The Pacific (60 page)

BOMBING TWO AND ITS TASK GROUP SPENT EARLY AUGUST BACK IN THE BONIN Islands. Lieutenant Micheel and his division made the third strike on a convoy of four troop transports and their escort destroyers in the port of Chichi Jima. The target brought out the reckless streak in them. The wolves increased their dive angles somewhat to score hits. Clouds of AA flak boiled around them as the Helldivers dropped down into the steep-sided bowl that was Chichi Jima's harbor. They scored two hits and two near misses with their five-hundred-pound bombs. The sorties continued until all of the enemy ships had been sunk. All of the squadrons of Admiral Jocko Clark's Task Group 58.1 roamed at will around the Bonins, seeking out any resistance on Iwo Jima, Haha Jima, Ototo Jima--it turned out that the Japanese word for "island" was "jima."

By early August 1944, Task Group 58.1 owned "the Jimas," just five hundred miles from Tokyo. The men of Air Group Two decided to create the "Jocko- Jima Development Corp." They printed certificates of their initial stock offering, one for each
Hornet
pilot, certifying the holder of one share in a company that offered "Choice Locations of All types in Iwo, Chichi, Haha & Muko Jima."
¹⁷⁹
The corporation's president, Jocko Clark, signed the certificates and sent stock share number one to his boss, Admiral Mitscher.

Clark took his carrier group back to Saipan where, on August 9, Admiral Mitscher came aboard the
Hornet
. All hands gathered on the flight deck in their dress uniforms. Mitscher presented numerous awards to the men of TG 58.1, including Navy Crosses for Admiral Jocko Clark, Lieutenant Commander Campbell, and Hal Buell. Buell had earned his for firing a bomb into an Imperial Japanese Fleet carrier in the Philippine Sea.

WHILE MR. AND MRS. BASILONE ENJOYED THEIR HONEYMOON IN OREGON, President Roosevelt had visited Camp Pendleton to watch the Twenty-sixth Marines practice a full-scale amphibious assault on the Pacific coast. Days later, the Twenty-sixth had loaded up and shipped out, to become the floating reserve for the Third Marines' invasion of Guam. The regiment's departure, as the Basilones learned upon their return, had not noticeably increased the number of available apartments to rent in the town of Oceanside. " The superintendents and landlords all said the same thing; we're all full up."
¹⁸⁰
Lena thought John should be a bit more assertive. " Tell 'em who you are, you'll get one."

"No," he replied, "I ain't gonna use my name to get no apartment."
¹⁸¹
So they continued to live in separate barracks on base. Lena began the process of changing her last name in her official USMC file. John used his last name to bail a few of his marines out of jail for drinking or fighting.
¹⁸²
The regiment's impending departure had encouraged the marines of Charlie Company to be a little overly energetic.

On August 11, they got word they were leaving the next day on buses for the port of San Diego. Johnny found his wife on duty, cooking for the officers' mess. "We might be shipping out," said John, "so I wanted to be with you."
¹⁸³
Lena's friend, who had an apartment in Oceanside, said, "Why don't you take my key and use my room tonight?" Lena accepted. John hung around for her shift to end. The phone rang. It was for John. He had to go back immediately.
¹⁸⁴
They knew this was it. He was shipping out and it would be months before he saw her again. "I'll be back," he said.

Just after three a.m., the buses carrying two regiments of the 5th Division began rolling out the gate of Camp Pendleton and down the coast highway. As the morning wore on, the word got out. Wives and kids and friends lined the road beyond the gate, waving and cheering as hard as they could as the buses passed.
¹⁸⁵
At the docks in San Diego, long lines of marines carried their rifles, packs, and machine guns up the gangways of the troopships. John's ship, USS
Baxter,
departed on August 12, making its way around North Island and into the open sea. With the ship safely under way, a number of dogs appeared on deck--all mascots smuggled aboard.
¹⁸⁶
The next day they learned over the ship's public address system that they were bound for the town of Hilo, on the big island of Hawaii.

Baxter
's Higgins boats took the 1/27 into shore at Hilo a week later. No beautiful native women in grass skirts danced for them.
¹⁸⁷
They were told to wait. Word came that a polio infection had broken out. The 1st Battalion was quarantined just off the beach in a public park. So they set up their pup tents, dug slit trenches, and waited. The stores across the street, some of which had signs in Japanese, were off-limits. The quarantine order had a hard time sticking, though, when the guys ran out of cigarettes and candy. There was too much time to kill. A rumor ran around that when the marines of the 2nd Division had unloaded here after Tarawa, some of them had seen Japanese faces in the crowd. The Japanese supposedly had cheered when they saw how badly mauled the marines had been. So the marines had fired into the crowd.
¹⁸⁸

WEEKS OF STAFF WORK AND SOME BASIC MATHEMATICS PRODUCED A DETAILED plan of assault on Peleliu. The "Shofner Group" consisted of the 3rd Battalion, Fifth Marines, totaling 38 officers and 885 enlisted men. To the 3/5 had been attached a platoon of engineers, a platoon of artillery, some pioneers (who unloaded ships), and his JASCO team (who communicated with ships and aircraft). His group also included the amtrac crews driving them to shore and the DUKW crews supporting their assault, so the total reached 1,300 men and 60 officers.
¹⁸⁹
More than 250 of them, however, drove vehicles. Half of these men expected to serve on the front line in combat.

The combat marines of the 3/5 would come ashore in six waves. Thirteen of the amtracs with the 75mm cannon would land first. Eight LVTs carrying about 192 riflemen landed in wave two. Wave three had twelve amtracs carrying 288 fully equipped marines. Five more of the amtracs with the cannons landed on wave four, followed by twelve amtracs of wave five. The DUKWs carrying the artillery arrived as wave six. This left Shofner with two LVTs to carry ammo; one DUKW to carry the main radio; one LVT to carry part of the division staff; and one amtrac for himself and his battalion HQ. These were scheduled to arrive after the fourth wave. Shofner, under the guidance of his regimental team, also worked out the order of another six waves, by which the reserve company of his battalion (Love Company) and the other essential elements of the Fifth Regiment arrived.

Loading all of these waves had not been worked out because the navy had not sent along detailed information about the number and type of ships. The seventeen troop transport ships for the division arrived August 10, so the staff of Transport Group Three came ashore to work with the marines. The Shofner Group would sail to Peleliu in LSTs, which also carried their LVTs. The flotilla of thirty LSTs for the division arrived on August 11. Assigning his assault teams was easy: King Company would go aboard LST 661, Item on 268, and Love and Headquarters on 271 and 276. The marine officers had come up with a creative way to bring more of their necessary cargo--ammo, spools of barbed wire, drums of drinking water--by loading them first, adding a protective layer, and driving the LVTs in on top. The navy captains rejected the idea of "under-stowing," which just added to the challenge of working out all of these details quickly.
¹⁹⁰

Like all battalion commanders, Shofner had to fight to get what he needed aboard ship, had to find solutions to a hundred other problems, and had to keep his men on a training schedule. In late August his boss, Bucky Harris, began to worry about Shofner's agitated state.
¹⁹¹
The stress seemed to be getting the better of Lieutenant Colonel Shofner, and the stress level only increased. The navy informed the 1st Division that, due to limited space, it could only carry thirty of the marines' forty-six tanks. Although each of his assault squads was entitled to a flamethrower, not enough of the improved M2-2 flamethrower had arrived. Once the marines at last embarked on their ships, someone discovered that the troopships had loaded improperly. The follow-up waves of the Fifth Marines and the Seventh Marines would--unless they changed--have to cross one another on the trip to shore, making it quite likely they would land on the wrong beaches. It had to be rectified. On nine ships, the marines unloaded off of one and loaded onto another. With all of the problems, though, the marines departed Pavuvu on schedule. Their ships lifted anchors on August 26 for the short trip to Guadalcanal.

TASK FORCE 58, THE AIRCRAFT CARRIERS OF THE FIFTH FLEET, RETURNED TO anchorage in the Marshall Islands, specifically the atolls of Eniwetok and Majuro, in early August. All hands enjoyed some time off. A USO show, featuring "five real live girls," performed. Fresh food arrived and was served immediately. When the rest period ended and Bombing Two started to prepare for the next mission, they learned that some big changes had occurred. The navy had decided to give Admirals Mitscher and Clark a rest. Their Task Force, 58, would become known as Task Force 38, as Admiral Bill Halsey took over the helm. Jocko Clark's Task Group 58.1 would become 38.1 under Admiral "Slew" McCain and his leadership team. Clark would remain aboard for a time while McCain and his staff learned the ropes. Another big change, instigated by Clark, arrived simultaneously.

As the new version of the Helldiver, the SB2C-3, arrived at the atoll to replace the older and problematic "dash twos" of Micheel's squadron, fewer of them came aboard
Hornet
. Clark had had it with the Beast. If the Helldiver could only carry one five-hundred-pound bomb on the centerline rack because of technical malfunctions, the dive-bomber pilots might as well fly Hellcats, the navy's fighter aircraft. It could carry the five hundred pounds, although it lacked a bomb bay. In mid-August Bombing Two received fifteen fewer SB2C-3s and fifteen more F6F Hellcats. The latter would become a new group: the fighter- bombers.

The skipper of Bombing Two gave Lieutenant Micheel command of
Hornet
's new fighter-bomber wing, which was something of an experiment.
¹⁹²
Lieutenant Commander Campbell might have handed the plum assignment to his executive officer, but for some time now Campbell had acknowledged that Lieutenant Micheel would make a superior squadron leader. Command of Fighter-Bomber Two represented a big step toward that. The former dairy farmer from Iowa had earned the respect of the Annapolis man after all.

On August 26, 1944, Lieutenant Micheel finally escaped the Beast. Mike selected nineteen pilots from Bombing Two to join him as he began operational training in the F6F Hellcat, the navy's fighter. From the airstrip on Eniwetok, they tested the F6F's capabilities as a dive-bomber. Test "hops" acquainted them with their new aircraft. At idle, the aircraft had a distinctive, unbalanced sound because its Pratt & Whitney R2800 engine had eighteen cylinders and ten exhaust outlets.
¹⁹³
Mike immediately loved it. The Hellcat throbbed with power, raced across the sky with tremendous speed, and turned with agility and grace. It flew smoothly, allowing its pilots to trust it. "It's like a Cadillac and a Ford," Mike said, trying to compare the F6F with the SB2C, "or maybe I ought to say a Cadillac and a Mack truck!"

The task group had a schedule to keep, as usual, so Micheel's training period was abbreviated. They flew formation, made a few gunnery passes; the next day they tried six to eight practice landings on the atoll's airfield. Training ended on the twenty-eighth when the word came from on high, probably from Jocko, "Now get aboard!" On the twenty-ninth, he and his men took off from the flattop to practice runs on a sled towed behind the ship. Mike made his first carrier landing in the F6F Hellcat, the 103rd carrier landing of his lifetime, that day. It was his fighter-bomber group's one and only practice landing.

Armed with four air groups,
Hornet
and her task group steamed for Peleliu. During the trip, Mike was asked to cut his team from twenty to thirteen pilots as the experiment evolved. The task group steamed nearly directly west, no longer circling south to avoid the enemy bases on Truk or Yap. On September 7, the air group commander decided a fighter sweep was unnecessary. At 0531 with the island bearing 331 degrees, at a distance of eighty miles,
Hornet
set up a huge strike of fighters, then fighter-bombers, then torpedo planes and a deckload of SB2Cs. The eight Hellcats of Lieutenant Micheel's strike carried the same load as SB2Cs carried, only they leapt off the flight deck and charged into the sky. Strike groups from two other carrier squadrons rendezvoused with them. The big formation made visual contact at 7:05 a.m. Aircraft from
Wasp
went first while Air Group Two circled east of the island. From his vantage point, Micheel could see that the enemy AA flak had dropped off considerably since the last time he had sortied for Peleliu.

The strictures about radio silence had long since lapsed. Micheel got a call when the other squadron completed its mission and his wing was on deck. He brought his Hellcats around from the north, increasing speed as he nosed down to nine thousand feet before breaking into a seventy- degree dive. He and the two planes on his wing pointed their bombs at an AA battery on the tip of the small island a stone's throw from Peleliu called Ngesebus. As he fell below three thousand feet at 430 knots indicated airspeed, Mike would have noticed the small bridge that connected the two islands as he released the bomb. He pulled out at two thousand feet and felt the F6F roar back skyward. The new antiblackout suits made it a lot easier to withstand the terrific g-force experienced in a pullout. In front of him the SB2Cs of Bombing Two were hitting the main island of Peleliu. Behind him and his wingmen the other fighter-bombers aimed for revetments and bunkers around the airfield on Ngesebus. Micheel's team rendezvoused with the others two miles east of the target and all returned. In the reports on their missions all of the air group pilots admitted they could not discern the amount of damage they had inflicted on their targets. Peleliu and Ngesebus "appeared to be badly damaged by previous attacks."