Close Combat

by W. E. B Griffin

  Dunn was small and slight, five feet six or so, not more than 140 pounds; he had little body hair.

  He’s just a kid, Dawkins thought.

  Six months before, the idea of a twenty-one-year-old not a year out of Pensacola even serving as an acting squadron commander would have seemed absurd to him.

  But six months ago was before Midway, where this skinny blond kid had shot down two Japanese airplanes and then made it back home with a shot-out canopy and a face full of Plexiglas shards and metal fragments. And before Guadalcanal, where he had shot down five more Japanese.

  The regulations were clear: Command of an organization was vested in the senior officer present for duty. And Bill Dunn was by no means the senior first lieutenant present for duty in VMF-229. He should not be carried on the books as executive officer (though in fact he was), much less should he have assumed command during the temporary absence of Captain Charles M. Galloway, USMCR.

  But he was the best man available, not only in terms of flying skill, but as a leader. Dawkins had agreed with Galloway when the question had come up; fuck the regulations, Dunn’s the best man.

  This was the second time Dunn had assumed command of VMF-229. Six weeks before, Galloway had been shot down and presumed lost. When he heard the news, tears ran shamelessly down Dunn’s cheeks. But the next morning, he led VMF-229 back into the air without complaining. If any doubt at all about the kid’s ability to command VMF-229 had come up, Dawkins would have relieved him. But he did fine.

  Meanwhile, Galloway’s luck held…that time. A Patrol Torpedo boat plucked him from the sea, and he returned to duty. And then six days ago, on orders from Washington, Galloway went off on some mission that was both supersecret and—Dawkins inferred—superdangerous. It was entirely likely that he would not come back from it.

  And so Dawkins was glad he had the skinny little hairless boy with the soap in his eyes to command VMF-229. He didn’t look like one, but Lieutenant Bill Dunn was a fine Marine, a born leader, a warrior.

  Dunn held his face up to the water dribbling from the fifty-five-gallon drum, then stepped to the side and wiped his face with a dirty towel. When he opened his eyes, he saw Colonel Dawkins.

  “Be right with you, Skipper,” he said.

  “Take your time,” Dawkins said.

  Dunn pulled on a T-shirt and shorts. These didn’t look appreciably cleaner than the ones he’d removed and tossed on a pile of sandbags. Then he pulled on a fresh flight suit. After that, he sat on the pile of sandbags and slipped on socks, then stuck his feet in his boondockers. Finally, he put the .45 in its shoulder holster across his chest.

  When he was finished dressing, he looked at Dawkins.

  “What happened to Knowles?” Dawkins asked.

  “He got on the horn and said he was low on fuel, so I sent him back. Him and two others who were getting low themselves. We still had thirty, thirty-five minutes’ fuel remaining.”

  “He almost made it,” Dawkins said.

  “Oblensky saw it. He told me he tried to stretch his dead-engine glide and didn’t make it.”

  Technical Sergeant Oblensky had been a flying sergeant when Colonel Dawkins had been a second lieutenant. His professional opinion of the cause of the crash was at least as valid as anyone else’s Dawkins could think of. He hadn’t questioned it.

  “He should have put it in the water,” Dawkins said.

  “He was trying to save the plane,” Dunn said.

  “What do we call it, ‘pilot error’?”

  “How about ‘command failure’? I should have checked to make sure he wasn’t running on the fumes.”

  “It wasn’t your fault, Bill,” Dawkins said.

  Dunn met his eyes, but didn’t respond directly.

  “How is he?” Dunn asked. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

  “He died about five minutes ago.”

  “Shit! When I was over there, they told me they thought he would.”

  “They did everything they could for him.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What kind of shape are you in, Bill?”

  “Me personally, or the squadron?”

  “You personally, first, and then the squadron.”

  “Except for wishing Charley Galloway was here and not off Christ only knows where, playing whatever game he’s playing, I’m all right.”

  “I’m sure it’s not a game,” Dawkins said, a hint of reproof in his voice. “That mission came right from Washington.”

  Dunn didn’t reply.

  “You’re doing a fine job as squadron commander,” Dawkins said.

  “Squadron commanders write the next of kin,” Dunn said. “I’m getting goddamned sick of that.”

  “I’ll write Knowles’s family. What is it, wife or parents?”

  “He got married at P’Cola the day he graduated,” Dunn said. “And heard last week that she’s knocked up.” He pressed his lips together, bitterly. “Sorry. That she’s in the family way.”

  “I’ll write her, Bill.”

  “No. I killed him. I’ll write her.”

  “Damn it! You didn’t kill him. He knew what the fuel gauge is for.”

  “And I should have known that he wouldn’t turn back until he was ordered to turn back,” Dunn said. “Which I would have done had I done my job and checked on his fuel.”

  “I’m not going to debate with you, Mr. Dunn,” Dawkins said coldly, breaking the vow he made on the way from the hospital to VMF-229 to overlook Bill Dunn’s habit of saying exactly what was on his mind, without regard to the niceties of military protocol.

  “I will write Mrs. Knowles,” Dunn said. “And since I am a coward, I will tell her that the father of her unborn child died doing his duty.”

  “You never know when to shut up, do you?” Dawkins flared. But he was immediately sorry for it.

  Dunn met his eyes again, yet didn’t reply.

  “Nothing happened this morning?” Dawkins went on quickly. “You saw nothing up there?”

  Dunn shook his head “no.” “Dawn Patrol was a failure,” he went on. “The Blue Baron declined the opportunity for a chivalrous duel in the sky.”

  Dawkins chuckled.

  “I used to read Flying Aces, too, when I was a kid,” he said. “Who are you? Lieutenant Jack Carter?”

  “Captain Bruce Strongheart,” Dunn said with a smile. “Right now I’m getting dressed to have a champagne lunch with Nurse Nightingale.”

  “That wasn’t her name,” Dawkins said. “It was…Knight. Helen Knight.”

  “You did read Flying Aces, didn’t you?” Dunn said, smiling.

  “Yeah,” Dawkins said. “I always wondered if Jack Carter ever got in her pants.”

  “I always thought she had the hots for Captain Strongheart. Beautiful women seldom screw the nice guy.”

  “Is that the voice of experience talking?”

  “Unfortunately,” Dunn said.

  “They’ll be back,” Dawkins said, suddenly getting back to the here and now. “I wouldn’t be surprised if in force. How’s your squadron?”

  “After Knowles, I’m down to five operational aircraft. By now, they should be refueled and rearmed. Tail number 107 is down with a bad engine. I don’t think it will be ready anytime soon; maybe, just maybe, by tomorrow. Oblensky is switching engines. There are two in the boneyard he thinks he may be able to use.”

  “What happened to the engine?”

  “Well, not only was it way overtime, but it really started to blow oil. I listened to it. I didn’t think it would make it off the runway. I redlined it for engine replacement.”

  “They keep promising us airplanes.”

  “They promised me I would travel to exotic places and implied I would get laid a lot,” Dunn said. “I don’t trust them anymore.”

  “I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt,” Dawkins answered. “I believe they’re trying.” His mouth curled into a small smile. “You don’t think Guadalcanal is ‘exotic’?”


  “I was young then, Skipper. I didn’t know the difference between ‘exotic’ and ‘erotic.’”

  Dawkins touched his arm. “You better get something to eat.”

  “The minute I start to eat, the goddamned radar will go off.”

  “Probably,” Dawkins said.

  This, Dawkins thought, is where I’m supposed to say something reassuring. Or better, inspiring. Hell of a note that a MAG commander can’t think of a goddamn thing reassuring or inspiring to say to one of his squadron commanders.

  He thought of something:

  “When Galloway comes back, I’ll lay three to one he comes with stuff to drink.”

  “If he comes back,” Dunn said. “What odds are you offering about that?”

  “He’ll be back, Bill,” Dawkins said, hoping his voice carried more conviction than he felt.

  [THREE]

  * * *

  SECRET

  FROM: MAG-21 1750 11OCT42

  SUBJECT: AFTER-ACTION REPORT

  TO: COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, PACIFIC, PEARL

  HARBOR

  INFO: SUPREME COMMANDER SWPOA,

  BRISBANE

  COMMANDANT, USMC, WASH, DC

  1. UPON RADAR DETECTION AT 1220 11OCT42 OF TWO FLIGHTS OF UNIDENTIFIED AIRCRAFT APPROX 140 NAUTICAL MILES MAG-21 LAUNCHED;

  A. EIGHT (8) F4F4 VF-5

  B. FIFTEEN (15) F4F4 VMF-121

  C. SIX (6) F4F4 VMF-223

  D. FIVE (5) F4F4 VMF-224

  E. FIVE (5) F4F4 VMF-229

  F. THREE (3) P40 67TH FIGHTER SQUADRON USAAC

  G. NINE (9) P39 67TH FIGHTER SQUADRON USAAC.

  2. VF-5 AND VMF-121 NO CONTACT.

  3. DUE TO INABILITY EXCEED 19,000 FEET WITH AVAILABLE OXYGEN EQUIPMENT USAAC AIRCRAFT MADE NO INITIAL CONTACT.

  4. AT 1255 11OCT42 REMAINING FORCE MADE CONTACT AT 25,000 FEET WITH 34 KATE REPEAT 34 KATE BOMBERS ESCORTED BY 29 ZERO REPEAT 29 ZERO FIGHTERS APPROXIMATELY 20 NAUTICAL MILES PROM HENDERSON FIELD.

  5. ENEMY LOSSES:

  A. NINE (9) KATE KUNTZ, CHARLES M 1/LT USMC TWO (2)

  MANN, THOMAS H JR 1/LT USMCR TWO (2)

  DUNN, WILLIAM C 1/LT USMCR ONE (1) HALLOWELL, GEORGE L 1 /LT USMCR TWO (2)

  KENNEDY, MATTHEW H 1/LT USMCR (2)

  B. FOUR (4) ZERO

  DUNN, WILLIAM C 1/LT USMCR ONE (1)

  MCNAB, HOWARD T/SGT USMC (2)

  ALLEN, GEORGE F 1/LT USMCR ONE (1)

  C. IN ADDITION, SHARPSTEEN, JAMES

  CAPT USAAC 67 USAAC FS DOWNED ONE (1)

  KATE STRAGGLER

  6. MAG-21 LOSSES:

  A. ONE (1) F4F4 CRASHED AT SEA. PILOT RECOVERED.

  B. ONE (1) F4F4 CRASHED ON LANDING, DESTROYED.

  C. THREE (3) F4F4 SLIGHTLY DAMAGED, REPAIRABLE.

  7. DUE TO CLOUD COVER REMAINING ENEMY FORCE COULD NOT SEE HENDERSON FIELD, BOMB LOAD DROPPED APPROXIMATELY FOUR NAUTICAL MILES TO WEST. NO DAMAGE TO FIELD OR EQUIPMENT.

  DAWKINS, CLYDE W LTCOL USMC

  COMMANDING

  SECRET

  * * *

  [FOUR]

  Henderson Field

  Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands

  0615 Hours 12 October 1942

  As the Douglas R4D (the Navy/Marine Corps version of the twin-engine Douglas DC-3) turned smoothly onto its final approach, the pilot, who had been both carefully scanning the sky and taking a careful look at the airfield itself, suddenly put his left hand on the control wheel and gestured with his right to the copilot to relinquish control.

  The lanky and (like nearly everyone else in that part of the world) tanned pilot of the R4D was twenty-eight-year-old Captain Charles M. Galloway, USMCR—known to his subordinates as either “The Skipper” or “The Old Man.”

  The copilot was a twenty-two-year-old Marine Corps second lieutenant whose name was Malcolm S. Pickering. Everyone called him “Pick.”

  As Pick Pickering took his feet off the rudder pedals, he took his left hand from the wheel and held both hands up in front of him, fingers extended, a gesture indicating, You’ve got it.

  I didn’t have to take it away from him, Charley Galloway thought as he moved his hand to the throttle quadrant. His many other flaws notwithstanding, Pickering is a first-rate pilot. More than that, he’s that rare creature, a natural pilot.

  So why did I take it away from him? Because no pilot believes any other pilot can fly as well as he can? Or because I am functioning as a responsible commander, aware that high on the long list of critically short matériel of war on Guadalcanal are R4D airplanes. And consequently I am obliged to do whatever I can to make sure nobody dumps one of them?

  He glanced over at Pickering to see if he could detect any signs on his face of a bruised ego. There were none.

  Is that because he accepts the unquestioned right of pilots-in-command to fly the airplane, and that copilots can drive only at the pleasure of the pilot?

  Or because he is a fighter pilot, and doesn’t give a damn who flies an aerial truck, all aerial truck drivers being inferior to all fighter pilots?

  Galloway made a last-second minor correction to line up with the center of the runway, then flared perfectly and touched down smoothly. The runway was rough. The landing roll took them past the Pagoda, the Japanese-built control tower, and then past the graveyard. There the hulks of shot-up, crashed, burned, and otherwise irreparably damaged airplanes waited until usable parts could be salvaged from them to keep other planes flying.

  Where, Galloway thought, Pickering can see the pile of crushed and burned aluminum that used to be the Grumman Wildcat, his buddy, First Lieutenant Dick Stecker, dumped on landing…and almost literally broke every bone in his body.

  Galloway carefully braked the aircraft to a stop, then turned it around and started to taxi back down the runway.

  “You still want to turn your wings in for a rifle?” Galloway asked.

  Pickering turned to look at him.

  He didn’t reply at first, taking so long that Galloway was suddenly worried what his answer might be.

  “I was upset,” Pickering said, meeting his eyes, “when I saw Stecker crash. If I can, I’d like to take back what I said then.”

  “Done,” Galloway said, nodding his head. “It was never said.”

  “I did say it, Skipper,” Pickering answered softly. “But I want to take it back.”

  “Pickering, they’re short of R4D pilots. I’m an R4D IP”—an Instructor Pilot, with the authority to classify another pilot as competent to fly an R4D—“As far as I’m concerned, you’re checked out in one of these. I’m sure there’d be a billet for you on Espiritu Santo.”

  “If that’s my option, Captain,” Pickering said, “then I will take the rifle. I’m a fighter pilot.”

  “It takes as much balls to fly this as it does a Wildcat,” Galloway said.

  “More. These things don’t get to shoot back,” Pickering said.

  Galloway chuckled, then said, “Just to make sure you understand: I wasn’t trying to get rid of you.”

  Pickering met his eyes again for a long moment.

  “Thank you, Sir,” he said.

  [FIVE]

  Corporal Robert F. Easterbrook, USMCR, was nineteen years old, five feet ten inches tall, and weighed 132 pounds (he’d weighed 146 when he came ashore on Guadalcanal two months and two days earlier). And he was pink skinned—thus perhaps understandably known to his peers as “Easterbunny.” Easterbrook was sitting in the shade of the Henderson Field control tower, the Pagoda, when the weird R4D came in for a landing. It had normal landing gears, with wheels; but attached to all that was what looked like large skis. None of the other Marine and Navy R4Ds that flew into Henderson were so equipped.

  “Holy shit!” he said to himself, and he thought: That damned thing is back! I’ve got to get pictures of that sonofabitch.

  Twelve months before, Corporal Easterbrook had been a freshman at the University of Missouri, enrolled in courses known informally as “Pre-Journalism.”

  It had been his inten
tion then to work hard and attain a high enough undergraduate grade-point average to ensure his acceptance into the University of Missouri Graduate School of Journalism. Later, with a Missouri J School diploma behind him, he could get his foot on the first rung of the ladder leading to a career as a photojournalist (or at least he’d hoped so).

  He would have to start out on a small weekly somewhere and work himself up to a daily paper. Later—much later—after acquiring enough experience, he might be able to find employment on a national magazine…maybe Collier’s or the Saturday Evening Post, or maybe even Look. It was too much to hope that he would ever see his work in Life or Time—at least before he was old, say thirty or thirty-five. As the unquestioned best of their genre, these two magazines published only the work of the very finest photojournalists in the world.

  On December 8, 1941, the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Bobby Easterbrook had gone down to the post office and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve for the Duration of the War Plus Six Months. He now regarded that as the dumbest one fucking thing he had ever done in his life.

  Even though his photographic images had appeared in the past two months not only within the pages, but on the covers, of Look and Time and several dozen major newspapers, that success had not caused him to modify his belief that enlisting in The Crotch was the dumbest one fucking thing he had ever done in his life.

  In fact, he’d concluded that the price of his photojournalistic success and minor fame—he’d been given credit a couple of times, USMC PHOTOGRAPH BY CPL R. F. EASTERBROOK, USMC COMBAT CORRESPONDENT—was going to be very high. Specifically, he was going to get killed.

  There was reason to support this belief. Of the seven combat correspondents who had made the invasion, two were dead and three had been badly wounded.

  In June 1942, the horror of boot camp at Parris Island still a fresh and painful memory, the Easterbunny had been a clerk in a supply room at the Marine Base at Quantico, Virginia.

  He’d got that job after telling a personnel clerk that he had worked for the Conner Courier. That was true. During his last two years of high school, he’d worked afternoons and as long as it took on Fridays to get the Courier out.