Seven at Santa Cruz: the life of fighter ace Stanley "Swede" Vejtasa

This well-written, thoughtful biography of Swede Vejtasa opens with a legitimate hook. Having just been ordered to escort a twenty-plane, late afternoon strike againsta Japanese armada he knew to be unreachable, Lieutenant Stanley ""Swede"" Vejtasa, to a packed ready room, loudly proclaimed, ""The Admiral is a stupid ass.""

Just who was this guy? Six months earlier during the Battle of the Coral Sea, Swede was flying a Dauntless dive bomber and helped sink Soho, Japan's first carrier loss. The next day, in that same dive bomber he outflew and outgunned three Zeros, making him the only dive bomber pilot to be awarded Navy Crosses for both bombing and aerial combat.

Now, some six months later Swede was flying an F4F Wildcat fighter, and this afternoon had no recourse but to follow orders he knew to be insane. They flew their predictably empty search legs and beyond, only to discover upon their return to Point Option in the dark, Enterprise was nowhere to be found. Admiral Kinkaid hadabandoned them. Incredibly Swede located the oil slick he'd noticed seeping from Enterprise during a morning CAP and was able to track it back to the carrier. Crashes,ditches, and panic in the dark cost eight planes and two men. What Swede most feared had come to pass, and this, on the eve of the Battle of Santa Cruz.

The morning after their harrowing return, the fate of the Enterprise, and by extension, Guadalcanal, lay in the hands of that same Swede Vejtasa. He responded by single-handedly downing an unprecedented two dive bombers and six Japanese torpedo bombers attacking his carrier. Skipper Jimmy Flatley recognized that in all likelihood Swede had saved Enterprise from destruction; with no hesitation, he recommended the Medal of Honor for Swede.

Beyond his heroics in two key World War II carrier battles, Seven at Santa Cruz chronicles a distinguished naval career. Subsequent billets included two grueling Korean War tours serving aboard Essex as Air Boss, CO of the USS Constellation,(America's newest super-carrier immediately following the Cuba Missile Crisis), and command at NAS Miramar, where he molded the Topgun Fighter School.

Four appendices open with a point-by-point analysis of the little understood, disastrous Goose Chase the evening preceding the Battle of Santa Cruz. The secondunravels the historical disunity concerning Swede's intercept the following day. The third examines Admiral Kinkaid's flawed leadership at Santa Cruz, and the fourth considers Jimmy Flatley's once-in-a-career, twice-derailed Medal of Honor recommendation.

A remarkable group of previously unpublished photos compliments Swede's intriguingstoryline. Photos include Swede shaving on Guadalcanal, his Grim Reaper mates lounging on a Wildcat, the horrors of a crash aboard Essex, and a low-level overflightof three Russian ""Bear"" long-range bombers. A signed and dated photo showed Swede amiably hosting Chiang Kai-shek aboard the Constellation at the height of theCold War.