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Lt.(jg) John Gordon Foster reported aboard the USS Bush on January 27, 1945
for temporary duty in connection with Fighter Direction activity. This fighter
direction activity was the primary mission of destroyers on the picket line at
Okinawa. Radar picket ships like the USS Bush could give advance warning to
the rest of the invasion force and direct friendly planes to intercept incoming
enemy planes or other potential targets.
Ensign Franklin Coit Butler, part of the Bush Fighter Direction team remembers that Foster was specifically trained to maintain and operate the new SC-2 (air search) radar. Butler notes that the SC radar "for the first time gave us an accurate altitude as well as distance and track of approaching planes. This radar was installed only on Radar Picket Destroyers." Butler said all of the BUSH radarmen worked to maintain and operate the radio and internal communication equipment, and the various radars used on the ship -- surface, air, and fire control. Coit Butler says Foster's nickname was "Fuzzy". When they reported together for Fighter Direction duty, Foster's nickname was already in place. How he received that nickname remains a mystery. |
 Lt.(jg) John Foster |
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Lt.(jg) Foster was killed on April 6, 1945 when the USS Bush was sunk by three
Japanese suicide planes while on radar picket duty during the battle for Okinawa.
A telegram was received by Foster's parents on April 18, 1945 notifying them of
his death. John's last letter to his folks was dated March 27, 1945.
Born June 22, 1917 John Gordon Foster spent much of his youth in Bristol, Connecticut. A very bright fellow, he earned many scholastic honors through high school and college, including the 1934 "Yankee Ingenuity Scholarship" valued at $800. This scholarship was earned while John was a freshman at the Worchester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Massachusetts. He won the award for building a lathe out of a broken washing machine motor and scrap from an automobile junk yard. In 1938 John graduated with his Bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering and went to work. With the United States having entered World War II, John joined the Navy in October, 1942. In early 1943, he was sent to the United States Naval Academy for officer's training. That same year upon receiving his Ensign's commission, he was given training in use and maintenance of radar equipment at Bowdoin, M.I.T. and Pearl Harbor. In July of 1944 he was part of the overall effort to retake key locations in the Marianas Island group, then he returned to Pearl Harbor as a radar instructor. When the USS Bush was lost, Lt.(jg) Foster was one of two men whose bodies were not recovered but were listed as "Killed in Action" rather than "Missing in Action". Foster survived the first two kamikaze planes to strike the USS Bush. When the third suicide plane struck the ship, Foster was killed. Witness statements by USS Bush officers Lt.(jg) Earl Sechrist and Lt. Harry Stanley confirmed his death, and final resting place on the starboard side of the No. 1 5-inch gun. The ship's doctor, Lt. George Johnson, prepared a death certificate based upon those statements ... thus the "KIA" status. Commander Rollin E. Westholm, Commanding Officer of the USS Bush on her final day, wrote to Foster's parents in a letter dated June 4, 1945. This letter included the following: |
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