Once They Were Eagles

by Frank Walton

  Doc Reames, a broad grin on his face, is passing out small shots of brandy to calm down some of the most excited.

  Gradually, I get my story straight, gather all the facts and data for my reports.

  Then a truck hauls the Black Sheep away for showers, lunch, and rest.

  One more mission completed.

  2 | The Time, the Place, the People, and the Plane

  The Black Sheep Squadron sprang into being almost overnight, like Minerva from the skull of Jupiter. Almost overnight, too, they became a legend in the annals of Marine Corps history: youth-suddenly-become-men who blazed a brilliant arc across the skies of the South Pacific.

  “There is a tide in the affairs of men,” said Shakespeare, “which taken at the flood leads on to fortune.” The military situation, the development of a combat plane capable of meeting the Japanese Zero on equal or better terms, the fortuitous availability of a mix of combat-experienced and fresh new pilots, and the presence of a leader who could mold them into the toughest combat squadron in existence at the exact time that it was needed all combined to form just such a tide.

  The Japanese campaign had devastated everything before it across China, Hong Kong, Malaya, Indochina, Thailand, Burma, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, the Marianas, the Carolines, and the Solomons. The Japanese had seized some three million square miles of Oceania in six months and had only been stopped by the Marines in bloody fighting on Guadalcanal.

  Admiral William Halsey, in his characteristic manner, termed the Guadalcanal landing “Operation Shoestring”: shortly after the initial assault, Japanese bombers drove the supply ships from the beachhead before they could fully unload, leaving the Marines stranded for days. Half-starved, disease-ridden, fighting a fanatic foe, these few sweating men advanced slowly toward the airstrip. Securing the airfield, they knew, would bring other Marines who, at their rear bases, were sweating out each painful inch of the way with them.

  That the operation was a frayed shoestring may be seen from this excerpt from the January 1943 official logbook of the Marine Aviation Unit that moved into Guadalcanal's Henderson Field right behind the Marine ground troops: “Heavy bombers all gone, medium bombers all busted, dive bombers got no props, fighters got no tanks, torpedo bombers bogged down, airstrip out of commission, pilots all sick, am sending dispatch requesting instructions.”

  Cost to our Navy was high, too: two aircraft carriers, ten cruisers, and ten destroyers. But things got better after Operation Shoestring. By August 1943, Guadalcanal had become a rear area, subjected only to nightly bombing raids. Marines had landed on the Russell Islands, Rendova, and Munda and were eyeing Bougainville, 300 miles north of Guadalcanal. From Bougainville our fighters could reach the Japanese stronghold at Rabaul.

  Marine aviators had kept pace with their brothers on the ground, covering their landings, blasting ground installations, and knocking enemy fighters out of the sky. But these airmen, carrying too heavy a load on their shoulders, were beginning to show signs of strain. They flew daily from before daylight till after dark with only brief halts for refueling and rearming. During their catch-as-catch-can rest periods on the ground, they were subjected to nightly air raids. All through the night, Japanese bombers throbbed across the sky and sowed their deadly explosives. Their unsynchronized engines gave them an easily identifiable sound; the Marines called them “Washing Machine Charlies.”

  The route from Guadalcanal to Tokyo was blocked by many obstacles; major ones were Bougainville and Rabaul. Rather than carry on a costly, time-consuming island-by-island campaign, the Joint Chiefs of Staff settled on a plan to capture some of the islands and neutralize and bypass others.

  It was in this climate that Admiral Halsey decided to press forward up the Solomon Islands slot toward Tokyo. He was poised for an assault on Bougainville which would give him an air base from which he could reach the Japanese-held Rabaul, at the northern end of the Solomon Islands—the Japanese Pearl Harbor. At that time (mid-1943), Rabaul’s four airfields contained 400 aircraft; 100,000 Japanese troops were massed on the island of New Britain, where Rabaul is located. The Japanese considered the base impregnable. They did not intend to give up Rabaul.

  While the U.S. had no plans to seize it, Rabaul had to be neutralized if the drive toward Tokyo was to move forward. But Bougainville came first. Bougainville was protected not only by thousands of Japanese troops but also by five airfields, the most important of which was Kahili, on its southern tip. Off that tip was the island of Ballale, an airdrome surrounded by bristling antiaircraft guns. Obviously, air power was needed: bombers to demolish ground installations, fighters to protect the bombers while they did their job, fighters to take on the Japanese Zeros head to head.

  Halsey reviewed his requirements. One was a fighter plane that could hold its own against the Japanese Zero. He had it in the gull-winged F-4-U Corsairs recently developed by the Chance-Vought Aircraft Corporation. They had started arriving in the Solomons in February 1943. By August, enough had been delivered to the combat theater to equip the Marine squadrons. Ironically, they were available to the Marines only because the Navy had turned them down as unsuitable for carrier operations.

  The Corsair was a clean, sleek aircraft with a 2,000-horsepower engine. Its rated speed of 415 miles per hour at sea level made it the fastest aircraft in the theater at that time. The Corsair carried six 50-caliber machine guns, three in each wing.

  Halsey had his fighter planes. Next, he needed pilots to fly them and a commander to lead.

  3 | The Squadron Commander

  Normally, a Marine fighter squadron was formed in the States, given organizational and operational training as a unit, and then shipped overseas intact with its administrative staff and maintenance sections as well as its aircraft, flight echelon, and equipment.

  But Halsey needed another Marine squadron right now, and no organized unit was available.

  The solution was suggested by Major General James Moore, Assistant Commanding General of the First Marine Air Wing. The Wing was based at Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides, some 600 miles south of Guadalcanal. A Marine fighting squadron, VMF 214, had just completed a combat tour during which its commanding officer had been killed. Its pilots were off to Australia for R and R (rest and recreation) and were to be scattered to other assignments. For that reason, the squadron number was available. Why not staff the number with new people and send them into combat at once?

  A sufficient number of replacement pilots fresh from the States and several combat-experienced casuals were available to man the squadron. Still required were a commanding officer, an executive officer, a flight surgeon, and an intelligence officer.

  The key position was the commanding officer.

  Major Gregory Boyington, a hard-drinking former Flying Tiger, was causing a furor around the fighter base on the other side of the island, demanding an assignment as a squadron commander.

  Boyington was born at Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. His parents had been divorced when he was a year old, and his mother had married E.J. Hallenbeck when Greg was three. The boy had thought Hallenbeck was his father.

  Greg “Hallenbeck” graduated from the University of Washington, where he was a middleweight wrestler. By 1935 he was married and bogged down in a dull job as a draftsman at Boeing Aircraft. Marine Aviation offered him a way out of his doldrums. The only problem was that Marine Aviation would not take a married man. It was at this time that Boyington learned that his natural father was Boyington, not Hallenbeck.

  So it was as Gregory Boyington, an “unmarried person,” that he signed up for the Marine Corps. All through his training period he had kept his family hidden. In doing so, he managed to acquire sizable debts, as a young lieutenant would who was trying to maintain two residences, one at the base Officers’ Club and one off-base for his wife and children.

  By mid-1941 his marriage was failing; he was deeply in debt and in danger of being cashiered by the Marine Corps.

  Then he was offered a sol
ution to his situation. General Claire Chennault was forming an aviation unit to be called the American Volunteer Group, whose members would fly as mercenaries for the Republic of China against the invading Japanese. The pilots were to be paid what was a handsome salary at that time: $500 per month plus $500 for each Japanese plane they shot down.

  These were the Flying Tigers.

  The recruiter assured the prospective candidates that the plan had the full approval of the U.S. government, including President Roosevelt. Their papers would be kept in Washington. Upon their return, they would be reinstated in their respective services without loss of rank or precedence.

  Along with a number of other Marine, Navy, and Army pilots, Boyington signed up.

  Many people think that the Flying Tigers were shooting down Japanese planes before the United States entered the war, but the fact is that they never got into action until after Pearl Harbor.

  Boyington claimed six Japanese planes between December 1941 and June 1942 during his service with the Flying Tigers. Becoming disenchanted with Chennault (some say the disenchantment was mutual), Boyington returned to the States.

  There he ran into a bureaucratic foulup: he couldn’t get back into the Marine Corps! While the U.S. desperately needed trained pilots, it appeared that no one could find his records. He took a job as a parking lot attendant while he was awaiting action.

  In desperation, he sent a long telegram to the Secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox, spelling out the whole situation, including the details of the secret agreement between the U.S. Government and the Republic of China for the Flying Tigers. This telegram got results. He was reinstated in the Marine Corps and sent to San Diego. On 5 January 1943, Boyington was one of a group of 19 pilots ordered to “duty beyond the seas.”

  He served one tour as executive officer of VMF 122 at Guadalcanal in April 1943 but saw no combat action. At a rear base after his tour, he’d broken his leg in a barroom incident and been shipped to New Zealand to recuperate. Now he was back at Espiritu Santo, looking for an assignment.

  Major Boyington was the right rank for a squadron commander; he was an experienced combat pilot; he was available; and the need was great. These assets overcame such reservations as the general may have had about his personal problems.

  General Moore made the decision.

  “We need an aggressive combat leader. We’ll go with Boyington,” he said.

  The squadron had its commander.

  4 | The Intelligence Officer

  I became a member of the Black Sheep by a circuitous route. As sergeant in charge of War Traffic Control Planning for the Los Angeles Police Department, I was draft exempt. But by mid-1942, as I read of the Japanese advances in the South Pacific, it was obvious that the war was already the biggest show on earth and destined to get bigger. I believed that the place for every able-bodied man was in the service. My wife, Carol—not one of those weeping “don’t leave me” types—was fully in agreement.

  Volunteering for service, I was appointed a first lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps and ordered to proceed to Camp Lejeune, New River, North Carolina, for duty.

  Camp Lejeune had been hacked out of the wilderness and swamps of the coast of North Carolina. It was said that an Army detail sent down there to look it over had reported that the place was not fit for human beings to live in, so it was turned over to the Marines.

  I was one of 50 in an officer indoctrination course, all trying to sort out “Field Sanitation,” “Arms and Ammunition,” “Thompson Submachine Gun,” “First Aid,” “Map Reading,” “Scouting and Patroling,” “Identification of Ships,” “Navy Firepower,” “Military Gases,” “Defense against Air Attack,” and a hundred other topics—interspersed with calisthenics, close-order drill, long-range hikes, field maneuvers, overnight bivouacs, command practice, marksmanship (rifle, machine gun, and pistol), and regular turns as Officer of the Day.

  All this and more was crowded into us in 35 days.

  I had a pleasant home leave, then reported to Camp Elliott near San Diego and was assigned to the 22nd Replacement Battalion. On 1 July 1943 came orders for “permanent duty beyond the seas.” I was a little concerned about the word “permanent.” I knew that a lot of Marines had found permanent resting places in the South Pacific.

  My wife came down to San Diego to see me off. We had a stiff-upper-lip farewell, and then I boarded the former Dutch ship Bloemfontaine along with some 2,300 men, 250 officers, and a crew of 200. Carol returned to Los Angeles, applied for work at Lockheed, and spent the war as a rigger on combat aircraft.

  Except for a submarine scare, which kept us at full alert for 24 hours, our trip was uneventful. We docked in Noumea, New Caledonia, on 24 July 1943.

  On Monday, 16 August (my wedding anniversary was the next day), I was transferred to the First Marine Air Wing. I drove up to Tontouta (35 miles north of Noumea) and, with four other officers and about 500 bags of mail, loaded into a DC-3 cargo plane for the four-hour flight to Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides.

  I was assigned to the Wing Intelligence Office and immediately commenced an on-the-job training program in aircraft identification, reading Japanese documents, escape and evasion reports, survival information, and other documents that would be of assistance to the pilots when I was assigned to a squadron.

  I had been undergoing the cram course in Air Intelligence duties only about two weeks when Captain Dave Decker, Wing Intelligence Officer, called me in one morning.

  “You don’t drink, do you, Frank?”

  “Well,” I said, “I enjoy a drink now and then, but I’m not a drunk.”

  “That’s what I mean. They’re forming a new squadron over at the fighter strip, and they need an intelligence officer. The CO is to be a man by the name of Boyington. He has a reputation for getting drunk, and when he gets drunk, he gets belligerent and wants to wrestle. We need someone with him who won’t get drunk and who is big enough to handle him if he gets too mean. Your background and your size make you a logical candidate.”

  “Well, managing drunks was no big problem for me in the Los Angeles Police Department. I think I can handle him.”

  Captain Decker was a lttle vague as to exactly what else I was to do. It appeared that “Standing Operating Procedures” had not yet been developed for air combat intelligence officers. I was to help the pilots all I could with any information they might need and make detailed reports to the local Fighter Command, the Group Headquarters, Strike Command, and Wing Headquarters. Exactly what kinds of reports was not spelled out, just that they all wanted to know what was happening. As a result, my early reports of the Black Sheep Squadron combat actions were written in narrative style. The Wing reproduced them and distributed them throughout the South and Southwest Pacific under the title “Air Battle Notes from the South Pacific.”

  Later on, as was no doubt inevitable, forms were developed that required dry-as-dirt statistical data. The forms were more efficient, perhaps, but they lost considerably in readability.

  On Tuesday, 7 September 1943, I was transferred to Marine Air Group Eleven to serve as intelligence officer for Marine Fighting Squadron 214. I drove through coconut groves, across the island, and checked in with Captain George Waite, Group Intelligence Officer.

  “Your squadron is down at their ready room at the strip now, having their squadron photo taken. Go on down and report to Major Boyington.”

  I drove along a coral road and found a Dallas hut with a sign “VMF 214.” Out in front, a group of pilots was lining up near a blue, inverted-gull-wing Chance-Vought Corsair. I looked around for a pair of gold maple leaves and spotted them on a slight, smartly turned-out Irishman who seemed to be directing activities.

  “Major Boyington?” I said and saluted. “I’m Lieutenant Walton.”

  “I'm not Major Boyington. I’m Major Bailey, the Squadron Exec,” he said. “You must be our intelligence officer.”

  “Yes sir, Captain Waite told me to report to Major Boyington.”


  “Come on, I’ll introduce you.”

  We approached a thick-necked, slope-shouldered, stocky individual dressed in a baseball cap, rumpled khaki shirt open halfway down his chest, wrinkled trousers, and house slippers.

  “This is Major Boyington,” Bailey said.

  Boyington gave me a wry grin and a firm handshake, shuffled his slippers, and put me in the lineup; I was a member of the squadron.

  After the photos were over we had a short talk.

  “Get as much intelligence dope as you can,” he said. “You don’t need to check with me. We’ll be leaving for our combat tour in a few days, so you don’t have much time. You spend all your time getting your equipment together.

  “By the way, we’re having a squadron party tonight at Fisher’s hut. Come over and get acquainted with the boys.”

  I spent the rest of the day gathering maps and pamphlets, studying reports, and talking to Captain Waite, his assistant Captain Landauer, and other intelligence officers just out of the combat area.

  An intelligence officer’s job included dozens of written duties and just as many unwritten. First, of course, was gathering information for the pilots: area maps, reports on Japanese aerial tactics, survival information, locations of antiaircraft positions. Of these, survival information rated a high priority in the minds of the pilots: what they should do if they went down, what equipment to have with them, where to look for help, possible “safe” places if they should land on an island.

  All the time there was the paperwork. Flash reports: brief, preliminary statements of results that required immediate action by higher authority, such as planes down, enemy ship sightings. Action reports: detailed narratives of the missions, including dates, time, target, participants, planes used, call signs, degree of success, friendly and enemy losses, ammunition expended. Special reports: locations of AA positions, sightings of special types of ordnance used by the enemy.