Baa Baa Black Sheep (23 page)

The enemy ground-control radio had our frequency and decided to join the little game. They were pretending to be American pilots on a mission in our locality. But we were willing to gamble on just who was going to fox whom.

“Major Boyington, what is your position?” came in as clear as a bell without the slightest trace of an accent. I doubt that I would have recognized some of those American-sounding voices on the radio if they hadn’t used such perfect English, or if I hadn’t known in this particular case that we were out of range of our own aircraft.

Our pilots used a variety of slang expressions that would be extremely difficult to imitate. For an example: “Hey, sheriff, give a gander at the lower forty,” and similar expressions were all the code we needed—and they certainly came natural enough.

I played along with the ground radio and the Japanese who were speaking to me in English. Help from some cloud formations at several different levels made the game of hide-and-seek even more interesting. I was aware that their fighters were in the air and trying to locate bombers.

“Major Boyington, what is your position?”

“Over Treasury Island,” I came back with, which was a short distance southeast of Bougainville, and then told him exactly where we were above the clouds.

“What are your angels, Major Boyington?”

“Twenty angels, repeating, twenty angels.”

“I receive you five by five,” which means loud and clear, and then they ceased transmitting. I had lied about my altitude angels, for we were at twenty-five thousand, and were putting an extra grand on for luck while I was talking.

The next thing I saw, about the most beautiful sight a fighter pilot can dream of, climbing in an easterly direction
coming from beneath a white cloud, was a formation of thirty Nippon Zeros. We were fortunate in having the midday sun coming over our shoulders, pointing down in front of us upon the backs of our climbing enemy, which is another thing a fighter pilot desires if possible.

I recall placing my finger to my lips to caution silence, while throttling back to lose altitude as I tried to keep in line with the rays of the sun. Whether my signal was passed on visually made no difference, for my boys remained as silent as the little lambs they were. As we eased down, getting closer and closer, a thought that maybe I was hoggish and our prey might get wise ran through my mind. But no. Almost everybody in the squadron got a shot on our first pass.

It felt as though I had the Nip leader in my sights for at least an hour. When I reached the point where I could wait no longer I let go with the six .50-caliber machine guns, and their leader practically disintegrated in front of my eyes. I didn’t dare to turn right away because I could see the tracers from my mates sailing past both of my wing tips, and I would run into some of the spare rounds by turning in either direction. So I continued straight ahead completely across the top of the Jap formation.

Flames and debris from several of their planes were visible as they started into a steep left spiral, which reminded me of watching the soapy water whirl out of a bathtub in Sydney. Water rotates counterclockwise down under and clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, but aircraft have been in the habit of turning left in either hemisphere ever since their invention.

When it was clear to join the mad whirlpool, I too joined the left spiral. The Jap bailed out of the second Zero I fired upon, not more than a second after my burst hit his plane, and I could see a dark-colored chute stream by in a blur. For some reason the blurred form on the end of the trailing chute didn’t appear human at this particular instant. By continuing with the spiral until I had completed nearly 360° I was able to get a third Zero to flame. All through this complete circle there were tracers on all sides of me, and I knew they came from my own Black Sheep’s guns. But, as plentiful as the tracers were, I was too occupied at the time to worry.

Our Nippon friends disappeared into the clouds as if they had been erased from a blackboard, after what I felt had
been a lengthy action. But after our return to base I discovered that one of the boys had timed the action with a stop watch, for there was always some guy who had to do the unusual. The entire action, from beginning to end, had taken just thirty seconds.

A hell of a lot of thoughts can pass through one’s mind, not to mention how much air action can take place, in thirty seconds.

Grumman F6F “Hellcat”

The Black Sheep were in high spirits after getting twelve more planes to their credit. I realized that taking this most recent opportunity into my own hands could have resulted in the reverse effect just as well as not, but no one argues about protocol when the enemy loses planes and you do not. This was especially true because the bombers had gotten an additional break by being able to bomb through the clouds.

The Munda airstrips were ready to accommodate more aircraft by October, and we were extremely happy to go, because we would have an opportunity for more action. This was anything but a paradise as far as living conditions were concerned, but a hell of a lot better than it had been a month earlier. In the month of October we were to be flown to a frazzle. There was no such thing as rest, or a day off, a situation I had never experienced before.

The invasion of Bougainville was planned for the first of November. This suited me to a tee. Their objective was to wipe out Japanese aviation on Bougainville during the current month, not exactly a small chunk to bite off.

The time the Black Sheep were to fly as a complete unit had passed by the boards, for Strike Command would ask how many flights of four each squadron had available each night, then assign these flights in the command. There would be so many flights for patrol, for escort, or for fighter sweep; and besides pilots would be assigned to stand by for scramble alert. We were flying throughout each and every day, as there were plenty of aircraft available and sufficient ground crew to take care of the planes.

The Navy had F6F fighters, TBFs, and SBDs in addition to the Marine aircraft. The Navy ground crews worked side by side with the Marine ground crews; some of the Casu crews worked upon marine aircraft, and vice versa.

These turned out to be hectic days for all concerned. One morning as I was walking by a line of planes I saw a Corsair catch fire, and a young sailor was standing beside it just watching. Believing the youth was merely frozen to the ground he stood on, I tried to jar some action into him and said: “Get the lead out, sailor. Grab a fire extinguisher and turn to.”

He answered: “I’m not responsible for Gyreen planes.”

On the spur of the moment I picked up a heavy extinguisher and heaved it at the pimply-faced youth as I screamed: “Turn to, you stupid son of a bitch, or I’ll swab the fire out with you.”

This situation was corrected in a hurry as soon as I was able to get hold of the commander in charge of the Casu outfit and inform him of what had taken place. I said: “For Christ’s sake, Commander, will you please tell your men to wait until the f—–king war is won before they resume fighting with the Marines?”

Haphazard maintenance at Munda nearly cost my life on two occasions, but this wasn’t what caused me to fret like I did. The thing that really got my goat was that these two incidents came at times when it should have been a comparative cinch to shoot down some bombers. As it turned out, I never once got a chance with a Japanese bomber; the only planes I tangled with were fighters.

On one of these alerts I scrambled west of New Georgia when we got the word that Jap bombers and fighters were on their way. Instructions to get our altitude close to the field were given to allow less chance of their sneaking by somehow and getting a crack at Munda. The events following my take-off could have well been my most frightful flight if it hadn’t been overshadowed by surprise and anger.

The Japs arrived much sooner than expected, for they had come in low over the water until they were fairly close to us, so the mountains would blank out our radar warning or make it inaccurate. However, contact was made in ample time to turn them away from anything of importance in the vicinity of Munda. I was all set up in the middle of a juicy dogfight when my engine sputtered and cut out cold, leaving me no alternative but to dive. As I dove away, I had plenty of company, which I can’t say I appreciated the slightest. For it’s not the easiest thing in the world to dive away from any plane
with a powerless engine. I no doubt wouldn’t have gotten away if there had not been help from some Navy F6Fs.

To make a long story short, I was completely out of the running as the fight progressed in the direction of Bougainville. The reason for my predicament was obvious, as I discovered shortly after diving clear that my plane had not been refueled after its previous flight. With nothing but the few gallons remaining in the reserve supply there was nothing to do but to give up the chase and return to base.

There was just one more daytime attack, and although checking the gas gauges in my alert plane had become an obsession, it so happened that it didn’t change things a damn particle. When the alert sounded and announced bombers and fighters again, I felt my opportunity had arrived as we were making our mad dash for the planes. But how far from true this was.

As I was one of the first to climb out of the field, everything seemed to point in my favor, and I guess part of it was in spite of all that went wrong. Somewhere in the neighborhood of ten thousand feet the engine cowling tore loose, and then hunks of the exhaust stacks started flying out from beneath the torn cowling. This time I wasn’t even in sight of the enemy as I throttled back and proceeded to turn to our field in utter disgust.

Upon taxiing up to the flight line a ray of hope lighted my spirits, for there was a plane in commission with no one to fly it. What a break, I was thinking as I again tore down the runway with Moe Fisher and his plane kicking up coral dust next to mine.

The radio was jabbering as always when contact with the enemy had been made, pilots trying to get through to locate where the fight was taking place. The location was between Kolombangara and Vella Lavella over the water. The Japanese had dive-bombed a new strip that was being constructed by the Seabees out of the side of a mountain at Vella. A ground radio operating on the Vella strip had been giving a blow-by-blow account while Jap torpedo planes were dropping bombs on the new strip and a few ships loaded with supplies.

A shore radio was directing a PT boat out to pick up a Corsair pilot who had been shot down by Zeros. When Moe and I flew over the place where the action had just taken place, we found only a half-dozen or so oil slicks left on the
water, one much larger than the others. There wasn’t a single survivor near any oil slick, but I knew that the large one was where the Corsair had plowed into the sea, taking its pilot to the bottom, as had the Zeros where I saw the smaller slicks.

Moe and I knew that the Japs had completed any bombing they had in mind, so we headed straight for Bougainville even though we weren’t able to spot a Jap plane. Our throttles were floor-boarded for over half an hour as the two of us sped for Bougainville. But we missed the Nips, or maybe they had too great a start on us, for we saw nothing but a few Navy and Marine fighters returning to Munda.

In addition to the heavy flying schedule we were becoming more exhausted every day from being kept awake half the night by Washing Machine Charlie. Charlie was more than just bothersome, because he had damaged a number of aircraft and killed several of our ground crew who had been camped near the field. Night bombers raised hell with us.

Our Corsairs flew patrols commencing with take-offs early in the morning before sunrise, and ending the day with what we called “Moonbeam Patrol,” landing after sunset. Our pilots slept in tents up on a hill in back of the field, open tents with wooden flooring to keep our feet out of the dirt. The tent in which six of us were quartered had a box for a table in the center of the floor covering a foxhole underneath. None of us had had time to explore around much, let alone give the foxhole much thought. We had taken for granted that the hole would be waiting in case it was needed some night when the bombs were too close, as we were able to judge by the whistle whether it was time to take cover. Otherwise we paid very little attention to the bombs.

The first occasion we had to put our foxhole to use was a couple of days after our arrival. We were half awakened by the sound of anti-aircraft guns. Then we were still further awakened by the drone of a Jap bomber and the whistle of a string of bombs coming too near for comfort.

All six made a wild leap from under the mosquito nets covering the bunks. The first man out had kicked the box table to one side and jumped in the hole. I was the last to drop into the foxhole; because of my bum leg I wasn’t able to move as fast as the others.

The boys preceding me had already experienced what I was about to, but they didn’t have time to warn anyone even
if they had thought of it. We wound up in roughly two feet of muddy ooze and stagnant water in the bottom of the pit. How fortunate I was I had entered the hole in the decking feet first, for some of the others had not!