CHAPTER NINETEEN
During the briefing at the Seven Mile Drome, Dan was given the responsibility for leading the little squadron to Guadalcanal. After take-off he climbed steadily to twenty thousand feet then carefully held a direct course due-east for Henderson Field. With the other five aircraft behind him playing follow the leader, Dan just hoped the light south-easterly wind and clear skies would hold for the three hours they needed to reach their destination at cruising speed.
A little over an hour from take-off, Dan picked up visual reference points. Far off in the shimmering Solomon Sea, he saw Kiriwina Island, the largest of the Trobriand group, and straight ahead lay Woodlark Island. He held his course for two more hours, then the island of Guadalcanal rose up out of the sea in the distance. Well briefed on the Japanese anti-aircraft batteries on the island, Dan’s squadron descended low over the ocean and gave the enemy gunners a wide berth when they neared Henderson Field.
Dan had been told to approach the airstrip on a course between Guadalcanal and Savo Island which lay about ten miles offshore. The stretch of water was named Ironbottom Sound because of the preponderance of sunken warships lying on its floor. His instructions were to look out for the remains of a Japanese pagoda-style building on a headland called Lunga Point. As he flew towards the point he saw transport vessels unloading troops and supplies on the beaches, while just offshore, several warships covering the landing traced lazy circles. Suddenly a wave of American fighters raced in to intercept the squadron but withdrew as soon as the P-40s were recognized as friendly. Moments later he spotted the old pagoda perched on a rise in the centre of a rough clearing. Dan had been told at the Seven Mile Drome that the structure had once served as the Cactus Air Force headquarters until it had become a reference point for every Japanese warship and aircraft attacking Henderson Field.
Without the bombed-out pagoda, Dan might not have recognized the clearing as an operational airstrip. On his first pass it looked more like a lunar landscape. There seemed to be no activity, just a cratered, pock-marked, muddy paddock with burnt-out shells of aircraft scattered wing-tip to wing-tip around the perimeter. But when he pulled back the stick to clear the tall palm trees at the edge of the clearing the airfield sprang to life. Hundreds of Marines emerged from foxholes, waving and cheering as the new squadron roared by overhead. Dan also caught a glimpse of camouflaged aircraft in clearings close to the field, and beyond them, a vast tent city of troops in the jungle beneath the trees of a nearby cocoa plantation.
On the second pass the P.40's landed and were directed to camouflaged dispersal areas close to the airfield perimeter. From there, the pilots were taken to a command post in a dug-out bomb shelter covered with felled palms trees. Inside the dugout a group of officers were conferring at a makeshift table of old ammunition boxes. The group broke up when the pilots entered, leaving just General Louis Woods, the Cactus Air Force commander and an aide at the table.
‘Welcome to Guadalcanal, gentlemen,’ General Woods said without smiling. ‘The situation here is critical. We are heading for a final showdown with the enemy. We know there is an enemy task force heading for Guadalcanal from Rabaul, ahead of a huge transport convoy bringing an entire division of reinforcements. The task force will attempt to knock out Henderson Field so the reinforcements can be landed unopposed. As you flew in you would have seen our own troop transports and naval escorts in Ironbottom Sound. In a couple of hours they’ll have finished disembarking troops and the warships will head out, leaving us on our own to greet the Japs.’ Woods shrugged. ‘But the Cactus Air Force is used to that.’
The general paused and smiled grimly. His eyes appraised the six young pilots of the Seven Mile Squadron. After a few moments, he continued, ‘What we have here, is an oddball selection of aircraft, begged and borrowed from various places around the Pacific. Apart from our own Marine flyers, we have Navy flyers from a flat-top that was attacked while they were in the air, and we have more Navy pilots that set down here when they ran into bad weather and couldn’t find their carrier. And there’s a few Air Corps planes that we squeezed out of the Army soon after we landed on the island. The one thing everyone has in common here is guts. You have to have guts in the Cactus Air Force. Some days our pilots are so exhausted they have to be helped into their airplanes. Other days it rains so hard airplanes can’t lift themselves out of the mud on the runway. But usually it dries within a few hours of the rain stopping, so most days we have every plane in the air. Night flying is out because it’s just too dangerous. The general turned to Dan. ‘Captain, I take it you and these men have had combat experience?’
‘Yes, sir, in the Philippines and in New Guinea. And I was attached to the P-40 pursuit squadron that was wiped out at Darwin.’
Woods nodded. ‘Good. Now I must tell you men, almost everyone on this island has malaria and there’s no rest and precious little sleep. By day, we attack enemy positions and hit the Tokyo Express. That’s what we call the Jap convoys which bring men and materials here from Rabaul. By night, Jap warships shell the hell out of Henderson Field and while we’re sitting in our bomb shelters with our heads between our knees, the Japs unload troops and supplies on the beaches. This latest task force is the biggest ever and if it knocks out Henderson Field, we’re finished on this island.’ The general turned to his aide. ‘I’ll leave the major here to familiarize you with operations. He’ll answer any questions you may have, and get you fed and bunked down.’
‘Gather around, gentlemen,’ the major said when the general left. He spread out a large map of Guadalcanal on the table. ‘This will help you get your bearings.’ He pointed out the main features of the island then pointed to several areas shaded in red. ‘These red areas denote Japanese positions. As you can see, Henderson Field is surrounded by the enemy and there are also large concentrations of troops to the north-west of us.’ The major tapped a shaded area on the map well out to sea. ‘This is what we call ‘the slot’—it’s the route between the islands that the Tokyo Express uses to get here.’
Dan pointed to an area on the map which was shaded in blue. ‘And what’s in this area, sir?’
‘That’s the lower slopes of Mount Austen, Captain. It overlooks Henderson Field and affords excellent views, but the terrain is so bad that neither we nor the Japs have tried to maintain a position there. We call that area Purgatory because that’s where Japs from dishonored units are banished to and left to fend for themselves because they failed their military objectives. Under the code of the samurai they will never be permitted to rejoin the ranks of fighting soldiers who have not been shamed by defeat. They pose no real threat to us because most of them are starving and riddled with disease anyway.’
‘How many men are there?’ Dan asked
‘We don’t know for sure. They seem to be in small scattered groups but collectively there must be quite a lot.’ The major turned his attention back to ‘the slot’. ‘It’s up here between the islands that you’ll be spending most of your time. Every operational airplane we’ve got is up there again today, repelling raiders and looking for that big Jap task force that’s heading here.’
‘How do you know they’re coming for sure, Major?’
The major grinned. ‘Two things have really helped save our asses on Guadalcanal, Captain. One is the reports we get from the British and Australian Coast Watchers and their native scouts on this island and on Bougainville Island to the north. When they see Jap ships and aircraft headed our way they tell us. The second thing is we’ve been reading the Emperor’s mail for a long time now. We’ve got code-busters in Hawaii that break the Jap codes as fast as they can invent new ones. We usually know when they are planning something big.’
‘How about our codes? Have the Japs broken any?’
‘Not yet, and God help us if they ever do. Especially now, with so many of our ships in Ironbottom Sound. Now, as General Woods said, things are hotting up. The big one is coming and you guys are going to be in the thick of it. At first light tomorrow you’ll be in the air, hitting enemy ground positions, defending the field against air attacks or hunting that Jap task force. You won’t be assigned your duties until just before take off. So you’d best get fed and get some rest while you can.’
As the pilots left the command post the major called Dan back. ‘Captain.’ he said amiably. ‘I’m from Albuquerque, New Mexico.’
‘I know, sir.’ Dan smiled. ‘I can tell by the way you talk.’
‘And I noticed you’re a Navajo, Captain. You should feel at home here. There’s over three thousand Navajo in the Marine Corps, many of them right here on Guadalcanal. Several have been trained specially as radio operators. Are you aware of the work they do here in signals?’
Dan shrugged. ‘No Sir, I’ve no idea. I… ’
Dan’s voice was drowned out by the roar of aircraft overhead. He and the major hurried outside. The sky above them was filled with planes. The Cactus Air Force was coming home to roost and Dan looked on while the major anxiously counted each plane as it touched down.
That night, the squadron ate canned meat and baked beans washed down with muddy coffee in a crowded mess tent. Afterwards, when the pilots went to their bomb shelters, Dan noticed some were so exhausted they could hardly walk without stumbling, and the flyers who shared a bomb shelter with the Seven Mile Squadron, fell asleep the moment they lay down. Dan remained awake for a long time. He lay in the eerie silence hanging over the darkened airfield thinking of New Mexico, and of Faith in the little house in New Farm.
Just after midnight, the stillness of the night was shattered by a series of loud explosions. Some seemed very distant while others sounded terrifyingly close. The Seven Mile Squadron woke instantly but most of the other pilots slept on undisturbed by the mayhem outside. Within a few minutes, however, the tone and frequency of the bombardment had intensified to a deep thunder until everyone was wide awake. Deafening explosions reverberated right through the bomb shelter.
‘Listen,’ someone called out in the darkness. ‘Listen…’ After a few moments the same voice said, ‘There’s nothing hitting the airfield. The action is out in Ironbottom Sound. There’s a goddamn naval battle going on out there.’
The thunder of the big guns lasted for almost two hours. During the battle, the pilots of the Cactus Air Force and thousands of Marines encamped around Henderson Field, looked on as the night sky over Ironbottom Sound was constantly illuminated like an immense fireworks display. It was plain to see the battle was being fought at close range. Shipboard searchlights and flares were directing the gunfire. The flashes of the big guns and their throaty roar was followed by ear-splitting explosions as shells and torpedoes found their marks, setting many of the combatants’ warships ablaze and blowing up their magazines. .
At a pre-dawn pilots’ briefing everything became horrifyingly clear. During the night the Japanese task force from Rabaul had steamed through ‘the slot’. The massive fleet consisted of two battleships and over a dozen destroyers and cruisers. They had been picked up on radar entering Ironbottom Sound just as the departing American transports began to steam south. The Admiral commanding the naval escort decided to send only a few warships with the convoy and ordered the bulk of his force, eight destroyers and five cruisers to take on the Japanese task force. By first light it was clear the naval battle had been disastrous for the Americans.
Confusion in command and poor positioning of ships had resulted in US vessels being hit by friendly fire as well as by the Japanese. After a ferocious and bloody battle, the cruisers USS Atlanta, USS Juneau, and four destroyers had been sunk or were sinking. Of the US warships that survived the battle, only the destroyer USS Fletcher avoided serious damage. The Japanese had fared much better with only one destroyer sunk , one damaged together with a battleship. But in defeat the Navy had saved Henderson Field from a terrible bombardment.
At dawn the entire Cactus Air Force of over seventy fighters and dive-bombers took to the air. The atmosphere above Ironbottom Sound was still thick with smoke from burning ships. Some were still in their death throes, sinking slowly as fires aboard them raged out of control. Some, like the cruiser USS Atlanta were still afloat but beyond salvage and being scuttled. Others, like the battleship Hiei were was limping northward, desperately trying to stay afloat.
The Cactus Air Force wasted no time in sending the damaged Hiei and Yudachi straight to the bottom. Other aircraft were dispatched to the north to hunt down and attack the withdrawing task force. Dan’s squadron stayed closer to Henderson Field making low runs over the shark-infested waters of Ironbottom Sound looking for survivors of the naval battle. When they located survivors among the hundreds of bodies floating in the sound, they signaled their position to small rescue craft by wagging their wings. By mid-afternoon, reconnaissance planes reported another Japanese task force was steaming toward Guadalcanal. To make matters worse, the weather was closing in and it would soon be dark. The only good news was that poor weather and visibility might soften the inevitable bombardment of Henderson Field.
When Admiral Halsey, the Commander of the US Pacific Fleet, heard the news of the disaster in Ironbottom Sound and that the Japanese were a sending another huge force to Guadalcanal, he was four hundred miles away aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise. He immediately ordered the battle group protecting his flagship, the battleships Washington and South Dakota and their escort of four destroyers, to steam to the defense of Henderson Field. He also directed the Enterprise to sail close enough to Guadalcanal for her aircraft to be deployed against the enemy. But there was no way any of the vessels could reach Ironbottom Sound in time to prevent the task force from attacking Henderson Field that night.
The Japanese bombardment began at midnight. Thankfully it rained most of the night and the raiders were forced to use flares to see where to direct their fire. Many shells fell well wide of the mark or into the soft, spongy mud on the airfield and failed to explode. In spite of the rain, many fires burned wildly in the surrounding jungle and when the task force withdrew, its commander was certain that he had inflicted a mortal blow on Henderson Field. So confident were the Japanese that the airfield had been put out of action, that the transports carrying reinforcements which had been waiting around the islands to the north were told to proceed to Guadalcanal immediately.
The transports’ naval escort was led by the battleship Kirishima. The flotilla soon discovered that the reports of Henderson Field being knocked out overnight were false. By early morning the Cactus Air Force was airborne and hitting the troopships while they were still far away from Guadalcanal. The pilots were ordered to hit the Japanese transports and leave its warship escort for the fleet dispatched by Admiral Halsey. The Cactus Air Force pounded the vessels all day, aided in the late afternoon by aircraft from the Enterprise which had sailed within range. By nightfall, six of the eleven transports had been sunk with horrendous Japanese casualties. But the five transports which survived the carnage continued on, hoping to land reinforcements under cover of darkness.
In the middle of the night everyone was awaked when the battleships Washington and South Dakota arrived undetected in Ironbottom Sound and opened up on the Japanese task force with their sixteen inch radar-directed guns. Once again the Cactus Air Force looked on in the blackness of the night as another major naval battle was played out in Ironbottom Sound. In the fierce engagement there were heavy losses on each side including the Japanese battleships Kirishima and the South Dakota.
Dawn found the five remaining Japanese transports lying just off Guadalcanal, completely abandoned by their battered naval escort. When the Cactus Air Force began its assault on the defenseless ships, they made a headlong, reckless dash for the shore at full speed in a determined bid to beach themselves. Wave after wave of aircraft, including Dan’s squadron, swooped low over the crowded decks of the unarmed merchant ships and repeatedly strafed and bombed the vessels’ crowded decks. The carnage continued long after the transports had run high and dry on the beaches and tried desperately to disembark troops and unload supplies. Now sitting ducks, they came under fire from all directions, attacked by aircraft, warships and every American ground battery within range. The Americans sensed the final curtain was coming down on the battle for Guadalcanal and everyone wanted to be in on the kill.
Dan was sickened by the wholesale slaughter that followed and he was grateful when his squadron was ordered to disengage. But when he banked away and leveled out after making a final run over the beached transports, he heard the same sickening thud he had heard over Van Diemen Gulf. He knew instantly his plane had been hit, only this time by friendly fire. He pulled back hard on the stick trying to climb. But the stick was suddenly stiff and would hardly respond. Then it jammed tight. He tried the rudder. The peddle wouldn’t move an inch. Dan knew the controls to the tailplane had been knocked out.
Unable to climb or turn, all Dan could do was fly in a straight line. He was still at low altitude and it was hard to see. Outside the cockpit the air was thick with smoke from the burning transports. There was no option but to crash-land. Dan hoped the plane was pointing out to sea. But moments later, when it burst out of the smoke he saw Mt Austen lying directly ahead of him. He eased back the throttle and looked for somewhere to crash-land. Tall trees in the jungle below ruled out any chance of surviving a landing. Now he was nearing the lower slopes of Mount Austen, the area the Marines called Purgatory. He saw a patch of swampy vegetation with no trees at all. He cut the engine and braced himself. Moments later his plane ploughed into a dense wall of green foliage. Then everything went black.
Dan was still unconscious half an hour later when a group of near-naked and half-starved Japanese pulled him from the cockpit.
*
The last days of the bloody battle for Guadalcanal and the exploits of the Cactus Air Force in mid-November received worldwide attention. But even before details were officially released to the Australian press and radio, word of the spectacular success and its terrible cost in human life had spread through the headquarters building and even to Faith in Major Hunter’s office. Staff Sergeant Welenski’s pipeline had already reported that Dan had been posted twice from Iron Range, first to Milne Bay, then Port Moresby, so Faith joined in the victory celebrations, still blissfully unaware of his transfer to Henderson Field.
It was several days later when Welenski took Faith to one side and told her about the Far East Air Force pilots sent from the Seven Mile Drome to Guadalcanal. And she spent another three weeks waiting on tenterhooks before she looked up from her desk one day to see Welenski standing ashen-faced at the door of her office. Faith knew something had happened to Dan even before Welenski told her. She could tell by his lowered eyes and the sag in his jaw. When he’d told her as gently as he could that that Dan was missing and presumed dead, he closed the door behind him. But not before he had released the catch on the lock to allow her to be alone with her grief.
*
Joe heard about the American victory on Guadalcanal on the BBC Overseas Service when his section was gathered around the radio one night at the height of a tropical storm at the onset of the wet. For a while the news seemed to break the monotony of the long weeks at Eagle’s Nest. There had been no sightings of enemy activity except a few reconnaissance aircraft which had been identified as Japanese and duly reported to headquarters in Katherine. Two horseback patrols led by Smokey Peters, one to the north of Rosie Creek and one to the south had seen nothing of interest. All the excitement seemed to be in Darwin which, according to the radio reports, was still being bombed as regular as clockwork.
Now with the wet firmly set in, with its relentless daily downpours making everything miserable, even travel on horseback was very difficult. Everyone knew there was little likelihood of a Japanese landing in such conditions, or of being relieved by another section for several months. The only thing to look forward to was the arrival of the supply vessel bringing fresh food and mail. And with Christmas looming, everyone was concerned that poor weather, or a tropical cyclone would delay the arrival of the boat or even prevent it from coming at all. For the men of Joe’s section, just getting through each day of their deprived and isolated existence had become almost unbearable. The only exception was Snow. For the Aboriginal tracker, life at Eagle’s Nest was just fine.
*
One morning in early December, Koko was given just ten minutes notice to gather up his personal belongings before being transported from the internment camp at Hay to the prisoner of war camp at Cowra. When he climbed into the back of the waiting Army truck he found Yakimoto’s group of airmen were already aboard and sitting under the watchful eyes of two armed guards. Behind the truck, four more armed soldiers sat inside another vehicle waiting to escort the prisoners to Cowra.
Yakimoto seemed surprised that Koko was being transferred to the prisoner of war camp and soon after the truck left Hay he began to make conversation. He spoke in Japanese and for the first time he showed Koko a degree of friendliness. Koko put Yakimoto’s sudden change of attitude towards him down to his transfer to Cowra being confirmation of his status as a bona-fide Japanese prisoner of war.
By mid-afternoon the small convoy reached the main gate of the purpose-built POW camp. It was situated just outside the small town of Cowra on a grassy plain in farming country and had been originally constructed when the Commonwealth government had acceded to a British request to have European prisoners of war housed in Australia. The concerns of the country folk living in and around Cowra at having a Japanese POW camp in the their community were eased by the presence of a nearby Australian Army infantry training camp.
After the relatively relaxed atmosphere at Hay, Koko was filled with foreboding by the grim scene that greeted him when he climbed down from the truck. The austere-looking facility was situated inside a huge circular enclosure nearly half-a-mile in diameter. The perimeter was fenced with high barbed wire and there were elevated guard posts with searchlights spaced at regular intervals along it. Inside the fence were four equal-sized compounds, also fenced with barbed wire, and separated by two strips of no-man’s-land.
In each of the compounds there were long rows of barrack type huts. Two of the compounds housed Italian prisoners, both very crowded. The other two compounds were set aside for Japanese prisoners but many of the huts were empty. Koko soon found that he and the airmen from Hay were among the first Japanese to arrive at Cowra. The few other Japanese prisoners in his compound had been captured in the ill-fated landing at Milne Bay and on the Kokoda Track in New Guinea.
In the days and weeks that followed, more Japanese prisoners began arriving. All spoke at length of their shame at being captured, but the stories they told gave Koko an indication of how the war was going. When, towards the end of December, the first prisoners arrived from Guadalcanal, Koko knew things must be turning in favor of the Allies.