During our 17 days at sea, heading due south across the equator and west beyond the Fijis, the sun was high and burning hot, tempered by sweeping, afternoon rain storms. It was January in the tropics\u2014the cyclone season. Our destination: Espiritu Santo.
\nThere were times at night when a few of us would climb up on deck to view the Southern Cross and surrounding skies and talk about home. I sometimes wondered if I would ever return to Oregon.
\nI spent most of my time in the carrier\u2019s Ready Room, studying maps of the Solomons, reading tattered paperbacks, playing chess, or gin rummy, or taking an occasional seat in what seemed like a never-ending poker game. Up on top, the flight deck was jammed with tied- down F4U Corsairs and TBM Avengers, ready for delivery to the South Pacific combat zone.
\nTBF was the designation for the original Avengers made by Grumman. TBM was the designation for later models made to Grumman specs by General Motors. I think we just called them all TBFs.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
About the time we were crossing the equator, word came through from the Marine base at Espiritu Santo that Gregory \u201cPappy\u201d Boyington, flying an F4U Corsair, had been shot down that morning over Rabaul. The flamboyant Marine Corps ace and CO of the \u201cBlack Sheep Squadron\u201d was reported missing in action.<\/p>\n
Some months later\u2014I don\u2019t remember when\u2014 Boyington turned up alive in a Japanese prison camp near Tokyo. He had landed in the waters off Rabaul, badly injured. Following a strafing by Jap fighter planes, he had struggled onto his rubber life raft, wounded, and was later captured by a Jap submarine. Boyington spent 18 harrowing months in Japanese prison camps.<\/p>\n
The Republic of Vanuatu is a chain of more than 80 Melanesian islands and underwater volcanoes set in the remote seas of the South Pacific\u20143,450 miles southwest of Honolulu, 1,300 miles north of Sydney, 555 miles southeast of Guadalcanal.<\/p>\n
We knew Vanuatu during World War II as the sprawling New Hebrides, jointly administered by the French and the British. Espiritu Santo was the largest island in the chain. A steamy island of coastal plantations and dense interior jungle, Santo became the rear base and island headquarters for Marine Aviation in the South Pacific. It was selected by the Navy\u2019s crusty, Vice Admiral John S. McCain, Commander of Aircraft, South Pacific. He wanted to secure a base nearer to Guadalcanal than his distant headquarters at Port Vila on the capitol island of Efate, 707 miles further south.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Navy Seabees tore into the wet jungle in an all out, gung-ho effort to complete the first of Santo\u2019s coral- topped air strips. Soon, the island became the launch point for pushing the Japs back up The Slot of the Solomons\u2014a natural funnel from Guadalcanal up between a chain of islands with names like Bagga, Ranongga, Gizo, Munda, Kolombanagara, Rendova, Vangunu, Gatukai and Vella Lavella\u2014up to the big, brooding island of Bougainville and nearby Buka. This was the beginning of an island-hopping, counter attack strategy that was to roll inexorably upward through the islands of the Pacific toward the homeland of Japan.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
As we approached Espiritu Santo, the Kitkun Bay slid carefully past rocky outcrops along the treacherous, northern end of the island and on down the western edge\u2014a land of unexplored jungle. At that time, planes that crashed into Santo\u2019s green sea of thick, tropical jungle were never seen again. Minutes after the smoke cleared, a burnt plane was invisible.<\/p>\n
The jungle contrasted starkly with the southern half of the island, which had become a bustling Marine Corps concentration. We disembarked by Higgins boat at Pallikula Bay.<\/p>\n
Today, Espiritu Santo is probably best known as the island setting for James A. Michener’s Pulitzer-winning classic, Tales of the South Pacific<\/em>. He was stationed on Espiritu Santo during the war.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Within hours, Ox Wilson and I unexpectedly ran into three University of Oregon Ducks: Bob Ballard, Clyde Hollenbeck and Ralph Hartzell. They were pilots in VMTB-134, another TBF squadron. Both squadrons were billeted in Dallas huts, set in a stand of coconut trees on an abandoned plantation, less than a quarter mile from the air strip. A nearby double Quonset Hut served as our mess hall and another double Quonset Hut, located down along the edge of the palm-fringed beach, served as an overcrowded Officers\u2019 Club. It was furnished with one large poker table and several chairs and benches, half- empty bookshelves, a few card tables and chairs and a busy full-length, stand-up bar serving Torpedo Juice and whatever beer was available. Torpedo Juice was the name South Pacific sailors and Marines gave early in the war to a lethal mix of high grain alcohol fuel stirred into canned grapefruit juice.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n That night, the five of us had a wet reunion at the club. I have to dig deep in my memory to recover any details of that night. But as I recall it, we swapped college memories, second-guessed war strategies, talked about women, and argued about the U.S. presidential election coming up later that year\u2014all washed down with a few beers and too much Torpedo Juice.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Using a military absentee ballot, I cast my first vote ever that year in a national presidential election.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Franklin D. Roosevelt, nearing the end of his third term as president, was a popular war-time incumbent in the 1944 U.S. elections. Probably two-thirds of the pilots in our squadron supported FDR, our commander-in-chief.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0With Roosevelt\u2019s health deteriorating, many in the Democratic Party saw Vice President Henry Wallace as too far to the left to be so close to the presidency.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n In the end, Roosevelt agreed to replace Wallace on the ticket with a tough, out-spoken senator from Missouri, Harry S. Truman.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Over on the Republican side, former prosecutor and New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey was making his first bid for the white House. He selected conservative Ohio Governor John W. Bricker as his running mate.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n In the November election that followed, the Democrats won in a landslide, 53.4% to 45.9%\u2014and Franklin D. Roosevelt became the only U.S. president ever to be elected to a fourth term.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n At a briefing after our arrival on Santo, we were introduced by Maj. Bill Dean to the squadron\u2019s newly- assigned Combat Operations Officer, Capt. Henry W. Hise. He took over. During the next two weeks, he put us through night-and-day survival drills and a concentrated review of our diving and bombing skills.<\/p>\n With more than 600 hours of flight time and six months in TBF operations at El Centro, I felt over\u00adtrained. I was eager to get into the action. Self-confident and maybe a little too cocky, I was 22 years old.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n A lanky, sun-baked Texan\u2014surprisingly soft-spoken\u2014 Hank Hise was well-liked and highly-respected in the Marine Aviation cadre. He had served in the first Marine squadron to land on Guadalcanal after the invasion, he had commanded what was left of Marine dive-bomber squadron VMSB-232 as the Canal was secured, and he had been awarded the DFC for his action during a series of TBF air attacks on New Guinea in 1943.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We were curious and surprised to see such a seasoned hand join our outfit. And I think our CO, Bill Dean, was jealous. The word up and down the line was that Dean resented Hise\u2019s assignment to VMTB-242. We wondered if our skipper also sensed the fact that most of the pilots would have welcomed Capt. Hank Hise as commanding officer.<\/p>\n Hise was the kind of Marine officer who expressed his leadership thru calm, experienced direction and unflinching example. He commanded our respect immediately.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n One of Maj. Bill Dean\u2019s own exploits during his initial Solomons tour lived on as an acerbic South Pacific barroom tale. It happened during anti-sub patrol, a few miles east of Espiritu Santo.<\/p>\n On the third leg of a long triangular search, our skipper excitedly reported to his crew, “We have a Jap sub below at 10 o’clock.” He opened his bomb bay and made a diving pass over the target, slightly off position. Pulling up, he circled again, made a second pass and a perfect drop. The two depth charges straddled the “sub” and detonated with a powerful upheaval of the sea.<\/p>\n Dean excitedly instructed his radio gunner to radio the base, identify their plane, give their location, and report, “Sighted sub, sank same,”\u2014a line stolen from a sub-killer episode in the Atlantic, earlier in the war.<\/p>\n The moment his radio gunner was about to transmit the message, however, Dean suddenly screamed, “Wait! Wait! Wait!” He then made another low pass over the target and saw the results of his marksmanship\u2014chunks of a huge killer whale floating in a bloody sea of red.<\/p>\n The remains of that whale floated in the sea for days in full view of derisive pilots heading into the Espiritu Santo flight pattern from the East.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n During those early days on Santo, we ate loads of fat mutton from Australia, seemingly night after night. We had a routine of mutton meat loaf, mutton stew or creamed mutton on toast. We called that the SOS dish\u2014 \u201cShit on a Shingle.” I gagged on the musty taste. To this day, I can\u2019t face up to mutton on the menu, no matter how it\u2019s prepared. A slab of Spam<\/em> or even the C-Rations we later devoured on Bougainville was far more palatable.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And a C-Ration pack included a bonus: four cigarettes and some toilet paper.<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/p>\n My memories of Bougainville and Rabaul may be distorted by more than sixty intervening years. But the most salient facts cut through the mist, supported by log books, Ernie Linsmaier\u2019s illegal wartime diary, valuable letters from Jake Nevans, scribbled notes from Frank Moses, and a few aging Marine Corps records from Hank Hise.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n We were put on alert. The squadron was moving up The Slot to Bougainville.<\/p>\n Guadalcanal anchored the bottom end of the Solomons. The big, forbidding island of Bougainville stretched out at the top, close to the equator. About 125 miles long and forty or fifty miles wide, Bougainville was a place of startling contrasts\u2014thick, mist-enshrouded jungles, mangrove swamps, active volcanoes, high, crashing waterfalls, torrential rains, millions of insects, mosquitoes, insufferable humidity\u2014and black Melanesian natives who lived wild, secluded fives.<\/p>\n The Imperial Japanese forces had invaded Bougainville early on in their dead-aim drive toward Australia. They established two bases on the island: One in the south at Buin and one in the north on the adjoining island of Buka.<\/p>\n In a major 1943 attack, assault elements of the U.S. 3rd and 9th Marine Divisions, supported by the 1st Marine Air Wing and strong Naval forces, made a surprise landing midway up the island\u2019s west coast at Cape Torokina on Empress Augusta Bay. After 40 days of bitter fighting, the Marines held fast to a heavily guarded perimeter, four miles deep and five miles wide. The continued presence of about 60,000 Japanese troops was spread across the rest of the island.<\/p>\n The tireless Seabees carved out three air strips in the jungle enclave. One near the beach for fighter squadrons and dive bombers. One near the interior front lines for torpedo bomber squadrons. And one parallel strip for the<\/p>\n Anzacs\u2014gutsy Australian and New Zealand squadrons that operated with us.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n From out of that twenty square mile hole in the Bougainville jungle, surrounded on three sides by high mountains with peaks of up to ten thousand feet, infested with Japanese troops and armaments, Com. Air SoPac set out to strangle the mighty bastion of Rabaul, 250 miles to the north.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n As I turn over the litter of memory, I\u2019m certain that we skipped \u201cShit on a Shingle\u201d that dark, final morning at Espiritu Santo. Instead, I think we loaded up with some foul-tasting, dehydrated scrambled eggs and canned<\/p>\n baked beans.<\/p>\n We manned our planes at dawn, started the engines, checked the mags, and worked our way on down the TBF preflight check list. At the signal for takeoff, we roared down the runway and climbed out over the sea\u2014two- plane sections at a time. Circling into a loose formation led by Maj. Bill Dean, we took a northwest heading at 10,000 feet altitude. Some four hours later, we let down, entering into the landing pattern at Henderson Field on Guadalcanal. On the Canal, we refueled and holed up for the night. The next day, we had an uneventful three-hour flight straight up The Slot.<\/p>\n Flying along the edges of Bougainville, it was hard to ignore the wild, dark beauty of the big island. We flew alongside jagged mountain peaks, all jungle green with occasional outcroppings of stone. Dense foliage spilled all the way down to the water line.<\/p>\n In the final flight pattern at Torokina\u2019s Piva Yoke<\/em> air strip, we could see in the distance white clouds of steam rising from two, live, Bougainville volcanoes, blending with a mass of dark, threatening, cumulus clouds. A heavy, torrent of tropical rain opened up on us as the last few planes groped their way in. That night and for several nights to come, we also heard the sounds of sporadic shellfire in the jungle.<\/p>\n Marine C-47 transports followed a day later with our ground crews, duffel bags and equipment. Meanwhile, VMTB-232\u2019s weary ground echelon, still waiting to be relieved, welcomed us to Bougainville in the rain.<\/p>\n I shared a four-man tent with George Manning, Bill Batten and Capt. Hank Hise.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Two days later, I was in the air over Rabaul on our first strike of the war.<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/p>\n It was apparent to U.S. military planners that Bougainville was an important objective not because the island had any true military value but simply because it was needed to isolate and deal with Rabaul.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n To put it another way\u2014there was one reason and one reason alone for the American invasion of Bougainville. It was to get airfields within a short flight range of the Japanese stronghold at Rabaul. Short range, hard-hitting SBDs and TBFs were far more valuable for precision bombing than the big, long-range, high-altitude bombers flown by the Air Force.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Located on a wide peninsula at the Northern end of New Britain and curving around a broad natural harbor, the Australian garrison of Rabaul had been overwhelmed by Jap forces at the outbreak of the war. After occupation, the Japs developed Rabaul into the most formidable fortress and supply base in the South Pacific. All Japanese invasions in the Solomons, including Bougainville and Guadalcanal, were launched and supplied from Rabaul.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n At one time in 1943 there were almost 140,000 Japanese troops massed there. Using captured Australians and gaunt POWs captured at Singapore as labor, the Japanese built and rebuilt several fortified air bases on the Rabaul peninsula. The bases included heavy anti-aircraft gun installations and miles of underground tunnels and bunkers in the pumice hills.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n On the heels of the Guadalcanal campaign, the Joint Chiefs of Staff decided to avoid the kind of bloody, overpowering commitment it would have taken to invade Rabaul. The strategists concluded it wasn\u2019t necessary. Instead, the Allies set out to strangle Rabaul by battering its airfields and wiping out its fading air power and cutting off its supply lines.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The Siege of Rabaul was well underway.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Rabaul became our primary target<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Over the years, most of our strikes on Rabaul have faded into a blur. But our first strike\u2014that very first strike\u2014was one that I will always remember.<\/p>\n I was on the flight list that included six Anzac pilots and 18 Yanks, plus crews. We were going in with a strike force of 24 TBF Avengers, each plane loaded with four 500-lb. bombs set with delay fuses.<\/p>\n The night before take-off, we were briefed by Lt. A. J. Ludwig, squadron intelligence officer, and Capt. Hank Hise, the designated flight leader. Believe me, we gave them both our full attention. I was eager, but apprehensive. They identified the target: military supply areas along the western slope of Rabaul\u2019s Simpson Harbor. They reported on the latest weather conditions. Hank Hise followed up with directional headings, flight formations, attack strategy, a strong reminder of what to do if we had to bail out and some final words of encouragement.<\/p>\n We took off with the first streaks of dawn, when the surrounding jungle and hills were still dark and dripping wet. With our props trailing mist and exhaust stacks belching flame, we thundered down the runway matting, two planes at a time. Out over Empress Augusta Bay, we climbed in a circle to 14,000 feet, joined in formation, and made a beeline for Rabaul.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Flying high above us in a relentless weaving pattern, a flight of F4U Corsairs from VMF-115 provided flight cover, whether we needed it or not. While we expected heavy anti-aircraft fire at Rabaul, we didn\u2019t anticipate any significant fighter opposition.<\/p>\n Maj. Joe Foss, America\u2019s leading ace at that time, was the skipper of VMF-11&\u2014on his second tour in the South Pacific war zone. He arrived at Espiritu Santo with his new squadron on the CVE carrier Copahee<\/em> in early 1944, shortly before we came in on the Kitkun<\/em> Bay.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A few nights before we were called up to Bougainville, I watched Foss win a pile of money in a high- stakes poker game at the Santo officer\u2019s club. Was it a sign of good luck? Cradling stacks of chips and clutching a fist full of hundred dollar bills, Foss kept his cards close to his belly\u00a0and chewed on a soggy cigar throughout the game.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n On the horizon, we could see the volcanoes, North Daughter and South Daughter, on the windward side of Simpson Harbor. We were fast approaching Rabaul. Soon, we began to pick up anti-aircraft fire. It was high and behind us. Inaccurate. We spread our formation in a high-speed descent to 7,500 feet, coming straight in. Now the flak became heavy\u2014ugly, black, puffs bursting around us. We peeled off into our dives. I homed in on the target, rolled into a split-S, hit the trim tabs, opened the bomb bay, and plunged through the deadly flak in a 65 degree dive. Everything was pumping inside me, my heart beating rapidly, my mouth dry.<\/p>\n Was I scared? You bet I was. Fear is an inevitable and natural response to shells and bullets coming at you. I think all of us on our first strike felt primal fear to one degree or another. But we learned to fly through our fears. Most of us did, anyway. Most of the time.<\/p>\n Frank Moses was coming down behind me on my right\u2014a little too close. We were both hurtling down on ammunition dumps at the south end of the harbor … 6,000 feet … 4,000 feet … 2000 feet …. No room to miss. I hit the button, released the bombs, and sharply banked to the left in an evasive breakaway. I pulled out of the dive with both hands on the stick and a heavy push on the rudder pedal to cope with the strong load on the controls. I felt high Gs pull at my face. Closing the bomb bay, I shoved the throttle forward, full-power, picking up speed. I got the hell out of there\u2014fast.<\/p>\n Behind me I felt a loud explosion. My turret gunner, Ernie Linsmaier, let out a triumphant yell on the intercom. I made a climbing turn and as I looked back, I saw a series of ammunition dumps go up. Spires of flame shot several hundred feet into the air, subsided, and then sprang higher.<\/p>\n Other TBFs were tearing up industrial sites along one edge of the harbor. Loaded warehouses were blowing apart. Fires were burning.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n On the way out, I caught up with the others on the back side of North Daughter, where we set our headings for Torokina. Back to Bougainville.<\/p>\n One Anzac reported he had been hit on the way down and had to pull out before dropping his bombs. Four or five other TBFs suffered flak damage, but remained airborne. All planes made it back to Torokina.<\/p>\n Mission accomplished.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n As I lit a cigarette and walked into the Strike Command tent for debriefing, somebody handed me a small bottle of brandy. It was good for two or three fiery gulps. Marine Corps policy provided every pilot overseas with a few slugs of alcohol after every combat mission\u2014to help calm raw nerves.<\/p>\n The liquor that day was LeJon Brandy, provided to The Corps by the Gallo Wine Company of Modesto, California. And the brand fives on. Cheap LeJon Brandy is still available on the shelves of liquor stores and markets throughout California.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n In a 45-degree, glide-bombing dive, the TBF Avenger was red-lined at 315 knots, or 370 miles per hour. But over Rabaul, we adopted a dive bombing mode we had practiced during operations over the Salton Sea. We sighted the target closely along the left edge of the nose. Then, the moment the target disappeared under the wing root, we rolled into a split-S maneuver and plunged down on target in a steep 65 degree dive. This maneuver gave us greater accuracy and less exposure to anti-aircraft fire.<\/p>\n In our dives at Rabaul, we sometimes pushed the TBF Avenger to 370 knots or 425 miles per hour. Thank God \u201cThe Grumman Iron Works\u201d built them strong.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Our strike on Rabaul\u2019s Vanukanau air base was another that remains vivid in my memory\u2014only because of the extraordinary Kiwi briefing performance the night before.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Built prior to the war by Australians, Vunakanau bordered the northern edge of Empress Augusta Bay. It was rebuilt and enlarged by the Japanese, using American POWs as labor. The airstrip consisted of two parallel runways, each 5,199 feet long, plus scores of revetments and taxiways that fanned out from every side of the runways. A hidden entrenchment of antiaircraft defenses included 15 heavy, 14 medium and 12 light guns, according to postwar records. Whatever the number, Vanakanau was one of Rahaul\u2019s strongest and most important air bases.<\/p>\n Our strike force of 24 TBFs was divided between 12 planes from New Zealand\u2019s NZTB-30 and 12 planes from VMTB-242, each plane loaded with four 500-pound bombs with delay fuses.<\/p>\n The New Zealanders led the way on this one. At the briefing the night before, we were confronted by the Kiwi\u2019s burly, flight leader, F\/LT. M. G. Stubbs, RNZAF. His squadron mates called him Old Tank. Stroking a thick, heavy mustache with the back of his hand, he glared at us, then cut loose.<\/p>\n \u201cGentlemen,\u201d he bellowed. \u201cOur takeoff is 0500. And Yanks, I don\u2019t mean 0504. We proceed to squadron rendezvous over Point Obo at 0535. And Yanks, I damn well don\u2019t mean 0539.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we close in on the south end of Simpson Harbor, I may alter the course sharply away from the harbor, at which time I don\u2019t want to hear some Yank break radio silence with a wiseass remark, like where is this stupid bastard taking us? For your information, Yanks, I will be employing something called tactics<\/em> that were practiced successfully by Alexander and Hannibal and the Roman commanders and, belatedly, by Napoleon himself. Such will bring us to a point of attack from the fan side of the Mother and Two Daughters instead of the customary Mother and nearest daughter approach up the channel.\u201d<\/p>\n He rolled on like this for several minutes. We resisted breaking out in raucous laughter and applause. But it was a grand performance. We just grinned, stifled our laughs, and gave him our full attention.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The following day, Old Tank proved to be a man of his word. With Rabaul looming ahead, he led us off course and around the back side of the Mother and Two<\/p>\n Daughters. When we banked out from behind the volcanoes on attack, the antiaircraft guns came alive. Flak started to fly. The flash of shell bursts spread below us. We came down in a slanted, high speed approach. At about 8,000 feet, we split the formation, peeled off into our dives, and hurtled down on Vanukanau through a spreading firestorm.<\/p>\n George \u201cTiny’\u2019 Thompson and I were the \u201cTail-end- Charlies\u201d on this attack. Up in the lead, one Anzac pilot veered to the right in the middle of his dive and went after the Vanukanau control tower. One of his bombs brought the tower to the ground. A direct hit. Those Kiwis were good.<\/p>\n I homed in on the far end of the left runway. A good, straight-line target. Two of my bombs hit beyond the runway, outside the assigned target area. But the other two blasted the entire end section of the runway and several nearby revetments. On target.<\/p>\n Coming out of my dive, I rolled away in a high-G, horizontal turn, strafing with both ,50-cal wing guns while Linsmaier swung his .50-cal turret gun into action. Strafing to the side, he was able to suppress some dangerous incoming ground fire. Further south, I escaped with minor flak damage and a couple of bullet holes in my right wing.<\/p>\n Other planes endured damage during this strike. One Anzac had his center hatch shot away. Shrapnel fragments cracked the front windscreen of Jake Nevans\u2019 plane. A close call. Bob Gilardi lost his plane\u2019s left wing flap to AA fire. Ed Lupton took several bullet holes in the skin of one wing. And similar holes showed up in the fuselage of others.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Francis E. Lee, one sweet-talking southerner in our squadron, suffered the most traumatic problem that day over Vanakanau. Lee\u2019s plane was hit by two, maybe three 40 mm shells during his final dive.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He was down to 4,000 feet at the time and immediately tried to pull out. One shell shattered the corner post of the windscreen and blew away the radio antenna. It cut off all radio communication. Another hit the accessory section and ruptured the oil system. Oil came bursting into the cockpit around the firewall, covering the instrument panel and spraying into Lee\u2019s face. Partially blinded, Lee still managed to keep his plane airborne. He flew south beyond Cape St. George. His radioman donated his flight pants, which Lee stuffed around the plotting board holders to help stop the spray. South of Rabaul, he sighted our TBFs and he joined up on the formation. No radio contact. We were on our way back to Torokina.<\/p>\n Finally, the rugged R2,600 Wright engine gave out. And Lee cautiously brought his TBF down into a flaps- down, tail-down, water landing without power. He and his two crewmen quickly unbuckled, crawled out on the wing and scrambled into the plane\u2019s inflatable rubber life raft\u2014within the two-minute Grumman safety margin. From the raft, they watched their plane sink slowly underwater, down to the ocean bottom.<\/p>\n Two of our planes dropped smoke bombs to mark the location and circled as long as their fuel allowed. A short time later, Lee and his crewmen were pulled from the water by a PBY \u201cBumbo\u201d rescue flying boat that had homed in on emergency IFF signals from one of the circling TBF\u2019s.<\/p>\n All three men were plied with whiskey, flown to Green Island, and returned to Torokina the following day.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n The indomitable spirit of Jake Nevans prevailed when he made a dangerous landing in choppy ocean waters during our return from a raid on Rabaul\u2019s Lakunai airfield and the causeway to Matupi Island. Jake slowly and carefully brought his disabled plane down alongside a U.S. destroyer escort that was slicing through the heavy sea on its way back to its base in the Treasury Islands.<\/p>\n The destroyer escort\u2019s crew rescued Jake and his men and hauled them aboard. The three Marines settled in. They enjoyed a few days of good chow, hot showers and traditional Navy hospitality. Jake later reported that the skipper was a most engaging New Englander. ***<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A third water landing during this period took place when Capt. Bud Main, leading a second strike on Rabaul\u2019s Simpson Harbor installations, dropped out of formation with a bad oil leak. Recognizing he could never make it back to Torokina, he jettisoned his unexploded bombs, turned back, and made a safe water landing in the ocean near a Navy PT Boat that had been damaged slightly during a nocturnal prowl up St. George\u2019s Channel.<\/p>\n Main and his crew were picked up by a \u201cDumbo\u201d PBY and returned directly to our Torokina base.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Going down in the open sea was a threat we all learned to live with. Surviving a crash landing in the water, or getting lost in the open sea, or fending off shark attacks were all a part of the drill, along with one overriding danger we seldom talked about. That was the spectre of getting captured by the Japs.<\/p>\n The brutal Japanese atrocities in Nanking, Singapore, Bataan and Guadalcanal were still fresh in our minds. And the infamous \u201cTunnel Hill Incident\u201d at Rabaul had taken place shortly before our arrival on Bougainville. That was when the Japanese Secret Police, the Sixth Field Kempei Tai, executed a group of Allied POWs who had been forced to work on the maze of tunnels and caves in the surrounding Simpson Harbor hillsides.<\/p>\n Allied POW data released in 1945 gave credence to our wartime concerns. Almost 38 percent of all military POWs in the hands of the Japanese during WWII died in captivity, compared with less than 2 percent of all military POWs in the hands of the Germans.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n After suffering heavy losses in the Battle of Piva Yoke<\/em> and after several unsuccessful attempts to penetrate the Marine defenses at the Torokina perimeter, the hungry remnants of the Japanese forces in the Empress Augusta Bay area settled for continuous harassment.<\/p>\n Working their way through the jungle and over tortuous mountain trails, the persistent Japs packed some artillery and ammunition from Buin at the southern end of Bougainville, all the way up into the mountains overlooking our perimeter. From somewhere up in those mountainous jungles, the Jap artillery would sporadically shell our airstrips at night. Just after dark, the shells would start falling\u2014blasting craters which were quickly refilled. Damage was moderate. A few planes were hit and a few shells exploded perilously close to our tent area. That kept us on edge, for sure. And it led to many sleepless nights.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It was thought the Japs had their guns on rails that were hidden under jungle cover. At night they would roll them out, drop a few shells, and move back under cover. We were unable to pinpoint their remote jungle locations.<\/p>\n To counter this problem, the Bougainville Command ordered a relay of two-hour, artillery spotting patrols, all- night long, around the perimeter. Two planes at a time. Two hours at a time. The assignment went to our squadron\u2014and it was unpopular duty. Very unpopular.<\/p>\n Yet the strategy was successful.<\/p>\n As soon as we launched night-time patrols, the Jap gunners became wise to what we were doing. They wouldn\u2019t fire when any plane was in their sector, for fear the muzzle flash would reveal the position of their guns. So we achieved our objective. As long as we continued nighttime air surveillance around the perimeter, there was almost no further shelling of the air strips. And we gained some semblance of sleep before taking off at dawn for another strike on Rabaul.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Marine pilots in the South Pacific flew any plane they could get. It wasn\u2019t like the Air Force in Europe, where each pilot had a personal plane and supporting crew. At the end of a thin supply line, largely dependent upon Navy logistics, dedicating specific planes to specific pilots was a luxury the Marines just didn\u2019t have.<\/p>\n That was one big reason why our plane captains and maintenance crews and engineering teams under Warrant Officer Fred Minden commanded the respect of every pilot in the squadron. Fred was a tough old salt\u2014a pre-war Marine who knew how to handle men and machines.<\/p>\n The TBF was a strong and reliable plane. But our TBFs at Bougainville took a beating. Yet Minden\u2019s men kept them flying under unbelievably stressful conditions.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Pounding Rabaul continued to be our primary mission. But the Bougainville Command also called on our squadron for help in ground support missions\u2014bombing and strafing Japanese gun positions and other Jap installations on both sides of the big island.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Most of these were low-level raids in six-plane formations. Three two-plane sections. And we took advantage of low flying clouds to conceal our approach. We\u2019d fly in across the jungle at almost tree-top level, under the mist and low-hanging clouds that piled up against the mountains.<\/p>\n Numa Numa, Buka Passage, Mamagata, Sorum, Burako and the east bank of the Jaba River\u2014all were targets we hit at one time or another.<\/p>\n On one of these raids, I missed the primary target area and wiped out a big, thriving Japanese vegetable garden. On another, towering explosions erupted from a fuel dump totally hidden in a coconut grove. And after one low-level raid, I returned with palm fronds in my bomb bay. The most hazardous of these Bougainville missions for me, however, was our attack on the guns at Buka Passage.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n A key channel between the Jap-held island of Buka and the northern tip of Bougainville, Buka Passage had a deadly concentration of Japanese firepower.<\/p>\n During our first week on Bougainville alone, the gunners at Buka Passage shot down two US fighter planes, killing both pilots. And they heavily damaged a fast-moving, US Navy PT Boat, severely injuring the skipper and several crewmen.<\/p>\n Firm orders from the Bougainville Command came down to VMTB-242: \u201cDestroy the guns at Buka Passage<\/em>”<\/p>\n The job went to Capt. Hank Hise,<\/p>\n Hise planned a fast-moving, four-plane attack\u2014each plane carrying a powerful, 2,000-pound bomb with delay fuse. He selected his three tent mates to join him on the mission. I was picked as Hise\u2019s wingman. George \u201cTonto\u201d Manning and Bill Batten formed the second section.<\/p>\n We took off at dawn and headed straight into trouble as we neared the far upper end of Bougainville. We had reports of rain squalls and heavy clouds. But we hadn\u2019t expected the kind of appalling weather that had built up overnight. We faced huge tropical thunderheads that towered well over 40,000 feet, with blinding flashes of lightning. Violent down and up drafts began breaking up our formation. Then came the blinding, torrential rain.<\/p>\n Hank Hise smartly aborted the mission. We turned back and returned safely to Torokina.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n On that same morning, our skipper, Maj. Bill Dean, was leading a 24-plane strike on Rabaul. They met the same dangerous weather head-on. But Dean bravely or stupidly didn\u2019t turn back. He tried to push through the front, resulting in 24 TBFs scattered all over the sky. Three planes made it to Green Island. The others straggled back to Torokina on their own. Amazingly, no planes were lost.<\/p>\n Two days later, we were in the air again. Although the most violent weather had passed, stacks of low clouds remained. The ceiling at Buka Passage was about 1,500 feet. Hank Hise abruptly changed our approach. Instead of coming in from the hills and dive bombing the gun emplacements, we flew in under the fringes of the low- hanging clouds and then dropped down on the deck for the final run, low over the water. .<\/p>\n As the angry, antiaircraft fire erupted, we attacked in a staggered column, aiming at the center of the guns.<\/p>\n Again, my memory of what happened next may be distorted by the intervening years. I know that I saw the flashes of the guns\u2014and shells coming in my direction. And I saw tracers streaking past my cockpit on the right. Everything else at the time was blocked out of my mind. I totally concentrated on the guns firing at us, except for one startling moment when I glimpsed the bomb from Hank Hise\u2019s plane arcing down into the water. Too soon. A miss. Off target.<\/p>\n Now, more than ever, I focused on the center of the gun emplacements. I had to make it. Straight ahead. I continued in with both wing guns blazing. And a few seconds later, I was in perfect position for the release. I sent my 2000-pound bomb on its way\u2014crashing into the center of the multi-gun installations.<\/p>\n Fragments of Buka Passage guns exploded in all directions.<\/p>\n Batten and Manning followed, delivering their payload successfully on the north side of the gun positions. I think Batten\u2019s bomb hit in the target area. Manning\u2019s bomb went to the left, but within range. The entire gun emplacement area was blasted.<\/p>\n The guns at Buka Passage were destroyed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Batten\u2019s plane was hit by a 40 mm. in the right wing, knocking out the right aileron control and the air speed indicator. Manning\u2019s plane was riddled by shell fragments with one gaping hole in the right wing. Miraculously, Hise and I dodged the tracers by the skin of our teeth. We came through unscathed.<\/p>\n All four planes made it back to Torokina.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n In a September 1995 speech on Marine Aviation in World War II, at the National Air and Space Museum, Brigadier General Henry W. Hise, USMC (Ret.), told the story of our attack on the guns at Buka Passage. And he briefly had this to say about his bomb hitting the water: \u2018I opened the bomb bay, armed the bomb and the aircraft\u2019s two 50 cal wing guns. I had just got squared away in the run, going directly for the target, when a double string of 12.7 mm tracers began going over my aircraft\u2019s nose\u2014coming from dead ahead. I had been shot at many times. But this was the first time nose to nose. If the gunner had dropped his aim a little he would- have hit me in the teeth. I found this somewhat unsettling. And I decided to strafe the target. I squeezed the gun trigger on the stick and in my haste I also hit the bomb button.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cMy strafing suppressed the guns, but my bomb fell in the water with a mighty blast. I was greatly embarrassed.”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n My faithful turret gunner, Ernie Linsmaier, remembered our run on the guns at Buka Passage, too, when he sent me a long letter in 1993\u2014on the fiftieth anniversary of our tour at Bougainville.<\/p>\n \u201cThose damned tracers were passing close, right along side my turret,\u201d he wrote. \u201cA few inches to the right and we\u2019d of had it. Did you ever think of that?\u201d<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n The Japs played some kind of strange but futile game with us at Rapopo.<\/p>\n Located inland, a few miles south of Rabaul\u2019s Simpson Harbor, Rapapo was a single, concrete fighter strip 5,000 feet long, 100 feet wide. It was surrounded by a circle of solid revetments and anti-aircraft defenses. Outside that circle were taxiways and clusters of hangars and aircraft storage facilities.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n One bright day, air surveillance photos showed what appeared to be Zeke fighter planes in many of the Rapopo revetments. That captured the immediate attention of the Bougainville command.<\/p>\n When the photos were enlarged and studied carefully, however, by Marine Intelligence, it became clear that it was all a sham. The Zekes were patched-over hulks, some<\/p>\n with propped up wings, some without wheels, a few without engines.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, we were sent on a full-scale mission to Rapopo. Capt. Barney McShane, a genial Irishman from Boston, led the strike. Barney was VMTB-242\u2019s popular executive officer. All 24 planes in the strike force came out of our squadron pool.<\/p>\n As we approached Rapopo, the antiaircraft fire was surprisingly light. At about 7,500 feet we peeled off into our dives, coming down in four-plane sections. Six sections, wave after wave. And we hit Rapopo hard, very hard. It was an easy target.<\/p>\n We destroyed Rapopo. The concrete strip was blasted apart, in fragments. The revetments, the tower, the surrounding buildings were rubble. Nothing standing. Nothing left.<\/p>\n It was my last flight to Rabaul.<\/p>\n By the end of our tour at Bougainville, flying a mission to Rabaul had become a routine \u201cmilk run.\u201d The antiaircraft fire had thinned out. Most of the airfields were bombed out and destroyed. The few Jap planes remaining were trapped on the ground\u2014hidden in jungle revetments. Incoming supplies were cutoff.<\/p>\n The Allies\u2019 military strategy had worked. Rabaul was successfully throttled. The mighty fortress had become useless. In their ongoing drive toward Japan, the Allies simply bypassed the remnants of Rabaul.<\/p>\n The trapped and hungry Japanese stubbornly held on in their former stronghold, however. Sporadic but meaningless strikes on Rabaul by the Aussies and the US Air Force continued until the end of the war in August 1945.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n The long, two-year Solomons Campaign was over. At Bougainville, the Marine Corps\u2019 job was finished. Maj. General Roy S. Geiger, the original top commander on the big island and head of the First Marine Amphibious Corps, had moved on to the Central Pacific. Marine ground forces were pulled out of the perimeter defense positions, replaced by Australian and US Army troops, VMF-116 and VMTB-242 were pulled back to Espiritu Santo for reassignment.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Our landing back at Santo was cause for celebration, a hot shower, a bottle of Scotch, a good night\u2019s sleep, and the welcome news that all of the squadron\u2019s pilots and flight crews would receive one week of R&R, rest and relaxation, in Sydney, Australia.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Our squadron\u2019s next deployment\u2014unknown.<\/p>\n \n
\nEventually, the Navy returned Jake and his two crewmen to Bougainville.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cMy plan was to destroy the guns by a low level attack, sliding or arcing 2000-pound bombs with delay fuses into the Jap emplacements. In the final approach, I shifted our flight formation into a staggered column, going in on the target from over the water.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n