James A. Michener
With apologies to Bill Mauldin, the month and a half unplanned odyssey of "Willie and Joe" (in this case LTJG William S. Emerson and Lt Joe W. Williams) actually started about 1330 5 NOV 44 aboard USS LEXINGTON (CV-16). It was sometimes hilarious and sometimes confusing, but never dull. Despite the laughs and wonderful memories of our jaunt, it all started on a very deadly and costly note. Wars are like that.
At 1325 on 5 NOV 44, LEXINGTON went to general quarters and came under attack. In lieu of sitting in the Ready Room, we two, among other VB types not at the moment engaged in flying off to the wars, elected to observe the action from elsewhere vice the Ready Room. This move, which we thought was discretion overcoming valor, came about because we had heard that the FRANKLIN had taken a hit through the flight deck and into the Bomber Ready Room in October.
Ironically, I had been scheduled to be gone from the ship at this time on my regular assignment of flying #2 man on LT Don Banker, CO of VB-19. Our division had been to Manila that morning, and we had lost one aircraft while hitting Nielson Field. LTJG Johnny Evatt and R.E. Hansen ARM3 were the crew of that aircraft and were seen to crash in flames near the target. During lunch, and for reasons known only to him, Banker scratched me and his other regular wingman, Ray Wicklander, from the division's afternoon strike. We were scheduled to go back to Manila Harbor and the NACHI class cruiser living there. In view of the morning's activities at Manila, we sure didn't argue with him, and proceeded to enjoy a now leisurely lunch and an extra cup of coffee. Don Banker, and his gunner J.J. Burns, did not return from that strike. They were seen to crash in Manila Harbor after getting a direct hit on the cruiser. He was awarded his second Navy Cross posthumously for the sinking of the NACHI. As fate would dictate, this was the only combat strike Don Banker ever went on without Wick and me, if we were available, in our usual slots.
Simultaneously with our decision to vacate the Ready Room, we grabbed our issued "tin hats" and only some of us took our "flash-gear". About ten (10) of us dashed across the flight deck and up into the island. We managed to get front row seats to the action by occupying the area just outside, and aft, of the Secondary Conn (Batt Two).
At 1336 LEXINGTON opened fire with 5" 38s, 40mm, and 20mm, and splashed a "Zeke" about 1000 yards astern. Almost immediately all batteries opened up on the starboard side on a second "Zeke" on the beam at about 4000 yards heading aft. This "Zeke" was eventually hit after it turned in for a dive on the ship. The "Zeke" was on fire but continued in from the stern and crashed into the ship directly aft and slightly outboard of Secondary Conn.
As this second "Zeke" was turning in for his dive, it became quite apparent to me, Joe Williams, and several others in our questionable "front row seats", just what this guy's intentions were. Joe and I moved quickly inboard from our perch, and ducked into Secondary Conn to what we felt was a safe haven. Much to our chagrin we were to find out this was not so! Of the large group of VB pilots in the immediate area, only a couple besides Joe and myself vacated the preferred seats. Unlike Joe and myself, those few proceeded quickly forward on the inboard side of the island without stopping at Secondary Conn, thus taking themselves out of harm's way and saving a lot of wear and tear on their skin.
Immediately following Joe and my entering Secondary Conn, the crescendo of 5" 38s, 40mms, and 20mms ceased for a split second. This moment of silence was short lived. The Kamikaze hit us. I later learned, that of the approximately 15 people inside Secondary Conn, only Joe, myself, and about three others survived. We apparently were protected from the flying pieces of steel inside Secondary Conn by the large stanchion in the middle of the room, but we did get singed quite well by the fire that accompanied the explosion. The two people on either side of me died as did all of the remaining VB pilots still outside on the catwalk aft of Secondary Conn. A total of 47 officers and men were killed on LEXINGTON. One Hundred Twenty-Seven more were injured. One of those who escaped with minor but grounding damage to himself was Wick, the other wingman of Don Banker. The first section of the third division of VB-19 ceased to being operational on that day. This was a bad day all around for Bombing Nineteen. Two pilots and two gunners were lost over the targets. Six pilots were killed in the Kamikaze attack, and at least six more pilots couldn't pass a flight physical, including Joe Williams and me. The following morning (6 November 1944) found Bombing Squadron Nineteen with more SB2C-3s able to fly than pilots able to fly them. LEXINGTON retired from the fleet on 7 November 1944. Enroute to Ulithi she licked her wounds, patched up her wounded, Joe and I included, and buried her dead.
Because Joe and I were ambulatory, despite our head and hand burns being wrapped in bandages, and because the medics needed the room, they put us out of sick bay about 24 hours after the incident. This led to some lighter moments during the trip to Ulithi. Among them was the continuing hilarious scene in the Ready Room featuring "Willie and Joe". Of course, as I remember it, the star was Joe trying to smoke a cigarette that our friends had attached to a paperclip which had been secured to the burn bandages around his hands. A similar jury-rig had been devised for my nicotine fits. What a picture we were, sitting there swathed in bandages, head and hands, like a couple of mummies. With nothing visible except eyeballs peeking out, cigarette hooked on paperclips, we looked like two escapees from the old movie, "The Invisible Man". It is a wonder that we didn't further increase the severity of our second and third degree burns by setting fire to our dressings.
During the few days' trip to Ulithi, it became noticeable that the physical distance between Joe and myself, on one hand, and the rest of the squadron, on the other hand, became farther and farther. About the second day enroute I put two and two together. I had been distancing myself from Joe intentionally because, as I told him in a kindly manner, "Joe, you are beginning to stink!". Joe returned the compliment in a tender manner with, "What the Hell do you think you are! A ROSE?" The several days without baths plus the unfortunate aroma of well-done human skin had challenged the closeness of friends and their civility.
Arrival in Ulithi was highlighted by the view of the good ship USS SOLACE (Big Red Crosses, painted white and NO GUNS) swinging on the hook and waiting with open arms for us purple heart candidates. The thought that we were going to a place with people who had the time, and the qualifications, to give us retiring Naval Aviators a bath, had now assumed an extremely high priority. The hell with treatment for the burns! We were even beginning to smell ourselves!
With her color and markings, the hospital ship USS SOLACE was an oasis of peace and tranquility there in the middle of Ulithi harbor among the array of combat gray and camouflage. If from a distance SOLACE was attractive, she was absolutely beautiful from the perspective of being on board her. The years have not dimmed the perception of white. Everything was white and clean and quiet: officers and crew in white, corpsmen and doctors in white, and in particular nurses in white, pretty female nurses in white! But aren't all females pretty? Remember this was November and we had left Maui in June. Time being the factor that it was, all the nurses were beautiful for at least the first 24 hours aboard SOLACE.
During our great few days aboard SOLACE, two incidents stand out in this mind's eye. First there was the mighty attractive nurse whom I drafted (after using the highly complex Emerson selection system - she was a female) to write down my dictated words explaining to the home folks why my handwriting was so much improved and actually legible - fortunes of war and all of that. The second is much more vivid as one man expressed his feelings under adverse conditions.
The day after our arrival on SOLACE, 10 to 15 of us were ensconced in a cozy little officers' sick bay, basically doing nothing more than comparing notes on where we were on LEX when it hit the fan. All of a sudden much hustle and bustle in the passageway, and through the hatch to our little convention pops the Bull himself. Halsey, that is! The next few minutes were a blur of him whipping around the room speaking to each of us occupants about our general health and welfare. As he was about to depart, he turned in the hatch and declared to all us has-been warriors, "OK men, thirty days leave and back at 'em, Right?" With that he was gone! One of his aides had not quite left the room when a response to the Bull's declaration was forthcoming from a very seriously wounded Commander. The Commander may have been hurt, but I assure you his vocal cords were not impaired. The Admiral's aide froze on the spot, but thought better of saying anything when he saw the fire on the eyes of the wounded Commander. The three striper verbalized his thoughts with the following immortal words. "That crazy son-of-a-bitch must be out of his Goddamned mind!" We never did find out if the Admiral heard the rebuttal to his broad plan for our immediate future. I don't think the Commander really cared if he did. The Admiral's aide, without comment, jammed on his hat and departed the area with the irreverent howls and roaring laughter beating on his ears.
As Joe and I had temporarily retired from the fighting-a-war business, we were hustled off SOLACE on 11 NOV and spent 6.8 hours in the luxurious confines of a PB2Y-3 enroute to Manus in the Admiralty Islands. This was a unique experience in itself. Flying FROM a "boat" was one thing - Flying IN a "boat" was an entirely different thing! No envy on our part - just some convenient transportation headed our way - out of the shooting war! However, one particular admonition by a PB2Y crewman as we boarded her damn near ended any craving for nicotine I might have had. Casually he said, "We think we have a fuel leak, so don't light up or we might blow up!" Even at five cents a pack we decided to conserve our money, save our lungs, and who knows what else.
The evening of 11 November (how appropriate that it was called Armistice Day then) found Willie and Joe, still wrapped like two mummies, trapped inside a small Navy Medical unit hospital on Manus, two degrees below the Equator. The thought of acquiring a cold beer, or two, had started to assume extremely high priority and was fast becoming an obsession. I, having passed through this charming back water hole of the Pacific while returning to the squadron after being shot down three months before, knew exactly where the so-called O-Club was. Within walking distance! Next problem: Despite the fact that we were ambulatory, the Navy nurse in charge of the ward made it very clear to us that we should not entertain any thoughts of bellying up to the bar. Besides, she indicated, we would probably not be very welcome in view of our generally invalid appearance, bandages, and aroma! Good old American ingenuity solved the problem. Tried and true bribery did the trick. Each of us had rat-holed a few greenbacks when leaving the LEX. The pay scale of corpsman strikers being what it was, there was a quick meeting of the minds and money, which produced at least four COLD ACME BEERS for dehydrated Willie and Joe. Now Acme beer, at its best, was far below Naval Aviators' well-known high standards, but we all had to make sacrifices during the war. Thank God it was cold, because we had tried WARM ACME during several days on Eniwetok the previous July. I don't think we could have handled it the way the preservative became too noticeable when Acme was anything but cold. That corpsman striker should have been given a life saving award. So much for unsung heroes.
12 November found us again winging our way southward to Guadalcanal. This was a very uneventful trip in an Army Air Force C-47. By this time I think Joe and I were the only VB-19 evacuees still being moved along the pipeline to the back area. Still, plenty of LEXINGTON ship's company people were moving along with us, some still in very serious condition.
Arrival on Gualalcanal brought us back on trail to the "good" hospital life. Everything was white again, and, because Joe and I still qualified, they checked us into the "Burn Hotel". The food was good and served at bedside. As we were still mastering the technique of using a knife and fork with bandaged hands and singed lips, and were a little (?) messy, I guess they figured it was better for local morale and appetites to keep us in the ward. There we joined a rather diverse, but well cooked group: people from a carrier that had had a bad deck fire, other survivors of a hangar deck fire, some Marines from Peleliu, and assorted smelly people from big and small fires. It was during this period that the distinctive aroma of badly burned human flesh became embedded in the memory bank of Willie. He has never forgotten that unique smell and the pain and suffering he witnessed in that ward. Boys became young men and young men became much older men, all within a few days.
Five days on Guadalcanal had its compensations. We, in collaboration with some ambulatory "medium rare" marines, established a pipeline to a source of cool (sometimes cold) beer. We did not ask for the source of said beer. I have forgotten just what the tariff was for enough beer to satisfy our beer cartel, but its arrival was always after lights-out on the underside of a very mobile and swift wheelchair, with a disabled speed demon at the throttle. By unspoken agreement, absolute silence on the deck was the rule in force at delivery time. If "Operation Beer for the Burned" was exposed we figured Miss LT Hard-Nose-No-Nonsense Night Head Nurse would have our heads sitting as trophies on her desk at the end of the ward.
Each night's beer supply operation had gone as planned. Willie and Joe were scheduled to depart for the sunny climes of Espiritu Santo (Base Hospital Three) with the dawn. The war was going one way and we were going the other! Hooray! Heroes we were not.
It was well after lights out. Delivery of the cherished brew had taken place and all was quiet at our end of the burn ward. The exception to absolute silence was the subdued gurgling of hops, malt, and etcetera sliding by four or five sets of tonsils silently saluting the trip south. The silence was golden.
The silence was shattered with the softly spoken words - "Is it cold?" The words had a definite chill to them. Quietly standing on the perimeter of our little group, in the dark, was a crisp white uniform containing the body of a Navy Nurse LT type! Our Navy Nurse LT type! Our Hardnose-No-Nonsense Navy Nurse LT type! Willie and Joe, among others headed south the next day, had immediate visions of suddenly being declared unburned, and being flown north to LEX the next day! From a bunch of Naval and Marine officers who could probably expound at length on numerous subjects, you never heard so much silence in response to the query. It was repeated. "Is it cold?" If possible there were more icicles hanging on the words. At this moment, critical to the health, welfare, and future of our little group, a stalwart member of the Corps rose to the occasion and threw his body, figuratively speaking, into the breach. Semper Fidelis! In a voice closer in pitch to that of a small boy with hand in cookie jar, the one-armed Marine LT challenged the fates and said the unthinkable! "Ma'am, would you like to have one?"
The answer from our Hardnose-No-Nonsense Navy Nurse LT type was also unthinkable! "I thought you would never ask me." For the next few minutes, between quiet sips on a cold one, we found that "Operation Beer" had been compromised at about the time it was organized some days before. It seems that our pipeline had a leak. Only through the goodness of her heart, and whatever other reasons she had, did our name-forgotten, but forever remembered nurse, look and listen the other way during our clumsy and noisy (her words) nightly gatherings. Although it won't be anywhere in the official record, all of us present at the moment found one more reason to salute Navy Nurses.
On 17 NOV, four hours after departing Guadalcanal we arrived, compliments of an AAF C-47, in Espiritu Santo, home of U.S. Navy Base Hospital Three. This was to be our home-away-from-home until Willie and Joe were declared "fit to fight again". This was to last for the next twelve days.
Espiritu Santo remains a sort of blur of quonset hut hospital wards, truck trips to the beach with cold beer available, good food, clean white sheets, pretty nurses, a drunken Marine Captain about to shoot the lights out in the ward with his 45 caliber pistol (he got one), and other tender moments. While Willie and Joe were still patients there, memorable incidents stand out.
A week or so after their arrival, Willie and Joe were wandering about the hospital compound discussing important things, like a 30 day leave, when they noticed a crowd gathering in front of the Administration Building. It was obvious that some sort of ceremony was about to take place. A small band was present, and a podium and covered table were nearby. The hospital personnel present were in their dress uniforms for the area. This was quite a contrast to Willie and Joe who were still getting by with two LTJG collar bars, one LT bar, one Navy Officer Shield for an overseas cap, and one small pair of wings for an overseas cap. Our total wardrobe consisted of an extra shirt each, an extra pair of pants each, an extra set of socks each, and an extra set of skivvies each. All the aforementioned was stored in one small cardboard box which we took turns carrying while traveling - questionable attire for our official trip, but we didn't take inventory when leaving LEX.
We continued to observe the activities from the fringe of the crowd. It was apparent that something was amiss as there was much looking around by those in charge of whatever was going to happen. Just as the small band finished playing a martial tune for an umpteenth encore, our eyes were caught by a young doctor who had been seeing us on rounds. As he charged through the crowd towards us, he verbally greeted us with "(expletive deleted), Where in hell have you two been? They have been hunting all over for you. You were supposed to be here 15 minutes ago!" As we were being hustled toward the center stage of this delayed production, it was pointed out that we were the "stars" and about to have Purple Hearts pinned on our untidy shirts while wearing our "partial uniforms". Looking back, it appeared that the CO of the hospital almost called off the show when he got a good look at us and our general appearance. We were not sure, but he probably thought "what the hell - I've got them here and the crowd is here." It was quite a delightful occasion and enjoyed by all. The slip-up in getting the word to us to show up for this event seemed to hinge on the fact that the messenger, sent to tell us why, where, and when to be, was misdirected. It seems he was told by one of our ward-mates (a Marine with a flaky sense of humor - but don't they all?) that we had been transferred to who-knows-where that morning. As could best be determined, the messenger was still looking for us when we wandered into the gathering crowd.
Other than our personal little purple mementos of the war, there was an immediate byproduct that developed from the festive event. After many glad hands from the locals, we decided that the event should be celebrated by better than a beer at the beach. How about an honest Scotch, Bourbon, or you name it? We voted, and it was agreed that was the answer. Next question, how to accomplish this as hospital patients? Patients were not allowed to escape the compound and attend the O-Club close by. By this time our physical appearance was almost normal. Joe's hand was still bandaged but hideable if he kept his hand in his pocket. If Willie would handle any required saluting and take position between any sentry's eyeballs and ambulatory Joe, while hiding his own bandaged left hand, our two itinerant Naval Aviators could, and did, sortie to the O-Club with impunity. However, a few days later they miscalculated the eagle eye of some unidentified spoil sport from the hospital who was attending the O-Club. Of course, our medical eagle eye would have to have been blind not to notice the confusion that reigned when Little Joe decided that friend Willie needed assistance and should not be forced to walk back to the hospital. Joe therefore called an ambulance to the O-Club in order to assist his "sick" friend Willie back to the hospital! Willie wasn't sick, he was just taking a little nap on the floor of a shower room adjacent to the club.
The next morning, 29 November 1944, is memorable if for nothing else than the speed with which Willie's and Joe's physical conditions were reevaluated and they became "fit to fight again" and were handed a set of orders to report to the CO of Bombing Squadron Nineteen (VB-19), where and whoever the hell he was! We were no longer welcomed at U.S. Naval Base Hospital #3, Navy 140!