fifteenth

Perhaps you remember the final scene from the 1977 blockbuster "Star Wars: A New Hope", expertly crafted by director George Lucas and his film editor wife Marcia Lou Griffin. Three aircraft break off from the main group for an improvised attack run on the huge enemy vessel. A "one in a million shot" cause the enormous craft to self-destruct.

My claim is that the real-life inspiration for Luke Skywalker in this scene was a man named Lieutenant Richard Halsley Best who, with his two wingman, attacked and destroyed the huge Japanese aircraft carrier Akagi with a single well-placed bomb during the Battle of Midway. Americans should temper their pride in this incredible feat by looking up the origin of the word "snafu". One snafu was that all the other dive bombers in Best's group attacked the wrong carrier, another was that dozens of US torpedo attacks failed during the battle because of the infamous Mark 6 dud torpedoes.

As more evidence that the the Battle of Midway inspired Lucas, consider that the the whole plot of Star Wars revolves around the stolen plans for the Death Star, analogous to the intercepted Japanese battle plans in the case of Midway.