Navy veteran Roy Daniels of McLouth has more than passing interest in the renovated Grumman F4F-3 Wildcat fighter at Lawrence Municipal Airport.

More than 60 years ago, Daniels was aboard the USS Lexington when it was attacked by 18 Japanese bombers on Feb. 20, 1942.

He watched as Wildcat pilot Butch O’Hare — for whom O’Hare International Airport in Chicago is named — shot down five of the enemy and, in Daniels’ view, saved the aircraft carrier from damage or destruction.

“It was one of the damnedest exhibitions of fighter piloting I ever saw,” said Daniels, who was part of an engineering group responsible for the ship’s boilers.

“They were going to bomb us out of the water,” he said. “They ran into a buzz saw.”

O’Hare earned the Medal of Honor for his combat heroics and became the Navy’s first ace of World War II.

Memories of those harrowing days came flooding back as Daniels read a story Tuesday in the Journal-World about the only Wildcat fighter still flying from nearly 2,000 produced for the Navy and Marine Corps early in World War II.

Lawrence resident Steve Craig owns the fighter, which was pulled from Lake Michigan in 1991 and restored in 1994. It’s decorated with decals that commemorate O’Hare’s efforts to save the Lexington.

Daniels was at sea on the Lexington during Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. He also was in the Battle of Coral Sea in 1942 when the Lexington was crippled by Japanese bombs and torpedoes. “They set the Lexington on fire from one end to the other,” he said.

Survivors of the attack were removed from the carrier before it sank.

Daniels left the military in 1945 as a second class petty officer. He worked in the construction industry and had a civil service job in the U.S. Department of Justice for 20 years before retiring in 1981.