Story for ya.

[Gtoraii]

Here is the updated story I was fooling around with.

Let me know if you want more.

The sun is bright, the sky clear as I walk out to the flight line. The white crushed coral of the strip crunches as we head down the line.  The crew chief for number 9 nods to me and I begin pre-flighting the big F4U-1 Corsair. I walk around checking the control surfaces and cowl looking for leaks.
“Anything wrong with her Chuck?” I ask. Chuck is the crew chief for 9 and I fly his plane a fair amount. He is a technical sergeant with about 15 year’s service. He has cut off utilities and no shirt on. He has a massive marine globe and anchor tatoed on his chest.
“Nah lieutenant she will do fine.” He says with a smile.

 I climb up into the cockpit, sitting down in the seat I make sure the seat is all the way up, some pilots like to drop it down. They like being deeper down so there head is more protected by the armor.  Chuck helps me strap in and then watches as I check the controls and make sure all the switches are in place.  
 The radio crackles and the wind them up command comes over it. Chuck has jumped down and I yell clear, the engine rumbles as the huge 13 foot prop spins slowly at first then with a belch of white smoke it rumbles to life. I keep the RPMs under 750 until it warms up and smoothes out.
 Chuck pulls the chocks and I look to my left. My wingman Second Lt Dave Rivers nods and gives me a thumbs up. I turn and look to the right and my best buddy Jason Stevens nods. I taxi out onto the runway and Dave follows me slightly behind and to the right.  The huge propellers are kicking up clouds of white dust.  
 Today we have 2 divisions of 4 planes heading to Rabaul. It’s an escort mission. We will link up with the B25 bombers about half way there.  The first division of 4 planes is ahead of us and they begin taking off.  I am the leader of the second division. Jason the second section leader in my division. I stand on the breaks and run the engine up the back then up again making sure its going to stay running and then radio the tower, telling them we are rolling.
  I push the throttle slowly forward and then slip the brakes, the plane rolls down the crushed coral, the dust is terrible. I glance to my right and make sure Dave is back there.
Dave just joined VMF-217. He came strait over from the states. Since he is about as green as you can get I will keep track of him.
 As the speed picks up and I pass 95 knots I lift off, Dave is right with me as I go into a climbing right turn to link up with the rest of the squad. I hear the landing gear thump and the doors close.
 I look back and make sure Jason and Rob are with me, Rob being second lieutenant Robert Jones. He is a good pilot, reliable.
 
 We form up with the rest of the squad, in a loose formation. Paired up, a leader and a wing man who hangs back and above, these in turn are paired forming 4 plane divisions.
The CO comes over the radio, “Test your guns.”
 I flip the switches to arm the guns and pull the trigger, all six .50 machine guns fire.  No one reports a problem.
  I relax in my seat my eyes scanning from the instruments, to Dave, to around the sky. We link up with the 9 B25 bombers just west of Vella Levella Island; they are low, down at 5000 feet and will get lower. We will fly cover for the up at 15,000.

 Everything goes well, until we reach Rabaul the B25s start the run and we stay high.  The bomber head in down on the deck the guns in there noses raking the airfield.

“Zeros! 9o clock low!” someone yells.

Capt Mike Barton the squad leader comes over the radio.  “John, I am taking my section down, keep your section up here for cover.”

“Aye Aye Sir” I Reply, My eyes scanning.

Jason comes over the radio “More zeros! 12 o’clock level!”

“Ok follow me! And drop your drop tanks!”  I jam the throttle to War emergency power, and center my sight on one of the zeros as my drop tank flutters away below me.  
 We are close on the zeros rapidly and I open fire. The Jap opens fire an instant later his aim spoiled by my rounds flashing by him, then in to him. His plane rolls and dives, smoking all the way into the sea. Tracers flash by on my right at the same time as Dave fires, His rounds going wide.
 We pass through the formation of enemies and I yank the stick back going into a vertical climb. The geforces pushing me back into the seat. My head tilted back looking for the Zeros. I see two and pull it through a half loop and roll over.. Dropping the nose and diving on them, I glance back and see Dave is still back there with me.
 The pair of Zeros is turning and lining up on Jason, and his wingman. Jason is lining up on another Zero.
 “Check Six Jason!”  Jason’s plane doesn’t waver! “Dave can you take the right one?”

Dave’s Voice comes over the radio, sounding exited and scared all at once. “Yes sir!”

 I bore down on the leading zero, my big hog gaining speed in the dive. The zero grows in my sights and then it starts to fire.. I watch as the rounds hit Jason’s F4U and he barrel rolls and dives, his wing man breaking to the right.
 I pull the triggers and watch the tracers fly into the zero. My rounds hitting the wing and lighting it on fire.  A second later the zero disappears into a fireball.  I pull back on the stick and go into a shallow climb looking around for Dave,  
 BANG,BANG BANG THUNK! I feel rounds hitting my seat armor! diddly!

 I yank the stick back into my lap and jam the right rudder all the way foreword throwing the plane into a snap roll. Getting the nose down I continue to roll… another burst of rounds hits the plane… THUNK THUNK THUNK!  My speed has picked up and I roll, then roll around again and pull the plane hard out of the dive looking back and up I watch the zero try and follow but the high speed has locked his controls.  I pull it around the gforces causeing my vision to tunnel and fall back onto his tail.  He tries to go into a hard right turn, but at 400knots plus his zero can’t turn away from my Corsair.  I fire and walk the rounds into him with the ruder. His plane comes apart, the wings and engine breaking away from the fuselage and crashing into the sea.
  I pull the throttle back and look around…The fight seems to be over, I spot New Britain to the west. I fly east a bit and Spot Dave with 2 zeros chasing him down on the deck. I dive and once more put the throttle all the way into WEP. Coming in low behind the second zero I put a burst into him and he rolls over and makes a huge splash! The second tried to break into a climbing right hand turn, pull the F4U around hard the plane creaks from the stress of the turn and get another burst into him but he manages to evade and run, I check my fuel and I do not have enough to chase. Time to go home.

 “Dave you hear me?” I say over the radio

“Yes sir” he says, his plane staying level and heading east.

“Ok Dave throttle back and form on me, where heading home”

He waggles his wings, having spotted me in his rear view mirror.  We form up and climb up to 10,000 feet and have an uneventful flight back to Vella Lavella.

 Other F4Us are landing as we fly over the base, looks like only one of us is missing. I tell Dave to land first then follow him in, landing the F4U-1 can be a bit tough, you can’t see over the nose and it has a tendency to want to dart off the runway…I touch down in a 3 point attitude of a simulated CV landing.. And with a small bounce roll down the runway and to the parking area, spinning the plane around so it can be pushed into its revetment I cut the engine and undo my seat belt.  
 I climb out and Chuck looks up at me “Jeez lieutenant! How many japs did you let shoot you” he says and points.
 I turn and look , the back of the Corsair is riddled with bullet holes at least 60 rounds from an machine gun and maybe 7 hits from the 20mm that the Zero carries.  I lost half the tail wheel door, and one of my elevators is pretty damaged.
 “Can you fix it Sergeant?” He looks at me rolling his eyes.  “Maybe!  Did you at least get one of them?”

I smile “yeah, I got 3 maybe 4 “ I say  my grin growning a bit.

“WOW, leutenant that’s pretty good, this sounds like it was a pretty good mission, the Captian got 2 and Jason got one.!”

“who didn’t make it?” I ask

Chucks smile shrinks a bit,  “That new kid that flew with the Captain.”

I turn and  head for the post flight debrief.  To bad kid, I think, then feel more guilty because I can’t remember his name.

[Nifty]

good read!  

[Gtoraii]

Guys
 Do you want to read more?

[DA98]

Yes please  

[Gtoraii]

Ok here is some more.


 The mission Debrief is the same as always. Some rear area Intel weenie asking the same question 10 different ways or criticizing us when he couldn’t do it himself.  I sit down next to Jason and he turns and Grins. Jason and I grew up in the same town, went to the same schools went through the aviation cadet program together, and advanced flight training. After that I got sent to Guadalcanal to fly F4Fs and he got assigned as an instructor. I smile remembering how I warned him not to do too well in all the schools. It was luck we ended up back together in 217.  Jason is a good 2 inches taller and has brown hair, brown eyes and he looks like a football linemen. We could be brothers, my hair is lighter and I am not as bulky but still a big guy.
 “You get any?”  He asks?  

 I shake my head and laugh “you dumb toejam! I got the one that put the rounds into your hog! And two maybe three others” I say with a smile, leaning back into my chair.

 “Oh I was wondering about that!” he says with a laugh “ well after you shot him of me I got another one, it was a perfect 30 degree deflection shot, the zero just came apart.!”
 
 I tell him about the 3 other kills and then answer the questions from the Intel weenies.
As the briefing breaks up, the captain comes over.

“Once those kills are confirmed that puts you at 13 right?” he says “that’s only 2 behind me! Good work John. Don’t drink tonight we have an early mission tomorrow”

“Thank you sir” I say as he leaves.

  Jason and I head over to the mess tent to get some chow, the mess tent is a big tent, with a pallet floor and the food really is not very good.  The mess cooks do their best but we don’t get much fresh food here.  I get a coke in a bottle and some brown stuff with darker brown chunks in it that I think is supposed to be Stew and some canned peaches.  
 Jason grabs pretty much the same and we go and sit at one of the rough wooden tables.

 As we finish eating Dave and Robert sit down.  Jason pulls out a deck of card and begins to shuffle.

“Poker anyone?” he says with a smile.  We all nod and start pulling out money.

 We play for several hours and I lose about 30 bucks. It ends up being a pretty Stiff game between Dave and Jason, both being pretty good card players.

 A thought strike me, we are in the middle of the south pacific, aren’t there supposed to be feral pigs? If  we catch one, we can have a real meal!  I raise that exact point.
 
Jason looks at me for awhile, “we would have to go looking out in the jungle, there may be some japs left out there”

Dave chimes in “We could get lost to, it’s really thick”

“Jesus Christ! Are you Marines or some diddlying pansy sailors or something? Your acting like you never saw a rifle!”
Jason starts laughing Dave just looks stricken.  I smile. “Let’s go dig up some Rifles and  find us some pigs!”  

 Several hours later, I am looking at my compass and then out at the featureless jungle, Jason comes up behind me

“Are we lost?” he asks, trying to hide the amusement in his voice.

“Shut the diddly up! I know where we are!” I whisper back harshly.

“Yeah, duh Vella levalla island right?” Jason says laughing quietly.

 I just give him a dirty look.  Off in the distance we hear several twigs snap. We all drop to our knees and wait.  Out of the bushes about 75 yards away comes a wild pig. I line up my sights, and relax getting ready to fire. When the ground around the pig erupts with gouts of dirt. Dave, Jason and Rob all started firing! They all miss too!  I almost blow my shot, but I fire and hit it, then fall on the ground laughing!

“You guys should turn in your gear and go join the Navy! Jeez how many rounds did you fire!”

 They all give me dirty looks as I continue to laugh. Sometime later after I am able to breath again we go collect the pig and clean it, and head back toward where we thing the base is.  After a minor detour around a ravine we arrive back and go get one of the cooks who are off duty to help us cook the pig.

 That night the area around our tent becomes very popular, the pig get roasted in the ground and we have a meal of fresh pork and canned everything else. But it was a good night.


  The next morning we get up before dawn and head down to the briefing shack.  I am carrying my flight gear and I take a seat an put my shoulder holster on, I like the 1911A1
No .38 for me.  The mission for the morning is shipping interdiction. We are going to make a fast raid on the troop and supply ships going to Bougainville Island. They should be going south along the coast. All our fighters are loaded with 1000 ponders.  After the briefing as we walk down to the flight line I remind everyone to use the landing gear as a dive brake and use flaps on take off and remember you are lugging a bomb.

 This time I end up flying number 28. Staff Sergeant Chester Willits is its crew chief.. Chester is small and mousy, qiuet. I check the bomb making sure it’s on good and finish the preflight. Everything looks fine. I start her up and as soon as she is warm head for the line. We take again off in pairs and form up over the field. Once we are out at sea we charge and test the guns.

 We fly north and the turn west crusing along at 10,000 watching the water below.  We spot the convoy. Moving along the coast. 7 ships, looks like a DD, DE, 4 transports and a tanker ship of some kind.

 The captain comes over the radio. “Ok John, my Division will attack first then climb and cover yours if you spot enemy planes punch off your bombs and get them.”

“Aye, Aye sir”

 “Everyone keep your eyes open for fighters” I say and then start looking.

 The captain Dives right for the destroyer, and drops his bomb,then rolling and heading out to the north. Tracers and black flack puffs chasing him. His bomb hits the stern of the destroyer blowing it off. The ship begins to sink, but the guns keep firing.  The second plane to dives misses. The bomb going off to the DEs right and as he is pulling out his plane shudders from a near flack burst, but it keeps flying.
  The 3rd guy to dive down puts one right down the stack of the tanker and it goes up in a huge ball of flame! The 4th plane dives and as he goes in he takes a direct hit from what must have been 5 inch flack his plane just explodes and is gone.  toejam…
 “Ok guys I’m going for the DE, you three go after the transports. Make your bombs count! We will strafe the last one.
 
 I roll my Corsair onto its back put the gear lever into the diving brake position and throttle back. Pulling the nose down into a dive I head strait for the DE. The DE(destroyer escort) is firing at me but I hit the rudder a bit to throw them off. At 2000 feet I drop the bomb and pull away. Heading right down onto the deck tracers from the DD splash around me but I get away with only a few hit! My bomb hit the DE dead center, and there is nothing but burning fuel and debris on the surface where it was.
 I watch as every member of my flight hits their target! That leaves one undamaged transport.
“Form up everyone lets strafe the crap out of it.”  I say and make as slow circle while everyone joins up.
 We dive on the last transport in pairs, the tracers from our 6 .50 machines guns raking the ship. It begins to burn and as Rob passes it on our second run it explodes into a fireball!
 We climb out, our elation at sinking the ships is dampened. We lost someone. Again.

  We form up with the captian, and I look over his plane. It’s badly shot up, he shouldn’t have stayed.The area around his cockpit is scared with jagged holes from a shrapnel burst.  Another of his flight is bad too. One of his landing gear is hanging part out of the bay.
  We reach our base and the captain lands first, his plane holds together and then the rest of us go in, the last person to land will be Mark silver. He is flying plane 17 and it looks like its gear isn’t going to come down. He will attempt to belly land.  I am the second to the last down and I taxi and park the plane cutting the engine I jump out of the cockpit to watch Mark Bring in the damaged plane.
 Mark lines 17 up and comes in slightly fast since the flaps are not working either, slows a few feet above the runway and the big Corsair settles.The prop digs in and wraps around the cowl and the planes slides, making a huge dust cloud and comes to a stop. Mark climbs out and waves. The plane looks like a total loss but at least Mark made it.
 The captain took some flak fragments in the legs and is going to be in the hospital tent a few days.
 Jason walks up, his face ashen, “It was Kelly Michaels that bought it today.”

“Shit, Kelly was a good man, and his wife just had their first daughter.”  I say with a shake of my head.  Kelly was a good pilot, a Guadalcanal veteran, and a 7 kill Ace. He got married when he went back to the states after the canal. Everybody liked Kelly, he was the life of the party.  

 The debrief is downbeat. Everyone knows we lost a good man, and the chances of him being alive are 0. That coupled with the Captain being wounded, leaves Morale pretty low.  
 A PFC comes in with a bag “Mail call!! Mail call” and all the men crowd around.  The PFC calls out my name and I go grab it.  Jason looks at me, I can tell he is curious.  The letter is from my younger brother.

  I cut it open with my K-Bar and read it. The little bastard joined the Army air corp. He has finished advance flight and has been sent to Port Moresby, New Guinea!  He says he is flying the hottest fighter in the world…