(SeaBees put the fields up fast. A company street at Isley Field, 1944. Air Force Photo.)
 
Mac told me that they arrived on Guam in January 1945. Hal McCullough had been flying high-altitude missions against Toyko for weeks, and Bill McCullough was de-arming the Super Forts as they returned, and servicing the automatic gun systems.
 
The campaign was not going well. Washington was directing the tactics and targets, based on their European campaign against the Germans. The thinking behind the strategy was that high-altitude precision strikes against key nodes in the manufacturing infrastructure were the keys to immobilizing the enemy.
 
The raid on Schweinfurt-Regensberg in 1943 was the template. What the Mighty 8th Air Force called “Mission No. 84” was intended to take out the German aircraft production capability based on the destruction of strategic components like ball-bearings.
 
It did nothing of the sort, but that would not be revealed until the completion of the Strategic Bombing Survey chartered by FDR in 1944 was done.
Mission 84 also resulted in catastrophic losses to the Mighty 8th, with sixty bombers and their crews lost and many more that limped home with casualties, damaged beyond repair. The Air Corps was unable to reconstitute a follow-on strike.
Targets for the campaign against Japan were directed by the Joint Target Board in Washington. The JTB was following the European plan against a completely different set of circumstances. Hal McCullough and Crew 17 were sent against aircraft engine factories, at high altitude, in swirling weather conditions at the very edge of the envelope.
 
The situation was far more difficult than Washington could imagine. Mac told me about the way the SeaBees constructed the fields to wring every ounce of performance out of the fire-prone Wright R-3350-23 engines. “The runways were peaked to allow the rain to run off, and had a long down-grade to help the Super Forts gain altitude. The end of the runways on Guam led to the cliffs that the Japs committed hara-kiri from.”
 
He looked off past Peter, who was delivering a little plate of Tracy’s custom deviled eggs to the side of my long-stemmed wine glass.
 
“I had a jeep assigned to me, and we would take the forty-five minute drive from CINCPAC Hill to Anderson Field to watch the raids depart in the morning. The end of the strip had a little upslope that was supposed to act like a ramp. The Super Forts would get to the end of the runway and then pop up and disappear behind the cliffs. They actually settled down a few hundred feet as they gained speed and cleaned up the gear and flaps and started to gain altitude again. We would not see them against until they were a mile or two beyond the cliffs.”
 
Down on Isley Field, Hal McCullough was flying with volatile extra tanks of fuel in the bomb bay to extend range. The Super Forts where subject to fires on the best of days, and loaded with bombs and AvGas, they were torches waiting to be lit. If Hal was pretty wound up after one of those missions out of Isley Field on Saipan, he made sure he got his cousin back to his quarters without incident.
 
I will have to tell you about why and how the tactics changed in the final struggle against the stubborn Japanese tomorrow.
 
There is a certain relevance to all the recollections of some old warriors. The bones of  “Mush” Morton and tens of thousands of their comrades remain where they fell. Their sacrifice and triumph was long remembered in Asia, but memory does fade.
 
New generations are watching current events with interest, including the value of currency and the freedom of the seas. There is a solid core of resolve beyond the waters of the Pacific. After all, the last Japanese hold-out on Guam was  Sergeant Shoichi Yokoi, who was discovered by hunters on January 24, 1972.
 
He had lived alone in a cave for 27 years, true to his Emperor.
 
I wondered if we can be true to the sacrifice of our fathers. If our warriors must defer to the wishes of others about where and when we pass on the world’s ocean, I imagine Mush Morton and the crew of his Yahoo are rolling in their watery grave.

(Last know picture of the crew of the USS Wahoo, 1944.)

Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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