On September 2, 1944, USS Finback rescued a young U.S. Navy aviator who would later become President of the United States: George H. W. Bush. Bush, then 20 and serving with Torpedo Squadron 51 from USS San Jacinto, had taken part in a bombing mission against Japanese installations on Chichi Jima in the Bonin Islands.
Bush’s TBM Avenger was hit by Japanese anti-aircraft fire during its attack on a radio-transmission target. With the aircraft burning, he completed the bombing run and flew out over the water before bailing out. His two crewmates, radioman John Delaney and gunner William White, did not survive. USS Finback, operating nearby on submarine “lifeguard” duty for downed aviators, reached Bush and brought him aboard. The rescue was filmed by a sailor, creating rare surviving footage of a future U.S. president being pulled from the Pacific.
The episode has an especially grim historical context. During the early-September raids around Chichi Jima, other American airmen were captured by the Japanese garrison. Postwar war-crimes proceedings established that prisoners were executed and that some victims were cannibalized by Japanese officers. Bush was the only one of the nine aviators who survived after being shot down in the Chichi Jima operation; his recovery by Finback spared him capture and almost certain death.
Image: Future President of The United States, George H. W. Bush, being rescued by the submarine, the USS Finback via NARA / Wikimedia Commons, public domain
