On the morning of June 4, 1942, high above the tiny Pacific atoll of Midway Island, Lt. (j.g.) “Dusty” Kleiss burst out of the clouds and piloted his SBD Dauntless into a near-vertical dive aimed at the heart of Japan’s Imperial Navy, which six months earlier had ruthlessly struck Pearl Harbor. The greatest naval battle in history raged below, its outcome unclear as the U.S. desperately searched for its first major victory of the Second World War. Then, in a matter of seconds, Dusty Kleiss’s daring 20,000-foot dive helped forever alter the war’s trajectory.

By battle’s end, the humble young sailor from Kansas was the only pilot from either fleet to land hits on three different enemy ships, all of which sank. Now his extraordinary memoir, Never Call Me a Hero, tells the Navy Cross recipient’s full story for the first time, offering an unprecedentedly intimate look at “the decisive contest for control of the Pacific in World War II” (New York Times)—and one man’s essential role in helping secure its outcome.