Baa Baa Black Sheep (25 page)

For my money’s worth things could not have worked any more successfully than they did. The Japs had no fighters in the air, and it was apparent that they hadn’t even heard our Corsairs until they came whistling over the treetops on the edge of the clearing. We had taken Kahili by complete surprise in broad daylight and clear visibility. Our incendiaries and armor-piercing were a special load for this work, and they worked to perfection. But I had to thank the Nips for having the majority of their parked planes lined up for us, as it is almost impossible to change your sights when traveling at any speed over the ground.

It wasn’t in the original plan, but when Moon, who had charge of the top cover, saw that there were no Nips upstairs, he quickly decided to join the strafing with the rest of the boys. I believe that every piece of equipment on the field got sprayed, at least, and flames were coming out of some twenty aircraft as we sped across the field for Munda. It was a great feeling to be able to report this successful action to General Moore.

At first I thought we had accomplished all this without anyone getting hurt, but shortly after landing I realized that one of the twelve was missing. Junior Heier was not with us, and no one had seen him crash. We didn’t have a chance to send a search or even worry very long, for news of Junior came in from the new strip being constructed at Vella Lavella. The boy had landed at Vella among the bulldozers, roughly but safely.

Later I saw why the lad had been delayed, and it was a miracle that the plane ever flew, with thirty-six inches off one wing tip and forty inches off the other. Junior had been so intent on strafing Jap planes that when he finally decided to pull up it was too late, and he was forced to fly between two coconut trees at the end of the Kahili strip. These trees, combined with the plane’s momentum, had done a far better job than Junior could have with a pair of scissors and a model plane. Even though he had continued at full throttle, there was no keeping up and he lagged behind, and finally became so short on fuel he tangled with the bulldozers.

As far as I was concerned the Black Sheep were able to write their own ticket through the medium of General Moore after we pulled such a successful job on the strafing mission. However, I certainly hoped Moore would not get a notion that the war could be won in this manner, for Lord knows I should have learned a lesson in China that this is far from true. So I quickly followed up with some ideas of my own, which I was certain would be satisfactory yet not foolhardy, or as dangerous.

As a matter of fact I was able to talk Strike Command into permitting their bombers to sit out of a few missions so we could go on fighter sweeps and not be tied down with bombers. To my way of reasoning, based upon what I had seen and read, the procedure used by both the enemy and ourselves should have been reversed many times.

Not only did I present statistics, but in a small way my Black Sheep had provided Strike Command with a couple of concrete examples as well. In the earlier stages of the war the bombers had been sent over heavily defended areas without fighter escort by both sides when they needed escorts in the worst way. The extreme range in many cases made escort prohibitive. But by the time new strips were acquired closer to the targets, the need for fighters had lessened considerably, or in some cases became almost unnecessary.

If it were possible to send some fighters over a target prior to the bombers arriving there, the enemy would dissipate some of their interceptor aircraft. The outcome would be that the enemy fighters would be short on fuel about the time our bombers arrived, and be forced to land without making contact, thereby adding the chance of our blowing up a few more on the deck. A few results and one swell general, and, I may add, a deadline, all put together enabled the hired men
with the clear blue eyes and rippling muscles to have a say in affairs for a change.

We were on one of these fighter sweeps, and entertaining the idea, more or less, that it might be possible to hold another conversation and a repeat of the time before with the Japs. It was by no means the same. The Japs were talking and asking our position, but our circling around waiting for an interception proved futile, and finally I knew that gasoline had to be the deciding element in any longer wait.

“Major Boyington, what is your position?” came in again.

I tried to taunt them off the ground as I knew that soon a fight would be impossible with our gas supply. I said: “Right over your airport; why don’t you yellow bastards come up and fight?”

It became apparent the Japs were not falling for any more of this, and answered: “Major Boyington, why don’t you come down if you are so brave?”

As we circled above the strip at twenty thousand feet, the Japs tried their best to knock us down with anti-aircraft guns. The black bursts would start in a little behind and a thousand feet above or below our formation, and after correcting the range and deflection they would start laying the bursts closer to us. Our planes would then reverse course and change altitude quickly, and immediately, the Jap gunners would be presented with an entirely new tracking and range problem.

When it became evident that words or insults were not going to make them take off, Casey and I dove down and strafed two of the gun positions, leaving the rest of the fighters upstairs. We didn’t get too low on this insult strafing because we knew the Japs’ machine guns were extremely accurate at short range. We were content with just spraying the parked aircraft, knowing that if there were any damage it would be more luck than anything else.

“All right, you devils, I was down,” I challenged. “Now, how about you coming up?” But no Zeros took off this day to accept our invitation. This was a hell of a note, a fellow having to change his tactics daily in order to get a nibble. I should have been thankful the enemy was not in a complete rut, and killing me with monotony.

This day ended like so many other days, with me scratching my head and racking my brain for the answer: what to do
next time. I had lost Casey for a brief spell during our strafe on Kahili, but he finally caught up and was flying on my wing. I imagined Casey had broken his seat, as he was sitting so low down in the cockpit I was barely able to see his eyes over the edge. The reason I had noticed this in the first place was that normally he would have the seat jacked all the way to the top position for better visibility. Casey didn’t happen to be the tallest guy in the world, and I hoped he would be able to land safely, as the Corsair, with its long nose, was as blind as a bat on landings.

He had made the landing without mishap, and was walking over to the ready shack, helmet and goggles in hand, when I decided to throw a gibe. I said: “Say, Casey, I thought for a few minutes I had lost you.”

“You damn nearly did, Gramps.” And he wasn’t smiling.

“When you finally did join up, you were out of sight, I had to fly above you to see if there was anyone in the cockpit.”

He said: “Take a look for yourself,” offering the removed helmet while he rubbed a knot on the top of his crew cut.

Upon inspecting the helmet it was apparent that a 7.7 slug had cut a slit completely through the fabric approximately four inches in length. But outside of a small welt and a wee bit of skin missing from the center of his crew cut, he looked as good as ever to me. I can’t say I blamed the lad for never flying again with his seat any higher than just enough to look through the electric gun sights.

One night the Japanese decided to evacuate Kolombangara by small boats. They had counted upon darkness and early morning fog to conceal the movement, and fortunately it did for the majority of the boats. Some of 214 with parts of other squadrons caught the last of the Nip boats on the early morning patrol and strafed the poor devils at sea. I was just as happy that I had been fortunate enough to miss this action.

The evacuation of Kolombangara was assumed to be complete by the Allies and they had no intention of sending any patrols ashore, which happened to so many of the unimportant islands of the Pacific. The Japanese had spread themselves thin by trying to protect all the islands, so when the Allies came to control the sea and air, the troops on these islands were of no value to the enemy; they were stranded. They remained there until the end of the war, to exist as best
they could off the land itself. I am certain that this was no picnic on any of the islands I saw.

The day of this evacuation of Kolombangara was a sad one for the Black Sheep. Not that it was any great military action, but the loss of one Sheep, no matter what the cause, was of great concern to us—and to his loved ones back home. A mistake happened this day, as did many others during this long war, but actually no one can be blamed—or should be blamed.

One of our patrols of four spotted a boat from altitude near the north shores of Kolombangara, and the flight was signaled to dive down. The leader had recognized that this was not a Nip boat, but one of our own PT boats patrolling the island a lot closer than it was supposed to be. The leader had pulled up, and expected his three wing men to do likewise, but they did not.

Bob Alexander was in this flight, but apparently couldn’t hear his section leader, firing a burst at the PT boat. One of the pilots on this flight said he saw one of the U.S. sailors trying frantically to wave the Corsair away, and as he was watching the sailor wave from the bow, the Corsair fired his .50-calibers, cutting the sailor in half as he was waving.

Another sailor handling the twin .50s from the stern of the PT boat fired back as Bob continued to fire. It was automatic reflex, more or less defense action. Bob Alexander’s Corsair didn’t pull out, but crashed in smoke and flames a few yards back of the beach in the jungle.

One thing I have noticed about letters, especially letters exchanged with parents whose sons were lost with us or missing, is that the parents do not want the answers to contain gush or platitudes. In other words the parents, and quite rightly, do not have to be sold on the worthiness of their own boys. What the parents or relatives do want is the minutest details of the boy’s last fight, or how he came to be knocked down, or what he was doing when last seen. And this information, to obtain or to know or to give, is the hardest of all. I tried, but only in a few cases in regard to lost flyers did I know, or does anyone know.

We would take off on a mission, we would cover lots of miles over ocean or jungle, and we would be shot at, we would have our own individual fights maybe, we would go through clouds. And those of us who did not come back just
simply did not come back. And the ocean tells no secrets. This roughly was how it was when we lost people, or, as a more personal example, when I myself was lost later.

Or as in the case of Bob Alexander, another example, but one where we did have a clue: we saw him go down. We saw his plane burst into smoke and flames, and we saw him crash. But he crashed on an enemy-held island. So the remainder would have been a secret.

I wrote his folks, of course, and told them exactly what had happened, and that the island was held by the enemy. And this is all that I could do at the time, or anybody could do. Yet it so happened that the case of Bob Alexander is the one and only, while I was squadron leader, in which we were able to recover a body later—and could complete the tragic letter to the folks. For in December, some two months later, after Bob had gone down on the island, our troops had forced the last of the Japanese to evacuate, and we were transferred to the nearby Vella strip. Immediately I formed a small party among us, and we got a PT boat’s crew to take us over to this island.

We maneuvered around the north end of Kolombangara where we had seen the plane go down, and finally saw traces where the terrain had been torn up. We swam ashore with machetes and shovels, and finally located the spot where the plane had crashed.

The place was a jungle, but we searched through it, climbing through the brush and the vines, and finally found Bob’s body. What was left of Bob’s mortal remains had been slammed into a tree trunk there in the jungle.

The day was so hot with that sticky tropical heat that all of us were soaked with sweat by this time, and we finally managed to edge out a grave. We placed Bob’s body within the grave and, remembering what a fighter he had always been, we decided to place his body so that he faced Tokyo. He had wanted so much to get there. Then, after covering the grave with jungle earth, we took one of his bent propeller blades, painted his name on it, and placed it at his head.

Bob Alexander’s funeral services were brief. Three New Zealand boys who had accompanied us on this mission stood on one side of his grave, and I placed three of Bob’s comrades on the other. I had all intentions of giving a befitting prayer. But as I started out, in my memory I saw Bob standing before
me. He was such a well-built boy. I could see his perfect teeth and his hair, which was more golden than red, and I could see in my memory his everlasting smile also. So, as I started to give the prayer, words would not come. The best I could do was give a right-hand salute. We all saluted, and then I mumbled: “So long, Bob.” And that, for some reason, was all I could say.

Yet, for once, and only once, we had found one of our lost Black Sheep. We had found Bob, and could write his folks so.

After we swam back and had gotten aboard the PT boat, heading back for Vella, I was mentally chastising myself for the lack of delivery in the prayer department. In my lifetime it was nothing unusual for me to try to rebuild the past, forgetting the present. I turned to Moon Mullin, the handsome lug, because he seemed to possess such great faith, and started to talk.

“If only I could have gotten a prayer out.”

Moon must have been reading my thoughts, for he placed his arm around my shoulders, smiled kindly, and said: “Don’t worry, Gramps. We all understand. We feel the same way.”