March 1944
Nadzab, New Guinea
Dick Bong lay on the cot in his jungle quarters, listening to the sounds of the night animals moving beyond their camp. The silver light of a full moon shone through the gaps in the tent flaps, periodically obscured by passing clouds.
He ached with grief. Tom Lynch had been his only real friend in New Guinea, and he had watched him die horribly. He tried to squeeze the sight of his last seconds out of his mind, bury it alongside that long-ago memory of holding his sister for the last time before their father drove her to the hospital in Superior. But this one was too fresh and too raw. It hung in his mind’s eye like a movie screen, replaying the scene on an endless loop.
Why had he come back? He could have stayed home, requested assignment Stateside to support the war effort in some other way. He could have stayed on the war bond circuit, urging factories full of Rosies to give just a bit more for the troops overseas. That would have been easy; he was a national celebrity now, he could have asked for anything and received it. That was the power of acedom and fame in wartime America.
Yet he never asked. It never occurred to him to cull special privileges from his success in combat. So he came back. Just like Tom. Following orders, yes. Was that the only reason he did it, not the hunting, not the Circus? Where was the line between duty and personal ambition?
He focused his thoughts on home. The return bore no resemblance to his anonymous departure in 1942. Last fall, he was followed everywhere by well-wishers and worshipful autograph seekers. The newshawks photographed his every move, from hugging his mother to going hunting with his family, to simply walking through downtown Poplar. He tried to stay even-keeled, but the truth was he had little patience for the constant flash of their cameras.
There were bright spots. He was ordered to New York, then Washington, D.C., to meet with members of Congress. In New York, he stayed at the Waldorf-Astoria and was treated like royalty. This was the kid who a year before had stood before the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, just another farm boy in uniform, unable to even afford a room. Now, senators hung on his every word.
He longed for home. Not the Waldorf, where he’d done a radio appearance for the news show Report to the Nation, nor of the halls of power in Washington, D.C. He missed the farm. And Marge.
She was a gorgeous sorority girl from his old school, Superior State Teachers College. When he first got back to Poplar, she and her posse from their chapter of Lambda Sigma Lambda drove out to the Bong family farm to invite Dick to come crown the school’s homecoming king and queen. Her circle of friends called themselves the “Scintillating Six” and they had a monopoly on the queen’s crown. Marge had won in in 1942. Her friend Violet scored it the following year.
Dick showed up at the college’s gym with an old friend and two of his sisters. With great fanfare he crowned Violet homecoming queen. Afterward, he tried to escape from the autograph hounds, taking Jerry, Nelda, and his old friend “Pete” Peterson to a late-night grill on Tower Street in Superior. The place was packed, but they found a spot in back.
Dick thought about that moment a lot. He wasn’t the sentimental type. Nostalgia, which so steeped Gerald Johnson’s personality, never thrived in Dick’s heart. But that moment when he looked up from the booth to see Marge coming through the diner’s front door? That changed everything for him.
Her raven hair and easy smile, they shined at him through the crowd. She and her friends looked around the place, but there were no empty seats. Dick seized the moment and waved them over.
She didn’t ask him for his autograph. She didn’t ask him any of the inanities he’d been subjected to by countless strangers.
What’s it like to shoot a Jap down?
You gonna break Rickenbacker’s score?
How many Japs have you killed?
What’s it feel like to be a hero?
God, how he hated that last question.
Through the meal, people of all ages descended on the table. Men in uniform asked Dick to sign their short snorters. Teenagers asked him to autograph napkins. One girl flipped up her dress and begged him to sign her slip. But this was not Sydney, and he was not with wild Wally Jordan. The normal social rules applied back here, and he refused. She settled for an autographed napkin.
In the middle of this circus, Marge treated him like a person, not a celebrity. It was disarming, and Dick warmed to her immediately. She soon saw parts of him nobody else did. They double-dated. They went out with Dick’s sisters. The normally stoic and unassuming fighter ace was transformed into a goofy big brother around Jerry and Nelda. He’d tug their hair, tweak their noses. He’d kid them. He teased his sister Jerry and called her “Long Legs.” After he started falling for Marge, he had dubbed her, “Longer-than-Long Legs” since they were almost the same height. In heels, Marge was taller than him. That lightness and warmth he showed his family shone toward Marge, and she was captivated.
They had fallen in love, and Dick found solace in their connection on more than one occasion. Just before Christmas, he got word that Stanley Johnson’s widow was in Superior, visiting her pregnant sister for the holidays. When she learned that Dick was home, she called the Bong house and asked to see him. He rushed to meet her, unsure of how he would be received. The meeting left him grief-stricken, and he turned to Marge for comfort. He told her that Stanley’s widow was a brave woman who tried valiantly to hide her despair as Dick recounted her husband’s last mission.
The meeting ripped open half-healed wounds in Dick. He saw in her eyes another cost of war he’d not considered much. The connections back home, when severed by loss—well, those folks would never be the same. He resolved then not to put Marge through that. No wartime marriage for them. If he died, he did not want Mrs. Johnson’s pain etched into her eyes.
Love still finds a way. Even as he traveled the country, he thought of her. He wrote her. Missed her. They shared a final tearful goodbye in January, and then their episodic moments together became a consistent long-distance affair, held together by the words penned under a bare bulb dangling from the ceiling of Dick’s quarters.
He wished he could see her now. Maybe then, Tom’s death could be tamped down deep, airbrushed out of the moment filled by the love growing between them. For now, the sleepless nights would be filled with a battle between the grief of loss and the longing for his connection with Marge.
The next morning, he went to see a staff officer in the intelligence section that he’d gotten to know and handed him a small print of Marge’s high school graduation portrait. He asked him if he could enlarge it so he could put it on the side of his P-38. In due course, the intel section’s photo lab produced a 20 x 24 copy, which Bong had glued and varnished to the side of his P-38. If he couldn’t be with her through this ordeal, at least she’d be there in spirit, on the side of his Lightning’s fuselage, like a talisman against trauma. Marge’s name was painted on the nose, and twenty-five kill flags adorned the aluminum skin behind her photo. Dick’s count was high—he actually only had twenty-four confirmed. But in due course, he knew he would fix that.
The Flying Circus was dead. With Lynch gone, there was no point to try to continue the experiment. If it really was intended to be a full squadron of elites attached to V Fighter Command, that idea never got off the ground. The next batch of new P-38s arrived in Australia a few days after Lynch’s last mission, and it took the depots over a month to assemble them and get them combat ready. Had Lynch lived, perhaps the Flying Circus may have been fleshed out. Instead, it would be remembered only as an excuse to let two aces hunt and rack their scores up.
Without Lynch, Bong had nobody to fly with. Instead of simply turning to a desk job, he received permission to fly with the other P-38 squadrons in the area. He’d pick a mission that looked like it would probably encounter Japanese planes, and he would attach himself to it. He flew with squadrons in the 475th Fighter Group and with the 80th. Usually, he’d catch up to them en route to target, tacking himself onto the formations. The squadron would be told in advance to expect him, but it appears Dick rarely attended the pre-mission briefings. From his position at V Fighter Command HQ, he knew the details of the missions and simply tagged along.
It was a strange way to continue fighting the Japanese. Dick was no longer part of any squadron. He was a gunman who joined up for a potential fight with men he only passingly knew. To them, Bong was often seen as a VIP or a brass hat coming down from high to get a little combat time. There was no bond between them. Rather, Bong put as many barriers between those he flew with and himself as he could. It was his way of defending against further pain of loss, but it often resulted in resentment on the part of the squadron he joined. It also isolated him physically as well as emotionally from his fellow pilots. He led an itinerant and lonely life in the weeks after Lynch’s death.
Toward the end of the month, Kenney grew concerned about Dick’s mental health. The ace had lost noticeable amounts of weight, more so than the normal effect New Guinea had on the men. It was a warning sign that the stress and grief were taking a heavy toll. Kenney decided to send his top ace down to Australia for a short break.
He returned on the thirty-first. His aircraft with Marge’s portrait on the side had been lost by another pilot on a reconnaissance mission. Three days later, while flying another P-38, he joined up with the 432nd Fighter Squadron, 475th Fighter Group, during a low-altitude escort mission to Hollandia. Charles MacDonald led the group that day at eight thousand feet with the group stacked above a formation of A-20s.
Over Hollandia, the P-38s encountered a string of Japanese fighters running west at about a thousand feet. The pilots punched their tanks, prepped for combat, and dove to the attack. Once again, the men of the 475th earned their reputation as one of the best outfits in the entire Army Air Force. In a furious, low-altitude brawl with the Japanese, Satan’s Angels knocked down twelve fighters. Dick repeatedly attacked a Ki-43, whose pilot dodged every pass. Another flight of P-38s went after it, then Dick swung in behind the elusive fighter and saw some hits. The Japanese pilot twisted hard left, burst into flames, and flew into a hillside near Lake Sentani.
P. J. Dahl, an ace with the 475th Fighter Group, arrived at the post-mission debriefing and listened to the other pilots recount their perspectives of the fight. Another pilot in the group described how he shot down the same aircraft Bong thought he got. Dick showed up in the middle of the debriefing and was absolutely convinced he was the one who got the kill. The pilot, seeing Dick’s rank and not wanting to fight about it, gave him the credit. After all, he was a bigwig now from HQ. At least, that’s how some of the P-38 pilots felt about the situation. It was officially awarded to Dick as his twenty-fifth victory.
With Bong only one away from Eddie Rickenbacker’s score, the press focused on this threshold and glossed over the loss of Kearby and Lynch. Though it was already lost, Bong’s plane with Marge on the side became an instant hit in the papers. Where many of the Army Air Force’s planes were decorated with naked women and filthy names, here was the ace of aces in an extraordinary departure from the norm who adorned his P-38 with a picture of his girl back home. It was such a beautiful small-town angle for the reporters that photos of the original Marge spread across the country long after it had gone down.
Nearly every day, newspapers ran an article or a photo of Dick, frequently standing beside Marge. In early April, the news of the day included word that Dick’s official score had been revised downward to twenty-four, but that didn’t last long. Two days after the Hollandia mission, news reached home that he’d knocked another plane down. The race to twenty-six grew superheated. Papers ran box scores showing the top ten aces under headlines like, “Three U.S. Air Aces May Trump Rick’s Record.”
The pressure was on. He wrote to Marge of the race and the pressure, asking her, “Do you think I can get to the top?” Marge’s reply was unequivocal, “I know you will.”
Bong had transcended the typical role a fighter pilot played in New Guinea. He was a bigger asset to the 5th Air Force than just another captain in a fighter group. He was a media sensation, and the more press he garnered, the better it was for the war effort and morale back home. America needed heroes. Bong fit the bill perfectly. He was an everyman, the unassuming boy next door who embodied the warrior spirit of America’s citizen soldiers.
His fame was also an asset to the 5th Air Force and Kenney’s efforts to wheedle reinforcements out of Washington. That Bong didn’t want to return to any squadron and bear the onus of his rank played into this and gave Kenney an excuse to leave him in place, freelancing with whomever he wished. Bong received tacit carte blanche to beat Rickenbacker’s score. He could fly whenever he wanted with whatever squadron he chose.
He was also told that once he broke the record, he’d be sent home, whether his tour was complete or not. The path back to his flesh-and-blood Marge led through formations of Japanese planes. If he ever lacked motivation, there was no question about it now. As it was, he found most of military life boring and unrewarding. Staff work was anathema to him. He was a farmer, not a desk jockey. Combat flying, on the other hand, made everything pale in comparison. He never squared it with killing, seeing it from the same psychological buffer as the other aces. It was a game. It was sport. Hunting, just like back home in the woods around Poplar.
On April 12, 1944, Dick attached himself to the 80th Fighter Squadron for another mission to Hollandia. This time, he joined the squadron on the ground and flew one of its planes, a P-38J named “Down-beat.” Ace Jay Robbins led the mission that day. Dick acted as tail-end Charlie and did not fly with a wingman. He was the lone gunman in the back of the pack, holding the most vulnerable position in the formation.
Over Hollandia at fourteen thousand feet, about fifteen Japanese fighters intercepted the Americans. Dick went head-to-head with one Oscar, missed it, and sped clear of the engagement so he could come back around for another pass. As he did, the Hayabusa pilot entered a dive, heading for some clouds a few thousand feet below. Dick gave chase and easily caught up with the fleeing Japanese plane. He opened fire just before they reached the cloud cover. The Ki-43 began to smoke and rolled into a steeper dive. Dick dove through the clouds, came out the other side, and watched the Oscar crash into the sea off the coast of Hollandia.
That was twenty-six. He was tied with Rickenbacker, Boyington, and Joe Foss.
He sped for altitude, looking for targets as he traded his airspeed for position. When he leveled out over the sprawling fight, he noticed two Japanese fighters together heading for the cloud layer. He pounced on them, shot them both up until they started smoking, but they escaped into the clouds before he could finish them off. Instead of going after them, he turned and made a fifty-degree deflection run on another Ki-43 that was tacked onto a P-38’s tail. His bullets raked across the fighter, which twisted into a spin and went into Tanahmerah Bay.
Another Oscar darted below his P-38. Dick rolled in on it, but the pilot saw him coming. The Japanese dove to the water, pulling up at only a few feet. Dick chased him, snapping out bursts. Another P-38 swept in and shot at the Hayabusa, then pulled up in a zoom climb. Dick stayed on him, boring in for the kill. The Japanese saw he was pinned between the water and the onrushing Lightning. Out of options, he did the only thing left to him: he tried a tight, sudden turn to the left.
He was too low and too unskilled. He dug his left wingtip into the whitecaps and cartwheeled nose over tail, shedding pieces and bursting into flames. Dick blew past the wreckage and went searching for more targets. After a final scuffle with a very aggressive Oscar pilot, he sped for home with the rest of the Headhunters.
He claimed three that day, but his second kill went unwitnessed so 5th Air Force could not give him credit. Yet, he was so sure of where it hit the water that he pinpointed its location. Kenney promised to send divers out to look for it once Hollandia was in Allied hands. That happened a month later, and the divers found the wreck. Bong would eventually be credited with three planes as a result. For now, he returned to Nadzab with twenty-seven kills, where Kenney immediately promoted him to major for beating Rickenbacker’s score and becoming America’s all-time ace of aces.
He’d won the first leg of the race. The image-makers surrounded him, Bill Boni and Lee Van Atta and all the others piled on with questions. He sat patiently trying to answer them, uncomfortable with the spotlight as ever. Somebody snapped a photo of the moment, and in later years some judged Bong to be “holding court” in it. The truth was more nuanced. Kenney had sent the reporters to tell the story, and Bong dutifully played his part. He’d run the race, remained humble and likable as always, which made him a picture-perfect war hero for the thirsty public back home.
Word of the new record spread quickly across the United States. The Los Angeles Times put the news above the fold on its front page under the heading, “Pacific Ace Tops Rickenbacker Record.” He was lauded as the “Wisconsin farm lad” who had broken the three-way, two-war tie to become the new all-time leading American ace. Hard on his heels were Robert S. Johnson and Don Gentile, both aces flying with the 8th Air Force out of England.
The news was echoed and amplified by scores of papers from coast to coast. Eddie Rickenbacker congratulated Dick and spoke to the press about the deal he and Kenney had made back in the fall of 1942. Kenney promised a case of scotch to whomever broke Eddie’s record. The Great War ace had promptly doubled down and offered a second case to the winner. The aging warrior took interviews from his Eastern Airlines office, where he served as the company’s CEO, telling reporters, “Where I will obtain the scotch or how I can get it to Major Bong is as yet unknown. But I will not leave a stone unturned to fulfill my part of the bargain.”
Later, temperance groups protested the promise of liquor to honorable servicemen. It kicked up such a dust storm that the case of scotch was changed to a case of Coke. In due course, Bong received his bounty. While others may have been disappointed, Coke suited him just fine. The press ate it up, casting Bong in an ever more small-town, boy-next-door kind of light. In this moment, the media morphed Bong into something even larger than a war hero. He’d become a symbol for young Americans whose mettle had been proven as the nation’s citizens put down their plows to go to war.
General Arnold, meanwhile, watched the news from New Guinea with growing concern. The death of Lynch and Kearby particularly alarmed him. As the nation took a victory lap, celebrating’s Bong’s new status, Arnold wrote to Kenney about losing senior-level fighter leaders and aces. It was the first hint of Washington scrutiny to the craziness that had gone on all year at V Fighter Command. The subtext in Arnold’s message was Keep Bong Safe. Kenney prohibited Bong from further combat missions, and at the end of April made good on his promise to send him home. After a tour of less than sixteen weeks, the ace of aces returned to the United States, the media tracing his every step. He was the man of the hour, and everyone wanted a piece of the hero. But the hero only wanted to see his Marge and his family.
Not a week after Bong returned home, Maj. Gerald Johnson stepped off a plane at Hamilton Field to no fanfare and caught a ride to Eugene. Though he had not scored a kill since January, he’d been flying combat throughout the first four months of the year as part of the 49th Fighter Group headquarters element. He was being groomed for command of the 49th, and part of that job meant getting to know the men in the 7th and 8th Squadrons. He’d dutifully performed his staff duties and had flown with all three squadrons in the group, assessing the men and leaders and making sure they knew he was not going to be a field grade who led from a desk.
In the two years since he’d left Portland after his failed attempt at marriage, he’d been transformed by his experience of war and flying. He’d left Oregon an overemotive boy on the threshold of manhood, still clinging to romantic notions of heroism and derring-do. He returned a man defined by combat, his uniform carrying all the trappings of his own hero’s journey. The Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star, the DFC awarded many times over, the Air Medal with many oak leaf clusters—the salad bar of medal ribbons on his left breast stretched down, row after row. Though he couldn’t care less about medals, they symbolized the man he’d become: a warrior leader who knew his place was at the tip of the spear, where he had shot down thirteen Japanese planes, proving he was among America’s fighter pilot elite.
He came home with all the gravitas and strength of a leader revered by his men, confident in his abilities, proud of his achievements. His feud with Mrs. Hall—those days of feeling impotent to her will and meddling? They were over. He made Barbara his June bride. Mrs. Hall never stood a chance.
After the wedding, he and Barbara packed up his old Plymouth and set off for Fort Riley in Kansas to attend Command and General Staff College, the Army’s training facility for officers destined for a shoulder board of stars. There was no doubt what this meant. General Kenney was grooming him for great things to come.
He finished the accelerated course there later in the summer, just in time for the Johnsons to return to Oregon and honeymoon in the rugged Steens Mountains. For two weeks, they lived in a primitive cabin, bathing in the local streams, fishing for their dinner, and hiking the hillsides together. Gerald wore a ridiculously garish red hat when they went fishing, which provoked Barbara to howl with laughter.
Most importantly, five years after that illicit moonlight kiss, they finally, joyously made love at every opportunity.
In that glorious summer of 1944, while the men and women in uniform carried the flag forward on all fronts, Gerald lived the life he’d always wanted: a husband and a man whose life’s work would not include being chained to an office job and consigned to anonymity. Now, if he could only be a father before he returned to battle, his life goals would be complete.