Hoping He Is Worthy

"I am going to get a direct hit."

            His classmates at George Washington High School voted him “the typical American boy.” That sums up the story of Navy Lieutenant John James Powers.

            "He never thought of himself as any sort of hero," said LIFE Magazine. But Powers was a great hero. In the Battle of the Coral Sea in early May 1942, his superhuman actions decisively turned the battle in the Allies favor—at the cost of his own life. For his heroism and sacrifice, he won the Medal of Honor, America's highest military honor.  

            Powers grew up "in the big city wilderness," according to LIFE. To be precise, he called the Washington Heights section of Manhattan home. "He shot immies [glass marbles with swirls], played cops and robbers, had fist fights, joined the Boy Scouts, went hiking, fishing, and sailing." In high school he was "a good but not an exceptional student.”

            He must have been better than good, because he won a hard-to-get appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. Cadets nicknamed him Jo-Jo. His roommate wrote his senior profile in the yearbook. It read: "Sure we know him, who doesn’t? That “certain something” that makes everybody his friend on sight is Jo’s most noticeable trait.

            "Entirely unencumbered with any peculiarities, hobbies, or diversions, Jo is a markedly positive character, keen, caustically cynical about most of his life of ours, yet with a sense of humor always in charge of the most stable temperament you’ve ever seen. Never trust him to respect conventionalities. He’s a hilarious rebel, and his own man. You'll like him for it all the more when you meet him."

Punch in the face

            He must have been a tough guy among tough guys—he made the boxing team. Double tough, he could take a punch in the face and give one back.

            After graduating in 1935, he did a tour in China and in 1942 was serving as a squadron commander aboard the U.S.S. Yorktown, flying a Douglas Dauntless dive bomber.

            A Japanese armada planned to invade the strategic port of Port Moresby in New Guinea. Thus far in World War II, the Japanese had been unstoppable. Had their plan succeeded, their next target would have been Australia. That's why Australians call the Battle of the Coral Sea "The Battle That Saved Australia."

            (The event was historic for two other reasons. First, it was the first battle in which aircraft carriers engaged each other. Second, it was the first naval battle fought at a distance. Neither side saw each other or directly fired on each other.)

            The Allies went into battle outnumbered. Besides the Yorktown, they had only one other carrier in the fight, the U.S.S. Lexington. The Japanese had three carriers—the Shoho, Shokaku, and Zuikaku.

            During the first day of the battle, Powers sank the carrier Shoho. He "scored a direct hit on [the] carrier which burst into flames and sank soon after," according to his Medal of Honor citation.

            “Scratch one flattop,” radioed Lt. Robert E. Dixon, a pilot from the U.S.S. Lexington.

            That wasn't enough to satisfy Powers. On that day and the next, according to his citation, "in the face of blasting enemy anti-aircraft fire" he "demolished one large enemy gunboat, put another gunboat out of commission, [and] severely damaged an aircraft tender and a twenty thousand ton transport."

            The next morning, immediately before takeoff, Powers gave a pep talk to the men in his squadron. "Remember—the folks back home are counting on us," he told them. "I am going to get a direct hit if I have to lay it on the flight deck."

            That is what he did. To make good on his promise, he led his squadron to the Shokaku. Once there, he dove his plane from 18,000 feet through a barrage of fierce anti-aircraft fire directly onto the carrier's deck.

Awed by his valor

            Whether Powers intended to crash onto its deck is unclear. He was last seen through smoke and debris 200 feet above the carrier. The Douglass Dauntless was known to be difficult to fly when laden a 500- to 1,000-pound bomb.

            Though the Shokaku stayed afloat, it required such extensive repairs it was unavailable to the Japanese at the Battle of Midway, the decisive battle of the Pacific war in which the Japanese lost four carriers.

            Awed by Powers' valor, President Roosevelt devoted a Fireside Address to him in September 1942. He repeated what Powers told his fellow fliers—"The folks back home are counting on us."

            Then FDR drove his message home: “You and I are the folks back home," and he went on, asking his listeners, are we “playing our part ‘back home’ in winning the war?” Then he answered his own question, saying, "We are not doing enough.”

            A year or so earlier on Father’s Day, Powers sent a telegram to his father who had served in the Navy and fought in the Spanish-American War. The message read: "Dear Dad one thousand miles away doesn’t’ make any difference and your bad son is thinking of you hoping that he is worthy of being called a chip off the old block."

            He was worthy.

MORAL: Do what needs doing for your folks back home.

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