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New book reveals heights of heroism of WWII pilot from Valley
POLAND
William “Willie” A. Vaughan’s children knew him as a stern but supportive father who served in the Army Air Corps during World War II – and who could fix anything.
Vaughan, 79 when he died in 1999, spoke in generalities about the war but provided few specifics, said his son, William of Poland.
What William and his siblings — William’s twin brother Richard of Tucson, Ariz., older brother Tom of Las Vegas, and younger sister, Mary Vaughan Cadman of Rockwell, Tex. – learned as adults was that their father was also a fierce warrior who had killed numerous enemy soldiers in hand-to-hand combat, and was a gunner/radioman on one of the most daring and dangerous air reconnaissance missions of war in the South Pacific.
For his heroics and courage in battle, Vaughan was inducted posthumously into the Ohio Military Hall of Fame for Valor in 2009.
And recently, a book, “Lucky 666: The Impossible Mission,” immortalized the reconnaissance air mission over Bougainville, a province of Papua New Guinea, which involved the filming of information on Japanese forces and flying without an escort. The book provided the Vaughan children with some of the specifics that their father never revealed to them.
“Lucky 666,” written by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin, described Vaughan as a “shy 22-year-old with a jaw like a curbstone and a cool, penetrating gaze’’ who had 200 hours of flight time.
Included in the book is the story of one of Vaughan’s 73 missions, which occurred before the Bougainville mission when Vaughan was a crew member of a bomber supporting American and Australian infantry who were protecting Milne Bay in southeastern Papua New Guinea from the Japanese.
When Vaughan’s plane was forced to land to refuel, they were attacked by an estimated 500 Japanese troops. The U.S. crew detached the plane’s 30- and 50-caliber machine guns, put on their sidearms and fought the Japanese.
When both sides ran out of ammunition after about 10 hours, the fighting became hand-to-hand. Vaughan had already killed about a dozen Japanese when he was charged by an enemy soldier wielding a rifle with a bayonet affixed. Vaughan ducked to avoid the bayonet, hitting his face and the blade sliced his neck. He killed his attacker and a Japanese Imperial Marine with his jungle knife before Australian soldiers arrived and drove the Japanese back into the jungle, according to authors Drury and Clavin.
In preparing for the Bougainville mission, which the book describes in detail, Vaughan’s fix-anything talents were vital.
Vaughan, whom his son Richard, called the “original MacGyver,” was instrumental in refitting the B-17 bomber, known as the Flying Fortress, for the solo reconnaissance mission.
An Austintown native who as a youth was known to pester pilots at Youngstown area airports for rides in their planes, Vaughan cobbled together the B-17 from junkyard parts and mounted some 16 50-caliber machine guns, nearly 50 percent more than the normal B-17 complement of 50-caliber machine guns.
During the Bougainville solo mission on June 16, 1943, to photograph Japanese installations on Buka and map the western coast of Bougainville in preparation for Allied landings scheduled for Nov. 1. 1943, Vaughan was again wounded in the neck, this time from schrapnel that he carried the rest of his life because doctors thought it was best to leave it in, said his son, William.
Over Buka Island, Old 666 named for its tail number and called Lucky 666 in the book, was attacked by some 22 enemy fighters as Vaughan’s B-17 began its photographic run over Bougainville. Old 666 was under fire for about 45 minutes until the Japanese fighter planes ran low on fuel and disengaged.
Damaged and unable to make its home base, and with no brakes or flaps, the wounded pilot instructed his co-pilot to land at an alternate airfield. Aboard the plane, which had 187 bullet holes from machine guns, cannons and 20mm shells, were one dead and six wounded crew members. Only the co-pilot and two gunners were uninjured.
The mission, which included one of the longest continuous dogfights in history, also produced the most decorated single flight crew.
Two, the pilot, Capt. Jay Zeamer, and bombardier, Second Lt. Joseph R. Sarnoski, received the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award. The remainder of the crew, including Vaughan, earned the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation’s second-highest military decoration.
The Vaughan siblings, ranging from 58 to 68, talked about the father they never realized was a full-on warrior when they were growing up.
“His handshake was his bond. You could put a million dollars on the table and walk away and when you come back, the money would still be there,” William said.
“Dad had more integrity and fortitude than anyone I ever knew,” said Mary.
“He could build anything in his basement workshop. He made all of my bedroom furniture and a full-blown doll house,” she said.
“Dad’s fortitude and strength and forthright personality gave us all strong foundations,” said Richard.
The elder Vaughan was a disciplinarian.
“I probably only said one bad word to my mom. I can still taste the Lava soap,” Richard said.
William remembered one time, when the children were young, that their mother and father went out and the babysitter told his parents that the kids had “acted up.”
“He made us walk a mile that night to her house to apologize. His reputation was very important to him. He loved us and gave us values, but he wasn’t touchy-feely, “ William said with a laugh.
Vaughan enlisted in the Army a couple of months after Pearl Harbor.
“He was very proud to serve his country in the military,” William said.
When asked how her father, who she said downplayed a lot of things, would have felt about being inducted into the Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame for Valor, Mary said: “I think he would have been silently proud.”
“He was an amazing man who lived his life based on principle and hard work. He was a hero in the war and in our hearts,” she said.