Pearl Harbor

Verified today that Mosley was shot down in his PBY and — killed  — with his whole crew in the Midway battle. The only PBY and crew lost. Poor old Mose – one hell of a good kid. Was heard to say before taking off, “Well, I guess this time they’ll get me.”

Mosley was in old VP-22 and went out to the East Indies last December to help VP-101 and -102. He saw action at Ambon, Menado, Timor and Port Darwin. While flying out of Darwin, one day towards the end of February, he ran into a bunch of Zero fighters (most likely out of Koepang, Timor). One of their first shots creased his scalp, laying it wide open, and knocking him cold. When he came to, his plane was afire, and the Zeros had left him as a dead duck. He landed it, got out, and after it sank, he was picked up by a ship headed for Australia. A few hours later this ship was torpedoed and sank. He and most of the crew managed to swim ashore to a nearby island (the island just west of Melville Island — north of Darwin). There they lived in misery for two or three days on tinned goods washed ashore and coconuts.They made the letters SOS in the sand, and were eventually spotted by a patrol plane out of Darwin and rescued. After that narrow squeak, Mose often contended he was living on borrowed time — I guess he was.