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  Reluctant Warriors

  © 2014 Jon Stafford. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopying, or recording, except for the inclusion in a review, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Published in the United States by BQB Publishing

  (Boutique of Quality Books Publishing Company)

  www.bqbpublishing.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  978-1-939371-40-9 (p)

  978-1-939371-41-6 (e)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014933064

  Book design by Robin Krauss, www.bookformatters.com

  Cover design by Dave Grauel, davidgrauel.com

  Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas’d,

  Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,

  Raze out the written troubles of the brain,

  And with some sweet oblivious antidote

  Cleanse the stuff ’d bosom of the perilous stuff

  Which weighs upon the heart?

  —Shakespeare, Macbeth

  Dedication

  I dedicate this work to three persons:

  My father, Nile W. Stafford, now ninety-five years old, was the first reluctant warrior I knew. From the time I was able to walk, he told my three siblings and me fascinating stories of his eighteen months with the Twentieth Air Force, sleeping in a tent in eastern India. He was part of the ill-fated attempt to get B-29s to attack Japan from there. He almost died, losing forty-five pounds in a matter of weeks. When he was rotated home, his trunk went in another direction, to Okinawa, and the ship was sunk by a kamikaze.

  Mr. Arthur Lawrence Hellyer III, of Oswego, Illinois, has been my closest friend since we met in the lunch line as high school freshmen in Naperville, Illinois, in 1962. He encouraged me to write and has been my mentor all of these years.

  Finally, Ms. Grace Garwood Wells of Columbia, South Carolina, has reviewed every story and given much good advice.

  Jon Stafford

  Columbia, South Carolina

  Western Pacific

  Contents

  Preface

  Jimmy DeValery Stories

  The Day Off

  Strafing Run at Wewak

  A Dip in the Sea

  The Gift

  Harry Connors Stories

  Mojarra

  The Devil’s Cauldron

  Goby

  Dell

  Theodore Rodgers Stories

  Mackson

  The Broken Leg

  Preface to “Battle for Huon Gulf”

  Battle for Huon Gulf

  Battle Off Noemfoor

  Joseph Wiley Stories

  Two Sergeants

  A Downed Plane

  Heinzeldorf

  The Faded Rose

  The Circle

  Preface

  It is a blessing of living in the United States that we have high expectations for ourselves and for our fellow citizens. Slogans trumpet this, such as the Army’s “Be All You Can Be” and the recent (unsuccessful) national school idea of No Child Left Behind.

  Most would agree that opportunities are there for us to choose and gain with hard work. But the things we take for granted now were not so easy for young Americans to obtain sixty-five or so years ago. During their formative years, they were victims of the Great Depression, the worst economic calamity the nation ever experienced. Then they were inexorably caught up in World War II, and their lives changed forever. The men went to foreign places and battled implacable foes under terrible circumstances. The women had to see their men go off and worry and wait for their return. Years were taken from them, and over half a million Americans lost their lives. This book is the story of the sacrifices made by that generation.

  I grew up with World War II veterans all around me: next-door neighbors and numerous relatives. In middle age, they were a sedate lot. Between talking to these men and laborious reading, I developed a pretty fair idea of what our servicemen were like. The first books I ever bought were paperback editions of Theodore Roscoe’s Tin Cans and Pig Boats, semi-official histories of our wartime destroyers and submarines I purchased around 1960.

  As a young man, my primer was Samuel Eliot Morison’s fourteen-volume History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. From there, I went on to read dozens of other histories and autobiographies, including much of what was published for decades.

  Our servicemen were reluctant warriors. None of the men I met or whose works I read said they took pleasure in killing their enemies. They seemed profoundly respectful of the value of life and the finality of death. They were ordinary men who had to extricate themselves from extraordinary situations. The purpose of this work is to honor the Americans who served, and to show the types of situations and places in which they found themselves.

  The United States had some sixteen million men in uniform in World War II. Their conversion into professional soldiers was one of the great stories of all time. Though the Army had little more than a hundred thousand men in the 1930s, and the Navy fired not a single real torpedo between the wars, they were victorious on every front.

  The metamorphosis was made possible by several factors. Our democratic society produced millions of capable soldiers and sailors, which both Germany and Japan (and even Great Britain) thought impossible. Americans were actually tough physically, used to privation, and somewhat accustomed to a life of discipline. Many grew up during the hardships of the Great Depression, when having enough to eat was a real issue. Millions had also worked in such programs as the New Deal’s Civilian Conservation Corps, where young men aged eighteen to twenty-five left home for something similar to the military: communal living, eating, and working. The Hitler Youth had little on these guys, and our people showed an innovative spirit that our enemies never developed with their strict societies, a quality that still makes us the business center of the world.

  Our arms, all produced by the free enterprise system, proved better in most every case than those fascist Germany and Japan could come up with in many year-long government programs. For the Army, small arms, such as the Browning .45 pistol, the M-1 rifle, standard for the infantry, and assault weapons such as the Browning Automatic Rifle and the Thompson submachine gun, were as good as anything in the world. Our standard artillery gun, the 105, was the best in the world. Only our principal tank, the Sherman, was not a success. It was junk compared to German Panthers and Tigers, but like everything else we made, it was produced in such staggering numbers (fifty thousand) that its weaknesses did not slow our advances. Many have argued that
it was the best vehicle that could be mass-produced and shipped on American railroads. The common American G.I. could fix much of this equipment, while foreign soldiers were only trained for, and could only do, one task.

  The Army Air Force, separated into its own branch in 1947, had two of the world’s best medium bombers: the B-25 and B-26. We also had the world’s three best heavy bombers: the B-17, the B-24 (of which we produced eighteen thousand), and the B-29, the first weapon that could have literally destroyed the Earth. We produced five great fighter planes, the Army’s P-38, P-47, and P-51, and the Navy’s Corsair and Hellcat. The first four of these, if produced in enough numbers, would have dominated the skies against either foe (the Hellcat was a little too slow).

  The Navy’s ships in every category were as good as, or better than, those of our allies or foes: submarines, destroyers, light and heavy cruisers, battleships, and aircraft carriers. All were produced in terrific numbers. It is true that German subs could go deeper than ours. But the loss numbers prove the superiority of our subs. A total of 782 German U-boats were lost, to our 52 submarines. We had only one weakness at sea: our torpedo. But this was completely solved by 1943, midway through the war.

  Women heroically took up the slack when the men went into uniform, leaving the home and replacing men in factories as “Rosie the Riveters.” The United States was revolutionized business-wise by becoming completely communistic, with our government controlling what was produced, where, and by whom, and setting pay rates. No new automobiles were produced during the war, showing the complete sacrifice the public was ready to make, which is in such stark contrast to our experiences in the Vietnam and the Iraq wars. Strangely, when the war ended, the entire process was completely reversed. Capitalism was completely reinstituted.The women mostly returned to being homemakers and mothering the Baby Boomers, and the men gladly gave up soldiering to return to civilian life.

  The workplace changed radically after the war ended in 1945. While our servicemen had come off the farm or from menial Depression-era–type jobs, they were transformed into worldwide executives. The pre-war world had been completely altered. Every notable US competitor had been ruined: Japan and Germany by our bombs, and Great Britain by financial and manpower exhaustion. Bolstered by the free college education offered by the G.I. Bill, and having seen the world, our soldiers could not go back to the farm. What followed was twenty years of unchecked US dominance, with our companies proliferating worldwide.

  Eventually, we rebuilt our former foes by the Marshall Plan, and even Great Britain made a comeback. Ironically, we did such a great job on Japan and Germany that both exceeded us in many areas by the 1960s, and eventually realized more power and dominance through capitalism than they experienced at the height of their military power in 1942.

  The four main characters in this book are a cross-section of our servicemen in the war. Two are from the Army: Joseph “Chip” Wiley, a scout, and Jimmy DeValery, an Army Air Force pilot. Two are from different parts of the Navy: Harry Connors, a submarine pilot, and Theodore Rodgers, Jr., a surface ship commander.

  While the stories are mostly about the men, family histories are included for three of the four (Rodgers has no children). They show families from different states: Wiley’s from South Carolina, though he is born in West Virginia; DeValery’s from North Carolina; Connors’ from Iowa; and Rodgers’ from Washington, DC, though he was born in Alabama. There is an overabundance of southerners, but more American soldiers came from the south than from any other part of the United States.

  All of the characters experience lasting marriages. This was very typical of WWII veterans for several reasons. Many did not especially like the war world they had seen, and so were happy to be back in the good old United States. They had either been in combat or caught in boring and unending jobs behind the lines. A wife, regular meals that did not include Spam, an automobile, and a new suburban home seemed like paradise in comparison. This era was the beginning of our country becoming wealthier than anywhere else in the world. It was such a smashing success that we have spent the last six decades attempting to share our system and “secrets” and make the rest of the world just like us, which has had mixed results at best.

  The war also has different impacts on the men. Wiley is hurt only physically, though not enough to impede his earning a living. DeValery is hurt only psychologically, but this takes years from his life. Connors has only a few bad memories, and Rodgers has none.

  The stories were as good as I could make them historically. While the specific characters, actions, and battles are fictional, they relate to real campaigns: the New Guinea, Guadalcanal, and Marianas campaign, and the North African campaign. With the exception of a few persons, like Lakeland Wells in the Rodgers stories, all generals and admirals are accurately portrayed. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., and Admirals Crutchley and Halsey were in command at the times and places cited. All references to weapons, planes, and ships, and their performances were carefully researched.

  These stories do not present the real horrors of the war, where soldiers’ lives were wasted and 293,000 Americans were killed in battle, sometimes being terrorized and dying in their own waste. If you want the graphic truth, see E.B. Sledge’s With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa. Neither is the war glorified here. These tales are simply a series of examples of how Americans rose to the task of fighting World War II, the central event of recorded history, and handily defeated the most difficult enemies we ever faced, enemies who actually intended dire consequences for the Earth. These are the stories of reluctant warriors.

  Jimmy DeValery Stories

  The Day Off

  New Guinea, December 1943

  Twice a week, a pilot from the 342nd Fighter Squadron flew the mail run from Port Moresby to the advanced base at Dubodura. Today, it was Jimmy DeValery’s turn.

  He took off at 0640, heading almost directly east. His plane rose slowly above the jungle humidity as the day began to take on its color. It had rained for a week straight, but today would be clear and sunny, with excellent visibility. He climbed steadily. Ahead, blocking his route, the Owen Stanley mountain range rose up ten thousand feet. He expected to see no enemy planes on this milk run. The Japanese had mostly been driven from their once formidable base at Lae, not far from Dubodura. The intelligence shack told him he had nothing to worry about, and his ground chief had agreed:

  “Aw, nobody has seen any Zeroes near there in a month. We put a hundred rounds in two of the machine guns, but nothing in the cannon. You won’t need ’em, though. Have fun, Jimmy.”

  Jimmy planned to. He had flown five combat missions in two weeks and needed a day off.

  As the Owen Stanleys loomed up in front of him, he thought through the mission. All he had to do was make the pass. Dubodura was only eighty miles ahead, all downhill. It would only take an hour and a half. He wished it were longer.

  He glanced at the altimeter, which read 7,100 feet, then at the mountains ahead. He needed more power.

  Jimmy pushed the throttles ahead slightly. The two huge Allison engines responded and he put the P-38 in a steeper climb. Soon he reached the pass, at 8,200 feet, and then angled down for the long descent.

  He looked down for enemy troop movements, although he expected none. All he could see was a jungle canopy too thick to see through, except for a few well-worn ridges.
No enemy. He thought that was just as well.

  He looked up, distracted by a speck on his canopy.

  “Must be oil,” he muttered, “I wish they would tune up these old engines.”

  He looked more closely. It was not a speck of oil. It was something moving in the sky.

  The specks soon multiplied into four. Jimmy, alarmed, realized they were planes high above him, at 10 o’clock, maybe five or six miles to the north. He squinted despite his excellent eyesight. Whose planes were they? Immediately, he pushed the throttles all the way forward and began to climb again.

  If they’re Japanese, he thought, and catch me below them, I’ll be a sitting duck. Maybe they’re friendly planes returning to Port Moresby. But then why would they be so high?

  He kept watching as they continued directly toward him. Several more seconds passed as his eyes strained.

  “They’re Japanese!” he blurted out. “They’re Zeroes!”

  Jimmy pushed the throttles harder, even though they were already at full power. I need to get higher! With the great weight of his plane, he could dive away from a Zero. But he didn’t have the altitude.

  He grabbed for the radio.

  “Mayday-mayday-mayday,” he called, “enemy planes jumping me.”

  He gave his position. He waited, but there was no response. He knew he could never raise Port Moresby with the mountains in the way, but Dubodura was relatively close.