In the historical context of WWII and the Pacific theatre, American losses near Yap (now part of the Federated States of Micronesia) were substantial. Strategically located between the Philippines and Guam, Japanese occupied Yap was targeted almost daily from June 1944 to August 1945 at the cost of hundreds of American men, 110 of which remain classified as MIA. Pat Ranfranz (from Cameron, WI), founder of the MACP has spent over 20 years researching Yap during WWII and the stories behind each soldier and his mission, hoping to preserve their memories for generations to come. Pat’s uncle is among the soldiers who remain MIA.

The memorial displays the actual wreckage of an F6F-5 Hellcat flown by Ens. Joseph Cox (from Idaho), one of 36 planes American planes that fell near the island. Joseph’s plane was shot down with three other Hellcats from the USS Enterprise on 6 September 1944, and was only recently recovered moderately intact. “It is truly one of the most unique wrecks and now memorials in the Pacific,” explains Pat. “After the war, most of the wreckage throughout the world was picked over and removed. Fortunately, the Yapese have respected the wreckages as grave sites and taken care to preserve them and remember the American men who lost their lives during the war.”

Joseph’s plane was spared from the expanding Yap landfill in 2008 and relocated to government-held land. Displayed on a concrete pad next to a sign and memorial marker describing the man, the plane and the mission, the YVB together with the MACP were able to construct one of the finest memorials to American men lost in WWII’s Pacific theatre.

Attending the dedication were Ellis Cox, Joseph’s 90-year-old brother, Yap Governor Sebastian Anefal, US Ambassador Peter A. Prahar and other dignitaries. For more information about the memorial and Missing Air Crew Project, visit www.missingaircrew.com or www.visityap.com.

Geography lesson
Wake is comprised of three atolls totaling six square miles in area and located in the North Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and the Northern Mariana Islands. Its highest elevation is 18 feet above sea level. It was discovered in the 1500s by the Spanish and renamed 200 years later by the master of a British trading schooner, Captain Wake. During the 1930s, Pan American Clipper seaplanes used it as a refueling stop. Eventually, the U.S. Navy realized its strategic importance and began to use it as a base.

Strategic air base
After Pearl Harbor, from 8-10 December 1941, Japanese air raids “softened” the island. Flying from their airfields in the Marshall Islands, 36 Mitsubishi G4M “Betty” bombers destroyed much of Wake’s airfield and supply depots. On 11 December, there was more naval shelling and an attempted Japanese landing that was repulsed by valiant resistance from U.S. forces. Two Japanese destroyers were sunk and the remainder retreated to Kwajalein. On 21 Dec, facing the reality of the situation, the last U.S. military float planes (the PBYs) departed from the island. Two days later, the remaining military personnel and civilian contractors on Wake surrendered to invading Japanese soldiers, the first time in history that U.S. Marines had ever surrendered. A relief task force that had been on its way from Hawaii was recalled when only 425 miles away, leaving the island in control of the Japanese.

The military personnel on Wake were eventually sent to concentration camps in China for the duration of the war. The civilian contractors on the island were detained to build fortifications and defenses for the Japanese. On 7 October 1943, the remaining civilians were brutally executed in response to a carrier strike and an expected invasion by U.S. forces. After the U.S. invasion succeeded, the two top Japanese officers there were hung for this and other war crimes.

Today, Wake is used by the Strategic Air Command as a base for tracking missile launches. It is home to approximately 300 military and non-military support personnel. Other than military use, its airfield has occasionally served as an emergency stop for trans-Pacific flights.

A rare visit
Our tour began in Hawaii where we boarded Continental’s Air Micronesia (Air Mic) flight to Guam. Ironically, we flew over Wake on this flight, crossing the International Date Line and losing one day and four hours. A day later, our charter flight from Guam would take us back to Wake, regaining that lost day and returning us to Honolulu time even though we would still be two thirds of the way from Hawaii to the Northern Marianas. The night before our flight to Wake, we attended a banquet at the Outrigger Hotel in Guam. Also in attendance were current admirals and generals as well as survivors of the 1941 invasion of the island. Opening remarks were made by Col. Warren Wiedhan, USMC (Ret) and Guam’s Governor Camacho. Rear Admiral Biesel, Brigadier General Broadmeadow and Brigadier General Ruhlman also spoke.

On 12 Dec 09, we departed on our chartered Air Mic flight from Guam at 5 a.m. Continental’s top management was also on board, along with a hand-picked crew. They were as excited as we were. Their families accompanied several of the Wake survivors on board. Before landing, the plane circled the atoll several times, allowing passengers seated on both sides of the plane good views of this top-secret missile defense station. Upon deplaning, most of us immediately photographed the Wake Air Station sign at the entrance to the airport lounge. Inside were a small museum, a shop with the usual T-shirts, hats and other souvenirs and a post office where mail is collected on Fridays. Our passports were rewarded with a large Wake Island stamp, something I have long coveted. We were then given maps and programs for our 12-hour stay. There are no accommodations for visitors on Wake, so we arrived at sunrise and left at sunset. Box lunches were supplied by the airline.

Our group was divided onto two buses, which went off in opposite directions and eventually covered all the sites of the island. One bus started with Prisoner’s Rock where we saw a commemorative plaque marking the location of MacArthur’s meeting with Truman in 1950. The other bus started with a visit to the Drifter’s Reef Bar & Grill, passing stores, housing and a church. A tiki statue guarded the entrance to the bar, where we were interested to find that premium beers cost only $2. Outside the bar, we saw a Japanese bunker that had been uprooted and moved by the last major hurricane to hit Wake.

After our bus tours, we had free time to walk around. Some of our group swam in the lagoon. Wake also boasts excellent fishing and scuba diving. As we were exploring, Wake islanders frequently stopped to offer us a ride. They were extremely helpful and very interested in our tour. They treated us like important dignitaries. Of its approximately 300 inhabitants, about half a dozen are female. Most of the civilian workers are from Thailand. Signs were usually written in both English and Thai. Some of the sites we saw included the remains of the Pan American Hotel and a ramp into the ocean for seaplanes. Large jet fuel storage tanks were scattered about the island, which also boasts a nine-hole golf course. Remnants of a previous Brunswick bowling alley have become decorations in front of many people’s apartments.

In remembrance
Toward the end of the day, Brigadier General Broadmeadow spoke in true military form as John Dale, a 90-year-old survivor of Wake, laid a wreath at the Marine Memorial honoring the past heroes of the battles and the Japanese occupation of the island. We then boarded our flight back to Guam, full of positive memories of the experiences of our short stay. Was the trip worth $1,000 a day? You betcha! Though from start to finish, it lasted less than a week, it was the best short trip I can imagine.

It was very special for all involved: Valor Tours, Historic Military Tours, the U.S. military, the Air Mic crew, the honored veterans, and all the rest of us.

I am grateful for the perseverance of Valor Tours and Historic Military Tours in arranging this trip. It took extensive work, including many visits by HMT personnel to Hawaii and the Pentagon, to put it together and get the necessary permission. There is discussion that the “Return to Wake” tour may be repeated in 2010. These two organizations also conduct many other tours to historic and military locations. Contact Vicky at Valor Tours (Sausalito, CA; phone 800/842-4504) for more information. (My 7-11 Dec 09, trip cost was $3,500, round trip from Honolulu.)

The details
It was March 1944 and the Flying Goldbricks of Marine Scout Bomber Squadron 243 (VMSB-243), on their second Solomons tour, had the dawn strike from Green Island to Rabaul Harbor, about 150 nautical miles west, where the early birds were known to find Japanese ships.

Our fellow pilots of VMSB-236 were sacked-out on their “off” day. All they had to look forward to was a hodge-podge of missions: ship gunfire spotting for the Army Division holding the beachhead on Bougainville; chasing after fuzzily identified Japanese ships possibly within their range; maintaining planes on station for close air-ground support; the odd flight to Munda on New Georgia or even Henderson Field on the Canal for spare parts; anti-submarine patrols, or perhaps a totally new reason to be airborne, courtesy of Strike Command’s inventive and sadistic operations staff. They had the early breakfast day before, and we, the shit details.

Rotations
Two Marine Torpedo Bomber (VMTB) squadrons shared the day-on/day-off rotation. We occupied the same sleeping, mess and briefing areas. They took off after us, as they were faster. We’d see them in the target area, and they got back before we did. The fighters, Navy, Marine and New Zealand were based on another island and we only saw them in the target areas.

In many ways the early strike was the better deal because, unless something big developed while we were gone, we would be on standby on our return. That meant we could sack out after about 11 a.m. Standby meant one division in the briefing tent, two divisions on 15-minute alert, rotating every two hours within the squadron, so we couldn’t wander far.

Also, while all flights are entered in the flight log, strikes were highlighted and counted as combat flights. You could spend a career flying the shit details and not be considered a combat pilot and being a combat pilot was the only sure way to get rotated stateside at a reasonable time, in one piece.

Wake-up was some wise guy shaking your cot while pointing a flashlight in your face, saying, “Time to rise;” it was usually something more colorful.

Knowing the drill, we operated on autopilot in the dark when awakened. Get out from under the net, fumble for your flight suit and don it, hoping it wasn’t already inhabited by creatures we would rather not imagine, zip it up, shake out and put on socks, fish for your boondockers, shake them out and put them on, then head for the blacked-out chow tent by way of the head (often just a slit trench).

There were three important things to locate in each pilot’s camp: the head, the chow tent and the briefing tent. We didn’t worry about the flight line, they had transport and it was their job to get us there. Ship’s store and PX were rear echelon luxuries. Booze ration was the two ounces of medicinal brandy issued after a strike — a huge plus for strike duty.

In the Solomons, a squadron had about 40 pilots and we flew someone else’s planes; stateside we had 25 pilots and 18 aircraft. Our ground echelon was still at our rear base on Efate, New Hebrides; only the flight echelon was rotated into the combat zone. We got VIP treatment going and coming. The rest of the time we just stood in line and hoped for the best, even when going on R&R.

Cuisine
About 80 of us stumbled into the chow tent and plopped down on benches. The tables were set and food was served boarding-house style.

There was no menu, so each meal was a potential surprise. The only sure things were coffee, bread, peanut butter, apple butter, pineapple juice and the omnipresent Pet milk.
Powdered eggs and meat, or pancakes were what we hoped for at breakfast, though not in any predictable sequence. We were at the tail end of the supply pipeline, so the goodies were siphoned off along the way.

Getting ready
The war was still expanding and rotation replacements were few and far between. I met lots of guys who had been out over two years, while we were the new kids on the block — out only 14 months with eight more to go. Sporadic conversation touched on everything except the day’s mission; all we really knew for certain was that we were going to take off for somewhere about 4:40. If someone said they had the straight poop on targets, we knew they just had bum scuttlebutt; I don’t even think our briefers ever knew the exact targets before breakfast, as info was always changing.

After breakfast we got our gear: cloth helmet; goggles and gloves; Mae West jacket with shark-repellent pouch and yellow dye marker; pistol belt with pistol; cartridge pack; first aid kit; canteen and knife, and our personal chart board with E6B dial computer (we called them Ouija boards). We kept pencils, note pads, candy bars, etc., in our flight suit pockets. The only identification we wore was our dog tags.

The briefing tent was the bailiwick of a group of former professor types and three combat experienced naval aviators. Navy Commander “Swede” Larson, whose torpedo squadron made history in the Guadalcanal campaign, ran Strike Command. He knew of what he spoke.

We huddled on benches while the professor-types identified the targets from aerial photos taken the day before. We were given radio frequencies, identification codes, plane assignments and formation details plus TOT (time on target), rescue facility availability, latest info on safe areas on nearby islands and how to approach the natives.

Briefing
This particular morning we were briefed on several Japanese ships reported to be in Rabaul Harbor the night before. My division of six Douglas Dauntless Dive Bombers (SBD) was to hit the most northern transport. Chances were they left overnight and we might catch them on the west side of New Ireland headed north toward Truk. If underway, we were to hit the most northeastern one.

The plan was to fly northwest and cross New Ireland to be in position to pursue, attack, or fly south to Rabaul and hit the ships or secondary targets. Early fighter reconnaissance flights should tell us where the ships were or thought to be. Hey, nothing was cut-and-dried in our operations. We always had secondary, and sometime tertiary, targets depending on the target area weather and/or new information received after our briefing.

The one advantage we had over our fellow Navy pilots was our base wasn’t going to sink or fail to be in the designated location when we returned. When flying from Piva Two strip on Bougainville we were often delayed in take-off and had to circle offshore several times before landing while the Japanese shelled the strip, causing our move to Green Island.

We climbed aboard open-top trucks after the briefing for the ride to the flight line in the dark. We were pretty quiet. I rehearsed the briefing in my mind and, as a captain and division leader, tried to assume my most leaderly posture for the captain, four lieutenants and six enlisted radio-gunners who counted on me to bring them back safely. Scared? Hell, yes. Afraid is not a Marine option. Being single was one less thing for me to worry about.

Flight line
The flight line, a series of revetments, was blacked out and as our trucks drove by, the plane captains called their number, someone would holler “Whoa,” and the truck stopped to let that one off, and then proceeded. A very high tech operation!

With no regular plane assignments, we flew planes we had probably never flown before — we had full faith in the ground crews. A walk around inspection is very difficult in the dark, even with a plane captain holding a hooded flashlight. I had an ace in the hole. SSgt. Sylvester “Sal” Garalski of Detroit, my radio gunner for almost a year, was a trained aviation machinist mate who volunteered for flight duty. Sal was always at our plane before me and did his own walk around before I arrived. He was going up in it, too!

This particular morning he met me and said everything was OK before I did my walk around and signed the yellow sheet accepting the plane. (We only saw our gunners on the flight line and tried to give them a brief outline of what we hoped to accomplish on the flight before getting into the plane. Afterward we had the intercom to exchange information.)

Pilots climbed aboard over the right wing while the plane captain stood on the left to assist getting our seat-pack parachutes and shoulder straps adjusted, our rag helmet radio cord plugged in, and exchange any last minute comments.

They did favor pilots who got them started quickly and could put them squarely in the chocks on return. Their best reward was getting the pilot’s signature with no discrepancy notes on the yellow sheet on return.

In the dark
There are many variations of darkness, from the proverbial dark-and-stormy night, to clear dark-of-the-moon type. All naval aviators were required to get in a minimum of two nighttime hours each month to maintain proficiency. When WWII started, the older pilots not in a squadron would try to pick moonlit nights, coining the phrase “a field officer’s moon.” When WWII was over, the experienced pilots much preferred a clear dark-of-the-moon night. I sure did.

Darkness on the ground and being up in it are two different things. When one is boring holes in the black, darkness takes on a life of its own and plays mind games with one’s vertigo, like giving you the feeling you are upside down or in a turn. The only solution is to blink hard and take a hard look at the gauges, for you may be and must take corrective action. If not, just shake your head and thank God for the gauges.

This particular night had been low overcast, which made for poor visibility and a lousy time for formation flying. With a prediction of possible overcast and squalls in the target area, we knew we were going to earn our flight pay that day. At least it wasn’t raining.

The SBD had a single rotary engine with a partial exhaust collector ring, so exhaust flames initially blinded us when we saddled up and headed out for take-off. Jeeps with blackout lights led us to the taxiway where we could turn on our running lights and hope we were following the correct plane.

Our standard flight formation was two step-down Vs of divisions. The skipper or exec led the first, and the exec or flight officer the second, as one of the three always remained on base so we didn’t lose all three at once. I led the third division in the first V to the leader’s starboard. If there were more than 36, the extras would form a third V astern.

Daytime practice was to take off in three-plane sections but at night singly, so I was not able to identify the plane ahead until it pulled into the runway and I could make out its tail markings.
Rack up another for the line chief; he got us out in proper order. I was number 13 to take off so I revved-up, checked my mags, swallowed hard, gritted my teeth and in full pucker, released the brakes. There were subdued directional runway lights and the running lights of the plane ahead for guidance. After I was airborne, I kept scanning the turn-and-bank indicator, air speed, rate of climb instruments and the lights ahead while getting the wheels up. I could see the exhaust and lights of several planes ahead.

Then we were over the ocean, and you haven’t seen black until you see the ocean at night under an overcast sky. We made a standard rendezvous and there were enough running lights visible for me to get us in position to the starboard and below the skipper. By this time we had completed a 180° turn and were approaching the island under the overcast. Then all hell broke loose!

Plan B
Marine Corps standing order: EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED. For some reason never given us, a New Zealand anti-aircraft 20mm battery opened fire — another bite out of my parachute. We were still under about 2,500 feet of overcast skies with our running lights on, and had just taken off over them. When tracers lit up our sky, and despite being on radio silence, several expletives and garbled messages erupted.

I automatically turned starboard with no way to give any hand signals. My lads followed. I could see my wingmen, Tom Wyatt from Monroe, LA, to port and Richard Mulberry from Sadieville, KY, to starboard, and Sal said the second section was in place. Sal kept other formations in sight but before I could maneuver toward them the skipper said “Plan Baker,” which was the alternate rendezvous area.

As I headed away from what had been a formation, I opted to climb through the overcast and came out at about 6,000 feet, only to find an about 75% overcast higher. Plan Baker was a point at 10,000 feet, bearing 75° and approximately 20 miles from the lighthouse on the southern tip of New Ireland. It sounded easy in the briefing room; it was a well-known and recognized landmark in good weather. That is where Marine Ace Bob Hansen (25 kills) had been shot down.

The sky was rapidly getting a pre-dawn look as we gained altitude and made a dead-reckoning approach. I spotted formations ahead and above that, our SBDs. I began to circle and joined up on the skipper. We were still under radio silence and I knew his gunner had informed him that we were there.

Return to base
There was a mean-looking wall of weather over New Ireland that looked impenetrable to me. No other planes joined us and I saw no escort fighters. About a half-hour later someone came on the air saying return to base. (We learned later that the skipper’s radio was out.) The skipper led us down through the lower overcast and on arrival discovered a large squall covered most of the island. We circled offshore at least 30 minutes before the squall moved enough to make out identifying landmarks.

The skipper signaled right echelon and my buddy Bob Marshall from Pawtucket, RI, slid his second division under us to our starboard. The skipper put his division in line astern and proceeded toward the still unseen runway along the southeast shore, disappearing into the squall.
I took a deep breath and followed suit. I was at about 200 feet, wheels and flaps down, with canopy open getting drenched when I spotted the runway, made a port turn, and touched down. Whew, what a relief. I taxied to the end, closing my landing flaps and fishtailed looking for planes ahead and hoping one wasn’t on my tail. An open jeep with two soaked Marines appeared, leading us back to the flight line. As I turned to follow them, Sal said all my boys were behind us — a tremendous feeling of accomplishment.

We stood under a wing to sign the yellow sheet, with no discrepancies. The squall moved on as we rode back to the debriefing tent where that first cup of coffee hit the spot. My flight suit was beginning to dry by time I got to my tent to towel off, put on dry skivvies and sack out till lunch.

All in a day’s work
What did we accomplish? We didn’t lose a plane. We brought back our bombs. We didn’t fire a round. We burned a lot of gas. We got two hours of night flying. We got our two ounces of brandy, which most saved for happy hour. We earned our flight pay, and had a good topic to critique at happy hour.

What did we learn? We did what we were trained to do. We gave it our all with no visible payoff. We gained confidence and a lot of mutual respect among ourselves. We remembered the old saying, “If you want to wear those wings, you gotta go; but you don’t gotta come back.” We went, came back, and stood a little taller.

Bob shook me awake when the chow tent opened for lunch. I got into some clothes and walked over wondering what the supply boys had provided that day. Given the way the day had started, it would probably be that damned Australian mutton again. Ugh!

Others surely have different memories, but what the hell. It still counted toward 20, and we were one day closer to another marvelous R&R in Sydney.

Training

Hurlburt was an interesting place. While there I overheard two permanent party members discussing some magazine photos of a B-26 shot down in the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba. They both agreed that that B-26 had been at Hurlburt.

Toward the end of our training we had a formal dinner at which our squadron leader spoke. He explained our presence in Viet-Nam. When the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu the Catholics fled to South Viet-Nam. The Catholic Refugee Organization went to Cardinal Spellman to request protection for the Catholic refugees. Cardinal Spellman contacted then-Senator Kennedy who sponsored the first legislation relating to Viet-Nam.

I was initially assigned to fly with Capt. Andy Mitchell. Capt. Jerry Campaign reported in and they assigned the captains to fly together. I was then assigned to fly with Mike Newmeyer, an excellent pilot and a good friend. The end of our training was marked by a speech and a parade. We stood in formation dressed in our 1505 (khakis, with short sleeved shirt). I could not hear much of the speech but there was a lot of talking in the ranks. A voice behind me said, “What are they going to do to us? Send us to Viet-Nam?” A few giggles and we marched past the reviewing stand. We then all dashed back to our home bases where we signed in and out the same day and reported back to Hurlburt to begin our 165-day TDY in Bien Hoa, about 25 miles north of Saigon.

To Viet-Nam

I was part of the April 1963 rotation to Bien Hoa, South Viet-Nam. Each rotation had four B-26 crews, consisting of a pilot and navigator. Our three months’ training to transition to the B-26 consisted of low level cruising (25 to 50 feet), bombing, strafing and aerial photography. My transition was from B-52 EWO (electronic warfare officer) to B-26 navigator. Our navigational instruments were a magnetic compass and an ADF (audio direction finder). There were no ADF stations in Viet-Nam at the time. We flew low to make us a more difficult target.

We flew B-26 Douglas Invaders with VNAF (Vietnamese Air Force) markings. The A-26 Douglas Invader flew in WWII and Korea; the French used them against the Viet Minh and the Chinese Nationalists used them against the Communists. The A designation was changed to B during the Korean War. The gun turret, top and aft of the bomb bay was removed, but the gunner’s compartment remained and three wing pylon stations were added to each wing.

We carried 14 50-caliber guns, eight in the nose and three in each wing, along with 500 pounds of napalm or, occasionally, 500-pound bombs on the wing stations. Our internal load usually consisted of about 4,000 pounds of frag cluster bombs. Our runway was 5,300 feet of PSP (pierced steel planking) and we lifted off at about 128 knots using about 4,500 feet of runway.

Our missions were strikes, escorts (boats, trains and motor convoys), air cover for ground and airborne operations and weather reconnaissance and the Invader had about 5½ hours endurance.

All in a day’s work

Our day began with a short briefing in the briefing room — the only place on base with air conditioning. Then we went to base ops and waited for a “frag” order, a location to meet a FAC (forward air controller). We flew to the destination and contacted the FAC who marked a target and told us to bomb his smoke. We confirmed. Bombing runs were commenced at 3,500 feet. Once on target, Mike never took his eyes off the target. We set the arming switches, set the props to 2,400 rpm, throttle to 32 inches, manually charged the nose guns and went into about a 60-degree dive. At about 1,000 feet, I tapped Mike on the shoulder to remind him it was time to begin our pull-out, when we pulled about four or five Gs and dropped one bomb at a time.

Our strafing and napalm runs were made at 25 to 50 feet and again we dropped one at a time. When our weapons were expended, we were expected to do initial bomb damage assessment (IBDA). That required overflying the target at 1,200 feet at 180 knots and taking photos. This was not our favorite pasttime as the folks on the ground were in a very bad mood by that time.
Night missions were a little different. We overflew the hamlet to see the “fire arrow” which was pointed in the direction from which the attack had come. Someone in the hamlet told us by radio how far away the VC were in “klicks.”

We flew in the direction of the fire arrow to where we estimated the VC to be and began our bomb and strafing runs. Viet-Nam could be very dark at night and when in the dive you felt as though you were suspended; the only noticeable movement was the unwinding of the altimeter. You then pulled out and flew through your ricochets. Every few rounds was a tracer — a spectacular sight.

One night we had support from a gun boat in the Mekong River and the combined pyrotechnics rivaled any fireworks demonstration I have ever seen.

There was an SFC who used to salute and say something like, “Good morning Lt. Fuzz.” I would return the salute with a “Good morning, Sgt. Snorkel,” and we would both grin. One day he and another sergeant showed up at my tent with two cases of C-rations, a greatly appreciated gift.

The Vietnamese government allowed us a maximum of $100 per month and, as officers on TDY, we received about $3.50 per day for meals. That was enough to cover three meals a day, but the problem was that we paid $15 per month for maid fees, $10 for base operations clean up and $5 for the flower fund. That left $70 per month for laundry soap, toilet articles, entertainment and food. I preferred to eat my one meal a day at supper, so those C-rations were a godsend.

We could exchange our dollars for piastres (the local currency) on base at the rate of 72 ps to $1, but most of us used the black market. We took the bus to Saigon, and walked up Tudo Street to the Modern Tailor shop; it wasn’t hard to find. Once inside we asked to see a “Vietnamese shirt,” and were escorted into a room with a guy who had two cardboard boxes: one with piastres, the other dollars. The exchange rate varied from 86 to 92 to $1.

VNAF

We were not the only unit on base; we had a group of VNAF airmen who flew with us. On every mission we carried a VNAF who sat on a pull-down seat behind the navigator and the hydraulic fluid reservoir. We were ostensibly there to advise the VNAF, but our advice was simple: “Don’t touch anything.” We did not carry the aircraft forms with us and in the event of a crash, the VNAF was flying and we were along to give him advice.

One guy who flew with us filled five barf bags on one mission; he never complained, just keep puking.

There was a VNAF fighter squadron on base equipped with A1 Sky Raiders, a newer and better airplane than the B-26. Each morning at 0830 the VNAF dashed out to their airplanes, started their engines and revved them up; scarves flying in the prop wash. At 0900 they switched off their engines and went back to base ops and played ping-pong until 1530 when they again dashed to their airplanes. This time only half would start and the lucky pilots whose engines started flew off into the wild blue yonder and were not seen again until they landed at 1615.

We could not figure out what they were doing for 45 minutes. Some of the guys removed their gunnery film and developed it and found out they were dropping bombs into the South China Sea, the Mekong River or on a Montagnard village.

Cost-cutting measures

En route to Bien Hoa I met a C-123 navigator who described the B-26’s as “snake-bit.” He was right. The “snake” was that paragon of cost-cutting Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Money was saved by not repacking the parachutes, not installing transponders in the airplanes and by returning to base with any unexpended ordnance. Landing with 3,000 pounds under the wings resulted in a large negative G force that severely weakened the wings. Mitchell and Campaign had been “in country” less than two weeks when they lost a wing over the target.

Capt. Bob Binderim was flying their wing and saw the accident. He said, “The wing came off, they did a snap roll and went into the ground.” Remedial action consisted of installing positive and negative G meters. We were instructed to pull no more than 1G. When you fired the nose guns the G meters were pegged in both directions.

Col. Finan and I went to Tainan, Taiwan, to bring back a B-26 that been rebuilt by China Air Transport (CAT). It looked new and was just beautiful. We flew back via Clark AB and landed at Bien Hoa in the late afternoon. I was on night alert with George Phillips; I found George and told him abut the “new” B-26 but George had already pre-flighted another B-26 which we flew that night. The next day John McClean and “Skip” Bedal flew the “new” B-26. They lost a wing over the target and we lost two more good guys.

Conditions

Flying low level in Viet-Nam was hot. The B-26 had no air conditioning and no air circulation; you could lose 15 pounds over a five-hour mission. I wore a survival vest over my fatigue jacket and in the outside pocket I kept a bottle of water purification tablets, but I sweated the label off of that bottle.

Once I made the mistake of giving our maid an unopened box of laundry detergent that she probably sold, since it was a full box, and instead washed our clothes in the local soap made with fish oil. Not only were we sweating in the aircraft, but we itched and smelled like two dead fish. From then on the maid got just enough soap to wash for that week.

We used to joke that we endured hours of monotony interspersed with moments of stark terror. We made a pass in the delta and just as we pulled up it got dark. The windshield was covered with mud! Mike looked at me and said, “I thought those were trees.”
I replied, “Nope, rice plants.”

We stopped on the runway and used the water in our canteens to wash off enough mud so we could see to taxi in. There were several times that I saw B-26’s parked with tree limbs hanging out of the bomb bay, but no one else brought home mud on the windshield. Other notable moments came when we found that one B-26 would not pull out of a dive with the bomb bay doors open. On some you had to waggle the wings to get the ordnance to fall off. Then there was the time that a wingman called us on the radio to tell us the arming propeller on our starboard 500-pound bomb was turning! We hit the “salvo” button and said, “Thanks!”

Near misses

One time we had just touched down with a full load when, in the blink of an eye, we were on the left side of the runway with dirt flying everywhere. A few hundred feet in front of us was a large hole, dug to reinforce the point where the runway joined a taxiway. I asked Mike if he could get back on the runway. He said, “No, but I can straddle that hole.” Straddle it we did, carrying six cans of naplam under the wings. Mike went back with the ground crew to inspect the area. The nose wheel missed the hole by 2½ inches. The right main tire came so close that dirt spilled into the hole. Mike could put a B-26 anywhere he wanted!

A good mission was called a “Zap” mission. Most of the time we never saw the target and never paid much attention to the results. We got a call late one afternoon from an Army Republic of Viet-Nam (ARVN) battalion commander asking for an immediate air strike because the VC had pinned down his battalion near Ca Mau. He feared that once it got dark the VC would annihilate his battalion. We got to his position just about dusk and made radio contact and the ground troops marked the target for us. Unfortunately, we began having engine trouble: fluctuating fuel pressure (prelude to a fire) in both engines.

Number one was running rough and number two was backfiring. Our problems were obvious to those on the ground but we made one or two passes and dropped everything we had, including six cans of napalm. We struggled to 1,200 feet and called Paris Control Air control at Saigon and gave them our position, altitude and heading. We were only about 60 miles from Saigon but they could not find us (a transponder would have been helpful). We knew we were on our own.

We limped back to Bien Hoa and landed. The battalion commander was on the phone and thanked us for saving his battalion. They counted over 200 VC KIAs. We got an Air Medal for “overflying a known enemy position.” After all, we were only advisors.

There were probably more stories that were hard to understand but one happened to Larry Granquist. Larry and his pilot, Howard Purcell, were flying out of Da Nang on some sort of easy mission; Sgt. Raphael Cruz was riding along in the gunner’s compartment. The engines were running when the base Intelligence Officer, Neil McKinney approached the plane and asked to go along for the ride. Howard turned to Larry and commented to the effect that McKinney was bored and that he, Larry, had plenty of flight time. Howard asked Larry to let McKinney go in his place. Larry agreed, got out and McKinney took his place. They took off and the plane was never seen again. No one had any idea what happened. Some speculated that they flew into a “box” canyon and could not get out.

The first B-26 was lost in December 1962, about a month after eight B-26s were stationed at Bien Hoa. The airplane was shot down by ground fire and the pilot rode the plane down. The navigator bailed out and was rescued after a few days of wandering around in the jungle.
Howard Cody, pilot and “Atie” Lielmanis, navigator, were lost in November 1963. They bailed out of their shot-up B-26; neither parachute opened. They had not been inspected or repacked for about a year. Atie had his first ride in a B-26 with Mike and me.

It was a memorable nine months with some great guys — courageous men who would defend America anytime, anywhere under any conditions.

History lesson

What was I doing there in 2009, risking life and limb in a search for history? It all started on 26 October 1944, long before I was born, when an attractive ferrying pilot named Gertrude Tompkins took off from what is now Los Angeles International Airport. She was a member of the elite Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP). She flew into an offshore fogbank and was never seen again.

During WWII, thousands of new airplanes were coming off assembly lines and needed to be delivered to ports on the East and West coasts, for shipment overseas. But most of America’s male pilots were overseas fighting the war. To deal with the problem, the government launched an experimental program, the WASPs, to train women pilots to fly military aircraft.

It was a unique time in history. Most women still remained at home and to tended to their families. Few people imag-ined that women could fly powerful warplanes. But the wartime emergency took precedence over traditional male-female roles. Over 25,000 women volunteered for the WASPs, but only about 1,000 were chosen for this unique opportunity to serve. The WASPs ferried 78 types of planes over 60 million miles, a huge contribution to the war effort.

Gertrude had fallen in love with an American aviator who was killed flying for the Royal Air Force during the early days of the war. This tragedy apparently sparked a keen interest in flying, and she took private lessons. She volun-teered for the WASPs, was selected, and reported to Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas, for training. She was so good that she was selected for fighter pursuit school, and became one of a handful of top woman pilots trained to fly the P-51 Mustang, the most powerful American fighter. She went on to ferry Mustangs and numerous other warbirds, until that fateful day in October 1944, when she took off last in a group of 30, headed from Los Angeles for Palm Springs and eventually for Newark, New Jersey. After her disappearance, a massive water and ground search turned up no trace of Gertrude or the plane. She is the last missing WASP.

The search
I was approached by Mike Pizzio, a member of the Explorers Club, who was putting together an elite technical dive team to search for Gertrude. Mike asked me to serve as the expedition’s chief medical officer and as a deep technical diver. I eagerly accepted the challenge.

Research and planning for the expedition had been underway for months, led by the Missing Aircraft Search Team (MAST) and MAST co-founder Chris Killian, an expert in aircraft archaeology. The technical dive team was tasked with clearing 55 dive sites that lay in Santa Monica Bay, off the end of the Los Angeles International Airport runway. The targets had been picked off of an underwater digital map compiled by the U.S. Geological Survey, then side-scan-sonared by underwater search experts Gene and Sandy Ralston. We had six days to clear the targets, using an all-volunteer team of 50 people, 10 technical divers and five boats. The team was supported by Gertrude’s remaining family, who described the effort as “the largest and most technically advanced effort undertaken in the search for Gertrude.”

On the next-to-last day of diving, I found the plastic cockpit piece. I brought it to the surface, where our experts, team members, and the press studied it avidly. Research now suggests that it came from a Cessna that crashed in 1973. Incredibly, both occupants survived and were picked up in 15 minutes by a rescue boat.

Two of our other search sites yielded possible aircraft wreckage, and are still being researched. A fourth site turned out to be a missing T-33A jet trainer that crashed in 1955 with two USAF lieutenants on board. They were killed, but the plane was raised, and the families were located and notified.

Hopefully someday soon we will be able to bring some similar closure to the family of Gertrude Tompkins. The search continues.

Editor’s note: Sharky Alexander has served for the last 20 years as a senior NCO in the USAFR, specializing in aircraft weapons technology. He also holds a USCG 50-ton captain’s license, and is a full-time paramedic in St. Charles, MO. His company, Sharky’s Underwater Expeditions, LLC, specializes in underwater search operations.

The 2009 parade honored the U.S. Navy with Captain James R. Knapp, Commanding Officer from the Lemoore Naval Air Station in neighboring Lemoore, CA, serving as Grand Marshal. Honored guest and first-time parade participant, Hmong General Vang Pao, rode in a restored 1955 Ford Thunderbird. Fresno County is home to a large Hmong community, many of whom are former soldiers who served alongside U.S. troops during the Viet-Nam War and came to the U.S. as refugees.

Parade festivities began with opening ceremonies at the Fresno City Hall, giving thanks to all who have served, and are serving our country. Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer said, “There can be no freedom without sacrifice.”

The parade began after the playing of Taps at exactly 11:11 a.m., commemorating the end of WWI. Two U.S. Navy F-16 Falcons from the 144th Fighter Wing of Fresno did a flyover, to spectator’s delight.

Fresno law enforcement estimated about 15,000 spectators lined the entire parade route and, according to a spectator I talked to, every year there is a large showing for this parade.

Grand Marshal Knapp said, “This city, this valley, embraces the military like none I’ve ever seen.”

People from all over Fresno County and beyond turn out for this parade in order to show their support for our veterans past and present.
The three-hour-long parade hosted over 10,000 military veterans and other individuals who participated in the parade along with 26 marching bands, several past and present military vehicles as well as many veteran’s organizations and U.S. military units. The parade was also televised and was linked up through the Armed Forces Network to broadcast it to our men and women serving overseas and stateside.

All in all, it was another successful parade with no trouble and proper respect given to our veterans.

On a personal note, it was perhaps the largest Veterans’ Day parade I have ever attended and I was proud to see so much respect and attention given to the area’s veterans. What the future holds, only God knows, but I believe as long as there is a Veterans’ Day and veterans around to support it, Fresno will always honor them.

My tale takes place in South Viet-Nam just after the Tet Offensive in 1968. My unit, the 515th Transportation Company, was located in Phu Bai, just south of Hue City in the northern province of Thua Thien. For a historical perspective, Hue City had just been retaken by elements of the Third Marine Division and 101st Airborne after being surrounded by more than 10,000 North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and Viet Cong soldiers. It was a terrible street-to-street fight that destroyed the once-beautiful French capital city. As one can guess, the scene was typical of many cities besieged by hostile firefights and artillery as the city lay in smoldering ruin. The city had been built along the banks of the “Perfume River” which had gotten its name from the scent of sweet smelling tropical flowers growing along its shores.

The Perfume River
I was just barely 18 and had been in-country only a bit more than a month and really didn’t know much of the current military tactical situation in the area. If I had, I probably would never had experienced this episode in my life as a U.S. Army soldier. This is how my story unfolds.

The NVA and Viet Cong had been testing our perimeter defenses with small arms firefights and rocket and mortar attacks almost daily. Our Commanding Officer, Captain Ronald Ash, decided it might be a good idea to build fighting positions inside our company area for fear of being overrun and we all decided that just might be a very good idea as our hooches were just a few yards away from the perimeter of the camp. In order to do so we needed sandbags, lot of sandbags. A detail was organized of which I volunteered to join.

Sandbags
Getting out of camp and seeing the local sights was high on my list of things to experience. Seven men were selected in the early morn-ing just after breakfast to get on a five-ton truck and drive northwest a few clicks away, outside our camp to a place known for its high quality of sand.

The Battle of Hue had just ended; the seven of us, all truck drivers, were decked out in full combat gear. We wore helmets, carried M-16 rifles and wore bandoleers of ammo slung over our shoulders. We made a pretty sight, trying to look like regular infantrymen but we were just plain, old, everyday truck drivers out on a mission to get sandbags.

The ride out to the sand pits was uneventful. It was a nice, cool day and I enjoyed the ride in the bed of the truck because I could really see the countryside and the few villages we drove through. It was obvious that we were in a war zone, the general destruction could be seen everywhere you looked.

When we arrived at the sand pits I noticed a rush of mama sans and baby sans (women and children) toward us. They were screaming at us all at once and made quite a noise. They wanted food and water and looked to be in a pretty sad state. We didn’t have much to offer, as we hadn’t planned to be there all day and didn’t think we’d miss any meals. We didn’t see the need to bring C-rations with us. But someone found a can or two somewhere and we handed those out to the kids who were jumping up and down around us. There were no sergeants or officers with us that day; this was just a trivial detail to get sandbags. The highest-ranking soldier among us was a specialist E-4 who had been in-country the longest in our group. He was our de facto leader.

We started to unload the empty bales of sandbags and shovels. I didn’t like the idea of filling the truck with hundreds of 25-pound sand-bags, but a detail is a detail and we had to get the job done. At least it was still cool with a slight breeze. Just as I began to fill my first sandbag, I overheard the E-4 taking to another GI about a brothel he knew about in Hue City. Soon he had everyone’s attention with his story about this house of ill repute. I don’t know who said it or how it started, but someone said, “We should go there.”

What? Leave our detail?!

“Holy shit,” I thought to myself, “don’t you guys know that we’re in an active war zone?”

A plan
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. These guys were actually planning on walking to Hue City and going to this brothel. The E-4 said we could give the mama sans a few bucks to do our job. Heck, we’d be back before they could finish the job anyway, he explained. The only real problem he said, was that the place was on the “other” side of the Perfume River. I had a pretty good idea what he meant about what the “other” side meant, as I had been to on the very first (all volunteer) relief convoy to enter Hue City at the end of the battle. Our forces had one side of the city and the NVA and Viet Cong were still being rooted out of the “other” side of the river by the South Vietnamese forces.

It was decided; we were actually going to this place. Two or three guys who knew better, declined; someone had to stay and guard the truck anyway. I remember very well the feeling I had as we got our gear together. When I heard the first M-16 round being slammed into its chamber I knew this was not going to be an ordinary day. I was excited and scared to death, but I wasn’t going to miss out on this wild ass adventure and locked and loaded my own M-16 and put its selector switch on full automatic. Off we went, five truck drivers in single file, down the road toward Highway One and Hue City.

Organized chaos
There was a lot of activity on the road. 101st Infantry troops were posted at small bridges and road intersections. They just looked at us as we walked by. We looked like every other “boot” on the road except for our shoulder unit patches. We wore the “1st Logistical Command Leaning Shit House” patch and merrily we walked, looking very much like any other infantry patrol to the outskirts of Hue City along the banks of the river.

The trip only took a few hours at a brisk pace. The “Perfume River” was anything but sweet smelling as the city was still smoldering from being blown to bits. It was like walking through organized chaos. Actual combat troops being rushed everywhere, speeding jeeps, civilians dragging carts trying to leave the city center. The scene was almost unbelievable, but no one seemed to notice us going in the wrong direction toward the other side of the river. I was amazed how easy it was.
But then, it was a war zone.

River crossing
Our first real obstacle was getting across the river. In our own attempt to recon the area, we found the only bridge across the river was heavily guarded by the 101st Military Police. That way was closed to us for sure, as no one was being allowed to cross the bridge. The South Vietnamese Army was still fighting it out with the NVA and Viet Cong, but we were a determined bunch.

We backtracked a few blocks and came upon some fishermen in sampans who, for a few bucks, ferried us across the river. No questions asked.

Still, no one took notice of us. Five truck drivers infiltrated Hue City, paid some sampan drivers a few bucks and actually got over to the other side of the river undetected by the U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps, South Vietnamese Army, NVA and Viet Cong. What a hoot, I thought to myself.

We made it across the river in one piece, climbed up the high grassy banks and found ourselves in an old residential neighborhood. It was obvious to me that the area was deserted and that a pitched battle had been fought there very recently. It was eerie to walk the broad avenues, smoke drifting across my path and seeing many magnificent homes and French villas in utter ruin. We walked at least four or five city blocks before we came to our destination.

The whorehouse
There it was: an old French villa with all the trimmings. A beautiful old building with pillared columns and colonial facade. We walked right through the front gate and simply knocked on the massive front door. To my surprise, and relief, an elderly matron greeted us at the door with a bow and bid us to enter. Imagine, five GIs in combat gear entering this old house as politely as we knew how. I was one of the first to go in and I was very impressed.

The main salon was huge with two-story-high ceilings. A grand staircase led immediately up the right hand wall to the upper floors. Only one problem, the back of the house had huge gaping holes where walls should have been; you could clearly see the back gardens. This house had seen a major firefight to be so heavily damaged. I remember wondering what was keeping that grand staircase from falling down. Anyway, we walked into the main salon and spread out on the divans, chairs and couches.

Someone had gone to a lot of effort to clean the place up as best they could, considering the circumstances. The matron immediately asked everyone if they wanted anything to drink, a coke or maybe some beer?

The mood changed from quiet awe to a boisterous laughter, as the guys and I took off our combat gear and started to relax. This had been quite an adventure so far and I, personally, was having a great time. Now it was time to get down to business and the reason we had risked our necks to get where we were: the ladies.

It was like out of an old time movie. The matron called out (in Vietnamese) and four of the prettiest Vietnamese girls I had ever seen walked into the room and lined up before us. Their black hair was nicely groomed and their clothes were fresh and clean in the typical Vietnamese style of the day. They simply stood there as the matron walked around them, offering them to us with hand gestures and smiles. (Mom, if you’re reading this, forgive me. I was in a war zone and didn’t know if I was gonna make it home or not.)

While the guys were just getting their beers and cokes served to them, I got up, picked the girl closest to that grand staircase and quietly climbed the stairs with her in polite tow. I know it’s rude to say, but I was going to have sex. Even if it was for only the second time in my life at that point, and I was going to enjoy it.

The staircase turned to the left and led down a wide hallway to a large and spacious bedroom. I remember stopping to look out one of the broken and crumbling walls to see an ancient building some hundred or so yards away across a wide open grassy field. I later learned that it was the Royal Citadel and was still occupied by remnants of the NVA and Viet Cong Forces.

I am way too much of a gentleman to describe the bawdy details of my sensual experience that late morning in early March; suffice it to say, it was way better than I ever expected. With that being said, just as I was adjusting my clothing (getting dressed), it all happened.

Hell breaks loose
Automatic gunfire broke the beautiful quiet of the morning from the villa’s front porch. I had immediate thoughts of my CO writing to my mother, sadly informing her that I was killed in a firefight in a brothel of all places. What a way to go.

I grabbed my gear and M-16 and raced down that staircase and was first on the scene. The E-4 had the wisdom to make one of our guys play lookout on the front porch. I found him crouched behind one of those splendid columns, spraying rounds down the street to my right. I could hear the sound of AK-47s not far away and tried to locate the direction and fire of the enemy, but I couldn’t find a clear target. Whoever was shooting at us was at least two blocks away down the street.

Our guys came rushing out and spread out on the front porch and lawn, and took up firing positions shooting wildly in the same direction of our lookout. I still couldn’t see a target, but we were sure under fire, as plaster from the building was popping all around me. It was time to get the heck out of Dodge!

Someone yelled, “Let’s get out of here!” and that’s all it took.

One other guy and I laid down suppressive fire while the others ran down the street in the direction we had come. They, in turn, gave us covering fire as we ran past them. We did this tactic block after block as we retreated back to the river. Whoever was shooting at us was getting way too close; I was sure we were all going to be killed.

All five of us were on the ground firing away when the strangest thing happened.

Wild ride
Out of nowhere, a jeep driven by a single GI came screaming around the corner and slammed to a stop not 10 feet from us. The driver yelled for us to get in and we did just that.

I got in the front passenger seat while everyone, literally, piled into the back seat (which normally fits two very tightly) and off we went. It was like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride at Disneyland.

I looked at the driver, a young Marine by his uniform. He had no rank insignia and was in terrible need of a shave and a bath. I yelled out and asked him where he came from. He only said that he was a deserter during the battle and had been hiding out not far from us when he heard the firing start. He yelled back that he could take us only a few more blocks to a major bridge that crossed over to our side of the river and that he had no intention of going back and being arrested. I could hardly believe what was actually happening.

A Marine deserter came to our rescue, dropped us off at a corner near the bridge and hightailed it back deep into enemy-held territory. The deserter asked me if I knew who was shooting at us. When I answered “No,” he just laughed.
I heard him say, “You guys were in a whorehouse controlled by the South Vietnamese Army. It was they who were shooting at you!”

Crossing back to our side
No sooner than we had said “Adios” to our rescuer, we saw the MPs running down the street yelling for us to “Halt!” These guys seemed really pissed off. I knew then that I was going to the stockade for deserting my post and for dereliction of duty. My ass was the grass the CO was going to mow. It was a terrible feeling to be marched across the bridge at gunpoint from our own boys. We all knew we were in terrible trouble and fell into a silent, head-down march of shame. The MPs had even taken our weapons from us.

Not far from the bridge was the MP and MACV headquarters where we were taken and told to wait while someone determined what to do with us. Some arrogant, and obviously very tired, captain came out of his office and demanded to know our unit’s name and location. He scolded us for being in “off-limit territory” and went back into his office. My seat on the bench in the hallway was closest to his office door and I could hear him talking to a switchboard operator, calling our unit and asking for our commanding officer.

Oh great! Get out the firing squad, I thought to myself.

“What do you want me to do with your men?” I heard the captain ask my CO over the phone. “Okay, no problem. Will do.” I heard him answer.

The captain came back into the hallway and yelled at all of us for a good five minutes before ordering a couple of MPs to escort us to the edge of the city and make sure we were all put on the first 515th truck they could find that would take us back to Phu Bai. They did just that.

Facing the music
In less than an hour we pulled up in front of the CO’s tent, back in the company area and were met by our first sergeant and our platoon sergeant, SFC Shomo. We were in the proverbial “bucket of shit.”

We were lined up and cussed out over by each of them. Then, one by one, we were told to go see the old man, our CO, Captain Ash. I was the last one to enter his tent. I could hear him screaming at the top of his lungs at each of the four other drivers, and then saw them run out the back of his tent. At least we weren’t going to be dragged off in chains, I thought.
Then, it was my turn.

Captain Ash had me stand at attention in front of his desk. “PFC Smith, reporting as ordered, Sir!”

And the yelling and cursing began. Courts martial and the stockade! Shame and dishonor! I’d be lucky to see daylight for years! He yelled and yelled at me. Red-faced and out of breath, he sat back down behind his desk and calmed himself, looking not at me, but down at his desk. With a heavy sigh, he looked up at me with a really strange smile on his face.
“Well, did you have a good time?” he slyly smiled and winked me.

“Sir, yes Sir!” I replied.

With that, he again screamed at me at the tops of his lungs to get the f**k out of his office. I ran out the back of his tent, as had my other four compatriots.

Nothing was ever said about this adventure again. There were no courts martial and the five of us didn’t even brag about it one bit, not even to each other.

I have often wondered whatever happened to that Marine deserter who saved our lives in Hue, and if he ever made it home. Somehow, I have a feeling he did.

I looked at Levin and said it was time to go outside and talk over this six-year term. While we were in the hall of the post office, we saw an Army recruiting poster on the wall. We both thought the Army pilot program sounded interesting. We enlisted in the Army for three years with an offer of three different assignments outside the United States: the Philippines, the Panama Canal Zone or Hawaii. We took Hawaii and later, when the war broke out with the Empire of Japan, we considered ourselves lucky, especially concerning the death march on Bataan after the Japanese starved out U.S. Army and Filipino troops.

After completing all the enlistment paperwork we were given train tickets to Fort Solkum, New York. My first job in the Army was a dockhand in the ferry running between Fort Solkum to the mainland. After four months, we left New York on a Navy transport, USS Washington, a German luxury passenger liner in her prior life. We went through the Panama Canal on our way to the Hawaiian Islands. The officers on the transport had staterooms, while we were assigned sleeping quarters in the hold, with rows of three high wood bunks. It was hot in the cargo hold, there was no air conditioning at that time, so we slept up on the deck where there was a breeze; it made the trip more livable.

My buddy, Frank Levin, was on the transport with me but when he walked down the gangplank in Honolulu he stumbled and fell hard onto the dock, severely injuring himself. He was taken to Fort Shaftner’s hospital and then the Army sent him back to the States and gave Levin an honorable discharge with disability. That ended Levin’s six months of Army Service.

The 86th Observation Squadron was attached to a fighter squadron stationed at Wheeler Field, but we moved to Bellows Field on the other side of the island from Pearl Harbor. I was assigned to the Photo Section, as I was the only guy who flew. At Bellows we had a small photo lab in a trailer and I flew photo missions over the entire island. I was at aerial photographer’s school on Wheeler Field when the Japanese attacked.

Backtracking
I want to start somewhat earlier prior to the Japanese attack to provide a look at what was going on in Hawaii. The entire island had been on alert for one week. The planes had been moved out of Wheeler Field and dispersed to alternate emergency airfields around the island. We had six of our squadron’s aircraft dispersed to Haleiwa Field and all planes flew back into Wheeler Field on Saturday morning, 6 December, after the alert was cancelled. They were parked in rows to prevent sabotage and not at the edges of the airfield.

I had Saturday and Sunday off, as was usual for the weekend. We were still at peace. I was going to visit my buddies at Bellows Field, then hitch a ride across the island into Honolulu for Saturday night. I intended to go with my squadron commander, Jim Stuart. He was one of the finest men I knew and became a General by the end of WWII. He flew from Bellows Field to Wheeler Field and back on weekends or when he had duty because his family lived in Wheeler Field’s officer quarters. I was going to fly with him from Wheeler Field to Bellows Field. While I was waiting for him, I saw two fuel trucks slowly going down the line of parked P-40s, refueling each one.

In a warning message sent to U.S. Army Major General Walter Short, Commander, U.S. Army Hawaiian Department from the War Department on 27 November 1941: “…undertake such reconnaissance and other measures you deem necessary.” The alert was cancelled with troops and aircraft returned to their bases.

I said to the fuel truck drivers, wouldn’t these parked aircraft make a hell of a target if the Japanese attacked? There had been all kinds of rumors. That morning, U.S. Army trucks were headed back to Schofield Barracks, bumper-to-bumper, returning from defensive positions around the island after being taken down from alert. On Saturday everything was returning back to pre-alert status and we were basically on holiday. When the squadron commander did not fly in from Bellows Field, I hitched a ride to downtown Honolulu. I had lunch and that night went to a USO dance.

The attack
On Sunday morning the U.S. Navy Harbor Report indicated there were 94 ships at Pearl Harbor: eight battleships, the target battleship Utah, nine cruisers, 31 destroyers, five submarines, 24 mine ships and 27 auxiliaries. The aircraft carriers were away from Pearl Harbor, delivering aircraft to Midway and Wake Islands. On Sunday morning I was bombed out of my bed. I was on the top bunk on the third floor when I heard and felt a tremendous explosion. Later, we found out the bomb impacted across the street in the housing area in an open area. The Japanese pilot released the bomb to hit the barracks but it barely cleared the top floor before striking the ground and detonating.

The first bomb dropped scored a direct hit on Wheeler’s Mess Hall, killing over 300 soldiers. On Sunday mornings, most of us slept in rather than going to breakfast, which was served at 0700. It was not a mandatory formation on the weekends, so that is why I was still in bed when the explosions woke me up. The first thing we did was run down to the ground floor, a mere 50 to 60 yards from the fully fueled P-40s parked on the concrete apron. We ran into the armament’s shack, and told the Sergeant to hand out the guns. He would not open the locked gate without a signature from an officer so we went ahead and tore down the wire and grabbed the guns.

There was a .50 caliber machine gun inside. I had never fired a gun the entire time I had been in the Army. Some of the aircraft armorers on the P-40s knew something about machine guns. Some of these guys ran down to the flight line’s armament shack to retrieve the .50 caliber machine gun ammunition and bring the belts back to the barracks. We set up the machine gun on its tripod and my job was to feed the ammunition belt into the gun.

The Japanese were flying below the tops of the buildings, strafing and bombing. This went on for about an hour, with a 30-minute pause before the second wave of Japanese aircraft attacked. I could see the Japanese aircrews with their leather helmets, goggles and scarves. The rear gunners on the dive and horizontal bombers fired their .30 caliber machine guns at us on the ground. When we started firing the .50 caliber machine gun, it froze after 15 to 20 rounds. We did not know it was necessary to pump water into the machine gun’s cooling jacket to keep it from overheating. The guys with me were more familiar with the operation of air-cooled .50 caliber machine guns on the P-40s. We learned a quick lesson on the operation of a .50 caliber machine gun.

We lay down in the open area next to the barracks on a concrete pad. They handed me a 1905 Springfield rifle and showed me how to load it with single bullets, there weren’t any .30 caliber bullet clips available. They went down and got some .30 caliber ammunition from the flight line’s armament shack. I loaded the bullets into the rifle and got ready to fire at the attacking Japanese aircraft. As the Japanese planes flew low at a distance of approximately 60 yards, with flaps down to slow its speed, I fired directly at the pilot and squeezed the trigger. My bullet passed to the rear of the aircraft. That was the first time I fired a gun in the Army.

We went down onto the flight line after the end of the first Japanese bombing wave to one of the hangars packed with .30 and .50 caliber ammunition boxes. The hangar was burning and flames spread to the wood ammunition boxes. I noticed a bombshell fragment on the hangar floor and stuck it in my pocket while I began to drag out non-burning ammunition crates. The Japanese second wave was bombing and strafing while we were dragging out the undamaged ammunition crates.

I am not a big guy and the ammunition boxes were heavy. There was an aircraft tug close by, used to pull aircraft around the aircraft parking apron and into and out of the hangars, fitted with a thick curved steel bumper. Japanese .30 caliber cannon shells were piercing the steel bumper and this was not a pleasant sight.

The previous morning, on the bulletin board, there was a picture of a wounded Chinese civilian with skin burns on his arms from a reported Japanese mustard gas attack. I was scared to death of a similar attack and I had a practice gas mask in my locker on the barrack’s third floor. It was not very practical but it might provide a limited amount of protection. I got up and started to run up to the third floor to retrieve my gas mask, but every time I put my foot on the first step, a bomb exploded. Finally, I got the courage to run up the stairs to get my gas mask. If I had been half smart, I would have gone down into the basement of the concrete barracks for protection.

On high alert
That night, after the first few shots on the .50 caliber machine gun taken from the barrack’s armory, I was considered a machine gun expert. We were assigned to go into the housing area with a .50 caliber machine gun and set up a defensive position. We were expecting a Japanese attack sometime during the night and I was put in charge of the machine gun crew; even though I was a Private I had five or six guys working with me. We built a machinegun nest using cement bags because we didn’t have any sand bags available. When it was all set up I was officially in charge of the gun’s operation.

About midnight, the loudest racket you ever heard broke out. One of my guys was firing the machine gun into the air marked by tracers, and he was not the only one firing into the black night sky. I asked him what he was shooting at and he said he didn’t know, but that everyone else was shooting into the night sky. I told the kid to stop firing and after that we heard a random shot now and then. Anything that moved, a cat or dog, was shot at. The entire island was trigger-happy.

The morning after
I had not taken any pictures during the Japanese attack and on Monday morning I thought I had better get back to work at the photo lab. I showed up and started to help the others get things organized. I was told to grab my photographic equipment, and my parachute, and head toward the flight line. I was going up in a B-18 to take photos of the destruction in Pearl Harbor and surrounding military installations.

Master Sergeant Gorges was in charge of the photo lab and he was going along on this aerial photographic mission as my navigator. We flew at an altitude of 200 to 300 feet over Pearl Harbor for a couple of hours, taking pictures to create a mosaic of the damage. We had to guess our flight path on each new run because we did not have any reference points. Below us there were hundreds of small boats in the oil-blackened water. There were fires and smoke everywhere, increasing the difficulty of flying a precise route. The USS Oklahoma had capsized, with its bottom up, and was covered with hundreds of men using air hammers and cutting torches trying to reach the men still trapped inside. We flew low enough to see the faces of the men working on the battleship. I had a close up view of the destruction and damage below. The boats in the water were looking for and pulling dead bodies out of the water.

We landed and I went back to the lab to develop the black and white film into 10-by-14-inch photographs, creating a mosaic of the harbor.

Another story
Shortly after this I had the opportunity to apply for pilot training as I intended to do in 1940 when enlisting into the Army. As long as I was going to continue flying, I might as well be the one doing the flying. The flight surgeon checked me out and told me he could pass me, but that my eyes would not pass on the pre-flight physical in the States. I asked him to sign it and he did, and I was given orders for the States.

Prior to boarding a military transport out of Pearl, an officer asked if I had anything of a military nature in my footlocker. Without thinking, I opened it and handed him my copies of the 10-by-14 inch photos of Pearl Harbor. That was the last time I saw them.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor vaulted the United States into WWII, ending America’s neutrality in the war. This war did not end until 2 September 1945 with the signing of the terms of unconditional surrender onboard the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

I choked back a laugh just looking at him. By any description, this lad was the runt of the litter. He was dressed in bits of GI with the black and white duds Korean kids wore. Dark black hair defied containment under a soft Army cap, jutting out in cowlicks refusing to be tamed. His wide, gap-toothed grin added to his comic book appearance; long olive-green socks hung like drapes over combat boots a few sizes too large.

One of the guys in my outfit must have given him my name. He walked up to me, looked straight into my face and said, “I’m gonna be your houseboy, Jockey MeGuire.” Young Korean boys were attaching themselves to outfits all over the peninsula and were called either interpreters or houseboys by our troops. Being the independent sort, I resisted temptation.

I peered down at him and replied, “No thanks, I don’t need any houseboy.”

“Yes, yes, you need itchy bon number one boy, that’s me, is all settled; I work for Jockey MeGuire,” he uttered.

Again, I chuckled a bit, but now at the youngster’s insistence. What surprised me was how well Korean kids spoke English, although I wasn’t exactly thrilled at how he pronounced my name. Trying to appear serious, I tightened my shoulder holster and replied, “Look, my name is Jack, Jack Mick Guire, you understand?”

“Yes, Jockey MeGuire, all time number one soldier.”

“The name is Jack and will you stop with the number one stuff.”

“Oh, yes, yes, you take rest now Jockey, let Choi Bum Sak clean truck all time number one.”

With that I had to walk away for fear of losing it completely. A moment later he pounced on the truck and began scrubbing away.

“What the hell?” I thought, from the beginning my chances were slim and nil. I shook my head, still trying to hold back a laugh and warned, “You better do a good job, Dirty Sock.”

His wide gap-toothed ridiculous grin beamed back and said, “Okay, okay, Dirty Sock all time Jockey MeGuire number one houseboy.”

Well, you know after that, all the guys in my unit called me Jockey, but the Dirty Sock handle stuck with him as well.

Life in Korea
At that stage of the war we were rolling up and down the Korean peninsula. My outfit picked up and delivered everything required to run an Army. Dirty Sock made most of these runs. Hell, the truck was his home. Our moves were just about daily, always edging north. The kids seemed to know where we were headed before we did; my gear was always packed in advance, which spoke reams for our Army intelligence corp.

It was late summer 1950 and thanks to the Korean kids, the motor pool expanded. Our company commander and the remainder of the officers used houseboys so no one complained. Early in the war, Division assigned a company of South Korean infantry to our unit to help with perimeter security. When we moved in convoy it gave the outfit a United Nations appearance.

Chow time was especially good theater. GIs were assigned government-issued mess kits while the Koreans only used round metal cans. On those rare days when the mess tents were doling out hot grub, the show began. The cooks on the chow line heaped spoonfuls of food, one on top of the other, into those tins. They relished topping off beef, mashed potatoes and hot gravy with peaches in heavy syrup. We watched in amusement as our Asian friends, equipped with large spoons, devoured their meals. After dinner they thanked everyone with a polite bow. Our guys would have paid admission for the show.

Our moves became more frequent now that the invaders were on the run. They were pushed back across the 38th Parallel from which they launched their attack. Part of our outfit remained in Seoul while the rest of us headed into North Korea. The war was almost over; we’d be home by Christmas if you believed the scuttlebutt.

Mail run
My company commander asked me to make a run south to pick up our mail, which, for some reason, was being diverted to the rear. My orders included picking up an officer for the return trip.

Danny Davino, an Italian from Brooklyn, was assigned to ride as shotgun for the haul. Davino was the high-strung Mediterranean type, nervous as a cat in a dog pound. The last thing either one of us needed was trouble. Danny’s big problem was he moved constantly, one minute he’d be tapping his rifle butt on the floor plate, the next he was thumping his feet. He played the drums to no particular tune with an incessant staccato. Threatening him with a long walk worked like magic.

Driving those mountain roads was the experience of a lifetime; our precision bombing destroyed every bridge in the country and engineers rebuilt shattered roads around the destruction. Hordes of Korean refugees plied those roads as the war ebbed south and back north again.

We were rolling along nicely, making good time, when I heard tapping. I looked over at Danny and he shouted, “It ain’t me, it’s in the back.”

I slowed down to a crawl when I heard a familiar voice say “Jockey MeGuire, Jockey MeGuire.”

I pulled over and stopped. Dirty Sock came bounding from the rear and quickly jumped up beside me. “Doggone stupid kid falls asleep in truck,” he said, mimicking the way I chastised him.

“No, you’re brilliant, smart enough to get me court-martialed,” I shouted.

“It’s all a big mistake, Dirty Sock sleeping in truck,” said the boy.

Suddenly Danny’s rifle discharged, the bullet ripped a dime-sized hole in the rooftop of the cab. The sound was deafening, but my first reaction was to slam on the brakes. Dirty Sock, meanwhile, threw his arms in the air, fell forward holding his chest, “Number one houseboy takes bullet for Jockey MeGuire.” He wailed.

“You’re gonna take one all right,” I angrily replied, my ears still ringing from that blast.

Davino was fumbling with his M-1, ejecting all the shells from the clip. “Jesus Christ, Mac” he hollered, “I just squeezed off a round, but I swear to God I don’t know how it happened.”

He was visibly upset, his face pale with remorse.

“All right, pick up those loose rounds, put another clip in that rifle and keep your fingers off the trigger from now on.” I said in as calm a voice as I could manage.

I jammed the truck back in gear and proceeded on our course. “By the way Dirty Sock, tell me, when did you decide to become a stand up comic?” I queried.

The boy just lowered his eyes, sensing wisely enough my patience was stretched to far.

A few hours later we arrived in Seoul. I was surprised at how much mail accumulated. The load actually filled the truck to capacity. I reminded Dirty Sock to hide amongst the sacks and be quiet. We picked up the replacement officer, a very West Point-type captain.

His combat fatigues were pressed better than my dress uniforms. He looked at me and said, “I’ll ride in the back, Sergeant.”

“We got quite a load of mail back there, Sir.” I stammered, while looking apprehensively at Danny.
“You can sit in the front, Sir. I’ll ride in the back,” Danny offered.

“No soldier,” he insisted, “your job is shotgun. I’ll take up the rear,” he replied as he swung over the tailgate.

I looked at Danny and winced, but minutes later we were motoring again.

Trouble on the road
I wanted to get back to our company as quickly as possible. A GI’s lifeblood is a letter from home and our mail had been held up for months. Guys would read their hometown newspaper until the ink wore off, plus it’s an instant trans-fusion of morale.

The ride was smooth, but dusty though those mountain roads. Moving along a steep grade I noticed the brakes were soft. We were moving fast so I tried pumping them up, then I tried dropping gears, but we were moving much too fast. I looked over at Danny, but he was fast asleep, leaning forward on his rifle. We were going downhill faster than I’d ever experienced and my jittery nervous friend, the incessant foot tapper, was in the arms of Morpheus. If he only knew his side of the road dropped off into a deep canyon, he’d faint.

Pulling left, I tried brushing against the bank in an effort to slow down. The truck was literally bounding after hitting a series of large bumps. I was standing upright trying to reach the emergency brake, but I couldn’t. If I released my grip on the wheel we would have bounced into the canyon. In desperation, I shouted, “Pull the emergency brake,” but Davino snored on, still clutching his rifle.

Again I hollered, “Pull the emergency brake,” to no avail. I have no idea how far we traveled down that mountain road, but I realized we were approaching the bombed-out bridge. The engineers had bulldozed a new road around the mountain of crumbled steel and concrete leading to the river. At the speed we were traveling, I knew in my heart we’d never make it, but we skidded sideways, kicking up clouds of dust until finally entering the river in about six inches of water. Our impetus took us halfway across before we came to a halt. I jumped into the riverbed, ran to the passenger side of the truck reached up and tossed Danny out into the water.

I remember seeing a figure appear from the back of the truck. Sure enough, it was the Captain. Mr. West Point’s face was ashen. His uniform, his hair, looked like someone who has been tumbled in a clothes dryer. “You’re a crazy lunatic,” he screamed. “A raving out of control, madman,” he screeched.

Just then Dirty Sock appeared, looking much like the Captain. He eased close to my side brimming with admiration and said, “Jockey MeGuire, you number one itchy bon all time driver.”

Well, it’s all in one’s point of view I reckon, but the Captain wasn’t buying it at all. He stumbled forward, trying to pull himself together. “Sergeant” he stammered, “this circus is over, consider yourself under arrest, I’m driving from now on.”

I looked at the Captain for a moment and replied, “Sir, I know it was a rough trip, but I lost the brakes, not much I could do about that.”

Danny meanwhile struggled to his feet. “What happened? I fell asleep back there a ways.”

The captain leered at him and shouted, “You’re a disgrace to the uniform, get your rifle off the ground and get back in that truck.”

Danny dutifully followed orders and hopped back in the truck. Flushed with power, Mr. West Point looked at me and said, “You and that Korean National will ride in the back.”

“I’m sorry, Sir,” I replied. “The truck is signed out to me, I’m under company orders, Sir.”

“You’re refusing a direct order?” He shouted.

“No, Sir, I’m proceeding with regular orders.”

“We’ll see about that,” he retorted.

That was it. Knowing Danny wished to survey the brakes, I pulled over to dry land. One good reason for having him ride shotgun was his mechanical ability. He slid under the truck and hollered for me to pump the brakes. Minutes later he re-appeared and said, “They’re good now; all I had to do was bleed them a bit.”

At that, Mr. West Point moved to the back of the vehicle and clambered aboard.
Dirty Sock jumped in next to me sporting his wide smile and we were back on the road. We finished the trip in strained silence.

The men were ecstatic over the mail. Chow time was unusually quiet, although one guy complained the cake his mother sent was all crumbs.

An impression
Joe Cann, the Company Commander, plopped down next to me as I polished off my C-rations. He was a regular Army guy with a sense of humor.

“Hear you had brake trouble, Mac,” he chuckled.

“Yes, Sir, sure did shake that Captain up,” I replied.

“Oh, yeah, he mentioned something about that,” he said. As an afterthought, he looked at me real serious like and said, “By the way, the Chinese entered the war. The South Korean Army is picking up a lot of these houseboys.”

I reckoned he was trying to tell me something, but they couldn’t take Dirty Sock, he was only a kid. Minutes later my concerns were answered. The ROK Army was rounding up every kid in the compound. Soldiers posed rifle ready around a large group of recruits. The candidates stood at attention four deep. Dirty Sock, looking a trifle older among his countrymen, stood in the rear line. His eyes looked straight ahead. He appeared taller; his shoulders were square and military. An Army hard hat matured him beyond his years.

A Korean Army truck pulled in front of the group. The officer in charge shouted commands, forming them into single file. Two soldiers yanked the tailgate down, another soldier jotted down their names as they boarded. My friend, looking very much alone, was last in line. As I moved closer to the truck one of the guards brought his rifle up smartly. The officer shouted again, bringing the man to attention. I looked at Dirty Sock and asked, “Can I help in any way?”

He shook his head and replied, “Korean Army say no is no more argue.”

“Well, look, you take care of yourself, don’t get hurt, okay,”

“I be good soldier like Jockey MeGuire, Communists have big trouble with Dirty Sock.”

I couldn’t find any more words, plus the line was moving closer to the truck. Finally, I held out my hand and my friend held onto it tightly. The only thing I had of value was my pocketknife, so I pressed it into his hand. Dirty Sock held it up proudly as he boarded the vehicle. As they moved away my young friend flashed that absurd gap-toothed smile.

The boy left quite an impression on me so I thought of him often. The war escalated with China’s intervention. We went up and down the Korean peninsula once again. A few months later I received a letter from him, but it was unintelligible. There was a return address so I replied, giving my address in the States.

Ten years after the war, I received a well-written typed letter from Korea. My friend survived the war with only a slight wound. He sent a photo of his wife and son — a boy named Jockey with a wide gap in his smile. A business card dropped out of the envelope with the name Doctor Choi Bum Sak printed across it. He signed the letter, “Your number one friend, Dirty Sock.”

I found out later from an Army buddy that Danny Davino contracted Lou Gehrig’s disease; until then I never felt guilty about throwing him into that river.

Two of us in our company were found to be marginally colorblind so after graduating from boot camp, we were transferred over into the Seabees. This was quite alarming to me, but it turned out to be a very good educational experience for this young boy from the reservation.

Training
I reported for duty that September at Camp Perry, a large training base for the Seabees located at Williamsburg, Virginia. About a month later, I was put on a draft, which sent me to Camp Endicott at Davisville, Rhode Island, where I was temporally assigned to the Base Ship Company. Because I knew how to drive a truck, I quickly found myself behind the wheels of a coal truck delivering coal to all of the barracks on base. That was a job that I was well suited for.

Sometime in early October, I was again transferred, into the 28th NCB as a replacement after their return from Iceland where they built an airstrip. The 28th was newly designated as an Amphibious Pontoon Battalion and they began working on various pontoon systems at Quonset Point. Again, I was a truck driver. A short time later, an all-volunteer Causeway Unit (formed as the 2304th Special Detachment) was being assembled from the ranks of the 28th Battalion. The new unit consisted of ten line platoons and a HQ platoon. I volunteered because I saw the opportunity to get overseas faster, which eventually came to pass. Lt. Fred Wise was my new CO.

We trained on and learned about the pontoons for about 2½ months as Lt. Wise brought us together as a well-oiled unit. He had distinguished himself during the landings at Salerno, Italy, and was an excellent officer. In late January, it was time to go; we went by train to Newport News, Virginia, and about the first of February, we boarded an old Liberty ship. (Often called a Kaiser coffin because so many of them had been sunk; the name came from the ship’s builder, Henry Kaiser.)

Heading overseas
We became a part of a very large — and slow — ship convoy headed east. Our speed, reported to be about 4 knots, was determined by the speed of the slowest ship in the group. And a couple of those slower ships did pull out after a day or two for another destination.

There wasn’t much room on that ship so the cooks had to make the bread during the night, as the space was needed during the day to cook and serve our two daily meals. I happened to be standing next to the lieutenant when a cook asked for some nighttime help; I quickly found myself to be a “cook’s helper,” making bread. The schedule was tough because I found it impossible to sleep during the day with constant “abandon ship drills” going on.

We were at sea for 21 days before we reached the Strait of Gibraltar. A submarine scare occurred just before we entered the Strait but it was soon diverted by the depth charges from the accompanying destroyer escorts. The big rock was an awesome sight. Another five days found us leaving the convoy and making port in Oran, Algeria. By then I was one wide-eyed 17-year-old who was about to witness a remarkable string of events.

Traveling in Africa
The harbor was full of sunken ships and many of the buildings were nothing more than rubble. I will never forget my first view as we disembarked and I saw a half destroyed building with a Coca Cola sign painted on the side; I didn’t know it was sold way over there.

We were given one day of liberty in Oran to loosen up after over three weeks aboard that cramped ship and the next morning we were went by truck to the rail yard and boarded an old French narrow-gauge train. The rail cars were all old WWI type 40-8 boxcars (40 men or 8 horses). There was no way for all of us to sit down at once, so we traded places regularly with those forced to stand. A handful of men decided to climb up onto the few flat cars attached to the train and sit inside the trucks and other equipment being transported. Our meals consisted of cans of C-rations, enough for two meals a day. We traveled for seven days, crossing the war-torn landscape of Algeria and most of Tunisia before arriving in Bizerte.

One day we passed through an area and encountered a huge swarm of locusts. The sky was black and it was almost impossible to see the few people who were standing along the tracks. We had to cover our faces for a good two hours to keep the flying insects out of our noses and mouths. Being in an open boxcar didn’t help. Finally, we arrived in Algiers and again, the harbor was full of sunken ships.

It was almost dark and the men riding the flat cars were like the rest of us, just trying to get some sleep, but when they awoke the next morning, the train was long gone, leaving them in a strange Arab environment, sitting on flat cars that had reached their destination. With the help of some Army personnel, they began to jump on every train that passed through, and there weren’t many. It took them about two weeks before they caught up to us in Bizerte. We thought it was funny, but the lieutenant felt otherwise.

Upon arriving in Bizerte, we were trucked over to an old French naval base named Karuba at Ferryville, a harbor near Bizerte, the advanced training and assembly point for the future landings in southern France. We saw dozens more sunken ships in the harbor and many destroyed buildings. We merged with the 1040th Causeway Detachment already on station; Lt. Wise remained the CO and I was still in HQ Co. driving trucks.

The situation at the Anzio beachhead, just south of Rome, was critical so one platoon was quickly sent up to assist the Seabees already there. The rest of us remained in Karuba to continue our training. We were put up in a bombed-out building that at one time been a nice place; when we were there, the roof was gone. We could not find the latrines, until we figured out that they were Asian style: just a hole in the floor. Many other surprises awaited me.

Bound for Italy
In late March we loaded on LSTs and sailed to Naples where we were temporally assigned to the 8th Amphibious Force and the pontoon platoons were all assigned to an LST. I was one of seven or eight men in the advanced HQ Company and we were bivouacked in an old foundry in the nearby town of Torre Annunziata; the rest of the HQ people stayed in Bizerte. As soon as we arrived, the ships began landing exercises with our pontoon men. One string of cans came ashore on the beach at Pazzouli, a small town just above Naples, and hit a beach mine that the Germans had placed; we lost some men. I kept driving trucks and witnessed a world of destruction left behind by the war. The lack of water, electricity or plumbing was common everywhere and, even at the age of 17, I felt the hardship of the population. I was growing up fast.

Mount Vesuvius erupted prior to our arrival and the mountain still had a lot of hot spots. One day I drove my weapons carrier as far up the road as was passable, and then found a farm boy who agreed to walk us on up to the top in a safe route. It was a frustrating climb. While we were up there, we witnessed a German plane flying over the harbor in Naples and all the ships were firing at the plane; it was strange to be looking down on it all. We later found the ruins of old Pompeii and took a self-directed tour. The place was mind-boggling as well as historical. All of these experiences formed lasting memories for this 17-year-old boy.

The Isle of Capri, situated just outside the Bay of Naples, had been turned into a rest camp for officers only. As enlisted men, we could not go onto the island but we circled it and threw hand grenades from our amphibious “ducks” to gather fish for our meal back at the foundry. I turned 18 while in Naples.

I never had the chance to fire my weapon, but I was close enough to see what was happening. Total destruction was everywhere. War souvenirs were plentiful and I had a sea bag full to bring home, including a fine German Luger pistol.

France
On 15 August 1944, our units went ashore at Saint Raphael and Saint Tropez, situated between Toulon and Marseilles on the southern coast of France. I was still driving my truck in Italy. Several platoons remained in Toulon to help clear the dock area where the French had scuttled a number of ships.

Shortly after the invasion of southern France, we all returned to Bizerte and prepared to return to the States for redeployment. Again a call went out for volunteers to stay and assist in the decommissioning of naval bases in Oran and Arzeu in Algeria. I stayed and a new unit was formed and called the 626th CBMU (a maintenance unit). Both bases had belonged to the French before the war, but our Navy had taken over on a lend-lease agreement. No longer needed, they were returned to the French.

In June 1945, we were picked up in Oran by the troopship West Point, a converted luxury liner and we proceeded to Naples where several thousand soldiers came aboard. Five days later we arrived back in Newport News.

My last duty station was at Port Hueneme in Oxnard, California, and I was discharged on 1 April 1946. I had left the reservation as a green young boy and returned a seasoned young man.