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Authors: John D. Lukacs
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fighter planes were responsible. One can only imagine what George and his pilots could have done with such a force.
This soon-to-be-famous raid on Subic Bay would cement Dyess’s legend—one that had been created by his leadership of a landing party of twenty airmen on the beach at Agloloma Bay to root out unsurrendered Japanese and finish the Battle of the Points in February—among al troops and commands in the Philippines. The price of the victory, however, was steep. Only Dyess’s P-40, Kibosh , remained operational. Crellin’s death and the wrecked planes left George without an air force, but he ral ied his men with a quart of whiskey. “At least the death of our little air force was one of unmitigated glory,” Ind would write. It was later discovered that George had not been speaking to Sutherland, or to a representative of USAFFE that morning, but a messenger from 5th Interceptor Command headquarters relaying intel igence. The whole conversation, said Ind, had been a quirk, “one of those impossible coincidences which led to a series of impossible coincidences.”
George wasted little time assigning Dyess a new mission: he wanted the pilots to invite the nurses from nearby Field Hospital No. 2 to a party. “If this war is going to be fought by our boys and girls, Ed,” he said,
“they might as wel have what little good times they can.”
That evening, a silvery tropical moon bathed the jungle in a soft, blue light. Nervous pilots in wrinkled uniforms squired a dozen nurses wearing dresses and rationed cosmetics through the entrance to their clubhouse
—a bamboo shack on stilts decorated with Japanese helmets and swords—under a set of mounted carabao antlers and a placard that read: “THE DYSENTERY CROSS, Awarded to the Quartermaster by THE MEN OF BATAAN FIELD.”
It must have been some sight. “Had forgotten what a white woman looked like,” wrote Lieutenant Burns.
Aided by some libations—medicinal alcohol mixed with lemon powder and juice—and boogie-woogie played by Cpl. Robert L. Greenman, an accomplished concert pianist banging on an upright rescued from the ruins of a bombed-out barrio, the pilots loosened up. With each dance, they temporarily escaped the war in a catharsis of candy, alcohol, and conversation.
As Greenman pounded the keys and the accompaniment of female voices and laughs filtered into the Bataan night, mechanics and repair specialists in a revetment on the other side of the field slapped patches of sheet metal onto Kibosh ’s bul et-riddled fuselage. Cut from glistening slabs that had been treated with a violet-hued, anticorrosive paint, the patches contrasted noticeably with the plane’s olive drab skin. By Dyess’s accounting, there were perhaps seventy of them. “Jesus Christ,” he said with a laugh, “my airplane has the measles!”
Surveying the scene, UPI’s Frank Hewlett got an idea. He tore a piece of paper from his notepad, and grimy, cal used hands passed it around the revetment to a chorus of laughter. Written as a faux telegram from the defenders of the Philippines to the White House, Hewlett’s terse words found their way onto a bul etin board and, eventual y, into campaign lore:
TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:
PLEASE SEND US ANOTHER P-40. OURS IS FULL OF HOLES.
CHAPTER 4
God Help Them
I felt my way with weary stumbling feet,
Between the broken fragments of defeat
There was a home-made flag of dirty white.
Monday, April 6, 1942
Corregidor, Philippine Islands
Amid the twilit comfort of the cool tropic winds blowing in from the South China Sea, 1st Lts. Jack Hawkins and Mike Dobervich, USMC, sat in Hawkins’s command post, a dugout chiseled into a chalk cliff near Corregidor’s south shore, ful mess kits of chow in their laps. After a few bites, Hawkins decided to break the pregnant silence and pose the question to his best friend. And, for better or worse, put the rumors to rest.
“How are things going over
This soon-to-be-famous raid on Subic Bay would cement Dyess’s legend—one that had been created by his leadership of a landing party of twenty airmen on the beach at Agloloma Bay to root out unsurrendered Japanese and finish the Battle of the Points in February—among al troops and commands in the Philippines. The price of the victory, however, was steep. Only Dyess’s P-40, Kibosh , remained operational. Crellin’s death and the wrecked planes left George without an air force, but he ral ied his men with a quart of whiskey. “At least the death of our little air force was one of unmitigated glory,” Ind would write. It was later discovered that George had not been speaking to Sutherland, or to a representative of USAFFE that morning, but a messenger from 5th Interceptor Command headquarters relaying intel igence. The whole conversation, said Ind, had been a quirk, “one of those impossible coincidences which led to a series of impossible coincidences.”
George wasted little time assigning Dyess a new mission: he wanted the pilots to invite the nurses from nearby Field Hospital No. 2 to a party. “If this war is going to be fought by our boys and girls, Ed,” he said,
“they might as wel have what little good times they can.”
That evening, a silvery tropical moon bathed the jungle in a soft, blue light. Nervous pilots in wrinkled uniforms squired a dozen nurses wearing dresses and rationed cosmetics through the entrance to their clubhouse
—a bamboo shack on stilts decorated with Japanese helmets and swords—under a set of mounted carabao antlers and a placard that read: “THE DYSENTERY CROSS, Awarded to the Quartermaster by THE MEN OF BATAAN FIELD.”
It must have been some sight. “Had forgotten what a white woman looked like,” wrote Lieutenant Burns.
Aided by some libations—medicinal alcohol mixed with lemon powder and juice—and boogie-woogie played by Cpl. Robert L. Greenman, an accomplished concert pianist banging on an upright rescued from the ruins of a bombed-out barrio, the pilots loosened up. With each dance, they temporarily escaped the war in a catharsis of candy, alcohol, and conversation.
As Greenman pounded the keys and the accompaniment of female voices and laughs filtered into the Bataan night, mechanics and repair specialists in a revetment on the other side of the field slapped patches of sheet metal onto Kibosh ’s bul et-riddled fuselage. Cut from glistening slabs that had been treated with a violet-hued, anticorrosive paint, the patches contrasted noticeably with the plane’s olive drab skin. By Dyess’s accounting, there were perhaps seventy of them. “Jesus Christ,” he said with a laugh, “my airplane has the measles!”
Surveying the scene, UPI’s Frank Hewlett got an idea. He tore a piece of paper from his notepad, and grimy, cal used hands passed it around the revetment to a chorus of laughter. Written as a faux telegram from the defenders of the Philippines to the White House, Hewlett’s terse words found their way onto a bul etin board and, eventual y, into campaign lore:
TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:
PLEASE SEND US ANOTHER P-40. OURS IS FULL OF HOLES.
CHAPTER 4
God Help Them
I felt my way with weary stumbling feet,
Between the broken fragments of defeat
There was a home-made flag of dirty white.
Monday, April 6, 1942
Corregidor, Philippine Islands
Amid the twilit comfort of the cool tropic winds blowing in from the South China Sea, 1st Lts. Jack Hawkins and Mike Dobervich, USMC, sat in Hawkins’s command post, a dugout chiseled into a chalk cliff near Corregidor’s south shore, ful mess kits of chow in their laps. After a few bites, Hawkins decided to break the pregnant silence and pose the question to his best friend. And, for better or worse, put the rumors to rest.
“How are things going over
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