According to the report of the carrier division commander: “Success of the landings on Morotai depended upon keeping the Japanese continually on the defensive ... thus making it impossible for them to launch counteroffensives until American forces were established in strength on the smaller island [Morotai].”
Ensign Thompson’s job was to beat up Japanese barges in Wasile Bay. While he was in a steep dive on his fourth strafing run, the Japanese made a direct hit with a heavy shell on Ensign Thompson’s plane.
The carrier division commander reports:
“The next thing he knows he was being blown upward with such force that his emergency gear was even blown out of his pockets. He pulled the ripcord and on the way down he found himself literally looking down the barrels of almost every gun in the Japanese positions about 300 yards away.
“On hitting the water, he discovered that his left hand had been badly torn, presumably by shrapnel. His life jacket had been torn in front and would only half inflate. His main idea was to get away from the beach and out into the bay, but progress was difficult.”
His comrades stayed with the downed pilot and strafed the beach until a PBY patrol plane came, but the rescue Cat could not land. The pilot dropped a life raft instead, and Ensign Thompson climbed aboard. He put a tourniquet on his bleeding hand and then paddled to a pier to hide in the shelter of a camouflaged lugger.
“These pilots heroically covered all the beach area with a devastating attack so that little or no fire could be directed at the pilot in the raft,” says the division report. “The attacks drove the Japanese gunners to shelter, but after the attacks they returned to their guns.”
Ensign Thompson said it was a wonderful show to watch, but it was a tragically expensive show. Ensign William P. Bannister was hit and crashed 150 yards from Ensign Thompson, gallantly giving his life to save his fellow pilot.
Ensign Paul W. Lindskog was also hit, but flew his wobbly plane safely to a crash landing outside the Japanese lines. Almost all the planes were holed, but they continued the strafing runs until Thompson had worked his way behind the armored lugger.
When fuel ran low, another flight of fighters came up to strafe, and the carrier set up a system of shuttle flights to keep the beach under constant attack.