The Pacific (47 page)

His letter had ignited controversy within the country, especially in the families of the POWs and in states like New Mexico, which had hundreds of men listed as missing in action. Armed with letters from lots of angry families, Chavez had led a growing number of congressmen willing to take on Stimson.

The question about the surrender had naturally devolved into a debate over whether or not MacArthur's army had been supplied by their government with the tools to win. Chavez's group had the upper hand. No ships had been sent to aid MacArthur. Moreover, the troops had not surrendered; General Wainwright had ordered it. Stimson's War Department could not argue that its army in the Philippines had been well equipped because in hindsight it was not true. Moreover, such an argument implied American boys were cowards. Nor could Stimson blame General MacArthur. The Roosevelt administration, after extracting the general from Corregidor, had entrusted the defense of Australia and the leadership of the U.S. Army to him.

Helping his family to appreciate MacArthur's role in the Philippines was something Austin Shofner would have undertaken with great passion. He looked forward to the moment when the nation learned the truth about Douglas MacArthur. For the Shofner family, that moment came when they received the February 7, 1944, issue of
Life
magazine. It carried a long story on page 25 under the headline "Prisoners of Japan: Ten Americans Who Escaped Recently from the Philippines Report on the Atrocities Committed by the Japanese in Their Prisoner of War Camps." Although it included photos of each of the ten escapees, only two of them contributed to the article. Commander Melvyn McCoy and Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Mellnik had "finally broken" the silence about the fate of America's army in the Philippines. Their story, dictated from their hospital beds, had been sent to the secretary of navy, who had forwarded it on to President Roosevelt. The publisher of
Life
magazine loved the scoop. "In the third year of war, censorship finally lifted the curtain on what happened at Corregidor and Bataan after the American surrender."

Life
magazine had not, however, lifted the veil concealing the story of the POWs. Its story followed a week's worth of stories appearing in the
Chicago Tribune
and the one hundred newspapers affiliated with it. The
Tribune
's series would continue for the rest of February, detailing the story of Lieutenant Colonel William E. "Ed" Dyess, the army air corps pilot who had returned with McCoy and Mellnik. The way Colonel Dyess began his story indicated that he had a different message from that offered by McCoy and Mellnik in
Life
.

Dyess began his account two days before the Japanese attack on the Philippines in order to impress upon the reader that the U.S. forces in the Far East had been expecting a Japanese attack. At great length he detailed the quick destruction of American military might on Luzon, followed by its slow disintegration on the peninsula of Bataan. At every turn, he made it plain that valor could not mitigate the huge deficits in numbers, arms, and materiel that the Americans and Filipinos had faced. The big joke in the air corps had been a note written to President Roosevelt: "Dear Mr. President: Please send us another P-40. The one we have is all shot up."
²⁸
Dyess described catching and eating lizards after their rations ran out. As Ed Dyess made clear that the Americans had been abandoned by their country, the
Chicago Tribune
published tables showing the hundreds of millions of dollars in tanks, aircraft, and artillery the United States had sent to Great Britain, the Soviet Union and other allies at the same moment. The facts set the Roosevelt administration's "Europe First" policy in stark relief. America's real enemy was the Empire of Japan.

When Dyess's series came to the surrender, it overlapped with McCoy's and Mellnik's story. The
Life
magazine article had omitted the start of the war entirely, thereby evading any questions as to how the defeat had come to pass, and focused on Japan's treatment of POWs. It grabbed readers' attention with specific atrocities from the March of Death from Bataan. The second page featured an artist's rendering of one horror. The caption under the picture explained: "Americans were forced to bury other Americans alive. At the point of jap bayonets this man is forced to hit a countryman with a shovel and bury him." A long description of the conditions in the POW camp followed. The Japanese had killed five thousand helpless Americans. Mellnik and McCoy believed that "not more than 10% of the American military prisoners in the Philippines will survive another year of the conditions which has existed at the time of our escape."

Amid promises that none of these descriptions had been exaggerated, the authors explained at length that all of this had occurred as the deliberate policy of the imperial Japanese government. McCoy and Mellnik wanted to establish these facts for the record to prevent the Japanese from claiming that these atrocities had never happened, or that its political leadership had not been aware of conditions in these camps. In this way the article might create pressure on the Japanese government to take better care of the men. Most of all, though, the escapees wanted to increase the American people's feeling of urgency and necessity to make a supreme effort in the war.

The story of the monstrous cruelty committed at Cabanatuan and elsewhere caused the national sensation of which all POWs, not just the ten who had escaped, had dreamed. The editorial page of the
Chicago Tribune
declared that in the Pacific, the United States faced "the task of dealing not merely with Hitler and his gangsters, but with a race of Hitlers who have made gangsterism their state religion."
²⁹
Congressmen used words like "revenge" and issued pledges to "ruin Japan" by bombing Tokyo. The public bought more bonds to quicken the pace with which America destroyed the hated enemy.
³⁰
The gift that McCoy, Dyess, Shofner, and the others had so desperately wanted to give the men left behind in Cabanatuan had been delivered.

The stories from the escapees also fed the ongoing debate in Congress about the promotion of the POWs. Senator Chavez and his allies believed they had all the proof needed to justify the promotions. The families became more strident because they considered the promotion issue to be recognition of their sons' and brothers' sacrifices. Interviewed by congressmen who visited him in New Guinea, MacArthur told them his men "didn't surrender . . . they fought until they were too weak to stand and fight any longer."
³¹
His comments seemed to support the idea of promoting the POWs.

Austin Shofner saw the promotion debate as a sideshow. As escapees, he and the others had proven their courage and had been promptly promoted upon return. The manner in which Melvyn McCoy and Stephen Mellnik had become famous as the leaders of the escape rankled him, though he said nothing. Shofner wanted the public's fury at the debacle on Bataan to be directed toward a frank appraisal of the leadership of General Douglas MacArthur. From what he had seen, the Japanese invasion need not have led to the March of Death. MacArthur and his staff had allowed their air force to be destroyed on the ground a full nine hours after learning of the enemy's offensive. The defense strategy he had crafted had descended into a rout. Hundreds of tons of foodstuffs had never made it to Bataan. Tens of thousands of men had paid a huge price for the mistakes made by MacArthur. This accounting, however, did not occur.

In the national discussion that followed its appearance, pity for the POWs' suffering gave way to acceptance that the American troops had not been equipped to fight Japan. Left unsaid, but certainly part of the public's calculations, was the growing realization that war demanded sacrifice, even callous sacrifice. In the estimation of many knowledgeable observers, the men who had fought on Bataan and Corregidor had slowed the enemy's advance and given the United States time to prepare for war; they had lifted morale in the United States and had inspired her troops like nothing "since the Alamo."
³²
This logic placed them in one of America's favorite stories: the gallant stand of the lost cause. It removed from the POWs the stigma of shame. The tide turned against Secretary Stimson. The families of the POWs, who had for so long been outraged and heartsick, would be mollified.

A potent blend of mythology, patriotism, practical necessity, and skillful public relations overwhelmed all those who, like Shifty Shofner, had experienced a different truth. The public understood that the sacrifice had been an unfortunate necessity and, once the blot of cowardice had been removed, moved on. Public opinion on the fate of the Philippines contrasted sharply with the disdain with which Americans regarded Admiral Kimmel and General Short, the two commanders of U.S. forces in Hawaii on December 7, 1941. These leaders had been summarily relieved of duty in the wake of the attack upon Pearl Harbor, their careers ruined. Douglas MacArthur had been awarded the Medal of Honor "for the heroic conduct of defensive and offensive operations on the Bataan Peninsula."

ON FEBRUARY 10, EUGENE SLEDGE COMPLETED HIS TRAINING WITH A TEST OF HIS skill on the 60mm mortar. He scored a 94, two points shy of being certified as Expert. It angered him to have come so close because it reminded him of his rifle test, but also because an Expert rating would help him make corporal quicker. Gene was pushing hard, as usual. He had only just witnessed a live-fire exercise and would not fire a live round himself for another week. Although his request for a transfer to the tank corps had not been granted, he was enjoying the life of a marine.

His platoon had been issued carbines (lightweight semiautomatic rifles), a sure sign they would ship out soon. Most of his platoon "armed themselves to the teeth" with pistols and knives. Censorship forbade him from being too obvious about his imminent departure, but the signs were in his letters. He got some pictures taken in his blues and sent them home along with a box of nonessential items he could not take with him. He thanked his parents for hiring someone to have his room "done over" in preparation for his return and reminded his father about his request for a .45 automatic pistol. Eugene could hardly wait to ship out. He closed a letter to his mother with "Love you & pop more than tongue can tell & heart can wish." In mid-February Private First Class Sledge was placed into the Forty-sixth Replacement Battalion. A week later, his replacement battalion shipped out on USS
President Polk
.

Out at sea Eugene read a lot, mostly the New Testament to renew his faith, and a few outdoor sporting magazines, which reminded him of all the great hunting trips he had had with his father. Standing in the hot sun watching the trackless Pacific, he felt the pride he had wanted to feel of doing his part for his country. The passing days gave him a marine's deep tan, sea legs, and something else Gene had wanted so badly he could only now admit it. He was catching up to his older brother Edward, who had shipped out for England in November.

THE RUMOR ARRIVED IN HILO DAYS BEFORE THE AIRPLANES DID. IN EARLY February Bombing Two traded in their Dauntlesses for SB2C Helldivers. Trading in the old Dauntlesses for the navy's modern dive-bomber meant an imminent deployment to a carrier. Everybody liked the idea, especially the young wolves. The Helldiver carried more bombs, flew faster, and had four 20mm cannons. Rumors about the Beast did not intimidate them. It "had wings, an engine . . . and various other things."
³³
The Helldivers they received had not come directly from the factory. Walking up to them on the flight line, Mike's preflight check confirmed his first impression: "they sent us some old junkers." The condition of the airplanes concerned Mike both as a pilot and as the squadron's engineering officer.

The skipper of Bombing Two looked to Mike as the key officer to lead the transition because he was the only one who had flown the SB2C. The squadron was informed it had a month to get carrier qualified with the SB2C. Lieutenant Micheel told them about the high stall speed, which meant they had to carry more speed into their landing approach. He led the flights off their airfield, nestled between the ocean and two tall volcanoes, to show them how impossible it was to dial in the right trim on the Beast. The Dauntless could be trimmed to fly straight and stable; the SB2C could not. A pilot had to keep an eye on the SB2C. Before long, Mike became as busy being the engineering officer as the flight instructor. The aircraft suffered from the same malady that had gotten them and Mike kicked off the
Yorktown
a year ago: the wing lock.

The manufacturers of the Helldiver, Curtiss-Wright, had solved the problem of the locking wing by installing a wing lock lever inside the cockpit. When the wings were let down in flight position, the locking pins inside the wings were inserted. To lock the locking pins in position, the pilot pushed in the wing lock lever down by his feet. The lever, though, had a problem caused by the plane's vibration. Mike and his comrades noticed "you'd be flying along and pretty soon you'd see that thing moving out so you'd sit up here and boot it back in." Lieutenant Micheel found himself in the hangar with the mechanics. One of the crew's chief warrant officers wondered, "Why don't you put a bungee on it?" Mike tried it. It held the wing lock lever in place and also allowed it to be unlocked quickly. All of the cockpits were outfitted so that the bungee cord could be connected to the lever on one end and a secure bit of metal on the other.

New SB2Cs, fitted with improved wing lock levers, arrived to replace the old ones they had trained in. The Beast, however, had not earned the pilots' trust the way the Dauntless had. The squadron's skipper, Campbell, reported to his superiors that "most pilots felt that it was a decided change for the worse. The reputation of the SB2C was bad and on the whole the pilots did not trust the plane and felt that they would be unable to dive accurately therein."
³⁴
It was too late. The air group's other squadron, the torpedo planes, arrived. Air Group Two's CO explained that they had been assigned duty aboard USS
Hornet
because the air group currently embarked on
Hornet
"isn't doing very well and we're going to go replace them."