Once They Were Eagles Read online

  No formal prayers were said, but Boyington lined us up on either side of the grave and called us to attention. Then he whipped his hand up in a salute, and we all followed.

  “So long, Alex,” he said.

  We felt that Alex would rest more easily now that friendly hands had put him to bed. And there Alex sleeps today, I hope, his grave grown over now. Blanketed by the vines and creepers, orchids and other tropical flowers, he sleeps quietly through the warm Solomons days and nights in a spot where no white man had ever been before him.

  And where no other might ever go again.

  18 | A Change in Boundaries

  The boys were more anxious than ever to get into some aerial combat. We all wondered why we weren’t hitting Rabaul, which was now within fighter range. Rabaul’s five airdromes were loaded with enemy planes, but they were staying in their own back yard. We asked why our planes couldn’t go, but no one seemed to know the answer, and almost everyone was content to wait for orders. Not Boyington.

  In typical fashion, he climbed into a plane one morning and flew down to Air Command Headquarters at Munda to find out. It was 12 December, eight days after his birthday. He was 31 years old, and knew he wouldn’t be allowed to stay in fighter planes much longer. Very few fighter pilots live that long—if they keep on fighting.

  The boys in the squadron averaged some seven years younger than Boyington; because of this and the wide difference in combat experience, they had begun to call him Pappy shortly after the beginning of our first tour. Now Bragdon began to call him “Gramps.”

  Knowing that he would never be permitted to make another combat tour, Boyington realized that it was now or never if he hoped to break the 26-plane record held jointly by Eddie Rickenbacker and Joe Foss.

  At Munda, he found out why the Black Sheep couldn’t get a crack at Rabaul. Some months before, Admiral Halsey and General MacArthur had agreed on a geographical line to separate their areas of responsibility. The line ran west of Bougainville and then curved as it went north so that Rabaul was in MacArthur’s territory.

  Boyington suggested that the line be revised, or that a dispatch be sent to MacArthur requesting permission for our forces to attack Rabaul. Four days later, all squadron commanders were ordered to Munda for a meeting. Late in the afternoon, Boyington jumped off the truck and strode into my office tent with a spring to his step and a grin on his face.

  “Here we go, boys,” he said, as he put a sheaf of papers on my desk.

  “What’s up, Gramps?” asked Bragdon, who had been playing bridge with Brubaker, Olander, and Doc Reames.

  “We’re going to Rabaul tomorrow,” Boyington answered.

  Everyone shouted and then began to throw questions at him.

  “Wait a minute,” he said, and turned to me. “You’ve got a big job. Eighty planes are going up in the first fighter sweep over Rabaul tomorrow, and you’re to brief all the pilots tonight in the mess hall after chow. I brought you the latest photos of the area. You don’t have much time to get your material together, but I told them you could do it.”

  “I’ll get right at it now, if all you guys will go in the ready room and give me a chance to think.”

  They went out chattering, and I went to work. I got out my maps, the photos of the area, the latest intelligence reports, studies of the Bismarck Archipelago, survival information, weather and current data, the operations plan that Boyington had brought, and the landing instructions for our airstrip on Bougainville. It was nearly eight o’clock before I bundled up everything, climbed into a small truck that was standing by, and went up the hill to the mess hall.

  The room was full. The long tables had been cleared, and the pilots were sprawled about them, not doing a great deal of talking. This was another night before the big game.

  I passed out strip maps to all—small maps showing the compass headings the pilots were to take to the target and back. All pilots also got maps of Rabaul Harbor and the surrounding area, while all division leaders were given eight-inch-square target maps that showed the location of the airdromes in the Rabaul area.

  “Your mission is a fighter sweep over Rabaul,” I told them (see Appendix E for complete briefing notes). “Eighty planes will participate in the sweep: 24 New Zealand P-40s, 24 Navy Hellcats, and 32 Marine Corsairs.

  “Major Boyington will be Tactical Commander.

  “The 32 Marine planes will fly top cover, with VMF-222 at 26,000 feet; 223 at 23,000; 214 at 20,000, and 216 at 20 to 25,000. The 24 Hellcats will fly at 15,000 to 20,000 feet; the 24 New Zealand planes will spread between 10,000 and 15,000.

  “Takeoff from here begins at 0445 tomorrow.

  “All planes will pancake at Bougainville for topping off gas tanks. All turns are to be made over the water and not inland.

  “At 0830, the first plane will take off from Bougainville for the strike. The last plane will be off by 0900.

  “You are scheduled to be over Rabaul at 1020. At this time, an Army photo plane will be over the area at 35,000, making a photo run.

  “You will leave the Rabaul area at 1045; planes low on gas will refuel at Bougainville; others return here or to Ondonga.

  “Your rally point is Cape St. George, the southernmost tip of New Ireland.

  “Latest intelligence shows 160 aircraft on the five fields around Rabaul; 91 of them are fighters—Zekes, Hamps, Tonys, and Tojos. Zekes and Hamps are, of course, the round- and square-wing-tipped Zeros with which you’re familiar. Tony is an in-line fighter that resembles a P-40. It’s faster, and more heavily armed and armored than the Zeros but not as maneuverable. Tojo is a new fighter plane about which little is known except that it’s very fast, very maneuverable. It’s a short, stubby, easily recognized aircraft.

  “Lakunai Airdrome, on the outskirts of Rabaul, is loaded with about 100 of the 160 planes in the area; 65 of them are fighters.

  “Strong antiaircraft positions ring the coastline, and all the airdromes. There also is a strong series of AA positions on Hospital Ridge, back of the town.

  “As for rescue procedure, two Venturas will patrol the line between Bougainville and Rabaul from 1000 until 1200. Two Catalinas will be on alert at Bougainville between 0730 and 1500. For rescue planes, call DANE base.

  “If you have to go down and have any choice, hit the water west of Bougainville. The currents will bring you south along the west coast. The wind in this area is generally southeast this time of year.

  “Your best bet is to go down on the water, get in your rubber boat, and wait for a rescue plane. However, if you do have to go down on the land, you still have a good chance of getting out O.K. We have Coast Watchers on both New Britain and New Ireland, as well as on Bougainville. They move about, sometimes within a stone’s throw of the Japanese airfields.

  “On New Britain, head for Open Bay; on New Ireland between Cape Siar and Cape Bun Bun. You’ll find help and supplies in both places.

  “You have every chance of getting out if you keep your head; hide your chute; move quietly; make use of the information you’ve been given regarding native fruits and vegetables.

  “In the event of bad weather, the code word ‘Dagwood’ means that the flight is called off.

  “Are there any questions?”

  There were none. All the pilots were studying their maps.

  “Are there any questions any of you would like to ask Major Boyington?” I further asked.

  “Yes, I have one,” said a stocky Navy squadron commander. “I’d like to ask what tactics he plans on using if we contact the enemy.”

  Boyington rose. “Tactics? Hell, you don’t need any tactics. When you see the Zeros, you just shoot ’em down, that’s all.”

  There were no more questions.

  The field was busy long before daylight the next morning, 17 December.

  The darkness and the moisture in the air combined to muffle all sounds. The whine of trucks descending the hill to the taxiway; the cough, the sputter, and then the roar of engines being started
; and the voices of the pilots and mechanics as they stood in small groups discussing the day’s mission or looked over their planes—it was all a single, subdued jumble. Conversation was on the brief side. Tempers were short. The ready tents were dark, and I could hear the pilots swearing as they fumbled for their gear on the racks.

  A long line of planes lumbered awkwardly along the taxiways, roared, gathered momentum, then were airborne, blue flames licking their bellies. The trees shuddered with the reverberation of their engines; the sky was dotted with twinkling lights. Then suddenly the sky was empty; everything was quiet, and I sat with Doc Reames, as usual, on the knoll overlooking the end of the runway.

  Very little was done around Vella Lavella that day. I called Operations every half-hour to see what news had come in on the radio.

  In exasperatingly slow succession, I learned that all planes had topped off their gas tanks at Bougainville on schedule; that they had taken off again on time; that the weather was clear. Ffoulkes had nosed over on landing but had borrowed a plane to complete the mission.

  Shortly after noon, Operations reported that the first planes back from Rabaul had landed at Bougainville and more were coming in fast. It wasn’t until 4:30 P.M., however, that the first planes swooped into the traffic pattern, circled, and landed at our field.

  Boyington threw down his helmet as he walked in. “They wouldn’t come up. Just a few strays. We were over Lakunai at 1045. About 40 fighters were lined up on the strip, but they wouldn’t take off.

  “I dived to 10,000 feet and fired a few rounds at them to try to stir something up, but they just wouldn’t stir.”

  Our Black Sheep did manage to find and shoot down three Zeros, McClurg getting one and Moore, two. That ended the scoring for us for the day, and it brought the squadron score up to an even 60.

  “We scared them,” Boyington said. “We ought to send up only about 24 planes, so they’d be sure to come up and fight.”

  General MacArthur had announced several weeks previously that Rabaul had been neutralized, but the tens of thousands of Nip troops, the seamen manning the aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, and submarines, and the hundreds of Nip pilots had not been consulted on MacArthur’s communiqué.

  If Rabaul had been neutralized before, it had to be neutralized again, so on 23 December 24 Army B-24s were ordered to bomb both Rabaul and its harbor. The bombers were to be covered by 48 Navy and Marine fighter planes, while 48 Army Air Force and Marine fighters were to take off later and act as a rear guard for the bombers on their return trip.

  Pierre Carnagey led five other Black Sheep as low cover for the bombers, while Boyington led nine others in the rear guard sweep.

  Rendezvous with the bombers was late, and the entire formation was 30 minutes behind schedule as it crossed over New Britain. As the bombers went into their runs at 21,000 feet, some 15 or 20 Zeros piled down on them from above. Possibly because of the bad timing, only four Hellcats were in position, and the Zeros whined through them and on top of the Black Sheep positioned immediately above the bombers. One bomber was hit in one of its engines but feathered the prop and stayed in formation.

  The fight increased in intensity. Japanese planes began releasing aerial bombs, which exploded into huge white phosphorus balls like silver creampuffs with 15-foot silver streamers.

  More Zeros joined the original group, and the six Black Sheep were battling for their own lives as well as those of the B-24 crews. Two lost: Pierre Carnagey and Jimmy Brubaker.

  Meanwhile, Boyington’s group, scheduled to arrive in the area 45 minutes behind the bombers, was actually only 15 minutes behind them. It was well that they were early.

  In the action that followed, Boyington got four Zeros to bring his total to 24. Bolt and McClurg scored two each to become our squadron’s fourth and fifth aces. Magee got one to make eight, Heier got two, and Miller bagged his first. But we lost Bruce Ffoulkes.

  At Vella Lavella, I added up the score. The Black Sheep had downed 12 planes to bring the Squadron total to 72. But the cost was high. I wrote “MIA” beside the names of Carnagey, Brubaker, and Ffoulkes.

  19 | Crescendo

  Things were getting rough over Rabaul now. The Nips were throwing everything they could round up into the air battle, in a desperate effort to stave off our advance.

  Rabaul was the keystone to the entire Southwest Pacific. If we were able to neutralize it, any threat to Australia, New Guinea, and the Solomons would be permanently eliminated. The enemy would have to pull in their horns all the way back to the Philippines and the Marianas. They weren’t going to give up easily.

  In spite of the furious deadly battle that he was so brilliantly spearheading, Boyington was happy. He wrote his mother: “I’ve got the swellest bunch of kids in the world with me; I’m flying! I’m killing Japs.”

  Another day, he wrote: “The Japs are getting pretty tough out here. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to beat Joe Foss’s record before I go home, or not. As you have always taught me, there is nothing worthwhile unless you earn it. You taught me that the faith I held could beat anything in the world. Maybe I can appreciate it now after working for it. I was sidetracked for a while.

  “You will never have to worry about me again, because this experience has taught me how to live and how to forgive. Some men, it makes better. Now I’m as calm and happy as I’ve ever been in my life.

  “I’ve learned that many things have to be done to achieve a good purpose. I’ve had to send men to their deaths. I’ve had to write to their mothers and fathers; to young wives with children. The only consolation is that I’ve led my boys into everything they went into.

  “I’ve thanked God a good many times in the last few months for the training I had at home.

  “Gosh, how I’d love to be back and have some of those old friendly arguments at the family dinner table. After all is said and done, there isn’t a family that had as much fun as we had. It must be the Irish in us!

  “Give my darlings my love and have a nice Christmas for them.”

  Christmas Eve on Vella Lavella was a far cry from Christmas Eve in Okanogan, Washington.

  The Black Sheep had roamed the skies over New Britain that day without sighting any Nip planes and had disgustedly bounced their Corsairs back onto our strip without having fired a round of ammunition. That night we gathered in the tent now occupied only by Boyington, Doc, and me, since Pierre was missing.

  In a big aluminum kettle, Doc and I had made up a concoction that had some faint resemblance to eggnog. It consisted of powdered eggs, powdered milk, sugar, nutmeg, water, AND five quarts of whiskey. The kettle was in the middle of the tent, and we sprawled about it, dipping in and filling and refilling our canteen cups. There had never been, for any of us, a Christmas like this.

  Instead of the traditional snow and cold and rosy cheeks and frost and exchange of presents and glittering store windows, we had the jungles and steaming tropics as we lay about with only a pair of shorts on, sweating, batting at mosquitoes, and brushing an occasional centipede out into the hovering darkness.

  Had anyone sung “White Christmas,” we’d probably all have bawled.

  We stayed carefully away from any such sentiment, however; the talk was of flying and of Sydney; the songs were our own Black Sheep songs. Loud and crude, they served, with the help of the “eggnog,” to release pent-up emotions that have no place in the hearts and minds of those who are going out tomorrow to fight. Late in the evening, Bragdon, in his terse, impersonal manner, spoke what was in all our minds.

  “Listen, Gramps, we all want to see you break the record, but we don’t want you to go up there and get killed doing it.”

  “Don’t worry about me. They can’t kill me. If you guys ever see me going down with 30 Zeros on my tail, don’t give me up. Hell, I’ll meet you in a San Diego bar six months after the war, and we’ll all have a drink for old times’ sake.”

  “Here’s to that San Diego bar,” said Moon Mullen, and we all drai
ned our cups.

  “How about That Little Ball of Yarn,’ K.O.?” shouted one of the boys to K.O. Toomey, who had been named after the comic strip character because he wore a derby hat everywhere except when he was actually flying. A pilot with another squadron, he should have been a Black Sheep, and did the next best thing by spending all his spare time with us.

  K.O. had a stock of songs that he performed with a fine Irish brogue in a hoarse whiskey tenor, perfect for the time and place. He had made many dull evenings pass pleasantly because of his singing and his ability to turn a neat phrase, and he came through again this night by jamming his derby onto Boyington’s head and singing “Ball of Yarn” for us.

  I have a treasured photograph of this Christmas Eve party, showing Boyington, dressed only in shorts and K.O.’s derby, surrounded by the rest of the Black Sheep.

  As the hour grew late, the canteen cups were scraping on the bottom of the kettle, and the light from our Coleman lantern began to wane. The boys gradually slipped off to their tents until only Boyington, the Doc, and I were left. Each of us sat on the edge of his cot, chin in hand, a little reluctant to go to bed, trying to retain the sense of pleasure the party had brought but feeling it slipping away. We sat there, silently, for a long time, and then Boyington repeated what he’d said the night before: “It’s sure lonesome in here without old Pierre.”

  “It sure is, Pappy,” said Doc.

  The next day was Christmas, but it was just Saturday on Vella Lavella.

  While the strikers back home were holding up production for more money, and those defense workers who weren’t striking were getting double time, the Black Sheep were at 21,000 feet over Rabaul—just happy to be alive.

  Eight of them tangled with 40 Zeros in a mad melee, and when I tallied up the score, they’d knocked down four more Zeros to push our squadron total to 76 sure kills and 27 probables. Avey, Corman, Fisher, and Tucker had made the kills—Corman’s first, Avey’s first with us (he had 1½ from a previous tour with another squadron), and the fourth for both Fisher and Tucker.