Pacific Memories

Pacific Driftwood / Jottings

2010-12-07T18:00:00.000-08:00

Collected writings from the soldiers of the 136th Field Artillery Battalion in World War II.

PREFACE

"YANK" the Army Weekly had a column appearing from time to time on one of its pages called "The Poets Cornered". Much fine poetry was published there. I hope that some day the editors of "YANK" will publish a book containing the best of these literary works by, for the most part, Army enlisted men. Each one represent a soldier's point of view on a certain subject. The variety of ideas, the originality of themes, and the eloquence achieved are frequently remarkable. Some of the verses were composed in the United States, some were composed overseas in non-combat theaters, and some carried the unmistakable breath of the frontlines. After the war, many of these men will probably continue writing with the same, fine literary sensitiveness, when they have become civilians once again.

But there are verses which have never seen light of day on any page of "YANK" nor any other publication, for that matter. These were scribbled modestly on the backs of envelopes, on note-book paper, or daringly included in some letter home. Their writers may never write another line of verse or prose, for perhaps they were written in a short burst of poetic inspiration which was short-lived. However, what was written might be worth noting. That is the purpose of this book. Perhpas these unknown writers will take heart, seeing their works in print, and be encouraged to write more. I have personallly known most of these men, who prefer to remain anonymous. Some of the writers I have not even met; their works reache me indirectly, either through letters from friends who know I was collecting verse by obscure writers, or by coming across them myself, in waste paper baskets, in old bivouac areas and a dozen other equally unlikely places. It has been quite an adventure for me during my theree years in the Pacific, ranging from the Fijis to the Philippines.

I give you "Pacific Driftwood."

*

From a letter:
On a trip along the beach near Munda Air Strip, strolling among wrecks and remnants of Japanese defense installations which had been blasted to oblivion by our intense shelling and bombing, I examined some huge holes made by our high-explosive missiles. At the bottom of one such hole a tiny but sturdy zinnia bloomed defiantly. I looked around some more, and there were others similarly growing, as well as some which had sprung up at the roadside in the company of deceptively delicate petunias. It was a touching sight, and it gave me a strange, indefinable feeling. Later, when moved to write a few lines on what I saw, I tried vainly to put into words that strange, awed feeling, and am still inarticulate. Here are the lines I wrote:

A FLOWER GROWS ON A WAR-SCARRED GROUND
(Munda Point)

On this island Mars still plays his hand.
The beach is quiet now; he has moved inland.
Beneath the sun, men toil;
Digging, clearing, piling soil on soil.
Between them and the sea - a fringe of sand.

On this fringe of sand Mars left his seal.
Here, craters deep abound: imprints of his heel
In some the sea has crept;
Others remain empty - all except
For flowers, growing there with quiet zeal.

A flower grows on a war-scarred ground
Amid man's shattered tools of war strewn around.
Amid war's after-gloom
It flourishes, hanging bloom on bloom.
How strange a home this zinnia has found!
It is not alone here on the beach;
Yonder springs - oh, if it could only reach! -
Another common flower,
Dainty, fragile, holding yet some power
To draw its strength from the reluctant beach.

Zinnia and petunia, hand in hand
In Mother's garden casually appearing
Now in this almost flowerless land
Become at once exotic, rare, endearing.

I found the next item, written on a mud-splattered bit of stationefy. Like most of the poems in this collection, it was anonymous. There is an underlying bitterness in it, and in the last line, the poet tries to fling one final bit of defiant irony at the jungle itself in an attempt to overcome the sense of frustration in the jungle.

THE JUNGLE (Guadalcanal 1945)

I.
You greeted me with sultry languor,
I greeted you with grim misgiving
Into your leafy depths I gazed
And shuddered.
For man had fought and man had slaughtered
But now he lay in dark oblivion
Inside your leafy depths he lay
And rotted.
And you - you stood serenely waiting,
Yes, waiting for your wounds to heal up -
The wounds that fighting man had made -
You could wait!

II.
I stood upon the grassy hillock
And studied you with contemplation
And from your leafy depths there stirred
A whisper.
You looked enchanting in the sunlight,
Revealing naught, your air enticing,
And at your beckon all but mute,
I yielded.
I entered by a winding pathway.
How miserly you were with sunlight
As in your dark, foilescent shrine
I wandered.

III.
The lizards stirred, alert and graceful,
Their turquoise tail shined iridescent,
A flower caressed the atmosphere
With fragrance.
But suddenly there loomed before me
A grotesque tree, a gutted dirt-clod.
And there, a head macabrely grinned ...
And maggots!
And going further, I encountered
A shambles that was once a stronghold,
And there you stood, in silence mocked ...
Unconquered!

IV.
I went my way, but all night long
A dozen savage birds derided,
A dozen birds in savage voice
Yet taunted:
"Man has desecrated this our home,
And murdered his own kind before us.
He chose this place: we chose him not,
Nor approved."

L'envoi.
Soon I'll leave you and your taunting birds,
Ascend once more to grassy hillsides.
You look enchanting in the sun -
From hillsides.

***

Here is an original, merry mad bit of escapism. I see no particular reason for including it among the war-inspired verse, but it does show that a soldier's mind does turn to other things. In this, I believe he let himself go, giving imagination free rein.

SONG OF THE EARTHBOUND - A Poem Fantasy (Fijis Jan 1943)

The jagged peaks,
The pounding sea
Upon the ageless shore,
The hastening wind
Through hollow, cross meadow -
These are the heritage
Of the Earthbound.

The Earthbound sing:
An anthem old,
Religion's sacred themes,
The sweet gospel hymns
At home or in chapel -
Melodies born in hearts,
Nourished with tears.

The whippoorwill,
The coveyed quail,
The swallow on the wing,
Their magical flight
Through thicket, cross water -
These are the idolized
Of the Earthbound.

A longing aches,
An envy pains
And fancy chases thought.
"Oh, God, give us wings,
For flying, for soaring!"
Thus the supplications
Of the Earthbound.

"Oh come to the carnival, ride in the planes,
See all the crowds below!
It's just half a dollar, now, tell all your friends
That you flew way up high!"

And homeward now
The Earthbound go,
A longing satisfied.
The circling planes
O'er fairground, o'er playground -
These were the ecstasy of the Earthbound.

The earthbound sing:
A happy theme
Of Broadway's favorite songs.
They've conquered the air
In planes at the fairground!
Oh, have your revelry,
Happy Earthbound!

Here is bitterness of the most acute sort expressed in the following lines which some unknown soldier scrawled on an ink-splotched piece of paper. I cam across it while in Fiji.

SOLDIER, WHERE'S YOUR HATRED NOW? (F.I., March 1943)

Soldier,
Where's your hatred now?
You haven't any? But you ought to have.
Remember the advice we gave.
Where will you be anyhow
If you forget that you must fight,
That they are wrong, and we are right?
You must make their heads to bow.

"I will fight because I must.
My hatred falters. In the heat of war
The hatred that was once a sore
Festered with a bitter lust,
Becomes a heartache, throbbing deep,
So that I cannot help but weep
Seeing comrades fall to dust."

Soldier,
Why that tear-wet eye?
Your fallen comrades you won't see again?
Remember, this affair is plain:
You may be about to die
Like them; but while you live, be strong,
For right will conquer all that's wrong.
Fight till they for mercy cry.

"You are right, my hatred's gone,
But I remember they are human too -
Those boys who in a sick world grew,
Groping - while afar, the dawn
Awaits to shine on them again
As it has on Freedom's men.
Can I , hating, speed the dawn?"

Soldier,
Spare no love for those
Who try to tear down what we want to save.
They're bestial, and they're not so brave.
Bring conflict to a quicker close:
Destroy their tanks, destroy their planes;
It is this Justice ordains.
Give them death if death they chose!

"I will wreck their tanks and planes
And let their cities fall, for all I care,
And in the name of right, I'll tear
Their bowels out, and smash their brains,
(For you, my country, killed my soul)
And as we approach the goal,
Clamp them in Revenge's chains!"

Soldier,
Bear it for a while,
And if you find no hatred for the foe,
Hate, then, the evil that brought woe.
Hate the greed and hate the guile.
Hate, then, the motive, not the man.
Love the Truth, for if you can,
Soldier, you have won God's smile.

The following is an extract from a letter which attracted my attention. I asked the author of it if I could copy it, and he agreed. It is just a word picture of the front-line "doggie" or "dogface", the Infantryman.

This is the New Georgia doughboy, returning from the front. He's wearing his green-and-brown-mottled camouflage suit - the one he has been wearing continuously for the past three weeks. It has seldom been off of him, even to be washed - the rains take care of that. If his unit happens to be anywhere near a creek, he washes himself, but that happens only once in a while. Oh, yes, and that camouflage about his face is not really camouflage. Can he help it if the dust, kicked up from the road, sticks to his sweaty, bearded face? All available water is used for drinking, but even with the supply on New Georgia augmented by purified water from neighboring islets, he has to exercise rigid economy. His daily supply which he carries with him in two canteens doesn't last very long in New Georgia's baking sun and steaming jungles.

This doggie, like most of his buddies has been in combat for around twenty consecutive days. That means that during that time he has no hot food. His meals when he could get them, were C rations eaten right out of the can. Sometimes his fare wasn't even that sumptuous. Sometimes he subsisted on a bar of D ration chocolate a day. Now he returns, stripped down to barest essentials, without even the light battle pack he started out with. He still has his faithful M-1 Rifle with possibly some ammunition left, his precious water, first aid packet, and sulfanilamide tablets.

He trudges along the dusty road, his trousers legs rolled up to just below the knees, revealing a dirty, soggy, reeking pair of green canvass jungle boots. He walks along the road which Army engineers and Navy Sea Bees have hewn out of the jungle. But the soldier doesn't always find the road dry and dusty; all too often he slogs through channels of knee-deep mud which must serve as travel routes. On this isle of the dead and living dead, the stench of this mud suggests that decaying bodies are blended in with the soil, but the smell is more probably from rotted vegetation. When it rains in New Georgia, this is what the soldier eats in, sleeps in, lives in. Now, as he walks along with expressionless eyes focused on the ground a few paces ahead of him, his presence adds a poignantly personal touch to the procession of peeps and three-quarter tons which are laden with supplies for the front. Daily he (for "he" represents all such front line men) passes our gun positions with an air of mingled apprehension and respect. He dreads being near them when they fire, yet he wants to get a good look a t the guns that probably helped save his life. "How do you guys stand it? How do you stand the noise?" he asks with a seriousness that dumbfounds us. How do we stand it! He's been sniped at, mortar-shelled, has our artillery barrage seventy-five to one hundred yards ahead of him, and he asks us that! He comes up to the guns once in a while when there is a lull in the firing, and pats a howitzer affectionately. "I could kiss these babies," he says with a wan smile. Once he asked if we'd let him pull the lanyard that would send a 95 pound shell on its destructive mission. He was tickled as a kid with a new toy when we let him fire on the next fire mission.

He sits and exchanges a few words with us; he's never very talkative - sits and broods a lot. As he gets up to leave, his valedictory usually is: "Keep shootin' them out there. It sure is good to hear them land." Though they go through hell, that is all that he and his buddies ever ask of us, that we keep shootin' out there, and they'll carry on their share.

And they more than live up to their word.
.............................

Here is another extract from a letter (again, taken with permission of the author) written somewhere near Baguio, on Luzon in the Philippines. It certainly is a novel outlook which he has. I might call it his

THOUGHTS ON A FALLEN ENEMY

It was pure curiosity which led me to investigate a Japanese who had been killed about eight hours before, during the night. Before I saw the body itself, I saw a heap of clothing - or rather, rags - and I thought to myself: Is it possible that that shapeless object is a man? As I got closer, however, I saw the fallen enemy. After the first brief shock at the sight, I went ahead, dispassionately, coldly looking at him.

He was lying on his back, resembling a piece of wax statuary, with one hand flung across his waist, holding a bloodstained handkerchief (he had been machine-gunned in the stomach), and the other arm was crooked up with the hand resting near his head. His age was certainly under eighteen, and his youthful flesh was firm though colored a strange, waxy, yellow-white hue. His head was turned to one side, revealing a clean, bloodless hole in the neck where he had been shot by one not knowing he was already dead. His eyes were slightly open, and his lips parted. His boyish, beardless face was not entirely expressionless. On it I fancied I could see an expression revealing a boy trying to solve one of the great mysteries of life, a mystery that was beyond his grasp. He could not understand life, particularly this business of war. In his last few moments of mortal existence was he asking himself if the Emperor was worth dying for, after all? At least, the cruel arrogance and fatalistic defiance which contort so many a Jap face with hard lines, was entirely absent, but there was a look of disillusionment, or so it seemed.

It was well-nigh impossible to reconcile mentally this fallen form which was no longer man, to that human geing who, around midnight, had crept into our battalion area armed with a Nambu light machine gun and a few grenades. A few hours before daylight this form had been a man, a live, moving target for our small arms fire. Now the man was absent, leaving an inanimate something simulating man. As I gazed at him, a subtle voice whispered something within me. "But is this man?" it asked doubtingly. "This is not God's man, nor was it ever. For God's man is spiritual, which plainly this object is not. Therefore, be not shocked at what you see here, for what you see here is not man. See, what little difference there is between this form, now so inanimate, and the animated form it once was! A beating heart, respiring lungs - that's really the only difference, and one is no more the real Man than the other, so be not disturbed at this sight."

I didn't stay long. An instinct, deeper than educated morals or proprieties, deeper too than metaphysical suggestions or speculations, prompted me to leave the dead in peace. I had trespassed long enough. While it ws not Man, it was, or had been, a man's property, and deserved something better than the stare of the morbidly curious which was accorded it. Let it be put away then, into the Earth, gently, quietly. And let there be an end to the indignities of being regarded as some kind of curiosity. As I left, I hoped it would soon be buried - and forgotten.

JOTTINGS ...

NEW GEORGIA

So now we are in the jungle and are learning what jungle warfare is. It is a strange sort of business. We have learned too, all the implications of the phrase: "Island Warfare" because of inter-island strategy as well as intra-island strategy. It is a dangerous business, too, for here we are fighting a practically invisible enemy which has been trained far more thoroughly than we have. It is here that inactivity plays on one's nerves as much as activity. The one saving grace has been the sense of humor exhibited by all the men, by and large, even durprisingly enough, by the men on the front lines. I met one Tennessee fellow whose unconscious humor and accent was something you think only exists in Hollywood or on the radio. He said the boys in his outfit were all in high spirits and could see the funny side of things. With great gusto and plenty of sound effects he described how a Jap machine gun nest was silenced by one of our own machine guns. Credit and praise a thousand fold greater than mere words can express is due the infantrymen.

Out of this jungle, where all growth is vertical, "Sea Bees" and the Army Engineers are hewing roads. Without these men, prosecution of our strategy here would be well-nigh impossible. The vine-fettered jungle rings with axe blows and cries of "Timber-r". These men are fighting too; fighting nature which is as stubborn and tenacious as our real enemy. Roads aren't roads around here, until they are corduroyed; they are unvegetated lanes of mud. But the Engineers and Navy Construction Battalions are winning.

Mosquitos here almost negligible in number but the flies are many times thicker than anywhere else I've been.

We arrived at Guadalcanal early in April and that very night got our "baptism of fire", our first air raid. I was alarmed naturally, but more frightening moments were ahead; the Fourth of July raid on Rendova, for example, while we were at mess below decks on an LST. We were all shaken, mentally, that is, but thre was nothing we could do except finish our meal and try to enjoy it. With wry humor some of the fellows said if they were going to die, they might as well do it on a full stomach. It is a helpless feeling, being locked up below deck and just listening - listening to our 20mm, 40mm, and 3-inch guns, and an occasional bomb dropping near us. One of the most, if not the most terrifying experience I had was on New Georgia. There was a bombing raid one night. I don't know how many enemy planes there were but there were more than one. Eight bombs were dropped and a small group of us were in a direct line with them and between where the fourth and fifth lighted. The first four kept getting closer, and we were positive the fifth would hit us; but it went beyond, as did the remaining bombs. The swish of those bombs hurtling earthward with hellish fury is something I won't forget for a long time.

Guadalcanal was a sad and beautiful spot. If one could detach the beauty of the island from the ugly atmosphere of war and reminders of war which still clung to it, he would not find it the terrible place it is reputed to be. The green, grassy hills, fringed with trees are lovely in the sunlight, even though the shell holes pock-mark them, making them look like humps of green, moth-eaten carpteing.

Our first camp there was on the site of much fearful carnage Grenade Hill. The melancholy scent of sweet tragedy filled the air. The jungle at night was redolent with the sad, sweet smell of some jungle flower; sad because of the seeming futility of it. The once-savage jungle now seemed subdued. In this green, foilescent shrine lay the men who died gloriously and ingloriously - Yank and Jap. In Guadalcanal we [saw the] reason our forces had such a time routing the enemy: the huge, grotesque, white-mottled banyan trees between whose high, wide-spread roots the enemy entrenched himself. These trees were found wherever there was jungle, most of them, their roots and trunks riddled with bullet holes. Further evidences of the attention the Japs paid to digging in were seen on New Georgia. There they made use of the huge chunks of coral, a substance heavy and hard as rock. Enough of this coral piled around a hole three to four feet deep made a shelter surprisingly resistant to shell concussions.

The day we landed on New Georgia at Lambeti Plantation, we were able for the first time to appreciate fully the devastating effectiveness of our artillery. All the land that had undergone the terrific artillery fire was all but denuded of live vegetation. Shattered remnants of coconut palms drooped pathetically, resembling gaunt weeping willows. The Air Force contributed to the destruction of this area. I could see this as I walked along the road from the Plantation to the Munda Airfield. All along the way were holes that could have been made only by 100 or 200-pound bombs. There was something curious about these bomb craters, something besides the fact that they were used as water points and swimming holes; it was grass and flowers which had sprung up in the inside. Most of the bomb craters looked like freshly made excavations with the sand, coral, etc. thrown outside around the edges. But some looked like natural depressions in the naturally uneven ground, so overgrown were they. Symbolic, it seemed, were zinnias - just common pink, garden zinnias one finds in the garden at home - growing from the depths of bomb craters. Yes, in a way they were symbolic of the good, the God-created, the enduring, and everlasting, which reappears untouched after the fury of man's wrath has spent itself.

War theaters are no place for civilians, particularly women and children. A war is something that only those in the service of their country should experience. War is brutal and no longer are civilians spared of its hellishness simply because they are civilians. It is brutal enough for men under arms when giving and taking blows; it is tragic when civilian populations can only take blows. I am grateful that so far I have been spared witnessing this great tragedy of war; for over here the civilian population is composed of a handful of natives who have been virtually untouched by war. Principally, the Solomon Islands have been a theater of operations in the strictest sense of the word, the site on which the armed forces of both sides have met in conflict to help determine the course of the war. It is a fighting man's land with no place for the frailties of a civilian populace, a land-and-sea battlefield.

.............................

GUADALCANAL REVISITED

We had two short months of combat in our first campaign, and some more months to come in the next one. Meanwhile we are at Guadalcanal again.

I was down on the road along the beach the other day, and studied the familiar landscape. Behind a slate-blue veil of haze, wearing cloud banks on their heads like huge turbans, the mute hills sat, immovable, cold, detached, indifferent to everything else, especially to man, who, more industrious than ever, was busy landing, unloading, loading, and hauling.

But the results of man's efforts are there, challenging, impossible to ignore. The miraculous change wrought by Army's Engineers and Navy's Sea Bees has now removed all vestiges of what was once a battlefield. Shell holes, bomb craters, and shattered palms are only dim memories of the past. In this busy place all vestiges of the past are brusquely pushed aside, into the background, into oblivion, for the new Guadalcanal must rise, and is doing just that. It is now a complete and efficient Army and Navy base. Air raids are non-existent for the enemy's air force and its activities in this area are non-existent.

We'd better enjoy this place while we can (if we can) for in a short while we will be in Bougainville for another jungle campaign.

CONVOY

This is a large convoy.

Some of us who wnet to New Georgia on D-plus-four and Bougainville on D-plus-seventeen remember only small convoys of LST's and other craft. This time it is D and D-plus-one, and the gigantic convoy is comprised of hundreds of ships and small crafts of many types.

It began placidly, as other convoys, in a matter-of-fact way, on schedule, at 0830. We stood along the rails as we always had, and watched the island diminish in the distance. The ship rolled gently to the accompanyment of the vague throbbing of the engines and the steady roar of the blowers which supply ventilation to the troop compartments below decks. Little flutters of white all over the deck indicated card games; poker, casino, cribbage.

Out on the Pacific, still that same remarkable, incredible blue, ships were everywhere; you could not look anywhere without seeing a transport or warship most of which were cleverly camouflaged.

This war has brought into usage the term, "staging area" which is just another way of saying rendezvous point or final springboard from which the ultimate assault is to be launched. Manus Island in the Admiralties was our staging area and our destination after laying over a few days in Lae, New Guinea. As we approached our staging area, we viewed it with the same glum curiosity we've viewed all the other dozen or so islands we've visited. The [dominant] feature about it was, I think, the amount of water traffic. It was here that the nautical gamut was run; from barges to baby flat-tops; boats you'd never dream of seeing in such a remote Pacific island; coal-burners, oil-burners; native dugouts and non-descript sailboats; sleek, fast cabin boats which made the harbor look like regatta day at the yacht club. Planes from our carriers swooped and circled in mock attacks.

Night, as usual, stole in while our backs were turned. We always seemed to be at supper during the transitional twilight. Coming up on deck, sweaty after being in the hot mess hall we were atonished the first night, and mildly surprised on subsequent nights, to see that it was already dark. Most startlingly of all, however, was the amount of lights which extended along a considerable portion of the shoreline. They were lights in the corrugated metal huts which were laid out row beside row. All over the spaceous harbor too were lights, the lights of shps: green ones, red ones, amber ones, lights of the blue of an electric arc, beside which the white lights appeared yellowish. They blinked frantically, irrelevantly, in an unrhythmic dissonance of light. Then, as the call to quarters was heard piped on our own and one or two neighboring ships, troops trickled below, activity on the ship was diminished, and the frenzied, hysterical glitter of lights subsided, for they too were tired of talking. There remained only a few red or green lights which hovered over their respective ships like lights on second floors of houses back home, kept on by stay-up-lates. On deck there was still an occasional glow of a cigaret and the hum of desultory conversation. A half-moon with a misty collar hung in the sky, and one fancied he could see it rush toward the tip of the mast, then retreat before quite touching it; rush and retreat, rush and retreat. The blowers whirred a bereceuse. The time for sleeping was at hand.

A glorious sunrise the beignning of each day. On e morning, a day or so out from land, clouds in the distance made interesting patterns. Some simulated huge skulking, huddling figures marching on two legs in procession. On the tip of the mast of one of the ships, a cloud created an odd optical illusion: a gigantic weathercock perching on the mast tip. Then, gradually, it metamorphosed into a rather grotesque turkey with an extended neck. Finally, even that illusion faded and there was nothing left but a smudge of cloud.

LINGAYEN GULF

Lingayen Gulf was our destination, and now it is S-day, the day of days. The letter S, by the way, was used in this operation to signify the day of assault, rather than the letter D. Early in the morning our ship was resounding with jolts which sounded like gloved fists pounding on sheet iron. On deck the sound was sharper and more distinct. The air was electric. It was one of those rare moments when you can feel the tingle of excitement. You know what the excitement is about - know only too well, and you feel that every molecule of moisture in the clouds, every particle of dust and smoke in the air, every grain of sand on the yonder beach, and every salty drop of Lingayen Gulf must know about it too. For hours the air has been reverberating with gunfire. During that thime there had been hardly a second's silence, an instant when some gun somewhere has not been heard.

By now nothing surprised us, not even the staggering number of ships and boats. They moved about in all directions, and the appearance was rather chaotic, but that was purely illusion, for in reality every movement from the BB down to the LCVP was carefully planned and faithfully executed.

So off goes the Infantry. H-hour is 1000, a rather unique time for beachhead landings which are usually made at dawn. Three and a half hours later a shore party from our ship, composed of artillery men and of which I was one, went ashore, dug in about 100 yards in and waited for the first boatload of rations and ammunition. The surf was moderate (very rough on subsequent days), and we waded ashore in knee-deep water which became waist-deep with every wave. It was incredible. It was extraordinary. It was the quietest beachhead I'd ever heard of. The naval shelling had ceased in our sector, and the infantry was so far inland by now that if there was any fire, we could not hav heard it. Soon we learned of the first man killed in our sector - he was gored to death by an angry caribao. Enemy opposition was light. That night many of us slept in fox holes - a needless precaution, as it turned out. During the night a GMC with its lights brazenly bright came down and took away a load or rations or ammunition. There were two or three air raids but they were on the shipping and most of the night was quiet and uneventful. In keeping with the incongruous nature of everything, guards sat on ration boxes in the ration and ammo dump, smoked, and talked easily and relaxedly in low tones - so as not to disturb the men who were sleeping. There was a lot to talk about. That Jap suicide diver, for instance, whose plane narrowly missed our shp and the one next to ours, but crashed in the water and splattered, scattering fire and wreckage in all diirections. In retrospect we tried to analyze our feelings during the day. As I said, we ceased being surprised at anything. During the pre-landing shelling there was hardly a man below decks. We all found the highest point of vantage on the ship we sould, without being chased off, and watched the fun, determined not to budge for anything short of a Jap sea or air armada. There on the beach we also recalled the fateful hour of 1330 when we struglled down the debarkation nets with packs, carbines, and cumbersome kapok jackets. We grimly and solemnly averred that this was by far the worst phase of any campaign. Sweating and gasping, we reached the LCVP and took off for shore. A few minutes from the ship we exhibited nervous curiosity over a lone Jap plane streaking across the night sky midst a thick storm of 20mm shells. It was far off and we agreed we'd be satisfied if that was as close as any would come. And so the night passed. And in the morning we listened incredulously to the far-off crowing of a rooster. Civilization!

....................

This poem by an unknown author speaks for itself. I forget where I got it; I came across it one day tucked away with a lot of letters. It speaks for itself.

ON SHIPBOARD (August 1948)

At night upon the lurching sea
I seek the stars for consolation.
The blessed stars hang o'er the ship
So permanent, so reassuring.
When petty trials wax sickening,
And faces radiate displeasure,
I look across eternities
To gain perspective and proportion.
They're always there, though men contest
And calculate with puny measures.

But there are times, when often clouds
Will separate me from the stardust;
And then I peer out over the rail
Into the firmament below me
And watch the gay processional
Of tiny, dancing water-stars.
Their bubbling frivolity,
Though captivates and cheers a little,
It buoys not the weighted thought.
So I glance heavenward, but now I see
A cloudless sky; and all is right;
For there they are again - the stars!

..........

I was caught in the act of looking over the shoulder of the man who wrote this. I wanted to see what it was that he was writing. Reluctantly he showed it to me. I took a fancy to it, and asked if I could have a copy of it, explaining that it was sort of a pastime of mine to collect odds and ends of verse. He agreed to let me copy it but insisted that I omit his name. He held up his end of the bargain; I'm holding up my end. This poem makes a fitting end for this little volume.

THE BROKEN VIOLIN

At the first hesitant strains
I stopped and listned.
Through an open window cam
Music of a violin.
It rang out in the stillness
A brave and lone voice.
Fragmented patterns
Of Bach and Paganini
Were its halting narrative,
Until, abruptly,
It stopped; and silence
Continued where it left off.

A few choked up syllables,
Then shattering wood -
I heard a voice say:
"I've outlived my usefulness.
My service to the public
Had its day to live
And today is gone.
The world these days is sober
And has no time for music.
Though such diversioin
I would gladly give,
Yet my violin rings out
Like laughter at a funeral."

All was still again.
Then, from down the street
A cry was hard. A newsboy
Was calling all to hear him.
What was he saying?
"The war is over"?
It's over! Let there be joy!
And did the tidings reach him
Who by the window
Sat and brooded long?
I think they did, for even as
I departed thence away
I heard him sobbing.

......................

Chapter 15: The Cannoneers Had Radar Ears

2006-07-25T16:06:00.000-07:00

There was equipment - thousands of dollars' worth - on each island we were on, representing the ultimate in the technology of aircraft destruction. We of the artillery regarded all this equipment with the proper amount of respect, of course, but still, we continued to think very highly of our own natural ears.

It did not take us long to develop radar ears. I think I developed mine as quickly as anyone else did his. Some were more sensitive, perhaps, but not more quickly developed. Early I learned to recognize any Jap plane that came over, whether a Zeke, Hamp, Dinah, or Betty, as a Jap plane, though I never could identify each separate type as I could our own planes. But there was a characterisitic, hollow, metallic whine to the Jap planew which no American plane had, so hearing that sound was really all we needed to put us on our guard and start us edging toward foxholes.

There was good reason for our reliance on our ears. On many occasions a Jap plane would be above us for as much as five minutes (and presumably within range of the radar detectors for longer than that) before the sirens would make it officially an air raid. Since we had been aware of the plane's presence for some time before the alarm was given by the siren, there was much derisive laughter and comment when we finally did hear the siren. "Well, well, well!" we'd apostrophize. "So you finally woke up! Thanks for letting us know." Sometimes the plane would come, circle around, go into its bombing run, drop the bombs, and fly off even before we'd get a "condition red". Then the laughter and remaks would be more bitter than ever. "Condition red, men. That means it's safe now. But if you hear a condition green 'all clear', look out!" It sound strange but it is quite true that this was the case more than once. The plane would come in and drop its bomb load, then scoot away before the condition red sounded. After everything was quiet, the condition green would sound, and then, of course, the plane woudl return!

One of the most reliable aircraft detectors in the battery was Harry Heilman. And, never one to ignore what his ears heard, he was about the first (I think Abe Kantrowitz, the medic, was speedier) to reach a foxhole or bomb shelter. He was assistant to Charlie McCrory, the supply sergeant, and he and Mac slept in the same tent. Heilman would jump up suddenly in the night and call to Mac, "Come on, McCrory, get up! Tojo's comin' over!" McCrory would sit up, listen in vain for the sound of "Tojo", and way, disgustedly, "Aw, Heilman, quit it. You're just dreaming you heard Tojo." "No I hain't. That's Tojo." Harry would then hurriedly put on his clothes and vanish from the tent. Eventually Mac sould hear the plane too and decide that once again Heilman had been right.

The ubiquitous "Tojo" was, of course, an abstraction. Unlike "Jerry," which was used in reference to the Germans, Tojo was used only in the singular. It was always "Tojo" or "he" who released the bombs, piloted the plane, or fired a machine gun in strafing or in self-defense. It was "Tojo" too who fuzed and loaded the shells, pulled the lanyard, and observed the shell burst on those occasions when we were the target of Japanese artillery. The two situations were invariably summed up with "Tojo's comin' over" and "Tojo's throwin' stuff at us," regardless of the fact that there were many men involved in each operation. I suppose it was the result of our attempt - whether conscious or unconscious, I wouldn't know - to personalize something in a war which was so unmitigatedly impersonal.

My ears were also quick to catch another sound, although for a long time I had difficulty in convincing anybody except Audley Long that I had heard it. Audley long had heard the sound too, but his corroboration of my story was hardly satisfactory because brother Long was what I might euphemistically describe as eccentric. However, before a general re-appraisal of my mental equipment could take place, Ray Green, of whose mental stability nearly everyone was sure, fortunately came to my aid and said that he also heard the sound.

The sound in question was a kind of popping or thumping noise which seemed to emanate from the intruding Jap plane, and preceded the noise of the falling bombs. It was only audible at night when everything was quiet. The roar of the plane seemed almost lost in the immensity of the silence, so there was plenty of room, so to speak, for another sound to be heard without being crowded. At first I thought the poping was the backfiring of the plane's engines, but soon I noticed that that the pops corresponded to the bomb explosions both in number and in rhythmic pattern. That is, if there was a short interval of time between the first and second pops and a long interval between the second and third, the intervals between the first explosion and the second, and betwen the second and third would also be short and long, respectively. There were various guesses as to what the popping sounds actually were, but the most reasonable was that they were the sounds of the bomb fuzes being "armed" - that is, ready to detonate on impact.

By listening to these pops we could predict how many bombs would fall - if anyone was interested. Once on Bougainville I heard so many of these pops that the effect was like machine-gun fire. In fact, someone said, "Tojo's strafing." I said, "No, that's bombs. He must be shoveling 'em out of the plane." We took for cover, and sure enough, there was a veritable deluge of small bombs, dozens of them. They were anti-personnel, fragmentation bombs, so did not pack much of a concussion, but they were capable of spraying the area with a nasty cloud of red-hot, jagged steel fragments (mis-called "shrapnel"), so I was glad we were all under cover. They did not land in our immediate area, but a few fragments went singing by.

Another sound we learned to identify quickly was the sound of a falling bomb. First of all, I want to say that bombs do not ordinarily whistle, Hollywood to the contrary notwithstanding. I have heard at least a hundred bombs, and every one of them swished; there was never a peep from any of them. If a bomb whistles, it is because a whistling device is attached to it. A whistle os not standard equipement, and I am quite sure that most bombs are dropped without any noise-making accessories. I hasten to add, furthermore, that a whistle on a bomb would have been superfluous, as far as we were concerned, for the psychological effect of the whistle was admirably achieved by the standard model, swish-bomb type. That is, we hit the dirt and shuddered quite satisfactorily under the swish-stimulus. So conditioned were we that one night in Guadalcanal, returning from a movie, a crowd of us heard a swish and dropped flat on the spot, and some moments had passed before we realized that there wasn't a plane to be seen or heard and that no condition red had been given. Then somebody said that maybe it was "one of them damn birds." He was referring to one of the huge, vulture-like birds, grotesque, black creatures with yellow necks and heads, that lived in Guadalcanal's jungles and made a swishing noise when they flew. At this, we got up, dusted ourselves off, and made metal notes to go bird-hunting the next day.

Chapter 14: Out of the Wide, Blue Yonder

2006-07-25T15:20:00.000-07:00

The American and Allied Air Forces earned our respect early. We got our first close-up views of the Lockheed P-38 Lightnings the day we landed. Two were warming up for the take-offs on Henderson Field, and great clouds of coral dust billowed up behind. They were unique planes, these twin-tailed crafts, with their pilots riding atop the wings in teardrop nacelles. Propelled by two powerful Allison in-line engines, a P-38 in flight set up a majestic roar. At low altitudes a whistle could be heard accompanying the roar, and this is the plane about which I first heard it said that the Japs named one of our planes the "Whistling Death." Later I heard the same thing said about the Vought Corsair and the Grumman Hellcat, both Navy fighters.

The P-38 seemed to be strictly an American's plane, that is, it was never popular with the RAF or the RNZAF who preferred single-engine fighters. But the men from down under loved the old P-40's. These Curtiss planes, called War Hawks and also Tomahawks, were of the type made famous by the Flying Tigers, and, in the opinion of many U.S. airmen, had seen better days. But let there be a "condition red," that is, an alert for air attack at Guadalcanal, and the New Zealanders would take off in their P-40's to intercept the Jap planes. A short time later, back they would come, swoop over Henderson Field, and execute "victory rolls" signifying that they had downed enemy planes. More than once I have seen a single RNZAF plane do three victory rolls, meaning that its pilot had got three Jap planes that trip.

The P-39, the Bell Airacobra, was, in my opinion, the most graceful looking aircraft in the sky. Powered by a single Allison in-line engine, which was located amidships, the Airacobra had a long, poiknted nose and trim, slender lines throughout. We used to see this ty pe quite often in Fiji and learned to recognize it by the sound as well as ty its silhouette, for P-39's based at Nanadi frequently used to fly over our Sigatoka area, seemingly skimming the trees. The engine purred "like a sewing machine," I used to say. Americans were not keen on this type of plane either, I understand, although the Russians could not get enough of them. The Airacobra was an unusual plane too. Besides having the engine located in an unorthodox place, it was the only fighter at the time that carried a 37mm. cannon in its nose. This gave it unique value as a tank-buster, which is why the Russians liked it. Having its engine mounted behind the pilot instead of in front of him gave the plane a peculiar invulnerability for quite a while: the enemy, seeking to immotilize it, would always fire at tis nose - where its engine ought to be.

These, then were the first Army aircraft we saw overseas, and for many months the only Army fighters. The Navy strength was better represented in the islands, and we saw the new Corsairs and Hellcats of the Navy (the latter planes replacing the Grumman F4F Wildcats) long before we saw the Army's newest, the Thunderbolts and Mustangs, which were being introduced in Europe. They gave us a tremendous lift; there is something inspiring about a flight of planes, something irresistible in their roar which draws all eyes upward toward them no matter how often they pass overhead. They were such miracles of mechanical ingenuity and workmanship that we couldn't conceive of the Japanese - or of anybody else, I guess - as having aircraft even almost as good as ours. There was a little false optimism in such thinking, a little over-done national pride, but not much. It was the United States, after all that had developed the Norden bomb sight, the multitudes of excellent fighter craft for both the Army and Navy, and those colossal heavy bomber, the B-17, the B-24, and later the B-29. And American aircraft were flying in all corners of the world, with nearly a half-dozen different national emblems on their wings. There were few of us earthbound soldiers, I guess, who did not respond with awe and respect to the sight of these planes.

Another type of aircraft won, not our awe, but a kind of humorous affection, and that type was the small reconnaissance and liaison plane, which was represented by the L-4 (the famous Piper Cub) and the L-5 (built by Stinson.) They were used by Divison Artillery first, and later by each separate artillery battalion, for spotting enemy installations such as gun implacements, troop bivouac areas, motor pools, or supply and ammunition depots. They were flimsly looking, "parasol-wing" monoplanes, reminiscent of the "crates" of World War I, and their air speed was probably not over 90 miles per hour. They were reliable little crafts, however, and I believe we lost only one in all the time our division was using them (which was from the beginning of our New Georgia campaign in July 1943 to the end of the war.) They frequently flew over Jap anti-aircraft batteries of all calibers, but they were never fired upon. The enemy knew that our Cubs had direct communication with our artillery and that if they could not bring down the plane with one shot, so to speak, there was no sense in firing and giving away the position. The Germans also had similar respect and restraint toward the liaison plane. They dubbed it the German equivalent of "First Sergeant" because they always ran for cover when they saw it coming.

On rare occasions we would see one of these planes flying in "combat" formation, and the incongruity of these fragile, unarmed little planes simulating a flight of tough, heavily armed fighters or bombers always amused us. Then a stream of whimsical chatter would usually follow, like this:

"S'pose they're gonna bomb or strafe?"

"Bomb, I guess. They can carry a bomb load of two hand grenades."

"What kind of guns to they carry."

"Oh, a pistol mounted in each wing, I guess."

"I hear the new ones got heavier armament."

"That so?"

"Yeah. A pistol on each wing and a carbine mounted in the nose. Boy, they'll be able to blast hell outa things then!"

"I hear they're gonna carrier-base them Cubs."

"Sure. They're buildin' flight-decks on some of the LST's."

Perhaps I should add that this joking was not malicious or sarcastic - just good-natured. All of us appreciated the value of these small planes, and I imagine we were a little proud of them.

I have said nothing about the bombers - the Flying Fortresses (B-17's), the Liberators (B-24's), and the Billy Mitchells (B-26's) - but then, they spoke pretty well for themselves. They were always a superb sight, whether singly or in formation, especially the Forts and Libs. We saw between thirty and forty on a mission to Munda, and we whooped with joy at this display of air strength, the like of which we had not seen before in our theater of operations.

The sight that really stopped us, however, was the return of a B-17 from an air battle somewhere in the Central or Northern Solomons to its home base on Guadalcanal. (We were still at our Grenade Hill camp, neophytes in the Solomons, and so were pretty impressionable anyway.) The bomber was coming in low and laboriously, because two of its engines had been put out of action by enemy fire. As she passed overhead she was low enough for us to view the battle scars, and we felt like doffing our caps, I think. We could see daylight through a couple of spots in the wings, and some of the gun turrets, or "blisters," were shattered. The tail gunner's place looked especially grim. The gun itself, still and stark, was pointing downward, and the plexiglass housing had been shot all away. Someone reminded us of the saying among Air Force men about the tail gunner on a bomber. "If, after the end of a mission, the tail gunner doesn't get out with the rest of the crew, you don't lift him out - you wash him out with a hose."

Chapter 13: More Yarns About Guadalcanal.

2006-07-25T12:44:00.000-07:00

During our last few weeks at Guadalcanal we had a two-week period of firing practice and Divison problems. That period differed from the maneuvers we held in Fiji in that the Battalion remained in one location the whole time. That was fortunate indeed, for we had rain almost every day, and moving howitzers in and out of position in mud is no easy task.

I was seldom at the gun position. Usually the entire instrument section was assigned to the OP. There were few specific duties for us; we operated phones or radios if the communications sections were short-handed, we prepared grid sheets or overlays for maps when needed, and that was about all. The main object in our being there was to pick up what we could on artillery observation and OP procedure.

The procedure for fireign problems as related to OP work was as follows. Targets were picked out, usually by the Commanding General of Division Artillery, Brig. Gen. Leo N. Kreber, or by the Div. Arty. Executive Officer, Colonel Kenneth Cooper. These targetw were designated on the firing charts or maps which were in the hands of the Battalion staff. Then each RO (Reconnaissance Officer) was assigned a problem.

For example: The Battalion executive, Major James Nellis, would say to A Battery's RO, "Gawthrop, take the next problem. Group of trees just short of the draw that's 400 yards to the right of the Base Point. Enemy personnel with maybe some light artillery or mortars.

Gawthrop: Battalion concentration ...

Nellis (interrupting): No! Wait a minute. What are you going to waste a whole battalion's fire power on that area for? One battery's enough for that. Now, go ahead.

Gawthrop: Able Battery adjust, shell HE, charge 5, fuze quick. (He pauses while the operator relays these commands. He studies the terrain, inspects the firing chart, and refers to his firing tables.) Base deflection ... right ... two eigh. (Pauses again.) Number two ... one round, at my command. Quadrant ... three seven zero.

The operator reports the commands and then becomes the center of attention as everybody waits for him to receive the message "Number two ready" from the battery operator. When he does, he repeats it.

Gawthrop: Fire.

Operator: Fire. (Pauses, then winces a bit as the phone brings in the blast of the howitzer as it is being fired.) On the way.

Then all eyes ar turned toward the target area, as everybody watches for the shell burst. A ball of dark grey smoke appears, suddenly, like a raindrop on a window pane. Gawthrop then makes his sensing, that is, tells whether the burst is over, short, right, or left of the target. He calculates his adjustment and sends down the next command which he hopes will compensate for the miss. Assuming that it does, that the next shot is a direct hit, he may call for all four guns of the battery, usually as a volley or volleys (all four guns firing in unison). Usually Nellis gives the command, "Cease firing, end of mission," for he is interested in using only as much ammunition and time as he feels is necessary to illustrate the problem. He then gives his critique in his characteristically crisp and laconic speech.

The procedure is repeated with each officer present. Some do well, and some blunder all about the place. When they do, they usually get their ears burned to a crisp by Colonel Cooper if he is around. This doughty old colonel was an officer in the old tradition. He had risen from the ranks of private in World War I, and now, wearing a full colonel's silver eagles, he knew practically all the answers. He had an uncanny eye for sensing bursts and could land a direct hit with one adjustment almost any time he wanted. But any lesser officer beware who thinks that anybody could do it!

One of the first things that even enlisted men are taught about OP fire control is not to "creep up on a target," that is, if the first round is short, don't make the next shot land short also. Increase the elevation of the gun or guns enought to take the second round well over (beyond) the target. Bracket the target, in other words. That was dinned into our heads so much that we thought that any OCS grad would know at least that much. But we saw one who didn't. Or else he was so sure of himself that he did not think it was necessary to bracket the target. He could make a direct hit in one jump. Like Cooper. He thought.

Well, he never finished his problem. After three adjustments of 100 yards each, the target still looked just a hundred yards away from the burst. Then Cooper caught on to what he was trying to do, and he told that second lieutenant to sit down in a truly impressive and elaborate way.

Whenever Lieutenant Colonel Henry L. Shaver came to grips with a firing problem there on the OP, there was always the interesting speculation on whether he was going to blast us all off the top of the hill this time or the next. Before leaving the camp for the OP we used to tell the rest of the men in the Battery: "We may not see you fellows again; Shafer's firing a problem today."

To illustrate: One day Shafer stepped up confidently to fire a problem. In his nasal drawl he described the target he had selected. The first response was a collective blink. Perhaps we had misunderstood. One of the other officers spoke up. "You mean that spot over there near that draw, Colonel?" Shafer said no, no, he meant the spot about five hundred yeards nearer. Well, that was practically the base of the forward slope of the hill we were standing on. Doubting glances were exchanged all around, but nothing more was said.

This probem actually was to be fired by Fire Dirction Center, that is, given the target, FDC plotted it, computed the firing data, and converted the data into firing commands which it sent to the battery assigned. Shafer was to give only the sensings. Soon the message from FDC came: "Unsafe to fire. Quadrant will be below the minimum elevation."

Shafer was annoyed. He got on th ephone and talked to someone at FDC, probably the S-2. "Unsafe to fire!" he snorted disbelievingly, and asked the S-2 to show him. Apparently the two agreed that there was a slight margin of safety, enough to permit firing the problem, anyhow. With a smile of victory on his face, Shafer stood straight up and addressed us. "It's safe to fire, but everybody get back off the hill. Everybody get back behind the top of the hill; but it is safe to fire."

Laughing at this retreat of Shafer's to a compromise position, we nevertheless complied swiftly, searching for little hollows on the side of the hill away from the target area and far below the top of the hill. Then, in those hollows, we held our breaths as, a few minutes later, we heard Shafer give the command, "Fire." We heard the shell pass over us so close that it seemed as if we might have touched it just by reaching up. We heard the burst: very close indeed. Shafer ran to the top of the hill to catch sight of the smoke before it had drifted too far. Well, he hadn't killed us with the first shot; he would try again. We groaned as he sent down his sensings. Then came the second round; we could almost feel its hot breath. From ths sound, we couldn't tell whether the second burst was closer to us or not. Shafer had a nother look. Then he surprised us all by giving, "Cease firing, end of mission." Had the second burst really hit the target, or was he afraid that another adjustment would wipe us all out? We never found out. Probably only Shafer knew the answer. Of one thing we were certain: we were glad Shafer had finished his problem.

Firing problems always meant that time for moving was not far off. The Battalion had done well, we were told, in the Guadalcanal problems. Too well, some of us reflected glumly.

We returned to our base camp to find that the mosquitoes had taken over. Until we had got them smoked out, the more susceptible of us had to go around even in the daytime with mosquito repellent smeared all over our faces and hands. The mosquitoes used to flock about me so much that for a couple of days I worked outside with a head net on. In most places we didn't need head nets even at night. Fortunately, beofre too long the Malaria Control Unit, which had been doing and continued to do a fine job, visited our area and got rid of the mosquito nuisance for us almost entirely.

For the short period left before departure for New Georgia we enjoyed a remarkable degree of relaxation. It was like the mid-term holiday between semesters, following the big exam. I think passes were issued, although I may be thinking of when we returned to The Canal from New Georgia. But we were allowed to wander around a bit. Some men looked up buddies in other outfits scattered about the island. Some took advantage of the excursion program while it lasted and went to Tulagi, a more "civilized" island than the one we were on. Mostly, however, we hung around base camp and listened to the radio, tuning in Radio Tokyo for a good laugh, or we went to the movies.

We had had that radio working almost since the day we landed. All the news broadcasts from the States were listened to avidly, particularly the commentaries of Sidney Rodger. During air raids some of the men found it diverting to tune in on the talk going on between one American plane and another, and occasionally between an American and an English-speaking Jap. Presently a story got circulated about a conversation between an American and a Jap that was supposedly picked up by our radio. The Jap was taunting the American tand telling him to come up and get him. Finally the American answered him, saying that he was not coming up - he was coming down on him, after which he dived on the Jap and shot him down. It makes a good yarn, anyway.

The biggest laugh we got over the radio was not from Bob Hope or any other comedian; it was from Radio Tokyo. In May the Japanese sent over a huge air armada, exceeding even the Tulagi-Guadalcanal raid of April 6. This May raid, which was the last raid of any size that the Japs were able to send over the Southern Solomons, consisted of about 116 planes. If they thought that the size of it would insure a successful day-light raid, they sadly underestimated our air strength. Only a fraction of that number ogt over Guadalcanal, for most of the 96 planes that were shot down were intercepted long before they reached the island. The remaining twenty fled for their home base. Yet Radio Tokyo gloated, "A devastation air strike by our planes hit the island of Guadalcan with such force that it is doubtful if any human being survived. All twenty planes returned."

The raid of April 6, almost 24 hours after we had landed, was somethign to watch. I forget how many Jap planes there were, but there were enough! There were dogfights (though those in the May raid were more exciting, being almost over our heads), and there was lots of ak ak. The ships and land batteries sent up a terrific barrage. Enemy planes came down like moths in a cloud of Flit. We suffered losses: one tanker was set afire, and a warship was damaged or sunk. Both were near Tulagi, the island which bore the main brunt of the Attack.

It was amazing how punctually a raid followed up the arrival of a new convoy. Old campaigners on The Canal told us that there was good reason to believe that a Jap sending station, located deep in the hills that overlooked Lunga, was radioing information about our shipping to a Japanese base further up, but it always eluded our detection. Apparently our division put credence in such reports, because infantry patrols, one of which was commanded by our Harry Prose, were sent into the hills ot investigate. As far as I knews, nothing of what they were looking for was ever found. This is not surpriseing. The Japanese had an extraordinary facility for doing things right under our noses. Like the one who directed artillery fire on a beach on Empress Augusta Bay which disrupted operations there for a time. He was found, finally, with a walkie-talkie radio, a short but safe distance from the shelled area, and he had had the effrontery to be wearing GI fatigue clothes too!

The most annoying thing about these raids was that they often interrupted a good evening of movie entertainment. Of course, there were nights when the show was so bad (say, a Grade-B, would-be comedy of ten years ago) that a raid was a welcome relief, but generally we preferred the movie. If the raid proved to be of short duration, or if the alarm was just a scare, nearly everyone would wander back to the show area from their fox-holes (if, indeed, any had gone to fox-holes to begin with) and agitate for the resumption of the movie. On moonlit nights we could almost always count on an air raid, even calling the hour when the Japs would be over, and many a baleful eye was rolled up a th the moon. It was during our second stay at The Canal that we most fervently wished for an interruption of a movie. I forget what the main picture was, but before it came on there was a "Special Feature" announced with much flourish. It turned out to be a showing of Leopold Stokowski conducting the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra in the Stalingrad Symphony of Shostakovich. The performance was for the "benefit" of servicemen, who made up most of the audience, and was introduced by Mme. Litvinoff, wife of the Soviet diplomat. As the musicians gave out with the cacaphonies, the camera wandered about the audience picking up rapt expressions on the faces of the men. One GI, who looked as though he'd rather be anyplace but where he was, drew a sympathetic "We know just how you feel, bud!" from Germaine Gogreve, and we who had been writhing at ths Shostakovich noise, laughed. A sympathetic chord had been touched.

There was, I think, only one stage show put on by professional entertainers while we were at Guadalcanal, or at least, at our area, but it was quite good. The tenor, Felix Knight, was one of the entertainers, and the only one I can recall now.

Gradually everybody began to get serious again. Sometimes men wouldn't find the time to go to a show. Our next move would take us right into combat, so the evening activities were more or less related to that impending event. Men went through barracks bags to see what clothes needed mending or replacing, listened closely to the latest reports on the war's progress, wrote letters, and weeded out non-essential items which would have to be consigned, often reluctantly, to the fire. All of us, I think, were in good physical shape and all together, except Andy Kaltz, who left half of his thumb on North Island, New Zealand, and Vern Friend, who was leaving half of his thumb on The Canal. Working with his crew on the howitzer one day, Friend had said, "There goes my damn thumb," and, to the astonishment of his gaping gun crew, had walked off to the aid station. His thumb had been sheared, as by a meat cleaver, by being in the way of the heavy spade as that part of the gun was swinging free. Bob Perkins and I, while still in one piece, had narrowly missed tangling with a shark, while we were taking a refreshing respite from our "policing" or salvaging detail. We'd been warned that there were sharks and had been advised to keep someone with a loaded rifle on shore to watch for sharks and warn us. Perkins and I were farther out than the rest when the alarm was sounded, consequently we were the last ones to get out. Being not quite so hefty as Perkins, I sprinted out of the water a couple of paces ahead of him, and I'm sure the shark was nipping at his heels. Aside from these minor misfortunes and near-misfortunes, Able Battery was able and ready, though I'm not sure it was willing, to push on to New Georgia.

Chapter 12: "The Canal" and our "Baptism of Fire."

2006-06-26T12:52:00.000-07:00

We always called the island "The Canal." Many others referred to it as "Guadal." Either way you said it anybody would know it was Guadalcanal you were talking about.

Guadalcanal was already historical when we got there on April 5, 1943, and the first men we met were fully aware that they had made history. They were some Marines and some soldiers who had seen action. Guadalcanal had a reputation, thanks to the excellent news coverage given the Marines' operations there, and the men who fought there and survivied already wore a mantle of the legendary and picturesque, at least to the uninitiated like ourselves. Of course it was not entirely a Marine show, as we were pugently informed one day by an infantryman. "Who saved the Marines' necks," the fellow demanded belligerently, "when they were pinned down on Henderson Field? The infantry. The ____ Infantry Regiment," he repeated, naming the number of th eregiment. We did not argue. We only knew what we had read, and what we had read had given practically full credit to the U.S. Marine Corps. The Marine Corps had a habit of eclipsing (in news stories) the Army, and it tenaciously clung to that habit throughout most of the Southwest Pacific operations and occasionally elsewhere in the Pacific as well.

Guadalcanal seemed the essence of jungle warfare as Americans at home and overseas came to know it. Its malevolent dense growth assailed one both physically and spiritually with a sinister atmosphere which was no less tangible than the shell-tattered, fantastic banyans and mangroves, and the detestable wait-a-minute bushes and other foot-tangling plants.

The fighting had ceased weeks ago, but we still, in the course of our wanderings about the island, could find the reeking ruins of a Jap bivouac area, some rusting assault and landing craft, airplane wreckage of both Japanese and American aircraft. In fact, for about the first month we were there, stretches along the main road which ran from Kokumbona past Koli Point and Henderson Field to Lunga Point were toped off and marked with signs proclaiming the danger of mines. (It was slong this stretch, incidentally, that the survey sections of the 136th F.A. Battalion ran an extensive traverse.) On a "policing" detail, which I shall describe later, one fellow in Headquarters Battery had the enormous good fortune to find a wrist watch on the remains of a Jap. The band, if it was leather, had surely rotted, of course, but the watch itself was perfectly all right, and it responded immediately to winding. For a while at least, this island was profoundly more invigorating to the spirit than was Viti Levu during our last two or three months there, for it was that much more diverting.

For one thing, we would be rid of the trammels of a garrison life. The change was more apparent than real, I suppose, but it was felt all the same. Although a "full uniform at all times" was prescribed and generally enforced, (later, one could see men running about clad only in shorts) the uniform was no longer sun tans, or chinos, as we called the summer dress uniform we had worn in Fiji. Instead, we wore the green herringbone twill, or "fatigue" uinform altogether. Perhaps that one thing alone contributed much to the general feeling of liberality and easier discipline. Another thing was the irregular eating hours and lack of a work schedule. This last deficiency was soon adjusted, however, much to the disquietude of everybody.

"Aside from the dangers involved, you'll find combat conditions a lot easier around here." When Lieut. Fornuto made that remark to the instrument section one day on Viti Levu, we laughed him to scorn with "Aw, nuts!" and other expressions of incredulity. That was like saying that if you weren't swimming around in it, you'd find the ocean just as dry as the land. Paradoxical as it sounded, Fornuto's statement did prove more or less true, up to a point. We got a glimpse of that truth up on Grenade Hill, Guadalcanal, for although we were not actually engaged in combat or even in a technically combat zone*, we were in danger of being bombed many times. Yet, as Fornuto had said, life, for a week or two, was not tedious, regulations in regard to military were far from exacting, and there was a certain familiarity between officers and men that often goes with sharing a new adventure. The exceptions to Lieut. Fornuto's pat prognosis came later, of course, following one another like a battalion salvo and with terrific impacts, usually.

Seldom, while we were overseas, did we have three consecutive months as crowded as were the first theree we spent on Guadalcanal. After unloading our equipment and setting up camp - several days were consumed doing that - the battalion, either as a whole or in units, built up a corduroy road, ran a survey of several miles of coastline, set up a new camp, dug new howitzer positions, improved the camp area, went to school, held firing problems for two weeks, handled rations, gasoline and equipment at the beach and at their respective dumps, and went on "policing" or salvage details.

Nearly every one of these projects had an interesting highlight to it. For example, there was the survey of coastline which was done by the instrument and survey sections of all batteries. In "chaining" the distance from the Kokumbona River to the Lunga River we not only passed uncomfortably close to areas which were still mined, but took ourselves, in an endeavor to keep the traverse in as few legs as possible, chest-deep in water offshore. We clambered over vicious-looking rocks and coral whose surfaces would cut a man grutally if he were to fall on them, balanced precariously on the slippery hulls of LCVP's, and dangled from overhanging limbs of trees growing at the water's edge. After the first half hour, the steel 100-foot tapes got so rusty that we could hardly read them. And what a job we had, at day's end, de-rusting our old Springfield rifles!

Building roads in Guadalcanal's hilly terrain would be difficult, but not insurmountable, with proper, mechanized, roadbuilding equipment. True, wome of the large pieces of machinery would have difficulty getting about on some of the ridges. There are some ridges, for example, that are so narrow that a single jeep-trail is all they will allow. But with power shovels, earth-moving conveyor belts, bulldozers, etc., roads, very good roads, too, could be and were built. Perhaps there were not any giant earthmovers or conveyor belts, but there were other things, notably trucks, trucks galore.

All such things, however, belonged exclusively (except the trucks) to the Army Engineers and the Navy Construction Battalions (the immortal Seabees.) When Lieut.-Col. Henry L. Shaver launched his 136th F.A. Battalion on a project subsequently known variously and sardonically as "Shafer's Folly" and "The Shafer Turnpike", therefore, he did it with GI brawn and very little else. The road connected our new area with our old and in one place dipped down into swampy land between wo hills or ridges. It was in this low place and on the sloaping approaches to it that the Battalion built a corduroy road to nullify, to a degree at least, the effect of Guadalcanal mud on vehicular traffic. Incidentally, during the rainy spells - which were frequent - we had to use chains on the wheels of all vehicles to get traction in the mud. And mud could be just as slippery, just as much of a nuisance - and just as dangerous, as snow.

The work on the Turnpike (strange, with what straight faces we thus referred to the road!) went on for several days, I do not know exactly how many. It produced a crop of lively and vitrioloc comments; hardly a day passed but what an A Battery man would burst into his tent, after a day's work, with, "Say, did you hear about the latest damn fool thing some jerk up in Headquarters dreamed up?" I can think of no quicker way a man could get an audience in those days. Indignation, of course, always ran at high pitch at the end of the day, and at supper the men were never too tired to discuss the fabulously stupid things that went on in the Army, including "giving that man, Shafer, a commission in the first place." "How he ever got to be even a second looey, I'll never know, let alone lieutenant-colonel." "Let him come down and swing a pick or an axe with the rest of us, and see how well he likes it." The tragedy of it all was, however, that we simply had to make that road right, now that we were situated in our new area, or else we would face utter isolation, for at that time, and for some time afterward, that was the only route to the new area. The initial mistake, as everybody saw only too clearly, was choosing this site for a camp and gun position in the first place. Was not the other area, on Grenade Hill, just as good? It was good enough for the artillery outfit that had occupied it just before us. (They had left their tents and their howitzers behind when they went back to Fiji for a rest.) Col. Shafer's answer was that shellfire from this position could not reach the beach - it overshot it. Thus, to be able to drop shells on the beach, the howitzers must be moved back. That is, A Battery's guns had to be moved; apparently the other batteries were situated all right. So, in spite of its almost inaccessibility, Shafer chose, as the necessary rearward position, the area that lay just the other side of the corduroy "Turnpike." And so we moved. The distance, by road, was something less than half a mile, but a straight-line distance between the two areas was nearer a quarter of a mile. In spite of that short way to go, however, moving the camp, equipment, and everything occupied more than a full day. When we came to uphill grades, two of our powerful Diamond-T prime mover trucks were needed to pull each howitzer up them.

The new camp was duly set up, and its location had at first glance, one and only one thing in its favor: namely, it was well shaded. The enlisted men were assigned the lower land where mosquitoes abounded, while the officers took the higher, breeze-swept ground and pitched their tents just off the road. With all the diligence of the proverbial beaver, we turned to building elaborate frameworks for our tents (in compliance with an order from Division Headquarters.) For timber, we went to the jungles about us and felled trees right and left with our axes, although I think it would have been more in keeping with the general tempo and spirit to have gnawed the trees down. This housing program continued for practically all the three months we were there.

First, we were told we must build frames for our tents. Now, each of our pyramidal tents generally came equipped with a 12-foot center pole and six short poles - four for the corners and two for flanking the entrance. The equipment was scant but practical and generally satisfactory. But that was not enough for Division staff. In place of the regulation center pole they insisted on a 15-foot job, which of course had to be hewn from the jungle. Instead of the corner poles, which were about four feet high and 1 1/2 inches thick, they prescribed massive logs 6 inches in diameter and 8 feet long, with 2 feet of that length to be sunk in the ground. That will give you a fair idea. There had to be beams of corresponding proportions extending along the sides, and these in turn needed additional uprights to support them. The drawings will show the evolution from the regulation tent to the elaborate affairs we ended up with and eventually left for the termites. Nobody would have minded doing the work when and as he could and in the manner most suited to his needs. But this project we pursued was compulsory, and officers came around every now and then to check up and see that we were doing it according to specifications. Well, we finally finished the tent frames, got our bunks moved in, and heaved sighs of relief. But, "Wait a minute," we were told, "you're not finished yet!" Then it came. Somebody thought it would be a nice idea to construct barracks bag racks in the center of each tent. It was to be a square platform of logs or bamboo, raised about a foot and a half off the ground. Plans were even drawn, showing the dimensions and everything. Before we had recovered from that, the brass had another surprise for us. We could no longer hang our mosquito bars from the tent beams or prop them up any old way. We had to build racks for them too. And so it went during April through June of 1943, whenever we had "spare" time - Saturday afternoons and Sundays. If the Division staff had had the imagination to conduct this building project on an initiative plan, the tents would have been fixed up more quickly, probably a lot better, and definitely with less griping. Making it something that we had to do was , from the start, a psychological error on their part.

As if the enforced building program were not irksome enough, we were dtailed to "dock work" - handling of cargo at the beach as it was brought in on barges or the amphibious GM "ducks". It had been our impression that this was the job for the Service Command boys, or the "Service Commandos" as we, in our bitterness, sarcastically called them. The service Command was a then newly organized unit of the United States Army Service Force. Its duties were quite varied, and "handling of supplies" could be interpreted in its broadest sense as being one of those duties. But, as usual, the Ground Force men were the fall guys. It seemed unfair in the extreme that men who were soon to be in combat were obliged to serve as labor battalions before that time. But if that seemed unfair then, we were destined to be shown greater injustice after our return from New Georgia. Even now most of us seethed and simmered. A fact that made the situation the more galling to the southerners in our outfit, and to some others as well, was that we were working under the supervision, more or less, of members - non-coms, it is true - of a Negro Service Command unit. Their duties, it seemed, consisted solely of driving trucks and watching us load and unload the trucks. There would usually be a Negro corporal or T/5 with each loading group, directing the group which stuff to lead, and checking off the material, whether it was "C" rations or drums of gasoline. One of our men, exasperated, spoke up: "Hey, boy, why don't you give us a hand here?" To which the Negro replied: "I can't; I'm a checker."

This innocent reply was the basis for a grim - if overworked - joke around the Battalion, "Ah cain't; ah's a checkah" got to be the stock gag if one of the men asked another to do something. "Damn niggers," they would wail, "what else are they good for anyway?"

It need hardly be added, I suppose, that the estimation of the Negro race was never very high. The curse of the Almighty was invoked not only on the Negroes of the Service command and the port companies, but on Negroes of Combat Engineers, the Navy Seabees, M.P.'s, and other combat or semi-combat units. The 24th Infantry Regiment, an all-Negro outfit, performed well some extremely hazardous patrol duty on Bougainville, a fact which was blandly ignored by most of the men of the Battalion. Yet, strangely enough, the artillerymen played many games of softball with numerous Negro teams with never a skirmish over the racial issue. That should prove something. You can draw your own conclusions.

While we were on a detail hauling gasoline to Henderson Field, we received an eye-opening revelation. Our mouths dropped open, too - in astonishment. The procedure of the detail was as follows. A gang at the beach loaded the full 50-gallon gasoline drums on the new GM trucks, and the trucks brought them to us at the storage point. There the drums were opened, and the gasoline (100-octane) was poured into a trough which carried it into a large storage tank sunk in the ground. The non-com who was there instructing us about the job concluded by telling us that any drum that contained gasoline that was not 100-octane aviation fuel (87-octane truck fuel, for example) was to be emptied on the ground. We gasped. On the ground? Just - dump it - on the ground? Yes, on the ground. It is of no use at Henderson Field.

"But that is good gasoline for trucks," we protested.

"It don't do no good around here," was the reply. "The commanding officer says that any that ain't a hundred octane should be dumped."

"But we can use it. Can't we take it back with us?"

"I don't see how you can. It's against orders. Better do what the CO wants - dump it on the ground. A guard at the gate might search the truck if he thinks hou got a full drum."

We had heard it all.

The non-com left with a parting shot. "Be sure to check those drums good. We don't want no gas that ain't a hundred octane. Every once in a while they slip us some of the other stuff."

That "other stuff" would have seemsed like gold to the folks back home, we reflected. We wondered just how often "they" did get a drum of truck gas up to Henderson Field by mistake. And each drum containing fifty gallons ... It took our breaths away! During our first week on Guadalcanal our trucks had been "on the deadline," that is, idle, because of a gasoline shortage, yet there was no telling how long this wastage at Henderson had been going on. It was entirely possible that while we wanted, the Air Force wasted.

We did not spend all our time at our base camp. We were two weeks in the vicinity of the Americal Division where we had firing practice. And we were a week on the beach up Kokumbona way, near the Piva River. We would have stayed at this place longer than we did, but when we had been there that long an event occurred which precipitated the sudden evacuation of the entire battalion. The whole incident was perfectly ludicrous, and many of us enlisted men privately had a good laugh when it was over and we were back at base camp.

The purpose of this temporary encampment was not a recreational one, although a few of us did take time out to go swimming (until chased away by a shark.) The real purpose was to comb the countryside for salvageable materiel. Although te daily expeditions we took were mostly fruitless, there were days when one party or another would bring back something worth while, or anyway, interesting. Thus, by the time we left, we had assembled on the beach almost a complete battery of assorted Japanese artillery, ranging from a small anti-tank gun something like our 37-mm AT gun, to the big 15-cm howitzer, the Japs' counterpart of our 155-mm Schneider howitzers. This latter piece, we learned later, was a real find, for although the Japs were suspected of having such a weapon, no one had ever found it or determined exactly where it was emplaced. However, if that was the case, American artillery evidently landed a lucky shot in the vicinity of this gun, for the outside of the tube (barrel) was scored and battered, and its breech block damaged beyond repair, by shell fragments.

Besides this formidable if useless booty, we deposited on the beach chest after chest of machine gun ammunition, both Japanese and American, odds and ends of rifles, gas masks, (the Japs evidently lived in mortal terror of the possibility of our using gas on them) in fact, practically everything but tanks, which we found, but which were too heavy for us to tote along.

This rpresented about a week's collections. As I said, we were prepared to stay longer, or rather, our officers were. We enlisted men were quite willing to call it quits right then and go back to base camp. This "policing up", as we called it, was getting tiresome. The only worthwhile souvenir was the wrist watch which a fellow in Headquarters Battery had plucked from the remains of a Jap officer. But Colonel Henry Shafer was determined to stay. Perhaps he would uncover a secret master strategy plan o fthe Japs'. Anyway, there was probably more scrap in them thar hills.

Then a Japanese bomber paid Guadalcanal a visit. We heard the faint rumbling of the bombs that were dropped. It was from the direction of Lunga Beach, some miles away. Soon we heard the plane overhead and Shafer screaming to all of us to get the lights out and stop smoking. Some of us dashed for foxholes, some of us crept for them, but most of us stood on top of the ground and looked up through the palm trees, searching for the invader. Then came another sound, the heavy throbbing of a P-38 night-fighter. It was on the prowl after the Jap plane. Then everyone was on top of the ground looking up eagerly and waiting for the fireworks.

We didn't have long to wait, for like sparks being blown from a chimney came the tracers from the P-38's four nose guns. It must hav been a really devastating burst, for when the sound reached us, it sounded like the noise made by a knife being drawn across a stretched piece of heavy canvas. In reply came a desperate but ineffectual burst of a few rounds from the enemy craft. Bits of orange light spurted suddenly, and we knew that one plane had been hit. Which one was it? We listened to the sickening low whine of the doomed plane, then, as we heard above that awful sound a full-voiced roar that filled the atmosphere, we knew that the Japs had lost that battle, and we sent up a hearty cheer.

Our watch followed the stricken plane as it fell. Once or twice the flame mass would momentarily expand, and after the reports of the explosions had reached us, we knew that it was curtains for the sons of Nippon. Those explosions were the gas tanks blowing up, and one could imagine the fate of that bomber crew.

It was some timme during the next night that the Battalion was startled by a short two- or three-round burst of machine guns, one of the .30's. Someone loudly loaded his rifle, and everybody wondered what was up. Soon we learned that the machine gunner thought he saw someone sneaking around the area, so he let go with a short burst. He fired only when there had been no reply to his challenge of "Halt!" All the guards in the camp area were instructed to be especially watchful from then on, and all personnel in general was advised to remain in the tents and not to prowling about, except of course when on guard duty, or when relieving a guard.

The next morning a report reached us that the crew of that bomber had not perished in a blaze of glory for the emperor and old Nippon at all, but had quite sensibly bailed out. Whether that report was true or not, I am not certain now, but I know that from that report it was but a short step to the assumption that the machine gunner had seen someone and that that someone had been one of the Jap bomber's practical crew. I think it is fairly safe to say that the report was received and the assumption arrived at with something less than aplomb by Henry L. Shafer. The man who had stood so regally on the bridge of the President Monroe a year before and delivered a Memorial Day speech somewhat reminiscent of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was now, I think, not so much inspired with the remembrance of things past as spurred into action by the supposition of things present - and uncomfortably close. Thus was begun the first rout (and the only one, I hasten to add) of the 136th F.A. Battalion. In an incredibly short time the trucks were loaded with men and their equipment, and a grateful battalion reached base camp that afternoon.

That was not the first air raid we experienced on Guadalcanal, nor was it the last, but it was certainly more dramatic than most. We seldom got a chance to see the maurauding plane or planes shot down.

The most dramatic raid, I think was the one in which two Japanese bombers were shot down by one night-fighter pilot in something like 90 seconds. That event was even recorded in one of the newsmagazines, Time or Newsweek. The pilot was a daredevil of a youngster who was slightly drunk that night. Acting against orders, he took off and hovered around in the air while the American AA batteries pumped away at the two planes. These planes skillfully maneuvered around in such a way that both could not be hit by the same barrage. If the flak was pretty heavy around one bomber, the other would wander off somewhere and simulate a bombing run to confuse us and draw our fire. All the time the searchlights were kept on at least one of the planes, and sometimes there would be two gleaming, moving dots up there in the blackness. Then, without any warning, the night fighter, a P-38, dived recklessly into the murderous flak and ripped the air with a long burst of fire and then another, shorter one. There was only token return fire, then Jap plane number one went down. For some reason number two circled around and came back. This proved to be its undoing. Perhaps its crew intended to avenge the other crew. Anyway, if it had continued steering a course straight and true away from the hot spot, the night-fighter never could have caught it. But it swung around, was picked up by the lights again, and the night-fighter was ready for it. Its finish was just as swift as the other's had been.

The P-38 pilot was grounded and fined. No decorated hero, he. The charges against him were, I believe, disorderly conduct, disobedience of direct orders, and endangering government property. (That he endangered himself apparently was not mentioned.) His reply was that since the ak ak was not hitting the Jap planes, he figured it wouldn't hit him either. This was a truthful, if unkind, commentary on the effectiveness of our anti-aircraft batteries. In all the raids I watched in the Solomons, I saw not more than two planes go down as a direct result of anti-aircraft fire from the ground; but more about that in a later chapter.

We had air raids from our very first day on The Canal. We were told the day we arrived that we should expect one, because always there was an air raid there whenever a convoy arrived. Since that proved to be true in our case, se considered a lesson learned, a truth which we could apply wherever we went. It was not a meaningless generality, for only after we reached Manila could we be sure of having no more air raids.

We had landed - a la Marine Corps - on Lunga Beach in the middle of the morning of April 5. We started, apprehensively, at the sound of artillery. Could there be a war going on? (It was probably merely firing practice.) A grim, this-is-it feeling welled up in us momentarily but only momentarily. For, after we had assembled on the grey sands of Lunga, we were amazed to hear a familiar sound: the Division Artillery Band playing the Field Artillery March! That was reassuring; we knew that the band would not find its way into a combat zone. (This was an erroneous assumption, however. Members of the band, sans music and instruments, were stretcher-bearers on the front lines in Bougainville.)

So far so good. Atop Grenade Hill we found our cmap set up for us. It had belonged to a 155 Howitzer outfit of the Americal Division which had left the island for a rest. We had lunch there, including our first atabrine tablets. Then the Battery was split up, half of it going back to the beach to unload the ship, the other half remaining at the camp to take care of the equipment as it came in. We worked off and on throughout the afternoon, and when night came, we turned into our bunks. The rest of the Battery remained on the beach that night. Sometime in the night, I can't recall the hour, I was awakened by the sound of a siren some distance off. I sat up and listened for a moment, then I flopped back on my bunk. I mumbled sleepily and not very intelligently, "I guess it's only a practice alert. It doesn't mean anything. Guess they must be testing the alarm system." I was almost asleep when I heard a commotion outside the tent and the voice of one of the sergeantswho was calling, "Everybody up! Grab your helmets, canteens, and rifles!"

I don't know where I got the idea that it was only a practice alert, maybe it was a carry-over from a dream, but in my first semi-consciousness that is what I thought it was. Now that I was outside the tent, however, (with my helmet, canteen, and rifle) I could see that it was nothing of the sort. The sky seemed unnaturally light, as I could not recall that it was time for a full moon. I looked up and saw flashes of orange light dancing madly about. What I saw were bursts of ak ak shells. I then became aware of guns thumping and booming all around us. I was not conscious of these at first, although they had been firing for some minutes. Then I heard the eerie plop, plop of the ak ak shell bursts thousands of feet above us. Amid the rumbling of the gun batteries someone said, "Listen! Hear the bombs?" I confessed that I couldn't distinguish between the bombs and gunfire, and someone else said that he doubted that anyone could.

We were told to go over to the foxholes near the edge of the crest of the hill, and there we waited until getting the "all clear" signal. There, one of the men noisily wondered wy we had to take our canteens and rifles with us. The why of the canteens I could not figure out. I couldn't imagine we would be pinned down for any length of time. As for the question of the rifles, I tried to rationalize that by surmising that there might be a ground movement by the Japs, coordinated with the air attack, perhaps just a harrassing activity while we were preoccupied with, and more or less limited in movement by, the air raid. That was the best I could dope out. Nobody came up with another answer, better or otherwise.

As I have already said, an adventure - such as this - shared by officers and enlisted men alike, awakens an informal and friendly atmosphere which nearly everyone feels. So we all laughed and felt better when we heard Lieutenant Gawthrop say waggishly, "Ah yes; I can see the papers now. Banner headlines on the front page. 'A Battery of the One Three Six Field Artillery Battalion has had its baptism of fire. Officers and men performed admirably throughout the ordeal and won the praise of their commanding general.' How about that, men?"

After the interruption, which lasted an hour or more, I was ready for sleep again. I lay down on my bunk. Then I heard Don Hayes in the next tent so I called out to him. "Hey, Don, my pass to Lautoka starts today. How about it?"

"I'll get you on the next boat back, Mac," Don promised.
____________________________________
*This technicality was a cause for grievance among us, because we were not entitled to a combat star, representing the Southern Solomons, on our Asiatic-Pacific campaign ribbon. One of the two stars that appeared on our ribbons was for New Georgia and Bougainville (Southern Solomons), and the other was for Luzon. We thought we ought to have at least one more than the men who joined us at Bougainville a month before we shipped out had, for they had two also.

Chapter 11: Officers and/or Gentlemen.

2006-01-26T08:28:00.000-08:00

Because Army officers are admittedly such a controversial group, I feel that this record would be incomplete without sketches of some with whom I had association. With the all too human penchant for generalizing to excess, many men who served as enlisted men in the Army classified all Army officers as individuals with sub-human mentalities, inhuman insensibilities, and super-human dishonesty. The Army officer was represented as a paragon of stupidity and vanity, selfishness and treachery, cowardice and bigotry. Generalizations are dangerous, because they never lead directly to truth. Generalizations are also unjust, ,obviously. It is impossible for me to say what proportion of officers lives up to the reputation so unfairly established for all officers, but in all fairness I would suppose that the proportion of the good ones to the bad ones among officers is about the same as among enlisted men.

There were bad officers. For a while it seemed as if A Battery was getting them all, but that was probably due to the fact that the other batteries in the Battlaion had extremely good officers. Our officer equipment with which we left the States would certainly not induce envy among the enlisted men of other batteries. Captain Edmund E. Lange was not an objectionable type; my one complaint about him was that he was not assertive enough. Some men accused him of being "two-faced." I never found him so. His amiability and easy smile always seemed sincere to me. If he "got results" with the men under him, it was, I always felt, through a sort of diplomatic approach, rather than an imperious one. Unfortunately, there were many occasions which called for a battery commander who was far more dynamic than Lange. I always felt, too -- and this feeling was shared by many of the men -- that Lange was not the one who "ran" the battery, but Lieut. C_____.

Paul R. C_____ made up for Lange's deficiencies in aggressiveness with his insufferable arrogance. Perpetually wearing the expression of one who had just swallowed a big dose of unsweetened lemon juice, Paul C_____ had a disposition to match. It was he, we felt, who was the "power behind the throne," as we often expressed it. It was for this particular sin of omission -- failure to let C_____ know who was running the battery -- that we found it hard to forgive Lange. It was C_____, I am sure, who was largely responsible for the discordant situations which arose within the battery. Although he was properly the executive officer, or battery executive, whose main and practically only responsibility was the four howitzers and the ammunition for them, Lieut. C_____ constantly interfered or tried to interfere in all other sections of the battery.

It was his supreme egotism which made C_____ always the interferer. I suspect that at the root of that egotism was really an inferiority complex. It was as though he were constantly trying to convince himself, through braggadocio, crass arrogance, and a permanent chip-on-the-shoulder attitude, that he was not inferior. What his background had been, I have only an inkling of. His inferiority complex might have developed in early life, even inboyhood, from what could easily have been an inharmonious and impecunious home life. Some men can rise above such a background, or make early sad experiences work to their advantage in their more mature years. Paul R. C_____ was not one of these men. Warped and embittered, he turned to rebuilding, stone by stone, the ruined temple of his ego. This process was revealed to us in astounding ways. Usually taciturn on both general and personal matters, C_____ never theless would, from time to time, fall into an informal discussion with some of the enlisted men, or rather, would impose himself on a group of conversing men. No matter what the topic was, he would have something to contribute, either in the form of some pedantic statement, or in a reminiscence which connected him directly with the subject. He had been in semi-pro baseball, had been in the boxing ring; was offered somekind of a photography job in Hollywood, but turned it down because "it didn't pay enough;" had been a mining engineer, a musician; had graduated from a barber's college; and had performed all kinds of remarkable mechanical feats of repair, as, for example, mending a bicycle tire with a band-aid which lasted for 2000 miles. To hear him tell it.

I heard some of these tales personally. I never heard from him directly the odyssey of the bicycle, but it was a legend in the battery. If we had given him half a chance, I have no doubt that he would have expounded on such subjects as yoga, nuclear physics, oceanography, or Egyptian history, with personal experiences with each. He was that kind of man.

In a few talks he gave on security, operations, and other kindred topics, however, he displayed admirable intelligence and an excellent vocauplary. On these occasions was revealed another Paul C_____, a man deadly serious on a deadly serious subject, without a trace of sham or bravado, a man with an almost enviable ability to express consecutive thoughts incogent language -- above all, a man who could be counted on to give a level-headed appraisal of a given situation. It was unfortunate that we saw so little of this Paul C_____ and so much of the other.

The third officer in the battery as we came overseas was another first lieutenant, Samuel J. Fornuto. Quiet, colorless, and occasionally cantankerous, this officer, several years younger than C_____, was regarded as one of the ablest survey and reconnaissance officers in the Battalion. A non-smoker and a light drinker, Fornuto was wiry and had an unsuspected vitality and endurance. I can attest to this, because he and I, the only two artillerymen, accompanied an infantry platton on an exhausting march during a maneuver in Fiji. It was cross-country, lasted from 5 a.m. until noon, and took us through some rugged jungle country. We took with us a 194 radio, one of the first walkie-talkie sets, plus our rifles. The infantrymen had rifles plus light packs. I carried the radio first, but after about two hours it slowed me down so much that I was falling behind. Fornuto carried it for some distance, then. After that, we traded back and forth frequently. At the end of the march I was nearly exhausted, the infantrymen were panting and sweating copiously, but Fornuto, blandly ignoring whatever sweat he had worked up, was not even breathig hard.

After a few months in Fiji, Fornuto's reserve wore thin, and he and the enlisted men gradually got closer together. He had never been a martinet, and once his chilly reserve had melted, there grew a feeling among the men that he would "go to bat" for them. He became so popular with most of us, in fact, that we were sorry when he was transferred to C Battery. He became battery commander there, and was apparently well liked.

The fourth officer, our "junior" officer both in age and rank, was young Richard F. Philipps, a blond Texan with a very un-Texan shyness. From the start his was an ill-starred lot. He was supposed to be junior executive, but that assignment was meaningless while C_____ dominated so much of the battery's functions. Paradoxically, however, Phillips as a full-fledged battery executive, came into his own after C_____ had been elevated to the rank of captain as the battery commander. While he was still junior executive, Phillips fell victim to a siege of yellow jaundice and was hospitalized for quite a while. However, his absence seemed to pose no particular problems; his actual duties were so few anyway. A year or so later the unsensational Tex Phillips created something of a sensation throughout the battalion before he was whisked away and packed off to the States.

A few months before we left Viti Levu, changes in the battery's officer personnel began. First, we got Second Lieut. Stephen Wolszyk, a short man with a semi-bald head and pleasant face. He was designated the battery's motor officer, and almost immediately he won over the drivers of the motor section with his friendly, unassuming manner; he was transferred, soon after our arrival at the Sigatoka area, to a battalion of the 148th Infantry Regiment.

Soon after we were established at the Sigatoka area, the battery practically broke out in a rash of second lieutenants. There was Lieut. Powowar, who was not with us long enough for me to learn his first name; there was Maurice K. Fife, another "Ninety-day wonder" who went a little bit too much by the book to suit most of us, though he was not particularly offensive; and it was rumored that we were to get one Francis Xavier Shannon. So, before Wolszyk left, A Battery had a staggering officer complement of one captain (C_____), two first lieutenants (Phillips and FornutoP, and three recent products of Officer Candidate School.

Incidentally, to a later crop of new shavetails from OCS, A Battery itself contributed three. They were: Harry Prose, former instrument corporal; Delbert Kohle, former ammunition corporal on the fourth howitzer section; and George Storer, former instrument sergeant. After they had won their bars, they used to come around to the battery to see the gang. One day, during a Division problem, we spotted Kohle trudging along the road, looking very harrassed and hot. We said "Hi" to him and asked how he was doing. He shook his head and with a broad grin said, "Oh, for the life of a cannoneer!" Blond, with an incorrigibly sun-burned face, he looked, talked, and acted like a farmer, which is exactly what he had been before the Army got him. "Kohle," we would say, "wouldn't you like to see some Iowa white-faced cattle." We always knew what his answer would be, but we loved to hear it, because he said it with such feeling: "Boy, you're not kidding!"

I think it was Hayden Holm who told us we were getting Lieut. Shannon. Hayden was battery clerk, and often learned of things like this before the rest of us did. Shannon's reputation, however, preceded him by several weeks, for he did not arrive in the battery until we were on Guadalcanal. Some of the men had known him before he became an officer, so the speculation on his becoming one of A Battery's officers awakened recollections - and aroused my curiosity. Shannon finally appeared, although for a time he seemed as elusive as Kilroy. He was striking in appearance: tall, with deep-set blue eyes, black hair, and a fairly long straight nose. His stance was not a slouch, but it was the suggestion of one, indicating that he did not go head-over-heels for any of this military stuff. His manner was always calm, his speech clear but never strident. On such an appearance as this, at least, Francis Shannon could easily pass for a young priest. But above all, I realized that here was one of those very rare personages: an officer and a gentleman.

One morning I saw him clumsily return a salute to the first sergeant. I liked him for it. Plainly he was not going to be a "salutin' fool." When he had charge of a detail whose duties were only vaguely outlined to him, he said, "Look, fellows, why don't we do this ... ?" He never said, "I want you to do this ... " Everyone liked him for that. To compare this with C_____ would be grossly unfair to Shannon, even though C_____ would suffer by that comparison. Therefore, it is probably best to say simply that Shannon was a better man, and let it go at that.

He more than lived up to his reputation. The men who had known him as an enlisted man told me that he was one of the finest, fairest men they knew. "Shannon," they would say, "is one peach of a fellow. You'll like him." They said that he never cared whether he held any rank or not, yet he was urged twice to attend OCS, and twice he declined. The next time, however, (according to the story) it was practically an order which he felt would be imprudent to ignore, so he went.

Shannon remained a second lieutenant as long as he was with A Battery, but General Kreber, the CG of Division Artillery (now Division Commander), wanted young Francis X. Shannon as his aide at Division Headquarters, and the General got him. That broke the log jam on his promotions. Almost immediately his gold bar was replaced by a single silver one, and before we left the Solomons, First Lieutenant Shannon became Captain Shannnon - rather good fro a man who never wanted to be an officer!

For a while on Guadalcanal Shannon was the battery censor, and one day while we were out in the field on a detail, Shannon said to me, "Say, Mac, I see from your letters that you are interested in music." I said, "That's right; are you?" He answered that he was, and went on to tell me that he had studied music at Cincinnati Conservatory. That gave us a subject to talk about, but strangely enough, we never had much of a chance outseide of a few remarks that day.

In contrast to the reticence of potential officer Shannon was the frankness of another potential officer who was to become A Battery's fourth CO overseas, Samuel McGill Gawthrop, who became "Gil" to everyone shortly after joining the battery. This is another story which I must submit as a "so-they-say" story, since it did not come to me directly from Gawthrop, but from the first sergeant who had heard it from Gil. It is customary for would-be officers to submit reasons why they wish to become officers. Quite guilelessly, Gawthrop admitted that it was for the extra privileges. Most men, I suppose, say something to the effect that it is the desire for greater responsibilities which they feel they can fulfil, that prompts them to aspire for a commission. (I know that two men so stated, George Storer and Harry Prose, for I helped to ghost-write their statements.) Gawthrop apparently never mentioned the extra responsibilities, but dwelt instead on the additional pay, better living conditions, better food, prestige, and so forth. It must have been this bold frankness that impressed the reviewing officers, for Samuel McGill Gawthorp was admitted to OCS, and he made good.

He was tall, lanky, and blond, and wore on his face most of the time a rather pointless half-grin of mild amusement. So he was dubbed (behind his back, of course) "Grinning Gil." He would not have minded, however. During one of the Division's spurts of diligence in reminding its personnel that they were still in the army by conducting classes on all manner of things, Gawtrhrop one class, with characteristic amused tolerance, in military courtesy. "I don't care," he told us, "what you call me around here [Bougainville] when you are off duty, or when you are in combat. You can call me 'Hey you' or 'High Pockets' or anything you like, within certain bounds of course, [laughter] but during duty hours, and especially if there are any higher brass around, better be more formal and observe the rules of military courtesy." With a mildly sardonic grin he added, "Like the book says."

That was Gil through and through. He took his army life the easiest way he could, and the "easiest way" was passed along to us. There were few complaints when he became battery commander. Long before he took over the battery, however, he had got his captain's bars. One day in San Jose, Nueva Viscaya, I had to see Captain Riddle, the battery commander, about something. With him in his tent was Gawthrop wearing his day-old captain's bars. After saying good morning to Riddle, I turned to Gawthrop and said jovially, "Well, hello there, Captain!"

Gawthrop grinned broadly, and said, laughing, "Hey! What about that!" as much as to say, "Boy, ain't that something!" He had takin his new commission as lightly as he had taken its two predecessors.

I must make more than a passing reference to Francis B. Riddle who succeeded Paul C_____ as commander of A Battery, for the story of his association with the battery seems to me particularly interesting. Quite unlike the case of Gawthrop, who succeeded him as Battery Commander, Riddle took charge of the battery some time before becoming a captain. As a first lieutenant, then, he took over and was an exceedingly welcome change after C_____. Nearly everyone felt disposed to cooperate with him, I think because we sensed no antagonism between him and us. C_____ could create a sense of friction by his mere presence. Riddle mixed with the men more, often pitched in and helped with a job himself. We were beginning to like our gum-chewing, athletic-looking CO from Georgia.

Unfortunately, during our final days on Bougainville, Riddle's rating with the men began to decline and continued to do so during two or three critical months. In a less seasoned outfit than ours, this might well have been disasterous, but many of us enlisted men were confident that the 136 FA could, if it had to, get along in spite of, as well as because of, its officers. This was especially true of A battery, which had some very capable non-coms who were indispensable to any new officer.

The reason for Riddle's fall in popularity was an odd one when considered in the light of certain facts. It was not that he had become overbearing with his new rank; Riddle had remained unchanged in that respect, fortunately,. It was not that he had committed any breach of faith, that is, failed to make good on promises. He was not in the habit of making promises, anyway. Besides lacking these bad traits he had other things to his credit. He proved to be a very zealous procurer of PX supplies; he did not impose strict regulations on the battery except when pushed from behind by Battalion staff; he encouraged athletics and was himself an enthusiastic participant of volley ball games. He did little to make the barrier between officers and enlisted men more pronounced, but to the contrary, did considerable to efface it. No, the reason for Francis Riddle's unhappy situation was an apparently almost total lack of decisiveness. He was not changeable like Lange of the mercurial smile. Riddle simply seemed incapable of giving a straight yes-or-no answer, and this characteristic we feared would be detrimental to the entire battery when we got into combat. We could carry on, once we got our orders, with very little assistance from any officer, but what were we to do while waiting for some officer, specifically our captain, to make up his mind which order to give us? Everyone was familiar with his way of shoving his cap to the back of his head, wrinkling his forehead, and drawling, "Well, ah don't kno-o-ow," when confronted with any question from, What to have for supper tonight? to, Will we have to send Number Three Howitzer to Ordnance? that happened to stump him.

Some men went so far as to say, "I wish we had C_____ back. He may have been an old devil, but at least [he] could make decisions. Share-cropper couldn't decide whether it was raining if he was standing knee-deep in it." 'Share-cropper' was the furtively spoken nickname for Riddle which was supposed to carry the ultimate in contempt and scorn. But I could never be convinced that the return of C_____ to the battery would be of any benefit to us. If I had to choose between a dilettant and a novice, I would select the latter. The approaches of the two men to a problem were as divergent as can be imagined. The man who would hastily arrive at a solution to a problem, merely for the sake of finding a solution, was not, I felt, necessarily better than the man who deliberated on the problem until he hit upon a workable solution, even though his deliberations were agonizingly drawn-out. But I suppose I assailed deliberateness as much as anyone else. The ideal battery commander, I thought wistfully, would be Shannon.

And then, one day, Riddle's popularity started to rise again, as unmistakably as it had begun to fall, and much quicker. I, for one, was glad to see it. Riddle would proably turn out to be the best CO that A Battery had had in many a day. In fact, some men were already saying that.

The list of officers who came to A Battery and stayed for varying lengths of time is far from complete. I have never counted up all those who were with us overseas, and even if I were to mention several more, I could not be sure that I was naming all of them. There were these others whose names most readily come to me. Merlin "Snuffy" Smith, a brilliant youngster of an officer who left us in New Zealand; Harry "Blood and Guts" Blajian, a hefty ex-cop who came to us from Service Battery when we were on Bougainville and transferred to Headquarters Battery in Tuguegarao shortly before returning to the States; Bill Neujahr (pronounced "Noyer"), a great guy who should have come to A Battery much sooner; Ellwood "Woody" Wilson, the only A Battery officer killed in the war and the loss of whom we all keenly grieved; Joe Gallagher, a blond man of beanpole build, who was generally amiable but not bery popular, however; George Naymik, a well-liked junior officer who liked to throw all protocol to the winds and get drunk with the enlisted men; and Salvatoriello whose last name that nobody ever bothered to find out his first name, so inevitably he became known as "Sal."

So there they were, the good an the not-so-good. They were never on pedestals for the simple reason that a pedestal in rough-and-tumble A Battery would be an unsteady perch indeed. But they were in the spotlight of battery opinion, so to speak. Their positions, while not exalted, were unique in the battery, as must be the positions of any officers in any outfit. Their words and their deeds were scrutinized without mercy by the enlisted men under them, men not always careful to separate the chaff of bias from the wheat of truth. As for the officers, most of them stood up admirably in the face of the gulf between them and us. The rest of them - well, weren't they human, anyway?

Chapter 10: " ... And glad to go, too."

2006-01-26T05:59:00.000-08:00

There was always something going on in the area outside Sigatoka, it seemed. On the theory that men were happiest when they were busiest, the Division made every effort to see to it that our every moment was ecstatic. Therefore, when daily field problems grew monotonous, we had protracted field problems lasting three days. These eventually palled, too, so there followed a series of week-long maneuvers. Our area of operations for these extended all the way from the town of Sigatoka -- actually about twelve miles from our camp -- northward to Nandi and Lautoka, a distance of some hundred miles. Sometimes we had good bivouac areas, but more often the places we camped were open fields that were shadeless and subject to inundation in heavy rains. Regardless of the condition of each bivouac area, however, we wre always happy to get back to base camp; it was a comfortably familiar place.

Adding to the fullness of our days (and months) at this area were various diversions such as speed marches, swimming instructions, improvement of the area by building bures, movies about three nights a week, announcement of more candidates for OCS, promotions among both the commissioned and non-commissioned ranks, a hurricane warning and subsequent preparation for the big blow, infiltration exercises, and athletics. One of the most talked-about events was the announcement of men selected to go to the States as "cadre." Coming as it did near the close of our first, and probably longest, year overseas, that announcement had considerable repercussions. They came in the form of noisy protestations from those among us whose names were not on that selected list. That was natural. We had had ten weeks, pleasant weeks, in New Zealand, it was true, but we were also rounding out eight months in Fiji, nonths that were far from pleasant, generally speaking. The men who were leaving for home were targets for not only the normal flow of envy but also for the downright hostility of many of the rest of us who regarded them as undeserving of such good fortune. Some of the men picked had had courts-martial on their records, and most of them had been conspicuous for their poor performance with the battery, one way or another. It was as if the captain had found this "cadre" project an excellent chance to get rid of "dead weight." Other batteries, we learned to our irritation, were not sending all their "worst" men, but, rather, some of their best ones. One peculiar aspect of the whole business, however, remained a mystery to me until about three years later, when Bob Glanton supplied me with the missing pages, so to speak. The reason I had showed such a keen interest throughout and an effort to dig out the rest of the facts was that at one time I was supposed to be one of the cadre myself.

As it was finally explained to me by Bob Glanton one day at Battalion CP in Tuguegarao, Luzon, there were two lists drawn up by Major Poston, the Battalion's executive officer. If he was to accompany the group of men to the States, he wanted the men of one list, if he remained with the Division and another officer went in his place, the men on the other list would go instead. Believing that he would remain with the Division, Major Poston submitted the second list. For some unknown reason, however, he was assigned to the group, but the list of the men chosen from the Battalion had to stand. My name was on the other list.

Had I been one of those to go, my rating woula have changed from Pfc. to Staff Sergeant overnight, and I would have returned to the States as an instrument sergeant. Instead, I remained a Pfc. until the day of my separation from the Army. The merit and undesirability of this and certain other similar critical situations would be debated indefinitely without reaching any conclusion. I mean, who could say whether I was better off remaining with the Division or going back to the States with a new rating? On the face of it, it seemed that the latter course would have been the more desirable. But generally, the men who returned to the States did not remain long, but were reassigned to other outfits on th eway to Europe and other places. When I thought of that, which I did now and then, I was just as glad that I was "sweating it out" with the 37th in the Pacific. A critical situation which affected all of the Division was the burning of the "Normandie." At Indiantown Gap we had been marking allour crated equipment "APO 37, New York." We had been alerted, passes were cancelled. Then suddenly the alert was called off, and limited passes and furloughs were issued. The address of the APO had been changed to San Francisco. The "Normandie" lay, a charred hulk, in New York. I thought of that, too, especially when we heard and read of Anzio, Salerno, the Bulge.

Of the men who did go back, only about three deserved their new ratings. They were Bob Mull, a Pfc who got T/4 radio operator's rating; Jim Bishof, whose grade jumped from basic private to T/5, a clerk's rating; and Walter Gravdahl, whose month-old Pfc rating was replaced overnight by a supply sergeant's Staff Sergeant rating. All three were conscientious, or , at least, not outright gold bricks. They were not aggressive or sparked with any amount of initiative, but they had conservative service, records, uncolored by AWOL's or courts-martials. That was more than could be said about most of the others.

The rating of first sergeant went to a cocky youngser, Harvey Heck, who, still an adolescent in mind, was sadly deficient of the qualities that would make even a fair first sergeant. To give him a rank equal to that of Don Hayes, our own First Sergeant, was practically an insult to Don, whose steadyness, fairness, intelligence, and energy made him one of the best-liked men in the battery, and probably the best First Sergeant that A Battery of the 136th Field Artillery Battalion ever had. We learned, with some satisfaction, that Heck's rating was taken from him hardly more than twenty-four hours after it was so ill-advisedly bestowed on him.

Jeff Duncanson, who was Walt Gravdahl's section chief used to get letters from Walt, or "Ol' Grahvy" as he called him. Walt probably made out better than anyone else, for he remained in the United States as a battalion supply sergeant somewhere. But, characteristically, he still complained. "Ain't that just like Ol' Grahvy," Jeff would say, after reading one of Walt's letters. He complained that he was doing a tech sergeant's job without the benefit of the extra stripes -- or the extra pay. "Some guy's," observed Jeff, "don't know when they're well off." Jeff was still a line sergeant.

The large dent left in our battery by the departing cadre revived the cherished conviction that we wre not ready for combat duty. We simply could not go into combat under-manned. To those of us who held such beliefs, the citing of our first extensive training in the field made little difference. "Anyway," the invevitable clincher would come, "you can't use 155's in the jungles." The answer to that, four months later, was, of course, "The hell you can't!" Without such a conclusive answer yet demonstrated, however, we remained serene in our convictions. "We'll be here a long while," we breathed with satisfaction as we watched the Fijians, in their usual dilatory way, erecting the bures. Some with longer memories reminded us of the Suva area we left behind, recalling that the feverish building program was still going on there almost up to the very day we vacated.

No, there was no use in kidding ourselves. Our days on Fiji were numbered. Reflecting the common distatste for anything unknown and persumably dangerous, we were, in a way, all for postponing the evil day of combat. Nevertheless, in another way, many of us were growing restless, eager to get off Viti Levu. I know I was. I was sick of the extremes of aridity and wetness (although we got no relief from these until we returned to the States); I was sick of the sight of moping Indians, sick of the half-dead atmosphere of the very life of Viti Levu, sick of the millions of toads of all sizes that used to come out at night and populate the very ground under our feet. We would be leaving, one of these days, and would be glad to go, too.

We were not quite certain when the Fijians' work on the bures stopped. One day they were apparently working, the next day there was not a Fijian in sight. We looked in vain for the trucks that usually brought them. Their share in the building project was finished. The next move was up to us; in short, we were to put in concrete floors. Therefore, while most of the battery was over in Nandi or Lautoka on field problems, a few of us, under Jeff Duncanson's direction, remained at base camp and laid the cement floors. It was not easy work, but the group was congenial, and I preferred this work to being with the battery where I would have to run surveys and waste a lot of time on OP's. We usually went swimming in Cuvu (pronounced "Thuvu") Bay after knocking off work. Occasionallly we would go to the bar of the Sigatoka Hotel for one of the rarest of all luxuries in a British country: ice-cold drinks, in this case, beer. One afternoon we encountered Tom Hulse, our mess sergeant, who seemed to be spending -- and enjoying -- his furlough in quite fluid fashion. He greeted us warmly and munificently ordered all drinks on him, so we all had a beer. Still feeling magnanimous, he repeated his invitation, and we accepted. Sam Beechan and I stopped judiciously after our second, but most of the others had a third, also, I think, on Tom. Some refrained, I think, on the fear that Tom's generosity might exceed his material resources. It turned out to be a groundless fear, however; Tom was amply supplied with shillings to keep the bartender setting up drinks until closing time, which was 6 p.m.

The mess hall floor was finished by the time the battery returned. The kitchen floor had been finished previously, so there were at least two bures that we could use for a short while before shipping out. It was certainly more conducive to eating than truck bumpers and ration boxes, though I can't say that it inspired our cooks to greater culinary efforts. Still, we flocked to the mess hall each morning, noon, and night at the first note from Jim Roepken's bugle, sometimes before. Vern Friend, section chief of the 3rd howitzer section, was almost always the first one in line. One evening, finding that his first place was about to be challenged by someone who appeared to be reaching the starting place ahead of him, he broke into a run, tripped over a tree root, and went sprawling, his mess gear flying in all directions. Ken Sterling, our machine gun sergeant, was a fellow with a sharp, sometimes cutting, sense of humor. He was also skilled in sketching with pencil or brush, so after watching Vern make his spectacular spill, he went to work and produced an amusing sketch which he posted up on the bulletin board outside the kitchen, and which gave us many a chuckle for several days. It showed a figure, with a hog's head and dressed in fatigues with staff sergeant stripes on the sleeve (Vern had recently been raised from a line to a staff sergeant), sliding along the ground on his tummy, with dust flying all around. A little way off was the mess gear, its component parts widely scattered. Underneath the picture was the caption, "What chow hog recently made this four-point landing?"

After the battry returned to base camp, there was definitely a moderating in the tempo of our work and other activities. The howitzer sections had, in the past few months, dug gun positions all along the coast from Lautoka on north. Now they could even forget the positions just across the road from the camp area. Our time was devoted more to lectures on the world situation and on maintenance of our equipment. Now we knew it was only a question of a few weeks, or even less than that, until our departure would be a reality. The great physical tension was about over. No more getting up before daylight, gulping breakfast down, and dashing off to a vacant field somewhere to hold simulated fire. There was the letdown from all that. But there arose a different tension, now, a tension resulting from uncertainty over the details of an event that was, in itself, an absolute certainty. When were we leaving? Where were we going? Were we getting some replacements? Would we be given new howitzers, new trucks, new rifles? This tension grew a little from day to day.

Well, here was the area that we were leaving. From the main road up to the first bures, the orderly room, the kitchen and mess hall, the land was open, uneven, and uninteresting. These bures were at the intersection of two small ridges from which smaller ridges fingered out. The living quarters of the battery were dispersed widely over the tops of these ridges. The instrument tents were farthest away from the orderly room and mess hall, and each day we trudged along three distinct ridges to reach the mess hall. There was no stream nearby, so we bathed and swam in Cuvu Bay (where I got battered by breakers one day) or in the river that flowed into it. A short time before we left the area, showers were rigged up, but until then we had to carry water back to our tents, and take sponge baths out of our helmets. The area itself was more isolated than the Suva area had been, and to see a movie we had to drive miles to the area of the 129th Infantry to the north of us.

The curtain was about to fall on our Fiji adventure. Each day we could sense a little more keenly the uselessness of our being there. Guadalcanal had fallen to the Marines and Infantrymen. MacArthur's New Guinea forces, including the justly-famed 32nd Dvivsion, were starting to roll and gain momentum having taken Lae, Salamaua, and Finschafen from the Japanese forces after stopping them at Fort Moresby. The threat to the Lower Melanesian islands had practically vanished. The New Year had come almost unnoticed, but the song, "White Christmas," full of poignant significance, was sung wistfully each night. On Christmas eve many of us went to a special service at the 129th area chapel, and it helped tremendously. In March of 1943 it was announced that men wanting five-day furloughs to either Lautoka or Suva could have them. There could not be more than five men away at a time, however. Jim Bishof and I deliberated, then decided to take ours together in Lautoka. The date decided on to begin our furlough was April 5.

On April 5, Jim, I, and the rest of A Battery were watching our first air raid from the top of Grenade Hill on Guadalcanal.

Chapter 9: "Ram-ram!"

2006-01-25T12:30:00.000-08:00

"Did you ever find any evidences of espionage or sabotage on any of your patrols?" I asked Sellers and Silverberg.

These two men were members of a mortar platoon in the 148th Infantry, and they bunked next to me on the States-bound ship, the Fairland. I was referring to the reputed activities of the Indian population in Viti Levu. Their reply was in the negative, "Although," added Silverberg, "as we'd approach one of their homes we would hear a radio going, although we couldn't tell what the program was. When we did get near enough to hear, the radio would go off. So we never found out. We would go inside, and the people would not object to showing us their radio. Sometimes they even pointed it out to us before we asked, but we were never inside a house when the radio was receiving anything. We had our suspicions, you see, but we couldn't prove anything."

I told about the reports I had heard to the effect that Indians were deliberately plowing huge arrows in an otherwise unplowed field, and that these arrows pointed to an airstrip (or other Army installation) not far away. Anything to that rumor? I asked. Sellers chuckled. "No," he said. "We heard that one too. Somebody went to investigate it and found that the plowed strip did resemble an arrow, only you had to be in a certain position to see it, and even then you needed a little imagination. It was just coincidence that it looked like an arrow at all."

This information interested me, for during the eight months we were on Viti Levu, a common remark heard was, "I wouldn't trust those Indians as far as I could throw them. I don't like them hanging around here." Consequently our manner was something less than warm whenever an Indian, on a friendly impulse, would drop in on us. The much-uttered dictum was somewhat tempered in the cases of Rami, Matiah, and old Mohammed Abdul. Rami was practically one of the gang. Quite against his religion (he protested), he played poker with members of the wire section -- and usually lost. Matiah, like Rami, called for and delivered our laundry. He was an alert man in his thirties (a little too alert to suit me, I thought) and very pleasant. I was cautious of him. Alert, and seemingly with a good education, he might be dangerous, from a military point of view, that is. Mohammed Abdul was quite old, very garrulous, and probably harmless. He spoke with such broken English I could not understand more than one word in fifty, but I'd laugh when he'd laugh, and nod my head and say "Yes, yes," as though understanding his little joke, and he would look immensely pleased. But for Indians in general, I was prone to subscribe to the attitude of suspicion. The opinion, often expressed, was: they are resentful of both their status here in Fiji and the unsettled question of the political future of India and her peoples. Having little love, then, for the British, the Indians, it was supposed, would jump over to the side of the Japanese if there were ever an invasion. Whether their hostility ever would have attained such extremes now seems doubtful, but at the time, the possibility seemed sufficient to warrant the detailing of some infantry men to patrol work. The work was quietly investigative, not the spectacular raid-type which was done in post-war Germany by the Constabulary to ferret out the pro-Nazis.

Just as we seldom saw a morose Fijian, so we seldom witnessed any display of cheerfulness, either inherent or superficial, in the Indian. Perhpas they are still brooding over the unhappy fate of some of their forebears, who, so the saying goes, being the first Indians in Fiji, were set upon and devoured by the then cannibalistic Fijians. I suppose the fear of a meat famine constantly haunts them, not for their stomachs' sake, but for the sake of their whole skins! Whatever might be the cause of their apparently perennial gloom, they are, without question, the greatest example of mass dejection outside of Brooklyn when the Dodgers lost the Series. We could not drive anywhere without seeing a crowd of Indians squatting solemnly in the shade of a big tree at the roadside. Returning by the same route a half hour or even an hour later, we would find the picture unchanged apparently. The same leasn men squatting as before on lean haunches, wearing the same glum expressions on their dark faces, some rolling a mournful eye up at us, others keeping their gaze groundward.

It would not surprise me if the Indians considered us as menaces to their security too. One day the wire and instrument sections were returning from some operations problems in Nandi, and, spying and Indian store with more than the usual stock of fresh fruits, we stopped and descended on the unsuspecting proprietor. The sudden rush of business caught him completely off balance, and distractedly he ran from customer to customer who were all clamoring for service and declaring their preferences. "How much for this melon?" someone would as, "six pence?" Dazedly the Indian would reply, "Yes, yes." "I'll take it!" the former would shoot back. "Here's a shilling. No, wait! How much are these papayas? Three pence each? I'll take two then." The customer would pick up the two papayas to make the total purchase come to a shilling. A few moments later, after waiting on tow or three others, the proprietor would return, giving the man change. Meanwhile, we were all whooping and shouting and creating general confusion, not out of deliberate malice, but just as a release for pent-up spirits after the long, tiresome, and dusty ride from Nandi. If that Indian proprietor came out even on that deal, it would be surprising.

Perhaps something else which gave the worrying Indians pause was the fact that nothing, apparently, was sacred to the Yanks. We had many playful men in our battery, and one of the must playful was a zany, roy Brombaugh, a six-foot farm boy from Ohio. It was he, I am sure, who, in a prankish mood, committed a most atrocious breach of tabu. Seeing a little Indian boy in the street of a town, Roy became fascinated with the boy's hair which was braided into a little pigtail atop his head. As roy began to examine it closely, making wisecracks all the while, the boy shrank back in alarm, and begged Roy not to touch his hair. It was against his religion, apparently. Roy is the kind who takes his own religion very lightly, so the boy's pleas did nothing but stimulate Roy's thoughts into more diabolical channels. Knowing Roy, one could see the end only too clearly, and the inevitable happened: Roy cut the pigtail off. Paralyzed for an instant in speechless horror, the boy was afraid to go home, but he did not wish to linger near Roy, either. Screaming frightened imprecations, he went off down the street.

Chapter 8: In the night watches.

2005-12-18T20:21:00.000-08:00

One of the most unusual places on which I had to do guard duty was an OP overlooking Suva Bay. It was on the other side of Suva and many miles from camp. This distance made it necessaryt to abandon the conventional guard duty schedule of two hours on and four hours off. The system decided on was a six-hour shift per man during the approximately twelve daylight hours, with the twelve hours of darkness being broken up by two men on the OP at the same time, the time divided as they saw fit.

The OP (Observation Post) had a magnificent command of the harbor and the water beyond. We were equipped with a BC 'scope* and one or two pairs of six-power binoculars, and we found plenty of occasion to use them. We studied the movements of various Naval combat craft, and when the visibility was good enough, the structures and details of those ships. I doubt if we could have told the difference between a Japanese mine sweeper and a British corvette in those days, but our scrutiny of anything in the water that moved was of the greatest diligence, and we carefully noted whether a vessel had three funnels or two, or whether the radio mast was far forward from the main superstructure. We were intensely interested in all identifying features, but somehow we hated to be pinned down and asked specifically what such and such a ship was. I passed an entire afternoon that way. When I got through, however, all I had was a collection of unclassified observations.

There were many great things to see, however, besides the array of vessels which were constantly creasing the blue water of Suva Bay and beyond. Always an impressive sight was the arrival or take-off of the great flying boats: the gull-winged, twin-engine PBM Martin Mariner; the great, four-engine PB2Y Consolidated Coronado; and the lazy, clumsy, but extremely valuable Consolidated Catalina, the PBY. The whole air throbbed when one of these monsters went into action and pulled itself out of the water

Sometimes I would scan the sections of the town that were visible; one time the pantomime of little Indian girls, dressed in the blue uniforms of their school, at play in the schoolyard over a mile away; another time a Chinese vendor of fruit trotting along with his wares balanced in baskets at ends of a bamboo pole that rested on his shoulders. He reminded me of the old fellow (maybe he was the same one!) who used to sell bananas at Cunningham road, always proclaiming the price of a bunch as "qua'ta dolla, qua'ta dolla!"

Near to the OP was a radar post, with its rectangular antenna mounted on a mast above the shack. Our interest in that place always intensified, and maybe there was a tinge of anxiety, when that antenna began swinging slowly, sweeping the air to trap an unwelcome signal. The incongruities which typified warfare in the Pacific Islands, presented thus by the radar post but a stone's throw from jungles, did not really end here, they began here. Everywhere we went we woud see the stark contrast between the tools of war of Western man (and copied by Oriental man) and the primitive conditions of the "unenlightened" man of the islands. The world of glittery aluminum and steel thrown open in harsh relief against the world of bamboo and palm.

That this world of bamboo and palm was not mute was demonstrated for Paul McCandless and me one night as we sat on the OP, slapping mosquitoes and scratching bites. It began at eight oclock. At the bottom of the hill and to the rear of us, where the road winds away from the OP, a drum began thumping, not very loud or very determinedly. It sounded quite tentative. Then it stopped, as if it hadn't accomplished anything. Voices. The soft, liquid voices of Fijian girls laughing. The heartier voices of the men. Talking; pleasant, friendly, subdued. More talking: a little louder and mingled with laughter. A few more tentative drum beats. Then a song, a Fijian song in full four or six part harmony, legato and mellow as only the Fijians can sing. At its conclusion, exclamations of "Vinaka! Vinaka!" More chatter, flowing now like a party in full swing. It was a party, or as such tings are called in Viti Levu, a "tra-la-la." Reflected light flickered in the treetops; the fires themselves of the celebrants were not visible from our vantage point. Niether, of course, were the celebrants. That made it all the more fascinating. Sometimes, after a short spell of comparative quiet, there would be an explosion of laughter, perhaps at a story, perhaps at some antics. We itched to see. Another pause might mean a bit of refreshment -- kava, of course. And so on and on. At midnight, the gaiety had not diminished in the least, but about 1 a.m. it did begin to lessen to a trickle. At three oclock quietness once more assumed its normal role in the sunless part of the day. How dull the OP seemed then!

Another OP of vastly different character was being manned at the same time. Located near the camp site on Cunningham Road, this OP gave us more headaches, heartaches, and backaches than anything of its size I can think of, excepting, perhaps, the command posts and fire direction centers that the FDC team set up on Luzon. This OP, located right across the road from the historic KP's stairs, was to be an underground affair, snuggled comfortably against the hill, its seaward side open for visibility. It called, therefore, for an enormous amount of digging in soil of the exact same nature as the soil in which the gun positions were dug: heavy clay on top, slatey substance beneath it. Its dimensions were, roughly, 6'x6'x6'. It was hard work, digging a hole that size. In those days, our officers were not prone to be appreciative of the conditions under which the enlisted men worked, mainly because they themselves never tried it. So, one day, when Lieut. Samuel J. Fornuto found us working at a tempo he considered lackadaisical, he made some bitter comments. "I can't see that you've done a damn thing," he fumed. "You might as well be back down there in your tent lyin' in your bunks." He was utterly speechless, therefore, when one of the men dropped his shovel and said, "Okay, then; let's go men." And back we went to our tent and did lie on our bunks!

This OP was supposed to have a roof over it, but neither Fornuto nor Lieut. Paul Conrad, nor Capt. Lange could arrive at any decision as to how the roof should be made or of what material. Fornuto snarled at us about that too, once. That brought me up out of the hole with one leap. "Listen," I told him, "if some of the powers-that-be around here could make up their minds what they want us to use and get us the material, we'd do it, but we can't do it with the few sticks of bamboo we have here. We're not mind readers, you know. We don't know what you want."

Well, he said, he would see to it that we got the right material, but he told us to use some initiative ourselves. That last suggestion received a snort of bitter derision from us, who knew only too well the Army often discourages individual initiative.

The roof was finally constructed, as I recall, with heavy bamboo poles laid fairly close together which supported two or three sheets of definitely second-hand corrugated iron. For better or worse, that was our roof, and the space under it, our OP. We then covered it with earth and planted bans there for camouflage. It was a monument to the endurance, patience, and plain sweat of six men. It was also an abomination. It leaked like the proverbial sieve, but long after the leaks stopped (which they did after the rain stopped) it remained dank and a happy hunting ground for Fiji's finest mosquitoes. There for company the men onduty had, besides, the mosquitoes, a BC 'scope, a telephone, a plotting table which came in handy for a rummy game in case one of the boys dropped in, a chair or two and that was about all.

The scope was placed so that its two periscopic lenses peered out of the small observation slit facing the ocean. The man on duty was expected to keep his eyes glued to the instrument regardless of the visibility outside. It was because of the obvious futility of looking through the instrument when all one could see was dense fog or rain that two of us on duty one time decided to sit back and take things easy until the visibility improved. (I don't recall now why there were two of us instead of one.) Anyway, we settled down to enjoy a rummy game, and as might be expected, the omnipresent Lieut. Fornuto made his appearance. He was very annoyed to find us so occupied, not, I think, because we were not tending strictly to our duties, but because we were just having too good a time. We remonstrated, pointing out with unassailable reason, we thought, that looking at the water through the 'scope was a waste of time because we couldn't see any water, that is, any salt water. The only water we did see was what was descending from the skies. Nevertheless, he admonished us to leave the cards alone and go back to the instrument.

So long as we remained in the Suva area, the Instrument section was not required to do any guard duties other than OP work. After we had moved to the vicinity of Sigatoka, however, there were several guard posts, and everybody in the battery was required to do guard duty on any or all of those posts. At the pinnacle of one ridge the OP was combined with a machine gun post, where, in my naivete, I wondered pessimistically how one man could load and fire the machine gun, let alone observe also. Luckily, we were never called upon to fire from this or any other machine gun post on Viti Levu.

This Sigatoka area, which I shall describe more fully later, was very spread out. It took fifteen minutes to walk from the main road to the farthest tent (an Instrument section tent, by the way), a distance of nearly a mile. On the other side of the main road were the howitzers. The tents were laid out erratically, following the aimless ridgelines. Fortunately, telephone lines were laid to connect all OP's and other guard posts with each other and with the Orderly Room. Later, when we got a recreation hall built, a phone was put in there next to the radio, and anyone on guard duty who wished could listen in to the news via telephone, if the phone at the radio was kept open. Later, greater technological steps were made; Switchboard was able to supply us with additional radio programs from the 6th F.A., via the line to that outfit. Our officers did not discourage this, probably because they realized it was a good way to keep the men on the posts awake.

Keeping awake was indeed difficult, especially in the morning hours before daylight. Darkness and silence always sat heavily on one's shoulders during guard duty, but seldom, I think, with such crushing weight as it did between the hours of 2 and 6 a.m. There was no radio then, so as one sat staring out into the blackness, he would jump eagerly to the phone lying beside him if he heard a whistle through it. It would mean one of the other guards, just as bored as he, was going to ask for the time as an excuse to exchange small talk to dispell boredom. Don Mock and I used to do this quite a lot. He was usually at the machine gun post and I at the observation - machine gun post. We would go over the day's events, swap rumors, and discuss radio programs. When one of us would get tired of talking, that one would say with a yawn, "Well, I guess I'll get up and stretch my legs for a while. We haven't got much more of this guard to sit out, anyway." Thus conversation was tactfully terminated, and flat statements of boredom avoided.

In retrospection I try in vain to select the most trying night of the many I spent on guard. It might be the second night on Guadalcanal, when I was assigned the post at the gun position. It might be on night at the guns in our Sigatoka where, in the drippingly humid air, particularly savage and numerous mosquitoes tried to carry me away. Or it might be the night on Bougainville when extra guards (of whom I was one) were posted for security around the battery while not far off members of the 148th Infantry Regiment, a notoriously phlegmatic outfit, were scaring the living daylights out of us by machine gun and rifle fire. We found out next morning what they were shooting at. A banzai charge? Not at all -- a goat, and somebody's laundry that was hanging on a line. It was of some comfort to us to learn that the regimental commander gave those men several kinds of particular hell for doing that, with the advice, "I want to see some Jap bodies the next time there is shooting like that.
_____________________
* Short for Battery (or Battalion) Commander's telescope.

Chapter 7: The Suva Area

2005-08-24T12:08:00.000-07:00

It is much easier to use the name Fiji in referring to the island we lived on than to be more specific and say, "Viti Levu." Fiji consists of several islands, the largest of which are Viti Levu and Vanua Levu. But Viti Levu means as little to the average person as does North Island, which refers to that part of New Zealand in which we also spent some time. Thus I use the name Fiji. There is no danger of confusion, anyway, because Viti Levu was the only island in that group that we were on.

We were acquainted with the Western fringe of the island only. What lay in the interior of the island, we were told darkly by New Zealanders, no white man knew, although cannibals were presumed to be still carrying on their ancient practices there. The New Zealanders were not very reliable prophets, however. They assured us that no white man, or soldier at any rate, would be able to stand more than three or four months in Fiji, and that we would probably be relieved in two, they said. We were there eight months, which proved, I suppose, that Americans can do anything.

Our first area was on Princes Road opposite Arjun's store. It was only a temporary site, first, because of the general undesirability of it, and second, because where our gun position was to be was some distance from this area, and we needed a camp site near where the guns would be. As I recall, we were not exactly certain whether we wanted to leave this area or not. It was an open field in which the ground was rolling, and this was bad enough. Our new area was at the bottom of a steep hill, which was worse. Fiji is not noted for its aridity, and where eighty or a hundred men walk repeatedly over a given area, that area is soon going to be denuded of vegetation, and mud, slippery yet sticky mud, will appear. That was true of the first area, and it would be just as true, unfortunately, of the second area. I recall how I watched, with crude amusement, the erratic, dubious progress being made by Ellwood Call returning quite drunk from Suva. I doubt if the carabaos we later saw in Luzon wallowed any more thoroughly in the mud than Ellwood, although I daresay they enjoyed their wallowing incomparably more. In the second area, he would, if he returned drunk from Suva again, have the opportunity of not only rolling around in the mud on slightly slanting ground, but also rolling down a very steep hill in any one of three directions. In fact, someone did do just that. I don't recall who it was now, but I remember that the event was good for laughs for two or three days afterward.

I shall try to describe the type of terrain our second camp was located in. It was characterized by steep inclines, and sheer drops alternating with narrow strips of level land giving the general effect of terraces on a huge scale. The road by which we reached this area ran in a generally east-west direction along the edge of a crest of land near the eastern end of it, following the downward-sloping contour of the land as it proceeded west. At only one point did the road meet our area which was mostly below it. This point was the western end of the camp area, and except for this one place, the road overlooked even the tops of the tents. The climb up to the road, therefore, was a steep one, so to facilitate climbing, steps were dug into the side of the hill and were reinforced with wood. That represented a climb about equal to a trip from the cellar to the attic of an ordinary 3-story house.

Those steps were the curse of the KP's. The kitchen was directly below them, so that meant that not only garbage was hauled up them, but rations were carried down them as well. And the KP's had to do both jobs. I had those chores to do many times. Three times a day the garbage would go up. I would take the can by one handle, the other KP would get the other, and we would count ourselves extremely lucky if the weather was not rainy. Usually it was, however. That meant that we would slip and slide with our full garbage can along the sloping ground before we reached the steps. Then the fun began. The steps were not wide enough for us to walk abreast with the can between us, so we generally went up tandem. If we attempted to straddle the steps, with the can bump-bumping its way up the hill over them, or if even one of us kept to the side while the other took the steps, we'd not get far, for the course denied us any traction. So we would make it in tandem, one step at a time, trying not to let too much of the garbage slop over on us. All this made ration and water carrying (both down-hill) seem like child's play. On hundred gallons of water down hill was nothing compared to twenty gallons of garbage up hill.

Tents were not laid out according to plan. The nature of the land precluded any such arbitrary arrangement. The hill, surmounted by the road that ran east and west, rose like a wall along the northern edge of the area, while a 100-foot deep ravine ran southward along the opposite edge, making a wedge-shaped shelf out of the land we had selected for our camp site. Most of the tents huddled around the kitchen tent. It was the more choice real estate, for palm trees grew quite thick in that spot. Here were the tents of the officers (naturally) and of the gun sections. That was one of the few times when the gun sections were given any kind of a break. The sections whose duties were less strenuous (Instrument and Communications sections) were assigned tent sites in the more barren portion of the area overlooking the ravine.

This ravine was an interesting feature of the landscape. I never explored it, for on week-days I was too busy, as we all were, and on Sundays I preferred to take things easy, or do whatever personal chores, such as laundry, I had to do. Nevertheless, I used to look across the ravine to the other side where a rocky mound of land loomed up, and found a good deal of interest in doing so. The sun rose behind that wall of the ravine, and silhouettes were created against the pink sky by an occasional native hut and a few stray trees. This scene was quite picturesque. Whenever there was a heavy rain, we could watch cascades of water which grew from shy little trickles into falls giving great animation to the scene through the blue-grey denseness of the rain all about us. After the cloudburst subsided, the water would continue to rush its headlong way down to the bottom of the ravine for a while. Then it would gradually taper off until it became a trickle again, keeping alive for a while one dark, shiny, vertical ribbon on the rocky face which was paling into dryness as the returning sunlight hit it. Then, even the ribbon would vanish as water ceased running off the grassy crest above the stony face.

On this grassy crest, as I mentioned, was at least one native hut, and every Sunday morning, sounds seemed to come from this hut, although they might have emanated from elsewhere. The sounds were drum beats, and although they were not eerie, heard in the quiet sunrise hours of Sunday, they were quite fascinating all the same. I always wondered what they meant. The beats would start slowly, without any rhythmical pattern, and increase in tempo and volume. Presently they would stop, and when the drumming resumed it would be in a definite rhythmical pattern, something like this:
-----

Then this was joined by beats from a second drum, and the two of them produced a rhythmical counterpoint which was exceedingly difficult to follow. After we had moved away from Fiji, the next time - and the only other time - we heard drums was on Bougainville. The drums, I think, were in the Fijian Army camp two or three miles down the road from us.

A stream ran long the bottom of the ravine, and at a place not far from the gun positions, the water formed a deep pool of fresh water just below a fall. It was an answer to a cannoneer's prayer, and although discovered by them, it was not monopolized by them. Everyone had a chance to it all day Sundays, and after 5 p.m. on week days. But since the pool was a good three-quarters of a mile from the camp area, it was too far to go before supper, and after supper darkness fell quickly. So, in order to have a bath more than once a week, we rigged up a shower beside a water hole. So long as we did not have too long a dry spell, the water hole supplied enough water to keep the battery in a reasonable state of cleanness. When the water level was low, however, so was everyone's morale, and each day, men would leave the gun pits earlier than they were supposed to, in order to get a bath at the pool before returning to the camp for supper. Those of us who worked around camp all day would sometimes skip supper altogether so that we could bathe at the pool if water at the shower was not available. In their tents, the cannoneers were noisily outspoken about the situation, particularly when there were officers around to hear the griping. They conducted a campaign of ridicule and caustic derision. One would say, "Hey, what's that awful smell in the tent. Don't anybody smell it?" Another would shoot back, "It must be me. I haven't taken a bath in seventeen days." "Seventeen days?" a third would speak up. "You're pretty clean, then. I haven't had more than two or three baths since we've been in this hell hole." And so it would go, the claims getting more exaggerated, comparisons more preposterous. The whole idea of it, of course, was to impress upon the officers the need for shorter working hours each day so that we could have more time to bathe and do our laundry. The working day was long. We had to be at our assigned jobs not later than 7:30 in the morning and we knocked off at 5 p.m. Some gun-sections actually had work to do after supper sometimes, and occasionally on Sundays. Later the schedule was changed so that we started and quit work half an hour earlier, but there was no reduction in hours.

Digging gun pits for 155 mm howitzers was tough, tiring, dirty work, and the working time per day for the men doing that work should have been cut by one-third. We had no bulldozers or tractors in those days, therefore all the digging was done by hand, and the final swinging of the guns into position was done by what strength the men had in their legs, arms, and backs. The pits were dug in just about the worst possible land. The top layer of soil was reddish brown clay with adhesive properties like tar and cohesive properties like cement. Below that was a harder, grey clay, impenetrable to practically everything but a healthy blow with a pick. And below that, slatey rock. Still the cannoneers dug down and down, to a depth of nearly six feet, or, in other words, through four feet of solid rock. Dynamite had to be used frequently. After the general work on the pits had been done, details were attended to. First there had to be a trail trench for the trail spade of the howitzer in each pit. The howitzers we used were the old Schneider M 1918, box-trail type. Traversing, that is, horizontal aiming, was limited to about 40 mils each way from center without shifting the trail. If a greater deflection was needed the gun trail had to be shifted by lifting it up out of the trail trench and dropping it down again at the spot which would give the desired deflection. The reason for the trench was to hold the spade, which in turn held the gun in place during firing. Then pits had to be dug for ammunition. Then personnel pits. Then drainage ditches. From the middle of August of 1943 to the end of November that year, we stayed in that area, and practically all that time was spent working on those gun positions.

I should mention that the rest of the battalion was at the other end of the island. Orphaned A Battery was attached to the 135 F.A. Bn., a 105 mm howitzer outfit. We took our fire commands (when there was firing practice) from the FDC of the 135th, and were known as X battery then. As if one set of gun positions for our four howitzers were not enough, we had to dig an alternate set, about 200 yards to the front of the first ones. Ordinarily a battery front, i.e. the distance between the first and fourth guns is 100 or 200 yards. The battery front for the new positions, however, was 400 yards - a hundred yards between pieces. In view of this, our battery, in regard to firing data and FDC procedure, would be treated as a battalion. That meant separate fire commands for each gun - a very complex set-up, as I shall explain later on. I merely mention these gun positions now to make more clear two of the abundant reasons for the very low morale of all of us during those months.

There were few compensations. We could visit the canteen or see a movie at the post theater in Samamabula, or we could go swimming and bathing in "our" pool. Outside of these, there was little activity besides our regular duties. There was one bright spot, however. There was an English family living just outside Suva, and on two or three week-ends they invited a few men of the battery to their place as guests. There was a swimming pool and tennis courts, and the men who went there had a wonderful time. I forget the reason I could not go; I believe my fire direction work kept me busy all through the week, or perhaps it was OP duty. Anyway, I was not able to make it and regretted it keenly.

Night problems and actual firing practice announced the beginning of the end of our stay in the Suva area. By this time, Bures (prounounced "burrys"), which are the native style dwellings, had been built for the orderly room, mess hall, kitchen, and a couple of the gun sections. This, of course, was proof positive that we were not going to stay long. It never failed. We would live for months at an area, using tents for our living quarters, but just let us start building something elaborate and livable, and that would be the time we'd have to move. And so, near the end of November, 1943, we left behind us several new houses for the Fijians - if they liked the concrete floors whic we put in - and craters all up and down Cunningham Road which would have served as gun positions in defensive fireing, should the island of Viti Levu ever have been attacked from the sea. There were three battery positions along that road, or twelve craters in all; two of the positions lay west of the camp site, and the other lay east of it.

Early one mornign the convoy assembled at the foot of the hill, near the orderly room at the west end of the camp. The operations sections must have been among the first to leave, for I remember sitting in the back seat of a jeep and hearing Captain Eddie Lange saying to me, with a broad grin, "Well, Mac, I see you're here bright and early," to which I replied, dispiritedly, "Yeah; well, anyway, early." I remember his light-hearted laugh when I said that. Still grinning, Lange, with quick, nervous movements, made his rounds of the other vehicles, checking up on personnel and equipment. On hand, to display his toothy countenance for the last time for us was a character we had dubbed Smiling Jack, of whom more later. Out in Suva Bay, the water and the sky were still indistinguishable from each other. There was an ennervating neutralness in the temperature of the air which made even the day itself seem tired before it got really started. Turning our backs on Suva Bay, we started up the hill, started on our long, dusty trip in a generally northward direction toward our new camp which lay twelve miles beyond the town of Sigatoka and a hundred-odd miles from Suva.

Chapter 6: Bula!

2005-06-04T20:38:00.000-07:00

The scene I beheld from the deck of the President Coolidge was one of the most picturesque I can recall. Suva, with its motly, ramshackled buildings, indecisive streets, and dark-skinned inhabitants, lay out there, just over the side of the ship, and I itched to jump over the rail and dash doen the companionway leading to the eocks. "Exotic" and "fascinating" are two overworked words, and I am not sure that they would apply to Suva, but there was something about that town that would make you want to be down there in its streets, among its people, yet at the same time to be where you can view the entire panorama at once. You get to wonder which way you will miss less: by staying where you are as long as you wish, letting your eye wander where interest takes it; or by going down in those streets, into those shabby buildings, and seeing at close hand what had piqued your curiosity from a distance. I never could decide whether distance or proximity lent the greater enchantment.

The most colorful citizens of Suva were, for my money, the police, yet strange to say, I can't for the life of me recall how they were dressed. I remember a scolloped-bottomed skirt and a shirt as being the commplete uniform, and that somehow the combination in color was red and white or red, white, and blue, but that is as near as I can get. It is exasperating not being able to remember what they looked like, for when I first saw them, I was certain I would never foget their appearance.

Although it was not raining on our ship when we docked, we could look across the low-lying coastal area to the mountains not far away and see gray rain clouds draped like garments over the land. It began to rain shortly after we had debarked, while we were standing around waiting for transportation to our camp area. It was still raining when we reached the camp site, and we had the fun of putting up pyramidal tents in the rain. It was all very reminiscent of Rotorua, except that the Fijian rain was not as cold, but it was many times wetter.

Most of the tents were on a slope, which meant that we had running water - in one side and out the other. Our first job, then, was to provide drainage. The second was to provide light. But as night came on, the urgency of these diminished, for with the night came the mosquitoes, and our primary aim then was to seek protection under our mosquito bars from those pestiferous visitors.

Before then, however, we dug drainag ditches along the four sides of the tent, getting thoroughly muddied up in the process. We hoped that, by doing this, we would keep the mud, already three or four inches deep, from getting deeper in the tent, and we counted on its drying up in a day or two. Until such time, one could stand up at the high side of the tent, give himself a little shove, and slide to the low side, something like a skier.

The second necessity, namely light, was met by going out and purchasing candles and lanterns from the store across the street. The lanterns, which burned kerosene, gave more light than the candles, but were less dependable. They were similar to American lanterns in their general design, but were only about one-third the size, and thy were made in Hong Kong or Shanghai. Nevertheless, they answered the purpose until we were able to get something better. The faulty ones were taken back to Arjun, the Indian proprietor of the store, and he made replacements, I believe. He should have, his business must have flourished in the week or so we were there. His merchandise was nothing if not diverse; papayas and bananas in season, kerosene for the lamps, pineapple juice and ginger beer, cheap jewlry, clothing, watches, and soap. (Lux, no less!) This store, I found out later, was typical of practically all Indian stores, and that emant practically all stores, period, because merchants were just about 100 per cent Indians. The native Fijians seemed to prefer vocations less confining. The striking thing about these stores was their similarity. You could find the same sort of things for sale whether you were in Suva, Lautoka, or any small town in between. Just when I ceased being amazed at such things as Lux and Lifebuoy soap, I saw in a store outside of Sigatoka a box of Kellogg's Corn Flakes, which was dark with dust. I longed to see the intrepid person who would buy that item, for it looked months, maybe years, old.

Before we left the first area near Suva (we stayed in two), we were introduced to a sample of native music and talent. Into a tent one day wandered a little Indian boy, and with hardly any encouragement at all, he began singing a rather interesting little song either in Hindustani or in Fijian, I am not sure which it was. When he came around to my tent, I persuaded him to come in and sing it again, while I tried to take down the notes. I did not need to bother to do that, however, for as it turned out we heard that song many, many times during our eight months in Fiji. It was a Fijian farewell song entitled, "Isa Lei!" I am not certain that it is a folk tune, however, for one of the men showed me a published copy of the ong with piano accmopaniment, guitar arrangement, and English version of the lyrics. A British Army officer was credited with both the words and music, and his picture, as well as a picture of a Fijian "beauty" appeared on the cover. If the officer had merely written down what had been sung to him as a folk song, and if he had written original English lyrics to the melody, the published work gave no such indication. It probably has no more authenticity as a "folk song" than do many of the "Hawaiian" songs we hear, but it is very tuneful, nevertheless. I am a little surprised that I have not heard it on the radio, for many of the men over there were quick to pick up and spread musical "culture". Just how quick, I learned to my amazement one day when I saw a group of fijian youngsters swinging down the road singing, "Roll out the bar-rell, for the gahng's all he-ah." I had hardly recovered from this when they started in on "You are my sunshine." Apparently the Yank's facility for picking up songs and transplanting them was matched by the Fijians' aptitude for learning those that he brought them. But in all the eight months I was there I never heard any but those two songs from the mouths of the Fijians, and, with the exception of the youngster I already mentioned, no songs at all -- native or American -- from the Indian population. (More about these people later.) I thought it might be that most American popular songs were too complicated, and that these two banal, bucolic ditties were about all their musical abilities could manage. Howevere, I have since read incaroline Mytinger's entertaining and informative book on the Solomons that some of the Fijians' Melanesian brothers in one of those islands to the north of Fiji learned the Cole Porter song, "Night and Day" down to the last sophisticated syllable. So I really don't know why modern American music did not make a larger dent than it did on Viti Levu.

But the two-way flow of our respective "cultures" was unmistakable. Particularly was the "flow" in our direction when it came to drinks, such as the native kava. What kava is, what it is made of, and what it does to you, I have never been able to determine with any assurance of accuracy. Never having tasted it myself, I queried several men who had, and their replies were irritatingly inconsistent, especially on the point of what it does to you. It apparently made some men sick, others slightly intoxicated, others awfully intoxicated, and still others claimed to be afflicted with a temporary paralysis of the legs after an evening spent imbibing the contents of the kava bowl. This much I know. To refer to Caroline Mytinger's book again: she mentions kava drinking a ceremonial custom or practice, but does not, I think, mention any drunkenness resulting from it. This again was in the Solomons where the customs might be different -- but not too different -- from those of the Fijians, members themselves of the Melanesian race. If drunkenness is not on the order of the day with those affairs, and with the Melanesians such sticklers for ceremony, I have a hunch that getting tight would be considered very bad form.

By the time we were ready to ship out to the Solomons, some of the men had learned quite a few words of Fijian, but while we were still on the Suva side of the island, none of us knew very much of the language, although we knew how to greet the natives (if we wanted to). It was such a ridiculous word that I was suspicious of it at first; it made me think of the well-known Yale song. Nevertheless, when I tried it out I received a very warm and courteous reply in Fijian. The greeting is, "Bula," and it means not merely "Hello" or "good morning," but, "To your health," or "Good health to you," or something to that effect. And the reply is, "Bula vinaka." The expression, "Sa vinaka na bula" means about the same thig, I think, but it is probably a more formal greeting.

That was about as far as I got with the Fijian tongue. I got no further with Hindustani, or whatever the language of the Fiji Indians is. "Ram ram" (with rolled R's and broad a's) mant "good morning," and "Sitaram" (I am in doubt about the spelling) meant good afternoon," or else it was the other way around. Althought we got more or less used to "Bula," "Ram ram" never lost its absurd sound, and Bob Grady found great hilarity in saying "Ram ram" to every Indian we passed in the truck. Usually, they would say "Ram ram" right back at him, with a deep bow of the head. Then he would reprat it, with a similar bow. Not to be outdone in this formal, if excessive, exchange of courtesies, they too would repeat their greeting, and this would keep up until the truck left the Indians too far behind for the bows to be anything but wordless gestures.

That combination of three letters must be almost indispensible to the Hindustani tongue, for ita appears often in that language with many other variations. It is also a name. On a street corner in Samambula is a tailor shop, the proprietor of which has his name, Ram Roop, in bold letters on a sign over the door. That alliteration never failed to catch my eye and tickle my risibilities whenever I went past the place.

I had heard so much about "pidgin English" as spoken in th eSouth Pacific islands that I listened with great curiosity whenever I heard any of the Fijians talk. According to books I had read, pidgin English was the only language or patois which white men who knew anything about anything out there would think of when conversing with a native. It was the farthest concession a native would make whenever he found it necessary to talk to an English-speaking white person. In short, it was the only way "to really get along." That may be true with British Malaya, with the Solomons and the Bismarck Archipelago, with New Guinea, or with the British East Indies. I was never in New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, the B.E.I., or Malaya, and I never talked wiht any Solomon Islanders, so I wouldn't know. But anyone who says the Fijians speak pidgin English will have to show me. The ones I talked with spoke English with varying degrees of fluency and accent; none of them resorted to the silly "He him fella b'long me falla" sort of nonsense which distinguishes pidgin. I never had to resort to mental acrobatics to dope out any such verbal ideographs. Fijians often omitted definite and indefinite articles, did strange things with verbs, or in other ways fumbled for the mot juste, but I was spared the infantile "talk-talk" which, on other islands, blacks and whites alike are apparently forced to use. Ever since I first read about pidgin English years ago, I have wondered how it got started. I suspect it all started with some early Britesh planters or some other kind of enterprising "colonial" men who were too lazy, to stupid, or too busy to learn the native tongue, and who decided that since they were dealing with primitive, and therefore childish, people, baby talk would be the appropriate middle ground. This is a dim view, I grant, and I may be maligning some worthy Britishers most horribly, but these are my conclusions all the same.

I am reminded of an incident related by Sir Bruce Lockhart in his book, "Return to Malaya." It happened in India. A visiting Englishman expressed to his host a desire to meet an Indian rajah. The host accommodated by pointing one out to him and suggesting that he speak to the young Indian. This rajah, an Oxford graduate, was then a sergeant in a group of Indian troops. With gestures the Englishman began the conversation with, "White man fire big gun -- boom!" Standing at attention and listening politely, the young rajah replied, "Tuan." More motions, more infantile words. Again, at a pause, the Indian repeated his polite, "Tuan." Finally, as the author says, his supply of baby words exhausted, the visitor went away and returned to his host, to whom he said, in effect, "A fine young man, that one, but I don't think he understood anything I said." His host replied that he was sure he did, for the Indian had been "four years at Balliol." Perhaps he mercifully withheld the information that the Indian had also been to Oxford!

Why pidgin English apparently is not spoken in Fiji is something I do not know. Perhpas it was once, but since that time education progressed to a point where the linguistic crutch sould be discarded.

The Fijian Army was remarkably well-equipped and trained, remarkable, that is, when one realized that the not-too-remote ancestors of the men of this army were cannibals, and cannibalism is usually a fair index of the primitiveness of a people. The Fijians drove their own trucks, operated their own phone and wirless communications, and probably had a working knowledge of the servicing as well as the firing of various weapons which included the Enfield rifles. I met one such Fijian on Bougainville. His name was Stephen R. Nasau, and he was a switchboard operator in the First Regiment. He was discontented, however, with that job, he said. It was located too far behind the lines. He wanted to get into a rifle company where he would see some action. We talked for quite a while, and somehow the conversation got around to the song, "Isa Lei." I asked him if he knew all the words, and he said that he did and would be glad to write them down for me. He did. Later I showed them to Bob Grady who wanted to keep them. I am sorry I didn't keep the paper myself now. Stephen wrote slowly and carefully, but I would not say laboriously. When he had finished, the writing was neat, black, and quite readable.

We got along well with the Fijians while we were on Viti Levu. As I have said, they were friendly and generally happy. Physically, they are superior to all the Melanesians I have seen, and they are superior in the same way to the Filipinos as well. They are sturdy, and their average height is at least equal, I would say, to the average height of Americans, both men and women. The picture of a husky Fijian ambling along, scowling in the glare of the bright sun, and generally carrying a bolo in his hand, is a sight that makes you glad that these fellows are on our side. But the Fijians recognized this allyship, and acted accordingly, playing the perfect hosts. Considering the many unfortunate incidents that occurred all over the world in which American service men and civilians of other countries were involved, I am pleased to say that there was practically no violence at all in Fiji while we were there, between the Fijians and us. This means not only that both groups were better behaved, but also that there was more of a disposition towards tolerance and broad-mindedness and mutual respect. It was good to see, for there should have been more of it throughout the world than there was.

Chapter 5: Journey to Fiji

2005-02-13T12:12:00.000-08:00

The circumstances surrounding our departure from New Zealand have slipped from my memory. I do reecall what I was doing a few days before sailing. I have a slight scar over my left eye to remind me of it. I was on a loading detail in the hold of the U.S.S. President Coolidge. We were loading barracks bags into the starboard side of the ship from the wharf. As we became more coordinated and adept in handling the bags we also became faster, until the bags were being thrown with pretty gay abandon. Once, however, I was not quite fast enough in resuming my receiving stance after putting a bag in place. The next bag was thrown at me before I was ready to catch it. It hit me on the side of the head, knocking my head against the sharp corner of a crate. The corner met my eyebrow - one of the tenderest spots on the head - and forthwith laid it open. Stunned, I left the hold immediately and went to the first aid station near the docks. There, my eyebrow was shaved, and an adhesive tape bridge was used instead of stitches to help close the wound. This was but the first of many accidents I received while overseas.

Although I can not remember what was going on when we pulled out of Auckland, certain features of the trip to the Fiji Islands are very clear in my memory. One feature was the interior of the ship. New, the Coolidge was a nice ship. In fact, it was a luxury liner, one of our newer ships and appointed inside like a swanky hotel. But after the President Monroe, it was simply overwhelming. I might mention that the Monroe was, still is, I suppose, a cargo ship with very limited passenger accomodations. We used to get fleeting glimpses of the interior of the superstructure in which the officers were quartered. Nicely appointed, but small; definitely limited in its accomodations. The enlisted men (on the Monroe) lived underground, so to speak, in the holds one or two decks below the main deck. Down there, all they could see were bunks and ladders leading to the upper decks. When they came up on topside for sunlight and air, they could fix their fascinated gazes on such items of interest as cables, winches, masts, or lifeboats. The President Coolidge, on the other hand, had winding stairways leading from one deck to the other. One walked on carpeted floors or linoleum, not bare metal. There was ample room to move about, and enough light to lessen considerably the chances of breaking a leg. And the mess hall! No makeshift galley, this. Here were tables arranged neatly and painted gay colors. Here were chandeliers and wall bracket lights with attractive shades. Here were walls paneled and mirrored alternately. Here were real portholes which could be opened during daylight hoursthus letting in air as well as light.

And the food - the food hit an all-time low. Worse than we got on the Monroe, it was the worst we got on any ship, and worse than some of the rations we lived on during combat. Dysentery cut loose one day at sea and kept the medics in sick bay busy for hours dispensing paragoric. I fell in line for my ration of camphorated opium along with most of the rest of the battalion.

Our bunk area was on the port promenade deck, which, although enclosed as long as the ship remained a troop transport, was airy and quite comfortable. Just inside off the deck was the lounge with soft sofas, carpeted floors, and, here and there, tables and lamps. The main attraction, however, was a miniature upright piano. Altogether a very nice setup.

Several of us wandered into the lounge, revelled in the luxury of the sofas for a while, then began finding other things for diversion. Some of the men got up poker games while others read. I went over to the piano and started to play. Soon there was quite a crowd of fellows standing around, adding request to request, as fast as I could play the numbers. We were all enjoying it greatly. I was, anyway, and I'm sure the rest of them were too, for many times during the three years we were over in the Pacific, one fellow or another would recall the good time we had around the "pie-anna on the Coolidge." I felt very flattered.

We should have known it could not last. Soon, in came an officer and said, "Sorry men, but you'll have to leave. This is reserved for officers." Sorry! Like hell you're sorry, we muttered to ourselves. So out we went, mumbling and cursing. I'll never forgive the officer or officers responsible for that raw deal.

More appalling, however, was the fact that certain enlisted men with talent were requested to put on a show for the officers in that lounge. Hayden Holm, our battery clerk, was one who was asked. A tenor who had studied at the Cincinnati Conservatory, his singing had long ago come to the attention of certain staff officers of the Division, notably a Major Nicholas. I think it was he who asked Hayden to sing. Hayden agreed, and picked me for his accompanist. I protested and argued. I told him that I had never accompanied anyone in my life, that I could not read music, and that I played only by ear. Moreover I hastened to point out to him that the officers had not long ago thrown us out of their precious lounge, and tha their wanting us back in there to entertain them was almost more than any man with a shred of pride could stomach. I urged Hayden to find someone else. There was another pianist on the ship, I told him. I had heard him play. Get him, I said. Hayden said he had asked the fellow, but the fellow had said that he could not play without music. Hayden had no music with him. He would sing a couple of familiar tunes. Ironically, my weak point turned out to be my asset. Hayden needed someone who could play by ear.

I liked Hayden. He was a person almost anyone could like; jovial, a good mixer, equally at ease with officers or enlisted men. We always got along well together, and I didn't want to let him down. So I consented to play his accompaniments. His songs were familiar enough that faking the accompaniments was quite easy. They were "One Alone" and "Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life." I am not sure whether there was a third one. We had tentatively considered "I'm Falling in Love with Someone," but I'm not sure whether that was on the program or whether we cut it out. The applause from the officers and nurses who made up the audience was moderate, polite. I felt like saying, like Eeyore, "Thank you, thank you. Gratifying, if a little lacking in smack."

After it was over, I felt like crawling back to my bunk. I tried to justify my part on the entertainment by reiterating that I had done it only as a favor to Hayden. I don't know whether I convinced any of the other fellows who I was sure despised me, but I never did quite convince myself, and I never quite got over the incident.

It was on this trip that I got my inspiration, such as it was, for the little poem, "On Shipboard." I had been hanging over the rail for some time, watching the phosphorescence, when the poem came to me, or at least part of it. I wrote down the next day what I remembered, then I worked out the rest.

Generally speaking, the trip was a dull one. We had a brief spell of bad weather once, and one day, when I was in a card game on deck, I was startled out of my wits by a gun going off just above my head. The gun crews were having a little target practice. Outside of that and the incidents I have already described, there was nothing on this trip to set it apart as a particularly interesting or enjoyable one.

Chapter 4: "And so, reluctantly ... "

2005-02-06T21:53:00.000-08:00

Going by past experiences, the older men of the battery were convinced that we would be leaving New Zealand soon. To give strength to their statements, the men would cite the case of Indiantown Gap, where we had a three-day field problem and were alerted shortly afterward. They also mentioned the maneuvers and field problems in Mississippi and Louisiana which preceded the northward move to Indiantown Gap.

They were right, of course, though we all kept hoping that for once signs would fail. We soon began the tiresome routine of crating and packing, assigning priorities to equipment, checking shortages.

We of the Instrument section packed our equipment rather joyfully. We knew that there would be no more schools or survey problems for a while. So into the same crates that we used on the trip from the states, went the plane tables, plotting equipment, BC 'scopes, aiming circles, ranger finder, grid sheets and overlay paper, firing tables and survey textbooks.

To the battery as a whole, in fact to all units of the Division, were issued clothes more appropriate to the tropical climates we would be living in. The most disheartening sight among all the equipment, however, was the array of brand-spanking-new picks, shovels, pick-mattocks, and axes. The curse of all Army men, particularly Ground Force men.

I think the people of New Zealand got an unqualified vote of approval from everyone in the Division. To one man, Luther ("Luke") Timmerman, they would have been neighbors, for had he lived, he would have gone back there to stay. Many of us shared a wish, though with none of us was it as serious as it was with Luke.

It is really needless to say that every one regretted leaving, and I hope the New Zealanders felt the same way. It was the only Allied nation of all those visited by American Armed Forces in which Americans did not seem to be resented or victimized by dishonest and unscrupulous merchants or other individuals. For example, trading at the camp's post exchanges, which were managed by members of the New Zealand Army, was always carried on in a dignified, yet friendly, and - above all - honest way. The men behind the counters were considerably tolerant and patient with us when we would stumblingly try to translate cents into shillings and pence, or vice versa. Although New Zealand sometimes was given the benefit of the doubt on fractions of a cent in individual transactions, these men never deliberately overcharged us or took advantage of our confusion over the two monetary systems. Soon, of course, we got used to the British system and could make our own way through the monetary maze, but we never had to learn it the hard wya, that is, by the bitter lesson of men who have been cheated.

The RNZAF men on the President Monroe gave us some tips on the money angle, and answered questions on miscellaneous subjects. They cautioned us about the New Zealand beer which was considerably higher in alcoholic content than American beer, and advised us to go easy with it for the first few days until we got used to it. Of course, right then and there, some men made up their minds to find out just how much New Zealand beer they could drink at one sitting, as soon as they could get some.

The last few days were spent at Auckland on board the U.S.S. President Coolidge which we loaded and slept on in alternate shifts. I was fortunate in never having had to work on a night shift.

Bob Mull and I got one final pass during one of those nights, so naturally we went to see the Hills. We were bursting to tell them the news, which, of course was not supposed to be let out by anyone to anyone. We told them, anyway, stressing the importance of secrecy. We debated with Mrs. Hill the question of whether she could get word to our respective families where we were going. The decision was in the affirmative, and Mrs. Hill promised to send off letters soon after we had left. Apparently, however, those letters did not get past the New Zealand censors. It was a desperate step. There was so tantalizingly little which we of the division could say in our letters home, an destinations were not in that category. Neither were many, many other things, as we kept finding out all the time.

How very short that evening was! All I seem to recall is our short visit with the Hills and our mad dash down Mount Albert Road to catch the last tram that night from Mount Albert to Auckland. And our misgivings when we got back to Queen's wharf: did we overstay our passes, and could we get by the MP at the gate and the guard at the gangway without any trouble?

We had no trouble, however, so upon boarding the ship we went straight to our quarters. There was the letdown, of course, upon realizing tha the change of climate and scene would be an abrupt and cruel change. And, following the letdown, the vaguely depressing notion that we would have been better off - from the standpoint of morale - had we remained on or around the ship, within the military atmosphere. Undoubtedly our self-censure would have been more acute, however, if we had not taken advantage of our opportunity to go out on pass, and undoubtedly we knew this when our spell of depression had passed.

Chapter 3: The Great Rotorua Pig Hunt

2005-01-07T13:38:00.000-08:00

Some, with contempt and acrimony, called it the Rotorua Rat Race, for the excursion seemed as much of a waste of time as one. The ostensible mission was firing practice in the form of field problems. Live ammunition was to be used, but after getting there, we found out that the New Zealand government would not grant us permission to use its forests for a firing range; not an unnatural viewpoint, I think. Thus thwarted, Colonel Shafer reluctantly settled for dry firing operations instead. But so that the trip would not be a total loss, some of the battalion brass went on a wild pig hunt with some New Zealand officers. I don't think they caught anything, but I suppose they got some sport out of it anyway.

Rotorua is situated among the hills and plateaus of North Island and was, as a consequence, very cold when we were there. Actually, our camp was several miles from Rotorua, but that was the only town near, or the main one, anyway. The town, it is said, is New Zealand's version of Yellowstone, and such an analogy is not entirely misleading. Its atmosphere eternally permeated with a sulphurous odor, it abounds in hot springs which are its chief asset. New Zealanders, it is said, come from far and wide to bathe in the hot springs and pools, and, in more exploratory moments, to brows around the Maori villages. It is quite a resort. "Something like Yellowstone" - only far less attractive. Of course, we saw it under far from advantageous conditions. There was not only the off-season dullness, but the war-time drabness as well. As in Auckland, theaters in Rotorua were unheated and streets were very dimly lit, if lit at all. As for lack of natural beauty, the poor weather might have accounted for some of that, but even so, there was nothing to compare with the grandeur of Yellowstone.

I went through the Rotorua maneuvers with remarkably little work. I can remember just one occasion when I was actually or actively functioning as a memeber of the battery. That was when [I] had been dropped off at the battery position in advance of the rest fo the outfit and was to wait until the guns arrived. Then I was to designate the gun positions to the sections chiefs or to the battery executive. All other times I was just so much dead weight. I was supposed to be a battery agent, a fellow whose job was to carry messages between the battery and the battalion CP in case all the other lines of communication went out. But I never was called on to act in any such emergency, so I and my jeep driver, Harry Bogan, usually curled up in the vehicle and went to sleep until the field problem was over.

On the one occasion when I was of some use, I waited in the cow pasture that had been designated as the battery position, and surveyed the landscape. It was not anything spectacular, as I recall, but my attention was arrested by a bird of about the same general appearance as that of a swallow. It would flutter down around my head and close to the ground. By this time, a little girl living in a nearby farmhouse overcame her shyness enough to come out, although she did not say anything at first.

I finally asked her if she thought there was something wrong with the bird's wing, because its fluttering seemed to indicate that. "No," she answered, "that is a fayuntile." That, of course, explained everything. Any further questions from me would be purely rhetorical or a waste of time. Still, I said, "A what?" And she said again, "A fayuntile."

By this time, the bird had lit on a branch of atree, and commenced spreading its tail and twitching it. "Oh," I exclaimed with a newly awakened intelligence, "a fantail!"

The little girl stood there, marvelling at the slow-wittedness of a grown man.

Then there were days I did not go out with the battery at all. At Papakura, I had begun to have a little trouble with a sore spot on one of my heels. I had showed it to Captain Simon Bunin, the battalion medical officer. "Oh, just a touch of athlete's foot," he said, and directed one of the men at the aid station to treat it accordingly. It was not athlete's foot I knew. It had been a blister, and was then starting to get infected. But the doc said it was athlete's foot, so they treated it as such.

That was just before we left Papakura. A day or so after we got to Rotorua, the pain was so sever I could not keep my shoe on, so I hobbled over to the aid station and found, upon inspection, not athlete's foot giving me trouble, but a peach of a boil. It was lanced, and the wound was dressed, but it kept me out of circulation for another day or so anyway.

It was during one of those days that it snowed. A fall of about half an inch in depth! There were several of us who, for one reason or another, did not go out on the field problem, so it was our assigned juob to keep the home fires burning, literally. Nearby fields and woods were searched for wood which we kept piling on. the reason for the fires is obscure now; it seems to me there was a large, rectangular, canvas-covered shelter (I'd hardly call it a tent) known as a drying shed, presumably for drying clothes. It was in there that we kept the fires going. It got a bit smoky at times, but all in all, it was a pleasant detail to be on. We had been almost perpetually cold or wet or both during our stay around Rotorua, and the fires gave us a rare and welcome opportunity to get dry and thawed out.

Our dwellings were some conical-shaped tents borrowed from the New Zealand Government. That shape had no particular advantage I could see, and some decided disadvantages. In the first place, they could not accommodate more than four comfortably, but we slept six to a tent. In the second place, the choice we had to make between the only two possible sleeping arrangements was discouraging, no matter which way we made it. If we slept end to end, around the circumference of the tent, there was little or no space between men, and all were exposed to the gusts of cold air which frequently blew in at the bottom of the tent. If we slept lying like the spokes of a wheel, with our heads at the center of the tent, say, and our feet near the outside, anyone wishing to get in or out would have to crawl over two or three others. Also, if the very tall men slept that way, they would get very cold feet before long because, sleeping radially, only the men of less-than-average height were all inside the tent. Needless to say, the Rotorua sojourn is not remembered with any affection by any of the men. As I recall, my section, the Instrument section, used the circular method of sleeping, having tried the other way first and finding it eminently unsatisfactory. There were six of us in the tent: Sgt. George Storer, Cpl. Harry Prose, Cpl. Paul McCandless, Bob Glanton, Jack Spilker and myself.

One evening, Jack had a pass into town, and during his absence Bob Glanton and Harry Prose plotted a little trick to play on Jack to take effect when he returned from town. Knowing how cold it was outside (and inside the tent, too) and how Jack would relish rolling up in his warm blankets when he returned, the two schemers decided to leave a canteen of water outside the tent to get really cold, and then to insert it between Jack's blankets (his "bed" had already been made) near where his unshod feet would be. We imagined the shrieks and curses that would come from Jack Spilker when his bar feet touched that almost ice-cold canteen. When we heard the trucks swinging into the area late that night, we knew that Jack would be coming, so the canteen was brought inside and placed in the strategic spot. We waited gleefully. Jack came in, quietly crawling through the low entrance, found his place, and began to get half-undressed. We waited, smoe feigning sleep, others conversing quietly and nonchalantly with Jack. He wriggled down between the blankets. This was it! But instead of cries of alarm, Jack disappointed us all, by asking quietly, "Say, did any of you fellows leave a canteen over here? I don't think it is mine." A complete flop! Good night!!

We left Rotorua as we found it - in the rain. The breaking of camp was a miserable experience which had only one consolation, namely that we were breaking camp. The barracks at Papakura might not be heated, but at least they were dry, and the comforts of the various huts, such as tea in the afternoon or pool at night would seem very pleasant, very dear, in fact, to us when we got back. But while getting the tents down and loading them on trucks were gestures of finality, they were of undiminished unpleasantness. The turf had been erased by the combination of heavy foot traffic with soggy ground, so that only mud was left. The tents were soaked, naturally, thus they were slippery as well as heavy. Besides, they posed new problems of folding and packing. We were fairly used to handling the American "pyrams" as we called them, or "U.S. Tent, Pyramidal, M 1940," as the Army calls them, but these New Zealand affairs were neither the size nor the shape of our old friends. These tents, smeared with mud and folded fifteen different ways, looked quite different from the way they did when they were lent to us about ten days before, but frankly, we didn't give a particular damn.

So it was called the Rotorua Rat Race, for it was an aimless pastime, and the absurd alliteration was apt after all. Noboby caught any pigs, nobody fired any ammunition, nobody gained anything, and one man lost a thumb.

Chapter 2: Our "new home" - for six weeks.

2004-12-13T08:13:00.000-08:00

We had traveled southward for so long that I was sure we would be getting into South Polar waters before long. When we saw our first land in almost three weeks, it was in the shape of tiny islands, but icebergs they might have been. They rose sharply from the ocean and the straits, they were extremely angular, and they looked cold and lifeless as icebergs, but they were colored grey, brown, and other indeterminate shades. Nevertheless, they looked strange and inhospitable, and I felt like a member of an antactic expedition. That was ridiculous, of course, because the climate was quite mild.

To the amazement of most of us, New Zealand presented a civilized appearance. What gave it the unquestionable aura of civilization was, I think, the sight of trolly cars, or "trams," as they were called by the natives. In the golden light of a sinking sun, New Zealand looked inviting, charming, and supremely fascinating.

We might have made the landing quite differently from the way we actually did make it. Near the entrance of one of the straits or channels approaching North Island, a Japanese submarine was spotted and probably sunk. Had it attacked us, we might have made the landing in life boats at the nearest beach, rather than at Queen's Wharf with bright lights and loud music. I was blissfully unaware of the presence of any such menace even after the first depth charge was dropped. My attention was drawn away from the scenery by an air of excitement which had developed along the stargoard rail. Somebody said, "See, there goes another one!"

"Another what?" I asked.

"Depth charge."

Then I was told. There was the first depth charge. (Hadn't I heard it? Well, maybe I had; I wasn't sure.) The men down in the hold had heard it all right, became quite alarmed by it, in fact; it was quite a jolt down there. Then, just now the second depth charge.

I digested this information calmly. The fact that a submarine was that close (about a quarter of amile astern) didn't impress me somehow. I suppose I figured that as long as we had not been torpedoed yet, why worry? Then too, there were islands all around us and not far away, and that fact gave me all the confidence I needed. I wish that I had had that much confidence at times in the Solomons and on Luzon, however, when solid, dry land was right under my feet!

When we debarked, our barracks bags were put on trucks and taken to our camp at Papakura. We marched with our packs and Springfields to the Auckland railroad station. I don't recall whether the band was leading us or not. I suppose it was, for Shafer hardly took the battalion anywhere without band music. I do recall, however, there were little crowds of people at intervals along the sidewalks who applauded politely as we passed. I recall, particularly, my reaction, which was one of mild disappointment that there was not a noisier demonstration. Weren't we the first American division to land at New Zealand, or at any rate, in Auckland? And weren't we there for the express purpose of defending New Zealand against the Japanese aggression which was at that time threatening Australia? Then I decided that this was just an example of typically British lack of demonstrativeness. I realized, too, that Auckland was not New York City, and Queen Street was not Fifth Avenue. It didn't take the people of this new and wonderful country long to tell us in their own quiet way how grateful they were to us and to the United States for being there. They just didn't go in for a lot of whoop-la and ostentation and paper-throwing as New Yorkers will do if given a little encouragement. The Aucklanders showed their appreciation in a nicer and more sincere way than that: they invited us to tea, to supper, to dinner, to the theater, not collectively, of course, but individually, and with hardly more than an informal introduction.

Bob Mull, an Ohio boy, got to know Mr. and Mrs. Colin Hill in a typically off-hand way, and my introduction to them was with as little ceremony also. Bob was walking along a street in Auckland one day, when the Hills stopped beside him in their car and asked if they could take him somewhere. He told them he was just looking the town over, so they suggested that he come up to their houseand have tea with them. He did, and found them most hospitable. At camp the next day, he gold me about them, and asked if I would like to meet them. I immediately jumped at the invitation. So when he and I got passes together, we went to see the Hills. They were grand people. She was teaching music at the time, and he was a mechanic in a garage. They liked music, so in the evening they gave us a little music, he with the accordion, she with the piano. It doesn't sound exciting, but Bob and I were not looking for excitement, so we enjoyed our visits with the Hills completely.

I wasn't looking for excitement the day I went to Auckland with Jim Bishof either, but we almost got it anyway. Walking along the street, Jim and I became aware of someone addressing us in rather surly fashion. We turned to see where it came from and noticed two British sailors, one of whom was quite drunk - and consequently rather belligerent. "Oh-oh," I thought, "here's going to be one of those historic soldier-versus-sailor scraps. I've heard about 'em, but never thought I'de be mixed up in one." I didn't like the idea. There were too many M.P.'s around, and I, having only about five months of Army behind me, had not learned how much I might be able to get by with, had not learned all the ins and outs, so I was extremely cautious. I had kept my nose clean thus far, and I had no notion of landing in the guard house this early in the game. I was just young enough that even one night's confinement in a guard house, would have been a crushing, humiliating experience.

Jim did not like the idea, either. He was rather near-sighted, and to him glasses were practically indespensable. If he took them off, he couldn't see to fight; if he kept them on, they'd certainly get smashed. We used the better part of valor: we talked our way out of it - and we didn't have to buy the sailor a drink, either. We told him that we had never seen him before and that he had never seen us, so we saw no point in fighting. Then we asked him why he had singled us out as objects of assault and battery. He was not reluctant to tell us. He had been to America, Boston, specifically, and he had been rather shabbily treated by some "Yanks" while he ws there. If that was the kind of hospitality a New Zealand chap received there, he would be only too glad to return the hospitality to visiting Yanks in New Zealand. We smiled, and murmured something to the effect that there were plenty of Yanks in Auckland, and that he could find someone else to shower his "hospitality" on. With that we left, and the sailor made no attempt to pursue us or the argument any further. His chum was probably holding him back - or up.

At the Auckland station, following our march from Queen's Wharf, we boarded a three-quarter sized train. This train, by its "digest" size seemed to typify everything in and about New Zealand that I saw except the people. The automobiles, with the exception of an occasional American car, were in miniature. The whole North Island that I saw, indeed even that part which I could view from the train during the hour's ride from Auckland to Tironui station, seemed to be a condensed version of America. We passed through cities and suburbs; through cattle country and past agricultural farms. We went through dense woods of the semi-tropic, jungle-like kind one sees in Florida; got an occasioinal view of a fishing town. It was so like America, yet so unlike it, too.

After we got off the train at Tironui, we marched to the camp which was apparently just across the town line in Papakura, less than a quarter of a mile from the Tironui station. Surrounded by a border of what I took to be eucalyptus trees, and generously adorned with gardens of blossoming flowers (although it was wintertime down there), this camp was in many ways nicer than any camp I had seen in the states. Its chief disadvantages were the complete lack of heat or provision therefor in the barracks, and the plumbing facilities housed in separate buildings instead of within the barracks. But aside from these shortcomings, the Papakura camp was a very fine one to be garrisoned in. It was near enough to the railroad to make passes to Auckland a definite pleasure, and a highway was near for those who wanted to try their luck at hitch-hiking their way to the city.

As for recreation and entertainment, Papakura was provided as well as any Stateside camp I have seen. There were two canteens: a "dry" one whose stock of merchandise was almost as varied as the post exchanges in the States; and a "wet" canteen where one could buy beer and drink it. I believe drinking was restricted to that building. Besides these, there were various "huts," small buildings maintained by church organizations, the YMCA, and the Salvation Army. Most of these huts served tea, soft drinks, and malted milks for liquid refreshment, and also sandwiches, cookies, etc., all for very little. Tuppence for a cup of tea, a penny apiece for cookies, and not more than a shilling (about twenty cents) for a malted milk that was, in the current popular phrase, out of this world. For creaminess, I have never tasted milk anywhere that equalled New Zealand milk, so the malted milks and milkshakes were the most delicious I have ever had. Besides these snacks, the huts provided tables for ping-pong and pool, and libraries with wood-burning fireplaces, where one could read in practically solid comfort. As for the movies, that was the one point on which the camp fell down. The theater was a large, wooden, barnlike building, as heatless as the barracks. (We soon found out that heatlessness was to be a general rule in the milder portions of North Island for the duration.) The films were mostly Grade B and often years old. The situation was about the same in Auckland, however, so most of us patronized the camp movie house when we went to a movie at all.

This, then was our camp where for six weeks we were garrisoned. During one of the orientation talks which were given while we were there, we were told that we would be under the command of Admiral Ghormley, and that our (i.e., the 37th Division's) mission would be to defend New Zealand, and that the field artillery would become coast artillery in the event of an invasion or threat of an invasion. That included not only the 136th Field Artillery with its 155mm howitzers, but the 135th F.A. as well, the 105mm howitzer outfit stationed in the less lush surroundings of the town of Manurewa. I suppose we all mentally dug in and accepted our fate. Actually, not all the digging-in was mental. All around the camp machine guns were emplaced, complete with underground shelters, sand bag bunkers and so forth. Other personnel trenches were dug here and there, constant menaces to nocturnally carrousing soldiers. But even so, the diggings notwithstanding, to most of us the war was a remote thing, and the possibility of our remaining on North Island as coastal defense indefinitely, perhaps throughout the war, was not unpleasant to contemplate. And the amazing thing was that we actually did consider it a possibility. Thus it was a jolt of the rudest sort, when we learned that New Zealand no longer had any need for us there. That was about six weeks after we arrived there.

In those six weeks, however, we grimly went ahead, preparing for war. Like standing formal retreat and semi-formal guard mount every evening and reveille formation every morning. And inspections every Saturday morning. Nothing like Saturday morning inspections to make a fighter out of a man. His first impulse is to shoot every officer on sight.

There was a more practical side to our training, though, while we were there. The howitzer sections had a drill every day, known as cannoneers post and dubbed whimsically, "cannoneers hop." Not having ever been a cannoneer officially, I am not acquainted with all the refinements of that quadrille, but the general idea is to familiarize each cannoneer (there were seven in those days) with the job and position at the piece (howitzer) of every other cannoneer. This was done by rotating the men during simulated firing, or "dry runs" as it was called. It is a useful but extremely tedious performance. It is also a very tiring one. At that time the men were using a dummy projectile weighing nearly 100 pounds. (Real ammunition weighed around 95 pounds.) A man would place the dummy on the loading tray, two men would place the tray on the slides just behind the open breech, a fifth would push the dummy shell halfway into the breech, then he and one of the others would ram it all the way into the firing chamber. Another man would close the breech block after someone had put in the imaginary powder behind the shell. Then, an imaginary primer would go into the firing mechanism block, and the man who closed the breech block would pull the lanyard to "fire" the piece. After that, the breech block would be opened, the dummy projectile removed, and the whole monotonous process would start all over again. This is what the cannoneers continued to do during our six weeks on North Island. They resumed it again on Viti Levu in the Fijis and kept it up for eight months. When we went to Guadalcanal, the cannoneers were at it again in the humid heat of the Solomons. There, for three months, prior to entering our first combat, the howitzer sections continued to train as they had done in Fiji; in New Zealand before that; in Indiantown Gap before coming overseas; and before Indiantown Gap, in Wisconsin, Mississippi, and Louisiana. In Guadalcanal, however, they took the drastic step: they pitched their dummy projectiles over the hill and down into the dense undergrowth of the jungles! Nobody ever saw those accursed things again. They were putting away childish things, for they were men now - headed for New Georgia! Who could blame them?

While the gun sections were getting worn ragged on the howitzers, I would slink guiltily off to Battalion Headquarters along with the other computers in Fire Diretion, and there I would undertake to comprehend such things as firing large T and small t, computing K, decoding metro messages or "MIF MIF", and determining a point by short base intersection. These classes were interspersed with field survey practice. I always got more out of field practice than I did out of stuffy lectures and chalk-talks. But we never seemed to get enough of them, or I didn't. Just as I'd begin to grasp something out in the open (my head cleared of cobwebs by then), back we'd go to the lecture room, and I would get confused some more. It was very like Fort Bragg that way.

Another reason I preferred going out was that we got to see some of the country. Tru, we never went very far - only around Papakura, Tironui, and Manurewa - but it was something, and the scenery was lovely. I was expecially impressed by the frequency with which rainbows appeared. It seemed that we saw one every time we went out. The sight of a rainbow - sometimes a double one - curving over the verdant hills lighted by the afternoon sun, is something I still remember with a great amount of pleasure.

Our being in garrison, it was natural to assume that Colonel Shafer, the battalion CO, would make the most of it. And so he did. Although his insisting on a spit-and-polish regime came as no great surprise, it nevertheless produced great anguish and dismay, all the same. Accordingly, we held a formal reveille every morning, with its interminable succession of "all-present-and-accounted-for" pronouncements. In a way, of course, this was better than a straight roll call, because men could stay away without any great risk of getting caught. And since it was dark, the colonel couldn't tell whether or ot the captain was lying when he reported, "all present."

Fiction has dealt with the ceremony known as formal retreat as though the occasion were a stirring and inspiring one. The band plays or the bugle sounds the call, and the salute to the Colors is rendered. That is an attitude definitely of another day. True, for many an old line sergeant near the end of his thirty-year hitch and for many an officer for whom the FA is his endeared profession, there may be a thrill, a lump in th throat, a tear welling in the eye, when the Call to the Colors is played on the bugle, or when the National Anthem is played by a full band. But the younger generation, the new army, is made of far different stuff, and I imagine most of the men in the army reacted to retreat the way we of the 37th Division did. For us, retreat was a chafing, tedious performance which was borne with an "Oh-when-will-this-thing-be-over?" attitude. Thus, a Regular Army man would have been horrified could he have seen some of our retreats. At the command from Col. Shafer, the battalion would shuffle to a sort of attention and start fidgiting a little as the bugler sounded off.

One afternoon we had an inspection in ranks by an assortment of generals and admirals, both New Zealander and American. We were at ease when they drove up. As the admirals, the generals, and their respective retinues stepped out, Col. Shafer snapped us to attention. It was one of the few times we really snapped. Even the 136th was impressed. The band was on hand, of course, and the trumpets and drums sounded off with the ruffles and flourishes followed by the general's march. I have often wondered why such a silly tune, if it can be called that, is used. It is played briskly, with a thump-te-thump on the drums and the result on this occasion particularly reminded me of something out of Gilbert and Sullivan - a comical sort of pomp, as in the satirical "Ruler of the Queen's Navee" for example. It was very hard for me to not laugh right out.

The most memorable retreat of all was one that had the whole battalion talking for days afterward. It was not strictly formal, I suppose, for it was sans band. I forget who the regular bugler for Headquarters Battery was, but some how the job had been wished of on Cordiale, a sad-sackish sort of fellow who had come to the Division from Fort Bragg with me. Battery buglers ususally rotated the duty of bugling for retreat, and this time it was Cordiale's turn. Now Cordiale knew little more than I of the art of bugling, but he was game. Came the big moment; the battalion staff was lined up next to him; the entire battalion was out in front of him. At the proper time, Cordiale raised the bugle to his lips and blew the only call he knew - mess call. That was too much even for the staff. Dignity and solemnity dissolved; hilarity reigned. "Well," a major was heard to say, "that ought to bring 'em out!"

Chapter 1: Bon Voyage? What do you mean, 'bon'?

2004-11-27T19:21:00.000-08:00

Our official overseas time began on May 26, 1942. Like many things related to troop movement, the question of overseas time was volubly discussed on the strength of rumors. Some men insisted that it began on our first day at sea; some asserted (correctly, as it turned out) that it began as soon as we boarded the "boat," as the un-nautical referred to practically every sea-going vessel. The more conservative or pessimistic were sure that our overseas time did not begin until we reached our first overseas destination -- if we reached it. The question of overseas time was important to us because it had a direct bearing on when our overseas pay started.

Some kinds of rumors can go on indefinitely, being elaborated on and expanded. Other kinds reach their peak fairly early, level off, and produce an atmosphere of futile muddledness. Ours were this latter type. We hit bottom on the rumor well long before we left Crocker-Amazon Park in San Francisco and headed for our ship, the U.S.S. President Monroe. Thus, it was with relief that we learned from unassailable authority that our overseas time started as soon as we set foot on that remarkable ship. We contemplated our new status with pride if not with satisfaction. Our Division, the 37th Infantry, was about the third such outfit to be sent into the Southwest Pacific. So, while we were not unique in our trans-ocean assignment, we were leaving behind us the bulk of the American Army. Whether that was good or bad, we would have ample time to decide for ourselves.

I recall our "first day out" very clearly; there is really no good reason why I should not. It seems reasonable to expect that every man still living who made that trip with me would remember the beginning of it as well as I do. The water was very rough, and the pitching and rolling of the ship brought the inevitable seasickness to many. Of course, I have suspected for a long time that many individuals afflict themselves with this mal-de-mer by the supposition that one gets it merely by being on a ship, even if that ship is in calm waters. There were good grounds for my suspicions, apparently, for a couple of poor souls got dreadfully sick even before the ship had weighed anchor. I had no sympathy for these. When the ship got moving, that was another matter, and I could see, or rather, feel, how some might get seasick. I experienced an unreasonable degree of giddiness in the head myself, although never any nausea at any time during any ocean voyage. Naturally, when the ship began heaving so much, many of the men made the most of it, and got sick with grim abandon all over the place and at any hour of the day or night.

This was a bit of a trial for me when I was on guard duty in the hold. I went on duty at noon and was to be relieved at 2 p.m. At about that time, however, the corporal of the guard (I think it was Byron Harrison) came to me and asked if I could stay on until 4 oclock. My relief, it seemed, was afflicted with the current popular malady. I said that of course I could. Four oclock came and found me thinking what a dull way it was to begin my first trip out of the States, and wishing I could have gone topside to see the Golden Gate Bridge. I was glad, therefore, to hear a voice behind me saying, "Okay, you cna go now. You're relieved." I turned around and, to my dismay, saw my relief bending over and bringing up his dinner and depositing it in a pail near by. He looked exceedingly ill and unhappy, so I told him that he was in no shape to stand guard and that I'd stand it for him. I added hopefully that he could come down and relieve me when he felt better. Without another word he disappeared, and, needless to say, he did not show up for guard while I was there.

I pondered the utility of those ubiquitous pails which were placed so strategically all about the hold in which we were quartered. I wondered if they did not - well, I was going to say, defeat their own purpose, but what I mean is - encourage the justification for their presence. One had to admit that those pails looked awfully suggestive. A man was less likely to be sick, I thought, if they were kept out of sight. It took a person with a strong stomach to look at one of those pails, let alone imagine its contents, without feeling a reaction in said stomach. If that was the case, my stomach must have been constructed like the Golden Gate Bridge I didn't see. The only sensation I began to have in my stomach as time dragged on was hunger. Men - the hardier ones - passed me on their way to and from the galley while I was stolidly stuck to my post. Then, some time between 6:30 and 7 oclock, Harrison came around and asked if I had eaten. I told him that I hadn't but thought it was a nice idea. So he lset me go down to eat while he stood my guard. I resumed my post a short time before 8 p.m., at which hour I was, in the words of the Soldier's Handbook, "properly relieved." Promptly there upon I went to bed, hoping that Harrison would not remember that my hours of guard duty were 12 to 2 and 6 to 8. He did remember, however, and woke me at midnight, asking timidly if I felt like standing guard. "Frankly, no," I told him. "I already put in eight hours, which is all anybody is supposed to put in." That was all there was to it. I slept fairly well the rest of the night. The reasons for the guard duty, by the way, were to enforce smoking prohibitions in the troop quarters, keep passage ways clear, and generally to aid the carrying out of safety measures.

I have always had an intense aversion to depending on primitive or makeshift devices for my comfort of cleanliness. (For instance, I would never be content living on a farm of the well-and-outhouse variety.) Naturally, I adjusted myself to the very primitive set-ups of field conditions during the three and a half years I had to put up with them. Nevertheless, the bleak and quite public toilets and showers of the barracks in the camps in this country failed to steel me against the conditions I found on the President Monroe. What I found on that singular ship did, however, give me an inkling of just how lacking in refinement were the sanitary systems which we in the Armed Forces might expect to encounter. On the port side of the deck was located a shed, called in the abstruse terminology of the Navy, the "head," and called by Army personnel, the latrine. This establishment consisted of an uncovered toilet, impossible to describe, and alwyas, it seemed, in a state of flush. There was also a long wash stand with several pairs of faucets, where one could wash, shave, and do his laundry with cold salt water or cold salt water, depending on which faucet he used. To preserve the symmetry of the ship's beautiful design, a similar shed had been erected directly opposite the latrine, on the starboard side. This housed the showers (cold salt water.) For the first few days of the trip the showers were visited never and the latrine only when necessity ordered it, for we were still in the North Temperate Zone where the weather seemed intemperately cold at times.

We passed the days (there were nineteen of them) on the ship by doing K.P., cleaning up our compartments and decks, having lifeboat drills and G.Q. (General Quarters) drills, dodging other details, and doing calisthenics on top of a hatch with about 2 1/2 square feet per man. When we could, we sat on deck and read, looking up uneasily every once in a while to make sure there was no officer coming to rout us out or to give us another work detail or both.

Fore some time it had been a foregone conclusion that our destination was Australia, and most of us accepted that as fact. A few individuals either by guesswork or by sheer occultism (or maybe by eavesdropping) were sure we were going to New Zealand. To discourage this line of reasoning and assumption, our officers told us, "Now, just because there are New Zealand Air Force officers on board, that doesn't mean that we are definitely going to New Zealand." But the secret was out, literally in a twinkling, one night when we had got into the tropics. A radio man in Headquarters Battery was watching the code which was being blinked onto our ship from the President Coolidge. Soon he realized that he could decode it, and proceeded to do so. The message was to the effect that the part of the Division that was on the President Monroe (and on another ship, too; I think it was the Uruguay) would proceed to Auckland, New Zealand, while the rest of the Division would go to Suva, Fiji. Naturally, by the next day, virtually everyone in the 136th F.A. knew where we were going, and no one was surprised, therefore, when the Battalion Commander, Lt.-Col. Henry Shafer, made the announcement himself a day or so later.

It has been said by others more imaginative than I and more gifted with a knack for pungent phrases, that on the Monroe the enlisted men ate the tongue and tail of the cow, while the crew and the officers ate all the meat in between. After several meals of boiled tongue and ox-tail soup, I was more than ready to subscribe to such a theory. But then, I guess we all built up a sales resistance to the chow. It wasn't entirely the fault of the chow, for sometimes we had good meals; nor was it entirely the fault of the men who prepared it, nor of the ship which had a poorly equipped troops galley. An important reason for the dim view of the food situation was, I think, the general spirit and physical condition of most of us. Seasickness never released its hold on some men until we were only a few days from Auckland.

Some men hardly went ot the mess hall at all during the entiere trip; others attended irregularly and often left before finishing their meals. That was not hard to understand. At a table vacant except for myself and a fellow sitting opposite me, I was eating dinner one day and so was he. Suddenly he looked up from his eating and emitted a groan of disgust or pain or something. I asked him what was the matter. "I just saw a man get sick in his tray."

"Well, don't tell me about that. I've just been watching the same thing happen to another fellow. Just keep on eating like I am." (I was not in very good shape myself, you see, saying "like" instead of "as".)

The troops' mess was a melancholy affair. When the ship rolled, which it did about every eight or ten seconds, any semi-liquid food in the serving kettles, such as stewed tomatoes, would splash over and drift around on the floor. Likewise, trays, like boats broken loose from their moorings, would slide about on the long tables until reaching the end. Then, usually with half-eaten dinners, they would crash to the floor. I really sympathized with the harrassed K.P.'s on that trip. They could not keep the floor clean so long as chow was being served, and the floor was strewn with food, som that had not been eaten, some that already had. Movement over this floor in the conventional way, i.e., erectly and with sure steps, was dismally difficult. The place was in that desperate sort of confusion you might see in a Laurel and Hardy picture or hear depicted in Dukas's "The Sourcerer's Apprentice."

For me, there was always fascination in watching the ocean. I think it was not so much in the varying waves and hues as in the expectation of seeing something different, some abrupt change in the seascape - an unscheduled appearance of land, for instance. I enjoyed the Pacific most when it was the rich, wonderful, almost unbelievable blue which it was so often when I saw it. There seemed to be a total absence of greenness in it - just pure blue.

When we got into warmer waters we began seeing flying fish. They are pretty little things which shoot up out of the water and glide for a remarkable distance. They are an iridescent greenish-blue, and remind one of swallows as they skim over the water. I got a sort of poetical feeling, and thought I ought to do something about it, but after remembering that Kipling had written some rather famous lines about flying fish, I decided that anything I wrote about them might seem trite or superfluous, even if I was nowhere near Mandalay at the time. So I stifled the impulse. The next occasion I had to write verse on a ship was one night on the President Coolidge on the way from Auckland to Suva. On that occasion, the subject happened to be phosphorescence in the water. I shall leave it to someone else to decide whether phosphorescence is as worthy a subject of a poem as are flying fishes, as Kipling calls them.

With the crossing of the Equator came the inevitable ceremony of dunking and all such horseplay. There were about a thousand men on the President Monroe. This number included not only the 136th F.A. which accounted for about half, but Division Artillery Special Troops, an AAA outfit, and some infantry as well. Naturally the ceremony could not be given to all the men, so representatives from each outfit were chosen. A fair enough way of doing it, I thought. Some of the ceremonies were a bit rowdyish, as might be expected. About the mildest was clipping a broad "V" in the victim's hair, right down to the skull. Anyway, the representative from Headquarters Battery was Corporal Randolph Ellis. I had no idea how he took all the kidding and nonsense until I heard him talking about it to someone one afternoon. Ellis was indignant, simply outraged and indignant, that such undignified and insulting capers should be permitted. After hearing that, I decided that the most accurate description I could think of as applying to him was, "a perfect pill," an appraisal which was altered only slightly after I got to know him better.

I have covered the highlights of the first ocean trip. There is not much else to add, for not a great deal happened up to the time we arrived at Auckland at about four oclock in the afternoon of June 13. There were no movies on the ship as there were on other ships we traveled on later. During the Equatorial leg of our journey to the southwest Pacific we were able to enjoy the swimming pool (cold salt water) on the after deck. It was there, incedentally, that the King Neptune Equator-crossing ceremonies took place.

I recall a couple of long and entertaining bull sessions with Ed Bundenthal, our baker and sometime cook. Ed was one of th few men we ever had in our kitchen who had had actual experience with the culinary arts at all. Most of our cooks had been machine-gunners, truck drivers and I don't know what else in the battery before coming to the kitchen, and what they had been in civilian life, heaven only knew. But Ed had actually worked in a bakery in Dayton, Ohio, and he actually knew how to bake. As a cook he was good too, but he did not like that as well as baking, consequently I don't think he tried too hard at cooking. And he stoutly refused to do both at once. Either he would bake or he would cook , but not both.

Ed had a slight stutter which he did not seem at all embarassed or sensitive about. He frankly admitted that when he found there was a word he couldn't say, he took care not to try to day it, but to reword his sentences so that he could still convey the intended thought or idea. Therefore, he was not necessarily uncommunicative. Quite to the contrary, in fact. Most of what we talked about I have forgotten now, it was so long ago, but it is not important; it was just small talk, something to pass the time, and - for all I know - to help drive away loneliness from me as well as from himself. Ed was essentially more than amiable; he was genuinely and warmly friendly, and he had a good sense of humor. He was moderate in his talk and in his behavior, and I'm glad I got to know him early. He did have one upsetting vice, however. On the rare occasions we could get ice cream, Ed always saw to it that he would be the one to serve it. As each man came through the mess line for his helping of ice cream, Ed would push the cream off the spoon with his finger, lick his finger, then do the same thing to the next man in line, and so on down, licking his finger each time. I suspect that the ensuing protests were not motivated entirely by the thought that this procedure was unsanitary. I think the men protested because this way Ed got more ice cream than anybody else. But Ed would laugh gaily and say, "Well, if you don't like it, you don't have to eat any!" He had them there.

Although we had no movies aboard, the Division Artillery Band was along and it played until sundown every night, so we had some good popular music to listen to, and the Band kept in practice at the same time. It was playing on our last night on the ship, until a good, lively New Zealand band, waiting on Queen's Wharf to greet us, struck up a lively march. The Div Arty Band, oblivious to any competition, kept right on playing until loudly shushed by several of us standing near by. Then the New Zealanders played the original tune from which our National Anthem is taken and which is a little different form the tune we know as "The Star Spangled Banner." After it was finished, someone standing next to me said, "Say, they played that all wrong, didn't they?" So I explained to him that what the New Zealanders played was probably the original version of the tune, known to them as "Anacreon In Heaven," an old English drinking song, and that they would probably be thrown equally for a loss on hearing our version for the first time.

By this time it was nearly dark and for the first time since we left the States we had a lighted deck. It made all the difference to us. It was similar, I think, to the lighting of the houselights in a theater after a suspenseful melodrama, although even that is not a good analogy. The feeling of relief is impossible to describe. The deck lightswere lighted all over the place; men were smoking freely all about the deck, a practice denied them throughout the trip; the talking was louder, the laughter was more boisterous; life jackets were lefte below on the bunks. It all added up to this: "All is well; port safely reached. You are out of danger. This will be your new home." Everyone was imbued with a profound feeling of relief and relaxation, and we all turned into our bunks very, very grateful.