Somewhere West of Fiji Read online

  Somewhere West Of Fiji

  By Darrell Egbert

  SMASHWORDS EDITION

  Publisher’s Place

  Copyright 2012 Darrell Egbert

  Cover Art by Wallace Brazzeal

  This digital edition July 2012 © Publisher’s Place

  Discover other titles by Darrell Egbert at Smashwords.com:

  The Third Gambit

  The Secret of Recapture Creek

  The Ravensbruck Legacy

  They Came From Benghazi

  The Escape of Edward St. Ives

  They Rode a Crooked Mile

  Smashwords Edition

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  Introduction

  From out of the clouds, lieutenant Bowcutt reduced power on the twin Allison's in his P-38 Lightening fighter. Lost and out of fuel in a pacific storm, his only hope was a water landing next to an uninhabited island. But was he out of the War?

  What he discovered was a post-war cover-up. Many had died because they knew the truth. Would he be the next or would he simply go mad on what looked like a deserted island somewhere west of Fiji.

  Based on little known facts, this is the story you thought you knew about WW 2. Darrell Egbert makes a compelling read about this discovery while taking you on an adventure of survival and a chase down the rabbit hole.

  Chapter 1

  I had lost sight of it more than an hour ago; it’s getting dark and I’m running out of gas. Complicating my problem is this blistering rainstorm that came up without notice. Storms in this part of the Pacific can be dangerous to airplanes if you happen to be flying low and in formation. Always they are embedded with hail at higher altitudes, and lightening at any altitude from the ground up. This one is blowing from south to north, forcing us to break formation with our slower moving bomber that we were using for navigation.

  It must have been hit by lightening, because we all lost voice and low frequency radio contact at the same time. We can still talk to each other, but we are lost without the bomber.

  I don’t know about the others but I feel as though I’m not going to make it. And wherever I intend spending the night it’s becoming increasingly obvious that it will be chilly and very, very wet.

  I had to force myself to stop thinking about her–her being my best friend, sweetheart and wife–and the mother of my newborn son. Any one of them is enough to keep my mind occupied, without having to think about the mess I’m in.

  I had fallen in love with her in high school. And now at twenty, she is even more beautiful than she was then–and I can’t keep my mind off her.

  After high school, I left her for a year while I attended the university. But I saw her when I came back that summer, and then finally left her for a long indeterminate period after we married and the War broke out. But I have to stop thinking about her if I’m going to stay alive. But maybe it’s a good thing–thinking about her I mean, because if I don’t I might be in danger of having a panic attack and losing complete control of the airplane. I am fast becoming more scared than I have ever been in my life.

  If you want to know what scared is you might try spending some time at the controls of a twin-engine fighter with night coming on and in weather. And don’t forget being out of gas and lost over the South Pacific Ocean. The only thing that could make it worse is if my two beautiful V-12 Allison’s were giving me trouble. But both of them are working perfectly. If one of them ever does fail, I can depend on the other one to carry me right up to the scene of the crash. That is an old twin-engine pilot’s joke that right now would be funny someplace else.

  There was a time, though, a few months ago, when I was just finishing primary flight training that I was almost as scared as I am right now. I had been playing among the clouds for a half-hour or so, doing acrobatics without a care in the world. I was out of sight of the field to the west on a sunny afternoon at Rankin’s School of Aeronautics in Tulare, California. I mention this location, because it almost never rains there this time of year–not to my knowledge it doesn’t. But it did that afternoon. In fact a thunderstorm was fast approaching the field. At 10,000 feet, I could see this perfectly formed roll cloud. It was the kind that might well harbor a tornado if it was anyplace but California. But nevertheless it was dangerous, and water was about to cover the runway and leave me stranded with no place to land. And once again, I was almost out of gas.

  I dove for the field. I mean I literally dove for the field. I had heard that nobody had the guts to overstress this airplane and maybe tear it apart if, indeed, it could be torn apart. But if I didn’t do something out of the ordinary to beat this thunderstorm it was likely to roll me up in a ball on the runway and kill myass. I knew this instinctively, and I dove with open throttle toward the field. If it came apart, I was going to jump.

  The only thing that saved me was Rankin’s runway. It was not a runway in the regular sense it was a large five or six acre parking lot. It was like the new shopping malls you see going up around the country with a painted line for a runway down the middle–all it lacked was the light poles sticking up with bolted on numbers to tell you where you parked you’re car.

  When I approached within a mile or so, I could see the surface was obscured by water. I was in the middle of a cloud burst, made worse by the driving rain from the slipstream of my open cockpit airplane. You know, the old kind with two wings. Think world war one with flying helmets and goggles. Think barnstormers of the thirties. Think Tex Rankin, himself, and the look a like airplane in which he set world acrobatic records. That’s the kind of airplane it was, the last kind you would want to try and land in a thunderstorm if you were crazy enough to want to land any kind at all.

  The wind “T” and “sock,” showed me the wind was coming across the painted runway at almost ninety degrees, which meant I had to land headed straight for Rankin’s tower or aim for a point farther south along his hangers, and then try for one that still had the doors open. That way if I couldn’t stop, there would be less lumber to fly through and less chance of grinding up somebody with my propeller. Landing in that direction would also mean less cross wind to contend with but less available runway. Runway is best if it’s in front of you. If it’s behind you or pointing in another direction–well it might as well not be there. And I didn’t have much to start with, and little time to think about it–but it was more than enough time to have gotten me plenty rattled.

  I needn’t tell you anymore about this incident, other than to repeat that I was more afraid than I had ever been in my life. Maybe as afraid as I was an hour ago when I realized I couldn’t see our escort bomber or any of the other aircraft in our flight. Maybe I was just as afraid, but definitely not as near to panic as I am right now.

  Yes, I made it without flying into one of Rankin’s hangers. Of course I did or I wouldn’t be telling you this story. But I had set a new standard in my life for nearly scaring myself to death. And right now, I have to concentrate on keeping my mind off her and to pay attention to what I’m doing–the same as I did then.

  You’re wondering about the bomber? What is it doing here? Well, it was sent over to Australia from New Guinea to navigate our flight of Lightening’s across the water to Henderson field–Henderson being on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.

  Our squadron had been stationed in the South Pacific instead of in England as a
result of a few high-level meetings weeks before. The navy and marines said they could take and hold Guadalcanal if they had support from the army. The army said they could do them some real good if their slower and much shorter ranged Bell Aircobra fighters at Henderson were replaced. General MacArthur said he wanted them replaced with P-38 Lightening’s that could fly as high as Japanese bombers, and he wanted the B-17 Flying Fortress bombers exchanged for Liberator’s, too. He wanted both of as many as he could get, with the B-17’s eventually being transferred to Europe.

  These B-24’s weren’t as popular, and they weren’t as pretty, but they were faster and they could fly farther. As for the Aircobras, the general said we should use them for close ground support of the marines and army. Whatever, he said; just keep them from tangling with the much faster Japanese Zero.

  President Roosevelt agreed with MacArthur and the admirals. That decision guaranteed priority support for the remainder of the Solomon Island campaign.

  Roosevelt, like the others, was convinced of the importance of Henderson Field. If the Japanese took and held Henderson, they would deny us the use of our airplanes. Then they would be expected to take the rest of the island. And it would come as no surprise, when they cut our supply lines to Australia. In fact, I think they planned to take all of Australia in a few short months. That is they did until they lost the battle of the Coral Sea and the battle for Midway Island a month or so later.

  The loss of Midway came as a big surprise to everybody–especially the Japanese. They had made the same mistake about us that we made about them before Pearl Harbor.

  Many of us believed they would not make good pilots because they could not see very well–it had something to do with the shape of their eyes. They, in turn, did not think we had the guts to attack their aircraft carriers with our low-level torpedo bombers.

  I should tell you that the army air corps did not have much to do with Midway, directly or indirectly although they did make their presence known at the Bismarck Sea and a few months ago at the battle of the Coral Sea. True Lt. Col. Doolittle led a squadron of B-25, medium bombers from the decks of a carrier against Japan, causing them to rearrange some of their air power. And several B-26’s flying from Midway scored some bomb hits but, far and away, this most important battle of the Pacific was won by navy carrier aircraft.

  The Japanese are deathly afraid of our torpedo planes, the ones the navy calls their TBFs.

  So, the Japanese committed all their fighters to stopping them to avoid losing their carriers. But that left the navy dive-bombers, the SBD’s, free to hit the Jap carriers hard with bombs from directly overhead.

  The enemy thought all they had to do to turn the American’s back was to open up with their deck guns, and then hit our torpedo planes with a mass of fighters from six carriers. That tactic left navy fighters free to attack Japanese fighters. And since the Japs were mostly occupied with saving their carriers, our fighters decimated them in less time than it takes to tell about it, and before it was all over, a cruiser and four attacking carriers were sunk.

  These four, interestingly enough, had been at Pearl Harbor just a few months before.

  The Japanese are now reluctant to use their remaining carriers against our forces attempting to overcome Guadalcanal. All of which will allow General MacArthur and the marines to begin their climb back up the island chain to the Philippines.

  If we can take Henderson and then Guadalcanal, we have a sure shot at Rabaul, the next Jap stronghold to the north. But it all came about, more or less, because of the courage of those TBF pilots at Midway, the ones I have been telling you about. If the navy had not sunk these four carriers and destroyed hundreds of their first line fighters, the climb back would take a long, long time if it ever happened at all. Furthermore, this fight for Guadalcanal would not be taking place to secure Rabaul, but to save Australia, Fiji, and New Caledonia.

  The Japanese posed a threat to Fiji. Their plan was to extend their line of occupation from the Philippines all the way to New Caledonia. And then we were supposed to wear ourselves out hammering against that vast line of Japanese islands, in spite of what Admiral Yamamoto said would be our heightened resolve if they were to bomb Pearl Harbor.

  We were on our way from New Caledonia to Fiji when we ran into the storm. Our job at Fiji would be to deter them from this goal by posing a significant force against any Japanese action in this area. But I don’t think the plan was to stay there very long, only until we were sure what their intentions were. Then it was back to Guadalcanal, where by that time the new improved Henderson Field would be ready to accept our squadron of Lightening’s.

  The plan was originally to replace the Aircobra’s with the Lightning’s. But conditions at Henderson changed–they became worse if anything. Japanese naval shelling, and shelling by their artillery, had wrecked havoc on Henderson. Runways and maintenance areas had been cratered and some had been turned into quagmires. And as quickly as Navy Seabee units could repair them, they were torn-up again. And these specialized construction crews could not roll crushed coral for new runways until the coral dried out. And it seemed as though it rained every day.

  Then, too, there was a shortage of aircraft fuel, which had always been the case and was likely to continue for some time to come.

  American naval transports were moving in at night and dumping fifty-gallon gasoline drums into the bay. In the morning, marine and army units would snag them with nets and drag them ashore. They were scattered in small depots all along the western side of the island. From there they were muscled in as close to the runways as possible, where aircraft were loaded by hand-operated bucket brigades. All available personnel were mustered into service around the clock to keep a few marine fighters and army air force service transports flying. If there was any gas left it was used in the Aircobra’s.

  All of this changed our squadron’s plans for direct support of Henderson. Now we are going to stand by at Fiji, along with a number of New Zealanders flying Lightening’s. If the Japanese change their minds and give up on their northwest attack on Guadalcanal, they might attempt an attack on Henderson with their naval and marine units coming by way of Fiji and New Caledonia. They absolutely have to have Guadalcanal or give up their long-range plans to occupy the South Pacific. And if they do that, coming on the heels of their disaster at Midway and their losses at the Coral Sea, they are eventually going to lose the War.

  Anyway, our move to Fiji is temporary and is not expected to last for more than a few weeks. Whether it’s a good idea or not is not for us to decide. The navy has been given authority to move our fighter units where they think we can best support Guadalcanal. All emphasis will be on taking and holding that island for months to come.

  As I said, the first leg of our mission was New Caledonia. We expected to be able to make it with auxiliary wing tanks. From there we were headed to Fiji. We had no trouble with the first leg, but ran into plenty of it on the second. We knew that two storms packing gale force winds were coming from the west. What our forecasters missed, though, was exactly what affect it would have on us. We intended to stay at Caledonia for a couple of days before pressing on but the weather changed our minds. We left early in an effort to stay ahead of it, however, things didn’t work out the way they were planned.

  Now with a strengthening of the wind and the rain, I’m growing more and more apprehensive that I will not be around to see the final outcome of another of the strategic battles of the Pacific.

  I had been tossed around in the air before, but nothing like this. Truth be told, pilots like me coming from the states into combat have relatively low flying time. And still lower instrument time. We are all supposed to be instrument rated, and I suppose we are, but not for this kind of weather. The prevailing thinking, passed on to us was: “never get involved in severe weather, and never find your self in a thunderstorm in the first place.”

  This advice all sounded well and good when first I heard it from my instructors. But like all platitud
es, they don’t always work out. The people who spouted this jargon had never been in a place like this at a time like this. That’s the way it goes. I wouldn’t be here either if I had had any choice in the matter. But here I am, and there’s nothing to do about it now but find a place to sit down before my engines run out of gas and I plunge into a raging sea that I strongly suspect is waiting for me only a few feet below.

  I should tell you that I usually fly without a flying suit. Usually, I dress in nothing but my shorts and a pair of sneakers, because this airplane is uncomfortably hot in the summer and cold in the winter, but because of the storm I stashed my shorts in back of the seat and I’m wearing my full kit with May West life preserver and sneakers. It’s one of the bad features of a small bathtub shaped nacelle cockpit being installed between two large powerful Allison engines. But ask any pilot that has been around; he’s likely to tell you he will take this airplane over any other. Maybe they will make a better one someday but not as far as he’s concerned.

  My clothes, maps, pistol and a jerry can of water are stored behind my seat. I need to remind myself to latch on to them when I breakout my life raft.

  It would be great if I could land on a calm ocean in front of a beautiful island. There needn’t be any pretty native girls–just a beautiful reef and dry land close by.

  We had been taught in survival training that islands proliferate in this area; hundreds of them, some of which are uninhabited. And they also think there are dozens more that have never been discovered–they think the Japanese occupy some of them, though. And if they do, well, they have the reputation of killing enemy soldiers and sailors they capture. That’s right, they kill them by chopping off their heads, although it might interest you to know how they murdered two sailors they rescued at Midway. After interrogating them, the word is they tied fifty-gallon drums full of seawater to them and threw them overboard.