Jay Zeamer Jr.

In March 1941, he received his wings and a commission in the U.S. Army Air Corps after graduating from basic and advanced flight school at Maxwell Field, Alabama. Initially assigned to the 96th Bombardment Squadron of the 2nd Bombardment Group as assistant engineering officer, Zeamer was transferred to the 63rd Bombardment Squadron, 43rd Bombardment Group, where he served as squadron executive officer. It was there that he first met his future bombardier, Joseph Sarnoski. Sometime during the summer, Zeamer and "all the rest of the second lieutenants" were sent to Patterson Field in Dayton, Ohio, for assisting with the service testing of the new B-26 Marauder by the 22nd Bombardment Group. Following his return to Langley Field, Zeamer was assigned to the group's 19th Bombardment Squadron as a co-pilot. On December 8, 1941, the 22nd was transferred from Langley to California to fly anti-submarine patrols and reconnaissance off the west coast of the United States. In March 1942, the 22nd BG was deployed to Australia, where Zeamer flew his first combat mission as a B-26 co-pilot on April 6, 1942. He was promoted to first lieutenant that same month. Still, due to issues of reaction time and aggressiveness on the controls, Zeamer had never checked out as first pilot in the B-26.

With the arrival of his old group, the 43rd, in Australia flying the new "F" model Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress in August 1942, Zeamer sought and obtained a transfer from the 22nd to the 43rd. He reported for duty with the 403rd Bombardment Squadron in Torrens Creek, Australia, on September 22, reuniting with his gunnery trainer and friend from the previous summer, Joe Sarnoski.[10] Lacking any experience in the B-17, Zeamer had to scrounge for flights at first as a self-described "squadron errand boy" before gaining combat experience in October as a substitute copilot and even navigator.[11] Despite having not yet been checked out as first pilot in the B-17, Zeamer flew his first mission as pilot-in-command on November 20, a photo reconnaissance of Simpson Harbor at Rabaul, New Britain. He was awarded the Silver Star for the mission, which also served as his transition to first pilot.

Around the end of 1942, Zeamer began putting together his own crew, beginning with Sarnoski and squadron navigator Charles "Rocky" Stone. Popular accounts of the crew and its formation refer to them as "screw-offs," "renegades," and "misfits," but are not borne out by the actual record and are either fiction or gross exaggeration. In time, they began calling themselves "The Eager Beavers" for Zeamer's constant volunteering for missions as they became available. An early incarnation of the crew was awarded Air Medals for the sinking of a merchant vessel at Rabaul on January 17, 1943. The bombing of Milne Bay that same day, as well as significant personnel losses to malaria and dengue fever, led to the 403rd being returned to Australia soon after for recuperation. Almost two months of non-combat followed, prompting another transfer for Zeamer, this time into the 65th Bomb Squadron of the 43rd BG, based in Port Moresby, New Guinea, in late March 1943. He was promoted to captain in early April, as well as made squadron operations officer. On April 12, the Eager Beavers flew a mission to Rabaul for which he was awarded an Oak Leaf Cluster to his Silver Star.

"Old 666"

In May 1943, Zeamer was made squadron executive officer, and took on the upgrading of a B-17E, #41-2666, recently acquired from the 8th Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron, for photographic mapping purposes. The plane was one of the few in the theater equipped with the trimetrogon camera system, which allowed the creation of photographic mosaics for generating accurate ground maps. The aircrew replaced the aircraft's aging engines with new, stripped the bomber of much of its extra weight, and added additional heavy machine guns, including dual .50 caliber M2 Brownings in both the radio compartment and waist gun positions, three in the nose, including a fixed .50 caliber in the plexiglas combing that Zeamer could directly fire from his pilot's control yoke. Contemporary accounts, including the 65th Bomb Squadron's morning report for that day, as well as Zeamer's own flight log, record the aircraft being equipped with 16 active .50 caliber machine guns, with three additional spares stored in the B-17's catwalk for quick combat-related substitution, if and when needed. Now transformed into a gunship, the B-17 was known to its aircrew as "666," or popularly as "Old 666".[12]

Gen. "Hap" Arnold presents Jay Zeamer Jr. with the Medal of Honor as parents Jay and Margery Zeamer look on (1944)

In April 1943, Zeamer and the crew had been approached about a solo, 1,200-mile (1,900 km) round-trip photo-mapping mission of the western coast of Bougainville, with emphasis on Empress Augusta Bay where any marine landings would be made. Such maps were considered vital to a future invasion of the island in support of coalescing plans for the reduction of Rabaul. It was presented as a volunteer mission because extended mapping runs would require straight and level flight runs of up to 22 minutes deep through hostile territory.

The necessary weather for such a run proved elusive for two months, until mid-June. When the 8th PRS was unable to get the necessary photos on June 15, Zeamer was contacted again. At 04:00 the next morning, 16 June 1943, after intense preparations in the days before, the crew headed for Bougainville. Twice already, once the night before and once as the aircraft was taxiing for take-off, they were ordered by V Bomber Command to do a photo recon of the Japanese airstrip on Buka, a small island off the northern tip of Bougainville. Zeamer rejected the idea both times as too dangerous, almost guaranteeing interception by enemy fighters while in sustained level flight for the mapping operation.

Arriving too early at Bougainville to start the aerial mapping, Zeamer put the question to his aircrew of whether to pass the time flying over the ocean or perform the Buka recon. After they voted for the recon, Zeamer flew northeast in a loop to come back over Buka on their way into the mapping run. Photos taken that day reportedly showed twenty-one Japanese fighters taxiing or taking off to intercept. With approximately a minute left in the mapping run, "Old 666" faced a coordinated attack by eight A6M3 Model 22 Zero fighters from 251 Kōkūtai, as well as an unidentified twin-engined fighter. The ensuing attack mortally wounded bombardier Sarnoski, who struggled back to his machine gun to drive off a second Zero after being blown back from his position by a 20 mm cannon shell from the first Zero. A total of four 20 mm shells destroyed the pilot's side of the instrument panel and broke Zeamer's left leg above and below the knee, leaving a large hole in his left thigh. He was also hit by shrapnel in both arms and his right leg, with a gash in his right wrist. Three others were also wounded, including the navigator and top turret gunner, who responded to a resulting oxygen fire by putting it out with rags and their bare hands.

Due to the loss of oxygen and to escape their attackers, Zeamer dived the B-17 violently from 25,000 feet (7,600 m) to approximately 10,000 feet (3,000 m), estimating the altitude by an increase in engine manifold pressure. The Japanese followed them down and commenced a forty-minute series of attack passes at the nose of the B-17. Despite his wounds, Zeamer avoided any further extensive damage to the plane by repeatedly turning into the oncoming fighters, just inside the trajectory of their fixed fire, a technique he learned while in the 22nd BG. By doing so, the Zeros would continue rolling into the bomber without hitting it, but exposing themselves to the B-17's rear machine guns. Eventually, all of the Zeros broke off the attack due either to damage, lack of ammunition, or lack of fuel.

After the engagement, an assessment revealed that the B-17's oxygen and hydraulic systems were destroyed, as well as all of the pilot's flight instruments. The magnetic compass and engine instruments on the co-pilot's side were undamaged, as were all four engines. Too wounded to move and unwilling to give up command of his aircraft, Zeamer advised the top turret gunner after he took over co-piloting duties, allowing the unwounded co-pilot to attend to the wounded. The lack of oxygen, in addition to Zeamer's and the navigator's injuries, meant a return to Port Moresby over the Owen Stanley Mountains was impossible. Instead, they made an emergency landing at an Allied fighter airstrip at Dobodura, New Guinea. Without operable brakes or flaps because of the destroyed hydraulic system, the B-17 was ground-looped, without additional damage, by the co-pilot. The casualties were one killed (Sarnoski) and four wounded. Zeamer was initially thought dead from loss of blood, but he was treated with the other injured aircrew members by the 10th Field Ambulance of the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps before being transported back to Port Moresby the next day.

Colonel Merian C. Cooper, chief of staff to the deputy commander of the Fifth Air Force, Major General Ennis Whitehead, recommended Zeamer be awarded the Medal of Honor, to which Fifth Air Force commander General George Kenney concurred. Zeamer received the award from Chief of the Army Air Forces General Henry H. Arnold on January 16, 1944, at the Pentagon.

Sarnoski was also awarded the Medal of Honor, marking only the third time in U.S. history that two members of the same crew received the Medal of Honor for a single mission. (In World War I, Erwin R. Bleckley and Harold Ernest Goettler were posthumously honored for their efforts to resupply the "Lost Battalion", while Addison Baker and John L. Jerstad received the award just two months after Zeamer's Medal of Honor action during the Allied raids on oil refineries in Ploieşti, Romania. In addition, World War I pilot Ralph Talbot and his observer, Robert G. Robinson, were awarded the Medal of Honor for two missions they undertook together.) All other members of Zeamer's aircrew received the Distinguished Service Cross. This remains the most highly decorated single air mission, and Zeamer's aircrew the most highly decorated in American history.

Zeamer was promoted to major on July 8, 1943, and lieutenant colonel in April 1944. He spent 15 months in recovery, regaining most of the use of his left leg, and returned to active duty at Mitchel Field, New York as a Tactical Field Air Inspector. On January 18, 1945, Zeamer retired from the USAAF on disability.