The Corps IV - Battleground

by W. E. B Griffin

Aside from perhaps four hours familiarization at Parris Island, the only experience Sergeant John Marston Moore, USMCR, had with the U.S. Submachine Gun, Caliber.45 (Thompson) was vicarious. He had watched half a dozen movie heroes-most notably Alan Ladd-and as many movie gangsters-most notably Edward G. Robinson-use the weapon against their enemies with great skill, ‚lan, and

  They were now forty minutes down the beach toward the site of the encounter between Able Company, First Marines, and the Japanese; and he really had had no idea until that moment how heavy the sonofabitch was.

  He had opted to leave his utility jacket in the S-2 Section of the First Marines, which he now recognized to be an error of the first magnitude. The canvas strap of the Thompson had worn one shoulder and then the other raw. And as they made their way down the sandy beach, the two spare 20-round Thompson magazines he carried, plus the.45 pistol and its two spare magazines, had both banged against him, in the process wearing raw and badly bruising the skin and muscles of his legs and buttocks.

  He had also quickly learned that the good life he had been living in Melbourne and Brisbane had not only softened the calluses he had won at Parris Island-the balls of his feet and the backs of his ankles had quickly blistered, and the blisters had broken-but it had softened him generally.

  To the technical sergeant's great and wholly unconcealed annoyance and contempt, he had absolutely had to stop every five minutes or so to regain his breath. His heart pounded so heavily he wondered if it would burst through his rib cage.

  Twenty minutes down the beach, they began to encounter other members of Captain Brush's patrol. Five minutes after that, they encountered Captain Brush himself, bringing up the rear.

  When the technical sergeant responded to, "Sergeant Ropke, where the hell do you think you're going?" by informing him of their mission, Captain Brush assigned a Corporal and a PFC to go with them.

  Fifteen minutes after that, they reached the site of the action. It was marked by Japanese bodies scattered over the beach in various obscene postures of death. Even more obscene, in Moore's judgment, were the three-quarters-buried bodies of the three Marines who had been killed.

  They had been buried with one boondocker shod foot sticking out of the ground so that their bodies could be more easily found later.

  In the clothing of the third body Moore examined, that of a Japanese Army Captain, he found positive proof that the Ichiki Butai had indeed been landed on Guadalcanal. He also found in the calf of the Captain's boot a map which looked to him like a Japanese assessment of the Marine defense positions on the beachhead.

  He gave this to the technical sergeant, and oriented the map for him.

  "Jesus Christ!" the technical sergeant said, after carefully examining the map. "They did a good fucking job with this!"

  Moore spent another twenty minutes searching for the bodies of Japanese officers, and then searching the bodies for materials he thought would be important. Finally he had a Japanese knapsack full of documents, maps, and wallets.

  They started back. Five minutes down the beach, after the first time he stopped to catch his breath, the technical sergeant relieved him of the Thompson.

  "Let me carry the Thompson," he said, not unkindly. "That shit you picked up is slowing us all down."

  I should be embarrassed, ashamed, humiliated. I am not. I am simply grateful that I don't have to carry that sonofabitch anymore!

  Ninety seconds after that, there was a faint suggestion of something-some things-flying through the air in high arcs. And a moment after that, there were two almost simultaneous flashes of light, and then a moment later, a third.

  And then something like a swung baseball bat hit Sergeant John Marston Moore twice, once in the calf of his left leg and once high, almost at the hip joint of his right leg.

  This was followed immediately by a loud roar, and the sensation of flying through the air. He landed on his back, and the wind was knocked out of him.

  After a moment, while he was still trying to figure out what was happening, he became aware of people running out from the woods onto the beach. Two of them had rifles, and the third a pistol.

  He rose on his elbow for a closer look.

  He saw that the Corporal and the PFC who had been sent with them were down on the beach, crumpled up, and that the technical sergeant was trying, without much success, to get to his feet.

  Moore rolled over onto his stomach and took the.45 Colt automatic from where it had been bruising his buttocks raw and sore and worked the action and held it in two hands and shot at the three men running onto the beach. He shot until two of them fell, and until the slide locked in the rear position indicating that the last of the seven rounds in the magazine had been expended.

  He searched desperately for a spare magazine.

  There was a short, staccato burst of.45 fire, accompanied by orange flashes of light, and then another. The technical sergeant had gotten the Thompson into action.

  By the time Moore found a fresh magazine, ejected the empty magazine, inserted the fresh magazine, let the slide slam forward, and then looked for a target, there was none.

  What he saw was the technical sergeant, bleeding profusely from cuts or wounds on the neck and face, crawling over to him.

  "You all right?" the technical sergeant said.

  "I think I broke both legs."

  "It'll be all right. They probably heard the fire, they'll send somebody back for us."

  "Bullshit," Sergeant John Marston Moore said.

  "Yeah, probably," the technical sergeant said. "But maybe when it gets light in the morning, they will."

  One of the two Marines who had been sent with them- Moore couldn't tell which-moaned and then began to whimper.

  They will find my body on this fucking beach in the morning, Sergeant John Marston Moore thought, unless the tide comes in and washes it out to sea for the sharks to eat.

  Two minutes after that, there was the unmistakable sound of a Jeep in four-wheel drive making its way through soft sand.

  When the Corpsmen loaded Sergeant John Marston Moore onto the litter, he screamed with pain.

  They loaded the technical sergeant in the other litter. And then, because they didn't know what else to do with them, they laid the bodies of the PFC and the Corporal on the Jeep hood. The PFC's body started whimpering again.

  "Jesus," Moore heard one of the Corpsmen say, "I thought he was dead."

  (Seven)

  W.E.B. Griffin

  "The Doc tells me you took grenade fragments in your legs," Major Jack NMI Stecker said to Sergeant John Marston Moore. "That's better than getting shot."

  "What?" Moore asked incredulously. His legs were now one great sea of dull aching pain, with crashing wavelets of intense, flashing, toothache-like agony.

  "There's often less tissue damage; and they can repair a jagged wound easier than a smooth one. The worst is a slice."

  "I hurt," Moore said. "Why won't they give me something for the pain?"

  "I told them not to, until I could get here and talk to you," Stecker confessed. "I want to hear more about Ichiki Butai."

  "You sonofabitch!" Moore flared. The moment the words were out of his mouth, he realized with horror what he had said. Marine Sergeants do not call Marine Second Lieutenants, much less Marine Majors, sonsofbitches. Moore realized that he was horror stricken, but not repentant. Under the circumstances, if Jesus Christ himself was responsible for the withholding of pain killers, he would have questioned the parentage of the Son of God.

  Major Jack NMI Stecker did not seem to take offense.

  "Yeah," he said. "Are they or aren't they?"

  "They were all Ichiki Butai," Moore said. "I think it was a headquarters team or something. I saw two lieutenant colonels, three majors, five or six captains. A bunch of senior NCOs."

  "OK, Sergeant. I've got what linguists I could scrounge up working on those documents."

  "How did you know about Ichiki Butai?" Moore asked.

  "I've seen the O
rder of Battle," Stecker said. "What interests me is how you knew what you told Captain Feincamp."

  "I want something for this fucking pain!"

  "Son," a vaguely familiar voice asked. "Does the word MAGIC mean anything to you?"

  "I hurt! Goddamn it, doesn't anybody care?"

  "I'm General Vandergrift, Son. You can tell me. Do you know what MAGIC means?"

  "Yes, Sir, General, I know what MAGIC is."

  "All right, Doctor. Do what you can for this boy," General Vandergrift said.

  Moore felt a surprisingly cool rubber mask being clamped over his mouth. Then there was a rush of cool air. It felt good He took a deep breath.

  "Well done Lad" he heard General Vandergrift say. Well do..."

  Chapter Nineteen

  (One)

  HENDERSON HELD GUADALCANAL,

  SOLOMON ISLANDS

  1715 HOURS 20 AUGUST 1942

  Captain Charles M. Galloway slid open the canopy of his Wildcat, then lowered the left wing just a little, just enough to give him a good look at Henderson Field.

  A Douglas SBD-3 Dauntless was just about to touch down. Another Dauntless-the last of a dozen-was just turning

  Galloway turned to his right, saw Jim Ward looking at him, and gestured to him to go on down. Ward nodded and peeled off. The other three Wildcats in the first five-plane V followed Ward.

  As the first planes of VMF-229 landed, Galloway flew two wide three-sixties, mostly over the water (there was no reported anti-aircraft fire, but why take a chance?). And then Bill Dunn, leading the second five-plane V, pulled up alongside him. Galloway signaled for him to land. Dunn nodded, and gave the signal to his wing man. He peeled off and made his approach, followed by the others. Dunn remained on Galloway's wing tip.

  Soon it was the two of them alone above the field.

  Two mother hens, Galloway thought, making sure the little chickies get home safe.

  Except this isn't home and it isn't safe.

  Charley reached his left hand down beside his seat, found the charging handle for the outboard.50 Caliber Browning in the left wing, and turned it ninety degrees, putting the weapon on SAFE. Then he found the inboard handle, and rotated that. He put his left hand on the stick, put his right hand down beside his seat, and repeated the action, putting the guns in the right wing on SAFE.

  Then he looked over at Dunn, held up his index finger, and then pointed it at himself.

  Me First.

  He could see Dunn smiling.

  Charley peeled off and put the Wildcat into a dive.

  There are two ways to lower the landing gear of a Grumman F4F. The means specified in AN 01-190FB-1 Pilot's Handbook of Flight Operating Instructions for Navy Model FM-2 Airplanes (As Amended) specifies that the pilot will turn the landing gear handcrank located on the right side of the cockpit approximately twenty-eight times until the crank handle hits a stop indicating the landing gear has been fully extended.

  The second way was not listed in any pilot's manual. The technique was not only not recommended, it was forbidden. It was the technique Charley Galloway used-and, he was sure, most of the pilots of VMF-229. Charley had explained it to them back at Ewa, so they would know what they were forbidden to do...

  He released the landing gear handcrank brake just before he came out of the dive. Following Newton's Law that a body in motion tends to remain in motion, when he pulled out of the dive to make his final approach, the forces of gravity pulled the landing gear out of the retracted position.

  You had to be very careful that the rapidly spinning handle didn't get your arm, which would probably break it, but on the other hand, you didn't have to turn the damned crank twenty-eight times with your right hand while flying the airplane with your left.

  Charley touched down; and twenty seconds later, Bill Dunn touched down behind him. Before he finished the landing roll, the humid heat began to get to him. He felt his back break out in sweat.

  He was not very impressed with the airfield. It looked to him like a half inch of rain would turn it into a sea of mud. And he understood that a half inch of rain a day was not at all uncommon on Guadalcanal.

  The entire runway was lined with spectators. Not solidly, but every couple of yards there seemed to be a Marine. They were smiling, and a few of them even waved.

  Charley waved back, and even forced a smile.

  The Marines looked like hell. They looked exhausted and underfed and filthy. And they regarded the arrival of the first combat aircraft as something more important than it really was.

  It was actually a desperate attempt to stop a major Japanese effort to throw the Marines off Guadalcanal and reclaim the airbase.

  That effort was about to get underway. Charley Galloway had private personal doubts that nineteen F4Fs and a dozen SBD-3s were going to be able to do much to stop it. Not to mention anything else they scraped off the bottom of the barrel.

  Just before they'd left the Long Island, he heard that the Army Air Corps was sending a squadron of Bell P-400s to Guadalcanal. The reaction of the group was that the goddamned Army Air Corps was butting in on the Marine Corps' business.

  Galloway's reaction was that the Marines, and maybe especially MAG-21 in particular, could use all the help they could get; but they weren't going to get very much from a squadron of P-400s. He knew the story of the P-400.

  Technical Sergeant Charley Galloway first heard about the aircraft in 1939. Curious about it, he managed to have a little engine trouble over Buffalo, New York, which gave him a chance to sit down at the Bell plant and have a look at the plane that began life as the Bell P-39 Aircobra.

  He had not been impressed. It was a weird bird, sitting on what looked to Charley like a very fragile tricycle landing gear. It had a liquid cooled Allison engine, mounted amidships, behind the pilot. The prop was driven by a shaft. The shaft was hollow, and carried a 37mm cannon barrel. There was no turbocharger, giving it, consequently, low to lousy performance at high altitudes.

  All of which, in the final analysis, meant that nobody wanted the damned things.

  The English wouldn't have anything to do with them. So the Aircobras that were supposed to go to them were sent to the Russians. Though Charley couldn't say for sure, it was entirely possible that the Russians, as desperate as they were for anything that would fly, didn't want them either. And so somebody had turned them over to the Army Air Corps.

  Their reputation was so bad they'd even changed the name from P-39 to P-400. The only thing that surprised Charley was that the Marines hadn't wound up with them. The Marines normally got what the Army and the Navy didn't want.

  It was not the sort of thing you talked to your men about, to bolster their morale, so Charley kept his mouth shut.

  A familiar bald head and naked barrel chest appeared on the side of the runway, directing Charley to taxi to a sandbag revetment.

  Tech Sergeant Big Steve Oblensky climbed up on the wing root before Charley stopped the engine. ' "Well, I see you all got here," he said.

  "There was some doubt in your mind?"

  "Only about you," Big Steve said.

  "What shape are we in?"

  "Great. We have to pump fuel-the fuel there is-by hand through chamois. That runway's going to be a fucking muddy..."

  " 'The fuel there is'?" Charley quoted, interrupting him.

  Big Steve waited until Charley hauled himself out of the cockpit before replying.

  "Those converted tin cans that brung us here," he said, "carried 400 barrels of Avgas. That's not much. Some of it they already used to refuel the Catalinas that have been coming in."

  "You're telling me we have less than 22,000 gallons of gas?"

  "Maybe a little more. They're bringing in a little all the time, but when we start using it..." Oblensky gestured at the aircraft that had just flown in. "And I just heard that the Army is sending in a half dozen P-400s tomorrow."

  "Jesus Christ," Charley said.

  There was the sound of aircraft engines, a differen
t pitch than a Dauntless or Wildcat made. Charley looked up at the sky and saw a Catalina making its approach.

  We make fun of them, he thought. Aerial bus drivers. But it has to take more balls to fly that slow and ungainly sonofabitch in and out of here than it does to fly a Wildcat.

  "And there's no fucking chow," Oblensky said, almost triumphantly. "We're eating captured Japanese shit."

  "Well then, I guess we better hurry up and win the war," Charley said. "I wouldn't want you writing Flo that we officers are starving your fat ass."

  (Two)