by Bryan Bender
Nearly ten thousand miles away, the War Department was preparing to officially open the nation’s fourth war bond drive. “Every dollar invested in war bonds is an addition to our offensive power, a contribution to our future happiness and security,” President Roosevelt told Americans as an army of five million volunteers was setting out across the country to solicit contributions from average citizens to help finance the war. In a welcome sign that all the effort was paying off, the Office of Civilian Defense announced the end of air raid alerts and blackouts in all but the coastal areas of the country. Also giving new hope that the rationing of goods might come to an end after all, the Aluminum Company of America unveiled plans to resume manufacturing tubes for toothpaste, pharmaceutical jellies, ointments, and shaving creams. There would be no further need to turn in old tubes when purchasing such items.
In Charleston, the Dock Street Theatre was showing War Department Report for the first time to the general public, advertising it as “an unusual motion picture telling a graphic story of what’s going on in every battle zone.” The Gloria Theater was playing Guadalcanal Diary. The Post and Courier published an interview with a veteran of the “Jolly Rogers” of the Fifth Air Force in New Guinea, who recounted the reports of mutilation and torture of American prisoners at the hands of the Japanese. “This is the roughest war since the Dark Ages,” he concluded. A full-page ad in the newspaper made an appeal for war bonds: “When you go home tonight, think of a boy who never will.”
When Ryan and the rest of the formation were fifty miles from Torokina, they switched off the radio transponders in their cockpits identifying them as Allied aircraft—to avoid alerting any Japanese radar installations of their presence. They continued on their course and, passing just south of Cape St. George on the lower tip of New Ireland, ran into a series of rain squalls before crossing over St. George’s Channel and making landfall on New Britain just before 1:30 p.m.
Flying out ahead of the group, Ryan, his wingman, Bob See, and Lieutenants Brindos and Marshall began scissoring back and forth in a defensive maneuver at about four thousand feet, on the lookout for any enemy planes that might try to get over the tops of the bombers. The bombers would have to pass in close range of three other Japanese airfields en route to the main target at Vunakanau. Two of them were on the way in—Tobera, now about five miles out the right side of Ryan’s cockpit, and Rapopo, a smaller field a little farther to the north on the shores of Blanche Bay. The bombers’ attack route would also eventually take them near Keravat, another airstrip, on the far side of New Britain’s Gazelle Peninsula, before they banked right and made a giant U-turn back toward Vunakanau, the airstrip situated on a plateau inside the ring of Japanese fortifications and hacked out of a coconut plantation.
A broken layer of thick white clouds hung over the peninsula, obscuring the view between the fighters providing top cover and the bombers, which were flying at about eight hundred feet along with another large group of fighters assigned to fly low cover. The cloud formations also made it more difficult for the pilots flying together to stay together. After completing the scissoring maneuver, Ryan was a little behind See when they both lost sight of Brindos and Marshall.
They were trained to continue on course and proceeded to sweep the skies out ahead of the bombers. Below, the bombers were descending to treetop level for the leg across the peninsula and around to the target. Ryan and See scanned the skies around them, but there was no sign of Brindos and Marshall. What they did see was forty Zeros from the Imperial Japanese Navy’s feared 204th Fighter Group.
The sky lit up as Ryan and his wingman, joined by other fighter escorts, fended off the enemy planes, members of the same battle-hardened unit that had downed Pappy Boyington on Ryan’s first combat mission just seventeen days earlier. Ryan and his fellow pilots were far outnumbered. Within moments a Zero was locked on Ryan’s tail.
Ryan “poured the coals,” pushing the engine to full torque to maneuver out of range of the Zero. Gripping tightly on the stick with his gloved hand, he pushed the rudder pedals all the way forward to keep the plane under control as the Corsair’s powerful engine swiftly accelerated his rate of climb. Lieutenant See turned back in Ryan’s direction, fired a short burst into the cockpit area of the Japanese fighter’s fuselage, and it exploded at about five thousand feet.
Below, the bombers continued on their course through a nearly constant barrage of anti-aircraft fire from what appeared to be every atoll and ridge snaking through the jungle around the Japanese installations. Flying abreast in pairs, the B-25s crossed the Warangoi and Keravat Rivers before making a wide right turn and approaching the Vunakanau Airdrome in two waves from the northeast. More anti-aircraft fire flew up at them, while Japanese mortars burst just above the trees, giving off fine streamers like phosphorous bombs.
Above them the sky roiled with cannon fire and reverberated with explosions as the dogfights raged and the trails of smoke grew thicker. Bedlam, more than any strategy, reigned—the “gambler’s guts” that Boyington had so memorably spoken of. The superior numbers of Japanese fighters tried to close in on the B-25s before they unleashed their ordnance on the target, and at least half a dozen got through only to be beaten back by the fighters and some of the B-25s’ own gunners.
All the bombers reached the target at 1:40 p.m., where they scattered nearly all of the 216 para-frags along the Vunakanau runway, in the nearby personnel areas dotted with huts, and on some of the surrounding gun emplacements. All but one of the bombers made it out. As they were heading for the coast, one of the B-25s had its tail and then its right rudder blown off by anti-aircraft fire. The aircraft did a half roll, crashed into the trees, and exploded. The anti-aircraft fire didn’t stop until the rest were nearly a mile out to sea.
“The fighter escort did an excellent job of protecting the formation,” one of the Forty-Second’s intelligence officers later wrote.
The furious effort to shield the bombers from the venerated 204th lasted all of about fifteen minutes, from roughly 1:30 p.m. to 1:45 p.m. But it came at grave cost for the Americans. Two unidentified fighters were reported making a water landing in St. George’s Channel. A pilot was also seen parachuting over the water. A different plane, on fire and struggling to stay airborne, crashed into the sea. Another, this one positively identified as an F4U Corsair, flew through a phosphorous bomb, caught fire, and crashed near the target area, where another white parachute was also observed descending toward the ground. “One Corsair dove straight down, trailing a thin line of smoke, into the jungle,” recorded a member of the Hell’s Angels who was flying low cover for the bombers. Another three “unidentified flamers,” meanwhile, were seen screaming out of the clouds before they crashed near the Tobera Airdrome. In all the confusion, no one was sure if they were American or Japanese. But the Japanese seemed to be everywhere, including half a dozen barges visible in the inlet below the mouth of the Warangoi, as well as thick concentrations of enemy troops all along the shores of the river and in Rabaul’s Simpson Harbor.
Only one pilot from Ryan’s division of four Corsairs returned to Torokina to tell their story. It was his wingman, Bob See. Marshall, Brindos, and McCown were missing.
Sixteen Corsairs were dispatched along with a Dumbo to try to search for signs of Ryan and his fellow missing pilots.
“The results were negative, unfortunately, and the next day’s search failed to reveal anything further,” reported Overend, the skipper.
But there were rumors, of course. One that made its way around the squadrons at Torokina was that Ryan had been hit near one of the Japanese airfields and was seen kicking up clouds of dust as he came in for a landing on the enemy runway. A few days later some of the Hell’s Angels thought they had heard Tokyo Rose report McCown as a POW. They couldn’t help but admire Mac. He had always been a stickler for the rules—if a bit naive—and their spirits were lifted just a bit to think that when he was going down and realized there was no way to avoid the clutches of the enemy
, he did what they all had joked about: he landed safely on the Japanese base and headed right for the commander’s tent to turn himself in.
Another story, as related later in a report filed with the Marine Corps Casualty Office in Washington, told a different version of events. It stated that Ryan was “shot down by enemy [anti-aircraft] fire on a bombing mission over Rabaul, New Britain and went down at sea. No record of POW.”
Whatever had happened to Ryan and his fellow pilots—the fates of Brindos and Marshall also remained a mystery—it had been a bloody day in an exceedingly bloody month for pilots heading to Rabaul. In January 1944 alone, the Americans lost more than a hundred aircraft, including thirty-seven Corsairs.
“We live for each other a great deal out here, much more than they do at home, I fear—and sometimes we also die for each other,” Overend wrote in the solitude of his tent about the worst day for his squadron. “There is no gain without a sacrifice.”
The telegram, dated February 7, 1944, arrived at 1023 Ashley Avenue addressed to Mrs. Grace A. McCown. It was one of thousands delivered in cities and towns across America. The few simple words struck a fierce emotional blow:
DEEPLY REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT YOUR SON MARION RYAN MCCOWN JR USMCR IS MISSING IN ACTION IN THE PERFORMANCE OF HIS DUTIES AND SERVICE TO HIS COUNTRY. I REALIZE YOUR GREAT ANXIETY BUT DETAILS ARE NOT NOW AVAILABLE AND DELAY IN RECEIPT THEREOF MUST BE EXPECTED. TO PREVENT POSSIBLE AID TO OUR ENEMIES DO NOT DIVULGE THE NAME OF HIS SHIP OR STATION.
A. A. VANDERGRIFT
LIEUT GENERAL
THE COMMANDANT US MARINE CORPS
An accompanying letter informed Grace that Ryan “failed to return from a flight mission against the enemy while serving in the Southwest Pacific area” and that attempts were under way to find out what had happened to him.
“You may be sure that all officers and men in the active theater of operations exert their utmost efforts to learn the fate of their missing comrades,” the letter stated. “Everything humanly possible is being done to learn the fate and whereabouts of your son. Please be assured that when additional information is received concerning him it will be sent to you promptly.”
The news spread quickly. A Western Union telegram was soon dispatched to Claudia’s husband, Captain Leonard Almeida, in Jacksonville, North Carolina:
WE HAVE JUST HAD A MESSAGE THAT RYAN IS MISSING TELL CLAUDIE AND TELL HER MAMA IS ALL RIGHT—URANIE.
But Grace wasn’t all right. Her heartache at the news was so overwhelming that it was blamed a few days later when she crashed her car. Still, there was hope. Ryan might still make it home. “I’ll wait and you hope,” he had told her in his last letter, after being fished out of the Solomon Sea. Now Grace did both.
Her anguish was only compounded when a letter arrived from the Marine Corps a week and a half later, on February 18, 1944. There was no record at Marine Corps headquarters that indicated why she was receiving a hundred dollars a month from Ryan’s pay. The last sentence almost surely fueled her worry for her son’s fate with fears for her own future: “Payment of the above mentioned allotment has been suspended and no further payment will be made until it has been determined that payment thereof is in accordance with existing law.”
She and Uranie needed the money to live. Three days later, in a rush of words expressing her worry, Grace replied to the letter, telling the Marine Corps paymaster that the notice about Ryan’s pay “has come as a great shock.”
Please be advised that my son Marion R. McCown, Jr. made this allotment out of his salary for the support of the home, my medical treatment and care, and his insurance policies which have to be paid monthly also for the support of his sister whose education as a doctor was his first consideration. After he left Cherry Point, N.C. and just before going to the Pacific area he made this allotment, up to this time he had sent it to us by P.O. money order every month, he preferred to handle it this way, it seemed a little more personal. He has always felt keenly his responsibility to his home and his sisters as he was the only male member of our family. Needless to add that were this allotment discontinued, it would be a great hardship to his loved ones.
Grace also enclosed a sworn affidavit, signed in the same graceful cursive script as Ryan’s, stating that her son’s pay made up more than half of her monthly income. Now that she wasn’t working, all she had was a small annuity she had set aside while she was employed, she reported. She had no spouse, and recounted that she filed for divorce in 1922 “on the ground of desertion [and] no provision was provided for myself or children. I worked and supported them.” Ryan had been helping to support all of them from the time he was seventeen, when he worked as a shop clerk for the local U.S. Civil Service Department, earning $120 a month. Grace also included a letter from her physician stating that she had been admitted to the St. Francis Infirmary in August 1942, when Ryan was stationed at Quantico, after she suffered a “cerebral accident” that forced her to retire from her work.
When she hadn’t heard anything from the Marine Corps by March, she followed up with another letter asking if Ryan’s payments would be reinstated.
“If not we will have to make other arrangements here,” she wrote. She was also worried that Ryan might lose his ten-thousand-dollar life insurance policy. Since he had left for the war, she was paying his monthly premium of $8.61 from the money he was sending home.
Grace sat and waited for more news of Ryan, often scanning up and down Ashley Avenue as if she were expecting him to pull up in a taxi. She held out hope that Ryan might have survived in the jungle or was being held prisoner by the Japanese. The next update she received on his case, in a letter from the Marine Corps dated May 10, only dampened her hopes. No additional information had been received regarding his fate, she was informed. He would remain “missing in action.” She got much of the same in a letter four months later.
In July, a package arrived that was the most difficult to open of all: her son’s personal effects. The large box of Ryan’s belongings was filled with the items he had worn, from his uniforms and caps down to his leather gloves, aviator scarves, undershirts, drawers, and shoes. In the metal box where he had stored them at Torokina were his photographs of home, his captain’s bars, his wallet, and a riding crop he had taken with him from Charleston. There was also his leather-bound diary, a Christmas present in 1939, with some of the letters he had received from Grace clipped inside its pages.
Then came a glimmer of hope—in the form of a notice from a Marine Corps colonel in Washington. President Roosevelt, he informed her, had authorized the Air Medal to be awarded to Ryan for his exploits after he went down at sea and his determination to get back in the air without delay despite the harrowing experience without a lifeboat. But it was the final sentence that grabbed Grace’s attention and yanked at her emotions.
“The decoration and citation will be held in this office for Captain McCown in case he should be available for presentation at some time in the future,” it read. The Marine Corps, too, it seemed, was not giving up hope that Ryan had survived the mission and might still be alive.
Grace also heard rumors from his fellow pilots that he might have survived. She received word from Ryan’s squadron about their suspicion that he might have landed his damaged plane on the Japanese airstrip near Rabaul and been taken prisoner. The next day, the version went, some of the men picked up a garbled broadcast by Tokyo Rose, the English-speaking Japanese propaganda broadcaster, reporting the name McCown. Some Navy pilots on a nearby island had apparently relayed that they also heard a radio broadcast stating that a Captain McCown was a POW.
She clung to the rumors for strength of spirit and asked the Marine Corps about them. “Some of Captain McCown’s friends believe that he may be alive, a prisoner of war in a rear area,” Grace wrote, more than a year after he was lost, on January 25, 1945.
In June 1945, a month after Germany surrendered to the Allies and Japan had become the sole focus of the war, Grace waited for the veil of mystery to be
lifted. But when she opened her mail, she found only another delivery from the Marine Corps with some of Ryan’s remaining personal effects. There were two pairs of Navy wings, two keys, his Social Security card, and a check for $111.
The war ended with the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan that August, bringing access to Japanese prison camps and the officers who ran them. But there was no word at all from the Marine Corps—not for another half a year. Then, as Ryan’s birthday approached for the second time since he was reported missing, Grace’s faith, like so many others’, was dashed with the stroke of a pen in Washington. On January 16, 1946, the secretary of the Navy, following the legal procedure for such cases, declared Marion Ryan McCown Jr. dead.
“Inasmuch as five months have now elapsed since the termination of hostilities with Japan,” James Forrestal wrote, “and neither an extensive search of all Japanese prison camps and records nor questioning of returned prisoners of war has revealed any additional information, it is only reasonable to conclude that [he was] killed in action in the line of duty.”
A week later a newly grief-stricken Grace received yet more confirmation that hope was lost.
“In view of the circumstances surrounding your son’s disappearance and the length of time which has elapsed without word of his whereabouts, the conclusion is inescapable that he lost his life at Rabaul, New Britain,” the Marine Corps wrote.
Once again Grace turned to her beloved Unitarian Church on Archdale Street. She organized a drive to collect donations for the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee in New York, which was sending shipments of supplies for war refugees in Europe. Her notice in the church newsletter, the Liberal Messenger, appealed to fellow congregants to aid the needy. “Clothes are desperately needed. Your help will count.” She called on her fellow Unitarians to phone her—“dial 8896”—to find out where to leave their contributions or let her know where they would like her to pick them up. Meanwhile, in her brother’s memory, Uranie, now a medical doctor, donated to the church an altar set, consisting of matching brass candelabra and candlesticks.