Hero of the Pacific

by James Brady

  “With that they filed out of the press room. I was a little shaken, retelling those terrible hours all over again.” Shaken, sure, but he had coped, had talked at some length, and if not articulately then clearly, to hard-bitten professional journalists. He had not only responded to their questions but, it was quite apparent, moved some of those hard-shelled pros. Peter Vitelli, one of my sources in Raritan, supplied me the CD of a Basilone sound bite, so I’ve actually heard his voice talking to an admiring crowd. He could be an effective speaker.

  Now, as Basilone’s tour of the United States was about to start, Phyllis’s account becomes quite detailed and precise, with dates, places, events, names, and ranks, everything but serial numbers. Her son Jerry’s later but parallel version differs somewhat in the racier details of the journey.

  According to Phyllis, the same public relations colonel who’d calmed and encouraged Basilone earlier now took him aside in D.C. and briefed him on the coming agenda. The tour would kick off shortly, the month of September 1943, roughly a year after Basilone and the rest of the 7th Marines went ashore on the ’Canal. “The colonel came over to me and told me to sit down and take it easy. He then outlined the coming bond tour. I was assigned to Flight number 5 of the War Veterans Airmadas [you begin to suspect a Madison Avenue ad agency copywriter at work here in the jargon, with that coined word “Airmadas”]. My companions were to be Sergeant Schiller Cohen, Bosun’s Mate 2nd Class Ward L. Gemmer, Machinist Mate 1st Class Robert J. Creak, and film stars Virginia Grey, Martha Scott, Eddie Bracken, John Garfield, and Gene Lockhart [Keenan Wynn would be added].” Not precisely the A-list of Hollywood legends, but not bad. The destinations were largely and conveniently in the Northeast to start. “We were to cover the following cities, Newark, Jersey City, New Haven, Conn., Providence, R.I., Pawtucket, R.I., Worcester, Mass., Albany, Utica, and Rochester N.Y., and Allentown, Pa.” And though Basilone was only one of four servicemen on the tour it was obvious he was the big catch, with the first stops in his home state. But he had questions and might as well ask them now.

  “I said to the colonel, ‘Sir, you mean to tell me I have to speak at all of these rallies? What in the world will I talk about?’ ‘Sergeant, don’t worry about it, you will be introduced and asked to say a few words. Just remember, this tour is important to the war effort, in addition to raising money, you will be speaking at war plants and you of all people should know how desperately we need supplies, guns, and ammunition at the front lines. You may not think so now, but you will be serving your country as much as if you were back in the jungle killing the enemy.’”

  How much of this Basilone actually bought into is impossible at this remove to say, but as a schoolboy at the time, five years before my own Marine Corps enlistment, I remember how seriously civilians took such patriotic exhortations in wartime. We had rationing and blackouts and casualty lists, so the war was hardly a far-off story. We at home were in ways also living with it. In the daily papers and in the magazines that came to our house, and on the radio and in the movie newsreels, to a boy like me seeing footage of heroic figures like Manila John Basilone mouthing the same or similar words, they meant something. We weren’t yet jaded.

  18

  In Newark, New Jersey, the bond tour’s first stop, and only a forty-minute train ride on the Raritan Valley line from his hometown, John Basilone recalled, “There were a lot of speeches by top officials. I remember Mayor Murphy saying how proud he was of what Newark had contributed to the war effort, and how he urged all citizens to buy bonds until it hurt—and then buy one extra. After a wonderful dinner and more speeches we were taken to Proctors Theatre for a showing of ‘Mr. Lucky’ [with Cary Grant and Leo Durocher’s wife, Laraine Day]. Following the showing, the Hollywood stars in the Airmada introduced us service men. We all gave a short talk and urged the audience to ‘Back the Attack.’ Judging the reception we were given in Newark [where there were surely Basilones and a pride of neighbors and friends in attendance], we knew we were in for a hectic tour. There would be little rest, except for short naps, between our jumps from city to city. We were formally greeted at [Jersey City’s] City Hall by the commissioners before proceeding to the Hotel Plaza, where we were the guests of about 300 leading citizens for luncheon. Commissioner Potterton was the toastmaster and thanks to him, the speeches were held down to three minutes each.” Whether this was because the commissioner took up all the time with his own verbosity is not explained.

  It was also in Jersey City that, according to Jerry Cutter, things started to warm up between the returning hero and one of the Hollywood stars, Virginia Grey. “Mayor Murphy made a good speech. We all got our turn at the microphone. Bracken and Garfield were completely relaxed as they told people how important it was that they support the boys overseas.

  “Virginia introduced me and turned to me with a look that was a little different than the look she gave to the other guys. We did another event in Jersey City that afternoon and then a few hours off. Virginia and I managed to separate us from the others and slipped away to a hotel for a few drinks in a dark, back booth. She was from a show business family and grew up in Hollywood. I never met anyone even a little bit like her before. She was just about the funniest lady I’d ever run across, and beautiful, with real movie star looks—honey-colored hair and eyes that were deep blue, cornflower blue. She was thin, must have weighed just over a hundred pounds, and had so much energy I thought she was going to get up and tap dance on the table. We laughed our heads off. She didn’t take Hollywood glamour seriously at all because to her, it was just the family business. And could she tell dirty stories on all the big stars going back all the way to the silent movie days when her dad was a big shot.

  “She was too good to be true. I couldn’t stop looking at her. What really got me was that she was the real McCoy—inside. The tour was more important to her than her Hollywood movies. It wasn’t some put-up job just to get her face in the papers, she really put her heart into everything she said out there in front of the people. When I heard that from her and knew she was telling the truth, I was like the dog with a bone. It seemed like green lights all the way for Virginia and me. Being on the road like we were, meant that we were together every day.” Clearly, Manila John was a fast worker.

  Since Jersey City was only the second stop on the newly launched tour and their drinks and conversation in the back booth of the hotel bar their first hours alone, one marvels at how quickly Basilone “fell for a dame.” There was another dinner at a different “fancy hotel,” lots of speeches, plenty of big shots, and much pulling out of wallets and checkbooks for war bonds. There then followed at the big Jersey City theater another showing of Cary Grant’s Mr. Lucky. Virginia had an informed take on that, you can be sure. “We laughed all the way through, even the sappy love story was okay,” said Basilone. “Virginia kept whispering funny comments . . . about Cary not knowing what a woman might want.”

  Less laughingly, and apparently meaning it, Basilone went on: “Virginia and me were falling hard and fast even though we’d just met. It was easy to be around her when we were alone. She never put on airs. And I didn’t treat her like some of the girls who just wanted to have a good time with soldier boys for an evening. She was a real first class lady. She made her own money, a hell of a lot more than I did, and didn’t need anybody. She was altogether a new deal. Everything was still brand new between us and we were surrounded day and night by wild guys like Eddie Bracken who was just about the funniest guy I’d ever met. He was like me, couldn’t sit still. That took the pressure off us when we were out in public because Eddie was always there making jokes and playing tricks on everybody. It was the perfect set-up. Nobody made a big deal about us. It must have seemed like the natural thing.

  “We eventually got around to the talk about what I was planning for the future. I hadn’t been with one woman for years, and wasn’t sure if I was one-woman material any more. It was always love ’em and leave ’em, have a few laughs and then have to s
hip out or make it back to base. Now I was in a whole new ballgame with Virginia but I couldn’t tell her. It would only have made us both feel bad. After the movie the movie stars walked out on the stage in front of the screen and introduced us vets to the other servicemen and people in the audience. The slogan was ‘Back the Attack,’ and we pumped a few more bond sales out of them. Virginia was a tiger and would have taken their gold teeth if she could.

  “We left the theatre, off for the evening. Orders were to report to the hotel lobby tomorrow morning. Virginia and I walked through the quiet streets for a while and didn’t say too much. We got back to our hotel late and went up to our rooms. It was one of the only nights I didn’t wake up around midnight and grab for a weapon. Just having her in the same building was enough for me. I slept.”

  There are two surprises here. This is the first time since Australia that Basilone mentions nightmares of battle, sudden awakenings and a grab for weapons. And there is an admirable discipline on the part of both Grey and himself, that business of going to their separate rooms. Well, the tour was still young. And so were they. Phyllis Cutter picks up the thread: “In Plainfield [another New Jersey town] we went through much of the same. The people listened intently when Max R. Roener, the master of ceremonies, introduced us, we got a wonderful reception and were deeply impressed when the people stood in silent tribute as seaman 1st class Elmer Cornwell, U.S. Navy told how he lost 50 pounds while adrift in a lifeboat for 36 days with rations for only 15 days. It’s amazing [Basilone concluded silently, perhaps recalling his own ordeals] how much the human body can take, although I feel there must be a guardian angel that watches over us at times of great stress. How else can you account for any of us being on this platform, instead of in a lonely grave thousands of miles from home and our loved ones?”

  From Newark airport, Navy bombers flew the tour group to New Haven, Connecticut for a parade. There were five thousand marchers, plus jeeps, tanks, and scout cars, two bands—one from the Army Air Corps and the other from the Coast Artillery—and the State Guard. Then came time for a freshening-up at a hotel and a big rally that evening at the Arena, a fanfare of trumpets, a parade of flags of the Allied nations, Governor Baldwin, yet another mayor Murphy, the “Hollywood singing star” Miss Edith Fellows handling the national anthem, more speeches, and an honor guard of air cadets training at Yale University. This may well have been Manila John’s first brush against the Ivy League. “Later we were introduced by the Hollywood stars in our group and each of us had a little piece to say, after which we were given a standing ovation.” This was Basilone’s first such speaking date outside of his own state, and apparently it went very well since he mentions “being sorry to leave this pleasant city.”

  The PR people were apparently doing their work. At one stop they arranged to have a general release carrier pigeons in a park. In Rochester in upstate New York, a stop Basilone had his own personal reasons to anticipate, there was a rally at Red Wings Stadium, after which he managed to slip away to visit with the family of his machine-gun buddy on the ’Canal, Bob Powell, meeting his mom at 98 Garfield Street: “Bob’s sister Peggy answered the door and in seconds I was meeting Bob’s mother and sister Vicky. Vicky was 22 and a looker, in fact she was beautiful. Bob had certainly held out on me [where was Miss Grey?]. Peggy, just eight, was cute and a little darling. I had quite a talk with Mrs. Powell, telling her all I could about Bob. She hung on every word. I know she was proud and thrilled when I told her if it weren’t for guys like Bob covering up for me on the right and left flanks, I’d never have lived to get my medal. I told her how Bob and I had become close personal friends, training together at Parris Island, New River, and Cuba.”

  In Albany John looked up the mother of Jackie Schoenecker, another Guadalcanal Marine, assuring her Jackie wasn’t holding back when he told her he hadn’t been wounded but was simply suffering from malaria. “I explained that it was a common ailment in the tropics and as a matter of fact, I was walking around with it. I know I eased her fears.”

  The tour was well organized, Basilone noting that the “publicity and fanfare” whipped up before every stop ensured a big crowd and local enthusiasm before the traveling road show of heroes and Hollywood stars even came to town. Some of it was fun, some moving and emotional, some quite frankly a pain in the ass. As Basilone put it, “No matter where I went, there was always some guy who would ask a million questions about the Japs and outside of the job I was now assigned to. I didn’t feel like talking about them. Too many of my buddies were still dying in the stinking jungles, which when I looked around, seemed around a million miles away. Still, they were there, fighting, praying, and dying.” He asked himself, “How much longer could I continue feeling like I did?” and got no answers.

  Finally, this leg of the bond tour (there were others to come), the Northeast swing, was over, and it was time to go home to Raritan, the little town where Basilone grew up. “I looked forward to spending a few days with my family.” But there was still “Basilone Day” to get through.

  His hometown’s celebrations began the morning of September 19, 1943, at Somerset Street and Route 31, “welcomed by the honorary chairman and mayor Peter Mencaroni, together with chairman William Slattery of the Township Committee. At the welcoming ceremonies I should have expected what was to come. There had already gathered so early in the morning a large crowd, affectionate, wonderful folks all calling my name and crushing in on our car. As I waved back, I spotted some old friends. With my family and buddy, Private 1st Class Steve Helstowski by my side, we entered St. Ann’s Church for a high mass, which I had asked to be said for all my buddies still fighting in the South Pacific. All during mass I prayed for my buddies and for God to give me the strength and wisdom to uphold the high honors that were bestowed on me.

  “A long time ago, it seemed ages, I had knelt in this very church and prayed the good Lord to help and guide me. Now, I was back again, feeling very small and humble as I realized that God in His wondrous ways had heard my prayers. Not only did I fulfill my promise to Pop to keep his name high, but that God had seen fit to touch me with His magic, lifting me up for the whole world to see.”

  This was a Basilone we had not seen before, spiritual, meditative, even pious. How much of this was genuine, how much simply a reaction to all of the adulation and love on every hand, the solemnity of mass at St. Ann’s, his recalling the Marines still out there in the Pacific, is impossible to say. Phyllis records what are supposed to be her brother’s thoughts on his return home after the cauldron of Guadalcanal and the celebrity of the unexpected medal. “I had become a national hero, kids worshipped me, my buddies would give up their lives for me and actually did. I was featured in magazines and comic books. Newspapers had endless articles about my exploits, and the bright light of publicity shone on me day and night. To cap the whole incredible drama, the President of these great United States of America had seen fit to bestow on me the greatest honor this country could give.” Does this really sound like Manila John? To me it smacks of press agentry, prepared sound bites provided the young hero by his handlers and dutifully recorded later by Phyllis Basilone Cutter in her newspaper series about her brother John.

  Bruce Doorly has his turn at summarizing the war bond tour to date, echoing much of what Phyllis had written, before getting to his own detailed account of the return to Raritan, and including a fascinating insight not previously recorded: even during that first leg of the speaking tour, Basilone was drinking heavily. “The publicity and fanfare did not let up at any of the bond rallies. While Basilone himself said, ‘The constant fuss is starting to get on my nerves.’ He was not cut out to be a public speaker. He was a soldier, and was starting to wish that he was back in action. On the tour there were constant questions about the battle with the Japanese, which he answered over and over. The pressure of the attention got so bad that John had started drinking. One veteran [presumably another serviceman on the bond tour] said, ‘He knocked off a fifth the way you k
nock off a beer. Whisky, gin, it made no difference.’”

  Basilone’s last surviving sibling, Donald, who lives in Florida, told me that when he and John shared a bedroom during his brief Raritan respite from the war bond tour, and later when he was on leave, his brother didn’t tell him much. But he remembered one thing clearly: “He always had a bottle of liquor on the dresser.” Donald was impressed by that.

  Manila John had long enjoyed a drink. Was he simply getting back into a normal peacetime routine of social drinking? Or did he now “need” a drink? Were his tour handlers supplying the stuff to keep him relaxed, keep him performing?

  Phyllis says a priest named Graham said the mass at St. Ann’s; Doorly says it was Basilone’s old pastor and guidance counselor, Father Amadeo Russo, which sounds more likely unless somehow a very young Reverend Dr. Billy Graham had shoehorned himself into the moment. Father Russo, in his sermon, said, “God had spared [John] for some important work,” a remark that inspired Basilone later to write his sister, “The importance of bringing me back finally sank in; and I resigned myself to the role that had suddenly been thrust on me.”

  Here is Doorly on that September 19 in Raritan from local accounts by people like Peter Vitelli (also one of my sources), who was then a six-year-old schoolboy: “At 11:30 there was a lunch in Basilone’s honor headed by the reception committee at The Raritan Valley Farms Inn, a popular restaurant . . . on the Somerville Circle where the Super 8 Motel is today. Then, at 1 p.m. the parade started. Total attendance was estimated at 30,000 . . . the groups marching included The American Legion, VFW, state and local police, service men on leave, French Navy Soldiers [their Marines, it can be assumed], Coast Guard, drum & bugle corps, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Red Cross units, Air Raid Wardens, The Italian American Society, Raritan First Aid Squad, soldiers from Camp Kilmer, and various marching bands.”