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Moments after enemy fire punctured the fuselage, smoke filled the cockpit of George Herbert Walker Bush's plane, the Barbara III. The twenty-year-old Navy pilot and his two-man crew had not yet carried out their mission, which was to bomb the island of Chichi Jima. But the plane was plummeting, and flames were nearing the fuel tank. Finally, the payload was dropped, and Bush ordered his crewmen, Ted White and John Delaney, to bail. Hearing no reply, he jumped out himself--pulling the parachute's rip cord early and banging his head on the plane, but recovering in time to hit the water safely. Swimming to an emergency life raft that had opened with his jump, he waited to be ...