Gore and Glory by Cpt. William Crawford Jr

Author:Cpt. William Crawford Jr. [Crawford, Cpt. William Jr.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, United States, Europe, General, Germany, Asia, Japan
ISBN: 9781787209237
Google: By9BDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Published: 2017-01-12T15:55:10+00:00

7. “LULU BELLES” AND “FUZZIES”

CHRISTMAS found the 43rd Bombardment Group getting ready to move up to the new headquarters at Port Moresby, packing and crating all our paraphernalia. Those were my “Christmas packages.” The ones from home had been sent in October but I didn’t get them until March.

We had been promised a turkey dinner with all the fixin’s, but early on Christmas morning my squadron was routed out for a bombing raid on Tonolai Harbor in the Solomons, so we dined on bully beef. I was thoroughly homesick as we droned through the grey daylight across the Coral Sea. There was nothing but water below us, but I saw glistening snow blanketing the Ohio hills...kids taking out their new “belly-whoppers”...a big lighted evergreen tree, gay with tinsel and colored balls...great piles of beribboned packages being opened at the Christmas eve family party we always had to celebrate Mom’s and Dad’s wedding anniversary. I could smell the fresh baked mince pies and the turkey roasting. I was homesick all right.

New Year’s Day was no merrier...just packing and crating. Two days later Captain Jay P. Rouseck, my squadron executive officer, Captain James J. Hayes, Joe Hensler and I flew a hundred enlisted men up to Port Moresby as an advanced detail to build a camp for our squadron to move into. For ten days we all worked as hard as we could getting things in shape.

As soon as the camp was ready, Rouseck, Hensler and I took one of the B-17’s down to Sydney with seven enlisted men for a week’s leave. By that time the Papuan campaign—for which the 43rd Group was later cited—had been brought to a successful end and the Japs chased back into north-east New Guinea.

We definitely needed a rest. Another crew that had just finished its leave flew our plane back to Port Moresby. We three officers took an apartment in King’s Cross and made ourselves at home. We hired a maid to wash the dishes and keep the place straightened up. When we felt like it, we did our own cooking. Americans could get anything they wanted in the way of food, so we had our fill of steaks, chops and delicacies we couldn’t get in camp.

Another crew was due from Moresby with a plane that we were to fly back at the end of our week’s leave, but it never showed up. We radioed a query to the Port Moresby command, for the 43rd had moved up as soon as the camp was ready. “Wait a few days and there will be a transport,” was the reply.

We waited, with our flight bags packed...waited for two more weeks and still no plane. Our funds just about ran out and we had to skimp plenty. Finally we rounded up the rest of our crew and boarded a train to Townsville. There we found an Australian flying boat that flew us to Port Moresby. We got back on February 13 and went smack into two days of terrific action.

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