Richard Best: Navy pilot who hit two carriers in Battle of Midway

Richard H. Best, a former Navy bomber pilot who scored hits on two of the four Japanese aircraft carriers that sank in the critical Battle of Midway during World War II, has died. He was 91.

Mr. Best, a retired security manager at the Rand Corp., died Oct. 26 in Santa Monica, Calif.

The Battle of Midway — June 4-6, 1942 — is considered the decisive battle of the war in the Pacific.

Before the battle, according to experts at the Naval Historical Center in Washington, D.C., the Japanese were on the offensive and had planned to capture Midway to use it as an advance base and entrap and destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

But the Pacific Fleet surprised the Japanese forces and sank its four carriers, which had attacked Pearl Harbor only six months earlier. After the victory at Midway, the Allies took the offensive in the Pacific.

For his actions in the battle, Mr. Best received the Navy Cross and the Distinguished Flying Cross.

"He exemplified the young Navy pilots who turned the tide of the Second World War," said Jack Green of the Naval Historical Center.

"He never bragged about it, but he was obviously very proud of it because he would tell of his experiences to groups such as ours," said Matthew Portz, a retired Navy captain who, along with Mr. Best, belonged to the Order of Daedalians, the national fraternity of military pilots.

Born in Bayonne, N.J., Mr. Best was inspired to become a pilot by listening to the exploits of air veterans of World War I. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1932, served on the USS Richmond, a light cruiser, and began flight training in 1934. He later taught instrument flying and evaluated torpedo-bomber tactics in Pensacola, Fla.

In June, 1940, Mr. Best returned to the fleet and requested to be assigned to dive bombers. By mid-1942, he was an experienced combat pilot assigned to the aircraft carrier Enterprise in the Pacific.

During the first mission in the Battle of Midway, a faulty oxygen canister created gases that turned to caustic soda. Mr. Best had breathed in the soda and was told it had activated latent tuberculosis.

"I knew my career was dead," Mr. Best told Portz. "I never flew again."

After undergoing 32 months of treatment, Mr. Best retired from the Navy in 1944 with a 100 percent disability. Between the ages of 32 and 42, Portz said, Mr. Best spent four years in and out of the hospital recovering from tuberculosis. After the war, he worked at Douglas Aircraft and in 1947 joined the Rand Corp.

He is survived by his daughter, Barbara Ann Llewellyn; his son, Richard Halsey Best II; and a grandson.