Battle of Midway Dive bomb pilot turns 100

[Aktungbby]

(You simply Do not put a big red dot on two ship's decks-Kaga and Hiryu- for a boy from Coffeyville Kansas(the Dalton gang demise at the hands of citizens) who could shoot a BB gun before he could ride a bike...and whose Aunt Helen was the Women's Shotgun Campion of Kansas.)

Kleiss took aim at a big red circle on the Kaga.

"I released a 500-pound bomb at 1,500 feet (instead of the usual 2,500 feet) (and) my two 100-pound incendiaries at 1,000 feet," he wrote in the diary.

Barely managing to make the pullout because he dived so low to be sure and hit, "When I glanced back, I saw an explosion in progress on the big red circle, or rather a big one and a little one of greater intensity. A second later, the entire ship was a mass of flames 100 feet high."

Kleiss also scored a hit(1 of five) on the cruiser Mikuma causing its destruction.