by Don DeNevi
As they walked behind the alert, ever-caution MPs, Pipsqueak hoped their silhouettes would suggest the highway traffic Mexican farm laborers on their way home to their huts and cottages. They crossed the fields, tiptoed past small hovels and through backyards.
Within an hour, the party, two at a time, reached the small railway branch line which ran southwest past the large water tanks. After crossing the railroad tracks, they approached a small stream, less than five feet wide, an easy jump for even the most wounded man. Although several dogs barked, there were no other responses as the six scrambled to the other side and continued to make their way. Pipsqueak whispered to Peter in a reassuring tone,
“We have no map. But the boys ahead remembered the way. Notice how they carefully listen for patrols, and when encountering unexpected sounds or shacks and other objects, they instinctively give them wide berths? Never forget, like all of Indian ancestry, they are Indian first, which makes them the best of the fighters. The Japs can’t figure them out, let alone the mysterious language they try to decipher.”
“Well,” Peter returned,” They appear to be doing a job leading us. How much longer would you say before we get there?”
“Maybe two, three hours…”
Meanwhile, with the Navajo MPs leading the way in the moonlight, all towers, structures, observation posts, warehouses, hangars and assorted repair and assembly shops 20 feet aboveground were given wide berths.
Within an hour or two, four of the six were pretty tired, walking for more than 7 hours the night before, followed by broken, uncomfortable sleep. Now, without adequate food, water, and with body muscles lacking proper conditioning, Pipsqueak, Peter, Campbell and Sunny were feeling drained and depleted.
Circling a newly-installed 12-foot deer fence required an additional hour Pipsqueak hadn’t anticipated. Glancing at his watch, and seeing it was only a little past 10:00PM, he decided to rest the group for a half hour in a small clump of trees. Despite the stiff breeze, down from the powerful winds of only hours before, the men laid down. Hungry, thirsty, and a bit lightheaded, the fatigued men began dozing. A moment later, Pipsqueak instantly raised his head in apt attention when he heard cyclists approaching on a nearby rarely-used dirt road, hoping he hadn’t settled the group too close to the road. Although the four motorcycles pulled up, and the cyclists scanned powerful heavy-duty flashlights over the terrain and along the deer fence, they soon remounted their vehicles and roared off. All was well, and as Pipsqueak glanced at the men, with the exception of one Navajo on guard across the area, he thought to himself, “We’re right on schedule, and all is well.”
What ensued in the final seven-hour moonlit hike was an event Lieutenant Peter Toscanini would remember for a lifetime. Pipsqueak’s undercover assignment was to maneuver the escapees through what was referred to as the “California Desert Mecca for Marines”. And, in late 1944, Camp Elliott was incredibly busy. Five separate commands were quartered there. They were the headquarters for the Fleet Marine Forces, San Diego Area, where the escape party was headed; the Fleet Marine Force Training Center; the Amphibious Training Command, Pacific Fleet; the Marine Barracks; and Base Depot. Each command was separate and distinct with specific responsibilities. Of these, the largest and most complex was the Fleet Marine Force Training Center with Pipsqueak must now lead his party of escapees. What made the journey so arduous was the fact the Training Center had approximately 30 schools that taught a wide variety of subjects, including individual combat and modern infantry. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor three years previously on December 7th, 1941, the USMS was flooded with new recruits, expanding the Center’s facilities.
Pipsqueak whispered, “We are about to traipse through as many as 15,000 troops and officers as if we are a part of them. To get to General Clayton B. Vogel’s Fleet Marine Force Training Center Headquarters, we have to simply negotiate our way past every necessary facility for quartering, feeding, equipping and training every single one of those 15,000 men.”
And, so it was that two by two, all within eyesight distance of each other, the party walked briskly past mile-long rows of buff-colored double-deck barracks, educational Quonset huts, shops, sheds, storehouses, and maintenance facilities.
And even more.
Since the area was the home of the 32,000-acre Fleet Marine Force Training Center West Coast, it was entirely self-contained. Named after Major General George F. Elliott, a past Commander of the United States Marine Corps, the camp also contained several banks, post offices, grocery stores, cleaners, a clothing store, pharmacy, and several “personal services outlets”.
Because Camp Elliott and its 30 plus programs specialized in the training of replacement organizations, that is, units of troops being sent to replace depleted units already engaged with the enemy in the Pacific.
Because virtually the entire base was illuminated and extraordinarily active with troop movements in maneuvers, and otherwise, well past midnight, the escape party walked nonchalantly down the sidewalks of the main streets and avenues toward the Fleet Marine Force Headquarters. Located at the end of Camino del Rio North at the Marine Corps Air Station in Miramar, the destination, the office of Base Commander General Clayton B. Vogel, Fleet Marine Force, was less than a few hours away. By his calculation, Pipsqueak figured the group would arrive by 5:00AM, an hour before sunup.
The only impediment to the final phase of the march was the two lead Navajos engaging in conversation with three fellow Navajo MPs at the busy intersection of Main Street at El Dorado Avenue in the small village of Miramar.
“Damn,” Pipsqueak whispered angrily to Peter. “Look at that. Under the brightest streetlight in all of little, old Miramar, an Indian party of five Navajos. We’ll have to signal Sunny and Corpsman Campbell to linger in an alley or doorway until our boys clear us to continue. And, we’re so close.”
Miramar, a small civilian village of less than 30 residents within the Fleet Marine Force Training Center, was located a few miles west of Linda Vista on the Mesa along the Penasquitos Road. The community center where Pipsqueak’s party was temporarily halted was situated inside the current station boundary, and had a post office, elementary school, general store, blacksmith, and a cemetery. Historically, E.W. Scripps, the multimillionaire newspaperman and his family were the area’s most notable residents and construction and maintenance of their mansion and estate were the foundation for the economy of the growing community.
As Pipsqueak and Peter waited in a dark alley, and Campbell and Sunny in a doorway, the five MPs were engaged in an animated discussion. Pipsqueak explained,
“Damn good Redskins, the Navajos. Especially those three talking to my boys.”
“How so?” wondered Peter, aloud.
“Well, as the code was being developed, those three MPs, the just recruits, were brought into the program and trained, bringing the total number of trained Code-Talkers at the time to 32. By the end of August 1942, the first group, of which they were now a part, had been deemed sufficiently trained. Of the original 32, 13 were assigned to the 1st Marine Division and 16 were assigned to the 2nd Signal Company of the 2nd Marine Division. But those three remained at Camp Elliott where they served as trainers for the newly-recruited Navajos. The Marine Corp was given the authorization to recruit up to 200 additional Navajo.”
“On ‘Canal’,” Peter interjected, “I met and knew some by name. Invaluable, absolutely invaluable, service they provided. The Japanese were so perplexed they were all beside themselves!”
“Look!” exclaimed Pipsqueak, “Our boys are signaling for us to move forward. Those three MPs now know who we are, just as they know full well about the guardhouse murders. Navajo Six-Bits was as much a noble hero to them as to my two boys. I’m surprised they haven’t killed Hofmeister, yet.”
With that, Pipsqueak looked to his right down the street and gave a short save to Campbell and Sunny, who immediately returned the signal. Pipsqueak literally bounded forth, Peter following less than a few
feet behind him.
“The little community of Miramar seems to thrive more at night than during the day!” Pipsqueak chuckled as they hurried past the three MPs hanging around the lamppost. As Peter nodded in respect, the three Navajos smiled slightly, and knowingly, as families, civilian, and military personnel crossed their paths.
Because the entire base had been activated as an “instant city”, the streets were active. No one bothered to glance at the three sets of two military men pressing their way forward, past a mixed line of moviegoers waiting to purchase tickets in front of “Theater Marine Corps Air Station” featuring pinup star Betty Grable.
“They change the movies in there three times a week,” Pipsqueak said, pointing. “Cinema celebrities, as well as westerns, especially with Roy Rogers and Gabby Hayes, are always popular fare with our troops. A lot of those guys just got back from two- and three-day maneuvers. As exhausted as they are, they showered and look spic and span, ready for an hour and a half of Betty’s legs. They’ll watch anything but morale films.”
Even the older trade, utility and warehouse section of Miramar was active late that night. Past weedgrown lots, brick and weather-beaten wooden houses, gray with age, some abandoned long since by whites to a black populace of stevedores, warehouse workers, and military base laborers of varying sorts. Small, unpainted grocery stores were still open. Occasionally, and despite the lateness, a youngster darted toward them from his front porch and asked,
“Any gum, chum?”
Pipsqueak always smiled and answered,
“No. But will half a Hershey bar do?”
Turning to Peter, he chuckled, “That question is so incessant in England and France I hear it has become a standard form of greeting.”
Leaving the old town of Miramar behind, the small party, still dispersed and always alert for movement, especially jeeps filled with MPs sneaking up on them, stumbled upon unmanned searchlights and camouflaged piles of large wooden boxes and crates stacked neatly 15 to 20 feet high.
“You know,” Peter smiled. “That little town of Miramar seems to radiate a sense of exuberant hospitality. Wish we had time to explore its shops. That’s the kind of community that lasting friendships are built upon. I like this entire area of Southern California. Someday I’ll come back to really see and know it, the surrounding similar towns and countryside terrains.”
As they hurried past a dirt road intersection entangled with vehicles from the supply services, Pipsqueak commented,
“Even this late at night, there’s huge movement of supplies and munitions. Everywhere. Even out here. Supply dumps unlike I’ve ever seen. Bet this part of California is going to sink under the weight.”
After the party entered and passed through an area where all the structures were essentially similarly built from the Quartermasters’ 700 series plans drawn up in the 1930s, Pipsqueak said,
“All built from wood, the cheapest, fastest form of construction--bare, sterile, and with an angular institutional look…only one of two stories high to reduce fire hazard, nothing decorative added, only the flagpole flying our stars and stripes the aesthetic point. All are painted the same drab green color. Notice the camp streets are not marked in case the enemy gets in here.”
Peter added, “Is that a PX, post exchange, to your left?”
“Yes, and a huge one at that.”
“And, the chapel up ahead?”
“Yes, and next to it a fair-sized mess hall. I supposed the wide building coming up is the base recreation facility. It’s open 24 hours a day. At first, I thought we might bunk down there tonight. In the back room, there are cots and blankets. But six of up showing up at the same time might trigger a call to local MPs who are certainly aware of our escape. No, best we keep going to Headquarters. We may have to sleep on chairs, but it would be harder for them to extricate us from in front of the Fleet Commander’s office.”
“Yes.”
“Yet, it’s hard to pass the recreation center. Did you know the Marine Corps and Army has carefully screened hostesses on duty during weekends? Girls from throughout San Diego County are bussed in Friday and Saturday nights to dance with our boys.”
“Really? I think that’s just wonderful,” Peter reacted.
“We’re coming up to the YMCA. Across the way up to your right is the medical detachment, all units housed next to each other, and beyond that a winding hedge and tree-lined side road will take us right into Headquarters complex.”
Walking rapidly past the base hospital collection of buildings, Pipsqueak explained,
“This hospital covers some 60 acres all by itself, alone. It rivals the best medical institutions in the country and accommodates more than 1,000 patients. We’ll be moving through 50 buildings, dodging patrols and clusters of troops. We’ll even have to widen our distances from each other. But this late at night, no one will be at work in the dietitian kitchens, laboratories, psychiatric clinics, barracks for minor patients, hospital staffs, workers in the supply outlets and their backroom warehouses. Let me tell you, what we’re entering is so vast with so many streets and alleys, no one will find us.
As they continued their trek, Peter commented, “I expect we will be debriefed the moment we get in the lobby. I would like to hit a chair, throw a blanket over me, and go to sleep.”
“Well,” responded Pipsqueak, “Forget sleep. As soon as we present ourselves to whomever is on duty, we’ll face obligatory confinement. Hopefully all the MPs will be arrested and confined at a different camp, brig, or stockade. Not one stray Elliott MP must be allowed free. If so, we risk assassination, all of us, either one at a time, or as a group. When a penitentiary, prison, jail, guardhouse is ruled by absolute authoritarian rule, deaths are inevitable. Military detention centers are especially subject to terrorist interrogation methods not human. Elliott has always had a scary reputation, undoubtedly because we are so far out on the edges of the base. No one wants to go out there to inspect, heal, or help. And, Captain Hofmeister is the chief horrormeister. And, it all takes places in a dehumanized, degraded jail bereft of reason and justice.”
The Old Escondido Road the fugitives had carefully been making their way on yielded to a roundabout whose arteries spread in various directions.
“The one directly ahead will take us down Semper Fi Drive to the face of the Fleet Marine Force Headquarters. Camino del Rio Avenue runs directly into it, circulating the flagpole in front. We’ll be there in less than an hour. Commander General Clayton Vogel won’t be notified we’ve arrived until sunup when he awakens. Before the war, these roads were used by farmers and ranchers making their way to the San Diego markets. The last leg of the Butterfield Overland Stagecoach line from New York to Dan Diego wound its route along the Escondido Road in 1887. It was discontinued in 1912 when the postal service began transporting the north county mail from Escondido by automobile; some history, this place.”
As the party neared the entrance to the Headquarters, they commingled with various officers and troops, some who acknowledged them with nods and waves, most simply ignoring them. In the crisp night air, Peter smiled when he read a large billboard sign which read,
“Led by Love of Country,”
and less than 25 yards behind it, a second sign in the same style of printing and colored background,
“So help us God to keep this faith.”
Glancing up and down the increasingly active road emanating from the roundabout, Pipsqueak said,
“The 535th Anti-Aircraft Artillery…Battalion is assigned the responsibility of protecting the Fleet Marine Force Headquarters. The 535th was born in 1942, replacing the 65th Coast Artillery. The guns in use are 99mms, which can hit targets up to six miles away. Interspersed among those 99mms are 40mms, and .50-caliber machine guns capable of pouring out 500 shots a minute.”
Suddenly, out of the darkness, a rough-sounding Sergeant emerged clutching a lower M-1.
“Where to, men?”
“Headquarters to drop onto cots. We’re done-i
n.”
“How so?”
“We’re among the Mojave Anti-Aircraft Artillery from Camp ‘Dusty’. One of the Battalion’s trucks is parked behind Headquarters. In the morning we’re off to the artillery range. We were allowed passes to enjoy Miramar for a few hours after a long day of ‘dry runs’, which included filling and hauling sandbags for furthering protecting Headquarters against shrapnel. Check with the gun unit No. 1 section of D Battery protecting the back of the Headquarters,” challenged Pipsqueak.
“Did you enjoy yourselves tonight at Miramar?” he chuckled.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” reacted Pipsqueak.
“Go ahead, men. We’ll see you in the mess hall breakfast line.”
So baffling was the flat one-story structure looming before them, the Pipsqueak entourage froze in disbelief.
“What the hell?” Sunny asked out loud. “Is that Headquarters? Looks like a lit-up Highway 99 honky-tonk.”
“More like a whorehouse,” chimed in Campbell.
“Well,” chuckled Pipsqueak. “we’re stateside now, so no fear of Jap bombers.”
Peter, equally astonished, remained silent, relieved the party had arrived safely, equally puzzled by the facility before them.
Apparently, more than a dozen ordinary sleeping barracks had been bolted together in a huge square surrounding three interior gardens. Remodeled and reconditioned, administrative offices and officer quarters including a small kitchen had been fashioned. Now, Headquarters, accentuated by the variety of gun emplacements, and, behind it, a number of supplemental storehouses, two water tanks, and several troop barracks shined as a brightly-illuminated large diamond under trillions of sparkling stars.
“Makes you want to go in and play,” mused Peter.
Hurrying past a large wood professionally painted signboard reading, the party noted:
Training Center
Administration
USMC Fleet Marine Force