Baa Baa Black Sheep (14 page)

Later, when we talked to the Second Pursuit, we found that Jack Newkirk would not be back either. He had not found the Chiengmai field, but had found a line of trucks instead, which his outfit had strafed thoroughly. One of his pilots said that the last he saw of Jack was a ball of flames as his plane plowed into the ground, rolling end over end in a crumpled mass.

My thoughts couldn’t help go back to the two previous evenings. Jack had gotten the word.

By April I became so anxious to get out of Kunming, and all that it meant to me, that I damn nearly would have volunteered to walk back to the United States.

Chennault had again called us together after more recent developments, and he gave us the lowdown concerning the group’s future. He talked about the imminent “induction” and said that he had been able to stall it off so far. He said that he had told the top Air Corps general in Far Eastern Command that he could not permit the “induction” until the time came when the Air Corps was in a position to supply aircraft, personnel, and matérial.

There had been a deadline set for “induction”—July 1, 1942. Chennault claimed that he had fudged a bit on this agreed deadline date, that already the Air Corps was in a position to let us have a few P-40s ferried into Kunming, and that it would not be long before personnel and material would be coming.

I had a regular commission waiting for me in the Marine
Corps, as I happened to be the only regular who had gone on the mission; the others were all reserves. I asked: “What can be done in a case like mine?”

Chennault’s answer to this was concise and positive as he said: “I have my orders. Everybody is to be commissioned in the Air Corps not later than July 1, 1942.”

I wasn’t satisfied and said: “But how about the written agreement back in Washington? I understand it is legal.”

“I thought I made myself clear.” He turned, ending the conversation for good. It appeared impossible for Chennault to register any emotion on his deep-lined, leathery face at any time. I gathered the impression that he thought his face was a piece of Ming-dynasty chinaware he was afraid might break if he were to show emotion of any kind.

My thoughts were really tangled up by this time, beyond belief. Apparently those secret papers lying in Admiral Nimitz’s safe in Washington were to be no help for me in far-off China. I already had plenty to worry about without adding concern for the current predicament I found myself in. The one and only letter I received prior to the mail being cut off by the war had been a bitter one from my mother. I never got completely out of one situation before I was in another.

My mother hadn’t gone into much detail, but she said that the juvenile court had taken our three children away from my ex-wife in Seattle, but not to worry because they had gone down and picked up the children, and they were on the ranch with her. My arrangement with my parents and a lawyer was being carried out, to pay off my indebtedness, for I had allotted practically my entire salary for this purpose.

Actually, I had a great deal to be thankful for, and I didn’t realize it. I was an emotionally immature person of the first order, which does not help peace of mind or make happiness. Frankly, this is what makes screwballs and I’m afraid that I was one.

Regardless of any of my self-manufactured troubles, or any troubles a mature person may have that he solves by himself, there was one thing that dwelled in my mind. If I were forced to continue my occupation for any length of time, I might not survive, for this war had all the earmarks of being a lengthy affair. And if I didn’t survive, there was going to be a slab of marble with Gregory Boyington, USMC, inscribed thereon in Arlington National Cemetery.

For I had discovered that there are some United States Government-connected careers that pay off handsomely, and I hadn’t chosen one of these. Not that I wasn’t a government worker of sorts. But my chosen field, sitting behind a single engine killing people with six machine guns, was no way to get rich—or, for that matter, even live to a ripe old age.

Apparently, at this time, I was suffering from something I like to call “mental diarrhea.” This state occurs when a person devotes so much time to working out things that might happen—and they usually do—that he isn’t capable of taking care of his daily thinking worth a damn. So, in desperation from thinking, he usually winds up getting stinking.

Although this is fairly clear to me now, there were very few who felt free to discuss the subject with me in the past, unless they happened to be affected the same as I was—and were feeling much braver than usual. Occasions of this nature did happen, however, altogether too often to suit me, especially when I was in places where I didn’t try to conceal my emotions at all.

One night I had held up a Chinese driver for quite a lengthy time outside our hostel bar, while I carried on an endless conversation with some pilot seated in the bar. The driver didn’t seem to mind, but one of our mechanics most certainly did, and said so.

In answer to a great amount of swearing, finally, I left my bar stool and went outside to get into a waiting station wagon. The mechanic, seated in the back of the vehicle, had apparently been drinking, and shouted: “You Goddamned ex-officers think you can hold anybody up. Don’t you? You’re nothing but a bunch of drunken bastards.”

I must say that “bastard” was accepted as a word of endearment, but the word “drunken” cut me deeply.

Then he threatened: “I’m going to teach you a lesson you’ll never forget,” and out of the station wagon he started.

I have no idea why my Supreme Power blessed a lug like myself with strength and co-ordination both, but he did. And as my adversary threw open the car door and started to lunge out, my co-ordination came into full play, for I believed that he was going to try to do just exactly as he had threatened to do. He had one hand occupied pushing the door completely open, one foot on the ground, and the other foot on the way down to propel himself in my direction, and that was my time
to counter, not after he had swung a punch. So without hesitating, I stepped into him and my right crossed automatically.

One blow and he crumpled to the ground, but he hadn’t been knocked out even though my blow had struck him flush on the button, I thought. But his leg was broken. On this occasion I felt truly sorry the next day, and went across town to the hospital near Hostel Number One to tell the poor fellow so. He happened to be a good sport, for he held no grudge, and had informed the staff that he had slipped and broken his leg when they inquired.

We AVG Flying Tigers were invited one night to another banquet in the famous couple’s honor once again at the large dining hall in Hostel Number One. I had gotten dressed up and I had driven over to the hostel with the others, but I didn’t go into the banquet hall, so I spared myself the last of the corny after-dinner speeches that Madame Chiang was so famous for. An ex-Navy flyer, Bartell, and I had decided to remain in the bar while the Madame was blowing smoke like she always had before, so we didn’t go to dinner at all.

We couldn’t see the dining hall from where we sat, but we could hear hands clapping down the long corridor to the bar. Each time we heard clapping we would re-enact, from past performances, a part of her speech.

As I recall, Bartell’s and my conversation went like this:

“I wish to thank General Chennault and his glorious staff, who are seated at my table, for instructing you in tactics.”

“What tactics, lady? I’ve seen better-looking men in lineups than you got at your head table.”

“The Generalissimo and I would be willing to give our own lives, if we could, along with those who have so gallantly given theirs.”

“I would like to get close enough to the mummy she calls the Generalissimo, just once, to see if he is really breathing.”

The dinner and speech were finally over and Chennault was taking the famous couple through the hostel on a Cook’s tour, when the party ran into Bartell and myself in the bar. Apparently my friend had had so much to drink by this time he had to remain seated, but I jumped to attention. Chennault
later complimented me for at least having the courtesy to stand at attention.

Personally I couldn’t see how Chennault figured them. It was so obvious that the Generalissimo was nothing but a front who never said anything on his own or even thought for himself. The Madame did everything. Chiang Kai-shek just seemed to be led around where she wanted him to be led, and, right or wrong, I was positive that the Madame was a number-one con artist if I had ever seen one.

I had doped out that the male’s having to be the power for Oriental prestige was the only reason for Chiang being around at all. It was to take long time, but I was finally satisfied, for even the Democrats got wise to this setup. The last trip to Washington for both Chennault and the Madame proved fruitless, according to the newspapers.

Of course the newspapers hadn’t mentioned why, but I doubt whether they really knew. Even provided that everything was on the level, how in hell did we think Chiang could clean up twenty-six different-speaking provinces when it took us nearly a hundred years to clean up the Tong wars in San Francisco?

Shortly after the dinner episode I got a welcome brief trip away from Kunming. We got an opportunity to escort some twin-engine Russian bombers flown by Chinese pilots. And our fighters had to gas up at my familiar old mountain village, Mengtzu. During the confusion of rolling many gasoline drums about the strip there I thought back upon my two previous visits alone.

Mengtzu was handled by one lone AVG radioman. I recalled his inviting me into his tattered quarters and explaining how he had overcome the months of loneliness. He had told me of making a purchase in the little village.

This radioman had bought a Chinese woman from her father, and she lived with him as a wife, cooking his meals and helping him while away the lonely nights. I had seen his woman, a typical native, and she spoke only Chinese. I recalled turning down everything in the nature of hospitality that the radioman offered me, except a couple of drinks before I flew back to Kunming.

Our P-40s escorted this group of Russian bombers flown by Chinese on a bombing mission over Hanoi and Haiphong,
French Indo-China. The reason for meeting them over Mengtzu was the difference in range between their bombers and our fighters.

This mission I remembered as ungodly long, for we flew above the stratus that covered the high mountains with the exception of a few high peaks. These peaks looked like tiny islands in a large ocean of snow-white water, all over Japanese-held terrain underneath us, we knew. Thoughts of my engine quitting and letting down into enemy territory in the soup weren’t exactly morale builders either.

I never did see Hanoi, or Haiphong, for that matter, but it was easy enough to determine when we arrived over each of these cities. As we flew above the stratus, in between the bombers and our fighters came the familiar black puffs of exploding anti-aircraft shells. I’m not going to tell you that the black puffs were so thick you could walk on them, but the fact that the Japs had our altitude and direction was sufficient to make me uncomfortable.

Smoke and debris flew from one bomber, and as we watched it slowly turned back for home unescorted. I had hoped that these bombers would decide to guide us back before we were out of fuel. On our own, this would not have been an easy task, for we were not navigating and didn’t know much other than the names of the cities we were supposed to strike.

Finally the last of the bombs had gone out of sight into the vast whiteness below us. And no Jap fighters came up. Not being able to see where the bombs had landed left me only to wonder how successful the mission had been. Later in Kunming I read where we had practically demolished both targets. But I automatically cut this down to a few vacated, rural outhouses, since I had discovered long before that a large denominator was necessary to decode Chinese claims. To get back to Mengtzu had been success enough as far as I was concerned.

Back in Kunming again, but not for long, as I had held up my hand when someone had asked: “Who wants to go down and help the Third Pursuit.” When I flew to Loiwing on this trip, I figured that I was going to stay for a while. This time I was nothing special in Loiwing, and I wasn’t invited to bunk in the American hostel, either.

I remember the fellows joking with someone in the
Third Pursuit they had nicknamed “Fearless Freddie,” and how they had accidentally run into his father-in-law. Fearless Freddie had become engaged to a gorgeous Anglo-Indian girl while stationed at Rangoon, and her father was quite naturally very dark complexioned, for after all he was an Indian.

The girl and her father were with some other refugees who had come out of Burma with Stilwell. But the outcome of the entire thing was that Fearless and this girl wanted to get married in the worst way, so we said we would help him solve his problems. We did this in a manner so that we could have a little fun too. So Loiwing was incorporated in true pilot fashion and we nominated the manager of the CAMCO factory as honorable mayor, so he could perform the wedding ceremony, as there was no minister.

Our gag was arranged so as to make certain that we had the American hostel at our disposal—by making the manager mayor. We planned for flowers and all the flourishes for this occasion. When Fearless became worried about the legality of our plans, we passed it off with first one vague explanation then another. But we didn’t tell him that we had arranged for a minister, who would appear at the last minute and make their marriage legal in every land.

The wedding was scheduled to be held at night, and I happened to be on duty at the field while the off-duty pilots were making the final arrangements that day. An air raid sounded about noontime, and I warmed my engine briefly before take-off because I wasn’t expecting any extra time before the Nips were upon us. I don’t believe I gave a second thought that the attack might louse up the wedding, because my P-40 felt like it was dragging as my engine was sputtering down the runway on take-off. This sputtering wasn’t too bad and it had become an everyday occurrence by then, but with this dragging all I hoped was that at least it kept on sputtering.