At last there were tanks coming up to Suicide Creek.
At last there were Corsairs coming up to Rabaul, coming up to one of those wild aerial battles the Marines called “a big hairy dogfight.”
Since the December 27 fighter-sweep in which Pappy Boyington had shot down his twenty-fifth plane, there had been no attacks on the dying Japanese base on eastern New Britain. It had rained constantly, while Boyington alternated between badgering others and being badgered. He had but a few days to go on his third and final tour in the Pacific. He hounded meteorological people for the latest word on the weather, and was hounded by war correspondents for the latest word on when he was going to break Foss’s record.
On the night of January 2 came reports of clearing weather at last. At dawn of the next day, while Japanese mortars scourged the Marines at Suicide Creek, Pappy Boyington fire-balled his splay-legged fighter down the Torokina strip and circled aloft while his Black Sheep climbed to join him. They pushed the stick forward and roared north.
Over Rabaul 40 to 60 fighters rose to meet them. When they had reached 12,000 feet, Boyington told his fighters to get set. He looked around him.
“Okay,” he shouted, “let’s get the bastards!”
They went nosing over.
Boyington went down. Captain George Ashmun followed on his tail. They pounced on a pair of Zeros flying at 15,000 feet. Boyington made an overhead run on one of them. From 400 yards away he fired a short burst. The Zero burst into flames.
“You got a flamer, Skipper!” Ashmun yelled, and Boyington grinned in his cockpit. He had shot down as many enemy planes as any other American.
Boyington climbed, Ashmun riding his wing. Again they saw Zeros below. Again they went over, thinking the rest of the Black Sheep were diving after them. They scissored over the Japanese, weaving back and forth over one another, firing short bursts.
Two of the slender, brown, red-balled sausages flamed and fell, but Boyington did not grin this time, for Ashmun’s plane was puffing smoke and his wingman was going down in a long graded dive. Behind him came a dozen Zeros converging for the kill.
“Dive, George!” Boyington screamed. “For God’s sake, dive!”
There was not so much as a waggled aileron in reply, and the Zeros were taking turns at tail passes.
Boyington slammed in behind them, kicking the rudder back and forth, triggering short bursts. Ashmun’s Corsair was now a fiery meteor and was dropping into the sea. But there was another Zero in flames too, Pappy Boyington’s twenty-eighth kill—and also his last.
For there was now a pack of Zeros growling on his tail. Boyington threw the stick forward and raced over the ocean at 400 knots. He could see the enemy bullets stitching patterns in his wings. His main gas tank blew up.
It was all over.
Boyington felt as though his body had been hurled into a blast furnace. With his remaining strength he released his safety belt with one hand, seized the rip-cord ring with the other, and kicked the stick hard forward with both feet. He had given his body centrifugal force, made it weigh a ton, and he went flying out the top of his plane. He was only a hundred feet above the water when his chute opened with a spine-snapping jerk, and though he slammed the water hard he was alive and treading water when he surfaced.
The Japanese tried to gun him to death. They played cat-and-mouse for half an hour, one Zero coming in low and pulling out just as another dove in from a different direction. Twenty-millimeter cannon exploded all around Boyington. He was gagging from the sea water he had swallowed as he had played duck-the-apple for the enemy pilots. After two hours of treading water he reached beneath him for the rubber life raft dangling between his legs. He pulled it out and found that it was intact. He inflated it. He climbed aboard and examined himself. His scalp was dangling down over his eyes. His left ear was half chewed off. His throat was cut and his left ankle torn up. There were shrapnel holes in his hands and his leg ached where it had struck the stabilizer when he was catapulted free. But he was not dismayed. He found himself humming something, and tried to puzzle it out. It was:
The Sherman tanks lumbering up to Suicide Creek were led by a tunnel-blasting bulldozer driven by Corporal John Capito. Capito began cutting down the 12-foot-high near bank, pushing the earth into the stream to form a causeway. A sniper peppered him and Capito was shot in the teeth. Then the Japanese began raking the bank with small-arms fire. Staff Sergeant Keary Lane crawled forward and jumped into the driver’s seat. He too was shot. Pfc. Randall Johnson crawled up to the bulldozer. He swung it around between him and the enemy. He began running alongside it, working the controls with a shovel and an axe handle as he cut the bank down. There was now a passage, but it was already getting dark and the crossing would have to be made in the morning.
In that fading light Pappy Boyington paddled his rubber boat toward Rabaul and hoped there was no truth to the line, “ ‘Cause they’ll never send a Dumbo way out here.” If there was no rescuing Catalina, there might at least be an American submarine.
A submarine surfaced and it had a big red ball painted on it and in the dimness of dusk Boyington could see the conningtower hatch pop open and disgorge a dozen short men with odd flat hats. Boyington was brought aboard. His wounds were not treated, but he was offered tea and cookies and given cigarettes. A pharmacist’s mate who spoke English said to him: “You don’t have to worry about anything as long as you are on this boat.”
An hour later the sub docked at Rabaul and Boyington was led ashore tied and blindfolded.
It was dark on the Japanese side of Suicide Creek.
Corporal Caldwell and Pfc. Raschke found it hard to see as they crawled down the creek in search of Lieutenant Atkins. They had been given permission to return for their wounded platoon leader, and had brought two riflemen with them for fire cover. They came to the bank where they had last seen “Tommy Harvard” and crawled up it into the underbrush.
They could hear only the rushing of the river and the muttering of the Japanese. Should they go back or should they risk calling out? Caldwell and the riflemen lay in the bushes with covering rifles while Raschke slithered out on the edge of the bank and began calling softly:
“Tommy Harvard… Tommy Harvard…”
A voice came weakly: “I’m down here.”
Raschke stiffened. It could be a Japanese trick. He called out again.
“What’s your real name?”
The voice gasped, “Elisha Atkins.”
The Marines slid cautiously down the bank. They found Atkins shaking from hours of immersion in the water, weak from the loss of blood. They lifted him up gently and carried him back to their lines.
“God!” Lieutenant Atkins whispered hoarsely. “Am I glad
22
Aogiri Ridge?
Could there be such a place? There wasn’t anything with that name on the map. Even the Melanesians now returning from their mountain hideouts had never heard of it. Nor could you trust them. They were so happy to see the Americans—for the Japanese had latterly treated them wretchedly—that they would smile and bob their heads and say “Yes” to any point fingered out on the map.
