DAUNTLESS MARINE
Joseph Sailer Jr.,
Dive-Bombing Ace of Guadalcanal

From the attack altitude, the dive-bombers would start descending at 1,000 to 2,000 feet per minute, picking up speed in the steep downward slope. At least in Sailer's squadron, the SBDs did not dive in a single steep line down to the target. Rather, they descended in a series of steps, called "stairstepping" by some pilots, so they got progressively steeper in their dives. In this way, the pilots avoided the danger of overshooting the targets in a single, miscalculated dive slope. Also, if they got too steep too soon, the plane might begin to skid and become hard to control. They didn't get into their final, steepest dive until they were down to just under 7,000 feet. Throughout the diving maneuvers, the ships' anti-aircraft guns would be firing, but the Japanese at this time did not have altitude radar to measure the airplanes' vertical range. As soon as the flak began to get close to the planes' actual altitude, the pilots dropped down to a lower level, in their stairstepping maneuver, which, in addition to providing greater precision in the diving approach, helped them avoid the shell bursts. After the stairstepping moves had been repeated once or twice, the pilots would be in their final dive on the ships. The Dauntless pilots would have coordinated among themselves how to divide up the targets. One three-plane section might select one column of ships, another section a different column, depending on the configuration in which the ships were arranged. Sailer, as leader, would dive first, followed closely by the remainder of his section. Sailer would reduce power and open his dive brakes. These were the perforated metal sections of the upper and lower surfaces of the wings' trailing edges. When opened, the outboard sections of both wing surfaces opened to form a "V" with the wing's trailing edge, assisted by a center section under the fuselage that opened downward, so that a total of five wing sections were acting to produce drag to slow the descent of the diving SBD. The dive had to be controlled and stable in order to drop the bomb on target. Without the dive brakes, the Dauntless would plummet down at over 400 knots, and could not be controlled with the needed precision. With the brakes deployed, the speed would drop to about 200 knots, so the airplane could be kept in steady trim for the bombing run.

As he guided the plane down toward the targeted ship, Sailer had to ignore whatever flak was bursting around him; at this point, it was critical to keep the plane steady on course. He had a primitive sort of bomb sight that was built through the windshield, a device like a telescope with triple magnification and cross-hairs, nothing like the elaborate gyro-controlled bomb sights made by Sperry and Norden. He had to raise his seat with a lever, lean forward, and keep one hand and one eye glued to the bomb sight. He used that view to maintain the plane straight on course for the ship below, so he couldn't see the altimeter. When the time was right, he told Stanley to start counting down the altitude in thousands of feet, "ten-nine-eight-seven" and so on as they made their descent. As they approached the enemy ship, the pilot would fire his twin .50-caliber machine guns, with the intent of making the ship's gunners dive for cover, thereby suppressing the anti-aircraft fire. When his plane had dived down to about the 2,000-foot level, Sailer would reach out with his left hand to a small knob with a lever on it. He would pull back sharply on this lever, which would release the bomb. They couldn't go much lower for the drop, or they would be in danger of being hit by shrapnel from the explosion. If they dropped from much higher, the chances of a hit on the target were greatly reduced. The range for various pilots varied from about 1,500 feet to as high as 3,000 or 4,000. In any event, once the bomb was away, the Dauntless would jump up and ahead from the sudden loss of the 1,000-pound weight. Sailer would close the dive flaps, apply full throttle, and pull up sharply out of the dive. At this point, the positive g-force would cause the blood to drain down from their heads, and Sailer and Stanley would both black out for a few seconds.

When the plane came back under normal g-force in the climb, the blood flowed back to their heads and they regained consciousness. The plane would still be pulling back up. They wouldn't return to high altitude at this point, in order to keep the enemy fighter planes from attacking from below. There was a different danger from staying low, though: The Japanese ships could fire their large-diameter guns, and the shells would throw up a wall of water that could knock down a low-flying airplane. Still, the preference was to stay low until the airplanes were out of range of enemy fighters and then to climb to 3,000 or 4,000 feet for the flight back to Henderson Field. As long as they were in range of the Japanese fighters, the Dauntless crews had to maintain sharp vigilance and attend to their front and rear guns. Sailer's gunner, Stanley, had many occasions to shoot at Zeroes, and once was able to claim a kill. As Stanley recounted the incident, a Zero had approached Sailer's Dauntless from below and fired at the airplane's rear. The Zero came up close behind the Dauntless, then rolled onto its back to peel away. At this point, according to Stanley, "when he turned over on the back, the whole bottom was exposed and I was leading on him and I had a good shot on him, and I just held on to him and killed him, and you could see the smoke and he went down and went in.'