Oral History Interview with Stanley Vejtasa, October 1, 2000

Transcript of an oral interview with Stanley Vejtasa. Mr Vejtasa was born in 1914 on a farm in Montana. While at the University of Montana, he signed up for the Navy and went to Pensacola in 1938. He graduated from flight school and joined his first squadron, Scouting Squadron 5, in early 1939 on board the USS Yorktown which was based in San Diego; he was flying bi-planes (SBC-3). Vejtasa describes an exercise the Yorktown did with the USS Ranger in the Atlantic prior to the war, cruising down toward Africa and up to the north in the Atlantic. Shortly after December 7, 1941, the Yorktown was ordered to join the Pacific Fleet. When they went through the Panama Canal, they hung a sign on the back that said USS Wasp. Their first sortie was with the USS Enterprise on the Makin Islands strikes. After that, the Yorktown went into the South Pacific and participated in the strikes in the Guadalcanal area. He was flying a SBD now and describes the fogging problem with the gun sight and the glass. He was hit on one of these attacks but got back to the Yorktown safely. Next was the Battle of the Coral Sea. Vejtasa describes being behind the squadron's skipper (Bill Burch) when he hit the Japanese aircraft carrier Shoho with a 500 pound bomb, right in the middle of the flight deck about a third of the way back from the bow. He also tells the story after he landed back on the Yorktown of several Japanese aircraft coming down toward his carrier but they did not bomb or strafe; no idea why. Vijtasa states he was on the deck of the Yorktown and saw them abandoning the Lexington. After the Yorktown's return to Pearl Harbor, Vejtasa was detached because he had orders to the Fighting Ten, his new squadron, flying F-4s. After some training in San Diego and on Maui, they landed aboard the Enterprise which sailed for the South Pacific and operations around Guadalcanal. Vejtasa describes in good detail the Battle of Santa Cruz. This was the end of most of his combat as he was assigned to a training squadron. Vijtasa eventually joined an air group at Alameda that was supposed to go out but the war was over. He stayed in the Navy after the war, retiring in July 1970. He was commanding officer of the USS Constellation for a year starting in November 1963. Very good oral history with nice descriptions