Once They Were Eagles

by Frank Walton

  Once a month a War Diary was prepared. It listed all the squadron's activities during the month; number of missions flown by each pilot; the achievements of each; plane damage; casualties suffered.

  As the oldest person in the squadron (four years older even than Boyington, who—at 30—had been dubbed “Pappy” by his men), I was a father figure to many of the pilots. I spent many hours talking one-on-one about the war, its meaning, its progress, and life in general. I scrounged cigarettes and canned fruit juice (pineapple juice was in great demand) for the pilots; acted as squadron censor for their mail (I was the most liberal); helped arrange billeting and transportation; drew their flight gear for them. My feeling was that anything I could do to help these young men in their missions, I would be willing to do.

  I made it a point to get to know them individually; in private interviews I learned their home addresses, where they’d grown up and gone to school, what they’d majored in, and what activities they’d participated in, whether or not they were married. I found out when they’d joined the Marine Corps, where they’d trained, when they’d left to come overseas, what they’d been doing. As a result of these interviews, I knew more about their personal backgrounds than did anyone else.

  This exercise was to pay off handsomely at Munda.

  5 | The Pilots

  That night the squadron gathered in the hut of Don “Mo” Fisher, a gentle, 240-pound giant of a lad who had interrupted his pre-med training at the University of Florida after three years in order to join the Marine Corps. Don always knew the ins and outs of the supply business. Out of nowhere he’d managed to round up ten cases of beer and plenty of hamburgers.

  Mo was as lazy as they come. His hut looked as though a herd of hobos had lived in it for a month and moved out. Bottles and remnants of food were scattered about the deck; the bunks were unmade; clothing and miscellaneous gear dangled from clothes-lines straggling about the sides and from corner to corner of the hut. To solve the problem of empty bottles, a hole had been cut through the deck, and the empties were tossed into it to land on the ground some three feet below.

  The pilots were sitting on the ground in front of the hut, their backs against coconut logs. The conversation was of combat flying, food, home, and women.

  Late in the evening, as I had been warned, Boyington suddenly lurched to his feet and assumed a wrestler’s ready stance, his body slightly forward, arms hanging loosely in front of him. He glared around the group and challenged, “I’ll wrestle anybody in the crowd.”

  He paused and then added, “Except Walton.”

  And I knew I’d passed my first test.

  As the pile of empty beer bottles rose and the conversation lulled, some of the boys began to sing. It was soon evident which men were to head the choral group. Mo Fisher was one of them, but George Ashmun, of Far Hills, New Jersey, was the acknowledged leader. Quiet most of the time, he’d round up the boys and get them going in a songfest. He was slender, reserved, with blond, curly hair. A 1941 Hobart College grad in economics, he’d been a flight instructor for six months in Jacksonville before coming overseas.

  Mat Matheson—tall, dark, so handsome he could have been a leading man in the movies—was another of the singers. Mat was always at the ready with a neat phrase: on one occasion, when a well-endowed girl walked into the lobby of the Australia Hotel in Sydney with her most prominent features bouncing, he quipped, “She just washed them and can’t do a thing with them.”

  Before he enlisted in the Marine Corps, Mat had had three years at the University of Illinois, where he had lettered in ice hockey.

  Ed “Oli” Olander, another songster whom we called “Big Old Fat Old Ed,” was the most prolific letter writer of the group. He was an Amherst grad with a major in history. Give Ed a cigar and a small jug of beer, and in ten minutes he’d have you spellbound with the wonders of Massachusetts and the glories of a nation in the hands of the Republicans. Mat was sure Oli would one day be governor of Massachusetts.

  The final two members of the choral society were Sandy Sims and Moon Mullen, from Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, respectively. They each had a tour of combat duty at Guadalcanal with enemy planes to their credit, and their judgment as to aerial combat was respected. Sandy was a year short of graduating from the University of Pennsylvania.

  Moon was a Notre Dame grad. He not only carried a smooth melody but also contributed a great deal to overseas squadron singing by writing the song “In a Rowboat at Rabaul,” which, six months later, was being sung by Army, Navy, Marine, and New Zealand squadrons throughout the entire South Pacific.

  These five men were the choral society. Whenever any three or more of them got together in the evening, it naturally turned into a songfest with the whole squadron joining in.

  Flight Surgeon Jim “Happy Jack” or “Diamond Jim” Reames we called “King of the Yamheads” (southerners). At 26, he was a graduate of the University of Tennessee Medical School and the Pensacola Aviation Medical Course. He’d been flying as flight surgeon on hospital planes evacuating wounded Marines from Guadalcanal when he was tapped for service with our squadron, where he dispensed brandy, snakeoil, and various sorts of good cheer.

  He was also able to pry into the boys’ minds with his “puhsnal” questions and ferret out their aches and hangups. Jim’s wife, Rosalita, was in Memphis.

  Major Stan Bailey, the Exec, was the exact opposite of Boyington. A spit-and-polish type, competition equestrian, member of the military jumping team, he was one you’d expect to carry a swagger stick—and he did. He tried to maintain some sort of respect for rank on the ground but found it difficult because Boyington was as down to earth as an old shoe.

  Twenty-six years old, he had interrupted his schooling, after three years at the University of Illinois, to join the Marine Corps and had sailed from San Diego on the same ship as Boyington. In two combat tours at Guadalcanal, he was credited with having downed two Japanese planes.

  In addition to Boyington, Bailey, Mullen, and Sims, the squadron’s nucleus of combat-seasoned veterans with enemy planes to their credit included five others.

  Captain Robert “Rootsnoot” Ewing was the Flight Officer. A 23-year-old Hoosier, he had spent three years at Purdue University before enlisting in the Marine Corps. In his tour at Guadalcanal, his score was three enemy planes: two Zeros and one bomber.

  Henry “Hank” McCartney was a tall drink of water from Long Island. At 25 and married, he was among the older pilots. He had earned his degree in engineering and sociology from Houghton College, New York, before joining the Marine Corps. As a veteran of two combat tours in Guadalcanal, he had three Japanese planes and two probables to his credit. Hank’s wife, Evelyn, was following his career from their home in New York.

  Next was Hank Bourgeois, called “Doctor Boo” by the squadron mates with whom he’d served his first two combat tours. Hank got hooked on flying early in life: his father had been instrumental in bringing air service to New Orleans and had a friend who owned a flying service in that area; as a result, young Henry had his first flight when he was seven, was in a crash at eleven, and soloed at thirteen.

  Hank had been in his last year as an aeronautical engineering major at Louisiana State University when he went into the service. He had two combat tours at Guadalcanal and two Japanese planes to his credit when he joined the Black Sheep.

  I asked him how he’d got the name “Dr. Boo.” He told me he’d lost his Communications after having been shot up on a mission and ended up flying in exactly the opposite direction when he attempted to return to base. He’d put his plane down in a lagoon in the center of a small island, where he’d been picked up by natives.

  “Somehow they got the idea that I was the number one Marine.” said Hank. “They took me to the chief and then to a leanto where an obviously pregnant native woman was lying on a mat.

  “‘Baby no come,’ they said.

  “I got out my first aid kit and gave them all my sulfa pills, telling them to give her
one twice a day. When I was picked up the next day by the flying boat, a Navy corpsman said they’d send down a doctor.

  “The doctor reported back that the baby had been born O.K. and that the Chief was so happy they named the baby ‘Boo Ja Wa,’ which was as close as they could come to saying my name.”

  So it was “Doctor Boo” for Bourgeois from then on.

  The other two combat-experienced veterans with Japanese planes to their credit were Bill Case and John Begert. Begert’s education (he was a journalism major) had been interrupted after two years of college, one each at Kansas and Texas. He’d had two combat tours at Guadalcanal and had downed one Zero.

  Case had completed two years at Oregon State University. He also had a Zero to his credit from his Guadalcanal combat tours. He had a wife, Ellen, waiting for him in Vancouver.

  “Long Tom” Emrich, John “Blot” Bolt, and Ed “Harpo” Harper were called “the Quartermaster Kids.” They were continually collecting souvenirs of all kinds and shipping them home by the crate. We were sure that their families were building warehouses to store the stuff.

  Bolt, from the University of Florida, was the most energetic member of the squadron. In addition to his quartermaster activities, he was always turning up with a gunnysack full of fish he’d dynamited; he’d organize pig roasts and beer parties; he made Cook’s Tours around the islands whenever he had time off. He thoroughly investigated and tested every new gadget or technique reported or developed.

  Harpo was a serious, studious individual who learned a lesson from every experience and filed it in his memory for use as needed. He’d completed two years at the University of Idaho.

  Long Tom was the squadron’s Don Juan, with a head of rich, thick black hair that required his constant attention. His two years at Wentworth Military Academy also made him a walking encyclopedia on all the new military scoop, usually far fetched. “The Germans have a new plane that weighs 9,875 pounds with a speed of 782.5 miles per hour,” he’d say. “Climbs 5,000 feet a minute …”

  At 26, Bob “Meathead” Bragdon was one of the older men, having graduated from Princeton in 1939 as a psychology major. An all-round athlete, he’d been on the boxing, track, rugby, and baseball teams. We called him the “Princeton Steelworker.” He was positive he’d never amount to a damn. He had a glib, facile manner of tossing away a phrase so carelessly that he’d be two paragraphs further along before the import hit you.

  William “Junior” Heier had signed on in the fall of 1941 with the Royal Canadian Air Force because he’d lacked the two years of college required to join any of the U.S. air arms. He’d transferred to the Marine Corps in the spring of 1942. He was sure that nothing could stop the Army Air Corps but the weather. He was always there with a quick comeback.

  Denmark Groover, Jr., born and raised in Quitman, Georgia, had had two years in pre-law at the University of Georgia. His accent was soft as butter, and we nominated him as First Vice-President of the Yamheads. We originally called him “Boone” but changed it to “Quill” or “Quill Skull” because his hair stuck out from his scalp like the quills of a porcupine.

  Burney “Tuck” Tucker was another southerner, born in Nashville, and another fine athlete; he’d lettered in football, track, and basketball during two and a half years at Tennessee State. As big men often are, he was softspoken and gentle, and spent much of his time keeping the Quartermaster Kids quiet.

  We called Jim Hill the exception: he was a quiet Chicago boy. He’d had two years at Northwestern, his second year as an engineering major. He didn’t have a lot to say but he was always in there in the formation where he belonged.

  Virgil Ray, from Hallsboro, North Carolina, had earned his commission the hard way. He’d enlisted in the Marine Corps and gone to boot camp at Parris Island. He’d passed top man in a competitive examination to transfer to aviation, taken his flight training, and flown one combat tour at Guadalcanal as an enlisted pilot.

  Bob Alexander was the typical all-American boy. In his nearly three years at Iowa State, he’d been a track man, a wrestler, and a gymnast. He’d also been Governor of Boy’s State in 1939. A fine, strapping, crewcut lad, he could have posed for a Marine recruiting poster.

  Tall, likable Walter “Red” Harris was in his last year as a zoology major at the University of Nebraska when he joined the Marine Corps. He’d been a member of the basketball team, the Thespians, and the Glee Club.

  Rolland “Rollie” Rinabarger had majored in mechanical engineering during his two years at Oregon State. He’d also found time to letter on the boxing team, though he was tall and slender enough to have made a good basketball player.

  Don “Deejay” Moore, from Amarillo, was the only Texan in our squadron. He was another who’d first joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, transferring to the Marine Corps after serving ten months there. He spent part of his spare time working on lessons for correspondence courses, and the rest he whiled away on the silver trombone he carted about with him.

  Bob McClurg was a quarterback and a business administration grad from Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania. He was said to have been rejected by other squadrons because he couldn’t fly well enough. When Boyington heard this, he snorted, “If the boy can’t fly well enough, it’s up to me to teach him.” And the CO proceeded to do just that.

  Chris “Wild Man” or “Maggie” Magee was our free spirit. He usually carried with him some thick tome on witchcraft or philosophy. He refused to wear boots; instead, he wore tennis shoes when he was flying. Utterly fearless, he usually took along a lapful of hand grenades, which he tossed over the side at various Japanese installations as he flew at hair-raisingly low levels. He always, and I mean always, wore blue nylon bathing trunks—we wondered if he ever took them off. A physical culture faddist, he could be seen in his spare time working out with his barbell, a blue kerchief tied on his head and his muscular body glistening in the sun.

  No one, no one, messed with Maggie. One evening a group of Black Sheep were crowded into a weapons carrier after a night of celebration at a rear area officers’ club. Boyington, well under the weather, got belligerent and began waving a bayonet around to the considerable discomfort of those who were crowded into the vehicle with him. Magee promptly took the bayonet away from him.

  Magee had majored in journalism for a year at the University of Chicago, where he participated in track, boxing, and football. He was another who’d come to the Marine Corps via the Royal Canadian Air Force.

  These, then, were the original Black Sheep: 28 pilots, the flight surgeon, and me. We were a microcosm of America: northeasterners with their broad As; southerners with accents soft as butter; Pennsylvanians and sharp-as-a-tack New Yorkers; rawboned midwesterners from the wheat and corn belts; men from the west coast and one from Texas. Some were seasoned veterans who’d already faced the enemy in aerial combat; others were fresh, green, eager.

  The pilots who’d flown previous tours had a total of 14½ planes to their credit, and Boyington was already a legendary figure as a Flying Tiger. Several cuts above the usual basic training graduates as well were the three members of the squadron with RCAF experience and two who had been instructors.

  It was a mix that jelled into a hard-hitting, battle-ready outfit.

  6 | Going into Action

  On 11 September 1943, Boyington called us together.

  “We’re leaving tomorrow for our first combat tour.”

  Everyone jabbered excitedly for a few moments and then quieted as he spoke again:

  “We’re going to Cactus (code name for Guadalcanal) and then on up to the Russell Islands. We’ll fly 20 planes up. The rest of you will fly up on a SCAT (military transport) plane.”

  The remainder of the day was spent gathering final bits of equipment, packing our gear, and storing most of it with the Group Quartermaster. We were taking only a handbag each for a six-weeks combat tour. Transport space into the combat area was so limited that no room was available for luxuries. A couple of
pairs of field shoes (boondockers, we called them), half a dozen pairs of socks, a few shirts, trousers, a minimum of toilet articles just about completed our load of personal gear.

  We were up at 4:00 A.M., loaded into trucks, and hauled some 15 miles across the island to the bomber strip, where we were checked in and weighed in. After an hour’s wait, we were trucked out to a brown two-engine Douglas transport plane, the workhorse of the South Pacific, and packed on top of what appeared to be several thousand pounds of aircraft parts, tools, medical supplies, and mail bags. The pile was so high our backs almost touched the ceiling.

  Then the pilot and copilot climbed in and crawled over to us to the cockpit. A few minutes later the engines sputtered to life, the plane swung about, and we moved along the taxiway. The overloaded craft staggered off the ground, not lightly and smoothly, like a bird, but sluggishly and laboriously, straining and complaining and groaning, until we were at last airborne. We circled out over the water and then crossed the end of the island, its solid jungles looking like a carpet of broccoli.

  Just before noon, Guadalcanal came into view. We could see the wrecked Japanese ships and troop barges on its shores and on the reefs about it. Entire jungle areas were masses of splinters; huge gouges showed in the deep green foliage.

  At twelve o’clock we bounced heavily down onto Henderson Field, for which the Marines had paid such a high price. The name honored a Marine aviator who had lost his life at the Battle of Midway.

  A truck hauled us over to the transient area past a complicated scene of destruction, rot, flies, and stench. We unloaded and had lunch: Spam and beans. At the Intelligence shack we learned that the pilots were to fly the 20 planes on to the Russell Islands that afternoon; the rest of us would fly up the next morning on the transport plane.

  A couple of us borrowed a jeep and took a tour around the island. We saw the Lunga River, the Tenaru, Bloody Ridge—all scenes of gallant, costly Marine victories. We saw that the Army had been there, too. Even though they had come much later than the Marines, they’d had their share of fighting. Over one of the roads a sign read: