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cover for Marine torpedo and dive bombers. They made their rendezvous with the bombers on schedule over Munda at 1:50 P.M.
    The formation moved northward under a fleecy layer of clouds, the bombers at 13,000 feet and the Black Sheep at 21,000. Between them were a layer of New Zealand Warhawks at 15,000 and a layer of Navy Hellcats at 19,000 as intermediate cover.
    As twenty-four-year-old John Begert reported, “Zeros spilled out of the clouds” onto them when the bombers started their dives on the target. Some 40 to 50 Zeros attacked the Black Sheep and started a fight that spread all over the sky for 200 square miles and lasted 30 minutes. It was a mad scramble, with 16 of the 24 Black Sheep seeing action for the first time.
    Twenty-two-year-old Bob Alexander, one of the newcomers to combat, was flying wing on Major Bailey. The two Corsairs divedtoward a circling hive of 20 Zeros, selected one, and came down on him in a quarter pass. The Zero rolled onto its back and dived. The two Black Sheep followed it down to 10,000 feet.
    At this point Alexander saw a flight of three Zeros preparing to dive on them. He pulled up to keep them off his division leader’s tail. Bailey stayed with his Zero, continuing to fire till it went into the clouds, smoking.
    Bailey followed it into the clouds, went on instruments, circled, and pulled out into the clear. He saw a Zero coming down on him, firing, so he ducked back into the clouds. When he came out, the same thing happened again, and then three times more. Bailey decided this was not his day, so he stayed in the clouds and headed for home on instruments.
    Coming out into the clear, he saw a pilot floating down in his chute with a Zero making passes at him, attempting to machine-gun him as he dangled there.
    Bailey dived at the Zero. It pulled up in a tight loop and got on his tail. The Major dived out, circled back and then heard the thud of bullets on his plane. Three Zeros were on his tail. Convinced anew that this was not his day, Bailey dived out and nursed his bullet-scarred plane home.
    Alexander, meanwhile, had attacked the three Zeros that had been preparing to dive on him and Bailey. They scattered, and Alexander was left momentarily alone in the sky.
    He spotted two Zeros about a thousand feet below him. The wingman was trailing about a hundred feet to the right, slightly stepped down. Alexander dived on them, and leveled off, making a direct stern approach on the wingman. He closed till he could spot the red roundel, then opened fire at 150 yards. He saw his bullets sieve the cockpit, tail, and mid-fuselage. Bits of metal and fabric flew off, and the Zero began to smoke.
    Alexander continued to fire as he closed and then pulled up and passed over the Zero’s right wing within 50 feet of the enemy. Looking into the cockpit, he saw flames come up from under the instrument panel and immediately fill the whole cockpit.
    â€œIt looked just like they do it in the movies,” Bob told me.
    Alexander cut across in front of the flaming Zero and sighted in on the leader, who rolled over and dived down. Alexander spotted four Zeros above him with the leader peeling off for an overhead pass at him, so he nosed his Corsair over and dived out.
    Seeing that his tail was clear, he began to climb again toward a 16-planemelee above him—only to find that they were all Zeros, circling and slow-rolling among themselves. Realizing this was no place for a lone Corsair without altitude advantage, Alexander dived and headed for home.
    Bill Case was leading a division of four Corsairs when he spotted seven Zeros attacking a flight below them. His division rolled over and dived on the Zeros. Their leader saw them coming and pulled up. All four Black Sheep got in short bursts, pulled up, rolled over, and went down on the Zeros in an overhead.
    Case picked out one and corkscrewed down with him for two turns and then pulled out. By this time Case had lost his second section, but his