Miracles and Massacres: True and Untold Stories of the Making of America

7

Easy Eddie & the Hard Road to Redemption

Executive Management Level

Sportsman’s Park

Cicero, Illinois

November 8, 1939

Easy Eddie O’Hare sat down at his fine mahogany desk and placed his glass of eighteen-year-old scotch on the blotter. Then he opened the bottom-left drawer and took out his pistol.

Oiling and cleaning this little .32 had become a thoughtful evening ritual over the last several years, though he’d never felt the need to carry it. But tonight would be different. Tonight, for the drive home from Cicero, he would load his gun and have it holstered beneath his overcoat. At least he’d be armed when they came for him, for all the good that would do.

Even the Chicago mob has laws. Not many, of course, but the few there are have only one penalty. And the mob has got more style in enforcement than the police and the courtrooms. They’ll still hold trial and pass sentence, all right, but once a person’s condemned they aren’t killed right away, not unless it’s absolutely necessary. They let the poor sucker walk around free and think about how his days are numbered.

They’d let Easy Eddie think about it for six long years.

He still had a few friends in the outfit; that’s how he knew for sure that his number was up. You shouldn’t buy any green bananas, old pal. The straight-faced warning in that bit of gallows humor was the only help he could expect. No one was going to be caught dead coming to his aid, not with Capone due back in town any time from his extended holiday on Alcatraz Island.

As he finished tending to his pistol, Eddie sat back and looked around the luxurious office that he’d furnished with ill-gotten gains. Not everything here was of great value, though, at least not in the monetary sense. Some items were only mementos, worth little to anyone but him.

There were the old photos of his kids that were just beginning to yellow in their frames. He hadn’t seen the girls in years, and his boy had long since become a navy man—a pilot, to be exact.

One of the paperweights on his desk was a dented gas cap from Charles Lindbergh’s mail plane, a souvenir pocketed at Lambert Field after a ride-along with that soon-to-be-great man. A pair of blood-flecked boxing gloves that hung on the coatrack recalled a very short match he’d once fought in his misspent youth, an open-call tryout for a pro sparring partner. One quick right cross from his opponent had put Eddie facedown on the canvas and convinced him he was no Jack Johnson. There must be an easier way to make a million, he’d thought.

And so there was.

He checked his pocket watch, studied the door for a while, and decided that he wasn’t quite ready to walk through it for the last time. Maybe just one more drink, and for old times’ sake, just another short stroll down memory lane.

His tired eyes soon found another keepsake, this one displayed on its own side table. It was an artificial rabbit on a rusty metal stand, the odd invention of his first big legal client—and arguably the object that put Easy Eddie on the road to riches and, eventually, to ruin.

But that wasn’t really where the story started. For that, he’d have to go back a bit further.

Soulard district, St. Louis, Missouri

Twenty years earlier: December 31, 1919

The baby was crying and, before long, Eddie’s young son had joined in the wailing.

He couldn’t really blame hungry kids for making a racket, but that night it was just a little too much to swallow. With him and his wife not on speaking terms, Christmas had once again been a dismal, joyless affair. And now New Year’s Eve was threatening to turn out the same way.

At one minute to midnight, with no steady job, no prospects, and not a plug nickel to his name, Eddie had made himself a promise, an oath that couldn’t have been more solemn if he’d signed it in blood. He would make himself a wealthy man.

The bleak decade he’d just suffered through had finally and mercifully ended. There would be no more hopeless days, no more dead-end laboring just to scrape together another humble meal for the family table. No more drifting, no more despair, no more drafty walk-up apartments that reeked of cold cuts and day-old produce from the grocery store below. Right then and there, with the 1920s set to come roaring in, Eddie swore to change his life and his fortunes.

The next few years were a blur. Between working any job he could scrounge, day and night classes to complete his education at St. Louis University, and later studying law until the wee hours, there’d been far too little time left for his wife and children. But all of this was for them; at least that’s the way it had begun.

During his lowest times, Eddie’s father-in-law would encourage him with the same words over and over: Stay with it, son. The day you pass that bar exam, a lot of doors will open. He was right about that, of course, but if he’d really wanted to help, his wife’s old man would have added one more nugget of valuable counsel:

Be awfully careful what you wish for.

Sportsman’s Park

Cicero, Illinois

October 3, 1924

The fresh paint had barely finished drying in his first law office when Eddie met Owen Smith, the inventor of a more reliable, new-and-improved lure to entice racing dogs to speed around the greyhound tracks. The two of them were a good match: Mr. Smith needed help to patent his furry little robot, and Eddie needed the fee.

Now, a year into the relationship, Eddie had become Owen Smith’s chief business advocate—and business was getting better every day. The two men traveled extensively, selling operator’s rights to use the rabbit at dog tracks from St. Louis all the way to Hialeah in southern Florida.

This was their first trip to the Chicago area and, so far, it seemed to be a fruitful visit.

Eddie and Owen Smith had been seated in the track manager’s garish corner office, waiting as the man looked over the contract and considered their deal, when the door opened behind them.

Three imposing men entered the room and took stations near the entrance. A gorilla in a pin-striped suit is still a gorilla, but this trio of simians obviously belonged to somebody with a lot of swing. Soon another man appeared—balding, shorter, and stockier than the others.

When his eyes caught this last man, the track manager dropped what he was doing and stood like he’d been called before a hanging judge.

No one spoke up immediately, so Eddie broke the silence.

“We’re in the middle of a meeting here, fellas. Can I help you with something?”

The shorter man smiled humorlessly.

“Yeah,” he said, “I’ve heard that you can.”

“You’ve heard I can what?”

“Aw, let’s not play coy, counselor. I’ve heard that you can help me with something.”

Eddie blinked, and got to his feet. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

“You don’t, but you should.”

The man gave only the slightest gesture and the track manager hurried from the room, followed closely by Owen Smith, who was well-known for his ability to take a hint.

The three big guys also left and closed the door, leaving Eddie and the sharply dressed stranger alone. Only then did Eddie notice the scars that trailed down the other man’s face. It looked as though at some point in his youth he’d lost a fight with a broken bottle.

Eddie put out his hand. “I’m—”

“I told you, I know who you are.”

They shook, and it felt to Eddie like he’d gripped a cold shank of Easter ham. “So, what can I do for you?” he asked.

“I’m looking to buy myself a little piece of this track,” the man replied, “and some people downstate are making things very difficult for me.”

“And?”

“And I hear you’re a guy who can make things easy.”

“I’m embarrassed to say that you’ve still got me a bit confused,” Eddie said. “Who are you?”

The man laughed and pulled the track manager’s rolling chair around the desk. He motioned for Eddie to sit, and then he did, too. “You talk real classy. That’s good. I like that.” His smile began to fade as he continued. “Yeah, I can tell you’re a college man, but here’s something I guess they didn’t teach you in school. See, when you do business in Chicago, the first thing you’ve gotta do is choose a gang. Fortunately you got real lucky this time, because the gang chose you.”

Eddie found that his mouth had grown uncomfortably dry. “And what gang is that?”

The man’s next words were spoken low, as if he thought there might be a lawman listening from behind the drawn curtains across the room.

“Pleasure to meet you, Easy Eddie,” he said. “I’m Al Capone.”

Uptown Chicago

August 9, 1927

Eddie worked his way through the noisy crowd at Capone’s favorite club, the Green Mill Lounge, glad-handing the VIPs and passing out tips like peppermint candy. He gave a wave to part owner Jack “Machine Gun” McGurn and got a respectful nod in return. Eddie had his new girlfriend on his arm, an illegal cocktail in his hand, and the band was playing “The Best Things in Life Are Free.” He thought that it had been a hell of a day so far.

When they reached Eddie’s table, the one always reserved near the stage, they sat and waved for the waiter.

“A gal down at work called this place ‘the blind pig,’ ” his girlfriend said, shouting over the music. “Why do you think she called it that?”

“It’s an old-time name for a speakeasy,” Eddie replied, “from the last century. Back in your grandfather’s day, they’d get around the law by putting a carny attraction of some kind in a room in the back—you know, a two-headed chicken or a three-legged cat—”

“Or a blind pig?”

“Right. And so they’d make you buy a ticket to see the pig, and then they’d give you the whiskey for free. No sale, no crime, see?”

She nodded, and smiled, clearly impressed.

“Thinking up stuff like that; it’s kind of what I do for a living,” Eddie said.

“That’s very clever.”

“And you’re very pretty.”

“Aren’t you sweet,” she said. She gave him a kiss and a wink and then turned in her chair toward the stage to listen to the band.

Eddie watched her for a moment or two. His divorce had been finalized not long before, and though the parting had been fairly friendly, it certainly hadn’t been a picnic. He thought of his boy, now a teenager, and his girls. The thought of them made him think hard about how his life had changed. A lot of dirty water had flowed over the dam in the last three years.

But a good man doesn’t go bad all at once.

His alliance with Capone had started small. Eddie had smoothed the way for deals to establish front-businesses for Big Al, his lieutenants, and, from behind the scenes, the big boss, Johnny Torrio. He’d told himself for a while that he wasn’t doing anything that any other capable attorney wouldn’t do for his clients. But, eventually, he faced the facts: a man couldn’t so much as walk across the street with Capone and stay clean. He was the King Midas of crimes and scams; everything he touched turned to possible jail time.

Even at the track—a seedy enough hangout to begin with—Capone wasn’t satisfied with simply gambling; he had to cheat. His favorite sure thing was to feed seven of the dogs a Porterhouse steak before a race and then bet heavy on the last, hungry dog. That was always good for a laugh and a hundred-dollar ticket at twenty-to-one odds.

All the while, little by little, Eddie had traded in his principles for riches, and each step downhill had certainly seemed like a worthy bargain at the time.

But then his affair with the mob took a giant step forward.

Early in 1925, Bugs Moran and the North Siders tried to assassinate mob boss Johnny Torrio. They’d shot him to hell right outside his home; but he’d lived. When he’d recovered, after a brief stint in prison for operating a bootleg brewery, the man they called “the Fox” had finally seen enough trouble. He left for Italy with his family and turned the reins over to his longtime protégé, Alphonse Capone.

On that same day Eddie had also received a promotion he’d never signed up for. One minute he was just a lawyer with a few loose connections to organized crime. The next he was the reluctant chief counsel to the new underworld king of Chicago.

From across the packed dance floor, Eddie noticed a stern-faced man sidling up to the bar. Maybe it was just his discount-store haircut, but he didn’t seem to fit in with the festivities. Then another oddball joined him, and this one definitely had Johnny Law written all over his ugly face. It was beginning to seem like a real good time to be somewhere else.

Eddie leaned to his girl and whispered, “Do you want to get out of here?”

“Where to?”

“Across town,” he said, giving her a sly, suggestive smile. “Come on, I want to show you around my office.”

It was a quick drive to Cicero, and when they’d climbed the stairs to Eddie’s private haunt he could tell that she was impressed.

That corner office where he and Capone had first met three years ago was now Eddie’s opulent base of operations. It was stocked full of things he’d always dreamed of one day owning: art, sculptures, handmade furnishings, and all the rarities and luxuries that dirty money could buy. The massive leather divan alone was worth more than Mayor Kelly’s touring car.

Hundreds of impressive cloth-bound volumes crowded his floor-to-ceiling shelves: casebooks and federal statutes, precedent opinions, lofty treatises, and details of many tens of thousands of regulations.

These books made for a classy backdrop, but they had a practical use as well. Unlike most attorneys, who used these books as a guide to the narrow letter of the law, Easy Eddie used them as a vast encyclopedia of loopholes, exploits, and artful legal dodges.

While others in his profession might advise their clients from the top floors of a high-rise building downtown, Eddie’s one-man firm overlooked the homestretch of the dog track at Sportsman’s Park.

Eddie had been told that many doors would open for him when he became a big-city lawyer. It was true; some of these doors led to politics, some to corporate power, some to a judge’s seat, and others down troubled streets and the never-ending fight for the rights of the common man.

But there’s one more door, an old, dark one, way down near the end of the hallway. That’s the one Eddie found, standing open just a crack, when he’d first hung out his shingle. He knew damn well he shouldn’t look at it, much less swing it wide and walk right through—but he’d done it anyway.

“Hey, Eddie?”

“Yeah, sweetheart.”

“I never get out to the track and I love it here. Do you mind if I go down and make a bet?”

“Don’t mind at all.” He walked over and handed her a hundred, then gave her a pat on the bottom. “I’ve got a box right on the finish line. Just tell the boys you’re with me and they’ll get you whatever you want. Go on, I’ll join you in a few.”

When she was gone he sat at his desk. There were things to be done, as always, but he had no desire to do them at the moment. He poured himself a drink from the flask in his top drawer and before long he was lost in his thoughts again.

With Eddie’s growing wealth had come the free time he’d always wanted. But, by the time 1927 rolled around, it was far too late to save his status as a family man. All his business travels, along with his wandering eye, had finally run his marriage into the rocks. But, despite the rifts his choices had created, Eddie continued to provide for his kids, and held out hope that he could be a positive presence in their lives, however small that might be.

He’d bought his soon-to-be ex-wife and the kids a fine new home and tried to make up for the neglect of his fatherly duties through financial support. The girls, he was convinced, would be fine; their mother had raised them right. It was his son who’d proven to be a cause for concern.

Eddie saw a lot of himself in the boy. And that wasn’t a good thing.

• • •

Eddie had tried to teach his son the right things; things that a normal, at-home dad would be there to pass along. He taught him to play fair, to stand up to bullies, and to protect those unable to protect themselves. He taught him how to box and wrestle, and he took him to the shooting range until the boy had become an outstanding marksman. He took him flying, often talking their way into the cockpit so his son could try his hand at the controls. He’d tried his best—at least that’s what he told himself—but on one recent visit, he realized that his best hadn’t been good enough.

His son was also called Eddie, in honor of his wayward dad, but around the neighborhood he’d been picking up nicknames better suited to the billiard hall or the jailhouse than the Harvard Club. The kid was becoming lazy and spoiled as well, acting as if a cushy address on Easy Street were the only place he ever dreamed of living.

These early warning signs were enough to convince the elder Eddie that it was past time for a major change. Last month he’d put his foot down: the boy would leave St. Louis immediately and enroll in the Western Military Academy in Alton, Illinois—far from the ne’er-do-wells he’d begun to associate with, and near enough to his father’s Chicago home that the remainder of his youth could still be well supervised.

Eddie finished his drink, stood, and gave himself an approving onceover in the mirror by the coatrack. As he walked downstairs to join his girlfriend in the stands, he quietly hoped that, for the first time in a long time, he’d made the right decision.

It may have been too late for Eddie to pick the right door in life, but his son still had a chance.

Sportsman’s Park

Cicero, Illinois

Early June 1930

Whether or not Eddie’s concerns for his son had been justified, a few years later it seemed that his efforts had paid off. One of those early nicknames had unfortunately stuck, but other than that, young Eddie Jr. had grown into a confident, disciplined, square-shouldered cadet, ready to graduate with honors and set out on his own path. Where his ambitions had once involved a couch and a comic book, the boy now wanted to make it to the United States Naval Academy.

At last, things seemed to be looking up.

But, as so often happens to those who boldly stray to the wrong side of the law, just when things look their brightest, the devil is coming for his due.

Eddie arrived at his office on this warm June morning to find the feds waiting. That seductive door he’d opened long ago had slammed shut behind him. The good cop sat him down and brought him a coffee, and then the bad cop laid out their ironclad case. He was to be arrested on an old bootlegging rap, and the G-men were confident that a number of serious tax irregularities would surface in the run-up to the trial. When it was over Eddie had little hope of ever seeing daylight again.

Unless.

Naturally, it wasn’t just a crooked Chicago lawyer they were after; the going price for those was a dime a dozen. No, J. Edgar Hoover wanted Al Capone and he wanted him bad. He’d sent his men to talk to the one insider who could finally help them put him away.

In return for information, Eddie would dodge the current charges and be assured of leniency toward any minor crimes that might come to the government’s attention in the future. Then they told him about the icing on the cake: despite his father’s sullied reputation, it would be arranged that his son would receive the necessary congressional nod to be approved and admitted to Annapolis. Without their influence, they assured him, the son of a gangster would never have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting into the U.S. Naval Academy.

In truth, even without the threat of prosecution, Eddie had been considering making such a move on his own for quite some time. From a business standpoint, Capone had become a major liability and a constant thorn in his side, leaving no room for any legitimate enterprises. The offer to get his son into Annapolis was appealing, but he wasn’t even sure if these guys could actually pull it off. On the other hand, they could definitely sling enough mud to keep his son out of the academy if they didn’t get what they wanted.

It didn’t take long for him to consider his options. After only a moment or two, Easy Eddie nodded and smiled, and did what he did best.

He made a deal.

Sportsman’s Park

Cicero, Illinois

November 8, 1939

By the clock on the wall, Eddie had been lost in his memories for quite a while. He blinked a time or two, and the past faded away.

The waning daylight through his tall windows had grown dim and warm, and the hallway outside his office was still. In fact, it was so damned still it seemed that every last employee must have gotten a whispered word to go home early and avoid the line of fire.

Eddie knew there was no doubt that he’d done what he set out to do. In the end, however, he had to admit there wasn’t a lot to be proud of. Over the years he’d lied and swindled nearly every working day. He’d kept ruthless criminals on the streets and let innocent men be sent to rot behind bars. He’d been an accessory to felonies and even murder—though he’d never actually pulled the trigger himself—many times over. He’d lost his wife, neglected his children, and nearly watched his boy drift into a lowlife existence of sloth and ill-repute.

Eddie was too much of a realist to accept the idea of redemption, especially for the kind of man he’d become. The best he could hope for was that he’d soon be forgotten, and that, for the sake of his son, the name they shared wouldn’t forever be synonymous with infamy and shame.

The newspaper lay open on his desk, and the headlines spoke of dark days to come. It was an uncertain world he’d be leaving behind. Hitler was consolidating Poland and turning his eyes toward new conquests. President Franklin Roosevelt had just declared the United States to be resolutely neutral in the war that was surely on the way, but that position couldn’t last much longer. Eddie knew as well as anyone the workings of the criminal mind: some madmen will never stop unless someone stops them; sooner or later the United States would be drawn in. As a sailor, his son would no doubt be a part of whatever terrible battles were in store.

But whatever was coming, Eddie knew he wouldn’t be around to see it. His partner had a special knack for dealing with his enemies. Ten years before, Capone had invited the North Siders to a Tommy-gun party down on North Clark Street. It had been a St. Valentine’s Day that Bugs Moran and the rest of Chicago would never forget.

That was it, then. All his memories had been revisited and nothing was left to do but stand up and face the music.

He walked to the sideboard, poured and downed a last short scotch and water, and felt once more for the pistol under his overcoat. As he walked out through his office door he paused and smiled. The irony was not lost on him: This door, the one that he’d walked through and changed his life, was also the one he’d walk through to end it.

• • •

Eddie was pleasantly surprised when he opened the back exit and wasn’t immediately cut down by machine-gun fire. As he started his car there was a moment of relief when the bench seat didn’t instantly explode beneath him. But then, about halfway home, he saw the dark sedan approaching from behind.

It was hopeless, he knew, but as that car slipped closer he stepped on the gas and decided to give them a good run for their money.

Traffic ahead was stop-and-go, but Eddie flashed his lights and laid on the horn and people seemed to get the message. He pumped the clutch and downshifted and heard his tires squeal as he rocketed through a space so tight he clipped off his outside mirror. Unfortunately the car behind matched every dodge he made, and more than once they got close enough to bump him good and hard from behind.

After a high-speed mile or two up Ogden Avenue the sedan managed to pull up alongside him. He was hemmed in with nowhere left to turn and no way to go any faster.

He looked to the side, straight into the barrel of a shotgun, and saw behind it a face that he recognized from his many years on the wrong side of the law. He wasn’t surprised. That’s the way they do it; they take care of their own. And then there was a double-barreled flash, a spray of glass and metal, and far less pain than he imagined. He was already dead when, seconds later, his car slammed into a trolley pole by the side of the road.

Aboard the USS Lexington with Task Force 11,

far into enemy waters

Two and a half years later: February 20, 1942

Butch lay in his bunk, still in his flight suit, flipping playing cards into the hat of his dress uniform across the small sleeping room. He had a championship run going, forty-four cards without a single miss. The unofficial all-time wardroom record was in sight.

He paused his target practice as the ship listed slightly to starboard, and he felt the rumble of the carrier’s engines as they labored to turn the Lexington into the wind for another launch.

He sighed, flipped another card into the hat, and recalled a phrase he’d heard a thousand damned times from his instructors.

A lot of war is waiting.

All through the Academy, and then later on in flight school in Pensacola, Florida, that was the wet blanket some old-timer would toss out whenever a rookie was overheard fantasizing about the exciting life of a navy flyer.

No, the wise guy would say, that’s not the way it is. There would be hours and days and even months of tense anticipation followed quickly by a few terrifying minutes of heart-stopping, blood-curdling, adrenaline-pumping chaos. If you were brave and prepared and skilled and exceptionally lucky, that flash of chaos could be kept just barely under your control. You might even live to tell your grandkids about it all.

Butch’s father had once said that if you ever want to hear God laugh, all you’ve got to do is make a plan. At the time, his dad’s comment concerned his own struggles to build a business and support his family through the depths of the Great Depression, but his admonition was as true in battle as anywhere else. The military brass often spent weeks on their brilliant strategies and tactics, only to see the tables turned in a last-minute frenzy when the enemy failed to behave as expected.

The day’s plan, for example, was set to be supervised from the flag bridge by Vice Admiral Wilson Brown. Before it all blew up it had probably looked just swell on paper.

The USS Lexington and the rest of Task Force 11 had been ordered to attack the enemy base at Rabaul, a major strategic prize off the coast of New Guinea that had recently been overtaken by the Japanese. The loss of this base was a major blow to the Allies. As the enemy ramped up air and sea forces there it would become a huge threat to vital shipping lanes.

While this small task force didn’t pack nearly enough muscle to actually retake the base, their job was to throw a monkey wrench into the machine and cause as much damage as they could. Butch’s air division had been chosen to lead the assault—bombing runways, sinking ships in the harbor, destroying as many hangar-bound Japanese Zeroes as possible. Down the road, a larger Allied operation would follow up, conquer the base, and send the Japs packing.

The battle plan hardly had a chance to get going, before a long-range enemy scouted the American ships. Butch had just returned from his morning patrol by then and could only watch as other fighter pilots from the Lexington took off and went after the airborne spy.

Butch’s shipmates had taken the scout, but before he was shot down the sneaky bastard had almost certainly radioed his position and sent a warning to his distant commanders.

And that changed everything. A surprise attack by a minor strike force was one thing, but without that element of surprise, Task Force 11 was just a slow-moving target, a sitting duck in the middle of some very hostile waters. Another enemy reconnaissance flight soon followed, another Japanese spotter plane was splashed, and that was all the convincing required to turn the whole mission into a bust.

But at this point, even running away wasn’t going to be a walk in the park.

TF 11 had already made it to a waypoint a little over 450 miles from Rabaul, and now the enemy was alerted. By this time Admiral Aritomo Goto had likely cooked up a surprise of his own for the discovered Americans—one involving a swift and overwhelming retaliation with a squadron or two of his long-range bombers and torpedo planes.

Though the American attack was off, an official retreat hadn’t yet been ordered. Admiral Brown was famously reluctant to give up on a strategic goal, so for the moment all the task force could do was stay the dangerous course toward Rabaul, keep a sharp eye on the skies, and wait.

Butch wondered how he might stack up in an all-out, life-or-death dogfight like the one that might be coming soon. That was one test he hadn’t faced so far.

According to his reviews, he was an exceptional pilot, and since he was a boy he’d been an excellent marksman. Putting those two skills together, though, had proven to be the biggest challenge of his twenty-eight years. He’d flown plenty of missions, but he still hadn’t had the opportunity to fire a single shot in battle.

Butch flipped one card and then another for two more direct hits.

In the calm before the storm, he thought about his father.

The last letter he’d written to him a few years ago had been dashed off and routine, nothing like the note he would have written if he’d known there’d never be another. He’d let an awful lot go unsaid over the years, but thank you was the one sentiment that Butch had probably neglected the most. And when his father was murdered—gangland-style, no less—a number of unpleasant things that had gone unspoken were confirmed.

A busload of reporters and photographers had nearly ruined the funeral. But, after a few ugly days of lurid headlines—CAR CRASH KILLS CAPONE CANARY, SHOTGUN JUSTICE FOR UNDERWORLD SNITCH—the stories shrank and slipped to the back pages and were gradually forgotten.

Mother said that’s what his father would have wanted in the end: to be forgotten by all except his family. Whatever his failings, Dad had been proud of his boy and girls. Flaws and all, he’d done the best he could for them, and he had hoped that the tarnish on their family name would fade with time.

But his bad choices had left quite a dubious legacy. Easy Eddie was survived by a criminal record, a broken marriage, a young trophy girlfriend, two fine daughters who’d grown up mostly without him, and a fairly shy, slightly overweight, navy pilot son who was pushing thirty years old and still waiting to prove himself among his peers.

Butch drew in a deep breath, took aim past the brim of the hat, and flipped the last card that would tie his personal best.

The door to the cabin banged open, swatting the flying queen of diamonds cleanly into the trash can. His friend and wingman, Marion “Duff” Dufilho, stood there, trying to catch his breath.

“C’mon, Butch, we’re up!”

Out in the hall a loud Klaxon had begun to wail. As the two men clattered up the stairs toward the flight deck they felt the big ship beginning to maneuver and accelerate, and heard the repeating action order booming over the horns from high on the bridge:

Battle stations!

Battle stations!

Battle stations!

No need for a stop by the ready room; they got their mission briefing on the run.

• • •

Radar had picked up what looked like a jagged V about seventy-five miles west. As it disappeared and reappeared among the shifting storms the operator soon realized what he was seeing: a large contact that wasn’t one of us, inbound at eight thousand feet and making 150 knots. A patrol was scrambled and launched to investigate.

Meanwhile, an earlier air patrol was returning, low on fuel and ready to land, but the remaining idle planes on the deck had been cleared and stacked astern to allow the just-departed squadron to take off. Now all those planes had to be moved to the bow again so the returning out-of-fuel patrol could be recovered before they started dropping dead-stick into the drink.

The flight deck was helter-skelter and crowded wingtip to wingtip. All available hands were occupied with respotting the planes, fore and then aft again. Aircraft were being fueled and rearmed, and the air boss was bullhorning and directing it all like a mad orchestra conductor.

“Pilots, man your planes! Thach, take thirteen, Sellstrom in number two, O’Hare in fifteen, and Dufilho in four!”

The microphones from the radar room and the tower had been routed directly to the topside loudspeakers, and an operator’s voice blared out:

“Contact! I’ve got a contact! Bogies inbound, forty-seven miles west!”

Butch and Duff had been ordered to man the last two F4F Wildcats on the deck and given call-signs of Raven 5 and 6. After a last confirmation of orders both men were soon squeezing into their narrow cockpits.

“That contact,” Butch shouted back over the rising noise, “is that the same one our boys have already gone after? Or another one?”

“Do I look like I know?” Duff yelled forward. “Just strap in, cross your fingers, and get her ready to roll!”

The last plane from the previous patrol had finally caught a cable and was down, and the desperate front-to-back respotting began again. Butch looked to the storm-darkened sky and saw a stuttering exchange of tracers from machine-gun fire lighting up the distant clouds.

He put on his headset, got the signal, and called out ahead to clear the nearby crew. As he started up his engine and ticked through his preflight checklist, the radio told him what was happening up there: A formation of nine Japanese bombers had been found heading straight for Task Force 11. The latest patrol was doing all they could to shoot them down before they got close enough to drop their deadly load.

That created another emergency. The deck of the Lexington was crowded with fully fueled aircraft, a prime target for incoming bombers. The planes on the deck were the scouts, torpedo planes, and land attack craft meant for the raid on Rabaul. But they were useless now; the only thing needed in the air right then were fighters.

And there were only two of them left. Butch and Duff were sitting in those fighters, last in line to depart. They could only sweat it out and wait their turn as the rest of the vulnerable inventory was launched, one by one, into the relative safety of the open air.

The action in the sky was now close enough to see with the naked eye. A couple of enemy bombers had already spiraled into the sea, and now another one, the lead plane of the Japanese formation, was on fire and badly disabled—but it was still homing in on the carrier.

Thundering anti-aircraft guns cut loose from the Lex and the surrounding cruisers and destroyers, filling the attacker’s flight path with flak and blooming black bursts of shrapnel. But the plane kept coming. There was nothing left to do but watch as the flaming twin-engine bomber leveled, descended, and approached with suicidal intent, its pilot obviously struggling to hold his course on a kamikaze run toward the carrier deck.

At last focused gunfire tore through the cockpit and destroyed some final, vital system. The shredded enemy bomber lurched and snap-rolled into a screaming, careening, knife-edge pass and disappeared just shy of the hull of the carrier. It had only missed its mark by a stone’s throw as it crashed into the churning water beside the vessel.

Butch looked back to the runway. There was only one departing plane left in front of him, and Duff, in the last ready fighter, was the only backup behind him. He tuned his engine and ran it up to begin his taxi, pulling the canopy forward and closed. Soon the flag dropped to send him barreling down the white line behind 1,200 horsepower, and he was off like a homesick angel.

As soon as airspeed allowed, he banked into a climb toward his hastily assigned coordinates, fighting against buffeting winds as he cranked the heavy handle beside his leg thirty-two times in order to pull up the landing gear.

Manual retracts were one of the many pains-in-the-butt of this aging airframe. But what the Wildcat lacked in other areas, it made up for in pure iron guts and toughness. Butch had seen one of these birds come back from a sortie with more than five hundred bullet holes, perforated from end to end, and it was still out fighting again the next day.

By the time the wheels were up and locked Butch was nearly at altitude. He banked again onto a heading toward the aerial battle, which was now taking place well within sight of the American ships.

As his wingman joined alongside, Butch saw more enemy planes going down in the distance. Some of the survivors had dropped their bombs even as they struggled to evade the fleet’s defenders. So far those falling salvos were missing their targets by a comfortable margin.

Within seconds the few remaining Japanese bombers were breaking formation and scattering. Those that were able were bugging out and heading home defeated, with American fighters hot on their tails.

Butch keyed the radio.

“Raven Six, this is Raven Five. Duff, let’s have a gun check.”

“Roger that, though I don’t know why the hell we’d go to the trouble. Looks like we missed the party again.”

“Always a bridesmaid, never a bride,” Butch replied. Duff was right; by then the sky was empty and the high-speed chases had already disappeared from view. Nevertheless, procedure was procedure. He flipped on his illuminated sights, charged his guns, and fired a quick test burst from the four .50-caliber cannons mounted on his wings.

“Hey, Butch,” Duff radioed, forgoing the call-signs. “I’ve got a little problem over here—”

His wingman’s voice was abruptly cut off by a shouted transmission from the Lexington’s tower.

“Raven Five and Six and all available, we have bogies inbound, repeat, bogies are inbound from the east at—” The remaining words were obscured by a sharp crackle of static, maybe the interference of a stroke of lightning from one of the surrounding storms.

“Lexington, this is Raven Five,” Butch answered. “Say again, say again from ‘inbound.’ Did you say fifty miles out?”

“Raven Five, I said fifteen miles, one-five, large radar contact at your three o’clock low. Check that range, now twelve miles, twelve miles, it looks like a second damned full formation and she’s right on top of us, inbound dead astern at angels niner and descending!”

Twelve miles.

Butch checked his own coordinates as he did the math. Whatever was there was only a couple of minutes from the undefended flank of the task force—and, by his rough calculations, only a few thousand feet directly below his current position.

He pushed the nose down, Duff still on his wing, and soon, as he settled through a thick bank of haze and rainclouds, there they were.

Six—no, eight Japanese twin-engine land attack bombers—“Bettys,” as they were called in the briefings—were lined up on Task Force 11 in a tight formation, clearly on the final leg of an uncontested bombing run.

In the flurry of radio traffic during his descent, one thing became clear as a heart attack: No other fighters were anywhere near close enough to help in time. And while Duff was still with him, that problem he’d mentioned before was a fatal one: His guns were all jammed and he couldn’t fire a shot.

Butch was flying the only armed plane left in the sky—with a mere thirty-four seconds of live ammunition—the last man standing between that squadron of enemy bombers and the thousands of sailors and airmen below.

If this had been the Japanese plan all along, they’d executed it perfectly. They’d taken some losses, but they’d also drawn away every defending aircraft from Task Force 11 and left the door wide open for a devastating strike that could send several ships, including a U.S. carrier, straight to the bottom. Their victory was just ahead, and there was nothing the Americans could do to stop it.

Like hell, Butch thought.

He keyed the mic and looked over to his right. The two planes were close enough that he could see the grim expression on his wingman’s face.

“Duff, you stay clear, now.”

“What the hell are you going to do, Butch?”

“The same thing you’d do, buddy: whatever I can.”

• • •

If Butch had any advantages, they were raw speed and surprise. He rolled hard left and then pitched his Wildcat into a screaming descent, setting his sights on the trailing bomber on the right-hand side of the V formation. He streaked in from the high side and stayed off his guns until the Betty’s starboard engine crept into the crosshairs. When he fired, it was with a rifleman’s precision.

Those first few precious bullets tore through the enemy’s cowling and a cloud of black smoke and flames burst forth as a second careful volley pierced the wing tanks. Target number one dropped out of formation, badly disabled and barely under control.

Butch’s dad had taught him to shoot long ago and, so far, he would have been proud. The score was one down and seven to go, but from here on out it would be different. They knew he was there.

Butch jinked and evaded but held his heading as the Japanese tail-gunners swung their own cannons around and began returning fire. He took three quick shots at the next bomber up the line, and then, as Butch leveled off and rocketed through the crumbling formation, another Betty dropped out and spun downward in flames.

He pulled up and rolled out to set up for another run—this next one surely doomed to fail—and caught a brief glimpse of another lone Wildcat weaving its way through the bright tracers of the enemy defenses. It was Duff, dead guns and all, flying like a man possessed, trying his level best to distract their adversaries and draw their fire.

The second pass began just like the first, but things changed fast. As Butch pulled the trigger on the left-rear bomber he felt several heavy impacts thudding through his airframe. The Wildcat absorbed its punishment without a hitch. Meanwhile, Butch’s latest target had taken critical damage. The big plane banked to flee the fight, one engine afire, and dropped his bombs into the empty ocean below as he made a limping turn away.

Butch was amazed when he came around for his third high-side pass and saw only four bombers left in formation. The Lexington was now clearly in sight down below. Fierce anti-aircraft fire began to fill the air ahead. He dove in again, but this time there was nearly as much danger from the flak of the ship’s response as from the guns of the Japanese.

By the count in his head, his guns were running low. He again fired in metered bursts toward the most vulnerable points on the enemy planes. Through the crosshairs he watched one of the engines on the nearest Betty burst into flames, then he shifted toward the head of the V, scoring yet another direct hit on the leader that sent his port-side radial engine exploding out of its nacelle.

Between Butch’s one-man assault and the anti-aircraft fire from the task force, the remaining planes were bracketed and their formation nearly broken up.

On his fourth and final shooting pass, as those last bombers prepared to let loose their loads, Butch felt his guns finally run dry and silent. He banked and then leveled off with a seat-of-the-pants plan to run his plane into the side of one of the Bettys if need be.

But then, streaking in from behind and overhead, the cavalry arrived.

Led by Lieutenant Commander John “Jimmy” Thach, several fighters had just returned from their pursuit of the survivors of the first wave. The sight of them evidently convinced this tattered second formation of Bettys to give it up and flee. They dropped their bombs well short of the ships of the task force and split off to run for clear air with the Americans closing in for the kill.

• • •

One of the casualties of Butch’s run had been his radio, so he could neither transmit nor receive as he waited his turn for a landing on the Lex. It hadn’t hit him quite yet, what he’d done; all he felt was anxious to get the wheels back on the runway.

But his anxiousness didn’t last long. After rolling to a stop on the deck, Butch pulled back the canopy and stood up in his seat to a ship-wide cheer so loud and long, it sounded like the Cubs had finally won the Series at Wrigley Field.

Aboard the USS Enterprise, Central Pacific,

near the enemy-controlled Gilbert Islands

Twenty-two months later: November 26, 1943

With time and experience he’d grown accustomed to the rigors and chaos of battle. Every engagement was unique, of course, but that evening, as Butch sat in his cockpit—now in command of his own squadron—the scene outside looked strangely familiar. It was almost as though he’d lived this moment before.

Just like that long-ago day aboard the Lexington, the flight deck of the Enterprise was well-controlled mayhem. And, just like that day, a score of Japanese bombers had been detected on radar, heading in for blood. The Allies were preparing to go up to try to bring them down—but, unlike that first dogfight, this would be a rare nighttime engagement, a daring mission planned by Butch himself.

He completed his preflight checks and his eyes soon found the picture of his wife, Rita, that he’d clipped near the altimeter. Right beside it was another photo—his father and mother on one of their happier days, twenty years earlier. It was cracked and fading from time and much thoughtful handling.

In the end, it seemed as though Easy Eddie had been granted his final wish: He was already forgotten by most, but not by those he’d done his best to protect and care for.

Butch thought for a moment about his father and about everything that had brought him to the deck of this carrier. Two months after his incredible mission to save the Lexington, Butch had returned to the States on extended leave. With his wife by his side, he was escorted to the White House, where FDR himself promoted him to lieutenant commander. He was then presented with the first Medal of Honor awarded to a navy man in World War II.

The citation was for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in aerial combat, but later in the text it was stated more simply: In the course of saving his carrier and countless lives, Butch had performed the most daring single action in the history of combat aviation.

When he’d returned to his native St. Louis, sixty thousand people turned out for the parade that was held in his honor. The event was compared to the celebration of Lindbergh’s homecoming after his pioneering solo flight across the Atlantic.

The war effort needed heroes in the conflict’s earlier years, and Butch could very well have parlayed his well-earned fame into a safe, extended stateside public relations tour. But that wasn’t him. Before long he was back on active duty, first as a trainer and then in combat again.

Now, as Butch peered out his cockpit window and watched the busy deck of the USS Enterprise, he realized he’d been right: this was where he belonged. He took a last quiet moment to give thanks for everything and everyone who’d helped him get there, including a flawed man who’d no doubt be the first to admit he’d been far from the perfect dad.

The deck boss gave him the sign, the flag dropped, the engine roared, and Edward Henry “Butch” O’Hare tore down the runway and took off into the sky, never to return again.

• • •

Six years after being killed in combat and four years after the end of the war he’d helped the Allies win, Chicago’s Orchard Depot was renamed in Butch’s honor: O’Hare International Airport.