September 14, 1942
Adak Island, Aleutians
At the flight line, the ’Cobra pilots gathered, excitedly relating their own first combat moments. They piled into a truck, still chattering, high on adrenaline and success. At the squadron’s operations tent, they sat down and had an informal debrief. Major Miller led it, corncob pipe clamped between his teeth, on his head a ridiculously unmilitary felt fedora with his major’s oak leaves pinned on the front.
The squadron shot down two Japanese planes—Gene Arth and Winton Matthews drew first aerial blood for the 54th Fighter Group. The rest of the pilots shot up antiaircraft guns, killed enemy personnel, and strafed three submarines, though nobody knew what kind of damage their bullets and high-explosive shells inflicted on their tough pressure hulls. High command’s intel types estimate that the incendiary bombing of the Japanese camp killed five hundred men.
After the briefing, McCorkle took Johnson aside.
“Good job today, Jerry.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Remember something, though…”
“Sir?”
“I need you on my wing at all times. Never, ever leave your wingman position again.”
“I lost you in the hills, sir.”
McCorkle stared at the young Oregonian. Gerald looked back with his wide, dark eyes, wondering if he’d get in trouble again.
McCorkle didn’t want to be too hard on him. He let the moment linger, Gerald standing stock-still, waiting wide-eyed for what McCorkle would do.
Finally, the colonel said, “Next time that happens, you link up with the nearest friendly fighter. Don’t go wandering off alone. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”1
They hiked back to their tent, Major Miller joining them. The wind picked up, and the temperature dropped. Even in their cold-weather gear, they felt the chill.
As they reached their tent, Johnson suddenly stopped in his tracks. His pile of boards gathered beside the entrance flap was gone.
Perhaps the theft triggered a post-combat parasympathetic backlash. Perhaps it just made him feel indignant that some rear-area guy had poached his stash while he was off risking his life. Either way, McCorkle saw Johnson’s near-euphoric mood evaporate.
He stepped inside his tent, dropped his gear by his cot, and unholstered his M1911 Colt .45.
Miller and McCorkle exchanged glances.
What’s this kid doing now?
Johnson racked the slide and chambered a round. He checked the safety and stuck it back in his holster. Then he headed for the tent flap.
“Jerry? Where you going?” McCorkle asked.
Before either field-grade could reply, the young Oregonian disappeared through the entrance. They heard his boots crunching off up the hillside.
“Should we go after him?” Miller asked.
“No. Let’s see what he does.”
“You don’t think he’d kill anyone?”
“No. That was for show. The kid has a flair for drama.”
A few hours later, they heard the boot crunching again, followed by the clattering of wood being dropped to the grass.
Johnson slipped into the tent, his face a mask.
Miller was sitting on his cot, writing to his wife and kids. McCorkle was doing paperwork on an ammunition crate turned into a makeshift desk. All of the squadron’s clerks were still back in Louisiana, so the squadron largely ignored admin stuff. But for the group commander, there’d always be some of that crap to wade through.
Both officers watched Johnson walk over to his cot, unstrap his holster, and hang it nearby. The Oregonian paused and saw his chain of command regarding him curiously.
“Got my boards back,” Gerald reported.
Miller raised an eyebrow. McCorkle stifled a chuckle. Gerald did not elaborate.
Instead, he shucked off his boots, crawled into his snivel gear, and fell into the deepest sleep he’d had in weeks.
The next morning, Miller and McCorkle pulled Gerald aside and made him the acting squadron operations officer, known as the S3. In the Army Air Force’s hierarchy, the ops officer ranked third in any squadron. It was a slot given to up-and-coming leaders who would soon make executive officer.
It was a big step for Johnson, but McCorkle felt as long as he continued to mentor and develop him, the kid’s rough edges could be smoothed over. Most of all, he needed Johnson to recognize that the air war was never a one-man show. Teamwork kept men alive. Though they trained in flights of six back in Louisiana, the 42nd now flew with four-plane flights. Each flight consisted of a leader, his wingman, the element lead, and his wingman. In combat, the flight may break down or get spread all over the sky, but the watchword McCorkle and Miller tried to instill in every pilot was this: Never, ever leave your wingman. Fight as a pair, you survive. A lone Airacobra is a target waiting to get jumped by a gang of Zeroes.
They tried to hit Kiska again on the twenty-second, hoping to suppress the Japanese there and stifle any further invasions up the Aleutians ladder. If the Adak-based planes could prevent the Japanese from building airfields, or reinforcing the area, they could eventually turn the tables on the Japanese and drive them out of the North Pacific altogether. That September was the shaky, small-time start to that endeavor.
The weather conspired to weaken the aerial counteroffensive. Gerald’s squadron made it seventy miles out of Adak before encountering storm clouds just off the whitecaps. They’d already been running at three hundred feet through banks of fog. The sight of this williwaw, as such squalls were called, convinced McCorkle to scrub the mission. The entire raid returned to Adak, dispirited and shaken by the ferocity of the elements.
The break gave Gerald time to build the doorframe. He worked away on it while Major Miller sat on his cot, entertaining everyone with his harmonica. Johnson, Miller, McCorkle, and three other pilots all shared a GP large tent. It made for lots of fart jokes and snoring, as well as lots of bonding, all carried along by the melodies Major Miller fumbled through on his mouth harp.
On the twenty-fifth, the weather cleared just enough to give the Americans a fifteen-hundred-foot ceiling all the way to Kiska. That’d be enough for another below-the-radar attack, so the squadron gathered in Gerald’s tent to hear Major Miller detail the mission.
Miller kept these meetings casual. He sat at the end of his cot, wearing his felt fedora and holding a small notebook that he referred to as he talked. The men gathered around their CO, drinking coffee from tin mess cups, their boots flecked with mud.
The strike would launch at 0800. Once again, high command picked the 42nd to be the tip of the spear. Down on the deck, the ’Cobras were to hit Kiska from the southwest this time, instead of the east as on the fourteenth. The Japanese radar system atop a hill just northwest of the main encampment around the harbor would be the priority target. After that, strafe anything that moved.
A squadron of B-24s would be the main effort for the day, escorted by the Aleutian Tigers—Maj. Jack Chennault’s P-40 Warhawk squadron. He was the son of the legendary Gen. Claire Chennault, who commanded the famous American Volunteer Group (the Flying Tigers).
Miller paused, then added, “The Canadians are going out with us on this one. Number 111 Squadron’s P-40s will be with the bombers.”
He looked down at his notebook and read off the names of the pilots assigned for the day’s mission. Johnson would be on McCorkle’s wing again.
The meeting ended, and most of the pilots hurried off to grab some chow before heading to the flight line. Gerald sat down back at his cot and penned a few words into his diary.
Well, it’s 4:30 a.m. Barbie and the sky is fairly clear. Time to go… wish me luck. If anything happens, I love you even into eternity.
—x—x—x—xx 2
If he died, only Barbara would get that final cryptic remark. Like most lovers, Gerald and Barbara developed their own internal language. From their many writings emerged a code for what they wanted their future to hold. Three kids together someday, plus two more. Twins. They’d have their own basketball team. If the weather and the Japanese on Kiska didn’t kill him first.
A few hours later, the 42nd Fighter Squadron followed Colonel McCorkle under the scud layer, once again their props kicking up spray behind them as they raced along the wave tops. They looped around their bat-shaped island target and made landfall from a totally unexpected quarter. The Japanese had no defenses ready.
The Airacobras swarmed over the hills, blasted down canyons, and hammered the surprised Japanese as they fled their tents for ack-ack emplacements or slit trenches. McCorkle and Johnson stayed together, hugging the ground as they sped for the radar site. As they crossed a series of hills, Gerald spotted a Japanese soldier sprinting to an unmanned gun position. He swung his nose toward the man and hit him in full stride with a stream of bullets that ripped him apart. The scene of such gory devastation would stay with him, hardening him to the realities of combat nothing back home prepared him for. This wasn’t like hunting elk in the Cascades. It wasn’t like Hollywood. It was visceral, terrible, and scarring. He pulled the trigger again. These men he killed were invaders. After all the stories of Japanese savagery in China and the Pacific, he saw them as barbarians. And behind his tail, friends and family lay not too far over the horizon.
He would do anything to protect them.
The P-39s crested another rise. The radar site loomed on a hill before them. McCorkle went in first, raking the hut and the aerials arrayed around it with cannon and machine gun fire. A split second later, Gerald took his turn. He walked his rudder pedals, swinging the nose from side to side to ensure maximum carnage. The aerials collapsed in a tangle of wires and poles. They left the hut shattered and smoking.
Each flight went after different targets, and then the elements broke off to go after others. Now, it was just McCorkle in plane number thirty and Johnson in Scrap Iron. The other ’Cobras flicked into sight, then dipped under the hills around them as they worked over antiaircraft guns, huts, and tents while making their way toward the harbor.
McCorkle bolted for Reynard Cove, a small inlet north of the harbor that intelligence thought was being used as a hideout for seaplanes. They ducked around ridges and dove down between hills, shooting up whatever they spotted in front of their long noses.
When Gerald reached the cove, McCorkle was nowhere in sight. Somehow, he’d lost his leader again. He made a quick survey of the area, saw no targets, and wondered what to do next.
Find somebody to join.
Gerald banked right and started for the sea, searching all around him for a friendly P-39. Nothing. Just below the clouds, the B-24s were passing the cove, bound for the harbor, but those were the only planes in sight.
Then he spotted a P-39 a thousand feet above and out over the Bering Sea. He angled toward it and soon recognized the fighter as McCorkle’s. A sense of relief flooded through him. Maybe he wouldn’t get chewed out for losing him again after all. He began a banking climb to get back on his leader’s wing.
A float Zero dropped out of the cloud cover.
The Japanese pilot timed it perfectly. He slid right behind McCorkle. Among the P-39’s many flaws, poor visibility to the rear was one of the most serious ones in combat.
McCorkle couldn’t see the Japanese fighter as it hurtled toward his undefended tail.
Had Gerald been on his wing, this never could have happened. The pair would have been watching each other’s blind spots and seen the enemy plane. Without Johnson up there in position, Sandy McCorkle was in a tight spot.
Puffs of black smoke raked back from the Rufe’s wings. Johnson scanned the scene, scrambling for the controls. He realized what that meant: the Japanese pilot was firing his 20mm cannon at his group commander.
McCorkle continued his orbiting turn, unaware of the drama playing out behind him.
Hail Mary time.
Gerald pulled the control stick hard toward his stomach. The P-39 suddenly zoom-climbed straight for the Japanese fighter. He gained a fleeting shot as it sped toward him, the pilot focused on McCorkle. Johnson triggered his machine guns. His tracers speared out of the wings and nose and created a web of bullets that the Rufe flew right through. The Japanese fighter sped over Gerald’s canopy, shedding pieces of metal as it passed. Johnson steepened his climb, went over the top, and flipped inverted, trying to keep the enemy fighter in sight.
The Rufe rolled hard right and broke downward for the water. It was a standard tactic the Rufe pilots used against P-39s and P-40s. Somehow, Japanese intelligence learned that American fighters turned tighter to the left than right, due to the direction their propellers spun and the torque that generated.
Gerald saw the fighter diving away while his P-39 remained upside down in a shallow dive speeding away from the fleeing Rufe. He pulled through into a split S—basically, the last half of a loop—but by the time he finished it, the Rufe was nowhere to be seen.
Back at Kiska, Johnson landed right after McCorkle, both planes kicking up massive plumes of water as they rolled along the flooded runway. At the flight line, Gerald cut his switches. The engine died and the props slowly spun to a halt. His crew chief climbed onto the wing and helped him out of the hobbit-sized cockpit.
McCorkle was waiting for him, looking ready to give him hell for leaving formation again.
All was forgiven when the Oregonian told him about the Rufe. Not long after the attack, word came from the B-24 squadron at Cold Bay that they’d seen Gerald’s Rufe go straight into the Bering Sea off Reynard Cove.3
The 54th celebrated that day. Three kills in two missions without loss. Miller’s boys were earning a reputation in the 11th Fighter Command.
A journalist who before the war worked out of the Seattle Associated Press office, happened to be at Adak that day to cover the Kiska raids as a combat correspondent. He interviewed Gerald and some of the other pilots from the 42nd, as well as the Aleutian Tigers, listening as they described shooting up ground targets and strafing another submarine. The skipper of the Canadian P-40 outfit even scored a kill, flaming a Rufe as it tried to intercept the B-24s. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t much of a raid. But in 1942, a fight like this on America’s doorstep was front-page news. Worden retreated to his hut and banged away on his portable typewriter.
Four days later, Gerald’s kill was national news as Worden’s story of the Kiska raid ran in papers across the country, though the initial article credited Johnson with shooting the Rufe off Major Miller’s tail. That was corrected in subsequent versions of the story that ran at the end of the month in other papers.
Back in Eugene, on the morning of September 29, Barbara’s dad retrieved the morning paper. He went back into the house he had built on a hill overlooking the University of Oregon just before the Depression, and settled down at the breakfast table to read the latest news as Mrs. Hall finished up cooking.
The headline stared out at him. “Eugene Army Lieutenant Bags Jap Fighter Plane in Action Over Kiska Island.”
Below it was a portrait photo of his daughter’s bad-boy fiancé. He scanned the article. It credited Gerald with scoring one of the first air-to-air kills of the war by one of Eugene’s own sons. By now, the news would be all over town. The Johnson boy was taking it to the Japanese as one of the city’s first fighting heroes of World War II.
He looked over his shoulder. “Dear, you may want to take a look at this.”