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An old baseball cap rests quietly on display at Heritage Flight Museum. Many years ago, its color was deep navy blue; now it is a faded, murky grey. The cap’s bill is frayed; its crown has a ragged hole. This cap is a veteran not just of years, but of war. This is a brief story of its owner, Harry Ferrier.

On January 28, 1941, a few days after his 16th birthday, Harry Ferrier lied about his age to join the US Navy. It was a fib that nearly cost him his life when, in the following year, he participated in one of the most famous and decisive engagements in naval history, the Battle of Midway, 4-7 June 1942. At that famous battle, the Japanese attempted to seize the Midway Islands with the goal of luring the US Navy aircraft carriers to battle and destroying them.

Harry Ferrier was part of a three-man crew on a TBF Avenger torpedo bomber. His duties were in the plane’s tail, where, sporting a jaunty baseball cap, he operated the radio and manned a .30 caliber machine gun. The other members of his crew were Bert Earnest, pilot, and Jay Manning, turret gunner. They were one aircraft of a six-plane detachment from Torpedo Squadron 8 (VT-8) based on the Midway Islands.

On the day of battle, Ferrier’s squadron was the first to engage the Japanese carrier task force. As the TBF Avengers of VT-8 attacked, they were mauled by swarms of Japanese fighters. Almost instantly, bullets and shells ripped through Ferrier’s aircraft, wounding both he & pilot Earnest, and killing the gunner, Jay Manning. Despite his wound and the plane being shot to pieces, Harry kept firing back. Then, a bullet gouged through his scalp, and he was unconscious.

A short while later, Harry came to. He was sprawled over his machine gun, with blood everywhere. He examined the baseball cap he had been wearing: the bullet had clipped the bill, then ripped a hole through the hat. The bullet that had torn through his scalp had come only a fraction of an inch from killing him.

Harry was able to report to his pilot that he was still alive. Their aircraft was a flying wreck, all instruments shot out, radios dead. Nonetheless, pilot Bert Earnest found Midway and crash-landed on the island. He and Harry Ferrier were flying the only plane to return. They were the sole survivors of the 18 men of Midway’s Torpedo 8.
But their sacrifice was not in vain. Despite heavy initial losses like Ferrier’s squadron, the US went on to sink all four of the aircraft carriers Japan had sent against Midway.

That was June 4, 1942. On this June 4th, we at Heritage Flight Museum honor Harry Ferrier, Torpedo Squadron 8, and all the men who lost their lives during the Battle of Midway.

It’s time for Tour the Vault Tuesday! As part of America 250, we are celebrating Ohio Firsts and Originals in January. Today we are highlighting an artifact from an early Ohio original!

This dog tag was issued to Captain Eddie Rickenbacker when he was a First Lieutenant during World War I.

Born in Columbus, OH in 1890, Rickenbacker grew up in a rough neighborhood and was used to making his own way. He was fascinated with machines and eventually became a successful race car driver known as “Fast Eddie.” During a trip to England in 1914 to work on his new race car, Rickenbacker witnessed The Royal Flying Corps flying over the Thames, and got the idea that if the U.S. should enter WWI, race car drivers could prove to be valuable pilots. When the U.S. did enter, his idea was dismissed, as the military preferred to train college educated men rather than working class men for aviation.

Due to his fame as a race car driver, in May of 1917 Rickenbacker was invited to chauffeur for General John J. Pershing, and less than a month later found himself in France chauffeuring numerous officers from Headquarters to the Western Front. He did not forget his dream of flying however, and when he was offered the job of chief engineer at the flight school in Issoudun he used that to bargain for flight lessons. He completed flight training and gunnery school to finally become a fighter pilot in March of 1918.

Rickenbacker went on his first sortie in mid-April, and by the end of May had six aerial victories. After an almost four month long illness, he was named commander of the 94th Aero Squadron in September. There he would earn his remaining 20 aerial victories in less than two months, becoming America’s leading ace of WWI with a total of 26. After the war, Rickenbacker worked with numerous automobile and airplane companies, and even owned the Indianapolis Motor Speedway from 1927-1945.