The Wingmen, page 11
“We were just better trained,” said Glenn, a regular Marine beginning in 1946. “So they always tried to match up a Reserve pilot with a regular pilot. You didn’t fly every mission with that person, but if you were assigned to the same flight, well, you flew together. So I guess probably half the missions that Ted flew in Korea, he flew as my wingman, so I got to know him very well.”
Marine Corps records do not quite mesh with Glenn’s memory. According to VMF-311 Command Diaries, Glenn and Williams only flew on eight pre-briefed combat missions together. By the time Williams was discharged from active duty, he had flown a total of thirty-nine (official) missions. Although it does remain possible that both men flew together on several additional missions, the dreaded combat air patrol missions that Glenn hated. Because these missions often resulted in just sitting on the runway for two hours, the pilots who actually carried out CAPs were not logged by name in unit diaries.
Nevertheless, Williams served as Glenn’s wingmen at least eight times, perhaps more. The first instance, which Glenn had thought would result in his court-martial, was memorable. And in each successive hop together Glenn made sure to keep an eye on Williams.
On May 16, Glenn, Williams, and twenty-four-year-old First Lieutenant Francis L. Keck, Jr., joined flight leader Captain Ed Lovette on an afternoon close air support mission. To assist Republic of Korea (South Korea) infantrymen the four Panthers crossed over the bombline carrying two 1,000-pound and two 250-pound GPs. In a quick, low-level strike the four planes damaged or destroyed six buildings, two bunkers, and a seventy-five-yard-long trench sheltering Communist ground personnel. On his way out, however, Captain Williams ran into some trouble.
Glenn recognized that Williams had exceptional instincts as a pilot: his famous hand-eye coordination as a world-class athlete certainly helped him in the skies. But he had arrived in Korea with no experience as a combat pilot. A seven-year, post−World War II layoff coupled with less than a year of jet training made Williams a bit insecure in the air. He often crowded the other pilot in his section so that he would not veer too far off course. Flying too close to Major Hollenbeck on his second combat mission may well have caused Williams to be hit by enemy fire, which led to his crash-landing at K-13.
“He didn’t like to fly on instruments,” Glenn said sixty years later. “It was natural because the Reserves at that time had not had as much instrument flight training as the regulars had. When we’d get flying on instruments, he’d tuck it in tight enough that it was affecting the air flow around my airplane and I’d move out a little bit.”
Over North Korea, in choppy wind, bad weather, or air filled with debris from a nearby ground explosion, pilots had to rely on their aircraft’s instruments, such as radio navigation, artificial horizon, and a turn-and-bank indicator. Glenn tried to teach Williams the finer points of flying on instruments, but the lessons didn’t always get through.
“Been working some on Ted,” he wrote home. “Yesterday he hit the top of a built up trench area on CAS and darn near tore the top of the hill off. Like a kid with a new toy. You’d have thought it was a home run in the All-Star game. All tickled. As Ed Lovette said, Hill 468 is now Hill 460.”
The next week Glenn saw his prize pupil again celebrate a group effort. On the morning of May 21, Glenn led a ten-plane ID targeting North Korean troops holed up in a series of small buildings within a mountain range twenty-nine miles west of Wonsan. Amid tremendous anti-aircraft fire, eight Panthers unloaded four five-hundred-pound incendiary bombs equipped with time fuses in the nose of the casing. The spectacular blast obliterated the troop shelters, leaving a smoking crater in the mountain. MAG-33 executive officer Lieutenant Colonel James K. Dill, observing the mission as the tactical air controller, endorsed Glenn’s team’s efforts as a rousing success. Glenn eagerly awaited photographs from VMJ-1 assessing the damage, while his wingman enjoyed himself as well.
“Ted flew my wing this morning and was all bubbling-over when we got back,” Glenn wrote home. “What a character!”
But the most harrowing mission the two flew together took place five days after their first, the near court-martial episode and confusion near the bombline.
Throughout that day, April 27, the Allies carried out large-scale attacks across North Korea. Air Force, Navy, and Marine planes along both the eastern and western coasts of the peninsula flew a total of eleven hundred sorties, blowing up military installations on the ground and enemy MiGs in the air.
MAG-33’s role in the coordinated effort was to destroy a Communist ammunition factory in Nampo, where the Taedong River flows into Korea Bay. Twenty-five miles southwest of Pyongyang, Nampo—known as Chinnampo during the Japanese occupation earlier that century—fell to the Communists in October 1950. As a port city close to the capital, Nampo became a frequent target for the Allies throughout the war.
Major Carroll Bernard, VMF-115’s executive officer, served as the MAG-33 flight leader for this attack, Mission Number Acme 03. Twenty-two pilots in all began departing K-3 at 1340 Hours, with Major Glenn and his wingman Captain Williams forming one section. Within an hour they reached the target along the north shore of the Taedong. Right away, the team started to dispense their GPs while dodging both moderate anti-aircraft fire and the unexpected threat posed by weather conditions.
“Heavy winds made bombing difficult,” said Colonel Robertshaw, who joined that mission as pathfinder.
Not only could they alter the trajectory of 250- and 500-pound bombs, but heavy winds blew smoke, fire, and flak in unpredictable directions.
Following Glenn, Williams was the fourth pilot to make his run.
“I watched the first three and I thought, ‘This is easy,’” he said.
Williams dove to the target and dropped his GPs. Pulling up he witnessed a blanket of flames rise up from the ground below. He must have felt the sensation that his friend, New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra, allegedly called “Déjà vu all over again.”
“I knew I was hit, I had to be,” he said. “I looked out and there was this big damned hole in my right tank. Big as your fist.”
Unlike the small arms hit he’d endured over Kyomipo in February, this time his hydraulics, electrical, and radio systems remained functional. Even more fortunate for Williams, Nampo was at least 280 miles from K-3. His Panther’s right tip-tank was close enough to empty that it did not explode and the plane with it. Nevertheless, a fire broke out. Over the radio he informed the squadron of the situation. Pulling beside him, Glenn gave his wingman some advice: bail out.
Historically opposed to that option, Williams felt confident he could handle the aircraft. So Glenn calmly offered new instructions: follow me.
Sixty-three years later, just days after Glenn passed away at the age of ninety-five, retired four-star General Jack R. Dailey told the tale of Mission Number Acme 03 to a crowd of a few thousand mourners gathered at the Mershon Auditorium on the Ohio State University campus.
“His wingman in Korea, the great baseball player Ted Williams, once called him ‘one of the calmest men I have ever met, no matter how perilous the situation,’” Dailey began. “He might have been referring to an occasion where Williams was hit and his plane was ablaze. John pulled alongside, pointed up, and they climbed to higher altitude. And with the lack of oxygen the flames were actually extinguished, and Williams made it back to base.
“Of all the war stories, this one perhaps best illustrates what John meant to us. He invited us up to his level, where we discovered what an American could do.”
Flying southeast, Glenn and Williams rose to well above ten thousand feet. Williams was likely low on fuel, but by climbing so high he could reach still reach base by flying dead-stick if necessary. At 1535 hours the two landed at K-3 safely. Once again, Williams was blasé about the event, and he told reporters, “It wasn’t that important.”
Glenn was a bit more curious. While flying above, underneath, and beside his wingman’s plane to inspect the damage, he noticed the six-inch hole in the right tip-tank, but nothing else. To Glenn, “this was a little bit screwy.” If anti-aircraft or small arms fire had punctured the tank, then a shell almost certainly would have blown through the opposite side.
On the ground, the enlisted crew of MAG-33’s Maintenance Squadron inspected the tip-tank. No exit wound was discovered, nor was a shell or any other enemy ammunition. All they found inside the tank was a rock, “a big damn rock.”
During that afternoon’s mission, Marine pilots had launched a total of fifty-six 500-pound GPs, thirty-six 250-pound GPs, four 500-pound incendiary bombs, and returned fire with 1,335 shells of 20 mm ammunition, all within a matter of seconds and over an area with a diameter of less than five hundred feet. The Far East Air Force’s operational summary officially described the mission as “pouring 100,000 pounds of bombs into an ammunition factory near Chinnampo.” Years later Williams recalled the target more specifically as a factory that manufactured hand grenades. The detonation of all those GPs and incendiary bombs probably ignited the highly combustible materials inside that factory, increasing the range and force of the blast. The ensuing “secondary explosion” chewed up the entire region, and black smoke could be seen for miles.
“They tell me rocks bounce 2,500 feet if they hit right,” Williams said. “But I had to see it to believe it.”
Word around the base spread quickly. First small arms fire, now rocks had brought down the Bush Leaguer. Some member of the squadron even presented Williams with the rock “all done up” as a souvenir that night at the O Club.
“We always kidded him about the Williams anti-aircraft fire,” Glenn remembered.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Liberty
The son of a Baptist pastor and his wife Sarah, Joe Dean Bailes was born in Greer, South Carolina, on November 25, 1922. At the age of five, Bailes moved with his family to Tyler, Texas, where he would become a star end for the Tyler Lions High School football team. Following a year at Tyler Junior College, then a year at Baylor University, Bailes enlisted in the Navy Reserve in December 1942. Immediately after World War II, the upperclassman was sent to Midway, where he flew Corsairs as a second lieutenant in VMA-322.
When Bailes returned home to his wife Jane, he completed his business administration degree then took a job as sales manager of his father-in-law’s wholesale business, Kirkpatrick Sales Company. “Dimmitt’s only complete fuel dealer,” Kirkpatrick sold Phillips 66 gasoline, motor oil, and tractor fuel throughout North Texas.
In 1952, the Marine Corps recalled Bailes to active duty, retrained him to fly jets at El Toro, then sent the thirty-year-old captain to Korea the following spring. He joined VMF-311 at K-3 on March 20, 1953, and participated in his first combat mission ten days later.
“He worked for Phillips 66,” Ted Williams remembered. “So he had his helmet all painted up in those colors.”
During his first five weeks, Bailes flew twenty-two hops and enjoyed a long R&R in Japan the same week in April as Williams. Lieutenant Colonel Art Moran observed that he was “greatly loved and respected by his comrades.”
On May 6, Bailes joined Captains Armagost, Clem, and Carruthers on an early morning close air support mission. To provide cover for the Republic of Korea’s 20th Infantry Division, the four pilots dropped eight 1,000-pound and eight 250-pound GPs just a few hundred yards across the bombline then turned back for base. But as it neared Pohang, the squadron encountered dense fog rolling in off Yongil-man. Clem and Armagost landed safely at K-3, but Carruthers and Bailes struggled to find the airfield. They both circled the area in search of landmarks.
Running out of fuel, Carruthers managed to guide his Panther to a spot two miles into the bay. He exited the cockpit, inflated an emergency life raft, and began paddling. A “Dumbo,” an Air Force SA-16 rescue seaplane, dispatched to the area dropped down and picked him up. Unharmed but freezing from nearly an hour in the water, Carruthers checked in to sick bay, where he was prescribed several doses of medicine (brandy). Per squadron regulations for any pilot forced to ditch, the CO gave Carruthers four days of special leave in Japan.
Bailes, however, could not find the base or the bay. While Carruthers floated on his life raft, Bailes’s plane ran out of fuel. He lost control of his Panther and crashed into the countryside roughly seven miles southeast of K-3. The following morning, a member of the civilian South Korean police department reported the wreckage to the commanding officer of the nearby Third Marine Ground Control Intercept Squadron. Scattered human remains were also found, so several MAG-33 pilots, including Ted Williams, were dispatched to the scene.
“And, God, there’s his helmet, lying on the side of the hill,” Williams said forty-four years later. “I’ll never forget that.”
Bailes’s parents and widow received telegrams immediately. On the following Sunday, Navy chaplain Lieutenant (JG) Ernest R. Lineberger presided over a well-attended memorial service in the Wing Chapel.
“It’s the first guy we’ve lost since I’ve been here,” Williams wrote. “God, we have been lucky. I can think of at least 15 different cases where it could have been the other way but luck was with us. Guys coming back with wings, tails all shot up, burning engines running rough, no hydraulics or [brakes] and they’ve all come out OK. Everyone is just sick about our friend. This place is really gloomy today.”
Marines at K-3 had several outlets for their grief.
A few nights per week, General Megee’s Mess and Wing Hall—dubbed the “Rice Paddie Bijou Theatre”—offered movie screenings. Every month the wing’s Special Services Office obtained dozens of new releases and classics from the Navy Motion Picture Exchange at K-13. Marines at K-3 were treated to a range of films, from John Wayne’s The Quiet Man and Gary Cooper’s Springfield Rifle, to Bob Hope and Bing Crosby’s adventure-comedy The Road to Bali, to a pair of swashbuckling films, Errol Flynn in Against All Flags and Burt Lancaster in The Crimson Pirate. Navy Lieutenant (JG) John I. Hense, the Second Marine Aircraft Control Group’s dental officer, left the theater thinking both pirate films were “stinkers.”
“Meteor,” one of the Armed Forces Korean Network’s nine radio stations, broadcast at 250 watts around the base Jack Benny, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, and the popular Your Hit Parade program. The station even took three requests per day. During the Mail from Home program, a host read letters from Marines’ loved ones that asked for specific songs. The most popular request in February (i.e. Valentine’s Day) was Teresa Brewer’s hit “Till I Waltz Again with You.”
K-3 also boasted an updated library that included new arrivals such as Thomas Costain’s The Silver Chalice, John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, as well as Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. Ted Williams, who at some point read the famed tribute to his rival Joe DiMaggio, focused mostly on the fishing: “I never could’ve sat in that boat as long as that old man did.... It wouldn’t take me that long to catch that fish.” As for current events, the latest issues of Life, the Sporting News, Colliers, the Saturday Evening Post, and Stars and Stripes were brought in each week from Japan.
Along with all the other squadrons and maintenance units that comprised the First MAW, pilots in VMF-311 participated in bridge, poker, and acey-deucy (a version of backgammon) tournaments. Some gambled on sports they never saw. Given twelve-to-five odds, Ted Williams still lost $50 betting on Jersey Joe Walcott to win his rematch with reigning heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano.
Those interested in more physical activities played basketball, volleyball, and softball. One afternoon, when bad weather in North Korea grounded the entire wing, John Glenn pitched during a pickup softball game.
Even when he was healthy and at K-3 Ted Williams reportedly did not participate in these softball games. Cincinnati Reds reserve outfielder Lloyd Merriman did. A first lieutenant in VMF-115, the 28-year-old had arrived at K-3 three weeks after Williams. The former Stanford University fullback socked plenty of softballs out over K-3’s Seabee wall.
Although he chose not to show off his own hitting skills, Williams did join Merriman one afternoon to give their fellow Marines an informal baseball clinic . . . so ordered by General Megee. They cut the event short upon realizing that the base’s scant inventory of balls would not survive the grounders hit across the hard, rock-covered infield.
Some recall seeing Williams swing a baseball bat at a nearby stationary tire or hitting fly balls to enlisted men with a fungo bat. (Employing the same wrist action with a fishing rod, he also practiced casting by dropping a lure into a bucket that he placed at various points around the base.) And on one occasion, as a group of pilots walked by the playing field on their way to the Ready Room, an errant ball rolled across Williams’s path. He bent down, picked it up, and threw it back onto the field.
“A flip of the wrist was all that it took out of him,” First Lieutenant Rylen Rudy remembered. “And that ball was at eye level like a bullet all the way back to where these [Marines] were playing ball. I never saw a ball thrown that way.”
Despite the camaraderie that these games and activities bred, a degree of tribalism developed among the different subsets of those men stationed at K-3. And perhaps the fiercest rivalry emerged between VMF-115 and VMF-311. Not only did the two squadrons routinely fly joint missions together, but their quarters were adjacent, sitting on the edge of the bay.
Much of that rivalry centered around pranks. 311 nailed down the lids to the toilets in 115’s wooden latrines. 115 responded by “kidnapping” 311’s recently promoted CO, Art Moran, and enchaining him in the Officers Club but with plenty of beer to drink. That was followed by a latrine being burned down: decades later pilots from both squadrons couldn’t remember who claimed responsibility.
By far the greatest catalyst for one squadron pranking the other was “kroindyking.” Purportedly named after an ancient Korean game, kroindyking (or krondyking) meant throwing nearby chunks from the ground at the opposing squadron’s tropical hut. Made out of tin, the roof of the hut rang loudly and the walls vibrated when struck by the projectile. Night kroindyking interrupted many pilots’ sleep.
