Richard Tregaskis and the Road to Tokyo

The evening before the USS Ticonderoga ’s July 24, 1945, strike mission against the ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy at the Kure Naval Arsenal on the island of Honshu, one of the men scheduled to fly with Torpedo Squadron 87 aboard a Grumman TBM Avenger torpedo bomber had a visitor in his cabin. The squadron’s safety officer, Lieutenant Algie Stuart Jr., regaled the crewman with unsettling…