Pete Peterkin was the first officer through the hatch to the flight deck. Emerging into the sunlight, he saw King Neptune sitting in a throne chair. Whoever was playing the role wore a massive crown of seaweed and was attired in smelly rags. Surrounding him was his motley court, their faces smeared with paint like Indian braves.
As he stepped onto the flight deck, Peterkin encountered a masked man wearing a cardboard sign that read doctor. Pete was invited to swallow a large dose of foul-smelling liquid from a metal ladle. He did.
“Let the initiation begin,” bellowed King Neptune.
Ahead of him, the crowd suddenly parted, forming a gauntlet of men that stretched across the flight deck. Before Pete could take off, a man wearing a sign labeled barber attempted to hack off a chunk of his already short hair with plumber’s shears.
Then Pete was streaking down the open lane between screaming shellbacks, all of them whacking him with stuffed canvas clubs and wooden paddles. Shielding his eyes, Peterkin ran as fast as he could. At the end of the line stood the most effective “wallopers,” giants who could lift a man right off the deck with the force of their blows.
He turned back to see the rest of the officers in the squadron running the same gauntlet, many of them laughing as they came through. They included Earnest, Barnum, Morgan, Evarts, Taurman, and Cook.
With the time-honored ritual concluded, the new shellbacks nursed their bruises as they celebrated their transformation with soft drinks, coffee, sandwiches, and ice cream.
TUESDAY, 21 JULY 1942
USS SARATOGA
OFFICERS’ WARDROOM
They were enduring another day of sweltering temperatures when Commander Felt assembled the carrier’s pilots in the wardroom to give them the word on where they were going.
The Japanese were building an airfield at a place called Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, Felt told them. Once it was constructed, the Japanese would be able to use their long-range bombers to cut off the Allied supply lifeline between the U.S. and Australia.
The Navy wasn’t going to let them do it.
U.S. Marines were being sent in to take the airfield away from the Japanese. They would then hold it as a staging base against Rabaul, the Japanese-held fortress farther north in the Bismarck Archipelago. Along with Guadalcanal, the Marines would be landing at Tulagi, where the Japanese had a squadron of Zero floatplanes.
Felt pointed to a large map of the Solomon Islands and showed them where each place was located. Most of the islands were unfamiliar, with names like Santa Cruz, Isabel, and Malaita. The only island name Smiley Morgan recognized was Florida, but it wasn’t his home state. It was a snake-infested island filled with native headhunters.
The proposed date of the invasion had been code-named “Dog Day.” In mounting the offensive, the Navy was providing the transport ships that were carrying nineteen thousand men of the 1st Marine Division from their staging area in Wellington, New Zealand, to a rendezvous point where they were all headed.
On Dog Day, American carriers would be responsible for providing close air support to destroy the Japanese coastal defenses before the Marines hit the beaches. Participating in the invasion along with the Saratoga would be the Enterprise and the Wasp.
After the Marines were ashore, the carrier planes would protect the transport ships carrying the Marines’ food, ammunition, equipment, and other supplies until everything could be unloaded on the invasion beaches.
Once the airfield was completed, the Marines would provide their own air support with a Marine air wing that was being ferried by ship from Pearl Harbor. Eventually, the Marines were to be relieved by an Army division.
There was very little intelligence information on how many Japanese were actually there, or what dispositions they had made to defend the islands against an American attack. The rough estimate of enemy forces was eight thousand.
The newest maps of the islands were almost thirty years old, and none of them showed the topographical features of the terrain. Only one thing seemed sure. As soon as the Japanese forces discovered that the Americans had landed, they would attempt to drive them back into the sea.
When Commander Felt was finished with his briefing, the fliers in the Saratoga’s air group had plenty of questions. One of them produced uneasy laughter. In case he was shot down, one pilot asked, was it true there were cannibals living on these islands?
Regardless of whether there were any cannibals, Commander Felt warned them to avoid contact with the natives if they were forced down in the jungle. No one knew whose side they were on.
FRIDAY, 24 JULY 1942
USS SARATOGA
TORPEDO SQUADRON EIGHT
During the night, the Saratoga rendezvoused with the carrier Wasp near Tongatapu, the largest Polynesian island in the Tonga chain, a thousand miles southeast of Guadalcanal.
Rear Admiral Leigh Noyes, the commander of the Wasp task force, was flown over to the Saratoga to meet with Vice Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, who commanded the entire force of eighty-two ships that would launch the offensive. The two admirals conferred about the invasion plans, as well as about a major rehearsal of the landings that was to take place on July 30 on the friendly island of Koro, in the Fiji chain.
One day after Admiral Noyes’s visit, another naval officer serving aboard the Wasp was flown over to the Saratoga. Ensign Aaron Katz was not received with quite the same degree of pomp and ceremony as the admiral.
In the Torpedo Eight office, Swede was conducting planning sessions for the Dog Day invasion with his own team, which included Bruce Harwood; Jack Barnum, the operations officer; Smiley Morgan, the navigation officer; and Pete Peterkin, the engineer officer.
Yeoman Jack Stark came in to say that a replacement pilot had just come over from the Wasp, and was officially reporting to the squadron. Swede took the officer’s service jacket from Stark and said to send him in. Ensign Katz stepped into the room and came to attention. Swede stared at him for several seconds before opening his service jacket and glancing through it.
“I just got rid of one Brooklyn Indian, and now they send me another one,” he said loudly enough for them all to hear.
As Swede continued scanning the service jacket, Katz spoke up.
“I’m from Cleveland, Ohio, sir,” he said.
“Are you trying to be funny?” demanded Swede.
“No, sir,” said Katz.
“I’ll tell you up front,” said Swede. “I don’t like Jews. . . . I don’t trust them.”
Swede went on to add that Katz had a lot to prove to show that he belonged there. The young ensign was still standing at attention when Swede curtly dismissed him.
That night over dinner in the wardroom, Smiley Morgan told the other pilots what Katz had said after Swede called him a Brooklyn Indian. They agreed that he must have a rock-solid pair of balls.
He did. Born into an Orthodox Jewish family from Lithuania, Aaron Katz grew up on the lower east side of Cleveland, and was raised in a household with seven sisters. When he was fourteen, his father, Sam, who owned a scrap metal business, decided to send him to a yeshiva for the religious training that would prepare him to be a rabbi.
Aaron refused to consider the idea. All he wanted to do when he got old enough was fly airplanes, he told his father. After the inspiration of Lindbergh’s flight across the Atlantic, he had begun going out to the Cleveland-Hopkins Airport to sit in the grass and watch the planes land and take off. He was ten years old.
Instead of going to the yeshiva, he told his father that he wanted to attend the Ohio Military Institute, a boarding school in Cincinnati. Sam Katz reluctantly supported his decision.
No one wanted to tell Aaron, but his family was convinced he had no chance to become a pilot. One just had to look at him to see how ridiculous the idea was. He had an astigmatism that required him to wear the kind of Coke-bottle eyeglasses that made his eyes look twice their normal size. Without the glasses, he was almost blind.
In 1931, he became on
e of the first Jewish boys to attend the Ohio Military Institute. He turned out to be both a good student and an accomplished cadet, winning his ceremonial sword upon graduation in 1935.
Somewhere along the line, his eyesight began to improve. No one in the family could understand why. He had never had surgery or other medical treatment. It seemed almost miraculous, as if Aaron had simply willed his eyes to become stronger.
After graduating from the University of Illinois with a degree in economics in 1939, he applied to become a pilot in the Army Air Forces. They rejected him. He then applied for active service as a naval aviator and was accepted. To the wonderment of his family, he passed the eye exam and was sent to Pensacola, where he won his wings.
Now Katz had the pleasure of serving under Swede Larsen. It wasn’t the first time Aaron had confronted anti-Semitism, but it had rarely been delivered so blatantly. Usually, it was evident in things said or done behind a man’s back. Swede Larsen was right up front with it. Aaron preferred it that way. As in the past, all he could do was try to win the man’s respect by proving him wrong.
He had done it before.
MONDAY, 27 JULY 1942
TONGATUPU, TONGA ISLANDS
USS SARATOGA
In turbulent seas, the Enterprise rendezvoused with the Saratoga and the Wasp. They were soon joined by the massive convoy of transport ships carrying the nineteen thousand men of the 1st Marine Division, as well as the supply vessels carrying their arms, stores, and equipment.
Consisting of eighty-two ships, it was the largest American naval force yet assembled in the war. The pilots flying air patrol over the armada had the best view, with the ships stretching across the ocean as far as they could see.
In addition to the three carriers, the force included the new battleship USS North Carolina, with enormous sixteen-inch guns that could help to pound the enemy-held islands into submission.
The senior commanders of the invasion force came together aboard the Saratoga to finalize their plans. Rear Admiral Noyes was flown over from the carrier Wasp. Rear Admiral Thomas Kinkaid, commanding the Enterprise task force, came across on one of his escort destroyers. He was followed by Rear Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, who commanded the amphibious forces of the invasion, including the transport and supply ships that would carry the Marines and their equipment to the landing beaches. Turner was accompanied by Rear Admiral John “Slew” McCain, who commanded naval air forces in the South Pacific, and Major General Alexander Archer Vandegrift, who commanded the 1st Marine Division, which would make the invasion and secure control of the islands.
Smiley Morgan had never seen so many brass hats in one place before. After they were all piped aboard, the commanders met for three hours to hash out the final details for the invasion, which was scheduled for August 7.
Planning efforts had been complicated by the fact that Guadalcanal was huge, fully ninety miles long from Cape Esperance in the north to Makina at its southernmost tip. In between were 2,700 square miles of tropical rain forest, numerous rivers, and hundreds of miles of beaches. To the north, the island was capped by an 8,000-foot-high mountain range.
The 1st Marine Division was understrength, and had had little time to train or become fully equipped. Prior to receiving his orders for the invasion, Vandegrift had thought he would be given six months to prepare his division for battle.
The most contentious issue between the senior commanders involved the length of time the three American carriers would remain in close proximity to the landing beaches after the 1st Marine Division was put ashore at Guadalcanal and Tulagi.
Both islands were inside the range of Japanese attack planes from Rabaul. Vice Admiral Fletcher was concerned that his carriers would be vulnerable to land-based air attack from Rabaul, as well as to enemy submarines.
Fletcher had commanded carrier forces against the Japanese at the Coral Sea and Midway battles in April and June. Two of them, the Lexington and the Yorktown, had already gone down. Fletcher was considered a hard fighter, but he was not about to see it happen a third time.
For his part, General Vandegrift was concerned about being left unprotected on the landing beaches before his men could solidify control. This would be no raid. It was a full-scale invasion with an entire Marine division.
Vandegrift requested that Admiral Fletcher keep his three carriers close enough to the landing beaches to provide air cover for at least four days, the minimum time he estimated it would take to put ashore all of their arms, equipment, and supplies.
Fletcher responded by saying that he planned to pull the carriers out on the third day. The danger from enemy planes, warships, and submarines was too great. To stay any longer, he insisted, would seriously endanger his carriers, which were the most important assets the Navy had in the Pacific.
There was no consensus on it when the meeting broke up. One of the things they did agree on was the need for their planned invasion rehearsal. It would hopefully resolve some of Vandegrift’s concerns.
In his small office compartment belowdecks, Swede Larsen was conducting his own planning sessions with the officers of Torpedo Eight. He told Pete Peterkin that he wasn’t satisfied with the condition of the squadron’s Avengers. On almost every training mission, one of their planes had experienced a mechanical failure before takeoff. They were getting a bad reputation, said Swede, and he wasn’t having any of it. He ordered Peterkin and Chief Machinist’s Mate J. C. Hammond to work on the planes around the clock if necessary until every one of them was prepared for Dog Day.
THURSDAY, 30 JULY 1942
KORO ISLAND, FIJI
USS SARATOGA
Torpedo Squadron Eight
The invasion rehearsal off Koro Island quickly turned into a farce.
The engines on many of the Higgins landing craft proved to be unreliable, and a number of them broke down before they had even left the transport ships. Then it was discovered that treacherous reefs that could rip the bottoms out of the landing craft protected the simulated landing zones. They went no farther.
As the failures mounted, General Vandegrift became increasingly frustrated. Only a third of the Marines had disembarked for the exercise when the landing rehearsal was canceled.
For Torpedo Eight, the flight segment of the invasion rehearsal started just as badly. The second Avenger to take off in the flight exercise was to be flown by Bob Evarts, the so-called hard-luck pilot from Grand Forks, Idaho.
Twenty-one-year-old Zygmond “Ski” Kowalewski was strapped into the turret gun behind him. Prior to their takeoff, a group of sailors had gathered along the flight deck to give Ski a collective thumbs-up. They weren’t there as part of the Ski Kowalewski Admiration Society. It was to protect their investment. Ski was carrying two thousand dollars of their cash in his flight suit. They had given him the money so he could bring back souvenirs for them from the Fiji island of Suva.
When Evarts got the signal to take off, he shoved the throttle forward and released his brakes. As he hurtled down the deck, the aircraft’s tail hook, which normally remained locked under the Avenger’s fuselage until released from its compartment prior to landing, accidentally dropped free.
Barrier wires had been stretched across the Saratoga’s bow and stern to catch the tail hooks of planes that had missed the arresting wires. The barriers were strung ten feet above the flight deck.
As Evarts’s plane roared into the air, its tail hook caught the barrier wire and the Avenger came to a bone-jarring stop in midair. As the crowd of horrified sailors watched, the plane dropped out of sight off the starboard bow.
When the sailors ran to the edge of the flight deck and looked down, the first thing they saw was Ski Kowalewski swimming for all he was worth away from the side of the ship, which was streaking past the downed aircraft at thirty knots.
The USS Phelps, one of the carrier’s escort destroyers, quickly came up to search for the flight crew after the plane disappeared. Along with Ski Kowalewski, Bob Evarts and the third crewman were a
lso rescued.
Following the flight segment of the invasion rehearsal, in which more than a hundred aircraft from the carriers strafed and bombed targets on Koro Island, the big warships in the invasion force unleashed repeated salvos of cannon shells against a simulated enemy airfield. After they finished pounding the friendly island with twenty tons of explosives, the warships moved off.
Aboard the Enterprise, Fred Mears and his fellow pilots were watching the fireworks display as it drew to a close. “I guess that will teach those Japs a lesson,” said his wise-ass friend Ensign Gerry Richey.
Fred had come to look at much of what happened aboard the carriers, especially with the big brass and their staffs, as something out of a Gilbert and Sullivan opera. The daily peccadilloes struck him and his friends as particularly ludicrous in the middle of a supposed fight for civilization.
As the invasion force steamed toward Guadalcanal, a dive-bomber from one of the other carriers had flown over to the Enterprise. When its passenger emerged from the second seat, he headed straight for the officers’ wardroom and pronounced to one of the supply officers that his admiral’s staff was planning to have omelets for lunch and they lacked enough eggs to feed everyone. When the staff officer’s plea was refused, threats were exchanged before he was forced to fly back empty-handed.
That same afternoon, Fred Mears and his friend Ensign Dick Jaccard were scheduled to fly a scouting mission. Fred asked Dick which sector he would be searching. At Midway, Jaccard had been recommended to receive the Navy Cross for putting a direct hit on the Japanese carrier Hiryu. He was a pure warrior.
“Oh, my dear,” he said. “I’ve given up that awful searching. It’s so hard on the complexion! Besides, I must run over to Sara’s and borrow a cup of sugar. Poor George will be so disappointed if I don’t bake him a cake for dinner tonight.”
The Solomon Islands, August–November 1942
Dog Day
FRIDAY, 7 AUGUST 1942
A Dawn Like Thunder Page 21