Wildman Over Barakoma
Chris Magee
September 18th 1943
Chris Magee (aka Wildman) of VMF-214 was assigned to cover naval forces involved in a landing on
Vella LaVella. Magee spotted Japanese Val dive bombers heading to bomb the landing craft.
He quickly dove on the group and shot down one Val. He then chased them into the friendly
anti-aircraft fire where he shot down anotherin a head on pass. Suddenly he was attacked by
Zeros and after taking significant damage managed to elude the attackers.
At the end of the day he had over 30 bullet holes in his plane, 2 kills
and was awarded the Navy Cross.
