The Pacific (37 page)

Not all of his fellow escapees saw it the way Shifty did, though. Several of them agreed with army fighter pilot Lieutenant Sam Grashio, who saw no reason to question these orders. When Grashio heard the "bitter remarks about 'Dugout Doug,'" he admitted that the general's departure had been a letdown for the troops and the lack of preparations for war had disgusted him. The situation was more complicated than that, however, and he made some obvious points. President Roosevelt had ordered MacArthur to leave Corregidor, and "it seemed to me mere common sense to save him for the rest of the war rather than let him fall into the hands of the enemy."
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As a pilot, Sam Grashio had been at Clark Field on the day of the attack and had endured the siege of Bataan. "It always seemed to me," Sam concluded, "that the American government and people, rather than MacArthur and his associates, were mainly responsible for the inadequacy of Philippine defenses." The general had kept promising his men on Bataan that reinforcements were on the way because that had been the only way to keep them fighting. Shofner had a hard time arguing with Sam, whose body weight had dropped to eighty-five pounds during the March of Death and imprisonment. He trusted Sam. For his part, Sam admired Shifty's physical strength and his friend's unshakable optimism. These had been essential to their success. Sam and Austin had to avoid the subject of MacArthur while figuring out what they could achieve as guerrillas.

It took a while for Shifty and the other escapees to figure out that the leader of the guerrillas, Colonel Fertig, communicated with Australia on a daily basis. The colonel had kept it from them because he needed experienced and trained men to run his outfit. Fertig's Tenth Military District was on the front line of the war. He had no intention of letting the HQ in Australia know about the presence of trained infantry officers because he feared they would be recalled.
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WASHINGTON WAS FILLED WITH THE TOP BRASS AND MANILA JOHN BASILONE was introduced to lots of admirals and generals. Although attached administratively to the Marine Barracks, Navy Yard, John reported daily to the director of the Division of Public Relations in the Navy Building. The director and his staff had not cut his orders yet, so some of the work was still in progress. They knew they would send John to New York as soon as possible to begin his work as a bond salesman. They were working on getting him involved in the Third War Loan Drive, which had begun months ago.

The U.S. Treasury Department had organized the Third War Loan Drive in association with the Hollywood Victory Committee, an organization representing the motion picture industry.
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The loan drive was not one thing. It had half a dozen components. An "Airmada" of well-known actors, entertainers, and select military personnel had been organized into a number of "flights," which were staging bond rallies in medium-sized cities. Sabu the Elephant Boy had completed a twenty-six-stop tour.
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The flights raised millions of dollars. The Hollywood Cavalcade, meantime, was traveling to the biggest cities. The cavalcade included Lucille Ball, Fred Astaire, Betty Hutton, James Cagney, Judy Garland, and many more. The cavalcade raised tens of millions of dollars. The actress Lana Turner raised $5.25 million in bonds by selling 105 kisses for $50,000 each. The slogan for all of the components of the Third War Loan Drive was "Back the Attack."
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Before Basilone joined the drive, reporters wanted to interview Manila John. His story had been printed in newspapers across the country since June. The details of his "3-day machine gun rampage" amazed everyone who read it.
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The twelve-hour battle had become seventy-two hours because of a quote by Private Nash W. Phillips, who had served in Basilone's platoon on the Canal. A reporter had found Phillips recovering from his wounds in a navy hospital in San Diego.
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The details Phillips had added had become part of the official story. "They stormed his position time and again," Phillips had told them, until thirty-eight bodies surrounded Manila John's foxhole. "Finally he had to move out of there--thirty-eight Jap bodies made it kind of hard to fire over the pile!"
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The USMC publicity department had adopted Phillips's quote verbatim, rather than use the facts contained in John's Medal of Honor citation. Months before John's return, it had put on the newswire a portrait of John with the caption: "Sgt. John Basilone was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for extraordinary heroism in the South Pacific. . . . He stuck by his machine gun for 72 hours without food or sleep and is credited with virtual annihilation of a jap regiment."
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Most newspapers included the claim that John was the only enlisted marine to be so honored.

The basic story was good but had gotten cold in the past few months. The reporters had interviewed his family and friends and a grade-school teacher and now it was time to hear from the man himself. The first interview took place in D.C. John said he could not tell the reporters much about "the one night blitz." Speaking with reporters made him uncomfortable. He began to perspire. They asked him what he thought of the enemy. He explained that they ran at the machine guns and concluded, "I don't believe they have the brains needed for victory."
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Trying to explain, he continued. "They looked like a bunch of gorillas rushing us. They ought to have known better than to rush a machine gun that way."
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As the last questions were asked, he stood up and said, " This is worse than fighting Japs."
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It had hardly been a smashing success. No photos were taken. John was wearing the same uniform he had flown to D.C. in because his two seabags had not arrived. Worse, he had diminished the capability of the enemy. The publicists of the navy, marines, and Treasury Department did not want any of its spokespeople to refer to the Japanese as stupid because it diminished the case for buying bonds. The U.S. government needed the money generated by bonds. The navy assigned Lieutenant W. Burns Lee to coordinate John's appearances and to escort him. Burns asked Manila if he had the USMC's dress blue uniform to wear. Although John had once owned a "set of blues," he had changed.
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"What d'ya think I am, Lieutenant," John replied, "a Navy Yard Marine?"
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Put another way, Manila thought that the officers in Washington who pushed papers wore dress blues. Marines whose hands were stained with machine-gun oil wore Class As, the greens, when not in dungarees. He refused to wear the blues. Lieutenant Lee did not force him to wear them. The practice of calling the enemy "stupid" and "gorillas," however, stopped henceforth. As for the "3-day blitz" overstatement, the press release that accompanied John kept it as it was, although it quietly corrected the assertion that John had been the first enlisted marine to be awarded the nation's highest award for valor.
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John was recognized as the only living enlisted man to wear it. The reporters failed to notice, though, that John had not worn the actual medal around his neck. He wore its ribbon bar on his chest.

John and his PR "handler" took the train up to New York and arrived on the afternoon of Friday, September 3, 1943. Unlike Washington, the lights of New York had been dimmed because the lights shone on ships in the harbor and made them targets for German warships.
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He met his parents. They brought with them Alfred Gaburo, Cochairman of the John Basilone Day Committee.
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John had once driven one of Gaburo's laundry trucks. They all had a lot of catching up to do. Gaburo would have described the plans for the upcoming parade. John's parents had to have gushed about the attention the medal had brought to them and their family. In July, the prestigious Columbian Union had invited Salvatore and Theodora to a gala at the Robert Treat Hotel in Newark and presented a plaque to them.
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The recognition of his parents by a group of New Jersey's most respected and influential citizens would have pleased John, although he may not have been suitably impressed. Such a reaction would have provoked his father to get his attention by calling John the name on his birth certificate, Giovanni.
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Giovanni Basilone had grown up in a country that looked down on Italians. White America disliked their religion, their looks, and their social and cultural mores. Although his son had always been called John in public, Salvatore Basilone had been active in organizations like the Sons of Italy, which had celebrated the culture of his homeland. Salvatore, as a man who concerned himself with the relations between the two countries, had known for decades that the goal of America's immigration policy had been to keep immigration from Italy low, while encouraging immigration of those who were more Anglo-Saxon, more Protestant, and more white. His father's bitterness at such injustice was, however, old news for John.

The news Salvatore would have imparted that evening concerned the actions of the government against Italian immigrants since the war against Italy had begun.
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Thousands of Italians had been arrested. Ten thousand Italians had been forced to leave their homes on the West Coast. Fifty thousand were subject to curfews and ordered to carry ID cards. Most of these people lived on the West Coast and had been classified as Enemy Aliens, a group which included all native Italians who had not completed U.S. citizenship.

The government, however, had not issued any information about its enforcement of Executive Order 9066.
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The order signed by the president authorized the government to act against the immigrants so named and--horror of horrors--Italian immigrants were equated with Japanese immigrants. The order also created Enemy Alien Custodians. These custodians had restricted fishermen of Italian ancestry in the waters of New Jersey, New York--up and down the eastern seaboard. Italian railroad workers could not work in certain zones. Working with the FBI, the Enemy Alien Custodians arrested men for violating curfews or having a camera in their apartment. There were stories of FBI men coming to homes in New York in the middle of the night and taking men away. If a famous opera singer like Ezio Pinza could be arrested and held on Ellis Island, no son of Italy could rest easy in America.

The official sanctions had encouraged the growth of unofficial discrimination. Some businesses fired people who spoke in Italian to Italian customers. Others simply refused to hire them.
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All of these realities existed outside of the mainstream media and had therefore become dirty secrets, passed from one immigrant to another. The Italians, the largest foreign- born group in the United States, knew not how to respond. While proud of his heritage, Salvatore Basilone was an equally proud American. He wanted the United States to defeat Italy's dictator, Benito Mussolini, as well as Germany and Japan. Criticizing the government's efforts against those Italians it deemed dangerous would be viewed as unpatriotic. Acknowledging the discrimination was humiliating.

The weight of the world was settling on John's strong shoulders. Sal and Dora and Alfred would have made sure he understood that the story of Manila John Basilone had begun to right these wrongs. In June, when the story had first broken, the navy commander who had briefed the press had said, "I don't fall for all this talk about the Italians being just natural cowards." The United Press International, whose stories ran in newspapers across the country, had pointedly directed its first story at the dictator of Italy, entitling it "Listen, Benito: We're Proud of Buffalo-born Basilone."
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A few days later the reporters had found their way to the hero's hometown. Asked about his son, Sal spoke to the country on behalf of all Italians. "Sure, I'm proud. I love my family and I always worry about Johnny, but I love this country almost as much as I love my son and I want this war finished. If Johnny can help hurry it up, then I'm satisfied."
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Since then, Sal had distanced himself from the groups that celebrated his Italian heritage. Dora had lied to reporters and told them she had been born in Raritan, New Jersey.
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They stressed that three of their sons were serving in the military, Alphonse, John, and George, without mentioning that the latter two's given names appeared on their birth certificates in Italian: Giovanni and Giorgio.
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The next morning, Saturday, September 4, John met with a group of reporters in the navy's pressroom at 90 Church Street in Manhattan.
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He was smartly turned out in his green Class A uniform, ironed to perfection. He began by admitting that he was "nervous." The admission, and the way he flinched when the camera's flashbulbs fired, started to win over his audience. In a quiet voice, John outlined what had happened that night. The "bag of 38 Japs" that the writers kept mentioning had not all been killed by him, but also by Billie Joe Crumpton and Cecil Evans. As far as the enemy, "every time the Japs came charging at us they would yell. This would tip us off." Trying to lighten the mood, John continued. "We would yell right back at them, but what we said is 'off the record.' We would also let them have it." The reporters liked that he described the battle "without heroics," but then asked lots of questions in their search for something heroic. He repeated his joke, " This is worse than fighting the japs."

After the interview, Manila John was taken over to meet the mayor of New York, Fiorello La Guardia, in City Hall.
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John went around behind the large, ornate desk of one of America's leading politicians. The two men stood side by side, flanked by flags, looking at the reporters, photographers, and a large movie camera assembled on the other side. Mayor La Guardia, a stubby man more than a foot shorter than Basilone, was comfortable working with the media. Ignoring John, he drummed his fingers on the table, chewed his lip, and waited for the signal. When the cameras were ready La Guardia turned to John, looked up into his eyes briefly, then stared at his medal as he said, "Sergeant John Basilone, I am very happy to welcome you, the first enlisted marine to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor, and we're very proud to have you in New York City." As an Italian, the mayor pronounced the
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on the end of Basilone. La Guardia reached out his hand and gave John's a vigorous shake.