Once They Were Eagles (14 page)

“You look like a God-damned Indian fakir. When the hell are you gonna do your rope trick?”

Alan D. Marker, 21, Park Ridge, Illinois, had spent two years at Maine Township Junior College, where he'd played baseball and basketball. A bad landing and a broken arm put him out of action shortly after he joined us, and he was evacuated to a rear area hospital in spite of his protests.

These were the 21 additions to our squadron. Bolt immediately got things rolling by coming up with a fish fry. He took a sack of hand grenades, went out somewhere, and came back with a couple of gunnysacks full of fish. Mo Fisher, Bragdon, Mullen, and Sims rounded up 15 cases of beer. By the time the beer and fish were gone, the new men had become full-fledged Black Sheep.

 

Hearing that we were to go north in six days for our second combat tour, Boyington worked the pilots hard, breaking the new men in on Black Sheep tactics and formations, organizing the divisions, and indoctrinating them with the Black Sheep approach to aerial combat: aggression.

No one had been in any trouble since our cleanup episode, so it was an unworried Boyington who went to the Group Commander's office in response to a summons. He came back to our hut with a long face.

“I'm not going back with you,” he said.

“WHAT!”

“The Colonel asked me how the squadron was coming along, and I told him, ‘Fine'; that we were ready and eager, and that I understood we were to leave in a few days.

“He said, ‘Yes,' but that I was not going. He said they need a major for operations officer at Vella Lavella and he was sending me. All I could say was, ‘Yes, sir,' and about face. I knew it was useless to argue with him.”

Boyington shook his head. “Looks like he finally caught up with me.”

“You're not gonna stand for that, are you?” I asked.

“What can I do?”

“I know what you can do. You can go over and see General Moore. I'll bet he doesn't know it.”

Major General James T. Moore, Assistant Commanding General of the First Marine Air Wing, had been in command at Munda most of the time we were there. He had developed a solid respect for Boyington's leadership and fighting ability, while we had come to admire and respect the general for his quiet, friendly manner and his calm, efficient handling of his command.

“Yes, that might help. I'll go over there tonight after chow.”

“You'll go right now,” I said. “You change your clothes; I'll get a jeep for you.”

I hustled Boyington into the jeep and off he went, while I sat with fingers crossed and waited. To take him out now would destroy the morale of the whole squadron. When I heard four Black Sheep go into the hut next to ours, I went over and told them the bad news, and the five of us worried together. Other members of the squadron dropped in, and by three o'clock a sizable representation of the squadron was crowded into the 16-foot-square hut.

Around four o'clock, the Group Commander stopped by, and I stuck my head out.

“Is Boyington around?” he asked.

“No, sir.”

“When he comes in, I want to see him.”

“Yes, sir.”

At five o'clock, the Colonel was back.

Still no Boyington.

At six o'clock, the Colonel came by once more.

No Boyington.

The Colonel sent a runner at seven, eight, nine, ten, and finally eleven—still no Boyington.

“Be sure you tell Boyington that the Colonel wants to see him when he comes in,” the runner said.

We debated what had happened to Pappy. We knew General Moore well enough to know that he'd give Pappy a straight answer, without sitting on the fence, so we agreed that only two things could have happened: Pappy was either drowning his sorrows in one of the island Officers' Clubs if he was out, or celebrating in one of the same if he was still in the squadron.

It was after midnight when he finally rolled home, happy, mellow. “I'm back in,” he said, with a wide grin.

“Tell us about it, Pappy. What happened? What did the General say?”

“Give me a drink, and I'll tell you the whole story.”

Fisher quickly found him a bottle of beer.

“Well, I went over to call on General Moore. Naturally, I couldn't call for the purpose of complaining about my new assignment because that would not be going through official channels, so I just dropped in to pay him a visit. We chatted awhile about the days up at Munda.

“Then he asked me how our squadron was shaping up. I told him it was fine; the new boys had fitted in O.K. He looked at his schedule, and said we were due to go north in a few days, and he expected I was eager to get into combat again.

“I told him the boys were eager to go, and so was I, but since I had been assigned this operations job, naturally I wouldn't be with them.

“‘What!' he shouted.

“‘Yes, sir,' I said, ‘the Colonel told me this morning he had assigned me as operations officer at Vella Lavella, so I wouldn't be going up with my squadron.'

“The General hit the ceiling. He called his Chief of Staff. ‘What's this about Boyington being taken out of his squadron?' he asked.

“I don't know, sir.'

“‘Get me MAG 11.'

“When he got the Colonel on the field telephone, he said, ‘What's this about taking Boyington out of his squadron? … What? … Well, put him back, do you hear? Put him back immediately. … I don't care how senior he is; he's the best combat pilot we've got, and he's to be left in command of his squadron where he belongs, understand?'

“The General banged down the receiver and looked up at his Chief of Staff who was standing before him. There's too goddamned much of this business of transferring squadron commanders around without
my hearing about it. You get a good man in command of a squadron, and then somebody wants to take him out. In the future, I want to know about it before any squadron commander is transferred. Is that clear?'

“The Chief of Staff mumbled ‘Yes, sir,' and went out. The General was still sore, banging the desk and swearing, when I thanked him. He shook hands and wished us luck on our tour when I left.

“The guard at the gate stopped me when I came in and told me the Colonel wanted to see me.”

“Yes,” we said, “he's been looking for you all day. What the hell, there's not much he can do. You're back in the squadron, and we're due to shove off in a few days.”

But next morning, after Boyington reported to the Colonel, he came back with a serious face. “I slipped up, and he's got me. Group Regulations say that when you leave the camp, you must notify the Adjutant. I didn't do that when I left yesterday, and he's put me under official arrest.”

A few minutes later, a runner brought over a sheet of paper. “The Colonel wants you to sign this, sir.”

The typewritten page read: “I hereby acknowledge that I violated rule number so and so of the Group Regulations”; there was a space for Boyington's signature over his typewritten name. Boyington reached for a pen.

“Don't you sign that,” I said.

“Why not?”

“That's going into your official file in Washington. For all anyone knows who reads that, that rule you violated might be murder or stealing.” I turned to the runner. “Take this back and have it retyped to read, ‘I hereby acknowledge that I have violated rule number so and so of the Group Regulations, which reads, quote,' and then quote the rule.”

The runner took the sheet and left. He returned in half an hour with the revised sheet which read:

I violated Group General Order Number One, dated 17 January 1943, quoted herewith:

Boyington signed it. A little later, the runner brought a memorandum over the Colonel's signature. It read:

The same afternoon, however, the following letter was forwarded to Boyington:

1. Major Gregory Boyington, while Squadron Commander of VMF 214, came under the operational control of this Command from 15 September 1943 to 20 October 1943. His activity during this period was marked by a brilliant combat record, readiness to undertake the most hazardous types of missions, and a superior type of flight leadership. The superb caliber of his work is indicated by the fact that he destroyed 14 enemy aircraft during this period.

2. Major Boyington enjoyed the complete confidence and respect of his superiors and his squadron mates as a combat leader. I consider him one of the five outstanding combat fighter pilots that have operated in this theater since the beginning of operations.

D.C. Strother

Brigadier General, USA

Commanding

The payoff came the following day when the Colonel himself was ordered to take over the operations job!

Three days later our entire squadron took off via SCAT transport planes for our second combat tour.

At Guadalcanal, while our planes were being serviced, we were
standing near them talking when Rinabarger suddenly slumped to the ground, unconscious. He hadn't looked well at all since he'd rejoined us, and Doc Reames had told him he should be back in the hospital. But Rollie had begged so earnestly to stay with the squadron that Doc had reluctantly let him do so. Now, Doc examined him and ordered him to the hospital.

“I'm O.K., Doc. I'll be all right.”

“No, you need a long rest, Rollie. I'm sending you to the hospital and recommending that you be transferred to a cooler climate to recuperate.”

Rollie was evacuated to New Zealand and then home. He was ready to go overseas again with a Marine carrier squadron when the war ended.

 

Vella Lavella was a lovely little island, solidly covered by jungle and coconut groves except where the airstrip, roads, and camp areas had been cleared. The runway had been built by the simple expedient of blasting out the coconut trees and then grading down the surface dirt to the firm coral underneath. It lay along the southeastern coast of the island, bounded on one side by coconut trees and on the other by the clear, warm waters of Vella Gulf. From there, we could look directly out to Kolombangara, some 35 miles away, rearing its 6,000-foot peak into the clouds. It was there that Alex had crashed on our previous tour.

Our new temporary home was typical of all the Solomon Islands. Only about as far from the equator as San Diego is from San Francisco, it was hot and steamy. Rainfall averaged some 140 inches a year with most of the rain falling during the period from November to March, which meant that we were getting as much rain every month as San Francisco averages every year. We learned to appreciate the phrase, “It
isn't the heat, it's the humidity,” because although the temperature was rarely over 90 degrees, we were sweltering.

Kahili Airdrome lay only
75
miles to our northwest; the enemy fortress at Rabaul, with its fine harbor and five loaded airdromes, was 300 miles farther.

Marines had landed at Empress Augusta Bay, on the west coast of Bougainville, 26 days before. They were engaged in heavy fighting to secure the tiny perimeter, about half a mile deep and four miles long, that they'd carved with their blood out of the side of the 3,900-square-mile island. This new landing had taken place about 15 months after the Marines had swarmed ashore at Guadalcanal; in that time, the Marines had come 500 miles closer to Tokyo. At that rate, it would take them another six years to cover the remaining 2,500 miles to the heart of Japan.

But our pace was accelerating all the time. The distance, though small, represented a tremendous gain in tactical position. And it represented an even greater gain in attrition of enemy men and materiel. A note in the diary of a Japanese officer killed in the Munda campaign made this clear. He had written: “Oh the cursed South Seas—that have swallowed countless noble souls and closed over weapons sweated from the blood of citizens—cursed be the Sea of the Solomons!”

As our farthest-advanced air base, Vella Lavella was of enormous tactical importance, particularly if the Japanese decided to contest the air over Bougainville. However, for nearly three weeks, the Black Sheep saw no enemy aircraft. They flew dawn patrols, local patrols, dusk patrols, task force covers, and strafing missions without air opposition.

Then one morning, on patrol over the precarious Marine beachhead on Bougainville, they got a call from the ground. Marines were pinned down and getting cut to pieces by enemy mortar fire. Could our planes help?

The ground Marines laid out a huge arrow in white panels and asked that the airmen strafe enemy mortar positions 500 yards off the tip of the arrow. The Black Sheep made eight strafing runs over the area, putting 25,000 rounds of armor-piercing, incendiary, and tracer slugs into it, cutting down trees, chopping away the underbrush, and leaving the enemy crews sprawled about their broken weapons.