The record of Carrier Air Group 15 in World War II is astonishing by any measure: it scored 312 enemy aircraft destroyed, 33 probably destroyed, and 65 damaged in aerial combat, plus 348 destroyed, 161 probably destroyed, and 129 damaged in ground attacks. Twenty-six Fighting 15 pilots became aces, including their leader, Commander David McCampbell, who became the U.S. Navy s Ace of Aces. Twenty-one squadron pilots were killed in action and one in an operational accident aboard the carrier Essex. The fighter squadron s partners, Bombing Squadron 15 and Torpedo Squadron 15, scored 174,300 tons of enemy shipping, including 37 cargo vessels sunk, 10 probably sunk, and 39 damaged. As well, Musashi, the world s largest battleship, was sunk, along with a light aircraft carrier, a destroyer, destroyer escort, two minesweepers and other craft plus the Zuikaku, the last surviving carrier that participated in the Pearl Harbor attack. Incredibly, every pilot of Torpedo 15 was awarded the Navy Cross, the highest award for bravery after the Medal of Honor. All of this took place between May and November, 1944. No other American combat unit in any service came close to a similar score in such a short time period. Air Group 15 participated in the two greatest naval battles in history, the Philippine Sea also known as the Marianas Turkey Shoot and Leyte Gulf, which saw the end of Japanese naval power. On June 19, 1944, Fighting 15 shot down 68.5 attacking Japanese aircraft, a one-day record unmatched by any other U.S. fighter squadron. In documenting the saga of Air Group 15 s momentous six months at war, the author provides an intimate and insightful view of the group s fabled combat tour, including details of daily life and human interactions aboard the fleet carrier USS Essex during the busiest phase of the Pacific War. REVIEWS - Few authors cover aviation and war with the authenticity that Thomas McKelvey Cleaver brings to "Fabled Fifteen." The carrier based naval aviators who fought in the Pacific in World War II had a difficult, demanding, exciting job and Cleaver captures their experience, from a well known Medal of Honor ace to an obscure, lowly ensign. This is a fast paced, character driven narrative that will grab you and hold you.— Robert F. Dorr, author Mission To Tokyo. Cleaver's book is a splendid effort that is eminently readable, detailed, and action packed. Buttressed by years of research, the book is not just a dry recounting of dates and missions; rather, it examines the men and their lives through interviews with surviving members, diaries and contemporary letters. Cleaver uses it all to transform words on a page into real and empathetic men.— LCOL Jay A. Stout USMC (Ret), author, Fighter Group. Cleaver provides a very clear sequence of both naval strategy and tactics of both sides of the two greatest naval battles in history, the Marianas Turkey Shoot and the Battles of Leyte Gulf.— CDR Jack D. Woodul, USN (Ret). Cleaver does a magnificent job in telling the human side of the story of Carrier Air Group 15, perhaps the most successful of its type. The author gives the human story of the heroism of the fighter, dive bomber and torpedo plane pilots who inflicted tremendous losses on the Japanese. But he also places Air Group 15 s exploits in the context of the larger events of the war.— COL Walter J. Boyne, USAF (Ret), retired curator, National Air And Space Museum, author The Wild Blue. Thomas McKelvey Cleaver's FABLED FIFTEEN, The Pacific War Saga of Carrier Air Group 15 is a great bit of history mixing factual research and the personal touch through letters and interviews. The sagas of USS Enterprise, Air Wing 15 and its CAG, David McCampbell, have each been told before, but, until now, not together in a comprehensible and readable whole. This book is on the top of my reference stack. CDR Robert R. Boom Powell, USN (Ret). Previous accounts of Air Group 15's activities have mostly been a summary of flight records with little other detail, so we have learned little of the men who actually flew and maintained the planes during that time. They all have fascinating stories to tell that the author has captured for our enjoyment.— CDR David P. McCampbell, USN (Ret).
Author
Most of my non-fiction writing is in the field of aviation, primarily the history of people, units and events, though I am also interested in technological developments and their influence on events. I first ran across "serious" aviation writing when I was 10 and found William Green's "All The World's Aircraft, 1954" - the first book I read that seriously dealt with aircraft development beyond picture books. Over the years I read many books by Bill (as I came eventually to know him), and 25 years later he was the first editor to professionally publish an article by me about an aviation topic (a feature about people in California who restored, owned and operated antique airplanes). Not only did he publish the article, he used my photograph for the cover of that issue of Air Enthusiast Quarterly! In the years that followed, Bill became a friend through the mail, a source of valuable insight about writing, and an enthusiastic supporter of my efforts. I've had a lot of success that way with fellow authors. My interest in the field of aviation must be genetic. My mother's favorite tale about me was that my first word, spoken around age 1, was "o-pane!" when we were in a park in Denver, and I pointed up at a P-38 as it flew overhead. My father was involved in aviation in the 1930s, and knew most of the Major Names of the era, like Jimmy Doolittle, Roscoe Turner, and even Ernst Udet. (As an aside, I met General Doolittle myself in 1976. Upon hearing my name, he looked me up and down, then shook his head and said "Nope, too young and too tall." Taken aback for a moment, I realized he was thinking of my father, also a Tom Cleaver. Once I identified myself, he told me a story about my father I had never heard before. I later discovered he had near-perfect recall of names and events.) I grew up looking at my father's photo albums of the old airplanes he had been around, which is probably why I most enjoy airplanes from those years. In addition to writing about airplanes, I take pictures of them in flight. As a result of both activities, I have flown in everything from a Curtiss Jenny to an Air Force F-4E Phantom (definitely the best rollercoaster ride ever), and have additionally been up in World War II airplanes - the P-51 Mustang, P-40 Warhawk, SBD Dauntless, B-25 Mitchell, and many many many times in a T-6. As a pilot myself, I have about 200 hours in a Stearman biplane trainer as a member of a club back in the 1970s. I am certain my personal knowledge of flying as a pilot has helped me put a reader "in the cockpit" in my writing. While I have advanced college and university degrees, I consider myself an autodidact, and I see the involvement with airplanes as my key to the world of self-education, as I would ask myself "what was that airplane used for?" which led to such questions as "how did that war happen?" I was also fortunate to grow up in a home with lots of books and a father who enjoyed history; between that and forays to the Denver Public Library (a Saturday spent in the stacks at the Main Library was a day in heaven), my education was very eclectic in subject matter. My "film school" education came on Saturday afternoons spent at the old Park Theater on South Gaylord Street in Denver, where I went every Saturday from age 7 to age 15 when the theater closed, and watched everything that played on-screen. Somewhere along there, I learned the meaning of "good movie."
