To get his attention, Jock asked, “What happened to that other plane, Lieutenant?”
The pilot snapped to attention. “Sorry, sir,” he said, offering a salute. “Didn’t hear you coming. The other one? Well…Cooper ground looped it.”
Jock didn’t return the salute: “Don’t bother doing that around here. Snipers, you know. Is the pilot okay?”
“Broke his leg, sir.”
“That’s too bad. We could have used him…and that plane.” He offered a handshake. “I’m Jock Miles, S2 for Eighty-First Regiment.”
The pilot looked confused as they shook hands. “I’m John Worth, sir…No disrespect, but what’s an S2?”
“Intelligence officer…and I could sure use a ride on that plane of yours to do a little recon.”
Lieutenant Worth brightened up at the word recon. “I’d love to help you out, sir. I’m a recon pilot myself, actually. Supposed to be flying an F-4, but our planes are still being put together back in Australia.”
“I don’t mean any disrespect, either, Lieutenant, but what’s an F-4?”
“A P-38 fighter, sir, with cameras instead of guns.”
Jock was impressed. “A P-38, eh? That’s one hell of an airplane. So what are you doing flying this puddle jumper?”
Worth waited for a particularly strong rumble of distant artillery to subside before replying, “Me and Cooper were low men on the totem pole, sir, so it was the Grasshoppers for us. Now, I guess it’s just me down there at the bottom.”
“Well, we’re glad to have you, anyway, Lieutenant.” Jock pointed into the distance, toward Astrolabe. “We watched you guys land from up there last evening. Where’d you come from?”
“They stuck a wooden deck on one of the landing ships…like a miniature aircraft carrier. We just flew off and found our way here. That was the best chance of getting these flimsy little crates on shore in one piece.” He glanced over at Cooper’s wreck, adding, “Well, almost. At least we can cannibalize that one for some spare parts.”
Jock took a look inside the cabin of Worth’s airplane. It was nothing fancy: two cramped seats—one behind the other; a radio; and not a bit of armor plating. Jock asked, “You ready to take me for a little sight-seeing tour?”
“Sight-seeing? Of what, sir?”
“The other side of Port Moresby.”
“Sure, sir, just as soon as the engineers come back from the beach with some gasoline. And speaking of fuel, you wouldn’t have anything to eat, would you?”
“We’ve got some K rations in the jeep that’s stuck way over there.”
Relief seemed to wash over John Worth’s entire body. “Oh, yeah…I’m so hungry I’ll eat anything…even that.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Day 9
To their mutual surprise, the gasoline showed up in short order. It took just a few minutes for John Worth to pump in the fuel, filling the L4’s 12-gallon tank. “That’ll give us a couple of hours’ flying,” he said to Jock. “Hell, it’ll be dark by then, anyway.”
Jock clambered into the back seat, fumbling with the control stick between his knees as he struggled to stow his Thompson submachine gun. John Worth took the front seat and said, “This is a first for me, riding up front. I’ve never had a passenger before. When you fly by yourself, you’ve got to sit in the back to balance her.”
“You’ve never had a passenger? Really? How many hours do you have in this type?”
“Just a couple, sir. I flew one in flight school a few times…and now this one.”
This whole damned Army is full of rookies, John thought. He cinched his seatbelt a little tighter, hoping it would make him feel safer. It didn’t.
Worth cranked the L4’s little engine. After misfiring a few times, it settled into a gentle putter at idle. There was no interphone; the plane’s occupants had to shout at each other to be heard. As the engine warmed up, Jock handed Worth a piece of paper with the command and fire direction radio frequencies for the division. He was surprised when Worth took a grease pencil and wrote the numbers on the clear pane of a side window. “Easier this way,” the pilot shouted. “Never have to fumble through papers when I’m trying to fly.”
The little L4 bounced and lurched along the ground as she taxied to the end of the dirt runway. “First takeoff in history from Twenty Mile Airfield coming right up,” Worth said.
“That’s the name of this place? Twenty Mile Airfield?”
“Yeah,” Worth replied, “because it’s about twenty miles from Port Moresby.” Then he laughed and added, “Maybe they’ll change their minds and rename it Cooper Field, after the first person to become a casualty here. You all set back there, Captain?”
“Ready.”
John Worth eased her throttle forward. The engine’s putter transformed to an enthusiastic, if less-than-mighty, roar. As the plane gained speed, it took more than a few gut-wrenching rudder inputs to keep her tail from swinging too far and causing the dreaded ground loop which brought Cooper to grief. Then the rumbling and bumping of wheels over rough ground ceased abruptly and she was airborne, rising smoothly above the treetops. Looking around the pilot’s broad shoulders, Jock could see the airspeed indicator. It read 50 miles per hour.
“Is that gauge right? That’s as fast as this thing goes?” Jock asked. He had visions of gleeful Japanese gunners zeroing in on this leisurely moving target.
“We’ll pick up a little more speed when we level off, sir. Not much, though. Funny, but when I first flew one of these things, I looked down at a road, and there was a car going faster than me.”
Jock didn’t find that funny at all. His visions of the Japanese gunners grew darker.
As he turned the L4 toward the sea, John Worth said, “I’m going to stay out over the water, at least until we’re on the other side of Port Moresby. I figure the Navy will be less likely to shoot us down than the GIs on land will.”
“Good plan,” Jock replied.
They cruised slowly up the coast, over the ships still unloading men and material near Barakau. Looking down at the beach, there seemed to be a steady stream of wounded—some walking but most carried on litters—being loaded onto landing craft for evacuation.
“Back on ship,” Worth said, “the scuttlebutt was all about how bad you guys were getting beat up on Papua.” He took one more sad look: “I was really hoping they were full of baloney, but…”
In another five minutes, the view toward shore revealed the no man’s land separating the Japanese and GIs. “Looks like there’s a ton of artillery in the air in both directions,” Worth said, drawing a red goose egg on the map board strapped to his thigh. “Good area to stay away from…but what about the natives? Are there any villages in the middle of all that?”
“There used to be a couple,” Jock replied, “but the natives picked up stakes and moved.”
“They told us the natives are on our side. Is that true, sir?”
“Yeah, they are…and believe me, we need their help.”
Their headphones hummed with the voices of Blind Eye Six—Charlie Company at The Notch—directing fire missions for the artillery. Worth asked, “Those guys calling the fire missions…they’re the ones you’ve been talking about? Your old company?”
“Yep, that’s them,” Jock replied, the need to shout doing nothing to hide the pride in his voice.
Another five minutes of flying brought them to the mouth of Fairfax Harbor. “Can we get a little lower?” Jock asked.
“You sure, sir? It took us this long just to get to eighteen hundred feet,” Worth said. “How much lower do you want to be?”
“Close enough to read their laundry tags, okay?” Jock didn’t sound like he was joking.
After he thought about it for a moment, John Worth’s reluctance faded. He remembered a lesson from flight school: When you’re very low, you’re a harder target—even a slowpoke like the Grasshopper will pass through an anti-aircraft gunner’s field of fire much quicker. He throttled back and pointed the L
4’s nose down. We’ll be able to gain back the altitude if we need it…maybe.
When Worth leveled her off, they were down to 400 feet, barely higher than the tops of the bluffs that ringed the harbor. It was high enough, though, to give Jock his most unobstructed view of the wharves and anchorages ever. He could see Trevor Shaw was right: the bombardment they directed had caused far more damage than was evident from Astrolabe. The harbor was ringed with sunken and damaged barges, freighters, and small patrol boats too numerous to count. The two coast artillery guns that once defended the harbor’s entrance were oddly askew amidst the rubble of their shattered concrete emplacements, knocked from their trunnions by dozens of hits from Navy shells and Air Force bombs.
“I just realized something,” Jock said. “Those two big guns guarding the harbor…the Japs didn’t even put them there. The Aussies did. The Japs just borrowed them.”
Just like Singapore, Jock thought, with all the guns pointed to the sea. The Brits didn’t think the Japs would come over land there, either. And yet MacArthur still thinks they can’t do it here…even though they already have.
“I thought the Japanese Navy would’ve been stronger here,” Worth said.
“The Jap Navy’s spread pretty thin now,” Jock replied. “Our Navy liaison says they’re more interested in kicking us out of the Solomons at the moment. Fairfax Harbor’s too small for a big fleet, anyway…but I’ve seen a few warships come and go since I’ve been here. Look down…your Air Force buddies even sank one of them right there in the harbor’s mouth.”
They were past the harbor now, flying northwest along a rugged coastline with dominant bluffs overlooking narrow beaches. Those bluffs would be an ideal place for the Japanese to mount a defensive stand against an amphibious invasion force, but there were no Japanese troops in sight.
Can’t say I blame them, Jock thought. No invader in his right mind would choose to land there, anyway. They’d be fish in a barrel.
“Keep flying up the coast, Lieutenant.”
“Remember, sir…we’ve only got about two hours’ worth of gas left…and even less of daylight.”
“Stop worrying. We’re not going that far.”
“You want me to stay at this altitude, sir?”
“Affirmative.”
It only took a few minutes more of flying for the coastal terrain to change. The beaches were flatter now; high ground still overlooked them but from several miles away. In a few places, vast mangroves extended right into the sea—a natural defense against seaborne invaders. But just west of a coastal village built on stilts over the water—Boera, Jock’s map called it—the conditions for landing large numbers of troops looked perfect. Even the coral reefs that usually skirted the coast—barely hidden beneath the shimmering turquoise of shallow water—faded into the darker blue of water several fathoms deep. Deep-draft vessels would be able to come close to shore here.
A few miles farther west—where the Aussies were supposed to have landed—the terrain turned to swamp. Bringing troops ashore there would be a disaster: vehicles would bog down immediately; men on foot would have to slog through fetid water knee deep or worse, totally without cover and concealment. The only tactical advantage this landing beach offered was the absence of overlooking high ground. This would be of little comfort when the invading troops emerged from the swamp with their equipment and stamina less than intact.
Jock had seen enough. “Turn back toward Boera, John. Let’s get a look at the terrain behind the beach.”
“You mean those hills?” Worth replied. “The peaks are higher than we are, sir. You want me to climb?”
“Yeah…but stay just below the peaks. Let’s check out the seaward face first…especially near that highest point.”
“Do you still want to read laundry tags, sir?”
“That’s affirmative, Lieutenant.”
As they got close to the hills, Worth said, “I’m gonna pour the coals on, sir, and get as much speed as we can. If there’s anybody up there, I want to give him as crummy a target as possible.”
The L4 gave a tiny shudder and then a stronger one. Before Jock could catch his breath, the plane was floundering like a rowboat on a stormy sea. She seemed totally out of control as she oscillated wildly, pitching, rolling, and yawing all over the sky. He tried to brace himself, but there wasn’t much to grab—just the control stick flopping around between his knees. There was something slamming into the bottom of his seat—he was both relieved and horrified to find it was his Thompson being thrown back and forth between the seat and cabin sidewall: That’s all we’d need right now…the Japs are trying to knock us down, and my weapon helps them by shooting the tail off this plane. Good thing it’s still on “safe.”
“HOW BAD ARE WE HIT, JOHN? ARE WE GOING DOWN?”
John Worth twisted around in his seat and gave Jock a quizzical look. “Hit? What are you talking about, sir? That’s just turbulence. You get that around mountains all the time.” He didn’t seem in the least bit worried.
Jock felt like the biggest idiot this side of the Equator: Of course it was mountain turbulence…I knew that, just like I knew that’s what brought that Zero down on Astrolabe…but it all seems so different when it’s your ass in the seat. Fucking pilots think they’re all so fucking clever.
The turbulence created another problem, though: you couldn’t see much when your eyeballs were bouncing around inside your head. Aerial reconnaissance, for the moment, came to a screeching halt. Then, just as suddenly as it started, the turbulence ended. The L4 floated along in a tranquil sky once more. Jock could see the ground clearly again—and there were Japanese soldiers on that hill.
Trying—but not completely succeeding—to curb the anxiety in his voice, Jock announced, “There they are, right on the military crest, just where they should be. Looks like a platoon-sized unit.”
“Are they shooting at us?” Worth asked.
“Not sure, John.”
Worth pushed the plane’s nose down. “Well, if they are…let’s make it a little harder for them.” Her airspeed indicator quivered up to 90 miles per hour.
Marking his map, Jock said, “We couldn’t see anything on the seaward side of these hills from Astrolabe. I’m real glad we made this little trip. Loop around the back side of the hills, John. Let’s see how many other Japs there are.”
There weren’t any others on those hills or anyplace else west of Port Moresby. Jock had seen enough; he directed Worth to head for home. They were so confident no Japanese were beneath them they cut directly across the harbor, staying low and just out of small arms range from the town on its shore. Once out over the sea again, they turned east toward Twenty Mile Airfield.
The L4 touched down as the dark shadows of dusk swept the airfield. Jock’s jeep was waiting, with Travis Spill proudly in the driver’s seat. The jeep looked spotless; once Spill got the jeep unstuck from the gulley, he must have spent the rest of his time wiping off all the caked-on mud.
Spill walked up to the little plane as her propeller swung to a stop. Pointing to the aft fuselage, he said, “I don’t believe all them bullet holes were back there when y’all left, sir. I count me about a dozen.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Day 9
The trail seemed too narrow for the jeep. Jock had just ducked for what seemed like the hundredth time to avoid being smacked by a low-hanging branch that loomed suddenly out of the darkness. He asked his driver, “Are you sure this is the way to Division, Spill? This feels more like some goat track to me.”
“Yes, sir,” Spill replied, “I’m mighty sure. We’re nearly there. Them MPs who dropped off that message for y’all showed me how to come. I already drove it once for practice while I was waiting, so I wouldn’t get us all lost in the dark.” He passed a piece of paper to Jock; in the flashlight’s glow, it was a crude, hand-drawn map—one only PFC Travis Spill could understand. “I saw how slow that li’l ol’ airplane flies, sir,” Spill said. “Figured I had plenty of time before y
’all got back. But seeing how slow it is, I’m kinda surprised y’all came back at all.”
“So while I was doing a recon, so were you. That’s good thinking, Spill.”
Spill nodded in proud acknowledgement as Jock hoped his praise wasn’t premature. They hadn’t found Division HQ yet.
“Are y’all in some kind of trouble with the big brass, Captain?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised, Spill. I wouldn’t be surprised at all.”
A few minutes later, they rolled up to the Division HQ tent. As Jock climbed out, Spill said, “Good luck, Captain.”
“Thanks, Spill. I might need it.”
Colonel Murdock looked like a man with a fire lit under him. He accosted Jock the moment he stepped inside the tent. “Look, Jock,” the colonel said, “I’ve already talked the G2 out of court-martialing you for commandeering that plane. The Division staff seems to be of the opinion it’s their property. But you’d better have some top-shelf information for us, my boy, or your ass is grass…”
Jock finished the expression for himself: And they’re the lawnmower. Wait until they hear about the bullet holes. They might not be so eager to take a joyride then.
It didn’t take long for Jock to complete the briefing. The Division staff officers listened intently as he described the wide-open back door to Port Moresby, the token Japanese rear guard on the hill overlooking Boera, the suitability of the landing zones.
When Jock was done, General Hartman, the division commander, said, “Very fine, Captain Miles. I’ve decided to take you with me when I report to General MacArthur tomorrow. A plane will pick us up at oh-seven-hundred. We’ll join the general for lunch and brief him on the situation afterward.”
Jock did some quick math in his head: If we’re going to be there for lunch, we can’t be going too far into Australia…
Operation Long Jump (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 2) Page 14
