Island-Happy Yanks Play Pranks (and Make War)

Book Review

Island-Happy Yanks Play Pranks (and Make War) In the South Seas

IF you like the American Way of Life— or the American way of writing about it—then you will probably find this the most entertaining book that has come out of the Pacific war, to date. Not the greatest; but for 100 per cent, read ability, it hits the spot.

Put it down as pure American and let it go at that. Only the Americans have mastered the art of writing like this; of dramatising the insignificant or the stupendous, until both are warm with in terest, and palatable. Other writers are prone to fall between the stools of blatant exaggeration and frigid understatement.

James A. Michener, who wrote these “Tales from the South Pacific,’’ served in the Pacific in aviation maintenance be fore he became Senior Histoiical Officer for the area. Before the war he had travelled in most countries. He is a Uni versity graduate and claims that before the “Tales,” he had written only educa tional books. What an education they probably were!

The tales are 19 in number. Each is complete in itself, but is loosely tied to the others to cover the period between early 1942 to late 1943—a period of frus tration, or if you like it better, a period of what the Australians christened spine-bashing—that culminated in just one day of blistering activity when the Americans took an island from the Japs; “IT makes me laugh when I see a 1 war movie,” said the Lieutenant.

“The hero and his buddy get on a ship in Frisco and right away land on the beach-head, where the buddy gets killed and the hero wipes out four Jap emplacements. You get on the ship at Frisco, all right. But you get off at Luana Pori. You wait there a couple of months. You move up to Santo and wait some more. At Guadal you wait, and in the Russells.

But the day finally comes when even a moron can see that the next move. ...”

Or at the Kuralei landing; The order came from the flagship.

The young skipper got up as much speed as possible. He drove his small craft as near the battle lines as the sea would take it. We braced our selves and soon felt a grinding shock as we hit coral. We were beached, and our bow was pointed at the Jap tanks. Our first round of rockets went off with a low swish. Too high.

The barrage shot into the cacao trees. . . . Our next round gave a long hiss. The first tank exploded loudly.

At this moment a Jap five-incher hit the 108. We heeled over to port.

The men at the rocket-launching ramps raised their sights and let go another volley. The second tank ex ploded.

The third tank stopped firing at our men in the first trench and started lobbing shells at LCS 108.

Two hit us and we lay far over on the coral.

Our skipper surveyed his ship. It was lost. It would either be hauled

off the reef and sunk or left there to rot. His first command! What kind of war was this? You bring a ship all the way from Norfolk just to stop two tanks. And on land. You purposely run your ship on a coral reef. “This is a hell of a war,” he muttered.

FT'iHE Tales are not fact, but allegedly JL fiction, which allows the author a larger canvas on which to work and perhaps guards him somewhat from the natural wrath of those who could have been his models. But it is a fiction modelled so closely to truth that the reader needs to remind himself frequently that these people who walk the pages were not real.

Do not look for the deeds of the Allies here. Apart from one coast-watcher and a few New Zealand airmen, the French planters, the Tonkinese, the Javanese and the natives exist only to be seen through American eyes or as props on the American stage. It is an all-American show in all its craziness, exaggeration, wastefulness, generosity, humour, senti mentality and downright courage.

Each story is part of the pattern that clicks into place with the taking of Kuralei—and Kuralei is as imaginary as the characters are supposed to be. It is shown on no map—but, it could be Tarawa; and probably is supposed to be somewhere in the Carolines or Marshalls.

Kuralei was the reason why each of our characters sweated out those months upon the rocks, the islands and the atolls of the South Pacific.

There was Luther Billis, the fat Sea Bee, who wore doves tatooed on his breast and a gold ring in one ear, and ten minutes after arriving at a station knew where to buy illicit beer, how to finagle extra desserts, what would be playing at the movies three weeks hence and how to avoid night duty.

And Tony Pry, who married the Frenchman’s daughter, Buddhist fashion; Bus Adams, the crazy pilot; Bill Harbi son, who talked like a hero and turned out to be a skunk; Naval nurse Nellie, who settled for the Frenchman with the cocoa grove and the eight half-caste daughters; Joe, who was island-happy, who had prickly heat and tinea for 27 months, a girl-friend he had never seen and was afraid atebrin would affect his virility.

And being American, there is as much ado about sex and as much talk, as if the Americans themselves had invented it.

And because there were maybe half a million men to a few women —and most of those brown —it was usually the type of sex for which one stood in a queue— five dollars at the Red House, for en listed men; 10 dollars at the Green House —officers only.

It might be said that it was fortun ate for the author that most of the spine bashing was done in New Hebrides and New Caledonia where, in addition to the more barbarous Melanesians, there are part-Tonkinese or part-Javanese, without exception handsome creatures, who look whiter as the months pass. To be sure, most of the young are rounded up and confined to one island, for their own good.

But the Americans, like love, can always be depended upon to find a way.

The South Pacific reader who is a stickler for exactness will probably find petty inaccuracies and irritations. But

taken broadly, the whole background of the book is excellent—remarkably so from a writer who uses the area merely as a stage upon which to portray the reactions of his characters.

ONE of the stories which concerns sex in only negligible degree and heroics not at all, but exemplifies the high-spirited craziness which men will probably remember long after the battles are forgotten is called “Wine for the Mess at Segi.”

Properly speaking, the term, “Wine Mess” is just one of the prettier flights of imagination, and in the US Navy exists, according to our narrator, for the sole purpose of buying and selling beer, whisky, rum, gin, orandy and cordials— but never wine. The Wine Mess at Segi Avas in charge of Tony Pry who, by the third week in December, was a mighty glum man. His regular source of whisky supply had dried up—and how, he asked, could a man celebrate Christmas without whisky?

Thereupon he, the crazy pilot, Bus Adams and the narrator, set out in the Bouncing Belch to find it. The Belch was a condemned aircraft which Adams and Fry had patched together for the pm pose of carrying beer back to Segi from Guadalcanal.

They started out from Segi with 350 dollars in mess funds, four dynamos, a radio that could pick up Tokio Rose, and an electric iron. They proposed to “horse trade" until they got the required whisky.

They knew there was none at Guadal canal, so they tried the Russells. The Russells were dry, but they heard there that there was plenty of whisky at Bougainville. Off they set again.

They were taken to a transient camp where Tony borrowed a jeep. Late in the day he returned, still with no beer, but with tv/o ice-making machines —two valu able articles which had been sent to Bougainville in excess of demand. They filled the jeep; and, with great difficulty, they got the machines into the Belch.

It was rumoured that there was whisky at Ondonga.

The rumour was unfounded, but they heard there that a shipment had reached Munda. On the way to Munda, Belch’s carburettor gave up and they prepared to ditch her, but they struggled on to Munda, down wind. “The airplane seemed to roar along the tops of the trees,” says -'the “I icouldn’t imagine its stopping in less than two miles. . . Then straight ahead gleamed Munda airfield. It was a heavenly sight.

Longest of the Pacific strips, it had been started by the Japs and finished by us. . . If any field could take a roading TBF, this one could.

“But at that moment, a scraper, un warned of our approach, started across the near end of the strip. I screamed.

I don’t know what Bus did, but he must have done the right thing, for the old Belch vaulted over the scraper and slammed heavily onto the, coral. Two tires exploded in a loud report. The Belch limped and squealed and ground to a stop.

“As usual, Tony was first out. He looked at the burred wheel hubs arid slashed rubber. He looked back at the scraper, whose driver had passed out cold. Then he grinned at Bus. ‘Best landing you ever made,’ he said.”

TT took two days to fix the wheels and 1 replace the carburettor. And in the meantime they had no whisky at Munda, either. .

It was now five days off Chrrstmas.

Tony swopped one of the ice-machines for a hot water heater (“You never can tell what might be just the thing to get some whisky”) and they set out for Guadal canal (Solomons), where they heard that there were ample stores in Espiritu Santo (New Hebrides). Santo was 500 miles soutn

and the Belch had no compass, but they arranged a satisfactory deal with a New Zealand pilot who waited in the clouds for them next morning, and they trailed him down.

At Santo there was still no whisky, but Tony heard, for certain, that there was more than a 1000 cases at Noumea (New Caledonia). They flew down to Efate, fol lowed a big plane, and were in Noumea by five that afternoon.

This time Tony was right. There were barrels of whisky in Noumea. With their 350 dollars, dynamos, ice-machine, elec tric iron and water-heater they got 22 cases. They locked it in a warehouse, gave the mechanics at Megenta two bottles for checking the engine, and then commenced their homeward journey, tagging along north behind more airworthy planes. At Guadalcanal, they landed spitting hydraulic fluid and, even as they watchea her, the undercarriage of the Belch folded up. More whisky to the mechanics, who promised to fix her up well enough for them to take off: "But I ain’t sayin’ that you can get her down later.”

"You see to it that she gets up, pal,”

Bus says, “I’ll get her down.”

But when Bus and the narrator look around, Tony had gone. . . Near the time of take-off, an ambulance careers furi ously across the field.

"Where’s the Bouncing Belch,” the driver asks, in some agitation.

“My God,” shouts the narrator, “What’s up? What’s happened?”

“Nothing,” the ambulance driver replies “I just want to get rid of this damned washing-machine and get back to the hos pital.” He thereupon jumps out and throws the doors open. There was Tony Fry riding in comfort, with the “prettiest white washing machine you ever saw!”

"Don’t ask me where I got it,” he yelled, “give the driver two cases of whisky,” The whisky was handed over to the driver, who shook Tony’s hand warmly and drove off while “we loaded the washing machine, priceless above opals, in the Belcii.’’

Then they set off on the Belch’s last journey. The take-off time was critical but without undue difficulty they were airborne.

“Are the wheels up” asked Bus.

Tony’s voice came, after a moment, from the bomb-bay. “All but the starboard,” he said languidly, “and the port is dragging, too!”

They were content for a while merely to be up—even if the wheels were not.

Then Bus says: “It’s a tough decision.

If we try to snap those wheels into posi tion we’ll probably spring the oomb-bay doors and lose the whisky. If ws belly land we’ll break every bottle anyway.”

“There was a grim silence,” says the narrator, “I had no suggestions but slowly from the bottom of the plane Tony’s voice came over the interphone. ‘I thought of that,’ he said, ‘All the whisky’s moved out of the bomb-bay—inside. I’m sitting on it.’ ”

Bus thereupon climbs to 9,000 feet and dives steeply, but to no avail. The wheels still trail and there is nothing foi it but a belly-landing.

“Bus cleared with the tower. Word sped through the men of Segi. To heighten their apprehension and relieve his own, Bus announced: ‘l’ve got a washing machine, nineteen cases of whisky and Tony Fry in the bomb compartment.’

“Bus did his job well. . . He skimmed the strip for perhaps a thousand feet, feeling for the coral with his tail wheel.

Slowly, slowly while we ate up the safe space on the runway, Bouncing Belch reached for the coral. Then with a grind ing crunch she felt it. . . The old Belch pancaked and screamed ahead, cutting herself to death upon the coral.

“This time Tony was the last man out.

In fact, we had to cut him out; and then he handed us first the 19 cases of whisky and next the washing machine. He

grinned at Bus. . . ‘Best landing you ever

i lO .

“That night on Segi Point we celebrated. Many toasts were drunk to the Bouncing Belch. There would never be another like her! Our beer ship was gone! Tony, in honour of the occasion, set up his washing machine and ran through a preliminary laundry of six

khaki shirts and some underwear. Already the washer was supplanting the Belch in his affections.”

There are many more stories like that —J.T. „ Cur copy from Messrs. Macmillan & Co., Ltd., London. Retail price is 12/6 stg