Edward O'Hare - Early Life

Early Life

Edward Henry "Butch" O'Hare was born in St. Louis, Missouri to Edward Joseph O'Hare and Selma O'Hare. Butch had two sisters, Patricia and Marilyn. When their parents divorced in 1927, Butch and his sisters stayed with their mother Selma in St. Louis while their father Edward moved to Chicago. Butch's father was a lawyer who worked closely with Al Capone before turning against him and helping convict Capone of tax evasion.

Butch O'Hare graduated from the Western Military Academy in 1932. The following year, he went on to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. Graduated and appointed an Ensign on June 3, 1937, he served two years on board the battleship USS New Mexico (BB-40). In 1939, he started flight training at NAS Pensacola in Florida, learning the basics on Naval Aircraft Factory N3N-1 "Yellow Peril" and Stearman NS-1 biplane trainers, and later on the advanced SNJ trainer. On the nimble Boeing F4B-4A, he trained in aerobatics as well as aerial gunnery. He also flew the SBU Corsair and the TBD Devastator.

In November 1939, his father was shot to death, most likely by Al Capone's gunmen. During Capone's tax evasion trial in 1931 and 1932, O'Hare's father provided incriminating evidence which helped finally put Capone away. There is speculation that this was done to ensure that Butch got into the Naval Academy, or to set a good example. Whatever the motivation, the elder O'Hare was shot down in his car, a week before Capone was released from incarceration.

When Butch finished his naval aviation training on May 2, 1940, he was assigned to USS Saratoga (CV-3) Fighter Squadron Three (VF-3). O'Hare now trained on the Grumman F3F and then graduated to the Brewster F2A Buffalo. Lieutenant John Thach, then executive officer of VF-3, discovered O'Hare's exceptional flying abilities and closely mentored the promising young pilot. Thach, who would later develop the Thach Weave aerial combat tactic, emphasized gunnery in his training. In 1941, more than half of all VF-3 pilots, including O'Hare, earned the "E" for gunnery excellence.

In early 1941, Fighting Squadron Three transferred to USS Enterprise (CV-6), while carrier USS Saratoga (CV-3) underwent maintenance and overhaul work at Bremerton Navy Yard.

On Monday morning, July 21, O'Hare made his first flight in a Grumman F4F Wildcat. Following stops in Washington and Dayton, he landed in St. Louis on Tuesday. Visiting the wife of a friend in hospital that afternoon, O'Hare met his future wife, nurse Rita Wooster, proposing to her the first time they met. After O'Hare took instruction in Roman Catholicism to convert, he and Rita married in St. Mary's Catholic Church in Phoenix on Saturday, September 6, 1941. For their honeymoon, they sailed to Hawaii on separate ships, Butch on Saratoga, which had completed modifications at Bremerton, and Rita on the Matson liner Lurline. Butch was called to duty the day after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

On Sunday evening, January 11, 1942, as Butch and other VF-3 officers ate dinner in the wardroom, the carrier Saratoga was damaged by a Japanese torpedo hit while patrolling southwest of Hawaii. She spent five months in repair on the west coast, so VF-3 squadron transferred to the USS Lexington (CV-2) on January 31.