Hello, I’m Dr. Timothy J. Orr, Associate Professor of Military History at Old Dominion
University in Norfolk, Virginia.
On behalf of the Hampton Roads Naval Museum, I’m out here today at the Eastern Shore
Methodist Episcopal Cemetery to talk about one of the luminaries of the Pacific War,
a man who helped destroy the Japanese carrier Shoho and helped save an American vessel,
the USS Ticonderoga.
I’m standing at the final resting place of Rear Admiral Bill Burch.
William Oscar Burch was born on June 27, 1904.
He attended the United States Naval Academy, graduating there in the summer of 1927.
In March 1930, he reported to Pensacola and began training as a naval aviator.
For the next few years, he served in several different squadrons, but ultimately ended
up as the commanding officer of Scouting Squadron 5 assigned to USS Yorktown.
On January 6, 1942, one month after the air raid on Pearl Harbor, Burch’s carrier—and
his squadron with it—departed San Diego, heading on its first combat mission, an attack
against a Japanese base in the Gilbert Islands.
On February 1, 1942, Burch led nine dive bombers in a mission against Makin Atoll, where the
pilots bombed several enemy seaplanes and auxiliary ships.
In this action, Burch ended up dropping one of the first American bombs of the Pacific War.
Then, one month later, on March 10, his squadron participated in yet another massive air raid
against a Japanese base, this one at Huon Gulf on the north shore of Papua New Guinea.
In the company of 51 other aircraft from USS Yorktown, Burch led his squadron against the
Japanese anchorage at Lae, damaging several transports.
Two months later, Burch led Scouting Squadron Five into another pivotal action, the Battle
of the Coral Sea, which is now recognized as the first carrier versus carrier clash
of the Pacific War.
On May 7, Burch participated in a 53-plane airstrike that found and sunk the Japanese
light carrier Shoho.
This was the first aircraft carrier ever sunk by American forces, and Burch was instrumental
in its demise.
Two dive bomber squadrons from USS Lexington had attacked first, getting in only one non-fatal hit.
Then, when Burch noticed Shoho turning into the wind to launch its fighter planes, he
sensed an opportunity.
He shouted into the radio for his planes to dive immediately, while there was no crosswind
to throw off the aim of their bombs.
Plunging downward from 19,000 feet, Burch scored a direct hit atop the flight deck and
at least a dozen other pilots following behind him scored hits as well.
As Burch later recalled, “We really laid in the bombs in that day.”
In the end, 834 crewmen died aboard the Shoho.
After USS Yorktown returned from the Battle of the Coral Sea, Burch was assigned to shore
duty, becoming the executive officer, and later, the commanding officer of the Advanced
Carrier Training Group assigned to Cecil Field, Florida.
After two years at Cecil Field, he became the executive officer of USS Ticonderoga,
a brand-new Essex class carrier.
Ticonderoga’s most exciting day of the war came on January 21, 1945, when two bomb-laden
kamikaze aircraft swerved through a hail of antiaircraft fire and crashed into the ship.
Fires broke out below deck and the ship developed a ten degree list to port.
By the time the blaze was quelled, 377 men had been killed.
Burch was in the thick of the action.
After the first kamikaze smashed through the flight deck, he moved quickly to save his carrier.
He arrived at the hangar deck, grabbed a hose, and led a damage control party to douse the
billowing flames.
Twice, his clothes caught fire when secondary explosions erupted around him, but he refused
to leave the danger zone.
When the second kamikaze struck the bridge structure above him, shrapnel rained down
like hail.
35 pieces of jagged metal struck him in the back and legs.
But still, he refused to leave his position with the repair crew until the fires were quelled.
Several pieces of shrapnel remained imbedded inside of him for the remainder of his life.
Burch received a Distinguished Flying Cross and three Navy Crosses for his actions during
World War II.
After the conclusion of the Pacific War, Burch served in numerous positions in the Navy.
He retired from the fleet on July 1, 1962, at the rank of rear admiral.
RADM Bill Burch died on January 21, 1989, at age 84.
Interestingly, the day of his death was the 44th anniversary of the kamikaze attack on Ticonderoga.
As a military historian, stories of America’s sailors in the Pacific War are never far from
my mind.
If you’re like me and you live in Hampton Roads, turns out you don’t have to drive
far to find memories of their footsteps.
I’m Dr. Timothy Orr.
Thanks for watching.