Once They Were Eagles (23 page)

“How'd you get into the Black Sheep?” I asked.

“My first squadron went home, and I was in limbo. The Black Sheep took four of us from Squadron 213.

“My worst scare was on the ground. I weighed about 110 pounds then, and I was soaped up for a shower when Boyington came staggering in and wanted to wrestle me. You recall that steel pier planking, the Marsden matting, and how sharp it was on raw flesh? I couldn't even turn the water on him to try to sober him up. I was scared, but I finally talked him into going back to his tent.

“I put in to become a regular at Cherry Point but never got a response until I went to Washington and talked to Paul Fontana in Personnel. He showed me a stack of papers, ‘all officers desiring to go regular who are one day to one month too old in rank, and your name is here.'

“Later, in Korea, I tried again, and stayed on as a reserve on continuous active duty through the war; then I was at Cherry Point, training jet pilots to fly on instruments. I was finally ordered to inactive duty in 1955.

“I tried to stay in the Organized Reserves, but I was so senior in rank that there were no billets for me. I was not informed that I could have kept up my retirement points without pay, so, after 13 years, I was through. I retired with the rank of lieutenant colonel but no retirement pay.

“After that, I got a job with Ford Motor Company and worked there for 18 years, in the purchasing of special-purpose vehicles. When the 1974 oil shortage hit, it knocked out our department. I was on vacation. When I returned, my desk was gone and my phone was on the floor.

“They let me stay in another job for a few months, enough to qualify for a small pension.

“Then I got a job with a municipal golf course where I could play all the golf I wanted, free. The only trouble was that it closed in the winter, so I'd draw unemployment insurance. Each year the same. The city finally got tired of it and said: ‘This won't do.' So I got a job as a bank messenger, but I can only work so many months and still get my Social Security. That leaves enough time off to play golf during the summer.

“I'f I had it to do over again, I'd have gone regular right off the bat, but when I left Hawaii to go overseas, I said Tarewell to thee.' On the forms, I put ‘cremate me and scatter the ashes over the sea if the body is found.' I didn't think I'd even be found, there was so much combat over water.”

“Fearless” Fred, given several wrong numbers on life's wheel, was now resting on his oars, drifting comfortably with the tide before an onshore breeze.

Austin, Texas, where Rufus “Mack” Chatham lives, was the capital before Texas even became a state. The pleasant city of 350,000 lies in rolling hills about 160 miles west of Houston. Its major claim to fame, besides being the home of Chatham, is that the LBJ Library is located there on the campus of the University of Texas. I drove over from Houston and was flagged down by Mack in front of his comfortable home near the center of town.

Although minus a little hair, Chatham was still lean as a whippet, still had the dry wit and low-key, diffident approach I remembered. I asked how he happened to join the service.

“I was a bit tired of school, and a Navy recruiter said the Navy couldn't get along without me. After training, we went by ship to the South Pacific. I remember we were supposed to have 200 nurses on board but had 200 male British officers instead.”

“You were in Boyington's division when he was shot down. Do you recall anything about that?”

“It was pretty messed up. A lot of Zeros below; I lost Matheson when we got scattered.

“After the war ended, I debated whether to stay in as a regular or go back to school. My father said both were great, but
I'd
have to make up my own mind, so I went back to school and graduated from the University of Texas in 1948. Then I went to work for Schlumberger. It's a firm that provides technical services for the oil industry, one of the largest and most profitable in the U.S. I stayed with them for 22 years, moving all over the country: Beaumont, Houston, L.A., Midland, Corpus Christi.

“I had a strong desire to make it on my own, though, so I drew out my profit sharing, about $60,000, and spent it on remodeling a Fort Worth building. I called the business Sundial, handling casual furniture, rattan, and outdoor metal furniture. I ran the business for ten years, quite successfully, but when my lease ran out, they wanted to raise my rent beyond all common sense, so I sold out.

“Now I'm building a place up in the mountains where I'm raising a few head of cattle.”

“What are your thoughts as you look back?”

“It's a shame about Boyington—he was a great leader who hasn't had much success with his personal life. He betrayed his former comrades by allowing that TV show to present such a distorted image of them. I resent the characterization of us as ‘misfits' and ‘screwballs.' Actually, Boyington was the only one of us who ever had any trouble.

“I remember him conning bottles of whiskey out of the new pilots. One time, I saw him stoned at 2:30 in the morning and then sober enough at 4:30 to take his mission. He was an amazing man.

“The hardest thing was getting up in the morning and seeing the empty cots. You got to wondering whose cot would be vacant next; perhaps it would be yours.

“Our Black Sheep Squadron was a class operation all the way. No other squadron could come close to it in spirit.”

Still slim and dapper though graying at the temples, Ned Corman visited me in my apartment in Honolulu. He had recently reached mandatory retirement age with Pan Am after having flown 35 years for that airline, his last few years as Captain in 747s on the Pacific routes: Hawaii, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, Australia.

Ned's high school graduating class in Walker Township, Pennsylvania, consisted of four boys and four girls. He went on to Penn State, graduating in 1942 with a major in agronomy. The youngest son, raised on a farm, it looked as if he would come back to be a farmer. But the Civilian Pilot Training program caught his eye in the junior year. When he soloed, he found it was the first time he'd ever done anything he really enjoyed, although he had played soccer and “chased lots of girls.”

“After I graduated, I went into the Navy preflight program and was in a group of pilots who got to Espiritu Santo when the Black Sheep came back from their first combat tour. Fred Losch was the only one of us who'd had any real time in the Corsair. I'd scrounged just one hour; the rest had zilch.

“We'd all heard of Pappy, and I was happy to be selected. My attitude hasn't changed to this day. I've never failed to be impressed with the Black Sheep's innovative approach to any aspect of flying or combat.

“One day, for instance, I heard this racket down by the lagoon, and here was John Bolt with a 50-caliber machine gun strapped down. He was firing into oil drums in the lagoon to determine which of the three types of ammunition we used caused them to burn. It was the incendiary, so we changed the loading to two incendiary, one armor-piercing, two incendiary, one tracer—instead of the standard one of each. When they got the results of the second tour, the Navy changed their loads to ours. It just bears out one aspect that hasn't been stressed enough: the contribution of the Black Sheep to combat out there, with no credit.”

“What were your first feelings about the overall picture? Why did some get shot down? What was special about us?”

“With the little time we'd had in the Corsair, I think everyone was apprehensive. I was scared shitless. We felt better being with experienced pilots, but I recall the day after Boyington got shot down. We went into Rabaul Harbor, looking for him, and flew around the damn
thing. I don't know that I've ever been more scared in my life. You know, most of the heavy AA was up on the ridges around the harbor, and they couldn't depress those guns, so we were flying
under
that fire; the tracers looked like latticework above our heads. I've often wondered what we'd have done if we had found him.

“It seems to me that in the last two weeks of that tour, we lost eight pilots, the majority experienced. I'm a great believer in fate and said: There but for the grace of God go I.'

“I fell for a decoy when we were patrolling Bougainville, one of my first missions. I strafed what I thought was a coastwise freighter and was ready to go up when the whole shoreline exploded at me. Strictly a trap. I kicked rudder, sprayed the shoreline, and ducked down in the trees. My division went home without me, thinking I'd been shot down. I was sure I had been hit—tracers and heavy stuff going over the cockpit and under the plane. After I landed, I looked but couldn't find one arrow [bullet hole] in the airplane.

“I knew we were outnumbered, but I think we had a very distinct reason for being in that war. I didn't think about winning or losing; I just knew damn well we'd better win! I didn't think we had any choice.

“Now I've flown a lot of soldiers on R and R out of Korea and Vietnam, and I felt that those guys in ‘police actions' lacked a reason for being there. Somewhere along the line, the powers that be failed to sell the American people, especially on Vietnam.”

Corman shook his head.

“The Black Sheep had the same numbers of planes and pilots as other squadrons, but the CO had his plane, and the Exec had his, and nobody touched those planes. What a difference! I remember going to our ready room and it was a recital. The Officer of the Day would assign a new plane to Boyington, and he would go and erase the number, giving it to one of the new guys, saying: ‘Give me one of those old klunkers. I'll fly circles around them anyway.'

“I never ran into that anywhere else. Ours was a free-thinking, free-speaking outfit. If you had some views, you expressed them. Whether they were accepted or not was immaterial—they were heard. You never got that in other squadrons, and to me that was the greatest difference.

“If I had time, I could remember the tours to Sydney, too. God, it was like a reprieve from the electric chair. You were down there—I won't tell on you if you won't tell on me! We had a camaraderie, a wonderful group of guys.

“That was one of the most formative periods of my life. I think I grew up; my sense of values changed. When I went out there, I thought I was an agnostic—there was possibly a greater power, but I felt I could pretty well control my fate. Then those eight pilots shot down; me without a scratch. One day, I asked Chaplain Paetznick if I could join his services. He said, That's what I'm here for,' and I went in and prayed, for one reason: I was suddenly out of control. I felt that somebody else had control of my life, and I don't believe that I have felt that way since.