A Navy veteran from Watertown remembers the air battles he flew during that conflict very well. Now, he's sharing his story and those of other military heroes so their experiences won't be forgotten.
For the past 45 years, David Longworth has made his living correcting teeth at his orthodontist clinic in Watertown.
His office is decorated with sketches and paintings of old war planes and aircraft carriers. He loves to tell stories of his days as a sailor, including when he enlisted in the navy. He says, "That was in 1947, I was 17 years old. So anyone who wants to do the math, I'm over 56."
He remembers the end of World War II, when he was a teenager. It was then he decided to follow in his brother's footsteps to become a pilot for the Navy. "It was pretty intense years growing up when I was in high school. I didn't want to be out of there if there was trouble, I wanted to be involved like my brother."
At the time, there was a growing conflict in Korea. Longworth was stationed there on an aircraft carrier in 1952. "We were getting shot at everyday and getting shot down and getting back and getting another airplane and doing it again."
Lieutenant Commander Longworth regularly flew missions into enemy territory to bomb strategic targets; he was almost always under enemy fire. "Sometimes you could see it in the way it would look like big black puffs and other times you couldn't see it unless you were low enough or could see the tracers of the bullets."
Longworth wasn't always able to say out of harm's way. "I was trying to bomb a bridge, what I didn't know was that all the guns in the seaport were focused on me. The sky in back of me started to look like fireworks on the 4th of July."
Longworth somehow bombed his target and headed out, back to the safety of the sea. "I was just up to altitude when I began to lose speed. My oil pressure was at zero."
Desperately trying to restart his engines, Longworth aimed his plane for water and braced himself. "When I struck the water, it was a thunderous noise. It was over in a matter of seconds, I'd say, 4 or 5 seconds and I was stopped and it was absolutely silent, couldn't even hear the water gurgling."
After leaving the cockpit, Longworth found himself alone in the ocean, where he watched his aircraft sink. He was able to salvage a raft and waited 2 hours before a U.S. destroyer rescued him. Longworth has long since retired from the service, but his vivid memories convinced him others would enjoy his story. "It is just so easy to regress back to that period in my life because I loved to fly, loved what I did and wanted to do it all the time."
He penned a book called "Survivor." In it are stories of heroic dogfights and other air battles over land and sea. Not all the tales have a happy ending, but Longworth says it's important to honor his friends who died fighting for the country. "One time I was talking with my wife and I said how old were we, how old was Don when he was shot down? She said 21, and that was difficult. To think we were 21 and 22 years old is mind-boggling, because it was a pretty big responsibility, and everybody accepted it like it was their day-job."
All the more reason to remember the stories of heros of the past. Amazingly, Longworth knows where his plane is that was shot down in the Pacific Ocean. He wants to use the money he makes on the book to recover it and make a monument in South Dakota.
People can purchase Longworth's book by calling 1-800-338-9664.
