Tales of the South Pacific

by James A. Michener

  Now a circle of Navy F6F's took over. I thought they were more conservative than the New Zealanders and the last Marine gang. That Was until a Jap battery threw a couple of close ones. I had never seen an F6F in action before. Five of them hit that battery like Jack Dempsey hitting Willard. The New Zealanders, who had not seen the F6F's either, were amazed. It looked more like a medium bomber than a fighter. Extreme though our predicament was, I remember that we carefully appraised the new F6F.

  "The Japs won't be able to stop that one!" an officer said. "It's got too much."

  "You mean they can fly that big fighter off a ship?" another inquired.

  "They sure don't let the yellow barstards get many shots in, do they?"

  We were glad of that. Unless the Jap hit us on first shot, he was done. He didn't get a second chance. We were therefore dismayed when half of the F6F's pulled away toward Rendova. We didn't see them any more. An hour later, however, we saw thirty new F4U's lollygagging through the sky Rendova way. Four sped on ahead to relieve the fine, battle-proven F6F's who headed down The Slot. We wondered what was up.

  And then we saw! From some secret nest in Rendova, the F4U's were bringing out two PT Boats! They were going to come right into Munda harbor, and to hell with the Japs! Above them the lazy Marines darted and bobbed, like dolphins in an aerial ocean.

  You know the rest. It was Lt. Comdr. Charlesworth and his PT's. Used to be on Tulagi. They hang out somewhere in the Russells now. Something big was on, and they had sneaked up to Rendova, specially for an attack somewheres. But Kester shouted, "To hell with the attack. We've gone this far. Get that pilot out of there." He said they'd have to figure out some other move for the big attack they had cooking. Maybe use destroyers instead of PT's.

  I can't tell you much more. A couple of savvy Japs were waiting with field pieces, just like the earlier one. But they didn't get hits. My God, did the Marines in their F4U's crucify those Japs? That was the last thing I saw before the PT's pulled me aboard. Twelve F4U's diving at one hillside.

  Pass me that bottle, Tony. Well, as you know, we figured it all out last night. We lost a P-40 and a PBY. We broke up Admiral Kester's plan for the PT Boats. We wasted the flying time of P-40's, F4U's, and F6F's like it was dirt. We figured the entire mission cost not less than $600,000. Just to save one guy in the water off Munda. I wonder what the Japs left to rot on Munda thought of that? $600,000 for one pilot. -Bus Adams took a healthy swig of whiskey. He lolled back in the tail-killing chair of the Hotel De Gink-But it's sure worth every cent of the money. If you happen to be that pilot.

  ALLIGATOR

  ONE day in November, 1942, a group of admirals met in the Navy Building, in Washington. They discussed the limited victory at Coral Sea. They estimated our chances on Guadalcanal. They progressed to other considerations, and toward the end of the meeting the officer who was serving as improvised chairman said, "We will take Kuralei!"

  It was a preposterous decision. Our forces at that moment were more than a thousand enemy-held miles from Kuralei. We barely had enough planes in the Pacific to protect the Marines on Guadalcanal. Our ability to hold what we had grabbed and to digest what we held was uncertain. The outcome in the Pacific was undecided when the men in Washington agreed that next they would take Kuralei.

  Equally fantastic men in Russia made equally fantastic decisions. They forgot that Von Paulus was at the gates of Stalingrad. They were saying, "And when we have captured Warsaw, we will sweep on directly to Posnan. If necessary, we will bypass that city and strike for the Oder. That is what we will do."

  And in London, Americans and British ignored Rommel at the threshold of Alexandria and reasoned calmly, "When we drive Rommel out of Tunisia, and when you Americans succeed in your African venture, we will land upon Sicily in this manner."

  That each of these three grandiose dreams came true is a miracle of our age. I happened to see why the Kuralei adventure succeeded. It was because of Alligator. I doubt if anything that I shall ever participate in again will have quite the same meaning to me. Alligator was a triumph of mind, first, and then of muscle. It was a rousing victory of the spirit, consummated in the flesh. It was to me, who saw it imperfectly and in part, a lasting proof that democratic men will ever be the equals of those who deride the system; for it was an average group of hard-working Americans who devised Alligator.

  First the admirals in Washington conveyed their decision to their subordinates. "We will take Kuralei!" One of the subordinates told me that his head felt like a basket of lead when the words were spoken. Take Kuralei!" he laughed in retrospect. "It was as silly as suggesting that we sail right in and take Rabaul, or Truk, or Palau. At that time it was a preposterous imagination."

  But he and perhaps sixty other high-ranking officers set out to take Kuralei. Specialists of all branches of the service studied Kuralei day and night, to the exclusion of all else. Map-makers were called in to make complete maps of Kuralei... and four other islands so that no one could say for sure, "Kuralei is next." It was soon discovered that there were no maps of the island that could be trusted. Months later, lonely aircraft stole over Kuralei at great speed, and unarmed. They photographed the island... and four other islands, and some were never seen again. A submarine one night put six men ashore to reconnoiter a Kuralei beach. They returned. The men who crept ashore on another island did not return, but even in the moments of their darkest torture those men could not imperil the operation, for they knew nothing. In five months the first maps of Kuralei were drawn. They proved to be sixty percent accurate. Hundreds of lives paid for each error in those maps; hundreds more live today because the maps contained so much accurate information.

  The admiral in charge of providing the necessary number of destroyers for the operation studied eighteen or twenty contingencies. If the submarine menace abates within four months; if we could draw twelve destroyers from the Aleutians; if we had only eight carriers to protect; if we can insist upon using only those transports that make sixteen knots; if we can rely upon complete outfitting in Brisbane; if Camden and Seattle can finish outfitting the cruisers we need; if the job between here and Ascension can be turned over to destroyer escorts; if the African experiment needs all the destroyers allocated to it; if we could draw heavily upon MacArthur's fleet for the time being; reports from Korea four weeks previous to D-day continue favorable as to the disposition of the Jap fleet; if we decide to knock out most of the shore batteries by aerial bombardment; if we have a margin of safety at Midway; if we have an air cover as powerful as we plan; if we can suspend all convoys south of Pearl Harbor, and so on until a truly perplexing number of possibilities had been considered. But when a man whose life has been planned to the sea, whose whole purpose for living is meeting an emergency like this, spends four months on the problem of destroyers at Kuralei, one has a right to expect a judicious decision.

  The medical corps attacked their problem somewhat differently. They made a study of all amphibious landings of which there was any history. Landings by a large force, by a small force. Landings with a ground swell and in calm water. Landings with air cover and without. Landings with fierce air opposition and with moderate. Landings with no air opposition. Landings in the tropics, in the arctic, and in temperate climate. Landings with hospital ships available and with hospital ships sunk. In fact, where no experience was available to draw upon, the doctors spent hours imagining what might conceivably happen.

  Slowly and with much revision, they proceeded to draw up tables. "Against a beach protected by a coral reef, with a landing made at high tide against effective, but harassed enemy opposition, casualties may be expected as follows..." Specialists went to work upon the tentative assumptions. "Of any 100 casualties suffered in this operation, it is safe to predict that the following distribution by type will be encountered." Next research doctors computed the probable percentages of leg wounds, stomach wounds, head wounds, arms shattered, faces blown away, testicles destroyed, eyes lost forever, and feet shot off. Th
en the hospital men took over. "It can be seen from the accompanying table that xx hospital ships with xx beds must be provided for this operation. Of the xx beds, no less than xx percent must be adjustable beds to care for wounds in categories k through r." Next the number of surgeons required was determined, the number of corpsmen, the number of nurses and their desired distribution according to rank, the number of enterologists, head specialists, eye men, and genito-urinary consultants. The number of operating tables available was determined, as were all items of equipment. A survey was made of every available hospital and medical facility from Pearl Harbor to Perth. "By the time this operation commences, it is reasonable to assume that we shall have naval hospitals on Guadalcanal, the Russells, Munda; that we shall have increased facilities in the New Hebrides and Noumea; and that projects already under way in New Zealand and Australia will be completed. This means that at the minimum, we shall have..." Four medical warehouses were completely checked to see that adequate supplies of all medicines, plasma, bandages, instruments, and every conceivable medical device would be available. "If, as is reasonable to suppose, we have by that time secured an effective airstrip, say at some point like Konora, we will have available fourteen hospital planes which should be able to evacuate critically wounded men at the rate of..." At this point a senior naval doctor interrupted all proceedings.

  "Let us now assume," he said, "that this operation is a fiasco. Let us imagine for the moment that we have twenty-five percent casualties. That our schedule for operations is doubled. That head wounds are increased two hundred percent. What will we do then?" So the doctors revised their tables and studied new shreds of past experience. About this time a doctor who had commanded a medical unit for the Marines on Guadalcanal returned to Washington. Eagerly, his fellow physicians shot questions at him for three days. Then they revised their estimates. A British doctor who was passing through Washington on a medical commission that would shortly go to Russia was queried for two days. He had been on Crete. Slowly, with infinite pains, ever cautiously, but with hope, the doctors built up their tables of expectancy. Long before the first ship set sail for Kuralei, almost before the long-range bombers started softening it up, the medical history of the battle was written. Like all such predictions, it was bloody and cruel and remorseless. Insofar as our casualties fell short of the doctors' fearful expectations, we would achieve a great victory. And if our losses amounted to only one half or one third of the predictions, hundreds upon hundreds of homes in the United States would know less tragedy than now they could expect to know. In such an event Admiral Kester would be able to report on the battle in those magic words: "Our losses were unexpectedly light." It was strange. The men who would make up the difference between the expected dead and the actual dead would never know that they were the lucky ones. But all the world would be richer for their having lived.

  About this time it was necessary to take more and more men into the secret of Kuralei. Seven months had passed. An inspiring whisper was sweeping the Navy: "A big strike is on." Everyone heard the whisper. Stewards' mates in Australia, serving aboard some harbor tug, knew "something was up." Little Japanese boys who shined shoes in Pearl Harbor knew it, and so did the French girls who waited store in Noumea. But where was the strike directed? When was it timed to hit? More than half a year had passed since the decision had been reached. Evidences of the decision were everywhere, but the ultimate secret was still protected. A manner of referring to the secret without betraying it was now needed.

  Alligator was the code word decided upon. It was the Alligator operation. Now the actual printing of schedules could proceed. Wherever possible, names were omitted. Phrases such as this appeared: "Alligator can be depended upon to suck the Japanese fleet..."

  "Alligator will need not less than twenty personnel planes during the period... "Two weeks before Alligator D-day, hospitals in the area south of..." The compilation of specific instructions had begun. Mimeograph machines were working, and over certain offices an armed guard watched night and day. Alligator was committed.

  The day upon which the Kuralei operation was named, Captain Samuel Kelley, SC, USN, left Washington for the island of Efate, in the New Hebrides. He was instructed to assume full command of all supply facilities in that area and to be prepared to service a major strike. "Nothing," he was told, "must interfere with the effective handling of this job. Our entire position in the Pacific depends upon the operation."

  At the same time a captain close to Admiral King was dispatched with verbal instructions to Admiral Kester, to the top-flight officers at Pearl Harbor, and to General MacArthur. This captain did not know of Captain Kelley's commission, and the two men flew out to the South Pacific in the same plane, each wondering what the other was going to do there.

  Meanwhile, in Washington plans had gone as far as they could. In minutely guarded parcels they were flown to Pearl Harbor, where Admiral Nimitz and his staff continued the work and transmuted it into their own.

  No commitments had been made as to when D-day should be, but by the time the project was turned over to Admiral Nimitz, it did not look half so foolish as when it was hatched in Washington. By the time I heard of it much later, it seemed like a logical and almost inevitable move. The subtle difference is that when I saw how reasonable it was, the plan was already so far progressed that only a major catastrophe could have disrupted it. I think that therein lies the secret of modern amphibious warfare.

  In Pearl Harbor the mimeograph machines worked harder and longer than they had in Washington. Day by day new chapters were added to the pre-history of Alligator. Old ones were revised or destroyed, and yet there was no printed hint as to where Alligator would strike. All that could be told for certain was that a tremendous number of ships was involved. The super-secret opening sections of Alligator had not yet been printed, nor would they be until the last few weeks before the inevitable day.

  At this stage of developments I was sent to Pearl Harbor on uncertain orders. I had a suspicion that I might be traveling there in some connection or other with the impending strike. I thought it was going to be against some small island near Bougainvillea. For a few electric moments I thought it might even be against Kavieng. Kuralei never entered my head.

  I landed at the airfield and went directly to Ford Island, where I bunked with an old friend, a Lt. English. Sometime later Tony Fry flew up on business, and the two of us lay in the sun, swapped scuttle-butt, and waited in one dreary office after another. Since I was a qualified messenger and had nothing to do, I was sent out to Midway with some papers connected with Alligator. The island made no impression on me. It was merely a handful of sand and rock in the dreary wastes of the Pacific. I have since thought that millions of Americans now and in the future will look upon Guadalcanal, New Georgia, and Kuralei as I looked upon Midway that very hot day. The islands which are cut upon my mind will be to others mere stretches of jungle or bits of sand. For those other men cannot be expected to know. They were not there.

  Finally Tony Fry left for Segi Point, an infinitesimal spot in the Solomons. English had to go on a trip somewhere, and I was alone in the rooms on Ford Island. Young officers reported in by the hundreds in those exciting days prior to the big strike, and after brief interviews, hurried on to islands they had never heard of, to ships they had never known. I stayed, and stayed, and stayed. I did the usual things one did in Pearl Harbor, but somehow the crowds appalled me, and an evil taste never left my mouth. Other men have had similar experiences, in California, or New York, or Oklahoma. They were home, yet there was an evil taste in their mouths; for not even Chicago or Fort Worth can solace a man who has been in the islands and who knows another great strike is forming. His wife and his mother may tell him that he is home now, and order him to forget the battles, but he knows in his heart that he is not home.

  It was in this mood that I reported one day to fleet headquarters. That time the call was not in vain. I was given a medium-sized briefcase, unusually heavy. I was tol
d that if our plane went down at sea, I must throw the case into the water. It was guaranteed to sink in eight seconds. I was given a pistol, and a Marine sergeant as an armed guard. With an armed escort I was taken to a waiting airplane. Seven other officers were in the plane, and I was certain that at least one of them was a guard assigned to watch me, but which officer it was I could not ascertain.

  We stopped that night at Funafuti, a speck in the ocean. Two guards were stationed at my quarters, which was shared with no one. In the morning the procedure of the previous day was repeated, and we left Funafuti, a truly dismal island, for sprawling New Caledonia.

  When we were about an hour away from Noumea, where Admiral Kester had his headquarters, an unfavorable weather report was received, and we were directed to land at Plaine des Gaiacs, an airstrip some distance from Noumea. We made what I considered a pretty hazardous landing, for we were well shaken up. We had a difficult decision to make. Should we fly to Noumea in a smaller plane? Should we go down by jeep? Or should we lay over until morning? It was decided to wait an hour and to try the first alternative.

  A TBF took us down, and it was then that I learned which of my fellow officers was my extra guard. It was a jay-gee who looked exactly like a bank clerk. In the crowded TBF we never acknowledged that either knew why the other was there. At Magenta we made a wretched landing, and both the jay-gee and I were obviously frightened when we left the plane. Bad weather was all about us, and we wondered how the pilot had felt his way through the clouds.

  Again an armed car was waiting, and we proceeded directly to Admiral Kester's headquarters. There the admiral was waiting. Three of us, the jay-gee, the Marine, and I, presented the briefcase to him.