A new book details the courage of World War II pilots — including two Clay County veterans — during the worst non-combat disaster in U.S. Marine Corps aviation history that went largely unknown because of a military cover-up.

"The Marines' Lost Squadron: The Odyssey of VMF-422" written by aviation historian Mark Carlson examines the once-secret mission that began as a one-day "milk run" to move a squadron of new single-engine Corsair fighter planes out of harm's way in the Pacific but evolved into a harrowing tragedy spanning three days in January 1944.

It cost six pilots their lives and sent 22 of the fighter planes to the bottom of the ocean.

Carlson, in the book published by Sunbury Press, describes a group of young men suddenly challenged beyond their experience. The book details a desperate and courageous fight for survival against the forces of nature and a conspiracy of silence.

Known as the Flying Buccaneers, 23 pilots of Marine squadron VMF-422 were ordered to fly their fighter planes from Tarawa to Funafuti, about 800 miles away, in advance of the planned Marine and Navy assault on the Marshall Islands.

Such routine, typically low-risk flights were dubbed a "milk run" by military pilots. Instead, a perfect storm of circumstances including errors by the commanding general, an outdated weather forecast, poor communications and a monstrous typhoon doomed the squadron.

George Hadley Davidson and John Edward Hansen survived the ordeal, which they recounted in a 2013 interview with the Times-Union. The WWII veterans, who lived about a mile apart in Clay County, were featured in "The Flintlock Disaster," a 2012 television documentary about the tragedy narrated by Tom Brokaw.

Hansen was a 24-year-old Marine first lieutenant, and the only one of the ill-fated squadron to reach Funafuti safely.

"It was startling, scary, but you do it because you have to do it," Hansen told the Times-Union about flying through the typhoon. 

Visibility was virtually nonexistent in the driving rain, and the pilots struggled to keep control of the fighter planes as screaming winds slammed them up, down and side to side. At one point, the planes were about 200 feet above the water and it was so difficult to maneuver that more than a few planes nearly collided, he said

"It got pretty hairy. ... When you got down to 200 feet over the water, when an airplane turns there's not much room," Hansen said.

A 29-year-old Navy lieutenant, Davidson, piloted the twin-engine PBY-5A seaplane whose crew rescued 13 of the Marine pilots, who were on their third day in rafts roughly the size of a baby's bassinet fighting off sharks, rough seas and the blistering sun.

"If I had been down there, I would have wanted someone to do the same for me," Davidson said years later of rescuing the Marines being battered and tossed by 30-foot swells.

As Davidson set the seaplane down, a huge wave ripped off its right engine and cracked the aircraft's hull. They got all the marines on board, but couldn't take off because of extra weight and sea water pouring in as fast as they could bail it out. So, Davidson kept them all afloat by keeping the plane's nose in the wind for about two hours until the destroyer USS Hobby arrived.

Hansen retired as a colonel in the Marine Corps, and passed away at age 93 on Oct. 7, 2013. Davidson retired as a Navy lieutenant commander, and passed away at age 98 on Oct. 16, 2014.

"I was just doing my job. I was doing my duty," Davidson later told the newspaper.

The disaster was kept secret for years. At first it was to keep information from the Japanese, but then it was to protect the reputation and career of the commanding general responsible for sending the squadron into the typhoon, according to the survivors.

Teresa Stepzinski: (904) 359-4075