It seemed that this bomber in which the Japanese were carrying us prisoners just could not keep out of trouble.
After being flown from Rabaul to Truk we landed on a field at Truk but did not merely come to a stop. It happened to be the roughest, shortest of landings, intentionally I know now, I have ever experienced or ever hope to. Immediately we were all thrown out of the plane, practically on our heads. We thought it was just some more rough stuff but, because we had edged our blindfolds, we could see that down the runway came a Navy F6F, spraying .50-calibers all through the Nip aircraft standing there in front of us. The piece of transportation we had just crawled out of went up before our eyes in flame and smoke, and so did nearly every other plane we could see around there. It was one of the best Navy Day programs I ever expect to see, the first task-force raid on the island of Truk.
Suyako and the Nips in the plane with us booted us along the ground down the airstrip until we came to this shallow pit I mentioned, and there they threw us into it. I had been stumbling all over everything because of my blindfold, which, owing to the low bridge on my nose, pressed right against my eyeballs, and until I wiggled the blindfold free a little I couldn’t see a thing. I envied those boys with the big hooknoses. They could walk right along and see about two feet in front of themselves when they were blindfolded.
At this time, though, I must say that Suyako used some of what he must have learned while being educated in the Hawaiian Islands. If we had arrived at Truk before the raid, and the raid had happened a few minutes later, we would have had to stand out in this field blindfolded and tied up during the whole thing, which lasted the better part of two days. But during the confusion (he told us all about this later) he was able to throw us into this pit without being hampered by the Japanese on the field. In other words, Suyako saved our lives.
From this small pit, after wiggling our bandages so we could see, we got a worm’s-eye view of a real air show. I could not keep my eyes below the pit level. I just had to look and see what was going on. There was so much excitement I couldn’t do any differently. I just had to see those Nip planes, some of the light planes like the Zeroes, jump off the ground from the explosion of our bombs and come down “cl-l-l-l-ang,” just like a sack of bolts and nuts.
The planes caught on fire and the ammunition in them began going off. There were twenty-millimeter cannon shells and 7.7s bouncing and ricocheting all around this pit. Some of these hot pieces we tossed back out of the pit with our hands. All of this, or a lot of this, is shown in the motion picture, too, but obviously from an angle much different from ours. The picture also shows how one of the two-thousand-pound bombs had its center of impact only fifteen feet from the pit we were in, and shows the crater there after the explosion.
But what The Fighting Lady cannot include, unfortunately, is the close-up dialogue of which we were participants there in the pit. Things happened that would have gone well on the sound track, I think, little scenes that seemed to have no specific rhyme or reason and yet were all a part of it—the raid on Truk—as seen from the ground.
Nambu Type 14 (1925)
During a momentary lull, for instance, a Japanese pilot came down and landed his Zero, jumped out and started running over to the edge of the field where the Nips had a lot of caves. On the way across he happened to glance in this pit the six of us were in, and he stopped and looked in at us.
He was wearing one of those fuzzy helmets with the ear flaps turned up, and he looked in at us, as surprised as we were, then composed himself and said in English: “I am a Japanese pilot.”
During this time we stayed huddled down in the pit because we were not supposed to be able to see him through our blindfolds. “Buck” Arbuckle whispered: “Who does he think he’s kiddin’?”
Then he repeated himself: “I am a Japanese pilot. You bomb here, you die,” and patted the leather of the case containing his Nambu automatic pistol.
I couldn’t take any more; it all seemed both so funny and hysterical at the same time that I could contain myself no longer. I stuck my elbow into the rugged chap next to me. Don Boyle, of New York City, who was in the same predicament I was. I said something to him that later he laughed about and repeated to me. While glancing back up at the Nip pilot I had said: “With all the God damn trouble we got, ain’t you the cheerful son of a bitch, though.”
Whether this lug was serious we never knew, for he didn’t even get another chance to talk to us. The last we saw of him his short legs were busy hopping over obstructions, the ear flaps of his fur helmet wobbling up and down so that he gave the appearance of a jack rabbit getting off the highway. His conversation and threats had been rudely interrupted by the death rattle caused by another Navy F6F’s .50-calibers, crackling down the runway as it came just a matter of a few feet from our pit.
Meanwhile something else happened that was not quite so funny, and I figured it was up to me to do something about it. One of the boys in the pit was praying out loud: “Oh, dear God, oh, dear God, I know we’ll never get out of this …” and so on.
I couldn’t take any more of that, either, so I shook the boy and said: “Jesus Christ, Brownie, won’t you shut up? I know we’re all praying, but you don’t need to do it so God damn loud in that direction, do you?” And then, remembering how lucky I had always been, I added in a quieter voice: “Brownie, crawl over to me, and stay next to me. I know I’m still lucky enough to get out of this mess.”
Around late afternoon Suyako and the guard who had accompanied us in the plane came over and looked in the pit. I guess they were as amazed as at anything they ever had seen. They expected to see six mangled bodies in the pit, yet there were six people in there without a scratch on them other than the wounds they already carried up from Rabaul. They took us out of the pit and said that we would have to stay over in a wrecked building at the edge of the field until darkness. Suyako said: “Don’t pay any attention to anybody who comes near you or kicks you or throws anything at you. We’ll get you through this all right.” It was a great feeling to hear him say that.
After darkness they led us, all six of us tied together, across the field. They told us they would have to take the blindfolds off because, with the place so torn up, they couldn’t drag us through. There were huge pieces of concrete upended, plane parts scattered all over, and the place was a shambles.
They put us in little boats to take us across to another, small island. They told us not to look around or we’d be struck. We were struck, because it was too hard to resist the sight of four ships still burning out in the harbor. When we landed we were put in some kind of a bus and taken to a navy camp, and there all six of us were put in a tiny cell about the size of a small half bathroom. We could not lie down. We stayed in there all hunched up, which was the best we could do. But the main point of all this, anyhow, was the raid on Truk and the part we “played” in it. In the film we are, I suppose, what would be called extras.
* * *
26
* * *
Our quarters at Truk were unique, I thought. The cell was neat and clean, and looked as if it had been built recently by a carpenter who knew his business, for there wasn’t a single joint through which we were able to see light from out of doors. Of course, I had no way of knowing but I rather imagined that the builder had merely one prisoner in mind when he measured the boards, not six.
There were three openings through which fresh air had the slightest chance of entering while the door remained closed and locked. One barred window was in the door, but this was always covered by a tightly woven matting on the outside, so the sunlight could not enter the interior. There was another opening in the bottom of the door where the Japs shoved in our food, but this was also covered by matting. The only other hole looked as if the carpenter had omitted a six-inch board in the floor. The missing portion of our deck was no accident; it was omitted for a purpose and was meant to be used as a toilet by the occupant.
Throughout the following day until midaft
ernoon our Navy planes came back, again and again, and on several occasions bomb fragments struck the building we were in. When we heard a really close one coming our way, it was fantastic to see six men get flat on their bellies in such a confined space so quickly. The first time we accomplished this spectacular feat Arbuckle laughed and said: “I knew six could lie down in this much space, but I thought half of them had to be female.”
As welcome as that carrier raid had been, I, for one, was a completely content individual when they finally ceased coming over. Naturally, the six of us were making book on various aspects of the situation, odds being good for the United States to win the war, but the odds for surviving our own bombs were slim.
The heat was almost unbearable in this closed-off cell, for after all the Truk atolls are located practically on the equator. We peeled off what few clothes we had in an effort to cool down a little. The odor from our own filth and sweat was bad enough, but the slippery, slimy contact when we had to move, rubbing against each other, was even more unbearable.
The islands of Truk are a good example of those that get slight rainfall during the course of the year. Because of this we found that thirst, the same as others have found through thousands of years, is far worse than starvation. All the time we were confined in this cell, sixteen days, because water was very scarce in the vicinity of Truk, each of us prisoners was rationed to three small cups of water per day. Our lips became swollen, so had our tongues, and our mouths felt so stuffed full of cotton that we could hardly make an articulate sound out of them.
The guards in this prison camp didn’t beat us, because Suyako and the guard who had come along with us told them we were very old prisoners and had been captured a long time ago. Suyako probably didn’t have a difficult task selling them this because of our long hair, beards, and emaciated bodies. For this reason they never struck any of the six or hauled us out of the cell to beat us.
The third morning a Nip we had never seen before pulled back the bamboo matting from our door window and looked in at us, smiling with friendliness. There was more gold in that toothy grin than I had ever seen in any mouth. “Too bad,” I thought, “Chiang-Kai-shek’s gang isn’t here, because those gold-mad bastards would go crazy if they saw this guy.”
Then gold-mouth said in what sounded like English: “Ohio,” and smiled again.
Figuring the guy spoke our language, I said: “No, Idaho, I’m from Idaho.”
He just kept smiling and said: “Ohio,” several more times. I later found out he didn’t know a damn word of English, but that ohio means good morning in Japanese.
Apparently there was no food shortage at Truk, for the Nips passed so many rice balls and salty dicon pickles under the door we couldn’t eat them all. Not even Boyle. But Don did eat until he became swollen up like a horse that had access to an unlimited oat supply.
Then we had a new friend, diarrhea. This is when the six-inch-wide rectangle in the floor came into full play. The person occupying the rectangle couldn’t sit down, he had to straddle, bending his knees and leaning his body forward to balance himself.
In these crowded circumstances where one couldn’t move his face more than a couple of feet from somebody’s hairy old thing to begin with, privacy was a forgotten word. Don had our new friend real bad. We didn’t have a watch, but at the time I would have bet a sizable sum that Don muscled his way to our lower ventilator every fifteen minutes. He would let fly, time after time, until it was getting on the others’ nerves. In the daytime there was just enough light to see this almost constant stream of slightly used rice, so we could keep from getting splashed too much, but during darkness it was impossible to get away by merely the use of one’s ears and nose. Somehow, I was reminded of half-melted gold nuggets being poured out of a ladle.
I can never forget Brownie, or his accent, and what he did in these trying times. He was unusually neat. He became so frustrated after one of Boyle’s bowel explosions he began to lecture him. At the same time he was lecturing he was busy scraping some of the nuggets that had overshot their mark with his bare hands. The rest of us started laughing as we watched Brownie pushing this stuff into the hole while he talked on. He said: “For goodness sake, Boyle, why don’t you stop overeating for just a little while? You’re not getting much good out of this food; can’t you see for yourself?”
Two other American prisoners were brought into camp two nights after that task-force raid on Truk. They had been picked up on some coral reefs where they had been able to conceal themselves for a couple of days after being shot down in the raid. One of these new prisoners was out of his head, delirious, and they beat him. They beat him many times and then finally packed him out. I imagine they shoved him in a hole somewhere and covered him up.
But the other American prisoner was placed alone in the cell next to ours and we whispered to him through a crack in the adjoining wall many times. We could also hear the guards beat him unmercifully outside his cell several times. At night we could peek through the bamboo matting against the lanterns out of doors and saw he was a big redheaded guy, and the Nips were whacking him with clubs approximately two inches thick. Of course we finally learned his name through the crack in the wall, without the guards ever knowing. And we heard him tell the guards who were beating him: “Why should I tell you anything? You are going to kill me anyhow.”
When we communicated through the crack in the wall, I suggested a few things I knew would make it a lot easier for the poor guy. I suggested: “You might try talking to them, Red. You don’t have to tell them any secrets. Just feed them a good line of bullshit, it works just as well. But stick as close to the truth as you think wise, so you can remember what you said, because they will keep on questioning you.”
“Is that what you fellows did?”
“They will beat you to death if you don’t pass the time of day with them. I found out they’re funny that way.”
“Who are you?”
“Boyington, 214.”
“Pappy?”
“That’s what they call me. What’s your name and outfit, Red?”
“Now ain’t this something. Everybody thinks you’re dead, and I have to go to all this trouble to find you alive. I’m George Bullard. I was Butch O’Hare’s exec until he was killed, then I took over his squadron.”
“Gosh, I never heard about that, what happened?”
“It was an accident. He was joining up on some TBFs at night. One of the rear gunners thought he was a Jap and shot him down. We never found him.”
I knew Butch, he was my kind of guy, and I was truly sorry to learn about him. I recalled at least one occasion that fate had seen fit to change her mind. She had dealt a lousy hand to start with but smiled when she saw the guy had the guts to draw to it, leaving him a royal flush for his nerve.
He had been unable to take off with the rest of the carrier fighters because of engine trouble, and the others had gone on without him. Later, after they were out of sight, he had gotten his engine going and took off, intending to join up on the others when he located them. But instead of finding his own planes he found five Nip torpedo planes shortly after taking off, and he joined up on these. He was able to shoot down all five; he just barely nailed the last one as it was making its final approach on his own carrier. Naturally, everybody aboard the carrier loved the guy, and along with it he became the first American to become an ace on a single hop.
There were some sour-grape versions made by pilots who didn’t happen to be around at the time, concerning the spectacular achievement, but I discounted these completely, for I knew what kind of a person Butch was. As a matter of fact, I have heard derogatory remarks made, whether there was any basis for them or not, about every pilot who ever did anything important.
However, there is really only one case about which I can speak with authority, and that one is my own. I will have to admit that there is a sound basis in what they say about me. There was a particular crack I had heard in a Navy bar out in the islands befor
e I was shot down, and it came from an officer who was obviously more drunk than I was at the time. Not knowing that I happened to be standing in this crowded island club, or even what I looked like, he said:
“I have searched the seven seas, but never have I been fortunate enough to run into one enemy plane. How is it that some drunk like Boyington decides he feels well enough to even go on a mission, and without even looking runs into all the luck? He is surrounded by Japs, and has to shoot his way out to get back to the free brandy to cure his hangover.”
As a general rule it had been my habit of clobbering a gent for such a remark. I believe the only reason I let this guy off the hook was that he was drunk and I felt sorry for the dumb bastard. Besides, I couldn’t take the time out because these clubs didn’t serve more than a couple of hours.
Suyako came out to see us twice during our stay at Truk. One time a few clouds begrudgingly released a few drops of moisture while he was at the prison, and he talked the guards into permitting the six of us out in this light rain.
How relative things appear cannot be repeated too often, as far as I am concerned. If you could have witnessed the delighted faces, the laughing, and cavorting around by the six of us in this light sprinkle. How we scrubbed the moisture into our naked bodies. How we pointed our swollen, opened lips heavenward, cupping our filthy hands around them to try and receive more moisture in our parched mouths.
At last Suyako came with good news: we were to leave Truk, and probably the most uncomfortable existence I have ever experienced. The reason for the lengthy stay, as he explained, was that the task force had destroyed every piece of available transportation, and we had to wait for some to come in from the north. What a job they must have done, we thought, without trying to show any outward emotion.
Again we were blindfolded and our hands tied loosely together for a change. We were riding in a regular twin-engine passenger plane, a DC-3, or somebody had stolen the blueprints.
Baa Baa Black Sheep Page 27