He Proved It with Matchsticks—Then Four Wildcats Faced a Sky Full of Predators
The matchsticks looked ridiculous on the wardroom table.
Four thin wooden slivers, laid out like toy airplanes on a field of scratched oak, while the carrier’s hull groaned and the Pacific rolled beneath them. Outside, men were sweating on a flight deck that never truly cooled. Inside, the air smelled like coffee, salt, and nerves pretending to be discipline.
Commander Elliot Thorne didn’t care that it looked ridiculous.
He stood over the table with the calm of a man who’d already seen what happened when calm ran out.
“Picture this,” he said, tapping one matchstick, “Wildcat. One of ours.”
He tapped a second. “Another Wildcat. Wingman.”
He tapped a third. “Enemy fighter. Faster. Turns tighter. Climbs like it’s got a grudge against gravity.”
A few pilots shifted in their chairs. Someone snorted softly. Nobody laughed out loud—no one wanted to be the guy who laughed right before getting assigned to the next impossible job.
Thorne’s eyes swept the room, pausing on each face as if he were memorizing them in advance.
Lieutenant Ben Hale sat with his arms folded, jaw tight, the kind of pilot who tried to look bored when he was furious. Ensign Tommy Keene—too young to have that many hours in the air, too stubborn to admit it—leaned forward like he might bite the table if the Commander talked long enough. Lieutenant (jg) Luis “Sparks” Rivera twirled a pencil between his fingers, smile faint, the exact smile men wore when they didn’t want you to see how fast their hearts were moving. And Chief Petty Officer Mack Macready, older than the others by a decade and a war, stared at the matchsticks as if daring them to disappoint him.
Thorne slid the “enemy” matchstick behind the first “Wildcat.”
“This is how it starts,” he said. “He’s on your tail. You see him late. Or you see him early and it doesn’t matter, because he can close anyway.”
Hale finally spoke. “So we dive. We run.”
“And he follows,” Thorne said. “Because he wants the easy finish. Because he thinks you’re alone.”
Keene frowned. “We are alone.”
Thorne’s hand moved. He pushed the first Wildcat matchstick toward the second, making them cross paths like an X.
“Not if you fly like you’re connected,” he said. “Not if your wingman is more than a witness.”
Rivera’s pencil stopped twirling. “You’re talking about weaving.”
“I’m talking about two planes acting like one trap,” Thorne replied. He moved the “enemy” matchstick as if chasing the first Wildcat—then slid the second Wildcat matchstick into position so the “enemy” crossed its path.
“Here,” Thorne said. “He commits. He follows the first. He thinks he’s got it.”
He tapped the second matchstick, the “wingman.” “And then your wingman turns into the threat.”
Macready’s voice came low, skeptical. “That assumes he holds position under pressure.”
Thorne didn’t flinch. “Yes.”
Hale leaned forward, eyes sharp. “And it assumes the enemy takes the bait.”
Thorne nodded once. “Yes.”
Keene swallowed. “And it assumes we don’t clip each other.”
Thorne’s gaze met his. “Yes.”
Silence gathered like a storm cloud.
Then Thorne added, softer, “There’s no version of this where it’s safe. There’s only a version where it’s survivable.”
Across the table, Hale’s expression tightened. “With respect, sir… we’re flying Wildcats.”
Everyone in that room knew what that meant.
The Grumman F4F Wildcat was tough. It could take punishment and still claw back. It had a sturdy frame, a heavy punch for its era, and pilots who loved it like a stubborn old dog.
But it wasn’t the fastest. It didn’t turn like the enemy’s sleek fighters. It didn’t climb like them either. And it didn’t forgive mistakes.
Thorne’s hand hovered over the matchsticks.
“With respect,” he answered, “we’re flying what we’ve got. So we fight with what we’ve got.” He glanced around. “This isn’t a parlor trick. This is a promise. If you fly this right, you’re never truly alone.”
A pause.
Then a runner opened the wardroom door. The young sailor’s face was pale, not from fear—fear was normal—but from certainty.
“Commander Thorne,” he said. “Air Officer wants you topside. New orders.”
Thorne’s eyes didn’t change, but the room did. Every spine stiffened. Every pilot knew that tone.
New orders meant new odds.
Thorne placed the matchsticks down carefully, like he was setting down something fragile.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “looks like we’re about to see if wood on a table can translate to metal in the sky.”
1) The Assignment Nobody Wanted
On the flight deck, the wind tore at Thorne’s jacket and carried the roar of engines from the warm-up line. The carrier cut through the sea like it was late for a fight.
The Air Officer didn’t waste time.
“Enemy task force spotted,” he said, voice tight. “They’re running a fighter screen heavier than we expected.”
Thorne watched a deck crewman duck under a spinning prop, hands moving fast, sure, and reckless in a way only experience could justify.
“How many fighters can we launch?” Thorne asked.
The Air Officer’s mouth twitched. “Not enough.”
Thorne didn’t blink. “How many do I get?”
“Four Wildcats,” the Air Officer said. “That’s it for escort. The rest are tied up on CAP and maintenance. We’ve got strike birds going anyway—torpedo planes and dive bombers. If we don’t hit them now, we may not get another window.”
Four.
Thorne’s mind did the math automatically. Four Wildcats against a fighter screen that could be triple that—or worse.
He could already hear the arguments that would come later. Reckless. Wasteful. Heroic. Insane.
War loved those words. War used them like coins.
Thorne looked out over the deck. Four Wildcats sat ready in a row, squat and stubborn, their wings folded like fists. Their pilots were climbing in, strapping down, checking switches with hands that didn’t shake where anyone could see.
Hale, Rivera, Keene, Macready.
Thorne walked toward them, boots thumping on steel.
Hale saw him and pulled his goggles down around his neck. “You going up with us, sir?”
Thorne nodded. “Lead.”
Rivera’s grin was thin. “So the matchsticks weren’t theory.”
“They were rehearsal,” Thorne said.
Keene climbed into his cockpit, then leaned out, eyes wide but steady. “How many are we expecting?”
Thorne paused just long enough to be honest. “More than we’d like.”
Macready, already strapped in, said quietly, “Then we do it your way.”
Hale’s jaw flexed. “We do it together.”
Thorne let the words hang for a heartbeat. That was the real point. Not the weave, not the geometry, not the fancy explanation.
Together.
He leaned closer to Hale so the wind wouldn’t steal the sentence. “They’ll try to split you,” Thorne said. “They’ll tempt you to chase. Don’t. You stay with the strike birds. You stay with each other. No lone heroes.”
Hale’s eyes flickered—anger, pride, something that had to be cut down before it grew teeth. Then he nodded.
Rivera called out, “If this goes sideways, you’re buying the first drink.”
Thorne’s mouth almost smiled. “If this goes sideways, I’ll be lucky to be standing in a place that sells drinks.”
Keene swallowed hard. “Sir?”
Thorne looked at him.
Keene’s voice dropped. “What if the weave doesn’t work?”
Thorne held his gaze, not offering comfort he couldn’t guarantee.
“Then we improvise,” he said. “And we keep moving.”
The flight deck officer raised a flag.
Engines revved higher. The Wildcats shook, eager and uneasy.
Thorne climbed into his own cockpit, pulled the canopy down, and felt the world shrink to glass, dials, and the violent beat of his own pulse.
The catapult engaged. The carrier’s bow pitched slightly.
A hand signal.
A jolt like being thrown by a giant.
And then the Wildcat was in the air, and there was nothing beneath him but sea and consequence.
2) The Sky Turns Hostile
They formed up above the carrier: four Wildcats in a tight diamond, sunlight glinting off their wings. Farther ahead, the strike group moved like a slow, determined fist—torpedo planes low, dive bombers higher, their crews trapped in machines that couldn’t outrun a bad day.
Thorne checked his instruments and glanced left.
Hale held position, steady. Rivera’s wingtip nearly kissed Hale’s, close enough to look reckless to an outsider, close enough to look like trust to a fighter pilot. Keene hung slightly back, not from fear—Thorne could see how hard he was correcting—but from the natural caution of a man who didn’t yet realize caution could be just another way of falling behind.
Macready flew the high slot, watching everything with the calm of a man who’d already lost friends and refused to lose more.
Radio crackled.
“Bogeys. Twelve plus. High. Coming in fast.”
Twelve.
Thorne’s stomach tightened, but his voice stayed even. “All Wildcats, this is Lead. Stay tight. Matchstick pattern on my call.”
Hale’s reply was instant. “Two copies.”
Rivera: “Three copies.”
Keene: “Four copies.”
Macready: “Five copies.”
Thorne saw them—dark specks at first, then shapes, then the unmistakable glide of fighters with the sun behind them, turning the sky into a spotlight aimed straight at Thorne’s people.
The enemy came in like they owned gravity.
They didn’t dive at the bombers first. They dove at the Wildcats.
Smart.
Cut the teeth off the escort, then tear into the softer targets.
Tracers flickered—thin, bright lines that looked almost pretty until you remembered what they meant. The air suddenly felt crowded, as if the sky itself had narrowed.
“Now,” Thorne said. “Weave. Hale, Rivera—pair one. Keene, Macready—pair two.”
Hale and Rivera slid into position immediately—two Wildcats turning toward each other, crossing paths, then turning away, repeating, a swinging pattern like pendulums sharing one heartbeat.
Keene hesitated half a second—just long enough for panic to try to crawl into the gap—then Macready’s voice cut in.
“Keene, on me. Eyes up. Fly the pattern, not your fear.”
Keene snapped into the weave.
Thorne watched the first enemy fighter commit, dropping onto Hale’s tail, confident. Another went after Rivera. Two more split off, hunting Keene and Macready.
Thorne kept his own Wildcat slightly above, not as a spectator, but as the thread holding the whole stitch together.
The first enemy pilot fired at Hale—short bursts, controlled, like he’d done it a hundred times. Hale rolled, trying to spoil the aim.
“Hold the weave,” Thorne said. “Don’t break.”
Hale did exactly what Thorne needed: he didn’t run straight. He didn’t try to out-turn a better turning aircraft. He trusted the geometry.
Hale swung left—into Rivera’s path.
The enemy fighter followed, hungry and committed.
And then Rivera came through the crossing point like a door slamming shut.
Rivera’s guns flashed.
The air in front of Rivera’s nose filled with sparks. The enemy fighter jerked, then snapped into a steep dive trailing smoke—not a dramatic fireball, not a neat ending, just a machine suddenly losing its certainty.
Rivera’s voice came sharp. “That one’s out of the dance!”
Hale didn’t celebrate. He kept weaving, because celebration was how you stopped flying long enough to get erased.
Thorne heard Keene yelp over the radio—one syllable, pure surprise—as another enemy fighter slid behind him.
Thorne’s eyes flicked right. Keene’s Wildcat shuddered as rounds stitched past his wing. The kid’s plane rocked, but he stayed in the pattern.
Macready crossed behind Keene, turning inward.
“Keene, keep coming,” Macready barked. “Keep coming—don’t freeze!”
Keene flew through the crossing point.
Macready’s guns flashed.
The enemy fighter broke away violently, missing Keene by a breath.
Keene’s voice was tight, stunned. “Chief—”
“No time for thanks,” Macready snapped. “Fly.”
Thorne’s grip tightened on the stick. It was working.
Not perfectly. Not cleanly. But it was working.
And the enemy pilots were starting to realize these Wildcats weren’t four separate meals.
They were one moving trap.
The enemy split wider now, trying to undo the pattern—forcing each Wildcat to choose between staying in the weave or breaking away to chase.
Thorne knew what the enemy wanted: ego.
A pilot sees an opening, sees a target drifting alone, thinks, Just one quick burst, and suddenly the formation is gone.
Thorne leaned into the mic. “Nobody chases. You hear me? Nobody leaves the stitch.”
Hale’s response came hard. “Copy.”
Rivera: “Copy.”
Keene: “Copy.”
Macready: “Copy.”
But Thorne heard something else—breathing, heavy, in the background of Hale’s transmission.
Hale was fighting his own instincts as much as the enemy.
The sky erupted again. More fighters. Thorne couldn’t count them all now. The first twelve were joined by others—maybe from another layer, maybe from another direction.
The fight was expanding.
The bombers kept going, trapped in their mission like cattle in a storm.
Thorne knew the ugly truth: if the Wildcats left to save themselves, the strike group would be shredded. If the Wildcats stayed, they might not come back.
Controversy wasn’t something that happened in a briefing room.
It happened right here, where every decision had teeth.
Thorne’s voice stayed level anyway. “All Wildcats, tighten your weave. Pull them away from the bombers. Make them want you.”
Rivera laughed once—short and sharp. “That’s a bold plan.”
“It’s the only one we’ve got,” Thorne said.
And the enemy obliged.
They wanted the Wildcats.
They dove in again, furious now, offended that four older fighters had refused to fold.
Tracers crisscrossed. Metal screamed somewhere. A Wildcat’s wingtip flashed as something tore through it—Keene’s plane, catching a hit that made him jerk.
Keene’s voice cracked. “I’m hit!”
Thorne’s stomach dropped. “Can you hold?”
Keene swallowed hard. “Controls feel… mushy. But I can fly.”
Macready’s reply came instantly. “He stays in the pattern. I’ll guard his outside.”
Thorne felt something like pride, but he didn’t let it bloom. Pride was loud. Pride got men buried.
“Good,” Thorne said. “Keep moving.”
Another enemy fighter came straight for Thorne—head-on, daring him to blink. Thorne held his line until the last instant, then snapped into a roll. The two aircraft passed so close Thorne saw the enemy pilot’s goggles catch the sun.
Thorne fired a brief burst as he rolled out. He didn’t see a dramatic result. He didn’t need one. He only needed the enemy to think twice.
He glanced down.
Below, the torpedo planes were still together, still flying toward the enemy fleet. Thorne could see the faint shapes of ships on the horizon now—tiny dark cuts against the sea.
And he could see the enemy fleet’s own fire—white puffs in the distance, anti-air bursts, a warning that the real violence was waiting even if the fighters stopped.
Thorne’s jaw tightened.
“Wildcats,” he said, “we stay with them until the drop.”
Hale’s voice came fierce. “Understood.”
Rivera: “Let’s finish this.”
Keene: “Copy… copy.”
Macready: “No one gets left behind.”
Thorne almost said something inspirational. Almost.
Instead he said the only thing that mattered.
“Then weave.”
3) The Enemy Tries to Break the Stitch
The enemy changed tactics.
They stopped committing one-by-one and started coordinating—two fighters baiting, two fighters striking, trying to force a Wildcat to turn the wrong way at the wrong time.
Rivera’s Wildcat shuddered as a burst passed close enough to rattle his canopy.
Rivera’s voice snapped. “They’re trying to bracket us!”
Thorne saw it: an enemy fighter diving low as if fleeing, another sliding behind Rivera’s tail, hoping Rivera would chase the “runner” and open his back to the “hunter.”
“Don’t bite,” Thorne warned.
Rivera didn’t. He stayed in the weave, even as the “runner” looked tempting—an easy shot, a clean story.
Hale muttered something over the radio—half curse, half prayer.
Then Hale’s Wildcat took a hit. Thorne saw a panel on the fuselage flare and peel away, fluttering behind like a torn flag.
Hale’s voice was controlled, but tight. “Taking damage.”
Thorne’s mind ran the numbers: four planes, now one limping, one already wounded (Keene), all of them lower on ammo, and the enemy still thick in the air.
Thorne made a choice.
It would be argued later. It would be called brilliant or foolish, depending on who survived to tell it.
“Macready,” Thorne said, “shift your pair closer to Hale and Rivera. We’ll make one combined weave—four planes, tighter pattern.”
A beat of silence.
Keene’s voice, fragile. “Sir, that’s… that’s close.”
“Yes,” Thorne said. “That’s the point.”
Macready didn’t hesitate. “Copy.”
The four Wildcats compressed—two weaves merging, turning the sky into a tighter, more dangerous dance. Wings flashed near wings. The risk of collision rose.
But so did the threat.
Now, any enemy fighter that latched onto one Wildcat would cross the guns of two others within seconds.
The enemy pilots didn’t like it.
They dove anyway.
One enemy fighter came for Keene, sure Keene was the weak link. Thorne saw Keene’s Wildcat wobble as the kid fought the damaged controls.
“Keene,” Thorne said, “look at Macready’s wings. Match his rhythm.”
Keene’s reply came through clenched teeth. “Trying.”
Macready’s Wildcat crossed in front of Keene, then swung away—presenting a moving shield. The enemy pilot chased Keene, then found himself suddenly in front of Macready’s guns.
Macready fired.
The enemy fighter snapped sideways, trailing a thin line of smoke, then dropped out of the fight.
Keene’s breath came through the radio like a sob he refused to admit. “I thought I was done.”
Macready’s voice stayed hard. “Not today.”
Thorne watched the bombers below take fire now—small bursts near them, distant but growing. The enemy fleet had spotted them fully.
The strike birds kept going.
They had to.
That was the cruelty: courage didn’t change physics. It only changed what you decided to risk.
Rivera shouted, “More incoming! High right!”
Thorne looked and saw another group of enemy fighters diving in—a fresh set, untouched by the chaos below.
For a second, Thorne felt the edge of something cold. The kind of thought that arrived uninvited: We’ve done everything right, and it still might not be enough.
He shoved it away.
“Wildcats,” he said, “stay locked. We’re almost at the drop.”
Hale’s voice came sharp. “Sir—look below!”
Thorne glanced down and saw the torpedo planes beginning their run, dropping lower, lining up on the enemy ships.
And then he saw the enemy’s defensive fire intensify—lines of bright streaks reaching up from the ships like angry fingers.
One torpedo plane jolted, smoke trailing. It kept flying anyway.
Thorne’s chest tightened. There were men in that plane. Men who didn’t have the speed to dodge like fighters did.
Men who were trusting four Wildcats to keep the enemy fighters off them.
Thorne’s voice turned flat, all emotion hammered down into command. “We hold them.”
The enemy fighters slammed into the Wildcats like a wave.
The sky became noise.
A burst tore past Thorne’s canopy so close he felt it as a vibration. Another burst clipped his wing, a hard punch that made the Wildcat lurch.
Thorne corrected smoothly, refusing to give the enemy the satisfaction of seeing him flinch.
Hale and Rivera crossed paths—perfectly timed—and Hale fired at an enemy fighter that had chased Rivera too long. The enemy plane jerked, then tumbled end-over-end for a moment before it recovered and fled low.
Keene’s Wildcat wobbled again. Thorne saw his left wing dip dangerously.
“Keene!” Thorne barked.
Keene’s voice was strained. “My aileron—sticking!”
Macready moved closer, almost touching. “Use rudder. Don’t fight it with your hands. Fly it with your feet.”
Keene tried, the Wildcat leveling by sheer stubbornness.
Thorne felt the pressure of the enemy tightening, trying to crush the weave by forcing it into chaos.
And then, for half a second, the weave did break.
Rivera’s Wildcat drifted out wide—either from a forced maneuver or a moment of misjudgment. An enemy fighter instantly slid onto his tail like it had been waiting for that gap.
Rivera’s voice spiked. “He’s on me—close!”
Hale instinctively started to peel off to chase the attacker.
Thorne snapped, “Hale—hold! Hold the pattern!”
Hale hesitated, fighting his own reflex.
Rivera’s attacker fired. Rivera’s plane shuddered. A puff of smoke erupted from his engine cowling, thin and ugly.
Rivera’s voice went quiet for a beat.
Then: “Still here.”
Thorne’s jaw clenched. “Rivera, back into the stitch. Now.”
Rivera hauled his Wildcat into the crossing point, and Macready—like a door swinging shut—cut across, forcing the enemy fighter to choose.
The enemy pilot chose wrong.
Macready fired. The enemy fighter broke apart in pieces that glittered briefly, then vanished into the sea haze below.
Rivera exhaled hard. “Chief… you saved my skin.”
Macready didn’t soften. “Stay inside the pattern.”
Thorne’s mind flashed back to the matchsticks on the table. He could almost see them moving, could almost hear the skepticism in the wardroom.
This wasn’t theory anymore.
This was survival carved into air.
Below, the torpedo planes released.
Small dark shapes fell away from their aircraft—torpedoes hitting the sea, running toward the enemy ships.
Dive bombers peeled off from altitude, screaming downward in steep arcs, their dive brakes whining.
The enemy fleet erupted in defensive fire. The air filled with white bursts and dark smoke.
One ship took a hit—an explosion blossoming near the deck, not cinematic, not clean, just sudden violence that turned men and metal into chaos.
Thorne didn’t cheer.
He couldn’t.
Because above the fleet, the enemy fighters still wanted blood in the sky.
And the Wildcats were running out of time.
4) The Moment That Almost Ends It
Ammo counters were imaginary in a Wildcat. You felt them in the way your trigger finger hesitated, in the way your bursts grew shorter.
Thorne fired another controlled burst and felt the recoil stutter weaker than before.
Hale’s voice came through, tense. “I’m low on rounds.”
Rivera: “Same.”
Keene, breathless: “I… I don’t know how much I’ve got left.”
Macready’s voice was steady. “Then we stop wasting.”
Thorne made another decision—another future argument waiting to happen.
“All Wildcats,” he said, “we shift from offense to denial. We don’t chase. We don’t hunt. We stay between them and the strike birds until the strike birds clear.”
Hale’s response was immediate and bitter. “Copy.”
Rivera chuckled—thin. “So we become a wall.”
“A moving wall,” Thorne said. “A wall that bites.”
The enemy fighters regrouped again, forming above them like circling hawks. Thorne could almost feel their frustration—four Wildcats refusing to be separated, refusing to become easy marks, refusing to give the enemy the clean victory they wanted.
Then the enemy tried something cruelly smart.
They dropped two fighters low, toward the bombers, and left the rest to tangle with the Wildcats—forcing Thorne to choose: protect the bombers or stay locked in the weave.
Thorne’s mind snapped through options like lightning.
If he broke the weave, the Wildcats could be split and cut down.
If he didn’t break, the bombers could be hit.
Thorne’s voice went hard. “Macready, Keene—hold the weave with Hale. Rivera—on me. We’ll intercept low. We come back into the stitch immediately.”
Rivera replied instantly. “With you.”
Hale’s voice was strained. “Sir, splitting—”
“I know,” Thorne said. “We do it for ten seconds. Not eleven.”
Rivera and Thorne dropped, engines roaring, the sea rushing up. The enemy fighters below were already lining up behind a torpedo plane that had taken a hit and fallen behind the pack.
Thorne saw the torpedo plane’s tail wobble, smoke trailing. He imagined the crew inside, staring at their instruments, knowing they were slow prey.
Thorne’s Wildcat shook as he pushed it into a dive. The old fighter protested, but it obeyed.
He lined up the first enemy fighter and fired a short burst—measured, tight.
The enemy pilot rolled away, barely avoiding the line of fire. Rivera came through on the crossing angle and fired—sparks flickered near the enemy plane’s wing.
The enemy fighter snapped into a climb, fleeing, but it had been forced off the bomber’s tail.
The second enemy fighter tried to stay committed. Thorne swung his Wildcat in a hard turn, feeling G-force bite, vision narrowing. He saw the enemy fighter’s nose angle toward the torpedo plane again.
Thorne fired.
This time the enemy fighter jolted and dropped—spiraling down toward the sea. Not a clean ending, but an ending.
Rivera’s voice came sharp. “Back up—now!”
Thorne pulled up hard, climbing back toward the weave.
Above, Hale and Macready were holding the pattern with Keene, but the strain was visible even from a distance—Keene’s damaged Wildcat lagging, Hale’s plane wobbling slightly with its own wounds.
Thorne heard Hale’s voice—tight, urgent. “They’re trying to cut us off!”
Thorne pushed his Wildcat as if the throttle could bend the rules of the sky.
And then it happened.
An enemy fighter dove straight between Hale and Keene, forcing them apart. Keene jerked to avoid collision, his damaged aileron sticking, his Wildcat rolling farther than he meant to.
For a half-second, Keene was alone.
The enemy fighter behind him seized the moment.
Keene’s voice cracked, high with fear. “He’s right there—!”
Thorne’s stomach turned to stone.
Macready reacted faster than thought. He broke the weave—on purpose—slamming his Wildcat across Keene’s path, interposing himself between Keene and the attacker.
It was a move that would be called reckless by anyone who hadn’t been there.
Macready fired.
The enemy fighter veered away, missing Macready by inches.
But Macready took hits—Thorne saw his right wing flash, a jagged tear appearing, smoke streaming.
Macready’s voice came through, calm in a way that made Thorne’s skin crawl. “I’m taking damage.”
Keene sounded like he couldn’t breathe. “Chief—no—”
Macready cut him off. “Get back in the stitch.”
Thorne reached them, forcing his Wildcat back into the pattern to stabilize it. Rivera slid in behind, sealing the gap like a stitch pulled tight again.
The enemy fighters circled, frustrated, still dangerous.
Macready’s Wildcat leaked smoke now, but it held altitude.
Thorne’s voice dropped. “Macready, can you stay with us?”
Macready replied after a beat. “If the engine stays honest.”
Hale’s voice was strained, almost angry. “We clear the strike birds and we run. Right now.”
Thorne glanced down.
The bombers were pulling away from the enemy fleet now, climbing, turning back toward home. Some were missing. Some were trailing smoke. But the group was breaking contact.
The mission—against the odds—had hit.
Thorne exhaled, a hard release. “All Wildcats, disengage on my mark. We stay together. We go home as one.”
Rivera’s voice: “Copy.”
Keene: “Copy.”
Hale: “Finally.”
Macready: “Copy.”
Thorne waited for the right instant—when the enemy fighters were repositioning, when their attention flickered.
“Mark,” he said.
The four Wildcats rolled into a coordinated turn and dove away, not in a panicked scatter, but in a disciplined withdrawal—still woven, still connected, still refusing to be picked off one at a time.
The enemy fighters chased for a moment, then peeled away.
Either they were low on fuel, or they’d taken enough losses to respect the trap.
Either way, the sky gave the Wildcats a thin slice of mercy.
Thorne didn’t trust it.
He kept flying.
5) The Most Dangerous Fire Is the “Friendly” Kind
They approached their carrier group low, wary, because the sea didn’t care who you were.
As the Wildcats neared the friendly ships, Thorne saw the first muzzle flashes from the destroyer screen—defensive fire snapping at shadows.
Someone had spotted them, and in the half-light of distance, four approaching fighters looked like trouble.
Thorne keyed his radio hard. “This is Wildcat Lead—friendly aircraft inbound! Hold your fire!”
Static. Then a voice—blurred. “Say again—”
A burst of anti-air fire snapped upward.
Thorne felt his stomach drop. “Hold your fire!” he repeated, voice sharp enough to cut steel.
Hale’s voice came in, furious. “They’re shooting at us!”
Keene sounded near tears. “I see tracers—!”
Thorne rocked his wings aggressively, the old signal: friendly, friendly, friendly. Rivera did the same. Hale followed. Macready—damaged but stubborn—managed the motion too.
The firing slowed, then stopped.
Thorne exhaled a breath that tasted like metal.
“Keep coming,” Thorne said. “Don’t do anything sudden. Don’t give them a reason to panic.”
They climbed into the landing pattern.
Deck crews were already moving, guided by colored shirts and practiced chaos. The carrier’s deck looked small now—too small for four damaged fighters and exhausted pilots.
Thorne’s Wildcat hit the deck, hook catching, the aircraft jerking to a stop with a violence that rattled his teeth. He popped the canopy and inhaled air that felt like life.
Hale landed next, then Rivera, then Keene.
Macready came last, his Wildcat wobbling slightly, smoke still trailing. He hit hard, caught the wire, and stopped.
For a moment, nobody moved.
Then deck crews rushed in.
Thorne climbed down, boots touching steel as if it were sacred ground.
Keene practically fell out of his cockpit, legs shaking. Hale grabbed him by the shoulder before he could topple.
Rivera pulled off his helmet and laughed once—too loud, too sharp, the laugh of a man who knew he might never laugh again.
Macready climbed down slower, one hand pressed to the side of his engine cowling as if he could keep it together by force of will.
Thorne walked to him.
Macready looked at Thorne, eyes tired but clear. “Matchsticks,” he said.
Thorne nodded. “Matchsticks.”
Hale stepped closer, face tight with anger that had nowhere to go. “Sir,” he said, “that was nearly a massacre. With respect.”
Thorne held his gaze. “With respect, it wasn’t. Because you didn’t fly alone.”
Hale’s jaw worked. “We got lucky.”
Rivera shook his head. “Luck didn’t make my wingman cross at the right second.”
Keene swallowed, voice small. “Luck didn’t make Chief throw his plane in front of me.”
Macready gave Keene a look. “Don’t make a habit of needing that.”
Keene nodded quickly.
Thorne watched them—the four who had done what shouldn’t have been possible in an old fighter against a sharper enemy.
He knew what was coming next: the debrief, the papers, the accusations, the rumors. He knew there would be men who called the tactic reckless, men who called it genius, men who said it was just a story that got polished because everyone survived.
Survival created its own controversy.
Sometimes people wanted heroes.
Sometimes they wanted someone to blame.
Thorne didn’t care which one he became.
He cared about one thing: that four Wildcats had come back together.
6) The Argument That Followed Them Indoors
In the briefing room, sweat dried to salt on skin. Coffee sat untouched. A map of the enemy fleet was pinned to the wall like a wound being examined.
Thorne stood at the front while an intelligence officer spoke numbers—enemy ships hit, aircraft losses, estimates, probabilities.
Then the questions started.
A senior officer leaned back in his chair, expression skeptical. “Commander Thorne, we’re hearing your escort held off an overwhelming fighter screen. With four Wildcats.”
“Yes, sir,” Thorne said.
“And we’re hearing you used… a weaving tactic.” The officer’s tone made it sound like he was saying “magic trick.”
“Yes, sir.”
Another officer—older, sharper—said, “Why not break and chase when you had an opening? We could’ve scored more.”
Hale shifted in his seat, and Thorne could feel the tension behind his ribs. This was where stories got twisted. This was where people argued about “more” as if more was always better.
Thorne kept his voice even. “Because chasing breaks mutual cover. We weren’t there to collect trophies. We were there to keep the strike birds alive long enough to complete the mission.”
The older officer’s eyes narrowed. “So you’re saying you refused potential opportunities.”
“I’m saying I refused to trade our formation for ego,” Thorne replied.
A silence. The word ego landed like a slap in a room full of men trained to take pride in sharp edges.
The skeptical officer cleared his throat. “Commander, is it true you demonstrated this tactic with matchsticks on a table?”
Rivera’s mouth twitched like he might laugh again. Hale looked like he might punch a wall.
Thorne didn’t blink. “Yes, sir.”
The skeptical officer’s expression tightened. “You understand how that sounds.”
Thorne nodded once. “Yes, sir.”
“And yet you chose to bet four fighters and an escort mission on it.”
Thorne leaned forward slightly. “No, sir. I chose to give four fighters a way to survive while doing their job.”
The older officer tapped a finger on the table. “And if it had failed?”
Thorne felt the room tighten around that question. Because everyone in that room knew the answer was ugly.
Thorne didn’t dodge it.
“Then we would’ve lost aircraft,” he said. “Possibly all of them. And the strike birds too.”
A murmur ran through the room, the quiet buzz of men imagining it.
Hale stood abruptly. “Permission to speak, sir.”
The senior officer nodded.
Hale’s voice was tight, controlled, furious in a way that had stayed caged until now. “We were outnumbered. We were outclassed on paper. If we’d broken formation to chase, we would’ve been picked off one by one. The only reason we’re standing here is because we stayed locked together.”
Rivera added, “They didn’t expect four Wildcats to fly like one creature. That surprise bought us seconds. Seconds are everything up there.”
Keene swallowed, then forced words out. “I made mistakes. I hesitated. If Chief hadn’t been there—if we hadn’t been in that pattern—I wouldn’t have made it back.”
Macready, who’d been silent, finally spoke. “You want to call it a matchstick trick, call it whatever you like. It kept us from getting separated. That’s the point.”
The older officer’s gaze moved from face to face, weighing them.
Then he looked at Thorne. “Commander, you may have stumbled onto something. Or you may have gotten lucky. Either way, you’re going to teach it.”
Thorne nodded once, slow. “Yes, sir.”
The skeptical officer sighed, as if admitting defeat to something he couldn’t measure. “I want written procedures. Diagrams. A standardized briefing. If we’re going to adopt this, it needs to be repeatable.”
Thorne’s eyes flicked briefly to the table—no matchsticks now, just paper and authority.
“Yes, sir,” he said.
As the room began to break up, Hale approached Thorne quietly.
“Sir,” Hale said, voice lower now, “you know they’ll still argue about this.”
Thorne watched the officers file out, each carrying their own version of what had happened.
“Yes,” Thorne said.
Hale’s eyes held something raw. “And if we do it again… it might not end the same.”
Thorne nodded. “No.”
A beat.
Then Thorne said the truth that made the tactic more than a clever pattern.
“That’s why you don’t fly it as a trick,” he told Hale. “You fly it as a promise. You keep the promise, and sometimes the sky keeps you.”
Hale swallowed hard and nodded once.
Across the room, Keene sat with his hands clasped, staring at them as if trying to remember every word.
Macready caught Thorne’s eye and gave a slight nod—approval without ceremony.
Rivera exhaled and finally let himself grin, but even that grin looked tired.
Outside, the flight deck thundered with fresh launches. The war didn’t pause to admire anyone’s survival.
Thorne stepped out into the wind and looked up at the open sky—the same sky that had tried to tear them apart and failed.
He imagined four matchsticks on a table again, crossing, weaving, refusing to separate.
A childish picture, some would say.
But today, that picture had carried four Wildcats through a fight they weren’t supposed to win.
And tomorrow, the sky would demand they prove it wasn’t luck.
Thorne pulled his jacket tighter and walked toward the roar, because controversy could wait.
The next impossible mission could not.
