Bruce Van Voorhis

Commander Bruce Avery Van Voorhis, Medal of Honor

Bruce Avery Van Voorhis was born on January 29, 1908, in Aberdeen, Washington. He entered the United States Naval Academy and graduated in 1929, beginning a career in the United States Navy that would lead him into naval aviation and eventually to command in the Pacific during the Second World War.

By 1943, Van Voorhis was serving as a Lieutenant Commander and commanding officer of Bombing Squadron 102. On July 6, 1943, he volunteered for an urgent and extremely dangerous mission against Japanese-held Greenwich Island, also known as Kapingamarangi Atoll. American forces in the Solomon Islands were under threat, and the mission was intended to disrupt enemy preparations and communications.

Van Voorhis took command of a PB4Y-1 patrol bomber, the Navy’s version of the four-engine B-24 Liberator. Flying without fighter escort or supporting aircraft, he and his crew crossed hundreds of miles of open ocean in darkness to reach the target.

Arriving over the atoll, Van Voorhis pressed the attack at very low altitude. Despite heavy anti-aircraft fire and enemy fighter opposition, he made repeated bombing and strafing runs against Japanese installations. His aircraft destroyed a radio station, anti-aircraft positions, and other enemy facilities. During the attack, his crew also shot down one enemy fighter and destroyed three seaplanes on the water.

The bomber was badly damaged by enemy fire and by the blast effects of its own low-level bombing runs. Van Voorhis continued the attack until the aircraft could no longer remain airborne. The PB4Y-1 crashed into the lagoon, killing Van Voorhis and all ten members of his crew.

For his extraordinary courage and devotion to duty, Bruce Avery Van Voorhis was posthumously promoted to Commander and awarded the Medal of Honor. The destroyer escort USS Van Voorhis was later named in his honour, and the airfield at Naval Air Station Fallon, Nevada, became Van Voorhis Field.

Commander Bruce Avery Van Voorhis is remembered as a naval aviator who accepted an almost impossible mission and carried it out with remarkable courage.