🇺🇸A kid from Chicago was about to endure unimaginable suffering.
At Midway, a 23-year-old American pilot escaped his burning torpedo bomber and parachuted into the Pacific.
For years, the U.S. Navy believed he had simply vanished in battle.
Then Japan surrendered, and a captured report revealed the horrifying truth: The enemy had taken him alive...
His name was Wesley Frank Osmus, but everyone called him "Wes".
---------------------------------------------------
Follow @Vanguard_WW2 to discover more extraordinary - and heartbreaking - stories from World War II.
---------------------------------------------------
"Wes" was a Chicago kid who had joined the Naval Reserve in March 1940 to help pay his way through college. His instructors quickly recognized a talented and promising young aviator and encouraged him to enter flight training.
"Wes" earned his wings in 1941. He could have returned to university. Instead, he chose to remain in the Navy.
On June 4, 1942, Ensign Osmus took off from USS Yorktown in a slow and increasingly obsolete TBD Devastator, accompanied by his radio-gunner, Benjamin Dodson Jr.
About 14 miles from the Japanese carrier fleet, Zero fighters riddled their aircraft and set a fuel tank ablaze. Burning gasoline began spreading through the plane.
"Wes" desperately called Dodson over the intercom. There was no answer.
Osmus bailed out. Dodson, probably dead or gravely wounded, disappeared into the Pacific with the burning aircraft.
Japanese sailors spotted "Wes" during his descent and hauled him aboard the destroyer Arashi.
Wounded and badly burned, the young pilot was beaten, humiliated, and tortured. Threatened with decapitation, he was forced to reveal information about the American carrier force.
That evening, Arashi’s captain ordered his execution. A sailor struck "Wes" in the neck with a fire axe. The first blow failed to kill him, leaving the wounded American desperately clinging to a steel chain over the destroyer’s stern.
A second blow ended his struggle. His body disappeared into the Pacific.
After the war, American investigators questioned surviving Japanese sailors and reconstructed the murder. No one was ever prosecuted: the captain who ordered it and most of those involved had already died.
Wesley Osmus received the Navy Cross posthumously. The U.S. Navy later placed the Chicago kid’s name on a warship: USS Osmus.
His remains were never recovered. But his story was.
May he rest in peace forever.
🇺🇸 They survived the Battle of Midway.
Eleven days later, Japanese sailors tied heavy metal cans to their bodies and threw them alive into the Pacific.
Their names were Frank O’Flaherty and Bruno Gaido.
Follow @Vanguard_WW2 to keep the stories of men like them from being forgotten.
On June 4, 1942, Ensign Frank W. O’Flaherty (Nevada), 24, climbed into the cockpit of an SBD Dauntless aboard USS Enterprise. Behind him sat his radioman and gunner, Aviation Machinist’s Mate First Class Bruno P. Gaido (Illinois), 26.
Gaido had already proved his extraordinary courage: Four months earlier, a damaged Japanese bomber had plunged toward Enterprise. While everyone else ran for cover, Gaido jumped into the rear cockpit of a parked Dauntless and opened fire with its twin machine guns.
The bomber clipped the aircraft and crashed into the sea. Gaido calmly climbed out and disappeared below deck, apparently worried that he would be punished for leaving his station.
Admiral William "Bull" Halsey found him, and promoted him on the spot!
Now, at Midway, O’Flaherty and Gaido flew with Scouting Squadron Six against the Japanese carrier Kaga.
They plunged through enemy fighters and antiaircraft fire as American bombs turned the carrier into a blazing wreck.
Their own Dauntless was damaged and began losing fuel. They never made it back to Enterprise.
O’Flaherty brought the aircraft down on the Pacific. Both men survived the ditching and waited for rescue.
But the ship that found them was Japanese. The destroyer Makigumo pulled the two Americans from the water and took them prisoner.
For days, they were interrogated while the defeated Japanese fleet withdrew across the Pacific.
Then, on June 15, the order came to dispose of them. The Americans’ hands were bound.
Water-filled metal cans were tied to their bodies.
Then they were thrown overboard alive.
The weights dragged Frank O’Flaherty and Bruno Gaido beneath the surface of the Pacific.
Their families were initially told only that they were missing. The truth about their murder emerged after the war from Japanese records and testimony.
O’Flaherty was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross. A destroyer escort, USS O’Flaherty, was later named in his honor.
Gaido received the Distinguished Flying Cross.
They survived the fighters.
They survived the flak.
They survived their damaged aircraft and the crash into the ocean.
They did not survive captivity.
Remember their names:
Ensign Frank Woodrow O’Flaherty.
Aviation Machinist’s Mate First Class Bruno Peter Gaido.
Sep 18, 2026 · 6:31 PM UTC