Read The Purple Decades Online
Authors: Tom Wolfe
The Purple Decades (40 page)
All of the foregoing was out-of-bounds in conversation. Nevertheless, there it was. The closest aviators came to talking about it was when they used the term “professionalism.” Many extraordinary things were done in the name of professionalism. And when everything else went wrong, this professionalism existed like an envelope, in the sense that each airplane was said to have a certain “performance envelope.” Inside, inside that space, the aviators remained one another's relentless judges right up to the end, when not a hell of a lot of people outside seemed to care any longer. They were like casebook proof of something an English doctor, Lord Moran, had written forty years before. Moran had been a doctor treating soldiers in the trenches during the First World War, and he wrote one of the few analytical studies ever addressed specifically to the subject of bravery:
The Anatomy of Courage.
In the wars of the future, he said, aerial combat, not soldiering, would have “first call on adventurous youth.” But the bravery of these adventurers, he said, would have a curiously detached quality. For the pilot, “love of the sportâsuccess at the gameârather than sense of duty makes him go on.”
The Anatomy of Courage.
In the wars of the future, he said, aerial combat, not soldiering, would have “first call on adventurous youth.” But the bravery of these adventurers, he said, would have a curiously detached quality. For the pilot, “love of the sportâsuccess at the gameârather than sense of duty makes him go on.”
The unspoken things!
Bye borty-bibe
⦠every morning when he woke up and rolled out of bed in his stateroom, the components of the game of high-low lit up in every aviator's brain, and he would all too
literally calculate the state of his soul that morning by the composition of his bowel movement, with diarrhea being the worst sign of all. Well, not quite the worst; for occasionally one would hear some poor soul in another cubicle of the head ⦠vomiting. One would be curious ⦠but in another way one would just as soon not know who it was. (After all, he might be in my wing.) Since none of this could be spoken, demeanor was everything. (
Only your laundryman knows for sure!
) It
was
like jousting! One
did
return to the carrier like a knight! ⦠or as near to knightly status as was likely to be possible in an age of mimeographed flight assignments and mandatory debriefings.
Bye borty-bibe
⦠every morning when he woke up and rolled out of bed in his stateroom, the components of the game of high-low lit up in every aviator's brain, and he would all too
literally calculate the state of his soul that morning by the composition of his bowel movement, with diarrhea being the worst sign of all. Well, not quite the worst; for occasionally one would hear some poor soul in another cubicle of the head ⦠vomiting. One would be curious ⦠but in another way one would just as soon not know who it was. (After all, he might be in my wing.) Since none of this could be spoken, demeanor was everything. (
Only your laundryman knows for sure!
) It
was
like jousting! One
did
return to the carrier like a knight! ⦠or as near to knightly status as was likely to be possible in an age of mimeographed flight assignments and mandatory debriefings.
The most beautiful possible moments came when you brought your aircraft back to the deck from battle half shot up. Just a few weeks ago Dowd and Garth Flint came back with an 85-millimeter shell hole shot clear through a rear stabilizer wing. It looked as if you could put your arm through it, and it was no more than a yard from the fuselage. Dowd and Flint had scarcely opened the cockpit before the Mouseketeers, the deckhands, were gaping at the damage. Dowd climbed down to the deck, took off his helmet, and started walking away. Then, as if he'd just remembered something, he turned about and said to the onlookers: “Check that stabilizer, will you? Think maybe we caught a little flak.”
How gloriously bored! The unspoken, unspeakable things! All the gagged taboos!
No doubt that was what made American airmen, while on leave, the most notorious bar patrons in the Philippines, Japan, and Thailand during the Vietnam years. In keeping with a tradition as old as the First World War, drink and drunkenness gave pilots their only license to
let it out.
Not to talk about the unspoken thingsânot to break the tabooâbut to set free all the strangled roars, screams, bawls, sighs, and raving yahoos. Emotion displayed while drunk didn't count. Everybody knew that. One night Dowd was drinking at a bar at Cubi Point with an A-4 pilot named Starbird. It was getting to that hour of the night when you're so drunk you can't hear any more. Your skull itself is roaring and your screams and songs get beaten back by the gale. The bartender announces that the bar is now closed. He slides a brass pole under the handles on the tops of the big beer coolers behind the bar and locks them shut. Starbird reaches across the bar and grabs the brass pole and emits a roar of sheer gorilla fury and pulls it up out of its mooring, until it's looped in the middle like a piece of spaghetti, and announces: “The bar just reopened.”
let it out.
Not to talk about the unspoken thingsânot to break the tabooâbut to set free all the strangled roars, screams, bawls, sighs, and raving yahoos. Emotion displayed while drunk didn't count. Everybody knew that. One night Dowd was drinking at a bar at Cubi Point with an A-4 pilot named Starbird. It was getting to that hour of the night when you're so drunk you can't hear any more. Your skull itself is roaring and your screams and songs get beaten back by the gale. The bartender announces that the bar is now closed. He slides a brass pole under the handles on the tops of the big beer coolers behind the bar and locks them shut. Starbird reaches across the bar and grabs the brass pole and emits a roar of sheer gorilla fury and pulls it up out of its mooring, until it's looped in the middle like a piece of spaghetti, and announces: “The bar just reopened.”
After a long season of such affronts by many roaring souls, Navy bars and officers' clubs in Subic Bay began ruling themselves off limits
to pilots returning from tours in the North (Yankee Station). Then came a gesture from on high that Dowd would never forget. Admiral Red Hyland himself sent out a directive to all clubs and pubs within the purview of the Fleet, saying: It has come to my attention that the cocktail lounge conduct of aviators returning from Yankee Station has occasioned some negative responses. This is to inform all hands that the combat conduct of these men has been exemplary, despite the most trying conditions, and now hear this: THEY WILL BE ACCORDED THE FULL PRIVILEGES OF OFFICERS AND GENTLEMEN! (For you I bend the brass! The bars just reopened!)
to pilots returning from tours in the North (Yankee Station). Then came a gesture from on high that Dowd would never forget. Admiral Red Hyland himself sent out a directive to all clubs and pubs within the purview of the Fleet, saying: It has come to my attention that the cocktail lounge conduct of aviators returning from Yankee Station has occasioned some negative responses. This is to inform all hands that the combat conduct of these men has been exemplary, despite the most trying conditions, and now hear this: THEY WILL BE ACCORDED THE FULL PRIVILEGES OF OFFICERS AND GENTLEMEN! (For you I bend the brass! The bars just reopened!)
At last!âsomeone had come close to saying it! to putting it into words! to giving a tiny corner of the world some actual inkling that they just might have ⦠the ineffable â¦
it!
it!
That memo, like all memos, soon vanished down the memory hole. Yet it meant more to Dowd than any medal he ever got.
Â
High or low? The weather doesn't get any better as they pull closer to Haiphong, and Dowd decides to play it low. It looks like the kind of overcast the SAM's like best, high and solid. Dowd, with Brent off his wing, comes into Haiphong at about two hundred feet at close to Mach 1. Suddenly they break out of the mist and they're over the harbor. They bank for one turn around it, which immediately cuts their speed down to about 450 knots. It's peaceful, just another inexplicable stroll in Haiphong Park. The overcast is down to four hundred feet, meaning it's hopeless so far as a bombing strike is concerned. Besides, the inevitable third-party ships are welded in â¦
The weather is so bad, it's as if the enemy has decided to take a holiday from the war, knowing no bombers will be coming in. There's no sense loitering, however, and Dowd heads out for a look at Cam Pha and Hon Gay, two ports north of Haiphong. High or low ⦠Dowd stays down low. There's nothing below but a smattering of islands.
All at once Dowd sees a streak of orange shoot up over the nose on the port side. Garth Flint, in the back seat, sees another streak come up under the nose on the starboard ⦠They both know at once: tracer bullets â¦
They go to school with the tracer bullets â¦
The tracers show the gunners whether or not they're near the mark ⦠and without any doubt they're near the mark. Then they hear a sound like
twack
⦠It sounds like nothing more than a good-size rock hitting an automobile ⦠the shot hit the bottom of the nose section ⦠Dowd immediately cobs it, gives it full power in a furious bid to get up into the cloud cover and out over the gulf. Every warning light on the panel is lit up red, but he still has control of the plane. Smoke
starts pouring into the cockpit. The heat is so intense he can barely touch sections of the panel. It's so hot he can hardly hold the controls. The fire seems to be in the hydraulics system of the wheel well. He tries to vent the cockpit, but the vent doesn't work. Then he blows the canopy off to try to clear the smoke, but the smoke pours out so heavily he still can't see. Everything metal is becoming fiercely hot. He wonders if the ejection mechanism will still work. He can hardly hold the stick.
They go to school with the tracer bullets â¦
The tracers show the gunners whether or not they're near the mark ⦠and without any doubt they're near the mark. Then they hear a sound like
twack
⦠It sounds like nothing more than a good-size rock hitting an automobile ⦠the shot hit the bottom of the nose section ⦠Dowd immediately cobs it, gives it full power in a furious bid to get up into the cloud cover and out over the gulf. Every warning light on the panel is lit up red, but he still has control of the plane. Smoke
starts pouring into the cockpit. The heat is so intense he can barely touch sections of the panel. It's so hot he can hardly hold the controls. The fire seems to be in the hydraulics system of the wheel well. He tries to vent the cockpit, but the vent doesn't work. Then he blows the canopy off to try to clear the smoke, but the smoke pours out so heavily he still can't see. Everything metal is becoming fiercely hot. He wonders if the ejection mechanism will still work. He can hardly hold the stick.
For Garth Flint, in back, with the canopy gone, it's as if a hurricane has hit, a hurricane plus smoke. Maps are blowing all over the place, and smoke is pouring back. It's chaos. They're going about 350 knots, and the rush of air is so furious Flint can no longer hear anything on the radio, not even from Dowd. He wonders: Can we possibly get back onto the carrier if the smoke is this bad and Dowd can't hear radio communications? Oddly, all his worries center on this one problem. An explosion right in front of him! In the roiling smoke, where Dowd used to be, there's a metal pole sticking up in the air. It's made of sections, like a telescope. It's something Flint's never seen before ⦠the fully sprung underpinning of an F-4 ejection system, sticking up in the air as they hurtle over the Gulf of Tonkin. This spastic pole sticking up in the front seat is now his only companion in this stricken ship going 350 knots. Dowd has punched out!
Flint stares at the pole for perhaps two or three seconds, then pulls the ring under his seat. He's blasted out of the ship, with such force that he can't see.
Meanwhile, Dowd's furious ride is jerked to a halt by his parachute opening. He assumes Garth is floating down ahead of him. In fact, Dowd had yelled over the radio for Garth to eject and assumed he was on his way, not knowing Garth couldn't hear a word he said. Considering the way he had cobbed the engine and turned the plane to starboard and out over the gulf, Dowd expects to see water as he comes down through the clouds. Instead, little islandsâand the live possibility of captureâare rising up toward him.
Reprieve! The wind carries him about a quarter mile from shore. Just the way the survival training told you, he prepares to shuck his parachute before he hits the water, at the same time keeping his life raft uninflated so the people onshore can't spot him so easily. He hits the water ⦠it's surprisingly cold ⦠he inflates the flotation device he's wearingâbut feels himself being dragged under. The water, which looked so calm from above, is running five- to seven-foot swells. It pitches up and down in front of him and beneath him, and he's being dragged under. He can't comprehend itâthe parachute, which he thought he had so skillfully abandoned at the textbook-proper second, has somehow wrapped around his right leg in the slosh
of the swells and he's going under. He pulls out the knife that they're issued for just such a situation. But the nylon cords are wet and the damned knife won't cut them. He's going under. For the first time since the flak hit, the jaws of the Halusian Gulp have opened.
I'm going to die
. At first it's an incredible notion. Then it's infuriating. To die by drowning out in this squalid pond after a ten-cent shootdown on a weather-recce missionâit's humiliating! Another fly-boy disappears into the Cosmic Yawn! He's swept by a wave of the purest self-pity. It's actually about to happenâ
his death
âthe erasure of John Dowd from human existenceâin a few secondsâ
just
like that!
The ineffable talent, the mystical powerâ
it!
âthat let him hang his hide out over the Jaws and always pull it backâhe
do
esn't have it, after all!âhe is no more special than the hundreds of other pilots who have already been swallowed up over the North! It's pathetic. It's a miserable and colossal affront. His whole life does not roll before his eyesâonly the miserable pity of the here and now. He does not think of home and hearth. He does not think of Mom at the shuttling sewing machine late at night or the poignancy of seeing one's own child daydreaming. No, there is only the here and now and the sum total of this total affront to all that comprises John Dowdâbeing dragged down in a fish pond by a parachute, holding in his hand a knife that the Navy issued for a task that it won't performâit's utterly piteous and pathetic! â¦
Je
sus! How I pity myself now!
⦠And that makes him furious. He gives the parachute a ferocious yank. Whuh?âin that very explosion of the final anger he discovers something: the damned thing is caughtânot around his leg but on his knee-board! ⦠The board is attached to his flight suit so he can jot down figures, keep charts handy, whatever ⦠one last breath! Now he's completely underwater ⦠He can't see ⦠He grabs the knee-board and rips it off his flight suit ⦠a miracle! ⦠he's free! ⦠The parachute is gone ⦠the death anchor ⦠He bobs back to the surface ⦠Christ! ⦠the hell with the colossal affront of fate ⦠There's only
now!
⦠Never mind! ⦠He inflates the raft, as it says in the manual ⦠He's on the side of the manual now! ⦠Oh yes! ⦠Navy-issue! ⦠Why not! ⦠He climbs on the raft ⦠He's not drowning anymore, he's on his belly on a raft swooping up and down with the swells of the gulf ⦠Never mind the past! ⦠He scans the water and the nearby island ⦠Not miserable Fate, but islanders with guns ⦠That's what he's looking for ⦠Is that one of them? ⦠But on the water ⦠there's Garth! ⦠Flint is on a raft about two hundred yards away, bobbing in and out of Dowd's line of vision ⦠It's all shaping up ⦠Never mind Fate! The hell with colossal affronts! He's pulled it back after allâout of the Jaws â¦
of the swells and he's going under. He pulls out the knife that they're issued for just such a situation. But the nylon cords are wet and the damned knife won't cut them. He's going under. For the first time since the flak hit, the jaws of the Halusian Gulp have opened.
I'm going to die
. At first it's an incredible notion. Then it's infuriating. To die by drowning out in this squalid pond after a ten-cent shootdown on a weather-recce missionâit's humiliating! Another fly-boy disappears into the Cosmic Yawn! He's swept by a wave of the purest self-pity. It's actually about to happenâ
his death
âthe erasure of John Dowd from human existenceâin a few secondsâ
just
like that!
The ineffable talent, the mystical powerâ
it!
âthat let him hang his hide out over the Jaws and always pull it backâhe
do
esn't have it, after all!âhe is no more special than the hundreds of other pilots who have already been swallowed up over the North! It's pathetic. It's a miserable and colossal affront. His whole life does not roll before his eyesâonly the miserable pity of the here and now. He does not think of home and hearth. He does not think of Mom at the shuttling sewing machine late at night or the poignancy of seeing one's own child daydreaming. No, there is only the here and now and the sum total of this total affront to all that comprises John Dowdâbeing dragged down in a fish pond by a parachute, holding in his hand a knife that the Navy issued for a task that it won't performâit's utterly piteous and pathetic! â¦
Je
sus! How I pity myself now!
⦠And that makes him furious. He gives the parachute a ferocious yank. Whuh?âin that very explosion of the final anger he discovers something: the damned thing is caughtânot around his leg but on his knee-board! ⦠The board is attached to his flight suit so he can jot down figures, keep charts handy, whatever ⦠one last breath! Now he's completely underwater ⦠He can't see ⦠He grabs the knee-board and rips it off his flight suit ⦠a miracle! ⦠he's free! ⦠The parachute is gone ⦠the death anchor ⦠He bobs back to the surface ⦠Christ! ⦠the hell with the colossal affront of fate ⦠There's only
now!
⦠Never mind! ⦠He inflates the raft, as it says in the manual ⦠He's on the side of the manual now! ⦠Oh yes! ⦠Navy-issue! ⦠Why not! ⦠He climbs on the raft ⦠He's not drowning anymore, he's on his belly on a raft swooping up and down with the swells of the gulf ⦠Never mind the past! ⦠He scans the water and the nearby island ⦠Not miserable Fate, but islanders with guns ⦠That's what he's looking for ⦠Is that one of them? ⦠But on the water ⦠there's Garth! ⦠Flint is on a raft about two hundred yards away, bobbing in and out of Dowd's line of vision ⦠It's all shaping up ⦠Never mind Fate! The hell with colossal affronts! He's pulled it back after allâout of the Jaws â¦
Meanwhile, Dick Brent, in the other F-
4
B, has seen Dowd and
Flint eject. After about fifteen minutes of diving and fishing down through the clouds, Brent spots them on the water below and radios the position. Brent sees a few people on the shore of an island, looking out toward the two men, but the islanders don't seem to be making any attempt to go out by boat to retrieve Garth and Dowd, which also means capture them. (In fact, the islanders had long since learned to leave well enough alone. American pilots in the water were often followed by screaming rescue aircraft that blew every boat out of the tub.)
4
B, has seen Dowd and
Flint eject. After about fifteen minutes of diving and fishing down through the clouds, Brent spots them on the water below and radios the position. Brent sees a few people on the shore of an island, looking out toward the two men, but the islanders don't seem to be making any attempt to go out by boat to retrieve Garth and Dowd, which also means capture them. (In fact, the islanders had long since learned to leave well enough alone. American pilots in the water were often followed by screaming rescue aircraft that blew every boat out of the tub.)
After about another thirty minutes Spads are coming in low over the water. To Garth Flint it appears as if the Spad pilots don't see him, only Dowd. Over his emergency radio Flint says: “If you see two pilots, rock your wings.” One of the Spads rocks its wings. The Spads call in a helicopter known as a Big Mother. The helicopter, too, heads straight for Dowd. A morose thought crosses Flint's mind: “He's a lieutenant, I'm only a lieutenant (].g.)âso they're picking him up first.”
Then it dawns on him that they're going after Dowd because he's in closer to shore and therefore more vulnerable to gunfire or capture. Hell, it's going to be okay.
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