POSTSCRIPT

by the Editors of International News Service

When Dick Tregaskis left that Unmentionable Island—anyone who has ever known a United States marine will recognize the prohibited expletive instantly—the battle for Guadalcanal had not ended.

But the tide already had turned. The first reinforcements had come and others were on the way. The friendly roar of Grumman Wildcats and PBY’s was no longer a rare occasion for wild rejoicing. In the making were at least two major naval battles. In the second one, the Japanese in the three days between November 13 and 16, 1942, lost at least thirty warships and transports sunk or damaged.

The moment that battle began Tregaskis closed up his portable at Pearl Harbor and finished translating into trenchant English his “satchelful of notes.” He returned at once by plane to the Southwestern Pacific to rejoin the heroes whose story he has told here.

His weeks, the weeks he describes from July 26th to September 26th, were the worst weeks, the almost hopeless weeks. They were—the comparison is inescapable—the Gethsemane of Guadalcanal. But from then on the picture changed. American ships streamed toward the island and American Army troops landed. American fighting and bombing planes made of Henderson Airport an offensive base, destined to play a major role in pushing the Japs right back where they came from.

For a period, at least, the waters around Guadalcanal were cleared of Japanese fighting ships. In the words of Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, the enemy soon would be left “without beans and bullets” and those sorely tried marines who fought so valiantly in the difficult early days were able, with numerical superiority and control of the air, to proceed with the grim but obviously pleasant business of mopping up the enemy one by one.

NEW YORK, AFTER SEPTEMBER 26

This is what happened to Tregaskis after the last entry in his Diary, dated September 26th.

“I had no word from anybody while I was on Guadalcanal,” he wrote, in a letter home, “even though I had sent out two radio messages from there, saying that I was planning to leave and asking that relief be sent. But no answer came. I had been on Guadalcanal for seven weeks by that time; so I took the chance to get away.”

As a matter of fact, relief and money were on their way to Tregaskis, but he didn’t know it. Communications in the Pacific war area, to use Dick’s own words, are frequently by turtleback express.

“I went to a place,” he wrote, “which I may identify only by the name of Amadvu.” (This was Dick’s trip on the Fortress, B-17.) “I waited for a couple of weeks at Amadvu. No mail, no radios came and soon my funds were approaching rock bottom and I saw myself becoming a beachcomber and being devoured by cannibals.”

Tregaskis is the last man you would want to see in such circumstances. He is six feet, seven inches tall and big in proportion—a lot of man. And a man like that requires a lot of food. When he drew the Pacific assignment, he was kidded—“You’ll be some target for the Japs, Dick”—“They’ll capture you for an observation post if they don’t pot you first”—and so on. Tregaskis took it good-naturedly, though he is sensitive about his size. The day before he left he went to the cashier. “I want a small part of my salary sent to me every week.” But why, the cashier wanted to know. It was his experience with war correspondents that they never spend their own. They bank their salaries and live strictly off expense money. “Well,” said Dick, “I’m kind of big and I eat more than some people. I would honestly hate to charge the office for two steaks instead of one and, between you and me, I always eat two steaks.” That was Tregaskis for you—a lot of man any way you take him.

He decided, on Amadvu, to return to Pearl Harbor. “It then took me four days,” he wrote, “to get my orders from the painstaking Mister Ghormley and three more days to make the arrangements with the Army, which did the actual work of hauling me in a plane. By that time I was flat. I had four bucks in cash and a money order for ten bucks which I had borrowed and which nobody would cash without written authorization from Mr. Stimson or Mr. Knox. I arrived in Honolulu with exactly fifty cents.”

Poor Dick! He must have felt, as his letter said, like the orphan of INS. But Haller, our Honolulu bureau man, promptly fixed that, and in his next letter Dick was cheerier. He had filled in (with steaks, no doubt) at the Pacific Club, he said, and—he was finishing a book.

“I began it on the Liberator that brought me here. Just set up an office in part of the bomber and typed. The only distraction was a low circle which the pilot described over a certain untouched Polynesian Island. He wanted to see the dusky maidens swimming in the surf and, after looking at nothing but marines, Japs and betel-chewing Melanesian men, I confess I did, too. Shall I send the book?”

We cabled him to send the book. We did not ask about the maidens.

That was November first. The manuscript arrived in New York, by clipper and airmail on November 10th and three days later was accepted by Random House. A few days after that it was chosen by the Book-of-the-Month Club. Even a Tregaskis who had seen action couldn’t ask for more action than that!

Of course we wanted Dick to know that his luck still held. It isn’t every day that a youngster—Tregaskis is twenty-six—on the greatest and toughest assignment of his life gets the news in the middle of it that his first book has been taken by the Book-of-the-Month Club. We radioed him at once.

Here is the answer from our Honolulu bureau: “Tregaskis away indefinitely. Forwarding him copy of your radiogram fastest but delivery indefinite. Haller.”

We knew what that meant. Uncle Sam doesn’t tell you, even though you are a big press association, when he taps one of your boys for the great adventure.

Tregaskis had written when he sent the book, “Now that I have had a chance to stretch my legs and feed my gullet, I am set to go joy-riding again.” He has gone.

We don’t know, as this is written, exactly where Tregaskis is. But we have a pretty good idea—somewhere around that Unmentionable Island again. The American fleet met the Japanese armada and sank or damaged thirty of their warships. We know, because the Navy says so, that the waters are clear where once the Japs sent in their subs and transports. We know our fliers rule the skies. We know the marines are still holding and pushing farther on Guadalcanal. And we suspect that somewhere in the thick of it Dick Tregaskis is telling another story of American valor as he told this one.

A cable or a radio will come soon, please God, and you bet we will answer back, “Okay, Dick Tregaskis, good luck to you!”

NOVEMBER 21

It came.