Oh, not that! God, I don’t want to die that way!
It straightened out a little, and then he went off the runway into a section of pierced steel planking and spun around, once, twice… The gear collapsed in the turns. The propeller hit the dirt, and the engine screamed and stopped.
Am I still moving?
No. This sonofabitch isn’t going anywhere….
He unfastened his harness and scrambled as quickly as he could out of the cockpit. He ran twenty-five yards and then threw himself down on the ground, waiting for the Wildcat to explode.
It didn’t.
There were explosions, but those were bombs landing on the airfield.
He raised his head to look at the field. There was a huge orange glow and dense black smoke. The Japanese had put at least one bomb in the fuel dump.
He saw a jeep coming across the field to him through the smoke and the detonations of the Japanese bombs.
It slid to a stop beside him. A Corpsman jumped out.
“You OK?” the Corpsman asked.
“I’m fine,” Pickering replied.
The Corpsman lay down beside him.
“I think we’re better staying where we are,” he said matter-of-factly. “Look at that fucking gasoline burn!”
Chapter Four
[ONE]
=SECRET=
FROM: COM GEN 1ST MAR DIV 1305 13OCT42
SUBJECT: AFTER-ACTION REPORT
TO: COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, PACIFIC, PEARL HARBOR INFO: SUPREME COMMANDER SWPOA, BRISBANE
COMMANDANT, USMC, WASH, DC
1. AT 1140 13OCT42 A TWO (2) F4F4 PATROL OF VMF-229 INTERCEPTED A PREVIOUSLY UNDETECTED
JAPANESE FORCE CONSISTING ESTIMATED AS TWELVE (12) VAL; TWELVE (12) KATE AND FIFTEEN (15)
ZERO AND ENGAGED.
2. ENEMY LOSSES:
A. TWO (2) KATE
GALLOWAY, CHARLES M CAPT USMCR ONE (1)
PICKERING, MALCOLM S 1/LT USMCR ONE (1)
B. ONE (1) ZERO
PICKERING, MALCOLM S 1/LT USMCR ONE (1)
3. VMF-229 LOSSES:
A. ONE (1) F4F4 DAMAGED, REPAIRABLE.
B. ONE (1) F4F4 CRASHED ON LANDING, DESTROYED.
C. VMF-229 LOSSES REDUCE OPERATIONAL AIRCRAFT AVAILABLE TO VMF-229 TO THREE (3) F4F4.
PLUS TWO (2) POSSIBLY REPAIRABLE F4F4.
4. MAG-21 LOSSES:
A. HENDERSON AND FIGHTER ONE RUNWAYS CRATERED BY ENEMY BOMBS. REPAIRS UNDERWAY.
B. AVGAS FUEL DUMP STRUCK BY ENEMY BOMBS AND SET AFIRE. ESTIMATED LOSS OF AVGAS
FIVE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED (5500) GALLONS.
C. LIGHT TO SEVERE DAMAGE, EXTENT NOT YET DETERMINED, TO ELEVEN (11) USN, USMC AND USAAC AIRCRAFT ON HENDERSON FIELD.
5. THE UNDERSIGNED HAS, ON THE RECOMMENDATION OF CO, MAG-21, AUTHORIZED THE EVACUATION OF USAAC B-17 AIRCRAFT FROM HENDERSON TO ESPIRITU SANTO UNTIL SUCH TIME AS STOCKS OF AVGAS AND SPARE PARTS, NOW ESSENTIALLY EXHAUSTED, CAN BE REPLENISHED. ALL REMAINING STOCKS OF AVGAS NEEDED FOR F4F4 AND P39 AND P40 AIRCRAFT. B17 AIRCRAFT WILL DEPART
AS SOON AS REPAIRS TO RUNWAY ARE ACCOMPLISHED.
VANDEGRIFT MAJ GEN USMC COMMANDING
[TWO]
VMF-229
Henderson Field
1330 Hours 13 October 1942
“You had a blowout is what it looks like, Mr. Pickering,” Technical Sergeant Oblensky said.
They were in a maintenance revetment, an area large enough to hold two Wildcats. It was bordered on three sides by sandbag walls. Sheets of canvas, once part of wall tents, had been hung over it to provide some relief from the heat of the sun, and from the rain. “A blowout?” Pickering asked bitterly.
“If I had to guess, I’d guess you run into a bent-up piece of pierced steel planking. But maybe a piece of bomb casing or something.”
“Jesus Christ!”
“Put you out of control. And then the gear collapsed. It won’t handle that kind of stress, like that. You’re lucky it wasn’t worse.”
“The airplane’s totaled, right?”
“Yeah. Not only the gear. When that went, there was structural damage, hard to fix. And then the engine was sudden-stop. Probably not even worth trying to rebuild, even if we had the stuff to do it with. I’ll pull the guns and the radios and the instruments and whatever else I can out of it and have it dragged to the boneyard.”
“How many aircraft does that leave us with?” “Three. Plus I think I can fix what Captain Galloway was flying. He lost an oil line, but he shut it right down, maybe before it had a chance to lock up. I’ll have to see.”
Galloway at that moment walked in.