Devotion

by Adam Makos

  Ike nodded somberly and moved to the back seat. Daisy slid into the driver’s seat and started the car. She clicked the wipers to life and cleared the glass. She knew that Jesse was probably aboard his plane, strapped into his seat, and no good could come from waiting any longer. Daisy cranked the car into gear. She drove out of the parking lot, away from the misty terminal and the aircraft tails. Exhausted with emotion, Ike and Gwen soon fell asleep in the back seat.

  Behind the wheel, Daisy kept driving. Her chin was firmly set, her breathing steady, her eyes dry and alert. Without any help, she drove them all the way home.

  * * *

  *1 The pilot who transferred out of ’32 told the author that he had always wanted to fly multi-engine aircraft in an air-sea rescue role but was talked into requesting fighters during flight training. When news broke that the Leyte was headed to Korea, the pilot asked the skipper for a transfer. The skipper understood and pushed the young pilot’s request up the chain. The navy, however, reacted less kindly. Several months later, the pilot was forcibly discharged.

  *2 Jesse sent home so much expensive French perfume for Daisy and his mother that a local store offered to re-sell any bottles the women didn’t need or want. Daisy refused and kept them all. As this chapter was written, she still had one of the original bottles that Jesse had sent her and a few drops remained.

  *3 Lura Brown remembers that Jesse had come home on leave soon after earning his wings and had taken some local boys flying, kids from Hattiesburg’s poverty-stricken black neighborhood. Two of the boys became military pilots in the 1950s and one of them rose to the rank of colonel.

  CHAPTER 21

  THE LAST NIGHT IN AMERICA

  Two weeks later, September 18, 1950

  San Diego, California

  IN THICK LEATHER SEATS, Tom and Koenig relaxed in the hotel’s cocktail lounge. Cups of coffee sat on the table between them. A massive painting of a peacock spanned the wall behind them. This was their last night on American soil, for a while at least.

  Tom lowered his pipe from his mouth. “Look what the cat dragged in,” he whispered. Koenig scrunched up his newspaper and glanced between the lobby’s yellow pillars. Eight young pilots in tan uniforms were sauntering in, jabbering loudly.

  They were the squadron’s ensigns. Without a word, Tom and Koenig shrank in their seats. Both knew what would happen if the ensigns spotted two “old” lieutenants trying to enjoy an uneventful night—the young pilots would try to pressure them into drinking. In Tom’s mind, there was a time for that, but it wasn’t now. The Leyte had just steamed 4,700 miles from Norfolk through the Panama Canal to San Diego, and the next afternoon the squadron was casting off for Korea. On their last night in America, all Tom and Koenig wanted was some peace and quiet.

  “Hey, Hud! Bill!” an ensign shouted and waved from the entrance to the lounge.

  They’d been spotted.

  Tom rose in his seat as the ensigns approached. Koenig folded his paper.

  Tom and Koenig greeted the group and noticed some new faces among the regulars. Six new pilots had recently joined the squadron, bringing the unit to a war-ready strength of twenty-four flyers. The skipper already regretted the new pilots because they were fresh from training, when he had been hoping for WWII veterans.

  “Dad’s hosting a martini muster over at the bar,” an ensign said. “You need to join us!” Another young pilot announced their objective—to try to out-drink Dad.

  Tom cringed. His stomach was still shaky. The night before, the squadron had gathered in a suite in the same hotel and had drunk until the sun rose. At roll call that morning on the Leyte’s deck, Tom and Koenig had stood wobbly but others were absent, including the man who never missed an assembly—the skipper.*

  Koenig told the ensigns that he and Tom would have to pass on the invite. The ensigns mockingly groaned.

  Dad Fowler and Jesse entered the lobby and headed for the barroom at the other end. Jesse’s bar hopping? Tom thought. Now I’ve seen it all!

  The young pilots broke from Tom and Koenig and flocked to Dad’s side.

  Tom returned to his pipe and Koenig to his newspaper. The headlines indicated that the 1st Marine Division had just made a surprise landing behind enemy lines at the port of Inchon, halfway up Korea’s western coast. Already, the Marines were moving to liberate Seoul and cutting off North Korean supply lines to choke the enemy’s assault in the south. Reporters speculated that the Marines’ bold landing could turn the tide of the war.

  —

  Inside the barroom, sailors, ladies, and businessmen sat along the bar and filled curved booths, drinking beer and cocktails. Rhumba music piped in from the ceiling and beams of light snuck up the walls from scalloped light covers. The room was dim, yet friendly.

  At the head of a long wooden table, Dad sat and told jokes with Jesse at his side. One of Dad’s favorites went like this: “What’s an aviator’s favorite breakfast after a night of drinking? A puke and a smoke!” The young pilots roared in laughter and rocked back in their chairs. The ensigns looked up to Dad, the squadron’s third-in-command and John Wayne–like figurehead.

  In the Mediterranean, Dad had appointed Jesse as his assistant operations officer, and the job fell to Jesse to review and tally the pilots’ flight logs. The two became fast friends. Both were southern gentlemen; Dad hailed from rural roots outside of Houston. During high school he’d been captain of the debate club and worked as a carpenter’s assistant for his father, who taught him a guiding principle: “The color of a man’s skin makes no more difference than the color of his eyes.”

  A young waiter went from pilot to pilot, scribbling drink orders onto a pad. Dad told the waiter to make his drink a double and encouraged the others to do the same. He was trying to build a bond with the young ensigns, one they would need in combat.

  The waiter approached Jesse last. Sometimes Jesse would order a gin and tonic, then jokingly add, “Just hold the gin!” But before Jesse could place his order or crack his joke, the waiter walked away. Jesse glanced to see if the man had realized his mistake and would come doubling back. He didn’t.

  “Excuse me!” Dad said loudly. The waiter turned on his heels. Dad pointed to Jesse. “You missed this gentleman’s order.”

  The ensigns’ chattering wound down.

  The waiter approached and leaned in toward Dad’s ear. In a low voice he said, “Sir, I apologize, but we don’t serve Negroes.”

  Jesse glanced away with disappointment. Dad held up his hand to stop the waiter from leaving. “How about an exception?” he said, keeping his cool, a skill he had practiced as a law student before WWII.

  The waiter whispered something about “hotel policy.” The ensigns mumbled in disgust. They hadn’t realized that racism remained prevalent in California. Bus lines and movie theaters were safe—throughout the state, blacks could sit anywhere. But the YMCA allowed blacks to swim only on Thursdays and most bowling alleys refused them outright. The National Guard was still segregated and restaurants and bars could legally refuse black patrons. They never posted “whites only” signs—they simply stopped blacks at the door.

  Dad’s jaw tightened and he scowled at the waiter. “You’re either going to serve him, or you aren’t going to serve any of us.”

  Jesse stood. “No need for trouble,” he said. “I’ll see you fellas back at the ship.” He quickly walked toward the door.

  Dad curled his fists.

  The waiter’s voice turned shaky. “Sir, I apologize, but we’ll happily serve the rest of your party.”

  Dad abruptly stood, nearly flipping over his chair, and announced to the table: “We’re outta here! Let’s go, boys. Up, up, up!” He was six foot four and the black shoulder boards of his uniform made his frame seem even bigger. The waiter stumbled back.

  The pilots snapped to their feet and grabbed their jackets. Throughout the bar, other patrons turned toward the commotion. Dad lowered his chin and stormed up to the bar where the waiter was whispering t
o a tall bartender.

  Dad addressed the wide-eyed bar patrons.

  “Tomorrow, that young man is leaving to fight the Reds,” he said, gesturing to the lobby to which Jesse had fled. “And these people won’t even pour him a drink!”

  The bar patrons—sailors among them—turned to the bartender with angry eyes. The bartender shrugged. “Mister, we already explained our policy. Explaining it again ain’t gonna change it.”

  “Oh, stuff it!” Dad growled. The bartender had no clue that he was facing a man who’d shot down six Japanese planes by the age of twenty. Dad unclenched his fists, turned, and walked away. He didn’t want to risk winding up in jail and having the Leyte sail without him.

  In the lobby, the ensigns fell in behind Dad.

  “This is the only time I’ve ever regretted wearing the uniform of the U.S. Navy,” he muttered, “because it keeps me from going back there, jumping the bar, and kicking that guy’s ass.”

  —

  From his seat in the lounge, Tom had seen Jesse stride through the lobby. His friend’s eyes were locked forward. His hands were buried in his pockets. And he was heading for the revolving front door alone. That can’t be good, Tom had thought.

  Not a minute later, Dad and his pilots followed, the ensigns glancing disgustedly back toward the bar.

  “What the heck?” Tom muttered. Koenig lowered his newspaper.

  One of the ensigns broke from the group to alert Tom and Koenig. “They wouldn’t serve Jesse!” he said.

  Tom shook his head in disbelief. He can fight for his country but can’t order a drink?

  Koenig’s face turned red and he glanced around wildly in search of a manager, eager to leap to Jesse’s defense.

  Tom hadn’t planned to leave the lounge and didn’t have to. He could still enjoy the uneventful night he wanted—hot coffee, a fully packed pipe, and peace and quiet. Neither he nor Koenig could change the hotel’s racist policy or fix the state’s hypocrisy.

  But there was something they could do.

  Tom stood. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “With pleasure,” Koenig said tossing his paper aside.

  * * *

  * One of ’32’s new pilots, Bill Wilkinson, wrote home with observations of the skipper: “He gets pretty noisy at parties and the proprietors always end up asking him to leave. He sure is the life of the party, and it’s a darn good thing he always wears civilian clothes ashore. He may be a party boy, but by golly it ends there. The next morning you’d never know him from the same man the night before. He’s strict, stern, and very official aboard ship and with the pilots, which is the way it should be, I guess.”

  CHAPTER 22

  THE BEAST IN THE GORGE

  Nearly two weeks later, October 1, 1950

  The front lines, South Korea

  RED PARKINSON KNEELED on the rural Korean road and slid the bayonet’s blade into the rocky soil. His hand trembled, his blue eyes blinked. He sank the blade in deeper and fished around. Nothing. Red slid the blade out and sat back on his heels. Whew! Dust clung to his fleshy cheeks. The walls of a wide mountain gorge towered above him on both sides. In the rugged terrain north of Seoul, the Marine column had been stopped.

  In front of Red and behind him, sixty Marines cursed and grunted as they probed the road with their bayonets. Dressed in pale green fatigues and helmets with brown and tan camouflaged covers, they were searching for box mines, essentially wooden boxes containing eighteen pounds of explosives. A mine had already claimed one Marine tank. Red and the others were assigned to the battalion’s Weapons Company (3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment); they were bazooka operators and machine gunners, not bomb disposal experts. Still, any disturbed soil had to be searched.

  Red glanced up periodically from his work and scanned ahead. He felt vulnerable, having stashed his bazooka and pack beside the road. The midday sun warmed his back while the cool breeze chilled his sweat. Trees with yellow leaves dotted the roadsides and beyond lay pastures and steep terrain scattered with white boulders. War had spared nature, but not the small South Korean settlements beside the road. Here and there lay white pagodas with shattered blue roofs and footbridges smashed into rustling creeks.

  Corporal Devans paced behind his platoon, his eyes locked forward. Scouts had spotted North Korean troops five miles ahead at the town of Uijeongbu, where they had paused in their retreat. The North Koreans had planted the mines to delay the Marine column—and it was working. As Red and the Weapons boys inched forward, Ed Coderre, Lieutenant Reem, and other riflemen patrolled ahead through the neighboring pastures. Corsairs occasionally raced above the gorge and the air crackled with tension.

  Red shuffled on his knees and stabbed the earth again. His bayonet hit something hard. His eyes went wide. He wiggled the blade and dug down with his fingers. Out popped a rock. Red wiped his brow with relief.

  The duty felt like punishment after he’d come so far. After steaming from Crete to Korea, Red and the other Fleet Marines had joined the 1st Marine Division during the fighting for Seoul.

  That was nine days ago.

  Credit 22.1

  Bob Devans (lower left) and Charlie Kline (lower right)

  Since then, the twenty-two thousand Marines had liberated Seoul and thrown the North Koreans into retreat. Friendly forces were now breaking out of the Pusan Perimeter and driving the enemy from the south. As soon as the communists were pushed back above the 38th parallel—the prewar border—everyone expected the war to end. With the border just twenty miles to the north, Red didn’t mind the idea of coming home soon, as long as he came home with some good stories to tell Uncle Anton.

  Behind Red, a voice began quoting a Bible verse. Red turned and spotted PFC Charlie Kline talking to himself as he probed the soil. Sandy blond hair peeked out from under Charlie’s helmet. His eyes were blue and his thick chin jutted out as he smiled. Tall, hefty, and twenty years old, Charlie was a fired-up Baptist from Philadelphia who loved to sing “Go Tell It on the Mountain.”

  “Being right with the Lord is necessary for protection in this life and the next!” Charlie proclaimed. “Ain’t that right, brother John?”

  Red averted his eyes. “Uh, yup,” he muttered.

  Charlie was one of the most all-American guys Red had ever met and, at that moment, one of the most annoying. Since landing in Korea, Charlie had been harping about “being right with the Lord.” At first, Red had told Charlie to give it up, but Charlie only became more persistent. So Red had decided it was easier just to agree.

  Red knew his friend meant well; they just regarded God with different fervor. Red had never prayed before, in fact. His mother had been an atheist and on the farm he took after Uncle Anton—a Methodist who milked cows on Sunday morning instead of going to church—whereas Aunt Anne never missed a sermon.

  Tat tat tat! Burrrip!

  Flashes of gunfire zipped between the trees on the flanks. Red and Charlie hit the deck. The riflemen on the flanks had hit resistance. Whooshing sounds fell from the heavens, followed by explosions cracking beside the road. Shock waves flattened the foliage and soil burst into the air. Red and Charlie wrapped their arms over their heads.

  “Mortars!” Devans shouted as he sprinted for cover. “Get off the road!”

  Another mortar dropped in, then another. Red scrambled back, seized his Super Bazooka, and dived into a ditch with Charlie and Devans. Over the gunfire and explosions came a growling noise from the road up ahead. The mortars stopped falling and the sound of squeaking wheels took the place of explosions.

  “Tank!” a faraway Marine shouted. “Tank, incoming!”

  Red’s heart pounded. His mind flashed back to Crete, where he’d joked about an approaching tank when really the sound had been two boys with a melon cart. Now the pebbles on the roadside seemed to vibrate at eye level. Red cradled his bazooka and parted the weeds for a better view.

  A hundred yards away the machine turned the corner, and Red’s eyes went wide. “Jesus help u
s,” Charlie whispered. The tank was green like a dragon and the hole at the end of its cannon looked like a lone eye sweeping side to side. It was a Soviet-built T-34, the first live example that Red had ever seen. Its sloping turret looked deformed, too tall and thick for the machine’s angular body.

  The tank stuck to the road and clanked past the Marines out in front without firing a shot. A machine gun protruded from the front of its hull and swiveled as its gunner scanned for targets.

  The tank kept rolling along, its suspension clanking. It was now only ninety yards away from Red, Charlie, and Devans. The tank’s tracks spit white rock forward, and dust billowed from the rear as it ground up the road.

  Eighty yards.

  Seventy.

  Frozen in place, Red watched the T-34 churn closer. Charlie’s chin trembled. The tank was well within the Marine lines.

  Sixty.

  Fifty.

  Credit 22.2

  A T-34 destroyed near Seoul

  More than a hundred Marines surrounded the machine but only one was in a position to stop it. Only a bazooka man could slay the T-34, the best Soviet battle tank of WWII, one that Stalin had given the North Koreans. Red’s face twisted as a realization struck him. The only bazooka man in position was him.

  Tat tat tat!

  “Get down!” Devans shouted. Red and the others flattened against the base of the ditch as bullets snapped overhead.

  Tat tat tat!

  With a groan, the beast lurched to a stop forty yards away in the middle of the road and let out another burst.

  Tat tat tat!

  Red glanced up and saw that the tank was focusing on a target. Its machine gun spit fire toward a pasture to the left, where a lanky Marine was running uphill, tearing through the undergrowth. Bullets bit the earth around him, nipping at his heels. The Marine carried a spool of phone wire in one hand and his rifle in the other.