Several weeks after receiving his commission on December 21, 1943, Ed Sieber was looking out at an atoll in the Pacific Ocean from the USS Bennington, enjoying the tropical air and a full moon, when the thunder of a Japanese air attack roared overhead as they bombed the USS Randolph beside him.

He survived his introduction to World War II and went on to spend the next year and a half as a dive bomber for the U.S. Navy on 31 combat missions against Japanese targets. The culmination of his time in the Navy came on April 7, 1945 when he and his fellow pilots sunk the Yamato, the pride of the Japanese Navy and one of the most storied ships ever built.

Sieber flew through a fiery black plume of anti-aircraft flak and made two direct hits. A Japanese officer who survived declared the American bombers came so close he could see their eyes. They descended at a steep 90-degree angle from the clouds, a tactic which allowed them to escape the reach of the Yamato’s heavy guns. “It was an extraordinary day,” said Sieber, now 96, in an interview at the Thistle Lodge restaurant on Sanibel.

For his direct hits on the Yamato, Sieber received the Navy Cross, the nation’s second highest honor. He also received the Silver Star, two Distinguished Flying Crosses, and four Air Medals.

Sieber returned to his home in Minnesota in June of 1945, a couple months before the atomic bombs were released on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, at the age of 21. He and a fellow aviator established a fixed base flight operation for student training. Three years later he launched a successful, 34-year career as an airline pilot. “I was nuts about flying!” he said.

Sieber grew up on a farm in Bloomington, MN with with brothers Harold and Charley and sister Shirley. He graduated from Roosevelt High School at the age of 18 and to this day has vivid memories of the wartime rations for meat and sugar. With his fascination for aviation, he enlisted in the Navy and trained as a pilot, including a stint in Pensacola, Florida.

Sieber first came to Sanibel in the early 1960s before the Causeway was built, taking the ferry across across San Carlos Bay and staying in the little Castaways cottages at Blind Pass — in the same spot, Sieber was later told, where Charles Lindbergh once vacationed.

Sieber was spellbound by Sanibel and Captiva, similar in some ways to the atolls in the South Pacific, and vacationed here each year. In 1999 he moved to Sanibel full-time, purchasing a vacant lot off Periwinkle Way and building a home. On Sanibel, he married Jane Sieber. (His first wife passed away).

During his years on Sanibel he has delivered a number of talks at the Sanibel Historical Society and the Sanibel Library about his World War II experiences. His audiences frequently pack the room to capacity, and Sieber once received a full standing ovation. “That was very nice, and meant a lot,” he said. The Sanibel Library recently erected
 a full display case featuring his medals, 3 Presidential Citations, a model of his plane, the SB2C, also known as the Helldiver, his Log Book and other WWII memorabilia from his Navy service.

The sinking of the Yamato marked a major turning point in World War II. The Yamato, the prize ship built for the Imperial Japanese Navy in 1937, displaced 72,800 tons at full load and displayed the largest guns ever mounted on a warship. The word “yamato” was often used as a poetic term to refer to Japan and thus the ship Yamato symbolized the Japanese nation. The sinking of the Yamato thus had more meaning to the Japanese people than the loss of a single ship. In many ways the war in the Pacific ended that April day when Sieber and his fellow pilots successfully completed their mission.