Escape From Davao (4 page)

Flight pilots were unaware. When engine trouble forced two pilots to abort the mission, the remaining pilots, Lts. Joe Cole, Gus Wil iams, and Johnny McCown, turned to the next-senior pilot for leadership.

That individual, Lt. Sam Grashio, al of twenty-three years old, regrouped the lost squadron into formation and shepherded it north toward Clark Field, sixty miles distant, the assigned objective and, in Grashio’s estimation, the most logical location for action.

Almost from the beginning—he was born on April Fool’s Day 1918, in Spokane, Washington, to be precise—action, in one form or another, had been the main objective of Samuel Charles Grashio. The sixth of seven children, he was short and thin. With fair skin, blue eyes, and ringlets of light brown hair, he possessed a disarming physical appearance.

Growing up, Grashio was competitive and impetuous, and deeply religious—a holy terror. The wiry altar boy could usual y be found in railyards hopping freight cars and fighting. As he matured, Grashio—described as “119 pounds of condensed dynamite” in one newspaper—boxed in smokers and quarterbacked his high school footbal team at Gonzaga Prep to three straight championships, but shortfal s in the class room precluded a chance at col ege. As the shadow of the Great Depression eclipsed the country, Grashio’s career choices dwindled. He had no desire to take over his father’s barber shop, so he approached the Jesuits of Gonzaga University about joining the priesthood. They told him to wait and see if his interest waned. It did.

Grashio had rekindled two old flames, one of which was his high school sweetheart, a big-eyed blonde named Devonia Carolus. The other was Grashio’s longtime love affair with airplanes, which showed considerably less promise. Nevertheless, much like his father—who in 1902 had traded his likely future as a goatherder in Calabria, Italy, for a ticket on a New York–bound steamer—he took a chance and enrol ed in Gonzaga’s federal flight training program in 1938. With hard work, newfound focus, and the practical experience he had gained with the Washington Air National Guard, Grashio earned his pilot’s license in 1940. He navigated the rigorous cadet programs at Randolph and Kel y Fields and was assigned to Ed Dyess’s 21st Pursuit in 1941, a break Grashio would later consider the biggest of his life.

“Ed … took me right under his wing. He was only two years older than I—he was twenty-five—but he was like a father to me at first,” said Grashio. “Then, when I became more assured, he was like a pal.” At the time, Grashio could not have known how strong that friendship would become, nor could he have known how much action was in store for him.

Despite the heavy fog of war settling over Luzon, the skies were clear and the air, recal ed Grashio, was “as smooth as glass.” The P-40s of C Flight passed over 3,000-foot Mount Arayat until 1220 hours, when Grashio surveyed Clark Field from 10,000 feet. Seeing nothing unusual, he decided to wing westward to join up with a formation of P-40s. Ten fateful minutes later, his radio crackled to life. “Al P-40’s return to Clark Field,” shouted the tower operator there, his voice muted by exploding bombs.

“Enemy bombers overhead!”

There were fifty-three Japanese navy Type 96 and Type 1—known as “Nel ” and “Betty”—twin-engine bombers in two V formations blackening the skies at Clark Field. It was about 1230 when the first wave of Nel s, like bursting storm clouds, began to rain destruction from their bomb bays. The shril whine of an air raid siren sent men pouring from crowded mess hal s. They dove into slit trenches and scrambled to their battle stations as bomb concussions rocked the ground beneath them.

The Japanese bombardiers possessed uncanny aim. Direct hits obliterated hangars, barracks, and communications stations and fel ed radio towers and telephone poles in showers of sparks.

Fragmentation bombs ignited ammunition dumps and oil tanks, and fuel trucks exploded in orange firebal s. Shrapnel, giant sheets of aluminum, corrugated iron, and whipping propel ers slashed through the air, striking men indiscriminately. Strings of bombs smacked the flight line, blowing apart dozens of new P-40s. The flames hungrily spread to tufts of cogon grass and thickets of dry bamboo. Towering plumes of dark, oily smoke bil owed skyward. After the second wave of bombers had passed, dozens of gray Zeros streaked down through the smoke blanket, their blazing guns shredding the silver steel skins of the just refueled B-17s.

Antiaircraft gunners frantical y fired their 3-inch guns, but most of the corroded fuses—much of their ammunition was World War I surplus—were duds and those shel s that did explode did so in harmless smoke puffs wel beneath their targets. Others peppered the sky with fire from old water-cooled Brownings, rifles, and .45s. Though heroic, their efforts were largely in vain; by the time Grashio had boomeranged his P-40 back to Clark, he found a broiling holocaust.

Shaken out of his dreamlike trance, Grashio reflected on “how utterly and abysmal y wrong” the officers on the
Coolidge
had been and prayed for those on the ground. He then spied a handful of Zeros, the blood-red
hinomaru
, or rising sun emblems, visible on their wings. Drawing a deep breath, he motioned for his wingmen to fol ow, but McCown and Cole were already engaged. Suddenly, a lone Zero darted out of the swirling smoke below his ship, apparently circling around for another strafing run. His heart pounding, Grashio steadied his P-40 and the plane shuddered as he let fly a barrage of bul ets. The Zero slid out of the sky leaking smoke, but Grashio would not have time to celebrate his first victory.

Wingman Wil iams had spotted nine Zeros preparing to dive, but before they could complete their turn, the two lead planes completed a climbing turn of their own and were now on the tails of the Americans. In seconds, the hunters had become the hunted. Grashio did not know it, but one of the pilots chasing him was Imperial Navy Chief Petty Officer Saburo Sakai. Sakai, the leading Japanese air ace to survive the war, would shoot down more than sixty Al ied aircraft before being grounded by wounds and failing eyesight in 1945. After the war, Sakai would become a Buddhist and renounce al violence, but on this day he was eagerly pursuing his first American victories.

As Grashio veered left, Sakai fired a ribbon of explosive shel s from his 20 mil imeter nose cannon and ripped a gaping hole into the left wing of Grashio’s plane. Grashio’s sweaty hands white-knuckled the stick. Instinctively, he turned to his faith. As his lips trembled in fervent prayer, the three planes sliced through the sky, molten lead pouring from the Zeros’ guns. “ I was sure I was going to die on the first day of the war,” said Grashio. Suddenly, his prayers were answered. Grashio remembered Dyess’s lectures:

“Never try to outmaneuver a Zero; go into a steep dive and try to outrace it.” Indeed, the P-40 was much heavier—one pilot had cal ed the armor-plated plane “a streamlined safe”—so he pointed its nose to the ground and pushed the throttle wide open. The needle in his altimeter spun wildly as the earth flashed upward at breakneck speed. Attempting such a maneuver in a new plane was “courting suicide,” said Grashio, “but with two Zeros on your tail, the admonitions in technical manuals are not the first things you think about.”

Grashio’s luck, as wel as the plane’s virgin engine, held. He pul ed up, skimming the treetops as the Japanese pursuers receded into the distance. When Grashio touched down at Nichols at 0130, Dyess greeted him—he had led the other flights on an uneventful patrol over Cavite—and together they inspected the damaged plane. Grashio shook his head, remarking excitedly between breaths, “By God, they ain’t shootin’ spitbal s, are they?”

A few hours later, after the order came in to abandon Nichols Field, Dyess, Grashio, and the rest of the 21st Pursuit Squadron landed at cratered Clark Field amid clouds of pumice and dust. Guided by the

“eerie glow cast by the smoldering hangars,” they weaved around fire-gutted wrecks and opened their cockpits to a stinging stench of cordite, burnt flesh, and gasoline fumes. Lt. Joe Moore, whose 20th Pursuit had been decimated, summed up the damage tal y in one terse sentence: “We got kicked in the teeth.” Despite sufficient advance warning—nearly ten hours had elapsed between the attacks on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines—MacArthur’s air force had suffered a death blow. Twelve of the nineteen B-17s at Clark Field were now charred wreckage and thirty-four of the 5th Interceptor Command’s ninety-one P-40s—

two entire squadrons—were destroyed. The lone radar station at Iba Field was damaged beyond repair and the one-sided onslaught (Japanese losses totaled seven planes) had also destroyed precious stocks of fuel and parts.

Two days later, with Japanese planes streaking over Manila and the port area unopposed, MacArthur and Adm. Thomas Hart would be overheard discussing the disastrous calamity that had been delivered upon USAFFE, as wel as al American forces in the Pacific.

“Oh, God help us,” one of them had reportedly exclaimed, “if Clark Field can’t now.”

No time to falter or catch a breath

For thought of future, for fear of death …

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1941

Cavite Navy Yard, Luzon, Philippine Islands

It was one of those rare instances in the life of Lt. Cmdr. Melvyn McCoy when the correct solution was not immediately visible. As the Japanese surged toward Manila, McCoy stalked about his quarters in Cañacao, near the three silver towers of the Cavite radio station, methodical y packing his seabag with the essentials he would take to the fortress island of Corregidor. Two items remained: a portrait photograph of his wife, Betty Anne, and a set of used golf clubs that he had purchased in a Manila pawn shop. He could not take both.

The thirty-four-year-old radio matériel officer for the 16th Naval District, McCoy had graduated from Annapolis with one of the highest averages in mathematics ever attained by a midshipman. He lived to discover solutions to problems, usual y much more complex ones than this. Others, after al , had recently proved less vexing. Through orders and scuttlebutt, McCoy had deduced that MacArthur, awakening to the reality of the tenuous tactical situation, would order War Plan Orange into effect on the evening of Dec. 23. With no air force, no navy and no prospect of Al ied assistance, MacArthur had no other recourse. Japanese warplanes had destroyed Cavite Navy Yard on December 10, forcing the bulk of the Asiatic Fleet to pul up anchor for the Netherlands East Indies, while the simultaneous sinkings of the capital ships
Repulse
and
Prince of Wales
near Malaya on December 10 had essential y eliminated Britain’s strategic military presence in the Far East. The landing of General Masaharu Homma’s 14th Army, 43,000 troops, plus artil ery and tanks, at Lingayen Gulf in northern Luzon on December 22 had effectively sealed the decision. These units, acting in concert with landing forces advancing from Lamon Bay in southern Luzon, were racing toward Manila in a pincer movement. Just barely ahead of them were MacArthur’s forces, stampeding back in a frantic double retrograde because most of the green, untrained Filipinos had thrown away their rifles upon encountering Homma’s armor and airpower, commencing the rout.

McCoy also figured that as the ranking communications officer in the Philippines he would be staying behind with the smal Navy contingent of ships and personnel. Al around him, the demolition of equipment and stores continued in earnest. Warehouses were opened to mobs and Clark, Nichols, and other airfields were stripped, fired, and abandoned, as were Forts Stotsenburg and McKinley. Tankers, ammunition magazines, and shore instal ations at Cavite and Sangley Point just south of Manila, were scuttled in bril iant, rocking blasts. Fired tanks containing mil ions of gal ons of fuel—the Asiatic Fleet had left behind a two-year supply and the reserves of Caltex, Shel , Standard Oil, and others in Pandacan were

extensive—would send orange flames and a furling pal of smoke skyward for days.

A rising tide of terror, fueled by the rumors of the proximity and reputation of the Japanese army, was sweeping panicked civilians out of Manila. Save for drunken looters, it seemed as though everyone was in flight. Everyone but McCoy. Despite the sounds of war fil ing his ears, the lanky naval officer with coal black hair stood resolutely, his mechanical mind clicking and turning, stroking his Errol Flynn mustache.

McCoy had spent most of his life ahead of the pack. Born January 1, 1907, a gifted prodigy, McCoy was graduated from Arsenal Technical High School in Indianapolis in 1922 at the age of fifteen and secured an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy from Indiana’s 7th Congressional District the fol owing year.

He left with a commission and a burgeoning reputation in 1927. “It was as the Czar of Math that he shone,” certified the
Lucky Bag
, the Annapolis annual.

McCoy’s personality did not add up. Though he could be coldly

cerebral—a disciple of the sanctity of logic and efficiency, he did not suffer fools and had little patience for incompetence—he also had a warm, vibrant verve about him. People gravitated to him, trusted him.

That’s because with the exception of chess and cards (he was virtual y unbeatable at poker and bridge), he rarely flaunted his intel igence, choosing instead to radiate a subtle, yet mesmerizing sense of self-assurance—the hal mark of a true officer, gentleman, and genius.

After assignments in Nicaragua and aboard the battleship
West Virginia
and two destroyers, McCoy earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of California–Berkeley before his transfer to the Philippines in 1940. His last peacetime mission, undertaken upon the evacuation of his family with the other dependents in early 1941, was to instal battery-powered radios in lighthouses, on hil tops, and at other vantage points throughout the islands. These lonely forays to Luzon, Palawan, Leyte, and Jolo provided him with plenty of material for his travelogues, but the work was largely devoid of problems to solve—McCoy’s true raison d’être. The war, however, was already changing that. And the new problems would prove an unusual and difficult calculus, even for a man of McCoy’s talents.