by Don DeNevi
“But what’s her name?”
“Fly Big-Breasted Virgin! Fly!”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Speeding to Stateside, Still Bound to Joan
With the throng of uniformed flying boat aeronautical engineers, S-J and SD-type radar specialists and clipboard-carrying weapons and systems mechanics scurrying down the docking platform toward the gangplank and wharf, Peter sat on an empty crate and observed the proceedings.
Within moments of the departing skilled servicemen, a second swarm, mostly dungaree-clad maintenance crews arrived carrying hoses, mops, buckets, and brooms, and deliverymen bearing large sacks of mail, cartons of various fruits, and one of green apples, as well as stacks of clean towels, bedding and sheets for the aircraft’s galley and bunk compartment, in addition to the medium-sized boxes of small spare parts for the interior bin and receptacle compartments of the waist and nose gunners, pilots, bombardier, navigator, radio and radar men.
“What a commotion to get me stateside,” Lieutenant Toscanini marveled to himself.
“Yawning while stretching as he stood up, Peter strolled toward the mooring cables of the Catalina riding high, and resting quietly, in her brief serenity. Having splashed down hours after her nonstop 914-mile flight from the huge Allied support base at the Port of Brisbane in Queensland, Australia, the PB-Y5A amphibious flying boat was tired and a bit dirty, but certainly not worn out.
Smiling in amazement as he gazed up at the 1,200 horsepower Pratt & Whitney twin-row air-cooled radial engines driving three-bladed, constant-speed metal propellers, he mumbled to himself,
“Maybe two years old, serving as one of the two-motored scout bombers capable of carrying on a daily basis 4,000 lbs of bombs, depth charges and torpedoes on her underwings, she hid any war-weariness what-so-ever well. She was streamlined, wing-tipped, chic. With minor repairs completed, fully-inspected, and properly recorded, as well as refueled and reprovisioned, ‘Fly, Big-Breasted Virgin, Fly’ is ready to fly me to the Pacific west coast.”
With a strong breeze from the northeastern South Pacific blowing cooler and cooler in his face, and finding the soft Catalina lines aesthetically pleasing, the burdensome depression Peter carried with him since his journey to the Rohwer Internment began to lift a trifle.
“Lieutenant! Lieutenant Toscanini!” came a shout from the dock platform behind him. His train of thoughtful appreciation interrupted, Peter turned and saw the desk sergeant of the Navy’s communication hut clutching his usual clipboard hurrying toward him from the wharf’s steps to the gangplank. He was leading a small group of officers in freshly-pressed uniforms all carrying hand luggage and traveling bags, and a line-handling crew with varying sizes of cable wrenches and winches attached to their belts.
“Your flying team. Six of the best Catalina flyers of the Pacific War. those over in the Atlantic are minor league compared to these boys.”
“Hope they had a good night’s sleep,” Peter, suddenly snapped into alertness, responded, grinning broadly.
The pilot and co-pilot, overhearing the remark as they approached, laughed heartedly, the pilot, extending his hand to shake Peter’s responded,
“Not only did we get to bed early last night, but fell asleep chewing Secretary of the Navy’s Knox’s admonition to Fleet Admiral Ernest King to have us tucked in by 2000.”
“And,” interjected the desk sergeant waving his clipboard, “add to that a phone call from Admiral Nimitz a few minutes ago asking if I had the best damn Catalina pilots of World War II assigned to this flight.”
Everyone laughed, including the remainder of the crew who joined the assemblage.
“Well, I told him to buzz off, that he was interrupting my work, and if he was nicer than nice, I’d get back to him when I had time as to your states of somnolence.”
With everyone at ease, Peter, glancing at the PBY-5A, commented somewhat somberly,
“Every guy in the service I’ve known has called this aluminum-sheeted stressed-skinned fabric-covered beauty an ‘ugly duckling’. Well, that’s just not true! Kinda makes me red in the face.”
Everyone chuckled.
“Well,” smiled the pilot, “we agree. And, especially those boys of ours who are shot down, then riding their dingy Mae Wests, or lifesaving water balloons and one-man air-blown rubber dinghies. A few days and nights on the open ocean, slowly giving up hope of rescue, suddenly seeing a so-called ‘ugly duckling’, or ‘humpy-dumpy’ sweeping in to surface on water to pick him up, makes the amphibious flying boat seem like a safe-cushioned golden chariot with her pilots charioteer Gods.”
“I bet,” echoed Peter. “Can’t tell you how much I’m in love with her, too. How high can you go?”
“The ceiling is 15,000 feet, with a range of 2,545 miles.”
“What’s PBY stand for?”
“’Patrol Bomber’, what we do almost every day. The ‘Y’ stands for Consolidated Airways of Florida, the manufacturer of the ship. By the way, who are you and why are you so important to have a special one-man aircraft deliver you to Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay?”
“Well, Mr. Pilot, and I do hope you had a good night’s sleep. Secretary of the Navy told me personally it was because I resemble a new young actor on the Hollywood scene named Gregory Peck. You never heard of him, and, trust me, I’m actually better looking.”
As everyone again roared with laughter, Peter added,
“Seriously men, I’m on a special assignment. But I can tell you this, I’ve been assured, as Knox said, I’ve got the best crew in the world flying me there.”
With that, and smiles all around, the pilot said,
“Time for a moment’s formalities. I’m Captain Irving Bobb, the head big show of the sons-of-_______. That’s Terry Buttin, my co-pilot. Next to me here is Dwayne Lorenzo, engineer and turret gunner; next to him Sylvester Ryan, assistant and second turret gunner; Joe Rogers, radio operator and waist gunner; Bob Kirby, tail gunner; Lars Jacobsen, belly gunner. Our navigator, Allan Pierce, is jogging down the pier now with the flight charts.”
With the introductions completed, the crew, and Peter tagging along, entered the PBY-5A where Peter was provided a brief tour as the others made their way to their posts. With all the work crews completing their work, and slowly easing their departure from the plane, the desk sergeant still clutching his clipboard, shook hands with Peter, and the pilots, and, waving as he exited the aircraft, said, “Good flying, men. See you guys when you return in four days.”
As he stepped out, Pilot Captain Irving Bobb announced over the intercom,
“Well, boys, it’s a few minutes past our 1500 departure time. Shall we take ‘Fly, Big-Breasted Virgin, Fly’ up into the pure white Pacific clouds?
Everyone in the PBY-5A stamped his feet and simultaneously shouted,
“HUR-RAH! Let’s go! HUR-RAH! All the way, you say? HUR-RAH! All the way!”
Meanwhile, as the airplane slowly taxied from her berth to the open channel for liftoff, Peter comfortably seated behind the navigator a few yards away, observed Lieutenant Allan Pierce, standing and bending over a tiny counter at work. In his heavy flying suit, he was in virtual command of the long flight. Standing next to him and listening intently was co-pilot, Terry Buttin, a 6’2’’ tall, nice-looking jovial lieutenant.
Peter watched Buttin nod affirmatively as the navigator pointed to the flight route over the Fiji, Ellice, Phoenix and Palmira and Johnston Islands. At the same time, Buttin provided times, speeds, heights, the possible strengths of wind they would encounter. As the rest of the crew settled into their seats, their amicable, good-natured banter and flippant remarks brought smiles to Lieutenant Toscanini’s face.
Captain Bobb made final remarks over the intercom, mainly for Peter’s benefit, and all watches synchronized.
None of the crew was hungry, having eaten pre-flight meals of bacon and eggs, but not beans of any variety since they caused intense indigestion issues at high altitudes. They had then taken their Benzedrine pills w
hich would keep them awake and alert. Outside, ground crews and administrative staffs lined the wharf to wave as the PBY-5A began to increase its taxiing in the open channel.
“Gentlemen officers of the USN, with the all-important oil gauges clicking properly, and our ship feeling aerodynamically clean, we’ll dash and splash, let’s pray we don’t stop and plop! We’ve no time to dabble and paddle. The colorful lights of San Francisco’s North Beach call us to saddle. So here we go! Boys, up, up and away!”
With that odd call for liftoff, the lightly laden flying boat, upon negotiating its way to the perimeter, belting its way across the channel at a 10 miles per hour clip to the open ocean. There, in less than 180 seconds of acceleration, the big flying boat, reaching 100 miles an hour, lifted off. Although Peter wasn’t interested in praying that much, he did quietly make the sign of the cross on his forehead in hopes the PBY would fly straight and not have an engine explode. Although those on the docks and wharf were miles away, all applauded, saluted, or pumped their thumbs.
Gazing out his window, Peter felt the amphibian climb steadily to 10,000 feet. Soon, he thought, perhaps before sunset, the aircraft would be cruising at more than 120 miles per hour over the Fiji Islands, then near midnight approaching Tonga, Samoa and the Phoenix Islands. After that, the “hop” would begin, one of the longest gaps in all the Pacific, the distance Palmyra, Washington, Fanning, Jarvis in the Christmas Island group to San Francisco, some 2,400 miles. Not an island, palm or coconut tree, coral reef, rock, or strand of sand to spoil one of the longest distances of blue water in the world.
Despite fighting the persistence of slumber, rubbing his eyes, yawning sleepily, Peter peered eagerly through the increasing small white clouds scudding swiftly beneath the Catalina.
“Vastness, nothing but more vastness,” he reflected, “for me to be swallowed up in to think. And, boy, do I need to think things over. Look down there, a sea changing from high and heavy ocean swells to calm, smooth flat as in a glass, echoing the turbulence I carry.”
Yearning to slip into sleep, he placed his head on a small pillow against the cabin wall and pulled two Navy blankets over himself. Remaining somewhat conscious, he thought,
“This is good. All is well. I can lay quietly and think things over. During the day I have the drone of the Pratt engines for music, by star-studded skies. Meanwhile, my best friend up here is ‘time’ and its steady change in the clocks and watches. Also, the varying time zones are helping me get closer to California. Ultimately, up here in the heavens, everything is measured by steady time changes leading me quicker into the future. I love it!”
Initially trundling along like a jumbo but surprisingly elegant brightly illuminated songbird, the warbler heeded to the northeast and balanced itself on a stabilized course straight to the San Francisco Bay Area.
As exhausted as Peter was due primarily to lunching with Chester Nimitz and Douglas MacArthur, it wasn’t until later afternoon that he dozed off. Warm and snug under his blankets in his window seat of the empty, dark main passenger cabin, he was nonetheless nagged by his usual uneasy premonition of death.
“They’ve fixed up a nice bunk back there in the empty main cabin, but I’m too exhausted to get up and walk back there,” he thought to himself as he finally closed his eyes. “They did a good job welding that 7-foot metal slab to the ribbed cabin wall. Mattress looks solid, but I’ll pass. I’m comfortable under these blankets, sleeping my tired head on the little pillow.”
With his languishing eyes narrowing to thin slits and his consciousness losing all sense of reality, Peter laughed to himself,
“Come, warm fairyland! I welcome you with open arms, an open mind, and, especially, an open heart. I will never repress nor ignore any thoughts, images, or emotions that may be conjured up, old but vibrant unconscious-friend of mine. I say that to you without hesitation or equivocation. Daytime memory and nighttime dreams are always difficult. That’s why they are so important, especially the dreams. Dreams lead us into the undiscovered, unrealized memory parts of ourselves. Dreams talk to us. I must learn to understand what they have discovered about me, and what they tell me about myself.”
After less than a split second, Peter concluded,
“At this point in my life, I am both anxious and depressed. This means, of course, my dreams are going to be just as troubled. How they begin, when they begin, how long they last, whether they are in color, or black and white, what they symbolize are among the unanswerable questions of dreaming. Best I sleep now and enjoy the dreams that are sure to come.”
Slipping into deep sleep within seconds, Peter’s state of mind soon was riddled with a series of incoherent nightmares.
One of the first fragmented dreams dealt with a terrible midnight violence within a typical pyramidal tent found on Pavuvu Island’s Tent City. Dozens or more Japanese infantrymen simultaneously emerged from holes behind the bivouacked tents where hundreds slept, seven marines to a tent on separate cots in their shorts within mosquito nets of the large tent. Grim and silent, each held a Ka-Bar over his head and, reaching the long row of 90 to 100 tents began cutting and ripping squares in the canvas. Without a word or sound, each of the enemy soldiers lifted the long official USMC knife over the open holes and in unison were about to plunge their weapons into the faces of the sleeping Marines.
Although not a sound was heard, Peter screamed and screamed, the other Marines of Tent City rushing forth, firing machine guns, bazookas, and other automatic weapons. Apparently, the Japanese were screaming “Banzai”. Unarmed and feeling sickened, all Peter could do was watch the enemy dash in and out of tents in continuous streams, blood dripping from the Ka-Bars. Equally horrifying as he stood and watched, every soldier, with one of three faces, that of Pinoe, Ellen, and Schneidermann, was grinning.
Awakening with a start, Peter was in a sweat under the two heavy Navy blankets. Natural sounds returned, albeit of continuous, monotonous twin-engine droning and other occasional noises of the so-called “ungainly, clumsy ornithological giant”. For Peter, the strains, twangs, and tones were welcomed after a silent slaughter of fellow Marines.
With the Catalina PBY-5A seemingly gliding effortlessly due east in the early night breezes, Peter, wide awake from his shocking nightmare, allowed his thoughts to focus upon his favorite friends, one being Mike Masaoka. Unconsciously, he knew that sooner or later, regardless of how painful it was, his thoughts would return to Joan Ikeda.
Peter had been introduced to Mike in the living room of Joan’s home on the southside of Stockton, California, less than a dozen city blocks away from where the young future Naval Lieutenant was born and raised. That Sunday afternoon in mid-August of 1941, less than 100 days from the craven attack by the Japanese naval fleet on the American base at Pearl Harbor, was experiencing a temperature of 112 degrees, so normal in the central San Joaquin Valley. Coupled with peat dust storm, fine powdery dirt coupled with decaying plant matter from prehistoric swamps at the base of the Pacific coastal range, the visit was almost unbearable. Only Joan’s enthusiastic, loving attendance to Peter’s misery made the situation tolerable. He remembered saying,
“As you know, we have a hardware store, and Dad says that soon every house in America will own a new invention called an ‘air conditioning machine’.”
The Ikeda family, Joan’s mom and dad, two sisters, and brother, nodded in approval.
Suddenly, there was a knock on the front door, startling everyone. As Mrs. Ikeda opened the door, there was spontaneous joy among the family members as Mike walked in with his finance, Etsu Mineta.
Peter’s first impression of the two as he stood and was introduced to them was “What a handsome pair the two make, she so lovely, almost as beautiful as his Joan, and Mike, handsome with his broad, happy smile, so obviously a man of high intelligence and integrity.
After the introductions were made and Mike and Joan’s parents were in deep conversation about Japan’s possible threat to America, and what it might mean to the Jap
anese-American communities along the Pacific West Coast, Joan whispered to Peter,
“Mom is a distant relative of Mike’s father. Both families were immigrants to San Francisco, except Dad stayed here in the valley and Mike’s went onto the Japanese community in Salt Lake City. But for some reason, they returned to Fresno where Mike was born around 1915. He was the fourth child and third son in a family of eight children. He just graduated with honors from the University of Utah, majoring in political science and history. He is so dedicated to helping our people dispel decades-old prejudices and what he termed ‘legalized discrimination’ that he is not only the acknowledged leader of all the Issei, but also the Nisei. In 1940, he composed the beautiful Japanese-American creed which was even read into the Congressional Record. Today, 1941, at the age of 26, he is the National Secretary and Field Executive of the JACL, the Japanese American Citizen League.”
Peter adored the man. In fact, Mike was more patriotic than himself. He had a vision to see that the Nisei could best demonstrate their loyalty to America by fighting in defense of their country. He urged them to volunteer for service even while they were confined to internment camps. Mike, himself, was the first to volunteer for the 442nd Regimental Combat Team whose valor stirred the nation’s conscience.
The last Peter heard of Mike Masaoka was the year before, the summer of 1943, when his efforts to create a new image of the loyalty of persons of Japanese ancestry earned him the Legion of Merit, Mike was in Italy at the time serving as Public Information Officer of the 442nd Regimental Combat team.
Peter would never forget that afternoon. As hot and sticky as it was, and actually feeling the peat dust on his sweaty body, he was fully aware that what was transpiring, including his involvement, was a rare peak experience.