Once They Were Eagles Read Online Free PDF Page B

evening a group of Black Sheep were crowded into a weapons carrier after a night of celebration at a rear area officers’ club. Boyington, well under the weather, got belligerent and began waving a bayonet around to the considerable discomfort of those who were crowded into the vehicle with him. Magee promptly took the bayonet away from him.
    Magee had majored in journalism for a year at the University of Chicago, where he participated in track, boxing, and football. He was another who’d come to the Marine Corps via the Royal Canadian Air Force.
    These, then, were the original Black Sheep: 28 pilots, the flight surgeon, and me. We were a microcosm of America: northeasterners with their broad As; southerners with accents soft as butter; Pennsylvanians and sharp-as-a-tack New Yorkers; rawboned midwesterners from the wheat and corn belts; men from the west coast and one from Texas. Some were seasoned veterans who’d already faced the enemy in aerial combat; others were fresh, green, eager.
    The pilots who’d flown previous tours had a total of 14½ planes to their credit, and Boyington was already a legendary figure as a Flying Tiger. Several cuts above the usual basic training graduates as well were the three members of the squadron with RCAF experience and two who had been instructors.
    It was a mix that jelled into a hard-hitting, battle-ready outfit.

 
6 | Going into Action
    On 11 September 1943, Boyington called us together.
    â€œWe’re leaving tomorrow for our first combat tour.”
    Everyone jabbered excitedly for a few moments and then quieted as he spoke again:
    â€œWe’re going to Cactus (code name for Guadalcanal) and then on up to the Russell Islands. We’ll fly 20 planes up. The rest of you will fly up on a SCAT (military transport) plane.”
    The remainder of the day was spent gathering final bits of equipment, packing our gear, and storing most of it with the Group Quartermaster. We were taking only a handbag each for a six-weeks combat tour. Transport space into the combat area was so limited that no room was available for luxuries. A couple of pairs of field shoes (boondockers, we called them), half a dozen pairs of socks, a few shirts, trousers, a minimum of toilet articles just about completed our load of personal gear.
    We were up at 4:00 A.M. , loaded into trucks, and hauled some 15 miles across the island to the bomber strip, where we were checked in and weighed in. After an hour’s wait, we were trucked out to a brown two-engine Douglas transport plane, the workhorse of the South Pacific, and packed on top of what appeared to be several thousand pounds of aircraft parts, tools, medical supplies, and mail bags. The pile was so high our backs almost touched the ceiling.
    Then the pilot and copilot climbed in and crawled over to us to the cockpit. A few minutes later the engines sputtered to life, the plane swung about, and we moved along the taxiway. The overloaded craft staggered off the ground, not lightly and smoothly, like a bird, but sluggishly and laboriously, straining and complaining and groaning, until we were at last airborne. We circled out over the water and then crossed the end of the island, its solid jungles looking like a carpet of broccoli.
    Just before noon, Guadalcanal came into view. We could see the wrecked Japanese ships and troop barges on its shores and on the reefs about it. Entire jungle areas were masses of splinters; huge gouges showed in the deep green foliage.
    At twelve o’clock we bounced heavily down onto Henderson Field, for which the Marines had paid such a high price. The name honored a Marine aviator who had lost his life at the Battle of Midway.
    A truck hauled us over to the transient area past a complicated scene of destruction, rot, flies, and stench. We unloaded and had lunch: Spam and beans. At the Intelligence shack we learned that the pilots were to fly the 20 planes on to the Russell Islands that afternoon; the