WYGONIK-WALTER

KILLED  IN  ACTION

ARM2 Walter Wygonik was the radioman assigned to the three-man crew of a TBF Avenger torpedo bomber that flew from USS WASP on October 13, 1944, to attack a Japanese airfield on Formosa.  As they approached the shoreline near their target at 1,800 feet a crewmember later said, “They threw the kitchen sink at us.  The sky was full of tracers.”  Suddenly the plane violently lurched with a shudder and a hole appeared in the port wing described as “the size of an ashcan.”  Almost immediately another hit on the plane in the bomb bay igniting a gas tank and the pilot quickly yelled, “Mayday!  Mayday!” 

The pilot successfully exited the falling plane but the two enlisted crewmen had difficulty hooking their parachutes.  ARM2 Wygonik was reportedly finally successful in hooking his parachute but delayed his departure from the plane as he valiantly assisted the turret gunner jump from the plane.  Although the gunner’s parachute opened just before he hit the water with the plane plunging into the water nearby at almost the same time, ARM2 Wygonik was not so fortunate and he died in the crash of the doomed plane as it hit the water.  Tragically, delaying his departure from the crashing plane left him with insufficient time to save his own life.  His name has been inscribed on the Tablets of the Missing at the American Cemetery and Memorial in Manila, Philippines.

Submitted by CDR Roy A. Mosteller, USNR (Ret)