🇺🇲 WW II uncovered Battle of Midway: Honoring the Heroes We Lost: Bruno Peter Gaido:

 🇺🇲 WW II uncovered Battle of Midway: Honoring the Heroes We Lost: Bruno Peter Gaido:


Bruno Peter Gaido was born in Staunton, Illinois, in 1916 to parents who had immigrated from Italy to the United States in 1914. Gaido enlisted at Naval Station Great Lakes on 11 October 1940.

 Upon graduation from boot camp, he was assigned to Naval Air Station Pearl Harbor on Ford Island.

 Gaido was temporarily assigned to Scouting Squadron 6 (VS-6) to learn to be an aviation machinist.

 After several more temporary duty stints with the squadron, he was assigned permanently."

According to Naval History and Heritage Command: "On Sunday morning, 1 February 1942, in the first offensive action by U.S. aircraft carriers in the Pacific war, planes from USS Enterprise (CV-6) and Yorktown (CV-5) caught the Japanese by surprise in the Marshall Islands.

 Enterprise aircraft bombed targets in the northern Marshalls: Kwajalein, Wotje, and Maloelap (Tararoa). 

Yorktown aircraft bombed targets in the southern Marshalls: Jaluit, Mili, and Makin.

 Despite extensive damage, a Japanese counter-attack force of five G3M Type 96 twin-engine bombers led by Lieutenant Kazuo Nakai was able to locate Enterprise.

 Aided by cloud cover, and the repeated gun jams of US fighters, all five bombers made it through the combat air patrol. 

Instead of a standard horizontal bombing run, Nakai led his bombers in a glide-bombing profile, pulling out at 1,500 feet over the carrier. 

Extraordinary ship handling by Captain George Murray caused the bombs to miss, the closest impacting 30 yards to port."

"Throughout the engagement, shipboard antiaircraft fire consistently missed behind the Japanese aircraft.

 However, Nakai’s plane had been damaged by Wildcat fighters before commencing its run.

 As the other four bombers made good their escape, Nakai’s plane turned around and commenced a dive on Enterprise, approaching from astern where the carrier’s antiaircraft defenses were weakest. 

There was no doubt that Nakai intended to crash his plane into Enterprise."

"As the Japanese bomber continued to close on Enterprise without taking any apparent damaging hits, AMM3c Bruno Gaido leaped out of his battle station in the catwalk.

 He climbed into the back seat of parked SBD Dauntless dive bomber “6-S-5” (his normal position as radioman-gunner when the plane was airborne), and swiveled the plane’s aft twin .30-caliber machine guns and opened fire on the rapidly approaching bomber.

 He stood up, aiming his machine guns down into the low-flying plane, pouring accurate fire into the cockpit, finally causing the plane to lose control. 

The bomber barely missed the flight deck, its wingtip cutting off the tail of the SBD Gaido was in and spinning the parked aircraft.

 Gaido continued firing on the bomber throughout, until it crashed in the water on the opposite side of the ship.

 For his initiative and bravery, Vice Admiral William F. Halsey promoted Gaido on the spot.

At the Battle of Midway four months later, Gaido, flying as the rear-seat gunner for Enterprise’s Scouting Squadron 6, contributed to the successful attacks on the Japanese carriers Kaga and Akagi. 

During that action, however, Gaido’s aircraft stayed in the air too long, and fuel was running out. 

Seeing that the tanks were nearly empty, the pilot, Ensign Frank O’Flaherty, had to ditch the aircraft in the ocean.

 He and Gaido survived the impact but found themselves taken prisoner by crewmembers of a nearby Japanese destroyer, Makigumo. 

O’Flaherty and Gaido were declared Missing in Action on 4 July 1942 and presumed dead on 5 June 1943.

 After war interviews of witnesses confirm that both men were made to jump ship, heavily weighted down after countless hours of interrogation on 15 June 1942. 

(Naval History and Heritage Command et.al)

Petty Officer Gaido was awarded a Letter of Commendation from the Secretary of the Navy, a double promotion in rank from Admiral Halsey and posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Purple Heart Medal, Presidential Unit Citation, American Defense Service Medal, American Campaign Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with two bronze battle stars and the World War II Victory Medal.

Bruno Peter Gaido was 26 years old at the time of his passing.

 He is memorialized at Honolulu Memorial, Courts of the Missing in Honolulu Hawaii. Lest We Forget.


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