Japan mocked this “slow” bomber, then the pilot shot down 3 Zeros and sank their carrier in one mission

The morning air over the Coral Sea on May 8, 1942, was thick with the scent of saltwater and high-octane aviation fuel. Lieutenant Junior Grade Stanley “Swede” Vejtasa sat in the cockpit of his Douglas SBD Dauntless, watching the horizon for a nightmare. He was 27 years old, a dive bomber pilot by trade, but today, he was being asked to play the role of a predator in an aircraft designed to be prey.

USS Yorktown was vulnerable. Having launched its main strike the day before, it lacked sufficient fighter cover. Captain Frederick Sherman had devised a suicidal plan: use the “slow” Dauntless dive bombers as makeshift interceptors to stop Japanese torpedo planes.

The Dauntless was a rugged beast, but it was a tractor compared to the Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero. Fully loaded, the SBD weighed 11,000 lbs with a top speed of 250 mph. The Zero was 60 mph faster and could turn a full circle in half the time. To put a dive bomber in a dogfight against a Zero wasn’t just a disadvantage—it was a death sentence.

THE SCISSORS TRAP

At 10:55 a.m., the radar blips turned into silhouettes. A swarm of Japanese aircraft descended from the clouds. Eight Zeros peeled off, screaming toward Vejtasa’s four-plane section.

Vejtasa didn’t dive for the deck to hide. He did the unthinkable: he turned into the attack.

He knew the Zero’s weakness: it was fragile. It lacked armor and self-sealing fuel tanks. But to hit it, he had to survive the approach. As the lead Zero roared in for a deflection shot, Vejtasa yanked his stick hard left, pulling the heavy Dauntless into a climbing turn. The Japanese pilot, expecting a fleeing target, suddenly found himself staring down the nose of the American bomber.

Vejtasa squeezed the trigger. The twin .50 caliber machine guns in the SBD’s nose barked. The Zero’s engine erupted in a spray of oil and flame. It rolled inverted and vanished into the blue.

Minutes later, a second Zero committed to a head-on pass. Vejtasa held his course, refusing to blink. His heavy slugs shredded the Zero’s cockpit before the Japanese pilot could break away. The third kill was even more harrowing—a near-collision so close that some accounts say Vejtasa’s wingtip actually sheared the Zero’s wing off.

In a “slow” bomber, Swede Vejtasa had just downed three of the world’s most feared fighters. But his day—and his legend—were only beginning.

FROM BOMBER TO ACE: THE SANTA CRUZ MASSACRE

The Navy realized they had a natural-born killer in their ranks. By October 1942, Vejtasa had been transferred to fighters, flying the F4F Wildcat with Fighting Squadron 10, the “Grim Reapers,” aboard the USS Enterprise.

On October 26, during the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, the Japanese launched a massive coordinated strike to sink the Enterprise—the last operational American carrier in the South Pacific. If the Enterprise fell, the Guadalcanal campaign would fail.

Vejtasa was airborne on Combat Air Patrol when the radar room screamed: “Large formation inbound!”

He spotted a group of 11 Nakajima B5N “Kate” torpedo bombers boring in on the carrier’s port side. He dove from 10,000 feet, using gravity to turn his Wildcat into a screaming bolt of lightning.

The Kates were flying low and fast, skimming the waves to avoid anti-aircraft fire. Vejtasa ripped through their formation like a buzzsaw.

• The First Pass: He set the lead Kate on fire.

• The Second and Third: He looped back, his six .50 calibers shredding the unarmored Japanese bombers.

• The Chaos: Panicked, the remaining Japanese pilots jettisoned their torpedoes into the empty ocean, breaking their carefully planned attack.

By the time the smoke cleared, Vejtasa had personally accounted for seven Japanese aircraft in a single mission. Two “Val” dive bombers and five “Kate” torpedo bombers.

THE MEDAL THAT NEVER CAME

Vejtasa’s squadron commander, the legendary Jimmy Flatley, was stunned. He wrote in Vejtasa’s flight log: “Greatest single combat fight record in history.” Flatley immediately drafted a recommendation for the Medal of Honor.

But the recommendation hit a political wall. The Battle of Santa Cruz was technically an American tactical defeat—the USS Hornet had been sunk, and the Enterprise was badly damaged. Rear Admiral Thomas Kinkaid, under fire for tactical errors during the battle, didn’t want the spotlight on a Medal of Honor that would invite reporters to scrutinize the chaotic fighter direction that had left Vejtasa to fight alone.

The nomination was downgraded. Instead of the Medal of Honor, Vejtasa received his third Navy Cross.

EPILOGUE: THE CARRIER COMMANDER

Swede Vejtasa survived the war, but he never asked for his medal to be reconsidered. He stayed in the Navy, his career spanning three decades of excellence.

In 1962, the irony of history came full circle. Captain Stanley Vejtasa was given command of the USS Constellation, a massive supercarrier. The man who had once fought in a “junk” dive bomber to save a carrier was now the master of the most powerful warship on the planet.

He passed away in 2013 at the age of 98. He was the last of a breed of men who didn’t care about the odds on paper. He proved that the SBD wasn’t just “Slow But Deadly”—in the right hands, it was an instrument of impossibility.

Today, his flight log remains a sacred relic of naval aviation, reminding every pilot that the warrior matters infinitely more than the weapon.

Note: Some content was generated using AI tools (ChatGPT) and edited by the author for creativity and suitability for historical illustration purposes.