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The Diary of a Naval Aviator
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Category: March, 1942

March 21, 1942 (Saturday)

March 21, 2017 1271941

South Pacific Getting warmer.

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Posted in: March, 1942

March 20, 1942 (Friday)

March 20, 2017 1271941

South Pacific 1200 position. 145 degrees 45 seconds West, 38 degrees 30 seconds South. Had quite an argument concerning the…

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March 19, 1942 (Thursday)

March 19, 2017 1271941

Southern Pacific In the “roaring forties” again – cold and stormy. Speeded up and San Francisco date changed to March…

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March 18, 1942 (Wednesday)

March 18, 2017 1271941

South Pacific Was thinking last night of some of the wonderful shots I could’ve gotten with my movie camera at…

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March 17, 1942 (Tuesday)

March 17, 2017 1271941

South Pacific Woke at 0730 with a sinking feeling as I felt a slight vibration pass through the ship. Damnation,…

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March 16, 1942 (Monday)

March 16, 2017 1271941

Wellington, New Zealand Took a group of the fellows up to the RAF headquarters for lunch and palaver – the…

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March 15, 1942 (Sunday)

March 15, 2017 1271941

Wellington, New Zealand Pulled into Wellington a little past noon. Immediately our own little “fly in the ointment” produced a…

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March 14, 1942 (Saturday)

March 14, 2017 1271941

Tasman Sea Finish Dumas’ “Count of Monte Christo” – very long and involved plot – well-written however. Also finished “Here…

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March 13, 1942 (Friday)

March 13, 2017 1271941

Tasman Sea Friday the 13th! But it was uneventful. This Mount Vernon (or ex-Washington) is really a tremendous ship –…

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March 12, 1942 (Thursday)

March 12, 2017 1271941

Bass Strait Passed through Bass Strait (between Australia and Tasmania) into the Tasman Sea early this afternoon. Heard after dinner…

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A secret for 75 years

Kailua resident James Claire Nolan kept a secret most of his life. A Navy pilot during World War II, he kept a detailed diary and drew pictures throughout the conflict, a practice frowned upon by security-minded authorities. When he died in the early 1990s, he entrusted the pages to his friend and military historian Burl Burlingame of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Burlingame is now Historian at the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum.

Trained as a navy bomber pilot, Nolan was rushed to the Dutch East Indies as war broke out and returned to Pearl Harbor, where he was pressed into service flying PBY “Catalina” flying boats on patrol.

Later, Nolan served with distinction at the battle of Midway, on Guadalcanal and became the personal pilot for Vice Adm. Aubrey Fitch. Nolan said his proudest moment came when in the summer of ’43 he discovered the slowly sinking bow of USS Helena, sheared off by a Japanese torpedo several days before and covered with desperate survivors. He stuck with the ship until help arrived.

After the war, Nolan joined the US Air Force and continued to fly. In civilian life, he was a historian at Hickam Air Force Base.

We are publishing these diary entries exactly 75 years to the day after these pages were written. Except for very minor spelling and grammatical updates, they are as written — including observations that may seem not “politically correct” these days. It is a look into the mindset of a young man fighting a war across a vast ocean.

This site will remain active for five years. It is sponsored by historical-interpretation company Pacific Monograph.

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