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Table of Contents

The Third Day on Red-3 (76 Hours)The Ferretts Strike (A Gallant Company)First Kill (Ace!)The Big B (Aces Against Germany)Crippled (Aces Against Japan)Blood Over Kwajalein (Aces Against Japan IISave the Bombers (Aces At War)Descent Into Hell (Aces In Combat)December 1942 (Air War Europa Chronology)November 1943 (Air War Pacific Chronology)Meeting Engagement (Ambush Valley)Desperate Gamble (Carrier Clash)Ambush! (Carrier Strike)Hill 1282 (Chosin)New Britain (Coral and Blood)


The Reserves Are Coming (Duel for the Golan)Mean Streets (Fire in the Streets)Engineers At War (First Across the Rhine)Edson’s Ridge (Guadalcanal: Starvation Island)The Atlanta’s Ordeal (Guadalcanal: Decision At Sea)Record Incoming (Khe Sanh: Siege in the Clouds)First Combat (Lima-6)The Choiseul Raid (Marines At War)O’Brien Hill (Munda Trail)A Fighter Ace’s Baptism (Mustang Ace)The Jordanian Attack on West Jerusalem (Six Days in June)Navy Fighters Over North Africa (The First Hellcat Ace)Command (The Jolly Rogers)Born on the Fourth of July (The Road to Big Week)A Death in Beirut (The Root)Leaving North Korea (The Three Day Promise)Inchon to North Korea (Three-War Marine)



76 HoursThe Invasion of Tarawa

By Eric Hammel and John E. Lane

On the morning of November 20, 1943, the U.S. 2d Marine Divisionundertook the first modern amphibious assault against a well-defendedbeachhead. The objective was tiny Betio Island in Tarawa Atoll. Theresult was a tragedy and near defeat turned around into an epic of victoryand indomitable human spirit.

Although the admirals commanding the Tarawa invasion fleet hadassured the Marines that Betio would be pounded to dust by a massivenaval and air bombardment—the largest of its kind seen to that time—the first waves of Marines found the Japanese defenses intact and mannedby determined foes. Within minutes of the start of the head-on assault,the American battle plan was a shambles and scores of Marines hadbeen killed or wounded. The assault virtually stopped at the water’sedge, its momentum halted before many Marines ever dismounted fromthe amphibian tractors that had carried them to the deadly, fire-sweptbeach. Follow-up waves of Marines suffered grievous casualties whenthey were forced to wade more than 500 yards through fire-swept waterbecause tidal conditions had been miscalculated by the planners.

Follow the bloody battle for Betio in graphic detail as heroic Ameri-can fighting men advance every life-threatening step across the tinyisland in the face of what many historians agree was the best and mostconcentrated defenses manned by the bravest and most competent Japa-nese defenders American troops encountered in the entire Pacific War.


Note: The following article is excerpted from the book 76 HOURS:The Invasion of Tarawa, which is available in print and ebookeditions.

The Third Day On Red-3by Eric Hammel & John E. Lane

Copyright © 1985 by Eric M. Hammel and John E. Lane.

Tarawa, November 22, 1943.The situation on Beach Red-3, the 2d Marine Division’s left flank

on Betio’s northern shore, had remained unaltered for a day-and-a-half.Major Henry “Jim” Crowe’s 2d Battalion, 8th Marines, had beenpulverized in the initial landing and subsequent stalemate. Company F,which was holding a ten-yard-deep perimeter along the coconut-logseawall, on the battalion left flank, could barely muster enough ablebodies to man a platoon. Every one of its officers had been wounded.Company G had been largely broken up to fill gaps and plug holes inthe thin battle line. Company E had fared best. It had advanced on D-day to a limit of seventy-five yards inland. Casualties had been heavy,but Company E was still an organization.

Major Robert Ruud’s 3d Battalion, 8th, had also landed on D-day toreinforce Crowe’s mauled battalion, but it had been blasted apart evenbefore reaching the beach. Scores of Ruud’s Marines had been killed orwounded wading to Red-3 through the fire-swept water, and theremainder of the battalion was still sorting itself out, still forming andreforming into pick-up squads and platoons wherever a lieutenant orsergeant or private could persuade enough Marines to sit still long enoughto get together.

No gains had been made on Red-3 throughout November 21, thesecond day on Betio. Crowe’s Marines had plugged away at the incredibledefenses in depth on Red-3, had probably killed scores or even hundredsof Japanese. But the major uncommitted Japanese combat units were toCrowe’s left, safely out of the battle and therefore a huge reserve that


could be fed into the battle at will against the Marines struggling toexpand the tenuous perimeter on Red-3. No matter how many of theenemy they killed, the Marines on Red-3 had to constantly face relativelyfresh reinforcements. It was all the Marines could do to hold their meagergains.

Between 0700 and 0720 on D+3, U.S. Navy battleships standingwell off Betio fired their 14-and 16-inch guns at targets ranging fromthe eastern end of the island to within five hundred yards of Crowe’slines on Red-3. Next, U.S. Navy carrier aircraft pummeled the area forthirty minutes. Between 0830 and 0850, the battleships fired again. Thenthere was another air strike. The battleships fired again from 0930 to0950, and then there was yet another air strike. And then the battleshipsfired one last time between 1030 to 1050. The goal was to destroy theJapanese reserve manpower pool and resources in the eastern half ofBetio.

*Early on D+2, Maj Jim Crowe issued general orders calling for an

all-out assault against the defensive complex on his left flank below theBurns-Philp wharf. The complex, consisting primarily of the largecovered bombproof and two supporting pillboxes, had stymied F and Kcompanies for nearly forty-eight hours and had barred the way to thewharf and the entire eastern end of Betio. After spending nearly all ofD+1 preparing the way, the two badly understrength rifle companiesand assorted mixed units under Maj Bill Chamberlin were ready to go.

The remnant of F Company drew the steel pillbox covering thewharf and the northeast corner of the bombproof. G Company was insupport. A short distance to the south, K Company, supported by two37mm antitank guns and its own 60mm mortars, was to hit the coconut-log pillbox guarding the south and southeast portions of the bombproof.Assault teams from the most successful unit would take on the bombproofitself. There were no plans for further advances by any of the units onRed-3; they would be issued when the bombproof fell. If the bombprooffell.

Preparations for the assault began at about 0930, when most ofthe machine guns along the front, particularly those supporting F


Company, were shifted to what was hoped would be better advantage.At the same time, Marines began cleaning their rifles and automaticweapons in relays; the crud of the two days of battle had fouled manyweapons to the point of unreliability.

Also at 0930, the 60mm mortars supporting K Company wereunleashed against the coconut-log emplacement and the area around it.No fire was directed against the covered bunker as that would havebeen a waste of precious ammunition. One round from a K Companymortar hit an uncharted ammunition dump, which blew with a loud bang.The dump, to the amazement of all, had been in the very emplacementthat held up the advance for two full days. Machine-gun fire from thisquarter ceased to be a problem.

While the infantry’s preparations continued, Colorado, the lonesurviving medium tank of 1stLt Lou Largey’s platoon, slowly advancedthrough the riflemen huddled along the beach to a position behind theeasternmost extremity of F Company’s seawall line. Largey directedhis 75mm gun against the steel pillbox, and a quick succession of directhits flattened the position, giving F Company free reign over the area.

At 1000, moments after Colorado destroyed the steel pillbox,the assault on the bombproof was canceled. Rather, F Company was toassault eastward to outflank the defensive keypoint. Then the main eventwould commence.

The haggard remnants of F Company had only thirty yards totake, the same thirty yards they had conceded the day before toconsolidate their position on the beach. A lot had happened to weakenand demoralize F Company in two days of battle, so it took Capt MartinBarrett several hours just to get his troops into position.

F Company struck at 1300 and immediately met with ferociousdefensive fire from infantry positions along the beach and just acrossthe seawall. Although small gains were achieved, it was decided thatthe assault on the bombproof would have to be made without the addedbenefit of flank control.

*As the covered bunker was the main objective in his sector of Red-

3, Maj Bill Chamberlin was more or less left with the task of organizing


the proceedings. With F Company bogged down at the seawall and KCompany engaged on the bombproof’s western flank, it was impossibleto draw upon any organic infantry formations for the assault. Chamberlinbegan scrounging.

One of the first men nabbed in the major’s roundup was TSgtNorm Hatch, the only combat movie cameramen on Red-3 (and theonly one on Betio through D-day and D+1). Using his rank andconsiderable bulk to bolster his native talents for organization, Hatchhelped Major Chamberlin gather a mixed group of stray riflemen andspecialists. Once organized, the group huddled below the seawall for aquick briefing. Chamberlin pointed to the crest of the bombproof andtold the men, “When I yell ‘Follow me!’ you follow me up thatbombproof.”

Hunched up against the wall with Technical Sergeant Hatch,Chamberlin watched and waited for a few moments. The fire did notslacken, and the scene changed not one jot. The major shrugged and,without looking back, rose to his feet and yelled “Follow me!” NormHatch raced with him to the top.

At the crest of the mound, the major and the cameraman—whowas carrying his movie camera—stared in amazement as a squad ofJapanese broke into the open and spotted them silhouetted against thesmokey skyline. Chamberlin instantly prepared to fire. Only then did herealize that he was unarmed.

Norm Hatch wordlessly looked on. The major looked at him,snapping him into action. Hatch placed his precious camera under hisarm and began sifting through his film-filled bandoleers in search of his.45-caliber pistol, which had long since been twisted out of reach behindhis back. He looked at Chamberlin in helpless dismay, and Chamberlinmuttered one curt suggestion, “Let’s get the hell out of here!”

The two turned and barrelled off the mound, unhurt, furious.*

Like Chamberlin and Hatch, 1stLt Sandy Bonnyman of F Company,18th, put together a mixed group of engineers, pioneers, and strayriflemen to mount an assault on the bombproof. Bonnyman had beenstudying the bombproof and training his ad hoc platoon since D-day


afternoon, waiting for the right moment to strike the formidable positionat just the right spot in just the right way. Shortly after Bill Chamberlinand Norm Hatch returned to cover, Bonnyman decided it was time tomove. His group worked through the F Company seawall line and soughtthe protection of an L-shaped six-foot-high wooden fence running atright angles to the seawall just off the bombproof’s northwest corner.

The bombproof was the closest thing to a hill on Betio. Since it hadproved impossible to breach either of the entryways, the only tactic leftto Bonnyman was a direct uphill assault. The Japanese engineers whohad designed the bombproof had left a number of large black ventilatorsprotruding from the well-camouflaged roof. Those ventilators would beSandy Bonnyman’s key objectives. A bit of flaming fuel fired into themwould certainly force the defenders into the open. The alternative wasair too hot to breathe and thus asphyxiation.

So, supported by 37mm antitank guns, 60mm mortars, and anassortment of automatic infantry weapons, Bonnyman’s group lined upsingle-file below the seawall and stepped off.

Each of Bonnyman’s men individually vaulted the seawall to thehigher ground behind the L-shaped fence. From there, following handsignals from observers who could clearly see the objective, the menworked along the fence to the foot of the slope, where they were stoppedby heavy gunfire.

Cpl Harry Niehoff’s demolitions team was intercepted by MajorChamberlin as it returned from a minor foray farther along the beach.Chamberlin asked Niehoff if there were any explosives available, andNiehoff replied that he still had several charges. “Where do you wantthem used, sir?” Chamberlin motioned to the covered bombproof andexplained that the Japanese were reinforcing from the southeast but thattheir avenue of approach was well camouflaged and had not yet beenfound.

Harry Niehoff hurled several charges over the bombproof and duckedbehind the seawall as a flurry of fire sought him out. When the firingsubsided, he led his engineers around to the L-shaped fence and preparedto move on the summit.


Pfc Johnny Borich, who was operating one of two flame-throwerson Red-3, was the pointman. He lightly doused the top of the bunkerwhile Harry Niehoff tossed a big charge in hopes of subduing thedefenses. Next, Borich moved forward to spray a concentrated burst offlame. As Niehoff prepared to throw another charge, Borich screamed,“Grenade!” Everyone hit the dirt.

The instant the dust settled, Corporal Niehoff threw another bigcharge. It blew, and every man behind the fence piled into the open andlegged uphill to the summit.

All over Red-3, Marines curious about the commotion stopped whatthey were doing to look on as Sandy Bonnyman and a half-dozen Marinesmade it to the top. TSgt Norm Hatch captured the breakthrough with hismovie camera.

The first key had been turned by Johnny Borich and Harry Niehoff.The combination of flame and TNT had killed the crew manning amachine gun at the top of the bunker and had set the palm-frondcamouflage afire to cover the breakthrough.

The next key was turned by a pioneer named Earl Coleman. As SandyBonnyman sparked the team and issued a steady stream of orders, PappyColeman yelled for TNT and tossed fused charges as fast as he couldlight them. In moments, he had blown the cover off a camouflagedentryway on the southeast corner of the huge structure. As hundreds ofhelpless Marines looked on, a large knot of Japanese burst from theexposed entryway and formed to counterattack Bonnyman’s team.

There were only a half-dozen men atop the bombproof at thatmoment. Pfc Johnny Borich was firing burning diesel into the ventilators,forcing the Japanese to evacuate. Pappy Coleman, Cpl Harry Niehoff,and Sgt Elmo Ferretti were furiously hurling blocks of TNT. SandyBonnyman faced the Japanese alone with his light .30-caliber carbine.

Bonnyman leaped to the forward edge of the toehold beside HarryNiehoff, rammed home a full fifteen-round clip, and rapidly fired intothe oncoming rigosentai. Some fell. Most kept coming. With the Japaneseonly yards away, Bonnyman rammed home another fresh clip and killedthree, just as Marine reinforcements attacking up the backside of thebunker blunted and turned the Japanese drive.


But the help arrived too late for Sandy Bonnyman. He had been shotdead in the final moments of his one-man defense of the bombproofsummit.

As soon as Harry Niehoff heard the killing shot thud into SandyBonnyman’s body, he flattened himself against the ground. It was justin time, for one of Pappy Coleman’s potent charges arched back overthe knot of the defending attackers, bowling men from their feet. SgtElmo Ferretti was badly dazed and had to be led back down to the seawall.

Moments later, as Harry Niehoff was firing his carbine in the midstof another Japanese sally, he heard something drop next to his head. Hesaw a grenade from the corner of his eye. Without thinking, he leapedacross the dead lieutenant’s body and wedged himself between it and adead Japanese machine gunner. But nothing happened. Long momentslater, Niehoff ventured a peek and saw an unarmed American grenade,thoughtfully provided by one of the men at the foot of the bombproof.

Tension, smoke, and the stench of burning flesh finally got to HarryNiehoff. Since he was out of TNT and ammunition for his carbine, theengineer corporal ambled to the rear for a break. He had not suffered ascratch, although thirteen of the first twenty-one men to reach the top ofthe bombproof were dead or wounded.

On losing their bid for the summit, the Japanese sought to abandonthe position; they cascaded from the two entryways and legged off tothe east. Most of them were cut down by F Company, 8th. Manydefenders who turned south to escape F Company were felled by a pairof 37mm guns firing canister rounds as fast as the gunners could reload.*

After leaving the bombproof, Cpl Harry Niehoff wandered downthe beach to his platoon’s CP and found a large cache of TNT. Risingabove his exhaustion, he loaded an ammunition cart with explosivesand, eliciting help from nearby Marines, hauled it to the beach by thebombproof. By the time Niehoff got there, however, dozens upon dozensof Marines were swarming over the area, rooting out survivors andsnipers.

Corporal Niehoff decided to call it a day. He sat down to rest and,following a few nearsighted reveries, found a pile of glass at his feet.


The glass was of a sort known to all Marines—the kind they make beerbottles with. Niehoff idly poked through the shattered debris and foundthe best reward he could ever have hoped for. He pulled one tantalizing,if warm, full and unopened bottle of Kirin beer from the wreckage ofwhat had once been a goodly supply. As his tongue madly quivered,Harry Niehoff prepared to open his prize. But a voice from behindshattered his solitude. Commenting on the corporal’s ideal luck, MajBill Chamberlin stared at the lone bottle of beer through eyes that hadbecome a gateway to his soul. The major looked as bad as the corporalfelt. Succumbing to one of the hardest decisions of his life, Harry Niehoffsilently handed the major the prize of a lifetime.

*Following the annihilation of the bombproof defenders, the rifle

companies got set to move. Maj Jim Crowe ordered his command toattack eastward along the northern shore until stopped by the onset ofdarkness or a Division order.

While F Company occupied a holding position, E and G companiesmoved around the north side of the bombproof. To the South, K Companystood down to cover a demolitions team as it moved to seal thesoutheastern entryway of the bombproof. No one was about to enter thebuilding, and no one wanted any more Japanese vacating it after dark,by which time it would be well behind Marine lines. Next, K Companyand Colorado attacked parallel to E Company along the southern sideof the bombproof.

A team of riflemen who were left to guard the southern side of thebombproof whiled away the afternoon by chucking grenades into anyopenings they could find. In time, a bulldozer with a jury-rigged armor-plate cab arrived and commenced to seal the entire structure with sand;doubtless, any Japanese still cowering within were asphyxiated.

E, G, and K companies had a field day. Everything fell before them.Trenches, buildings, and pillboxes were blown wherever encountered.Although a number of Marines were wounded, no one was killed. FirstLieutenant Robert Rogers, leading E Company, had a close call when,on turning, he saw a Japanese officer bearing down on him, sword held


high for a killing blow. The attacker was shot dead in his tracks by anearby rifleman.

*The last major objective of Crowe’s advance was the massive

concrete bunker housing the headquarters of the 3d Special Konkyochitai.For nearly three days, gunners on the flat roof of the headquarters bunkerhad had an unobstructed view overlooking Marine dispositions. Theirmachine guns had taken the lives of many Marines.

While a line of machine guns was positioned to keep the Japanesefrom manning the bunker’s numerous firing embrasures, a large groupof combat engineers gingerly approached the bunker in short hops. Theobjective was the bunker’s massive steel doors, which had been bangedshut by seven fleeing rigosentai minutes earlier.

The engineers set and ignited a powerful charge and ducked aroundthe corner. The door was buckled and thrown open, and Pfc JohnnyBorich stepped through the billowing dust and smoke to douse thebunker’s innards with a stiff dose of flaming fuel. When Borich turnedto let waiting riflemen pass, he was greeted by a tremendous cheer fromscores of Marines who had watched his calm actions.

Marines streamed by. The advance was so swift and steady thatColorado, which was backing K Company, was never called to help.

Later estimates concluded that nearly a hundred Japanese throughoutthe area committed suicide in the face of the successful Marine attacks.This, more than anything, accounted for the low casualties among theassault units; only three men were wounded after the leading files passedthe Burns-Philp wharf.

In the end, Jim Crowe’s two mixed battalion landing teams coverednearly four hundred yards straight out. Late in the afternoon, however,orders from Division pulled Crowe’s forward elements back almost onehundred fifty yards to the airport turning circle. It was feared that Crowe’sfields of fire might endanger the 1st Battalion, 6th, which was rapidlyapproaching the area south of the turning circle.




A GALLANT COMPANYThe Men of the Great Escape

Jonathan F. Vance

On the night of March 24–25, 1944, seventy-nine Allied airmenclambered through a tunnel at Stalag Luft III in eastern Germany in thefinal act of what history and Hollywood have dubbed The Great Escape.The culmination of more than four years of toil, triumph, and heartbreak,the escape was intend-ed to cause as much disruption as possible inHitler’s Europe. In this, the escapers succeeded beyond their wildestexpectations, but the escape sent shockwaves through the German highcommand that were to have tragic consequences.

This is the story of that remarkable battle to escape from captivity.Built around a cast of colorful and engaging characters from every cornerof the world, it describes their ongoing struggle to outwit their captors,the growing sophistication of their escape attempts, and their ambitiousplan to construct three huge escape tunnels and scatter hundreds of airmenacross occupied Europe. It is a tale of ingenuity, perse-verance, andcourage, and a testament to what ordinary men can achieve inextraordinary circumstances.

Jonathan F. Vance became interested in The Great Escape while ateenager, and spent more than twenty years collecting information onthe subject and interviewing survivors, escape organizers, and relativesof The Fifty. He has published many books and articles on POWs andescaping, and has also written on other aspects of military his-tory. Hisbook Death So Noble: Memory, Meaning and the First World War wonmost of the major awards for Canadian historical writing in 1997. Vanceis an associate professor of history at the University of Western Ontario,and lives in London, Ontario, with his wife and two children.


Note: The following article is excerpted from the book A GALLANTCOMPANY: The Men of the Great Escape which is available only inebook editions.

The Ferrets StrikeJonathan F. Vance

Copyright © 2000 by Jonathan F. Vance

With the break drawing nearer, Jimmy Catanach, Alan Righetti, and afew other Australians got together over a homemade Ouija board andtried to unlock the secrets of the future. There were some feeble attemptsat ventriloquism and a few knocks on the table that no one was willingto admit to, but the only information the board provided was that theywould probably have bully beef fritters for dinner the next day.

At about the same time, Johnny Pohe was able to slip one pastthe censors. “Glowing pictures of a POW’s life have been published inEngland and perhaps New Zealand,” he wrote to his family, “and youcan believe them as being tito.” Since none of the camp censors spokeMaori, they didn’t realize that tito meant “lies.”

However, it was not smooth sailing everywhere. Dennis Cochranshared a room with a few Englishmen, a Canadian, and a Brit fromUruguay, not all of whom understood the importance of Dennis’s workas a contact. Whenever his tame goon came around, it was understoodthat the rest of the lads would wander away and let Dennis talk to hisman in private. Unfortunately, one of the roommates considered his bunkto be his own personal, inviolable space and resented having to leavethe room whenever the tame goon came around. Gradually a deepresentment developed between Cochran and his roommate, and oneafternoon they had a heated argument. After the words ceased, theroommate brooded for a while and then came up behind Dennis and


tapped him on the back. When Cochran turned, the other fellow sluggedhim nearly unconscious and returned to his bunk. The others in the roomreturned a few minutes later and found Dennis lying dazed and bleedingon the floor, his eyes badly bruised and nearly closed. He was definitelynot in the best of shape to be traveling inconspicuously around wartimeGermany.

*It was mild on the morning of February 20, as it had been for

most of the New Year. Only for a short time had it been cold enough tofreeze the camp ice rink. But that dull morning was even warmer thanusual, for it was the day of the long awaited draw for places in the tunnel.

There were 510 names in the draw altogether. The first 100 werespecially selected by the escape leaders as those who had contributedthe most or who had the best chance of escaping successfully, and therest came from the complete roster of the organization’s workers. Inaddition, eight names were put forward by the camp entertainment andadministrative staffs. While these men hadn’t assisted with the escapepreparations, it was rightly decided that their valuable contributions tothe running of the camp as a whole should be recognized.

The selection process consisted of a number of different draws.The first thirty names to be drawn for final exit order were those who, inthe eyes of the organizers, had the best chance of escaping successfully.They would travel by train, without incriminating Red Cross food orlarge maps. After this group, the names of forty of the most prominentworkers were put in, and twenty were drawn. Then the next thirty mostprominent workers’ names were put in and twenty drawn. To round outthe first hundred, those names remaining from the earlier draws wereput back in the hat and the last thirty spots allotted. Finally, the remainingfour hundred ten names were put in and one hundred were drawn tocomplete the exit order.

Once the list of two hundred escapers had been established, itstill had to be revised. On the night of the escape there would be menstationed at Piccadilly, Leicester Square, and the exit shaft to pull theescapers through the tunnel. These men were known as haulers, andeach would pull through twenty escapers before going out himself. The


final list had to be adjusted so that in each group of twenty, there werethree experienced diggers to act as haulers. Red Noble and Shag Reesactually drew in the second hundred but were allotted numbers seventyeight and seventy nine so they could act as haulers. Ivo Tonder, TonyBethell, and Bob Nelson were also assigned hauling duties.

*With the escapers having been notified of their final exit numbers,

they could press on with their plans. Bill Fordyce had planned to gowith Tom Leigh, an Australian born ex Halton apprentice who had beendowned in 1941, but the latter drew in the 40s, while Bill drew number86. Consequently he teamed up with Roy Langlois, who had also drawna later number. Paul Royle drew number 55 and, since he had noparticular plans, got in touch with number 54, who happened to be Edgar“Hunk” Humphreys, another Halton alumnus and a prisoner sinceDecember 1940. Hunk was glad to have some company, so they wentfrom there. Others, believing that a single escaper would be lessconspicuous, elected to travel alone. One of these was Flight LieutenantAlbert “Shorty” Armstrong, a Bolton native and electrical engineer bytrade who was shot down in North Africa in August 1942. Shorty wasone of the few hardarsers traveling alone but the prospect of a solitarytrek didn’t bother him. On the contrary, he was anxious to get going.

When push finally came to shove, some of the escapers hadattacks of nerves and asked to be removed from the list. Paul Brickhillhad a spot in the second hundred and was allowed into Harry to get afeel for it. As soon as he got to the base of the entry shaft and looked upthe tunnel, he knew he couldn’t go through with it—his claustrophobiawas just too strong. Rather sheepishly, he went to Roger Bushell andgave his reasons for asking to be dropped from the list. Someonepanicking in the tunnel on the night of the escape could be disastrous.

“Thanks for being so honest, Paul,” said Roger. “You’re theeleventh man to come off the list this morning.”

*With the draw completed, the idea of escape suddenly became

more real for the prisoners, as they could actually see their chance to getout of the backwater of the prison camp. They had missed much over


their years in captivity. Certainly prospects for promotion became dimmerwith each passing month, and the more adventurous among them weremissing combat action that they would likely never get the chance tosee again. But more important, their lives were passing them by. Thehomes that each had left the day before his last operation were no longerthe same. Dennis Cochran’s mother had died during his time in captivity,Johnny Stower’s mother was dangerously ill, and both of Bob Stewart’ssisters had died. Those men who had left fiancées at home, such asCookie Long and Tom Leigh, found the separation very hard to bear.

As pieces of their old lives dropped away for some, others waitedhelplessly while their new lives went on without them. Pawel Tobolskihad never seen his son, being raised by his wife in Scotland. Hisroommates often joked that it would be difficult to wean the lad ofwearing kilts once they got back to Poland. Jack Grisman’s daughter,born on the last day of 1941, had just celebrated her second birthdayand still had never seen her father. Her twin brother had died at birth, aloss that Marie Grisman had to bear alone. Things like this made up thereal tragedy of captivity.

Others never stopped planning for the future. Brian Evans andJoan Cook had become officially engaged in 1943; Brian said that hewould much rather have things for certain, rather than just anunderstanding. Tom Kirby Green was looking forward to a new lifewith Maria in Tangier. He had inherited some land from a rich uncle andwas planning to settle there after the war. He had no idea what theywould do but was sure something would come along.

*However, there were still a few feet of sand separating the

prisoners from freedom, and removing it was the first order of business.When Walter told Wally Valenta that Rubberneck was going on twoweeks’ leave at the beginning of March, the organizers saw their chanceto finish Harry and get him completely sealed before the hated ferretreturned. Then, the day before his leave, Rubberneck struck a partingblow. Without warning, he and a security officer, Broili, brought a partyof guards into the compound and began calling names.


In all, nineteen officers were summoned, rigorously searched,and marched out the gates to Belaria, an auxiliary camp about five milesaway. Purges were standard procedure, but this time the Germans hadstruck it lucky, for they picked some of the most important men in XOrganization: Wally Floody, chief tunnel engineer; Peter Fanshawe, chiefof dispersal; George Harsh, chief of security; Kingsley Brown; BobStanford Tuck; Jim Tyrie; and thirteen others. The goons could hardlyhave picked better had they known the entire setup of X Organization.

It was a cruel blow, but because of the progress of the escapepreparations, one that could be endured. Ker Ramsay took over as chieftunnel engineer, and the seconds in command of the other departmentscould supervise the operations for the few days until the scheduled break.However, the disruption of travel plans was less easy to overcome, andsome men were faced with the prospect of quick improvisation.

Gordon Brettell turned to roommate and fellow forger HenriPicard and worked out a new plan that took advantage of Picard’s nativetongue. They would travel to Danzig as French workers and look for aship to take them to Sweden. Danzig was known to be full of Frenchworkers, so the two hoped for some help once they reached the port.Tom Kirby Green’s partner had also been included in the purge, so hehad to make other arrangements as well. Gordon Kidder had planned totravel with Dick Churchill as Romanian woodcutters, but X Organizationdecided that Kidder should team up with Kirby Green, with the pairgoing as Spanish laborers. Dick Churchill agreed to the plan and linkedup instead with Bob Nelson. The arrangement was satisfactory, thoughno one liked making such major changes at such a late date.

*Without his Russian speaking partner, Roger Bushell first elected

to travel alone and then decided to team up with Lieutenant BernardMartial William Scheidhauer, a soft spoken Free French officer whowasn’t quite so English in appearance as Bob Tuck. About five feet,nine inches tall with clear blue eyes and chestnut hair, Bernard was oneof X Organization’s intelligence experts, specializing in his native land.More important, he knew one area of the border particularly well. Hisfather had commanded a battalion of the Moroccan infantry regiment


occupying the Palatinate after the First World War, and it was in Landau,near Saarbrücken, that Bernard was born on August 28, 1921.

His father retired while Bernard was still young and the familyreturned to their hometown of Brest, where Bernard went to high school.He was a charming boy, full of exuberance tempered with a dignifiedand almost aristocratic mien, and became popular at the Brest lycée.The young Scheidhauer was finishing at the lycée when German troopsreached Brest in the summer of 1940. He had planned to take pilottraining after graduation, but his father recommended that he try to escapeto Britain, so Bernard headed south for Bayonne, hoping to reach Englandvia Gibraltar. He got no farther than St. Jean de Luz, though, and wasforced to return to Brest.

Undaunted, Bernard arranged with five others to sail to Englandin a little boat called La Petite Anna. On October 19, 1940, they left theport of Douarnenez for Cornwall. A couple of days out, however, theircraft ran into a gale, and they used the last of their fuel trying to ride itout. The storm passed, but the six were helpless and drifted for days. Intime, their food and water ran out, and still they drifted. Finally, on thetwelfth day, they were spotted by a Scottish freighter that picked themup, half dead from hunger, thirst, and exposure, and took them to England.

Less than a week after the ordeal, Bernard was accepted into theFree French Air Force. He completed flying training and in March 1942was posted to 53 OTU. At the end of May he was hospitalized brieflyafter a flying accident, but on June 24 he was posted to the famed 242Squadron, with which he flew his first operation. On September 4Bernard was transferred to 131 (French) Squadron. The unit was busywith convoy patrols and cross Channel sweeps that autumn, and Bernardcompleted more than forty sorties in only weeks.

On November 11, 1942, he and his unit took off fromWesthampnett in their Spitfires for a patrol over the Somme estuary.They found nothing, but on the way home ran into a towering bank ofcumulus clouds. The first section of three aircraft swung to port andmissed the bank, but Blue Section, with Bernard Scheidhauer flying inthe number 3 spot, plunged into the clouds in a line astern. It was apretty rough ride but didn’t get too alarming until Bernard suddenly


saw a tailplane loom up in front of him. Putting the nose down, he doveaway to port but not before hearing a tremendous crash as he hit theaircraft. Emerging from the cloud at two thousand feet, Bernard wascounting his blessings when his engine gave out. Then he noticed that agood eighteen inches were missing from his propeller blades. Withouthesitation Scheidhauer abandoned his mortally wounded Spitfire, madean easy parachute descent, and clambered into his dinghy. He was laterpicked up, damp but unhurt, by a Royal Navy Walrus flying boat.

A week later, on November 18, Bernard was back in action,searching for trains on the Caen–Cherbourg railway line. He and hiswingmate claimed hits on four locomotives, but on the way home,Bernard’s Spitfire began to act up, likely damaged by debris from oneof the trains. Realizing that he would never reach England, he turnedtoward the nearest land, which happened to be Jersey in the ChannelIslands. He force landed and was picked up by German soldiers.

His first interrogation was a bit hairy. Intrigued by the sound ofhis name, the interrogators became even more interested when theydiscovered that Bernard had been born in Germany. Making a note tothat effect in their files, the Luftwaffe passed him on to Sagan.

Scheidhauer was glad to be of use to the intelligence section ofX Organization, but it was his birthplace that attracted Roger’s attention.As a boy, Bernard had played in the hills and fields around Landau andobserved everything around him with the keen eye of youth. Somethingin his past might one day hold the key to a successful crossing intoFrance.

*Before Rubberneck’s chair was cold, the organization had been

altered to compensate for the purge. Now there were more men workingin the tunnel than ever before: two at the face; two in each of the halfwayhouses; and one at the entrance shaft. During the first nine days of March,they excavated the last 100 feet of tunnel, including an 18-foot-longchamber at the base of the exit shaft. On March 4, the workers dug arecord 14 feet of tunnel. After the last chamber was finished, thesurveyors went down and measured the tunnel carefully. They hadcalculated that the distance to the edge of the woods was 335 feet, and


their measurements indicated that Harry was 348 feet long from shaft toshaft. The exit should be well inside the trees.

Now came the tricky part. It was decided to dig upward almostto the surface, leaving two feet of earth to be removed on the night ofthe escape. The most experienced diggers did this work, because therisk of falls was great. It was such a tricky job that it took until March14 to complete. Just after Appell on that day, Johnny Bull and Red Nobledisappeared down the tunnel to dig the last few feet and shore up theroof of the exit shaft. As they clambered up the exit ladder, a deep andloud rumble ran through the tunnel.

“Jesus, what the bloody hell was that?” whispered Bull. Secondslater another rumble rolled around them as the two looked at each otherquizzically. Noble was the first to speak.

“Must have been something driving along that road. Either thatwas a helluva loud truck or we’re awful damn close to the road!” saidthe Canadian. “We’d better get this little job done and have a word withRoger.”

Before starting to dig up, Johnny took a broken fencing foil andpoked it upward to measure the amount of soil they had to remove. Itwas then that he got the second shock of the day. The foil went no morethan six inches before breaking the surface. He climbed back down towhere Red squatted with the tools.

“There’s maybe six inches of topsoil between us and the greatoutdoors,” he said hurriedly. “It’s bloody lucky I didn’t start right inwith the shovel.” Johnny climbed back up the ladder to wedge a coupleof bedboards in as a ceiling and then packed the sand behind them. Redpassed up the last of the braces, and the exit was made secure in theevent of a wandering goon treading on it.

The two worked in silence, both thinking about the discoveriesthey had made. The fact that the tunnel came so close to the surface wasworrying but not particularly dangerous. Six inches of dirt should beenough to prevent the trap from sounding hollow if a sentry stepped onit. The rumble of trucks was considerably more alarming, though. If thetrucks were as close as they sounded, the tunnel exit was less than twentyfeet from the road, in the middle of an open field. That meant that Harrycould be at least thirty feet short.


That night the escape leaders discussed the discovery. Again,they went over the measurements taken by the surveying teams, and themathematical types returned to Harry to confirm their calculations.Everything seemed to check out, and the loud rumble was put down tothe properties of the sand.

After Johnny and Red left the tunnel, everything that was notabsolutely essential was taken out and either burned or stored downDick. Pat Langford sealed the trap and then scrubbed the floor around itso the boards would swell and close any cracks. He would do the samechore twice a day until the tunnel broke. The following day, Rubberneckreturned from leave and announced his arrival by descending on 104with a party of ferrets. As usual, they found nothing.

*With the sealing of Harry, a mood of excited anticipation gripped

the camp. Many prisoners couldn’t help but let it slip into their lettershome. “The vital day for which we are all keenly waiting,” wrote BrianEvans to his fiancée, Joan, “is even nearer than we actually think.” TimWalenn wrote to his brother, “We are all expecting to be home in a fewmonths.” John F. Williams was a bit more practical and asked his parentsnot to send any more cigarettes or tobacco, while Henri Picard told hisfamily that he wouldn’t need any more drawing materials for the timebeing.

Still, it was crucial that a show of normalcy be kept up. Ian Crosstook time out from tidying up the dispersal areas under the theater to goacross to East Compound for a soccer match. There he chatted with hisold friend and escape partner Robert Kee and talked excitedly about thecoming break. Arsenic and Old Lace was playing in the camp theater,and Tony Hayter was planning the year’s garden. There appeared to benothing out of the ordinary at all.

New prisoners were coming into Sagan every day, and one ofthe purges from Dulag Luft included a recently captured Canadian namedFreiburger.

“Freiburger . . .” intoned the duty officer approvingly. “That is agood German name.”

“Well, I’m from Canada,” replied the newcomer without so muchas a pause, “and that’s where all the good Germans are!”


*The morning of March 20 was bitterly cold and windy and, as

was often the case on mornings like that, early appell was held not onthe parade ground but in the open space between the first two rows ofhuts. The men piled slowly out of the huts and took their places; AlexCassie, Des Plunkett, and the other Amiable Lunatics straggled to theirspots between Huts 103 and 110, chatting and laughing while they waitedfor the duty officer. Tim Walenn wasn’t with them that morning. For thepast few days, he had been staying in his bunk during appell to be countedon the sick list. The real purpose behind this was so he could keep aneye on the bulky bag of rubber stamps used by Dean and Dawson. Strictlyspeaking, they should have been stored down Dick at all times, andthere would have been hell to pay had Bushell learned of the practice.But Tim was concerned with the amount of work still to be done anddecided that the process of getting the stamps in and out of Dickconsumed too much valuable time. All over the compound there weresimilar breaches of security, done solely for the sake of speed.

Plunkett and Cassie were chatting happily about the progress ofpreparations when a posse of guards doubled into the compound andencircled Hut 120. Obviously a search was planned.

“Well, that’s a bit hard,” said Alex with a groan. “Now I supposewe’ll be standing out here for hours. At least we’ve got our showers onthis morning—that’ll give us a bit of a break!”

Suddenly, Plunkett went deathly pale and grabbed Cassie’s arm,his other hand frozen in his tunic pocket. “Oh, Christ,” he said with agasp, “my map book! I must have left it on my bed. It’s got the names ofeveryone who’s going out and the maps they’ll need.” For a moment,Plunkett was frantic. If that little notebook fell into German hands, itwould ruin the entire escape. And poor Des alone would be to blame.

However, Plunkett was nothing if not a realist and he collectedhimself quickly. His mind went to work, trying to arrange a plan toretrieve the valuable book. In a surprisingly short time, he was outlininghis scheme to Alex. It all hinged on two things: the fact that Tim Walennwas still inside the hut; and their scheduled shower party. Soon Des hadgathered a few others from the hut and put the plan in motion.


Very casually and with a jaunty whistle, he sauntered over toHut 120 and called to the guard in their room. He politely told the goonthat this hut was scheduled to go to the shower block that morning buthadn’t taken their shower kit with them on appell. Would the guard beso kind as to retrieve his from his locker and pass it out to him? All theway down the hut, others asked the same question, and soon variousguards were passing out small bags and bundles.

As Plunkett’s guard called his superior for permission, Desquickly whispered to Walenn, who was on his bunk directly under thewindow, about the book and asked him to pitch it out when theopportunity arose. The guard turned back to Des and said he would passout the necessary supplies. Plunkett smiled his thanks and directed theguard to his locker out in the corridor. As soon as the guard left theroom, Tim bounced off the bed and grabbed the map book. Thrusting itinto the bag containing his rubber stamps, he tucked the lot into hisshower bag and gave it to the guard when he returned from the corridor.The unwitting sentry then passed everything out the window to Des,who accepted the bundle gratefully and wandered back toward thefirepool with the vital escape equipment stuffed safely inside his tunic.After that the Amiable Lunatics never mentioned the close call again; itwas best forgotten.

*With the tunnel now ready, the organizers had to decide on the

best date for the break. Dark of the moon was at the end of the month,with the best days being the twenty-third to the twenty-fifth. The twenty-fifth was quickly dropped. Because it was a Saturday, the train travelerswould have to contend with Sunday rail schedules. That left the night ofthe twenty-third or the night of the twenty-fourth. Since there was nodifference between Friday and Saturday train schedules, either day woulddo.

However, there were still many final preparations to be made.On March 20, Crump Ker Ramsay inspected all the cases to be carriedby the escapers to ensure that they would fit through the tunnel easily.Some of them were pretty beaten up, having been acquired in the earlydays at Schubin.


Then began a seemingly endless round of briefings. Beginningon the twenty-second, Crump and Johnny Marshall lectured all theescapers on how to get through the tunnel.

“Lie completely flat on the trolley,” boomed Marshall, “and forGod’s sake keep your head down. There’s nothing to see so don’t botherlooking up, because if you do, you’ll bash your head and bring everythingdown. Hold your cases straight out in front of you and keep your bloodyelbows in or you’ll tear down a frame. And whatever you do, don’t tipthe trolley!”

A hand came up timidly at the back of the room. “What happensif the trolley tips itself, Johnny?” asked one of the listeners. Johnnysmiled and spoke soothingly, sensing some nervousness in the room.

“That shouldn’t happen if you do what I’ve told you to. But if itdoes, the first thing to remember is, don’t panic—as soon as you panic,you’re going to squirm around and knock a frame out. As carefully asyou can, get off the trolley and crawl to the nearest halfway house. Don’ttry to get back on the trolley, and don’t leave the trolley in the tunnel—pull it behind you! Any more questions?” Seeing none, Johnny wishedthe group well and cleared the room so that Crump could go over thewhole thing again with the next lot.

*One of the most important briefings was given to the marshalers,

those men appointed to guide groups of ten escapers away from thecompound. Most were to go west, but there were also some groups goingsouth along the railway line toward Tschiebsdorf. In some ways themarshalers were among the most vital cogs in the escape wheel. If theyfailed in their task and ran into trouble near the camp, the entire operationcould be ruined. Because of this, Tony Bethell, Jack Grisman, HankBirkland, Larry Reavell Carter, and the rest of the marshals listened tothe briefing intently and went over the drill time and time again.

Each marshal would wait in the forest until his ten men hadarrived and then strike off into the woods. Keen Type had given MarcelZillessen complete information on the paths through the woods and howfar the trees stretched in all directions, so they were able to get a prettygood idea of where to go. They first had to navigate around a small


lighted compound a few hundred yards from the camp. It was thoughtto be either an ammunition dump or an electrical installation, but theorganizers were certain that it should be avoided at all costs. Then thegroup had to get past the other compounds in the Sagan complex, crossa narrow road, and hit a branch of the railway line. They would followthis until they came to the main north–south line, where they wouldsplit up. The distance was just over a mile.

From there the escapers were on their own and had to find theirown way around the various obstacles. Those continuing south wouldhave to negotiate one main road and the small villages of Hermsdorfand Tschirndorf before coming to their first big hurdle, the main Berlin–Breslau autobahn. Escapers going west had to cope with Sorau, a largishtown similar to Sagan in size, while those going east would have to dealwith Sprottau, another good sized town. Only those walking north had arelatively easy trip—that is until they reached the Oder River, roughlythirty miles north of Sagan. Information recently received in the camprevealed that the river was flooded and would likely be very difficult tocross.

Because of the importance of keeping to a schedule, the traintravelers would make their own way through the forest and were givenexplicit instructions for the trek. They would have to walk northeast forabout a quarter of a mile, and then look for a road that ran roughlynorthwest to southeast past the station. Beside this road was a fence thatbacked onto the station entrances. There were three possible entrancesto the station. The most desirable was a path across the tracks to the eastof the platforms, but if this proved impossible to use, there was anoverhead walkway to the west of the station. Only if neither of thesewas available were the escapers to use the subway, which went underthe tracks and came up in the main booking hall. This route was thebusiest and therefore the most dangerous and was to be used only as alast resort.

In addition, each escaper was given a special briefing by one ormore of the area experts, depending on the individual’s travel plans. Forinstance, those traveling south to Czechoslovakia would hear from WallyValenta or from another Czech officer who came from the Riesengebirge,


the mountains that straddled the Czech–German frontier, who knew themas well as anyone. They were also taught to say in Czech, “I swear bythe death of my mother that I am an English officer,” and were assuredthat this oath would cause them to be believed anywhere in the country.

They were also briefed by Wing Commander John Ellis, an experton outdoor survival who passed on tips to make a hardarser’s journeymore bearable. Those making for Switzerland listened to Roger Bushelland Johnny Stower, who spoke of their experiences at the border, andwere given information about the location of guard posts on the frontierthat Zillessen had obtained from Keen Type. That helpful ferret hadalso provided a list of the foods that could be obtained without rationcards and directions to the berths usually reserved for Swedish ships inDanzig and Stettin.

Finally, Roger met with all the escapers in the lavatory of 104.He spoke confidently of the arrangements made regarding the marshalersand passed on some contact addresses. For those going south, there wasthe address of a baker just inside the Czech frontier and the name of thehotelier in Prague who had helped Johnny Stower the previous year.Roger also gave out the address, sent in code to Schubin in 1942, of abrothel in Stettin that was frequented by Swedish sailors. He wishedeveryone well and then stayed to talk with each of the train travelers.Bushell reminded them of various German customs and gave out theavailable information about timetables and fares. Keen Type had provideddetails on all trains from the Sagan station and, from various sources,Valenta had been able to build up a complete schedule of times andprices. With this the train travelers could plan their itinerary even beforeleaving the camp.

*By this time, most of the material arrangements had been made.

Nearly three thousand maps had been run off and sorted into groups,and Johnny Travis had made up metal water bottles from old food cansand solder. In Hut 112, Canton’s chefs were busy mixing hundreds offour ounce cans of escape mixture. There were two kinds, both made tothe recipe of dietary expert David Lubbock: a mixture of sugar and cereal;and a precooked solid made of cocoa, chocolate, fat, sugar, and Klim.Each can of the precooked mixture was enough to provide the necessary


nutrition for two days. The hardarsers were given six cans each, and thetrain travelers were offered four, although many decided against carryingthe cans, which would instantly identify them as escaped POWs if theywere searched.

As the escape drew nearer, many of the lads wrote home, somehoping it would be their last letter from captivity. “I’ve got an importantpart to play in one of our kriegie plays,” wrote George Wiley to a friendin Canada, “and am a bit nervous about doing my part well . . . may seeyou sooner than expected.”

By the morning of March 23 there was still a good six inches ofsnow on the ground, but the winter seemed to have broken at last. Therewas a new mildness in the air, and a very slight thaw had set in. Springwas clearly on its way. There was still a snap in the air, but it was moreelectricity than cold, for everyone knew that the break was due in thenext couple of days. The opinion of the optimists was further borne outwhen the leaders of X Organization were seen making their way slowlyand circuitously toward Hut 104 for another meeting. One of the menwho walked up the steps to 104 was not a regular at those meetings and,to those who knew him, his presence was significant.

The new face was Flying Officer Len Hall, of the RAFMeteorological Branch, who had the dubious distinction of being oneof the few officers in Sagan who had been sunk instead of shot down.The vessel taking him to England from Nigeria had been torpedoed inthe Caribbean, and Len spent four weeks as a prisoner on a U-boat beforegetting back to dry land. The Germans evidently didn’t know what todo with him because they moved him between Dulag Luft and a navaltransit camp for almost two months before finally deciding to stick himin Luft III. The organization was glad of that decision, for they were ingreat need of a trained weather forecaster.

Since the kingpins of the organization all knew the score, thefirst questions went to Len.

“How do things look for the next couple of days, Len?” askedRoger quietly.

“Quite good, actually,” began Len. “As you know, it’s dark ofthe moon now, and there should be pretty good cloud for the next couple


of nights to make it even darker. I’m afraid the temperature won’t be toohelpful, but you’ll likely have a bit of wind to cover up the noises. That’sthe best I can do with what I have to go on.”

“Can you give me anything longer-term?” queried Roger.Len shook his head. “Sorry, Roger. This German weather can

get damned nasty, and it’s still too early to say that the winter’s over forgood.”

Roger grunted and looked around at his lieutenants. It was clearthat he wanted to get moving. “Well, we’ll have to wait until tomorrowmorning to decide for sure, but I think we should give it a go if theweather doesn’t change. Any objections?”

Everyone in the room knew Roger well enough to recognizewhen he had made up his mind, and this was one of those occasions.They all shook their heads. Tim Walenn said that he needed as muchnotice as possible to stamp and sign all of the forged documents, andKer Ramsay wanted at least half a day to make the final preparations inthe tunnel. Aside from that, there was nothing further.

After the meeting broke up, Johnny Marshall hung back to havea word with Roger.

“What about the hardarsers, Roger?” he asked. “There’s stillthree feet of snow in the forests—they won’t stand a chance in thoseconditions.”

Bushell was firm. “It’s a chance they’ll have to take. We can’trisk keeping Harry until the next no-moon period. You’ve seen the trap—it’s warping more every day. We’re on borrowed time as it is. If wedon’t move soon, the odds are that we’ll lose everything.”

“How about putting out some train travelers now, and closingHarry up until the weather improves? The walkers would have a muchbetter chance in a month’s time.”

“Come on, Johnny,” said Roger. “You know the tunnel wouldnever make it through a big search if we used it once. Besides, it’s got tobe all or nothing. The entire plan depends on getting large numbers ofescapers out in one go—a few train travelers just wouldn’t do.”

It was useless to discuss it further, especially since Marshallknew that all of Bushell’s points were valid. Still, the conversation forced


Big X to reconsider the problem of the walkers, and after mulling itover for the afternoon, he sought the advice of Wings Day. He told Wingsthat he hated to make a decision that would jeopardize the hardarsers’chances but that he saw no other alternatives.

Wings was quick with his reply. “We both know, Roger, that theodds are stacked against the hardarser at the best of times. We’ve bothdone our fair share of walking in the past—you know as well as I dothat the odds are a thousand to one against, even in the best conditions.Besides, no one’s going to freeze to death—if things get bad they canjust turn themselves in. It’s usually warm enough in the cooler!”

Roger smiled when he saw Wings’s big grin. “That’s bloodytrue enough!” he said grimly.

“In any case, there’s a bigger question here. You’ve said ityourself a dozen times that the greatest value in an escape is the numberof chaps who get out in the first place, not the number who get home.Even if none of the hardarsers lasts two days, they’ll have had an impactjust by getting outside the wire.”

Bushell was silent for a moment and then looked up and saidsimply, “Thanks, you’re right,” before wandering off to his hut.

Wings watched him stride across the compound and reflectedon what the South African had been able to achieve. He had taken acamp full of very different characters and given them a uniting purpose.Soon he would turn loose up to two hundred escapers and, for the seventhtime, Wings Day would be one of them.

There was a heavy snowstorm that night and the issue was againin doubt when the committee members met on the morning of the twenty-fourth to come to a decision. At 11:30 A.M., they gathered in a room inHut 101. Just ten minutes later, they all emerged again. It was on.

Tim Walenn went straight off to start date-stamping and signingthe papers. This job had to be left until the very last minute so the escaperscould get the greatest possible use out of their limited time traveldocuments. Also, most of the documents had to be signed, includingRoger Bushell’s genuine visa, which he had procured in the course ofone of his escapes. Cassie painted on the visa stamp in purplish pink


watercolor and then signed it with the name of a chief of police whosereal signature they had. Alex practiced the signature for two days sothat he could get it just right.

Meanwhile, Crump went down Harry to do the final tunnel work.He started by hanging two blankets in the exit chamber to block thelight and sound. As an added precaution, strips of cloth were nailed tothe first and last fifty feet of trolley rail. Blankets were also spread onthe floor of both the entry and exit shafts to deaden any sounds andwere laid down in both halfway houses so that the haulers wouldn’t gettheir clothes filthy. Next, extra lights were installed every twenty fivefeet to give a bit more illumination to comfort those who were inclinedtoward claustrophobia. Finally, the trolleys had to be modified to handlethe large number of men who would be using them. Extra planks wereadded on top to provide a better platform for the escapers to lie on, andfour hundred feet of one inch thick manila rope intended for the camp’sboxing ring was taken down and attached to the trolleys. Finally, fourtwisted shoring boards were replaced and a specially constructed woodenshovel was taken to the exit shaft for use in breaking the tunnel.

Meanwhile, the Little X’s were making their way around thevarious departments of the organization to pick up all of the gear for theescapers in their hut. They had already grilled each escaper and carefullyexamined his clothing, luggage, and papers and now had to hand overthe bundle of gear and a few last bits of advice. The Little X’s also gaveeach man explicit instructions on when and how to go to Hut 104. Fordays before the escape, watchers had kept a tally on the number of mengoing in and out of the block on a normal day. To avoid an increase intraffic on the day of the escape, these figures were used to arrive at aseries of routes and timetables. There was a thirty second interval betweenmovements, and each escaper had a specific time and direction to go.When he got to 104, he would be directed to a bunk to wait for hisnumber to come up. The regular occupant of that bunk would then makehis way to the other fellow’s hut and remain there until the followingmorning.

Around the camp, tension was mounting. There were a few moreforced grins, and many of the kriegies tried to calm their nerves with


meaningless conversation. Len Hall’s afternoon meteorology class wasnoticeably smaller than on previous days, and there were fewer peoplehanging around the theater. The night before had seen a dress rehearsalof the new production of Pygmalion, with Roger Bushell as ProfessorHenry Higgins. An understudy waited in the wings, lest the star beunavailable.

Back in his room, Hank Birkland hunched over one last letter tohis family. “I got a letter last month to which I will not be able to reply,”he wrote in his typical straightforward style. “I am not in a position tocarry on a letter for letter correspondence for long.”

Just after six, a few men gathered in Johnny Travis’s room for alast supper of bully beef fritters and barley glop, a mixture of barley,Klim, sugar, and raisins. Roger Bushell, Bob van der Stok, DiggerMcIntosh, and Shorty Armstrong were all there, but there was littleconversation. No one seemed to have much of an appetite, despiteTravis’s guarantee that the feast would keep you filled for days.

In Hut 112, George Wiley was setting a few things straight beforeleaving for 104. Of all the escapers, George was the youngest-looking.Though he had turned twenty two in January, his fair hair and gentlefeatures made him look about sixteen, and George was used to jibesabout the authorities having to let kids into the air force to do a man’sjob. This day, though, George’s boyish face showed as much trepidationas excitement. He spoke no German and realized that his chances ofmaking a clean escape were almost nil, especially as his leg was againgiving him trouble in the cold. He expected to be picked up in the Saganarea and thought he would probably spend a week or two in the coolerbefore being put back in the compound.

As George was cleaning up his bunk, he chatted with AlanRighetti, who would be staying behind in 112. The Australian could tellthat his roommate was uneasy and tried to buck him up with a fewwords of encouragement. Alan had been involved in a couple of breaksin Italy and knew what it was like for a first time escaper in the hoursbefore a break. George was comforted by Alan’s words but as he got upto make his way to 104, the Canadian turned to his roommate and held


out his watch and a few other things that he had collected over his yearin captivity.

“Alan, if I don’t make it,” he began, “will you see that thesethings get back to my mother in Windsor?”

“Okay, George,” said Alan quietly. “You sure you don’t want tohang on to them? You may see her before I do!” he added cheerfully.Wiley smiled and clapped his pal on the back with a word of farewell.As he turned to leave the room, Righetti couldn’t help but think thatGeorge Wiley looked so young and innocent to be heading out into thesnowy unknown of a cold March night.

*As dusk fell, the exodus continued. Pulling on his greatcoat,

Mike Casey bade farewell to his roommates in Hut 122. “I’m off, lads,”he said with a wave. “It’s about time for my run in the woods!” Mikereported to 122’s controller, who consulted his time sheet, got the nodfrom his stooge, and pushed the Irishman out the door with a heartyclap on the back. Casey walked east, around the south end of Hut 121and then entered 109 by the south door. He went directly to Room 17,where Wings Norman sat with another time sheet.

“Ah, Mike,” said Norman cheerily, “spot on time as usual. Off yougo, then, and don’t get yourself into any trouble!” With a firm hand-shake, Mike was sent on his way. He continued up the corridor to thenorthern end of 109, where another stooge stood holding the door shut.He peeked through the crack and then quickly opened the door andgave Mike the thumbs-up as he passed. The Irishman crossed the pathrunning beside the firepool and paused on the southern steps of Hut104.

The door swung open and Casey reported to Dave Torrens, whogave him a room and bunk assignment. Mike had escaped before, but inhis nearly five years as a prisoner, he had never seen anything quite likethis. Inside the crowded hut was the oddest collection of characters,some in rough working clothes and others in smart business suits. Somewere just standing and smoking, others were chatting softly, and twopairs were huddled over a game of bridge. Many just sat and said noth-ing, glancing up briefly with a smile as Mike passed.


Twice every minute, the door opened for another kriegie, who camein quietly and was checked off by Torrens. Everything had gone exactlyaccording to plan so far. Then, at about a quarter to eight, the door openedagain. Instantly, a hush fell over the corridor and Casey poked his headout of the room to see what was up. There, at the end of the hall, stood aLuftwaffe corporal.




Ace!A Marine Night-Fighter Pilot in World War IIBy Colonel R. Bruce Porter with Eric Hammel

“My first time at the controls of the N3N was a nightmare of jerky,uncoordinated movements, over-corrections, needless exertions, and red-faced certainty that I did not, in fact, have the right stuff. The instructorcalmly got me—and himself—out of trouble and never uttered a soundof dismay. Until we were safely on the ground. Then he looked at me—a wet rag, sweating fear and embarrassment into my bulky flight suit—and said just the thing to make my day: ‘Porter, you will never solo. Youare the dumbest cadet I have ever laid eyes on.’”

Ace! is Bruce Porter’s life as a Marine combat fighter pilot—fromhis earliest days as a naval aviation cadet before World War II, to hisadventures guarding America’s forwardmost defense line in the SouthPacific, to his aerial combat over the Solomons. Follow Bruce Porterthrough his exacting night-fighter training and fly with him on his raredouble-kill night mission over Okinawa in 1945.

Colonel Robert Bruce Porter, USMCR (Ret) reported for his LastFlight on April 20, 2009.

What the Marine Aces said about Ace!

“From flight training, Bruce Porter’s aeronautical skills as a Marineday- and night-fighter pilot defined the term—fighter ace! Bruce’s bookreflects the keen, analytical mind of a fighter pilot’s technical skillsprojected into combat. This book is a ‘must’ for anyone interested incombat aviation history.” ———Col Jeff De Blanc, Marine Medal ofHonor recipient

“[In his book], Bruce relives the challenges, frustrations, and triumphsof training, on to his victories in the Corsair in the Solomons, and thenon to attain ace status with a flourish at Okinawa. Read and enjoy a


fabulous Marine aviation combat story.” ———BriGen Joe Foss, MarineMedal of Honor recipient

“Bruce Porter’s book is great! It shows the many details and answersmany questions about operating from an aircraft carrier. . . . It explainswhy, even without enemy action, steady operations under poor conditionswill cost us pilots and aircraft. . . . I highly recommend Ace!” ———BriGen Bob Galer, Marine Medal of Honor recipient

“You have to read this excellent book. It will keep you glued to thepages as you sit in the cockpit with Bruce. . . . It is very well written andpersonal.” ———Col Jim Swett, Marine Medal of Honor recipient

“Bruce Porter’s book, Ace!, tells of our flying Wildcats together beforePearl Harbor, about his Corsair victories in the Solomon Islands, andhis splendid night flying from Okinawa. I highly recommend Ace!” ———LtCol Ken Walsh, Marine Medal of Honor recipient


Note: The following article is excerpted from the book ACE!: AMarine Night Fighter Pilot in World War II by Colonel R. BrucePorter with Eric Hammel. The book is currently available in a $24.95trade paperback edition published by Pacifica Military History. Itis also available in ebook editions.

First Killby Colonel R. Bruce Porter with Eric Hammel

Copyright 1985 © by Robert Bruce Porter and Eric Hammel

Robert Bruce Porter earned his wings and was commissioned a Marinesecond lieutenant in July, 1941. He shipped out to American Samoa inMarch 1942, with the first U.S. fighter squadron to be sent to thatthreatened front-line area. Following more than a year’s rigoroustraining in Samoa, Porter was transferred to Marine Fighter Squadron121 (VMF-121), which at the time was converting to the new F4U-1Corsair fighter. The squadron was moved forward to Guadalcanal’sHenderson Field on June 9, 1943, to begin its third combat tour in theSolomons. By then a seasoned, senior pilot, and one of the first Marineairmen to be assigned to front-line duty in the Pacific, Captain BrucePorter finally faced the prospect of experiencing combat againstJapanese warplanes.

My first air-alert scramble at Guadalcanal was on June 12, 1943. It wasto be my first intercept and my first combat.

I was then the squadron flight officer and, on June 12, was flightleader of VMF-121’s two four-plane alert divisions.

Pilots not already waiting in their cockpits were in the squadronready room, a large tent near the edge of the main runway, withinsprinting distance of our Corsairs.

At the alert, I ran toward the airplanes, which were waiting like cowponies in the dispersal revetments beside the taxiway.


I climbed up on the left wing of the first plane I could find andvaulted into the cockpit. With the aid of the plane captain, I shruggedinto my seat and parachute harnesses and plugged in my throat mikeand earphones. As the plane captain climbed down off the wing and gotout of the way, I checked the lever that was set to lock me into thecockpit.

Then, one by one, I heard the thrumming high-performance engines,which had already been turned up by the plane captains, roar to fullpower. At this point, all pilots checked the two magnetos to be sure theywere each bearing a full power load. If the magnetos gave a low reading,or if some other problem was noted, the pilot would quickly shut off theengine, reverse the entry procedure, and head for the nearest spare plane,of which there were always one or two. Sometimes, if too many airplaneswere down, some pilots would miss getting into the air.

The eerie thing about scrambles was the complete absence of radiochatter. The entire evolution was so automatic that, except in an extremeemergency, there was zero conversation. We just boosted power androlled out to take off into the wind.

As my airplane vaulted into the air, I pulled up its landing gear leverwith my left hand. Then, as I climbed beyond danger of hitting the earth,I switched the joystick to my left hand and pulled my birdcage canopyshut with my right. Then I strapped on my oxygen mask, which wasmandatory above 10,000 feet.

Within a very few minutes, my half-squadron was clawing for analtitude advantage over the onrushing enemy, seeking to meet that enemyas far from friendly bases as we could manage. As we climbed, each ofus charged and test-fired all of his six Corsair’s six .50-caliber wingguns. There was no point in flying on if the guns were inoperable.

The formation pretty much took care of itself. We nearly always hada few stragglers or gaps in our formation right after reaching altitude.That meant we had to reconstitute two-plane elements and divisions onthe way to combat.

*We were at 18,000 feet and heading northwest, toward the RussellIslands, which were about 80 miles from Henderson Field. The remainder


of the squadron, and three other alert squadrons, were dispersed nearbyor right behind us, covering different altitudes and sectors. Thus, wehad 32 Corsairs and Wildcats flying as a leading wedge and nearly anidentical number coming on as a follow-up force. The New Zealandersmanaged to launch another 30 P-40 fighters.

For all the long months of practice and performance in Samoa andat Turtle Bay, I did not have a calm cell in my body. It is unusual tosweat at altitude, even in the tropics, but bodily fluids were running offme in rivulets. I was even concerned that my canopy would fog up fromso much moisture. I had no fear, but my bloodstream had anoverabundance of adrenalin and, I’m sure, other life-preservingsubstances that gave off a rank odor and copious amounts of perspiration.In a way, my discomfort shielded me from dwelling too much on thepossible consequences of the onrushing confrontation.

I do not think I was ever as exhilarated as I was during that flight.The Russells had been recently seized by Marine Raiders, and a

new forward fighter strip was under construction. It was unclear if theapproaching Japanese wanted to strike at the new base or if they werebound for Guadalcanal. Whatever the case, we had barely enough timeto intercept them just to the northwest of the Russells.

There was no end of chatter among the Corsair pilots, especially“bogies”—unconfirmed, presumably hostile radar contacts from ourground controllers at Guadalcanal.

We were over the Russell Islands within 30 minutes of the alert.Below, I could see the wakes of boats as they plied the blue waters. Iwas scanning the entire sky, looking for telltale movement among thedistant thunderheads and the lacy white cumulus clouds set against asplendid blue canopy.

I was just commenting to myself what a beautiful day it was whenmy earphones suddenly crackled with an incoming all-squadronsmessage: “Tally ho! Zeros at eleven o’clock. Angels 25.” This meantthat enemy fighters had been spotted as they flew at an altitude of 25,000feet and on a bearing just to the left of dead center. (Imagine a clock.Dead ahead is 12 o’clock, dead astern is six o’clock, right is three o’clock,and left is nine o’clock.)


I charged my guns and turned on my reflector sight, which cast animage of a gunsight, complete with distance calibrations, on thewindscreen in front of my face.

Within seconds, I saw silvery glints against the bright bluebackground of the sky. The enemy fighter formations were coming infrom all directions.

No enemy bombers had been reported by coastwatchers occupyingvarious covert observation posts farther up the Solomons, and none wassighted as the opposing forces rushed at one another in excess of 500miles per hour. We were encountering a fighter sweep, pure and simple.Over 70 Zeros had come only to challenge our fighters.

Well.*

As I approached the swift silver streaks and tried to lock onto one of myown, I could see in the middle distance that other Corsairs—from mytwo divisions, as it turned out—had already engaged, for there was alarge brown smudge set against a lacy cumulus cloud to mark the spotwhere a Zero had blown up. I saw no parachute.

Then we were into it.To my left, my own division’s second element suddenly broke away

to take on an oncoming Zero. But I had only enough time to watch thefirst spurt of tracer erupt from one of the Corsair’s six .50-caliber wingguns.

All the best training in the world could not abate the instant of sheersurprise when my eyes locked onto a target of their own.

The Zero was going to pass me from the right front to left rear as hedived on one of the Corsairs of my engaged second element, which bythen was behind and below me. I was sure the Japanese pilot never sawme as he opened with his two .30-caliber machine guns. I saw his pinktracer reach out past my line of vision, which was obscured by myCorsair’s long nose. Then, for good measure, he fired four 20mm cannonrounds, which passed in front of me like fiery popcorn balls; I wasshocked to see how slowly they seemed to travel.

I never consciously pressed my gun-button knob. I had practicedthis encounter a thousand times, and I seemed to know enough to allow


my instincts to prevail over my mind. My guns were boresighted toconverge in a cone about 300 yards ahead of my Corsair’s propellerspinner. Anything within that cone would be hit by a stream of half-inchsteel-jacketed bullets.

My Corsair shuddered slightly as all the guns fired, and I saw mytracer passing just over the Zero’s long birdcage canopy.

Then he was past me. I pulled around after him, to my left. So, Ihoped, did my wingman, 1st Lieutenant Phil Leeds, who was echelonedto the right and rear, just off my right wing.

My turn was easy. I did not pull many Gs, so my head was absolutelyclear. I came up with a far deflection shot and decided to go for it. I gavethe Zero a good lead and fired all my guns again. As planned, my tracerswent ahead of him, but at just the right level. I kicked my left rudder topull my rounds in toward his nose.

If that Japanese pilot had flown straight ahead, he would have beena dead man.

Instead, that superb pilot presented me with a demonstration of theZero’s best flight characteristic, the one thing a Zero could do that couldcarry its pilot from the jaws of death just about every time. I had heardof the maneuver I was about to experience from scores of awed F4F andF4U pilots, but I had no conception of how aerodynamically fantasticthe Zero fighter really was until that split second.

As soon as my quarry saw my tracer pass in front of his airplane’snose, he simply pulled straight up and literally disappeared from withinmy reflector sight and, indeed, my entire line of sight. My tracer reachedout into empty space. I was so in awe of the maneuver that I was literallyshaking with envy.

I had time to inscribe a fleeting image of my surroundings upon mymind’s eye—the sky was filled with weaving airplanes, streamers ofsmoke and flame, winking guns, and lines of tracer set against that superbblue background, with its distant thunderheads and lacy cumulus clouds.Then I pulled my joystick into my belly and banked as hard to the left asI dared.

There he was! My reflector sight ring lay just to the right of him. Hewas just beyond my reach. If I was to get a clear shot, I would have to


pull up in an even steeper climb. Even then, he had the better climbingspeed, and he was steadily opening the range.

But I wanted the son of a bitch to avenge Sam Logan.I held my breath and sucked in my gut to counteract the pressure,

but I felt the forces of gravity steadily mount up and press me into myseat; I felt the thought-carrying blood being sucked from my brain. Icould not quite get him into my sights; he was just a little too high anda little too far to the right.

He had me in a tight loop by then. I knew I would not be able tomaintain the mind-expanding maneuver indefinitely. It struck me that Imight be running low on ammunition.

All the alarm bells went off in my head at the same time, but I hungon despite the gray pall that was simultaneously passing over my eyesand my mind.

I finally reached the top of the loop, a point where all the forceswere in equilibrium. Suddenly, the G forces relaxed. I was not quiteweightless, but neither was I quite my full body weight. There was amoment of grogginess, then the gray pall totally cleared. I noticed thatthe horizon was upside down and that the Zero was . . . in my sights!

He was about 300 yards ahead of me, at extreme range, and slowlypulling away.

It was now or never.I blocked out everything else in the world except that silver Zero

and the tools I had at my disposal, now mere extensions of my mind andmy senses. Nothing else in the world mattered more than staying on thatZero’s tail. I would have flown into the ocean at full throttle if thatenemy pilot led me there.

I squeezed the gun-button knob beneath my right index finger. Theeerie silence in my cockpit was broken by the steady roar of my machineguns.

The Zero never had a chance. It flew directly into the cone of deadlyhalf-inch bullets. I was easily able to stay on it as the stream of tracerfirst sawed into the leading edge of the left wing. I saw little pieces ofmetal fly away from the impact area and clearly thought I should nudgemy gunsight—which is to say, my entire Corsair—a hair to the right.


The stream of tracer worked its way to the cockpit. I clearly saw theglass canopy shatter, but there was so much glinting, roiling glass anddebris that I could not see the pilot. The Zero wobbled, and my tracerfell into first one wing root, then the other, striking the enemy’sunprotected fuel tanks.

The Zero suddenly blew up, evaporated.*

I instinctively ducked, certain that I would be struck by the debris, whichwas hurtling by at many hundreds of miles per hour. I could feel thingshitting the Corsair, but I was quickly through the expanding greasy cloudof detritus and soaring through clear sky.

As I fell back into the ironclad routine of rotating my head left, rightand up in search of enemy planes, I felt rather than saw Phil Leedsclosing in on my tail. Only then did I realize that trusty Phil had followedme all the way through the grueling chase and on through the debriscloud of the evaporated Zero.

Now it was his turn.Only seconds after passing through the debris of my kill, another

Zero flashed by directly in front of us, from right to left and a hair aboveus. Phil was in the best position to get him; we both knew that. WhilePhil went after him like a hawk after a mouse, I dropped back and lockedon to Phil’s wing.

Phil peeled off to the left and struggled mightily to grab hold of theZero’s tail. As he turned, however, I saw a stream of pink tracer flashpast his windscreen from the right rear.

My eyes quickly shifted to my rear-view mirror on the right andcaught the glint of the sun on our assailant’s silvery fuselage. Phil sawthe second Zero too and led me sharply around to the left.

There, we both saw that a third Zero was coming toward us frombelow!

Phil followed through right into a diving head-on attack against thethird Zero. Even as pink tracer from the second Zero’s guns flashed byfrom the right rear, I saw that Phil was scoring solid hits on the thirdZero. I also noted that there was no return fire from the third Zero.


Then it was time to get out of the way. We reversed course by flyingup into a tight loop. The instant we completed the high-G maneuver, thesecond Zero overtook us and hurtled out from under my wing. Phil simplyfired all his guns at the second Zero as it passed beneath his wing.

I lost track of Phil’s bullets and all the Zeros for just an instant as Ichecked to see if any more Zeros were converging on us. When I nextlooked around, all I could see was a huge white parachute openingbeneath a great puff of black smoke. Nearby, the remains of the lifelesssecond Zero spiralled down toward the sea. Neither the first nor thirdZeros were anywhere in our part of the sky.

I don’t think Phil’s kill took more than ten seconds.*

The sky around us was empty; the air battle had passed us by. Far off, Icould see airplanes maneuvering against the backdrop of clouds. I brieflyconsidered joining the action, but I was worried about our supply of.50-caliber ammunition. I well knew that only very foolish pilotsknowingly use all their bullets when enemy fighters are still around.

I motioned Phil to fall back on my tail, which he did as I checkedour position on my strip map. As soon as I had a fix on a distinctiveisland below, I climbed back to 18,000 feet and shaped a course forhome, well to the southeast.

Only then did I realize that my flight suit was dripping wet fromperspiration. And I could feel a heavy pounding in my temples, indicatingthat a vast quantity of adrenalin was coursing through my bloodstream.My breathing became shallow, and I felt ever so faint. I took a few deeppulls of pure oxygen, and that cleared me right up.

*After a return flight of under 30 minutes, we made landfall over CapeEsperance, Guadalcanal’s northwestern tip. It was about 1130. Thenand there, Phil and I both spotted a solitary Zero circling right over thebeach at about 5,000 feet, well below us. I had the vague impressionthat the pilot might have been speaking by radio with someone on theground.

I knew I was very low on ammunition and would have left that Zeroalone, but Phil radioed that he wanted to take a crack at him, though hehad no idea how many bullets he had left.


I turned the lead over to Phil and followed him in a steep dive rightout of the sun. The whole thing was over in seconds. Phil simply nailedthe Zero, which turned its nose down and dived straight into the sea. Itnever even flamed.

We circled the Zero’s grave once, then turned for home, where wemade a routine landing and taxied out to the dispersal area to see howour comrades had fared. As it happened, Phil and I were the first onesback. We accepted handshakes from our plane captains after telling themthe good news, and then we bided our time by checking our Corsairs fordamage. Neither of the airplanes had sustained any bullet holes, but myairplane’s nose and leading wing edges were pitted from debris, andthere was a large black smudge, probably flaming oil or aviation gasoline,on my prop spinner and the nose of my fighter.

Everyone was back within 30 minutes or so. It turned out that VMF-121 was the only squadron that scored that day. Captain Bob Baker wascredited with a probable Zero; Captain Ken Ford got two solid kills anda probable; Captain Bill Harlan got one kill and two probables; CaptainBruce Porter got a kill; and 1st Lieutenant Phil Leeds got two kills. Thatis six kills and four probables against no losses of our own. A very goodday!*I had not only weathered first combat, I had scored my first kill. I hadbeen baptised. I had won my spurs.

It did not dawn on me until late that night that I had also killed aman.



ACES AGAINST GERMANYThe American Aces Speak

By Eric Hammel

In the second volume of his critically acclaimed series, The AmericanAces Speak, military historian Eric Hammel brings fresh first personaccounts from U.S. Army Air Corps fighter aces who blasted their wayacross the skies of North Africa, the Mediterranean, and northern andsouthern Europe in the great crusade against Hitler’s vaunted Luftwaffeand other Axis air forces. Coupled with a concise historical overview ofAmerica’s air war against the Axis in Europe and North Africa, Hammel’sdetailed interviews bring out the most thrilling in the-cockpit experiencesof some of our country’s best pilots.

Climb aboard a P 38 Lightning as Maj. Bill Leverette fights America’shighest scoring single personal air battle against the Luftwaffe. And getinto the cockpit of a P 47 Thunderbolt as 15 victory ace Capt. DonBryan scores his dream kill by outwitting the pilot of a far speedierGerman jet in the closing days of the war in Europe.

As he has in four companion volumes, Hammel collected some ofthe very best air combat tales from America’s war against Germany.Nearly all the stories in Aces Against Germany have never before beentold, and the others have been enhanced by details and viewpointsbrought out by Hammel’s interviewing Together, the five volumes ofnearly 200 first person aerial combat stories from World War II, Korea,and Vietnam stand as an enduring testament to the combat airmen whofought their wars strapped into the cockpits of America’s lethal highperformance fighter aircraft.

Aces Against Germany is a highly charged emotional rendering ofthe now-dim days of personal combat at the very edge of our livingnational history. There was never a war like it, and there never will beagain. These are the stories of America’s eagles in their very own words.


Critical Acclaim for The American Aces Speak Series

The Book World says: “Aces Against Japan is a thunderous, personal,high-adventure book giving our ‘men in the sky’ their own voice”

Book Page says: “Eric Hammel’s book is recommended reading. It is amust for any historian’s bookshelf.”

The Library Journal says: “No PR hype or dry-as-dust prose here.Hammel allows his flyers to tell their stories in their ownway.Exciting stuff aviation and World War II buffs will love.”

The Providence Sunday Journal says: “A treat that deftly blends achronology of the Pacific War with tales that would rival aSaturday action matinee.”

Infantry Magazine says: “If you would like to read one book that willgive you a broad overview and yet a detailed look at what afighter pilot’s air war was like?this is the book.”

The Bookshelf says: “Hammel is one of our best military historianswhen it comes to presenting that often complex subject to thegeneral public. He has demonstrated this facility in a number offine books before [Aces Against Germany] and now he does soagain.Not to be missed by either buff or scholar.”


Note: The following article is excerpted from the book ACESAGAINST GERMANY: The American Aces Speak by Eric Hammel.The book is currently available in a $27.50 trade paperback editionpublished by Pacifica Military History. It is also available in ebookeditions.

THE BIG Bby Eric Hammel

Copyright 1992 © by Eric Hammel.

Major TOM HAYES, USAAF364th Fighter Squadron, 357th Fighter GroupBerlin, March 6, 1944

*Portland, Oregon’s Thomas Lloyd Hayes, Jr., dreamed of flightthrough-out his youth, but he saw no means for making his dreams realuntil 1937, when he was a high-school senior. Early that year, a Sovietairplane on a much-heralded flight from Moscow to San Francisco wasforced to end its journey in Portland’s neighbor, Vancouver, Wash-ington.Young Tom Hayes was one of the first civilians to greet the Russianaircrew. Emboldened by his brush with reflected glory, Hayes attemptedto enlist in the U.S. Navy flight program as soon as he graduated fromhigh school that June. He was turned away on account of his age andadvised to earn a college degree in order to qualify. Hayes dutifullymatriculated at Oregon State University, but all he really cared aboutwas qualifying for Navy flight school. However, in May 1940—the monthGermany invaded the Low Countries—Hayes attended an Army AirCorps air show in Corvallis, Oregon. When he learned at the show thathe needed only two years of college to qualify, he signed up on the spot.

Within a month, Cadet Hayes was attending Primary flight trainingat Glendale, California, and he graduated with Class 41-A at KellyField, Texas, on February 7, 1941. Lieutenant Hayes was assigned tothe 35th Pursuit Group. In November 1941, the group was ordered to


the Philippines, but by December 7 one-third of the group—Tom Hayesincluded—had not yet shipped out. In January 1942, Hayes’s group ofpilots, crew chiefs, armorers, and P-40 fighters ended up on Java,battling the Japanese. On February 19, Hayes was shot down by aJapanese Zero fighter and severely injured. He was evacuated toAustralia just as the American survivors of the one-sided air battleswere being withdrawn. After recuperating from his injuries, Hayes helpedto recommission the 35th Pursuit Group. He flew Bell P-39 Airacobraswith the 35th in New Guinea until he was ordered home in October1942 to help prepare newly trained fighter pilots for the rigors of combatflying in the Pacific.

After completing a month-long War Bond tour, Captain Hayes wasassigned as a flight leader to a P-39 replacement training group innorthern California. In May 1943, he was selected by the commanderof the new 357th Fighter Group to replace a squadron commander whohad been killed in a training accident. Hayes assumed command of the364th Fighter Squadron in Tonopah, Nevada, and helped train the newP-39 unit. By October 1, 1944, the 357th Fighter Group was ready toship out from its base at Marysville, California; it had been trained toperfection and was, in every respect, ready to go to war. Instead, thegroup was ordered to leave immediately for several bomber bases inNebraska, Wyoming, and North Dakota.

*We didn’t know what was going on. It turned out that we had beenscheduled all along to ship out to England on October 1. The new groupsbound for England were scheduled to complete their phases of train-ingevery six weeks and then move on to new bases. But, as we eventuallylearned, we couldn’t go straight to England because our base there wasnot ready. We were sent to the upper Midwest to mark time. As long aswe were there, we kept up our flying skills by simulating German fighterattacks against heavy bombers. That helped get the B-17 and B-24 crewscertified a little more quickly for deployment overseas. The stopoverturned out to be of great value. We quickly learned that the war-timeshortage of small-arms ammunition had caused a huge increase in thelocal population of pheasant and other game birds, so fifteen or twenty


of us sent for our shotguns. After we finished flying each day—sharpening our flying skills in aggressive, high-speed attacks that lackedonly real gunfire—we went bird hunting. We shot so many pheasantthat we were able to feed the entire squadron—300-plus people— everynight. More important, we sharpened our shooting eyes.

After about a month, we left the P-39s behind and boarded the QueenElizabeth for a high-speed run to Scotland. We spent Thanksgiving atsea. When we finally got to England and had been assigned to the NinthAir Force, we were told that we were going to be the second fightergroup in England to be equipped with North American P-51 Mustangs.We didn’t know a thing about the Mustang except that it was a so-sodive-bomber with no high-altitude capability. We also didn’t know thatthe 354th Fighter Group (our immediate predecessor in the Statesidetraining cycle) had been reequipped with an upgraded ver-sion of theMustang when it arrived in England in mid-October.

The Mustang we knew about had been built by North AmericanAviation under contract to the RAF as a ground-support airplane. Theearly Army Air Forces version was known as the A-36, and it had beenused for some time as a dive-bomber. There was also a fighter ver-sionknown as the P-51 A, but it and the A-36 were equipped with a 1,200-horsepower Allison engine that was inadequate. The P-51 A and A-36could not get above 17,000 feet.

Unknown to us, the Mustang had been the object of an intensedevelopment program beginning in late 1942. The key to that programhad been the marriage of the Mustang to the 1,430-horsepower PackardMerlin engine, a licensed version of the Rolls Royce Merlin engine.Very late in the process, the urgent need for long-range fighters in Europehad resulted in the addition of an eighty-five-gallon fuel tank behindthe P-51’s cockpit, and this had led to some delays. The result, when allthe bugs had been ironed out, was the P-51B, which the 354th FighterGroup was just about to take into combat when the 357th Fighter Grouparrived in England.

Unfortunately, there were not enough P-51Bs for us or for the 4thFighter Group, which was also supposed to be reequipped with the newtype. The 354th had been suffering operational and training losses, and


it was bound to suffer combat losses as soon as it began escort duty withthe heavy bombers. The entire early production output had gone to the354th, and all or most of the replacement Mustangs that arrived inEngland would be used to keep the 354th up to strength.

By the time we had been in England for a month, we still had noairplanes. All we did was slosh around in the mud and take classes inthe morning and in the afternoon on aircraft identification. But we weredoing no flying. I got checked out in a P-51, but only because I was asquadron commander. We eventually got a few of our own, but barelyenough to check out the other pilots in the group.

Finally, on January 24, an important decision was made. Outside ofkeeping the 354th up to strength, all the available P-51Bs in En-glandwould be assigned to the Eighth Air Force. A few days later, the 358thFighter Group, a P-47 group from the Eighth Air Force, was transferredto the Ninth Air Force, and the 357th Fighter Group was reassigned tothe Eighth Air Force’s 66th Fighter Wing. Within a few days, the 358thmoved from its base, Leiston, to our base, Raydon Wood, and we movedfrom Raydon Wood to Leiston. That way, we would be in the north,about forty miles closer to the bomber routes to Ger-many, and the 358thwould be in the south, closer to France.

The Eighth Air Force couldn’t get us operational quickly enough. Ina week’s time, our group’s strength in P-51Bs went from something likea dozen airplanes to seventy-five. It was busy. In addition to checkingout the airplanes, we had to get all the pilots checked out. And, in themeantime, our command pilots—group, squadron, and flight leaders—started going out on missions with the 354th Fighter Group to learnabout the war over northern Europe.

The 357th Fighter Group was declared operational on February 8,1944. Following three relatively easy group combat missions overFrance—on February 11, 12, and 13—we went to Germany for the firsttime on February 20. It was the first mission of Big Week, and the targetwas Leipzig. The 362d and 363d Fighter squadrons posted their firstvictories on that mission. My 364th Fighter Squadron posted its firstthree victories during the February 22 mission, which was against theMe-109 factory at Regensburg, Germany, and the ball-bearing plant at


Schweinfurt. We were grounded by weather on February 23, but onFebruary 24, while escorting the heavy bombers to the Me-110 fac-toryat Gotha, Germany, I received credit for an Me-109 probable over thetarget. We flew to Regensburg on February 25 and to Brunswick onFebruary 29. I shot down an Me-109 on our March 2 mission to Frankfurt.In all, by then, the group had been credited with twenty confirmedvictories, and we were sharp and confident.

By the close of Big Week, on February 29, people had been start-ingto talk about Berlin. Several times, we had flown close enough to theGerman capital to see it, but the Eighth Air Force had not yet flown asingle mission there. Everyone was asking, “When the hell are we goingto hit the Big B?” Before every mission, we’d go into the briefing hut,and they’d open the curtains that covered the map showing our route tothe target. We were just waiting to see the red tapes marking the route toBerlin.

When we finally saw that it was going to be Berlin on March 3, ourfeelings sure changed. The bravado left us. The weather was ter-rible.Of the entire Eighth Air Force, only the 4th Fighter Group and one ofthe P-38 groups flew all the way to the target, but they never even sawthe ground. All the bombers were recalled or went after secondary targets.The weather was so bad over England that we couldn’t get the 357thtogether at all. We were finally recalled. I logged ninety minutes offlight time, all of it on instruments.

We lost two pilots on March 3, and nobody knows how. In myopinion, these losses were due to the weather. If the group lackedanything, it was instrument training. It is extremely easy to lose a senseof up and down in the clouds. Unless you overcome your instincts andforce yourself to fly the instruments, you can easily enter anuncontrollable spin or even fly the airplane right into the ground. Theweather over north-ern Europe that time of year was terrible, and I amsure that all the groups were losing pilots and airplanes because ofdisorientation or mid-air collisions in the clouds.

They sent about 500 B-17s and over 750 fighters to Berlin on March4, but there were only a few holes in the clouds, and only a few Germanfighters could find us. Just one combat wing composed of thirty-eight


bombers actually reached Berlin, and these planes bombed the holes inthe clouds without knowing what was underneath them—residen-tialsuburbs. There was almost no fighter action. Only seven Germanairplanes were destroyed by our fighters that day, but pilots from the357th got two of them.

On March 5, we escorted the 2d Bomber Division B-24s toBor-deaux, in southern France. On the way to the target, some of the B-24s dropped supplies to French Resistance fighters in the foothills tothe French Alps. Over Bordeaux, our group encountered several FW-190s, which were shot down, and our pilots also got three four-engineFW-200 Condors that were taking off from a grass airfield. We had oneairplane shot down, but the pilot, Flight Officer Chuck Yeager, eventuallyreturned to the group by way of Spain. Unfortunately, on the way home,during a low-level strafing run, the group commander, Colonel HenrySpicer, was shot down by flak and captured. The group deputycommander, Lieutenant Colonel Don Graham, assumed com-mand ofthe group when we got home.

On the night of March 5, all the smart money was on another mis-sionto Berlin. I, of course, knew it was going to be Berlin when we receivedword that we would be going out on a “maximum effort.” We were alsotold that the weather was supposed to be improving.

Maintenance said they could get only forty-eight Mustangs in theair the next morning—exactly what we needed, but with no spares. Wetherefore scheduled the first team, our very best and most-experiencedpilots. There was no horsing around that night. We had a job to do, soeveryone went to bed early.

The bombers had to take off hours before any of the fighters. Therewere hundreds of them, and they had to form up into their combat boxes,combat wings, and combat divisions. That took a long time. Also, theGermans had deployed a belt of 88mm and other flak guns along theDutch and Belgian coasts, where the bombers usually crossed in. Thebombers liked to pass over the flak guns at least at 20,000 feet, and thatmeant they had to circle higher and higher with their heavy bomb loadswhile they were still over England. Hundreds of bombers were circlinglong before it was time for us to get up. As usual, I was awakened by the


drone of their engines. Because the bombers were overhead, I knew themission was on long before it was announced officially. I also knewthat, unfortunately, their contrails were creat-ing an overcast throughwhich we would have to take off later that beautiful spring morning.

I was going out as the deputy mission leader, so I met up with DonGraham early to go over last-minute arrangements for the entire group.This was Don’s first mission as the group leader and my first as thebackup. We arranged a few non-verbal signals so we could com-municateoff the air in the event one or the other of us ran into prob-lems. We alsodecided what the group was going to do on the way home, dependingon what happened before we were released from escort duty.

The pilots went over to the mess hall for breakfast, then we had thegroup briefing—the basic information that was going to get all of us tothe target. The weather was good over England, but we were told thatthe front was moving east. The closer we got to Berlin the worse theweather was going to get. If it was clear, we only needed to fol-low thebomber stream out of England and overtake the lead bomb-ers beforethey reached the target. But, if the weather was bad, we couldn’t fly upthe bomber stream for fear of colliding with the bombers in the clouds.Or, in the case of this mission, the bombers weren’t even fly-ing directlyto Berlin. In an attempt to confuse the Germans—make them think thetarget was somewhere else—the bombers were flying along a route thatwould have been too long for us to follow anyway— from Munster toMeppen, Goslar to Uelzen, and Halle to Ratheneau. Halle was southwestof Berlin. In order to conserve our fuel, we were to fly practically dueeast all the way from the Dutch coast to Berlin.

As one of only three or four P-51 groups available for the mission,the 357th would, as usual, pick up the lead box of bombers at around1300 hours and plus or minus seventy-five miles from the target. Wewere to sweep ahead of the bombers as they came in over the target, andthen we were to hand the escort off to fresh P-47 or P-38 groups plus orminus seventy-five miles along the route home. On March 6, the bomberswould actually be passing Berlin so they could make their bombingruns on different parts of the city from either west to east or south tonorth. That way, they would already be pointing toward home when


they toggled their bombs. We would join them as they completed theirrun-up to the target from Halle, and we would leave them along the firstleg toward England.

Following the group briefing, the pilots broke up for squadronbriefings. Here, parachutes, oxygen masks, and escape kits were handedout, and the squadron leaders arranged the order of flights and madeany nec-essary last-minute changes in flight and element leaders. Also,each squadron leader told the pilots what the squadron was going to doon the way home from the target, in case it was a milk run. After we hadfinished up with the escort part of the March 6 mission, my 364th FighterSquadron was going to go home on the deck. If we had enough gas, wemight go over into Austria to shoot up some of the German flying schools.If not, we would use up our ammunition strafing targets of opportunityon the direct course through Germany toward the North Sea.

We took fifteen or twenty minutes for the squadron briefing, andthen we went out to the flight line, to our airplanes. Each pilot checkedhis own airplane, strapped in, and went through the usual pre-flightroutine with the crew chief. We started taking off at 1030.

We had a policy about aborts, and it was the same as all the otherfighter groups in the Eighth Air Force. Ideally, we wanted to get to thetarget area with three squadrons of sixteen airplanes per squad-ron. Onmost missions, we took up to four spares most of the way across theNorth Sea. If there were any aborts, the spares could fill in. If there werefewer aborts than spares, the remaining spares went home be-fore thegroup crossed in. If anyone thought he couldn’t complete the entiremission—if there was any problem or if a pilot thought there was goingto be any problem—he had to turn around and get the hell home whilewe were still over the North Sea. That way, we wouldn’t have to send agood combat airplane to protect the airplane with the problem.

Just as we were approaching the Dutch coast, Don Graham porpoisedhis airplane—the signal that he was aborting. When I acknowledged, heimmediately banked and turned for home. Shortly after Don left, a fewothers turned for home, too. When we made landfall over Hol-land, wewere down to forty airplanes.


The problem was that we had been flying every day for six straightdays, and we had no spares on March 6; we had exactly forty-eightplanes in commission that day. The 357th Fighter Group was still in thelearning process. I imagine some pilots were still, shall we say, queasyabout flying in combat. And Berlin was thought to be an es-peciallydangerous place. We still hadn’t seen what the German fighters woulddo to protect their capital city. Maybe a lot of pilots had but-terflies thatday, or maybe the heavy schedule of combat missions— six in six days—had caused more wear and tear to the airplanes than we realized.Whatever the reasons, we kept losing airplanes after we made landfall.Altogether, fifteen of our forty-eight Mustangs aborted before we reachedBerlin. My own section of two flights, which was supposed to be eightairplanes, ended up with an oddball five.

I had the group. I had to navigate us to Berlin and find the bomb-ersin the overcast before they reached the target. I knew it was a matter ofstaying on course and getting where we were supposed to be on time. Itwas time and distance. The weather got worse and worse as we flew.We stopped flying the usual tight formation and spread the squadronsout between the two main layers of clouds. There was a thick layer ofundercast that varied between 15,000 and 20,000 feet, and another goodone started at about 28,000 feet. We flew between those layers, spreadapart. We were flying along great, but I had no idea where the hell wewere, no idea at all. I couldn’t see any landmarks on the ground, and Ihad to assume that the wind was right, as stated in our briefing. If itwasn’t, I could be way off course and never know about it. All I coulddo was fly the briefed heading and pray.

As I flew along, I switched over to the bomber frequency a fewtimes, to find out what was going on. I was able to cross-check withthem to at least see that my schedule was still okay. I might be off course,but if I was on course, I would meet up with the bombers on time. Aroundnoon, I heard that German fighters were going after the bombers andthat our P-47 groups were engaging them. But I was still an hour awayfrom the rendezvous. I could only listen and hope I’d find the bombers.

I was getting concerned. I checked with Captain William “Obee”O’Brien, of the 363d Fighter Squadron, to find out if he thought we


were on course. Some of the other pilots broke radio silence to needleme a little. They said things like, “Where the hell are we?” and “I bet weovershot the target.” Just what I needed to hear! When someone said,“Christ, we must be over Russia!” I said, “Gowdy Red, here. Radiosilence! Got it?” I knew their voices; I knew who was needling me.They didn’t make it any easier on my frame of mind. I had to worryabout making the rendezvous in that lousy weather, but I also had toworry that maybe the bombers would be in the damn overcast and thatI’d find them by running into them. And I was really concerned that Ihadn’t made the course good, or that the bombers were ahead or behindschedule—or something.

Suddenly I was looking at a big break in the clouds. For the firsttime on the whole mission, since I’d left England, I could see the ground.And all I could see was a huge urban area. There were red-tile roofs asfar as the eye could see. What with the time on the clock—1300,exactly— it had to be Berlin. Voices on the group radio net started comingup with, “Hey, that looks like Berlin!” and “Yeah, it must be.” Thensomeone called out, “There’re the bombers!”

I looked to my left, and there they were—B-17s. And then, rightthen, someone else called, “Bogies! Two and three o’clock!” It was athree-way rendezvous. I found out later that we were about twenty-fivemiles southwest of the city center. That meant we were a little behindschedule, or the bombers were a little ahead. But it was a perfectrendezvous anyway.

I had been flying at 26,000 feet all the way in. My high squadronwas at around 27,000 feet and my low squadron was at about 25,000feet. The bombers were stacked between 22,000 and 26,000 feet. Therewere clouds over us at about 28,000 feet and clouds underneath us atabout 15,000 feet. It was hazy between the cloud layers, but the vis-ibilitywas adequate.

There were German fighters stacked all the way from the level ofthe bombers to the upper cloud ceiling. They were still just specks whenI saw them. They looked like a swarm of bees, maybe seven to ten milesdistant. They were going flat-out head-on to the bombers. Thirty or fortytwin-engine fighters were going in first to fire rockets in order to break


up the bomber boxes. And coming up behind the twin-engine fighterswere many single-engine fighters, Me-109s and FW-190s. Higher upwas their top cover, thirty or forty Me-109s. Between all of them andthe bombers was the 357th Fighter Group—thirty-three of us.

We had just enough time to change to internal tanks and kick off ourdrop tanks before the first Mustangs were close enough to open fire onthe twin-engine fighters. There wasn’t even time for me to call out anyorders.

I was in the middle, leading what was left of the 364th FighterSquadron. The 362d and 363d squadrons were weaving above and belowme, about a mile away on either side. If the Germans ignored us andcontinued on straight for the bombers, our standard tactic was for thehigh squadron, the 363d, to take care of their top cover while the middlesquadron, the 364th, turned in to engage the Germans from ahead andthe low squadron, the 362d, turned wide to engage the Germans frombehind. But the plan went to hell as soon as we saw the Germans; therewasn’t any time to put it into action. As the Germans came in range, the362d just weaved to its left, came in directly behind the first wave ofsingle-engine fighters, and started knocking them down.

I no sooner kicked off my drop tanks than I was in a left turn to getin behind the Germans. Instead of going straight in for the bomb-ers,some of the Germans turned to fight us. That was natural, but about halfof the twin-engine fighters dove away into the lower clouds. These mighthave been night fighters that had been pressed into service to protect thecapital. If so, this wasn’t their kind of fight, and they were showing it.

We flew straight into the main German formation. We could havedone more damage if there had been more of us, but we were appar-entlyable to break up their main attack. Within seconds, it was just a hell of amess. Everything was going in all directions at once. Indi-vidualdogfights were breaking out all over the place.

I managed to keep my section of five airplanes together. When theGerman twin-engine fighters turned into us or dove away, I left themfor other P-51s and turned to engage the German top cover. By then,there were only eight or ten Me-109s above us, but they were comingdown to hit us from our rear. I turned into the bunch of them and hollered


out, “I’m taking the top guy!” I assumed he was their leader because theothers were echeloned off him.

Things got blurred and happened fast. The next thing I knew, I hadmy hands full with that 109. We were turning and turning, but nei-therof us was shooting. We were climbing, descending, and climb-ing again,turning all the while. The 109 was ahead of me. He was after me and Iwas after him in a tight left-hand circle. The Me-109 was a good airplaneat altitude, and the German pilot kept trying to climb, to get someadvantage. Finally, I was able to gain on him. And then he split-essedout of it, heading straight down.

I was too far behind to fire, but I was closing the gap. From previ-ousexperience and lots of advice, I knew that all I had to do was follow the109 and keep him in sight. If we ended up on the deck, a Mus-tangcould overtake a 109.

There was no cloud cover in the area, but the Germans had smokegenerators all around Berlin, and the smoke was up to 15,000 feet. Eventhough I was closing on it, the 109 became obscured in the smoke, andthen it disappeared altogether. I pulled out at about 15,000 feet.

As I pulled around to look for the 109—or anyone else—somethingwent by, straight down. Then, all of a sudden, something else went by,and this time I could identify it. It was a stick of 500-pound bombs. Itlooked like a ladder going straight down—all rungs and no rails. I wasin the wrong place! I looked around, and there were plenty more ladders.I looked up, and all I could see were four-engine bombers. Holy God!

Bombers were over me and Berlin was under me! I was thinking,Which way do I turn? I kicked the airplane and snap-rolled straightdown. At least now I was parallel to the falling bombs. I pulled out at500 feet and must have flown between the bombs. Heading for the closestrural area off to the west, I started back up.

As I was getting back to about 15,000 feet, lo and behold, I pickedup my original section of P-51s, plus Obee O’Brien, from the 363d.While I had been busy with my 109, three of these pilots had shot downtwo Me-110s.

I took the lead and climbed back up to help escort the bombers thatwere still approaching the city. We assumed a position on the west side


of the bomber stream and patrolled back and forth, looking for Germanfighters. At about 1320, we found an Me-110 at low altitude. We allwent down. The guy who’d called it out shot the 110 down while therest of us covered him.

Next other fighters arrived to relieve us. We all had ammunitionleft, so we stayed at 500 feet, looking for targets on the ground. We tooka heading of about 280 degrees, back toward the Dutch North Sea coastand home.

As we were coming up on Uelzen at about 1420, I saw a single-engine fighter ahead of us. It was at 500 feet on an opposite course anda few miles to my right. I thought it might be a P-51 whose pilot neededcompany, so I turned ninety degrees to my right to look it over. As Iclosed on it, I could see that it was an Me-109.

The German didn’t see us as we continued to turn in behind him.The 109 was flying so slowly and I was approaching it so quickly that Iwas only 200 yards away when I opened fire. I no sooner squeezed thetrigger than I had to drop my nose to duck underneath the 109. I don’tthink the pilot ever saw me.

The 109 fell straight into the ground and burst into flames. As it did,someone hollered, “There’s an airfield!” It was nearly dead ahead.Apparently, the 109 had been coming in for a landing. That explainedwhy he had been flying so slowly, but his approach was too long and heshould have been looking for us.

There were He-111 bombers lined up along the edge of the airfield.I opened fire on them as soon as I saw them, and the other pilots in mysection did the same as they followed me across the airfield. I hit at leastone of the bombers, and the others shot up whatever happened to beright in front of them. We didn’t get any of the He-111s burn-ing, but Iwas sure we did a lot of damage. On the way out, I said over the radio,“Okay, enough’s enough. Let’s get out of here before they start shootingat us.” We turned back on course for home. On the way to Holland, weshot up a few trains and trucks. We landed at 1600 hours. It had been afive-and-a-half-hour flight.

The thirty-three of us received credit for twenty of the eighty-onefighters the Germans lost to our fighters on March 6, 1944. If we had


been able to get more of our airplanes over Berlin that day, we couldhave done more damage. We suffered no losses.

*Major Tom Hayes scored his third victory, an Me-410, on the March 8mission to Berlin, and an Me-110 on the March 16 mission to Berlin. Hewas made group deputy commander on March 28, and he was promotedto the rank of lieutenant colonel shortly after he achieved ace status bydowning an Me-109 on April 19, 1944. Thereafter, Hayes downed anMe-109 on May 28, an Me-109 and a shared Me-410 on June 29, and afinal Me-109 on July 14, 1944. He rotated back to the United States inSeptember 1944 to become deputy for operations of the training facilityat Luke Field, Arizona. Tom Hayes retired from the Air Force as abrigadier general in 1970.




ACES AGAINST JAPANThe American Aces Speak

By Eric Hammel

In this superb, originally conceived offering, noted military historian,Eric Hammel brings us first-person accounts from thirty-nine of theAmerican fighter aces who blasted their way across the skies of thePacific and East Asia from December 7, 1941, until the final air battlesover Japan itself in August 1945.

Coupled with a clear view of America’s far-flung air war againstJapan, Hammel’s detailed interviews bring out the most thrilling in-the-cockpit experiences of the air combat that the Pacific War’s best Army,Navy, and Marine pilots have chosen to tell.

Meet Frank Holmes, who defied death in an outmoded P-36 whilestill clad in a seersucker suit he had worn to mass earlier that morning.Fly with Scott McCuskey as, single-handed at Midway, he takes outtwo waves of Japanese dive-bombers that are attacking his preciousaircraft carrier. Sweat out the last precious drops of fuel in a defectiveMarine Wildcat fighter as Medal of Honor recipient Jeff DeBlanc boresahead to his target to keep the faith with the bomber crews he has beenassigned to protect. Experience the ecstasy of total victory as RalphHanks becomes the Navy’s first Hellcat ace-in-a-day when he destroysfive Japanese fighters over the Gilbert Islands in a single mission.

A superb interviewer, Hammel has collected some of the very bestair-combat tales from America’s war with Japan. Combined with thefour other volumes in The American Aces Speak series, this work willstand as an enduring testament to the brave men who fought the firstand last air war in which high-performance, piston-engine fighters heldsway. These are stories of bravery and survival, of men and machinespitted against one another in heart-stopping, unforgiving high-speedaerial combat. The American Aces Speak is a highly-charged emotionalrendering of what men felt in the now-dim days of personal combat atthe very edge of our living national history. There was never a war likeit, and there never will be again. These are America’s eagles, and thestories are their own, in their very own words.



The Marine Corps Aviation Association Yellow Sheet says: “Therecounting of each story is done in the pilot’s own words. This is apowerful technique that draws readers into the action and introducesthem to the world of the fighter pilot”

The American Fighter Aces Bulletin says: “Some of [the] episodesare well-known; others have never been written before. But each accountdelivers something intensely personal about the Pacific Air War.”

The Library Journal says: “No PR hype or dry-as-dust prose here.Hammel allows his flyers to tell their stories in their own way . . . Excitingstuff aviation and World War II buffs will love.”

Book Page says: “For those who have an interest in World War II, orthose who simply like to read of drama in the skies, Eric Hammel’s[Aces Against Japan] is recommended reading. It is a must for anyhistorian’s bookshelf.”

WWII Aviation Booklist says: “Hammel provides a veritable feast ofaviation combat narrative. As always in this series, the entries [in Acesat War] have been carefully selected to provide the most entertainingride possible for his readers. Easily the best series available on air combat!Get them all!”


Note: The following article is excerpted from the book ACESAGAINST JAPAN: The American Aces Speak by Eric Hammel. Thebook is currently available in a $27.50 trade paperback editionpublished by Pacifica Military History. It is also available in ebookeditions.

CRIPPLEDby Eric Hammel

Copyright 1992 © by Eric Hammel

1st Lieutenant CORKY SMITH, USAAF80th Fighter Squadron, 8th Fighter GroupCape Gloucester, December 26, 1943

*Cornelius Marcellus Smith of Brooklyn, New York, graduated fromRoanoke College, in Salem, Virginia, in June 1940. He worked in industryfor over a year, then quit his job to join the Army Air Corps at the outbreakof the war. He earned his wings in September 1942, trained in P-39s inFlorida, and departed for New Guinea to join the 8th Fighter Group inNovember 1942.

It took six months for Lieutenant Smith to hit the charts, but he didso in a big way. On June 21,1943, he shot down 3 Zeros and claimed 1Zero probable in action near Lae. Smith got another Zero probable onSeptember 15, over Wewak; a confirmed Tony fighter, also over Wewak,on October 16; and another confirmed Zero over Rabaul on October24, 1943.

*The 80th Fighter Squadron, also known as the Headhunters, had beenengaged in the war since August 1942. Equipped with P-39 and P-400fighters and initially stationed at Port Moresby, the squadron had movedto Milne Bay, on the southern tip of New Guinea, in early October 1942.While at Port Moresby, the squadron had seen active combat, and itspilots had downed 6 Zeros. Despite the downing of another Zero in


January 1943 at Milne Bay, the morale of the pilots was low due to thefew recent occasions on which they had seen combat. The P-39 hadproved ineffective against the faster and more maneuverable enemy fight-ers. Its range and altitude limitations were also major draw-backs. Ad-ditionally, an epidemic of malaria and dengue fever had rendered manyof the pilots and ground-crew personnel hors de combat. It was time fora change.

In late January, the unit was withdrawn from New Guinea and movedto Mareeba, Australia. Rest and rehabilitation to recover from malariaand dengue was the primary reason for the move, but more importantwas the news that our P-39 and P-400 aircraft were to be replaced byhighly regarded Lockheed P-38 Lightning twin-engine fighters mountedwith four .50-caliber machine guns and a 20mm cannon. Morale soared.The move was completed in early February.

In early April 1943, the Headhunters brought their new P-38s backto Port Moresby. Our camp was Kila Airdrome, more commonly knownas 3-Mile Strip. In the following %Vi months, the squadron proved itselfan outstanding combat unit. The P-38 was superior in most aspects tothe Japanese Zero fighter aircraft we were facing. By the middle ofDecember, we had contributed a total of 136 confirmed kills to the wareffort. All but 7 of these had fallen to P-38 guns.

I had joined the Headhunters at Milne Bay in late November 1942.A year later, I was credited with 5 aerial victories, all in the P-38. Moraleof both pilots and ground-crew personnel was at an all-time high. Wewelcomed the increasing opportunities to bring the war to the enemywith our long-legged fighter.

On December 12, 1943, the 80th Fighter Squadron completed apermanent move from Kila to the multibase airdrome complex recentlyconstructed at Dobodura, on the east coast of New Guinea. DuringOctober and November 1943, our air strikes against forward Japaneseair and sea strongpoints on New Britain and along the more northernshore of eastern New Guinea had critically interfered with the enemy’sability to pose a major threat to our air installations. We had seizedcontrol of the New Britain and southern New Guinea airspace andshipping lanes necessary for our logistical support. General Mac Arthur’s


leap-frog strategy was moving northward. Lae and Salamaua had fallento our forces, and we had greatly negated the capability of the Japaneseto operate in strength from Rabaul, Wewak, Madang, and CapeGloucester. We had also seized Finschhafen, an enemy air base on thecoast of New Guinea only some 80 miles distant from the western endof New Britain. On New Britain, Cape Gloucester harbored an airfieldstill held by the Japanese. Finschhafen had been developed as a new airbase by our engineers and was fully operational. In short, the stage hadbeen set for our forces to undertake the long-awaited initiative and pushthe enemy back.

Unbeknown to us when we arrived at Dobodura on December 12were plans to invade the Japanese bases at Arawe and Cape Gloucester,New Britain, in the immediate future. Cape Gloucester was to bedeveloped for Allied use as a forward air base. Madang and Wewak, onthe New Guinea coast, were to be bypassed, and the Japanese bases onManus Island (some 50 miles off Wewak), Aitape (north of Wewak),and Hollandia (farther to the north) were to be seized and made intoad-vanced U.S. bases. Once this had been accomplished, we would strikeat and seize key areas of northern New Guinea; Java and its surroundingwaters; and, eventually, the Philippines.

Initial operations against Arawe took place immediately follow-ingour arrival at Dobodura. The Headhunters took part in preinvasionmissions on December 14 and covered the actual invasion on December15. On December 18, we took part in covering bombers on a mission tosoften up Cape Gloucester in the morning and went back to Arawe inthe afternoon. There was no Japanese air activity on either mission. OnDecember 22,1 shot down a Zero fighter—my sixth victory—whileescorting bombers against Wewak, and I got shot up myself. I made itback on one engine. On December 25,1 helped cover a U.S. naval convoygoing into Finschhafen.

During the evening of December 25, we were informed by 8th FighterGroup headquarters that we would provide air cover for an amphibi-ouslanding at Cape Gloucester the next day. This was good news; we wentto bed in high spirits.

On the morning of December 26, we were called to a meeting at ourflight-line operations hut and briefed on the mission. We were to provide


air cover over the new beachhead, some 200 miles distant, beginning at1400. Control of all flights over the beachhead would be handled by ateam aboard a destroyer. We would contact the ship upon arrival toreceive further instructions. Major Edward “Porky” Cragg, our CO,would lead the mission. Major Carl “Freddie” Taylor, our operationsofficer, would also participate. As it looked like a big operation with theprobability of seeing combat, the more-experienced pilots were chosento fly. Our call sign would be the same as always: Copper. We would flysixteen P-38s in the usual flight formation. Call signs of Red, White,Blue, and Yellow would be utilized in that order. Major Cragg was CopperRed-1, his wingman Copper Red-2, and so forth. I was to be the elementleader in the fourth flight, Copper Yellow-3.

Since we were to start engines at approximately 1145, we were tobe in our cockpits or close by the aircraft by 1130. Taxi would be inorder of flights. Takeoff would be by two-ship elements. Climb out andassembly would be the usual circular left-hand pattern. We would climbto 12,000 feet and, using the direct route, maintain loose for-mation tothe coast of New Britain. Then the formation would tighten up for theremainder of the distance across the island to Cape Gloucester. Radiosilence was to be maintained by all following takeoff. Abort-ing aircraft,if any, would indicate intentions by rocking their wings before departingfrom the formation. Unless in extreme difficulty, aborting aircraft wouldnot be escorted back. Following departure from Cape Gloucester, theroute home would be determined by remaining fuel. If possible, abortingaircraft would return to Dobodura. If necessary, Finschhafen or Nadzabwould be alternates. The weather forecast was CAVU throughout themission, but scattered low clouds might be encoun-tered in the beachheadarea during the afternoon. We were to use our drop tanks and run themdry unless we got into a combat situation.

If we encountered enemy aircraft, they would probably be fight-erswith dive-bombers, coming from Rabaul. Their most likely approachwas from the east to the south of the hilly-to-mountainous terrain runningthrough the center of New Britain from east to west. We were told to beespecially alert for aircraft emerging from behind this ridge.

We were to relieve P-38s from another squadron that were alreadyin the area. P-47s from the 348th Fighter Group would also provide


cover. No P-40s or P-39s were expected in the vicinity; their missionwould be to provide air cover for Finschhafen, our alternate destina-tion.In short, the only friendly single-engine aircraft we would see near thecape would be P-47s. The large size of that type of fighter would besufficient to identify it as friendly.

All of us pilots were at our aircraft long before 1130. Shortlythereafter, a jeep came by with the word to start engines. Followingstart-up, the tower gave the word to taxi. We took off in two-shipformations, as planned; we climbed to 12,000 feet; and headed on courseat approximately 1215. The weather was perfect en route. Copper Red-1 contacted our ship control at about 1345 hours. We were instructed tomaintain our 12,000-foot altitude and patrol the beach area.

We tooled around for about 20 minutes, watching LSTs and othernaval craft running to and from the beach. I observed some shelling byvarious naval vessels and saw some of our Marines and their ve-hicleson the beach. Everything seemed to be going well, but there was lessactivity than I had expected.

The calm atmosphere was broken when our control ship advised usthat a large blip had appeared on radar 20 to 25 miles out to sea north ofthe beachhead. We were instructed to climb to 20,000 feet and given anintercept heading. The radar sighting indicated a large force of aircraftat high altitude. We spent about 10 minutes under radar control, followingheading and altitude instructions, but we saw nothing. We were theninformed that the blip had completely disappeared from radar and thatwe were to return immediately to the beachhead. We did a quick 180-degree turn and headed back while descending to our original 12,000-foot assigned altitude. We had no more than started our return when thedestroyer contact told us that a large force of en-emy fighters and dive-bombers had come in from the south—screened by the mountains—andwas attacking the beachhead and shipping in the area.

The word was given by Copper Red-1 to drop belly tanks and get intrail formation. When this was accomplished, we were instructed by thecontroller to split our force. The first two flights—Red and White—were to engage the enemy aircraft by attacking the area at low level.The last two flights—Blue and Yellow—were to remain at 10,000 to


12,000 feet to intercept a second wave of fighters and dive-bombersshould any appear. Since I was in Yellow Flight, I would remain withthe high group.

In our brief absence from the beachhead, low clouds had formedagainst the hills and over portions of the beach. Although thin andscattered, these hindered our view of the coast. Several naval vesselswere firing at low-flying enemy aircraft, and I observed sundryex-plosions in the beach area.

Red and White flights had left our altitude and were closing rap-idlywith the land. When Blue and Yellow flights arrived over the beach atour assigned altitude, we placed ourselves above the ridgeline to serveas a shield against any attacking force. I could not see either Red orWhite flights due to low clouds. Blue Flight was then directed to supportour first two flights at low altitude. Yellow Flight was to hold our patrolaltitude.

We had no more than reinitiated our patrol than my radio receiverwent dead. All sound ceased. I hit my mike button to call my wingman,but I received no response. He could easily see me in the cockpit, so Iinformed him of my predicament by pointing to my headset and shakingmy head. He got the picture and indicated that he could not hear anytransmission from me. I intended to follow the flight from above and tothe rear. That accomplished, I checked my headset and various channelson my radio, but to no avail. I was kaput as far as communications wereconcerned.

This was for the birds. I wanted to join in whatever was going onbeneath me, not fly around looking for enemy aircraft that I had nomeans of reporting should any arrive. I pulled abreast of my flight leader,waggled my wings, and waved good-bye to signify I was going to leave.He grinned and stuck his thumb up to bid me well. I peeled off andstarted down to find something to shoot at.

When I arrived below the clouds, I found eight or nine P-47Thun-derbolts engaged in a dogfight with four Oscars north and east ofthe beachhead and about two miles away from my position. No P-38swere in sight. I decided to help out the 47s. As I headed toward thefracas, three of the Oscars broke off and headed southeast—the P-47s


already outnumbered them, and the arrival of my P-38 only les-senedtheir chances. However, one of the Oscar pilots decided to stick it out abit longer and continued to go around with the 47s. When I got to withinabout 2,000 yards, he decided to leave and took off with three of theThunderbolts on his tail, some 500 yards back.

I had played around in mock combat with 47s before and knew thatthey could not outrun a 38. Moreover, I did not believe a 47 could catchan Oscar in a low-altitude chase. Hence, I took out after them eventhough I was at a greater distance back than I had originally believed.The start of the chase was at about 4,000—possibly 4,500—feet ofalti-tude. The Oscar was about a quarter mile out to sea and runningeast at a good clip, parallel to the coast, in a slight descent. Its speedsurprised me, but I felt that I could catch the Oscar in the long run if itkept on a straight-away course without attempting to turn and en-gage.I planned to get real close, fill my gunsight, and hit the Oscar full borewith the four .50-cals and 20mm, all at once. Hopefully, the 47s wouldbring up the rear and provide cover for me should any other Japanesefighters appear. But this was not to be the case. Each 47 peeled off andheaded back for the beachhead area as I overtook it. I then realized thatI had put 15 to 20 miles between me and the beachhead. Although alone,I felt the urge to continue the chase. My adrenaline was at high pitch!

We were now close to the surface of the sea, and the Oscar hadbegun to level out. I was hardly overtaking it. I was well aware of myvulnerability to attack from any other Japanese fighter, should any turnback to render assistance. I kept alert, looking for any to appear. Myvisibility over the water was clear, but the low clouds over land ob-scuredmy view in that direction.

My intention was to wait until the Oscar more than filled my gunsightbefore I opened fire. This would ensure destruction. When I was about500 yards away, a Zero appeared at 1 o’clock, diving toward us throughthe clouds. He was coming fast. I knew it was touch and go as to whetherI could hold fire long enough to guaranty the kill before the Zero openedfire at me. I knew the pilot would be confronted with a difficult deflectionshot, though, so I took the gamble and concentrated on the Oscar.

When the Oscar filled my gunsight, I let go with my .50s and 20mm,hitting it with everything I had from the tail up through the fuselage and


cockpit. The Oscar did not blow up, but pieces of the ship, includ-ing alarge portion of the tail section, flew everywhere. A sure kill!

The Zero was close upon me and firing as I pulled up in a steep rightturn to gain altitude and headed 90 degrees from course. I felt my 38 gethit by his fire, apparently in the right-engine area. I flew over the coastin a shallow high-speed climb, trying to put as much distance betweenme and my attacker as possible and, at the same time, gain some altitudeto enhance my maneuverability in case he pressed his attack. My rightengine started overheating, which indicated damage and loss of coolant.I leveled out at about 5,000 feet, still going south. I was well over theland when I shut the engine down and feathered the prop. I scanned theskies through all points of the compass, but with nary a sighting of myattacker.

I had no desire to bail out or crash-land over any part of New Britainin the event my good left engine failed or if any attacking Zero downedme. Hostile natives reportedly lopped the heads off the American airmen,and the Japanese were known to do the same. Subjecting myself tocapture held no appeal. I headed back toward the coast and the friendliersea.

There was still no sign of my attacker, so I decided to get four orfive miles offshore and then head toward Finschhafen via CapeGloucester. I climbed back to about 10,000 feet, well over the sea, andset course. The left engine ran okay, flight controls gave no indicationof dam-age, the voltmeter was okay, and I could not see any sign ofdamage to the aircraft. However, I knew my right engine had takensome hits, and I had no intention of trying to restart it. The P-38 flewwell on one engine. I had no doubts as to my ability to reach Finschhafen.I had previously made four one-engine landings in 38s, so I felt quiteconfident. Fuel posed no problem; I had dropped my two belly tanks atCape Gloucester, but I had ample gas in my main and reserve tanks.

I passed the cape about four miles out to sea and saw a few P-47sover the beach area. One ship was burning off the coast. It appeared tobe a destroyer, but, at my altitude and distance, I could not be sure.Other than those sightings, the area was clear. I never saw my attacker—or any other enemy aircraft—during the course of my flight. Over the


sea between New Britain and the New Guinea coast, I saw one flight ofP-39s but nothing more.

As I neared Finschhafen, I saw that the strip and adjacent airspacewere very active. Many aircraft, mostly P-38s and P-47s, were takingoff, flying in the traffic pattern, and maneuvering in the vicinity of thefield. It was no place to attempt a single-engine landing withoutcommunication. I could not alert anyone to my predicament. If I joinedup with another plane to visually indicate my situation so he could talkto the tower, I would have to descend. Loss of altitude held no appeal; Iwould need all the altitude I could get should my good left engine actup. Also, the strip at Finschhafen ran from the sea to neighboring highjungle growth—landings were made from the sea. In the event I overshotthe strip in attempting to land, I would have to go around on one engine.This was not a recommended procedure, especially with a wall of talltrees to contend with at the end of the strip. I elected to continue on toNadzab and land at one of several strips there. This would lengthen myflight by 50 to 75 miles, but it posed no problems. I headed on course.

About 10 miles past Finschhafen, my left engine started missing—not a good sign. I immediately turned 180 degrees and headed back,checking the cockpit instruments. Fuel pressure was okay, but my RPMwas fluctuating noticeably and would not stabilize. I had come back onthe throttles first thing and found that the engine ran fairly smoothly atabout 15 inches of manifold pressure and about 1,600 RPM. How-ever,any increase in throttle setting or RPM resulted in engine misfires, andincreasing the RPM increased the fluctuation. A land-ing was essential.I was losing altitude and could not fool around. I also noticed that myvoltmeter needle was doing a good bit of waver-ing, which signified anelectrical problem. Everything was coming loose at once!

I was close enough to the field to glide and make it. I wonderedabout the health of the hydraulic system and wondered if I could lowerthe landing gear. I was not elated over the possibility of a wheels-uplanding, especially on the Pierced Steel Planking (PSP) strip. Land-ingwithout wheels would enhance the danger of fire and could ren-der thestrip inoperative if the planking was torn up. Also, I would have nocontrol of the aircraft if I overshot and slid into the trees at the far end.


If my hydraulic system was not operating properly, I planned to bailout.

I had no way to alert the tower other than to come over the strip at agood clip with the wheels down and my landing and fuselage lights on,rocking my wings to get attention. From past experience, I knew that ifI came over at 800 to 1,000 feet at 150 miles per hour or more with thegear down, I could execute a widow-maker, a 360-degree circle descentto the approach end of the runway. If I was not too hot, I could utilizeflaps to prevent landing too far down the strip.

I turned on my navigation and landing lights and headed down. Idropped my gear at about 2,000 feet. Fortunately, the gear indicatorshowed “Down and locked.” I decided to dead-stick the landing, as Icould not depend on my left engine.

Now my only problem was getting the tower’s attention so the crewcould advise other aircraft to clear the area for my approach. I observedseveral planes taxiing toward takeoff position, and others were in thetraffic pattern. The tower gave no notice of me. I came over the strip atabout 1,000 feet, real hot—about 200 miles per hour—and rocked mywings hard. I peeled off about halfway down the runway in a steep turn,climbing a bit to kill some speed and stay fairly close to the field. Levelingoff at about 1,200 feet abreast of the approach end of the runway, I hitone-quarter flaps and continued the turn. I was indicat-ing about 120miles per hour—still hot—so I dumped half flaps. At that moment, I gota green flare and brought the airspeed down to just below 100 miles perhour. I set my glide angle and cut my main ig-nition switch and fuelmixture off to safeguard against fire in event the gear collapsed. I set itdown about 500 feet from the approach end and came to a rolling stopoff the right side of the strip. I made a final cockpit check, climbed outwith my chute and other gear, and was greeted by a bunch of linepersonnel.

In the morning, I was informed that a P-38 on the strip needed to beferried to its home outfit at Dobodura. I volunteered to fly the plane toits home base and was quickly taken up on the offer. I gave it a quickcheck ride, landed, signed it off as okay, and flew it home. The receivingunit, based at another strip, gave me a ride to the Headhunters’ camp.


Upon arrival, I learned that our CO, Major Porky Cragg, had beenshot down at Cape Gloucester along with our operations officer, MajorFreddy Taylor. Both were listed as MIA.

During the afternoon of December 28, Freddy Taylor came home,much to everyone’s surprise. His return lifted morale tremendously andgave us hope that Porky Cragg might also have survived. Unfortunately,Porky never returned. He was a fine man, a natural leader in every respect.At the time of his loss, he had a total of 15 confirmed aerial victoriesand was one of the leading American aces.

I considered myself most fortunate, for I had had an engine shot outover Wewak on December 22, just four days prior to losing an engine atCape Gloucester. Two single-engine return trips in the month! I didn’tneed any more!

*By the time Captain Corky Smith returned to the United States in May1944, he had driven his total of confirmed victories to 11, includ-ing 2Zeros destroyed on January 18, 1944, at Wewak; a Mitsubishi Ki-46Dinah high-speed reconnaissance bomber over Hollandia on March31; and a Ki-61 Tony fighter over Lake Santani on April 12. He went ona War Bond tour and then served for the rest of the war as a P-38instructor at Santa Rosa, California. Smith remained in the Air Forceafter the war and retired as a colonel in December 1968.



ACES AGAINST JAPAN IIThe American Aces Speak

By Eric Hammel

Combat historian Eric Hammel comes through with an engrossing newcollection of first-person accounts by American World War II fighteraces.

Coupled with a clear overview of America’s air war against Japan,Hammel’s detailed interviews bring forth the most thrilling in-the-cockpitexperiences that World War II’s fabled Army, Navy, Marine, and FlyingTiger aces have chosen to tell.

Ride with 2d Lieutenant Jack Donalson as he downs three Zerosover Luzon on the second desperate day of World War II in the Philip-pines. Share three lonely air battles over Burma and China with FlyingTiger aces RT Smith, Dick Rossi, and Joe Rosbert. Hear the cry of vic-tory as 2d Lieutenant Don McGee survives yet another encounter withZeros over embattled Port Moresby, New Guinea, in his P-39. Feel theanxiety as an injured Ensign Ed Wendorf races against time to land hisdamaged Hellcat aboard the USS Lexington before he bleeds to death.And thrill to the hunt as Pearl Harbor veteran 1st Lieutenant FrankHolmes seeks personal revenge against Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto onone of history’s most important and most thrilling fighter missions.

The American Aces Speak is a highly charged five-volume excur-sion into life and death in the air, told by men who excelled and tri-umphed in aerial combat and lived to tell about it.


The Book World says: “Aces Against Japan is a thunderous, personal,high-adventure book giving our ‘men in the sky’ their own voice.”



The Library Journal says: “No PR hype or dry-as-dust prose here.Hammel allows his flyers to tell their stories in their own way. Excitingstuff aviation and World War II buffs will love.”

The Friday Review of Defense Literature says: “Aces Against Japanis replete with individual heroism and personal feats that almost defycomprehension. A thoroughly enjoyable foray into the cockpits of WorldWar II fighter pilots.”

The Providence Sunday Journal says: “A treat that deftly blends achronology of the Pacific War with tales that would rival a Saturdayaction matinee.”

Infantry Magazine says: “If you would like to read one book that willgive you a broad overview and yet a detailed look at what a fighterpilot’s air war was like, this is the book.”

The Bookshelf says: “Hammel is one of our best military historianswhen it comes to presenting that often complex subject to the generalpublic. He has demonstrated this facility in a number of fine books before[Aces Against Germany] and now he does so again. Not to be missed byeither buff or scholar.”


Note: The following article is excerpted from the book ACESAGAINST JAPAN II: The American Aces Speak by Eric Hammel.The book is currently available in a $27.50 trade paperback editionpublished by Pacifica Military History. It is also available in ebookeditions.

BLOOD OVER KWAJALEINby Eric Hammel

Copyright 1996 © by Eric Hammel.

Ensign WENDY WENDORF, USNVF-16 (USS Lexington)Kwajalein Atoll—December 4, 1943

*Edward George Wendorf was born on February 22, 1922, in the smallcentral Texas town of West, about 80 miles south of Dallas. He wasraised in West and attended school there until 1939, when he went off tothe University Texas in Austin on a football scholarship. Between hisfreshman and sophomore years, Wendorf became interested in aviation.When a friend suggested that for just fifty dollars they could take theCivilian Pilot Training course at Hillsboro Junior College, which wasjust fifteen miles north of West, Wendorf agreed. At Hillsboro, the youngmen received all the necessary ground courses and about forty hours offlight time in Piper Cub and Taylorcraft airplanes. Upon completion,they were awarded private pilot’s licenses.

Shortly after Pearl Harbor, Ed Wendorf enlisted in the Naval AviationCadet program with the stipulation that he would not enter pilot traininguntil June 1, 1942, so he could complete his second year of college. InJune, on schedule, the Navy assigned him to the Secondary CivilianPilot Training center at Browning Field in Austin, where he trained inWaco biplanes. Upon completion of the course at Browning in September1942, Cadet Wendorf was sent to the Navy’s pre-flight school at Athens,Georgia. In December, he was assigned to the Naval Air Station, Dallas,


for Primary Flight training. He then went on to Corpus Christi for Basicand Advanced flight training. He was commissioned an ensign anddesignated a Naval Aviator in June 1943.

After earning his wings, Ensign Wendorf was assigned to Lee Fieldin Jacksonville, Florida, to train in Grumman F4F Wildcat fighters withan operational training unit. Next he went to Glenview, Illinois, wherehe qualified for carriers aboard the converted lake steamer USS Sable.He then received orders to report to San Diego for further assignment,and after only one day in San Diego he was put aboard a ship bound forPearl Harbor.

*I reported and was assigned to Fighting-16, which was then at

Kaneohe Naval Air Station. I was given an F6F Hellcat operationshandbook on a Friday evening and told to be ready for a familiarizationhop at 0800 the next morning. I was checked out as scheduled, andproceeded to fly formation and gunnery flights in the afternoon. I wasgiven a carrier qualification bounce drill on Sunday morning.

The USS Lexington (CV-16) departed Pearl Harbor early on Mondaymorning. Ensign Edward “Tiger” Rucinski, another replacement, and Iflew out to the ship and were carrier qualified with six landings apiecewhile en route to battle. Here I was, with fewer than 200 total flighthours and not even 10 hours in the F6F, and I was on my way to my firstcombat—the taking of Tarawa by the U.S. Marines. The time frame ofthis departure was mid-November 1944.

We were several days en route to the Tarawa area, and upon arrivingAir Group 16 was assigned several responsibilities. First, we madeseveral strikes against the facilities, aircraft, and defense systems inTarawa Atoll prior to the amphibious assault at Betio by the Marines.Second, we patrolled the area between the beaches of Tarawa and islandsto the north in order to intercept and prevent any attacks on the assaultforces. And third, we occasionally were called upon to provide close airsupport—bombing and attacking any particular stronghold that wasgiving the Marines a problem. We provided the patrol and interceptservices for a week or ten days, occasionally chasing a random bogeyout of the area but not really seeing anything significant.


When the Marines had secured their beachhead at Tarawa, I guess itwas decided to stage a hit-and-run attack on Kwajalein Atoll—particularly the airfield on Roi Island—to do whatever damage to aircraftand installations we could, and obtain some photographs of the beachesand defenses for use in the landings that were to be made there.

Upon joining the squadron, I had been assigned to fly wing on oneof the division leaders, Lieutenant Jim “Alkie” Seybert. The nickname“Alkie” was short for Alcohol, perhaps referring to his earlier imbibinghabits but certainly not reflecting his drinking during the time that Iknew him. Jim was an outstanding pilot and a wonderful human being.We developed a very close bond during the ensuing months and vowedto protect each other’s tail at all costs. Since we both survived the toursafely, we considered our accomplishment a success.

My big day arrived on December 4, 1943. We went into KwajaleinAtoll as a group with three levels of cover to protect the dive-bombersand torpedo bombers. We had low-level cover at 7,000 feet, mid-levelcover at 12,000 feet, and high cover at 18,000 feet. Jim’s division wasassigned as mid-level cover. We arrived in the target area early in themorning, around 0700, and proceeded to sweep the area for enemybogeys. Seeing no opposition in the air, we were directed to strafe RoiAirfield. Our main targets were parked aircraft, of which there wereonly a few, and the hangar areas.

Alkie put me in a right echelon to his Hellcat, gave me the Breaksignal, and peeled off to the left. I waited several seconds and commencedmy own attack. I kept Alkie in sight but took a lateral spacing off to hisright so that I could concentrate on my strafing targets and keep him insight as well. I fired a few long bursts into a couple of aircraft on thehangar apron, then shifted my sights to an open hangar and fired a longburst into it. It was about this time that I experienced several jolts fromantiaircraft shells that burst in close proximity to my airplane, so I jinkedand juked (changed altitude and direction) several times to throw offtheir aim.

Alkie and I had agreed to rendezvous to the left, over the water, at5,000 feet, but the AA was so intense that I had to break to the right. Iwas commencing my recovery when I spotted a lone Betty twin-engine


bomber scooting low on the water. I don’t know whether it had justtaken off or was returning from another field. Anyway, I had to take offa lot of throttle as the speed from my dive was going to take me past himin a hurry.

I swung out to the right and then back in on the Betty. Then I fired ashort burst from all six .50-caliber guns. The bullets went over the topof him, so I lowered my nose and sights, and fired a two long bursts intothe bomber. It started disintegrating while trailing heavy smoke andcommenced a slow diving turn to starboard until it crashed into thewater.

I went to full throttle and started a slow climbing turn to port, lookingfor Alkie Seybert’s F6F. As I climbed through about 7,000 feet, I spotteda flight of four aircraft high in the sun. I assumed they were friendly,because we had been pretty much observing radio silence and I hadn’theard any reports of enemy aircraft in the air. Little did I know that thejolts I had felt during my strafing run had been several actual hits in myfuselage by 37mm AA, which had knocked my radio out of commission.

I was unobserved by the pilots as I approached the flight of fouraircraft from inside and underneath. As I neared the formation, I wasshocked to see they all sported the red “meatball” of the Rising Sun andwere actually a flight of four Zeros.

There was little I could do except slide out to the starboard side, lineup the two outside aircraft, and open fire. The outside Zero explodedalmost immediately, and the second one began to burn as it fell off tothe right. By this time, evidently, the leader and other wingman hadspotted me. When they broke in opposite directions, my only recoursewas to follow one of them, and I selected the leader. However, he turnedsteeply to the port and I soon lost him.

Meanwhile, the other wingman had pulled around and was on mytail. As I turned sharply to the right, I saw a couple of bursts of tracersgo over my head. I dove to try to lose him but he stayed close on my tail,so I executed a sharp pull-up. As I neared the top and began to drain offmy speed, I decided to pull it on through and complete a loop. As I cameover into the inverted position, I could see the Zero pulling through likemad, and I realized that he was going to be in an excellent position to


rake me on the recovery. I decided to push forward on the stick and flyinverted for a couple of seconds. The Zero pilot was so intent on pullinginside me that I think the move surprised him. He lost sight of me andcontinued his pullout. After delaying my pullout a couple more seconds,I found him just about in my sights on the recovery. I was slightly out ofrange at first and had to add throttle to close before firing. I don’t thinkhe saw me until I opened fire, and by then it was too late. He soon beganto burn and crashed into the sea.

It had been an exciting couple of minutes and resulted in fourvictories—the Betty and three Zeros. There were several engagementsgoing on, so I decided to climb above the closest one, dive to get somespeed advantage, and see if I could help pull an enemy aircraft off ofsomeone’s tail.

As I was climbing to get in the fray, I must admit that all my attentionwas directed above me and not to my rear. All of a sudden, I saw 7.7mmbullets and 20mm cannon shells ripping off pieces of my wing coveringand some tracer fire going past me. My first reaction was to look to therear and peek out from around my armor-plated setback. I just started topeek when a 7.7mm bullet came over my left shoulder, hit me in thetemple above my left eye, and went through and out the front right sideof my canopy. It felt like someone had hit me alongside the head with atwo-by-four board. I was temporarily stunned and dazed, and I don’tremember how long it took me to realize that I had been hit. My firstthought then was to get the hell out of there.

We had been instructed that one of the best evasive maneuvers wasto dive to terminal velocity—I think the Red Line maximum speedallowed was around 400 to 425 knots—and make a sharp turn to theright. This I did, and evidently it worked, because the Zero pilot did notelect to stay with me, for which I was most thankful.

As I pulled out from the high-speed dive, I noticed that blood wasspurting and landing on my left hand, which was positioned on thethrottle. I immediately placed my left hand on the artery leading to mywound and applied pressure. This seemed to stop most of the bleeding,but some blood was still running down my arm and onto my leg.

A friendly submarine was positioned a few miles off the coast torescue aviators who had been hit. I think the sub was off the northeast


side of Kwajalein Atoll, but it stayed submerged until it was notified bysomeone that a flyer was down in the area. Since I was alone and had noradio due to the AA fire, there was no way to communicate with the sub.

I was bleeding quite profusely, so it was decision time! Would Iretain consciousness long enough to ditch in the area of the sub, get inmy raft, and take a chance on someone seeing me and notifying the subof my location? Or would I last long enough to stay in the air for 45minutes, to make it back to the ship? I considered my options for only afew moments and decided on the latter—return to the ship.

The correct compass heading for my return was around 45 degrees.As I attempted to take up this heading, I noticed that my RemoteIndicating Compass (RMI) was inoperative—also due to that AA hit—and that the liquid compass was swinging through 30 to 40 degrees andthus extremely inaccurate. I decided to take a heading that bisected thenorth-south and east-west runways at Roi, line up on two clouds, andfly in that direction. When I would pass over one of the clouds used toline up the 45-degree heading, I would line up two more.

The weather was mostly clear, with scattered clouds and about fourto five miles of visibility. I flew most of the way above the scatteredclouds. After 45 minutes, I decided to let down below the overcast andcommence an “expanding square” search until I spotted the Lexington.I had just completed two legs of the search when I spotted a carrier’swake. I felt tremendously relieved.

Unfortunately, the number on the fantail of the ship was “10”—thatof our sister ship, the USS Yorktown. My wound had slowed to a trickleby then, but I was still losing blood and was therefore anxious to recoveron any carrier.

As I flew by the Yorktown’s island, I waggled my wings to indicatethat I had no radio. As I did, I noticed that there were many TBFs, SBDs,and F6Fs turning up on deck, ready to launch for another strike atKwajalein. The visibility was still four to five miles, so I looked allaround for the Lexington, but I did not see her.

The people on the Yorktown understood my problem. They usedwhite material of some sort to make an arrow pointing in a southerlydirection, and also the number “12” to indicated the distance in miles tomy carrier. I waggled my wings again to indicate that I understood the


message, and then I turned to that heading and began looking for theLex.

After only several minutes of flight, I picked up the wake of theship. When I saw her, I noticed that the deck was clear and ready toaccept aircraft. The ship immediately gave me a Prep Charlie in Morsecode with an Aldis lamp, indicating that it was okay to begin myapproach. Soon they transmitted a Charlie, also by Aldis lamp, meaningit was okay to land.

I turned downwind and began my approach. Much to my chagrin, Idiscovered that my tail-hook rail had been shot away and that I had nohydraulic pressure to lower my wheels or flaps. There was a compressed-air bottle to blow down the wheels in an emergency, and since I definitelyconsidered this an emergency, I used it to lower my gear as I continuedmy approach. The deck was clear, but as I approached the ramp, I wasgiven a Wave-off by the LSO. As I flew past, he gave me the signal thatI needed to lower my tail hook and flaps. I waggled my wings again toindicate that I understood but that I was unable to do either.

I continued upwind and began another approach. I had opened mycanopy and was trying to use both hands to fly the plane. The wind wasblowing in my face and I could no longer hold the pressure point on mytemple, which caused the wound to bleed freely. The flowing blood wascompletely obstructing the vision in my left eye. Believe me, is difficultenough to land on a carrier deck with both eyes functioning, but withonly one eye, it was extremely difficult!

As I neared the ramp on my second approach, I noticed that therewas a Hellcat crashed on deck in a wheels-up condition. As I learnedlater, it had taken several 20mm hits in the cockpit that severely woundedthe pilot in the hand. The LSO had brought this F6F in on a straight-inapproach, but the wounded pilot had been unable to lower his gear andflaps prior to the landing.

I was feeling okay except for the bleeding. I was not feeling faint orlight-headed, and the wound above my eye was sort of numb. The cakedblood was helping to stem some of the flow. Though I was not feelingmuch pain, I certainly did not relish the thought of circling while thedeck crew cleaned up the deck crash. But I really had no other choice.


After I had circled for about fifteen minutes, they again gave me theCharlie signal to land. This time, realizing I had no tail hook or flaps,the deck crew had rigged the barrier across the flight deck. The barrierconsisted of several strands of one-inch wire cabling that would stopthe aircraft on its runout.

I made my second approach and soon discovered that I could notsee well enough to make the trap unless I held my left hand to my templeto stop the flow of blood. I made the approach holding my temple withmy left hand, flying the aircraft and making throttle adjustments, andeventually taking the Cut, all with my right hand. I landed successfullyand slowed my roll to almost a stop before I struck the barrier and nosedup. It had been an ordeal, but I had survived.

They removed me from the plane, placed me on a stretcher, andtook me to the sickbay. My flight suit was drenched in blood, and bloodhad even run down my leg and into my left shoe, which squished duringthe few steps I took on my own. The flight surgeon later told me that heestimated I had lost nearly two quarts of blood.

I was sedated and remember little else about the next twenty-fourhours. But as exciting as my day had been, it was not yet over.

The air groups made repeated attacks on Kwajalein during the dayand then the task force withdrew to the east and took up a course toreturn to Pearl Harbor. As we withdrew, we came under attack by severalBettys, which tracked the carriers and attempted to launch aerialtorpedoes our way. At approximately 2200, one of them was successfuland the Lex took a hit below decks in the vicinity of the sickbay. Iunderstand that several people were killed, including the corpsman whowas holding a compress to my head to stop the bleeding, and that thecompartment was partially flooded.

As I later learned, the gun captain of the 40mm mount just outsidemy bunkroom had heard that I was wounded, and came down to thesickbay to visit me just as the torpedo hit the ship. When he lookedthrough the Plexiglas inspection window into the sickbay compartment,he saw that another wounded pilot and I were moving about in bed, sohe entered and pulled us both out to safety. I understand that thecompartment I was in eventually flooded completely. Had the gun captain


not decided to come visit me at just that time, it is doubtful that anyoneelse would have noticed us and made the rescue.

What a day! It was filled with lots of luck. I’m sure I owe my goodfortune to the intervention of Divine Providence—I prayed long andloud throughout the ordeal—and to a strong will to survive. I know thatI was just not ready to go that day—it was just not my time to go.

I was hospitalized for about a week at Pearl and then returned to thesquadron. After I regained complete sight in my left eye, about a month,I returned to flight status and resumed my tour aboard the USS Lexingtonfor another seven months. I returned to the States and was reassigned inJuly 1944.

Comparing the performance of the Hellcat versus the Zero, I feelthat the Hellcat was by far the more durable of the two aircraft, duemainly to fact that the wing fuel tanks were self-sealing—a bullet orincendiary could pass through the wing tank, which would sealimmediately without causing a fire or explosion—and because the pilothad a lead silhouette of armor protecting his backside.

On the other hand, the Zero was faster and more maneuverable,thanks to the weight-saving features of not having the self-sealing fueltanks and the armor plating protecting the pilot. This I think was a netdisadvantage. A number of times in later fights I was outmaneuvered—the Zero turned inside me—and my plane was hit, but it was not disabled.By contrast, only a few rounds fired into the Zero usually resulted in thepilot being hit and the Zero crashing into the sea, or a fire starting andthe airplane either burning or exploding.

As an example of the ruggedness of the Hellcat, the plane that I flewback the day I was shot had three 37mm holes, about seven 20mm holes,and more than 250 7.7mm bullet holes or small fragment holes fromantiaircraft fire. Several of the smaller fragment holes were in the enginearea, but the good old Pratt & Whitney continued to purr right down tothe time that I nosed-up on deck.

The abilities and caliber of the Japanese pilots I engaged also declinedtremendously with the progression of the war. I speak only for ourexperience in VF-16, but I would expect it to compare with that of othersquadrons operating at the same time. Early in the war, around Kwajalein,


the Japanese pilots were extremely tough, and our kill ratio was onlyabout 5:1. Later, around Truk, Palau, and Hollandia, our ratio grew toabout 12:1. And around the Mariannas, VF-16 shot down an estimatedtwenty-five to thirty Japanese aircraft during that one-day “TurkeyShoot”—without losing a single plane or pilot to enemy aircraft. I feelsure that this was due to the attrition of first-rate Japanese pilots andJapan’s inability to train replacements in an orderly manner.

*In addition to the Japanese aircraft he downed over Kwajalein on

December 4, 1943, Ensign Wendy Wendorf shot down an Imperial ArmyKi-61 Tony fighter over Truk on April 29, 1944, and a bomber in theMarianas on June 19, 1944.

Following a well-deserved home leave, Lieutenant (jg) Wendorfjoined a group of six “nuggets”—recently designated and commissionedaviators—whom he shepherded through operational training and carrierqualifications before all were assigned to the escort carrier USS SavoIsland. The ship and its composite squadron joined several similar unitsin Adak, Alaska, where they were preparing for the upcoming invasionof Japan when the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima andNagasaki, and the war quickly ended.

After the war, Lieutenant Wendorf was given a commission in theRegular Navy. During the first of two back-to-back tours as a flightinstructor at Pensacola, Wendorf became engaged to and soon marrieda Navy air traffic controller. He retired from the Navy in 1968 and workedfor nearly two decades in the aircraft industry.




ACES AT WARThe American Aces Speak

By Eric Hammel

Adding to the first three volumes of his acclaimed series, The AmericanAces Speak, leading combat historian Eric Hammel comes through withyet another engrossing collection of thirty-eight first-person accountsby American fighter aces serving in World War II, the Israeli War ofIndependence, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War

As are the three earlier volumes, Aces At War is a highly chargedexcursion into life and death in the air, told by men who excelled atpiston-engine and jet-engine aerial combat and lived to tell about it. It isan emotional rendering of what brave airmen felt and how they foughtin the now-dim days of America’s living national history.

Ride with Flying Tigers ace Charlie Bond as he is shot down inflames over the Chinese city he alone has been able to defend againstJapanese bombers. Share the loneliness of command as Lieutenant Com-mander Tom Blackburn decides the fate of the fellow Navy pilot whoseF4U Corsair malfunctions in a desperate battle over Rabaul. Feel 2dLieutenant Deacon Priest’s overwhelming sense of duty to a friend ashe lands his P-51 Mustang behind German lines to rescue his downedsquadron commander. Share Lieutenant Colonel Ed Heller’s despera-tion as he fights his way out of his uncontrollable F-86 Sabre jet overthe wrong side of the Yalu River. And join Major Jim Kasler as he leadswhat might be the most important air strike of the Vietnam War.

These are America’s eagles, and the stories they tell are their own,in their very own words.





The Library Journal says: “No PR hype or dry-as-dust prose here.Hammel allows his flyers to tell their stories in their own way.Exciting stuff aviation and World War II buffs will love.”


Infantry Magazine says: “If you would like to read one book that willgive you a broad overview and yet a detailed look at what afighter pilot’s air war was like, this is the book.”

The Bookshelf says: “Hammel is one of our best military historianswhen it comes to presenting that often complex subject to thegeneral public. He has demonstrated this facility in a number offine books before [Aces Against Germany] and now he does soagain. Not to be missed by either buff or scholar.”


Note: The following article is excerpted from the book ACES ATWAR: The American Aces Speak by Eric Hammel. The book iscurrently available in a $27.50 trade paperback edition publishedby Pacifica Military History. It is also available in ebook editions.

SAVE THE BOMBERSby Eric Hammel


1st Lieutenant FRANK GERARD, USAAF503d Fighter Squadron, 339th Fighter GroupAnnaberg, Germany—September 11, 1944

*Francis Robert Gerard was born in Belleville, New Jersey, on July 11,1924. He graduated from high school in June 1941, and on October 22,biked from his home in Newark to the recruiting station in Lyndhurst. Itwas his intention to enlist in the Marine Corps, but he was arrested atthe entrance to the building by a sign depicting Uncle Sam pointing hisfinger and emblazoned with the question, “Can You Fly?” A crack athleteand a top scholar, young Gerard said to himself, Why not?, and proceededto the Army Air Forces recruiter. He passed the written exam with ease,but when he returned for his physical the next day, he could not get therecruiter to commit to an early departure for training, so he threatenedto join the Marines. At this point, the teenager was ushered into theoffice of a full colonel, who questioned him on various aspects of hislife. At last, the colonel promised to have the young pilot recruit swornin on October 26 and on his way as soon as possible. The colonel’sword was golden—Gerard was sworn into the Army on October 26,1942, and on his way to training on December 18.

Second Lieutenant Frank Gerard, age nineteen, emerged from flighttraining with class 43-H at Craig Field, Alabama, on August 30, 1943.After completing his training with a replacement training unit, he wasassigned to the 339th Fighter-Bomber Group, which had been formed


as a light dive-bomber unit in mid-1942 and now was undergoing trainingas a P-39 fighter-bomber unit at Rice Field, California.

The group was shipped to England in March 1944 and there ittransitioned to P-51s for escort duty with the VIII Fighter Command’s66th Fighter Wing. The group flew its first mission, a fighter sweepahead of the heavy bombers, on April 30, 1944.

First Lieutenant Frank Gerard scored his first aerial victory, a Bf-109 he downed with only 42 bullets, while escorting bombers near Gotha,Germany, on August 16, 1944.

*I flew my entire combat tour as a member of the 503rd Fighter

Squadron, 339th Fighter Group, based at Station 378, Fowlmere,England.

On September 11, 1944, we were awakened early by the many B-17s and B-24s droning overhead to complete their join-ups in the murkyweather prevalent in England at that time of the year. I remember sowell that it was pretty foggy that morning, and so I hoped that I wouldbe able to sleep a little while longer. That was not to be, so my fiveNissen hut buddies and I donned our damp flying suits and sloshedthrough the mud to have our sumptuous breakfast. Afterwards, webicycled to the briefing hut to receive our mission for the day.

It was a typical briefing at the start, but when it came to the type oftactics that the bomber boxes were to employ that day enroute to Grimma,Germany, and how we were to effect the rendezvous and the escortprocedures, I could sense the perking interest of my fellow pilots andoperations officers. En route to the target near Leipzig, we were told,we would not use the normal formation of boxes in trail. Rather, thebomber boxes would fly basically line abreast into Germany and thenwheel into trail at a designated point before the Initial Point (IP). Wecould only conclude that this method of approach was to confuse theGerman air defenses. And it did cause confusion, no doubt about it, butmostly on the part of the Eighth Air Force escorts, both P-51s and P-47s. When the time came for the Fortresses to wheel into position towardthe IP, the 503d Fighter Squadron, with a total of fourteen Mustangs,


was the only fighter unit in the proper position to offer protection to themany boxes of bombers.

While we were still en route to the target area, the Germans sent upseveral decoy Bf-109s to entice our fighter units away from the bomberforce. Our squadron was led by Major John Aitken, an experienced fighterpilot. We stayed with the B-17s, ignored the decoys, and maneuveredtoward the front of the scattered bomber formation.

When we were in the vicinity of Annaburg, I called in a mass ofbandits, and Major Aitken gave the order to drop our external fuel tanks.It certainly was a frightening spectacle to spot the two gaggles of fightersapproaching the bombers. The gaggles were composed of more thanfifty enemy aircraft each, and the sight of them raised the hackles of myhair, as I am sure it did to the thirteen other Mustang pilots in ourformation. I thought, This is it! However, we pressed on even thoughour instincts warned us that we would not return from this mission. Butit was our duty to protect the bombers to the best of our daring and skill.

As the enemy aircraft approached the bomber force, we dove downand began the attack. At first, I didn’t think of anything except trying todistract the 109s from their goal of destroying the B-17s by getting themto mix it up with us. To this end, I fired a burst in their general direction,but I was firing from out of range. This premature action had no effectupon the deadly determination of the 109s and 190s.

I was flying as the element lead in Major Aitken’s flight, and initiallyI was slightly ahead of the others, in the nearest position to the enemygaggles. After my futile attempt to distract the enemy I said to myself,Steady, boy. Concentrate on one at a time. Then I picked out a 109 thatwas about 300 yards out and crossing in front of me at about a 40-degree angle. He was the tail-end charlie of a flight of 109s.

I put all my football-passing and skeet-shooting experience to gooduse then. I gave him a good lead while aiming a little high, because ofthe distance. Then I gave him a short burst from my six .50-calibermachine guns. He blew up with coolant and flames streaming out. Mywingman, 2d Lieutenant Raymond Mayer, saw him spin out with hiswheels down and pieces flying off, so it was a confirmed victory. Scaredas I was at the time, my lucky hits gave me a lot of confidence andelation.


I pressed on through the melee, and as we reached the Americanbombers, I maneuvered frantically to get in position while protectingmy tail. All hell was breaking loose around me, and there were so manyaircraft involved that it was difficult to distinguish friends from enemies,but thank God there were so many of them and few of us. I finallypicked out an FW-190 that was in a slight dive. I got on his tail and gavehim a short burst, and he immediately exploded. Captain James Robinsonconfirmed this kill. I then damaged another 109, but in the confusion ofdiving through the bomber formation—I swear that I could hear therapid fire from the heavy armament of the B-17s, and the sky around mewas filled with parachutes and pieces of debris flying through the air—I wasn’t able to follow him to confirm this kill. Much remained to bedone to assist the bomber crews and their aircraft.

Opening to max throttle, I attacked another 109 that was going downin a dive, but as I was positioning on him, I spotted two more 109scoming in on my tail. As we were already getting into a sort of Lufbery,I accelerated my turn and got it in so tight that I thought my G-suitwould break me in half. (We were one of the pioneer groups to test thepneumatic G-suit, and I said at the time that I never wanted to fly combatin a fighter without wearing one.) Because of the benefits of the G-suit,I was able to twist my head without blacking out, and I was able tooutmaneuver the two 109s. I was determined that they would never fightagainst our valiant bomber crews again.

I put that P--51 through every gyration it was designed for, and more.In fact, I snapped it around so forcefully that I was concerned about thewings coming off, --but I gave it a go.

After two or three turns, I was on their tails. Though I was pulling alot of Gs, I lined up on the nearer of the two 109s and gave him two orthree short bursts. The pilot must have been amazed at this turn of events,for his previous target was now the aggressor—and was scoring hits allover his airplane. He blew up and started his final descent. I followedhim in a steep dive and saw him spin into the ground.

While I was in this steep dive, Major Aitken passed me. He was onthe tail of another 109, and he was getting serious strikes all over it. Ipulled up because my speed was excessive, and this afforded me theopportunity to bounce another 109. I pressed the attack for what seemed


like quite a while before I was in a position to fire. This 109 pilot wasaggressive. He tried to lose me with various maneuvers and tactics,descending all the time. However, I was determined not to let this onefight another day. It was crazy up there at the time, but I got into positionfor a good deflection shot. When I was close enough I gave him a shortburst, and he blew up and entered a crazy spin. As I pulled up in a tightturn to clear my tail and look for other enemy aircraft, I saw my 109 hitthe ground. When he hit, he was still spinning.

Next, I spotted six more 109s break for the deck. I rolled after them,but I had only 110 gallons of gas left, so I broke off the attack, climbedto 15,000 feet, and began my long and lonely flight back to Fowlmere.

It had been a long day. The mission was seven hours and fortyminutes, but adding the time for the fog-delayed takeoff, I was strappedinto that Mustang for more than nine hours. My muscles and my mindwere sorely challenged. I thought of a lot of different things that day,but most of all I was proud to be part of the 503d Fighter Squadron andthankful for the wisdom of Major Aitken for not being lured by thedecoys, and for his dedication to protecting the bomber crews byfollowing orders and not chasing across the skies for personal glory.

We did our best that day, but it was not good enough. Twelve B-17swent down in flames before other American fighters finally arrived toprotect them on the flight home. I do not think I had the courage to be abomber pilot over Germany. I had—and still have—the utmost respectfor the valor and dedication of those brave crews.

The 503d Fighter Squadron shot down fifteen German fighters inthat action, and we damaged many others. The 339th Fighter Groupwas awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for its achievements onSeptember 10 and 11, 1944, and I was awarded the Silver Star for“Gallantry in Action.”

*Frank Gerard was awarded four confirmed victories for the twelve-

minute September 11 fight over Annaburg; he was a five-kill ace, andonly a month past his twentieth birthday. He went on to down two Bf-109s, and damage a third, near Magdeburg on March 2, 1945; andshortly after being promoted to the rank of captain, he scored his eighth


and final victory on March 18, 1945, when he downed an FW-190 nearDummer Lake.

After World War II, Frank Gerard served with the New Jersey AirNational Guard while completing college. He earned his law degree in1949, but his legal career was cut short when he was called to activeduty during the Korean War. Thereater, he divided his time betweenvarious civilian pursuits, the New Jersey Air National Guard, andnumerous stints on active duty with the Air Force, including a tour duringthe 1962 Berlin Crisis. He flew jet fighters until 1976 and retired fromthe Air Force several years later with the rank of major general.




ACES IN COMBATThe American Aces Speak

By Eric Hammel

Adding to the acclaimed first four volumes of his exciting, in-the-cockpitseries, The American Aces Speak, leading combat historian Eric Hammelcomes through with yet another engrossing collection of first-personaccounts by American fighter aces serving in World War II and theKorean War.

As are the four earlier volumes, Aces In Combat is a highly chargedexcursion into life and death in the air, told by men who excelled atpiston-engine and jet-engine aerial combat and lived to tell about it. It isan emotional rendering of what brave airmen felt and how they foughtin the now-dim days of America’s living national history.

View the Battle of Midway through Lieutenant Jim Gray’s eyes ashe must balance the needs of fellow pilots against the needs of his na-tion. Share the fear with Captain Charlie Sullivan as would-be rescuersdeep in the New Guinea jungle attempt to turn him into a blood sacri-fice. Crew a Canadian Mosquito night fighter as Lieutenant Lou Lumastalks the wily Hun—and bags an ace—over an airfield deep in Ger-many. Share Lieutenant Bud Fortier’s and Major George Loving’s griefwhen, on missions nearly eight years apart, they look on helplessly astrusted wingmen dive to their deaths in treacherous ground-attack runs.And watch anxiously as Captain Tom Maloney hovers between life anddeath for ten lonely days after stepping on a mine on an enemy-heldbeach.

These are America’s eagles, and the stories they tell are their own,in their very own words.





The Library Journal says: “No PR hype or dry-as-dust prose here.Hammel allows his flyers to tell their stories in their own way.Exciting stuff aviation and World War II buffs will love.”


Infantry Magazine says: “If you would like to read one book that willgive you a broad overview and yet a detailed look at what afighter pilot’s air war was like, this is the book.”

The Bookshelf says: “Hammel is one of our best military historianswhen it comes to presenting that often complex subject to thegeneral public. He has demonstrated this facility in a number offine books before [Aces Against Germany] and now he does soagain. Not to be missed by either buff or scholar.”


Note: The following article is excerpted from the book ACES INCOMBAT: The American Aces Speak by Eric Hammel. The book iscurrently available in a $27.50 trade paperback edition publishedby Pacifica Military History. It is also available in ebook editions.

DESCENT INTO HELLby Eric Hammel


Captain TOM MALONEY, USAAF27th Fighter Squadron, 1st Fighter GroupNear Aix-en-Provence, France—August 19-September 1, 1944

*Thomas Edward Maloney was born in Cushing, Oklahoma, on March21, 1923. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps shortly after graduatingfrom high school and was inducted on June 13, 1941. He qualified forflight instruction in early 1942 and began training in September of thatyear. Cadet Maloney completed Primary flight training at ThunderbirdField, Arizona, in March 1943; Basic at Pecos, Texas, in May 1943;and Advanced at Williams Field, Arizona. He was commissioned as asecond lieutenant and pinned on his wings as a member of Class 43-Gat Williams Field on July 2, 1943.

Second Lieutenant Maloney was selected for fighters, and was trainedin P-38s at Muroc Army Air Base and Lomita Air Force Station,California, then departed the United States in September 1943, boundfor North Africa. He was assigned as a replacement pilot to the veteran1st Fighter Group’s 27th Fighter Squadron, then a part of the TwelfthAir Force. Based at Mateur, Tunisia, the 1st Fighter Group had servedchiefly as escort for medium bombers flying against tactical targets inItaly. However, on December 9, the 1st Fighter Group was transferredto the new Fifteenth Air Force and assigned to long-range escort dutiesfor B-24s and B-17s attacking strategic targets throughout southernEurope.


Second Lieutenant Tom Maloney drew first blood on March 28, 1944,when he shot down a Bf-109 (and probably shot down a second) overItaly. On April 23, he shot down two Me-110s (and damaged a Bf-109)while escorting heavy bombers over Hungary and Austria. Next, on May28, 1944, he shot down a Do-217 medium bomber over Buzim,Yugoslavia, and on May 31, 1944, he achieved ace status when he shotdown a Bf-109 while escorting the heavy bombers over Ploesti, Romania.First Lieutenant Maloney’s sixth victory credit was for an FW-190 hedowned over Oberstdorf, Germany, on July 18; and he rounded out hisscore with a pair of Bf-109s he shot down near St. Tropez, France, onAugust 15, 1944. By doing so, he became the 27th Fighter Squadron’shighest-scoring ace of the war, a distinction that one of hissquadronmates would subsequently match but none would exceed.

*During the Allied invasion of southern France, which commenced onAugust 15, 1944, two P-38 groups—the 1st and the 14th—were sent ondetached service from Foggia, Italy, to Corsica in order to support thelandings. The main reason for the P-38 being there was to fly cover overthe beachhead. It was felt they were easily recognizabe to Allied troopsas friendly planes, which meant that trigger-happy American, British,and French gunners on the ground wouldn’t be shooting at us, as theyhad done in earlier landing operations.

I would like to comment briefly on the plane we flew, the LockheedP-38 Lightning fighter. Many aviation writers tend to downplay theeffectiveness of the P-38 because of the various troubles and lack ofsuccess endured by the three Eighth Air Force fighter groups flying theP-38 out of England. I was fortunate to be given some insight into theirproblem when I was sent to England along with five squadronmates tobring back three-month-old P-38s from a group that was getting thelatest model. As it was, this group’s old P-38s were newer models thanwhat we had! I was reunited there with many of my Class 43-Gclassmates who had been assigned to this group before it was shippedoverseas. These pilots were scared to death. They had many enginefailures, suffered from a lack of leadership, and suffered especially froma lack of combat experience. The entire group had started combat with


no experience, and the pilots gained it only as they went. By contrast, Iwas fortunate to be sent to one of the very first units to fly the P-38combat, so when we went on missions, the 27th Fighter Squadron wascomposed of experienced pilots with fifty or more missions, as well asnew pilots with to no missions.

I have never encountered a pilot who flew the P-38 in combat whodidn’t love the plane, and that included many who also flew the P-51. Infairness, I must say that the P-38’s engines were very touchy and neededto be handled with kid gloves. Most writers overlook the fact that the P-51 was originally the A-36 ground-support fghter, and that the A-36used the same Allison engine the P-38 used. The A-36 was certainly nogreat shakes as a fighter. I’ve always wondered what the P-38 couldhave been with two Merlin engines, the same engines the P-51 finallyreceived.

The flying characteristics of the P-38 were superb. It was gentle as alamb, gave plenty of notice of a stall, and could turn with any fighterexcept the Spitfire and the Zero. Plus, its counter-rotating propseliminated the problem of torque so common to single-engine fighters.Very early in its operational history, the P-38 developed a reputation forbeing very difficult to fly. This wasn’t the case, but being the first reallyhigh-performance fighter to enter service in the Army Air Forces causedit to be feared by many people who felt it was too complicated for oneman to fly.

On the morning of August 19, 1944, I flew a beachhead cover mission,and that afternoon our new squadron commander, Major Frank Pope,wanted to lead a four-ship flight from the 27th on a dive-bombing missionthat was led by a four-ship 94th Fighter Squadron flight commanded byCaptain Ed LaClare. The target was a railroad bridge in the city ofAvignon, just below the confluence of the Durance and Rhone rivers.There was the possibility we might be intercepted by German fightersthat far north of the invasion area. Major Pope had flown a tour in Alaskaprior to joining the 27th as its CO, and he didn’t have much combatexperience with the Germans at this time. I was the 27th Squadron’soperations officer, and the most experienced pilot in the group, so Ithought it was advisable for me to fly the mission as Major Pope’s


element leader, in case we were jumped. This was my sixty-fourth combatmission.

The mission proceeded as planned, bt with only fair results. Since wecarried only one bomb apiece and had used belly tanks most of the wayto the target, we still had practically full internal fuel tanks. One of the94th Squadron P-38s developed a problem during the dive-bombingand returned to base, but the rest of us went looking for targets ofopportunity by following the rail line leading to the west-southwestlooking for a train or military trucks to shoot up.

We skirted Nimes and proceeded down the railroad line, and in shortorder we came upon a train in a small station later identified as Le Cres.The locomotive appeared to be taking on water. First the locomotivewas disabled by our guns. The cars it was pulling appeared to be flatcarsloaded with German Army trucks, a tank or two, and other military gear.This small station was in relatively open country and there were nosoldiers visible in the area. There was no evidence that anyone wasfiring at us.

Because the train seemed to ve carrying valuable military cargo, ourmission leader, Ed LaClare, made a decision to violate our strafing codeof one pass only. I agreed with him. We formed a circle and took outeach rail car in order. Quite a number of the rail cars exploded, whichcaused us to fly through the resulting fire storm. The debris this createdwas like flak.

As I came off my third target, a 94th Squadron plane which was thirdin the circle flew straight ahead with its right engine on fire. Since hewas the last 94th plane, no one in his own flight saw him go, so I flewup just behind him on the right and urged him to bail out. After aboutfive miles, the pilot made a left 170-degree turn and belly-landed on afairly level area. He went running off the wing before the airplane cameto a complete stop. I didn’t know until many years later that the pilotwas 1st Lieutenant Dick Arrowsmith, and that he successfully evadedcapture, was later led back to our lines by French Resistance fighters,and returned to his squadron to finish his combat tour.

As I was returning to the train, my right engine began knocking. Acheck of the oil pressure and temperature revealed that I’d lost the oil


from that engine, so I feathered the propeller and called Major Pope toinform him that I was heading out to the Mediterranean and returning toCorsica. The major and the other two 27th Squadron planes broke offtheir strafing passes to escort me.

After about ten minutes, I noticed that my left engine nacelle had oildripping from it. A check of the oil pressure revealed I’d soon lose thatengine, too. I was five or six miles off the French coast, and there was asolid overcast at about 800 feet. I decided to land in the water, eventhough there were waves crossing my line of flight. I had no troublelanding on the crest of a wave after I jettisoned my canopy, but Iimmediately discovered that the P-38 floats like a crowbar.

My dinghy was attached to my Mae West by means of a woven half-inch strand, and as I jerked on the strand it appeared the dinghy wouldn’tseparate from the parachute pack and was going to take me under withit. After a frantic last pull, it came up, and I inflated it. What a surprise!The dinghy was just large enough so that one side fit under my kneesand the other side was below my shoulders. Only my head and kneeswere out of the water.

The three P-38s from my flight stayed over me as long as their fuelpermitted. Shortly after the last one left, two ships came up over thehorizon, moving slowly toward me from the direction of our beachhead.Though it was near dusk when they arrived, it appeared at first that thenearer ship was going to run right over me, but as it came closer I couldsee that it was 150 to 200 yards seaward of me. I could see sailors ondeck looking for me, but the swells kept me from their sight. They slowlysailed past me about a mile, turned around to seaward, and came back.But they never came as close as on the first pass. It was dark by then,but they stayed in the area at least another hour, shooting flares andlighting up the sea. Eventually they left, and I was alone on a pitchblack night.

Much later, near midnight, I began hearing breakers, faintly at firstand then louder. It dawned on me that the tide and waves coming fromthe south had washed me to shore. I knew that I went down roughlytwenty-five miles west of Marseille, and since this was four days afterthe invasion, I thought the shoreline here would probably be heavilypatrolled by German soldiers. Nevertheless, I made it ashore without


incident. I was quite tired and sleepy because I had been up since 0600hours and had flown two missions, but I needed to find someplace tohide my dinghy and Mae West. If these were found by a sentry atdaybreak, the Germans would surely know that someone had made amini-invasion during the night.

I crept cautiously inland, looking for some shrubs in which I couldhide the dinghy and Mae West and conceal myself so that I wouldn’twaken to someone prodding me with a gun. The night was so dark, Icould not see my hand in front of my face.

I had moved inland between fifty to seventy-five feet when I froze atthe sound of a click, like someone working the bolt of a rifle.

On the ship that had carried me from the United States to North Africa,I had had plenty of time to think about going to war. I often thought howvery lucky I was to be a pilot. I was glad I wasn’t going to be in asubmarine, where I could be drowned or marooned forever; and I wasglad I wasn’t an infantryman, who would have to contend with landmines he couldn’t see. Immediately after hearing the click, I realizedone of my two worst fears was about to be realized.

The mine that went off under me shattered both of my feet, andinflicted compound fractures in both legs just above the ankles. Inaddition, several large pieces of metal had been driven into my left knee,gaping holes had been torn in both legs from the calves to the hips, apiece of metal had cut through my left bicep and numbed my arm, myface was torn by shrapnel and powder-burned, and my pantslegs hadbeen blown off six inches below the waist.

I was aware of a king-size hotfoot on my left foot. My right shoe wasblown off, but my left shoe had remained on. When I tried to remove theleft shoe, I found the foot had been impaled by a shard of the mine thathad penetrated the bottom of the shoe, gone through the foot, and onthrough the top of the shoe. The pain was unbearable, but I had to pullthe shard back through the bottom of the left shoe in order to remove theshoe.

My escape kit was still attached to my belt, so I opened it and founda little tube of sulfathiazole ointment. I spread the pitifully small contentsof the tube on the wounds I could feel on my feet; then I passed out.


When I awoke on the morning of August 20, I saw that I had comeashore on a quite level, somewhat sandy area covered with very lowscrubby vegetation. There was no one around. Very close to me wereseveral trip wires for more mines. Knowing I was seventy-five or moremiles behind enemy lines, it seemed to me that there was no hope of mybeing rescued. Having been raised a good Catholic boy, I said as goodan Act of Contrition as I could and resigned myself to dying there.

The truth is, few of those who made it through the war are luckierthan I am to be alive. By all odds, I should be dead.

On the morning of the second day, I tried to get a drink from thecanteen in my escape kit, but it was empty. For the rest of the day, Ialternately passed out and woke up. I was conscious for short periodsonly.

During the third and fourth days—August 21 and 22—it becameapparent that I was going to die of thirst, if not from my wounds, so Istarted moving toward a two- or three-foot rise that had a row of busheson top. The bushes were about fifty feet away. I would pick up one leg,set it down, then move the other, all the while being careful not to hitanother mine or tripwire as I dragged myself along. Because I wasconscious for only short periods of time, it took me several periods ofconsciousness to move the fifty feet. On the other side of the rise was asix-inch-deep pool of standing water, and I gratefully drnk from it eventhough it was dirty. I spent that night and the next day, August 23, by theedge of that pool. As before, I was unconscious most of the time.

During one of the periods when I as awake, I became conscious of afeeling of movement in some of my wounds. A check revealed that allmy open wounds were full of maggots, which caused me to think I wasbeing eaten alive. Each time I was conscious thereafter, I killed as manymaggots as I could. (It wasn’t until much later that doctors told me themaggots were only eating the dead flesh, thereby delaying the onset ofgangrene.)

On the fifth day, August 24, I raised my head as far as possible to seewhether there was anything nearby that I could try to reach for help. Tothe east, about a half-mile away, I could see the top of a tall woodenobservation tower. Surely, I thought it would be manned, and by this


time I would have welcomed a German coming to take me prisoner. Bythe end of the day, however, I had made no progress toward the tower,and I slept where I had awakened.

On the sixth day, August 25, I moved toward the tower and had gottento within a hundred yards of it by nightfall. There was a swamp betweenme and the tower, and by sunset I could see that there was a log cabin—it appeared to be a hunting cabin—at the base of the tower. Both thetower and the cabin were obviously abandoned.

On the seventh day, August 26, I entered the swamp, which turnedout to be about two to four feet deep. It so happened that I had comeashore in a vast swampy area known as the Camargue, at the mouth ofthe Rhone River.

I was able to move along quite well in the water because my legswere buoyant. I pulled myself to the cabin as cautiously as I could,because there were signs in German —Achtung! Minen—and I knewwhat that meant.

The swamp next to the cabin was about 100 feet wide and 150 yardslong, and at the far end it turned a corner. There was a footbridge thatcrossed from the cabin to the shorter side of the swam. It was made ofrough timbers about ten feet long and three feet wide, and held togetherwith a kind of baling wire.

During the next two days, August 27 and 28, I labored to take thebridge apart and construct a raft with four of the timbers held togetherwith the wire. Late the second day, I completed the raft and, with twolong sticks, poled my way down the swamp, hoping t would lead to theopen ocean.

Upon rounding the corner, however, I found that the swamp dead-ended about twenty-five feet further on. It was quite late, so I poledashore, secured the raft as best I could, and pulled myself about six feetout of the swamp. I spent the night there on the bank. I later learned thatthe Camargue was one of the top five mosquito-infested areas in theworld. The mosquitoes were so big and so thick, they created a continualhum. I simply covered my face with my hands and let them have at me.

The next morning, August 29, I got back on the raft to return to thecabin. As I rounded the corner, I could see people at the cabin, and I


called out to them as I got near. They were six Frenchmen who hadcome out to start cleaning up the mess made by the Germans.

They placed me in the bed of their old truck and started to drive up atrail. The jolting of the ride was more than I could physically bear, sothey took the long front seat from the cab and placed me on it. Four ofthe men picked up the seat, one at each corner, and carried me up thetrail. The truck driver drove ahead to arrange for an ambulance. The lastman spelled one of the men who was carrying me, and they continued tospell one another until we reached the road, where an ambulance waswaiting.

On the way to the hospital, the ambulance stopped at a house wherea French lady fed me some soup, my first meal in ten days. Needless tosay, I thought the soup was the best I had ever eaten. Next, the ambulancetook me to a hospital in Aix-en-Provence, which was close to the by-then liberated city of Marseille.

My stay in the French hospital was almost as bad as my ten days onthe beach and in the swamp. Until then, shock had spared me theexcruciating pain that now came over me. No one at the hospital spokeany English, and I spoke no French, so there was little communicationwith the hospital staff. On my second day there, August 31, they put meon an operating table, and ten or twelve people stood around me. Thedoctor had antiseptics but no anesthetics, and the additional people werethere to hold me down while the doctor dug shrapnel out of my legs andleft knee. After this ordeal, I found an orderly who understood a littleEnglish and I convinced him to go find any Allied soldier and bring himback to the hospital. Shortly, the orderly returned with a British soldierwhose Cockney accent made him almost as hard to understand as theFrench. I gave the soldier one of my dogtags and begged him to find anAmerican officer and explain to him where I was. I asked the soldier tohurry, because I was not sure I would be able to endure the medicaltreatment I was receiving.

When no one showed up that day or the next, September 1, I becamevery discouraged. Late that night, however, I was awakened by a U.S.Army captain with medical insignia on his shirt collar. He gave me ashot for the pain, and I passed out.


I was taken by ambulance to a field hospital, which had been locatednear our base in Mateur, Tunisia, when I first joined the 27th FighterSquadron. Back then, the nurses had been very popular with my squadronmates, and we had socialized with them. When I woke up, I was beingtended by a nurse I recognized. My spirits improved rapidly. During mystay at the field hospital, necessary surgery was performed on mynumerous wounds in order to prepare me for evacuation.

In short order, I was flown to the 118th Station Hospital in Naples,Italy, where I received a lot of medical attention. When word was sentto the 1st Fighter Group commander, Colonel Robert Richard, that Iwas alive and in a hospital in Italy, he issued an order that every day theweather permitted, a 27th Fighter Squadron P-38 pilot was to land at thenearby Capodichino Airdrome and visit with me.

In Naples the doctors decided it was best to amputate my legs. Iimplored Colonel Richard to get the doctors to reconsider. With his help,and the help of our wing commander, the doctors decided to try to savethe legs.

They flew me back home in October. The date of the flight was knownat 1st Fighter Group headquarters, so after the C-54 I was aboard liftedaway from Capodichino and leveled out at altitude, a dozen red-tailedP-38s from the 27th Fighter Squadron appeared and settled down onboth sides of the transport. They looked like silver ghosts. They escortedme for a hundred miles out over the blue Mediterranean, then silentlypeeled off, one by one, and went back to the war.

Years later, I learned that Colonel Richard had issued an order thatfrom then on, in the 27th Fighter Squadron, any plane with the number23—my old plane number—would forever be known as Maloney’s Pony.This order was not followed for thirty years after World War II, but eversince 1975, when the 27th, 71st, and 94th squadrons were rejoined asthe 1st Fighter Wing, plane Number 23 of the 27th Fighter Squadron isnamed Maloney’s Pony.

I arrived in the United States in November 1944, and was stationedas close to my home as possible, at McCloskey General Hospital inTemple, Texas. I was operated on many times and was bedridden untilSeptember 1945, at which time I was able to take a few steps with the


aid of crutches. I went home on leave, married my childhood sweetheart,Miss Patricia Jean Driggs, and returned to the hospital for anotheroperation.

In February 1946, with McCloskey Hospital scheduled to be closed,I was transferred to William Beaumont General Hospital in El Paso.While there, I received only rehabilitative care. Next, I was transferredto the neurological center at O’Reilly General Hospital in Springfield,Missouri, in order to repair damage to the peronneal nerve in my leftleg. When the doctors at O’Reilly decided the nerve injury wasinoperable, I was transferred in September 1946 to Pratt General Hospitalin Coral Gables, Florida, for further treatment. I received onlyrehabilitative treatment there, and the hospital closed in April 1947. Iwas finally sent to Letterman General Hospital in San Francisco, andthere I received treatment to both legs and feet. I was sent before theretirement board in October 1947 and was retired for physical disabilitywith the rank of major, to which I had been promoted in April 1946.

*After leaving Letterman General Hospital, Tom Maloney enrolled atOklahoma State University and began the spring semester there inJanuary 1948. In January 1951, he received a degree in accounting andwent to work for an oil-and-gas drilling company. In 1954, he helpedform his own drilling company, but in December 1976, problems relatedto his injuries forced him to sell his share. He later returned to work atthe firm, finally retiring in 1985.

In 1992, Tom Maloney was inducted into the Oklahoma Aviation andSpace Hall of Fame.

In late 1995, Tom Maloney was contacted by Jean Robin, an amateurhistorian who lived in the vicinity of the Le Cres railroad station, whichhad been the target of the August 19, 1944, strafing attack. The letterrevealed that, in a matter of minutes, the flight of seven 1st FighterGroup P-38s had done extensive harm to the German war effort inrecently invaded southern France.

There were two trains in the station when the attack commenced at1920 hours. One was on a siding without a locomotive. It consisted ofthirteen closed rail cars containing “fire bombs”—possibly incendiary


ammunition of some sort. Explosive and incendiary bullets fired by theP-38s’ .50-caliber machine guns and 20mm cannon started fires in thesecars, and the rail cars and their contents were “entirely destroyed andblown to pieces.”

Moments before the strafing attack commenced, the second train hadbeen brought to a halt in the station by a red-light signal. This was nodoubt the train Captain Tom Maloney saw when the attack got underway.It was composed of fifty-two flatbed cars and closed goods wagons. Anumber of Royal Tiger heavy tanks were on the flatcars, and ammunitionwas stored in many of the closed cars. Waffen SS tank crews andPanzergrenadiers were also in the closed rail cars.

As the strafing attack began, the locomotive was perforated by bulletsand stopped for good. Of the fifty-two cars it was pulling, nineteen wereblown off the rails and destroyed. Twenty-six others remained on therails but were “entirely blown, torn to bits.” When the P-38s left thescene, only seven flatcars and goods wagons were left intact.

Beyond the outright destruction of the engine and fifty-eight rail carsand their contents, the attack blocked the main rail line with all theneighboring rail sidings with debris that, in some cases, continued tocook off through the night and burn out of control for several days. Liveammunition was scattered all over the station area and several nearbyvineyards. The switching station was demolished and phone lines runningthrough the station were severed. Apparently, many Waffen SS troopswere killed in the attack or trapped in the wreckage, where they perishedin the subsequent explosions and fires.

Jean Robin, who passed through the area after the war, described itto Tom Maloney as “a tangled heap of ruins, an absolute hell!” He alsoreported that only one French railwayman was injured by an ammunitionexplosion. “Your action,” the Frenchman wrote in 1995, “completelydisrupted the German retreat by railway. All convoys [up the line] fromMontpellier were then destroyed by Allied planes or by the Germansthemselves.”




AIR WAR EUROPAChronology

America’s Air War Against Germany in Europe and North Africa,1942–1945

By Eric Hammel

THE GREAT AERIAL CRUSADE OF WORLD WAR II: There wasnever a militarycampaign like it, and there never will be another. Here is an opportunityto follow the great crusade as it unfolded in the air over the Nazi empirein North Africa and Europe. This exhaustive chronology sheds afascinating light on the course of America’s air war against Germanyand her allies.* The Air War Europa Chronology is a day-by-day accounting of all the

major combatmissions undertaken by United States Army Air Forces and United States

Navy aviationunits in the European, Mediterranean, and North African theaters of

operations in WorldWar II.* A special introductory narrative explains the crucial evolution of fighter

tactics overwestern Europe—and how it led to the inexorable defeat of Hitler’s

vaunted Luftwaffe.* All U.S. Army Air Forces theater fighter aces are covered— including

unit affiliation,date and time ace status was attained, and date and time of highest vic-

tory tally (over ten).* Information pertaining to the arrival, activation, transfer, departure,

and decommissioning of air commands, combat units, and specialunits. Comings and goings of the commanders of major aviationunits are also covered.

* Provides a rich contextual framework pertaining to related groundcampaigns; international and high-command conferences and deci-


sions influencing air strategies and campaigns; and breakthroughsin the development of special techniques and equipment, such asthe evolution of the role of escorts and the strategically crucial in-troduction of fighter auxiliary fuel tanks.

* Bibliography, guide to abbreviations, maps, and two indexes.


Note: The following article is excerpted from the book AIR WAREUROPA: Chronology—America’s Air War Against Germany inEurope and North Africa, 1942-1945 by Eric Hammel. The book iscurrently available in a $35.00 trade paperback edition publishedby Pacifica Military History. It is also available in ebook editions.

DECEMBER 1942by Eric Hammel

Copyright © 1994 by Eric Hammel

December 1, 1942ENGLAND: Upon receiving orders from LtGen Dwight D. Eisenhower,LtGen Carl Spaatz leaves for Algeria to serve as Eisenhower’s air ad-viser. MajGen Ira C. Eaker replaces Spaatz as commanding general ofthe Eighth Air Force.TUNISIA: A regular pattern of air attacks is opened by the Twelfth AirForce against Tunis/El Aouina Airdrome. In the first of these, conductedbefore 0900 hours, the base is attacked by six A-20s and 13 B-17s,which are followed closely by nine A-20s and six RAF Bristol Bisleylight bombers. An estimated 30 aircraft are destroyed on the ground,and a 14th Fighter Group P-38 pilot downs an Bf-109 in the air over theairdrome. During the afternoon, an attack by 12 B-26s destroys an esti-mated 15 GAF aircraft on the ground.

XII Fighter Command P-38s attack German Army tanks nearDjedeida.

December 2, 1942ENGLAND: BriGen Newton Longfellow replaces MajGen Ira C. Eakeras commanding general of the VIII Bomber Command.TUNISIA: Twelfth Air Force A-20s, followed by B-26s, attack Tunis/El Aouina Airdrome; Twelfth Air Force B-17s attack Bizerte/Sidi AhmedAirdrome and Bizerte harbor; and Twelfth Air Force B-25s attack flakbatteries near Gabes Airdrome.


A total of nine GAF fighters are downed during the day by pilotsof the 1st, 14th, and 52d Fighter groups undertaking a number of escortmissions and aggressive sweeps into enemy territory.

December 3, 1942TUNISIA: 97th Heavy Bombardment Group B-17s attack shipping andport facilities at Bizerte at about 1030 hours. Forewarned by radar, GAFfighters attack the bombers, but they are attacked in turn by 1st FighterGroup P-38s. Three Bf-109s are downed against the loss of five P-38s.

15th Light Bombardment Squadron A-20s, escorted by P-38s,attack Tunis/El Aouina Airdrome, and P-38s and Spitfires attack a varietyof ground targets while on far-ranging sweeps and reconnaissancemissions. While on these missions, pilots of the 14th and 52d Fightergroups down three Bf-109s.

December 4, 1942ITALY: In the first USAAF air attack directly upon the territory of aEuropean Axis nation, Italian Navy warships and port facilities in Naplesharbor are attacked by 20 IX Bomber Command B-24s. Hits are claimedon several of the warships, including a battleship. There are no USAAFlosses.TUNISIA: XII Bomber Command B-17s, followed a half hour later byB-26s, attack shipping and port facilities in Bizerte harbor. While es-corting the bombers and conducting far-ranging sweeps and reconnais-sance missions, pilots of the 1st, 14th, and 52d Fighter groups downfive Bf-109s and a Bf-110.

December 5, 1942ALGERIA: LtGen Carl Spaatz is named Acting Deputy Commander-in-Chief for Air of the Allied Force in Northwest Africa.

The 3d Reconnaissance Group, equipped with F-4 and F-5aircraft (P-38 variants), arrives at Oran/La Senia Airdrome to supportthe Twelfth Air Force.LIBYA: The Ninth Air Force’s 12th Medium Bombardment Group, inB-25s, is recommitted to combat following a period of retraining. Fromits new base at Gambut, the group is to join the 57th Fighter Group andRAF light-bomber units in applying pressure to Axis air groups sup-


porting the German Army battle line at El Agheila. During the early partof the month, USAAF and RAF pressure specifically against the Axisair establishment eventually drives all Axis aircraft from all the landinggrounds within 90 miles of the front.TUNISIA: Aircraft of the Twelfth Air Force’s XII Bomber Commandand XII Air Support Command open a concerted bombing campaignagainst German-held port facilities in Tunisia. The objective is to ham-per the flow of German troops and supplies into Tunisia while Alliedground forces prepare for an all-out offensive to liberate the entire coun-try. Kicking off the new venture, XII Bomber Command B-17s, escortedby 14th Fighter Group P-38s, attack shipping and port facilities at Tunis.14th Fighter Group P-38 pilots down two Bf-109s near Bizerte Air-drome.

Twelfth Air Force B-25s attack Bizerte/Sidi Ahmed Airdrome,and A-20s attack German Army positions at Faid Pass.

December 6, 1942ENGLAND: The 93d Heavy Bombardment Group, in B-24s, is reas-signed to the VIII Bomber Command’s 2d Heavy Bombardment Wing.FRANCE: In the day’s main effort, 37 of 66 VIII Bomber CommandB-17s dispatched attack a locomotive factory at Lille. Losses are one B-17 downed and nine damaged, one crewman killed, two crewmenwounded, and ten crewmen missing.

Although 44th Heavy Bombardment Group B-24s are recalledfrom a mission against Abbeville/Drucat Airdrome, a squadron of six ofthe heavy bombers fails to receive the order and presses on. One B-24 islost and another is damaged, at a cost of ten crewmen missing and threecrewmen wounded.TUNISIA: Fifteen XII Bomber Command B-17s attack the port of Tunis;15th Light Bombardment Squadron A-20s attack the bridge over theMedjerda River at El Bathan; and 14th Fighter Group P-38 pilots downa Ju-88, two Bf-110s, and a Ju-52 in two separate actions.

The 33d Fighter Group’s 58th Fighter Squadron, in P-40s, movesto the rather sparse forward fighter field at Thelepte and thus becomesthe first USAAF unit to be based inside Tunisia. The unit will be primarily


responsible for supporting ground troops and for undertaking low-levelattacks on transportation targets such as rail lines, bridges, and roadtraffic.

December 7, 1942ALGERIA: Three squadrons of the Eighth Air Force’s 93d Heavy Bom-bardment Group, in B-24s, arrive in Algeria to bolster XII Bomber Com-mand. (The group’s fourth squadron remains in England to conductnight-operations experiments.)TUNISIA: XII Bomber Command B-17s, escorted by P-38s, attackshipping and port facilities at Bizerte. Also, A-20s, escorted by P-38s,attack German Army tanks in the Teboura–El Bathan area, but other A-20s dispatched to attack La Hencha and Sousse are turned back by badweather.

Two Ju-52 tri-motor transports are downed by a pair of 14thFighter Group P-38 pilots near Sfax.

December 8, 1942FRANCE: Findings of a recent bomb- damage assessment reveal thatlow-level bombing of submarine pens in western France has not beenable to penetrate the roofs of the pens with the bombs available in theU.K. at this time.ITALY: IX Bomber Command B-24s attack targets at Naples. One 376thHeavy Bombardment Group B-24 is downed by flak.LIBYA: 57th Fighter Group P-40 pilots down seven Bf-109s in a morn-ing battle over the Marble Arch Airdrome.TUNISIA: Although bad weather halts bomber operations, numeroussweeps and reconnaissance missions are mounted by Twelfth Air Forcefighter units.

December 9, 1942ALGERIA: One Ju-88 medium bomber is downed by a 33d FighterGroup P-40 pilot in his unit’s first combat encounter of the war.


December 10, 1942EGYPT: On the first anniversary of Germany’s and Italy’s declarationsof war on the United States, a 57th Fighter Group P-40 pilot downs anBF-109 in a battle over the Marble Arch Airdrome.

December 11, 1942ALGERIA: Col Charles T. Phillips replaces Col Claude E. Duncan ascommanding officer of the XII Bomber Command.

To better oversee flight operations and administration in the hugearea for which it is responsible, Twelfth Air Force establishes fiveregional commands: the Moroccan Composite Wing, the West AlgerianComposite Wing, the Central Algerian Composite Wing, XII BomberCommand; and XII Fighter Command.ITALY: IX Bomber Command B-24s attack port facilities and the areasurrounding the Naples port. One 98th Heavy Bombardment Group B-24 is downed by flak.LIBYA: In anticipation of a British Eighth Army offensive against theAxis El Agheila Line—set to begin December 14—the 57th FighterGroup moves forward to a landing ground at Belandah.TUNISIA: XII Bomber Command B-25s, with fighter escort, attackrail bridges at La Hencha.

December 12, 1942ALGERIA: A pair of 1st Fighter Group P-38 pilots down an Italian AirForce flying boat over the Mediterranean north of Philippeville.ENGLAND: The 315th Troop Carrier Group air echelon arrives fromthe United States following a forced one-month layover in Greenlandcaused by bad weather. The C-47 unit is assigned to the VIII Air Sup-port Command as a general transportation organization.FRANCE: Seventy-eight VIII Bomber Command B-17s are dispatchedagainst Romilly-sur-Seine Airdrome, but they are prevented from bomb-ing by heavy cloud cover. In the end, 17 of these B-17s do manage tolocate the Rouen/Sotteville marshalling yard, upon which they drop 40tons of bombs.TUNISIA: XII Bomber Command B-17s attack the port facilities at


Sfax for the first time; B-17s, escorted by P-38s, also attack port andrail facilities at Tunis; and B-26s dispatched to Sousse and La Henchaabort due to bad weather.

1stLt Virgil H. Smith, a P-38 pilot with the 14th Fighter Group’s48th Fighter Squadron, achieves ace status when he downs an FW-190over Gabes Airdrome during an afternoon mission.

December 13, 1942LIBYA: Following a stalemate of several weeks—during which theBritish Eighth Army prepares for an all-out offensive to clear Libya—German Army forces holding the El Agheila Line suddenly withdraw atthe last minute toward Tunisia. As British ground forces struggle topursue the Germans, the WDAF, including the Ninth Air Force’s 12thMedium Bombardment Group and 57th Fighter Group, maintain pres-sure and attempt to interdict routes of retreat.

57th Fighter Group P-40 pilots down two Bf-109s near ElAgheila.TUNISIA: Seventeen 97th Heavy Bombardment Group B-17s attackport facilities at Tunis; ten 301st Heavy Bombardment Group B-17sand 19 93d Heavy Bombardment Group B-24s attack port facilities atBizerte; B-25s attack port facilities at Sousse; B-26s attack a bridgenorth of Sfax; P-38s escort the medium-bomber missions, fly patrols,and attack Axis road convoys and individual vehicles north of Gabes.

December 14, 1942ENGLAND: A new report points out that efforts to build up and supplythe Twelfth Air Force at the expense of the Eighth Air Force is produc-ing a critical drain on the latter’s ability to complete training cycles andmount combat operations.LIBYA: 57th Fighter Group P-40 pilots down two Bf-109s at the costof one P-40 and its pilot lost.TUNISIA: XII Bomber Command B-24s attack shipping and port fa-cilities at Bizerte, and B-17s attack shipping and port facilities at Tunis.

During the morning, nine 15th Light Bombardment SquadronA-20s, escorted by eight 14th Fighter Group P-38s and twelve 33dFighter Group P-40s, attack the Sfax railroad station. During the


afternoon, nine 15th Light Bombardment Squadron A-20s, escorted byP-38s, attack the same target.

P-38s attack several Axis vessels at sea off the Tunisian coast,strafe traffic on the coast highway between Tunis and Bizerte, and strafetrains near Kerker and La Hencha.

December 15, 1942ALGERIA: Col Carlyle H. Ridenour replaces Col Charles T. Phillipsas commanding officer of the XII Bomber Command.LIBYA: Ninth Air Force B-25s and P-40s continue to attack tacticalground targets in support of the British Eighth Army. Eighteen 12thMedium Bombardment Group B-25s join with 36 RAF light bombersin a particularly effective attack against a motor-vehicle concentrationwest of the Marble Arch.

While flying with the 57th Fighter Group, a 79th Fighter GroupP-40 pilot draws “first blood” for his unit when he downs a Bf-109.TUNISIA: Three 15th Light Bombardment Squadron A-20s attack sev-eral bridges linking Gabes with Sfax; six A-20s attack Pont-du-Fahs;XII Bomber Command B-26s attack Tunis/El Aouina Airdrome; andXII Bomber Command B-17s attack port facilities at Bizerte.

In the IX Bomber Command’s first mission to Tunisia—to helpXII Bomber Command close Tunisian ports and lines of supply toGerman reinforcements and supplies—nine 376th Heavy BombardmentGroup B-24s attack a railroad yard, roundhouse, and repair facilities atSfax. The B-24s obliterate a locomotive repair shop.

December 16, 1942LIBYA: Ninth Air Force B-25s and P-40s attack and harass GermanArmy troops in the El Agheila area.TUNISIA: In separate missions, A-20s of the 15th Light BombardmentSquadron and the 47th Light Bombardment Group’s 86th Light Bom-bardment Squadron (the latter on their unit’s first combat mission of thewar) attack Axis vehicle columns on the road between Mateur andMassicault. These are the first of many such attacks that will destroy anestimated 100 vehicles along this road by the end of the month.


XII Fighter Command P-38s attacking Axis ships at sea offTunisia’s northern coast claim a direct bomb hit on one vessel, and apair of 1st Fighter Group P-38 pilots down a lone Ju-88 at around noon.

December 17, 1942TUNISIA: A total of 36 XII Bomber Command B-17s attack port fa-cilities at Tunis and Bizerte; A-20s attack targets north and west of GabesAirdrome and the Axis landing ground at Sidi Tabet; XII Bomber Com-mand B-25s and B-26s dispatched to attack Axis ships in the Gulf ofTunis fail to locate their targets; XII Fighter Command P-38s escort allthe bombing missions; and 1st Fighter Group P-38 pilots down a Ju-88and two Bf-109s in separate midday actions.

December 18, 1942LIBYA: The pursuit by the British Eighth Army of German forces re-treating toward Tunisia bogs down.

XII Bomber Command B-17s attack shipping and port facilitiesat Sousse.

The Eighth Air Force’s 93d Heavy Bombardment Group, in B-24s, is transferred from the operational control of the Twelfth Air Forceto that of the Ninth Air Force. The group begins moving to the GambutMain Airdrome.TUNISIA: Thirty-six XII Bomber Command B-17s, escorted by 16 1stFighter Group P-38s, attacking Bizerte through German fighters andflak claim a direct hit on one vessel. However, four P-38s and a B-17are downed over the target by GAF fighters, and another B-17 is writtenoff after it crash-lands at a friendly base.

Eleven XII Bomber Command B-26s, escorted by P-38s, attacka marshalling yard and other rail facilities at Sousse. Flak downs two B-26s.

Twelfth Air Force A-20s, escorted by P-38s, attack a landingground, dispersal areas, and the rail facilities at Mateur.

One Ju-88 and an FW-190 are downed during the day by 33dFighter Group P-40 pilots.


December 19, 1942TUNISIA: Twelfth Air Force A-20s, escorted by 33d Fighter Group P-40s, attack the marshalling yards at Sfax, and a 33d Fighter Group P-40pilot downs a Ju-88 near Sfax.

December 20, 1942FRANCE: In the first mission in which the Eighth Air Force’s fouroperational B-17 groups operate under the supervision of the 1st HeavyBombardment Wing and its one operational B-24 group operates underthe supervision of the 2d Heavy Bombardment Wing, 60 B-17s and 12B-24s drop more than 167 tons of bombs on Romilly-sur-Seine Air-drome. Fighter opposition is extremely heavy. Whereas bomber gun-ners claim an incredible 53 GAF fighters downed and 13 probablydowned, enemy fighters and flak definitely down six B-17s, causeunrepairable damage to one B-17, and damage 29 B-17s and one B-24.Also, two B-17s crash-land in England. Crew losses amount to two killed,58 missing, and 12 wounded. Overall, these are the worst losses for asingle day sustained by the Eighth Air Force so far in the war.TUNISIA: IX Bomber Command B-24s dispatched against Sousse har-bor abort in the face of bad weather, but three of them claim the destruc-tion of an Axis ship north of Sfax.

December 21, 1942ALGERIA: 14th Fighter Group P-38s scrambled from their base atYouk-les-Bains down three Ju-88s during the afternoon.TUNISIA: XII Bomber Command B-17s are prevented by bad weatherfrom attacking Sfax or Gabes, and 93d Heavy Bombardment Group B-24s, operating under IX Bomber Command control, are prevented bybad weather from attacking the port at Sousse. However, XII FighterCommand P-40s destroy a tank and several motor vehicles nearKairouan.

December 22, 1942TUNISIA: Bad weather prevents XII Bomber Command B-17s fromattacking Bizerte or secondary targets at Sfax and Sousse; and only two93d Heavy Bombardment Group B-24s dispatched against Sousse pen-


etrate bad weather to the target, but a number of those aborting manageto attack Monastir and railway facilities at Mahdia.

Two GAF medium bombers are downed during a midday missionby 33d Fighter Group P-40 pilots.

December 23, 1942ALGERIA: The 17th Medium Bombardment Group, in B-26s, arrivesfollowing a direct move from the United States via the southern ferryroute.BAY OF BISCAY: Two Ju-88 medium bombers are downed by 82dFighter Group P-38 pilots while the unit is transiting from England toGibraltar for eventual deployment in North Africa as part of the XIIFighter Command. This unexpected encounter is the 82d Fighter Group’scombat debut.EGYPT: The 376th Heavy Bombardment Group, in B-24s, moves to abase in Egypt from Palestine, and the 8th Fighter Wing headquartersbegins overseeing several Ninth Air Force fighter groups.ITALY: During the night of December 23–24, IX Bomber CommandB-24s attack Naples harbor and one B-24 attacks Taranto.TUNISIA: The winter rainy season officially begins. Impenetrable cloudcover causes XII Bomber Command B-17s to abort their briefed attackson airdromes at Tunis and Bizerte.

December 24, 1942ENGLAND: The first consignment of USAAF P-47 fighters arrivesaboard ship from the United States.TUNISIA: LtGen Dwight D. Eisenhower decides to abandon the Al-lied ground attack on Tunis until the rainy season ends in early 1943.However, the British Eighth Army will continue a cautious advance inLibya.

IX Bomber Command B-24s dispatched to attack Tunis abort inthe face of bad weather.

December 25, 1942ALGERIA: 82d Fighter Group P-38s arrive at Oran/Tafaraoui Airdromefrom England by way of Gibraltar. A number of them are immediately


dispatched to fly a long anti-submarine patrol to protect two Allied con-voys that are moving into the area.ICELAND: The 25th Composite Wing is activated in Iceland to over-see USAAF units and personnel assigned to the defense of the strategi-cally important island.TUNISIA: XII Fighter Command P-40s bomb German Army troopsnear Sfax.

A pair of Italian Air Force Mc.202 fighters are downed by a pairof 52d Fighter Group Spitfire pilots.

December 26, 1942TUNISIA: XII Bomber Command B-17s attack shipping and port fa-cilities at Sfax. GAF fighters and heavy flak down two B-17s and twoP-38s, but a flight of four P-38 pilots from the 1st Fighter Group’s 94thFighter Squadron down three of the GAF fighters.

XII Bomber Command B-17s, escorted by P-40s, claim threeAxis ships damaged while mounting a second attack against shippingand port facilities at Sfax.

While conducting reconnaissance patrols, XII Fighter CommandP-38s strafe three locomotives and a number of motor vehicles.

During the night of December 26–27, three IX Bomber CommandB-24s attack port facilities at Tunis, one B-24 attacks Sfax, and one B-24 attacks Sousse.

December 27, 1942TUNISIA: XII Bomber Command B-17s, escorted by P-38s, attackshipping and port facilities at Sousse and claim direct hits on four ves-sels.

December 28, 1942TUNISIA: IX Bomber Command, XII Bomber Command, and RAFheavy bombers (the latter controlled by IX Bomber Command) mountfour separate attacks during the day and evening against shipping andport facilities at Sousse. Claims are made for heavy damage to shorefacilities and direct hits on several vessels.


During the course of several air-to-air actions through the day,P-38 pilots of the 1st and 14th Fighter groups down a Ju-88 and four Bf-109s.

December 29, 1942ALGERIA: A 52d Fighter Group Spitfire pilot downs a BF-109 nearBone.TUNISIA: XII Bomber Command B-17s, escorted by P-38s, attack theharbor at Sousse; Twelfth Air Force A-20s attack bridges at La Hencha,and escorting P-40s strafe a locomotive and rail cars at Ste.-Juliette;and XII Fighter Command P-38s attack a German Army tank depot nearPont-du-Fahs, followed by an attack on the same target by A-20s.

IX Bomber Command B-24s dispatched to attack Tunis harborduring the night of December 29–30 are diverted to Sousse because ofbad weather.

December 30, 1942FRANCE: Forty of 77 VIII Bomber Command B-17s dispatched at-tack the U-boat base at Lorient with nearly 80 tons of bombs. Bombergunners claim 29 GAF fighters downed and seven probably downed.Three B-17s are lost and 22 are damaged, with crew losses put at twokilled, 30 missing, and 17 wounded.TUNISIA: In their unit’s combat debut, six 17th Medium Bombard-ment Group B-26s, escorted by 14th Fighter Group P-38s, attack GabesAirdrome during the afternoon. Five of the B-26s sustain damage fromflak and attacks by Bf-109s, and one B-26 is written off following abelly landing at Telergma Airdrome. A P-38 pilot downs one Bf-109near the target.

XII Bomber Command B-17s, escorted by P-38s, attack themarshalling yards and port facilities at Sfax, and then XII BomberCommand B-25s attack the marshalling yards again; Twelfth Air ForceA-20s attack German Army troop concentrations, Gabes Airdrome, anda fuel dump near El Aouinet; and P-40s escorting the A-20s strafe groundtargets of opportunity near El Guettar.


1stLt Virgil H. Smith, a P-38 pilot with the 14th Fighter Group’s48th Fighter Squadron, who achieved ace status on December 11, isshot down and killed near Gabes.

December 31, 1942TUNISIA: IX Bomber Command B-24s, accompanied by RAF Lib-erators, attack shipping and port facilities at Sfax; XII Bomber Com-mand B-17s, with fighter escort, also attack Sfax harbor; Twelfth AirForce A-20s, with fighter escort, mount two attacks against the mar-shalling yards and port at Sousse; Twelfth Air Force B-26s, with fighterescort, attack Gabes Airdrome and shipping and rail bridges in the Bizerteand Tunis areas; and XII Fighter Command P-38s on reconnaissancemissions claim the destruction of several motor vehicles.



AIR WAR PACIFICChronology

America’s Air War Against Japan in East Asia and the Pacific,1941–1945

By Eric Hammel

THE GREAT AMERICAN AERIAL CRUSADE OF WORLD WAR II:There was never a military campaign like it, and there never will beanother. Here is an opportunity to follow the great crusade as it unfoldedin the air over the Japan’s ill-gotten empire in East Asia and the Pacific.This exhaustive chronology sheds a fascinating light on the course ofAmerica’s air war against Japan in all the active theaters.* The Air War Pacific Chronology is a day-by-day accounting of all the

major combat aviation missions undertaken by United States ArmyAir Forces, United States Navy, United States Marine Corps, andAmerican Volunteer Group units and commands in China, Burma,India, and throughout the Pacific during World War II.

* All Army Air Forces, Navy, Marine, and Flying Tiger theater fighteraces are covered including unit affiliation, date and time ace statuswas attained, and date and time of highest victory tally (over ten).

* Information pertaining to the arrival, activation, transfer, departure,and decommissioning of air commands, combat units, and specialunits. Comings and goings of the commanders of major aviationunits are also covered.

* Provides a rich contextual framework pertaining to related groundcampaigns; international and high-command conferences and deci-sions influencing air strategies and campaigns; and breakthroughsin the development of special techniques and equipment.

* Includes a bibliography, guide to abbreviations, maps, and two in-dexes.


Note: The following article is excerpted from the book AIR WARPACIFIC: Chronology—America’s Air War Against Japan in EastAsia and the Pacific, 1941-1945 by Eric Hammel. The book iscurrently available only in ebook editions.

NOVEMBER 1943by Eric Hammel


November 1, 1943ALASKA: The Alaska Theater of Operations is established and theAlaska Defense Command is separated from the Western Defense Com-mand, renamed the Alaskan Department, and placed under the directcontrol of the U.S. War Department.BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: Two 347th Fighter Group P-38 pi-lots down a G4M near Cape St. George at 0950 hours. This is the firstvictory by Solomons-based fighters in the Bismarck Archipelago.

IJN carrier aircraft—40 B5Ns, 45 D3As, 82 A6Ms, and sixreconnaissance aircraft—arriving at Rabaul from Japan by way of TrukAtoll bolster the approximately 200 aircraft already based there.

During the night of November 1–2, two 394th HeavyBombardment Squadron SB-24s attack a convoy west of Cape St.George.CHINA: Six 11th Medium Bombardment Squadron B-25s and nine P-40s attack the rail yards at Yoyang.NEW GUINEA: V Fighter Command fighters begin making use of thedirt airstrip at Gusap, which is slated to be expanded into a major air-drome. Concurrent with the build-up on new and improved airfields is amajor road-building effort aimed at keeping the remote inland airfieldsstocked with fuel, parts, and other necessities. Indeed, one aviation en-gineer battalion is used to help build a road from Lae to Nadzab.SOLOMON ISLANDS: Covered by three AirSols F4U squadrons and


assisted by naval gunfire, 31 USMC TBFs and eight VC-38 SBDs at-tack the Cape Torokina invasion beaches in Bougainville’s EmpressAugusta Bay ahead of the lead waves of the U.S. 3d Marine Division.

Commencing Operation RO—a plan for the defense of thenorthern Solomon Islands—IJN air attacks against the invasion fleetdelay unloading operations, but the invasion is considered successfuldespite the fierce opposition of a small defense force that restricts theMarines to a shallow beachhead.

AirSols fighters based in the central Solomons provide extensivecover for the invasion force, and AirSols land-based and USN carrier-based fighters and light bombers from Task Force 38*, as well as USNsurface warships completely neutralize the now-bypassed IJN airbasesin southern Bougainville and the Shortland Islands. Nevertheless, at0735 hours, nine Rabaul-based D3As, escorted by 44 A6Ms, attack theinvasion flotilla through an AirSols covering force of eight VF-17 F4Usand eight RNZAF Kittyhawks. One USN destroyer is lightly damagedby a near miss. A second Rabaul-based air attack in the early afternoonresults in no damage, but one USN transport runs aground whilemaneuvering to avoid the bombers.

RNZAF Kittyhawk pilots down seven A6Ms and VF-17 F4Upilots down five A6Ms over Empress Augusta Bay between 0745 and0800 hours; 347th Fighter Group P-38 pilots down seven A6Ms overEmpress Augusta Bay between 0810 and 0820; VF-17 F4U pilots downan A6M over Empress Augusta Bay at 1330 hours; and VMF-215 F4Upilots down four A6Ms and a B5N over Empress Augusta Bay between1345 and 1347 hours. Four Allied fighters are lost during the day.

1stLt Robert M. Hanson, a VMF-215 F4U pilot, achieves acestatus when he downs a B5N and two A6Ms over Empress Augusta Bayat about 1345 hours.

Twenty-one XIII Bomber Command B-24s attack Bougainville/Kahili Airdrome; AirSols B-24s, SBDs, and fighters attack Bougainville/Kara Airdrome; and 42d Medium Bombardment Group B-25s attackbarges and docks at Faisi.

On this first day of the Bouginville offensive, AirSols has at itsimmediate disposal the following units and aircraft: At Guadalcanal—


VB-102 in 15 PB4Ys, VB-104 in 12 PB4Ys, the 5th and 307th HeavyBombardment groups in 48 B-24s and four SB-24s, VS-54 in 14 SBDs,the 18th Fighter Group’s 44th Fighter Squadron in 25 P-38s, 3 RNZAFSquadron in 15 PVs, VP-23 in 12 PBYs, VP-54 in six PBYs, VP-71 in15 PBYs, VS-64 in eight OS2Us, VS-68 in eight OS2Us, SCAT in 21C-47s and R4Ds, VD-1 in seven photo-reconnaissance PB4Ys, three17th Photographic-Reconnaissance Squadron F-5s, 10 reserve P-39s,and 10 reserve P-40s; at Munda—VF(N)-75 in six F4U night fighters,the 18th Fighter Group’s 12th Figher Squadron in 25 P-39s, VC-24 in24 SBDs, VC-38 in nine SBDs and nine TBFs, VC-40 in nine SBDs andnine TBFs, VMSB-144 in 24 SBDs, VMSB-234 in 10 SBDs, VMSB-244 in 24 SBDs, VMTB-143 in 10 TBFs, VMTB-232 in 20 TBFs, andthree 17th Photographic-Reconnaissance Squadron F-5s; in the RussellIslands—three squadons of the 42d Medium Bombardment Group in48 B-25s, VB-138 in 12 PVs, VB-140 in 15 PVs, VMF-211 in 20 F4Us,and VMF(N)-531 in five PV night fighters; at Segi—VF-33 in 26 F6Fs,VF-38 in 12 F6Fs, and VF-40 in 12 F6Fs; at Ondonga—VF-17 in 36F4Us, the 347th Fighter Group’s 70th Fighter Squadron in 25 P-39s, 15RNZAF Squadron in 21 Kittyhawks, and 17 RNZAF Squadron in 21Kittyhawks; and at Barakoma—VMF-212 in 20 F4Us, VMF-215 in 20F4Us, and VMF-221 in 20 F4Us.

During the night of November 1–2, two 394th HeavyBombardment Squadron SB-24s locate an IJN surface task forcespeeding toward the Empress Augusta Bay invasion fleet. They soundthe alarm and attack the IJN flagship, a heavy cruiser. This actionprecipitates the Battle of Empress Augusta Bay, a decisive night navalsurface engagement that forces the IJN force to retire following the lossof a light cruiser and destroyer to gunfire from USN surface warships.

* Task Force 38 [RAdm Frederick C. Sherman, Commander, CarrierDivision 1]: USS Saratoga (Fleet Carrier Air Group 12) andUSS Princeton (Light Carrier Air Group 23).


November 2, 1943BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: In support of the landings atBougainville and the Treasury Islands, 78 V Bomber Command B-25s,escorted by 70 V Fighter Command P-38s and P-47s (including twosquadrons assigned to strafe in advance of the bombers), attack antiair-craft emplacements and shipping in Simpson Harbor. The masthead-high bombing is highly accurate, and three IJN destroyers and eightfreighters are claimed as sunk or sinking. Nevertheless, in the strongestopposition encountered by the Fifth Air Force in World War II, IJN fight-ers and antiaircraft down eight B-25s and nine P-38s.

V Fighter Command P-38 and P-47 pilots down 31 Japanesefighters in the Rabaul area between 1315 and 1400 hours.

Maj Raymond H. Wilkins, the commanding officer of the 3dLight Bombardment Group’s 8th Light Bombardment Squadron, sinkstwo Japanese ships and then deliberately draws enemy antiaircraft firetoward his B-25 in order to allow other airplanes in his unit to withdrawsafely. Maj Wilkins’ airplane is shot down and all aboard are lost. MajWilkins is awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor.

1stLt Grover D. Gholson, a P-38 pilot with the 475th FighterGroup’s 432d Fighter Squadron, achieves ace status when he downs anA6M and a Ki-43 over Rabaul at 1330 hours; 1stLt Marion F. Kirby, aP-38 pilot with the 475th Fighter Group’s 431st Fighter Squadron,achieves ace status when he downs two A6Ms over Rabaul at 1340hours; 1stLt Lowell C. Lutton, a P-38 pilot with the 475th Fighter Group’s431st Fighter Squadron, achieves ace status when he downs an A6Mnear Rabaul at 1340 hours, but he is himself shot down and killed in thisengagement; 1stLt Arthur E. Wenige, a P-38 pilot with the 475th FighterGroup’s 431st Fighter Squadron, achieves ace status when he downstwo A6Ms near Rabaul at 1340 hours; and Capt William F. Haney, a P-38 pilot with the 49th Fighter Group’s 9th Fighter Squadron, achievesace status when he downs two A6Ms over Rabaul at 1345 hours.

During the night of November 2–3, RAAF Beauforts attackRabaul/Tobera Airdrome.CHINA: Five 11th Medium Bombardment Squadron B-25s and 12Fourteenth Air Force P-40s attack warehouses and port facilities at Shasi.


NEW GUINEA: V Bomber Command B-25s attack lines of communi-cation around Fortification Point; and V Fighter Command P-39 fighter-bombers attack targets in the Bogadjim area.SOLOMON ISLANDS: In a continuation of the Battle of EmpressAugusta Bay, more than 100 IJN carrier bombers and fighters based atRabaul attack the USN surface force at 0800 hours. Antiaircraft firedeflects most of the attackers, and only very light damage is sustainedby a light cruiser from two direct hits.

Twenty XIII Bomber Command B-24s attack Bougainville/Kahili Airdrome; and USN aircraft from Task Force 38 mount twopunishing strikes against Buka and Bougainville/Bonis airdromes. TaskForce 38 then departs the area to refuel.

VF-33 F6F pilots down a G4M, three D3As, and two A6Msover the USN surface battle force in Empress Augusta Bay at 0815 hours;a VF-12 F6F pilot downs a Ki-21 at sea at 0838 hours; and a VMF-221F4U pilot downs two D3As over a U.S. Navy task force at 1830 hours.One USMC F4U is lost.

Marine BriGen Field Harris establishes a new Aircraft, NorthernSolomons (AirNorSols) headquarters ashore at Cape Torokina tocoordinate air activities over and around the Bougainville beachhead.

November 3, 1943BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: V Bomber Command B-24s mountlight antishipping strikes at Cape Gloucester and Talasea, but plannedattacks against Rabaul are canceled in the face of bad weather over thetarget area.BURMA: Eight Fourteenth Air Force P-40 fighter-bombers attackLashio Airdrome.CHINA: Twenty-one 308th Heavy Bombardment Group B-24s attackthe port at Kowloon; and nine 11th Medium Bombardment Group B-25s and nine P-40s attack targets around Hwajung, Owchihkow, andShihshow.

74th Fighter Squadron P-40 pilots down three A6Ms near Cantonduring the early afternoon.NEW GUINEA: V Bomber Command B-25s attack targets aroundMadang; and V Fighter Command P-39s strafe Bogadjim.


SOLOMON ISLANDS: Nineteen XIII Bomber Command B-24s thatattack a convoy near Mussau Island claim hits on three ships.

November 4, 1943BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: V Bomber Command B-24s onarmed-reconnaissance strikes sink a ship north of New Britain, butplanned attacks against IJN warships in Rabaul harbor are canceled inthe face of bad weather over the target area.

AirSols PB4Ys on patrol over the Bismarck Sea locate and attacka Japanese convoy carrying reinforcements from Rabaul to Bougainvilleand an IJN surface battle force. Two two transports are damaged. Thesefinds precipitate a sally by a USN surface battle force and an antishippingattack on Rabaul by USN carrier aircraft that will take place the nextday.BURMA: Chinese Army infantry forces pinned down at Ngajatzup innorthern Burma must be resupplied by Tenth Air Force cargo aircraft.CHINA: The CACW makes its combat debut when 1st CACW Me-dium Bombardment Group B-25s attack military targets at Amoy andSwatow.NEW GUINEA: V Fighter Command P-40 fighter-bombers attack IJAground troops in the battle area.SOLOMON ISLANDS: Twenty-three XIII Bomber Command B-24sattack Buka Airdrome.

Having failed in large measure to draw much attention fromJapanese forces, the U.S. 2d Marine Parachute Battalion on Choiseul iswithdrawn under cover of AirSols light bombers and fighters.UNITED STATES: The U.S. War Department’s Operations Divisionrecommends that, among other matters relating to the U.S. involvementin China, the Fourteenth Air Force inaugurate a limited but ongoingbombing offensive against Japanese bases and lines of supply and com-munications.

November 5, 1943BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: Commencing at 1010 hours, whileUSN F6Fs based at Vella Lavella/Barakoma Field cover the carriers, 22SBDs, 23 TBFs, and 52 F6Fs from Task Force 38 attack ships and fa-


cilities in Rabaul harbor. At a cost of one SBD, four TBFs, and fiveF6Fs lost (mostly to antiaircraft fire), four IJN heavy cruisers, two lightcruisers, and two destroyers are severely damaged (mainly by the SBDs),and USN F6F pilots (and several SBD and TBF crews) down one Ki-21and 27 A6Ms and Ki-61s. Five F6Fs and five USN carriers bombers arelost with seven pilots and eight aircrewmen. As a result of this attack,all IJN surface warships at Rabaul are ordered to Truk Atoll, thus end-ing the threat of a surface attack against the Bougainville invasion fleet.Upon completion of the day’s strike against Rabaul, Task Force 38 with-draws from range of Japanese land-based aircraft.

As Japanese aircraft based at Rabaul search in vain for the USNcarriers, 90 V Bomber Command B-17s and B-24s escorted by 67 VFighter Command P-38s pass up the deserted Rabaul-area airdromesand attack the Rabaul wharf area instead. (This is the final appearanceof B-17s in the SWPA.)

A 49th Fighter Group P-38 pilot downs two A6Ms over Rabaulat 1215 hours.

The USN and USAAF combined bomber assault on Rabaulneutralizes the threat IJN surface forces pose to the Bougainville invasionfleet.CENTRAL PACIFIC: VD-3 PB4Ys mount their first mission to theMarshall Islands, where they photograph defenses and facilities in MilleAtoll.NEW GUINEA: 22d Medium Bmbardment Group B-25s and B-26sattack IJA infantry positions near Bogadjim with 23 tons of bombsdropped from very low altitude; V Bomber Command B-25s attackground positions near Dumpu; and V Fighter Command P-39 fighter-bombers attack Madang.

The V Bomber Command’s 22d Medium Bombardment Group,in B-25s and B-26s, is awarded a Distinguished Unit Citation forprecision bombing of IJA infantry trenches in very close proximity toAustralian Army ground forces.

348th Fighter Group P-47 pilots down five Ki-61s and an A6Mnear Wewak at 1105 hours.SOLOMON ISLANDS: Six 42d Medium Bombardment Group B-25s


on a sweep around Bougainville attack a bivouac at Kieta and sundrybarges.

Following the supposed sighting of Task Force 38 at 1445 hoursby Rabaul-based search aircraft, 18 Rabaul-based B5Ns attack a tinyconvoy composed of one USN landing-craft gunboat, one PT-boat, andone landing craft. The PT-boat is damaged when a B5N crashes into it,and the gunboat is damaged by a torpedo that does not explode. Despitethis, the returning IJN pilots report the sinking of two carriers, threecruisers, and a destroyer. One B5N crashes into the PT-boat and anotheris downed by ships’ fire.

November 6, 1943BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: V Fighter Command P-40s attackGasmata, but a planned heavy-bomber attack against Rabaul is recalleddue to bad weather.CENTRAL PACIFIC: In support of the upcomng invasion of the Gil-bert Islands, the Seventh Air Force, VII Bomber Command, VII FighterCommand, and VII Air Force Services Command all establish advanceheadquarters at Funafuti Airdrome.NEW GUINEA: Japanese bombers mount uncontested attacks againstDumpu, Finschhafen, and Nadzab.SOLOMON ISLANDS: Nine 42d Medium Bombardment Group B-25s attack Buka harbor and airdrome; one B-25 attacks Kieta; AirSolsSBDs and fighters attack Bougainville/Kara Airdrome, and then 24 42dMedium Bombardment Group B-25s attack Bougainville/Kara Airdromeagain; and 17 XIII Bomber Command B-24s attack Bougainville/BonisAirdrome.

Four VF-17 F4U pilots down a G4M over Bougainville at 1040hours; and a 6th Night Fighter Squadron P-38 pilot downs an A6M nearSanta Isabel at 1300 hours.SOUTH PACIFIC AREA: VMF-216, in F4Us, arrives at Espiritu Santofrom Hawaii.

November 7, 1943BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: Twenty-five V Bomber Command B-24s and 64 V Fighter Command P-38s attack Rabaul/Rapopo Airdrome


8th and 475th Fighter Group P-38 pilots down six Japanesefighters over the Rabaul area between 1220 and 1230 hours. Five P-38sare lost.

1stLt Allen E. Hill, a P-38 pilot with the 8th Fighter Group’s80th Fighter Squadron, achieves ace status when he downs an A6Mover Rabaul at 1220 hours; and 1stLt Jack C. Mankin, a P-38 pilot withthe 475th Fighter Group’s 431st Fighter Squadron, achieves ace statuswhen he downs a Ki-61 and a Ki-43 over Rabaul at 1230 hours.CENTRAL PACIFIC: VB-108 displaces to the newly operationalNukufetau Airdrome.CHINA: Two 11th Medium Bombardment Squadron B-25s attack theharbor at Amoy; and six Fourteenth Air Force P-40s attack a bridge atHsiangyangchiao.NEW GUINEA: Nine V Bomber Command B-25s attack Wewak, butmore than 40 others abort when their escorts are intercepted over Nadzabby a large number of Japanese fighters.

Japanese bombers mount uncontested attacks against NadzabAirdrome and Bena Bena. Sixteen USAAF aircraft are destroyed on theground.

49th Fighter Group P-38 pilots down three A6Ms nearAlexishafen at 0720 hours; 8th Fighter Group P-47 pilots and 35th FighterGroup P-39 pilots down five Ki-21s and two Ki-43s near Nadzab between0810 and 0815 hours; 348th Fighter Group P-47 pilots down four A6Msbetween Saidor and Lae at 0855 hours; and 49th Fighter Group P-38pilots down three A6Ms over Bogadjim at 1400 hours.

LtCol Robert R. Rowland, the 348th Fighter Group executiveofficer, in a P-47, achieves ace status when he downs two A6Ms overSaidor.

The 71st Reconnaissance Group arrives at Port Moresby fromthe United States for service with the Fifth Air Force.SOLOMON ISLANDS: Twenty-one AirSols B-24s attack Buka Air-drome; and eight 42d Medium Bombardment Group B-25s attack bargesand shore targets at Atsinima Bay.


November 8, 1943BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: The scheduled Fifth Air Force mis-sion to Rabaul is canceled because of bad weather over the target.BURMA: During the night of November 8–9, five 7th Heavy Bom-bardment Group B-24s sow mines in the Rangoon River.CHINA: Two 11th Medium Bombardment Squadron B-25s attackKiungshan Airdrome; and six Fourteenth Air Force P-40s attack a bridgeat Hsiangyangchiao.SOLOMON ISLANDS: Twenty-two AirSols B-24s attackBougainville/Bonis Airdrome; six 42d Medium Bombardment GroupB-25s attack Kieta; and six B-25s attack targets of opportunity onBougainville.

Twenty-six IJN D3As and 71 A6Ms attack USN transports andwarships in Empress Augusta Bay at noon, but they are intercepted by28 AirSols fighters before they can do much damage. One USN transportis lightly damaged by two direct hits. Eight AirSols fighters are lost.

A VF-17 F4U pilot downs a transport over Buka Airdrome at0710 hours; VF-17 F4U pilots down three A6Ms west of Bougainvilleat 1100 hours; VMF-212 F4U pilots down three D3As and VF-33 F6Fpilots down four D3As and four Ki-61s over Empress Augusta Bay atnoon; and XIII Fighter Command P-38 and P-40 pilots down eight D3Asand seven A6Ms over Cape Torokina between noon and 1230 hours.

Lt(jg) James J. Kinsella, a VF-33 F6F pilot, achieves ace statuswhen he downs three Ki-61s over Empress Augusta Bay at noon.

Between 1911 hours, November 8, and 0100 hours, November9, 21 Rabaul-based B5Ns, D3As, and G4Ms make unopposed attacksagainst a USN surface force off Bougainville. Ten bombers are downedby antiaircraft fire, but one light cruiser is damaged by two bombs anda torpedo.

November 9, 1943BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: V Fighter Command P-40s attackdumps at Gasmata, and patrolling V Bomber Command B-24s sink anIJN destroyer near Kavieng, but the scheduled Fifth Air Force missionto Rabaul is canceled because of bad weather over the target.


NEW GUINEA: More than 40 V Bomber Command B-25s and A-20sattack Alexishafen Airdrome.

V Fighter Command P-38, P-39, and P-40 pilots down 15Japanese fighters in a series of engagements over Alexishafen, Lae, andNadzab between 1015 and 1120 hours.

1stLt James C. Ince, a P-38 pilot with the 475th Fighter Group’s432d Fighter Squadron, achieves ace status when he downs an A6Mnear Alexishafen at 1015 hours; Maj Charles H. MacDonald, a 475thFighter Group staff officer whose first combat mission was over PearlHarbor, achieves ace status when he downs two A6Ms near Aliexishafenat 1020 hours; and Capt Daniel T. Roberts, Jr., a P-38 ace with the 475thFighter Group’s 433d Fighter Squadron, brings his final personal tallyto 14 victories when he downs an A6M over Alexishafen at 1030 hours.Roberts, however, is killed in a crash after his P-38’s tail is clipped byanother P-38 in his flight.

2dLt John C. Smith, a six-victory 475th Fighter Group P-38 ace,is killed in aerial combat over Alexishafen.PACIFIC OCEAN AREA: Task Force 57 is activated at Pearl Harborunder the command of RAdm John H. Hoover (Commander, Aircraft,Central Pacific) to oversee all land-based aircraft in the Central PacificArea. Initially, the new command will incorporate the Seventh Air Force(Task Group 57.2, or Striking Group), the 4th Marine Base DefenseAircraft Wing (Task Group 57.4, or Ellice Defense and Utility Group),and six USN patrol squadrons (Task Group 57.3, or Search and Recon-naissance Group).SOLOMON ISLANDS: More than 20 AirSols B-24s attackBougainville/Kahili and Bougainville/Kara airdromes; 42d MediumBombardment Group B-25s attack Buka Airdrome and Kieta; and AirSolslight bombers and fighters attack Ballale and Bougainville/Kara air-dromes.

November 10, 1943BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: V Bomber Command B-24s attackRabaul/Lakunai Airdrome and an airfield under construction on Dukeof York Island; and B-25s and V Fighter Command P-38s attack ship-ping.


During the night of November 10–11, RAAF Beauforts attacktargets around Rabaul.CENTRAL PACIFIC: During the night of November 10–11, three IJNbombers evade VMF-441 F4Fs (operating without radar guidance) andbomb Nanomea Airdrome. One U.S. serviceman is killed, a B-24 isdestroyed, and several other aircraft are damaged.CHINA: Fourteenth Air Force fighters attack river traffic.EAST INDIES: 380th Heavy Bombardment Group B-24s attackSoerabaja, Java.NEW GUINEA: V Bomber Command B-25s attack Alexishafen Air-drome.SOLOMON ISLANDS: More than 20 42d Medium BombardmentGroup B-25s attack Ballale and Bougainville/Kara airdromes, and ship-ping targets of opportunity.

Responding to the first air-support request of the Bougainvilleoperation (lodged the afternoon before), 18 VMTB-143 and VMTB-233 TBFs arrive on station at 0915 hours over the Piva River area of theBougainville beachhead. At 1015, each of 12 TBFs drops 12 100-poundbombs on ground targets marked by colored smoke. Many of the bombsstrike targets within 120 yards of USMC ground troops and kill anestimated 40 IJA soldiers. The attack—the first of its kind in the Pacific—is deemed a success and a template for future operations.

November 11, 1943BISMARCK ARCHIPEALGO: Before dawn, 23 V Bomber Com-mand B-24s breast bad weather to attack Rabaul/Lakunai Airdrome,but follow-on strikes are recalled in the face of continuing heavy weather.This concludes the Fifth Air Force offensive against Rabaul.

During the morning, while VMF-212 and VMF-221 F4Us bolsterthe combat air patrol over the carriers, 239 USN carrier* bombers andfighters attacking in two waves mount extremely strong attacks againstRabaul. In the air battle over Rabaul, USN F6F pilots (and several SBDcrews) down 38 A6Ms between 0900 and 0930 hours. This missionmarks the combat debut of the brand-new SB2C dive-bomber (fromFleet Carrier Air Group 17).


Forty-two XIII Bomber Command B-24s attack Rabaul fromhigh level just as the last of the carrier aircraft depart the area. Cloudcover obscures the results as two B-24 squadrons drop their bombs from16,000 to 20,000 feet. The 5th Heavy Bombardment Group’s 23d HeavyBombardment Squadron attacks a light cruiser from 8,500 feet.

Several Rabaul-based G4Ms, 14 B5Ns, 27 D3As, and 67 fightersopen a counterattack against the USN carrier force at 1315 hours, butUSN fighters—including a land-based F4U squadron (VF-17) and aland-based F6F squadron (VF-33) operating from the carrier decks—beat off the Japanese attack and exact a very high toll of Japanese aircraftdowned at sea and over the carriers between 1315 and 1415 hours. (TheUSN pilots claim 111 victories, but it is estimated that two G4Ms, 14B5Ns, 17 D3As, and eight fighters are actually downed.) Three A6Msare also downed at sea during the evening by VF-18 F6F patrol pilots.Eleven USN fighters are lost and the USS Essex is slightly damaged bya near miss.

In the evening, Task Force 38 and Task Group 50.3 are dissolvedand all five USN aircraft carriers are ordered from the area to take partwith the U.S. Fifth Fleet in the upcoming Operation GALVANIC, theGilbert Islands invasion.

* Task Force 38 [RAdm Frederick C. Sherman, Commander, CarrierDivision 1]—USS Saratoga (Fleet Carrier Air Group 12) andUSS Princeton (Light Carrier Air Group 23).

Task Group 50.3 [RAdm Alfred E. Montgomery,Commander, Carrier Division 12]—USS Essex (Fleet CarrierAir Group 9), USS Bunker Hill (Fleet Carrier Air Group 17),and USS Independence (Light Carrier Air Group 22).

CHINA: Six 308th Heavy Bombardment Group B-24s attack BurmaRoad targets; eight Fourteenth Air Force P-40s attack river targets; andsix P-40s attack a gun emplacement, barracks, and a radio station nearYoyang.NEW GUINEA: V Bomber Command B-25s attack targets aroundMadang, and V Fighter Command P-39s strafe Bogadjim.


A 35th Fighter Group P-39 pilot downs a D3A near Alexishafenat 0737 hours.SOLOMON ISLANDS: Several 42d Medium Bombardment GroupB-25s and AirSols F4Us strafe shore targets and barges in Matchin Bay.

November 12, 1943BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: The IJN terminates Operation RO andwithdraws all of its 52 surviving carrier aircraft (of 173 committed)from Rabaul to Japan via Truk Atoll. Although still heavily defended byan infusion of land-based aircraft forwarded via the base at Truk (CarolineIslands), Rabaul’s aviation force moves predominantly to the defensiveand so no longer poses a serious threat to Allied forces in the SolomonIslands or New Guinea.BURMA: During the night of November 12–13, two 7th Heavy Bom-bardment Group B-24s sow mines in the Rangoon River.CENTRAL PACIFIC: Two squadrons of the VII Bomber Command’s30th Heavy Bombardment Group, in B-24s, displace to Nanomea Air-drome from Hawaii; and one squadron displaces to Nukufetau Airdrome.CHINA: Ten 11th Medium Bombardment Squadron B-25s and 24 Four-teenth Air Force P-40s attack rail yards, antiaircraft emplacements, andwarehouses in Yoyang; five B-25s attack port areas at Puchi and YangchiKang; and one B-25 and 15 P-40s attack targets of opportunity while onarmed reconnaissance missions.EAST INDIES: 380th Heavy Bombardment Group B-24s attack vari-ous targets on Amboina and Java.NEW GUINEA: V Bomber Command B-25s and B-26s attack Japa-nese-held villages between Finschhafen and Saidor.SOLOMON ISLANDS: At 0420 hours, four G4Ms attempt a torpedoattack against USN warships in Empress Augusta Bay. Next, at 0455hours, four G4Ms attack a USN light cruiser with torpedoes and scoreone hit that severely damages the ship, kills twenty crewmen, and woundseleven.

Eighteen 42d Medium Bombardment Group B-25s attackTarlena; six B-25s attack Matchin Bay; and eight XIII Fighter CommandP-38s attack Bougainville/Bonis Airdrome.


Eighteen USN land-based TBFs from VC-38 and VC-40,responding to an airsupport mission request lodged the previousafternoon, drop 100-pound bombs on IJA defensive positions withinonly 100 yards of friendly troops. As a result of the attack, the IJA forceabandons its positions.

New Zealand Army forces defeat the last vestiges of the IJAgarrison on Mono Island in the Treasury group.

November 13, 1943BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: Fifth Air Force bombers and fightersopen a pre- invasion bombardment campaign against IJA defenses andfacilities in western New Britain.

Nine V Bomber Command B-25s and 18 RAAF Kittyhawksattack Gasmata and photograph a wide area around Gasmata.BURMA: During the night of November 13–14, one 7th Heavy Bom-bardment Group B-24 sows mines in the Rangoon River.CENTRAL PACIFIC: IJN bombers attack Funafuti Airdrome, wheretwo aircraft are destroyed on the ground.GILBERT ISLANDS: Eighteen 11th Heavy Bombardment Group B-24s based at or staging through Funafuti and Nanomea airdromes attackBetio Island with 27.5 tons of general-purpose bombs and 126 20-poundfragmentation bombs. There is no opposition from IJN fighters, but an-tiaircraft coverage is intense and one B-24 is downed.

During the night of November 13–14, USN Task Force 57* land-based bombers attack targets at Tarawa and Makin atolls and NauruIsland.

* For the upcoming Gilbert Islands invasion, Task Force 57 isorganized as follows: Task Force 57 [RAdm John H. Hoover,USN]: Task Group 57.2 (Striking Group) [MajGen Willis H.Hale, USAAF, Commanding General, Seventh Air Force]—11thand 30th Heavy Bombardment groups (90 B-24s); Task Group57.3 (Search and Reconnaissance Group) [RAdm John H.Hoover]—VD-3 (6 PB4Ys), VP-53 (12 PBYs), VP-72 (12PBYs), VB-108 (12 PB4Ys), VB-137 (12 PVs), VB-142 (12


PVs), and tenders USS Curtiss, USS Mackinac, and USS Swan,based at Nanomea, Nukufetau, and Funafuiti; Task Group 57.4(Ellice Islands Defense and Utility Group) [BriGen Lewie G.Merritt, USMC, Commanding General, 4th Marine Base DefenseAircraft Wing]—Marine Air Group 13 and Marine Air Group31 (90 F4Us and 72 SBDs), VS-51 (8 SBDs and OS2Us), VS-65(8 SBDs and OS2Us), VS-66 (8 SBDs and OS2Us)

MARSHALL ISLANDS: 11th Heavy Bombardment Group B-24sbased in the Ellice Islands attack Mille Airdrome; and VD-3 PB4Ysbased at Canton Island Airdrome and staging through the Ellice Islandsmount their first photo-reconnaissance missions to Wotje and Maloelapatolls.NEW GUINEA: Nearly 120 V Bomber Command B-24s and B-25sattack Alexishafen; B-24s attack Kaukenau and Timoeka; and V FighterCommand P-40s strafe targets in and around Alexishafen.SOLOMON ISLANDS: Seventeen XIII Bomber Command B-24s at-tack Bougain-ville/Bonis Airdrome; and six 42d Medium BombardmentGroup B-25s attack Buka Airdrome at low level.

During the night of November 13–14, 6th Night Fighter SquadronP-70s mount night heckling missions against Bougainville/Bonis andBougainville/Kahili airdromes and targets in the Shortland Islands.

A VMF(N)-531 PV night-fighter crew downs a G4M 50 milessouthwest of Cape Torokina at 0420 hours. This is the USMC’s firstnight victory, and the first by a PV.

November 14, 1943CBI: Task orders are issued to U.S. Army engineer battalions and otherunits that will be involved in constructing airfields capable of support-ing the commitment of B-29 very-heavy bomber units in 1944 (Opera-tion TWILIGHT).GILBERT ISLANDS: Nine 11th Heavy Bombardment Group B-24sbased at or staging through Funafuti and Nonomea airdromes attacktargets in Tarawa Atoll.NEW GUINEA: V Bomber Command B-25s attack a convoy and biv-ouac near Sio.


MARSHALL ISLANDS: Nine 11th Heavy Bombardment Group B-24s based at Funafuti Airdrome attack Mille Atoll.SOLOMON ISLANDS: During the night of November 14–15, 6thNight Fighter Squadron P-70s mount night heckling missions againstFaisi and targets in the Shortland Islands.

November 15, 1943CENTRAL PACIFIC: More than 20 VII Bomber Command B-24sbased at Canton Island and Nonomea airdromes attack Jaluit and Milleatolls in the Marshall Islands and Makin Atoll in the Gilbert Islands.

VMSB-331, in SBDs, arrives at Nukufetau Airdrome from theUnited States.CHINA: Fifteen of 20 308th Heavy Bombardment Group B-24s dis-patched against Hong Kong and Kowloon abort in the face of badweather, but five B-24s are able to attack the Kowloon port area.NEW GUINEA: More than 30 V Bomber Command B-24s attackAlexishafen; 88 B-25s abort a scheduled mission against Wewak andBoram when they and their 16 P-40 escorts are engaged by many Japa-nese fighters.

49th Fighter Group P-40 pilots down a Ki-48 and six fightersover Dumpu and Gusap at 1010 hours; 8th Fighter Group P-40 pilotsdown three G3Ms and eight fighters over the Ramu Valley at 1010 hours;and 348th Fighter Group P-38 pilots down five fighters over the Wewakarea between 1115 and 1130 hours. Two 49th Fighter Group P-40s arelost.

1stLt Richard L. West, a P-40 pilot with the 8th Fighter Group’s35th Fighter Squadron, achieves ace status when he downs two G3Msand two A6Ms (and probably downs one more of each) over the RamuValley at about 1010 hours.SOLOMON ISLANDS: Twenty XIII Bomber Command B-24s attackBuka Airdrome; and eighteen B-24s attack Kahili.

The 419th Night Fighter Squadron, in P-38s and several P-70s,arrives from the United States for service with the Thirteenth Air Force.The new unit will replace Detachment B, 6th Night Fighter Squadron.

The 100th Medium Bombardment Squadron, in B-25s, arrivesin the Solomons for service with the Thirteenth Air Force. The unit will


be attached as a fifth squadron to the 42d Medium Bombardment Groupin January 1944.

During the night of November 15–16, 6th Night Fighter SquadronP-70s attack Bougainville/Kahili Airdrome.

November 16, 1943BURMA: P-38 pilots with the Tenth Air Force’s 459th Fighter Squad-ron down three Ki-43s at 1100 hours while escorting bombers againstMeiktila.CENTRAL PACIFIC: The USMC’s Central Pacific Combat Air Trans-port Service (CenCATS) is established at American Samoa/Tutuila Air-drome to oversee Marine air transports in the Central Pacific area.

VII Bomber Command B-24s based at Nanomea and Funafutiairdromes begin daily intensive antishipping searches to help cover theapproach of the Gilberts invasion fleet. (Other long-range aircraft basedin the South Pacific Area and Midway cover overlapping search sectors.)CHINA: Eleven 308th Heavy Bombardment Group B-24s, two 11thMedium Bombardment Squadron B-25s, and four Fourteenth Air ForceP-40s attack the Kowloon port area; 11th Medium Bombardment Squad-ron B-25s mount antishipping attacks off the China coast; and one B-25and 12 P-40s attack an IJA cavalry column and other targets aroundShihmen.

A 74th Fighter Squadron P-40 pilot downs a Ki-43 near Wuchowat 0945 hours.FRENCH INDOCHINA: Six Fourteenth Air Force P-40s strafe railtargets and barracks while on an armed-reconnaissance mission.GILBERT ISLANDS: VII Bomber Command B-24s based at Nanomeaand Nukufetau airdromes mount individual attacks against Makin andTarawa atolls.

VD-3 PB4Ys reconnoiter and photograph Tarawa Atoll.INDIA: Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten formally activates the newSoutheast Asia Command (SEAC) headquarters in New Delhi to over-see all Allied operations in the CBI Theater.MARSHALL ISLANDS: VII Bomber Command B-24s based at Can-ton Island, Nanomea, and Nukufetau airdromes attack Jaluit, Maloelap,


and Wotje atolls; and B-24s mount individual attacks against KwajaleinAtoll. Several B-24s are damaged in attacks by A6Ms.

VD-3 PB4Ys and VII Bomber Command B-24s reconnoiter andphotograph defenses and facilities in Jaluit Atoll.NEW GUINEA: V Bomber Command B-25s attack Finschhafen andnearby targets; and V Fighter Command P-39 fighter-bombers attackbarges between Madang and Saidor.

475th Fighter Group P-38 pilots down three A6Ms over Wewakat 0950 hours, an A6M over Wewak at 1040 hours, and a Ki-61 overFinschhafen at 1040 hours. Two P-38s are lost.SOLOMON ISLANDS: Four XIII Bomber Command B-24s and 20B-25s attack Buka Airdrome; and more than 20 B-25s and more than 30XIII Fighter Command P-39s and P-40s attack targets of opportunityalong the Bougainville coast.

During the night of November 16–17, more than 30 42d MediumBombardment Group B-25s attack Buka Airdrome; and eight XIIIBomber Command B-24s attack Bougainville/Bonis and Buka airdromesat various times.

November 17, 1943BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: RAAF Kittyhawk fighter-bombersattack Gasmata.BURMA: Eight Fourteenth Air Force P-40s attack Pingkai and nearbytargets of opportunity.CENTRAL PACIFIC: IJN bombers attack Funafuti Airdrome, wheretwo Seabees are killed and a B-24 and C-47 are destroyed.CHINA: Eight Fourteenth Air Force P-40s attack Kengtung Airdromeand nearby IJA barracks.EAST INDIES: V Bomber Command B-25s attack a freighter nearTanimbar Island in the Molucca Islands.

During the night of November 17–18, V Bomber Command B-24s attack den Pasar, Soerabaja, and Tjepoe.FRENCH INDOCHINA: Four Fourteenth Air Force P-40s attack DongCuong Airdrome.GILBERT ISLANDS: VII Bomber Command B-24s based at CantonIsland and Funafuti airdromes attack Tarawa Atoll.MARSHALL ISLANDS: VII Bomber Command B-24s based at Can-


ton Island and Funafuti airdromes attack Maloelap/Taroa and Mille air-dromes.

VD-3 PB4Ys reconnoiter and photograph Wotje Atoll.NEW GUINEA: Fifty-eight V Bomber Command B-24s are dispatchedagainst Sattelberg in support of Australian Army ground forces, but onlythree B-24s and 12 RAAF bombers reach the target through bad weather.

348th Fighter Group P-47s strafe shipping between Finschhafenand Saidor.SOLOMON ISLANDS: At 0350 hours, IJN D4Y dive-bombers mountan unopposed attack against a USN reinforcement convoy nearBougainville. (These D4Ys, a brand-new type, have just been divertedfrom land-based duty in the Marshall Islands.) One troop-laden destroyer-transport is sunk, the only ship sunk by Japanese aircraft during theBougainville operation. Sixty-four crewmen and fifty-two Marines arelost. Five D4Ys are downed by antiaircraft fire.

At 0800, AirSols fighters intercept 10 D4Ys and 55 Japanesefighters on an antishipping strike in Empress Augusta Bay. VF-17 F4Upilots down a B5N, two Ki-61s, and six A6Ms over Empress AugustaBay between 0800 and 0815; and two VMF-221 F4U pilots down threeD4Ys over Cape Torokina at 0800 hours. Two VF-17 F4Us are lost.

XIII Bomber Command B-24s attack Buka Airdrome; and three42d Medium Bombardment Group B-25s attack Kieta.

The Marine Air Group 21 headquarters departs Banika Airdromefor the rear area.

When a planned reinforcement of the Japanese air units in Rabaulis withheld by higher headquarters in view of the tremendous lossessince November 1, Operation RO—the aerial defense of the northernSolomon Islands—is effectively (but not formally) terminated.

November 18, 1943BURMA: Four Fourteenth Air Force P-40s attack the ferry at Tahsai insupport of Chinese Army ground forces.CHINA: Twelve Fourteenth Air Force P-40s attack IJA ground troopsand a troop-filled barge at Shihmen.GILBERT ISLANDS: Due to bad weather over assigned targets in the


Marshall Islands, nine VII Bomber Command B-24s based at NanomeaAirdrome attack Tarawa and Makin atolls, and Nauru Island; USN car-rier aircraft from Task Group 50.4* attack Nauru; and USN carrier air-craft from Task Group 50.3 attack Tarawa Atoll with 115 tons of bombs.(USN carrier aircraft from Task Group 50.1 screen the northern ap-proaches to the Gilbert Islands and Task Group 50.2 continues to moveinto position to attack Makin Atoll and other northern targets.)

A VF-9 F6F pilot downs an F1M over Tarawa Atoll at 1130hours, and a VF-18 F6F pilot downs an E8N at sea at 1606 hours.

* For the initial phases of Operation GALVANIC, the Gilbertsinvasion, the aircraft carriers are organized as:

Task Force 50 [RAdm Charles A. Pownall]: Task Group 50.1 (CarrierInterceptor Force) [RAdm Charles A. Pownall, Commander,Carrier Division 3]: USS Lexington (Fleet Carrier Air Group16), USS Yorktown (Fleet Carrier Air Group 5), and USSCowpens (Light Carrier Air Group 25); Task Group 50.2(Northern Carrier Group) [RAdm Arthur W. Radford,Commander, Carrier Division 11]—USS Enterprise (FleetCarrier Air Group 6), USS Belleau Wood (Light Carrier Air Group24), and USS Monterey (Light Carrier Air Group 30); Task Group50.3 (Southern Carrier Group) [RAdm Alfred E. Montgomery,Commander, Carrier Division 12]—USS Bunker Hill (FleetCarrier Air Group 17), USS Essex (Fleet Carrier Air Group 9),and USS Independence (Light Carrier Air Group 22); and TaskGroup 50.4 (Relief Carrier Group) [RAdm Frederick C. Sherman,Commander, Carrier Division 1]—USS Saratoga (Fleet CarrierAir Group 12) and USS Princeton (Light Carrier Air Group 23).

Task Force 52 (Northern Attack Force): Task Group 52.3 [RAdmHenry M. Mullinnix, Commander, Carrier Division 24]—USSCoral Sea (VC-33), USS Corregidor (VC-41), USS LiscomeBay (VC-39), USS Nassau (transporting a portion of VF-1), andUSS Barnes (transporting a portion of VF-1). [The fightercomponents of VC-39 and VC-41 are equipped with FM fighters,


a four-gun Wildcat variant built by the General Motors EasternAircraft Division, but generally the same as the F4F. In future,all new Wildcats will be FMs, and all escort-carrier compositesquadrons will be equipped with them. Also, the VC-39 torpedo-bomber contingent consists of the first 12 TBMs to be deployed.The TBM is a TBF twin built by the General Motors Eastern AirDivision rather than by Grumman.]

Task Force 53 (Southern Attack Force): Task Group 53.6 [RAdmVan H. Ragdale, Commander, Carrier Division 22]—USSChenango (Escort Carrier Air Group 35), USS Sangamon (EscortCarrier Air Group 37), and USS Suwanee (Escort Carrier AirGroup 60).

MARSHALL ISLANDS: Due to bad weather over Wotje Atoll,VII Bomber Command B-24s based at Nanomea Airdrome attack MilleAtoll.

NEW GUINEA: V Bomber Command B-24s attack Fak Fak; morethan 30 V Bomber Command B-25s and B-26s attack IJA ground posi-tions around Sattelberg; and V Fighter Command P-40 fighter-bombersattack Iworep.

SOLOMON ISLANDS: VMF-212 F4U pilots down two A6Ms overthe Zoller Islands at 0825 hours.

The Marine Air Group 24 headquarters arrives in the RussellIslands.

During the night of November 18–19, five Marines are killed inthe Bougainville beachhead when a night heckler penetrates the night-fighter umbrella.

November 19, 1943AUSTRALIA: The 58th Fighter Group, in P-47s, arrives in Sydney forservice with the V Fighter Command.BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: V Bomber Command B-25s attackKentengi Anchorage.


CHINA: 11th Medium Bombardment Squadron B-25s attack port fa-cilities and warehouses and Swatow, and mount antishipping strikes inthe South China Sea.GILBERT ISLANDS: Thirty VII Bomber Command B-24s join USNwarships in the bombardment of Japanese positions in Tarawa and Makinatolls, and on Nauru Island; Task Group 50.4 carrier aircraft attack Nauru;and Task Group 50.3 carrier aircraft attack Tarawa Atoll with 69 tons ofbombs; and Task Group 50.2 carrier aircraft attack Makin Atoll.

Lt(jg) Hamilton McWhorter, III, a VF-9 F6F pilot, becomes thefirst F6F Hellcat ace when he downs a G4M near Tarawa Atoll at 0550hours; four VF-2 F6F pilots down an E8N near Makin Atoll at 0830hours; four VF-22 F6F down a G4M at sea at 0830 hours; a VF-60 F6Fpilot downs an H8K at sea at 0945 hours; a VF-18 F6F pilot downs aG4M near Tarawa Atoll at 1040 hours; two VF-9 F6F pilots down aG4M at sea at 1455 hours; and VF-23 F6F pilots down two A6Ms overNauru at 1555 hours.INDIA: The 5309th Provisional Air Service Area Command is acti-vated at Chabua Airdrome to oversee supply and maintenance of USAAFaircraft in the region.MARSHALL ISLANDS: Task Group 50.1 carrier aircraft attack theMille Airdrome and flying boats and floatplane fighters moored in JaluitAtoll.NEW GUINEA: Approximately 30 V Bomber Command B-25s andB-26s attack IJA ground positions around Sattelberg; and 3d Light Bom-bardment Group A-20s attack Finschhafen.SOLOMON ISLANDS: Ten 42d Medium Bombardment Group B-25sattack Ballale Airdrome and Matchin Bay.

VMF-221, in F4Us, displaces to New Georgia/Munda Field fromGuadalcanal.

November 20, 1943BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: Fifty V Bomber Command B-24s at-tack Gasmata.

During the night of November 20–21, VP-101 Black Cat PBYssink a cargo ship in Rabaul harbor.


CHINA: Despite bad weather that grounds other missions, two 11thMedium Bombardment Squadron B-25s are able to attack barracks andwarehouses on Nampang Island.GILBERT ISLANDS: U.S. forces launch Operation GALVANIC, theinvasion of the Gilbert Islands. Following intense air and naval-surfacebombardments, the U.S. 2d Marine Division lands at Betio Island inTarawa Atoll, and elements of the U.S. 27th Infantry Division land atButaritari Island in Makin Atoll.

At 0611 hours, USN carrier aircraft from Task Group 50.2(Northern Carrier Force) mount a 20-minute attack against beachdefenses at Butaritari and thereafter stand by to cover the USN surfacebombardment force and provide ground support as needed. As U.S. Armyground troops begin landing at 0832 hours, carrier aircraft bombpreselected inland targets.

At 0615 hours, USN carrier aircraft from Task Group 50.3(Southern Carrier Group) mount a firece seven-minute attack againstshore defenses on Betio and thereafter stand by to cover the USN surfacebombardment force and provide ground support as needed. Owing todelays in landing the first waves, the carrier aircraft attack shore defensesagain at 0855 hours. Thereafter, F6Fs provide continuous on-call supportfor the USMC ground forces.

A VF-16 F6F pilot downs an G4M at sea at 0930 hours.Beginning at about 1755 hours, 16 Marshalls-based G4M night

torpedo bombers attack Task Group 50.3 while USN aircraft are landing.VF-18 F6F pilots down five G4Ms and ships’ gunners down four, butone G4M scores a single torpedo hit on the USS Independence (LightCarrier Air Group 22), which is forced to retire to Funafuti, the nearestfriendly base.

During the night of November 20–21, a USMC reconnaissancecompany lands at Abemama Atoll from a USN submarine and swiftlyoccupies the atoll against negligible opposition. Abemama is to be thesite of a new airfield.INDIA: The Fourteenth Air Force’s 308th Heavy Bombardment Groupbegins a temporary displacement to the Bengal region of India to jointhe 7th Heavy Bombardment Group and RAF heavy bombers in a joint


campaign against strategic targets in Burma. Two squadrons are basedat Pandaveswar Airdrome with two squadrons of the 7th Group, andtwo squadrons are based at Pangarh Airdrome, also with two 7th Groupsquadrons.MARSHALL ISLANDS: Task Group 50.1 carrier aircraft attack MilleAtoll.NEW GUINEA: Fifty V Bomber Command B-25s and B-26s attackIJA ground positions around Sattelberg and luggers in Hansa Bay; and3d Light Bombardment Group A-20s attack targets around Lae.

The V Fighter Command’s 49th Fighter Group displaces to GusapAirdrome from Dobodura Airdrome.SOLOMON ISLANDS: Thirteenth Air Force B-25s, and P-38s, andUSN PVs attack Bougainville/Bonis Airdrome, and several B-25s at-tack coastal targets around Empress Augusta Bay.

A VMF-222 F4U pilot downs a Ki-49 bomber near Bougainvilleat 0830 hours.

MajGen Ralph J. Mitchell assumes the post of ComAirSols fromMajGen Nathan F. Twining, who has been posted to a high commandposition in Italy. Mitchell will continue to command the 1st MarineAircraft Wing and MASP.

VMSB-243, in SBDs, displaces to New Georgia/Munda Fieldfollowing garrison duty on Johnston and Palmyra islands.SOUTH PACIFIC AREA: VMF-321, in F4Us, arrives at Efate/VilaField from the United States.UNITED STATES: The XX Bomber Command is formally activatedunder the command of BriGen Kenneth B. Wolfe and initially assignedto the Second Air Force pending the creation of an air force to overseeB-29 very-heavy-bomber operations. Also activated is the 73d VeryHeavy Bombard Wing. And the 58th Heavy Bombardment Wing, whichis already training in B-29s at Smoky Hill, Kansas, is redesignated asthe 58th Very Heavy Bombardment Wing.

November 21, 1943BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: V Bomber Command B-24s attackGasmata.


CHINA: Four 11th Medium Bombardment Squadron B-25s attackTaiping-hu Airdrome and mount antishipping strikes in the South ChinaSea; four B-25s and 12 Fourteenth Air Force P-40s attack Tzeli; 29 P-40s attack small craft on Tungting Lake; 12 P-40s attack five vesselsand other targets in the Shihmen area; and eight P-40s attack river boatsand IJA ground troops near Tsowshih.GILBERT ISLANDS: 11th Heavy Bombardment Group B-24s basedat Funafuti and Nonomea airdromes attack Nauru Island; and VD-3PB4Ys escorted by 30th Heavy Bombardment Group B-24s, photographthe island.

Fighting continues at Tarawa and Makin atolls. USN carrieraircraft continue to provide continuous on-call support of the landingforces.

VF-2 and VF-6 F6F pilots down two G4Ms at sea at about 0610hours.MARSHALL ISLANDS: Task Group 50.1 carrier aircraft attack MilleAtoll.NEW GUINEA: V Bomber Command B-24s and B-25s attack ship-ping targets; and 3d Light Bombardment Group A-20s attack targets inthe Finschhafen area.SOLOMON ISLANDS: A small number of 42d Medium Bombard-ment Group B-25s strafe Kieta while conducting antishipping patrols.

VF-17 F4U pilots down six A6M strafers over Empress AugustaBay at 0535 hours; and a 67th Fighter Squadron P-39 pilot downs a Ki-61 over Cape Torokina at 0630 hours.November 22, 1943BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: More than 100 V Bomber CommandB-24s and B-25s attack Cape Gloucester and Gasmata; and B-24s at-tack ships off Kavieng.CHINA: Sixteen Fourteenth Air Force P-40s attack troop-laden boatson Tungting Lake, and P-40s attack Yangtze River traffic.EGYPT: Allied leaders attend the SEXTANT Conference in Cairo toconsider the changing war situation.GILBERT ISLANDS: Fighting continues at Tarawa and Makin atolls.


MARSHALL ISLANDS: Eleven VII Bomber Command B-24s basedat Canton Island Airdrome attack Mille Atoll; and Task Group 50.1 car-rier aircraft attack Mille Atoll.NEW GUINEA: Twenty-two V Bomber Command B-25s and A-20sattack IJA ground troops around Sattelberg.SOLOMON ISLANDS: Five USN PB4Ys, eight AirSols P-38s, andeight AirSols F4Us attack Buka Airdrome; and XIII Fighter CommandP-38s attack barges and shore targets at Chabai.

November 23, 1943CHINA: Thirteen 11th Medium Bombardment Squadron B-25s escortedby 24 Fourteenth Air Force P-40s and seven A-36s, attack rail yards andwarehouses and Yoyang; and eight P-40s attack IJA cavalry and rivertraffic near Hanshow.EAST INDIES: V Bomber Command B-24s attack a convoy nearHalmahera Island.GILBERT ISLANDS: VF-16 F6F pilots down 17 A6Ms near MakinAtoll at appromimately 1005 hours.

Lt(jg) Eugene R. Hanks, a VF-16 F6F pilot, becomes the firstF6F ace in a day when he downs five A6Ms (and probably downs asixth) near Tarawa Atoll at 1006 hours.

U.S. Army troops overcome resistance on Butaritari Island inMakin Atoll, and U.S. Marines secure Betio Island in Tarawa Atoll aftera particularly bloody fight that points up the low state-of-the-arteffectiveness of air and naval bombardment. Moves are made tocompletely secure both atolls and some outlying island groups stilloccupied by Japanese forces.MARSHALL ISLANDS: Six VII Bomber Command B-24s based atNukufetau Airdrome attack Jaluit Atoll; and Task Group 50.1 carrieraircraft attack Mille Atoll.NEW GUINEA: V Bomber Command B-25s and A-20s attack occu-pied villages around Finschhafen.

P-40 pilots with the 35th Fighter Group’s 40th Fighter Squadrondown an A6M and a Ki-43 near Saidor at 0955 hours.


SOLOMON ISLANDS: Nineteen XIII Bomber Command B-24s at-tack Bougainville/Bonis and Buka airdromes; 23 42d Medium Bom-bardment Group B-25s, six USN PVs, and 24 AirSols F4Us, attackChabai; and four B-25s attack coastal villages on Bougainville whileconducting antishipping patrols.

VMF-216, in F4Us, displaces to the Banika Airdrome from theNew Hebrides to relieve VMF-211 of patrol duties.SOUTH PACIFIC AREA: MajGen Hubert R. Harmon is named SouthPacific Area Deputy Commander for Air, and Col Earl W. Barnes be-comes commanding officer of the XIII Fighter Command.

November 24, 1943BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: More than 20 V Bomber CommandB-24s attack Gasmata. This concludes a five-day bombing offensiveamounting to 133 B-24 sorties and 63 B-25 sorties.CHINA: Five 11th Medium Bombardment Squadron B-25s and 16Fourteenth Air Force P-40s attack Hanshow; and two B-25s attack Amoy.EAST INDIES: Eighteen V Bomber Command B-25s attack shippingat Halmahera.GILBERT ISLANDS: An IJN submarine sinks the escort carrier USSLiscome Bay off Makin Atoll at 0513 hours. Six hundred forty-four menare killed, including many airmen from VC-39 and RAdm Henry M.Mullinnix, the Carrier Division 24 commander.

VF-16 F6F pilots down two G4Ms and 10 A6Ms near MakinAtoll at 1230 hours. One of them, Lt(jg) Alfred L. Frendberg, achievesace status when he downs three A6Ms.

Work is begun to rehabilitate and improve the former-IJNairfields on Betio and Butaritari islands, both of which will be neededto support the projected advance to the Marshall Islands.INDIA: Airfield-construction units begin reaching Indian bases fromthe United States.MARSHALL ISLANDS: Twenty VII Bomber Command B-24s basedat Nanomea Airdrome attack land targets and shipping in Maloelap Atoll;and Task Group 50.1 carrier aircraft attack Mille Atoll.NEW GUINEA: More than 30 V Bomber Command B-25s, B-26s,and A-20s attack Kalasa; and 15 B-25s and A-20s attack Finschhafen.


Col Neel E. Kearby replaces BriGen Paul B. Wurtsmith as head ofthe V Fighter Command.SOLOMON ISLANDS: Twenty-five XIII Bomber Command B-24sattack Buka and Chabai; 20 42d Medium Bombardment Group B-25sattack Bougainville/Kahili Airdrome; and six B-25s attack a possibleradio station at Mutupina Point.

The six-man crew of a B-25 bya USN PBY within antiaircraf-gun range of Bougainville/Kahili Airdrome.

A USMC SBD makes a successful emergency landing atBougainville’s nearly completed Bougainville/Torokina fighter strip.

November 25, 1943BURMA: A joint coordinated USAAF–RAF bomber offensive beginsagainst Rangoon-area strategic targets.

Despite bad weather throughout the region, 11 490th MediumBombardment Squadron B-25s and an unknown number of RAFbombers attack Japanese installations in the Rangoon area, includingRangoon/Mingaladon Airdrome. Escort for the B-25s is provided bythe 530th Fighter Squadron.

Sixty 308th Heavy Bombardment Group B-24s on loan to theTenth Air Force fail to locate Zyatkwin Airdrome or locomotive repairshops at Insein due to heavy clouds over both targets, but several B-24sattack Akyab Airdrome on the return flight to India. Two B-24s crashon takeoff, killing all aboard, and one B-24 that is fatally damaged byground fire over the target crashes with all aboard.

P-51 pilots of the 311th Fighter Group’s 530th Fighter Squadrondown four Ki-45s over Rangoon and Mingaladon at 1300 hours.However, two P-51s are lost. This is the 311th Fighter Group’s combatdebut, and the first appearance of P-51 fighters in combat anywhere inthe world.

Col Harry R. Melton, Jr., the 311th Fighter Group commandingofficer, is taken prisoner after his P-51 is fatally damaged by a Ki-45over Rangoon/Mingaladon Airdrome.FORMOSA: On the basis of recent aerial intelligence reports, the Four-teenth Air Force mounts its first attack against Formosa/Shinchiku Air-


drome. Led by the 23d Fighter Group commanding officer, Col DavidL. Hill, 14 11th Medium Bombardment Squadron B-25s, eight 449thFighter Squadron P-38s, and eight newly committed 311th Fighter GroupP-51A fighter-bombers (flown by Hill, several other 23d Fighter Grouppilots, and several 311th Group pilots) fly from their temporary base atSuichwan Airdrome across the Formosa Strait at low altitude to attackthe crowded Formosa/Shinchiku Airdrome. The P-51A and P-38 pilotsdown 14 fighters, bombers, and transports over the base at 1700 hours,and then the B-25s and P-51As destroy 42 Japanese aircraft on theground. There are no USAAF losses.

Sixteen Fourteenth Air Force P-40s attack boats in the Changte–Hanshow area.GILBERT ISLANDS: VF-1, in F6Fs, arrives at Tarawa Atoll aboardtwo escort carriers. As soon as Betio’s airfield (renamed Hawkins Field)is rehabilitated, VF-1 will begin a land-based combat tour.

Just after sunset, 13 Marshalls-based G4Ms, aided by parachuteflares, attack the U.S. invasion fleet off Makin Atoll with torpedoes. Nohits are scored. In a second attack against the northern USN carriers,USN F6F pilots guided by a VT-6 radar-equipped TBF down three G4Msat sea between 1725 and 1928 hours. Lost in this action, however, isLCdr Edward H. (“Butch”) O’Hare—the VF-6 commanding officer, theU.S. Navy’s first World War II fighter ace, and a Medal of Honorrecipient. It is possible that O’Hare’s F6F is the victim of the TBF, whichalso claims an aerial victory this night.MARSHALL ISLANDS: Task Group 50.1 carrier aircraft attack MilleAtoll.NEW GUINEA: V Fighter Command fighter-bombers attack targetson the Bogadjim road.

A 348th Fighter Group P-47 pilot downs a Ki-46 near Wewak at1010 hours.

Australian Army ground forces capture Sattelberg.SOLOMON ISLANDS: VMSB-236, in SBDs, displaces to New Geor-gia/Munda Field from Guadalcanal. Also, VMTB-134, in TBFs, arrivesat New Georgia/Munda Field from the United States by way of the New


Hebrides. The new unit will undertake level-bombing missions againsttargets on Bougainville.

November 26, 1943BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: V Bomber Command B-24s attackGasmata and an IJN cruiser at Ubili.BURMA: Although the day’s heavy-bomber mission against Rangoonis scrubbed because of heavy weather, 13 RAF Wellingtons attack mar-shalling yards in the city during the night of November 26–27.CHINA: Five 11th Mediums Bombardment Squadron B-25s and 16Fourteenth Air Force P-51s and P-40s attack Kiangling Airdrome; twoB-25s attack a freighter on Honghai Bay; and 12 P-40s attack boats inthe Changte-Tehshan area.EGYPT: Before concluding the SEXTANT Conference, Allied leadersagree to mount an amphibious invasion in Burma (Operation CHAM-PION) and to clear a land route from India to China through Burma.The leaders also approve plans for Operation TWILIGHT, the basing ofUSAAF B-29 very-heavy bombers in China.FRENCH INDOCHINA: Eight Fourteenth Air Force P-40s attack railfacilities at Cam Duong.GILBERT ISLANDS: Following up on a de facto occupation by USMCscouts, a large occupation force is landed at Abemama Atoll, where anew airfield is to be constructed. A new airfield is also to be constructedin Makin Atoll.The first American airplane to land at Betio/Hawkins Field is a VMJ-353 R4D.NEW GUINEA: Nearly 40 V Bomber Command B-25 and B-26s at-tack barges near Sio; and V Fighter Command P-40s and P-47s attackoccupied villages and targets of opportunity around Alexishafen,Madang, and Nubia.

8th Fighter Group P-40 pilots and 35th Fighter Group P-39 pilotsturn back a Japanese bomber force on its way to Finschhafen and downseven Ki-43s and two A6Ms between Finschhafen and Saidor between1100 and 1130 hours.


SOLOMON ISLANDS: More than 40 XIII Bomber Command B-24s,more than 30 42d Medium Bombardment Group B-25s, and more than30 AirSols fighters attack Bougainville/Bonis and Buka airdromes; oneB-25 attacks Ballale Airdrome; and several USN PVs attack Nissan Is-land in the Green Islands.

November 27, 1943AUSTRALIA: The Fifth Air Force’s 6th Photographic ReconnaissanceGroup displaces to Brisbane from Sydney.BURMA: Despite interception over the target by as many as 40 Japa-nese fighters, all available 7th and 308th Heavy Bombardment groupB-24s and 490th Medium Bombardment Squadron B-25s, escorted byP-38s and P-51s, destroy 70 percent of the locomotive repair shops atInsein. Three B-24s, four P-51s, and two P-38s are downed by Japanesefighters, but P-51s pilots from the 311th Fighter Group’s 530th FighterSquadron down four Japanese fighters over Rangoon at 1300 hours.

During the night of November 27–28, seven RAF Liberatorsattack the Rangoon dock area.CHINA: Four 11th Medium Bombardment Squadron B-25s attack aconvoy near Amoy and port facilities at Swatow.MARSHALL ISLANDS: Eight VII Bomber Command B-24s based atCanton Island and Nukufetau airdromes attack Mille Airdrome.NEW GUINEA: V Bomber Command B-25s and B-26s attack Boram,Finschhafen, and Wewak.SOLOMON ISLANDS: More than 20 XIII Bomber Command B-24sattack Buka Airdrome; 19 B-24s attack Bougainville/Bonis Airdrome;five 42d Medium Bombardment Group B-25s attack Queen Carola Har-bor; and a small number of USAAF B-25s and USN PVs attack targetsnear Mutupina Point.

November 28, 1943BURMA: 7th Heavy Bombardment Group B-24s attack port facilitiesat Rangoon; and 490th Bombardment Squadron B-25s attack Sagaing.

P-51s pilots from the 311th Fighter Group’s 530th FighterSquadron down four Japanese fighters over Rangoon at 1155 hours.


During the night of November 28–29, RAF Wellingtons attacktargets in Rangoon.CHINA: Eight Fourteenth Air Force P-40s attack barracks and othertargets at Litsaoho; and eight P-40 air-drop ammunition to Chinese Armyforces encircled at Changte.FRENCH INDOCHINA: Six Fourteenth Air Force P-40s strafe LuangPrabang Airdrome and Tran Ninh.GILBERT ISLANDS: Eleven VII Bomber Command B-24s based atNanomea Airdrome attack Nauru Island.Tarawa Atoll is declared secure. USMC scouts begin inspecting otheratolls in the Gilberts.During the evening, a small number of Marshalls-based G4Ms attackseveral USN surface warships of the northern task force, but no damageresults. The ships claim the downing of several of the G4Ms.NEW GUINEA: Approximately 50 V Bomber Command B-24s attackBoram and Wewak airdromes; and more than 40 B-25s, B-26s, and A-20s attack trails near Finschhafen and occupied villages on the HuonPeninsula.SOLOMON ISLANDS: Six 42d Medium Bombardment Group B-25sattack targets around Mutupina Point; and AirSols fighters attack nu-merous targets on Bougainville and in the Shortland Islands.

VMF-214 displaces to Vella Lavella/Barakoma Field from NewGeorgia/Munda Field.

VMF-123 is withdrawn to the United States for retraining andreorganization.

November 29, 1943BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: Thirty-five V Bomber Command B-25s and B-26s attack Cape Gloucester.CHINA: Six 11th Medium Bombardment Squadron B-25s attack tar-gets at Amoy and Swatow, and along the nearby coast; 24 FourteenthAir Force P-40s air-drop ammunition and food to Chinese Army troopsencircled at Changte and attack ground targets on the return flight.GILBERT ISLANDS: A VF-18 F6F pilot downs a G4M at sea at 1245hours.


NEW GUINEA: Six V Bomber Command B-24s attack a barracks atManokwari.

Australian Army ground forces advancing up the coast fromSattelburg seize several towns, including a Japanese supply base, withouta fight.SOLOMON ISLANDS: Twenty-one XIII Bomber Command B-24sattack Kieta; 18 42d Medium Bombardment Group B-25s and AirSolsP-39s and SBDs attack targets on the Bougainville coast.

Construction work is begun on Bougainville/Piva UncleAirdrome.

November 30, 1943BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: V Bomber Command B-24s attackNew Britain/Cape Gloucester Airdrome; and B-25s attack targets onthe New Britain coast.BURMA: During the night of November 30–December 1, RAFWellingtons attack targets in Rangoon.CENTRAL PACIFIC: After being relieved by a VII Fighter CommandP-39 squadron, VMF-441 is withdrawn from Nanomea Airdrome toSamoa to transition from F4Fs to F4Us.CHINA: Eight Fourteenth Air Force P-40s strafe boats near Ansiang;six P-40 fighter-bombers attack fuel and ammunition dumps atLuchiangpa; and P-40s air-drop supplies to Chinese Army forces en-circled at Changte.GILBERT ISLANDS: Six VMSB-331 SBDs and maintenance per-sonnel displace to Betio/Hawkins Field from Nukufetau Airdrome.MARSHALL ISLANDS: Eighteen VII Bomber Command B-24s dis-patched from Nanomea Airdrome to attack Maloelap Atoll abort in theface of bad weather, but two from that flight and ten others based atCanton Island Airdrome are able to complete the mission.NEW GUINEA: V Bomber Command B-24s attack Alexishafen; andB-25s attack Kalasa and motor vehicles near Waroe.SOLOMON ISLANDS: Seventeen 42d Medium Bombardment GroupB-25s attack Malai in the Shortland Islands; several USN PVs attackMawareka; and AirSols fighters attack numerous targets on Bougainville,Choiseul, and in the Shortlands


VF-33, in F6Fs, displaces from New Georgia/Segi Field to NewGeorgia/Ondonga Field.

By about this date, VMF-222, in F4Us, displaces to Vella Lavella/Barakoma Field from New Georgia/Munda Field; VMF-223, also inF4Us, displaces to Vella Lavella/Barakoma Field from Midway; andVMSB-234 is withdrawn to the United States for reorganization andretraining as a carrier-based TBF squadron.




AMBUSH VALLEYI Corps, Vietnam, 1967—

the Story of a Marine Infantry Battalion’s Battle for SurvivalBy Eric Hammel

In the summer of 1967, the Marines in I Corps, South Vietnam’s north-ernmost military region, were doing eveything they could to lighten thepressure on the besieged Con Thien Combat Base.

Still fresh after months of relatively light action around Khe Sanh,the 3d Battalion, 26th Marines, was sent to the Con Thien region tosecure the combat bases’s endangered main supply route. On Septem-ber 7, 1967, its first full day in the new area of operations, separateelements of the battalion were attacked by at least two battalions ofNorth Vietnamese infantry, and both were nearly overrun in night-longbattles.

On September 10, while advancing to a new sector near ConThien, the 3d Battalion, 26th Marines, was attacked by at least a fullNorth Vietnamese regiment, the same NVA unit that had attacked it twodays earlier. Isolated into two separate defensive perimeters, the Marinesbattled through the afternoon and evening against repeated assaults bywaves of NVA regulars intent upon achieving a major victory. In a battledescribed as “Custer’s Last Stand—With Air Support,” the Americansprevailed by the narrowest of margins.

Ambush Valley is an unforgettable account of bravery and survivalunder impossible conditions. It is told entirely in the words of the menwho faced the ordeal together—an unprecedented mosaic of action andemotion woven into an incredibly clear and vivid combat narrative byone of today’s most effective military historians. Ambush Valley achievesa new standard for oral history. It a war story not to be missed.

Praise for Ambush Valley

“Ambush Valley recounts the heroic performance in the summer of1967 of the 3d Battalion, 26th Marines . . . as it defended the U.S. combat


base on a hill called Con Thien. . . . [It] is a fresh, highly personalized,and vivid narrative focusing on one “theater” of the Vietnam War fromthe perspective of those who fought there.”

——Sea Power

“Another of Hammels harrowing eyewitness accounts of a VietnamWar campaign that remains a puzzling episode in a bitterly debatedconflict. . . . [The] firsthand recollections afford a vivid, inspiring recordof bloody set-piece battles . . . “

—–Kirkus Reviews

“This harrowing action is told almost entirely in the words of thesurvivors in a style that resembles the script for a documentary. Byswitching back and forth between voices Hammel is able to reinforce orexpand on moments in the action; the device elevates this oral historyof small unit action over most of its kind.”

—— Library Journal

“The desperate defensive tactics as well as the raw emotions of themen are vividly conveyed in this memorable mosaic of concentratedwarfare. Superb oral history.”

——Publishers Weekly

“Hammel has expertly woven recollections of numerous participantsinto a concise yet vivid tale of survival. I marvelled at his ability topresent a complete account without gaps or reliance on extendednarration. . . . I became so involved I did not want to put it down.

——Marine Corps Gazette

“The narrative is hard and gritty—from the gut.”——Friday Review of Defense Literature


Note: The following article is excerpted from the book AMBUSHVALLEY: I Corps, Vietnam, 1967—A Marine Infantry Battalion’sBattle for Survival by with Eric Hammel. The book is currentlyavailable in a $27.50 trade paperback edition published by PacificaMilitary History. It is also available in ebook editions.

MEETING ENGAGEMENTby Eric Hammel


The Con Thien Combat Base, an isolated hilltop position overlookingthe Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between the two Vietnams, was undersiege. During the last week of August 1968, III Marine Amphibious Forceintelligence analysts discovered that the 812th North Vietnamese Army(NVA) Regiment was preparing to sever Con Thien’s lifeline, the CamLo-Con Thien Main Supply Route. In response to the threat, the 3dBattalion, 26th Marine Regiment (3/26), which was to have been thenext battalion to rotate into Con Thien, was assigned to relieve twocompanies of the 1st Battalion, 9th Marines (1/9), at a roadside positionknown as the Churchyard, just north of Fire Base C-2 (“Charlie-2”),about halfway between Cam Lo and Con Thien. Three of 3/26’s fourinfantry companies and most of the battalion headquarters-and-servicecompany met at the Churchyard late in the afternoon of September 6,1967. Early the next morning, portions of India/3/26 and Mike/3/26were ordered to conduct patrols. Both companies had been operatingaround the Khe Sanh Combat Base all summer, and neither had everoperated in the Con Thien area between National Route 9 and theDemilitarized Zone. The September 6 patrols were more in the nature offamiliarization tours than attempts to locate the enemy. Indeed, the halfof 1/9 that the main body of 3/26 had relieved had not seen the enemyfor more than a week.


Staff Sergeant RUSS ARMSTRONGIndia Company, 3/26—1st Platoon CommanderSeptember 7 was the anniversary of my leaving the States for Vietnam.India Company was ordered to run a patrol out in a northwesterlydirection. Lieutenant Bill Cowan’s 3rd Platoon was left behind to manthe company position, but the rest of the company went out, includingthe skipper, Captain Wayne Coulter, and the exec, Lieutenant BobStimson.Lance Corporal CHUCK BENNETTIndia Company, 3/26, 1st PlatoonOn the morning of September 7, Staff Sergeant Armstrong went up to ameeting at the company CP. When he came back, he said we were goingout on patrol. He was a real gung-ho Marine and liked to volunteer usfor stuff. He said we’d be leading the patrol out. It was all “Hurry up!Get moving!”1st Lieutenant BOB STIMSONIndia Company, 3/26—Executive OfficerThe company was good at running itself, so my job as executive officerwas more tactical—an assistant company commander—than it wasadmin-istrative. I went out with the patrol on September 7 because Iusually went out when all or most of the company was on patrol. Astandard infantry company at the time was 210 officers and men. Goinginto The Churchyard, we couldn’t have been more than 165. We wereway down. With Lieutenant Bill Cowan’s 3rd Platoon staying back toman the entire company sector, we would be going out short of officers.The 1st and 2nd Platoons were both commanded by NCOs. CaptainCoulter, the artillery FO, and I were the only officers on the patrol. Wewent out about 80-strong.

*Staff Sergeant RUSS ARMSTRONGIndia Company, 3/26—1st Platoon CommanderIt was a very nice day. There was still a lot of dew on the grass and therolling terrain looked peaceful, tranquil. The birds were singing, the skywas clear, the flowers were waving in a little breeze. It reminded me ofhome, of eastern Nebraska. It was so pleasant it kind of scared me. The


tranquillity of what I was seeing and the chaos of the war I was in didn’tfit together.

As far as we were concerned, our job was to take a morningwalk in the sun, see what we could see, and return to the battalionperimeter.1st Lieutenant BOB STIMSONIndia Company, 3/26—Executive OfficerThe last civilians had been forcibly evacuated from the DMZ area abouta year earlier. I had flown over the area once in a helicopter just whenwe arrived in-country. There were then some people living in the area,but not many, because there was already saturation bombing going on.Consequently, because there was no one living there except Marinesand NVA, the cultivated areas were dormant and badly overgrown.

Several times on the patrol, squads moved out to check areas wewere not able to see from the main body. Many such detachments werefor purposes of security—for example, before the main body could crossa clearing or a trail. These were routine occurrences and saved us time,though the overall pace was very slow. We’d have had to go slow evenif there were no danger of enemy troops being around. It took us threeto four hours to go only 1,000 to 1,200 meters, though we certainlydidn’t cut through in a straight line. The ground was very uneven, andthe hedgerows blocked us everywhere. That terrain was as tough to movein as any I had ever experienced. It was very confining, very scary. I hada very bad feeling about being in such dense growth.Staff Sergeant RUSS ARMSTRONGIndia Company, 3/26—1st Platoon CommanderWe marched out about a klick and the two platoons split. I was supposedto reconnoiter in one direction and the 2nd Platoon was supposed toreconnoiter in the other. We worked our way through fields and batteredlittle villages. We had a general direction in which to head and a generalarea to reconnoiter, but there were lots of obstructions—buildings,woods, and heavy brush—so we got pretty fragmented.

My method was to send two or three Marines ahead of the mainbody at a faster pace while the rest of us scattered out to the sides.Everyone was very relaxed. Often as not, as we worked through a tiny


built-up area, I joined a fire team and worked with them as they checkedthrough abandoned houses and sheds, seeing what we could see, look-ing for signs of occupation or military activity.

The terrain was not especially rough. The ground meandered aroundinto little rises here and there. Everything that was low had been ricepaddies and everything from the edge of the paddies to the top of eachknoll was covered with foliage. I couldn’t tell if the growth was naturalor if it had been planted by the Vietnamese. It was a combination oftrees and bushes such that we couldn’t see into it without going into it.It was fairly difficult to navigate in, because we couldn’t see far enoughto locate landmarks on our maps or shoot a resection on to pinpoint ourposition. Also, our map sheets converged in this area, so it was doublydifficult to be sure a feature on the map was the feature we could see. Itwas not difficult to walk, but navigating was difficult and tedious.

Another factor that slowed us down was that this was our very firsttrip out into this new area. We had had a very short turnover with 1/9 theprevious afternoon, not enough time to get any details from them aboutlocal topography or places to be wary of. It was a rule to move througha new area with trepidation, so it took longer to move across relativelyshort distances because we tended to be more careful. Also, I was notsure what our purpose in being there was. I did not know what I wassupposed to be looking for or doing.

After a while, we came to a grassy area and found four very distinctbeaten-down trails in the grass where a military unit had marched throughfour abreast. I knew we were somewhere near the area of responsibilityof a unit of the 4th Marines, but I didn’t know quite where their areabegan. As soon as I recognized the trails in the grass for what they were—signs of a large passing military unit—I thought, “My God, I had noidea the 4th Marines are this close to us!” I filed that away and kept theplatoon moving.Lance Corporal CHUCK BENNETTIndia Company, 3/26, 1st PlatoonAfter we’d been out for a long time, we saw some smoke. It was over bya rice paddy, in some high grass. We came across a big black kettle.


There were no VC or NVA or anyone around, but there was rice cookingin the kettle.Staff Sergeant RUSS ARMSTRONGIndia Company, 3/26—1st Platoon CommanderA little later, we came out of some undergrowth within sight of twoblown-out churches, about 75 meters apart. Portions of both steepleswere still standing. I located two destroyed churches on my map, butvisibility was so lousy that I couldn’t figure out if these were the samechurches. I led the platoon over to the nearest church and climbed upinto one of the dilapidated lath-construction steeples to try to find a landfeature I could zero-in on so I could determine our position on my map.

I climbed as high as I could to get a look over the treetops. My yearsas a mortarman had ingrained in me the habit of knowing my positionprecisely so I could call in fire if I had to. And I wanted to see if I couldfind the 2nd Platoon. We were in radio contact but had not seen it sincesplitting up with it. The vista, which was both gorgeous and tranquil,allowed me to pinpoint our position, but I was unable to see the 2ndPlatoon.

Shortly after I climbed down from the steeple and we started mov-ing again, Captain Coulter’s radioman called and ordered us to rejointhe command group and the 2nd Platoon. I set a direct vector, and weheaded out at a good pace along a little trail. The link-up was accom-plished without incident, and the company headed northwest.

Eventually, we cleared a treeline and started crossing a large, openrice-paddy area. The open area was open out to only about 250 metersin front of us, to a wooded area to the west, but we could see forever tothe left and right—north and south.

The paddy area was dry; it probably hadn’t been cultivated in years.We crossed with the 2nd Platoon in the lead and entered the woodedarea. It was getting on toward midday and I began expecting to hear theCO order us to break for chow, but he apparently wasn’t ready.

As we entered the woods we found a large, dry watercourse or drain-age ditch, probably 8 feet deep and about 10 feet across. It did not lookman-made. It had a rounded bottom and the sides were semi-sloping. Itwould take some effort to climb up and out of it. The bottom was dry.There were trees growing up to the edges.


Lance Corporal CHUCK BENNETTIndia Company, 3/26, 1st PlatoonWe checked the ditch out because it would have been a good spot for anambush.Staff Sergeant RUSS ARMSTRONGIndia Company, 3/26—1st Platoon CommanderAfter putting out flankers to walk along the top of the ditch and moreflankers partway up the side to keep visual contact with the outer flankers,the bulk of the patrol walked right into the ditch and proceeded along it.It was easier to move in there than in the broken terrain on either side.1st Lieutenant BOB STIMSONIndia Company, 3/26—Executive OfficerEven though part of the company was able to use the drainage ditch,progress remained slow because fire teams and squads had to advancethrough the brush on either side to provide security for the rest of us.The going for them was every bit as tough as it had been getting out tothe ditch.Lance Corporal CHUCK BENNETTIndia Company, 3/26, 1st PlatoonI was a flanker. It was very confined up above the ditch, so most of thetime I was up on the rim of the ditch, inside.Staff Sergeant RUSS ARMSTRONGIndia Company, 3/26—1st Platoon CommanderAll of a sudden, at 1150, our flankers on the left began taking somesporadic fire—burst, burst, burst, then nothing.Lance Corporal CHUCK BENNETTIndia Company, 3/26, 1st PlatoonThere was shooting. It was a bunch of shots—several automatic weapons.I hit the deck and started returning the fire.

Lance Corporal Gary Lindsay was the next guy to my left, about 20feet away. I saw him go down. I knew he was hit, but I didn’t know howbad. I was trying to get fire out to where they were shooting at us from.They were dug in. They were only 75 to 80 feet from me. As soon as Icould, I hollered at Lindsay, but the guy never responded. I crawledover there, firing a few bursts as I went. Lindsay was hit in the head. Hewas already dead. He never knew what hit him.


The NVA kept firing at us and I kept firing at them, but I felt Ihad to get Lindsay into the ditch. I couldn’t leave him out there.

*Staff Sergeant RUSS ARMSTRONGIndia Company, 3/26—1st Platoon CommanderWe had no way of telling how many NVA were out there—one lonesniper, a fire team, or whatever. In the direction from which the fire wascoming, to our left and left front, was a flat meadow, and behind that, 75to 100 meters out, was another thick treeline through which I could seeno daylight. The fire seemed to be coming from that treeline, but thevegetation was so thick I could not see muzzle flashes.1st Lieutenant BOB STIMSONIndia Company, 3/26—Executive OfficerThe company command group was in the middle of the column in theditch. As soon as the flankers got hit, Captain Coulter started reacting,but the troops reacted on their own, too.Staff Sergeant RUSS ARMSTRONGIndia Company, 3/26—1st Platoon CommanderWe instantly set up a hasty defense. More or less instinctively, the unitleaders pushed troops out of the ditch to form a perimeter 20 to 30 metersin circumference in the direction of our march. If forward was twelveo’clock, the perimeter was from nine o’clock to three o’clock by way oftwelve o’clock. The 2nd Platoon was on the right, from twelve o’clockto three o’clock and my 1st Platoon was on the left, from nine o’clock totwelve o’clock. The company command group, both platoon commandgroups, and some of the troops stayed in the middle of the perimeter,down in the ditch.

I passed orders for everyone to stay in place and not to try to attackthe enemy position. There were some low shrubs near the ditch, aboutwaist high. The troops used them for cover.

My radioman told me that the word on the company net was that the2nd Platoon had had three of its flankers wounded in the initial flurry offire. No one said so, but I assumed that Captain Coulter was calling in amedevac on the battalion net and that we would wait until the WIAs hadbeen flown out.


There was some shooting going on and some explosions—RPGs orgrenades—but I don’t think anyone in the ditch could see the enemy. Icouldn’t.

*Captain TOM EARLY3/26—Communications OfficerWhen India Company made contact at 1150, the first news we had atthe battalion CP was the noise of the small arms on the battalion tacticalradio net. Then we received verbal reports that they were in contact. Wefound out where they were and that they were pinned down.1st Lieutenant BOB STIMSONIndia Company, 3/26—Executive OfficerThe official radio complement at the time provided radios only to theplatoon level. We did not rate squad radios. By the book, the exec of aninfantry company didn’t rate a radio. Based on our experiences, though,we had acquired more than we rated.Captain TOM EARLY3/26—Communications OfficerThe radio we used as a mainstay was the Marine PRC-25. To anybodywho had been around longer than a year or two—through the transitionfrom the PRC-8, -9, and -10—suddenly even a communications guylooked good because of his radios. The PRC-25’s main advantage wasthat when you turned it on, it worked. That kept everybody not onlyhappy but shocked, because that was not the case with the previousradios.

The PRC-25 was a VHF frequency-modulated radio, and we de-pended on it. It was used not only in the battalion communications net,which connected the battalion commander with all his company com-manders, but also by each company’s tactical net. I would give eachcompany the number of PRC-25s they needed; I had extras that I coulddole out, so anybody who presented a good reason got a few. In manycases, the company tactical net would not only include the companycommander and platoon commanders, but as far as those extra radioswould go. It would encompass the squad leaders and platoon sergeantsalso.


1st Lieutenant BOB STIMSONIndia Company, 3/26—Executive OfficerI had my own radioman and we had radio communication down moreor less throughout the squad level, though I doubt every squad had one.The result was that the demand on everyone to report was great. Peoplejust got their butts chewed if they didn’t immediately get on the radioand tell the next level up what was going on. Everybody in the chain ofcommand was wary of this—I know I was—so the natural inclinationwas to immediately get on the horn and report to the next guy up thechain of command because, if you didn’t, you knew there was going tobe a voice coming over the channel asking why you hadn’t reported.

Militarily, the adherence to reporting procedures resulted in a lot ofmissed opportunities to exploit situations. The North Vietnamese weren’tconstrained by similar requirements, so they could keep moving. It wasthe hallmark of the NVA to engage us, for instance, on one side andwithin a minute or two you had to be prepared to have them coming atyou from the rear. They were experts at this. So, while the Marines werescrewing around with this onerous reporting of situation, casualties,number and type of rounds expended—all the stuff that was kept in thestatistical morass that was the Vietnam War—the NVA infantry wasfiring and maneuvering at us. They were figuring out how to beat uswhile we were encumbered with all the statistical stuff the Marine Corpsand the Department of Defense needed so they could figure out whetherwe were winning the war and by how much. It was lunacy!Captain TOM EARLY3/26—Communications OfficerThe word was passed from India Company to our battalion CP groupover the battalion tactical net. In Vietnam, very few of our nets hadsecurity devices on them. So, when anything was reported over anunse-cured net, the enemy, who had captured many PRC-25s, wasassumed to be dialed in on that frequency. We assumed the NVA wasmonitoring everything that was being said and that they knew exactlywhat we were doing. This gave the NVA a tremendous advantage sincethey knew exactly how India Company was pinned down, where theywere pinned down, what they were calling for fire support, and what


help they needed. The NVA knew all the essential elements ofinformation, probably as quickly as the battalion CP group.1st Lieutenant BOB STIMSONIndia Company, 3/26—Executive OfficerAs soon as the shooting started, some of the more adventurous squadleaders fired and maneuvered and did the things crack infantrymen aresupposed to do. But others and their seniors—the platoon commanders,Captain Coulter, and me—had to report the situation up the chain beforewe could do anything about the battle. Once we got that done, it was toolate to exploit whatever it was we were involved with. Meanwhile, I’msure all the NVA were either firing or maneuvering or trying to size upwhat they had come up against.

The NVA nearest to my position were very close, certainly no far-ther than 25 yards. There were little open areas out there, but mostly itwas high brush, high grass, and trees. If they had been any distanceaway, they never would have seen us. Their vision was as encumberedby the thick vegetation as ours was. I’m sure the guys who first ran intous hadn’t seen us until they were right on top of us. I’m sure they didn’tknow if we were a platoon, a company, or a battalion. While they weretrying to find out what we were, most of our leadership was not doingthe same. We were all trying to report.

I made sure that information from the platoons and squads got toCaptain Coulter, and up to Battalion. Only when we completed the ini-tial rush of reporting did we start trying to push squads and fire teamsout in an organized, centrally controlled manner to see what we were upagainst. We were doing what they were doing, but later.

*Staff Sergeant RUSS ARMSTRONGIndia Company, 3/26—1st Platoon CommanderShortly after we set out our hasty defense perimeter, I asked my squadleaders to report. Two of them responded instantly, but the last one,Sergeant Alexander Chisholm, of my 2nd Squad, did not respond.

Scotty Chisholm was an interesting fellow. He was 28 years old anda native of Scotland. He had served for five or six years in the BritishArmy, in a Highland unit, and was a college graduate. I believe he might


have been an officer. He was not a U.S. citizen, but he had a green cardand was thus prime for the draft. He was an exceptional land navigator;I depended on him a lot. I don’t think there was anywhere in Vietnam hecouldn’t navigate us to. Because of him, the 1st Platoon was almostalways the company’s point element when we were on a move.

Scotty didn’t respond when I asked the squad leaders to report, so Ihad to ask him again to report. He finally came to me and said, “I thinkLindsay may have been hurt.” That was Lance Corporal Gary Lindsay,the 2nd Squad’s 2nd Fire Team leader. Chisholm and Lindsay were boot-camp buddies, very tight.

I asked, “Do you know for sure?”“No, I’m not sure,” he replied.I yelled over across the field on the left side of the ditch, toward

where we thought Lindsay was. At about the nine-thirty position, I couldsee someone’s shoulder and boots. They were about 15 meters out. Therewas no response, so I climbed up on the bank of the ditch and put on aburst of speed. I hit the ground, rolled, got up, and ran again. I did that afew times until I got to within a few feet of Lindsay, then I yelled, “Lind-say, goddammit!” There was still no answer, so I crawled up besidehim, reached over, and grabbed onto him. He was limp. I rolled himover and saw that his head had a big gaping hole in it. He was dead, butI yelled for a corpsman and added that I wanted some men to help pullhim in. One of the docs responded, and he and two or three Marines didwhat I had done, ran and rolled until they reached us.Lance Corporal CHUCK BENNETTIndia Company, 3/26, 1st PlatoonGary Lindsay was one of the finest guys I met in Vietnam. He was therewhen I got there, and he took me under his wing. He taught me theropes. He was a good talker and a really strong man, a bodybuilder. Hewas always laughing. Lindsay was a damn good Marine and a goodfriend. He’d taught me not to make friends over there, but he was myfriend.


1st Lieutenant BOB STIMSONIndia Company, 3/26—Executive OfficerLance Corporal Lindsay had been one of the all-stars in the Hill 689battle at the end of June. He had really come into his own there, hadshowed a lot of fortitude that afternoon.Lance Corporal CHUCK BENNETTIndia Company, 3/26, 1st PlatoonLindsay had a powerful build and big bones; he was muscular and heavy.And he had all his gear on. It was hard to move him.Staff Sergeant RUSS ARMSTRONGIndia Company, 3/26—1st Platoon CommanderThe troops took off their belts and looped them under Lindsay’s arms.When they were ready to move him, I led the way back, crawling towardthe ditch.

Most of the men were manning a perimeter. Only the companycom-mand element and a squad or two were still in the ditch. So wasScotty Chisholm. As the troops who were dragging Lindsay in pulledhim down the bank of the ditch, I looked right at Scotty, who was sittingerect on the bank. He had piercing blue eyes, but now they seemed to bestaring 5,000 meters into the distance. Inside his head, I was sure, hewasn’t anywhere near Vietnam. Scotty had been the most effective squadleader I had. He was due to rotate with me and most of the rest of the“old” battalion. I decided then and there that, as soon as we got back tothe battalion perimeter that evening, I was going to find him a job in therear. He was used up; he’d had enough.

*1st Lieutenant BOB STIMSONIndia Company, 3/26—Executive OfficerThey kept probing us with fire. This was to get a response from our M-60s and mortars, to see how large a unit we were. I’m sure—I know—they were moving around us and maneuvering progressively closer andcloser to learn what we were.

I was busy. I also was very wary and frightened. However, I thinkthe professional skills we had developed worked for us. Though wewere late getting started because of the reporting, we knew what had to


be done, and we did it. Everyone knew and everyone did it. CaptainCoulter and I never worked in the same place, so I’m not sure what hewas doing besides answering questions from Battalion. While the cap-tain continued to speak with Battalion, I started moving around, helpingthe platoons and squads tactically. The company command group stayedin the ditch, but I moved everywhere outside the ditch.

I believe we were probed initially by several very small NVA units—fire teams. I was never sure because my view was restricted by the un-dergrowth. But what I heard—flurries of small-arms fire at intervalsfrom different places—led me to that conclusion. They seemed to movearound a lot, so I had no idea how many fire teams there were. Thewhole NVA force might have been only a squad or two altogether, butthey kept us very busy and confused by firing from a lot of differentplaces all around our position.Staff Sergeant RUSS ARMSTRONGIndia Company, 3/26—1st Platoon CommanderI was very concerned. I had no idea what lay in store for us, no ideawhat was out there. I knew that most of my men had only two or threeweeks left. One of my short-timers was dead, and another seemed tohave lost his effectiveness. Whatever enemy were out there, we wereholding them with fire from our weapons. They were close, but too faraway to reach us or be reached by us with hand grenades. Our fire wasreactionary; whenever they fired out from the woods, we fired back. Wedidn’t know what we were shooting at; we couldn’t see anyone. All wedid was fire at the source of their fire, at muzzle flashes when we couldsee them. When their fire stopped, ours stopped. We didn’t fire againuntil they started firing again.

In time, the 2nd Platoon’s three wounded flankers and Lindsay werebrought into the ditch, but another Marine, who did not respond to calls,could not be recovered from a bomb crater into which he had fallen.The enemy fire was so intense that no one could get to him.

I heard that the skipper had called for a medevac chopper, butthere was quite a bit of delay.


Captain TOM EARLY3/26—Communications OfficerIt took a long time to get the helicopters from Phu Bai or wherever theycame from. Our request had to go up through the helicopter request net,had to be confirmed, and then they had to send the helicopters.Staff Sergeant RUSS ARMSTRONGIndia Company, 3/26—1st Platoon CommanderI also heard that the skipper had put in a request for fixed-wing airsupport, but, like the medevac, it got delayed.Captain TOM EARLY3/26—Communications OfficerThere was an AO [aerial observer] up. The AOs were always on thesame frequencies. We knew what those frequencies were; we all hadthem in our little notebooks. Any CP could come up and talk with him,ask him any questions they wanted. The AO was an artillery officerwho could either help our FOs on the ground or call artillery fire him-self. He could also call naval gunfire if there was a ship on station, or hecould run fixed wing if there were fixed-wing aircraft in the area, or hecould assist the arty FO on the ground in spotting exactly where therounds should go into the enemy positions. So, we were in a position tocontrol air either from the ground position with the FAC or from the airwith the AO. It certainly was simpler for the AO because he was upthere and could observe more from that little bird dog airplane.

*The AO was aboard a single-engine light “Bird Dog” observation plane.He had arrived over the India Company position within about 30 minutesof the initial exchange of gunfire. Circling over a wide area, he locatedan NVA bunker and six NVA soldiers in fighting holes. He also reportedthat one of the NVA soldiers had an automatic weapon. The AO requestedimmediate air support. Typically, Marine jet fighter-bombers based atDanang, on the coast, needed at least 30 minutes to take off and get onstation along the DMZ. They were thus due to arrive at about 1300,about 70 minutes after the first shots were fired.

*


Lance Corporal CHUCK BENNETTIndia Company, 3/26, 1st PlatoonThe NVA kept firing at us. They’d fire and then they’d move and fireagain. It was sporadic fire. They were probing, trying to find out whatwe had.

There were fast movers coming in, dropping bombs near us. Theyhad to give us cover so we could move out of there. They were droppingright on top of us, close in. They were shaking the ground real bad.Staff Sergeant RUSS ARMSTRONGIndia Company, 3/26—1st Platoon CommanderThe 2nd Platoon managed to recover the Marine from the bomb crater.When they got to him, he was dead.1st Lieutenant BOB STIMSONIndia Company, 3/26—Executive OfficerIt suddenly quieted down. I think they left because they found out whatthey wanted to find out.

We had to move the wounded to an LZ [landing zone] about 100meters from where we had been engaged. They were all serious enoughto have to be carried. An H-34 came in and picked them all up, but theydidn’t take the two dead Marines.

*The medevac took place at 1320, 90 minutes after the first shots werefired and at least an hour after medevacs were requested. At 1325, theAO directed an additional fixed-wing strike. The pilots claimed fourcon-firmed NVA deaths. At 1400, as India Company was moving backtoward the battalion main body, the AO sighted a squad of NVA about400 meters northwest of the original point of contact. He called for anartillery fire mission. The guns were fired, but the AO was unable todetermine the result. At about the same time and several hundred metersto the southwest of the original point of contact, the AO located a newfoot trail and, nearby, “many new bunkers.”

Although 1/9 had reported that there had been no contacts aroundThe Churchyard, it was well known that many NVA were living in thearea. India Company’s contact and the AO’s sightings were not deemedsignifi-cant. It was inevitable, given the number of NVA in the area, thatMarines would run into them from time to time.



CARRIER CLASHThe Invasion of Guadalcanal and the Battle of the Eastern

SolomonsAugust 1942

By Eric Hammel

The Battle of the Eastern Solomons was history’s third carrier clash. Acollision of U.S. Navy and Imperial Navy carriers in the wake of theinvasion of Guadalcanal—whose airfield the United States desperatelyneeded and the Japanese desperately wanted back—the battle was wagedat sea and over Guadalcanal’s besieged Marine-held Lunga Perimeteron August 24, 1942.

Based upon the first half of Eric Hammel’s acclaimed 1987 battlenarrative, Guadalcanal: The Carrier Battles, and in large part uponimportant new information obtained from both Japanese and Americansources, Carrier Clash unravels many of the mysteries and misconcep-tions that have veiled this complex battle for more than a half century.

Beginning with detailed descriptions of the history of the aircraftcarrier, the development of carrier-air tactics, the training of carrier pi-lots, and numerous operational considerations that defined the way car-rier battles had to be fought, Carrier Clash takes the reader into the airwith brave U.S. Navy fighter pilots as they protect their ships and theGuadalcanal invasion fleet against determined Japanese air attacks onAugust 7 and 8, 1942. After he sets the stage for the August 24 Battle ofthe Eastern Solomons, author Hammel puts the reader right into thecockpits of U.S. Navy Dauntless dive-bombers as they dive on the Im-perial Navy light carrier Ryujo—and hit the ship with 500-pound bombs!Once again, in this strange tit-for-tat battle, U.S. Navy Wildcat fighterpilots must defend their ships against an onslaught by Imperial NavyVal dive-bomber pilots determined to sink the U.S. carriers, or die try-ing. Hammel’s coverage of the bomb damage to the USS Enterpriseand subsequent fire-fighting and rescue efforts by her crew are espe-cially compelling.


Carrier Clash is the definitive combat history of the Battle of the EasternSolomons, history’s third battle (of only five) between American andJapanese aircraft carriers.

Critical Acclaim for Carrier Clash:

The Bookwatch says: Carrier Clash takes the reader into the air withbrave U.S. Navy pilots . . . [It] is an important contribution to the militaryhistory of World war II’s battle for control of the Pacific.

The Book World says: Carrier Clash is a stark revelation of a complexencounter.

Military Magazine says: Mr. Hammel presents the entire battle in aclear, easy-to-follow manner while interjecting interesting views of the[Battle of the Eastern Solomons] as seen by the participants on bothsides.

Military Review says: The book is loaded with great charts (maps),order of battle, and other hard to find details. Although Hammel describesthe land and surface ship battles, his forte is his vivid descriptions of theaerial dogfights during the [Guadalcanal] invasion and the Battle of theEastern Solomons.

Canadian Military History says: Eric Hammel continues his traditionof exciting, well crafted books on the Pacific War with this account ofthe carrier battles that accompanied the American landings onGuadalcanal. . . . There is no denying that this is a cracking good readand an excellent companion to Hammel’s other books on the GuadalcanalCampaign.

Sea Power says: Acclaimed military historian Eric Hammel presents alandmark history of the Battle of the Eastern Solomons . . . Drawing onnewly declassified information from U.S. and Japanese sources, and onnumerous other archival sources, Hammel brings a fresh perspective to


the outcome of the war as a whole. . . . [He] describes with precisionand insight the key events in the Guadalcanal/Eastern Solomonscampaigns, the strategic implications of the battle, and the impact onthe overall battle plans of both adversaries.

Note: The following article is excerpted from the book CARRIERCLASH: The Invasion of Guadalcanal and the Battle of the EasternSolomons, August 1942 by Eric Hammel. The book is currentlyavailable as a $27.50 trade paperback edition published by PacificaMilitary History. It is also available in ebook editions.

DESPERATE GAMBLEby Eric Hammel


It is unclear what RAdm Sadayoshi Yamada and his staff and commandofficers had in mind when they approved the second 5th Air AttackForce mission of August 7. Nearly all the operational Tainan Air Grouplong-range Zeros had accompanied nearly all the operational 4th AirGroup Bettys to the Tulagi area, and the Rabaul air command felt anattack by U.S. Navy carrier aircraft was imminent. But someone musthave convinced Admiral Yamada—or perhaps he convinced himself—that he had not committed enough to the attack against the Allied inva-sion fleet around Tulagi.

Very shortly after the 4th Air Group Bettys finished taking off, nineof the newly arrived 2d Air Group’s sixteen Aichi D3A Val dive-bomberswere also launched from their base at Rabaul. But unlike the Bettys andlong-range Zeros, this attack force had no hope whatsoever of returningfrom the mission. If it flew all the way to Tulagi, it would not even beable to return as far as the Buka strip. All of the Vals were to be sacrificed.A seaplane tender and a Mavis flying boat were dispatched to pick upditched pilots and crewmen in the Shortland Islands, off southernBougainville, but no one could have had much faith in that plan.


The Val was a carrier bomber with an operational range ofapproximately 275 miles—enough for a carrier bomber under mostcircumstances, but not even close for filling in as a land-based bomberunder conditions that held sway on August 7, 1942, in the region underattack by the Allies. There was no provision in the airplane’s design foran auxiliary fuel tank—no way to eke out significant extra miles.Moreover, the land-based Vals in the 2d Air Group’s inventory carriedonly two wing-mounted 60-kilogram bombs, and not a 250-kilogramcenterline bomb. If they attacked Allied ships off Tulagi, there was verylittle hope that their bombs would sink any, or even cause very muchsignificant damage.

There was to be no fighter escort. The 2d Air Group’s own Zerosquadron was equipped with short-range Zero interceptors that couldnot fly even as far as the short-range Vals, and there seemed to be nopoint in dispatching an escort of only six Tainan Air Group long-rangeZeros, which is all the veteran land-based fighter group had left onoperational status at Lakunai Airdrome.

Nine 2d Air Group Vals under the command of the hikotaicho, LtFumito Inoue, began launching at 1030.

*About the only outside Allied combat organization that could provide

assistance to the Guadalcanal invasion force was MajGen GeorgeKenney’s Allied Air Forces, which had several groups of bombers andfighters based in New Guinea, mostly around Port Moresby. It was nomean feat for the embattled U.S. Army Air Forces in the SouthwestPacific Area to provide the needed assistance, but provide it did. B-26medium bombers flown by the V Bomber Command’s 22d MediumBombardment Group attacked Lae during the day to keep Imperial Navybombers and fighters from being shifted to Rabaul to take part in strikesagainst the invasion fleet at Guadalcanal. And at 1220, thirteen 19thHeavy Bombardment Group B-17 heavy bombers based in Australiaand refueling at Port Moresby attacked Rabaul’s Vunakanau Airdrome.Leading the strike was LtCol Richard Carmichael, the veterancommander of the 19th Bomb Group.

The attack on Vunakanau was not the least bit altruistic. Alliedintelligence had surmised that 150 Imperial Navy fighters and bombers


were based there, and that fifty additional aircraft were at Lakunai. Itwas as important to Allied commands in New Guinea as it was to Alliedcommands in the South Pacific that these forces be reduced.

One B-17 taking off from Port Moresby crashed before it couldbecome airborne, and two B-17s returned to base with mechanicalproblems only minutes after taking off. One of the returning B-17s waspiloted by Capt Harl Pease, who immediately transferred his crew toanother heavy bomber, which was known to be in something less thantop flight condition. Pease rejoined the rest of the strike force overVunakanau, where the heavies were intercepted by fifteen 2d Air Groupshort-range Zeros and three Tainan Air Group long-range Zeros. CaptainPease’s bombardier was able to release the bombs aboard his airplane,but the B-17 was set upon by several Zeros and eventually cut out of thepack. It lagged farther and farther behind the rest of the group, and finallyit fell from the sky, apparently killing all aboard. Captain Pease wasawarded a posthumous Medal of Honor.

No Japanese aircraft were destroyed or even damaged on the ground,and no Zeros were downed despite claims for seven by the B-17 gunners.The Vunakanau runway, which did receive minor damage, was repairedlong before Lt Renpei Egawa and LCdr Tadashi Nakajima returned withtheir 4th Air Group Bettys and Tainan Air Group Zeros. Shortly, theAllied Air Forces’ General Kenney, who would become an excellentcombat commander, heard via a decoded radio intercept that the 5th AirAttack Force had thirty Bettys operational at Vunakanau that evening.Deducting this number from the erroneous very high intelligenceestimates that had precipitated the noon-hour Vunakanau strike ledKenney to announce that the 19th Heavy Bombardment Group B-17shad destroyed seventy-five Japanese bombers on the ground.

In point of fact, the number of Bettys available at Rabaul climbedby nine during the afternoon, when a chutai of the Misawa Air Grouparrived from Tinian, in the Mariana Islands. It was the arrival of theseBettys that led to Admiral Yamada’s report that led to General Kenney’serroneous deduction.

*The level of energy and effort aboard the U.S. Navy carriers off

Guadalcanal was frenetic following the end of the battle with the 4th


Air Group Bettys and Tainan Air Group Zeros. Many fighters werelaunched from the three carriers, and search missions were dispatchedto look for downed fighter pilots on Guadalcanal and in the sea nearSanta Isabel. By 1400, forty-four Wildcats were over the carriers andeighteen were over the invasion fleet.

Also at 1400, a strange false alarm was rendered by the invasionfleet commander, RAdm Richmond Kelly Turner. Fighting-6’s battlewith the Bettys had not yet ended off Santa Isabel when Turner warnedthat an attack by Japanese dive-bombers was imminent. And then TaskForce 61 transmitted a warning that twenty-five enemy bombers wereattacking from 8,000 feet. There were no Japanese aircraft anywherenear Guadalcanal or the carriers at this time, but these warnings seteveryone on edge, for the implication was that Japanese carriers were inthe area—even though U.S. Fleet intelligence had correctly reportedthat all of Japan’s carriers were in home waters.

The false alarm was not sprung by any of the Allied coastwatchershiding out in the central or northern Solomons, for Lieutenant Inoue’s2d Air Group Val chutai was skirting the northern chain of islands atnearly 10,000 feet, far from the sight of any of the coastwatcher stations.This track brought the Vals to the northern side of Florida Island at1430. They were beyond the range of U.S. Navy radars and U.S. Navyfighter patrols. When Inoue judged that his dive-bombers were oppositethe invasion fleet, he signaled a turn to the south.

There were clouds over the northern flotilla of Task Force 62, butInoue had a clear view of many ships to the south, off Guadalcanal. Asthe Val chutai neared these ships, Inoue motioned for the three-planeshotai under WO Gengo Ota to attack a force of cruisers and destroyersto the west while the remaining six Vals went after transports anchoredoff the invasion beach.

*The first American to realize an attack was under way was Lt Scoop

Vorse, who was leading a pair of other Fighting-6 Wildcats over thewestern anchorage off Guadalcanal. Vorse happened to look down from11,000 feet in time to see Warrant Officer Ota’s shotai rolling into itsdive against the warships below. Vorse was amazed, a feeling heovercame in a split second and rolled straight into a dive of his own. His


two wingmen saw him go, but they were unable to follow, and they didnot see any targets in time to figure out what was going on. A little lateoff the mark—he was lucky to have been on the mark at all—Vorse wasbarely able to keep contact with the diving Vals. The best he could dofor the moment was park well behind the tail of the rear Val and openfire from long range.

With all the fine, big targets ahead of him—cruisers galore—WarrantOfficer Ota for some reason set his sights on the Mugford, an oldishdestroyer holding station in the western antisubmarine screen. At 1447,according to the Mugford’s log, a lookout spotted two fixed-gear airplanesdiving out of a cloud astern of the ship and head right at him. The sailorshouted a warning, and then he saw two more airplanes dive out of thecloud. Though the Mugford’s captain was uncertain as to what was goingon, he instinctively ordered a sharp turn to starboard.

Ota and his wingman followed the destroyer into the turn and droppedtheir four 60-kilogram bombs. Ota’s missed the ship to starboard, butone of PO2 Koji Takahashi’s bombs struck the Mugford’s aftsuperstructure and killed twenty-one crewmen. The third Val,commanded by PO2 Minoru Iwaoka and piloted by S1 Seiki Nakamoto,never made a move on the injured destroyer, or any other ship. PerhapsScoop Vorse had killed Iwaoka or Nakamoto with his guns, which hehad been firing all the way down; certainly his bullets struck the Val, forthe airplane’s descent was marked by a trail of smoke. Whateveroccurred, the Val dived straight into the water without ever lining up ona ship or opening its dive brakes. Score one for Lt Scoop Vorse, whopulled out to chase Ota and Takahashi but could not find them.

*The six 2d Air Group Vals led by Lt Fumito Inoue never did reach

the Allied transports. As they crossed the channel between Florida andGuadalcanal at 10,000 feet, they were spotted by Lt Hayden Jensen,whose Fighting-5 section was part of a six-plane division led by Lt DickGray. Though the Vals were 3,000 feet above the Wildcats, and well tothe west, Jensen happened to be looking right at them when they cameinto view. In fact, he caught sight of the Vals just as three of them—Warrant Officer Ota’s shotai—split off to attack the warships farther tothe west.


Rather than clutter the fighter channel, Jensen raced to the head ofthe fighter division and waggled his wings to signal an alarm. Then heput on full power and led the way toward the larger group of Vals. Duringthe climb, one Wildcat dropped out when its pilot found that its gunswere not working.

At about the time Gray’s division, with Jensen in the lead, beganclimbing toward the six 2d Air Group Vals, Fighting-5’s Lt DaveRichardson and Ens Charles Davy spotted the same enemy dive-bombersfrom their position at 13,000 feet and to the north. As Richardson arroweddown, he hoped he would arrive in time to meet the Vals before theycommenced combat dives on any of the juicy targets in the channel. Ifthe Vals did dive before Richardson and Davy reached them, there wouldbe no way for these Wildcats to spoil the bombing attack.

Lieutenant Inoue probably spotted Dick Gray’s five Wildcats as theyclimbed toward his Vals, and that apparently prompted him to switchtargets. There was no way he could reach the transports before his slowdive-bombers were overtaken by the carrier fighters, so he opted to goafter what he believed was a light cruiser that was much closer. In fact,it was another oldish destroyer, the Dewey, which was west of thetransports, guarding against submarine attack.

The Vals had just reversed their heading to set up on the Deweywhen Lieutenant Jensen arrived in range at the head of Gray’s division.Attacking from the side on a slight climb, Jensen fired at the nearestVal, which staggered in flight as bullets clearly struck home. Thewounded Val split off from the rest of the group and angled toward thewater. Jensen stayed with it, firing all the way.

The Dewey and other ships opened fire at everything in the air. Hugepuffs from time-fused 5-inch antiaircraft rounds and ribbons of tracerblossomed and snaked at all levels from quite a bit higher than theJapanese dive-bombers and U.S. Navy fighters to quite a bit lower. Butthe remainder of Gray’s division pressed in. Lt(jg) Carlton Starkes andLt Marion Dulfiho followed the Vals into their dive, firing all the way atwhatever targets presented themselves. Ens Mark Bright had so muchspeed on that he overran the rear Val. Ignoring the danger from thatdive-bomber’s two 7.7mm cowl machine guns, he pressed his attack onthe next-to-rear Val and was answered in kind by a stream of 7.7mm


bullets from its observer-gunner. Undeterred, Bright stayed the courseuntil flames blossomed from between the fixed landing gear and spreadforward and back. Lieutenant Gray, who was trailing Bright, fired aburst into the rear Val, but he thought someone better look out for moreattackers, so he pulled up short and went high. Lieutenant Richardsonand Ensign Davy did not get there in time to beat the Vals into theirdive, so they pulled out and, like Dick Gray, looked around for moreattackers.

Lieutenant Inoue and PO3 Seiji Sato reached the drop point over theDewey without being hit by antiaircraft fire or drawing any direct firefrom the Wildcats. All four of their bombs missed. Seconds later, twoVals from the rear shotai reached the drop point, but their bombs alsomissed the twisting destroyer.

At this point, Mach Don Runyon arrived on the scene with the threeother members of his Fighting-6 Wildcat division. Alerted by chatter onthe fighter channel, Runyon knew where to go and what to do when hegot there. He skirted the friendly fire from below and attacked the firstVal that he could get into his gunsight. He must have scored hits, but thedive-bomber was really hammered by the leader of Runyon’s secondsection, AP1 Howard Packard. The Val definitely crashed off Lunga,and Packard was given full credit, but it is certain that this airplane hadsuffered battle damage under the guns of Dulfiho, Starkes, and Runyon—and perhaps Jensen and Bright too.

Lieutenant Dulfiho spotted one of the rear shotai survivors as itcompleted its recovery off the Dewey. This Val broke to the south andattempted to evade by flying across Guadalcanal’s mountainous interior.The veteran Wildcat pilot—his first combat had been a carrier raid inFebruary—closed to only 50 yards off the Val’s tail and opened fire.Unfortunately, at the crucial moment, Dulfiho’s windshield was coveredby oil thrown up by his own engine. He cracked the canopy and leanedout, resuming fire and attempting to adjust his aim on the fall of histracer. But it was hopeless, and Dulfiho broke contact. By then, AP1Packard was on the scent, and he went all out to catch up with the fleeingVal. But Don Runyon got there first, from ahead and below, and Packard’swingman, Ens Dutch Shoemaker, boxed it in from the side. All three


Wildcats were firing when the Val flew into a ravine and blew up. Runyonwas the division leader; he got the credit.

Lieutenant Inoue and one of his wingmen got clean away. However,the leader of the rear shotai, WO Seisuke Nakagaki, was fired on—andindividually claimed—by both Ens Mark Bright and Mach Don Runyonas he flew clear of the Allied shipping. Then Nakagaki was caught byEns Dutch Shoemaker and Runyon’s wingman, Ens Harry March, as heneared Savo on a course toward the Shortland Islands. As Shoemakerset up for a high-side run, March roared up the Val’s tail and fired despitea stream of bullets put out by Nakagaki’s observer-gunner. March thoughthis bullets started a fire, but Lt Hayden Jensen, who was coming onfast, thought the stream of white smoke was from a nonfatal oil-linebreak. In any event, Jensen closed on the wounded Val and fired burstsinto it from 350 yards and on down. His bullets definitely set Nakagaki’soft-wounded Val aflame, and the dive-bomber knifed into the water, forsure. Just about everyone involved was awarded a full official credit forthis lone victory.

In all, the nine Fighting-5 and Fighting-6 Wildcat pilots who attackedLieutenant Inoue’s six Vals claimed thirteen full victories, and Lt ScoopVorse claimed one of the three Vals that attacked the Mugford. Navalvessels firing at the Vals claimed two.

*All four of the 2d Air Group survivors, who claimed a light cruiser

damaged, reached the Shortland Islands at about 1700. Warrant OfficerOta and Petty Officer Takahashi set their Vals down in the water, asplanned, and all four airmen in them swam to the waiting Mavis. Shortly,Lieutenant Inoue and his wingman ditched near the rendezvous withthe seaplane tender. Inoue and his observer were rescued by the shipwhen it arrived on the scene, but the second pilot and his wingmansimply disappeared.

In return for superficially damaging a U.S. Navy destroyer and killingtwenty-one members of its crew—with one of eighteen 60-kilogrambombs carried 600 miles from Rabaul—the 2d Air Group lost all nineVals and twelve of eighteen pilots and observers.

*


All of the Fighting-5 pilots involved in the engagement with Inoue’sVals landed in due course aboard the Saratoga. Vorse, Runyon, Packard,and March barely made it back to the Enterprise on the last of their fuel,and Dutch Shoemaker landed aboard the Saratoga.

Coming off an afternoon patrol over the transports, a Fighting-71Wildcat became separated from its division and got lost. It ran out offuel over Guadalcanal and crashed in a stand of trees far from friendlylines. The injured pilot ended up in Marine hands nearly a week later,but this was yet another Wildcat gone from Frank Jack Fletcher’s originalninety-nine.

Later, at about 1730, Ens Dutch Shoemaker, Ens Earl Cook, andMach Pat Nagle, all from Fighting-6, were launched from the Saratogato fly an ad hoc combat air patrol over the transports. Nobody had anybusiness launching fighters to a distant station so soon before dark, butsomeone in authority was clearly rattled by the day’s two bombingattacks. Shoemaker’s Wildcat developed engine trouble on the way out,and he was nearly shot down on the way home by fellow Fighting-6pilots who recognized his Wildcat at the last moment and led him totheir ship. Cook and Nagle were ordered back to the Enterprise as soonas they reported on station. Nagle developed an undisclosed problemon the return. Though he was reported by Cook as having completed asuccessful water landing, he was never seen again. Ensign Cook askedfor help back to the ship with the aid of radar, and the carriers evenshowed their deck lights to help guide him in, but he kept missing themark and finally reported himself out of fuel at 1915. He was neverseen again, either. There is speculation that the two Enterprise Wildcatswere never refueled during their hour-long stay aboard the Saratoga, anunderstandable omission on such a busy day, but no less tragic in itsconsequences.



CARRIER STRIKEThe Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands

October 1942By Eric Hammel

The Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, a strategic naval action in thebitter Guadalcanal Campaign, was history’s fourth carrier-versus-car-rier naval battle. Though technically a Japanese victory, the battle provedto be the Empire of Japan’s last serious attempt to win the Pacific Warby means of an all-out carrier confrontation. Only one other carrier battleoccurred in the Pacific War, in June 1944, in the Philippine Sea. Bythen, however, the U.S. Navy’s Fast Carrier Task Force was operational,and Japan’s dwindling fleet of carriers was outnumbered and completelyoutclassed. Though hundreds of Japanese naval aviators perished in thegreat Marianas Turkey Shoot of June 19–20, 1944, it was during thefirst four carrier battles—in the six-month period from early May throughlate October 1942—that the fate of Japan’s small, elite naval air armwas sealed. It was at Coral Sea, in May, that Japan’s juggernaut acrossthe Pacific was blunted. It was at Midway, in June, that Japan’s greatcarrier fleet was cut down to manageable size. And it was at EasternSolomons, in August, and Santa Cruz, in October, that Japan’s last bestcarrier air groups were ground to dust. After their technical victory atSanta Cruz, the Japanese withdrew their carriers from the South Pa-cific—and were never able to use them again as a strategically decisiveweapon. Of the four Japanese aircraft carriers that participated in theSanta Cruz battle, only one survived the war.

Following Santa Cruz and the subsequent series of air and surfaceengagements known as the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, the ImperialNavy’s Combined Fleet never again attempted a meaningful strategicshowdown with the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Though several subsequentsurface actions in the Solomons were clearly Japanese victories, theirresults were short-lived. After November 1942, Japan could not againmuster the staying power—or the willpower—to wage a strategic warwith her navy. Once the veteran carrier air groups had been shredded at


Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz, Japanese carriers ceased to be astrategic weapon.

The Santa Cruz clash was deemed a Japanese victory because U.S.naval forces withdrew from the battlefield. That is how victory and defeatare strictly determined. But on the broader, strategic, level, the U.S.Navy won at Santa Cruz—because it was able to achieve its strategicgoal of holding the line and buying time. Japan was unable to achieveher strategic goal of defeating the U.S. Pacific Fleet in a final, decisive,all-or-nothing battle. The technical victory cost Japan any serious hopeshe had of winning the Pacific naval war.

The “victory” at Santa Cruz cost Japan her last best hope to win thewar in the Pacific.

Once again, author-historian Eric Hammel brings to the readingpublic an exciting narrative filled with the latest information and writtenin the edge-of-the-seat style that his readers have enjoyed for nearlytwo decades, in nearly thirty acclaimed military history books. As wasthe case with its companion volume, Carrier Clash, this new book isbased upon American and Japanese battle reports and the recollectionsof many airmen and seamen who took part.

Critical Acclaim for Eric Hammel’s earlier books about theGuadalcanal Campaign:

Sea Power says: Acclaimed military historian Eric Hammel presents alandmark history of the Battle of the Eastern Solomons . . . Drawing onnewly declassified information from U.S. and Japanese sources, and onnumerous other archival sources, Hammel brings a fresh perspective tothe outcome of the war as a whole. . . . [He] describes with precisionand insight the key events in the Guadalcanal/Eastern Solomonscampaigns, the strategic implications of the battle, and the impact onthe overall battle plans of both adversaries.

Kirkus Reviews says: “Hammel is as adept at conveying the terrors offighting fire on a ship . . . as he is at providing concise evaluations of topcommanders. . . . “Official histories apart, [Guadalcanal: The Carrier


Battles is] the most thorough appreciation yet of Guadalcanal’s turning-point carrier battles; praiseworthy.”

Lansing State Journal says: “For the military buff, [Guadalcanal:Starvation Island] is an excellent resource. For the casual reader, it is awell-written account of one of the most crucial times in the history ofthe United States.”

ALA Booklist says: [Eric Hammel] “effectively utilizes the accountsof the battle participants to provide a vivid dimension to the fighting . .. “

Library Journal says: “Hammel does not write dry history. His battlesequences are masterfully portrayed.”

Canadian Military History says: Hammel’s descriptions ofengagements on land, air and sea are fast-paced and engagingly written,and he has a knack for weaving together character and circumstanceinto a very readable story.”

Book World says: [Guadalcanal: Starvation Island] is stark, naked,and brutal. . . . It is an excellent, toughly drawn account of theawesomeness of war and is worthy many times over of being in anylibrary worthy of the name.”


Note: The following article is excerpted from the book CARRIERSTRIKE: The Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, October 1942 by EricHammel. The book is currently available in a $22.95 trade paperbackedition published by Zenith Press. It is also available in ebookeditions.

AMBUSH!by Eric Hammel


The first American strike bombers—seven Scouting-8 and eightBombing-8 Dauntlesses under Scouting-8’s LCdr Gus Widhelm—didnot begin launching until 0732, nearly twenty minutes after the firstJapanese launch. Following the Dauntlesses were six Avengers underthe Torpedo-6 commander, Lt Iceberg Parker. Last aloft were twodivisions of Fighting-72 under the squadron commander, LCdr MikeSanchez. This strike, under the overall command of LieutenantCommander Widhelm, was vectored directly against the last-reportedposition of the Japanese carriers.

The next strike group began launching from the Enterprise at about0750, nearly twenty minutes after Widhelm’s strike began launching.This force was led by Cdr Dick Gaines, the Air Group 10 commander,who was flying his own command Avenger. It consisted of just threeBombing-10 Dauntlesses flown by Scouting-10 pilots; seven Avengersunder the Torpedo-10 commander, LCdr Jack Collett; and eight Wildcatsunder the Fighting-10 skipper, LCdr Jimmy Flatley.

There were several Avengers available aboard the Enterprise thatcould not be launched on this makeshift mission, because three Avengeraircrews were stuck aboard the plane-guard destroyers that had fishedthem out of the water during the night-landing fiasco. In addition, twoTorpedo-10 crews were temporarily marooned aboard the Hornet, havingbeen forced to stay overnight after ferrying two replacement TBFs overlate the previous afternoon. The inconsequential showing by the


Enterprise dive-bombers was the result of the requirements of both themorning search and maintaining antisubmarine patrols for the entiretask force.

The Enterprise strike group, such as it was, took an extremelylong time getting airborne. Torpedo-10’s Lt Doc Norton, who was oneof the last in line, saw that each pilot ahead of him was stopping to readfrom a chalkboard held up by one of the flight-deck crewmen. WhenNorton’s turn came, he read, “Proceed without Hornet.” Norton, whotook off a few minutes later, did not even see any Hornet aircraft, thoughthat ship was starkly visible on the horizon.

Beginning at 0810, about forty minutes after Widhelm’s strikecommenced launching, the Hornet Air Group commander, Cdr WaltRodee, piloting his command Avenger, led off the second Hornet strike:nine Dauntlesses under Lt Johnny Lynch, the Bombing-8 exec; eightAvengers under Lt Ward Powell, the Torpedo-6 exec; and seven Fighting-72 Wildcats under Lt Warren Ford. This was the clean-up formation; itwould strike what there was left to strike, carriers or surface warships.

The problem with the cobbled-together attack plan was that it wasnot cohesive. Both carriers initially launched the bombers and fightersthey had available on the flight deck or at the ready and within easyreach on the hangar deck. Because each strike group was obliged to flyup to 200 miles to reach the Japanese—a circumstance was made worseby the need of the U.S. carriers to sail away from the Japanese duringlaunches into the prevailing wind—forming the first Hornet andEnterprise groups into a single unit was deemed too demanding on fuelsupplies. Moreover, there was no U.S. doctrine allowing thesubordination of one air-group commander to another, nor the meshingof squadrons of one air group with like squadrons of another.

So, the U.S. strike groups went off as a stream of separate mixedunits, each one composed of whatever aircraft happened to be availableat the time of the launch. Indeed, each of the three strike groups lackedinternal cohesion; each was itself strung out over distances of severalmiles.

Throughout 1942, the U.S. Navy had been working hard to developtypes of formations that would cluster the bombers in such a way as to


make them mutually supporting and to take full advantage of the forward-and rear-firing machine guns, but there was no doctrine for mixing dive-bombers and torpedo bombers in the same formation. Fighter-escortprocedures were also relatively crude, but even the crude methods wereobviated by the distance that had to be covered between each strikegroup’s lead and rear bombers. The Wildcat divisions—two to each strikegroup—tended to stay high because the Wildcats needed an initial altitudeadvantage to effectively combat faster-climbing Zeros. In the case ofthe two fighter divisions escorting the lead Hornet strike, one divisionhad to fly cover with the higher Dauntlesses, while the other had to flyat only 2,000 feet with the Avengers. The mixed Enterprise strike planesall flew at roughly the same altitude, with the two fighter divisions splitup to guard either flank just ahead of the bombers.

*The opposing strike formations began passing one another at about

0830, when Gus Widhelm’s lead strike group was only sixty miles outfrom the Hornet. The low group of Wildcat-escorted Avengers actuallypassed directly beneath the larger Japanese formation. Widhelm and hispilots warily eyed LCdr Shigeharu Murata’s strike group, and Murataand his pilots reciprocated. Many individual gunners in both forcestrained out their machine guns, but no one opened fire and none of thefighters broke formation to molest the enemy. Within minutes, the strikegroups had passed one another other. Assuming the Japanese had warnedtheir ships of their presence, and thus feeling no need to maintain radiosilence, both Widhelm and Mike Sanchez radioed Task Force 61 that alarge Japanese strike was inbound. Murata did the same; he radioed theCarrier Group that fifteen enemy bombers were inbound. High abovethe passing bomber formations, twenty-nine Zuikaku Zero pilots failedto spot the American aircraft.

*Next up—about ten miles behind Widhelm, 5,000 feet lower, and

somewhat to the east—was Dick Gaines’s smaller Enterprise strikegroup, which had been launched only twenty minutes earlier and whichwas only forty-five miles from the ship. The Enterprise group was stilllow and climbing very slowly to conserve fuel—except for Commander


Gaines, who had more fuel aboard than the other pilots and who rapidlyclimbed far higher than anyone else.

The Dauntlesses, which were the slowest of the three Americanaircraft types, had the lead so that the swifter Avengers could hold stationon them. This required the Avengers—flying in newly contrived stepped-down diamond-shaped, four-plane defensive formations—to weave alittle in order to keep from overrunning the straining SBDs in the long,slow climb. The two fighter divisions—LCdr Jimmy Flatley’s on theright and Lt(jg) John Leppla’s on the left—were weaving back and forth1,000 feet above and just ahead of the bombers in an effort to matchspeed with the much slower Dauntlesses.

Flatley and Leppla were both veterans of the Coral Sea. Indeed,both had won Navy Crosses in history’s first carrier-versus-carrierbattle—Flatley for his superb fighter leadership and Leppla for beingthe most aggressive Dauntless pilot anyone could remember. (Leppla’srearseatman at Coral Sea, also a Navy Cross holder, was ARM2 JohnLiska, who was returning home to the Enterprise at that very momentwith Scouting-10’s Lt(jg) Doan Carmody.)

Few of the Enterprise strike aircraft had turned on their radiosyet, the better to preserve radio silence. They were still climbing whenGus Widhelm and Mike Sanchez broadcast their warnings to Task Force61—which intercepted neither message—and no one in any of theEnterprise aircraft heard the alert.

Lt Saneyasu Hidaka, leading nine Zuiho Zeros, was frustrated bythe lack of orders from Lieutenant Commander Murata to attack thepassing Hornet strikers, so he did not wait upon word from Murata whenhe spotted the climbing Enterprise force. Though bouncing the secondwave of American bombers would deprive Murata’s force of close-insupport, Hidaka apparently thought that a quick hit-and-run pass from14,000 feet would leave him with plenty of time to rejoin the bombersbefore the attack on the American carriers commenced.

At 0840, Lieutenant Hidaka signed to the eight other Zuiho Zeropilots to follow him down in string formation against the American carrierbombers. After the Zeros had completed a descending 180-degree turn,


the attack would be launched against the rear of the Enterprise formationand from out of the sun.

Hidaka’s attack completely surprised the Americans. Ironically,only moments before the Japanese struck, LCdr Jack Collett, in the leadAvenger, had wondered aloud about the total absence of chatter on theradio—radio silence was seldom perfectly maintained—and had askedARM1 Tom Nelson whether the radio was functioning. Nelson indeedfound that someone had turned the frequency selector from the torpedochannel, and he made the necessary change. But it was too late.

*The first American warplane to be struck by the Japanese fighters

was Collet’s. ARM1 Tom Nelson had just heard a bleat of “Bogeys!”over the radio and was cranking back his tunnel-mounted .30-calibermachine gun when he heard the throaty voice of the .50-caliber turretgun overhead. An instant later, the Avenger shivered right down her airframe and involuntarily fishtailed. Then the starboard wing went downa bit. Nelson realized that the torpedo bomber was gliding toward theocean. A quick peek out the starboard porthole revealed a sick sort oflook on the face of Lt(jg) Robert Oscar, the pilot of the TBF stepped offCollett’s starboard wing.

Oscar’s expression told Nelson that it was time to go. He was justbeginning to move when he realized that smoke was pouring throughthe fuselage of the airplane. He grabbed the interphone mike and yelledinto it to get Collett’s attention, but there was no answer. It looked moreand more like the engine had been damaged or destroyed and the pilothad been injured or killed.

By the time Nelson called to warn Collett, the latter had alreadyexited the cockpit. Lt(jg) Raymond Wyllie, the pilot of the rear TBF inCollett’s division, saw the squadron commander climb out onto the rightwing and jump. He was never seen again.

Meanhile, Tom Nelson crawled into the radio compartment andpulled the locking pins on the hatch, which he kicked out into space.AM1 Steve Nadison was still in the turret, so Nelson had to get hisattention and hand him his parachute. As he did, he realized that Nadisonhad balked at wearing even his parachute harness in the cramped turret.


So, while all Nelson had to do was clip his emergency parachute to hisharness, Nadison had to climb into his harness and then clip on thechute. It was a life-and-death difference.

Nelson tarried for a moment to help Nadison into the harness, butit was too cramped in the radio compartment for so much franticmovement, and it was all the more difficult because the Avenger wasturning out of control to the right. Evidently realizing that Nelson couldn’thelp him, Nadison looked right into Nelson’s eyes and cocked his head,a signal for Nelson to give him room by bailing out. With that, Nelsonclipped on his chute and stood in the hatchway. The slipstream waspowerful, and the airplane was still accelerating as it dived in a tightright spiral toward the ocean. It took a real concentration of energy forNelson to dive through the tiny hatchway, but he did. The last thing hesaw in the Avenger was the altimeter, which showed a reading of 2,000feet.

Tom Nelson instantly yanked the D-ring on his parachute pack,far too soon for inertia to overcome his momentum, which was the sameas the falling airplane’s. The force of the pilot chute’s impact with therushing air tore it away from the main chute and knocked Nelson out.When the radioman came to, he was floating beneath a beautiful whitesilk can-opy. He saw a large burning fuel slick on the surface of theocean about a quarter-mile away. This was certainly his airplane. Hequickly looked around for more parachutes, but there was none. At thatmoment, a Zero made a firing pass on Nelson, and the chute was badlyriddled. Never-theless, Nelson slipped into the water a moment laterand ducked beneath the surface. The respite was short-lived; he hadbluffed the Japanese pilot, but one of the parachute shroud lines hadbecome entangled with the buckle of his flight suit. He was being draggeddown by the sodden, heavy parachute when he found the tangle andpulled it free. He yanked the twin D-rings on his Mae West life jacket,but only one side automatically inflated. He blew the other side up bythe mouth tube and discovered that it had a hole in it, which gave himsomething upon which he could focus his attention. He had no ideawhat to do next.

*


AMM3 Tom Powell, the turret gunner aboard Lt(jg) Robert Oscar’sTBF, located on the right wing of LCdr Jack Collett’s lead Avenger, waswatching on the right side of the formation when the Zeros hit. This washis role in a new method of formation defense known as concentratedcone fire. All the turret gunners on the right watched and fired to theright, and all the turret gunners on the left watched and fired to the left.The area overhead and between the right and left airplanes was a free-fire zone. The tunnel gunners directed their attention and fire by thesame method. From the first moment the Zeros broke out of the sunfiring all their weapons, Powell was engaged up to his eyeballs inreturning the fire. He never even noticed that the lead Avenger had fallenout of the formation.

During one sweeping firing pass by a Zero shotai, Powell thoughthe saw one of the enemy fighters explode in mid air, but his attentionwas instantly diverted elsewhere. A few moments later, during a fastpeek over the side of the airplane, he definitely saw another Zero smokingas tracers from another Avenger passed all the way through it. Theensuing kill was credited to ARM3 Charles Shinneman, the turret gunneraboard Lt Tommy Thompson’s TBF, the lead plane in the stepped-downsecond torpedo element. Powell had no fewer than three Zeros in viewat all times throughout the brief engagement.

*The tail-end Avenger in the first section, piloted by Ens John Reed,

was mortally hit by the second Zero shotai passing from ahead to astern.AMM3 Murray Glasser, the turret gunner, barely had time to fire a fewbursts at the passing Zeros before the intercom crackled with EnsignReed’s screams, “Bail out! Bail out!” At precisely that moment, Glasserrealized that pieces of the airplane were flying back past the turret, andhe thought he saw the tip of flames licking around his post. He instantlylocked the turret and dropped into the large radio compartment.

The gunners’ chest parachutes, which were too large to wear inthe confined turret and tunnel, were secured by large bungee cords tothe bulkhead directly above the starboard hatch. Glasser was the first toget to them, and he threw one to the radioman-bombardier, RM3 GrantHarrison, who was sitting in the jump seat in front of the bombsight. It


took Glasser another instant to realize that Harrison was already pushingthe hatch open against the slipstream, though he did not have hisparachute on. Glasser was about to say something to Harrison, but hesaw that the radioman was glassy-eyed and realized that he had driftedoff into a catatonic state.

Glasser dived through the open hatchway and pulled hisparachute’s D-ring. As the chute billowed above him, he saw a Zeroknife straight into the water. Minutes later—he had lost track of time—he gently entered the water and climbed out of the encumbering parachuteharness without any difficulty. When next he looked, the sky was emptyand eerily quiet.

*It took several seconds after the initial attack on the lead Avengers

for the rear Zero shotai to strike Lt Doc Norton’s airplane, which wasnext- to-last in the rear Avenger formation. Both Norton’s plane and therearmost, piloted by Lt(jg) Dick Batten, were riddled by 20mm cannonand 7.7mm machine-gun fire. Nevertheless, both of the turret gunnersgot rounds into one of the Zeros as it flashed on by from astern to ahead,and the Zero ignited like a torch just before it grazed Norton’s rightwingtip. Though all the gunners probably got a piece of the destroyedZero, the entire kill was credited to Batten’s tunnel gunner, AM2 RexHolmgrin.

Batten’s Avenger was hit by the passing Zeros. A fire erupted inthe hydraulics line controlling the port aileron, which stood straight up.Holmgrin yelled a warning to Batten, who responded, “Get ready tojump. I’ll put her in the water,” and then went on the open radio channelto say that he was on fire and setting down in the water. The burningTBF dropped out of formation, but the damaged aileron fell off the wingand the hydraulics fire burned itself out. The bomb bay doors could notbe opened, and thus the torpedo—which was probably damaged, too—could not be jettisoned. Batten found he could keep the damaged Avengerflying, so he gingerly turned back toward Task Force 61, hoping to nurseit all the way home.

*The first American fighters into the fray were John Leppla and his

Fighting-10 Wildcat division—Ens Al Mead, Ens Dusty Rhodes, and


Ens Chip Reding. All save Leppla were novices. Leppla flew directlyinto the oncoming Zeros. The four Wildcats instantly received hammerblows from hundreds of 20mm and 7.7mm rounds.

Chip Reding, Leppla’s second-section leader, saw only the rearZero shotai as it closed on the Avengers. He immediately charged hisguns and dropped his wing fuel tank. The transition from the drop tankto the main tank did not go well, however, and Reding temporarily lostair speed. In a second or two, the fuel-starved engine sputtered and died,and the Wildcat spiraled toward the ocean as Reding desperately triedto restart the engine.

Dusty Rhodes, Reding’s wingman and the division’s tail-end-Charlie, also had a problem with his wing tank. It stuck in place whenhe tried to jettison it, and a Japanese incendiary or tracer round set itaflame. Rhodes nevertheless stayed on station above Reding while thelatter fluttered toward the sea and until he got his engine restarted. Duringthose few bleak moments, oncoming Zeros riddled Rhodes’s canopy,shot out most of his instruments, and clipped his pushed-up gogglesfrom his forehead—all without injuring him. Meanwhile, the wing tankcontinued to spew dangerous flames.

As his engine restarted, Chip Reding distinctly saw two Avengersstruck by Zeros diving from above and both sides, from directly out ofthe sun. He led Rhodes straight at the attackers, but other Japanesefighters intervened and pressed home their own attacks at such steepangles and in such quick succession that neither Reding nor Rhodeswas able to get any of the Zeros in his reflector gunsight. At some pointin the swirling fight, however, the fire in Rhodes’s wing tank went out,by then a small consolation.

John Leppla was gone. The last person to see him was DustyRhodes, who had looked back just once to see Leppla making a head-onrun at one Zero with a second Zero clinging to his tail. A few momentslater, Rhodes saw a partially deployed parachute streaming toward thewater and thought it might be Leppla, but there was no way to be surebecause by then several Avengers had been culled from the formation.

Long before Rhodes’s last sighting, and only an instant after theaction got under way, Leppla’s wingman, Al Mead, had evacuated hisdisabled Wildcat. He safely parachuted into the water.


After a minute or two, Reding and Rhodes became separated. Eachof their fighters had suffered severe damage. Rhodes had no instruments,and Reding’s electrical system was gone, which meant he could not usehis radio or fire his guns. Each pilot instinctively looked around for theother, and they managed to get back together. They had been flying as ateam for months and simply fell into a smoothly executed scissor weave,less as a means of suckering in Zeros—for neither Wildcat was able tofire its guns—than as a way of evading Zeros. Slowly, the two Wildcatswere being pulverized. But neither pilot had yet been injured.

Then Rhodes’s engine burned out and froze. He was at 2,500 feet.He put the nose down for speed and turned upwind preparatory toditching. A Zero dead astern opened fire, and the 7.7mm bullets severedthe rudder-control cable. By then, Rhodes was approaching 1,000 feet.It was time to leave. He threw back the remains of the Wildcat’s canopy,stood up, kicked the joystick right into the instrument panel, and yankedthe D-ring on his parachute. The unfurling silk canopy neatly pluckedDusty Rhodes from his dead fighter and carried him gently to the sea,where he made a hard landing. When Rhodes next looked up, ChipReding was zooming away with three Zeros glued to his tail.

Reding tried to stay over Rhodes, but the Zeros on his tail quicklydrove him away. He dived toward the water and was below 100 feetbefore he was able to break away from the attackers. The strike groupwas long gone, and the Japanese seemed to be gone, too. Chip Redingturned the nose of his scrap-heap fighter toward the Enterprise’s lastknown position.

*LCdr Jimmy Flatley’s division did not initially see the Zero attack

nor Leppla’s response because Leppla’s division was weaving awayfrom the main formation when the attack was sprung. By the time Flatleyrealized that his group was under attack, the relative position of Leppla’sdivision had shifted from the formation’s port vanguard to well astern.At the same moment, Flatley saw one Zero take position below andahead of the TBFs.

As soon as Flatley saw the attack on the Avengers get under way,he turned into the main formation to harass the nearest Zero, which was


by then well along in its approach from beneath the Avengers. Flatleyexecuted a diving turn, came up with a full-deflection shot, and unleasheda stream of .50-caliber bullets. The Zero pulled up and turned awayfrom the Avenger as Flatley recovered above and to the side to begin asecond run. Flatley again got the Zero in his sights and instantly flickedthe gun-button knob on his joystick while still at extreme range; a Zerohardly ever stayed put long enough for a perfect set-up. The gamblepaid off: the Zero began smoking. A third, high-side, attack sent theJapanese fighter hurtling into the waves.

When Jimmy Flatley looked up for more targets, he saw that theZeros were gone and that the group of Torpedo-10 Avengers had beenreduced from eight to six. Leppla’s Wildcat division had vanished.

The score for this unanticipated contest was four of nine Zerosdowned by TBF gunners and F4F pilots, two of eight TBFs downed,and three of eight F4Fs downed. The human toll was four Japanesepilots lost, five American pilots and crewmen killed, and two Wildcatpilots and two Avenger crewmen in the water.

*When the Zeros were gone—they made only the one sweeping

pass—Doc Norton checked his riddled TBF for damage and discoveredthat he had no hydraulic power. This meant that the bomb-bay and .50-caliber turret were inoperable. The Avenger’s right aileron was flappingin the slipstream, its control cable severed, and there was a large hole inthe right wing disturbingly close to the locking mechanism. A closercheck of the right wing revealed that the red warning tab was projecting,a pretty fair indicator that the locking pin was not properly seated andthat the folding wing might fold at any moment. Fortunately, no oneaboard Norton’s plane had been injured.

Norton conducted a brief internal argument with himself. It wascertain that Japanese carriers lay ahead, and getting Japanese carrierswas what he was drawing pay to do. But the fact that the bomb-baydoors were locked tight by the disabled hydraulic system, and that therear turret could not be worked at optimum performance for the samereason, militated against continuing. The clincher was that projectingwing-lock warning tab. There was a better-than-even chance that the


right wing would fold back if Norton pulled too many negative gees,and doing so was a virtual certainty in a combat torpedo approach. So,Norton gave the section leader, Lt Tommy Thompson, the hand signalfor “sick airplane” and gingerly peeled into a turn for home. By then,Lt(jg) Dick Batten had fallen out of the formation, and the two damagedTBFs joined up for the trip back to the Enterprise.

It naturally occurred to many of the six airmen aboard the returningAvengers that they were behind the Japanese strike group. All of themhad an uneasy feeling about what they might find when next they sawTask Force 61.

For their part, the Zuiho Zeros were done for the day. Four of ninehad been shot down, and one or two others, possibly including LieutenantHidaka’s, were badly damaged. Feeling there was no way any of hisZeros could catch up with Lieutenant Commander Murata’s recedingstrikers, Hidaka turned for home with the four remaining Zeros of hissquadron. The Zuiho Zeros had done much to blunt the power of theEnterprise strike group, but Lieutenant Hidaka’s rash decision to attackwas going to bear bitter fruit when Murata’s force came within range ofthe Wildcats protecting Task Force 61.



CHOSINHeroic Ordeal of the Korean War

By Eric Hammel

Told from the point of view of the men in the foxholes and tanks, outposts,and command posts, Eric Hammel’s Chosin is the definitive account ofthe epic retreat under fire of the 1st Marine Division from the ChosinReservoir in December 1950.

The author first sketches in the errors and miscalculations on thepart of the American high command that caused the Marines to be strungout at the end of a narrow road scores of miles from the sea. He thenplunges right into the action: the massing of Chinese forces in aboutten-to-one strength; the Marines’ command problems due to the climateand terrain and high-level overconfidence; and the onset of the over-whelming Chinese assault.

With a wealth of tactical detail and small-unit action Chosin: He-roic Ordeal of the Korean War is the most complete, most compellingbook written on this iconic battle. Author Eric Hammel’s masterfulaccount offers invaluable perspective on war at the gut level.

Praise for Chosin

“Hammel’s book is full of accounts of the stuff that legends are madefrom. It is a cliffhanger of a story, and he tells it master-fully. Readersshould be warned: Just as in the campaign itself, where there was norear echelon and everyone was a combatant, so too, if you go into Yudam-ni with the Marines you had better be prepared to be with them all theway on to Hungnam and freedom.” —Sea Power Magazine

“This is a view over the foxhole’s rim. It concentrates on the superlativeeffort, suffering and courage of the young enlisted Marines, sailors andsoldiers who glared at the quilted-uniformed enemy and refused to bestared down ... a factual, revealing and penetrating look at war at itsworst and men at their best.” —The San Diego Union


“The author’s weaving of men, crises, and numbing cold leaves the readerin awe of this feat of arms in which soldiers and Marines fought an epicstruggle to survive. . . . Hammel’s book is highly recommended.”

—Infantry Magazine

“Involves the reader emotionally in a kaleidoscope of different, individualperceptions—from officers in their headquarters to riflemen shiveringin the foxholes ... to the small-unit actions that, in their totality, shapedthe ultimate course of the battle.” —Military History Magazine


Note: The following article is excerpted from the book CHOSIN:Heroic Ordeal of the Korean War by Eric Hammel. The book iscurrently available in a $19.95 trade paperback edition publishedby Zenith Press. It is also available in ebook editions.

HILL 1282by Eric Hammel


The 1st Marine Division was on the move, toward the Yalu River. Withany luck, if the weather cooperated, the United Nations police action inKorea would be over in a matter of weeks.

The 5th Marine Regiment (5th Marines), most of the 7th Marines,and three artillery battalions of the 11th Marines spent the daylight hoursof November 27, 1950, staging into the North Korean mountain-valleytown of Yudam-ni, on the frozen shore of the Chosin Reservoir. Whilecompany-size units of the 7th Marines patrolled and fought through theday to secure the far-flung ridgelines that dominated the valley, a battalionof the 5th Marines mounted a limited assault aimed at striking off intothe unsecured hinterland of North Korea.

Strangely, for the Marines had faced no serious opposition in morethan a month, all their patrols, sweeps, and advances on November 27were strongly contested. Unbeknown to the Marines, tens of thousandsof Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers were set that verynight to spring an awesome trap upon the main body of the 1st MarineDivision.

Simultaneous mass infantry assaults were launched around the valleyof Yudam-ni at about 2100. The temperature was minus-30 degreesFahrenheit, so all but the regular watchkeepers were snuggled in theirsoft down sleeping bags, shoeless and exhausted by the day’s prodigiousphysical exertions and the sub-zero chill.

Yudam-ni was seen by all higher headquarters as a temporary stagingarea. No strong hostile action was anticipated, and there was no strong


central authority determining where this battalion or that company wasto be placed. Too large to be defended by a continuous line, the valleyof Yudam-ni was merely screened by several isolated pockets of Marines:How Company, 3d Battalion, 7th Marines (How/3/7) to the northwest;Charlie/1/7 to the southeast; Dog/2/7 and Easy/2/7 to the east. Units ofthe 5th Marines caught on the “perimeter” just happened to be therewhen the day’s activities had drawn to a close. There was nothing wrongwith the deployment; indeed, it was an adequate response of the solidcombat experience of the planners to the latest intelligence data fromhigher headquarters.

The “orphan” companies of the 2nd Battalion, 7th, were orphansbecause of the way Marine divisions of the era were not built. Theywere not built for moving and victualing themselves over very longlines of supply. There was not sufficient motor transport in 1st Ma-rineDivision for moving so many men so quickly over so many road milesto a place like Yudam-ni. Owing to movement schedules worked out byharried motor-transport officers juggling conflicting priorities, it justhappened that the 2nd Battalion, 7th, was split up for the longest periodof time. On November 26, there were suffi-cient trucks to get twocompanies from Hagaru-ri to Yudam-ni. The remainder of the battalionhad to await the vehicles that were bring-ing its relief up from the southon November 28. Thus, the two companies, about four hundred men,moved early and were attached administratively to Ray Davis’s 1stBattalion, 7th, which placed them out of the way in the hills east of thelong central valley of Yudam-ni.*Though composed largely of Reservists, Dog and Easy Compa-nies,7th, were considered first-rate combat units. They had been baptized onthe Inchon-Seoul Highway in September, and they had been in steadyaction all the way up from Wonsan.

After arriving at Yudam-ni on November 26, the companies had beensent to outpost Hills 1240 and 1282, east of town, the former about onethousand yards east by south of the latter. The relative isolation of theirpositions was not lost upon the company com-manders. Patrols weresent out to examine and cover the intervening ground through the first


day and night. As with the other 7th Regi-ment units guarding heightson the periphery of the valley, the two companies of the 2nd Battalion,7th, were to be aided in covering their ground by the guns of the 3rdBattalion, 11th, the regimental 4.2-inch mortars, and such other mortarsand heavy armaments as could be brought to bear in an emergency. Itwas a standard solution to a standard problem.

During the night of November 26, an Easy/7 light machine gunnerat the left extremity of the company line on Hill 1282 detected move-menton the front. He tossed a grenade and bagged a Chinese infan-try officerwho had been busily plotting the company position when he met hisend; strewn about the corpse was a plotting board, tape measure, andalidade. Papers on the dead man identified him as a member of the 79thPLA Division.

*The bulk of Captain Milt Hull’s Dog/7 stepped off late in the morningof November 27 to patrol the ground north of Hill 1240. After threehours on the go the point platoon ran into a dozen Chinese and dispersedthem. The middle platoon then passed through the point and swungeastward toward the village of Kyodong-ni, on the shore of the frozenReservoir.

The village had previously been burned out by marauding Marinefighter-bombers and was said to have been abandoned. The lead platoon,however, was hit by heavy fire as it crossed some low ground preparatoryto entering the ruins. A strong Chinese force was entrenched on highground north and west of the hamlet.

Four Marine Corsairs made runs on the village as the two lead DogCompany platoons deployed to deliver an attack. One platoon leaderwas seriously wounded at the outset, but the other pressed on as a secondair strike swept in. The Chinese had the terrain advantage and superiorfirepower, and the Marines were pressed back. The point platoon leaderwas killed while attempting to make a stand.

Captain Hull informed his nominal superior, Lieutenant Colonel RayDavis, that Dog/7 was under heavy pressure. Unable to do any-thingmore constructive, Davis ordered Hull to return to Hill 1240 underfriendly air and mortar cover. The Chinese chased Dog Com-pany as far


as they dared, then drifted back toward Kyodong-ni. In all, sixteenMarines were killed or injured.

*Easy/7 had nowhere near as dramatic a day as its sister unit, but thetroops were kept alert by almost constant sightings of white-clad Chineseall over distant ridges.

Initially, Captain Walt Phillips had only two platoons with which todefend Hill 1282. These were placed in crescent-shaped arcs at thesummit, one facing northeast, the other northwest. The detached platoon,which had spent the day guarding the regimental command post, wasreturned in the early evening of November 27. This unit was placed inline on a low spur just to the south of the summit of Hill 1282, severaldozen yards behind the lines of its sister platoons, almost like a tailprotruding from the main body of the company. The company’s three60mm mortars were emplaced below the sum-mit, between the twoforward rifle platoons and the company CP. All light and heavy machineguns were deployed with the. forward rifle platoons.

Though the troops received no official warning of an impendingattack, they routinely set out trip flares along the entire front, and allweapons were registered upon every reachable approach to the companylines.

Milt Hull’s Dog Company, on Hill 1240, was similarly vigilant,though its position was somewhat below the actual summit of the hill,possibly hidden from Chinese observers manning posts on the rim ofhills to the east.

The 79th PLA Division was deployed to seize three of the four hillsguarding the western side of the Yudam-ni base. It is evident, thoughnot certain, that each of the division’s three regiments was assigned anobjective that did not appear to Chinese observers to have been occupiedby American Marines: the rightmost Chinese regiment was to seize Hill1384, behind which Taplett’s battalion had come to rest in the lateafternoon of November 27. The center Chinese regiment was to takeHill 1240, behind whose summit Milt Hull’s Dog/7 had been campedsince November 26. The leftmost Chinese regiment was to take Hill1167, which was not occupied at all by Marines. Only Hill 1282, between


Hills 1384 and 1240, was to be spared. The Chinese had had WaltPhillips’s Easy/7 under direct observation since November 26; indeed,they had lost a mapping officer to Phillips’s vigilant sentries that verynight. It seems that the commander of the 79th PLA Division had decidedto move into the valley of Yudam-ni against the least possible opposition,by way of the “undefended” heights.

The forbidding terrain knocked the Chinese plan askew. Thereg-iment bound for Hill 1384 found its way, but the two southernregi-ments, attacking in columns of battalions deployed in columns ofcompanies, veered northward. Thus, unoccupied Hill 1167 was notassaulted; the regiment bound for it moved on Hill 1240, and the regimentbound for Hill 1240 blundered toward Hill 1282. While this placed bothMarine companies in danger, the Chinese advan-tage of freedom ofmovement was negated by the fact that the troops would be deliveringtheir attacks across totally unfamiliar terrain, at night, againstunanticipated opposition.

*The first activity near Hill 1282 was noted at about 2200 hours, whenseveral PLA squads approached the previously unoccupied rear spurand ran into 1st Lieutenant Bob Bey’s 3rd Platoon. Light skirmishingensued for about thirty minutes, in which time the prob-ers were drivenoff at a cost of three Marines wounded.

Dog Company, to the east, was also lightly probed. The companycommanders, communicating by phone, agreed to pull in their horns,and canceled the routine patrols that were to have covered the openground between the ridges.*In late 1942, John Yancey had been a corporal with Carlson’s Raiderson Guadalcanal. At twenty-four, the Arkansan had striven to be the bestMarine in the Corps, and he had been awarded a Navy Cross and abattlefield commission as a testament to his coolness under fire.

In late 1950, John Yancey was a thirty-two-year-old family man andthe proprietor of a Little Rock liquor store he had built up between thewars. Older and wiser, he had volunteered to fight again in Korea, moreout of a yearning for action than anything else. In that sense, 1stLieutenant John Yancey, commanding Easy/7’s 1st Platoon, was typical


of many Pacific War veterans who had stayed in the Reserves in the late1940s and who had been called to the colors from good jobs and fledglingbusinesses in the summer of 1950. But John Yancey was a certifiedhero, and the impulse to stand and fight was still very much with him.

The second round of Chinese probes unfolded directly in front ofYancey’s platoon. They were light, as usual, and the Chinese recoiledupon contact, content to draw fire to learn the whereabouts of the riflepits and supporting machine guns.

Yancey was not overly perturbed by the probes. He had ordered hisgunners to hold their fire in order to avoid giving away their positions.It was business as usual, but only for a few moments.

The unearthly silence was replaced by the cadenced tread ofthou-sands of sneaker-shod feet crunching down upon the thin film ofsnow. In the distance, above the sound of the crunching, Yancey and hismen could discern the rhythmic chant of a single voice. Straining hishearing to the limit, the former Raider thought he heard the words,“Nobody lives forever. You die!” repeated over and over in heavilyaccented English. It was almost too bizarre to believe.

John Yancey cranked the handle of his sound-powered phone setand was answered in a whisper by the company exec, 1st LieutenantRay Ball. “Ray,” Yancey warned, “they’re building up for an attack.Get the 81s and give us some light, and then lay in on the ridge andwork back toward us.”

“There’s a shortage of 81s,” Ball revealed. “We can’t give you many.”Yancey’s platoon waited while the shadowy mass of Chinese

peas-ant-soldiers stalked nearer. But for the crunching of feet on thesnow, the only sound was that lone Chinese voice: “Nobody lives forever.You die!”

Index fingers lightly traced the outlines of triggers and trigger guards.Moments passed, and those fingers toyed with the first pull, then tensedand froze before squeezing through the final, firing, pull.

It was midnight.The first trip flares burst, giving the illusion that the Chinese were

motionless silhouettes. The picture that was burned into the retinas andmemory cells of Yancey’s Marines was unprecedented, horrifying.


The Chinese ranks stretched, endlessly it seemed, from one flank tothe other. Each was a precise fifteen yards from the one in front, as farback as the eye could see. Leading the mass of white-clad infantry wasa lone officer, who yelled over and over in heavily accented missionEnglish, “Nobody lives forever. You die!”

John Yancey leaped to his feet and hurled a challenge at the Chineseofficer, but his voice was lost in the din of the Chinese chants and thecacophonous bleats of whistles, bugles, and shep-herds’ horns.

“Lay it on, Ray,” Yancey blurted into the phone to the companyexec. He dropped the receiver and fired a full clip at the Chinese officerleading the attack.

As the Marine line erupted in gunfire, 60mm and 81mm mortar firerained down on the Chinese, starting long and pulling closer to form aprotective curtain. But the supply of mortar ammunition was limited,and the fire quickly abated. White-clad forms flitted be-tween foxholesto assemble near the center of the company position, immune to firefrom Marines who feared hitting their own.

Certain that Yancey’s 1st Platoon was bearing the brunt of the attack,Captain Walt Phillips sprang from his command post and sprintedforward to take charge. He found John Yancey and his pla-toon sergeantleaping from hole to hole, shouting encouragement and distributing spareammunition. Yancey could barely breathe because a grenade splinterhad penetrated the bridge of his nose; his report was delivered amidstmuch hawking and spitting of the blood that trickled uncomfortablydown the back of his throat.

While Yancey moved one way, Walt Phillips moved the other,shouting encouragement, seeing to the evacuation of the wounded,calling up his meager reinforcements from the company CP area. Thoughhit by bullets in an arm and a leg, Captain Phillips contin-ued to standhis ground, an example to his troops.

First Lieutenant Bill Schreier, the company mortar officer, wasdirecting his crews amidst exploding hand grenades and mortar roundswhen he glanced up to see a half-dozen PLA infantrymen coming rightat him. He snapped his carbine up and fired, stopping the attackersmomentarily, until the simultaneous explosions of nu-merous grenades


forced him to duck. Schreier next saw about twenty Chinese headinghis way. His fire had little or no effect, so he trundled uphill to thecompany command post, where he found the wounded companycommander.

Phillips and Schreier spent the next several minutes attempting toform a line around the command post. There were no more than tenMarines in the vicinity, and there was no cover. White forms were movingthrough the company area, and grenades were bursting in batches, likefirecrackers. Schreier had the distinct impression that Chinese grenadierswere dragging baskets of concussion grenades through the line platoons,stopping now and again to hurl whole clusters of them. He felt a sting inhis left leg as he fired his carbine steadily at the grenadiers, but he hadno time to check for a wound. Two or three grenades exploded practicallyon top of the mortar officer, and he was wounded in the arm, wrist, andchest.

The Chinese attack faltered, then receded. In time, it was nearlyquiet but for the desultory discharge of weapons that frightened menfrom both armies fired at targets, real and imagined. It seemed to Marineson the line that hundreds of dead and dying Chinese had been stackedup within ten feet of Yancey’s line, and throughout the perimeter.

*One thousand yards to the right of Hill 1282, across an open saddle theChinese were using as a pathway into the center of the valley of Yudam-ni, Captain Milt Hull’s Dog/7 was fighting a seesaw battle to hold Hill1240.

The usual PLA probes were followed by vicious, tearing assaultsupon Hull’s line. The company commander had placed all three of hisunderstrength rifle platoons in a single line, and all three were thrashedrepeatedly by equally concentrated hammer blows. Two officers hadbeen lost on the patrol to Kyodong-ni during the day, and two morewere lost that night with a large and growing number of riflemen andgunners. In time, the repeated body blows dislodged the center platoon,forcing the entire company—all those Marines who could still move—into headlong retreat down the hill.


The rush was stemmed by sturdy, bull-necked Milt Hull, who placedhis burly, twice-wounded body between his Marines and the rear. Slowly,Dog/7 re-formed under intense pressure, won back a few square yardsof lost ground, then followed the deter-mined company commander upthe dark, slippery slope toward the summit.

The Chinese were caught by surprise, and allowed themselves to beforced from the newly won ground. But they rallied within minutes andstampeded to retake the summit of Hill 1240. About thirty of themsideslipped the fighting and established a machine-gun strongpoint inthe Marine right rear. The last of Hull’s officers was wounded, as washis best platoon sergeant. Milt Hull raged at the survivors, “Hold fast!It’s only one gun, and it can’t kill us all.” The weapon was grenaded outof action, and the reinforced squad that was Dog/7 held.

*Walt Phillips phoned Lieutenant Colonel Ray Davis at the firstopportunity: “We broke up the first attack, Colonel, but we’ve taken alot of casualties. We need some help.”

There was no overall base commander at Yudam-ni, merely twocoequal regimental commanders, each with his own set of problems.Homer Litzenberg was by far the senior to Ray Murray, but he had nomandate for taking command, and he did not. Murray, on the other hand,controlled the only viable reserve force in the valley, Lieutenant ColonelJack Stevens’s 1st Battalion, 5th, which was en-camped in the shadowof Hill 1282. Stevens was, in time, ordered to mount a relief force tobail out the orphan companies on Hills 1282 and 1240.

The only officer in Stevens’s battalion who had ever been on Hill1282 was 2nd Lieutenant Nick Trapnell, a professional Marine who hadbeen leading his platoon in constant action since joining Able Company,5th, as a replacement on the Inchon-Seoul Highway. While establishingan outpost line between his battalion CP and the hill mass late thatafternoon, Trapnell had been shown the awesome terrain by CaptainWalt Phillips, with whom he had shared some prewar service. Phillipstook pains to call Trapnell’s attention to the numerous white-clad Chineseon distant ridges.


The night’s action began for Nick Trapnell when one of his fire-team leaders crashed into the platoon’s command post screaming,“They’re coming! They’re coming! There’re thousands of’em!”Ter-rified at the prospect of being caught on low ground in the dark,Trapnell immediately began gathering in the fire-team outposts he hadstrung across the open ground and, without instructions, re-formed hisplatoon on higher ground. Closest to Hill 1282, Trap-nell’s platoon wasthe first of Stevens’s units to be ordered to the aid of Easy/7. That platooncomprised no more than thirty-five men, probably a smaller numberthan the losses Easy/7 had already sus-tained.

The trek up the back of Hill 1282 was frightening, strange, confusing.Tracers passed overhead, but the reinforcements did not hear the sounduntil they were virtually on top of the beseiged summit. Unsure of theway, unsure if Easy/7 still existed, Trapnell’s platoon stumbled upward,calling vainly into the threatening void, “Eas-ee Compan-ee! Eas-eeCompan-ee?”

*John Yancey was speaking with the right platoon leader, 1st Lieu-tenantLeonard Clements, trying to coordinate a defense, when the Chineseapproached through the almost-silent darkness. Before either man couldreact, a large hole appeared in the front of Clem-ents’s helmet, and bloodspurted out. Though the two men and their wives were the best of friends,John Yancey did not waste one in-stant seeing how his fellow platoonleader fared, for it seemed ob-vious that the round through Clements’sforehead was fatal. Yancey tore off to rejoin his thin platoon. In fact,although Clements had been knocked unconscious, he was not badlyinjured. The bullet had glanced off his head at an oblique angle and hadspun about harmlessly in the helmet’s liner.

The 1st Battalion, 235th PLA Regiment, tore back into Easy/7’s lineafter a thirty-minute respite. Hard one-two punches beat at one flank,then the other. Marines were deafened by the discharge of bullets andthe close-in bursts of their own and Chinese grenades. The line wasthinned as more and more Marines were killed or disabled.

John Yancey was wounded again, seriously, when a grenadefrag-ment holed the roof of his mouth. And Walt Phillips was cut down


by machine-gun fire just as he thrust a bayoneted rifle into the frozenearth. “This is Easy Company,” he roared an instant before the fatalburst hurled him to the ground, “and we hold here!”

First Lieutenant Ray Ball, the company executive officer, too badlyinjured to assume command of the company, propped himself up in arifleman’s sitting position beside his foxhole and fired his carbine withtelling effect as his life’s blood froze in expanding puddles beside him.In time, he fainted, and died.

Nick Trapnell’s Able/5 platoon found its way into the position ofthe rearmost Easy/7 unit, 1st Lieutenant Bob Bey’s 3rd Platoon. Beyhad no idea as to the dire straits his company was in, so he suggestedthat Trapnell’s thin platoon push off to the right to cover the open groundbetween Hills 1282 and 1240. Trapnell had not nearly enough men forthe job, but he gamely led his riflemen into the void, dropping them offtwo at a time until he was alone on the dangling flank.

The next Able/5 platoon up the hill came in directly behind theengaged portion of Easy/7 and was cannibalized to flesh out Yan-cey’sand Clements’s embattled platoons.

The first news of the company’s predicament reached Bob Bey whena squad leader and four riflemen from Yancey’s platoon tum-bled offthe summit almost into the arms of Bey’s platoon sergeant, Staff SergeantDaniel Murphy. When he heard for the first time the full story of thefight higher up, Murphy rushed to Bey, repeated the gruesome tale, andrequested permission to take every man he could find to help. Out oftouch, unable to even hear the sounds of the furious battle because ofstrange breaks in the ground, Bey felt that he could spare no more thanone squad and the platoon’s corpsman, who volunteered to go along.

It wasn’t much: Staff Sergeant Murphy, the corpsman, twelve 3rdPlatoon riflemen, the five 1st Platoon stragglers.

As Murphy’s group was breasting the summit, it slammed into agaggle of Chinese which had just broken through at the center of theMarine line. The tiny group of Americans clawed their way over thebeaten ground, overran the overrun company CP, and re-formed whilethe corpsman went to work on the wounded.


Walt Phillips was dead. Ray Ball was dead. Leonard Clementsappeared to be dead. Bill Schreier was down with shrapnel in a wristand a lung. The young officer commanding the reinforcing Able/5 platoonwas severely injured. No one knew where John Yan-cey was, cut offsomewhere to the left it was supposed. The com-pany’s senior noncomswere also missing. The rest was all up to Daniel Murphy.

The platoon sergeant bellowed for attention, rallying isolatedMa-rines to his position by the CP. He redeployed those who came tohim, moved a machine gun to better advantage, kicked ass, threat-ened,and prepared for the worst.

It was not long in coming. Masses of white-clad Chinese loomedout of the darkness and slammed into the Marines. Murphy doled outthe last of the grenades and began dismantling BAR clips to eke out thelast of the .30-caliber rifle ammunition.

*On the far side of the gap, John Yancey counted nine men who couldstill fight beside him. Hoping to instill some confidence in nearly beatenmen, Yancey hawked blood and gurgled the battle cry he had learned asa Marine Raider: “GUNG HO!” It means “Work Together,” and it is spokenin the Cantonese mother tongue of most of the peasant-soldiers whowere then trampling victoriously across the summit of Hill 1282.

“GUNG HO!”Ten weary, wounded Marines lifted themselves to their feet, fixed

bayonets, shuffled forward, their reedy battle cry cutting through theshrill night wind, their bayonets silhouetted in the firelight.

“GUNG HO!”John Yancey went to his knees as a shadowy Chinese soldier fired a

Thompson submachine gun full into his face. The impact of the onlyround to hit him popped the Raider’s left eye out of its socket. Theamazed platoon leader fingered the slimy orb back into place and crawledblindly up the blood-bespattered hillside.

“GUNG HO!”The thin Marine line faltered, dissolved.




CORAL AND BLOODThe U.S. Marine Corps’ Pacific Campaign

By Eric Hammel

In only a lifetime, the long United States Marine Corps campaign acrossthe Pacific Island has become the stuff of enduring legend. We are downto just a few Pacific Warriors who lived it and can still tell us about itfrom their own experiences. Now, in Coral and Blood, the criticallyacclaimed military historian Eric Hammel, who has specialized in writingabout Marines in the Pacific, has compiled a brief but comprehensivehistory of the Marines’ island war. This book was conceived as a startingpoint for readers who have not yet read much about the Pacific War, butit is also designed to provide a simple yet complete overview for seasonedPacific War enthusiasts who have not yet examined the island campaignsas an integrated whole. Perhaps by finding out about battles not yetexamined, an experienced Pacific War enthusiast will find inspirationfor moving on to new battles and looking for even broader understanding.

Following the general outline of his highly rated single-volume pic-torial, Pacific Warriors, Hammel begins with the development of theU.S. Marine Corps’ unique amphibious doctrine, then moves brisklyinto the Pacific War by enumerating the Marine Corps presence on theeve of war. Thereafter, every significant action involving U.S. Marinesduring World War II—from Pearl Harbor and Wake Island to Okinawa—is examined, including the role of Marine Air in the Philippines. In manycases, longer and broader discussions are presented in this volume thanin Pacific Warriors.

Experienced reader or not, you will almost certainly find somethingnew and interesting in Coral and Blood. At the very least, you will findCoral and Blood, which weighs in at a respectable 96,000 words, to bevaluable but not overbearing as a one-volume overview of the legend-ary efforts of Marines in the Pacific War.


The following article is excerpted from the book CORAL ANDBLOOD: The U.S. Marine Corps’ Pacific Campaign by Eric Hammel.The book is currently available only in ebook editions.

New BritainDecember 1943—April 1944

by Eric Hammel


The campaign by the 1st Marine Division to seize Imperial JapaneseArmy airfields and bases in western New Britain was unique because itwas undertaken by Marines entirely under U.S. Army command in anarea considered the province of the U.S. Army. The Cape Gloucestercampaign, in fact, was an offshoot of the New Guinea campaign and notan extension of the Solomons campaign.

The impetus for the landings at Cape Gloucester, New Britain, wasthe need to deny the Japanese an opportunity to mount air strikes againstthe open right flank of Royal Australian Army units advancing alongthe New Guinea coast within combat range of Cape Gloucester airfields,especially between Finschafen and Saidor. By the time of the invasion,AirSols assets operating from Bougainville would be in a position torelieve the New Guinea-based U.S. Fifth Air Force and elements of theRoyal Australian Air Force of the burden of neutralizing Rabaul, andthose Fifth Air Force and Australian bombers and fighters—includingthose to be based at Cape Gloucester—could then assist in speeding theground advance in New Guinea. Likewise, Vitiaz Strait, the sea passagebetween Cape Gloucester and New Guinea, would be firmly under Alliedcontrol and would thus provide clear passage for shipping along thecontinuing route of advance up the New Guinea coast as well as towardthe Philippines.

The 1st Marine Division was selected for the main role on NewBritain because it had recuperated and retrained in Melbourne, Australia,


following its harrowing ordeal at Guadalcanal; it happened to be readyto return to combat at a time when General Douglas MacArthur’sSouthwest Pacific command needed an amphibious-capable infantrydivision for the Cape Gloucester job. Final training and rehearsals tookplace in New Guinea.

*Cape Gloucester is among the rainiest regions on Earth, and the landingswere to take place at the height of the northwestern monsoon season.Moreover, as was the case at Cape Torokina on Bougainville, the landingarea was filled with largely unmapped swampy lowlands, high ridges,and rugged rain forests with few trails and waterways to aid in movementthrough the region. On a typical day, temperatures stood at an extremelyhumid and strength-sapping 90 degrees, and 72 degrees at night.

The key objectives were two airfields just back of Cape Gloucester,but hundreds of square miles of terrain had to be secured to deny accessto the airfields by nearly the equivalent of an Imperial Army infantrydivision deployed in western New Britain. Thus the New Britainoperation contemplated the rehabilitation of existing airfields and thedevelopment of a stout defensive cordon around them, as well as thepursuit and annihilation of Japanese ground forces across a vast area inwhich only a few known axes of advance existed. The advantages onthe side of the invaders were air supremacy, freedom to moveamphibiously at the periphery of the battle zone, and the deteriorationof Japanese command and control following more than a year of intenseground war in New Guinea.*The first Marines to get into action on New Britain were crews fromCompany A, 1st Amphibian Tractor Battalion, who took part in landingsat Arawe by U.S. Army troops on December 15, 1943. Two of thecompany’s new LVT-2 amtracs took a direct part in overwhelming aJapanese strongpoint.

The net result of the Arawe landing was the dispersal of the Japanesegarrison and the dispatch of a thousand veteran troops from CapeGloucester toward Arawe only days before the Marine landings at CapeGloucester.


*The main prelanding bombardment at Cape Gloucester was

undertaken by Fifth Air Force bombers and fighter-bombers over a periodof months under conditions of total air supremacy. The target airfieldswere no longer operational by late November, and the garrison was utterlydemoralized. Beginning on December 18, many air sorties were mountedagainst prepared defenses in the immediate invasion zone, which werenearly destroyed.

Beginning at 0743 hours on December 26, two infantry companiesof the reinforced 2d Battalion, 1st Marines (2/1) went ashore aboardLCMs almost without incident east of the main beaches. The missionwas to block trails leading from the airdromes to the main landingbeaches. This landing is notable in that it was preceded at the last momentby the first-ever rocket bombardment mounted by amphibious vehicles,in this case U.S. Army DUKW amphibious trucks bearing multiplelaunchers. The Marines uncovered a system of trenches and bunkers,but no Japanese troops were encountered. The remainder of 2/1 landedwithout incident from LCIs and LCTs, and the entire force got to workon defensive measures to a distance of 500 yards from the beach.

In advance of the main landings at Cape Gloucester’s Beach Yellow,two Royal Australian Navy heavy cruisers and two U.S. Navy lightcruisers opened fire at 0600 hours against beach targets with a 90-minutebombardment that mounted to 3,605 8-, 6-, and 5-inch rounds. Fivesquadrons of Fifth Air Force B-24 heavy bombers attacked a featureknown as Target Hill between 0700 and 0720; then, as naval gunfireceased at 0730, a squadron of B-25 medium bombers unloaded 8 tonsof white phosphorous bombs, also on Target Hill. While the smoke fromfires on Target Hill certainly obscured the landings from Japaneseobservers, as intended, it also enshrouded the beaches to a distance of3,000 yards to seaward just as landing craft were bearing down on them.

On schedule at 0745, a pair of LCI rocket ships fired last-minutesalvos at the beachhead area. Between 0741 and 0748, the leadingelements of 1/7 and 3/7 hit their respective beaches in a dozen LCVPs.There was absolutely no one home. The biggest problem the assaulttroops faced was the twisted wreckage of hundreds of trees blasted by


the prelanding bombardment. Indeed, the first casualties resulted fromundermined trees that fell as advancing Marines brushed by them.

The first Japanese opposition was long-range machine gun fire thattracked Company I, 3/7, as it hacked through dense jungle and emergedon the coastal trail after its LCVPs went astray in the smoke and dumpedit 300 yards beyond the beachhead boundary. As the reinforced 1stMarines (less 2/1) came ashore aboard LCIs behind the 7th Marines, 3/1, which was to lead the drive on the airfields, was ordered to attack thebunkers from which this fire originated, which happened to be on theway to 3/1’s D-day objective.

Except for the occupants of the bunkers, the landing force met nohuman opposition, but a deep, unmapped swamp directly behind thebeach, as well as other natural obstacles rearranged by the preinvasionbombardment, made for extremely slow progress toward D-dayobjectives. Almost as soon as it started its move toward the bunkers ona two-company front, 3/1 had to contract its formation to a column ofcompanies.

As 3/1’s vanguard passed through Company I, 3/7’s blocking positionbefore the bunkers at 1010 hours, it came under heavy fire. The battledid not go well for the Marines. An ad hoc bombardment by new 2.36-inch rocket launchers (bazookas) and 37mm antitank guns was ineffectivebecause the spongy logs from which the bunkers were constructedabsorbed the impacts; 3/1 was unable to advance in the face ofconcentrated fire until an LVT carrying supplies from the beach droveover one of the bunkers and collapsed it. This allowed the infantry topenetrate the defensive zone. Thereafter, a platoon of five Sherman M4medium tanks arrived to help seal the fate of the defenders. In all, sevenMarines and twenty-five Japanese were killed and seven Marines werewounded. Then 3/1 advanced to its D-day phase line and dug in.

On the left, 1/7 met only light opposition on its way to Target Hill.This high ground was seized against light opposition, and 1/7 also dugin.

In the center, 2/7 advanced through a deep swamp to the coastaltrack; seized an abandoned Japanese supply depot; and attacked into adense, swampy forest through spotty opposition. The battalion reached


its D-day phase line in the late afternoon and dug in on rising groundwithout being able to tie in with adjacent units on either flank.

During the afternoon, 3/7 advanced through a swamp to its objectiveand also dug in. When 3/7 was ordered to shift to its left to link up with2/7, alert Japanese soldiers attempted to infiltrate via the abandonedposition, so the Marine battalion was called back to defend that ground.

Behind this screen of four infantry battalions, 1/1 landed as the forcereserve and set up in the Japanese supply depot, and 2/11 set up its75mm pack howitzers on dry ground along the edge of the coastal trailthat ran through the beachhead. Two other artillery battalions—1/11with 75mm pack howitzers, and 4/11 with 105mm field howitzers—had a much harder time getting ashore across swampy ground. The 75swere moved to dry sites aboard amtracs, but the 105s were too heavyfor that. In the end, amtracs blazed trails by crashing through densegrowth so that artillery tractors and troops using blocks and tackles couldmove the guns, of which only three (of twelve) were set in by nightfall.

Faced with the problem of unmapped swamps sitting on proposeddump sites, the division pioneer battalion (now designated 2d Battalion,17th Marines, or 2/17) faced problems identical to those encountered atBougainville for the same reasons, including a 4-foot tidal surge. Thelanding of supplies—many of them aboard preloaded U.S. Army trucksdriven by U.S. Army artillerymen—became increasingly unglued as D-day progressed. The unprocessed supplies and long lines of trucks madefor a glaring target when eighty-eight Rabaul-based Imperial Navy Zerofighters and D3A dive-bombers attacked in the afternoon. One destroyerwas sunk and another was severely damaged, but so many Japaneseplanes were shot down by antiaircraft guns and two squadrons of P-38fighters that the invasion force was never again molested during theday.

The 1st Marine Division forward command post moved ashore rightin the wake of the assault, and it oversaw the approximately eleventhousand Marines who got ashore by nightfall. D-day operations—acomplete success—cost twenty-one killed and twenty-three wounded.That night, the division commander requested that his force reserve—


two reinforced battalions of the 5th Marines—be landed as soon as itcould be lifted to Cape Gloucester from Cape Sudest, New Guinea.

*The Japanese also sent all available forces toward Cape Gloucester. Mostwere on the move by the evening of December 26, and at least oneImperial Army infantry battalion arrived opposite 2/7 during the lateevening. As the Japanese filed into a firing line opposite 2/7, individualsopened fire on whatever targets they could perceive on a dark, moonlessnight. Eventually Japanese scouts figured out that 2/7 was in an isolatedposition with a swamp at its back and tied into no friendly units oneither flank.

As Marine carrying parties maintained a flow of ammunition throughthe swamp, 2/7 held the developing counterattack at bay with remarkablyaccurate fire coupled with iron-willed fire discipline. The Marines firedonly at clear targets and, for the most part, only when fired on. It rainedall night, but the rain subsided at dawn, just as Japanese troops assaultedtoward a break in the line. At that moment, troops from a 1st SpecialWeapons Battalion 37mm antitank battery that had left its guns behindto haul ammunition through the swamp arrived to plug the gap. The daywas saved in a heart-stopping seesaw battle in which the Marines finallyprevailed.

The Japanese doggedly threw in progressively weaker attacks forthree days, while the Marines built up their line with all manner of troops.In the tradition of “every Marine is a rifleman,” the line in the center ofthe beachhead was lengthened, bolstered, and filled in by 37mm gunners,pioneers, and other special troops acting as infantry. As the battle around2/7 progressed, each component of the regiment lengthened its line totie in with adjacent units; as 2/7 stretched right to tie in with 3/7, WeaponsCompany, 7th Marines, filled in part of 1/7’s original line so that battalioncould ease to its right to tie in with 2/7’s left flank. In due course, theJapanese were defeated by a continuous line of battle-tested Marines,of whom eighteen were killed, three went missing, and fifty-eight werewounded. The Japanese lost at least two hundred dead or wounded, andthe battalion around which the counterattack was built was permanentlycrippled.


*With the 7th Marines pinned in the center and many of its own

troops committed as infantry, 2/17, reinforced to a strength of fourteenhundred by several hundred replacements who had been preassigned tothe division en bloc, cleared the fouled beaches; the reinforced 5thMarines was made ready to land at Cape Gloucester; and the 1st Marines(less 2/1) moved on the airfields. Engineers from 1/17 and Seabees from3/17 advanced in the infantry’s wake to put in roads and drain dumpsites all across the beachhead. Whenever the roads failed, U.S. ArmyLCMs and LCVPs dropped supplies along the beach, opposite the troopswho needed them, and the supplies were then ported inland by workdetails.

The vanguard for the advance on the airfields was 3/1, which,following a quiet first night ashore, moved ahead on the narrow strip ofdry land supporting the coastal trail. Progress was orderly, deliberate,and steady behind a fan of combat patrols and on-demand artillerycoverage.

*The innovation of the day lay in tank-infantry coordination. The 1stMarine Division entered combat at Cape Gloucester with two companiesof new, modern Sherman M4 medium tanks, and one sixteen-tankcompany was attached directly to the 1st Marines. The regimentalcommander, Colonel William Whaling, was a renowned woodsman whohad organized and trained a scouting force on Guadalcanal andcommanded several offensive operations. He took the nascent tank-infantry doctrine of the day to heart and applied it vigorously in thebudding Cape Gloucester advance. In a nutshell, he teamed one infantrysquad per medium tank for mutual support during the advance. The 3/1vanguard was preceded by a twelve-man scouting force; then a columnof tank-infantry teams advanced cautiously but steadily, one after another,to phase lines a half- or three-quarters of a mile apart. Between thephase lines, infantry combat patrols peeled off the left (inland) side ofthe coastal track to probe the dense woods and swamps as well as tosecure the advance against Japanese scouts, probes, and counterattacks.


The tanks aided greatly in overcoming two belts of pillboxes andbunkers encountered along the way. Indeed, they took primaryresponsibility for reducing each position with their 75mm main guns. Inreturn, the infantry stuck close to prevent the tanks from beingoverwhelmed by Japanese infantry. By this means, 3/1 advanced 5,000yards to its objective by 1350 hours on December 27. Ahead lay a wide,continuous belt of bunkers, pillboxes, and trenches centered on a featureeventually dubbed Hell’s Point.

*The December 28 attack was delayed to allow time for the 5th Marinesto reach Cape Gloucester and get into position to support the 1st Marines.A message announcing a one-day delay in the reinforcement operationwas too garbled to be understood, but the reserve regiment’s nonarrivalwas noted, so the 1st Marines resumed its attack after only a brief delay.

Beginning at 0800 hours, 2/11 bombarded the Japanese defensivezone, and at 0900 Fifth Air Force A-20 ground-attack bombers arrivedto strafe and bomb the objective for an hour. The 1st Marines was tohave jumped off as the last A-20s flew from the scene, but ColonelWhaling requested an hour’s delay to bring up more tanks At 1100 onthe dot, 3/1 stepped off toward Hell’s Point in the same formation it hademployed the day before. Then 1/1 moved up to cut a flanking paththrough the forest on the side of the coastal track.

The Japanese were ready. While the defensive zone had beenconstructed to repel a beach assault, many positions could be rejiggeredto inland bearings and thus face the 1st Marines. An intact infantrybattalion supported by 75mm dual-purpose guns occupied the defenses.

The battle was joined on the flank at 1145 when Company A, 1/1,ran into the prepared defenses 500 yards from the beach. The first shotswere fired by concealed Japanese troops as Company A broke out of theforest into an area of chest-high grass. The Marines pulled back to theconcealing tree line; and then the fight developed into a four-hourstalemate as forces of equal size duked it out with rifles and machineguns. The Marines beat off two infantry flanking assaults but could notovercome the steady Japanese stand by any means at hand. Eventually,under covering fires put out by 2/11, Company A, 1/1, pulled back for


the night to draw ammunition at its battalion perimeter. A stronger attackforce that kicked off at dawn on December 29 fell into ground that hadbeen abandoned overnight.

In the meantime, 3/1 bored into the main defensive line, right onHell’s Point, throughout daylight on December 28. Rain and dense foliagehelped shield both sides from fire but also hampered both sides equally.Marine tank-infantry teams went up against defensive positions protectedby land mines and barbed wire as well as by interlocking bands of firefrom other emplacements fielding 20mm antiaircraft cannon, 70mminfantry guns, and at least three 75mm field guns. In some places,infantry-supported M4s ran right over pillboxes, smashing them in andexposing the occupants to direct infantry fire, but for the most part theinfantry-supported tanks stood off from their targets and reduced oneposition at a time with pinpoint 75mm fire. The hellish all-out battleended at 1630 hours, when the last beachside bunker was overcomewithout a fight, its occupants having withdrawn minutes earlier as partof a general retreat. There was nothing left between the Marines and theairfields. During the night, 266 Japanese corpses were counted withinthe Hell’s Point defensive zone. Fewer than twenty Marines were killedand fewer than fifty were wounded in the two-day battle—a testamentto the effectiveness of the tank-infantry teams.

*Half of 1/5, most of 2/5, the 5th Marines regimental headquarters,

and assorted attachments landed on newly opened Beach Blue, justbehind the 1st Marines vanguard, beginning at about 0730 on December29. The remaining elements of the 5th Marines regimental combat teamwere ashore on Beach Yellow by 0935 and were sent forward.

Air and artillery opened ahead of the 1st and 5th Marine regimentsat noon, December 29. The Marine assault was to be undertaken by 1/1on the right, toward Airfield No. 2; and 2/5 on the left, toward a line offoothills that was thought to be the site of a Japanese defensive zone.Support was provided by 2/11’s 75mm pack howitzers, 4/11’s 105mmfield howitzers, and a pair of rocket DUKWs.

Attacking in the rain and supported by tanks and 75mm halftracksthat were obliged to remain on the firm coastal track, 1/1 reached the


airfield perimeter against desultory opposition at 1755 hours and wassoon joined by 3/1 to defend the area. In the meantime, 2/5 was delayedas it traversed unexpectedly deep swamps and did not really join theattack until 1500. It found Japanese defensive positions but no Japanesetroops in the foothills, so it looped down to help secure Airfield No. 2,where it tied in with 1/1 and 3/1 to complete the night defensive perimeter.Still in the forest at dusk, 1/5 established an all-around night defensiveposition.

*On December 30, two reinforced companies of 2/5 marched acrossAirfield No. 1 while 1/5 moved up to Airfield No. 2. In going back overwhat had been abandoned defenses on a feature dubbed Razorback Hill,scouts from 2/5 ran into Japanese troops, possibly the advance guard ofa battalion that was to have occupied the vital terrain a day or two earlier.A platoon of Company F, 2/5, was sent to mop up the Japanese, but itwas attacked by a larger force as it reached the summit of one of thehill’s knobs. Reinforcements poured in from both sides. The Japaneseattacked to dislodge the Marine platoon, but mortar fire held them atbay, and the rest of Company F arrived in time to drive them off. Tankswere called forward; then Company F attacked the Japanese. By 1130,thirty prepared positions had been overwhelmed by Marine tanks andinfantry. More than 150 Japanese bodies were counted against the lossof 13 Marines killed and 19 wounded.

In the meantime, 1/5 ran into prepared defenses east of RazorbackHill, but 3/1 and supporting medium tanks attacked through 1/5 andovercame the defenders. By that evening, the 1st and 5th Marinescontrolled both airfields and all the important high ground overlookingthem.

The strategic objectives of the operation were and remained firmlyin American hands. An informal flag-raising was held on RazorbackHill by Company I, 3/1, on December 30, and the formal flag-raisingwas held at the airdrome on December 31.

*The main objectives of the Cape Gloucester campaign were in

Marine hands following a mere five days of combat, but the campaign


in western New Britain ground onward into March 1944, taking elementsof the 1st Marine Division into several amphibious landings, long trailchases, and a few hard fights as they expanded the beachhead, absorbedseveral Japanese countermoves, hunted down Japanese forces of everysize and description, and rolled up bases and encampments throughoutthe western end of the island. The main purposes of the ongoing andspreading offensive were to prevent attacks on the Cape Gloucesterairfields and to so dominate the equivalent of a Japanese division as tokeep it from ever taking part in a meaningful operation against Alliedforces. All missions were accomplished in spades, and many hundredsof Japanese were killed or dispersed.

Alas, advances in early 1944 by the Southwest Pacific Force in NewGuinea and islands off New Guinea were swifter than anticipated in the1943 run-up to the invasion of western New Britain, and the importanceof the Cape Gloucester base receded even while engineers and Seabeesimproved and expanded the Cape Gloucester beachhead and rehabilitatedthe airfields. Neither airfield was on particularly good ground, andAirfield No. 1 was soon abandoned altogether. The first landing onAirfield No. 2, on January 28, 1944, was that of the personal plane ofthe 1st Marine Division commanding general. Two Fifth Air Force fightersquadrons were briefly based there, but both were withdrawn when theground war left them far in the rear.

By the end of April 1944, the entire 1st Marine Division had beenrelieved by U.S. Army units and withdrawn to a new training base onPavuvu, in the Russell Islands. A total of 310 members of the divisiondied on New Britain, and 1,083 were wounded in action.




DUEL FOR THE GOLANThe 100-Hour Battle That Saved Israel

By Jerry Asher with Eric Hammel

The first Saturday in October 1973: A traditional Jewish Sabbath inIsrael. It is also Yom Kippur, and the Israeli Defense Force is preparingto observe the holiest of the Jewish holy days.

Meanwhile the Syrian army, the greatest achievement of the mod-ern Syrian state, is massed on the Golan Heights. Together with newlyarrived Soviet made equipment, 1,200 main battle tanks, 1,000 armoredpersonnel carriers, 1,000 artillery pieces, and more than 100 mobileantiaircraft missile carriers are ready to strike in a lightning swift offen-sive that will drive to the sea and cut Israel in two.

Duel for the Golan, the first book to be written on this aspect of theYom Kippur War, is based on interviews with the participants from bothsides. As such it remain a compelling and powerful account of one ofthe greatest tank battles fought since World War II. It also provides thefirst in-depth analysis of exactly how and why an inferior number ofIsraeli defenders was capable of inflicting one of the greatest defeats inmodern military history upon awe inspiring Arab armored forces.

Here are the intimate details of tank-against tank fighting, whetherit be during retreats, in ambushes, or on the attack. Here are the storiesof incredible courage and individual initiative as the Israeli defendersstrive to contain the unexpected Syrian assault. During the 100 hourbattle that saved Israel, every Israeli tank that was committed to theGolan fighting was hit by hostile fire at least once, and some command-ers had five or six tanks shot out from under them.

By the end of the war only a few days later, Israeli forces had coun-terattacked and advanced to where their artillery could hit the Dam-ascus International Airport and other strategic targets with pinpointaccuracy. The Syrian army was virtually destroyed in the field, as werecontingents from other Arab states such as Iraq and Jordan. How theseremarkable turns of battle occurred is deftly laid out. This revealingaccount of a battle that changed the history of the Middle East is espe-cially relevant today as tensions in the region increase once again.


Note: The following article is excerpted from the book DUEL FORTHE GOLAN: The 100-Hour Battle That Saved Israel by Jerry Asherwith Eric Hammel. The book is currently available in a $27.50 tradepaperback edition published by Pacifica Military History. The bookis also available in ebook editions.

THE RESERVES ARECOMING!

by Jerry Asher with Eric Hammel

Copyright © 1987 by Jerrold S. Asher and Eric Hammel

The summons of veteran crews to man the IDF’s Reserve bri-gades hadbegun in mid-morning.

The Reservists were older than the conscripted crewmen manningthe 7th and Barak Brigade Centurions, and there was little joy aboutbeing back in uniform. Some, like Amos Ben David, took the time tophone friends before leaving home. Others just said their good-byesand went off to their mobilization centers. For most, the juxtapositionof Yom Kippur observances and the mobilization imbued this call-upwith a unique character.

The mobilization had a rhythm all its own. The armored infan-trymenwere called up after the tankers. This frustrated David Givati, who hadto stand by at the window of his apartment and watch trucks arrive topick up men with higher priorities. Givati decided to kill time with anap, but he soon found himself pacing again. At last, there was the by-now welcome knock at his door. Another armored infantryman, BenjaminSheskapovits, was at least as impatient. After waiting for hours, hedeclared to his wife, “If they don’t come soon, I’ll go myself.” He wassummoned a short time later.

Some men mobilized themselves. When Ehud Dafna heard of themobilization, he telephoned around to locate “old buddies.” He foundthey were on the way to the Golan, so he ventured from home on his


own to join them. Giora Bierman, a staff officer, was in a hospital beingtreated for jaundice. He decided that his comrades needed him morethan he needed perfect health, so he discharged himself to make his wayto his depot. Each individual wrestled with problems and pas-sages.Many talked and speculated as they waited for transportation at thepickup points. On the other hand, Sorial Birnbaum ignored the talkersas much as possible to concentrate on the observances of Sab-bath andYom Kippur that this great hubbub had interrupted.

A piece of paper, a phone call, or a verbal message does not begin tomake a civilian a soldier, nor even a soldier a combatant. The man mustleave his home with whatever necessary equipment he stores there, getto a pickup point, be transported to a depot, be recorded as present, andtold what to do by the professional soldiers comprising his unit’spermanent cadre. Where the system is working, the arriving Re-servistfinds all or most of his equipment neatly layed out, perhaps piled on thefloor of a building, aligned with piles of equipment await-ing the arrivalof the other members of his platoon or company. Per-sonal weaponsand ammunition must be issued from the armory, with all the requiredpaperwork. Vehicles must be located, and last-minute provisioning andservicing must be undertaken. Where men are late or ill, or where thereare unfilled gaps because of transfers or incomplete expansions,substitutes must be found and incorporated into vehicle crews or serviceand support units. Slowly the individuals are married to theirorganizations, and the organizations are rebuilt into cohesive fightingunits. Within hours, commanders such as Moshe Waks, now CaptainWaks once again, are able to declare, “The company’s ready.”

Naturally, the news that war had actually erupted added a great senseof urgency to what was, for many, a maddening interruption of the holyday observances or just plain real life. Somehow the govern-ment wasreplaced in evil mutterings by the many names Israelis have for theirenemies.

Lieutenant Moshe Nir’s company commander was vacationingout-side Israel, so Nir was made acting company commander. Whileissu-ing orders, Nir was approached by one of his men, who clearlyneeded reassurance. “Do you know,” the man asked, “there is a war?”


In an army where authorities habitually “look the other way” whenmen “organize” jeeps, half-tracks, and even tanks, improvising wassecond nature. For example, Lieutenant Shimon Ryan could not find hisjeep, though he searched high and low through his unit’s depot. Fi-nallyhe went to his company commander and admitted failure. The companycommander left Ryan, but returned only minutes later with a brand-newjeep he had stolen. (The owner found Ryan a month and a war later and,of course, demanded that he return the vehicle.)

Amos Ben David, Moshe Waks, Giora Bierman, Moshe Nir, andShimon Ryan had no inkling that the hundreds of tiny decisions theymade in those first, critical hours would substantially reverse the courseof the war. They hurried through the familiar process because there wasa war on, but they were not fully aware of the ultimate im-portancethose preparations were becoming to senior commanders.

*Out of the chaos of thousands of individual arrivals, Northern Commandanticipated that three fully constituted Reserve brigades— the 679th,the 9th, and the 70th—and two separate Reserve battalions would deployon the Golan before nightfall of October 7. As it turned out, this wasabout twenty-eight hours after the onset of the war. The 159 tanksassigned to the Reserve units would nearly equal the number of tanksNorthern Command had been able to deploy on the Golan at the momentthe war started.

There were considerable differences among the Reserve units.Colonel Gideon Gordon’s 70th Armored Infantry Brigade was a unitthat time had forgotten. Indeed, there were plans to disband it because itwas equipped with unmodified World War II-vintage Sherman tanksand equally ancient M3 half-tracks. The troops still wore old football-type helmets rather than the modern plastic headgear that had been issuedalmost universally throughout the IDF armored and mechanized units.All things considered, the brigade was a perfect snapshot of a 1963-vintage formation. It was thought that 70th Brigade could be called uponto defend prepared positions or guard lines of communications, but noone believed the unit could be effectively or even safely employed inthe attack.


In sharp contrast, Colonel Mordechai Ben Porat’s 9th ArmoredIn-fantry Brigade, also equipped with Shermans, was perceived as beinga useful striking force. The Shermans had been upgunned andexten-sively and expensively modernized, and the troops were youngerthan the veterans of 70th Brigade. Moreover, 9th Brigade had long beena stalwart fighting force, nearly always operating in Northern Com-mand.Most of the officers and troops had trained on the Golan and knew theirway around.

Colonel Uri Orr’s 679th Armored Brigade, a relatively newforma-tion, was equipped with early-model Centurion tanks that hadbeen scheduled to be upgraded over the next few years. The crews werecomposed of younger men. In all, 679th Brigade was considered to beonly marginally inferior to Barak Brigade.

The two separate Reserve battalions—71st Armored InfantryBattal-ion, under Lieutenant Colonel Yoav Vaspe, and an unnumberedtank battalion directly attached to Northern Command—were perceivedas absolutely first-rate units. Seventy-first Battalion, which featured twoorganic tank companies and one APC company, was earmarked for directattachment to Barak Brigade. The Northern Command Tank Battalion,commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Uzi More, was equipped withthoroughly updated Centurions; officially it was to operate as a weaponof opportunity under the direct control of Northern Commandheadquarters. Both of the separate Reserve battalions had trainedspe-cifically for assignment to the Golan.

*Brigadier General Rafoul Eitan was emerging as the sparkplug run-ningthe Israeli engine of war. A parachute officer, Eitan had trained for manyyears in the art of instant assessment of battlefield puzzles and the fineart of rapidly moving troops and equipment to solve them. While fellowparatrooper Major General Yitzhak Hofi kept his attention riveted tothe larger panorama, and his ear glued to the phone linking him with thechief of staff and the government, Eitan focused his energies and powersof concentration on the shifting events and fragmentary reports fromthe hard-hit bunkers and tank battalions.


At length, his observations caused him to place an urgent call to theReserve tank unit whose depot was nearest the Golan. He asked that aforce—any force, really—be immediately dispatched to the heights.

Colonel Ran Sarig, who was supervising the mobilization of theseparate tank battalion, was more surprised by the locale to which thetroops were to be sent than he was by the immediacy of Eitan’s request.

The mobilization was proceeding more rapidly than usual. If crewintegrity and unit cohesion were disregarded, men and machines couldbe made available to Eitan.

Colonel Sarig, a highly skilled professional armor officer wellschooled in his branch’s doctrine of applying mass on the battlefield,asked Eitan if it was indeed desirable to divide even the few tanks hecould then scrape together. Eitan confirmed his feelings that in this caseit certainly was.

At that moment, Sarig could field just eight Centurions to meetEitan’s requirements. If no tragedy befell it, the stopgap force wouldreach the front sometime early Sunday morning.

*The dispatch of the first group of eight tanks was yet another pressureon the Reservists still mobilizing. The yelling and prodding were notpart of the time-honored exercise of hurry up and wait. The troops fullycomprehended the urgency of the orders and oaths. They felt needed.The Syrian breakthrough near Hushniya showed them just how crucialtheir presence on the battlefield might be. Colonel Yitzhak Ben Shohamhad succinctly stated his priorities: “One tank or two.”

Under the direct leadership of the separate battalion’s commander,Lieutenant Colonel Uzi More, the eight Centurions ascended the Golanescarpment to Vasit and then proceeded southward along the PetroleumRoad to link up with Zvika Force.

By the time More reached Zvika, a second group of fourteenCentu-rions was on the way up the escarpment. They were under thecommand of More’s deputy, Major Baruch Lenschner, and CaptainMoshe Waks. General Hofi considered Lenschner’s force—BaruchForce—”a big force.” The commanding general felt it was what heneeded to confront the Syrian breakthrough at Hushniya.


*Colonel Ben Shoham requested the use of “More Force” in an im-mediatecounterattack against the Syrians holding the Petroleum-Hushniyacrossroads. In Ben Shoham’s reading of the battle, time was a greaterfactor than mass. As he told Hofi, “What we can do now, we might notbe able to do later.” As Baruch Force was well on the way, Hofisanctioned Ben Shoham’s immediate night counterattack with More’seight Centurions.

As soon as More was briefed by Zvika, he decided to attack in twocolumns. Zvika would have four tanks in the right column, and Morewould lead the other five on the left.

The attack commenced immediately. The first tank in Zvika’scol-umn was set ablaze by a rocket-propelled grenade.

When Zvika saw that the road ahead was blocked by Syrian tanksequipped with searchlights, he took a short break to think things through.Then he ordered one of the remaining tanks forward to res-cue the crewof the burning Centurion, and he positioned his own tank to cover theflank.

Both tanks—Zvika’s and the rescue tank—were hit. Zvika’s gunnerwas injured, and the lieutenant felt the shock of the blast and a searingpain. He pulled himself out of the turret and clumsily somersaulted tothe ground. Zvika lay flat for a moment and collected his wits, but therealization that he was next to a burning tank that might explode at anymoment was sufficient to goad him to his feet. He unthinkingly ranstraight toward the Syrians, then cut back to the last tank in his col-umn.He had been wounded in the upper left arm and the left side of his face,but he felt no need to be evacuated. He climbed aboard the lastbattleworthy Centurion in his column and ordered its commander toturn around and leave the vicinity of the fight.

*Unbeknownst to Zvika, the Syrians had redeployed following his abortiveattack. He had found them roadbound, lined up in column preparatoryto moving. The attack had been misread by the Syrian 452nd TankBattalion commander, Major Farouk Ismail, who as-sumed he had faceda more significant enemy force. Ismail decided to wait for daylight before


moving on, and he ordered his troop leaders to establish defensivepositions along a front of two kilometers.

Lieutenant Colonel More’s five-tank attack followed Zvika’s by alengthy interval. It did a great deal to confirm Ismail’s convictions, butthe initial contact upset More, who reasoned that his attack was basedupon faulty information with respect to the Syrian disposition and, itappeared, the composition of the Syrian force. In the heat of his brief,sharp fight, Zvika had not observed the mechanized infantryaccom-panying Ismail’s tanks.

More’s tanks were hit and disabled, one at a time. When the battal-ioncommander saw a Syrian aim an antitank rocket at his command tank,he grabbed hold of his free machine gun and opened fire. But the machinegun jammed and the Syrian grenadier let fly. Uzi More lost an arm andan eye in the blast.

Zvika emerged from the dark, standing erect in the turret of the onlyCenturion to survive his column’s abortive attack. He reached ColonelBen Shoham by radio and reported the destruction of More Force.

For his part, Ben Shoham acknowledged that what could not be doneimmediately would have to be done later. He raised Eitan on thecommand net and told him of the failed counterattack, suggesting thatBaruch Force be split to reinforce Zvika on the Petroleum Force. Thebalance of Major Lenschner’s tanks would establish defensive posi-tionson the Sindiana Road.

*At this stage of his holding battle, Eitan discarded specific limitedcounterattacks to establish a coherent defensive line through the southernGolan. What Eitan proposed was a considerable undertaking in light ofthe numbers and dispositions of men and equipment and the complexityof moving them through the darkened battle area. Eitan laid out a newdefense line from Bunker 110, on the east, through Tel Yosifon to theKuzabia crossroads, on the west. The line was then ex-tended southward,through the waterfall area to Tel Bazak and on to the El Al Ridge. Theforces involved were not large, but they incorporated Regulars andReservists in six distinct movements and concentrations.


The southern anchor of Eitan’s new line was manned by LieutenantColonel Yair Yaron’s 50th Parachute Battalion, which still could fieldseveral APC-borne infantry squads in the vicinity of Ramat Magshimimand Tel Saki.

In addition, Yaron unknowingly and quite temporarily received someassistance in the form of several jeeps and APCs manned by Is-raeliborder patrolmen. Without bothering to inform their own headquarters,much less Yaron’s, the inquisitive patrolmen had simply gravitatedtoward the sound of the guns. In time, they bumped into Syrian tanks.Amid the heated exchange of gunfire and crude Arabic epithets on theEl Al Ridge, the border patrolmen did the sensible thing and fled.

Slightly to the north of Yaron, on a dirt trail known as the WaterfallRoute, was Colonel Ben Shoham, with his command tank andcommunications half-track. Nearby, at Tel Bazak, artillerymen who hadbeen forced to give way earlier were at work on a new batterysite. ToBen Shoham’s northwest was the Arik Bridge, the southernmost Jor-dancrossing in the Golan sector. The route from the bridge was the mostdirect from the Jordan Valley to the Hushniya area, so Eitan used it todispatch Major Gideon Weiler’s force of Centurions from the ArmorSchool Tank Battalion to establish a blocking position domi-nating theTel Zohar–Kuzabia crossroads. Northeast of Weiler’s position wasBaruch Force, fourteen Northern Command Tank Bat-talion Centurionsdeployed to cover the two roads leading from Hushniya.

*Paralleling Ben Shoham’s and Eitan’s concerns for time and move-ment,Colonel Hassan Tourkmani’s 9th Infantry Division sought to exploit theHushniya breakthrough. Checked to the north and west by the NorthernCommand Tank Battalion, Tourkmani ordered the 43rd MechanizedBrigade tank battalion to advance up the Rafid-Kuneitra Road.

This movement was spotted by Israelis manning a nearby outpost,and a highly accurate report claiming an attack by forty Syrian tankswas flashed to General Eitan. Tourkmani had managed to find the oneapproach that the Israelis had not covered.

Eitan wrestled with finding a way to block this new threat. TheReservists were too far to the west to be of any use in countering


Tourk-mani’s new thrust, and Ben Shoham had absolutely nothing leftto spare. Eitan called Colonel Ben Gal of 7th Armored Brigade andordered him to assume responsibility for the Rafid–Kuneitra Road.

Ben Gal earlier had kept back Captain Meir “Tiger” Zamir’scom-pany of 82nd Tank Battalion as his unofficial reserve. He nowordered Major Eitan Kauli to use Zamir’s company to stop the Syrianadvance.

*Tiger Zamir deployed two tanks abreast Bunker 109 as a rear guard,two more tanks on the same hill but farther south, and a single Centu-rionon a small hill across and overlooking the roadway. The deputycommander was given four tanks and sent to another small hill a mile tothe south, from which he was to trigger the ambush Zamir had in mind.

When all the tanks had been deployed, Tiger returned to the posi-tionabreast Bunker 109 in his own tank and ordered all crews to shut downand wait in total silence for the approach of the Syrian column and theillumination of his deputy’s searchlight.

The Syrians rolled down the road oblivious to the waiting Israelis.Though Tiger had planned to contain all the Syrian tanks between theends of his ambush, he had to allow a dozen of them to pass through thehead of the ambush before the last of them passed the deputy commander.The gunners were losing their minds, so great was the tension of havingto wait with so many good targets so easy to reach.

The searchlight snapped on, followed by the instantaneous bark of a105mm tank gun. Every Israeli gunner had been tracking targets, so allopened fire within a matter of seconds. Beneath their seats, to the right,the well-drilled loaders rammed home fresh antitank rounds and hit thegunners to let them know they could resume firing. Load, fire, train,load, fire, train. The gunners and loaders worked in superb harmony asthe deputy company commander illuminated the roadway.

The Syrians returned fire, but the Israelis were hull-down, virtuallyimpossible to spot—except for the deputy commander, whose searchlightdrew heavy fire. Suddenly the light snapped off. Zamir first feared thathis gunners would be unable to acquire targets, but there was more thanenough light from blazing hulks.


When nearly twenty-five Syrian tanks had been destroyed, Tigerreorganized his company and led it southward to get at the survivors. Tohis surprise, his entire company still was operational, including the deputycommander’s tank. This last both relieved and upset Zamir, who askedthe lieutenant why he had shut off the light. The man mumbled that itwas dangerous.

The lieutenant was both right and wrong. Zvika earlier had usedSyrian searchlights to acquire targets, and Tiger’s ambush certainly hadbeen successful because the roadway was amply lighted by burn-ingtanks. However, Tiger felt that his deputy had given in to his fears beforethe company could safely do without the light. As an officer, Tigerreasoned, his deputy had a prime responsibility to the mission and onlysecondarily to himself.

*Eitan’s calculated maneuvering and the timely introduction of the firsttiny Reserve formations had contained the Hushniya break-through, buta threat to the north still had to be eradicated with the resources at hand.



FIRE IN THE STREETSThe Battle for Hue, Tet 1968

By Eric Hammel

The Tet Offensive of January 1968 was the most important militarycampaign of the Vietnam War. The ancient capital city of Hue, onceconsidered the jewel of Indochina’s cities, was a key objective of thatsurprise Communist offensive launched on Vietnam’s most importantholiday. But when the North Vietnamese launched their massive invasionof the city, instead of the general civilian uprising and easy victory theyhad hoped for, they were faced with a U.S.—South Vietnamesecounterattack and a devastating battle of attrition with enormouscasualties on both sides. In the end, the battle for Hue was anunambiguous military and political victory for South Vietnam and theUnited States.

In Fire in the Streets, the dramatic narrative of the battle unfolds onan hour-by-hour, day-by-day basis. The focus is on the U.S. and SouthVietnamese soldiers and Marines—from the top commanders down tothe frontline infantrymen—and on the men and women who supportedthem. Eric Hammel, a renowned military historian, expertly draws onfirst-hand accounts from the battle participants in this engrossing mix-ture of action and commentary.

In addition, Hammel examines the tremendous strain the surpriseattack put on the South Vietnamese—U.S. alliance, the shocking bru-tality of the Communist “liberators,” and the lessons gained by U.S.Marines forced to wage battle in a city—a task for which they wereutterly unprepared and which has a special relevance today.

With access to rare documents from both North and South Vietnamand hundreds of hours of interviews, Hammel, in a highly readable style,has produced the only complete and authoritative account of this cru-cial landmark battle.


Critical Acclaim for Fire in the Streets

U.S. Naval Institute Proceeding says: “Startles the reader with thescale and intensity of action required to recapture Hue City . . . Hammel‘s narrative style . . . bonds the reader to the subject [and] certainly tothe participants.”

Military Magazine says: “[Fire in the Streets] is true military historyat its finest. Hammel writes in a highly readable style that anyone wouldfind a joy to read.”

Armor Magazine says: “The author has performed an outstanding jobin reconstructing the details of the battle actions through extensiveinterviews with the people who fought the battle.”

Sea Power Magazine says: “A detailed and engrossing account . . .The extensive use of recollections of the U.S. and South Vietnamesefront-line troops and commanders give immediacy and credibility toHammel’s account of one of the war’s bloodiest battles . . .”

Library Journal says: “The gritty, detailed war scenes and compellingnarrative that are the author’s trademarks are evident.”

Infantry Magazine says: “Written in a lively and readable style, it isthe most complete and detailed account of this central action of the war.Highly recommended.”

Leatherneck Magazine says: “Hammel is at his best when he weavesthe individual stories of pain, frustration, hope, and heroics of themultitude of players who were caught in the maelstrom of death anddestruction that was Hue City in February 1968.”


Note: The following article is excerpted from the book Fire in theStreets: The Battle for Hue, Tet 1968 by Eric Hammel. The book iscurrently available in a $32.50 trade paperback edition publishedby Pacifica Military History. The book is also available in ebookeditions.

MEAN STREETSby Eric Hammel


On the afternoon of January 31, 1968—the first day of the CommunistTet Offensive—2/5 was undertaking a coordinated three- company effortto clear an NVA battalion out of the area around the vital twin-spanTroi Bridge complex, eight kilometers south of Phu Bai. Suddenly, withno warning, the 5th Marines CP ordered Fox/2/5 to break contact withthe enemy and report to Phu Bai immediately for unspecified duty. Theorder was peremptory and non-negotiable; Fox/2/5 pulled out of thebattalion line and assembled in a field for the drive north to Phu Bai.

Fox/2/5 was in terrific shape when it left Troi Bridge for Phu Bai. Thoughthe unit had sustained several losses around the bridge on January 31,hardly anyone was on R and R; all the men who had been lightlywounded, injured, or sick had been returned to duty; and the fewreplacements required had arrived. Thus Fox/2/5 was nearly at fullstrength, well rested, and well inte-grated. It had its full complement oflieutenants and staff non-commissioned officers, and all the squads wereled by sergeants or seasoned corporals.

When Fox/2/5 reached Phu Bai by truck late in the afternoon, thecompany commander, Captain Mike Downs, was or-dered to report tothe Task Force X-Ray CP. There Downs met with the task forceoperations officer and his assistant, both lieutenant colonels. ThoughDowns knew nothing of the situa-tion in Hue or even around Phu Bai,he could not imagine why the CP was in a state of confusion bordering


on panic. Following a useless briefing, Downs was sent over to the 1stMarines CP, where the regimental operations officer told him that Fox/2/5 would be flying up to Hue the next day to operate with Lieuten-antColonel Mark Gravel’s 1/1. Once again, Captain Downs emerged froma sketchy briefing with only the vaguest sense of what was going on inHue. As far as Downs could figure it, there were enemy troops insideHue, and Fox/2/5 was needed to push them out. The impression Downshad was that his company would be back in Phu Bai pretty quickly, in afew days at most.

Like Golf/2/5 before it, Fox/2/5 was going to Hue with-out its packs.The troops had grounded their personal possessions before going intothe attack at Troi Bridge, and there had not been time to retrieve themwhen the call came to report to Phu Bai. All they had was ammunition,weapons, web gear, and whatever they had had the foresight to craminto their pockets.

The troops received a hot meal that evening, and everyone sleptunder canvas that night. On the morning of February 1, the troops learnedthrough unofficial channels that they were bound for Hue. None of themhad ever spent any time in Hue, but virtually all of them were glad to begoing. Fox/2/5 had been months in the bush, had taken casualties, andhad very little besides its corporate bitterness to show for the experience.Word had it that the NVA was standing and fighting in Hue—some-thingneither the NVA nor its VC allies had ever done in the bush Fox/2/5 hadtromped. Word was, Hue was the place to “get some,” the ideal venue inwhich to exact payback for all the unavenged casualties Fox/2/5 hadsustained in the bush.

Reinforced with a pair of 81mm mortars and two 106mm recoillessrifles, Fox/2/5 began lifting out of Phu Bai at 1458, February 1, aboarda small number of CH-46 transport helicop-ters. They were bound forthe Doc Lao Park LZ. In addition to lifting out Fox/2/5, the Marinehelicopters were charged with carrying a significant resupply ofammunition and other goods for 1/1 and the two Marine companiesalready in Hue.

The Fox/2/5 Marines and their officers were unprepared for thesporadic fire that greeted most of the helicopters as they set down on the


Doc Lao Park LZ. In a few cases, the helicopters were struck by small-arms fire, which penetrated the thin metal skin and terrorized theunwitting troops inside. Fortunately, no one was injured, but the Marinescharged off the helicopters’ rear ramps with serious intent, certain theLZ itself was under ground assault.

Among the many terrorized by the incoming fire was a load ofAmerican news reporters who had hitched a ride into Hue aboard MikeDowns’s CH-46. Shortly after landing, the company commander couldaccount for only two of the reporters, a United Press International team.Downs surmised that the other news-people had returned to Phu Bai,without ever leaving the heli-copter.

There were not enough helicopters to fly the reinforced companythe short distance to Hue in one lift, so the last squads did not arriveuntil 1705. By then, the leading elements of Fox/ 2/5 were already in abloody fight.

*Lieutenant Mike McNeil’s platoon of Golf/2/5 had been battling theentire day in an effort to relieve the GVN force in the Provincial Prison,six long blocks southwest of MACV. A dogged effort had carried CaptainMeadows’s tired troops across the highway and about fifteen meters upthe first block of Tran Cao Van Street, but the NVA’s resistance hadsteadily stiffened. The attack had ground to a standstill. As the hourswore on, the mission was scaled back. All Meadows’s and McNeil’splatoon had to do was reach a small compound housing a U.S. Air Forcecommunications contingent. The hostel was only a few blocks southwestof Highway 1, half the distance to the prison. Three blocks or six blocks,it didn’t matter: Golf/2/5 remained bogged down less than a half blockfrom its line of departure.

The eye-opener of the day for Chuck Meadows and his Ma-rineswas how many men it took to secure a row of buildings. In order toachieve this, Golf/2/5 was learning, a unit had to secure every room inevery one of the structures; it had to fight a war in three dimensionsrather than the usual two.

As soon as two platoons of Fox/2/5 were assembled at MACV,Lieutenant Colonel Gravel decided to send them to re-store somemomentum to the drive on the Air Force hostel. Captain Downs had


hardly reported to Mark Gravel’s CP, at MACV, before an Air Forcesergeant who had lived in the hostel was attached to the company as aguide. Then Captain Downs’s company marched one block southeast onHighway 1 and turned right—southwest—up Tran Cao Van, the first crossstreet. The entire route looked like a cyclone—or a war—had hit it.

Just before reaching Tran Cao Van, Mike Downs had met ChuckMeadows and Captain Jim Gallagher, 1/1’s new opera-tions officer.Gallagher, a communicator by trade, had recently extended his tour ofduty in Vietnam to take a crack at command-ing an infantry company.He had barely taken over Delta/1/1 when news of Major Walt Murphy’sdeath had reached him. As 1/1’s senior captain, he had felt obliged,despite his lack of hard infantry experience, to fly to Hue to assumeMurphy’s duties until a more suitable replacement could be found.Captain Gal-lagher had arrived aboard one of the night medevac choppersand had assumed his new duties as soon as he reached MACV. He hadbeen up front with Chuck Meadows all day, learning on the run.

Learning on the run was Fox/2/5’s operative mode, just as it hadbeen Golf/2/5’s from the beginning of duty in Hue. Learning to dealwith defended urban terrain had cost Golf/ 2/5 two killed and fivewounded on February 1—that made a total of seven killed and fifty-seven wounded in twenty-four hours. Now it was Fox/2/ 5’s turn to paythe price of experience.

*Corporal Chris Brown’s squad of 2nd Lieutenant Rich Horner’s 2ndPlatoon took the Fox/2/5 point as soon as Chuck Meadows and MikeDowns had completed the formal turnover. At word from LieutenantHorner, Brown’s squad was to turn the corner from Highway 1 ontoTran Cao Van and attack down the right sidewalk. Another squad fromHorner’s platoon would follow and then peel off to attack up the leftside of the treelined residential thoroughfare. The officers had alreadytold everyone that every building on both sides of the street had to becom-pletely secured from bottom to top before anyone could go on tothe next building and that units on both sides of the street had to advanceapace to avoid NVA flanking fire from second-story windows.

The Air Force sergeant-guide joined Brown’s squad a few momentsbefore the Marines were to turn the corner. The first thing he told Chris


Brown was that Golf/2/5 had been trying to fight its way up the streetsince around sunup and that the men had had their “butts beat everytime.” He went on to render his opinion that the mission was “suicidal.”Corporal Brown went over to Lieutenant Horner to convey the Air Forcesergeant’s sentiments, but Horner just shrugged his shoulders and said,“Let’s move out.”

Horner’s platoon advanced about fifteen meters up Tran Cao Vanwith two squads abreast and one in reserve, a classic infantry formation.After passing through Golf/2/5, the two Marines constituting the leadfire team of Corporal Brown’s squad set up behind a shoulder-highmasonry wall to provide cover. This was another classic infantrymaneuver, strictly by the book. Though Fox/2/5 had never fought in atown and the junior troops had never been adequately trained to undertakehouse-to-house com-bat, the troop leaders knew very well how to feeltheir way into hostile terrain. It was about then, however, that CorporalBrown, Lieutenant Horner, and Captain Downs went beyond theknowl-edge that had been keeping them and large numbers of Marineslike them alive in the bush. It was then that Fox/2/5 learned what theterm mean streets really signifies.

Private First Class Louis Gasbarrini moved out first. He steppedfrom behind the wall and scuttled down the sidewalk to the nearest tree.Lance Corporal Charles Campbell went next, up and over the wall. BeforeCampbell had hit the ground, Gasbar-rini had been seriously woundedin the arm by a burst of AK-47 fire that could have come from anywhere.Someone yelled, “Corpsman, up!” and Hospital Corpsman 3rd ClassJames Gosselin, a twenty-six-year-old former Green Beret, charged intothe open from behind the wall. He was halfway to Gasbarrini when hewas shot dead in his tracks, Fox/2/5’s first fatality in Hue.

No sooner had Doc Gosselin fallen than the NVA trained their fireon Corporal Brown; the Air Force sergeant; and Private Stanley Murdock,Brown’s radioman. No doubt the NVA were drawn to the whip antennaon Murdock’s squad radio. Lance Corporal Carnell Poole was a fewsteps behind the three men when the automatic-weapons fire reachedout at them. Poole distinctly saw the stream of bullets pin Murdock to awall at his back; the sheer force of the bullets held the radioman on hisfeet. The firing stopped, but Murdock just stood there, holding his M-


16 loosely at his side, gasping for air every few seconds. In extremeslow motion, before Lance Corporal Poole or any of the other shockedonlookers could act, Private Murdock’s eyes glazed over and the gaspingstopped. Fox/2/5 had sustained its second death in a matter of seconds.The Air Force sergeant was seriously wounded by the same burst.

Despite the gunfire spraying the back side of the wall—or becauseof it—several members of Brown’s squad streaked into the street, intentupon reaching the apparently safer left side. Most of the men made it tocover, but Corporal David Collins, Private First Class William Henschel,and Private First Class Cristobal Figueroa-Perez were shot off their feet.When the dust settled, none of them was moving.

As Chris Brown shrugged off the shock of near sudden death,Lieutenant Homer’s piercing yell reached him: “Move it out!” Brownlooked up, but there was no one around him. For a second, the squadleader didn’t know what to do. Then he went into automatic overdrive—he moved on training and instinct. Brown whipped out from behind thewall and zigzagged down the sidewalk. When it seemed the right timeto dive in, he landed next to Lance Corporal Campbell, who told Brownthat, every time he tried to fire back at the NVA in the buildings, bulletskicked cement dust into his face.

Corporal Brown yelled to Private First Class Gasbarrini, who wasin front of everyone. Gasbarrini yelled back that he had been hit in thearm and that he was playing dead because he was afraid to move behindthe nearest cover.

Corporal Brown’s squad was stymied. If anyone made a move, NVAsoldiers in the buildings overlooking the street fired into Tran Cao Van.Brown sent word back to Lieutenant Horner that Gasbarrini was woundedand beyond reach. Horner sent word forward to Brown that he was tryingto get a tank up to cover a rescue effort. Brown ordered everyone whocould to withdraw back behind the wall. Then Fox/2/5 settled in to wait.There wasn’t anything else anyone could do. Minutes later, Lieu-tenantColonel Gravel ordered Fox/2/5 to call it a day and return to MACV assoon as the company could police up its casualties.

It seemed to Chris Brown that hours passed before two Marine M-48 tanks turned into Tran Cao Van and chugged toward Private FirstClass Gasbarrini. When the lead tank pulled up even with the wall Brown


was using as a sanctuary, he gin-gerly stepped out behind the armoredvehicle and followed it warily down the right side of the street. The tankpassed Gasbar-rini and stopped, a steel wall to protect the evacuation.When Chris Brown leaned down to help the wounded man, a stream ofbullets reached out toward them. Brown felt warm fluid streak over hisoutstretched hands; he was certain Gasbarrini had been wounded again,but it was only water. A round had gone through Gasbarrini’s canteen.Brown pulled the wounded man behind the tank, and other members ofthe squad helped Gasbarrini toward the rear.

As the lead tank stood guard and probed the surrounding buildingswith fire from its .50-caliber cupola machine gun, members of Brown’ssquad warily convened in the street to lift their wounded and deadcomrades onto the flat rear deck of the second tank. Four of the men—Doc Gosselin, Private Murdock, Corporal Collins, and Private First ClassHenschel—appeared to be dead. A fifth, Private First Class Figueroa-Perez, appeared to be seriously injured.

As the rear tank, which was also firing its .50-caliber ma-chine gun,pulled back, a B-40 rocket streaked out from a second-story windowand struck it squarely on the side of the engine compartment. Two of thebodies on the rear deck, which was over the engine, were thrown to thestreet. Immediately, piercing screams erupted from one of the bodies.Several Marines ven-tured back to the tank to see who it was and why.

The screaming man was Private First Class William Hen-schel. Hehad been shot in the head in his bid to cross Tran Cao Van, and knockedunconscious. It was no wonder his spooked comrades had mistaken himfor dead; his gruesome head wound had looked fatal, and there hadbeen no time to conduct an adequate check in the middle of bullet-sweptTran Cao Van. When the B-40 blew Henschel off the tank, the shock ofthe blast apparently roused him. A closer inspection revealed that Hen-schePs left leg was missing below the knee. No one could tell if it hadbeen blown off by the B-40 or if the tank had backed over it. It didn’tmatter; the leg was gone. Henschel was known in Fox/ 2/5 as the “MarineDoc.” Though he had no formal first-aid training, he carried a Unit Oneaid pack, just like the Navy corpsmen. He still had it when his shockedand dazed comrades peeled him off the surface of Tran Cao Van. Its


contents were used to affix a tourniquet and control the bleeding of hisleg. The head wound turned out to be superficial.

After the tanks pulled back around the corner to Highway 1, onemore absolutely motionless Marine still lay in an exposed position abouttwenty meters down Tran Cao Van. A nose count revealed that he wasPrivate Roberto de la Riva-Vara. Every effort had been made to reachde la Riva-Vara’s body, but the tanks had been unable to shield therescuers, and the NVA had staked it out, certain they could kill anyrescuers who ventured out after it. Lieutenant Horner had had enough.With nothing to show for it, Fox/2/5’s 2nd Platoon had suffered fifteencasualties, of whom three were known dead, one (Figueroa-Perez) wasexpected to die, and one (de la Riva-Vara) was presumed dead. Thelieutenant asked Captain Downs to please call it a day; there was nosense losing more men to rescue de la Riva-Vara’s body.

Mike Downs was not going to leave anyone behind. After thewounded and dead were unloaded from the tank and sent on their wayto M ACV, Downs ordered both tanks back up Tran Cao Van to coverLieutenant Horner’s recovery of de la Riva-Vara’s body. Firing theirmachine guns as they went, the tanks advanced cautiously past the spotat which one of them had already been hit by a B-40. Nothing muchhappened. The NVA fired their AK-47s at the tanks, but no more B-40swere fired. The tanks moved forward, and the infantrymen followedthem. As they reached de la Riva-Vara, he waved his arms a little. Hehad been shot in both legs and had been cannily playing dead. On theway back, Lieutenant Horner was wounded.

The Fox/2/5 casualties were taken back to MACV without furtherincident. Later that night, all the serious casualties of the day, includingLieutenant Horner, were medevacked off the LZ in Doc Lao Park. Unlikethe bloody medevac effort of the previous night, the convoy to the LZwas led by one of the M-48 tanks, which simply drove through housesand courtyards along a path the NVA snipers could never have stakedout in advance.

Before dawn, news arrived that Private First Class CristobalFigueroa-Perez had died of his wounds in Phu Bai’s triage center.***




FIRST ACROSS THE RHINEThe 291st Engineer Combat Battalion in France, Belgium,

and GermanyBy Col. David E. Pergrin with Eric Hammel

First Across the Rhine is the first-person narrative by the commander ofthe celebrated 291st Engineer Combat Battalion, one of the rough, hard-working U.S. Army engineer combat units that literally paved the wayfrom Normandy to the Rhine and beyond.

After it landed in Normandy shortly after D-Day, the 291st quicklyacquired a reputation as a savvy, can-do engineer combat unit. Duringthe race across France and Belgium in the summer of 1944, the 291stproved itself to be the U.S. First Army’s premier engineer battalion. InDecember 1944, the lightly armed 291st found itself virtually alone asit stood astride the route of the panzer spearhead charged with leadingthe northern army group in Hitler’s last-ditch Ardennes offensive—theBattle of the Bulge. Tough and confident, the 291st blew up bridge aftervital bridge in the face of the German assault and thus denied Germanyher needed victory in the West. Weeks later, the 291st was selected fromamong all U.S. Army engineer combat battalions in Germany to throwthe first bridge across the Rhine River in the face of enormous resis-tance. It thus built the longest combat bridge in Europe in record timeand opened the German heartland to the Allied juggernaut.

Few American combat units have achieved the distinction and rec-ognition accorded the 291st Engineer Combat Battalion. Here, in thewords of its only combat commander, is the 291st’s recipe for success—stiff training and a group ethos for excellence. This is an exciting, in-spiring story about an essential aspect of warfare all but ignored in thethousands of World War II books that have flooded the market over thepast half century.


Note: The following article is excerpted from the book FIRSTACROSS THE RHINE: The 291st Engineer Combat Battalion inFrance, Belgium, and Germany by Col David E. Pergrin and EricHammel. The book is currently available in a $17.95 trade paperbackedition published by Zenith Press. The book is also available in ebookeditions.

ENGINEERS AT WARby Col David E. Pergin and Eric Hammel

Copyright © 1994 by David E. Pergrin and EricHammel.

Lieutenant Colonel David Pergrin’s 291st Engineer Combat Battalionwas the premier U.S. Army engineer unit in the European Theater ofOperations in World War II. Through a combination of being at theright place at the right time, having the ingrained skills to complete anytask under any conditions, and boasting the kind of leadership and humanmaterial that made any task seem easy, the 291st received more accoladesthan any of its marvelous sister engineering units. The battalion’s twogreatest accomplishments in the war were, first, almost single-handedlystopping the powerful German armored thrust in the northern Ardennesduring the Battle of the Bulge, and, second, building the first engineerbridge across the Rhine River in March 1945, at Remagen. But therewas luck at play in those towering historical endeavors—being wherethe action happened to be—and so the fair way to judge the 291st is bywhat it accomplished on a work-a-day basis.

After assisting elements of the U.S. First Army in regaining all theterritory lost during the Battle of the Bulge, the 291st Engineer CombatBattalion was assigned to assist the 82d Airborne Division in taking anew and dangerous objective. The objective of the 82d Airborne Divisionat the end of January 1945 was achieving a breakthrough of the SiegfriedLine at Losheim, the same place the Germans had broken through in theopposite direction at the start of their Ardennes Offensive. For the newattack, Colonel H. Wallis Anderson’s entire 1111th Engineer Combat


Group was attached to the XVIII Airborne Corps, so the 291st EngineerCombat Battalion was transferred from a temporary assignment withthe 1186th Engineer Combat Group to Colonel Anderson’s directcommand, under which it had served for most of the time since landingin Normandy in June 1944.

*At 0600 hours, January 29, Major General James Gavin’s 82nd AirborneDivision jumped off through the 7th Armored Division into the LosheimGap. Occupying an initial front line between Born and Ambleve, the82nd Airborne attacked northeast across the high ground overlookingWereth with the 325th Glider Infantry Regi-ment on the left, the 504thParachute Infantry on the right, and the 505th and 508th ParachuteInfantry regiments in reserve. Attacking beside the 82nd, on the left,was the crack 1st Infantry Division.

The men of the 291st Engineer Combat Battalion did not follow thelead companies of the 82nd Airborne into the Losheim Gap as we hadfollowed the lead companies of the 30th Infantry Division toward St.-Vith. No, mostly we led the paratroopers through the hip- and thigh-deep ice and snow, scraping paths through trackless minefields with ourarmored bulldozers so the lightly armed and largely unsupportedparatroopers and glider infantrymen could move at all. From the outset,we faced a howling blizzard and minus-degree temperatures through adense forest that lacked all but rudimentary footpaths. The problemsand hardships we faced were surmountable, but only by battle-hardenedtroops with stout hearts and iron determination. Fortunately, the 291sthad those in abundance.

Particularly noteworthy were the heroic efforts of Technician 5thGrade Herbert Helgerson, a Company B bulldozer operator, near Werethon January 29. Helgerson distinguished himself as he was clearingheavily drifted snow from a supply road directly along the front lines.Often working ahead of the infantry, he was once pinned down by aGerman machine gun and was almost constantly exposed to mortar andartillery fire called by German forward observers who seemed to havehim under observation throughout his mission. Despite the unnervingproximity of the fire, Helgerson nevertheless got the road cleared so theinfantry could receive vital support from the rear.


Another noteworthy performance was turned in by Corporal EdwardWoertz, who became so wrapped up in his work that he worked eighteenhours or more at a time for four consecutive days. In fact, Woertz keptworking at one point even though German machine-gun fire was hittingthe body of his bulldozer.

Not surprisingly, some of the most stout-hearted men were thosewho had already proven themselves in close combat with the en-emy.One such, who constantly drove his armored bulldozer di-rectly intothe face of enemy emplacements, was Technician 4th Grade Tom Noland,whose exemplary leadership had done much to save the day against theSkorzeny brigade at Malmedy. Eventu-ally, though, Tom was seriouslyinjured by a flurry of German rifle fire as he cut a trail for the troops ofthe 325th Glider Infantry in front of an active German defensive position.Also working far above and beyond his expected performance,Lieutenant Wade Colbeck took miserable, life-threatening turns in thecabs of the armored bulldozers when his platoon’s cold-dazed operatorsneeded respite or relief.

In addition to the bulldozers and road graders we directly com-mittedto supporting the infantry, we had as many as ten bulldozers and fiveroad graders in constant operation behind the lines, labori-ously openingor cutting supply and evacuation trails. The Germans had mined everypossible route through the forest, but our mine-sweeping teams seemedto have found every mine along the routes we opened and used.

Despite the formidable natural obstacles and hardships, the 504thParachute Infantry advanced seven thousand yards on January 28,capturing Herresback after killing 65 and capturing 201 Germans withoutsustaining any losses. The 325th Glider Infantry faced stiffer oppositionin its zone and suffered losses accordingly. How-ever, it also wound upthe day far ahead of its line of departure.

The 82nd Airborne Division’s attack continued on a northeasterlyheading on January 29, but abominable weather conditions—a full-scaleblizzard—restricted the 325th and 504th regiments to gains averagingtwo thousand yards. A subsidiary attack by the 505th Parachute Infantrysoutheastward on the high ground toward Honsfeld eked out only fifteenhundred yards. The 291st thus found itself still within the same area of


Belgium in which we had oper-ated prior to the German offensive, whichhad begun about six weeks earlier.

On January 30, the 325th Glider Infantry jumped off to the northeastat 0500 hours. By 1500 hours, elements of the regiment had reachedBucholtz, abreast the Honsfeld-Losheim railway line. By nightfall,patrols of glider infantrymen were reporting back from the German sideof the frontier. On that day, also, the newly committed 508th ParachuteInfantry captured Lanzerath and the damaged highway bridge over therailway line. American troops were thus in possession of KampfgruppePeiper’s original jumping-off position, a significant gain. On January31, a day of con-solidation in the 82nd Division’s zone, the 505thParachute Infantry bullied its way forward to Losheim-Ergraben againstmoderate resistance.

As Technician 5th Grade Mike Popp and I toured the frontier areavisiting my operating platoons, we noted how many German vehiclesand horse-drawn artillery units had been knocked out by our tactical air.Also, many of the villages had suffered extensive damage at the handsof our fighter-bomber pilots, and there was no evidence of Germancivilians in the region. Apparently, a decree from Hitler that the civiliansdefend the Fatherland unto death was being rigorously ignored.

Captain Bill McKinsey reported that the Lanzerath bridge, whichthe 82nd Airborne was counting on to get its mobile artillery and armorforward, was impassable. Based on Bill’s frontline survey, we preparedto build a 180-foot Bailey span across an 80-foot-deep railroad cutthrough the Lanzerath ridge. The location of the new bridge would beprecisely on the Belgian-German border, our first constructionassignment in the Nazi homeland. The job was a typical rush. GeneralGavin’s division headquarters wanted to bol-ster the 508th ParachuteInfantry’s positions on the high ground between Losheim and Manderfeldwith the self-propelled guns of the 629th Tank Destroyer Battalion. Asit was, the 508th had already repulsed one German counterattack withits light infantry weapons and, though Bill McKinsey reported seeingGerman infantry in retreat, no one knew what the Germans might throwin next in symbolic defense of their border.


On February 1, the 291st’s battalion CP moved forward fromMalmedy to Meyerode and Companies A and C were consolidated tobuild the Lanzerath bridge. Before advancing to the bridge site, however,our mine-sweeping teams had to probe forward and clear all theapproaches. As expected, the Germans had mined all the shoulder areaswith antitank and antipersonnel devices and, as ex-pected also, had wiredin numerous booby traps whose only pur-pose was to kill or maimengineers clearing the mines. As usual, we suffered no losses, but workingin the snow and ice made matters extremely ticklish.

Major Ed Lampp’s plan was to begin work on the bridge at 0030hours, February 2. Long experience had imbued Ed with the belief thata bridge as critically important as this one would be under observationby German artillery forward observers, so his typical response was todo as much work as possible under cover of darkness. Beginning atsunset, the two engineer companies and all their equipment moved intoholding areas within a mile of the bridge site. For the next six hours, allthe troops worked feverishly to prepare for the massive, miserable jobahead. Then, at 0030 hours, right on schedule, Captain WarrenRombaugh’s Company C advanced to the bridge site en masse to beginthe first continuous twelve-hour shift. Because it was so cold, Warrencould work his platoons for only four hours apiece, which we had learnedis about as long as human beings could endure the superhuman task ofwrestling the unbelievably frigid five-hundred-pound steel bridge panelsinto place.

The night was foggy and sleet fell steadily upon all the men whoseduties prevented them from seeking even rudimentary cover. Progresswas dampened a bit by the sleet because it obliged all the workers topull their woolen watch caps down across their ears and faces. Sporadicartillery fire added considerably to the delaying action of the weatherbut fortunately resulted in no casualties. One of the greatest dangers layin the potential for slipping or sliding off the glazed steel bridge panelsinto the eighty-foot-deep railroad cut. Again, no one was injured, thoughthere were repeated heartstoppers throughout the ordeal. All this wasdone with the knowledge that the lightly armed and relativelyunsupported troops of the 508th Parachute Infantry were waiting for


their tank destroyers in vulnerable infantry fighting positions about amile in front of the bridge.

Mike Popp wrestled our command car to the bridge site at about0300 hours, February 2, in the immediate wake of one of uncount-ablenumbers of artillery barrages. As I watched the miserably cold battle-hardened Company C troopers wrestle the five-by-ten-foot panels ofthe double-triple Bailey bridge across an eighty-foot-deep chasm in themidst of a vertical ice storm, I became convinced that these were menwho would finish anything, literally anything, that anyone couldconceivably dream up to be accomplished by combat engineers.

The bridge, which would be two panels thick and three panels highwith a single-span treadway floor required the placement of 216 five-hundred-pound panels. When completed, with one end in Belgium andthe other end in Germany, the 180-foot span would be able to support aforty-ton load moving at six miles per hour.

We opened the bridge to traffic at 1700 hours, February 3, forty anda half hours after work began. We did so following an around-the-clockeffort by two complete engineer combat companies and with-outsuffering a single casualty or injury despite the incessant German artilleryfire and incredibly dangerous working conditions. Our first customerswere all the self-propelled tank destroyers of the 629th Tank DestroyerBattalion. And the payoff, soon to arrive, was a coordinated attack, amplysupported by way of the Lanzerath bridge, in which the 325th GliderInfantry and 504th Parachute Infantry regiments quickly and decisivelycracked the Siegfried Line between Neuhof and Udenreth, just north ofthe Losheim Gap.

As soon as possible, the 291st followed the 82nd Airborne throughthe dragon’s teeth and formidable array of bunkers and pillboxescomprising the Siegfried Line. Behind us lay the long-sought breach inthe enemy frontier and ahead of us lay victory, but not without privationand struggle, hope and glory as we had never seen them before.

*On February 7, 1945, Colonel Anderson contacted me with orders tomove the entire 291st Engineer Combat Battalion to a new jumping-offpoint in the Hurtgen forest. The news was unwelcome and immediately


became the cause of deep-seated anxiety among those of us who hadfollowed the largely unsuccessful pre-Bulge efforts by up to 120,000Americans to secure this vital, densely wooded, frontier region.Unfortunately for the many Americans who had tried and failed and themany more of us who would try again, the capture of the Hurtgen forestwas absolutely essential to the contemplated broad-front Allied attackacross the Cologne plain to the Rhine River, the last important naturalbarrier keeping us from Germany’s western heartland. The essentialfeatures within the forest region were two massive hydroelectric dams,the Urftallsperre and the Schwammenauel, that controlled the water levelof the north-flowing Roer River. If the Allies could not capture the damsintact, the Germans could flood the Roer valley and deny us the broad-front access to the Rhine that appeared essential to our strategic concept.

The previous fighting in the Hurtgen had been about the grim-mestof the war in Western Europe. Not only had the Germans made a specialeffort to plant mines and booby traps—they knew how important theregion was to us—they took special pleasure in firing their artillery intothe densely packed treetops in order to create exceptionally deadly spraysof shrapnel and wood splinters against which infantrymen advancing inthe open could in no way defend themselves. Together with manyextremely complex, exten-sive, continuous, interlocking, and hardeneddefensive sectors on the ground, these features had resulted in over ninethousand casu-alties prior to the Bulge.

We were double annoyed with the news of our commitment to therenewed Hurtgen drive because we felt we had narrowly evaded aDecember commitment due to the onset of the German ArdennesOffensive. I had already traveled through the American-held Hurtgenregion in the days immediately prior to the German offensive to reviewthe manner in which the 291st was to be employed in the effort to capturethe Roer dams. I had frankly hoped in the weeks after the Bulge that thehigher headquarters responsible for reduc-ing the Hurtgen defenses hadforgotten about the 291st’s prospec-tive commitment. As it turned out,my wishes came to nothing.

To get set for the new Hurtgen drive, the entire battalion caravanedfrom Meyerode to Walheim, a German town east of the Siegfried Line


in the vicinity of Schmidt. We remained attached to the 1111th EngineerGroup, but we now came under the control of Major General JohnMillikin’s III Corps, which was in the center of the 1st U.S. Army zone,directly facing the Hurtgen forest. On our left was the VII Corps and onour right was the V Corps. Unless the III Corps was able to secure theRoer dams intact, the 9th U.S. Army, adjacent to the 1st Army in thenorth, could not attack into the Roer valley for fear of being flooded outby the Germans, who after all could see the shape of our strategy. If the9th U.S. Army could not advance, neither could Field MarshalMontgomery’s entire 21st Army Group, to which it had been attached.And, if the 21st Army Group could not advance, neither could the fourAllied armies arrayed in the center and the south— the 1st and 3rd U.S.armies in the 12th Army Group zone and the 7th U.S. and 1st Frencharmies in the 6th Army Group zone. When all was said and done, then,an Allied advance to the strategic Rhine barrier came down to III Corps’hoped-for success in the Hurtgen forest.

*The corps-wide preparations for the assault on the Roer dams gave ussome time to clean up and take care of overdue housekeeping chores—and to settle down after our harrowing weeks in the fore-front of theassault into Germany. The billets we took over for the troops were onlyfair, but they were warm and snug compared to the places in which wehad been hunkering down for weeks. Everyone had an opportunity toheed my command to shave daily, and showers were set up to handleeveryone’s needs. Only margin-ally less important than the care andfeeding of the troops was the opportunity the break afforded us tomaintain, refurbish, and re-place our sorely abused equipment.

A spate of letter writing was immediately requited by the arrival ofa ton of mail that had been following us around through the battle zonefor weeks. This included hundreds of responses to the 650 Christmascards the battalion headquarters staff had mailed to the families of ourmen just before the onset of the Bulge. It was gratifying reading, thoughsome responses had been mailed by relatives of several of our deadcomrades before news of the deaths reached home. A surprising numberof letters and cards addressed to me complained that sons and husbands


had not been writing home and would I please get “Johnny” to writemore often. The many packages that had been late getting to us beforeChristmas brightened our respite with a dizzying array of goodies fromhome. As the “Old Man,” I was obliged to sample more sweets than anyhuman being should have. Given our fears regarding the battalion’s nextbattle, the caring attitude of our relatives and friends at home came assweeter news than I can possibly express.

We kept up our skills with a variety of local engineering chores. Thearea around Walheim was riddled with uncleared minefields, and CaptainJim Gamble’s Company A kept itself in trim by building a small airstripnear Schmidt for use by light Piper Cub artillery spotting planes.Naturally, all the letter companies were out every day, from sunrise tosunset, repairing the muddy, shell-damaged roads and bridges that wouldcarry supplies forward and casualties rearward when the new assaultgot underway.

*There was no certainty that the 291st would actually wind up havinganything to do with the Roer dams themselves, but the betting aroundthe senior staff ran heavily in that direction. Major Ed Lampp wasextremely forceful in such prognostications. We knew we wereconsidered a crack battalion. Being so judged had its good points, but italso meant facing the dirtiest assignments. Besides, our pre-Bulgepreparations had been directed toward the dams; there was no reason tosuppose that the folks who had remembered our early surveys andbriefings would forget the sub-ject of those plans.

To be on the safe side, I had Captain Bill McKinsey send out a reconteam on February 9 to look over the dams from the closest possiblevantage point and to assess the overall situation in the HI Corps zone.Bill briefed the battalion staff and company command-ers late.

The 78th Infantry Division had jumped off against the dams onFebruary 5 following its series of unsuccessful attacks against Schmidt.(The mission of capturing Schmidt had been turned over to Major GeneralJames Gavin’s 82nd Airborne Division on February 2 and Gavin hadproceeded toward the city by a new route—directly down the mainhighway through Lammersdorf rather than over-land through the often-


used and stoutly defended steep-sided Kail Gorge.) Also on February 5,the 9th Armored Division’s Combat Command R (for Reserve) went insouth of the 78th Division, in the vicinity of Wahlerscheid, in theMonschau forest, a region of the Hurtgen. It came as considerable reliefto learn that the second-largest of the Roer dams, the Urftallsperre, hadfallen intact to the 9th Armored on the first day of its assault. As BillMcKinsey gleefully pointed out, “That’s one dam we won’t have torebuild!”

The main assault, that by the 78th Infantry Division, met lightopposition on February 5 and 6 but nonetheless proceeded at a cautiouspace. On February 7, the division commander decided to put all three ofhis infantry regiments into an effort to leap forward to the unsecuredSchwammenauel Dam. A company of the divi-sion’s organic engineerbattalion, the 303rd, was placed at the front with each of the attackinginfantry regiments. In the ensuing action, the engineers alone destroyedor directly helped destroy over two hundred concrete pillboxes in thedefended sector between Lammersdorf and the Roer.

Bill McKinsey saved the best news for last. The 9th Armored Divisionhad been sent to the aid of the 78th Infantry Division on February 9,permitting the 78th Division to redirect its 309th Infan-try Regimentcross-country against the Schwammenauel Dam. By day’s end, onlyhours before Bill conducted his briefing, the vital dam had fallen intothe hands of the 309th Infantry. Better than that, the dam was intact.And, best of all, the fall of the dam had allowed the 9th Infantry Division’s60th Infantry Regiment to spring forward right into Schmidt. All of theIII Corps objectives had been taken and the entire SHAEF assault to theRhine could commence— without the 291st’s having been committedto the bloody fighting in the Hurtgen forest.

*Early on the morning of February 10, Colonel Anderson called thebattalion CP and asked me to get over to Group immediately with MajorEd Lampp. There, Major Harry Webb, the group operations officer,briefed Ed and me on Operation GRENADE, the projected assault acrossthe Roer River.


First Webb told us that although the Germans had not destroyed thedams they had accomplished several acts of mischief. In particular, theyhad destroyed the powerful dam machinery and discharge valves on theSchwammenauel and had diverted the water from behind theUrftallsperre to behind the Schwammenauel. The effect was not, asfeared, an unstoppable torrent of water, but we were faced with stoppinga relentless flow that, unchecked, would flood the Roer valley for abouttwo weeks. If that happened, the 9th U.S. Army’s drive toward the Rhinewould be seriously delayed and that would have a ripple effect acrossthe entire SHAEF front. Accord-ing to Webb, it looked as though theassault would be delayed for about two weeks.

In addition to wrecking the machinery, the Germans had blown partof the spillway, leaving a big gap on top of the dam. The eighty-foot gapprevented the 78th Infantry Division from getting any armored supportacross the dam to the thin infantry screen defending the bridgehead onthe east bank of the Roer.

Major Webb next directed our attention to his situation map. He toldus that when Operation GRENADE commenced, we were to directlysupport the 78th Infantry Division by building a bridge across the gapin Schwammenauel Dam and thus assure the free flow of armoredvehicles and supplies toward the east. As Webb spoke, Ed Lampp caughtmy eye and smiled as if to say, “I told you so!” Indeed he had, manytimes over the past few days.

After telling us that the effort undoubtedly would be made underdirect German fire, Webb ended the briefing with a rather too chipper,“You guys got the contract.”

Before returning to my CP to mount out the battalion, I was takenaside by Colonel Anderson. He told me that the 291st had been selectedfor the job by senior 1st Army officers because of the sterling regard inwhich we were held.

Ed and I returned to the CP and called a meeting of senior staff andline officers to discuss the new and challenging mission. Bill McKinseyimmediately dispatched patrols to survey the entire 78th Division rearand report back about any damaged or destroyed bridges and stretchesof roadway that needed to be swept for mines or repaired. By then, the


early thaw had left many long stretches of vital roadway in utter disrepairfollowing the passage of our army’s steel-cleated tracked vehicles. Assoon as Bill left to dispatch the patrols. Captain Max Schmidt got on thephone to Group to line up our fair share of the available engineeringsupplies.

*The overall plan for Operation GRENADE was to start the assault atthe northern end of the battlefield by building bridges in the zone of thenorthernmost assault divisions—in the zone of the 9th U.S. Army’s XIXCorps. Once a bridgehead had been established east of the river,succeeding divisions would cross the same bridges and hook souththrough the preceding units.

Thanks to the slow flooding by way of the Schwammenauel Dam,the Roer had swollen from thirty yards to over a hundred yards in thezone of the XIX Corps. This caused an incalculable delay while engineerstried to figure out if they should try to bridge the wider-than-anticipatedriver or wait for the water to recede, in which case they would face awide muddy bog across the entire flood plain. It was decided to wait.

While the battalion CP moved from Walheim to Rotgen, due west ofSchmidt, the letter companies of the 291st used the delay to clear minesand restore the road net in our zone. We also dug in the heavy fieldpieces of the 78th Division’s general support artillery battalion.

On February 18, Group called to say that it had just received adispatch from III Corps that had apparently passed through theheadquarters of the 1st Army, the 12th Army Group, and SHAEF on itsway from the White House. President Roosevelt had signed thePresidential Unit Citation for which the 291st had been recom-mendedfor its wide-ranging service during the Bulge. Colonel Anderson askedme to drop by Group headquarters to add my endorsement to a sectionof signatures that included Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Bradley, and Hodges.Every man in the battalion— and those who had been wounded andevacuated during and since the actions in which we had earned thishonor—was given a copy of the citation and authorized to wear theribbon. However, we had no time to undertake a formal ceremony, forwe were too busy preparing for our next great adventure.


*On February 19, a damaged B-24 heavy bomber came down in a smallishfield south of Rotgen. Those of us at the CP heard the plane go in so Ijumped into my command car with Technician 5th Grade Mike Poppand rushed to see what was going on. The makeshift landing field, partof an extensive minefield, was in the zone of Lieutenant Don Davis’splatoon of Company C. By the time I arrived, the crew of the heavybomber was climbing out of the airplane amidst shouted pleas fromDon and his men that they stay put until a safe path through the mineshad been cleared with the aid of mine detectors. The entire fresh-facedbomber crew—they all looked to be about eighteen years old—disregarded the instructions and trudged across the muddy field towardus. When they got to the road, we pointed to the many signs that warnedof the presence of mines in the field, but those cocky boys laughed andboasted, “If we can crash-land a heavy bomber in a small field like this,there’s no minefield that can do us in.” With those foolish flyboys lookingon, Davis’s men immediately went to work plucking mines from exactlythe route they had followed from the bomber. When the airmen saw themines, they became so agitated that they refused to return to the bomberto collect their personal effects.

*By February 22, the flood waters in the Roer valley had recededsufficiently for Operation GRENADE to commence the next day,February 23. As planned, the assault began in the north, toward Julich,in the zone of the 9th U.S. Army’s southernmost XIX Corps. Germanair and artillery knocked out the assault bridges in the zone of the 102ndInfantry Division, but engineers employing a massive smoke screen inthe adjacent 29th Infantry Division zone breached the river. By day’send, tanks were advancing into Julich. In the next zone south, elementsof the 30th Infantry Division conducted an assault river crossing in boats,but no bridges were completed in its zone and, thus, no armor could besent to support the bridgehead.

In the northern 1st Army sector, the VII Corps got no bridges acrossthe Roer on February 23, but, next day, engineers built a Bailey bridgeon the piers of the blown main highway bridge into Düren. This was the


only bridge built to support the VII Corps assault that day. A treadwaypontoon bridge that was to be thrown across the river on February 24was delayed by a fierce defensive effort on the part of the 12thVolksgrenadier Division. This bridge was eventually completed, but theGermans continued to harass the units crossing there.

By February 28, parts of six divisions on the XIX and VII corpszones were across the Roer, advancing into the Cologne plain towardthe Rhine. During the morning, our battalion liaison officer, CaptainLloyd Sheetz, called from the 78th Infantry Division CP to tell us thatall three regiments of the 78th were safely across the river and preparingto attack across the Cologne plain next day, March 1, along-side the 9thArmored Division. Among other jobs, the 291st was to support the IIICorps attack by building a Bailey bridge at Blens.

*As soon as we got the news from Lloyd Sheetz, Ed Lampp sent BillMcKinsey to Blens to survey the bridge site. Toward evening on the28th, Bill returned—overdue—from the last-minute reconnais-sancewith a uncharacteristic haunted expression on his face. As the storydeveloped, Bill’s recon team had approached the blown Blens bridge soit could confirm the measurement of the length of the Bailey bridges wewere to throw the next day. Germans on the east bank of the Roer hadapparently spotted Bill and his team and had put a great deal of effortinto keeping them pinned. The scouts had spent the entire day crouchedbehind an abutment and had escaped only after the onset of darkness.

Major Lampp assigned the Blens bridge to Captain Frank Rhea’sCompany B. In turn, Frank assigned the Blens job to Lieutenant JohnKirkpatrick’s platoon.

Frank moved the Company B CP into a building near the bridge siteat about noon, March 1, so he could oversee the staging of the bridgingequipment. Almost as soon as Frank arrived, however, the Germansopened with a vicious artillery barrage. The shelling was still going onwhen Kirkpatrick’s platoon moved into the open to launch the bridgenose out over the turbulent Roer.

The Blens bridge was to be a 130-foot triple-single span. We hadbuilt dozens of such bridges across France and Belgium, but the layout


at Blens presented us with several unique challenges. Chief among ourheadaches was the fact that the far-shore abutment sloped downhill,thus causing the launching nose to be high above the ground. This wassolved by holding the bridge in alignment and level by means of a stoutcable affixed to a bulldozer winch while the structure was being shovedacross rollers set on the near shore.

The initial artillery barrage abated, but the German guns openedwith renewed fury at around 2300 hours. One of the heavy-caliber roundsstruck the bridge itself and the resulting spray of shrapnel wounded fiveengineers. Though German rounds continued to fall all around the bridgesite, Lieutenant Kirkpatrick stayed out on the span with the woundedmen and helped the medics administer aid and dress wounds. Then,through more artillery detonations, John helped carry the wounded mento safety. As soon as the shelling abated, John calmly reorganized theplatoon and led his engineers back out onto the span. Sporadic artilleryfire ensued, but Kirkpatrick’s platoon completed the job at 0310 hours,March 2—a record-setting performance of fifteen hours and ten minutes.

As soon as the bridge was completed, tanks and assault guns alreadylined up behind cover in the town pushed across to join up with the 78thDivision’s waiting infantry components. Before long, military policemenwere herding German captives back across the Blens bridge.

*While Company B was wrestling with the tricky, dangerous Blens bridge,Captain Jim Gamble’s Company A was preparing to under-take differentbut equally challenging headaches at Heimbach. The objective, placedin the hands of Lieutenant Bucky Walters’s and Lieutenant Arch Taylor’splatoons, was the construction of a 110-foot triple-single Bailey span toreplace a destroyed stone arch bridge that had been built on a curve.

Working against established procedure, Jim Gamble wanted to getthe bridge started in full daylight because of the severe difficulty hisplatoons would face as they attempted to install a straight bridge on acurve. Thus, construction work began at 1430 hours, March 2. Becausethe existing part of the bridge was too narrow to set base plates,Lieutenants Taylor and Walters had their men emplace tran-soms toextend the width of the existing structure.


When I arrived to survey progress, the bridge was creeping out slowlyabove the river despite some very inaccurate shelling. After the troopsadded each new ten-foot section, the entire structure was angled slightlyon the baseplate rollers, the only solution available for building a forty-ton assault bridge at such a tough location. The work was not onlystrenuous, it was hazardous. Perfect timing was required to prevent theentire structure from tumbling forty feet into the river.

The commander of the 78th Division’s 303rd Engineer CombatBattalion, Lieutenant Colonel John Cosner, arrived shortly after me. Hehad just come from having his first look at the Blens bridge, and he waseffusive in his praise. After Cosner had had a good look at what CompanyA was doing there, at Heimbach, he described feelings of awe. As wecontinued to watch, the 310th Infantry Regiment, which was screeningthe bridge site, sent back about fifty German prisoners—a real tonic forthe engineers, whose backs were breaking from the grueling effort. Theygot the job done by 0900 hours, March 3—in eighteen and a half hours.

*As soon as I returned to Rotgen on the morning of March 3 to check inat the battalion CP, I was given a message that Colonel Anderson wantedme to return his call. I dutifully complied, but the colonel was not in.Major Webb, the 1111th Group operations officer, told me that the colonelwanted to know how the bridge-building was shaping up. I told him thatthe Blens bridge was in and the Heimbach bridge had been completedan hour earlier. Next up was the Schwammenauel Dam bridge, whichCaptain Warren Rombaugh’s Company C was slated to begin in a matterof hours. I told Webb that we had heard through 78th Division sourcesthat the infantry had advanced far beyond the dam bridgehead and thatthey did not expect much artillery fire to be directed against CompanyC. Before ringing off, Webb told me that the colonel wanted to meetwith me at the site of the dam bridge within the hour.

I immediately left the battalion CP and drove over to pick upLieutenant Colonel Cosner at the 303rd Engineer Combat Battalion CP.We had agreed earlier to visit all three bridge sites and to discuss plansfor supporting the 78th Division’s drive across the Cologne plain. Cosnerhad information that all of the 78th Divi-sion’s three infantry regiments


were advancing rapidly in company with the 9th Armored Divisionagainst weakening opposition. Ac-cording to Cosner, the 9th ArmoredDivision’s Combat Command B and the 78th Infantry Division’s 310thInfantry were already about fifteen miles east of the Roer. As we drove,we ruminated about breaching the next great barrier, the mighty Rhine.We were both certain that the Germans would blow every span acrossthe mighty river from the Swiss frontier to the North Sea and that theywould commit every available soldier, gun, and airplane to keeping allthe Allied armies from crossing.

Everything was in order at Heimbach and Blens. Maintenance teamswere working over both bridges and my engineers were out policing upthe last of the mines. Speed-limit signs had already been posted on bothbridges, which were in heavy use.

We arrived at the Schwammenauel Dam at 1330, March 3, and foundLieutenant Don Davis’s and Lieutenant Tom Stack’s platoons of CaptainWarren Rombaugh’s Company C having a ball. The vistas to the eastand west were utterly breathtaking, with rich pine forests stretching intothe haze of the Roer valley and snow-capped hills marching beyondsight. We heard the rumble of artillery, but it was far east of the dam, farbeyond range.

The open breach where the Germans had demolished the spillwaywas seventy-five feet wide. It must have taken several tons of explosivesto do the job. Work had begun at 1245 hours, right after lunch, and itwas expected to be completed before dinner, say around 1830 hours.The bridge was an eighty-foot double-single Bailey span and the jobwas an absolutely straightforward affair in which Company C sustainedonly one casualty, a sprained back.

The line platoons were about two thirds through the job when ColonelAnderson finally arrived. I knew things were going well as soon as Isaw the twinkle in the Old Man’s eyes. As he stood with Cosner and mewatching the completion of the very last act in the long and bloodybattle of the Hurtgen forest, the colonel reminded us that the ordeal hadbegun with an assault by the 28th Infantry Division, the PennsylvaniaNational Guard unit with which he had fought in World War I and whoseengineer regiment he had commanded when the division was activated


before America’s com-mitment to World War II. Maybe because I was afellow Pennsylvanian, the colonel waxed nostalgic about the many scoresof Pennsylvania infantrymen and engineers who had died on their wayto this dam.

That evening, when he got back to his quarters, Colonel Ander-sonwrote in his nightly letter to his wife: “I didn’t sleep well last night.Pergrin was involved in building three bridges across a river where thedanger was extremely in evidence from all the hazards of war. When Ididn’t hear from him this morning, I went to the sites and saw threemasterpieces of engineering skill and courageous leadership. I will sleepwell tonight.”

Shortly, the 291st Engineer Combat Battalion was called upon tothrow the first Allied engineer bridge across the mighty Rhine River, atRemagen.



GUADALCANAlStarvation Island

By Eric Hammel

The Japanese defeats at Midway and Guadalcanal decided the outcomeof the Pacific War. Guadalcanal was the classic three-dimensionalcampaign. On land, at sea, and in the air, fierce battles were fought withboth sides stretching their supplies and equipment to the breaking point.The campaign lasted six months, involved nearly one million men, andstopped Japanese expansion in the Pacific.

When the campaign began on August 7, 1942, no one on either sidequite knew how to conduct it, as Eric Hammel shows in this masterlyaccount. Guadalcanal: Starvation Island corrects numerous errors andomissions in the official records that have been perpetuated in all thebooks previously published about the campaign. Hammel also drawson the recollections of more than 100 participants on both sides, espe-cially the enlisted men at the sharp end. Their words bring us into theheart of the battle and portray the fighting accurately, realistically, andpowerfully.

Guadalcanal: Starvation Island follows the men and the command-ers of this decisive World War II campaign in an integrated, brilliantlytold narrative of the desperate struggle at sea, on land, and in the air.

Praise for Guadalcanal: Starvation Island and Eric Hammel

“A comprehensive history of the Guadalcanal Campaign . . . [and] awell balanced account. Well written and fast moving.” —Marine CorpsGazette

“Hammel has written the most comprehensive popular ac-count to date. . . and exposes controversial aspects often passed over,” —PublishersWeekly


“Hammel takes the reader behind the scenes and details how decisionswere made . . . and how they impacted on the troops carrying them out.He tells the story in a very human way.” —Leatherneck Magazine

“A splendid record of this decisive campaign. Hammel offers a wealthof fresh material drawn from archival records and the recollections of100 odd surviving participants. . . . A praise-worthy contribution toGuadalcanal lore.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Hammel’s ability to reveal both the immediacy and the hu-manity ofwar without judgment or bias makes all his books both readable andscholarly. —San Francisco Chronicle

“Hammel does not write dry history. His battle sequences are masterfullyportrayed. —Library Journal


Note: The following article is excerpted from the bookGUADALCANAL: Starvation Island by Eric Hammel. The book iscurrently available in a $27.50 trade paperback edition publishedby Pacifica Military History. It is also available in ebook editions.

EDSON’S RIDGEby Eric Hammel


The Guadalcanal invasion—August 7-8, 1942—had gone of almostwithout a hitch. But the Imperial Navy had soundly defeated the Alliedinvasion fleet in a daring night action off Savo Island, and the U.S.transports a warships had fled.

The prize at Guadalcanal for both sides was Henderson Field, theonly airstrip within 600 miles of the main Japanese regional base atRabaul. While Marines dangled the end of an inadequate supply line,Japan achieved mastery of the seas around Guadalcanal and was thusable to land infantry forces almost with impunity. The first large infantryforce, accidentally goaded by Marines into a premature assault in lateAugust, had been defeated. A second, much larger, Japanese infantryforce had been landed east of the Marines’ Lunga Perimeter. It hadmarched overland to deliver what its commanders believed would anoverwhelming assault against the thinly held Marine line south ofHenderson Field.

*September 12, 1942, was a red-letter day for Lieutenant Colonel Merritt“Red Mike” Edson’s 1st Marine Raider Battalion, which received itsfirst mail from home in several months. For a few hours in the afternoon,the troops were left alone to think and talk about a life only a few couldactually believe they had once lived.

In the rain forest south of the T-shaped ridge, Kawaguchi Butai’smain body was winding up its prep-arations for taking the airfield. Itwas only after dusk that MGen Kiyotake Kawaguchi first learned that


the jumbled ridge manned by Marines lay between his assault force andthe main runway. There was no time to maneuver around the ridge; thehungry, exhausted Japanese would have to advance over the defendedground.

Last-minute work parties and scouts fanned out to blaze trails andobserve the enemy. The Emperor’s soldiers prepared to do their dutyamidst a mood of relief. Mementos were exchanged and words ofencouragement passed between old friends or from of-ficers to theirmen.

An afternoon patrol by LtCol Sam Griffith and two riflemen broughtnews to LtCol Red Mike Edson that there was a large force of Japaneseto the front. Griffith had been unable to determine how many Japanesethere were, or where they were heading. Edson decided to mount severalstrong combat patrols next morning, and he called his companycommanders and staffers to his CP for an evening planning session.Most of the Raiders and ‘Chutes turned in for the night while sentriessettled down to what would, they hoped, remain a quiet watch.

*The T-shaped ridge rose out of the rain forest about a mile south of themain runway, its stem running in a north-south direc-tion for about 1,000yards parallel to the Lunga River, about 600 yards to the west. Thecrossbar was high, clear, fairly broken ground dominated by four distinctspurs, two each on either side of the stem. Steep gullies and jungle-choked ravines isolated the bare ridge in most directions. The onlyfeasible path from south of the ridge to the Lunga Plain was down thelong axis of the spurs and stem.

Two Raider companies were on the line: B Company was on clear,high ground, its right flank tied in with C Company, Raiders, whichwas extended out to the right, its own right flank dangling off into thetree-choked flats beside the Lunga River. A and D com-panies, Raiders,were close by, in reserve. The battalion head-quarters and elements ofE Company, the weapons unit, were bivouacked several hundred yardsto the rear, on the stem of the T. B Company, ‘Chutes, about seventytroopers, was tied in with B Company, Raiders, east (left) of the centerof the stem, which served as the battalion boundary; A and C companies,


‘Chutes, were bivouacked in the woods just behind and below the stem.The minuscule parachute-battalion headquarters was to the rear, nearEdson’s CP.

An increment of 1st Pioneer Battalion was holding a hill overlookingthe west bank of the Lunga, well to the right of C Com-pany, Raiders,and elements of 1st Engineer Battalion were on another nearby hill, tothe left of the ‘Chutes.

*It started just as Red Mike was ending his briefing. As the leadingelements of Kawaguchi Butai briefly floundered in the jungle flats belowthe ridge, seeking the first line of Marine listening posts, the artillerysupported by the rear echelon of Ichiki Butai east of Alligator Creekopened fire several minutes before 2100, dead on schedule. Immediately,a Japanese naval floatplane ranged in from over the channel and droppeda parachute flare just south of the main runway. Two Japanese cruisersand a destroyer then opened fire on the T-shaped ridge. Several “overs”killed a number of Kawaguchi’s advancing infantrymen.

Shouts of “Japs!” and “Here they come!” intermingled with screamsof “Totsugeki!”—”Charge!”

Several listening posts screening the Raiders’ front were swept awayin the opening rush, then the Japanese crunched up against the mainline, manned at the points of impact by platoons from B and C companies,Raiders.

Spreading left and right, the Japanese screamed and yelled and hurledstrings of firecrackers to rattle the defenders. The most hard-pressed ofthe C Company platoons slowly fell back from its position overlookingthe river. Communications became unglued all along the line as attackersand defenders intermingled under the eerie glow of shellbursts andparachute flares. Before any Marines could effectively react, Japanesesoldiers were cutting fire lanes through the dense underbrush and firingalong them at the stunned Raiders. Within minutes, a second C Companyplatoon was iso-lated by a human wedge of oath-screaming Japanese.All the disor-ganized Raiders who could withdrew.

Severely disabled in the opening minutes of the fight, C Com-pany,Raiders, was forced to give ground. This, in turn, forced adjacent B


Company to undertake a fighting withdrawal to re-fuse its now-danglingright flank. When the withdrawal had been com-pleted, B Company’sright platoon was bent far back, holding a north-south line. The Japanesecould not press their advantage against the main body of B Company,for they had their hands full with isolated individuals and pockets ofRaiders who had not been able to withdraw with the herd. The attackerswere so taken aback by the unexpectedly stiff opposition that the fightingtapered off immediately after the first successful rushes had been drivenhome. Heavy skirmishing ensued through the long night, but the Japanesehad all withdrawn by sunrise.

*Early on September 13, pilots from carriers Hornet and Wasp ferried ineighteen brand-new F4F-4 Wildcat fighters for Cactus pilots whose ownWildcats had been lost in the heavy air fighting of the previous week.The Hornet and Wasp pilots were flown out later in the day.

Lt Smokey Stover, of Fighting-5, roared aloft at 0830, one ofseventeen Navy and Marine fighter pilots to greet an early air strike.Stover was at 25,000 feet peering all over the sky in search of targetswhen his earphones crackled with his division leader’s ex-cited voice:“Zero!”

The Americans had found two reconnaissance aircraft es-corted bytwenty Zeros. The Japanese were not there for a fight, did not evenexpect one. Their sole mission was to determine who owned the airbasefollowing General Kawaguchi’s “crushing” night assault. They gamelyturned to meet the oncoming Americans. The four Fighting-5 pilotsdescended steeply, and were passing 18,000 feet before Smokey Stovereven saw the quarry. Immedi-ately, Stover saw his wingman bailing outof his burning Wildcat. Then he was jumped by a Zero, which doggedlychased him into clouds at 6,000 feet. Hugging the clouds, Stover gotinto position to bag a Zero. The Japanese pulled up right in front of him,but Stover managed to hang on and fire his six .50-caliber wing gunsuntil the Zero burst into flames and crashed into the rain forest. Next,Stover forced a Zero into a head-on contest as it pulled away from afiring run on another Wildcat. Stover saw good hits on the Zero’s


fuselage. He watched as it circled, trailing smoke, but he did not see itfall, so claimed only a probable.

Fighting-5 claimed three Zeros definitely destroyed and oneprobable. The Marines made no claims. One Fighting-5 airman waslost with his Wildcat and another—Smokey Stover’s veteran wingman,Ens Don Innis—was seriously burned before bailing out; he was pickedup in the channel by a landing craft from Kukum. A third Navy pilotwas wounded, but landed safely.

The reconnaissance report to 11th Air Fleet resulted in a bomberstrike later in the day against “artillery” positions near Taivu Point. TheBettys destroyed most of what little remained of Kawaguchi Butai’ssupplies. The Japanese bombers were hit first by Maj Bob Galer andtwo other Marine airmen as soon as they turned for home. Each of thethree Marines claimed a kill. Smokey Stover, in one of seven NavyWildcats to get in on the melee, got to 25,000 feet in time to make onepass, but with no observable results. Other Fighting-5 flyers destroyedtwo Bettys over Savo. However, a furi-ous Wildcat-versus-Zero dogfightclaimed the lives of three Ma-rines and two Japanese. One Navy F4Fwas lost in a launching mishap.

Late in the afternoon, a pair of Zero floatplanes caught every-oneflatfooted and flamed a Marine SBD coming in for a landing, killing thepilot and gunner. Ten minutes later, antiaircraft gunners opened upon adozen “intruders,” but fortunately failed to score. The “intruders” wereU.S. Navy SBD Dauntless dive-bombers manned by aircrews fromScouting-3, which had been transferred to RAdm Slew McCain’sAircraft, South Pacific, following the de-parture of Saratoga after shesuffered torpedo damage on August 31. Soon after, the first Americantorpedo bombers to be sent to Cactus—six TBF Avengers fromSaratoga’s Torpedo-8—also landed.

*The Raiders moved to recover lost ground after sunrise. Jap-anese snipersabounded, so the advance by elements of B and C companies wascautious and slow. B Company riflemen who suc-ceeded in reclaimingfighting holes lost in the night found that the gear they had left behindhad been rifled by the Japanese, and that much of the food they had


pilfered at Tasimboko had, in the end, gotten into the stomachs for whichit had been intended.

A Company, ‘Chutes, had had no contact with the Japanese duringthe night, so was ordered down to the jungle flats to support the Raiders’attempts to regain their original positions. The company advanced onlya bit before it was stopped by gunfire from concealed emplacements.Unwilling to risk a major fight while de-ployed on so narrow a front,Capt Bill McKennan ordered his unit to back away from the Japanese.Once clear, however, McKennan pushed in from another direction, thistime with some artillery sup-port. The second attempt brought forth afew Japanese snipers, but they did little to impede the ‘Chutes, whoaccomplished their mis-sion by midafternoon. A Company returned tothe ridge at 1530 to find that the cooks had saved the morning meal. Allhands ate their first food of the day, then lined up again to collect theirafternoon meal, which was always served punctually at 1630.

C Company, Raiders, which had been badly mauled in the nightfighting, was withdrawn from the front. A Company, the only Raiderunit anywhere near full strength, and the remnants of D Company, whichhad been disbanded to fill out the ranks of the other companies, weresent to hold the Raider right.

Red Mike decided to shorten the line somewhat, and pull it backnearly 100 yards to force attackers to cross open ground through grazingautomatic-weapons fire. Improved fields of fire were cut, and much ofthe line was wired in. Deeper fighting holes were dug, and automaticweapons were repositioned. Asked by Archer Vandegrift what he thoughtof the night action, the grim, unflappable Red Mike whispered that hethought it was a test. Then he smiled his peculiar, bloodless smile andadded that the Japanese would be back that night. Vandegrift ordered up2nd Bat-talion, 5th, which had fought beside the Raiders on Tulagi fiveweeks earlier.

When the reserve battalion was delayed by the day’s busy airactivities as it crossed the main runway on its way from Kukum, LtColBill Whaling, exec of 5th Marines, and the rifle-company commandersarrived at Edson’s CP late in the day to look over the ground. It was a


wise precaution, for the main body of the battalion would be delayeduntil after dark.

Late in the afternoon, all twelve 105mm howitzers of LtCol HaydenPrice’s 5th Battalion, nth, were moved with the aid of prisoners fromtheir forest revetments to more-exposed firing positions south of themain runway. The gunners quickly plotted gen-eral and direct supportconcentrations on their maps, and zone registrations were fired beforedark.

The registration fire caused some excitement along the ridge, whereRaiders and ‘Chutes paused to see if they were under attack. When CaptBill McKennan, who had been up all night and all day overseeing his ACompany, ‘Chutes, saw that the rounds were landing well beyond hisposition, he dozed off.

Once the guns were registered, everyone except gunners was movedback into the woods to man a secondary line; if the Japanese brokethrough the Raiders and ‘Chutes, they would certainly over-run thehowitzers. There was nothing between the artillerymen and the vitalairfield.

*First Raider Battalion mustered just over 400 effectives. They held an1,800-yard line anchored on the southern slope of a high, projectingknob to the right of the center of the crossbar of the T. B Company wason the left, and A Company and the remnants of D Company held theright. C Company, the battalion headquar-ters, and elements of ECompany were the reserve.

First Parachute Battalion had yet to come in contact withKawaguchiButai. B Company, mustering about seventy-five effectives,was tied in at the ridge’s center with B Company, Raiders. C Com-pany,which had landed fewer than eighty men at Gavutu and which nowfielded no more than fifty, was to B Company’s left rear, holding about200 yards along a knob overlooking the jungle flats. A Company, thebattalion reserve, was in the woods right behind C Company. Thebattalion was down to well under 200 troopers in all from the 377 whohad landed at Gavutu. As with most Marine battalions in the Eastern


Solomons, 1st ‘Chutes had lost far more Marines to illness and diseasethan to enemy bullets and bombs.

General Kawaguchi reckoned that he had about 1,000 orga-nizedeffectives for the coming assault, a number far exceeding the combinedstrength of the two battalions holding the ridge. Despite casualtiessuffered the previous night, and the fact that many stragglers had notrejoined their companies, Kawaguchi decided early in the day to mounta new assault.

With the onset of darkness, Raiders and ‘Chutes could hear moreand more talk from the woods to the front. The Raiders re-plied withtaunts and curses. Bullets flew sporadically as each side psyched itselfup.

Capt Bill McKennan, of A Company, ‘Chutes, was awakened fromhis afternoon nap by a runner summoning him to the battalion CP. Hemade his way through the dense woods in pitch darkness and was advisedthat the situation on the front had become “threat-ening.” A Companywas to move to the ridge. McKennan returned to the company bivouacand ordered 1stSgt Marion LeNoir to call the troops out. The tensionwas alleviated when one young trooper said to McKennan as he passedin the dark, “I s’pose we get time-and-a-half for this, Cap’n.” The mendropped down beside the road to wait for the attack to begin.

*B Company, Raiders, took it on the nose, at 1830, September 13. TheJapanese struck most heavily on the right, just where they had hit CCompany the night before. A platoon was quickly iso-lated from therest of the company and surrounded. Then B Com-pany fell apart underrepeated hammer blows. Driven back, the Raiders reformed just behindthe crest and surged forward to re-gain some of the lost ground. But theJapanese were pouring through a 200-yard gap in the line. Withinminutes, B Company’s front had been reduced to a series of tiny pocketsand strongpoints manned by desperate men. A Company, Raiders,isolated by the Lunga on one flank and the gap torn at its juncture withB Com-pany, was not seriously molested by Kawaguchi Butai’s maineffort, which was aimed at the stem of the ridge, a direct path toHender-son Field.


Shortly after B Company collapsed, Red Mike moved his CP forwardto the high knob dominating the southern end of the ridge, only severalyards behind the most advanced machine-gun em-placement. As Edsonsought to steady his rattled troops, Cpl Walt Burak, his runner, scuttledto the rear in search of communications wire, which was spliced in tothe battalion message center and run back to the division CP, where thesenior staff was anxiously await-ing news. Edson was coldly determinedto stand his ground, though he, as every man around him, could barelylift his head for fear of having it blown off by the sheets of fire theJapanese were putting out. Edson presented a terse rundown to LtColJerry Thomas, the division operations officer, who was directing theoverall effort from his operations center, just north of the ridge. (RedMike would leave his exposed CP only once that long night, and thenonly to briefly spring to the rear to alleviate some of the confusionexperienced by his superiors at division headquarters.)

Individual Marines drifted back through the blackness from overrunpositions while others crept forward. As the life-and-death struggle ragedacross the killing ground, Red Mike called on C Company to defend theknob on which he had established his for-ward CP. Then beleaguered BCompany was allowed to withdraw. Only sixty Raiders responded, butmany other B Company Ma-rines were fighting individually and in smallgroups on other parts of the battleground.

*Fifth Battalion, 11th, was having the most active night in its brief history.Its twelve 105mm howitzers had been brought so close to the ridgeduring the late afternoon that the crews had had to dig pits beneath thebreech blocks in order to take up the recoil when they fired at extremehigh angle. The tubes were so steeply inclined that the rounds describedtrajectories similar to those of mortars. Initial fire missions consisted ofindividual concentrations directed by trained artillery forward observerson the ridge or by infantry officers and NCOs who had open lines to thebattery fire direction centers.

All that separated the howitzers from the Japanese was the line ofRaiders and ‘Chutes on the ridge. Pfc Larry McDonald, the nineteen-year-old O Battery recorder, was obliged to use a narrow-beamed pen-


light to make certain that his records and readings were in accord. Withina short time of the onset of the action, he drew sniper fire each andevery time he used the light, no matter how briefly. Despite the danger,it was imperative that McDonald and other recorders continue; all gunshad been set on base azi-muths, and any variation right, left, up, ordown had to be noted in order to bring them back to the base.

Communication between the artillery forward observers and thefiring batteries was disrupted early in the action. When Red Mikerequested an urgent replacement at dusk, Maj Charles Nees, the 11thMarines’ assistant operations officer, volunteered to take the job. Thethirty-three-year-old reservist worked his way for-ward and, at about2000, found a spot from which he could observe the front and adjacentpositions. He reported to Red Mike, who had been directing the artillery,simply by shouting that he had arrived, was in position, and hadestablished communications with the 105mm fire direction center. Neesimmediately began calling the pinpoint fires the Raiders and ‘Chutesneeded to survive. At about the time Nees went forward, an aristocratic,silver-thatched older private first class named Tom Watson left his jobas a clerk with the 105mm battalion’s headquarters battery to serve as afor-ward observer. Watson would be a second lieutenant by morning,so flawless was his direction of the guns.

By 2100, the howitzer crews shifted from called fire to box barrages,then to rolling barrages, which entailed firing a salvo at maximumelevation and subsequent salvos outward at fifty-yard increments to 300yards, then pulling the fire back fifty yards at a time. The gunners couldnot believe that Raiders and ‘Chutes were calling ranges so close totheir own positions, but they complied. The only time the guns stoppedfiring was when the battery execs, who were in charge of the fire directioncenters, ordered individual tubes swabbed and cooled.

One Japanese officer was so impressed with the rapid-firinghowitzers that he later referred to them as “automatic artillery.” Muchof the artillery’s success stemmed from Japanese assault tac-tics: Everytime the Emperor’s soldiers were about to launch a new assault, theylofted a red flare from their starting position. The Japanese who managedto breast the curtain of steel often pitched calcium flares at the American


lines, and those drew yet more fire. The quality and speed of the gunnerypaid deadly dividends.

*The tiny parachute battalion, spared the previous night, bore the bruntof a vicious head-on assault. The action on the ‘Chutes’ front beganwhen two mortar rounds landed in C Company’s lines, killing one trooperand wounding another. The ‘Chutes responded by pitching hand grenadesdown the steep slopes at the sound of voices.

As the action heated up and the Japanese routes of advance wererevealed, Capt Bill McKennan’s A Company was ordered for-ward fromits reserve position to man a secondary line on the re-verse slope of theridge, behind B and C companies.

Fearful that a powerful attack might breach his weak line, Capt JustinDuryea, whose B Company was holding the cleared area in the centerof the ridge, directly beneath Red Mike’s forward CP, ordered smokepots ignited to screen his front. A red flare burst overhead at the momentof ignition, and its light was reflected off the smudgy black curtain.Someone yelled, “Gas attack!” Blood ran cold as the smoke oozed overthe red-lighted ground; everyone had long ago discarded his gas mask.

The Japanese struck as additional flares were lofted into the redsky, surging down the spurs and wildly charging along the pro-trudingspine and the dark edges of the low jungle flats. They punched throughfrom dead ahead, officers waving swords aloft while yelling “Totsugeki!”and “Banzai!” at the top of their lungs. Riflemen fired their .25-caliberArisaka rifles and 7.7mm Nambu light machine guns from their hips,hurled grenades, and fired their strange little “knee mortars.” Theyscreamed their oaths and fired their weapons and sacrificed their livesfor their emperor.

Most of the B Company troopers held firm, and the Japanese rolledaway to their right front, hitting Capt Dick Johnson’s pla-toon-size CCompany. Cpl Ernie DeFazio, a squad leader whose squad had beendisbanded, was firing at sounds in the dark when he saw a red, glowinglight coming at him. There was barely time to secure his helmet withhis left hand and duck. The object, a grenade launched by a knee mortar,burst overhead and badly lac-erated DeFazio’s left hand. DeFazio did


not dare get up, and he knew that yelling for a corpsman in all that dinwould be a waste of effort, so he crawled on his belly toward the rearuntil shock and pain caused him to faint.

Most of the C Company troopers bolted, but the Japanese weremomentarily halted when a C Company machine gunner cradled hisgun in his arms and charged forward firing a long burst. The attackerswere held for only a moment, for the gunner was shot dead in his tracks.

The unremitting, repeated hammer blows finally forced Duryea’s BCompany to give ground. That in turn caused most of the remainder ofJohnson’s C Company to flee. While troopers from the forwardcompanies ran headlong toward the rear, McKennan’s A Companyrevealed itself to the Japanese by opening with power-ful defensive firescentered on three well-emplaced medium ma-chine guns. JapaneseNambus, whose muzzle-flash suppressors made them extremely hard tospot at night, reached out from the dark to duel the Marine machineguns. American gunners were going down, one after another, butvolunteers from the rifle squads replaced them. A Company held itsline.

Pfc Larry Moran, of B Company, ran nearly 1,000 yards down thestem of the ridge before he was stopped by 1stSgt Donald Doxey, whowas reorganizing B Company stragglers in a stand of trees. Doxeyordered the ‘Chutes to win back the lost ridgeline. As Larry Moranworked forward, he could hear bellowing voices from the Raider lines,exhorting the troops to keep the machine guns firing and “kill the Japbastards!”

Elements of B Company, Pfc Larry Moran included, regained thesummit, but Moran was soon blasted over the side by a concus-siongrenade. Uninjured, he collected his wits and scrabbled uphill to rejointhe fight. Suddenly, a challenge was hurled through the night. Moranrecognized the voice as belonging to MG Bob Man-ning, but he couldnot recall the password.

“Mr. Manning,” he called.“Yeah,” Manning replied.“It’s Moran; I can’t remember the password.”“Okay, come on up.”


Another voice suddenly called Manning’s name and said thatreinforcements were coming up on the right, that he should have histroopers hold fire. As Gunner Manning expected no help from anydirection, he alerted the men around him to the ruse, then shoutedapproval. The attempted penetration was easily repulsed..

At 2200, three-and-one-half hours into the battle, Red Mike informedLtCol Jerry Thomas that his force of Raiders and ‘Chutes had dwindledto about 300 organized effectives, and that the Jap-anese had yet toease the pressure. Isolated groups and individuals continued to contributeto the success of the effort by stalling rushes and confusing Japanesetroop leaders by firing from odd places at odd moments. Nevertheless,though many Japanese were down, the Marines were increasinglyoutnumbered.

Pfc Larry Moran was struck in the thigh by a red-hot sliver ofshrapnel. He fought on until a lull allowed him to hobble with anotherinjured Marine to an aid station about 100 yards back. When the twoarrived at the sickbay, they were told that the corps-man was on theline, that there was no one qualified to deal with their injuries. The twocontinued toward the rear, permanently out of the fight.

Pfc Bill Keller, an A Company BAR-man, bowled over threeJapanese who popped out of the trees directly beneath his position.One screamed for endless minutes, so painful were his wounds. Acorpsman asked Keller what the trouble was. When the BAR-man saidthat a wounded enemy soldier was making all the noise, the corpsmansort of grinned and dropped into the trees to get at the wounded man.The screaming stopped, but Bill Keller never learned the outcome, fortwo Japanese concussion grenades ex-ploded within a yard of hisposition. The next thing Keller knew, he was being lifted onto a jeep atthe base of the ridge. Shrapnel wounds pitted the lower part of his faceand upper back. His pre-cious BAR was clutched tightly in his fists.

Capt Bill McKennan was working out of his CP, right behind theforwardmost machine guns, when he and istSgt Marion LeNoir saw aJapanese grenade sputter out of the darkness. LeNoir dived one wayand McKennan went the other, right into the orbit of a second grenadehe did not see. McKennan next found that he was rolling downhill, and


he came to rest by the roadway running parallel to the base of the ridge,tangled up with a rifleman who had been knocked down by the sameblast. The two groggily regained their feet and tried to regain theirbearings, then felt their way along the trees beside the road until theyreached an aid station. Both men were placed in a jeep and bouncedrearward. An infil-trator hurled a grenade from out of the darkness, butthe jeep rolled through the blast, and the two groggy, injured Marineswere car-ried into a tent, where their wounds were swabbed with sulfacom-pounds. McKennan dropped off as morphine combined with theeffects of forty-eight hours on the go.

*In a conversation with LtCol Jerry Thomas at 0230, Lieuten-ant ColonelEdson said that he was “out of the woods.” While the Japanese had notyet begun to acknowledge defeat, it was generally felt that they hadspent themselves. Thomas informed Edson that 2nd Battalion, 5th, wasbehind 5th Battalion, 11th, and would soon be closing on the ridge toassist him.

G Company, 5th, moving up the left side of the stem of the T at0400, was soon pinned by heavy fire from the woods to its left. It sufferednumerous dead and wounded before arriving behind the ‘Chutes andpressing forward against heavy opposition. In all, G Company lost thirtydead and wounded by dawn. As E Company attacked on the right of thestem, it lost five killed and nine wounded to snipers it bypassed in thedark.

*The Japanese mustered one final assault at first light, but it ran directlyinto the guns and bombs of the last three serviceable P-400S at HendersonField. The three Army pilots turned out of their high-powered takeoffsand dipped over the ridge, wreaking unbe-lievable destruction uponKawaguchi Butai, which put out enough return fire to force two of theaircraft to glide back to the runway without functioning engines.

*Cpl Carlo Fulgenzi, an eighteen-year-old suburban New Yorker servingwith Headquarters Company, 1st Engineer Bat-talion, had been placedin charge of a group of engineers who, like himself, were suffering from


the effects of malaria or other tropical diseases. Positioned across thejeep track at the base of the ridge, Fulgenzi’s group was whittled downthrough the long night by Jap-anese infiltrators, but the survivors held.

At about 0500, Fulgenzi decided to venture up to the ridgeline tofind a buddy whose machine gun had stopped firing hours ear-lier. Hestopped dead in his tracks when he ran into about thirty Japanese—laughing, joking men who had simply sauntered through or around theAmerican positions higher up. All Carlo Fulgenzi had to fight them offwith was a Colt .32-caIiber revolver he had smuggled ashore, a giftfrom his father. He had only the six rounds in the cylinder. As Fulgenziducked away from the Jap-anese, he found a dugout and rolled inside,silently praying for deliverance. He was shaking so badly that he had tosteady the pistol between his knees.

The chattering Japanese stopped outside the dugout. Several climbedon top of the coconut logs over the engineer’s head while othersproceeded to rip apart tents throughout the area. They soon discoveredthat wounded and ill Marines were in the tents, and proceeded to flaytwo of them with bayonets and knives.

A grenade landed in the trench leading into Fulgenzi’s dugout, and asteel sliver tore into his left leg. Immediately, four Japanese dived intothe trench; they could not see Corporal Fulgenzi, but he could see themsilhouetted in the entryway. The leader was only a foot away when CarloFulgenzi lifted the barrel of his Colt pistol and squeezed off a round intothe man’s forehead. The first Jap-anese pitched to the side, and Fulgenziput a round into the second head. And the third. And the fourth. Hestarted to climb out of the dugout to make his escape when he ranheadlong into a fifth Japanese. The man had his rifle raised and wasalready squeezing the trigger when Fulgenzi shot him dead.

Fulgenzi turned toward his company area, but got only about twenty-five yards when he found twelve Japanese furtively moving through thetrees. They yelled oaths as Fulgenzi dived toward a nearby machine-gun emplacement, uncertain whose it was. He found three Marines,who turned their gun to the flank and dropped all the Japanese in sight.

After one of the Marines in the gun emplacement handed Fulgenzi asubmachine gun, the engineer corporal bandaged his leg wound and


hobbled off to the 1st Engineer Battalion CP to issue an alert concerningthe infiltration. Then he volunteered to lead a pa-trol to rescue the gunnerhe had set out to find earlier.

Four of eight engineers in the patrol were wounded as they crawledon their bellies through a rain of sniper fire toward the silent machinegun. It took what seemed like hours to traverse a mere hundred yards.Moans from the position, however, egged on the rescuers. Carlo Fulgenzibroke into the open and leaped into the fighting hole. A Japanese machinegun that opened fire as Fulgenzi was airborne put a round through hisleft wrist, but he ignored the wound when he saw the two Marines whohad been manning the position. The dead man on top had a dozen bayonetholes through his chest. The survivor had been shot through both legsabove the knees, and one leg had been slashed to the bone by a sword.Ful-genzi was helping to lift the wounded man onto a stretcher when hewas shot through the right arm. Despite the excruciating pain, he helpedcarry the wounded Marine to safety, then turned himself in for treatmentof his own wounds.

*There was a moment of heart-stopping drama at the division CP when asword-wielding Japanese officer stepped into the open with two riflemenand headed directly for Archer Vandegrift, who was in the open, aloneand unarmed.

MG Sheffield Banta, an utterly unflappable old salt, stopped typinga report long enough to unholster his .45-caliber automatic pistol andplug the officer dead in his tracks. A corporal whose pistol jammedattempted to tackle one of the enlisted gate crashers, but two quickgunshots from nearby felled the quarry practically at the commandinggeneral’s feet. The third intruder was dropped where he stood and, later,a fourth infiltrator was routed out of the division commander’s closet.

*A and B companies, 1st Marines, were sent from reserve jjosi-tions byAlligator Creek before dawn to mount a sweep below the ridge to severthe Japanese line of retreat. Though these Marines were veterans whohad weathered the carnage in the coconut grove on Au-gust 21, manywere utterly appalled by what they saw as they passed through the tiny


remnant of the parachute battalion; mail and debris were strewn all overthe place, and Marines with dark, hunted expressions nervously peeredat the jungle flats below.

The two companies cautiously advanced west and south for nearlytwo hours without opposition. Then A Company ran into gunfire put outby a tiny blocking force. Capt Charlie Brush ordered 2ndLt JohnJachym’s platoon to hold the rear while the remainder of the companywithdrew. Though Jachym was unable to comprehend why the powerfulforce was not going to launch an attack against the Japanese ahead, hefought a slow rearguard action. When A Company was reformed, CaptainBrush explained that he had been ordered back to Alligator Creek towithstand an assault there. He had also received word, however, that BCom-pany had been engaged by a far superior Japanese force. Heor-dered Jachym’s platoon to mount a relief.

When Lieutenant Jachym reported to the B Company CP, he foundfour of the company officers wringing their hands over the possible fateof a rifle platoon that had been ambushed and was pinned in the denseundergrowth. As the officers talked, Japanese machine guns on theopposite bank of the nearby Lunga River opened fire on them. Then amortar round landed at their feet. The five officers and their runnersburst in all directions from the point of impact, scrambling for cover.The round proved to be a dud.

John Jachym could see that the demoralized B Company of-ficerswere not about to commit themselves to bailing out the lost platoon, andhe felt he needed more than his own understrength platoon to do thejob. He sent his runner after the rest of A Company, which arrived at theB Company CP in due course, winded but up for the effort. CaptainBrush reported to battalion headquarters, which reported to divisionheadquarters, which replied that it could not afford to have the twocompanies involved in the rescue mission. Brush was ordered towithdraw posthaste to Alligator Creek.

The abandoned B Company platoon was destroyed. In all, twenty-four Marines were killed in a fight to the last bullet. One of the fewsurvivors, Pvt Harry Dunn, spent three days carrying a wounded comradeto safety; he hid during the day and traveled by night. It was a remarkablefeat of survival and devotion.


*More than 600 Japanese corpses were counted on and about BloodyRidge, as it came to be called; many wounded were laboriously carriedinto the rain forest by their spent comrades; a large number of dead ormissing soldiers was never found, not even by American patrols that,for days, combed the jungle flats south of the ridge. Perhaps 1,200Japanese officers and soldiers followed their general away from thebeaten zone, across the Lunga, westward to link up with Colonel Oka’sbattered contingent.

The march was too much for many of the injured; scores of woundedJapanese were left by the wayside with scores of dead. They had neitherfood nor medical supplies. By the fifth day, NCOs were beating theirflagging charges with switches, cursing them onward. In the end, thesurvivors emerged from the forest near Point Cruz and rushed to lap upthe water washing over the beach. Many died, convulsed in agony. Ofthe 2,100 souls Kiyotake Kawaguchi had led to the foot of Bloody Ridgeon September 12, just 1,000 returned safely.

The Raiders lost 31 killed and 104 wounded, and the ‘Chutes lost18 killed and 118 wounded. B Company, 1st, lost 24 killed. Severaldozen engineers and artillerymen also died.. The Japanese Septemberoffensive was over.




GUADALCANALDecision at Sea

The Naval Battle of GuadalcanalNovember 13–15,1942

By Eric Hammel

Guadalcanal: Decision at Sea is a full-blown examination in vivid detailof the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, November 13–15, 1942, a crucialstep toward America’s victory over the Japanese during World War II.

The three day air and naval action incorporated America’s most de-cisive surface battle of the war and the only naval battle of this centuryin which Ameri-can battleships directly confronted and mor-tallywounded an enemy battleship. This American victory decided the fu-ture course of the naval war in the Pacific, indeed of the entire PacificWar. Hammel has blended the detailed historical records with personalaccounts of many of the officers and enlisted men involved, creating anengrossing nar-rative of the strategy and struggle as seen by both sides.He has also included major new insights into crucial details of the battles,including a riveting account of the American forces’ failure to effec-tively use their radar advantage.

Originally published in 1988 as the concluding volume in EricHammel’s series of three independent books focusing on the Guadalcanalcampaign and exploring all the elements that made it a turning point ofthe war in the Pacific, Guadalcanal: Decision at Sea lives up to thehigh standards and expectations that have marked this author’s manyhistorical books and articles.

Praise for Guadalcanal: Decision at Sea and Eric Hammel

“Hammel’s description of surface tactics, naval gunnery, and whathappens when the order to abandon ship is given is vivid andmemorable.” —Publishers Weekly


“[Hammel’s] detailed and fast-paced chronicle includes a number ofincidents and anecdotes not found in the more prosaic official histories.”—Sea Power

“Meticulously well-researched and scholarly, but still readable. AuthorHammel presents an interesting account of the three-phase battle withfrequently gripping ship-by-ship, plane-by-plane, blow-by-blownarratives laden with many human-interest vignettes from both sides.”—The Hook

“[Hammel] mixes action with his history, the result being a highlyreadable story difficult to put down.” —Riverside Press-Enterprise

“Hammel’s painstaking reconstruction affords not only a wealth ofstrategic and tactical detail but also a full measure of critical judgements.. . . a kaleidoscopic but invariably intelligible accounts of key actions .. .” —Kirkus Reviews

“Hammel does not write dry history. His battle sequences are masterfullyportrayed.” —Library Journal


Note: The following article is excerpted from the bookGUADALCANAL: Decision at Sea by Eric Hammel. The book iscurrently available in a $27.50 trade paperback edition publishedby Pacifica Military History. It is also available in ebook editions.

THE ATLANTA’S ORDEALby Eric Hammel


It is Friday the Thirteenth of November, 1942. Thirteen U.S. Navycruisers and destroyers are prowling the waters off Savo Island, adjacentto Guadalcanal, in the hope of forestalling a bombardment force ofImperial Navy warships, including two battleships. The USS Atlanta isthe fifth ship in the American column, behind a vanguard of fourdestroyers and followed by several cruisers and several additionaldestroyers. The enemy is out there, somewhere.

At 0150, one sharp searchlight beam from destroyer Akatsuki penetratedthe blackness toward the highest near silhouette in the American column.The light from off her port bow struck Atlanta on the port wing of herbridge, startling all who stood in its sharp luminescence. The source ofthe light was so close and the light itself was so intense that Lt StewMoredock, RAdm Norman Scott’s operations officer, could just aboutfeel the heat it was throwing off.

Instantaneously, Atlanta’s gunnery officer shifted his attention froma solid radar target crossing from port to starboard due north and 3,000yards ahead and yelled, “Commence firing! Counterilluminate!”

As all four of her 36-inch searchlights snapped on, Atlanta be-camethe first ship on either side to open fire. Immediately, her after group offour dual 5-inch mounts put out rounds straight up the cone of light,right at the searchlights themselves, right at Akatsuki. The target wasonly 1,600 yards to port, too close to miss.


At the same time Atlanta’s after gun group opened on Akatsuki, herforward group of three dual 5-inch mounts was shifted to a destroyer—possibly Inazuma—which was about 300 yards behind Akatsuki. Allthe guns of both groups appeared to be dead on their targets. At leasttwenty rounds were observed striking all parts of the rear destroyer’shull and upper works, and numerous hits were scored on Akatsuki. Butnot soon enough.

Especially concerned with his crew of engineers who were sealedbelow decks in the fire rooms and engine rooms, Atlanta’s chief engineer,LCdr Arthur Loeser, had arranged for topside talk-ers to keep him abreastof what was going on outside while he re-layed a running commentaryvia loudspeakers from his station in the forward engine room. Thus theengineering staff throughout the cruiser was listening as LieutenantCommander Loeser de-scribed the first seconds of the gunneryexchange—”We’re really putting rounds into them!”

Even as at least one of Atlanta’s two targets disappeared from view,the American light cruiser’s forward superstructure was raked by a dozen5.5-inch rounds fired by light cruiser Nagara, which had by then turnedback the way she had come and was at that moment swiftly steamingdown the starboard side of and on the same general heading as theAmerican column. Among other areas that were struck were Atlanta’scharthouse and forward 5-inch gun director. But the worst blows—several of them—fell upon the bridge area and the men occupying it.

Lt Stew Moredock, who was observing the action from the port wingof the bridge, just ahead of the charthouse, was struck in the right armby a piece of shrapnel, but he felt no pain and did not yet know he hadbeen wounded. However, as soon as Moredock tried to use the injuredlimb, he was gripped by intense pain. In-stinctively, he glanced back atAdmiral Scott, who was standing right outside the charthouse. At thatmoment, the admiral was in the process of taking a step forward. Thenhe collapsed to the steel deck, dead as he was caving in. Three of AdmiralScott’s staffers died with him; only Stew Moredock survived. Only threeof the thirteen enlisted sailors on the bridge survived along withLieuten-ant Moredock and two or three other officers. One of thesurvivors was Capt Samuel Jenkins, who had made a fortuitous trip to


the port wing of the bridge to find targets for his ship’s port torpedomount. Though the captain had turned back to starboard by the timeNagara’s 5.5-inch shells struck the bridge, he was shielded from theeffects of the blast and suffered no injuries.

*At nearly the instant Atlanta’s bridge was devastated, the Jap-anesedestroyers to port put at least eight rounds into that side of the ship,from up near Atlanta’s bows to just beneath Mount-2. One of these roundsdetonated directly on the face of Mount-1, killing every member butone of the right-hand gun crew. Another round struck the mount’s upperhandling room, killing and injuring every-one there and cutting the flowof ammunition to the viable left gun.

As soon as Mount-1’S right gun was disabled, GM3 Ed Huddleston,the left gun’s first shellman, took command from the wounded chiefturret captain. Though Huddleston’s ears were still ringing from theeffects of the direct hit on the mount, he called Lt Lloyd Mustin, theassistant gunnery officer, to request permission to secure. Mustin agreed,but cautioned Huddleston to be careful since the ship was still takinghits. As soon as Huddleston stepped through the hatch to the main deck,a Japanese shell ignited the ammunition and powder in Mount-2’s upperhandling room. Though a cloud of shrapnel and debris erupted from thestruck space, Huddleston was not touched, so he turned to help the nextman out of his own mount. All the wounded from Mount-1 were laidout on the main deck beside the mount and given rudimentary first aid.Then, as Japanese shells continued to strike the ship, Huddleston wasconfronted by a panicked lieutenant who was yell-ing, “Abandon ship!”Huddleston was not so easily rattled, but other sailors who wereimmediately released several life rafts and followed them straight overthe side.

*One of Nagara’s 5.5-inch rounds killed a pair of mess atten-dants whowere passing one another as each ran to the opposite side of the shipfrom his battle station in each of the midships 20mm ammunition clippingrooms. Neither of those places was damaged and no one inside themwas injured.


A 5-inch round fired from port struck the mast, toppling it andspreading shrapnel into the adjacent after stack and across the aftersearchlight platform. Another Japanese round penetrated the unoc-cupiedflag cabin, and two more 5-inch rounds struck the after su-perstructure;one of them went all the way through Mount-4, the port waist mount,and then bored all the way through the ship. In fact, this armor-piercinground did not detonate until it had pene-trated Mount-5, the starboardwaist mount. All but one member of the gun crew was killed; the survivorwas blown into the water after being forcibly ejected from the mountwhen its roof was blown open. Finally, three lighter rounds, probably 3-inch antiaircraft rounds fired from starboard by Nagara, struck Mount-6.

*The Mount-5 handling-room crew evacuated the compartment in

good order after the mount direcdy overhead was hit. However, as soonas the ammunition handlers were outside on the unengaged starboarddeck, someone mentioned that at least several live 5-inch rounds wererolling around in the handling room. S2 Don McKay volunteered to goback in to retrieve them. The room was filled with stagnant smoke, sosomeone tied a rope around McKay’s waist and promised to reel him inif he ran into trouble. With that, McKay held his breath and groped hisway into the darkened com-partment. He found several shells on thedeck, picked them up, and passed them outside one at a time. Then hetook a breather. As McKay was completing his second trip into thesmoke-filled com-partment, an officer appeared and asked what wasgoing on. He put a stop to McKay’s trips when he learned that McKaydid not have a gas mask, much less a more sophisticated device knownas an RBA (Rescue Breathing Apparatus). The officer felt thecompartment was probably filled with poisonous gas in addition to thestagnant smoke. A runner was sent to find someone with an RBA.

*The vanguard Japanese destroyer captains, drilled to perfec-tion in

their navy’s highly aggressive torpedo tactics, exploited their initialimmediate advantage and supplemented the gunfire with sev-eral salvosof their deadly 24-inch Long Lance torpedoes. Crewmen in blindengineering spaces throughout the ship heard LCdr Arthur Loeser’s mike


open once again. Loeser said, “Ah ...” and the entire world fell in.Loeser’s voice was stilled in mid-sentence—and forever.

The first Japanese torpedo to find any target struck Atlanta on theport side, nearly amidships and exactly in the center of her forwardengine room. In addition to killing virtually everyone in the forwardengine room, the detonation blasted a hole in the over-head and killednearly everyone manning a damage-control station in the crew’s messhall. The shock of the massive detonation lifted the light cruiser rightout of the water.

When she landed, Atlanta came down with a jolt that sent shuddersand shivers up the spines of every member of her crew who was stillvertical. BM1 Leighton Spadone, whose 1.1-inch mount was on thestarboard side of the ship and well aft of the blast, was severely jostledas the entire ship flexed and strained as steel decks and bulkheadsresonated the force of the detonation in all directions from the point ofimpact. Spadone and many others throughout the stricken cruiserdistinctly heard and felt another massive explosion, right on the heels ofthe first. Many thought this was caused by a second torpedo, but it wasalmost certainly a sym-pathetic detonation in the engineering spaces.

EM3 Bill McKinney and S2 Dan Curtin, who were manning adamage-control substation in a large crew’s quarters on the fourth deck,two compartments forward of the forward fire room, were knocked offtheir feet by the force of the blast. Immediately, the two jumped up andexamined the area, but they could find no dam-age. A quick check alsorevealed that the battle phones and ship’s service phones were dead,and their only light was provided by a battery-powered battle lantern.McKinney was aware that Atlanta’s guns were no longer firing and thatthe ship was slowing down. He could clearly hear rending and tearingnoises from above, as if the ammunition hoists running through thecompartment to Mount-3 were buckling off their tracks.

Most of the firemen, machinist’s mates, and watertenders who wereworking in the forward engine room were killed or wounded in thetorpedo blast, which knocked out all the cruiser’s power except anemergency diesel generator. The Navy’s first anitaircraft cruiser hadbeen rendered powerless and set adrift within minutes of opening fire.


*In the immediate wake of the torpedo hit, the survivors among her engine-room and fire-room watches had to fend for themselves. The inhabitantsof the after fire room were immediately beset by an enormous in-rush ofwater through the breached double forward bulkhead. Fortunately, allhands managed to scramble up ladders leading to escape trunks overhead.Those who went up the port ladder made it to safety without much of astruggle, but three who opted for the starboard ladder were unknowinglybeset by rigidly enforced rules pertaining to the watertight integrity ofthe ship.

MM1 Ross Hilton, the machine-shop supervisor, and anothermachinist’s mate were only just recovering from the effects of the blastdirectly beneath their station when they saw that someone below wasundogging the clips securing the heavy counterweighted starboard escapehatch in the midships passageway. However, as soon as Hilton beganreleasing the clips from his side of the hatch, an overexcited lieutenantappeared and bellowed, “Dog that hatch backdown, Hilton!”

“But, sir,” Hilton protested, “there’s someone alive down there.”“I don’t give a damn! Dog it down!”“Sir, they’re trying to get out. They’re alive!”The officer reached for his .45-caliber pistol, fixed a mur-derous

stare at Hilton, and piped in his by-then shrill voice, “Dog it down orI’ll blow your brains out!”

Hilton was thinking about what to do or say next when a sailor arrivedbehind the officer and told him of an urgent matter requir-ing his presenceelsewhere. As soon as the officer was distracted and gone, Hilton andhis companion bent over to undog the hatch. By then, the man beneaththe hatch had virtually completed the job, so Hilton and his companionjerked the hatch open. Immedi-ately, a fuel-covered machinist’s mateand two fuel-covered firemen cannonballed onto the deck. Behind them,the water had risen to within 2 feet of the overhead; the three wouldhave drowned in a matter of moments. Hilton and his companionimmediately re-sealed the hatch while the rescued machinist’s mateexplained that everyone else from the after fire room had escaped upthe port ladder.


*After helping to clear volatile ammunition from the Mount-5 handlingroom, S2 Don McKay tagged along with an officer and several othersailors who were on their way forward to look for topside damage causedfrom the torpedo detonation. As the small group passed an escape hatchleading up from the damaged engineering spaces, the officer orderedMcKay to redog several clips that someone had left open. McKay saidthat he thought someone might be trying to get out, but the officerremained firm; he had direct orders from his superiors to batten downall hatches. As they spoke, a thin gout of water burbled up from theedge of the hatch-way. The officer left McKay and several others toredog that hatch and check others in the vicinity. He said he would beback for them. By then, the forward engine room and after fire roomwere both flooded to the overheads, and all the men remaining in theformer were dead.

*S2 Dave Driscoll, the Mount-8 shell-hoist loader, worked him-self to asmooth, continuous flow while the action was hot, but a distinct shudderDriscoll felt early in the action was followed by an order to cease firing.Mindful for the first time of the intense phys-ical ordeal of continuouslythrowing heavy 5-inch shells onto the moving hoist, Driscoll and theother shellmen reacted to the cease-fire order by dropping to the deck orreeling back against the sup-port of the bulkheads of the gray steelcompartment in which they had been sealed. After a minute or two, thebabble of many con-fused voices making its way down the hoist fromthe gun chamber overhead was suddenly overwhelmed by an unwelcomecommand: “Abandon ship!” S2 Driscoll reacted by repeating the orderdown the powder hoist to the men who had been sealed into the Mount-8 magazine. Then, as others climbed up to Mount-8, Driscoll undoggedthe handling-room hatch to gain access to an adjacent berthingcompartment. There being no one in the berthing compartment, Driscollnext defied rigid regulations and undogged the hatch leading to themagazine. He was immediately confronted by sailors from the lowerhandling room crew, all of whom displayed expressions of pure animalfear mixed with pure human relief. S2 Dave Driscoll fell in with thethundering herd and began climbing the nearest ladder of the main deck.


*Despite all the obvious hits and the jolt he had received from the torpedoblast, BM1 Leighton Spadone was not overly con-cerned until he realizedthat his ship was no longer firing her guns. As Spadone’s confidencereached its low ebb, he found himself muttering, “Please, God, stopthem from firing, stop them from firing, stop them from firing. ...”However, his prayers were an-swered by hits that seemed to be comingin from somewhere aft of the ship.

Atlanta had been in the last stages of speeding up and complet-ing aright turn to regain her position in the column when she was struck bythe torpedo. She was pointed south and sliding powerlessly to the endof that maneuver when San Francisco’s main battery fired a full nine-gun salvo at what must have been Hiei. Atlanta’s unchecked forwardmomentum carried her directly into San Fran-cisco’s line of fire.

Every one of the flagship’s nine 8-inch rounds—and every one fromthe next full salvo—struck Atlanta from a relative angle of 240 degrees,aft of the port beam, at a range estimated to be about 3,600 yards. CaptainJenkins, who had not yet had an opportunity to assess the damage orextent of casualties on his shattered bridge, was game to take the assailingvessel under fire with the remaining 5-inch mounts that could be broughtto bear, but he recognized the familiarly American outline of the flagshipin the flare of her own main battery and so countermanded the order assoon as he uttered it. It is doubtful in any case that the order could havebeen relayed to the guns because all power and communicationsthroughout the stricken vessel were out.

Mount-3 received two direct 8-inch hits, as did Mount-6 and Mount-5. The rest of the 8-inch hits were scattered in two large groupingsthroughout the forward and after superstructures. By no means fatal tothe stricken ship, the incoming friendly rounds nevertheless cut downmany Atlanta crewmen.

One of the mess attendants assigned to the crew running theammunition hoist to the two midships i. i-inch mounts was in mor-talfear of being hit on the head and killed. When F1 Chuck Dodd, who wasin charge of the crew, had enough of standing around with nothing to doin the vulnerable little compartment, he gave the order to head to the


starboard side of the ship. One of San Francisco’s 8-inch roundsdetonated nearby as Dodd opened the hatch. Its blast jarred the steelladder running through the compartment from the bulkhead. The heavyladder fell on the fearful mess attendant, crushing his helmet and hisskull.

*RM3 Ray Duke, a member of a repair party stationed topside in apassageway just forward of the radio transmission room, was in the actof cutting loose a fire extinguisher from an outside bulkhead when hewas struck by shrapnel in the right knee. The force of the impact, whichshattered the knee, threw Duke and the heavy TBS transceiver he wasbackpacking headfirst down an 11-foot ladder. Duke landed on his headand shoulders but was saved by his steel helmet, which took most of theimpact when he landed. The nearby 1.1-inch ammunition handling roomwas on fire, and the area was filled with smoke. Slightly dazed and inneed of fresh air, RM3 Duke staggered into the open on the unengagedstarboard side and breathed deeply to regain his composure. His ordealhad only just begun.

His lungs filled with fresh air, Duke hobbled into the burning andsmoking 1.1-inch handling room to see if he could help there. Heimmediately found a friend who was lying in the middle of the ruin withhis right leg shot off at the knee. Duke offered to fetch the other mansome morphine and staggered down to the next deck to find a boatswain’smate he knew was authorized to carry the nar-cotic. However, as soonas Duke asked for morphine, the boat-swain’s mate jabbed him with afull syrette and made him lie down on the deck. Duke tried to protest,but he was groggy from shock and smoke inhalation and never quite gotthe words out. No sooner was Duke on the deck than the adjacent payoffice took a direct hit. The beam from the large flashlight he still carriedrevealed a hole in the bulkhead about half the size of a basketball.Shrapnel from the blast went right between Duke’s legs, ripping off alarge chunk of flesh from his left thigh right above the knee and severingthe femoral artery. Blood was pulsing from the wound in spurts thatappeared as thick as his wrist. Another piece of shrapnel slid be-tweenDuke and the steel deck and sliced open the back of his right thigh from


knee to buttocks. At the same time, shrapnel punctured the 1.1-inchcoolant tank right overhead and Duke was bathed in hot salt water. Assoon as Duke recovered his senses, he and a sailor right beside himhelped one another up a nearby ladder and crawled out onto the portquarterdeck. At that point, Duke stood up and walked all of 10 feetbefore his damaged right knee gave way. He fell heavily to the deck andlay there until someone came by and administered a second shot ofmorphine. Soon after that, a supply officer held Duke’s head in his lapwhile a corpsman laved the wounds, applied bandages, and administeredyet another dose of morphine. With that, RM3 Ray Duke lost track ofhis surroundings.

*The electrician’s mates manning the after searchlights were in dangerof being roasted alive by fires reaching nearly as high as the platform onwhich they were trapped. Not only was there no evi-dent way off theplatform, dense smoke and shooting flames from shrapnel holes in theafter stack, to which the searchlight platform was affixed, totally obscuredthe vista and blocked all possible es-cape routes. Indeed, there was somuch acrid smoke billowing up around the after searchlights that theoperators were not certain if they would die from roasting or smokeinhalation.

Suddenly, when their plight seemed hopeless, the searchlightoperators were graced by a sudden rise in their fortunes, a wind changethat both blew the smoke away and revealed the silent pas-sage of Hieionly 100 yards from the ship. Though the searchlight operators werecertain they were dead meat as they stared up at the battleship’ssearchlights, which were 20 feet over their heads, Hiei went on her waywithout firing at burning Atlanta. Meantime, the wind held the smokeand diverted the flames away from the search-light platform, so all handsscrambled down to the relative safety of the main deck, where theywent to work fighting fires.

Atlanta’s emergency diesel generator got the lights back on at 0156.By then, thankfully, Atlanta was out of the line of fire, and the fury ofthe widening battle had passed her by.




KHE SANHSiege in the Clouds

An Oral HistoryBy Eric Hammel

From critcally acclaimed military historian Eric Hammel comes a vividoral history account of the Tet 1968 siege of the Khe Sanh CombatBase. The words of American fighting men caught up in the grueling,deadly seventy-seven-day ordeal create a harrowing tapestry of tragedyand triumph.

As two North Vietnamese Army divisions move to surround them,the vastly outnumbered U.S. Marines rush to strengthen their defensesat the isolated base and several nearby hilltop positions. The Commu-nist forces repeatedly attack, are repeatedly repelled, and then dig in totake the American base by siege–the makings of a classic, modern “set-piece” strategy in which the defenders become bait to tie the attackersto fixed positions in which they can be pummeled and pulverized byAmerican artillery and air support.

Khe Sanh: Siege in the Clouds is a ground-breaking step forward inthe oral history genre. This gripping–and moving–narrative flows fromthe masterfully woven threads provided by nearly a hundred men whogallantly endured the wrenching all-out struggle to hold the combat baseand its vulnerable outlying positions.

Praise for KHE SANH: Siege in the Clouds and Eric Hammel

A harrowing, gut-level record of the Vietnam War’s Khe Sanh Campaign. . . a vivid, day-by-day log. . . . Hammel conveys the ironies as well asthe horrors of the protracted engagement. ——Kirkus Reviews

A remarkably accurate account of a crucial 77-day battle . . . Khe Sanh:Siege in the Clouds is retold as an oral history by the men who fought init, which gives the account not only a vividness and immediacy but ahuman perspective so many other war analyses are missing. ——Playboy


The author sets the stage for this epic battle, but then turns the narrativeover to the vivid accounts of nearly 100 individuals who survived. Theaccounts cover all the bases—from privates in foxholes, to cooks,chaplains, and the commanding generals. . . . A masterful telling ofhistory. ——Air Force Magazine

The story of the thankless siege is told in this vivid oral history by nearly100 articulate survivors, mostly U.S. Marines, who convey the frustrationexperienced by men trained for aggressive mobile warfare forced forthe most part to huddle inside a crowded perimeter. ——PublishersWeekly

Hammel’s book captures the full flavor of day-to-day life and death thatwas Khe Sanh. ——Marine Corps Gazette

Hammel’s ability to reveal both the immediacy and the humanity of warwithout judgment or bias makes all his books both readable and scholarly.With Khe Sanh: Siege in the Clouds, he elevates the standards of oralhistory as well. ——San Francisco Chronicle


Note: The following article is excerpted from the book KHE SANH:Siege in the Clouds, Tet 1968 by Eric Hammel. The book is currentlyavailable in a $32.95 trade paperback edition published by PacificaMilitary History. It is also available in ebook editions.

RECORD INCOMINGby Eric Hammel


1stLt FRED McGRATHBravo Battery, 1/13The sound of incoming is like no other in the world. We had ampleopportunities to hear it, learn it, adjust to it, and finally to live with it.From descriptions of battles during World War II and Korea, we at KheSanh got an inkling of what our fathers experienced. It was a constantreminder, that even though we were in a very picturesque mountainvalley, somebody did not want us there. There were a lot of men whohad fears of dying. And there were plenty of chances. Like the day andnight the base took over 1,300 rounds of incoming.HN ROD DeMOSS26th Marines Regimental Aid StationAnother corpsman and I were topside at the entrance to our bunker,talking with a couple of guys across the road, when we heard boomp.We went below and soon we heard the round hit close. The two guys wehad been talking to took a direct hit. All that was left was pieces of twobodies.Cpl DENNIS SMITHBravo Company, 1/26Lieutenant Kim Johnson was our 1st Battalion supply officer. He washandsome, even with glasses, tall, articulate, a practicing Mormonmarried to a former Miss Arizona who was going to school in Hawaiiwhile she awaited his return. He had the option of running the supplyend of things at Phu Bai—the battalion “rear”—but he sent his gunnery


sergeant there instead so he could remain with his men. The guys atbattalion supply noticed the “funny” underwear he wore—lower-bodyarmor. He referred to it as “anti-mortar and -rocket skivvies.” He wouldhave quiet religious discussions with his men from time to time. Theyloved him.

The last week of February was the “peak” of the siege. On February23, we absorbed the record for the whole siege—[1,307] rockets andartillery rounds in a twenty-four-hour period. That afternoon, duringthe scariest barrage of rockets imaginable, LCpl James Jesse and I werein our house, hugging the sandbags, quietly acknowledging the absolutefear in each other’s eyes. The explosions were constant as they mountedto a head-splitting crescendo of head-splitting, knee-knocking sound. Ican’t adequately describe the terror I felt that afternoon. We should havebeen used to this, right?

Lieutenant Johnson was in his bunker, not far from mine, along withthe battalion motor-transport officer. An explosion that knocked Jesseand me off our butts was a direct hit on the lieutenants’ hooch. I lookedout and saw the battalion supplymen scrambling out of their holes, so,over Jesse’s protests, I ran across the road to help. The supplymen allyelled at me, “Get back. We’ll handle it. Go on!” There were four orfive guys there already, throwing boards and sandbags aside likemadmen, machines, so I went back. During the next lull, one of thesupplymen came over to our hooch. He was the picture of dejection anddespair. He told us that Lieutenant Johnson was dead from a brokenback. There were no other visible wounds. The motor-transport officerhad been carried to the aid station; his legs looked so bad that everyonethought he’d lose them.

When the supplyman left, I just sat there staring. Something insideme had snapped. Jesse said, “Smitty, you’re pale and you’re shaking.Have a Salem.” Right there, I started up a four-pack-a-day habit. Theincoming did not stop, but it became a little more irregular. I was stillsitting and staring when my eyes went to a little leather-bound Bible Ikept on a shelf. On an impulse, I flipped it open with my right indexfinger. I was numbly looking at the 91st Psalm, verse five. Then verses


six and seven. I was not feeling any comfort. All I could think was,“Why the lieutenant? Why him?”

They had told us in boot camp not to make friends with anyone wewent into combat with, because if he was wasted you ran the risk ofcoming unglued and losing your battle effectiveness. Good advice, butimpossible to follow. We depended on each other too much not to becomefriends.Maj TOM COOK26th Marines Assistant Logistics OfficerOne of the incoming rounds hit the ammo dump and created a low-order explosion that set the dump on fire. The fire kept getting hotterand hotter and, finally, the dump blew. I saw all that stuff going up inthe air. It was one of the most amazing sights I had seen in my life, allthose mortar rounds, hand grenades—you name it—just going up intothe sky. I stood there and watched, totally amazed. Then it suddenlyoccurred to me that all that stuff was going to come back down. As amatter of fact, it had already started back down. I was about twenty orthirty yards from a bunker. I took off running and just barely got in therewhen I started hearing all that stuff hitting the ground. It blew mortarrounds a mile from the dump. A helicopter pilot who happened to beflying near Hill 881S at the time told me that he thought it was an atomicblast, because there was a 1,400-foot fireball.26th Marines Command Chronology

Enemy incoming caused a fire in ASP-1. Fire equipmentresponded, but at 1705, the ammo began to cook off. The firedestroyed 1,000 rounds of 90mm high explosive, 500 rounds of106mm Beehive, and 120 rounds of 90mm canister ammunition.Maj TOM COOK26th Marines Assistant Logistics OfficerWe had to have EOD people come up from Danang and clean the wholething up. It was quite a mess. It made my job a little tougher, too, becauseI had to get all that stuff inventoried and reordered.


Pfc LIONEL TRUFANT106mm Platoon, 3/26The rounds just kept coming in, kept coming in. There was such aconcentration of artillery hitting us! Usually, when artillery came in, wejust sat in our living bunker and played cards. We just played chickenwith the regular incoming, sitting in the living bunker. When it got realheavy, we would usually jump into the trenchline, which was a smallertarget. But that particular day, it was coming in so heavy that three of ushid out in the machine-gun bunker, which was tiny. We were just huggingthe ground, afraid. I had never smoked in my life, but that day I did. Idid a lot of praying, too.

Every once in a while, one of us had to stand up and look out tomake sure Charlie wasn’t coming. We knew this was Dienbienphu. Thiswas the day. One time, when I was looking out of the hole, a roundcame in real close. Dirt and rocks and stuff pounded me right in theface. I thought I was hit. I felt my face and thought aloud, “Oh, God,I’m hit.” One of my buddies thought it was comical. “Damn,” he said,“you ain’t hit.”HN ROD DeMOSS26th Marines Regimental Aid StationTwo Marines escorted a gunnery sergeant into the regimental aid station.He came in shaking, wouldn’t talk, had both hands holding his helmetdown on his head, and every time a round hit he would shake. He was,of course, suffering from shell shock, but it surprised me, because herewas this tough Marine gunnery sergeant—been through all kinds ofshit—and this makes him crack. I realized then that shell shock canhappen to anybody.Lt RAY STUBBE1/26 Battalion Chaplain[Diary Entry] Went by the new operating-room bunker, visiting all thewounded who kept coming in during the afternoon. One had a blastwound on his foot. He was in bad pain, even with morphine. Anothersaid his legs hurt no matter where he put them. He was also in intensepain and was given an injection of morphine, but it still hurt him. Thedoctor said it was broken and would continue to hurt.


More and more incoming.The 106mm recoilless rifle bunker near us, where I had slept on

February 7, took a direct hit, and in the trench adjacent to it, injuringone and killing four. I ran down there, through the internal barbed wire,with the Catholic chaplain. There were pieces of arms and bodies. Onehad no head; we couldn’t find it. There were small pieces of flesh allover the place. I knew them all intimately. . . . I took this very hard, butcouldn’t cry. Parts of one man’s body hung out as I held him in my armscarrying him into the ambulance. A hand, an arm, a stringy piece offlesh intertwined with cloth and caked with mud. The 106mm recoillessrifle was completely untouched.

Returned to my bunker. The west wall, by my rack, was protrudingin like it would collapse on my rack. Things inside had shifted.

We had taken in the following incoming today: 476 rounds of artillery,42 rounds of 60mm, 372 rounds of 82mm, 4 rounds of 120mm, 437rounds of 122mm, and 5 rounds of recoilless rifle. Total, 1336. ButLieutenant Colonel Wilkinson reported (from the regimental briefing) atotal of 1,407 rounds. Major Smith, CO of FOB-3, told me we hadreceived 1,700 rounds of incoming, counting those that landed in hisarea.1stLt FRED McGRATHBravo Battery, 1/13It was fortunate that the NVA gunners were short of fuses, because manyrounds would have done considerably more damage if they had exploded.The rounds that were not fused were particularly eerie. They whistled.We knew they would not explode, but when they hit, they were likewrecking balls. No shrapnel damage, but what a hole! As it was, theydug up a lot of dirt and nothing more. When EOD dug them up, theyfound the lift lugs still in the rounds.Capt DICK CAMP3/26 Assistant Operations OfficerBy sunset, I was physically and emotionally drained. All I wanted to dowas go to sleep. The adrenalin had been going through me for hours andI was about to fall over.


At last, the bombardment died way, and I walked outside, throughthe remains of the trees that had once shielded the battalion CP fromview. I meandered through the trees, looking at the stars and feeling lifereturn to a landscape that resembled the surface of the moon. Then Iwent back inside and drew two cups of coffee from the perpetual urn.As I was handing one cup to Maj Matt Caulfield, I heard an observer upon Hill 881S announce on the battalion net, “Arty! Arty! Arty! Co Roc.”I instinctively hunched my head into my shoulders and wondered half-aloud, “So where’s this one going to hit?”

The next thing I knew, there was a tremendous explosion and all thelights went out. The bunker instantly was filled with dust and there wasan immediate dead silence.

I think I was the first to speak—one of those dumb questions: “Iseverybody okay?” It was dead dark in there, so I was immensely relievedto hear people say “Yeah, I’m okay,” and “I’m fine,” and “No sweat.”Everyone had had his brains rattled, but no one had been hurt.

There was just the one round. Until someone got our generator goingagain, there was nothing doing inside, so we all went out to see whathad hit us.

The round had come in on an angle, right between the trees, rightthrough the tent we had erected to camouflage the bunker. It had hit theone-inch plywood outer shell and detonated—just the way we had hoped.There were six feet of earth, wood, rocks, and metal between us and theexplosion, but the blast had blown off two feet of all those materials andhad taken down the three-ply blast walls we had erected around thebunker.

Two Marines who had been exiting a tent just across the way weresaved by the blast walls, which directed the full force of the blast outwardin another direction. We found them flopping around on the ground,stunned but unscathed except for a a few tiny shrapnel wounds, hardlymore than scratches.

We had taken a direct hit from a 152mm or 130mm round, but noone was permanently injured. It was a miracle of foresight and faith inour two main gods, Dirt and More Dirt.

*


1stLt FRED McGRATHBravo Battery, 1/13Bravo Battery pumped out over 1,250 rounds in reply. Bravo was reallya battery and a half. That is, we controlled six 105mm howitzers of ourown and three from Charlie Battery. So we combined our assets andcreated a nine-gun battery. During that very busy day and night, I had,at various times, five separate and distinct fire missions goingsimultaneously. To the everlasting credit of the Marine gunners on theline, they never missed a command or fired the wrong missions. In fact,Colonel Lownds personally came to our position the next day andthanked every Marine in the position for the superb fire support hisregiment had received.HN ROD DeMOSS26th Marines Regimental Aid StationOne of my more gruesome duties was identifying and tagging bodies tobe sent back home. I kept thinking to myself, “This could be me.” I wasthankful it wasn’t, but I felt bad, because I knew this was someone whohad a family or friend who would grieve over him, someone who had agirlfriend or wife back home. All I could do, though, was zip up the bagand try to make it through without ending up like that.



LIMA-6A Marine Company Commander in Vietnam

By R. D. Camp. Jr. with Eric Hammel

In this vividly told first person narrative, retired Marine Colonel DickCamp colorfully recounts the daily combat actions and commanddecisions of his Vietnam experience as “Lima 6”—the com-mander ofLima Company, 3rd Battalion, 26th Marines—from June 1967 throughJanuary 1968.

Upon his arrival in Vietnam, Captain Camp finessed his way intothe immediate command of Lima Company following the death of itsprevious commander near Khe Sanh. Instantly, he was thrown into thetense experience of patrolling the beautiful, deadly jungle valleys aroundKhe Sanh and escorting supply convoys along embattled Highway 9between Dong Ha and Khe Sanh.

For six full months, Dick Camp commanded Lima Company in al-ternating periods of intense combat and intense waiting—a typical, vir-tually emblematic experience shared by his peers in the 1967–1968 phaseof the war in northern Quang Tri Province, bordering the DMZ andNorth Vietnam. In early September 1967, Camp’s battalion was almostoverrun near besieged Con Thien in an ambush sprung by a full NorthVietnamese Army regiment. In early January 1968, Lima Companyambushed the commander and staff of a North Vietnamese regimentapparently charged with assaulting the Marine lines at Khe Sanh. Threeweeks later, Lima Company and the rest of the reinforced 26th MarineRegiment were besieged inside the Khe Sanh Combat Base by two NorthVietnamese divisions.

As much as Lima 6 is about fighting the Vietnam War, it is also thestory of the tight camaraderie of the Marine infantry company at war—of men from widely disparate backgrounds thrown together to succeedor fail as a fighting force. It is a compelling human story of an infantrycompany at war as seen through the eyes of its commander—the lonelyman upon whom all others depend for guidance, wisdom, strength, andhumor.


An intensely frank, always human memoir, Lima-6 sets out to makeno political or ideological points. It is a candid, refreshing narrative bya combat commander about the experience of command and the broth-erhood of men at war. Lima-6 is, above all, an honest account of life anddeath at the heart of the Vietnam War.

Critical Acclaim for Lima-6

“A solid contribution to Vietnam literature. . . . Always readable,frequently vivid.” —Booklist Magazine

“Camp’s gritty narrative is flawless as it takes the reader through sixmonths of the Vietnam War through the eyes of an infantry officer . . . amust for those who want to understand the awesome responsibility acompany commander has in war. An honest portrayal.” —VietnamBookstore Book Report

“Solid, down to earth, and faithful in describing the way it was [for] oneMarine company commander.” —Leatherneck

“An honorable and dead-honest narrative.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Camp’s autobiography underscores the essential nobility often displayedby men sharing dire circumstances.” —Cincinnati Enquirer


Note: The following article is excerpted from the book LIMA-6: AMarine Company Commander in Vietnam by Col. R. D. Camp, Jr.,with Eric Hammel. The book is currently available in a $24.95 tradepaperback edition published by Pacifica Military History. This bookis also available in ebook editions.

FIRST COMBATby Col. R. D. Camp, Jr. with Eric Hammel

Copyright 1989 © by R. D. Camp, Jr. and Eric Hammel

Leatherneck Square, Vietnam, August 21, 1967

Captain Dick Camp, a professional Marine, had taken command of LimaCompany, 3d Battaion, 26th Marine Regiment, in the field near KheSanh at the end of June 1967. Through July and the first half of August,the company had patrolled extensively around Khe Sanh and escortedconvoys to the highlands base from supply dumps near the coast. Inmid-August, Lima and another company of the battalion weretemporarily transferred to the 9th Marine Regiment to take part in sweepopertions in the Leatherneck Square area around Con Thien, just southof the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). On August 20, the other companyreturned to Khe Sanh and Lima Company was attached to the 2ndBattalion, 9th Marines (2/9).

*It was late in the afternoon, August 20, and 2/9 was moving along a trailin the area immediately north of the sector in which our half of 3/26 hadbeen operating the week before. I was starting to get anxious because Ididn’t know the people from 2/9 and I didn’t like the way they operated.

As we moved along the trail and were pulling up over a hill, therewas a terrific explosion behind me. The whole column stopped as Ithought, “Oh shit. I wonder what the hell’s happened this time.” I workedmy way back in the column to discover that an Ontos we had with uswas blown all to shit.


An Ontos was an ungainly tracked fighting vehicle mounting sixexternal 106mm recoilless rifles. It was not armored at all. In fact, a .50-caliber round could go right through it. As far as I was concerned, badthings always happened to Ontos and the men around them.

It looked like our Ontos had been the victim of a command-detonatedmine, which usually amounted to a dud 500-pound bomb dropped byour side and salvaged by the other side for use against tanks, Ontos, andamtracs. This mine—thankfully something lighter than a 500-poundbomb—had gone off beneath the Ontos and sheared the track, drivingwheels, and all three recoilless rifles off one side. When I arrived, thetwo crewmen were sitting on the ground beside the trail, dazed but unhurt.Everyone else was just standing around.

It was staring to get dark and we were still on the road. I was gettingconcerned and the troops were, too. Finally, as we moved up and overthe hill, the battalion CP told me to move in on the right side of the roadand form a perimeter. As we got in, I saw that there was a large openarea right behind us.

Fortunately, I had an SOP worked out so we could form a perimeterin the order of march. The lead platoon moved first, straight into thenearest designated position, followed to the right by the middle pla-toon,and then by the rear platoon. As soon as we got the word from Battalion,I called the platoon commanders back and verbally sketched it in forthem. They each said, “Right,” and we literally started running the troopsin so we could dig in before the sun set.

I checked in with the platoon commanders, each of whom escortedme as fast as we could walk around his platoon’s section of the line. Aswe went, I checked the position of each fighting hole and particularlythe field of fire of every M-60 machine gun. I tightened up here andthere, but the platoon commanders had known me from my first daywith Lima Company, and they had trained their troops in my ways. Ittook only a few minutes to check the entire company and make sure wewere tied in with the companies on our left and right flanks.

After dark, as my troops were settling in, without telling me, Battalionsent its 81mm mortar platoon right into our company posi-tion. It wasfull dark by then, but the mortar platoon walked in on us with flashlights


on and portable radios blaring. I was really upset, so I walked back tothe 81mm platoon commander and said, “If you don’t knock that bullshitoff, I’m going to shoot you myself.”

I hated being with 2/9. I had not been favorably impressed from thefirst day we had operated with their Echo Company a week earlier, Iwas not impressed with the battalion commander, I was not impressedwith how late we had started setting in for the night, and I definitely wasnot impressed with the 81mm platoon’s sense of noise and lightdiscipline. Fortunately, and despite sleepless hours of concern, we spentan uneventful night. Nothing happened.

At stand-to the next morning, August 21, the battalion CP gave methe word that Lima Company was going to move out on an indepen-dentcompany-size sweep. I didn’t want to be around 2/9 and I was used tooperating on my own. I couldn’t have been happier.

*Bright and early, Lima Company found itself moving along a ridgelinethrough a dense bamboo thicket that channelized us on the only trail.The bamboo was so thick that we had to stay on the trail to get throughit. Unbeknownst to me as we moved along the little ridge—it was onlyfourteen or fifteen feet high—the point bent around a little bit too far tothe right and started down off the ridgeline toward an open area, acomplex of rice paddies.

As the first four or five men of the lead element approached thenearest rice paddy, they took several sniper rounds. As soon as I heardthe pop of the sniper rounds, I got on the radio to the lead platooncommander, the 3rd Platoon’s Gunnery Sergeant Almanza. “Okay,Gunny, what’s going on, what’s going on?” I knew that he was alreadytrying to find out from his vanguard squad, but I wanted news as soonas possible.

We had all of four or five scattered sniper rounds, but that was goodenough. They stopped the point and the point stopped the whole columnon the ridgeline inside the bamboo. The main body of the companynever got out in the open, probably had not been seen.

When Gunny Almanza confirmed that the point had been fired on, Isaid, “Okay, hold your position. I’ll come forward.” I worked my way


through the troops angling down the slope. As I neared the point, I sawthe rice paddies for the first time. Beyond them, directly across from us,was another low hill. Another low hill was to our rear.

I called the rear platoon and told Little John, “Move back along thetrail, hook a left, and see what you can see along the ridgeline to ourrear. We’ll look around down here.”

Little John’s 2nd Platoon backtracked, as ordered, and Little Johneventually came up on the net with his report. He had worked to the leftand had located a bunker complex. That made me extremely nervous.The main body of the company was on the side of a hill. To our rightrear was another ridgeline with a bunker complex. Out ahead was anopen area of rice paddies. There were snipers out there, probably on theridge beyond the open area. Lima Company was in a box. There was noway out.

Normally, Lima Company would have rated a forward air controller(FAC), a fully qualified naval aviator, a pilot ranked lieutenant or evencaptain. This time out, however, we had no FAC. There weren’t enoughin 2/9 to go around. What we had was a tactical air-control party (TACP)operator, Private First Class Terry Smith, who was trained primarily toguide resupply and medevac helicopters. As I pondered my options,Terry came up beside me and said in a very calm, collected voice,“Skipper, how’d you like some air?” I said, “Shit, I’d love some air.” Ididn’t know it then, but Terry had never actually run a tactical air strike.He had been cross-trained to call in jets, but he had never really doneso.

Terry got on the tac-air frequency and called for any aviator torespond. Fortunately, there was a Bird Dog in the area, and he respondedto Terry’s first call. He said he was right over us and that he had somefast movers—jets—standing by. Terry told him that we had receivedsome scattered sniper fire from our front and gave him an azimuth. Iswitched over to the tac-air frequency and added, “I’ll fire my mortarsection on the rice paddy if you’ll make sure the ridges are fairly wellclear.”

The aerial observer (AO) flew around our flanks and reported thathe could not see anything on the hills. Meantime, I ordered the mortar


section to deploy and gave the section leader, Corporal Patrick McBride,an azimuth to fire on. After McBride eyeballed the range and said theguns were ready, I told him I would spot for him.

We threw several rounds into the far edge of the open area and theAO came right up on the air in a jubilant voice, “My God, you just blewa couple of them into the trees!” I immediately shouted back to McBride,“Let ‘em have it. You just blew some NVA into a tree!” That was allthose gunners needed to hear. They went into automatic over-drive. Theywere throwing mortar rounds down the tubes as fast as they could. Theywere really going through their supply of mortar rounds, no doubtencouraged by the ammo humpers’ desire to lighten loads.

The AO kept reporting, “My God, you’re right on target. I can seethem running. They look like they’re ants scurrying from a broken nest.You just blew a couple more of ‘em into the trees.” Then he added, “I’mgonna get some air on this.”

Not five minutes after the AO called for fast movers, Lima Companyhad ringside seats for the greatest air show any of us probably had everseen. The AO was bringing in flight after flight of fixed wing. Theywere using napalm and 500-pounders. They really dusted off that hill.They worked it over for twenty or thirty minutes without letup.

During the whole thing, I kept updating Battalion. The CO was reallyinto it, but when I said, “I want to go up on the hill,” he replied, “No, no,no! Wait a little while longer. Bring in some artillery.” So we waited alittle while longer and called in some artillery. When I reported that theartillery had really dusted the hill off again, the CO said, “Okay. “I’msending up two tanks. Wait for them, then go take the hill.”

The tanks worked their way up to us and, as soon as they arrived, Istarted Lima Company moving out to the edge of the near rice paddyand on toward the hill, which was to our right front as we walked, about250 meters away. The company was in the open, well spread out, but wedidn’t take any fire. As we started up the hill, we entered the bambooagain. It was so thick we had to stop and wait for the tanks to knockdown a pair of trails we could walk along. I didn’t like having thecompany forming up in two columns behind the tanks, but there was noother way for us to plow through that really thick vegetation. Talk about


tunnel vision: Except for what we could see ahead, past the tanks, wewere completely hemmed in by the bamboo.

Suddenly, the tank that I was following fired its 90mm main gun. Iwas instantly on the intercom phone attached to the tank’s rear fender,yelling to hear myself over the ringing in my ears, “What the hell didyou do that for? What are you doing?” The tank commander told methat the tank had just broken through onto an unseen trail when thegunner had spotted a North Vietnamese RPG team just in time to pushthe firing button on the 90mm. After I acknowledged, the tankcommander added with considerable glee, “We just dusted them off.There’s just a spray of blood and guts where those guys were.”

The tank started up again and we followed it the rest of the way upthe hill, which had really been blasted. Napalm had burned off most ofthe growth and there were deep bomb craters everywhere. We couldn’tfind anything but we could smell death. We couldn’t find a sign of anyNVA or their positions. I had no idea what the AO had seen, but I couldsmell death.

As the platoons set in and continued to search the hill, my companyradioman, Corporal Johnson, sat down at the edge of a huge bomb craterand took off his radio. I went over to join him, but as I approached Ismelled something terrible. “Goddamn John, there’s something deadaround here somewhere.” He said, “I know, sir, I can smell it, I cansmell it.” He stood up and looked around. Right where he had beensitting was a big chunk of meat that had obviously come from a body ofa North Vietnamese soldier. Johnson had been sitting right on it. Greasefrom that chunk of meat had penetrated into his trousers and he smelledto high heaven.

As soon as I realized what had happened, I said, “Get away! Just getthe hell away!” And he was muttering, “Oh, my God! Oh shit! Myutilities!”

Little John’s 2nd Platoon started moving off the top of the hill, towarda little shoulder to the left of our former line of march. Down the backside of the hill, the Marines started hitting ground that hadn’t been burnedoff or bombed. A Marine suddenly yelled, “Hey, I got some bunkersover here.” And a few other people said the same thing. One of the


Marines, Private First Class David Francis, stut-tered every time he gotexcited. As the other Marines were yelling about the bunkers, I heardFrancis yell even louder, “I-I-I-I s-s-s-see th-th-th-them! I s-s-s-s-seeth-th-them!” He no sooner got that out than a terrific burst of fire camein on us. It sounded like on the rifle range, when everybody shoots athis target at once. Everybody went to ground—except me.

There I was, kneeling on the ground beside the command radio. Iwas just kneeling there like a dumb shit when it dawned on me: Thiswas the very first time I had ever been shot at. The troops—even thegreen ones—were a little smarter than me. They were all on their belliesby the time my little pea brain was thinking, “Hey, they’re shooting atme.” Like a broken record, my mind was stopped on that one centralfact, “They’re shooting at me. They’re shooting at me\” Leaves andtwigs knocked loose from a tree were falling down on my head.

As I realized what was going on, I started getting lower and lower.Finally, I was down on my stomach. By then, if I could have cut thebuttons off my shirt to get any lower, I would have.

My two radiomen, Johnson and Vogt, were in the bomb crater behindme. They had been yelling from the moment the first shots were fired,but it took awhile for me to realize that they were yelling at me: “Skipper,come here, come here. Get in this bomb crater.” I crawled backwardand jumped into the bomb crater beside them. As I focused on widervistas, I heard how much shooting was going on, how much yelling andscreaming there was. Machine guns were going off, and dozens of rifles.It was mass confusion. As I recomposed myself and tried to figure outhow to respond, I realized that I could not begin to decipher all thesounds and voices.

I jumped into the bottom of the bomb crater. As soon as I did, abullet plunked in beside me. Obviously, it had come from somewhereup in the treetops. As I was articulating the thought in my mind, an M-60 gunner crawled up to the edge of the crater, got up on one knee,looked in, and announced, “There’s a fucking gook in that tree.”

With that, the M-60 gunner stood up on both knees, put the weaponinto his shoulder, and started firing. From my place at the bottom of thecrater, I could see chunks flying off of a palm tree about fifty or sixty


meters away. The M-60 gunner sprayed forty or fifty rounds into thepalm tree and then stopped. He looked down, right at me, and said, “Ithink I still see the fucker.” Then he blasted the tree again with anotherfifty rounds. I called up, “Jesus Christ, if that goddamn NVA is stillalive after that, don’t shoot at him again. You’re just gonna piss himoff.” The M-60 gunner looked down at me again and said, “Oh, yessir.”Then he crawled off.

I was still trying to get a handle on the situation when, above thesound of many M-16s and a few M-60s, I heard someone nearby yellingthreats. I climbed back up to the lip of the crater and saw our seniorcorpsman, Doc Bratton, beating a Marine on the chest, swear-ing asloud as he could, “Goddammit, you’re not gonna die! Dammit, you sonof a bitch, breathe! Breathe!”

As the firing died down—it was all ours by then—I found anotherMarine lying on his rifle in another bomb crater. He was sort of kneelingat the edge of the crater, with his arms and hands in a firing position onhis rifle, but his head was leaning against the rifle on the ground. I said,“Are you all right, Marine?” I took him by the shoulder and pulled himback. It was Private First Class Francis, the stutterer. His eyes and mouthwere wide open, but a second look revealed that he had been hit right inthe back of the head. He was dead. He was the first dead Marine I hadever seen.

I called one of the corpsmen over to take care of Francis and then Iwent over to see how Doc Bratton was doing with the wounded man.Doc was beating on the man’s chest to try to keep his heart going. I sawthat the Marine was one of my best squad leaders, Corporal Pat Cochran,formerly a semiprofessional football player, a handsome six-foot Texanwith enormous, wide shoulders. Cochran had taken a round in the initialburst of enemy fire that sort of creased his scalp. Lance Corporal AnthonyBenedetto was kneeling right next to him when Cochran turned to himand said, “I’m hit.” Benedetto said, “Right,” and reached around to geta bandage. By the time Benedetto turned back, Cochran had been hitagain—right in the head. The second round had penetrated Cochran’sskull and gone right into his brain. He was brain dead, but his body


functions were still going on, so Doc Bratton was trying to keep himalive.

Though the firing was dying off, Lima Company was still beset byenormous confusion. Staff Sergeant Marvin Bailey, the company gunny,was yelling for stretcher bearers and Sergeant Vogt was starting to callcasualty information to the battalion CP. The CP said it was trying to layon a helicopter for emergency medevac. Then the NVA started shootingagain and all the Marines on one side of the hill returned the fire. Therewas an enormous amount of confusion. The battalion commander keptcalling, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. I was trying toget reports from the platoon commanders, but I couldn’t quite makesense of the confusion, so I couldn’t relate much to the CO.

Suddenly, I realized that we were the only ones shooting. So did abunch of other people. I yelled, “Cease fire! Cease fire!” and, prettysoon, everyone was yelling, “Cease fire! Cease fire!”

As the last rounds were fired, Little John came up to me to report.There were tears rolling right down his face. I said, “What’s the matter,John? What’s the matter?” He told me he had been advancing towardthe sound of the original gunfire, his radioman in tow, when an NVAsoldier had jumped right up in front of him and shot the radio-man.Little John had had a clear shot at the NVA, but his rifle had jammed.He still was so angry that tears were rolling uncontrollably out of hiseyes.

The helicopters started coming in for the casualties, who were beingstaged beside the big burned-out area on top of the hill. The litter teamsGunny Bailey had organized were really sweating. It takes six or sevenmen to lift a makeshift poncho litter. We got the two serious WIAs onthe first helo and Cochran and Francis waited for the second. Two otherMarines who were lightly wounded opted to stay with the company.

I looked up briefly from a conversation with a platoon commanderand spotted the 2/9 CO just as he was walking up. He must have comeout on one of the medevac helos. “Hey, Captain,” he said as he arrivedat my side, “what’s going on?” I tried to explain what I knew, whichapparently satisfied him because, after hearing me out, he ordered, “Okay,I want you to continue on in this general direction.” I acknowledged theorder and he left the hill aboard the second helo.


*By the time we reorganized the company and got going again, it was themiddle of the afternoon. I was getting worried about having to set inagain after dark, but the battalion commander’s order to track down thefleeing NVA had been firm. However, just as the point pushed off thehilltop and started along the ridgeline bordering another rice paddy toour right, the battalion CO ordered us to come back because it was gettingtoo late in the day to be pushing our way across hostile territory. He gotno argument from me.




MARINES AT WAR20 True, Heroic Tales of U.S. Marines in Combat

1942–1983By Eric Hammel

In twenty hard-hitting, action-packed true, heroic stories, Eric Hammelchronicles the making of the modern U.S. Marine Corps from thedesperate Guadalcanal landings in 1942 to the tragic bombing of theMarine headquarters in Beirut in 1983. Excerpted from all of Hammel’sbooks on Marine Corps battles and a number of articles he wrote overthe years for Leatherneck and other magazines, this collection includesstories of ground combat in the South Pacific, Korea, Vietnam, andBeirut, as well as tales of Marine aviators in action in three wars. Marinesat War will prove to be inspiring to Marines, former Marines, friends ofthe U.S. Marine Corps, and any other reader of military history whowants to know what war looks like from the bottom up.

Eric Hammel is well known to military-history readers for the way heblends riveting accounts of men at the bloody spearpoint with the bigpicture. His blending fact with analysis is the essence of his writing.Several of the chapters in Marines at War are rendered in the actualwords of combat Marines.


Note: The following article is excerpted from the book MARINESAT WAR: 20 True, Heroic Tales of U.S. Marines in Combat, 1942 -1983 by Eric Hammel. The book is currently available in a $24.95trade paperback edition published by Pacifica Military History. Itis also available in ebook editions.

THE CHOISEUL RAIDOctober 28–November 3, 1943


Charles J. “Nick” Waddell and C. W. Seton had been serving for manymonths as coastwatchers on the large island of Choiseul, in the centralSolomon Islands. Their only contact with the outside world was theirradio transmitter and receiver. Although there were also many Japaneseserving on the island, Waddell and Seton felt fairly secure. The islanderswere friendly and almost completely loyal to the Crown. Likecoastwatchers serving in other occupied areas of the Solomons, Waddelland Seton were eagly awaiting a major Allied invasion, for by October1943, even the most loyal of the islanders were growing depressed afterbeing so long under Japanese domination; they did not understand whythe all-powerful British had not yet booted out the inferior and at timesbrutal Japanese.

Seton more than Waddell was also growing restive; he wanted toget out into the bush and kill Japanese. Although he and Waddell hadarmed about twenty-five scouts with captured Japanese arms andammunition, orders from higher headquarters said to avoid scraps withthe Japanese. Coastwatchers were too valuable from the intelligence-gathering standpoint to allow them to go about risking their lives onnuisance attacks that could have no possible bearing on the progress ofthe war. Their only recourse was to wait, and watch, and hope.

*Unbeknown to Seton, Waddell, and their scouts and supporters,

Choiseul was to be bypassed by Allied forces; no invasion and no


liberation were to take place. Rather, the 3d Marine Division was toland at Empress Augusta Bay, on Bougainville’s west coast, on November1. By this stage of the Solomons Campaign, air strategy shaped groundstrategy. Choiseul was a dead end; there was no place worth attackingfrom the air that could be reached from potential air bases on the island.But from central Bougainville, Allied fighters would be able to reachRabaul, the main Japanese base in the region.

Because the Japanese forces holding Bougainville’s many bases werequite powerful in aggregate, and Allied forces were relatively weak, itwas decided early on in the invasion planning to tie down large numbersof Japanese by forcing them to defend many possible invasion sites. Infact, it seemed most probable to the Japanese that an invasion wouldtake place in the Shortland Islands or on southern Bougainville, where anumber of well-developed air and naval bases had already been built.This was sound logic by Japanese standards, but the Allies had learnedto build airfields from scratch in very little time, and so attacking andcapturing a defended base was not necessary. This was why EmpressAugusta Bay was chosen. It was lightly defended, and new airfieldscould be built quickly where none existed before. And those bases wouldbe more than fifty miles closer to Rabaul than existing Japanese basesin southern Bougainville and the Shortland Islands.

Choiseul was not favorable for bases from which Rabaul could beattacked, but a logical argument could be made for an Allied invasionthere. The island’s Japanese garrison did flank the Allied holdings inthe central Solomons—on New Georgia, Vella Lavella, andKolombangara—and the Allies had never before bypassed a Japanesebase, so there was no way to anticipate that they would now.

To help keep the Japanese focused on the unnecessary defense ofChoiseul, southern Bougainville, and the Shortland Islands—to keepJapanese ground forces tied down in defense of widespread and isolatedbases—a New Zealand Army brigade occupied the Treasury Islands onOctober 27, 1943, and the 2d U.S. Marine Parachute Battalion mounteda raid against Japanese bases on Choiseul. The Treasurys were of somevalue to the Allies, but the Choiseul operation was a ruse that had nostrategic purpose beyond keeping the Japanese there pinned down whilethe invasion at Empress Augusta Bay took place.


*Before Choiseul was removed from active consideration as an

invasion target, operational intelligence data about the island’s Japanesegarrison had been systematically obtained. Small patrols were organizedand inserted at various points on Choiseul by submarine, PT-boat, andamphibian bomber. One such patrol moved from PT boats under coverof darkness on September 6,1943, and hiked from the landing site, onthe southwest coast, to a point a bit south of the Japanese base at Kakasa,on the Slot (New Georgia Sound) side of the island. From there, thepatrol turned inland and crossed the island. It reached Kanaga safelyand was welcomed into the camp of coastwatchers Seton and Waddell.U.S. Navy PBY amphibian patrol bombers flew up on the night ofSeptember 12 and took the patrol out without incident.

Two other patrols were dispatched to the northern end of the islandand Choiseul Bay on September 22. These roamed their assigned areasand were withdrawn without incident on September 30. The Marinesand New Zealanders who made up these two patrols reported that abouta thousand Japanese were at Kakasa and around three hundred othersmaintained a barge depot at Choiseul Bay. Both patrols found a numberof suitable airfield sites and both marked a number of suitable landingbeaches. Insofar as Japanese military activity was concerned, only footpatrols were sighted, and only in the immediate areas of Kakasa andChoiseul Bay.

*Following the capture of Munda Field, on New Georgia, in August

1943, Seton and Waddell had busy time of it. Not only did they have torescue, host, and send home a rising number of downed Allied aviators,or assist the few outside intelligence-gathering patrols that came theirway, they had to maintain their watch on Japanese activities in theirrealm. During the Japanese evacuation of the central Solomons, Choiseulbecame a major relay point in the movement of troops and equipmentfrom Kolombangara to Bougainville. Barges were constantly depositingtroops on the southern end of the island, and other barges picked thetroops up at Choiseul Bay for a trip across open water to Bougainville.Waddell and Seton had to keep a close watch on the barge traffic to and


from Bougainville, and on the many hundreds of Japanese soldiers whohad to march from southern Choiseul to Choiseul Bay.

On October 13, 1943, Seton reported via radio to liaison officers onGuadalcanal that between 3,000 and 4,000 Japanese had passedBambatana Mission, about thirty-five miles south of Choiseul Bay. OnOctober 19, he reported that Japanese camps in the vicinity of ChoiseulBay and Sangigai were occupied by no fewer than 3,000 Japanese whowere apparently awaiting transport to Bougainville. According to hisscouts, Seton reported, these men were short on rations and living indispersed campsites. Islanders’ gardens were being looted, and foragingparties were constantly in the bush searching for edible wildlife. Setonadded that these Japanese troops were particularly edgy and had blockedall trails, tightened security, and had taken to shooting first and askingquestions after. Seton did not mention that this upswing in uneasinesswas probably the result of a minor foray on October 2 in which sevenJapanese had died at the hands of twenty-five of his armed scouts.

With this information on hand, it was finally and definitely decidedby the Allied South Pacific Area headquarters that a major effort wouldnot be made against Choiseul. Nevertheless, on October 20, LieutenantColonel Robert Williams, the 1st Marine Parachute Regimentcommanding officer, and Lieutenant Colonel Victor Krulak, the 2dMarine Parachute Battalion commanding officer, were summoned fromtheir camp on Vella Lavella to Guadalcanal to a briefing conducted by IMarine Amphibious Corps (IMAC) staff officers. Indeed, it was theIMAC staff secretary, Major James Murray, who first thought ofmounting a raid-in-force against Choiseul, and it was such a raid thatWilliams and Krulak had been called down to Guadalcanal to discuss.

All Lieutenant Colonel Krulak’s battalion had to do was get safelyashore in northern Choiseul and raise a ruckus big enough to lead theJapanese to believe that a major invasion was underway or imminent.At the same time, though on a very low key, several reconnaissancemissions would be carried out and a potential site for a possible PT-boatbase was to be assessed.

The enabling order for Operation BLISSFUL was issued by IMACheadquarters on October 22. Based on a suggestion from Seton, the


landing was to be made at Voza, a village about halfway betweenChoiseul Bay and Bambatana Mission. The beaches were reportedlygood, and the local islanders were both loyal and willing to assist inevery way possible. More important was the fact that no Japanese wereknown to be in the area even though Voza was directly on the Japaneseevacuation route.

Krulak no sooner picked up his operations orders than he preparedto return to his battalion on Vella Lavella. While waiting for his plane,he wrote out the entire working order for the mission.

*The 2d Parachute Battalion had never been in combat, but it had

trained hard and had otherwise prepared itself for battle. It might havebeen harder, in fact, than many combat-experienced units of the day.

Krulak’s original plan envisioned a combat jump into Voza, but therewas no suitable drop zone nearby; the rain forest, which was as thick asany in the Solomon Islands, cloaked the objective and spread for manymiles in all directions save one, which was westward into New GeorgiaSound. Also, there were not enough transport aircraft in the South Pacificto carry a full battalion and all its required supplies and equipment toany destination in a single lift. As had the only other Marine parachutebattalion to enter combat—the 1st, at Gavutu, on August 7, 1942—Krulak’s would have to mount an amphibious landing. This was aheartbreaker for every member of the battalion, but the fact that combatwas imminent was more important to many than the method of insertion.

Krulak’s battalion had four days to get ready and get there. Frenzyreigned in the 1st Marine Parachute Regiment bivouac on Vella Lavellaas all necessary gear was sorted into four huge stacks, all orders issuedto the three parachute-infantry companies and supporting units (theregimental weapons company mortars and machine guns were going,too, as was a detachment from an experimental rocket platoon that wasarmed with bazookas and rockets. Total strength when the battalion leftVella Lavella stood at thirty officers and 626 enlisted men. One Navyofficer was attached to assess sites for the proposed PT-boat base.

*


At dusk on October 27, 1943, the U.S. Navy destroyer-transportsWard, Kilty, Crosby, and McKean arrived at Vella Lavella followingtheir participation in landing a New Zealand Army brigade at Mono, inthe Treasury Islands. The 2d Parachute Battalion, which was standingby with all its equipment and supplies aboard eight LCM landing craft,boarded the destroyer-transports in very short order, a testament to theunit’s discipline. The entire operation was completed in a record forty-five minutes. At 1921, with the destroyer Conway acting as escort, theladen destroyer-transports set course for Choiseul. The Conway’s radarwould pinpoint the landing site on the Choiseul coast. Among thoseaboard the ships was coastwatcher Seton, who had been plucked fromChoiseul in order to guide the parachute battalion.

Shortly after 2300, while making way in column, the ships werespotted by a Japanese patrol plane, which dropped a single bomb andran. The bomb landed close to the rear vessel, causing no damage.

Shortly after midnight, at a point some 2,000 yards off the northwestcoast of Choiseul, the little flotilla stopped. A reconnaissance party wasordered over the side of one of the ships, and these Marines paddledashore in a rubber raft. While the reconnaissance was being carried out,Lieutenant Colonel Krulak ordered Company G and Company F intotheir landing craft. If the proper signal came from the beach—a singlelight, indicating that the area was free of Japanese—the two companieswould be ready to go ashore.

As the ’Chutes waited, it was noted that the destroyer-transportswere drifting farther apart. By 0019, October 28, Company F, aboardthe Kilty, was closer to the beach even though Company G was to havelanded first. The Company G commander, Captain Spencer Pratt, wasordered to take his men into the beach.

As there had been no light from the reconnaissance team, Pratt’scompany expected to go in shooting. But nothing happened. The patrolwas waiting on the beach. The signal light had been spotted aboard theships at 0023, but the Marines making the landing had not seen it.

After Company G had established a defensive perimeter ashore,Krulak ordered the remainder of the battalion to land. As soon as themain body of troops was ashore, the landing craft returned to the ships


to begin loading supplies. While the supplies were being brought ashore,the Conway, which was standing well out to sea, was sighted and attackedby a lone Japanese airplane. The destroyer’s captain did not want todraw the fully warranted attention of larger Japanese forces, so hewithheld his fire as two bombs landed near his ship. An Allied night-fighter pilot, who was over the flotilla in order to forestall such an attack,drew considerable criticism for not having been low enough to intercepythe enemy plane.

At about 0200, as the ’Chutes were getting their gear safely off thebeach, the entire convoy stood out to sea and made for Vella Lavella.Four LCP(R) landing craft and their crews were left with the ‘Chutes.These craft were dispersed under cover along the shore near Zinoa Island.

C. W. Seton, who had wandered into the forest as soon as he hadlanded, returned to the beach with a large group of islanders, whoimmediately got to work helping the Marines get their supplies off thebeach. All the gear was safely hidden in the bush when a group ofJapanese planes arrived at dawn to bomb the recently vacated beach.

During October 28, the ’Chutes set up a base of operations about amile inland from the beach, on a high plateau northwest of Voza. Outpostswere established and wire communications were installed. The base ofoperations was hidden by the rain forest and on defensible terrain.

While the base was being put together, a second flight of Japaneseaircraft bombed and strafed the landing beach. The islanders had virtuallyobliterated all traces of use at the beach after everything had been safelydispersed and camouflaged inland. In fact, they fashioned a dummybeachhead several miles north of Voza to give the Japanese somethingto attack and think about.

The 2d Parachute Battalion got down to business on October 29.The day before, Seton’s scouts had informed Krulak that there was abarge-staging base eight miles south of the Marine base, at Sangigai,and an outpost seventeen miles to the north, on the Warrior River. Thus,on the morning of October 29, Krulak dispatched combat patrols in bothdirections to locate trails, pinpoint the Japanese positions, and becomefamiliar with the area. Krulak accompanied the patrol to Sangigai. As itneared the Vagara River, about halfway to Sangigai, the patrol split.


Half the Marines turned inland to scout the area and locate an inlandapproach to Sangigai, and Krulak continued with the remainder towardthe Vagara River.

At the river, the stealthy, silent Marines watched ten Japanese unloada barge at the shore. Determining that this was as good a time and placeas any to leave his calling card, the battalion commander ordered histroops to open fire. Seven of the Japanese were killed and the barge wassunk. Krulak then led his men back to the base camp.

The second half of the patrol returned to the base camp soon afterKrulak’s, and then a squad was dispatched to the Vagara River to learnwhat the Japanese were going to do about the attack. It bumped into aplatoon of Japanese about three-quarters of a mile from the originallanding site but was able to drive off the superior force.

*On the morning of October 30, Krulak led Company E, Company F,

and the IMAC rocket detachment aboard the LCP(R)s hidden at Vozaand prepared to set sail for the Sangigai ferry base, which was markedfor destruction. The strength of the Japanese at Sangigai had beenestimated at one hundred fifty armed troops. Seton warned the ’Chutesthat the base could easily be reinforced from the south—and probablyalready had been since the battalion’s landing.

To help foster the impression that Choiseul was the scene of an all-out invasion, Krulak had requested powerful air support for the attack.Just as the attack force was getting ready to sail from Voza, one of theLCP(R)s was damaged in an attack by an American warplane. As aresult, the attack plan had to be altered.

At 0610, the scheduled air strike hit Sangigai. As twenty-six Alliedfighters flew escort, twelve Marine TBF Avenger light bombers droppedmore than two tons of bombs on the Japanese base.

Meantime, with more troops than could possibly be carried by threelanding craft, Krulak ordered the two companies to march overland tothe Vagara. Seton and his scouts led the way. Company F followed Setonalong with a machine-gun section and the IMAC rocket detachment,and Company E followed with attached units.


Nothing happened until 1110, when Japanese troops posted at theVagara River opened fire on the head of the approaching battalioncolumn. The ’Chutes returned the fire, and the Japanese were forced topull back to Sangigai. At this point, Krulak ordered Captain RobertManchester’s Company E to press on along the coast while the remainderof the force cut inland to secure positions on the high ground at the rearand east of the Japanese defenses.

At H-hour, Krulak’s enveloping force was still tangled up in thehilly, dense rain forest behind Sangigai. As sounds of gunfire reachedthe inland force from the direction of the beach, Seton’s scouts told theharried battalion commander that the Japanese were just ahead.

Captain Manchester’s troops had opened their attack only a fewminutes behind schedule. The Japanese resisted for a few moments, butthe Marine rocket and mortar fire, combined with rifle and machine-gun fire, proved to be too much for them, and they hurried from thevillage, leaving Company E free to press on to the objective almostunhindered.

Marines from Krulak’s force spotted the Japanese a few minutesafter the action began on the beach, and they moved to prevent the enemyfrom dispersing into the bush. This was of paramount importance,because Krulak wanted to destroy rather than disperse the Japanese force.It was a matter of luck rather than good timing, but the Japanese wereforced to ground in prepared positions, which were immediatelycontained by the ’Chutes.

As the Japanese moved north from the village, they ran head-oninto Captain Spencer Pratt’s Company F, which immediately openedfire on them. A pitched battle raged on for nearly an hour. Company Fthen managed to complete the desired envelopment behind a screen oflight-machine-gun fire. The Japanese panicked and mounted severaluncoordinated rushes that only resulted in additional casualties. As theMarines maneuvered to close the right flank, the Japanese broke contactand about forty of them escaped into the bush. Nevertheless, seventy-two Japanese were killed in the action. Four Marines were also killed,and twelve, including Krulak and Captain Pratt, were wounded.


While Company F was fighting in the bush, Company E had beenblowing up the Japanese base. Brand-new barges were scuttled, allJapanese supplies were destroyed, and many documents were taken,including a chart showing all the naval minefields off southernBougainville. After the Sangigai base had been razed, Company Ewithdrew to the Vagara River and all four landing craft—the damagedone had been repaired—picked it up and returned it to Voza.

Meantime, Krulak and the rest of the attackers buried the dead inthe bush and hiked to the Vagara River, where they arrived withoutincident after Company E had left. When Company E returned to Vozaat dusk, Major Warner Bigger, the battalion executive officer, canceledthe planned pick-up of Krulak’s force—because the operation was manyhours behind schedule. Unfortunately, Krulak’s command radio hadbroken down, so he did not receive word of Bigger’s decision and couldonly guess at what his second-in-command was doing. The battalioncommander and his troops spent an extremely anxious but uneventfulnight.

Early on the morning of October 31, the landing craft arrived andwithdrew Krulak’s force from the beach. Upon his return to Voza, Krulakordered that ambushes be set up and aggressive patrols be sent out tosee what the Japanese were going to do about their defeat at Sangigai.

On November 1, a Navy PBY landed in the water off Voza to pickup the wounded ’Chutes and captured documents. Also, in answer to anurgent request, 1,000 pounds of rice for Seton’s scouts, 500 pounds ofTNT, and 250 hand grenades were air-dropped near Voza. Several briskpatrol clashes took place during the day, but the base camp was notthreatened. Seton’s scouts reported that the Japanese had reoccupiedSangigai.

*On November 1, Major Bigger led a combat patrol consisting of

eight-seven men from Captain William Day’s Company G toward NukikiVillage, about ten miles north of the base camp. This was Bigger’s secondtime out to Nukiki; he had scouted the place the day before. The purposeof the large patrol was to check on reports from Seton’s scouts that alarge force of Japanese was manning an outpost on the Warrior River.


Bigger was to move through Nukiki; cross the Warrior; destroy allJapanese installations, outposts, and emplacements in his path; andadvance close enough to the main base at Choiseul Bay to hit the placewith 60mm mortar fire. Krulak approved of Guppy Island, in ChoiseulBay, as an alternative objective in case Bigger’s patrol could not get tothe main base.

Bigger’s force made it past Nukiki without incident, but the LCP(R)sin which it was riding constantly beached in the Warrior River’s shallowmouth. The sound of the engines being gunned to break free from themucky bottom was quite loud, and Bigger feared that everyone for milesaround could hear it. He therefore ordered his men to disembark andsent the boats downriver to be hidden in a cove near Nukiki. Four Marinesand a radio were left on the east bank of the river and all excess gearwas cached. The ’Chutes marched inland a considerable distance beforecrossing the river.

In the middle of the afternoon, following a long march, the scoutsconfessed to Major Bigger that they were lost. Bigger decided to waitand rest, and he ordered his troops to bivouac on the spot, even thoughthey were in the middle of a swamp. A small patrol was sent back to theradio to report the foul-up to base. When Krulak received the report, heasked Seton if a man who knew the area was available. Seton suppliedthe only man he had with him who was from the area, and this scout wasimmediately dispatched to locate Bigger’s force. Meanwhile, at Bigger’sorder, the LCP(R)s were sent back to Voza.

The small patrol from Bigger’s main force spent the night with theradio team. When they awoke next morning, they found that about thirtyJapanese had moved directly between their position and Bigger’s. Beforethe Japanese could act, the handful of Marines made their way stealthilyto the landing craft, which were still hidden in the cove at the Warrior’smouth, and returned immediately to Voza, where they reported everythingto Krulak. Upon receiving the news, the battalion commander askedIMAC for immediate air support, plus whatever PT-boats they couldarrange to get there fast.

All the while, Major Bigger was completely unaware of the activityin his rear. He had lost much time, so he decided to strike out directly


for Choiseul Bay. The patrol’s position was determined, and a secondsmall patrol was dispatched to the radio site to request that the boatspick up the main body that afternoon.

Shortly after leaving, the second small patrol discovered that a largeJapanese force was tailing Bigger. These Marines were unable to returnto Bigger’s force, but they were able to fight their way through to Nukiki,where they were soon spotted by the crews of the returning landingcraft.

Meanwhile, Seton’s guide had found Bigger and was leading thepatrol through thinning jungle toward the Choiseul Bay base. As theMarines came abreast Redman Island, a small offshore hunk of rock, afour-man Japanese outpost opened fire on them. Three of the Japanesewere quickly shot dead, but the fourth made good his escape andapparently spread the alarm. Surprise was lost. Because the forest alongthe beach was too thin to provide adequate cover, Bigger decided tobombard Guppy Island.

The ’Chutes moved into positions opposite the island, but theyquickly discovered that forest growth masked the fire from their mortars.The mortars were moved out to the beach and set up with their baseplatespartially submerged. The ’Chutes then proceeded to fire 143 high-explosive rounds into the Japanese fuel and supply dumps on the island.As they were retiring, large fires—at least two—were spotted in thetarget area. Prodded by return fire, the Marines withdrew toward theWarrior River.

The Japanese wanted Bigger’s hide. Groups of infantrymen weredispatched on fast barges, from which they landed at several points alongBigger’s anticipated escape route. The retiring ’Chutes were attackedfour separate times before they reached the Warrior River, but theyovercame the opposition each time. When they reached the river, theyestablished a defensive perimeter and waited for the landing craft.

When they felt that the pressure had subsided, several ’Chutesventured into the surf to wash off some of the jungle grime accumulatedduring the exhausting march. As they did, they were taken under firefrom the opposite bank of the river. The exposed Marines dived for thenearest cover, but they believed they were being fired on by fellow


Marines who had arrived on the scene to reinforce their group. SeveralAmerican flags were waved at the bushwhackers, but these only drewincreased fire. Bigger’s force sent back heavy return fire, which forcedthe much smaller Japanese force to withdraw.

Bigger ordered three strong swimmers into the water to try to reachthe expected rescue party and warn it of the ambush. Several Japanesehad remained in the trees on the opposite bank of the river, and theyfired at the three helpless swimmers, of whom only one lived to returnto Bigger’s group.

As the fire fight became more intense, Bigger’s Marines spotted thefour LCP(R)s coming their way. But a storm was also moving in, andthe sea was quite rough. Under heavy covering fire from Bigger’s troops,the boats beached themselves on the western bank of the river, andBigger’s men clambered aboard. As the tiny flotilla backed off the beach,one of the fully laden LCP(R)s had its motor swamped by the risingsurf, and it drifted toward the Japanese-held side of the river. Fortunately,it became fouled on a coral crag.

At this juncture, two PT-boats (one of which was skippered byLieutenant John Fitzgerald Kennedy) dashed in from the sea with allguns blazing at the Japanese-held side of the river. While the PTs’ 20mmand .50-caliber guns raked the Japanese positions, ’Chutes hurriedlytransferred from the stalled LCP(R) to another. The stalled LCP(R) wastowed away from the beach and its engine was restarted. All the landingcraft then withdrew from range of the beach under cover of a rain squall.Aircraft from Munda Field and the two PT-boats provided close coverduring the journey back to Voza.

*Also on November 1, about the time the Bigger patrol was departing

the base camp, a second strong combat patrol marched to the VagaraRiver in the hope of driving a strong force of Japanese infantry backtoward their base at Sangigai. The Japanese encountered by this patrolput up a particularly hard fight.

In assessing the various actions that evening, Lieutenant ColonelKrulak and his staff concluded that the small size and, in all probability,the intentions of their force had been divined to some extent by their


adversaries. The findings of several Marine patrols were evaluated, andit was determined that growing numbers of well-armed and well-organized Japanese were drawing closer and closer to the base camp. Itappeared to be only a matter of time before the Japanese located the 2dParachute Battalion’s hideaway and discovered that they faced only avery limited raid-in-force rather than an all-out invasion. If that happened,the ’Chutes would be extremely vulnerable to an organized clearingoperation by the large numbers of Japanese that seemed to beconcentrating near Voza.

Although Krulak had originally envisioned an eight- to ten-daymission, he now realized that the time to withdraw was fast approaching.The clincher came on November 3, when a group of Seton’s scoutsreported that a force of between eight hundred and one thousand well-armed Japanese was at Sangigai and that another strong force was northof Voza, at Moli Point.

After Bigger’s patrol had been picked up at Nukiki, IMACheadquarters radioed Krulak to ask whether he thought his mission couldbe completed. By then—November 3—the Empress Augusta Baylandings on Bougainville had been undertaken successfully by the bulkof the 3d Marine Division, and the Japanese had quickly come to theconclusion that it was the main event—and that American activity onChoiseul was obviously a diversion. Even so, with Bougainville nowthe center of attention, the Japanese needed their Choiseul evacuationroute more than ever, for their many bases in southern Bougainville andthe Shortland Islands had been bypassed. They needed to evacuate orredeploy many of their units, and Choiseul was still the best route formany such movements. It was becoming painfully obvious that theJapanese on Choiseul now realized that they were facing a raiding forceof about battalion strength, and that they were busily preparing to launcha counterstroke within forty-eight hours. Krulak told his superiors thathis food supply was sufficient for another seven days, that ammunitionwas plentiful, and that he was holding a strong position, but added thatIMAC might as well evacuate his battalion if, in fact, his mission hadfulfilled its strategic purpose.


Krulak would later write of the situation: “As a matter of fact, I feltwe’d not possibly be withdrawn before the [Japanese] cut the beachroute. However, we were so much better off than the [Japanese] that itwas not worrisome (I say now!). The natives were on our side—wecould move across the island far faster than the [Japanese] could follow,and I felt if we were not picked up on the Voza side, we could make it onthe other side. Seton agreed, and we had already planned such a move.Besides that, we felt confident that our position was strong enough tohold in place if necessary.”

Nevertheless, on the night of November 3, three large LCI landingships arrived north of Voza and began embarking the waiting 2dParachute Battalion. As the troops filed up the ramps, loud explosionscould be heard—presumably from mines and booby traps the Marineshad set to delay the oncoming Japanese. Krulak’s Marines loaded allgear (less their food, which went to Seton) and boarded in good order asthe nervous LCI crewmen implored them to hurry.

The entire loading operation took fifteen minutes. The LCIs backedoff the beach and set course for Vella Lavella, where they arrived shortlyafter dawn on November 4.

*In a later study of the operation in which Japanese records were

perused, it was found that Krulak’s estimation of the situation onNovember 3 was largely incorrect. Within mere hours of thewithdrawal—and not two days later, as the battalion commanderguessed—large and powerful Japanese infantry units closed in on thebase camp and beach positions formerly held by the 2d ParachuteBattalion. The Japanese had indeed been thoroughly surprised by theMarines’ initial actions on Choiseul, and, in the words of the assessment,“undoubtedly [they] had been duped regarding the size of the landingforce by the swift activity of the battalion over a 25-mile front.”Nevertheless, once the big show got underway at Bougainville, therewas far less doubt in Japanese minds as to what the Choiseul actionmeant. That a very small force was conducting a very limited diversionaryoperation on Choiseul became obvious, and immediate steps were takento erase that force and reinstate the much-needed evacuation routes.


The operation cost the Japanese a known 143 dead in the WarriorRiver and Sangigai actions. Equipment losses included two barges, morethan 180 tons of equipment and stores, total (but temporary) destructionof the Sangigai base, and an unknown but presumably large loss of fueland supplies in the dumps on Guppy Island. The minefield maps takenat Sangigai greatly eased the minds of many Allied naval officers andeventually led to the mining of additional waters around Bougainville.

Although sources differ, it appears that nine Marines were killed inaction on Choiseul, that fifteen were wounded and two were missing inaction (and later presumed dead).

The actual total impact of the diversionary mission was small. The2d Parachute Battalion arrived on Choiseul too close to the EmpressAugusta Bay landings to cause any major changes in the complexion ofthe total Japanese defensive system. Had the battalion landed a weekearlier, the Japanese might have moved a large infantry force andadequate supporting arms from Bougainville and the Shortlands. Also,the small size of Krulak’s force limited its effective scope of operations.The parachute battalions were smaller than other Marine infantrybattalions, and their largest supporting arms were 81mm mortars. Therewas little damage the raiding force could have inflicted—and littlepermanent damage that it did inflict.

The Choiseul Raid was a minor success of little strategic value, butit was a good show nonetheless. It was the only time the painstakinglytrained 2d Parachute Battalion saw action, for the 1st Parachute Regimentwas dissolved in 1944 and its personnel converted to regular infantry,many of whom took part in the battle for Iwo Jima.



MUNDA TRAILThe New Georgia Campaign

June–August 1943By Eric Hammel

The Solomon island archipelago stretches in a roughly east west directionfrom New Guinea to San Cristobal. For the Imperial Japanese forces in1942, it was a natural highway into the South Pacific. When checked atGuadalcanal, these forces realized they had moved east too quickly, andthat their defeat was caused in part by inade-quate air bases between thefront and their head-quarters at Rabaul, more than six hundred milesaway. As the last Japanese battalions were wrecking themselves againstthe Marine defen-sive perimeter on Guadalcanal, the decision was madeto build the Munda airfield on New Georgia, right in the middle of theSolomons chain.

The Americans also recognized the Solomons as a highway, but inthe other direction, toward Rabaul, the Philippines, and ultimately Ja-pan. The two great Pacific powers clashed in the middle of this strategicisland corridor in June 1943, when an untried U.S. Army infantry divi-sion assaulted New Georgia and began to move up the Munda Trail totake the airfield. This “forgotten” battle was in truth one of America’sfirst sustained offensive actions in the Pacific, and as such it taughtgreen American troops and equally green commanders the realities ofjungle warfare.

Munda Trail is the dramatic, harrowing story of green Americansoldiers encountering for the first time impenetrable swamps, solid rainforests, invisible coconut log pillboxes, tenacious snipers tied into trees,torren-tial tropical rains, counterattack by enemy aircraft and naval guns,and the logistical nightmare of living and moving in endless mud. Acarefully planned offensive quickly degenerates into isolated small-unitactions as the terrain breaks unit cohesion and leads inexperienced sol-diers into deadly ambushes. As physical and psychologi-cal strainsmount, Army doctors begin to define a new disease nearing epidemicproportions—combat fatigue. Men without injuries simply become


useless for fur-ther fighting, the advance bogs down. Yet, over time, thescared American soldiers find their inner resolve and climb out of thepsychological abyss, emerge steady and true, combat veterans at last—and victors.

The New Georgia Campaign was, in Ham-mel’s words, “agraphic study of the universal military truths attending the feeding ofinnocents to the ravenous dogs of war.” Yet when it was over, there wasno question in anyone’s mind that the tide had turned, that the forcesmoving through the Solomons would be American, and that they wouldmove toward Japan.


Note: The following article is excerpted from the book MUNDATRAIL: The New Georgia Campaign, July - August 1943 by EricHammel. The book is currently available in a $24.95 trade paperbackedition published by Pacifica Military History. This book is alsoavailable in ebook editions.

O’BRIEN HILLby Eric Hammel


In the zone of the1st Battalion, 161st Infantry Regiment on July 27,Lieutenant Colonel Slaftcho “Joe” Katsarsky’s infantry companiesdescended early into the low-lying rain forest in front of O’Brien Hilland advanced toward the next hill, another nameless hump that wouldsoon bear the name of a fallen American. Company C had the vanguard,with Company B close behind. The battalion made continuous progressuntil it reached the base of the objective. Then the Japanese on the heightsresisted with light and heavy machine guns, Japanese rifles, capturedAmerican rifles and automatic rifles, and Japanese and American handgrenades.

While B Company moved into the forest to bridge a widening gapbetween Katsarsky’s battalion and the adjacent 1st Battalion, 145th, CCompany waded into the Japanese defenses. Second Lieutenant LouisChristian was leading his C Company platoon up the slope when hismen froze under the fire of automatic weapons emplaced in a pillbox tothe front. Christian had been the regi-mental sergeant major during theGuadalcanal fighting, but had accepted a battlefield commission. Thisday, the new lieutenant crawled alone through the light mantle ofunderbrush, right up to the face of the pillbox that had stymied hisplatoon. He chucked in several hand grenades, which silenced theNambu.

The entire company was having a bad time. The troops waded intothe fire of several emplacements, but were forced to stop when theycame under fire from more and more machine guns. Then the Japanese


infantry threw in a quick counterattack right off the ridgeline. SecondLieutenant Louis Christian was taking a breather alone when he saw hisplatoon begin to pull back. As the sur-prised American riflemen tumbledto the rear to find safe positions from which they could beat off thecounterthrust, Christian re-mained where he was to direct fire fromsupporting mortars. A short burst of machine-gun fire found him as hesearched for tar-gets, and he died in a pool of blood. The hill had aname.

C Company pulled back and dug in. An artillery forward ob-servermouthed some frantic words into his field telephone and, after a moment,the ridge erupted under 105mm shells. The 1st Battalion’s 81mm mortarswere hastily relaid and fired. Japanese 90mm mortars responded.Lieutenant Colonel Joe Katsarsky or-dered C Company back to O’BrienHill.

*The ordeal of the 1st Battalion, 161st, was only just the begin-ning.Shortly after the main body of the battalion returned to O’Brien Hill, alarge American unit passed through from the north. Following was alarge group of Japanese. No one really knew what was going on, butKatsarsky’s battalion inherited the Japanese. That was at 1430 hours.

The first contact came when several Japanese blundered into thefire zones of several American machine guns and were dispersed. Shortlyafter this rather benign first encounter, the Japanese launched severalsquad-size probes to determine what they were up against. They had afairly good idea by 1630, when Americans on the battalion line firstheard Japanese soldiers in the forest get-ting themselves worked up fora big fight.

There was a low saddle on the battalion’s right flank, and a gullystretching from left to right across the immediate front. Dense growthfilled the gully. The forward slopes of O’Brien Hill were outposted nearthe edge of the forest, within a wooded fringe fronting the high, openhilltop. The battalion command post was only fifteen yards behind theoutpost line.

Yelling taunts at their adversaries and encouragement amongthemselves, shrieking curses through the night, instilling passing clutchesof fear even among the veterans on the hill, the Japanese moved noisily


over the low saddle and through the tree-choked gully. American handgrenades rained down on them from the heights, as did American 60mmand 81mm mortar rounds. The high-strung chirping of Nambu lightmachine guns sounded through the throaty bursts of the mortars, andstreams of bright tracer reached toward O’Brien Hill through the solid,black wall of the night.

The initial assault was launched by about one platoon. It was stoppedcold by methodical riflemen and grimy-faced gunners manning thebattalion’s air-cooled and water-cooled. 30-caliber Brownings. Two morefrontal assaults of about platoon strength collapsed as soon as they lappedupward from the gully and sad-dle. Then the Japanese withdrew. Theyknew what they had come to learn; Katsarsky’s battalion had beenprobed. Joe Katsarsky knew, by 0800 hours, on July 28, that his battalionhad been cut off. Litter teams attempting to reach the regi-mental aidstation were fired on along the trail to the rear of O’Brien Hill; severallitter bearers and previously wounded sol-diers were killed. Jeepsbringing urgently needed ammunition from the regimental supply depotwere fired on as they approached O’Brien Hill; several drivers werekilled, and four disabled jeeps blocked the vital link. All Katsarsky coulddo was draw some of his troops off the line and send them back over thetrail to clear out the bushwhackers along the way.

The heavily armed combat patrol moved cautiously up the nar-rowtrack and the fringe of trees at its edge for two solid hours. For two solidhours, these sleepless soldiers killed. By 1000 hours, it seemed that theroad had been cleared. The patrol filed up the re-verse slope of O’BrienHill and broke up to move back to the line.

While the track was being cleared, the Japanese somehow sensedthat the American battle line had been weakened, so they pre-pared anassault. The first file of Japanese stepped out of the forest just as thepatrol was breaking up to return to the lines.

The outposts took it first. With bullets from the main line pass-inginches over their heads, and with Japanese bullets coming in a bit lower,the soldiers manning the posts withdrew. Pink and white tracer stitchedthe air back and forth, and Japanese explosive bul-lets popped loudly asthey plowed into earth, wood, and flesh. Shelter halves the Americanshad stretched above their fighting holes to ward off the sun were shredded


within minutes; they had to be pulled down to prevent them frombecoming entangled with the barrels of weapons peering over the edgesof the fighting holes.

The battalion aid station, which was located on the nose of the hill,had to be pulled back over the crest so the medics could safely moveamong the wounded and pull others back to a place of rela-tive safety.The battalion communications center was menaced by machine-gun fireand the communicators had to abandon their ra-dios to sprint to safety.

A rifleman on the line was struck by a bullet. A pair of medics chargedthrough the nipping fire and lifted him, one on either side. They staggeredthrough the beaten zone. Another rifleman was shot and went to hisknees yelling, “I’m hit!” He pitched forward an instant later, yelling,“I’m dead.” And he was.

Captain Ralph Phelps, the battalion executive officer, rushed throughthe fire to confer with Captain Donald Downen, the A Companycommander. As the two officers conferred, a thin stream of machine-gun bullets passed between them, no more than three inches from theirbodies. The two popped off the ground and ran for cover in order tofinish the discussion.

A Japanese sniper armed with an American BAR was spotted andgrenaded from his treetop perch. A corporal, second-in-command of arifle squad, was shot to death hauling ammunition to his men. A lieutenantwho had been nicked in the back of the neck when a bullet passed throughhis helmet in the road-clearing opera-tion bled for two hours before hefound time to seek treatment.

The assault was coming through mainly on the right. The Jap-anesehad done some superb spotting, for most of the troops sent out on theroad-clearing patrol had been drawn from this sector and replaced by afew pistol-toting mortarmen. There was one light air-cooled .30-caliberBrowning machine gun on the right, but the gunner was absent due toillness and the assistant gunner had wandered off to a latrine momentsbefore the attack commenced. The only man in the gunpit was PrivateJames Newbrough, a green ammunition carrier.

After a weird exchange of taunts, three Nambu-carrying Japa-nesecharged Newbrough’s gun. Two died and the other with-drew.Newbrough kept spraying bullets around, but the more he fired, the


more attention he drew. The shelter half over the gunpit was shreddedand the underbrush nearby was mown down to ground level. PrivateNewbrough finally determined that by un-fastening the machine gun’straversing mechanism he could aim the gun from the underside of thebarrel, which meant that his head would be that much lower. Heunfastened the mechanism and sprayed and sprayed. And sprayed.

Corporal Dick Barrett was in the rear when the fighting broke out.As soon as he realized Private Newbrough was alone in the gunpit, hegathered as much ammunition as he could scrape to-gether and movedout. Barrett arrived just as Newbrough was preparing to secure. WhileCorporal Barrett fed in a fresh ammu-nition belt and settled in behindthe machine gun, Private First Class Hollis Johnson, a BAR-man, movedin closer to cover the gunners. And they all sprayed and sprayed. Andsprayed.

To the men involved, the fight seemed to go on for hours. It ended at1045, after only forty-five minutes.



MUSTANG ACEMemoirs of a P-51 Fighter Pilot

By Robert J. Goebel

When Bob Goebel left home to join the Army Air Corps in 1942, he wasa 19 years old and a high-school graduate. The only previous time hehad traveled far from his native Racine, Wisconsin, was an epic trip inthe summer of 1940, when he and a pal had ridden the rails to Texas andback to visit two of Bob’s brothers who were in the service.

Even during his weeks in Pre-flight training, young Goebel foundthat he felt at home in the service, and he looked forward to the greatadventure on which he had embarked out of a sense of patriotism andyearning to see the wide world. Easygoing and quick to learn, CadetGoebel worked his way steadily through the Basic, Primary, and Ad-vanced phases of military flight training, and found in himself an apti-tude for flight. However, like nearly all of his comrades, Goebel couldnot learn how to hit a flying target with the guns mounted on the trainershe flew. Nevertheless, he—and they—graduated to fighter school and,after earning their wings and commissions, were sent on to join an op-erational fighter unit—in Panama.

The months of rigorous operational flying in Panama seasoned Lieu-tenant Goebel and his young companions, and made better aviators ofthem, but it did little to advance their gunnery skills. When a new cropof novices arrived, Goebel and his companions found themselves ontheir way to Europe to join the fight. They wound up in North Africa inthe Spring of 1944 with orders to join the 31st Fighter Group in Italy.

Just as Goebel and his young companions were about to join theleading fighter group in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations, the31st turned in its British-made Spitfire fighters for new P-51 Mustangfighters. Within weeks, Bob Goebel had flown his first combat mis-sions and had lost his element leader, who was shot down in a swirlingdogfight.


But master the job he did. A steady succession of bomber-escortmissions over southeastern Europe slowly and then more rapidly forcedLieutenant Goebel to settle in and master aerial gunnery and the men-tally taxing high-speed dogfights in which he became engaged. At last,he shot down his first German fighter. And he advanced to positions ofleadership, in due course leading the entire 31st Fighter Group deepinto enemy territory. At length, he shot down a fifth German and thusbecame an ace—a Mustang Ace. And then he shot down three Germansin one day on a mission to Ploesti, Rumania. He flew to Russia andback, and supported the invasion of southern France. In the end, by Sep-tember 1944, he had eleven confirmed victories to his credit and was one ofthe 308th Fighter Squadron’s most respected combat leaders.

When he was sent home at the end of his combat tour, Captain BobGoebel was not yet 22 years old.


Note: The following article is excerpted from the book MUSTANGACE: Memoirs of a P-51 Fighter Pilot by Robert J. Goebel. The bookis currently available in a $27.50 trade paperback edition. This bookis also available in ebook editions.

A FIGHTER ACE’S BAPTISMby Robert J. Goebel

Copyright 1991 © by Robert J. Goebel.

My first real baptism of fire came on April 21, 1944, with the first visitof the 31st to the Ploesti oil fields of Rumania. The milk runs were over.

During the briefing, all eyes were on that red string stretched acrossthe huge map on the front wall. It ran from the spur of the Italian booteasterly across the Adriatic, across Yugoslavia to the bomber rendezvouspoint, and ended finally above Bucharest—almost 600 miles. No one inthe group had ever flown that kind of mission before, particularly in aformation of forty-eight aircraft. The German war machine had to havegasoline and lube oil, and most of it came from the Balkans, from Ploesti.The oil fields as well as the extensive refineries that supported them hadto be destroyed, even though they were American-owned. We dutifullyjotted down the compass headings and times. In addition, I wrote downthe engine start, or PT. PT was a term carried over from Spitfire days,when the start and ignition booster buttons were side by side and had tobe pushed in simultaneously. PT meant Push Tits.

The intelligence briefer took the stage and talked about flakinstallations and concentrations of enemy fighters in the immediatevicinity of the target. His wording was a masterpiece of hedging worthyof the best Philadelphia lawyer. A statement like “Sixty-three large-caliber antiaircraft guns are believed to be in the area south of the target”always set me to wondering. Believed by whom? And did he reallybelieve that there were sixty-three, or was that a nice number somewherebetween fifty and a hundred? I had the feeling that someone was tryingto measure a fly speck to three decimal places with a yardstick. Granted,


intelligence work was an inexact business, and I am sure that, if anybetter information was available, we would have gotten it. Still, Iwaited—in vain, as it turned out—for someone, just once, to stand upon that stage and say, “I don’t have a damned clue on what you’re goingto run into up there.”

The forecast was for bad weather all the way to the target, but thatwas nothing new either. In the absence of reliable data, I think, theweatherman played safe and called for bad weather everywhere. Thatway he was in a position to take the “I told you so” route if the weatherwas stinko. Or he could take credit for surprisingly fine conditions, as ifhe had had something to do with the improvement. At the end of thebriefing, we piled into the several jeeps available for the ride to theairdrome and squadron operations.

In the operations tent, the aircraft assignments were posted. Asalways, each pilot noted the location and marking of the aircraft he wasto follow out of the parking area. Thorsen went over the flight positionsagain and discussed where he wanted the other three flights. The 308thwas the lead squadron today, so he would also lead the group. Eachsquadron was to put up sixteen aircraft and two spares, which were toturn back at the Yugoslavian coast if no one aborted. In the standardformation, the sixteen Mustangs were grouped into four flights of fouraircraft each. The lead flight was called Red Flight, and its supportingflight was Yellow; the second section consisted of Blue, and it wassupported by Green Flight. As before, I was Thorsen’s wingman, so mycall sign was Border Red Two.

Lam, the squadron intelligence officer, issued each of us two smallpackets that could just fit into flight-suit pockets. One was an escape/evasion kit, which contained some concentrated food bars, Benzedrine,a morphine syringe, and other like bits and pieces. The other was apackage of used and rumpled money of the countries we were to flyover. There was a little more fiddling around, and then it was time to go.I walked out to my machine in a highly excited state, heart thumping,but I also felt elated and full of expectation. No more milk runs. Nomore silhouettes, like the aircraft recognition exercises. Now I was goingto see the real thing.


The pre-flight check was a cursory, tire-kicking affair. Then I had tourinate, except it was the second time in two minutes and, in spite of theurge, I was able to manage only a few drops. The crew chief helped meinto my bulky RAF Mae West life vest and parachute harness. Then,when I was in the cockpit, he held the shoulder straps so I could threadthe ends onto the lap belt and cam it down. I felt as if I had to go againbut I knew nothing would come of it, even if I did get down and try. SoI made my cockpit check, picked out Nightshade, and concentrated onits propeller until it started to move. I cranked up; gave the chocks-outsignal; and, when the crew chief was safely seated on the wing, movedout and fell in behind Thorsen as he essed his way toward the end of therunway. The long nose of the Mustang made forward visibility verypoor, and with sixteen aircraft kicking up dust, it was absolutely essentialto keep essing and watching the mechanic on the wing for hand signals.At last we were at the runway. The crew chief jumped down and gaveme a highball—hand salute—and I was pulling out into takeoff position.As soon as Thorsen was halfway down the runway, I wiped my sweatypalms on my flight-suit thighs; made a rolling mag check; and pushedthe throttle to the gate, 61 inches. I was off.

I closed rapidly on Thorsen and tucked in tightly, sneaking anoccasional glance beyond him at the rest of the squadron as eachsucceeding airplane caught up and dropped into position. Finally, themajor rolled out on course. When I loosened my position so I couldlook around a little, I got a real thrill: Our squadron was in perfectformation and, on either side above us, the other two squadrons wereequally well formed. The Adriatic sparkled below and was dotted withthe white sails of the Italian fishing boats. As we gained altitude, theItalian coast gradually fell away. Ahead to the east, a buildup of cumulusclouds marked the Yugoslavian coastline. Soon we were at our cruisingaltitude. As the weather deteriorated, the squadrons began to maneuveraround the towering buildups while trying to stay in contact. My attentionwas completely devoted to keeping station on Thorsen’s wing, so I hadonly a sketchy idea of what was going on. Unbeknownst to any of us,Fifteenth Air Force Headquarters had recalled the mission because ofthe weather, but the B-24s and the 31st had failed to get the word andpressed on to the target.


Rendezvous with the bombers came off without a hitch. Eachsquadron took up position over the bomber stream, flights scissoringback and forth, trying to stay out of the clouds but without overrunningthe slow-flying B-24s. Shortly after rendezvous, someone broke radiosilence to call out enemy fighters. I tried in vain to spot them by sneakingquick glances away from Thorsen’s machine, but I couldn’t see anythingexcept clouds and more Mustangs. The next thing I knew, the traffic onthe R/T increased in volume and intensity to bedlam; everyone wascursing and shouting at once. “Here they come! Break, break right!—Passing under you.—Watch out, four o’clock level, Blue Leader.—Awhole bunch of the sons o’ bitches. . . .Red Leader, break right!—Yougot him. You got him!—Where the hell are you, Green Four?” The shrillcacophony in my headset made my hair stand on end, but I was totallyabsorbed in staying with Thorsen as he went through some very high-gmaneuvers. My vision was blurry from the stresses. Clouds and bits ofthe horizon went by in very strange places. I saw what I took to betracers going over my wing between Thorsen and me, and I wanted toshout a warning. But I couldn’t think of the right words to call a break.I just choked.

After a few minutes, which seemed like hours, it was all over, andwe were trying to reform. I was soaked with sweat and in such a keenstate of sensitivity that the first sound of a routine radio call made mejump perceptibly. I finally got my nerves under control, but I feltnauseated as we set course for home. I was still twitchy when we startedour descent and, after I pitched out and made my pattern, I just drove itdown on the wheels and let it roll.

All the crew chiefs were waiting in a knot at the end of the runway.As each one’s aircraft came in, he mounted the wing for the taxi rideback to the parking area. When I was chocked, I shut down, unbuckled,and headed for the operations tent for debriefing. Luckily, no one wasinterested in quizzing me. I really hadn’t seen much of anything exceptthe side of Thorsen’s Nightshade, and I would have been embarrassedto admit it. I found out that the group had engaged two gaggles of thirtyaircraft each and had destroyed sixteen of them. We had lost four of ourown. One of the lost pilots was Jackson, a classmate from Moore Field


who had been assigned to the 309th when we had come up fromTelergma, three weeks earlier. He was the first combat casualty of ourPanama bunch but certainly not the last.

The 308th had done well, bagging four of the attackers and gettingfour probables into the bargain. Claude got one of the probables, whichbettered Doctor Tom’s claim of a damage three days earlier. I was feelingdown, having seen nothing and shot at nothing. One of our Panamaguys was going to get a confirmed victory one of these days, and I justknew that it wasn’t going to be me.

Lying in my sack later that evening, I thought about the events ofthe day and tried to sort things out. I could see one thing clearly: Flyingsuch close formation that I wouldn’t get lost or separated kept me fromdoing my job, which was watching and keeping my leader’s tail clear. Iwas going to have to loosen up and take my chances on staying withhim. I also recognized that, in the heat of battle, there was no time tothink about things. The time to do the thinking was on the ground. If Ididn’t do something instinctively, it wasn’t going to get done.Anticipation was the thing. Be ready. I had to act without hesitationwhen the time came. Get the gun and sight switch on with the firstbogey call. Get the tank jettison switch armed early so that the droptanks would be away a split second after the command. Be ready for ahung tank. Be ready to go mixture auto-rich, full throttle, and RPM.And above all, be ready to call a break instantly when bounced by enemyaircraft, using the right call sign so I didn’t scatter every other flight inthe sky.

On the next mission—two days later—I was scheduled to fly onJohnson’s wing as Green Four. I didn’t know whether I had beengraduated or demoted. No explanations or comments were forthcoming,so I chose to believe that Thorsen had okayed me for general wing flyingand was taking on a new guy to fly his wing. Johnson had the reputationfor being a tiger in the air, so I knew I would not want for action. Wewere going to Wiener Neustadt, a modern city near Vienna where Me-109s were assembled. That probably meant that we were poking a stickin the hornet’s nest. Vienna—or Wien, as it was known to the Austrians—was 450 air miles from San Severo, almost due north. The direct route


would take us across the Adriatic and over the Yugoslavian coast justwest of Split. After crossing the coastal mountains, we would pass almostover Zagreb, in the plain of Croatia. The very large and unmistakableLake Balaton would lie in the distance to the east, in Hungary. Muchnearer, almost beneath our track, would be the city of Graz, Austria,only a scant 75 miles from Wiener Neustadt.

The takeoff and join-up were routine. As the group climbednorthward over the sea, I had ample opportunity to look around. Forty-eight airplanes plus six spares made a formidable force and took up agood part of the sky. I was glad that I was a part of it instead of havingto look at it from an Me-109 or FW-190 cockpit.

Up near the Yugoslavia-Austria border, bogies were called out atone o’clock, slightly below. This time, I got a good look and saw abouttwelve Me-109s passing from one o’clock toward three, fairly close. Asthe squadron started to turn into them, Johnson let go his tanks, cutsharply inside our lead flight, and started down after them. I just hadtime to sneak a look at our lead flight on the outside as I rolled to followJohnson. I was horrified to see the rest of the squadron turn back to theoriginal heading, leaving us hung out to dry. I shot a glance back atJohnson. He was already getting away from me, turning in a tight verticalbank and closing rapidly on a 109. I pulled it in as hard as I could. Butif I was to stay with him, I knew I was going to have to keep reefing itin. The 109s on the outside of us, which Johnson was expecting the leadsection of the squadron to engage, could easily drop in behind us. But Ifigured that while pulling four or five g’s, I was relatively safe. Haulingback on that stick for all I was worth and in a semicrouch, I was tighteningmy stomach muscles—tightening all my muscles—trying to hold myhead up against the vicious, unrelenting force of magnified gravity. I nolonger knew if I was in the same piece of sky as Johnson; the positiveg’s were draining the blood from my head and I was sightless. Afteranother second or two, I eased the back pressure on the stick until I gotsome vision back, hoping Johnson would still be in front of me. No joy.That part of the sky was empty. At eight o’clock, a mile or two away, Isaw a parachute. A good bit closer, two aircraft were coming at me.They had no deep central air scoop but two flat, shallow radiators under


the wings and close to the fuselage, exactly like the recognition silhouette.They were unmistakably Me-109s! I went to War Emergency—67 inchesmanifold pressure—and made for a bank of clouds over on my left. Ibeat them into the clouds, a stratus deck that was fairly smooth inside. Iwas safe for the moment; visibility wasn’t 20 feet.

If I had chased someone into cloud cover, I would pop up on top, flystraight ahead, and watch for him to come out. Expecting them to do thesame, I pulled the throttle back and started a turn, rolling out when I hadreversed course. After a couple of minutes I pulled up into the sunlightand made a violent 90 left and then a 90 right to clear myself. I wasalone. I had no idea where they had got to, but I really didn’t care. Nowwhat? I decided I would go the short distance to the target and join onsomeone rather than risk flying all the way home alone. Setting coursefor the target area, I climbed back up to the group’s altitude, turningoften to look aft and constantly scanning the sky for those fast-movingblack dots. The target area could easily be spotted by the dark cloud offlak bursts and the heavy bombers could be seen from miles away.

I moved in gingerly toward the first flight of Mustangs I came upon.The large letters WZ on the side told me they were from a sister squadron,the 309th. The leader gave me a short glance, raised his gloved hand toacknowledge my presence, and went on about his business. I felt likethe lost kitten that had found its mother. But I couldn’t help wonderingwhat had happened to Johnson. Was that his chute or a German pilot’s.

After I had landed and parked, I walked slowly toward the ops tentfor debriefing, dreading the interrogation and my admission that I hadlost my element leader. I told my story to Lam as completely as I couldwhile he took notes. Johnson wasn’t back and no one had reported seeinghim. Two of the older heads who had completed their tour in Spitfiresand were waiting to go home seemed interested in the fact that I hadoutrun the 109s in level flight. I asked one of them—he was thesquadron’s leading scorer, with six victories—if that had been the wrongthing to do. He laughed and said, “I guess not.” I didn’t sense any of thereproach from the rest of the pilots that I had expected. True, I hadn’tdeliberately left Johnson to take a shot or some such thing; still, I didlose him, and he wasn’t back yet. Some of the older pilots questioned


his action in dropping tanks and getting sucked into a fight before bomberrendezvous.

I went outside, sat on a wooden bench, and watched the late afternoonsky for one more Mustang. After a half hour, Lam came out and askedme if I wanted a ride back to the housing area. Everyone else had alreadygone, so there were just the two of us in the jeep. We rode back insilence. I felt pretty bad.

Two other squadron pilots beside Johnson failed to return—Traftonand Hughes. Although no one knew it then, Trafton was wounded, buthe had successfully bailed out and was to return to Italy three monthslater. Hughes was dead. He had remarked to Lam before going out tohis airplane, “Isn’t it a beautiful day to get shot down?” Did he have apremonition, or was it just an offhand remark? Who knows. But he wasright about one thing: It had been a beautiful day.




SIX DAYS IN JUNEHow Israel Won the 1967 Arab-Israeli War

By Eric Hammel

Distinguished military historian Eric Hammel becomes the firstchronicler of the 1967 Six Day War to unite the story of development ofIsrael’s bold brand of military training and planning with a detailednarrative account of her breathtaking victories in Sinai, Jerusalem, TheWest Bank, and the Golan Heights. Unlike all earlier accounts of the1967 war, Hammel’s sweeping narrative describes how, from the early1950s, the Israel De-fense Force—Zahal—undertook a relent-less andoften visionary campaign to prepare for the inevitable war of nationalsurvival that, when it came, radically altered the Middle East and hasprofoundly influ-enced international politics ever since.

Israel’s brilliant, innovative military think-ers developed extremelyflexible strategies, operational plans, and battlefield tactics aimed atovercoming several large Arab forces with Zahal’s much smaller armyand air force. Zahal’s innovations proved to be so effective and funda-mentally sound that they established the norms of modem military plan-ning and performance that saw the United States and her coalition alliesthrough the lightning Desert Storm cam-paign of 1991.

Hammel decisively disproves the endur-ing myth that Israel’s stun-ning 1967 victory was a “miracle” or a “fluke.” He explains how, bynecessity and in secret, a tiny Third--World nation developed a FirstWorld military force that has become the envy of all the nations of theworld.

Hammel is at his proven best when describing the actions of men atwar. Six Days in June seamlessly meshes classic military history withthe human drama of Israel’s finest hour.


Note: The following article is excerpted from the book SIX DAYSIN JUNE: How Israel Won the 1967 Arab-Israeli War by EricHammel. The book is currently available in a $32.50 trade paperbackedition published by Pacifica Military History. This book is alsoavailable in ebook editions.

THE JORDANIANS ATTACKWEST JERUSALEM

by Eric Hammel


King Hussein of Jordan ordered his armed forces to open a war they didnot have to fight on the morning of June 5, 1967, as soon as he hadcompleted his 0930 radio address to the nation. Jordanian 155mm fieldpieces located in western Samaria, opposite Israel’s narrow waist, andin northern Samaria, opposite the Jezreel Valley and Beit Shean, openedfire at carefully preselected targets as far away as Israel’s principal city,Tel Aviv. The bulk of the slow, methodi-cal fire fell on Israeli militaryinstallations.

While Israeli attention was riveted on the fall of the artillery shells,tiny Egyptian commando raiding parties began working their way fromLatrun toward Israel’s international airport at Lod. It appears that thecommandos were acting on orders from General Riadh, in Amman, andwithout the direct knowledge or approval of King Hussein or any seniorJordanian officers.

For the time being, the Israelis knew nothing about the Egyptianinfil-trators and they were willing to forebear the Jordanian shelling inthe belief that it was Hussein’s way of showing other Arab leaders thathe was a brother in “the struggle against Zionism.” No Israeli leaderexpected Hussein to plunge his nation into a war. Unfortunately, whenthe Israeli guns remained silent, the Jordanians became bolder. At 1000,a volley of 155mm shells reached north into the Jezreel Valley and fell


on and around the runway of the Ramat David air base, the IAF’s largestinstallation north of Tel Aviv. Even if Zahal had no plans to go to warwith Jordan, it did intend to push the Syrian Army back from the GolanHeights, and the air support that was to be provided out of Ramat Davidwas vital to that attack and, indeed, to the defense of northern Israel.

The Israelis will not say what event or events caused them to decideto go to war against Jordan, but the worst thing the Jordanians did toIsrael on the morning of June 5 was the shelling of Ramat David.Certainly, the Israelis had been thinking long and hard about a war withJordan, but they did not issue their orders nor even complete final troopcommitments until after Ramat David was struck, between 1000 and1015. It was only then that the 10th “Harel” Armored-Infantry Brigadewas transferred to Central Command from the GHQ Reserve, andresponsibility for northern Samaria was transferred from CentralCommand to Northern Command.

The Harel Armored-Infantry Brigade was the only Israeli unit thateven approximated a strategic reserve in central Israel. Its only purposeup until about 1030 on June 5 was to stand ready to cut off a thrusttoward the Mediterranean by whatever force the Arabs launched out ofnorthwestern Samaria or the Golan Heights. Until Zahal GHQ confirmedits attachment to Central Command at 1030, the Harel Armored-InfantryBrigade had no place in Zahal’s or Central Command’s contingencyplans regarding an Israeli invasion of the West Bank And, realistically,there could have been no invasion of the West Bank without the HarelBrigade tanks and halftracks.

Likewise, the Northern Command armored ugdah commanded byBrig-adier General Elad Peled was oriented entirely toward Syria untilit was alerted at around 1030 on June 5 for a possible thrust to shut offthe Jordanian artillery fire that was being directed at Ramat David It isunclear if General Peled even had tactical maps of northern Samariawhen the alert was issued.

*The Jordanians acted first. From all appearances, the Jordanian planwas improvised, but it did stem from a sort of wish-fulfillment on thepart of the Jordanian monarch. Though Hussein had done little to prepare


his army for an offensive war against Israel, it is virtually certain that hedid expect to emerge from the war in possession of at least WestJerusalem. Thus, while little was done elsewhere beyond harassing theIsraelis north and west of Samaria, a real offensive plan was set in motioninside Jerusalem.

Following several hours of odd outbreaks of small-arms fire alongand around the Green Line—the truce line between Jordanian EastJerusalem and Israeli West Jerusalem—Jordanian light 2-inch mortarssuddenly came into play at 1115 against several Israeli border outpostsmanned by second-line troops from the Jerusalem Infantry Brigade.When the light mortars opened fire, the Israelis ratcheted up the violenceby firing bazookas (2.76-inch rocket launchers) at Jordanian positionsthat had previously answered only with small arms. These escalatingexchanges were typical; they had been flaring up with nauseatingregularity ever since the truce lines had been drawn in 1949. For a change,however, there were no Israeli citizens to be mown down on the streets;everyone was indoors or, at least, well back from the truce line.

The mortar, bazooka, and small-arms duels along the Green Linegained in intensity. Then, at 1130, Jordanian 25-pounder light field gunsopened fire on Kibbutz Ramat Rachel, the Israeli settlement that screenedWest Jerusalem from the south. At the same time, a mixed volley ofmortar and artillery rounds fell on Mount Scopus, an Israeli enclave inthe northern part of East Jerusalem. The Israelis responded to theJordanian artillery fire with their own artillery, but the fire from theJordanian 25-pounder batteries never abated.

*While the artillery duels opened in and around Jerusalem, news arrivedat Central Command Headquarters that the Royal Jordanian Air Forcewas attacking Israeli towns and several Israeli air bases in central Israeland that retaliatory flights of IAF fighter-bombers were being launchedto take out the two-dozen jet warplanes under King Hussein’s command.In all, sixteen Jordanian Hawker Hunters attacked Israeli air bases andvillages around Netanya, Kfar Sirkin, and Kfar Saba. The Jordaniansclaimed to have de-stroyed four Israeli planes on the ground, but the


Israelis admit to the loss of only one Noratlas transport. There were nolives lost.

What really was lost was the Royal Jordanian Air Force. Fourteenof the sixteen Hunters that took part in the attack returned safely at onetime to either of Jordan’s two air bases, and there the ground crewsbegan the tedious task of refueling and rearming them. It would be twohours before the first Hunters could take to the air again, but the Israelisneeded only about ten minutes to deny them the ability to do so.

Two flights of IAF Mirages—just eight planes in all—were pulledfrom the rotation against Egypt and their pilots were hurriedly briefedfor strikes against the Jordanian air bases at Amman and Mafraq, thelatter in northeast-ern Jordan. The Mirages arrived over their targets at1215 and commenced low-level strafing runs against individual aircraftwith their 30mm cannon. In the course of destroying the partially refueledHunters, the Mirages also released a number of 1,200-pound concrete-busting bombs and thus disabled both runways. The only challenge wasissued by a pair of Hunters that was late in returning from a missionover Israel. The two brave Jordanian pilots pitched into the Miragesover Mafraq, and one was shot down immediately. The second Hunterpilot was extremely good; he survived three firing passes at thedogfighting Mirages, which were a bit sluggish at low altitude, but thenhe and his airplane were blown to bits by a burst of 30mm cannon shellsin the cockpit.

Eighteen of the Royal Jordanian Air Force’s twenty-four HawkersHunt-ers were destroyed in the one raid, and the remaining six wereextensively damaged The only pilot fatalities were the two shot downover Mafraq. The Mirages over Amman Airport also accounted for twoparked helicopters and three parked light transports, of which oneunfortunately belonged to the British air attaché. In simultaneous action,a flight of four Mysteres bombed the Royal Jordanian Air Force radarstation at Mount Ajlun and caused extensive damage.

*At 1330, after two hours of sporadic and inconclusive duels alongJerusalem’s Green Line, the little war in Jerusalem finally boiled overThe event that finally forced Israel to act on a much grander scale began


at noon with an order from King Hussein to Brigadier Ata Ali Haza’a,the commander of the Jerusalem-based King Talal Infantry Brigade Themonarch directed Haza’a to occupy the long, broad ridge in southernJerusalem that incorporated Government House, formerly the residenceof the British High Commis-sioner for the League of Nations Mandatein Palestine and lately the head-quarters of the United Nations TruceSupervision Organization (UNTSO). The sprawling U.N compound andthe entire ridge upon which it sat presented a commanding view of theentire southern half of the city. Israelis, who had had little use for theBritish and now had little more than contempt for what they saw asbeing a pro-Arab United Nations, took great pleasure in calling the hillby its Biblical name, Jebel Mukaber—the Hill of Evil Counsel

Interestingly, Radio Amman had announced the seizure of JebelMu-kaber at 1030, fully three hours before the Jordanian operationactually began. The Israelis had taken notice of the announcement, butthe govern-ment had been unwilling to do anything to deflect thepresumed blow in advance. In any case, for Jordanian troops to seizeJebel Mukaber was really throwing down the gauntlet; it was an act thatwould certainly evoke a hostile response from the Israelis. It was alsoan act that immediately confused and alarmed the Israeli militaryauthorities, for the hill was in the south of the city, in the exact oppositedirection of Mount Scopus, which is where the Israelis expected anyJordanian blow to fall. There were 120 lightly armed Israelis on MountScopus, and many more as close to it as they could get. But there wereonly five Israeli soldiers in proximity to Government House. They wereguarding Kibbutz Ramat Rachel, which had been evacuated days earlier.

*The unit that Hussein specifically ordered Brigadier Haza’a to employin the seizure of Government House was a battalion of the Iman AliInfantry Brigade that had been brought into East Jerusalem on June 2.In fact, during his June 3 inspection tour of Jerusalem, the king hadgiven Haza’a and the battalion commander, Major Badi Awad, directorders to reconnoiter Jebel Mukaber and Government House from theJordanian side of the truce line. This Major Awad had done, so, when


the moment of truth was upon him, he was fully prepared to send two ofhis three small infantry companies up the hill.

The 150 Jordanian infantrymen climbed the hill by way of a motorroad. They encountered most of the U.N. staff and a number of theirdependents—about 100 souls in all—in a small wooded area just to thenorth of the main U.N. headquarters building. The civilians had takenshelter in the woods because several Jordanian artillery rounds that hadbeen meant to pass over the hill toward targets in West Jerusalem hadclipped several structures atop the hill.

While a handful of U.N. military officers and civilian officialscom-plained bitterly to Major Awad and other officers about the incursioninto the neutral zone, the Jordanian infantrymen set to digging in alongthe western and southern crests of the ridge. Several jeep-mounted106mm recoilless rifles were driven up from East Jerusalem, and anartillery forward-observer team began spotting fire against targets thathad hitherto been visible only on maps. The U.N. officials could dolittle to stop the Jordanians from occupying the woods and outlyingbuildings, but several of them manhandled a Jordanian machine gun outof Government House itself when the crew tried to set the weapon up ina second-floor window. The U.N. commander, Norwegian Air ForceGeneral Odd Bull, argued vehemently but to no avail with Major Awad.

In short order, the Jordanian artillery forward observer was directingfire from a 25-pounder battery against Kibbutz Ramat Rachel, to thesouth, and Zahal’s Allenby Barracks, to the west. At the barracks, oneof the Jerusalem Infantry Brigade’s four second-line infantry battalionswas just then mobilizing. The five-man squad at Ramat Rachel wasforced to take cover, and the second-line infantry battalion had toevacuate the barracks after the battalion commander, a companycommander, and several soldiers were wounded.

As soon as Jebel Mukaber was firmly under his control, Major Awadordered his reserve company to advance against Ramat Rachel, and aplatoon was sent forward to occupy the Israeli Ministry of Agricultureexperimental farm in the neutral zone west of Government House. Thefive Israeli infan-trymen holding the little kibbutz were allowed by higherauthority to flee, but the Jordanian troops on their way to the experimental


farm were stopped cold when the farm director’s wife and an elderlyauxiliary policemen fired an ancient Czech light machine gun at them.The Jordanian troops back-tracked into a treelike bordering the farmand, before they could muster another attempt, two reinforced companiesfrom the Jerusalem Infantry Bri-gade’s Infantry Battalion 161 rushedup the hill to occupy the experimental farm in force The remainder ofInfantry Battalion 161 beat the Jordanian company into Ramat Rachel.

*All along the truce line, Jordanian soldiers were firming up their positionswhile waiting to see what the Israelis were going to do about increasinglystrident provocation’s, particularly the seizure of Jebel Mukaber. Mostof the Jordanian troops and officers did not know very much about whatwas going on beyond their little nodes of hostility, but all the news thatwas reaching them was good. Radio Amman was reporting the death ofthe Israeli Air Force and uncontested penetrations by several Egyptiandivisions into southern and south-central Israel. Across the way, whereIsraeli Reservists from the Jerusalem Infantry Brigade were trying tocope, there was not much more news to be had. Kol Yisrael, the Israelinational radio station, wasn’t saying anything. However, Jordanians andIsraelis alike were thinking, “Now is the time; now is the time to strike.Now is the time to correct the mistakes of 1948.”




THE FIRST HELLCAT ACEBy Cdr Hamilton McWhorter, III, USN (Ret) with Jay A. Stout

Though he would have objected to being called such, HamiltonMcWhorter III’s service to family and country make him a standoutamong America’s Greatest Generation. A Georgia native whose familyroots date from that region’s settlement during the 1700s, MacMcWhorter was a naval aviation cadet undergoing training when PearlHarbor was attacked on December 7, 1941.

After earning his Wings of Gold in early 1942, Ensign McWhorterwas trained as a fighter pilot in the robust but technologically outmodedF4F Wildcat. Initially assigned to VF-9—a fiercely spirited and hard-playing fighter squadron—he saw first combat in November 1942 againstVichy French forces in North Africa.

After returning to the United States, VF-9 became the first unit toconvert to the new Grumman F6F Hellcat fighter—the fighter the U.S.Navy would use to crush Japanese air power during the long offensivefrom the Southwest Pacific to the shores of Japan.

From mid 1943, Hamilton McWhorter was constantly engaged inthe unforgiving and deadly aerial warfare that characterized the battlesagainst Imperial Japan. His fifth aerial victory, in November 1943 offTarawa Atoll, made him the first ace in the Hellcat, and seven subse-quent victories ensured his place in the annals of air-to-air combat.McWhorter’s combat service, from the beginning of the war to the lastcampaign off the shores of Okinawa, makes his story a must-read forthe serious student of the Pacific air war.

Hamilton McWhorter III retired from the Navy as a commander in1969. He passed away in 2008.

A Marine F/A-18 pilot from 1981 to early 2000, Lieutenant ColonelJay A. Stout is a combat veteran with over 4,600 flight hours. He hasalso authored Hornets over Kuwait, which recounts his own experiencesduring the Gulf War.


What the experts are saying about The First Hellcat Ace

“Mac McWhorter not only survived three carrier deployments in WorldWar II, he earned a reputation as one of the Navy’s deadliest fighterpilots. His memoir captures the attitude of his generation—the heroismand the sacrifice, and the return to a loving famiy. It was an era never toreturn again.” ——Barrett Tillman, author of Hellcat: The F6F in WorldWar II

“Mac McWhorter became a noted Navy fighter ace during World WarII, his three carrier deployments characterized by intense combat, theloss of numerous squadron mates, and the pain of separation from hiswife and family. His memoir is not the stuff of legends or glamour sooften associated with fighter pilots, but a sensitive look at the realitiesfaced by carrier aviators who go in harm’s way.” ——Bruce Gamble,author of Black Sheep One: The Life of Gregory “Pappy” Boyington

“Not only a thrilling account of some of the great air battles of the Pacificwar, Hamilton McWhorter’s book provides a window through whichwe can view a generation of young men at war, impressed by theircamaraderie and spirit and humbled by the hardships and fears theyovercame.” ——M. Hill Goodspeed, historian at the U.S. Navy AviationMuseum

“Today the U.S. Navy’s World War II fighter pilots remain less wellknown than their Army Air Forces counterparts. One reason is that theyhave left far fewer memoirs, a great loss, because nothing can replaceauthentic descriptions of fighter combat by those who actually did it.Fighter ace Hamilton “One Slug” McWhorter, a member of elite FightingSquadron 9, flew nearly the whole war, first over Northwest Africa,then in the 1943–44 Central Pacific offensives, and finally in the grimassaults against Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and in the skies over the Japanesehomeland. Vividly written, The First Hellcat Ace is an importantcontribution not only for the Pacific but the air war in general.” ——John Lundstrom, author of The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combatfrom Pearl Harbor to Midway


Note: The following article is excerpted from the book The FirstHellcat Ace by Cdr Hamilton McWhorter III with Jay A. Stout. Thebook is currently available in a $24.95 trade paperback editionpublished by Pacifica Military History. It is also available in ebookeditions.

NAVY FIGHTERS OVERNORTH AFRICA

By Hamilton McWhorter III with Jay A. Stout

Copyright 1997 © by Hamilton McWhorter III and Jay A. Stout

Flight quarters was scheduled for 0500, November 8, 1942, so I got upat 0330 in order to have time to shower, shave, and get breakfast. Theship’s doctor had suggested that all hands take a good shower thatmorning to cut down the chances of infection if we were wounded. Ireally scrubbed down—as much as I could in a shipboard shower. Weweren’t allowed the luxury of standing in a hot shower because freshwater was always in short supply. The drill was to wet down, turn theshower off, lather up, then turn the shower back on only long enough torinse off.

After putting on a clean khaki uniform and black necktie (we had towear neckties at this point in the war—even in combat!), I went downto the wardroom and found that the galley staff had prepared a superbbreakfast of ham, eggs, sausage, waffles, pancakes, and more. This wasmuch more extravagant than our usual fare. Just about the time I satdown to eat, some smart-ass came in and remarked that the scenereminded him of the last meal for the condemned.

After breakfast I went to our ready room, just about amidships onthe gallery deck, right beneath the flight deck. I wanted to get therebefore general quarters was sounded; otherwise all the hatches wouldbe battened down, making movement around the ship rather difficult.


Although we had done most of our briefings the day before, MacWordell, one of VF-41’s senior pilots, went over all the details onceagain. Our mission was not complicated—a combat air patrol (CAP)over the invasion forces at Fedala. We were to keep Vichy airplanesaway. During the briefing I reviewed my chartboard to make sure that Ihad all the information I needed—ship’s position, patrol position, radiofrequencies, and so on.

Information on the current situation ashore was very sketchy. Therewas much confusion about the progress of the landings, which had beguna few hours before, and, unbelievably, it was still not known whether ornot the French would oppose the invasion.

After the briefing we all sat in the ready room putting on a bravefront and making inane small talk. Nevertheless, nearly every one of ussneaked away to the head more than once to take a nervous pee.

As scheduled, VF-9 launched at 0610, and VF-41 shortly thereafter.I listened as they rumbled down the flight deck just above our heads,envious that they were getting airborne first. It was much better to beflying than sitting around and sweating it out. It wasn’t until they wereen route to their targets, at about 0640, that VF-9 and VF-41 were giventhe signal “Play Ball.” This meant that the French had not laid downtheir arms and that the invasion force was being opposed. Hearing this,the knots in our stomachs cinched a little tighter.

After the first two launches were complete, the deck was respottedwith new airplanes, and we were given our airplane assignments. Theplanes were assigned to the pilots in each division in the same order inwhich they were spotted, or parked, on the flight deck. This kept thedivisions together and helped make the rendezvous after takeoff mucheasier.

At about 0700 we were ordered to man our planes. I strapped on myheavy .45-caliber pistol, put on my cloth helmet (with earphonesincorporated into the sides), and donned my Mae West life jacket. Last,I grabbed my chartboard and filed out of the ready room with the rest ofthe pilots.

*


Up on the flight deck I scanned the pack of parked airplanes as Itried to find the one assigned to me. They were painted a specular graycolor. The red dots in the center of the star in the national insignia hadbeen removed months earlier; it was feared that they might be confusedwith the red “meatball” of the Japanese national insignia.

I spotted my airplane near the rear of the pack and walked across thewooden flight deck, around and under other airplanes, to get to it. Aftergreeting my plane captain and making a walk-around inspection of theplane with him, I climbed onto the left wing and stepped down into thecockpit. I settled into the seat, and the plane captain helped me with myparachute harness and seat belt; then he climbed back down to checkthe aircraft one more time. Almost without conscious effort—even aftertwo weeks without flying—my practiced hands moved around thecockpit preparing the Wildcat for engine start. Prestart checks complete,I signaled the plane captain that I was ready. Other fighters in front ofme had started their engines already, and I had my goggles down againsttheir propwash. The heavy thrum on the flight deck became louder andlouder as engines on more airplanes came to life. Checking as best Icould that my propeller arc was clear, I reached down, primed the engine,turned the ignition switch on, and hit the starter switch.

Once the engine started I gave the cockpit instrumentation a quicklook to ensure that everything was hot, cool, lubricated, and pressurizedin all the right places. Looking forward, I could see the first airplanes ofthe launch taxiing forward for takeoff. It was to be an all-fighter launch;the SBD Dauntless dive-bombers had launched with the first strike. Ourmission was combat air patrol. We were to ensure that no enemy aircraftharassed any portion of the invasion fleet or the landing itself.

Finally, at about thirty-second intervals, each of the airplanes in frontof me taxied into position, ran up their engines, released their brakes,and rolled down the flight deck into the wind. Even without a catapult-assisted launch—the Ranger had only one catapult anyway—the fighterswere airborne well before running out of deck space.

At last it was my turn. I moved the throttle forward and let my aircraftslowly roll ahead while I followed the plane captain’s hand signals.Finally I reached the take-off point. Here I shifted my attention to theflight deck officer. On his signal—the rapid rotation of a small flag in


his upraised right hand—I stood on the brakes and pushed the throttleall the way forward with my left hand. At full power, the airplane vibratedmadly and strained to break free and race down the deck. I checked thecockpit instrumentation again, double-checked my flap and propellerpitch settings, and saluted the waiting flight deck officer. With a flourishhe lowered his right arm and pointed down the deck. Immediately Ireleased the brakes and worked the rudder to keep the fighter pointeddown the deck. A few seconds later I felt the airplane grow lighter as itreached flying speed. I eased the stick back with my right hand and wasairborne before the last of the flight deck disappeared beneath me.

Once aloft, I scanned the sky around me while I cranked the landinggear up by hand. This was a tiresome effort that required twenty-sevenrevolutions. It could be dangerous too. If a pilot lost his grip, the handlewould spin wildly in the opposite direction with bone-breaking force asgravity pulled the landing gear back to the down position. There wereplenty of Wildcat pilots with broken wrists.

Of course there was much to do besides retract the landing gear. Ireadjusted the prop pitch and fine-tuned the fuel mixture; at the sametime I monitored my engine and flight instruments and closed formationwith the rest of the flight. Sixteen aircraft had gotten airborne and werejoining as two flights of eight, one a couple hundred feet behind andslightly offset from the other.

*The division, four airplanes, was the standard Navy unit for aerial

combat; it was composed of two sections of two aircraft each. The twosections flew together in a formation called the “Finger Four.” It was aformation that was adopted by the British earlier in the war and closelyresembled the extended fingertips of a hand. The middle fingertip wasthe division leader, or the number-one airplane, whereas the divisionleader’s wingman, the number-two airplane, was represented by theforefinger. The ring fingertip was the second section leader, or number-three airplane, and the little fingertip was his wingman, the number-four airplane. This formation was flexible and allowed the division leaderto maneuver fairly aggressively without worrying about the other pilotsin the formation flying into him or each other.


*With everyone in sight, I joined Danny O’Neil’s division as section

leader of the last section of a flight of eight led by Jake Onstott. A shorttime later, Jim Feasley slid into position on my right wing. Our divisionflew just a bit behind and offset from Jake’s, in order to give him roomto maneuver his own division. In turn, Onstott kept our two combineddivisions behind and offset from Mac Wordell’s eight-ship flight.

On my wing, Feasley was flying the last airplane in the formation.We were still junior ensigns and had been for a while. As such, we hadgotten used to being “tail-end-charlies.”

Once joined, our two flights of eight proceeded southeast to takeposition over the invasion beachhead just northeast of Casablanca, nearthe town of Fedala. Along the way we charged and test-fired our guns.Charging the guns in the Wildcat was tedious and time-consuming. Eachof the six guns had to be charged by pulling a handle that was attachedto a cable that ran out to the gun. Six separate, hard yanks in all.

When we arrived on station, we set up a loose, left-hand orbit atabout 10,000 feet, maintaining the same formation that we had used enroute. Each pilot divided his attention between flying in position andscanning the sky for enemy aircraft.

Nothing happened. By this time, most of the first strike had made itsway back to the fleet. Occasionally we spotted them straggling back insmall groups or pairs or sometimes singly. It was obvious from theirbroken formations and the occasional excited radio call that they hadencountered stiff resistance.

Below us, we watched small ships and landing craft shuttling backand forth between the beach and larger ships offshore. They remindedme of water bugs; they busily scuttled here and there with no purposethat was obvious from my high perch. Further away, on the beach, Icould see none of the fighting that I presumed was taking place. Still,our CAP encountered none of the enemy.

Finally, after about forty-five minutes on station above the beachhead,at 0825, the radio crackled with new information. There were warshipsunderway out of the harbor at Casablanca. Without hesitating, Wordellmade a call over the radio and spun us around toward the harbor.


Casablanca was only about twelve miles to the southeast, and so, just ashort time later, we were able to pick out the wakes of three Frenchdestroyers racing out of the harbor and running north along the coastlinetoward the invasion force at Fedala. They were steaming in a single-fileformation.

As we approached the three enemy ships head-on, Wordell took acut to starboard and set us up for an attack against the lead destroyer’sport side. Just before he started his dive, he rocked his wings—the signalfor an attack—and pushed over for a strafing run on the lead destroyer.At the same time he called out over the radio, “Okay, gang, this is it!”

The destroyer crews had seen us by this time and started to put up aheavy hail of antiaircraft fire. Accurate antiaircraft fire. About halfwaydown in its dive, Wordell’s aircraft was hit and began to smoke.

“I’m hit, I’m hit—I’m going down,” he called out excitedly.I remember thinking that this wasn’t a very good start. Our lead

airplane on our first combat attack had just been badly hit and was trailinga stream of smoke and fire. To say that I was frightened might not beentirely accurate, but the pucker factor was certainly up there. I watchedMac guide his aircraft toward the beach as the rest of our flight continuedthe attack. His aircraft was smoking badly—the fire seemed to havegone out—and he was still making excited calls over the radio. Out ofreflex or fear or whatever, he squeezed his trigger, and the smoke fromhis six machine guns added to the smoke coming out of his plane. Thelast I saw of him before I started my own dive, he was just beginning tobelly into a field behind the beach.

After fourteen planes dove to attack, it was finally my turn. I put mywits in place, took a quick look over my shoulder at Jim Feasley, pushedthe throttle up, and rolled left, over into a dive. I was diving on the portbeam of the lead ship at about a forty-five-degree angle. The noise ofthe airstream rushing over my airplane increased dramatically as myairspeed accelerated. Hunched behind my gun sight—a glass reflectorwith an illuminated center pipper surrounded by concentric rings—andflying through the torrent of antiaircraft fire, I watched the enemy shipgrow larger as I waited to come into range. At the same time I could seeother Wildcats in various phases of attack—diving, firing, pulling out.


Hurtling ever closer, I could see the upturned faces of the French sailorsfrom where they crouched in the ship’s gun tubs, blasting salvos ofantiaircraft fire up at me.

I waited forever for the range to close. Finally, at about three thousandfeet, I took a tiny bit of lead and opened fire on the ship’s bridge. Theroar of the six guns, added to the already deafening racket from theengine and the airstream, was almost mind-numbing. Fascinated, Iwatched the tracers from my guns arc toward the ship, seemingly inslow motion. Then, in an explosion of sparkling flashes, my bullets foundtheir mark on the bridge of the destroyer. At the same time I could seeglass from the windows in the bridge rain on the deck and the sparkling,explosive flashes of my incendiary rounds. In total, each Wildcat carried1,440 rounds in the ratio of five armor-piercing to three incendiary totwo tracer rounds. That meant that for every flash I saw—too many tocount—four other rounds of ammunition smashed into the target. Theeffect of our gunfire was dramatic. Already the lead ship was smoking.As I pulled out of the dive, my face sagged under the increased gravityforces of the pullout. Leveling out at high speed just over the top of thebridge, I could see sailors dashing around, doing whatever sailors dowhen their ship is under attack.

Under fire from the opposite side of the ship, I double-checked thethrottle against the stop. I looked back over my shoulder, where I couldsee the muzzle flashes from the antiaircraft guns, and I consciously willedmy aircraft to climb faster. Unscathed and back at altitude again, Iwheeled around to my left and set up for another attack. By now ourflight had more or less separated into a bunch of single airplanes pressingattacks against the French ships and being careful to avoid collidingwith each other.

Altogether, we made several more runs apiece against all three ofthe destroyers. On each run, I was amazed at the effects of my gunsagainst the thin-skinned ships. And the other pilots experienced the samesuccess. The decks and superstructures of the French ships were riddledwith holes, and soon no one was moving about topside. The antiaircraftfire dropped off dramatically as well. By the time we ran low on fueland ammunition and began to reform our flight for the trip back to the


Ranger, the enemy ships were smoking—flames visible in places—andwere turning toward the beach. It was with a good deal of satisfactionlater in the day that we learned that they had not reached the invasionbeach.

After regrouping and heading back toward the Ranger, we foundthat Mac Wordell was our flight’s only loss. With a little reshuffling,Jake Onstott took the lead and brought the group overhead the fleet. Afew minutes later we began our approaches and landed aboard shipwithout incident.

Once I was clear of the arresting wires the deck crew folded myWildcat’s wings and I was directed to a parking spot, where a planecaptain put chocks beneath the wheels while I shut the engine down.The propeller had barely stopped turning before I scrambled out of thecockpit with my flight gear and went below decks with the rest of theflight. There was nonstop chatter as everyone tried to tell his story toeveryone else, who, of course, was only interested in his own story.Hands became airplanes that swept arcs through the ready room—righthands chasing left, or making strafing runs against the duty desk orwhatever other object was nearby. We were excited and a bit proud thatwe had turned the French ships away from the beachhead.

*We didn’t have much time to relive the events as we were soon

corralled and briefed for another mission. As soon as our fighters wererefueled and rearmed we were back upstairs manning them.

At 1145, we repeated the launch sequence from the early morning.With Jack Raby in the lead of a flight of twelve Wildcats, we wereairborne again heading toward the invasion area. Somehow, in theconfusion of the day, I had ended up back with VF-9.

It wasn’t long before the skipper spotted a target. Raising a plumeof dust as it raced along one of the coastal roads was a small fuel truck.Raby was on it in an instant. From a fast, shallow dive he opened upwith all six guns and sprayed the speeding truck. Almost instantaneouslyit caught fire and ground to a halt.

What I saw next was one of those images—so vivid and horrible—that etched a permanent place in my memory: The driver had been


transformed into a human torch. I cringed when I saw him fall out of thetruck cab and roll on the ground, waving and slapping at himself as hetried to put out the flames. Even had he extinguished the flames, therewas no way he could have survived the burns.

We flew on. A short time later we were given coordinates for a targetdescribed as a Vichy command post. It was housed in a big, white,cement-block building set up on a hill. As we dove in to attack, gunsthat were dug in around the building put up torrents of antiaircraft fire.It was intense, but not nearly so thick as what the destroyers had put upearlier that day.

From our end, the attack was somewhat frustrating. We could seeflashes from our .50-caliber rounds hitting the building, but they hadlittle effect on the masonry structure. We certainly couldn’t make it burn.

It wasn’t long before I came to the conclusion that our return on thisinvestment wasn’t worth it. I saw rounds coming up at me during one ofmy strafing runs, then heard a loud crack, and felt a gush of air pour intothe cockpit.

A small-caliber antiaircraft round had hit the left front quarter-panelof my windscreen, come through the cockpit, missed my face by onlyinches, and gone right through the rear of the canopy. I could see bits ofPlexiglas on the outside of my goggles, trapped there by the hurricane-force wind that was rushing through the cockpit. I really wasn’t muchinterested in strafing that building anymore.

Finally, like a pack of blooded and panting dogs that have lost interestin a treed animal, we rejoined and circled the command post from adistance. It didn’t look much different than it had before we made ourattack. We were low on ammunition; it was time to head home. Weclimbed to altitude and started back, a bit disappointed that our effortshadn’t yielded more spectacular results,

There was trouble waiting for us when we reached the Ranger at1425, more than two and a half hours after we had launched. Our lack ofcarrier landing practice during the last few weeks finally caught up withus. The nature of combat being what it is, the launch and recovery cycleshad gone askew. Our landing skills had atrophied, and recovering pilotswere being given more wave-offs than normal. Consequently, the


recovery cycle was running behind and I was sent, along with threeothers, to the nearby escort carrier Suwannee. Though the Ranger wassmall relative to the other fleet carriers, the Suwannee seemed absolutelytiny. Fortunately, with the pressure on and despite the lack of practice,our flight recovered aboard the small ship without incident.

Of course, one of the many disadvantages associated with operatingaboard a carrier is that there is only one place to take off and land.Unlike a land base, a carrier gives you no option to take off on a differentrunway or in a different direction. Until the Ranger’s deck was clearedand ready to recover us, we weren’t going to be able to get back aboardto refit and rearm. The Suwannee, meanwhile, was busy with her ownairplanes. Finally, by the time our Wildcats were refueled, the Ranger’sdeck was clear and able to recover us.

Back aboard the Ranger and still charged with excitement, I wasready to go out again, but the last missions had already been sent; I wasdone flying for the day. I made my way down to the squadron spaces,hung my flying gear on a peg, and stepped into the ready room, wheremost of the pilots who weren’t flying had already gathered. The moodwas mixed. There was a great deal of excitement, as we had scoredsome good successes, most notably against targets on the ground. JackRaby had scored the squadron’s first aerial victory that morning over anaircraft he identified as a twin-engine French LeO 451. Later, after theFrench said that none of their planes had been in that area, it was believedthat this airplane had most likely been one of a few British Hudsonaircraft lost on antisubmarine patrol. The two airplanes looked similar,and the roundel markings of the French and British were quite alike.The confusion of first combat and the split-second nature of air combatcontributed to this tragic mistake. Raby wasn’t the first to make thiskind of error, nor would he be the last.

*If there was a sense of excitement over our successes, there was

also the realization that we had lost some dear friends. For good. Tom“Willy” Wilhoite was one who was gone. Willy was from Kentucky andwas one of my good friends. He looked like he had just come off thefarm, and he always had a smile for everyone. Just a happy, friendly


young man. I had known him since the early days of my enlistment inAtlanta. Born only four days apart, we had gone almost lockstep throughtraining together, had reported to VF-9 at the same time, and becomeroommates. On his second mission that day he had been flying on HughWinters’s wing on a strike against the airdrome at Port Lyautey. Afterstrafing and destroying a Dewoitine fighter, Willy got caught by Frenchantiaircraft gunners. He called out over the radio, “They got me, Pedro”(Winters’s nickname), and a moment later he crashed about a mile fromthe airdrome.

Willy was posthumously awarded the Silver Star. The citation notedhis “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity” during the strikes that day,as well as his “superb airmanship and tenacious devotion to duty” forthe manner in which he pressed his attacks.

Mac Wordell was still missing as well, from our earlier attack on theVichy destroyers. Someone had seen his airplane belly-land, so therewas hope that he had survived.

Everyone dealt with these losses in his own way. For many of us,myself included, I don’t think it quite hit home that our friends werereally gone forever. Consciously we knew that they were dead, but itwould be a while before we would get used to not seeing them up on theflight deck, or lounging in the wardroom or the ready room. Outwardly,few of us showed any emotion, but inwardly all of us grieved in ourown fashion. I’m certain that there were quite a few melancholy pilotsthat night—thinking and staring wide-eyed into the dark. Like most ofthe other pilots, I put the deaths of my squadronmates aside during theday. They were something to be dealt with later, when there was time.

This wasn’t a cold or heartless reaction. It was necessary. Lettinggrief take the focus of our attention would have been dangerous. Imourned our lost friends. All of us did, and we still do.



THE JOLLY ROGERSThe Story of Tom Blackburn and Navy Fighting Squadron VF-17

By Tom Blackburn with Eric Hammel

Introduction by Vice Admiral James Stockdale, USN (Ret.)

The Jolly Rogers is the true story of one of the U.S. Navy’s foremostWorld War II fighter squadrons, VF-17, and its charismatic commander,fighter ace Tom Blackburn. In his action-packed war memoir and unithistory, Blackburn describes VF-17’s intense, winning campaign againstthe Japanese over the northern Solomon Islands and Rabaul in late 1943and early 1944.

Beginning with his own experiences as a trainer of fighter pilotsearly in World War II and his leadership of a small carrier-based fightersquadron supporting the invasion of North Africa, Blackburn goes on toprovide a rich, detailed account of how he shaped a crew of over-eagerhotshots into one of the highest scoring fighter squadrons of World WarII. In only seventy-six days of combat, Tom Blackburn’s Jolly Rogersknocked down a record 154 enemy warplanes, and Blackburn himselfemerged as one of VF-17’s leading aces with eleven kills to his credit.

Boisterous at times, and sober at others, Blackburn explains themethods he used and example he set to shape and wield VF-17 beforeand during its South Pacific combat tour. Not least of the challengesfacing Blackburn and VF-17 was taming the hot new Vought F4U Cor-sair fighter. Originally slated to serve aboard a fleet aircraft carrier, VF-17 was ultimately transferred to land-based duty when the Corsair provedtoo hot to handle during carrier-deck landings. Though the Corsair’steething problems were worked out by others—it eventually became asuperb carrier-based fighter-bomber—it was Blackburn and his JollyRogers who proved the full potential of the Corsair as a killer of enemyairplanes.

Both a war memoir and a caring tribute to the aggressive, hold-nothing-back young men he trained and led in combat, Blackburn’s storyis an epic in World War II history annals.


Critical Acclaim for The Jolly Rogers

Publishers Weekly says: “Blackburn was an exceptionally talented,resourceful, inspiring leader who imparted to his men a fierce warriorethic . . . especially noteworthy is the author’s straightforward descriptionof the methods he used organizing, training, leading his pilots in combatand developing air tactics.”

The Shipmate says: “Tom Blackburn [was] exceptional, and so is hisbook.”

The Hook says: “Tom Blackburn [was] one of the most successful fightersquadron commanders the U.S. Navy ever produced . . . not only acracking good story, but a valuable primer on dealing with the ruggedindividualists who populate naval aviation, Highly recommended.”

The San Diego Union says: “[This] thrilling saga focuses on unsungheroes.”

Stars and Stripes says: “In a book generously laced with tales of aircombat, Blackburn talks of the days spent building VF-17 into an outfitwith its own identity and then leading his men into combat . . . “

The Naval Institute Proceedings says: “Excellent . . . a well-rounded,coherent story that focuses on intense combat . . . As a professional’saccount of his squadron’s . . . war, Blackburn’s has no peer.”

Kirkus Reviews says: “A macho, like-it-was memoir . . . a gritty, action-packed slice of WWII life.”


Note: The following article is excerpted from the book The JollyRogers: The Story of Tom Blackburn and Navy Fighting SquadronVF-17 by Tom Blackburn with Eric Hammel. The book is currentlyavailable in a $27.50 trade paperback edition published by PacificaMilitary History. It is also available in ebook editions.

COMMANDby Tom Blackburn with Eric Hammel

Copyright 1997 © by James Blackburn and Eric Hammel

John Thomas Blackburn, the son and brother of professional Navyofficers, graduated from Annapolis in 1933, grudgingly served hisobligatory two years in the surface fleet, and, at the firstopportunity,volunteered for flight training. He was a fighter pilot allthe way—by choice and temperament.

When war broke out, Lieutenant Blackburn was teaching tactics tonovice fighter pilots at the Navy’s new fighter-training center at Opa-Locka, Florida. He asked to be returned to a carrier squadron, wasrefused, but eventually wangled orders to form and command CarrierEscort Fighter Squadron (VGF) 29, and he led it during the first day ofthe invasion of North Africa (during which he was forced to ditch aftera radio failure left him far from the fleet without fuel). On returning tothe United States, Lieutenant Commander Blackburn was ordered toform and command VF-17, the Navy’s first Vought F4U Corsairsquadron, for duty aboard the new fleet carrier Bunker Hill. The Corsairneeded to be tamed for carrier duty, and Blackburn and his crew ofyoungsters did that, but the Hellcat was coming on strong and it

was decided to put VF-17 ashore in the Solomons to avoid the hassleof keeping the Corsairs maintained from a supply line otherwisededicated to Grumman F6F Hellcats.

VF-17’s first tour was in mid and late 1944, out of one of Munda’ssatellite fields. In covering the Torokina landings and associatedoperations, Tommy Blackburn destroyed four Japanese aircraft,


including three fighters. Even more important, his command hit thevictory columns in a big way. After a break in Australia, VF-17 wasreassigned to one of the new Bougainville fighter strips to cover Rabaul-bound bombers. Thereafter, VF-17 racked up kills with chillingregularity, and the innovative

Blackburn oversaw the development of quite brilliant new fightertactics. By January 31, his own score stood at seven, all fighters butone. VF-17 and Tommy Blackburn were riding high with nearly 150aerial victories at the expense of just nine of its number lost.

*I led off twenty of our Corsairs on February 4. Once again, our chargeswere B-24s, this time bound for Tobera. I had a newly arrived lieutenanton my wing, a solid-seeming senior pilot I wanted to check out beforemoving him up to lead a section, or even a division.

Only twenty Zeros and ten Tonys appeared to challenge us. On theapproach, however, Ens Perce Divenny, who had joined us in Espiritubut who already had two kills under his belt, made a really dumb mistake.Instead of opening the valve that released C02 into the Corsair’s wing-purging system, he opened the adjacent valve, which actuated hisemergency landing-gear system. Once down by this means, there wasno way to get the wheels back up while in flight. We were by then tooclose to the target to allow Perce to abort, so, as soon as I saw the reasonwhy he was dropping back, I radioed to tell him to tuck in beneath theheavy bombers. If Perce understood and did exactly what he was told—and stayed put—he would have it made; the Zekes would never be ableto get at him.

We were retiring from the bomb-drop point when, to my utter horror,I saw Divenny’s Corsair slowly dropping behind the B-24s. We couldnever figure out what happened; Perce was a cool hand, so the onlytheory that held was that his Hog suffered some sort of engine-powerloss. In any case, by this time, the Zeros were nip-ping at our flanks,looking for an opening so they could get at the Liberators or bounceexposed fighters. Our job was to protect the B-24s, and we all had ourhands full doing that, so I made the brutal decision to withhold coverfor Divenny. Naturally, the Zeros—at least eight of them—pounce on


Perce. As they started in, Earl May broke from his position in the bombercover and led his wingman, Beads Popp, to the rescue. The two got toDivenny’s lagging fighter, and they did get their talons into one of theZekes. Earl got credit for an assist and Beads got full credit for the kill.However, the rest of the Zeros bore down on them and May and Popphad to dive to safety. A Zeke came down on Perce’s tail and hammeredhim into a fatal dive.

As the retiring bombers were clearing the coast, six Zekes hit theformation from 500 feet above the low-cover flight. Attacking from therear, these Zekes put in a series of aggressive high-side runs. The reardivision, under Lt(jg) Paul Cordray, turned back to take on the Zekes,and the Zekes broke contact. However, when Paul turned again to rejointhe bombers, two Zekes slipped in and set up a firing pass at the rearelement, Lt(jg) Hal Jackson followed by Lt(jg) Don Malone. Jacksonwas well behind Cordray and his wingman, and Malone was laggingeven farther behind Jackson.

Cordray gave a frantic “Close up” zooming signal, and Jacksonpromptly moved in. Malone, who had a long history of lagging information, did not respond to the unmistakable series of short dives andzooms, nor even to “Don! Don! Close up! Close up,” which Paulfrantically broadcast by radio. When the Zekes pulled up at the conclusionof their single firing run, Malone’s Corsair was burning and falling away.Attracted by Cordray’s vain warning, several of us saw Don’s chuteblossom. We hoped he would get down safely, but we had to leave. Noone ever saw Don again.

*As soon as we landed, I confronted Earl May at the ready room and lethim have it with my fury. I had been literally sick to my stomach whenI saw Divenny going down, but I had made the painful decision to carryout our responsibility to defend the bomb-ers. I had determined that wecould not do that and cover Divenny, too. It was, in my mind, a toughfact of life that Perce had been lost because he had been unable to stayunder the heavy bombers. The only thing that kept me from groundingEarl was the lucky fact that no enemy fighters had attacked through thehole his departure had left in our formation.


“Get this straight, Earl. Nobody has ever questioned your cour-age.You don’t have to prove yourself like some show-off school-boy. Youhad no goddamn business breaking out of your cover position with Beadsto take on all those Japs. For what? Sure, you and Beads flamed one, butyou damn sure didn’t help Divenny. You were lucky as hell you andBeads didn’t get it, too. You know that if the enemy hadn’t muffed theirchance they’d have had three easy kills instead of just one. Worse thanthat, you exposed the rest of us and the bombers. Our job is to get thoseklunkers in and out in one piece. I’m proud that we haven’t lost one yet.They depend on us. This is a team operation. There’s no place for somewild-ass who shoves off to be the heroic White Knight riding to therescue. I will not tolerate this kind of shit. Is that clear?”

Earl was angry with me—his body language said as much—but hewas wrong and I was right, and he knew it. I got a sheepish, “I understand,Skipper.”

“If you weren’t such a good man who’s always done a top job before,I’d throw your ass out. As it is, you’re no longer a division leader. You’llfly wing, where I can keep my eye on you.”

I was so obviously angry for the rest of the day that no one gotwithin 10 feet of me if he could help it.

My overall reaction and anger over the two losses might seemunreasonable, but both were firmly grounded in my lifelong per-ceptionof how duty must come before my personal feelings for my subordinates,strong as they were. All hands—even late arrivals like Perce Divenny—knew that our responsibility was to guard the bombers at all costs.

In part, however, the display of anger was a mask for my pro-foundgrief. The two unnecessary losses were almost more than I could bear. Iprivately judged myself at least a little culpable in both cases.

With respect to Perce’s fatal lapse, I allowed the wing-purging andemergency landing-gear CO2 bottles to remain side by side even thoughI easily could have gotten Vought or even our own mechanics to relocateone safely away from the other. The potential for error was so obvious!Amazingly, Divenny’s gaffe had been the first of its sort in hundreds ofcombat sorties.


Malone’s loss was a little different, and I bore more directre-sponsibility. All hands knew that Don had a marked propensity tolag. Maybe I should have ridden him harder, or moved him forwardfrom the definitely vulnerable tail-end slot. We knew that the Imperialpilots, like us, were quick to spot and nail a laggard.

Worst of all was my conviction that I had seen both situationsdeveloping. I had certainly seen Divenny fall behind, and I am sure Ihad seen Malone do so earlier in the mission. In Divenny’s case, I couldhave taken the chance and gone back or sent help, but I deliberatelychose not to. In Malone’s, Cordray could have gone to help, but Paulknew—and accepted—my thinking, so he did not dangerously exposehis division and put others at risk, as May had done.

These were two more painful examples of the loneliness ofcom-mand. I found, after a long search through my soul, that I wouldnot have acted differently in either case. But I had contributed to Malone’sdeath by being too lenient; I should have grounded him because of hisinability to correct a long-apparent problem. It was a bomb that hadticked away—that I had heard ticking—until it blew up in Don’s face.



THE ROAD TO BIG WEEKThe Struggle for Daylight Air Supremacy Over Western Europe

July 1942–February 1944By Eric Hammel

The Road to Big Week begins with a thorough examination of Americandevelopment of a strategic bombing doctrine from its earliest conceptionin the years after World War I. Balancing the demands of the groundarmy’s desire and need for air support and the visionary outlook of suchearly Air Corps leaders as General Billy Mitchell with the cash-strappedcircumtances of the Great Depression and the limitations imposed bythe Congressional peace lobbies, the Air Corps was able to deliver afully formed doctrine that could not at first be supported by adequateaircraft nor even a public acknowlegenent that the drive to perfectstrategic bombing was even on. Before the doctrine or a fully funtionalheavy strategic bomber were quite perfected, the United States was drawninto World War II. Facing numerous obstacles unperceived duringpeacetime, not the least being simple bad weather, the early Americanefforts to mount a strategic bombing campaign in northern Europe nearlyfailed in the face of unsustainable casualties and ineffective strategicdirection. Only the belated modernization of escort-fighter policy savedthe strategic bombing force from failure and, indeed, formed thefoundation upon which the strategic bombing campaign ultimatelyreached maturity and achieved success.

In this exciting and complete accounting of the transition from ideato near failure to ultimate success, distinguished military historian EricHammel sets out all the dots, then connects them in a conversationalstyle approachable by all readers.


What the Experts Are Saying About The Road to Big Week

Eric Hammel convincingly demonstrates that the road to “Big Week” inFebruary 1944 occupied more than twenty years. With a passion forobjectivity and an eye for telling detail, he describes the U.S. Army AirForces’ evolution of the self-defending bomber as well as NaziGermany’s efforts to preserve and patch “the roof” over the Third Reich.Though the European war lasted another fifteen months, Hammel showsthat by the end of Big Week there was no reversing the traffic on thatsanguinary path. ——Barrett Tillman, author of Clash of the Carriers

Eric Hammel has done it again, with a lucid portrayal of the growth ofAmerican bomber theory from the 1918 Armistice to the crucial daysover Germany when the Eighth Air Force broke the Luftwaffe’s back.Some books have told what happened during Big Week—Hammel tellsyou why, driving home points that are as vital today as they were in1944. ——Col. Walter J. Boyne, National Aviation Hall of Fame Honoree

In The Road to Big Week, Eric Hammel cleverly connects a widelydisparate collection of dots that are the development of America as theworld’s preeminent air power. These connections describe how the U.S.Army Air Forces—just barely in time—evolved in size and capabilitysuch that America’s airmen prevailed in the iconic air battle thatultimately ensured the defeat of Nazi Germany. Hammel’s meticulousresearch and eminently readable style make this definitive work acompelling read. ——Lt.Col. Jay A. Stout, author of Fortress Ploesti

Eric Hammel has a special gift for combining musty war records andintimate personal accounts into a gripping history . . . If you think there’snothing new to learn about World War II, if you think there was never apossibility the Allies might lose, if you think one side was smarter thanthe other, The Road to Big Week will unnerve you and change foreveryour perception of what happened in those high, embattled skies.

——Robert F. Dorr, co-author of Hell Hawks!


Note: The following article is excerpted from the book THE ROADTO BIG WEEK: The Struggle for Daylight Air Supremacy OverWestern Europe, July 1942–February 1944 by Eric Hammel. Thebook is currently available in a $34.50 trade paperback editionpublished by Pacifica Military History. It is also available in ebookeditions.

BORN ON THEFOURTH OF JULY

by Eric Hammel


The 15th Light Bombardment Squadron was turned out of its night-fighter school when the RAF precipitously shut down the course onJune 29, 1942. As a quick fix, the American A-20 crews were assignedto the RAF’s 226 Squadron and ordered to undergo daylight bombard-ment familiarization training. That very day, June 29, the squadron com-mander, Captain Charles Kegelman, flew with 226 Squadron on a missionagainst Hazebrouk, a manufacturing center in northern France.

Eaker and his staff were itching to make their presence in Englandfelt, and Captain Kegelman’s combat flight showed them the way. Therewere enough well-trained 15th Light Bombardment Squadron airmenon hand to take part in a mission. It was decided that six three-mancrews—pilot, bombardier, and radioman/gunner per airplane—shouldaccompany 226 Squadron on a series of raids assigned for July 4. Theparticipation of the Americans was considered deeply symbolic.

There were no USAAF A-20s in England; the 15th LightBombardment Squadron had been training in the export variant theBritish had dubbed Boston. In fact, these were airplanes originallypurchased by the French; they ended up in British hands after the fall ofFrance. As such, they lacked many modern conveniences built into


American A-20s—superchargers for example—because Hap Arnold hadwon his argument in 1940 to hold back such goodies.

Eaker and Ike trekked to 226 Squadron’s base on July 2 to speakwith the six American pilots who had volunteered for the July 4 mission.The youngsters were enthusiastic and confident, so the generals gavetheir blessing.

The mission plan called for fighter-escorted flights of threeBostons each—twelve light bombers in all—to attack four Luftwaffeairdromes in the Netherlands and Norway at very low level. The fighterescort appears to have accomplished nothing at all. The various flightscrossed the North Sea at low level to avoid German radar.

At De Kooy Airdrome, in the northern Netherlands, one American-manned Boston was shot down by extremely and unexpectedly heavyflak (antiaircraft fire). Captain Kegelman’s Boston, also over De Kooy,had its starboard propeller shot away, and the damaged starboard engineneeded to be shut down. The Boston was so low when it lurched fromthe flak hits that its starboard wingtip and rear fuselage scraped theground, but the airplane remained in the air. Kegelman passed his targetwhile getting his airplane back into trim, and he jettisoned his bombs.When he spotted a flak tower whose gunners were tracking him, heveered off course and doused the German position with four fixed .303-caliber machine guns deployed in two two-gun blisters, one on eitherside of the airplane’s nose. This survivor flew all the way home at lowlevel on its one good engine.

Another American-manned Boston was shot down by flak overBergen/Alkamaar Airdrome in Norway, and an RAF Boston was shotdown by a German fighter after it was hit by flak. In all, only twoAmerican-manned Bostons even released their bombs.

The Americans had unknowingly been treated to unprecedentedflak concentrations, so losses and mishaps were not charged to theirinexperience in war. The RAF chalked the heavy opposition up to apossible advance sighting by a German ship in the North Sea. TheseAmericans were in fact treated to a first-hand experience in the mostdifficult and dangerous use of offensive aircraft to come out of WorldWar II. Airfields are always huge, flat open spaces defended by numerous


antiaircraft weapons with broad fields of fire designed to hit low-flyingaircraft from numerous angles at once.

Captain Kegelman was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross,the army’s second highest valor medal, and promoted to major. All sixAmerican crewmen downed on July 4 were taken prisoner.

The Fourth of July mission was laced with irony. At that point,America’s only strategic air force was led by fighter pilots. Its onlymeans of delivery was the long-neglected attack arm. Airplanes used onthe mission were borrowed from the RAF. The Bostons were second-rate A-20s built for the dead French air force. It was flown in broaddaylight by crews trained to undertake night missions. It ran into theheaviest flak concentrations 226 Squadron had faced in months of similarmissions. It was supposed to herald America’s entry into the air warover Europe, but only RAF markings showed on each airplane; theGermans had no idea they had been attacked by Americans until theyhad six live American airmen in their hands. And the mission itself wasan utter dud that caused little if any damage to the four airdromes.

The 15th Squadron got a chance to even the score on July 12.Once again in borrowed Bostons, six volunteer crews took part in 226Squadron’s attack on Abbeville/Drucat Airdrome. The mission was flownat a respectful 8,500 feet. Two American-manned Bostons were lightlydamaged by flak, but there were no casualties, and all bombs weredropped without mishap. After the mission, which turned out to be agraduation exercise, the 15th Squadron was separated from 226 Squadronand, in due course, equipped with its own airplanes, which initially weremore re-borrowed Bostons.

*Help was on the way. On June 23, fifteen B-17s assigned to the 97th

Heavy Bombardment Group left Presque Isle, Maine, on the first leg ofthe USAAF’s new northern ferry route to the British Isles. All fifteenhad reached Goose Bay, Labrador, without incident. A flight of P-38salso completed this leg of the type’s first flight outside the United States.The B-17s were held over at Goose Bay until June 26, when they tookoff for the two airfields in Greenland—Bluie West 1 at Narsarssuak onthe southern tip and Blue West 8 at Sondre Stromfjord on the west coast.


The flight was something of a shambles; six B-17s returned to GooseBay and three others crash-landed on the Greenland ice cap, albeitwithout casualties. As weather permitted, the B-17s next flew on toReykjavik, then Scotland, and down into southern England. The firstAmerican-manned B-17 to reach the BOLERO terminus, PrestwickAirdrome in Scotland, was a 97th Bomb Group airplane that arrivedsafely on July 1. Behind it, in the near term, were more than forty otherB-17s, eighty P-38s, and fifty-two C-47 transports. And behind themwere the tens of thousands of bombers, fighters, and transports that wouldbe assigned over three years to the American air forces in northwesternEurope.

For all that July 1 was a red-letter day at the far end of the northernferry route, USAAF headquarters in Washington refined downward itsestimate of sixty-six operational groups in England by March 1943.The estimate foresaw only fifty-four groups in place by the target date,because the needs of other theaters had to be met, at least in part, out ofEighth Air Force’s future allotments. By July 10, however, the estimatefor air groups based in England by the end of 1943 was set at a ratherstunning 137.

Seven 1st Fighter Group P-38s reached Prestwick on July 9, andother aircraft emerged from the ferrying pipeline over the next few days.But on July 15, owing to severe weather, six P-38s and two B-17s actingas navigation guides for the fighters were forced down on the Greenlandice cap. Thanks to bad weather and heightened caution, it took untilJuly 25 for the last airplanes of the first allotment of Eighth Air Forcefighters, bombers, and transports to actually reach Prestwick. The lastflight of the allotment was composed of 60th Troop Carrier Group C-47s. On their way by sea were the ground echelons of the 14th FighterGroup, a P-38 unit; the 92d and 301st Heavy Bomb groups, both B-17units; and the 64th Troop Carrier Group, a C-47 unit. The airplanesfrom these units were being concentrated at the same time at PresqueIsle, then sent off in batches as weather permitted. Between August 15and August 27, the 92d Heavy Bomb Group flew in batches direct,without stops, from Gander, Newfoundland, to Prestwick. Thus, by theend of August, the early stages of Operation BOLERO saw the build-up


in England of a force of 119 B-17s, 164 P-38s, and 103 C-47s via thenorthern ferry route. Thirty-eight airplanes went down along the way,an unsustainable 10-percent loss ratio, but in due course the loss ratefell to a fairly constant 5.2 percent. Looking ahead, all northern ferryoperations would have to be suspended with the onset of winter weather.

The new southern ferry route was operationally tested beginningon July 14, when B-25 medium bombers bound for Egypt departedFlorida for a journey that would be made in stages via South America,west Africa, and central Africa. In due course, year-round ferry routeswould be open between west Africa and Britain.

*The arrival of combat aircraft in England triggered the establishment

of a huge growth in headquarters in Britain. Advance headquartersechelons of the 1st and 2d Heavy Bombardment wings were establishedin mid-August, each to oversee three heavy bomb groups. VIII GroundAir Support Command was set up in July even though there would beno ground-support aircraft sent to the British Isles for nearly a year; forthe time being, this headquarters, which was redesignated VIII AirSupport Command in September, oversaw some training and actedadministratively in behalf of a collection of reconnaissance and troopcarrier units. Operational unit training was to have been placed underVIII Air Force Composite Command, which was set up in September,but early-arriving combat units trained themselves at their own bases,so the composite command was left merely to plan for the future. Keyto operations by the burgeoning Eighth Air Force was VIII Air ForceService Command, which oversaw supply and maintenance all acrossthe British Isles and eventually took charge of all unassigned troops—replacement crewmen, for example.

Eighth Air Force itself was directly subordinate to ETOUSA andTooey Spaatz reported directly to Ike, whom he also served as theaterair officer. The only point of overlap, and therefore contention, betweenEighth Air Force and ETOUSA was where duties of VIII Air ForceService Command coincided with those of ETOUSA’s Service of Supply(SOS). The senior echelon was in charge of all construction for Americanunits in the British Isles—ground and air—as well as the supply of items


used by both ground and air organizations. SOS also set priorities forgoods shipped from the United States. Ike and Spaatz were themselvesdisinclined to squabble over pieces of the supply puzzle, and the SOSand service command chiefs settled differences in their viewpoints earlyand amicably, though there were occasional flareups. The servicecommand manned the main air depot at Burtonwood, established severalsmaller regional depots, and activated several mobile depots.

To help get the Americans as close to Germany as possible, theBritish initially assigned Eighth Air Force forty-five base sites in fiveclusters in southern England, west to east from Huntingdonshire to EastAnglia. The Americans decided which combat group went to which base.As combat units arrived, the British assigned antiaircraft units andcommunications teams plus such other services that units far from theirhomeland needed, either on a temporary basis, as logistics andheadquarters elements caught up, or on a permanent basis. Some Britishparaphernalia—rubber life rafts, for example—were better than similarAmerican items, so the British provided these goods in whateverquantities the Yanks required. They also provided and initially installedVHF radios for use by ground controllers in all of the American-builtairplanes that arrived in the British Isles in 1942, which insured a uniformsystem for both air forces. The level of cooperation was stunning. TheBritish people treated the Yanks as literal saviors and opened their homesand their hearts, as well as their warehouses, to their Anglophone cousinsfrom across the sea. Fully aware of the burdens they placed on the Britishsupply and personnel systems, the Yanks did what they could toreciprocate. For example, the USAAF volunteered to provide all thetroop combat airlift both armies would need for training and the eventualinvasion of France.

*There was an implicit political commitment the United States had

to make to so completely earn the cooperation of the hard-pressed British,and that was the assurance that all the brutal effort was in service of aproposed spring 1943 invasion of France. The Americans were expectedto have shipped to England by then a million-man ground force and anair force operating nearly three thousand combat aircraft. There was a


second plan in play too, Operation SLEDGEHAMMER, whichcontemplated an early, partial, and shallow penetration into France inthe event the Soviet Union appeared on the brink of collapse.SLEDGEHAMMER was designed to draw off German ground and airforces to help the Soviets recover. But the 1942 and 1943 invasion plans,and the commitments behind them, were literally shot down when PrimeMinister Churchill inveighed President Roosevelt in July meetings totake part in an invasion of French Northwest Africa. It was Churchill’shope in the nearer term to relieve Axis pressure against the Suez Canalby drawing Axis forces from Egypt and Libya to Algeria and Tunisia.But the Prime Minister had been, as early as World War I, fixated onstriking Germany via what he called Europe’s “soft underbelly.” To reachthat belly, the Allies would have to kick Axis forces out of the entiretyof Africa. Roosevelt supported Churchill’s plan because domesticpressure, especially upcoming congressional elections, required that heget American ground forces into battle against the Germans. NorthwestAfrica seemed like a place in which the untested American air and groundforces could prevail.

An invasion of French Northwest Africa in late 1942 guaranteed thatany invasion of France would be delayed until the spring of 1944 and thatEighth Air Force’s strategic bombing offensive over Germany would behollowed out before it even began. Churchill assured Roosevelt that he waswilling to make the inevitable sacrifices, and the deal was set.

The first planning conference for the Northwest Africa invasiontook place in England on July 18, 1942. Heading the planning sessionwas Ike, who had been named to head the invasion force while retaininghis command of ETOUSA. In very short order, Ike tapped Spaatz to behis air chief in Northwest Africa. The two had developed a deep andtrusting relationship after only a few weeks working together, and bothwere loath to split up so soon. Eaker was put on notice that Eighth AirForce would become his when the time came for Spaatz to devote hisfull energies and attention to what became Operation TORCH. Anyheadiness that Eaker achieved by his prospective elevation was temperedwith the certainty that his air force was going to lose the bulk of itsstrength—some temporarily but a lot permanently—to the new Twelfth


Air Force (which would be activated in August). In a way, the Eighthhad been relegated to the status of training command for the Twelfth atthe precise moment it was struggling to get into the fight. On top of that,the nascent air force in Egypt—eventually to become the Ninth—wasbeing strengthened with combat units from the States that mightotherwise have been shipped to England for service with the Eighth.

If there was any doubt that Churchill would temper his plan, thePrime Minister dashed it on July 23. A massive German breakthroughbetween the Don and Volga rivers in the Soviet Union brought a pleafrom Premier Stalin that the western Allies open a second front posthaste.Operation SLEDGEHAMMER was impossible on its face at thisjuncture—there were no troops—and Churchill’s attention was rivetedon North Africa. He snuffed any remaining notion Stalin clung to thatthe cross-Channel invasion would take place in 1942, and he more orless privately thought an invasion of France in 1943 had become fanciful.The only concession the British and Americans were able to make toSoviet woes was scheduling TORCH for earlier than December 1, 1942.

*Eaker and to a lesser degree Spaatz faced an immense dilemma as

planning for Operation TORCH got underway. There were too fewcombat units in England at that moment to open a strategic bombingoffensive against Germany, and the B-17 groups that had arrived werenot completely trained. Their presence in England was just that, apresence—a show of future intent. But Spaatz and Eaker—both of themcareer-long fighter pilots with no personal or even professional stake inthe concept of strategic bombing—felt they owed it to their service to atleast mount newsworthy demonstration missions against targets near athand while they still had a force in hand.

The Army Air Forces bomber doctrine did allow as air superioritywas a precondition for a successful bombing campaign. There wereGerman-manned airfields in France that could do with a little clearing.Moreover, the airmen were raring to get started on the work of war. Afew bombing missions against targets near at hand would certainly serveas graduation exercises for hard-training groups in England. Andbombing missions against nearby targets would certainly be a means to


put two decades of strategic thought and preparation to the test as wellas study tactical flourishes and provide the first entries in the lessons-learned book.

*The first mission involving aircraft with USAAF markings took place

on July 26, 1942. Six 31st Fighter Group Spitfires joined a RoyalCanadian Air Force (RCAF) Spitfire squadron on a routine cross-Channelsweep in the vicinity of Gravelines, St. Omer, and Abbeville. The sixAmerican pilots were senior officers on their first familiarization hopover enemy territory.

The fighter sweep was the means by which the short-leggedBritish-built fighters kept their fingers on the pulse of German airoperations in the region on and backing the French, Belgian, and Dutchcoasts facing the English Channel and North Sea. The Germans rarelyresponded; they were too war savvy to risk damage to their airplanes—much less their lives—in combat in service of nothing. Spitfires coulddo little damage to the German war effort, so why bother with challengingthem?

On July 26, German fighters did rise to the challenge. In a duelthat ended in seconds, one of the German pilots shot down one of thewhite-starred Spitfires. The pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Albert Clark, wasthe 31st Fighter Group’s air executive officer. He lived through the ordealand was taken prisoner. (Far from being cheated of an opportunity tomake war against the Germans, Clark became an important operator inthe March 1944 prisoner-of-war venture known as the Great Escape.)

The 31st flew again on August 5 and 6. In both cases, elevenSpitfires were launched to undertake practice sweeps under a programdubbed RODEO. The 31st ran into zero opposition on both practiceRODEO missions, but a few of its rank-and-file pilots learned to functionsmartly with their hearts in their throats.

The RODEO missions were modeled precisely on British fightersweeps, which concept VIII Fighter Command chief Monk Hunter, aWorld War I ace brought up in the “Dawn Patrol” era, had embracedstraight out of the package. Hunter, whose headquarters was locatedquite close to the RAF Fighter Command headquarters and who visited


with his opposite number frequently, had come to be enthralled by allthings British; he never once thought outside his hosts’ box.

The first American airman flying an American fighter to put bulletsinto a German warplane was Major Harrison Thyng, a 31st Fighter Groupsquadron commander who accompanied an RAF coastal patrol nearShoreham, England, on August 9. The contact was made at about 2000hours and resulted in Thyng’s being credited with damaging a Focke-Wulf 190 (Fw 190) fighter taking part in a sweep along the Englishcoast.

The 31st mounted RODEOs—about a dozen planes per mission—on August 11, 12, and 15, and the Germans ignored them. Two 31stGroup Spitfires made a familiarization flight with a routine RAF convoypatrol over the English Channel on August 15, but nothing happened.

The first full victory credit awarded to the USAAF in the waragainst Germany was for an Fw 200 maritime bomber downed on August14 over the Iceland coast by 2d Lieutenant Elza Shahan, flying a 1stFighter Group P-38, and 2d Lieutenant Joseph Shaffer, flying a 33dFighter Squadron P-40. (The 1st Fighter Group’s 27th Fighter Squadronhad been temporarily assigned to Iceland to bolster the independent 33dSquadron, the only air-defense unit permanently assigned to the island.)

*The first American heavy bomber mission over northwestern Europe

took place on August 17, 1942.




THE ROOTThe Marines in Beirut

August 1982-–February 1984By Eric Hammel

Facing northward out of a second-deck window, the lance corporal washurled through the window and out into mid-air. He fell thirty feet to theground and landed on his feet. He was not harmed until falling debrisstruck him on the head and shoulders. Nearly every other member ofthe recon platoon in his compartment was killed in the inferno.

At 6:22 A.M. on October 23, 1983, a yellow Mercedes truck racedacross the parking lot of the Beirut International Airport in Lebanon.Crashing through a chain-link gate into the 24th Marine AmphibiousUnit’s headquarters compound, it raced on careening through a shackand into the open atrium lobby of a terminal building where the menwere housed, many still asleep.

The truck lurched to a stop. Seconds later, 12,000 pounds of highexplosives piled in the bed of the truck exploded. The four-story steeland concrete building shuddered, then collapsed. Two hundred forty-one Americans were killed and many more were injured in the disaster.

Soon after the 24th MAU returned to the United States in Novem-ber 1983, the Marine Corps granted Eric Hammel an unprecedentedopportunity to interview survivors of the bombing and those who cameto their rescue. The Root is the result of these interviews. It is a narrativeaccount of the Marines’ mission in Lebanon, describing their escalatinginvolvement in the largely unreported battles fought in and around theshattered city of Beirut. And it presents in detail the terrorist attack onthe unit headquarters.

The focus of The Root is on the nearly 200 people interviewed bythe author—enlisted men and officers—for whom the shock and horrorat the bombing were still fresh. Their reactions to the danger, what theysurvived and how they survived it, their concerns and insights, makeThe Root a timeless chronicle of the human spirit—and as timely astoday’s headlines.


Praise for The Root

“Illustrates Washington’s exceptional resistance to accepting the factsthat contradict its preconceived views. . . . It’s time that we learn fromour mistakes and never again put our people in situations we do notunderstand. A first step is to read how our effort in Beirut turned from anoble cause into having our troops pinned down in an escalating civilwar we did not understand.” —Colonel Thomas X Hammes, USMC(Ret.), author of The Sling and the Stone

It’s a fine book . . . a fascinating record of the life of a military unit . . .”—New York Times

“Hammel has grippingly reconstructed a story that was often obscuredas it unfolded.” —Los Angeles Times

“Hammel’s detailed account of individual rescue efforts is intenselygraphic. . . . It is first-hand and realistic. It is not sensationalized ortrivialized.” —New York Tribune


“Eric Hammel’s well-written book . . . strikes a deep emotional chord. . .” —Naval Institute Proceedings

“(The Root is) a book about the violence of combat, a first-hand accountof death and danger, fear, pain and survival. . . . ” —Baltimore Sun

“A disturbingly accurate portrait…well-researched (and) well-crafted.. . .” —Kirkus Reviews

“This is a moving book which tells a story that needs to be told.” —SanDiego Union

Note: The following article is excerpted from the book THE ROOT:The Marines in Beirut, August 1982 - February 1984 by Eric Hammel.The book is currently available in a $24.95 trade paperback editionpublished by Zenith Press. It is also available in ebook editions.

A DEATH IN BEIRUTby Eric Hammel


The 24th Marine Amphibious Unit (MAU) and Battalion Landing Team(BLT) 1/8 arrived in a quiescent Beirut in May 1983 as part of theMultinational Force of Western peacekeepers. On August 29, 1983, atthe sudden renewal of the Lebanese Civil War, the Marine battalion losttwo killed and fourteen wounded and began a series of fire fights thatwent largely unreported in the American media. On September 6, twomore Marines were killed and fighting involving Marines seriouslyintensified. Throughout September, Marines were engaged in dailywarfare with Moslem militiamen belonging to various factions of theShiite Amal (Hope) coalition. In addition to the four Marines who werekilled, nearly seventy were wounded, many seriously. Hampered by rulesof engagement that seriously curtailed their retaliatory options, Marines


nevertheless killed dozens and perhaps scores of the Moslem militiamenwho daily fired on their positions.*The part 2d Lieutenant Bill Harris liked best about Charlie Company, 1/8’s rotation to the northern end of the Beirut International Airport (BIA)on October 3, 1983, was the opportunity it afforded him to exercisesome independent command. Harris’s 1st Platoon was strung out in aline of sandbagged posts across the northern end of the BIA and forseveral hundred meters down along the eastern edge of the 24th MarineAmphibious Unit’s compound. The 3d Platoon line began more than akilometer away, and the 2d Platoon was holding Combat Post 11 andisolated Combat Post 76. More important, from Lieutenant Harris’sstandpoint, the Charlie Company command post was more than akilometer away.

The hotbed of militia activity in Charlie Company’s new sector wasCafe Daniel, just across from Harris’s platoon, at the northeastern cornerof the BIA compound. This Amal meeting place was under the controlof a local warlord known to Marines as Castro, a nickname derivedfrom his martial bearing and heavy beard. Castro was something of arenegade, a man dedi-cated to achieving his own program of social reformin Hooter-ville even if that meant going against the policies of NabiehBerri, the Shiite lawyer who was emerging as the leader of the Amalcoalition. Thus, though peace talks were getting under way and the ShiiteAmal would be a party to them, Castro exer-cised his independence byapplying almost constant pressure upon the Marines within his reach—Bill Harris’s platoon of Charlie Company. The closest Amal bunkerswere only 100 meters north of Harris’s sector, an easy shot, and CafeDaniel was about 400 meters from the nearest Marine position, as was ared-and-white-striped concrete structure known as the Ar-mory, afterits apparent chief function. Behind Harris was an LAF training camp,the perfect excuse for the Amal gunfire “through” 1st Platoon.

The sniper fire was intermittent during Harris’s first week in thenew position, not worth a response that might upset the uneasy peace


that had descended upon most of the rest of the BIA. It became ugly onenight when a sentry heard a pop! and realized that a hand grenade haddetonated in an unmanned bunker just beneath his post. Next, three militiariflemen opened fire. The Marine popped a flare and saw several darkforms heading across an adjacent field. Next morning, Capt ChrisCowdrey joined Lieutenant Harris for a walk across the road that dividedthe MAU from Castro’s militia. The two Charlie Company officers foundthe spoon from a Soviet-manufactured hand grenade in the open fieldeast of the road, but they could find no shell casings left by the riflemen.As Cowdrey and Harris turned to leave, a small boy ran up and showedthem a handful of shell casings he had collected at first light. Threedifferent kinds of weapons had been fired during the night, a sure signthat the incident had been perpetrated by the ragtag militia.

The tempo of shooting incidents picked up. Two nights after thegrenade incident, four rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) flew over 1stPlatoon outposts, then machine-gun fire cut through the night air. TheMarines responded by bringing up two Surveillance and TargetAcquisition (STA) Platoon snipers, who located favorite militia firingpositions and prepared to make a few examples. Then, with greatostentation, the Marines moved up four Dragon launchers and a tank topositions just behind 1st Platoon. The new weapons were dug in, butthey were withheld in the hope that Castro and his subordinates wouldsee the light.

*All of a sudden, during the latter part of the week of Octoer 10, somenew players appeared in Hooterville. Many of these were hard-bitten,professional-looking soldiers wearing Russian battledress uniforms(BDUs), similar to Marine cam-mies but colored rust and brown. It wasassumed that Castro had made a deal with the Syrian army. In addition,another ragtag group, distinctly different from Amal fighting units, tookup residence around Cafe Daniel. The thing that set this group apart wasthe white headband with red Arabic letters sported by each fighter. Itwas presumed that these were mem-bers of Islamic Amal, Iranians fromthe Syrian-sponsored training camp at Baalbek in the Beqa’a Valley.Immediately, the number and quality of bunkers that could be observed


by Marines increased, as did the accuracy of incoming small-arms sniperfire.

Adding to the growing sense of discomfort and isolation along thenorthern BIA perimeter was news that large numbers of Hootervilleresidents were leaving town. Soon, Charlie Com-pany Marines couldsee flag-festooned buses picking up whole families from nearbyneighborhoods. It was axiomatic that the sudden departure ofnoncombatants presaged a big fight.

*SSgt Dennis Allston had been in Beirut longer than any other Marine—nearly 400 days since he accompanied the first explo-sive ordnancedisposal (EOD) detachment sent to the BIA to clear unexploded ordnancefor Battalion Landing Team (BLT) 2/8 in October 1982. The twenty-five-year-old Philadelphian had seen it all and had come to have mixedfeelings about the city in which he had spent two birthdays—loved thecity and its diverse peoples, hated what those people did to one anotherin the name of religion and politics.

On October 15, 1983, a Friday, Allston was temporary NCO in chargeof the EOD detachment. He and his good friend, SSgt Allen Soifert, atwenty-five-year-old Canadian-born professional Marine, had decidedto respond personally to a routine call by a Lebanese Armed Forces(LAF) unit in Hooterville that had discovered what appeared to be anunexploded RPG round. The two left MAU Service and Support Group(MSSG) 24 head-quarters and drove out along the perimeter road toHooterville, where they found the casing of a defective RPG that hadappar-ently detonated without actually blowing up. The reasonably intactsteel casing was thrown into the back of the EOD jeep and the two staffsergeants climbed aboard for the ride home.

Between the time Allston and Soifert passed 2dLt Bill Harris’splatoon on the way to the RPG and the time they approached the corneron the way home, the BDU-clad Syrian snipers sta-tioned around CafeDaniel had begun taking potshots at passing American vehicles. Thefirst such shooting occurred as a MSSG-24 dump truck lumbered pastthe corner. A few rounds spanged off the heavy-gauge steel frame of thetruck before the driver realized that he was in danger. As he pushed the


truck into high gear and ran from the area, the shaken youngster moutheda hurried warning into the handset of the vehicle’s radio. Several othervehicles that happened to be passing at that time were also the objectsof sniper fire from the vicinity of Cafe Daniel. One of them, a jeep, wasunder the control of LCpl Bill Riddle, of Weapons Company, who wastaking his military driving test. Riddle was shot through both legs as hepassed Cafe Daniel. Other vehicles on the outer perimeter road highballedout of the area as the radio waves crackled with blunt warnings. A Marinebackhoe operator was forced to pull over and hide behind the rear tire ofhis vehicle as Charlie Company Marines engaged the Moslem riflemen—Syrians and, by then, Iranians. MAU head-quarters ordered the outerperimeter road closed to all traffic. Bill Harris’s platoon was placed onfull alert, ready to battle the snipers if they could be pinpointed.

The EOD jeep, with Staff Sergeant Allston driving, was nei-therhalted nor apprised of the closure of the road. Allston and Soifert werebantering to pass the time until they got back to the MSSG, just a fewminutes away. Moments before the jeep ar-rived in the vicinity of CafeDaniel, the Charlie Company sen-tries assigned to block the road tovehicular traffic had been forced by heavy Moslem gunfire to seek cover.

It was about 1000 hours. As the jeep headed south toward the corneropposite Cafe Daniel, both staff sergeants involuntarily leaned back,then exclaimed their surprise when they simultane-ously realized thatseveral rounds had passed in front of them, between their faces and thewindshield. It dawned on Allston that the gunfire was coming from atreeline about 100 meters to his right. As Allston turned his head topinpoint the source of the fire, other weapons along the route opened onthe jeep. He instinctively thumped his booted foot hard upon theaccelerator, hoping to run the gauntlet.

“I’ve been hit,” said Staff Sergeant Soifert in a calm voice. “In thechest.” Allston then felt his passenger slump down beside him.

The jeep was rapidly approaching an intersection where Lebaneseworkers had been building a culvert. This was the path to safety, soAllston started the jeep into a tight right turn. At that instant, Allstonsensed that Soifert was slipping out of the right side of the jeep. Withoutthinking, the driver took his right hand from the steering wheel and


grabbed his tottering partner. This action prevented Allston fromcompleting the turn. The jeep turned wide and both left tires bouncedacross a low berm shielding the newly emplaced culvert. The jeep turnedover and Allston was thrown clear over a distance of about ten feet.

There was just time to duck and roll, then Allston came up running,under continuous fire, back to the jeep, which had turned over, driver’sside up. The only good fortune was that the jeep now formed a substantialbarrier between the two Marines and the direct fire.

Allen Soifert’s right foot was beneath the side of the jeep, and thelaces of his left boot were entangled in the framework of the passengerseat. He had landed on his buttocks, his head was scraped or cut by thelip of his helmet. Or perhaps he had been grazed by a passing bulletwhen the snipers—most likely Irani-ans now—first opened fire.

Soifert was fully conscious. He spoke to Allston in a very calm voice.Allston had the feeling that the wounded man was more in control ofhimself than he, Allston, was in control of himself. Soifert reaffirmedthat he had been shot in the chest, but when Allston probed beneathSoifert’s flak jacket, he could find nei-ther an entry wound nor any blood.In fact, Soifert had been shot just beneath his right nipple. The roundhad penetrated his sternum, cut through his trachea and lungs, rearrangedvital organs, and lodged near his left kidney.

Allston reached into the jeep’s cargo compartment for their squadradio. It was not there. As he cast about for the missing radio, he spotteda lone gunman in the treeline. Allston drew and cocked his .45-caliberautomatic pistol and fired several rounds without hitting the man. As heducked back behind the jeep, however, he saw the radio, which hadbeen thrown clear when the jeep rolled over. It was now in the open,about where he had earlier landed. Allston screwed up his courage anddarted into the open. He was lucky, for no one fired directly at him,though he had heard rounds passing overhead since landing on theground. Allston pulled the radio back to the lee side of the jeep andkeyed the handset. Nothing.

As Allston thought about his next move, he saw some move-mentabout 300 meters away, on the BIA side of the road. Marines were pouringM-16 and M-60 fire at the Moslem posi-tions and nearby rooftops in


Hooterville. Staff Sergeant Allston shouted at them in the hope theywould send help, but he knew that their doing so would likely result inadditional casualties. Allen Soifert, who was fully cognizant and whohad a very keen sense of the severity of his injuries, verbalized Allston’sfeelings of desperation, actually announcing that he did not want otherMarines risking their lives on his behalf. There was no need to worry.Lieutenant Harris’s heart went out to the two men trapped in the open,but he knew he would take dead and wounded if he sent any of hisriflemen to help them. His decision to keep his troops under cover wasconfirmed within minutes in a message from Captain Cowdrey, CharlieCompany’s comman-der.

Soifert next chided Allston for his failure to get through on the radio,suggesting in a bantering voice that his nominal supe-rior had forgottento turn it on or failed to key the handset or improperly set the antenna.This was typical of Soifert’s well-honed sense of humor. Allston wasnot feeling the wounded man’s mirthful energy, so he responded in lessthan charitable manner, which caused Soifert to respond in a humorousfashion.

Continued efforts by Allston to work the radio were unsuc-cessful.At length, Soifert said that he would try to get through. Allston obligedhim, but it was by then apparent that the radio had been damaged in theaccident or, indeed, had not been working at all that morning.

As the two sat tight, Allston thought he heard a tank moving nearby.In fact, SSgt Richard Smith was attempting to maneuver his heavy tankto the roadway, to either provide direct fire sup-port or, if the opportunityarose, to dash out and snatch the two EOD noncoms. The racket fromthe tank drew the attention of militia fighters on the opposite flank, andseveral of their RPGs passed close enough to the tank to force Smith toreconsider his boldness. He well knew that an RPG could destroy atank.

Next, a jeep bearing 1stLt Nick Nanna, of Charlie Battery, and twoenlisted Marines pulled up right beside the overturned jeep. Nannastepped out behind the damaged vehicle just as heavy fire from theMoslem-held tree line whipped by overhead. He grabbed a small radio,


ordered the jeep to get clear, and hunk-ered down next to Soifert to seeif he could help.

Lieutenant Nanna took charge, forcing his way onto the bat-taliontac net with a report on his arrival and Soifert’s injuries. The radiomanon the other end of the conversation was infuriat-ingly dense, gettingthe message completely fouled up three or four times. Dennis Allston’ssimmering frustration grew to overt ire, and he yelled at Nanna to “stopplaying word games” with the idiot radioman and order up some help.Nanna requested that corpsmen be dispatched with an ambulance jeep.

Second Lieutenant Mike Murphy, the MSSG-24 communica-tor, wasincensed by the events unfolding on his tactical net. An extremelymotivated young officer who had, perhaps, grown frustrated with hisindoor duties while fellow Marines had been engaged in combat for amonth, Murphy volunteered to lead the rescue. He was turned down,but he could not be kept down.

HMC B. C. Miller and HM3 Ken Boyer were on duty at the MSSGaid station when a runner arrived to announce that a member of theMSSG had been shot on the outer perimeter road. Miller and Boyergrabbed their Unit-1 medical kits and headed upstairs to get the platoonambulance. They discovered that it was on a run elsewhere. The twocorpsmen next headed for the BLT motor pool, intent upon borrowingthe battalion aid station ambulance jeep. Their request was turned down.Boyer and Miller cursed up a storm, applied a liberal dose of guilt, andwon the day. As Boyer started the engine, he and Miller were joined byHN Gary Cooper and 2dLt Mike Murphy.

The roadway was blocked at a Marine checkpoint by a dump truck,perhaps the one that had earlier been hit by militia gunfire. As thecorpsmen and Lieutenant Murphy fretted, the driver and the sentrychattered away. Murphy yelled “Hey, Ma-rine!” several times beforethe truck driver looked up. When Murphy identified himself, the dumptruck pulled out of the way, but the sentry moved to bar the road. “Hey!We got sniper fire down there.”

“Yeah,” Boyer called as he passed, “we’re going to pick up the guywho got shot.”


As Boyer pulled up behind a dirt berm, Murphy, Cooper, and Millerjumped out, grabbed a backboard, and headed for the roadway. Boyerwas out of the vehicle but decided to turn off the jeep’s engine. He wasjust about to lean back in when the wind-shield on the driver’s side wasblown out by a high-velocity bullet. He left the engine running.

Sgt Foster Hill, one of Lieutenant Harris’s squad leaders, waswatching the corpsmen tear across the open ground to the over-turnedjeep when he was asked for an up-to-the-minute report by LtCol LarryGerlach, who had arrived at his elbow without warning or entourage.Hill gave his report, then turned back to watch the unfolding drama.

By the time Murphy, Miller, Cooper, and Boyer reached Soif-ert’sside, the EOD staff sergeant was sinking. He had remained in a jocularmood until then, realistic about his condition, but very much in controlof his emotions. As potshots continued to fly overhead, Soifert got intoan argument with the corpsmen over his condition. He knew he hadbeen hit in the lungs, and he said so, but the docs initially thought hehad not, for he was not coughing blood. He also felt himself becomingshocky and offered advice on how the corpsmen might treat him. DocBoyer ran his hands down Soifert’s torso to feel for wounds. When hereached back to the wounded man’s kidneys, a 7.62mm round fell intohis hand. This he handed to Staff Sergeant Allston, then he applied abattle dressing.

As Chief Miller continued to treat the wounded Marine, who wasby now drooling blood from between bluish lips, Boyer and Cooperwent to work getting Soifert’s foot untangled from the seat. It was clearthat the ankle had been broken by the twisting fall, so it was decided tokeep Soifert’s boot on if possible; at least it was providing some support.The laces were so badly entangled that Boyer decided to disassemblethe seat. He twisted nuts and bolts and worked a set of oversized wirecutters where they could do their job. At length, as Soifert’s eyes beganrolling back and a pink froth appeared on his lips, the seat was pulledfrom the jeep and the wounded man was stretched out on the roadway.A little shove on the jeep itself by all hands freed the trapped right foot.Doc Boyer knelt over the declining wounded man to administer mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.


SSgt Richard Smith briefly returned with his tank to traverse hismain gun in the direction of the Moslem-held buildings, but he wasagain threatened by RPGs and ordered to withdraw. This time, at least,the Marines and corpsmen behind the overturned jeep could see theattempt, and that was mildly heartening. An amtrac rolled up behind anearby berm and everyone grabbed the backboard on which Soifert hadbeen placed and ran up the ramp into the lighted interior.

Charlie Company’s 1st Platoon opened on Moslem fighters, forcingmany of them to seek cover in the Armory. Then Lieu-tenant Harrisunleashed his grenadiers, who volleyed their M-203 high-explosive (HE)rounds into the building’s thick con-crete walls. It is doubtful that anyMoslems died, but they were certainly bounced around.

Allen Soifert finally lost consciousness as the amtrac driver pivotedthe huge vehicle and headed directly up the roadway to the battalion aidstation, where a litter team was standing by. Dennis Allston stood by thedoor of the BLT for a moment, then heard himself called to the MSSGbuilding. He reluctantly tore himself away, knowing that he would beput to work to get his mind off the morning’s trauma.

Maj Doug Redlich, the MSSG-24 commander, had been at GreenBeach when he heard of the shooting. He arrived just as the amtracpulled up at the main entrance. Redlich had been exec of the MSSG onits previous deployment in Beirut, and Soifert had been attached to EODthen. In fact, Redlich had submitted Soifert’s application to the warrantofficer program the last time out. He knew Soifert well and liked him.Soifert seemed to be groggy, but nothing Doug Redlich saw waspartic-ularly alarming. He touched Soifert on the arm and said, “Nowyou’re an official Beirut vet.” Soifert was carried off and Redlich turnedto get the details from the BLT S-3, Maj Andy Davis.

First Lieutenant Chuck Dallachie had been on duty in the combatoperations center (COC) during the rescue. He was at the bottom of thestairway on his way outside for a breather, when the litter team thunderedinto the BLT lobby. Dallachie tried to move aside, then saw that hewould have to back down the stairway, which he did as quickly aspossible. The crush of bodies swept him right into the operating room,where an unconscious Allen Soifert was placed on the table. Unable to


press through to the door, Dallachie squeezed into a corner and staredwide-eyed at the drama unfolding before him.

Dr. John Hudson was in the Navy for just one reason: he had run outof tuition money midway through medical school, and the Navy hadpaid his way. He was a good, caring doctor, but he either had no senseof military discipline or superbly resisted the growth of an officerlikeveneer. Tales of his military inepti-tude were legend in the battalion,and he went out of his way to put on weight, his way of bearding theslim-trim Marines with whom he served. This day, the games were leftat the operating-room door. John Hudson simply wanted to save a life.

Grim-faced Danny Wheeler, the battalion chaplain, stripped off AllenSoifert’s flak jacket and cammie blouse. The surgeon probed thebloodless wound beneath the right nipple. At first, Hudson was certainthat Soifert’s heart had been nicked, and he was ready to open the staffsergeant’s chest, but he decided within seconds that the heart was notinvolved. He also determined that Soifert was as good as dead. But asgood as isn’t the same as already, so the overweight Georgia countrydoctor worked to stabilize his patient, who would not survive surgery ofany sort if his shock could not be controlled.

The wisdom and curse of a battalion aid station is that complex andsophisticated equipment is reserved for medical facilities farther up theline. All a battalion surgeon is supposed to do is patch the wounded whomight live and pass them along to better-manned and better-equippedsurgical teams. Most often, the system works. Large numbers of surgeonsare not risked in the close combat that is the fare of rifle battalions butare avail-able in safe places, where they can better serve the majority.Marine battalions facing the hardest combat in Vietnam each drew justone surgeon, a team of under twenty aid-station corps-men, and limitedequipment. This is hard-nosed wisdom, but where John Hudson andAllen Soifert were concerned this October noon hour, it was a curse.Treating Soifert was simply beyond the capabilities of the battalion aidstation, and Soifert was in no condition to be moved. Hudson did whathe could, but it was not enough. Within minutes of his arrival, AllenSoifert slipped into a coma and then stopped breathing. John Hudsongot Soifert’s heart pumping, but it failed again. And again. Then therewas no bringing him back.


Chaplain Danny Wheeler, a Lutheran, administered last rites, aCatholic ritual, to the dead Marine, who was Jewish.

Dennis Allston was told an hour after he arrived at the aid station.Allen Soifert, who had become a U.S. citizen in 1968 at age ten,

was buried a week after his death in Beirut at age twenty-five in theJewish cemetery in Nashua, New Hampshire.

*When news that Allen Soifert had died reached Charlie Com-pany onthe afternoon of October 15, some members of 2dLt Bill Harris’s 1stPlatoon decided to “get some.”

M-203 rounds were accurately placed just behind many of the wallsthe Moslem snipers were using for cover. Some of the grenadiers becameso adept at this sort of fire that they were soon bouncing their HE roundsoff buildings to get them into hard-to-hit Moslem emplacements. Theplatoon’s M-60 ma-chine guns were used to suppress the militiaautomatic weapons.

Word arrived that night through the news reporters who daily traveledbetween Hooterville and the BIA that women and chil-dren had beenhurt by the Marines, so Harris was obliged to order his men to withholdtheir general fire.

Though MAU headquarters was loath to allow Harris’s pla-toon toundertake a general firefight, it sanctioned the use of STA snipers tobegin a routine of careful, aimed target suppres-sion the next day. WhenLieutenant Colonel Gerlach heard the news, he sent four additionalsnipers to Harris’s sector, bringing the total to six. In addition to theirown specialized equipment, the STA snipers were to make use of theoptical range-finding equipment aboard SSgt Richard Smith’s heavytank, a terrific plus for pinpointing targets in the built-up areas oppositeHar-ris’s positions.

Fearful that his platoon’s teeth had been unfairly drawn, Sgt FosterHill put forth a plan aimed at achieving a balance more favorable to theMarines without endangering the lives of non-combatants. In Hill’sopinion, it was not worth the expenditure of a great deal of ammunitionto go after five or six militia fighters here and five or six there. Instead,grenadiers could force the small groups toward the alley fronting Cafe


Daniel and the Armory, and the STA snipers could pick them off, almostat their leisure. Harris felt it was worth a try.

When militia warriors opened fire on Harris’s platoon on the morningof October 16, Harris had his grenadiers draw extra ammunition, andthen he put them to work.

Sergeant Hill did the honors. His M-203 gunner dropped severalrounds right on top of the Armory. The smallish rounds could notpenetrate the concrete roof, but the deafening noise forced the gunmenhiding inside to run into the alley.

Aided by spotters, the STA snipers had a field day. With the fullconcurrence of higher headquarters, Lieutenant Harris sim-ply rereadthe Rules of Engagement and decided that, as long as there was shootinggoing on, anyone caught with a weapon in his hands was fair game.This slight shift in the rules caught many hitherto untouchable militiamenoff guard. Militia cowboys exiting the Armory with weapons weredropped without warning in the alley between it and Cafe Daniel.

Five Amal warriors were definitely killed this day, and at least tenothers were severely wounded by high-velocity bullets.

At length, news arrived that the Amal leadership had asked for aceasefire. Harris’s Marines immediately complied. They knew that theMoslems would not have asked for a ceasefire if Charlie Company’sfire had not been effective.

*Only eight days after Staff Sergeant Allen Soifert was slain—on October23, 1983—the Marine Battalion Landing Team headquarters was blownup and 241 more Marines were killed. Among the dead that morningwas Dr. John Hudson. Chaplain Danny Wheeler and Lieutenant ColonelLarry Gerlach were injured in the blast. Captain Chris Cowdry,Lieutenant Mike Murphy, Staff Sergeant Dennis Allston, and the MSSG-24 corpsman who brought Allen Soifert in were among the rescuers. Itis virtually certain that Lieutenant Bill Harris’s Shiite adversary,Castro—whose real name was Imad Mughniyeh—was the chiefimplementer of the plan that placed the truck bomb inside the Marineheadquarters building. He eventually became a leading militarycommander in the Iranian-backed fundamentalist Shiite faction,Hezbollah. He was blown up by Israelis in Damascus on February 12,2008.



THE THREE DAY PROMISEA Korean Soldier’s MemoirBy Donald K. Chung, M.D.

The Three Day Promise is an inspiring saga that traces the author’s lifefrom his humble birth in Korea to his medical pre-eminence in the UnitedStates. Dr. Chung documents this half-century passage with powerfulinsights into Korea’s culture and vivid images of its people.

Dr. Chung affords an intimate understanding of the Korean War fromhis perspective as a soldier. The book deftly transcends a strict study ofwar by making it the context for examining human values. Out of love,the youthful Chung promises his mother to return from the war in threedays. The war that separated his family and his country kept the vowfrom being realized for more than three decades.

Dr. Chung’s desire for reunion with his mother, reunification for Korea,and recognition for all veterans of this “forgotten war” is eloquentlyexpressed in the book and its goal: He donated all profits to the KoreanWar Veteran’s Memorial in Washington, D.C. With a generousendorsement by Abigail Van Buren in her Dear Abby column and hisown tireless promotion, Dr. Chung has given over $400,000 to the fund,its largest individual donation.

Donald K. Chung was born in 1932 in rural northeastern Korea. Theauthor’s early medical training was interrupted by his involvement inthe Korean War. Chung was one of the very few in his front-line combatunit to survive. Unable to rejoin his family in the north following thewar, he stayed in Seoul to complete his medical degree magna cumlaude. He then came to the United States for training in cardiology. Hehas authored a number of medical texts and articles.


Note: The following article is excerpted from the book THE THREEDAY PROMISE: A Korean Soldier’s Memoir by Donald K. Chung,M.D. The book is currently available in ebook editions.

LEAVING NORTH KOREA

by Donald K. Chung

Copyright © 1989 by Donald K. Chung

The night I fled Chu-ul it was ominously dark. Snow crunched underfootand covered the surrounding terrain, made visible by headlights of themotorized division. The longest trek I had ever made was the three-hour homeward journey on foot from the racetrack in Harbin, the dayFather bet and lost our bus fare. It didn’t take a statistical genius tocalculate that that earlier record stood no chance of survival at the ordealstretching out before me.

Limping along on sore or frozen feet were people of all ages,both male and female. Their number grew as hour after hour of thefearful night passed by. Many older men and women hobbled alongusing canes and occasionally even on crutches. Not unexpectedly, theyfell farther and farther behind, unable to match the pace of the forwardmoving throng. Occasionally younger family members would slow toassist their elders, but many younger refugees tried desperately at allcosts to keep up with the line of soldiers and trucks of the retreatingarmy.

The farther south the march penetrated, the greater grew thethrong. Many ox-drawn carts, heavily overburdened with householdgoods and human cargo, slipped off the treacherous icy roads into ditchesfilled with ice and slush. If the oxen could not regain their footing onthe road, the soldiers, no doubt following orders, shot them as theyhopelessly struggled.


As was to be expected, more and more of those fleeing southwardfell farther and farther behind. I, being young and in good health anddriven by my relentless fear, managed to keep pace with the main bodyof death’s-head troops I had followed out of Chu-ul.

We arrived at Myungchon as the sun was coming up on December3. At that moment, the soldiers stopped at the local school and trudgedinto the yard to light fires and cook their breakfasts. I walked on to afarmhouse on the far otskirts of the town and begged for food and aplace to take a brief rest. The farmer was most gracious considering thecircumstances. He welcomed me into his home and placed before me awarm breakfast consisting of a baked potato, a small dollop of rice andsome hot soybean soup with cabbage.

As I was eating, I noticed that one of the farmer’s young sons hadan infected wound on his right thigh. “Why hasn’t this wound beentreated?” I asked. “The war has driven away our local medicalpractitioner,” the farmer replied. As soon as I had wolfed down the lastof the hot breakfast, I cleansed the wound and gave the farmer severalpackets of sulfa from my emergency medical kit. I was happy to be ableto do something to repay this man for his extraordinary kindness. I settleddown for a short, sound nap then rushed off amidst mutual good wishesto rejoin the military column.

The next day, December 4, came and went as I followed alongsidethe ROK Army motorized column. The third day, December 5, was theday I had promised Mother I would return home. Why I had made sucha rash and impossible promise I do not know. The words had merelyissued from my mouth, conceived not with any conscious though ofmine, but with a heedless rush as though by prerecorded rote. Aware ofmy unfulfilled promise, I kept my direction headed south though myspirit fled my body and must have hovered over the little house in Chu-ul where dwelled my mother.

By now I felt as though I, too, were motorized, being driven bythe pressing rush of events outside my control. I was lost in time,oblivious to everything except the fact of moving forward. I ate the lastof the rice and cuttlefish Mother had packed into my knapsack. I put onthe last of the three pairs of socks she had supplied. I was weary, confused,and frightened.


We arrived at the large town of Kilchu on the afternoon ofDecember 6. As I wandered through the streets in search of food or awarm or simply sheltered place to rest, I saw a dozen young men sittingin a group in the town schoolyard. All of the men wore armbands thatread “Local Volunteer Youth Group.” I assumed, correctly, that the grouphad been formed to somehow assist the ROK Army. I sneaked into theyard and plopped myself down behind the resting group. When the youngmen rose sometime later, I went with them.

We all wound up at the nearby home of the group leader. Theman did not seem to have a firm idea of how things were going, but heannounced, “The ROK Army is retreating back to South Korea.” Wewere then fed a substantial dinner of steaming hot rice, hot soup andkimchee, Korean pickled cabbage. During the meal, I ventured tointroduce myself to as many of the others as I could. This very mixedbag included men of all ages, up to the age of fifty. I found that, asusual, I was one of the youngest. There were brothers and fathers andsons, professors and students. Most of the men were well educatedcollege students or graduates. I gathered that many, perhaps most, ofthe men harbored strong anti- Communist sentiments. However, mostclaimed to have fallen in with the slowly-growing group more out of asense that there was safety in numbers than out of political conviction.I was not sure what we were supposed to be doing for the ROK Army,nor what the rewards were supposed to be. As happened so often in mylife, I was content to pull the distinctive armband up the sleeve of mytopcoat and follow along. I certainly did not question why I was soreadily taken in.

At noon on the following day, December 7, our group marchedback to the school at which I had first found it. The word was passedaround that we would be receiving instructions from ROK Army soldiers.It was a clear day and much warmer than it had been since before I leftChu-ul. Marching was made difficult through streets slushy with meltingsnow.

Kilchu was filled with ROK soldiers, army vehicles, and countlessthousands of refugees seeking shelter from the wind on the sidewalks orunder the eaves of houses.


As I marched along, grateful for the warmer air which lessenedthe earlier biting sting, I was stunned to see Father sitting in front of ahouse, soaking his feet in a basin of water. With him was my third uncle,the one whose wife had been so brutally murdered at the Chu-ul hotsprings and whose body I had identified. Uncle was leaning on a cane,his feet bound in bandages.

Breaking free from the Volunteer Youth Group I rushed towardthem. “Father,” I shouted, “I knew you would be coming with me.”

At the moment all the years of emotional deprivation I had sufferedbecause of this cold and distant figure fell away as I instinctively reachedout my arms to hug him. He returned my embrace with vigor, somethinghe had never before done. All the animosities built up over the yearsseemed suddenly and swiftly washed away. It felt like the beginning ofsomething new and wonderful.

Father looked totally wasted. Besides the blisters on his soakingfeet, his lips were a mass of fever blisters. Gone, too, was his erstwhilemeticulous clothing, replaced by ragged clothing such as my own.Despite their utter exhaustion, Father and Uncle seemed to brighten atthe sight of me, Dong-kyu, standing before them.

Instantly, Father opened his pack and pulled out two pieces ofrice cake which he gave to me. Hesitating briefly, I took one small bite.Then, as though the present rushed in over me like a tidal wave, I hastilymumbled, “Good-bye. Soon we shall meet again in the South,” andrushed off to rejoin the Volunteer Youth Group.

Whether it was a resurgence of lifelong loyalty to Mother and theimbedded memories of Father’s denial of any fatherly affection, Idisregarded the momentary filial reaction I felt upon seeing Father inhis piteous condition.

Now it was I who directed my steps as I saw my real futurebeckoning, knowing that the past, like a long-held umbilical cord, wasfinally and irrevocably cut from my body.

The Volunteer Youth Group was not assigned any duties by theROK Army that day—or ever, really—but we did receive definite ordersto get to Songjin as soon as possible.


Much later, I learned that large units of the North Korean People’sArmy, backed by even larger units of the Chinese People’s LiberationArmy, had been moving steadily south from the Chongjin area and hadarrived on the north side o Myungchon on December 7. On the sameday, a regiment of the ROK 3rd Division had been in contact with NorthKorean soldiers before retreating through Kilchu and on to Songjin tobe evacuated by ship with the main body of the division.

A light snow began to fall late in the night of December 8. Thecolumn of the Volunteer Youth Group had reached the top of anotherseemingly endless series of mountain passes. Gone was the warm air ofthe previous day. The road we stumbled along was slippery with slush.A bitter north wind drove the falling snow against our backs. One thoughtalone got us all over that pass. We knew that at the bottom of the longslope that rolled away to the south was the port of Songjin.

At the top of the pass, a checkpoint had been set up by the ROKmilitary police. Every refugee was given a thorough inspection beforebeing allowed to decend into the city.

As if the progress of this human phalanx had not already beenmercilessly impeded by its own hunger, fatigue, sickness, and the crueltyof the weather, it was now forced in its thousands upon thousands, tohuddle standing up in the bitter onslaught of the elements, snared in abureaucratic Catch-22.

Eventually my group reached the checkpoint. Our Volunteer YouthGroup armbands were prominently displayed as the MPs flashed theirtorches over our bodies and into our faces. At length, the light, searingin the stygian dark, found my face. I heard a disembodied voice admonishme to move on. With that, our group, now numbering over 200, reformedand marched quickly down the mountain toward the city. The landscapebefore us lay in near-total darkness. Only a few gleams of dim, widelydispersed light shone from an occasional house here and there.

Long after midnight, we were guided to an empty factorywarehouse and told to get some sleep. This was one of the easiest ordersI have ever had to obey. I simply blacked out as soon as my head touchedmy knapsack, so profound was the accumulated physical and emotionalstrain I had experienced throughout the previous week.


“Get up and meet outside immediately.”Thus was I awakened on the morning of December 9, 1950. It

was still dark. A cold wind blew as we shuffled sleepily into line outsidethe warehouse. I could see masses of ROK Army vehicles, soldiers andrefugees in the dark gloom, and all seemed to be moving toward theport. After a brief wait, we filed into the endless column, following thecone of light from the group leader’s flashlight.

To my surprise and relief, the docks were only a few blocks fromthe warehouse. After waiting for most of the army vehicles, equipmentand troops to be loaded on the huge, grey-painted ship tied up at thepier, my group was guided up the gangway by a military policeman—asthough we were somehow especially privileged beings.

A guide met us at the top of the ramp and led us to the very bottomof an open hold that held army vehicles and equipment. I thought of thetens of thousands of refugees from all over northeastern Korea strandedoutside the port area. Each one was desperately hoping to securea spotaboard one of the few overcrowded vessels. All around me in the hold Inoticed that men, mostly young, comprised the majority of refugees.What agonies they must have endured in deciding to follow the ROKArmy singly aboard ship, rather than waiting to see if they might all berescued with their families intact.

I was lost in such dark thoughts when, at about one o’clock in theafternoon, the gangway was raised and our ship—the United States Navytransport St. Wind— got underway. I was later told by men who werestanding outside on the main deck that hundreds of refugees had plungedinto the icy waters and drowned as the entire mass of waiting humanitysurged forward in a final convulsion of hope and fear. The sea was stainedby blotches of blood, and the faces of many of the men on deck wererimed with their frozen tears.

As soon as we cleared the harbor, I set out in search of Father andUncle. Though I searched through as much of the ship as I could, I wasunable to find either of them.

This was the first time I had ever been aboard a large ship sailingon the open sea. It was quite different from the Saturday night steamboatcruises on the Sungari River my family had enjoyed in Harbin before


the end of World War II. Then, we had been feted with good food,comfortable seating and good music, and the sailing had been so smooththat the wine in Father’s glass had never moved. Now, here I was, on avast grey whale of a ship proceeding slowly out to sea. The ride wasneither as smooth nor as comfortable, but I felt happier to be making itthan I ever had on those long-ago cruises on the Sungari. I stood ondeck and watched until the dock I had crossed in the dark of the morningfinally passed from sight. In time, I could no longer see land.

The ship came to a bumpy stop late in the night, but I could notsee enough to figure out where. Someone in my group later reportedthat we were docked at Hungnam, and I learned years later that the105,000 Americans comprising the United States X Corps were embarkedfrom this great port over a ten-day period along with 91,000 North Koreancivilian refugees, 17,500 vehicles and 350,000 tons of supplies andequipment. In all, some one hundred nine oceangoing vessels undertooka total of one hundred ninety-three round trips between South Koreanports and Hungnam and other North Korean eastern ports.

When we left Hungnam on the night of December 10, the windwas blowing fiercely and the sea was rough. I felt as though my stomachhad turned upside down, and I vomited copiously until only a yellowbile came up. I knew that I had become dehydrated, so I tried to crawlout onto the main deck to get some fresh air and find some water to rollaround in my foul-tasting mouth. I got to a hatchway and felt moremovement than I had below. I could see that waves were breaking acrossthe rails.

There were no lights showing on the main deck or from the highbridge, nor in any direction away from the ship. I had eaten nothingsince the ship left Songjin on December 9; there was no food aboard forrefugees. Besides, I was too sick to hold any food down. My dehydratedand weakened state made me confused, perhaps a bit delirious. In thepitch blackness, I managed to climb aboard an ROK Army truck thathad been lashed to the deck and covered with a canvas tarpaulin. I reachedinto the rear compartment and grabbed a handful of something from alarge container. Clutching my find to my chest, I weaved to the nearest


bathroom without looking at what I had stolen, for I was afraid of beingwaylaid by the ROK military policemen who patrolled the ship.

When I reached light, I opened my hand and discovered that Ihad stolen dried, salted anchovies destined for the ROK mess hall. Iwas so hungry that I fought all the anchovies down my gullet withoutthinking about the consequences. I licked my hand clean and startedback to rejoin the Volunteer Youth Group. I was overcome with apowerful thirst within a minute, but my frantic search through that partof the ship turned up no drinking water. I finally fell into an exhaustedheap on the deck between the trucks stored in the hold.

I was awakened on the morning of December 12 by the sound ofmany people walking out on the main deck. I tried to get up, but I foundthat I was weak and dizzy, which I vaguely recognized as the results ofsevere dehydration and malnutrition. At length, I managed to pull myselfout to the deck and breathed in fresh air, which made me feel a littlebetter.

A round, red sun was rising in the east, far out to sea. To the westwas my first sight of land since boarding the ship. I noticed that thestorm winds had abated and the sea was calm. As the ship neared shore,I saw that the land was brown, not white with snow. As we came closerto shore, I was amazed to see women walking along the mountain pathsoverlooking the sea with heavy loads atop their heads, not wearingovercoats, though it was the middle of winter. Then I noticed for thefirst time that the air was balmy, and not a single cloud flecked the sky.

The St. Wind docked at the tiny southern port of Kuryongpo-ri atabout eight o’clock in the morning of December 12, 1950. It had beenten days since I had left Chu-ul, and I was seven days overdue makinggood my last promise to Mother.

It took a long time to unload the military vehicles, equipment andsoldiers. I stood in a corner of the deck to watch, but I could not controlthe thoughts racing through my mind as I looked out over the villageand upon the mountain behind it.

I kept telling myself, “Kuryongpo-ri is a part of the motherland.Its people are my people. They speak my language.” I knew that, beforeWorld War II, every country boy’s dream had been to go to Seoul to


study at the Imperial University. Now, I thought, Seoul is the capital ofhalf the Korean nation, the half to which I have been denied accesssince my years back from Manchuria. Here I am, looking across a tinyKorean port in a part of the land that calls itself the Republic of Korea.I come from a part of the land that calls itself the Democratic People’sRepublic of Korea. Both are home. But they have become differentbecause of the policies of two alien powers, the United States and theSoviet Union, and because of the clashing political convictions of therabid Communists and rabid anti-Communists who have won the supportof one or the other of those alien powers.

I could not keep my thoughts untangled, for I had had the preceptsof Marxist-Leninist doctrine hammered into my mind for five long years.I was alienated from my southern cousins for five years because, myleaders told me, they had been seduced by the impure doctrines ofcapitalist-imperialist avarice. I had been led to believe that on June 25,just six months ago, these mad-dog cousins I am about to face had beeninduced to mount, suddenly and without any excuse, a military adventureagainst my—and their—peaceloving kinsmen. I stood ready to take myfirst step onto South Korean soil, not because I really wanted to, andcertainly not out of any conviction that one half of the Korean nation’speople were any more right than the other half.

I was here because I had opted to be saved from peremptoryexecution by placing myself in the care of the army of my southerncousins, and that army had—almost as an afterthought—allowed me totag along in its wake as it returned to its part of the motherland.

It occurred to me that I should start trying to find my third andfourth cousins, who had come south from Chu-ul in 1947. Then I gotsidetracked thinking about all the cars and luxurious possessions thesesoutherners surely owned.

As I waded through my confused emotions andoutlandishdaydreams, the hour approached noon, and the Volunteer Youth Groupwas ordered from the ship.




THREE-WAR MARINEThe Pacific - Korea - Vietnam

By Colonel Francis Fox Parry, USMC (Ret)

Introduction by General Leonard F. Chapman, Jr., USMC (Ret)

Upon graduating from Annapolis in February 1941, Francis Fox Parryand his classmates were sent directly to a makeshift artillery course.Following the crudest training imaginable — they never fired a gun —and without even attending The Basic School, at which Marine officersusually receive their indoctrination, Parry found himself serving with ahastily activated Reserve artillery battalion. Little more than a year outof the Naval Academy, and having learned all he could “on the job,”Parry was in the Pacific, an ill-prepared defender of an isolated islandbastion. In September 1942, Parry’s artillery battalion was landed atGuadalcanal and immediately sent into action. The early chapters of Three-War Marine are a chronicle of America’smakeshift early-war effort. That Fox Parry’s generation rose so quicklyto command artillery batteries in combat after receiving such shoddytraining addresses the underlying issue of the level of preparedness atwhich America faced two of Parry’s three wars. By the end of theOkinawa Campaign, where he served as an artillery battalion executiveofficer, Parry still did not feel that he knew very much about theartilleryman’s “black art.”

Parry’s account of peacetime duty after World War II is capped withhis schooling at Fort Sill, the Army’s artillery graduate school. Onlythen, Parry admits, did he feel he had a grasp of his profession. Andnone too soon, for only months after graduation, Parry commanded anartillery battalion in Korea — at Inchon, Seoul, and the Chosin Reser-voir. Once again, Parry faced the problems of taking a makeshift unitinto combat at the outset of a war for which his nation was unprepared.The story of Parry’s battalion in Korea is simply uplifting. Few Marinefield-artillery units have performed as competently and gallantly as FoxParry’s 3rd Battalion, 11th Marines, at the Chosin Reservoir.


In his later years in the Marine Corps, Parry helped plan the abortedinvasion of Cuba and was one of the key players in the establishment ofGeneral William Westmoreland’s combat operations center in Saigon in1966. By then a seasoned, respected senior planner, Fox Parry was ableto recognize the symptoms of the many things that began going awry inVietnam at the very start of Westmoreland’s tenure there. His thought-ful analysis must be read by any serious student of the Vietnam War.

Three-War Marine covers thirty action-packed years. In it, we seethe maturing Marine combat officer: the unseasoned battery commander;the confident battalion commander; and the thoroughly competent colo-nel overseeing day-to-day operations throughout a vast war zone. Three-War Marine is an insiders view of the Marine Corps during its mostthrilling decades.


Note: The following article is excerpted from the book THREE-WARMARINE: The Pacific - Korea - Vietnam by Col Francis Fox Parry.The book is currently available in a $24.95 quality paperback editionpublished by Pacifica Military History. It is also available in ebookeditions.

INCHON TO NORTH KOREABy Col Francis Fox Parry

Copyright © 1989 by Francis Fox ParyCrossing the Han

Early on the evening of September 1, 1950, we slipped majestically outof San Diego’s magnificent harbor and headed into the setting sun. Itwas an unforgettable experience. As a Marine band played “Goodnight,Irene,” a favorite of the moment, the thousands of troops crowding thedeck of the USS Bayfield broke into song. The families and loved onesswarming on the dock soon joined in. As we eased past Point Loma intothe darkening Pacific, the harbor reverberated with that haunting refrain.

Although 3/11 [3d Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment] was spreadover seven ships, I directed that each battery commander and key staffofficer do his best to conduct whatever training was feasible. On theBayfield the FDC [fire direction center] and communications section,among others, were able to get in urgently needed drills. In fact, theFDC had to be organized and trained almost from scratch since we hadbrought only four trained men from Camp Lejeune, or about one thirdof the needed complement. That the FDC was rendered functional at allin the less than three weeks available and under the crowded conditionsaboard ship was commendable. That it was managed with such successwas in equal measure due to Major [Jimmy] Callender’s knowledgeand dedication and the quality of the Reserves we received at the lastminute at Camp Pendleton. About 170 men, or about 25 percent of our


strength, joined the night before we embarked. The Reserves were mostlyfrom the state of Oregon and Houston, Texas. Many were college studentsor recent graduates of the University of Oregon or Oregon State. Theirintellectual capacity was such that they needed to be told the details oftheir jobs only once. Jimmy’s FDC was filled with men who had scoredover 140 on the General Classification Test (GCT), high scores even forofficers.

The FDC, the three firing-battery executives, the eighteen gun-section chiefs and their gunners, and the communicators that tie themall together make up the gunnery team. The gunnery team is is the heartof the field artillery battalion. It is a heart that must beat powerfully andwith precision, promptly converting observer calls for fire into batteryfire commands. The fire commands are then quickly translated into rangeand deflection settings for each howitzer. The speed and accuracy ofthis operation is the real measure of an artillery battalion. Of course, thebattalion must be positioned and repositioned tactically so that it can doits gunnery job most effectively. The battalion must also be protectedfrom interfering forces and supplied with ammunition. The FOs [forwardobservers], the communicators, and the service elements are also a vitalpart of the battalion, but it is the gunnery team that must deliver thebattalion’s firepower in appropriate quantity where and when needed.This takes knowledge, training, teamwork, and dedication to the finepoints of gunnery at every level. That proficiency in this critical areawas attained despite the handicaps (not the least of which was the coldfact that the FDC had not controlled a single round of the battalion’s firein training) speaks volumes about the caliber of 3/11 personnel.

After a calm crossing we steamed into Kobe harbor the afternoon ofSeptember 16 only to learn that our stay in Japan would be hours, notmonths. I was able to assemble the battery commanders and staff fromtheir several ships and formulate a landing plan. This consisted primarilyof every unit commander using his initiative to gather his people andequipment as rapidly as possible and move to the assembly area. Wewere scheduled to get under way for Inchon at first light, so there wasno troop liberty. A few officers did go ashore for dinner and visited ageisha house, but our hearts were not in it.


On September 21 we landed at Inchon, which was by then a reararea. The front lines were well inland, near Kimpo Airfield. For almostthree days near the beach and in an assembly area inland, we strovemanfully to recover all our equipment, much of which was still cratedor in boxes that we had never seen. The most critical shortage wascommunications gear—radios and field telephones. Some were neverfound. (We fired our first fire mission with the FDC manning a fieldtelephone borrowed from Item Battery.)

With the 7th Marines across the Han River sweeping almostunopposed toward an investment of Seoul from the north, I requestedpermission to cross the river so that we could provide more effectivesupport. Regiment concurred, and we made ready to cross at first light.3/11 Headquarters crossed the tidal Han, at that point about 100 yardswide, in a DUKW. We watched as pontoon barges pushed by LCVPsferried the eighteen truck-drawn 105mm howitzers across. Then, to myannoyance, tanks began to cross. Much of the FDC and communicationssection, as well as the ammunition trucks, were left stranded as the tanksmonopolized the barges. I DUKWed back across the river to discoverwhy my units had been delayed.

The river crossing was controlled by the 1st Shore Party Battalion,commanded by a colorful, tough hero of the Pacific island campaigns,Colonel Henry P. “Jim” Crowe. I sought him out and pleaded my case.He was unmoved. After agreeing that 3/11 had priority for the rivercrossing, he explained, “Your battalion has eighteen howitzers, right?”

“That’s right, Sir,” I replied.“Well, Major, I ferried eighteen howitzers across the river, so what’s

your problem?”“My howitzers are practically useless without our fire-direction

center, communications section, and ammunition trucks.”The gnarled old colonel turned away, dismissing me with a wave of

the hand. “I took your battalion across as ordered.”Locating the nearest field telephone, I called the division G-3,

Colonel Al Bowser, who years before had been my equitation instructorat Quantico. An artilleryman himself, Bowser instantly grasped mydilemma. “Get Colonel Crowe on the line for me, Fox,” he directed.


Crowe took the phone, listened briefly, fixed me with a withering glare,and issued the necessary orders to complete the delivery of 3/11 to thenorth bank of the Han on a priority basis.

By the time the last vehicle was across, the day was half over but wewere able to move up along the Han about 10 miles and occupy a firingposition behind some hills to the west of Seoul. We fired the batteries inbefore dark.

That 1st Marine Division was capable of creditable action in a matterof weeks after being assembled from two division shells and filled outby Reserve units from around the country is remarkable; that it couldsuccessfully execute an assault landing as difficult as that at Inchon inSeptember 1950 was a near miracle. Dedicated Marine Regulars andReservists with Pacific War experience still fresh had bailed out thenation’s political leadership, which did not deserve so kind a fate.

Fire Mission

The 7th RCT’s sweep to invest Seoul and the advance on up the valleyto Uijongbu was not strongly opposed. The 1st and 5th Marines hadbroken the back of North Korean resistance; the 7th faced only rear-guard action. It was, nonetheless, a most useful shakedown for the 7thRCT [regimental combat team], which was far more heavily weightedwith Reserves than the rest of the division. We were aware of the des-perate need to hone military skills and round the RCT into top physicalcondition.

After an active firing period devoted mostly to support of DogCompany, 2/7 [2d Battalion, 7th Marines] (which had strayed into the5th Marines’ sector and encountered a North Korean battalion), 3/11displaced to the north of Seoul preparatory to the push to Uijongbu.While we were awaiting the arrival of the firing batteries at the selectedposition, 1/7 came up the road and began to bivouac in “our” field. Ifound the redoubtable Lieutenant Colonel Raymond G. Davis and advisedhim that the field was already staked out for our firing batteries.

I had seen little of Ray, who was three years my senior, since we hadfirst met with Colonel [Homer] Litzenberg at Camp Pendleton. (Both of


us had complained to Litz about our battalions being split among somany ships.) But I knew something of his background. A Georgian, hehad started out as an artilleryman and had been Bob Luckey’s executiveofficer in the 1st Special Weapons Battalion on the Canal. Later, at CapeGloucester, Davis took over 1/1 and launched his brilliant career as aninfantry commander. He had a cool demeanor, bright blue eyes, and areputation as a tough, dynamic leader. He had won the Navy Cross as amajor commanding 1/1 on Peleliu. He was not a man with whom onesought a confrontation.

I declared respectfully, “Colonel, I’m putting the battalion in positionin this field; they’ll be coming up the road shortly.”

“We’ve marched 18 miles and the men are exhausted.” Ray rejoined,“This is as far as we go.”

So 1/7 bivouacked on the edge of the field and in the adjacent woods.As the batteries arrived minutes later, I emplaced them as planned

in the field. An hour or two later when the firing batteries began toregister, Ray apparently thought better of his stand and pushed his tiredtroops on to a quieter rest area. There are better places to relax thancheek-to-jowl with cannonading artillery.

This minor confrontation illuminates what from then on becamestandard practice in the 7th RCT—3/11 had priority in the selection offiring positions. Although priority was not critical around Seoul, itbecame so in the more confining mountains of North Korea.

For the drive north, which was supposed to be a 10-mile tank-infan-try dash to Uijongbu, a battery of Marine 155mm howitzers and a bat-tery of Army antiaircraft artillery-automatic weapons (AAA-AW) wereattached to 3/11. According to accepted tactics, the tracked vehiclesthat carried the dual-40mm AAA guns and quadruple .50-caliber ma-chine guns, were distributed throughout the motor column. The 155sand my own Item Battery were left in position to support the advance,their fire controlled by Item Battery’s battery fire chart beefed up bybattalion FDC personnel and communicators. Several tanks, however,were immobilized by mines, thus forming effective roadblocks. Anx-ious to deploy George and How batteries in a forward position fromwhich we could reach beyond Uijongbu, we were frustrated not only by


the tanks but also the tracked AAA. It was necessary to order the AAAto take position on the edge of the road so that we could maneuver thefiring batteries through them and on up the road into position. We learned,in fact, that attaching an AAA battery to a field artillery battalion is nota good idea. It is well nigh impossible to site the tracked vehicles so thatthey do not interfere with artillery displacements, communications, andammunition resupply; their desire to reposition themselves is frequentlydisruptive; control of their often indiscriminate fire is difficult; and theyattract attention. In short, a field artillery battalion is better off withoutwhatever contribution AAA makes to local security. My recommenda-tions to Colonel Litzenberg on the subject were forthright, and the 7thRCT had no AAA attached thereafter.

That night we fired from both forward and rear positions. As long aswe had enemy targets under fire from the rear, it was inadvisable tomove Item Battery forward. This was our first experience with a splitFDC, a practice that was to become commonplace up north. During thisperiod Captain Ben Read and I visited the front lines atop a hill a fewmiles north of Seoul. While Ben checked in with his liaison officer andthe infantry battalion commander, I went on to see the FO in that sector.Second Lieutenant Donald H. Campbell was a Reserve from Aptos,California, who had never conducted a fire mission. I instructed him inthe simplest terms I knew for fifteen minutes. That night, he called in afire mission and was able, with a little patience and assistance from theFDC, to bring fire to bear on an enemy target.

Don was not unique. Eight of my nine FOs were Reservists, and Isuspect that most were at least rusty in firing technique if indeed theyhad ever fired a live mission at all. These largely untried observers,important keys to 3/11 success, were our major weakness—our onlyserious one. The light action around Seoul and to Uijongbu was anopportunity to give these officers some urgently needed training. It wasnot much but, they learned their trade. By the time they were calledupon to produce in the Korean northland, they were ready.


Night Displacement

Historians and other commentators have already challenged theadvisability of General MacArthur’s sudden command to halt 1st MarineDivision north of Uijongbu. The division withdrew to Inchon andeventually performed an amphibious end-around to Wonsan. That itremoved ground pressure from the retreating North Koreans isindisputable. That it gave the Chinese a few more days to prepare tointervene also seems incontestable. But it is doubtful that MacArthur’ssudden command made much difference to the ultimate outcome. Atthe time some of us at Uijongbu jumped to the parochial and, inretrospect, silly conclusion that General MacArthur wanted a U.S. Armydivision to be the first to cross the 38th parallel into North Korea. Ourcynicism was not without some foundation, however. For example, wehad learned that despite the fact that supplies of all kinds were neededby front-line troops, the first pontoon bridge across the Han had remainedunused for many hours until MacArthur arrived to cut the ribbon toinaugurate its use.

At Inchon we boarded the USS Aiken Victory and the USS Titaniaand ships of the Supreme Command, Allied Powers, Japan (SCAJAP)—LST QO44 and LST Q092. We voyaged down the Yellow Sea, throughthe Korea Strait, and up the Sea of Japan to cruise off Wonsan while theNavy painstakingly swept the harbor of mines. It was an eerie experience,sharing the LST with a Japanese crew who only five years earlier hadbeen our mortal enemies. For each of the three meals every day, theJapanese would eat first. The crew cleaned up the kitchen, mess hall,and wardroom swiftly and efficiently and then turned them over to ourcooks and messmen. We ate entirely different meals. One afternoon weeven had pizzas—a morale booster even though only a modest culinarysuccess. We languished from October 15 to October 26 on the LST,most of the time boring holes in the water off Wonsan. There were nounpleasant incidents between Marines and Japanese.

About a week before we landed at Wonsan, we suffered our firstofficer casualty. Captain Robert A. Thompson, our logistics officer andCO of Service Battery, had developed an eye infection so serious that


he had to be transferred in open sea by breeches buoy to a destroyer forfurther delivery to a hospital ship. Bob had done a superior job underthe most adverse conditions from rounding up ammunition at CampPendleton to outfitting the battalion with vehicles and equipment, toproviding logistic support from Inchon to Uijongbu, to embarkationaboard ship at Inchon. To say that he was not missed would be untrue.But we had such a wealth of talented officers—the like of which I havenever seen before or since in a single battalion—that his replacementdid not represent a serious problem.

This was not altogether accidental, for the 3/11 command philosophystressed the accumulation of talent. Three of my most valuable officers—Major Callender and Captains Read and McLaurin—had been soughtand acquired at Camp Lejeune. At Camp Pendleton we had scoured thebase for competent officers, artillerymen, and otherwise. At Inchon Idiscovered Captain Robert T. Patterson languishing in an inconsequentialjob in 4/11 and talked Major Bill McReynolds into giving him to me onthe promise that I would find him a good billet. (As a first lieutenant inOkinawa, Bob had commanded K/4/15, and I knew his worth.) Of course,there are situations when an overabundance of talent will cause youproblems, but combat is not likely to be one of them. Officers are killed,wounded, become sick or are transferred to other units, and having acapable replacement on hand may be the difference between givingsuperior or mediocre support to the infantry.

Once ashore at Wonsan we were somewhat annoyed that Bob Hopeand his touring troupe were already entertaining the servicemen in thearea. We were soon apprised, however, that there was serious businessahead. On October 27, 3/11 was again attached to the 7th Marines. Ireported to Colonel Litzenberg at his CP, a schoolhouse just north ofWonsan, and learned that the 7th RCT would spearhead 1st MarineDivision’s dash northward to the Yalu River—the border with China.Inasmuch as little resistance was expected, we were to make all haste,with the infantry leapfrogging battalions by truck whenever possible.As soon as new winter clothing could be drawn from Division, we wereto get under way. A long winter campaign in the mountains of NorthKorea was not anticipated, and the skimpy cold-weather gear available


was a far cry from the clothing and equipment with which Koreanveterans of future winters would be outfitted. Our shoe-pacs presentedparticular problems. I wore the same paratrooper boots that I had wornon Okinawa because the liners of the shoe-pac tended to freeze to thefoot when they became sweaty and then cooled off.

Major Dave Mell, the 7th Marines logistics officer (S-4), was urgedto think in terms of “plus 700” for all supplies needed for the trek north.Although surprised at our requirements for gas, communicationsreplacements, and ammunition, he took on this additional burden withoutcomplaint.

Stripped down so that all gear and ammunition could be carried inorganic transport in one trip, 3/11 covered the 65 miles to Hamhungover steep mountain roads. The roads were well suited to ambush, butwe arrived without incident. After a situation briefing at I Republic ofKorea (ROK) Army Corps Headquarters, I positioned the battalion facingwest in a field about a mile south of the bridge into Hamhung. Whileawaiting the arrival of the infantry battalions by train, we reconnoiteredthe broad valley stretching west from Hamhung up to where the ROKlines were drawn. It was a pleasant 30-mile drive up the narrowing valleyin the autumn coolness. We drove alongside a clear, swift-running stream.Our 1:250,000 map told us that the stream would accompany us up themountains to the Chosin Reservoir, which was less than halfway to ourobjective on the Yalu.

At Majon-dong, a hamlet a mile from the head of the valley, I cameupon a U.S. Army major and captain, military advisors to the Republicof Korea (ROK) Army’s 26th Infantry Regiment, who informed me that“Chinese volunteers” had met the ROKs head-on and had driven themback from Sudong. They were now trying to regain suitable ground tofacilitate the passage of lines by the 7th Marines. Returning to Hamhung,I reported to Colonel Litzenberg and was directed to lead the regimentalcolumn to Majon-dong in the morning. Just after Reds Miller, JimmyCallender, and I had turned in at about 11:00 P.M., there was a rappingat the window of the school building we were using as a CP. There weretwo Marines with a jack-o’-lantern—a real pumpkin they had scroungedto let Halloween slip by without notice.


About midnight Colonel Litzenberg telephoned to order 3/11 to moveacross the river into Hamhung immediately—reportedly, a ChineseCommunist division was moving on us from the southwest. With the7th Marines north of the river, we were in an untenable position; hewanted us to move within the city and to be prepared to shoot to thesouthwest. An unplanned night displacement is one thing. Add to thisthe imponderables of a strange Asian city and a moonless night, andyou have the ingredients of a disaster.

My small reconnaissance party, made up chiefly of the three firing-battery commanders, plunged determinedly into the inky night in searchof an appropriate battalion position. Reds was to form up the battalion,lead it to a designated site, and wait for us. We probed cautiously throughthe city in almost total darkness, casting about for a suitable park oropen area. After poking down one street after another, careful to maintainour bearings, we came upon a sizable schoolyard. By the time we madeour way back to the rendezvous area, Reds was getting a little nervous.He had kept the battalion moving around in a circle several blocks on aside, preferring some movement to sitting in suspenseful waiting. Wereached the schoolyard at about 3:00 A.M., put the batteries in position,and did a little digging in. Since our orders for the morning still stood,we moved out again at first light.

As we proceeded slowly up the peaceful valley along a route thatwas to become famous before the month was out, I had ample opportunityto ponder the lesson of the unpleasant night. The message seemed clear:Reconnoiter positions in all directions, no matter how seeminglyimprobable the chance of occupation. At 9:00 A.M., we went into positionat Majon-dong to await the arrival of the 7th Marines. That night wewent to sleep without having fired a round.


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