The Pacific (48 page)

THE MARINES WHO WOULD MAKE UP BAKER COMPANY TRICKLED INTO CAMP Pendleton from a variety of sources. The men who had been paramarines arrived with their trousers tucked into their jump boots. Others, usually NCOs, had been yanked from behind their desks in D.C.; these men frequently carried some extra pounds around their waists, but at least they did not have a chip on their shoulders like the men who had been picked to be paratroopers. Those marines considered themselves elite, even if they had not seen action. A few veterans of the war, like John Basilone, found themselves salted into Baker Company, 1st Battalion, Twenty-seventh Marines. One of the new men, Corporal Tremulis, had manned a 20mm antiaircraft gun along the flight deck of USS
Yorktown
. He had had to swim in the open ocean when the captain had ordered the ship abandoned during the Battle of Midway.
³⁵

The majority of the men flooding into the 1/27 in late January, though, came from boot camp. They found their new battalion slightly chaotic. Some routine was imposed through the physical training held each morning out in front of their barracks. One afternoon, Captain Le Francois went on liberty in San Diego and failed to return. Officially listed as absent without leave, Le Francois had "gone over the hill," in marine parlance. Experienced men going AWOL was not an isolated occurrence, although most returned eventually--happy to be busted in rank for a few extra days of liberty.
³⁶
Baker Company received a second skipper and never heard of Le Francois again.

The 5th Division HQ set out a formal training schedule on February 8, even before all the men had arrived.
³⁷
The schedule began with the physical conditioning of the individual, training the individual with his weapon (snapping in), and training the individual for his job within the squad. The squad hiked to each of the firing ranges scattered about the vast grounds of Camp Pendleton. While most divisions trained five days a week, the 5th Division HQ decided to speed up the training cycle by working ten days on and three days off.
³⁸
The marines in John's machine-gun platoon concentrated on the .30-caliber air-cooled Browning Machine Gun.

One afternoon on the machine-gun range Sergeant Basilone watched Private Charles Tatum, the seventeen-year-old he had met on his first day with Baker Company, whipping the gun back and forth like it was a hose. The sergeant tapped the private on the shoulder and said, " Tatum, you're probably the worst machine gunner in the Marine Corps. You got to be gentle with it. Don't spray it."
³⁹
He repeated the earlier admonishments against burning out the barrel. "Fire it in bursts. Don't spray it. Treat it gently." The machine gun was not an all-powerful weapon. Tatum listened in rapt attention.

Every marine knew the name Manila John Basilone and knew his story. It conjured up images of "brute strength and determination."
⁴⁰
The men of Baker Company, though, came to know a sergeant who did not take himself too seriously, much less consider himself special. He fit in. The words "Medal of Honor" never came out of his mouth so no one got to know "Manila John."
⁴¹
The men in his platoon addressed him as Sergeant. Other sergeants called him John since none of them went back far enough with him to call him "Manila." He did not encourage anyone to call him that.
⁴²
Perhaps he felt the name belonged to the legend.

The happiness and good cheer that the men noticed marked the return of John's natural disposition.
⁴³
In mid-February, the 1st Battalion returned to its barracks after completing one of their first bivouacs. After giving them some time to get squared away, Colonel Butler then called his battalion into formation for an inspection. The men reported with their khakis pressed, field scarves tied as prescribed, their fingernails clean, their shoelaces of uniform length. They carried no packs, only their cartridge belts and personal weapons. The companies passed in review of the battalion CO, Colonel Butler. Baker Company's lieutenant called out, "Eyes right!" and saluted as they passed the colonel.
⁴⁴
Colonel Butler inspected each man and his weapon. The company commander followed along. Inspecting hundreds of marines took time. The colonel liked what he saw. He praised the men for a great job and promised them steak and eggs as a reward.
⁴⁵
He then asked Sergeant John Basilone to step forward. He did. The colonel handed him some papers and said, "It's now Gunnery Sergeant John Basilone."
⁴⁶

This promotion was the moment he had been working toward. Before the war began, men had dedicated most of their lives to reaching the exalted position of a gunnery sergeant. Henceforth, he would be called Gunny. In the world of men who trained hard and fought wars, the gunny had authority, a certain amount of autonomy, and a lot of respect. Officers like Colonel Chesty Puller often stated that the senior NCOs were the "backbone of the Corps." The promotion came with the princely sum of $158.90 per month in pay, including an extra $2 "for Medal of Honor."
⁴⁷
Since Baker Company had recently been assigned a gunnery sergeant, John was transferred to Charlie Company. Basilone moved his seabag into the barracks of C/1/27 about a hundred yards away. He was right where he wanted to be.

THE TROOPSHIP STEAMED TO THE DOCK OF A BUSY PORT. EUGENE SLEDGE AND THE other marines of the replacement draft disembarked. Rows of tents of the replacement depot at Noumea, New Caledonia, awaited them. Situated near the Old Mission Church, the camp had a mess hall serving the best food Sledge had ever had in the corps, including fruit juice. There were a lot of rules and the usual delay in finding out what happened next. Men came and went at the replacement depot, so there was little camaraderie. Aside from some physical training, there was little to do. Days turned into weeks before he was even processed completely into the system.
⁴⁸

Until his mail caught up with him, Sledge contented himself with reading what he had brought with him. He enjoyed looking at the selection of photos of his family, his horse and dogs, his prized gun collection, his house. He could picture in his mind the pretty azaleas and japonicas blooming on the grounds of Georgia Cottage. He walked into the town of Noumea often. He found the architecture identical to New Orleans' French Quarter and stepped around every corner expecting to see the Cabildo, one of New Orleans' landmarks. In the evening, he might visit the Red Cross to get some free V-mail paper, although he did not care for "dehydrated letters" and found writing difficult since "everything was a secret." He looked forward to being assigned into an outfit and began to hope that it might be the same as Sidney Phillips's unit. After a few weeks he received his first mail call and a letter from Sidney. Although he expected to be rotated home, Sid joked that he would stay if Eugene was put into his outfit.

MAJOR SHOFNER'S FURLOUGH ENDED ON FEBRUARY 27. HE REPORTED TO THE Pentagon for a few days before reporting to the commandant of Marine Corps Schools. The corps had a lot to teach him about the evolutions in theory, practice, and weaponry of war. During the following months, requests for public appearances from the office of the USMC's Director of Public Relations interrupted his instruction. Shofner, and the other escapees, stood up at these events to embody the bravery of the men of the Philippines. Whenever one of the escapees appeared in public, the families of the missing in action surrounded them, pleading for any information--Do you recall this name? Do you recognize the face in this photo?
⁴⁹
Those faces of loved ones in photos must have brought the horror back to the fore of his consciousness. It must have been difficult to return to class. Few of the other students received a letter directly from General Vandegrift, who wrote him to express "my deep appreciation of your devotion to duty and your heroic conduct." Vandegrift enclosed Shofner's second Silver Star, this one with the army device.

The recognition and the preparation to return to combat delighted Shofner. Demonstrating a keen understanding of the way large bureaucracies worked, though, his reply to the commandant of the Marine Corps included "data about my services not shown on any muster roll." The muster roll, a sacrosanct document produced monthly by each unit in the corps, was the basis for calculating a marine's monthly pay, his experience in the different types of command (for example, service as a division operations officer, or G-3), promotions, length of service, and the like. Shifty intended to receive the credit for all of his service, including his time as "deputy chief of staff," and as a "G-3."

Shifty also sought to receive reimbursement for the personal items he had been ordered to abandon on that awful Christmas Day back 1941, at a warehouse in Olongapo. In twelve pages, he detailed his collection of carved ivory, his array of evening suits, and all the other contents of his trunks. Calculating in some loss due to "depreciation," his list of personal property "lost, damaged or destroyed by operations of war" totaled $2,621.90.

IN RESPONSE TO THE CONTINUING INTEREST IN GUNNERY SERGEANT JOHN Basilone, he sat down with one of the corps' public relations specialists to produce a statement that could be sent to those who requested interviews.
⁵⁰
Acknowledging that he had received both fame and fortune, he struggled to find a way to express how he felt about giving war bond speeches. He couldn't call it what he wanted to call it. The ghostwriter probably suggested the word "hippodrome." An unusual word for someone who had not attended high school, it referred to a game in which the results are fixed in advance. Set in opposition to his obvious joy at being back with the combat troops, the word's disparaging meaning came through clearly.

John felt compelled to deny that he "liked to slog around the South Pacific and let little monkey-faced characters shoot at me any more than the next Marine . . . but, if it's all the same with everybody, I'd much rather spend the rest of the war overseas. I think all real Marines, who are not physically disqualified, feel about the same way." His exasperation at the endless questions he had received from his friends, family, reporters, and even other marines had forced him to explain in detail why he had requested a return to the Fleet Marine Force. "It has been my ambition ever since Pearl Harbor to be with the outfit that recaptured Manila. I kept thinking of how awful it would be if some Marines made a landing on Dewey Boulevard on the Manila waterfront and Manila John Basilone wasn't among them." Once the war ended he would take his $5,000 bond money and buy a restaurant or a farm, and renew the relationship with his "girl back East."

The girl was not named in the article, but John was referring to Helen Helstowski of Pittsfield, Pennsylvania.
⁵¹
He heard from her "every other day"; he wrote his parents, teasing his mother with the line "maybe there will be a wedding soon?" John included a newspaper clipping in the letter about his brother George, who had survived the 4th Division's invasion of the Marshall Islands in late January. As far as himself, "well, we ain't doing much down here still waiting for more men to train." Regardless of the number of men in Charlie Company, Gunny Basilone had them outside training. One afternoon he spied an old friend from Dog Company, Clinton Watters. He went over and said hello. As they got caught up--Clint had contracted jaundice in Samoa and missed the Canal--John asked him why he was in a rifle platoon. When Clint said something about going where he was sent, John said he'd fix that. The next day, Sergeant Watters reported for duty with the C/1/27.
⁵²

Clint had not been particularly close to John when they had been in Dog Company. He had been a private during their training in New River and he had missed the big show. He was, however, someone John knew from before he had become a celebrity. After work they often went out for a beer and some fun. John wore his khaki uniform, which had no insignia other than his sergeant stripes. Wherever they went, John would get approached by civilians, marines, and other service personnel. He understood their desire to meet a hero and made sure to shake a hand or say hello.
⁵³
Both Clint and John had a few sea stories to share with one another. Watters had been put into the Raiders and had seen action in Bougainville and other islands in the Solomons. John told a few fun stories. As for the medal, he told Clint about the moment Chesty Puller saluted him.
⁵⁴

Clint didn't join John on the night of February 23, when he went down the road to the Carlsbad Hotel in the nearby village of Carlsbad. It was a beautiful hotel, fairly new, in the Spanish missionary style. A lot more stylish and expensive than the places John frequented, the small bar off the main lobby usually hosted wealthy visitors who had driven down the coast highway from L.A. He and some friends were standing at the bar when Myra King, a member of the Women's Reserve of the USMC, said hello. Myra introduced her group of friends to his.
⁵⁵
One of the women seated at the table caught his eye. Her friends called her by her last name, Riggi. Also a member of the marines' auxiliary branch, Lena Riggi wore little makeup and dressed in comfortable clothes. He found her dark brown eyes, set off by waves of jet black hair, beautiful. While the appearance of Manila John Basilone left some of her friends "breathless," Riggi's face betrayed her reaction: "So what?"
⁵⁶

The women invited John and his friends to join them and they did. Although Lena did not say much, what she did say had a forthrightness to it. The manner of her speech, John likely noticed, suggested a background similar to his own. He eventually asked Lena if he could take her home. "No," she replied, "you didn't bring me here. I'm not going home with ya."
⁵⁷
He asked about seeing her again. Lena told him that she was going on liberty for five days. He asked if he could call her when she came back. She agreed, thinking "he could have any girl he wanted to" so he'd never call. John wrote down the phone number of the officers' mess where Lena worked on a matchbook cover.
⁵⁸