the beach, coming out to get Keeler and his two crewmen. And they were all right. … In fact, we dropped them another life raft that we had in the bomb bay. And we stayed around, and we stayed around and stayed around and, finally, we were getting low on gas, and we still had 200 miles to get back to the ship. And so, finally, we had to leave them. When we got back to the ship, it was getting dark, and they picked us up, and we landed. And they told me to … Well, they told me to move up on the flight deck, and as soon as I hit the throttle, why, it stopped, which meant that there wasn't any gas left, so we were pretty lucky after about a four or five hour flight to do that."

"The Fighting Lady" by Clark G. Reynolds (pg 145-146)

Excerpt from Clark G. Reynolds book The Fighting Lady. This narrative provides a good description of the events of that day. Note: There may have been a mix-up with the names "Wilmanns" and "Williams" on the Aircraft Action Report. Clark G. Reynolds undoubtedly referenced these reports while writing his book.

Jack Williams (1921)