Devotion

by Adam Makos

  “He’s stalling!” Jesse shouted with alarm.

  Carol’s wing dipped again, then rose again. The plane was fighting with lift. From a distance, Tom heard the Corsair’s engine surge—Carol was pouring on the power—but his wings were far from level.

  With a mechanical groan, the Corsair pitched up and began rolling clockwise as if Carol were attempting a barrel roll above the waves. The Corsair kept groaning and turning, wing over wing, until it was upside down with its landing gear aimed toward the sky.

  Tom held his breath.

  Jesse stood still.

  The plane nosed downward. Its glossy belly flashed in the sunlight, its engine screamed, and the Corsair plunged into the sea. A geyser of water burst upward.

  Tom raised his hands to his helmet in shock.

  The waves settled and the Corsair came into view. It was floating upside down, with two propeller blades jutting from the sea. The crash had stripped away the landing gear.

  Silence settled on the carrier deck and then the ship’s loudspeaker broke in: “Emergency! Emergency! Plane in the water!” The crash crew poured from the tower as the carrier came to a stop. Tom, Jesse, Koenig, and Cevoli joined the footrace to the rear of the deck. With the deckhands, they watched Carol’s plane floating as the waves lapped its wings. Everyone yearned to see a waving hand emerge from the blue. A crash crew medic, Corpsman First Class Halley Bishop, stood by wearing a yellow skullcap and white shirt with a red cross affixed. He clutched his medical bag to his chest, powerless to help. The wreckage was too far away to reach by swimming.

  The Leyte’s helicopter banked and hovered over the wreckage, its blades blowing the water into a circle. The helicopter pilot waited for a sign of life so that he could lower the rescue harness.

  Minutes passed that felt like days. The destroyer USS Buckley pulled up beside the wrecked Corsair. Sailors leaned from the railing, holding flotation rings.

  “It’s all too late,” Tom muttered and shook his head. Cevoli agreed.

  Nearly five minutes had passed and still the plane was rocking in the waves, as if to remind Tom and the others that theirs was a deadly business.

  Tom saw the lesson in front of him. There were specific rules to flying a Corsair and rules to making a carrier landing.

  When you don’t follow the rules, Tom thought, this is how you end up.

  Bubbles rose from the Corsair’s nose and popped along the surface. The plane twitched as if it was coming back to life. In one motion, the nose sank into the translucent sea and the tail rose slowly until it was standing upright. In a smooth rush, the plane slid into the deep.

  Tom and the others avoided Jesse’s eyes. They knew of his close friendship with Carol. There was no more talk of the banner and scores.

  The helicopter banked away. A white frothy circle floated on the waves where the Corsair had been. Slowly the circle shrank, smaller and smaller until the sea was smooth.

  CHAPTER 13

  A KNOCK IN THE NIGHT

  A month later, June 25, 1950

  Off the west coast of Italy

  IT WAS JUST AFTER MIDNIGHT, and the Leyte’s lights flickered silently against the darkened waves. The ship drifted at anchor under a half-moon.

  On the nearby coast, the city of Livorno, Italy, was wide awake. A curving seawall sheltered the city and at the left end of the wall sat an ancient stone lighthouse. A beam of light shot forth from the lighthouse and spun in a circle. Behind the seawall, the city glowed with nightlife.

  Had someone been standing on the shore and looking out at the Leyte, he or she would have seen the carrier’s lights begin to click off in banks. The lights on the tower snuffed out first. Then the lights that ringed the deck. Bank by bank the ship went dark.

  Against the shore lights, the Leyte’s silhouette stood like a rock in the sea.

  —

  Below the ship’s deck, hurried footsteps could be heard descending metal stairs. A squadron orderly darted from door to door among the officers’ cabins, rapping each wooden door with his fist until a pilot emerged.

  Tom thrust his head out from the doorway. His hair was matted and he was wearing a T-shirt and shorts. He seldom slept well on the ship with all the noise.

  “Sir, something big’s up,” the orderly said. “Skipper wants everyone in the ready room in ten.”

  “How big?” Tom wiped the sleep from his eyes.

  “World War III just started.” The orderly moved on to the next cabin.

  Tom wavered in the doorstep, dumbstruck. Conventional wisdom said that it would take two years before the Soviets could attack. Had the military got it wrong?

  —

  Tom threw on his pants, a tan shirt, and a black tie, then bundled his flight jacket around his shoulders. By the time he reached Fighting 32’s ready room, it was abuzz with pilots’ nervous chatter. He dropped into a seat near Koenig and gave his friend an uneasy glance. Neither said much. Everyone was waiting for the skipper, the squadron leader.

  The ready room looked like a small theater with an aisle dividing two rows of red leather seats. A movie screen in the front could be pulled down, under which was a chalkboard. The pilots’ flight suits hung from pegs on the left wall.

  Cevoli and the squadron’s other World War II veterans sat in the front row, sipping coffee while fending off a barrage of nervous questions from the younger pilots. In other ready rooms, pilots from three other squadrons were gathering.

  Jesse sat silently near the front row. Since Carol’s death, he had become quieter than usual, withdrawn even, and now he was deep in thought. It was nearly 8 P.M. back in Mississippi, where Daisy and Pam were staying with Daisy’s mom.

  Credit 13.1

  The skipper, Dug Neill

  He didn’t have to think long. A pilot with a thick jaw and a mustache entered the room. He looked stern, a bit like Clark Gable. He was the skipper. Instantly the coffee-fueled banter went silent and the twenty-one pilots jumped to their feet. The intel officer, a non-flyer, followed, and the skipper motioned for the men to sit. The skipper stepped front and center. He was Lieutenant Commander Dugald Neill, from Long Island, but the man hated his first name and insisted that his pilots call him “Skipper.”

  “Here’s the skinny,” he growled. “The Soviets are mobilizing, so we’re mobilizing too. Is this the big one? Who the hell knows? All they’re telling us is, ‘Code 3, be ready on a moment’s notice.’ ”

  The pilots glanced at one another, wondering what exactly that meant.

  The skipper had been in a war before. During WWII he had been a night fighter pilot and had landed on carriers in the dark. At thirty-one years old, he was already an old man in the eyes of his pilots.

  The skipper gestured to the intel officer, who placed a world map against the blackboard. The intel officer spoke up. “The Reds might be preparing to hop the Bering Strait and charge into Alaska,” he said. He swept his finger across the map. “Or their armored divisions might be gearing up to race through Germany bound for Paris and up to Denmark and Norway.”

  Tom had followed World War II as a teenager and could see the parallels. If a new world war was about to happen, it would likely mirror Hitler’s blitzkrieg. If the Soviets took France and Scandinavia as quickly as Hitler had, they would move on to England next for a second Battle of Britain.

  The skipper stepped toward the map and added, “Leyte’s concern is the eastern Mediterranean. The Reds will move for Turkey after the other attacks are under way. They’ll want to cut our oil pipelines in Lebanon and Israel and take the Suez Canal. If they do that, then they’ll immobilize the whole of America.”

  The skipper turned to his second-in-command, Cevoli, and asked if he had anything to contribute. The fun-loving Cevoli said that everything he was hearing was news to him. He was known for limited contributions to briefings.

  Tom and the other young pilots looked uncomfortable. The skipper had worried them without providing any real answers. The skipper nodded to his third-i
n-command, the operations officer, who sat in the front row.

  Lieutenant Dick Fowler rose. A six-foot-four Texan, he was as tall as John Wayne and had a similar face with a sharp nose, thick chin, and blue eyes. During World War II, Fowler had shot down six Japanese planes by the age of twenty, so whenever he gave a tip or critique, people listened. Fowler was just twenty-six but both the younger and veteran pilots called him “Dad.” Everyone in Fighting 32 recognized him as the outfit’s best flyer.

  In a deep and steady voice, Dad announced that the ship had gone on alert and that the planes were being loaded with ammunition. A third of the squadron was to suit up immediately and man their planes. He read out a list of names. Tom and Jesse were called, along with five others. They were to remain in their planes on deck until 8 A.M. If a mission came down, then Dad would brief everyone planeside. Tom and the others became nervous. The squadron didn’t fly much at night and most of the pilots weren’t qualified for carrier landings in the dark.

  Credit 13.2

  “Dad” Fowler receiving the Navy Cross from Admiral McCain in WWII

  “Don’t get too alarmed,” Dad said, sensing the tension. “You won’t likely be launching tonight or anytime soon, until the ship steams east.”

  Tom and the others nodded and sat back in their seats. Dad’s voice had a calming effect. No one had any questions.

  “Okay, boys, have at it,” the skipper said.

  The pilots jumped to their feet.

  —

  Dressed to fly, Tom and Jesse stepped from the tower onto the flight deck and hurried to their planes. In trenches along the flight deck, sailors loaded and aimed 20mm anti-aircraft cannons toward the sky.

  Waves lapped the Leyte. Slowly, the lighthouse’s beam swept the ship and revealed the long gray hull.

  As Tom sat in his Corsair, a scuffling sound could be heard on the wing. Someone was climbing up. Tom turned, expecting to see Dad Fowler.

  Instead, Jesse hoisted himself even with Tom’s cockpit. “Hey, Tom,” he whispered through darkness. “Did you hear the rumor?”

  “Nope,” Tom said.

  “Some fellows are saying there are saboteurs aboard—Soviet agents who enlisted as sailors.” Jesse’s voice was high-pitched with concern.

  “Oh, brother,” Tom said. “Let’s hope it’s just a rumor.”

  Jesse nodded, climbed down from Tom’s Corsair, and headed back to his own plane.

  In the dark silence, Tom considered the war that he might be about to wage. As a Catholic and former altar boy, Tom read everything he could about the communists, who were declared atheists and oppressors of the Church. His concern went beyond religion. An hour’s flight away, the people of Eastern Europe lay enslaved.

  When the Soviet army liberated war-ravaged Eastern Europe, they had promised the people free elections with Hitler gone. At first, Stalin kept his promise. But when communist parties in Poland, Hungary, Germany, and Austria lost in the free elections of ’45 and ’46, Stalin set his secret police, the NKVD, in motion. The secret police reopened former Nazi concentration camps, Auschwitz to imprison Poles and Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen to imprison East Germans. The communists built sixteen new camps to hold Hungarians.

  Only then did elections start to go Stalin’s way. Across occupied Europe, local communists were brought to power, men indoctrinated in Moscow and known as “Little Stalins.” From England, former prime minister Winston Churchill watched these troubling developments and famously lamented, “An iron curtain has descended across the continent.” That same year, 1950, including the gulags in Russia, the communist camp system reached its highest occupancy—2.5 million prisoners.

  —

  The sun cast an orange glow on the sea at 8 A.M. when the relief pilots stepped out from the tower. Tom, Jesse, and the others climbed down from their planes and met their replacements on the deck.

  The relief pilots had news.

  War had broken out, all right, but it was contained to the Korean peninsula. The communist North Koreans had attacked the democratic South Koreans.*

  Jesse breathed a sigh of relief. At least it wasn’t World War III. Behind Tom, a pilot asked, “Where’s Korea anyhow?” Tom looked to see if the guy was joking. He wasn’t. “It’s just west of Japan,” Tom said carefully, to avoid sounding judgmental.

  Tom himself wasn’t initially alarmed by this new Korean war. It sounded like a civil war—north versus south—or a regional dispute. Even if America intervened, the Pacific Fleet could handle the job with one hand tied behind their backs.

  Tom glanced at his watch. He still had time to sleep.

  * * *

  * Stalin was a driving force behind the Korean War. After NATO stonewalled communism in Europe, Stalin turned to Asia. He appointed a “Little Stalin” in North Korea named Kim Il Sung and told him in 1949: “You must strike the Southerners in the teeth….Strike them, strike them.” Soviet tacticians then drew up the battle plans for the North Korean invasion of the south and Kim Il Sung assured Stalin: “The attack will be swift and the war will be won in three days.”

  CHAPTER 14

  THE DANCING FLEET

  A week later, July 3, 1950

  Aboard the USS Leyte off the French coast

  DOORS SLAMMED and fast talk filled the air. Tom and Koenig navigated the jam of pilots in the narrow hallway and yelled for their buddies to hurry.

  Tom and Koenig wore civilian blazers over polo shirts; the others were only half-clothed as they darted to and from their staterooms. The air crackled with youthful energy. It was early on a Monday morning, but the pilots weren’t preparing for the work week. They were headed ashore to Cannes, a city in southeastern France on a legendary strip of beaches called the Riviera.

  Tom and Koenig entered a pale green room at the front of the ship and found themselves in a world of chaos. Record players and radios blared, lockers and trunk doors slammed. Jesse and his fellow ensigns bustled between sinks and their bunks with shaving kits in hand. Marty stood in the center of the room with his hands over his head. He wore a T-shirt and tan slacks and grinned as another ensign taped packs of cigarettes around his waist.

  This was “Boys’ Town,” the rowdy bunkroom where the ensigns lived.

  Marty caught Tom and Koenig staring, mouths agape. “Nab a carton at the ship’s store,” Marty shouted. “Sell ’em ashore and you can leave your wallet aboard!”

  Tom slapped his forehead. It was a customs violation to bring more than two packs of cigarettes ashore, yet Marty already had a dozen packs taped to his body. The young ensign seemed unafraid of risking a mark on his military record, probably because he had done this before, in Italy, where he made a fortune. A carton of cigarettes that cost eighty cents aboard ship could fetch eight dollars ashore.

  “Hurry! We’re going to miss the bikinis!” an ensign shouted. The pilots had heard that French girls were all wearing a scandalous new bathing suit, one its designer bragged was so small it “could be pulled through a wedding ring.”

  A flash of tan uniform brushed between Tom and Koenig and into Boys’ Town. The skipper stopped, stood with his hands on his hips, and stared around the room. His mustache accentuated his glare, particularly when his eyes landed on Marty. Marty’s eyes opened wide. His buddy stopped taping.

  “If you get caught,” the skipper growled, “I ain’t gonna do a thing for you.”

  “Aye, aye, Skipper,” Marty said, straight-faced. None of the pilots doubted that the skipper meant what he had said—if caught, Marty would be left to rot in a local jail. But the gleam in Marty’s eyes revealed that he wasn’t planning on getting caught.

  “Don’t forget,” the skipper said loudly for all to hear, “you’re in a foreign city, and you look like foreigners, so stick together.” He glanced at Tom and Koenig as he departed, as if to say, Look after them.

  Several of the ensigns joined Tom and Koenig at the door and glanced at their watches. One yelled back to his buddies, “Hey, hurry up so we can lie in th
e sun and get as black as—” The ensign covered his mouth. An awkward silence descended on the room.

  Koenig scowled at the offender. Tom shook his head in disbelief. All eyes snapped toward Jesse to see his reaction.

  Jesse turned from his bunk and looked around. “Don’t wait for me, I’ll catch the next boat,” he said. “Besides, I’ve got a head start on my color!”

  The cabin erupted with laughter and even Jesse joined in. With relief, the offender grinned an apology to his squadron mate.

  —

  The wind rushed through Tom’s hair as the Leyte’s officers’ launch carried him and his buddies toward the tropical coastline. The boat skipped the waves. Tom clutched a dark gray hat beneath his knees. His aviator sunglasses blocked the mid-morning glare.

  Behind the launch, the Leyte lay at anchor, her nose pointing to open waters to speed an emergency departure if necessary. The Dancing Fleet had dispersed and sent ships to nearby ports with a plan to gather in open waters after thirteen days—the longest layover of the cruise.

  Wooden speedboats raced past Tom and the others, their cockpits filled with happy couples, the boats’ chrome-ringed windshields sparkling.

  The frolicking seemed to sour Koenig’s mood. Behind his sunglasses, his youthful face scrunched. “We shouldn’t be here,” he yelled in Tom’s ear over the engine’s roar. “There’s a war raging and we’re pleasure cruising.”

  Tom nodded. The news from Korea was ominous. After a week of fighting, the North Korean communists had already captured the South Korean capital of Seoul and driven South Korean and American army troops into retreat. The American commander, General Douglas MacArthur, was calling for reinforcements and air support, but monsoons had turned the South Korean airfields into swamps. Reportedly, Australian P-51s and U.S. Air Force F-80 jets were flying missions all the way from Japan to offer whatever help they could.