January 5, 2025 • 39 mins
Starvation Island is the name the Japanese gave the pacific Island of Guadalcanal. Second only to the Battle of Midway, the capture and retention of Guadalcanal was one of the most significant achievements leading to eventual victory in the Pacific. The price would be high, with brutal combat on the ground, at sea and in the air. A group of mostly green Marine aviators were dispatched to Guadalcanal to assist in the defense. They were lacking in supplies, equipment, fuel and ammunition. These aircrews believed the Marine Corps considered them expendable. Best Selling author John Bruning joins us to tell their story, as recorded in his book “53 Days on Starvation Island; The World War II Battle That Saved Marine Corps Aviation.” This exceptional book draws upon historical records and personal interviews with some of the men who saw action there. The story of these brave Marine aviators centers upon three men who played key roles in the aerial defense of the island: Major John Smith, who was principally responsible for organizing the air defenses of Guadalcanal. He would end the war with 19 aerial victories. Marion Carl, a farm boy from Oregon who became the Marine Corps’ first WWII Ace. Richard Mangrum, a lawyer from Seattle Lawyer who led the bomber group. The book not only does an excellent job of highlighting the depravations suffered by all the Marines on Guadalcanal, but also the disconnect between life on the home front and the brutality of battle during those early stages of the Pacific campaign. Bruning’s book describes many of the battles in exceptional detail, capturing the viciousness of air to air combat. By the time it was over, those 31 aircrews could be given credit for helping to save the lives of 20,000 Marines on the island by intercepting further Japanese landings and protecting the critically important Henderson Field from bombing raids. “Remember this fellows – while we are all expendable, we are not so expendable as to take unnecessary chances. Your mission is to sink as many ships as you can. But a still more important mission is for all of you to get back here whole. This war is young yet – we can die later.” - Dick Mangrum
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
We all owe them, but very few of us know them.
They are the men and women of our military and
first responder communities.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
And these are their stories.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
American Warrior Radio is on the air. Well, liisen, gentlemen,
Welcome to American Warrior Radio. This is your host, Ben
Bueler Garcia. American Warrior Radio broadcast from the Silencer Central Studios,
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Is legal in your state.
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In May of nineteen forty two, forces of the Japanese
Empire captured Guadalcanal from the British. They immediately began building
an airfield. Allied leadership recognized the threat to this new
airbase created for supply routes between the US, Australia, and
New Zealand. American troops landed on the island on August seventh,
nineteen forty two. What was to follow would be months
(01:17):
of bloody combat on the ground, the sea, and in
the skies above. Along with the lop sided Battle of Midway,
the capture and retention of Guadalcanal was one of the
most significant achievements leading to eventual victory in the Pacific,
playing a key role in the battle where a hard
scrabbled group of marine aviators sent to the isunlacking an aircraft, supplies, fuel, ammunition,
(01:39):
they were in effect expendable. Their compelling story is related
in fifty three Days on Starvation Island, the latest book
by best selling author and collaborator John Burning. John has
twenty seven books to his credit. John was embedded with
marine units in Afghanistan and his reporting earned him the
Thomas Jefferson Award from the Department Offense. He's been riding
on military history, counter terrorism, and espionage topics for over
(02:03):
thirty five years. John, Welcome to American Warrior Radio, and
thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
It's a real pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Did I get that number right, because then the cover
of fifty three Days it says twenty seven books. On
your website it says twenty five. Yeah, I keep getting
that wrong.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
But slick to under contract for two more so it
will be twenty seven once the contract is completely fulfilled.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Suffice to say, a ton of books. It's been an
incredible career. I have been extremely blessed, for sure, and
it's the readers that have kept me from starvation and
has allowed me to do this. So I just really
appreciate the opportunity to hopefully talk to some of them today,
John Folks. If you want to learn more about John's
(02:49):
books and some of the other stuff about him, visit
John Bruning dot com. BRU and I and gen. Now, John,
you had a we're kind of joking about this off
the air. You had an interesting path becoming a best
selling author. You started in the computer gaming business.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
I did. I did. Actually in the summer of eighty eight,
I was hired by a company called Strategic Simulations Incorporated
to be a playtester between college terms, and that led
to the first writing that I did, which was for
a game called Battles of Napoleon. I wrote the historical
section for that and also worked on another one called
(03:25):
Second Front. And one day in nineteen ninety, the owner
of Dynamics Incorporated heard me talking about my experience at
SSI in a software store in Eugene, Oregon, and he
came up to me, introduced himself as Jeff Tanell.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
And offered me a job right there, and then I
took it.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
I was in grad school at the time, so I
didn't realize it would end up becoming a career like
it did. But I worked for Dynamics from.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Nineteen ninety until ninety six, and then consulted and contracted
with him until I really enjoyed your book fifty three
Days on Starvation Island. I want to talk about that
and help you tell the story about these pilots. There's
just amazing pilots and the ground crews too. But real
quick question before we get into Starvation Island. On your
(04:16):
bio lists that you have a swimming cat among your family.
Where do I get one of those?
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah? I do.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
I was completely accidental, but it turns out I ended
up with a Turkish van. There are a breed that
grew up around a lake in the mountains, and the
way they survived during the wintertime is by fishing, and
I did not realize this until one day I write
up in the coast Range in a I mean the Cascades,
(04:45):
in a little cabin by Detroit, Lake, Oregon, and I
take the cat up there, spend two weeks up there
writing with her and my rescue dog from Jordan.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
And one day we were down by the Brighton Bush
River and she just started going in looking for things
to eat. I couldn't believe it. I'm gonna have to
lift into that.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
We're big cat people are on my house, but to
the best of my knowledge, none of them, none of
them taking a liking to swimming.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
But we'll see. There's always hope. John, early in.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
The books fifty three Days on Starvation Island, you start
off describing how the aviators at Midway Island in that
battle were just absolutely slaughtered. And it's interesting. Last week
my wife was watching the most recent Midway movie and
she asked me, She said, why were we so woefully
(05:34):
unprepared in the Pacific? What is your take on that, John,
based on your research, I would have.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
To say, first thing would be the decades of neglect
to the military budget that we'd already experienced from nineteen
eighteen forward. You can't make that up overnight. And yeah,
in nineteen forty FDR declared a state of limited national
urgency after the fall of France, right and that's you know,
(06:03):
nineteen forty we see the two Ocean Navy Bill pass
and the expansion begins that ultimately saw us through the war.
By my gosh, in nineteen forty there were what maybe
two hundred and fifty Marine aviators total in the fleet.
When Marie Carl joined in thirty nine, there was only
(06:24):
one Marine Corps fighter squadron. So all of a sudden,
you know, we get attacked at Pearl Harbor December seventh,
nineteen forty one. We're not even in full gear and
the expansion yet. Now there are pilots coming through the pipeline,
but there's a shortage of airplanes. There's a shortage of
actual experienced pilots who could teach the new guys the
(06:47):
ropes as to what it actually meant to be in
a Marine squadron, right, And so by the time you
get to midway in June of forty two, the pilots
who are with VMF two twenty one, there's a kernel
of experienced guys who've been flying for a couple of years,
(07:07):
and the rest of them are literally straight out of
flight school and have had almost no time in combat aircraft.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Some of the plane you know, like the Buffalo. Mean,
my gosh, that's just maybe one step above World War One.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yeah, it was a catastrophe. I see online a lot.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
There's there's people who who seem to think that the
Buffalo has gotten a bad rap because it did so
well with the Fins against the Russians during during you know,
the later parts of the of the Winter War, and
then you know in forty two. The reality is that
particular Brewster looked a lot different than the ones that
(07:48):
the Marines were flying at Midway. The ones the Marines
had at Midway were heavier, they had a different configuration.
There was armor plating that.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Made them definitely heavier behind the seat, but there was
no head rest. So after the battle, the supposition was
a lot of the pilots died from wounds to the
back of the head because there was literally no protection
(08:21):
for them. That was a major difference with the Wildcat.
The Wildcat had a fully armored seat that went over
the pilot's head and it saved countless Wildcat pilots at
Midway and later at Guadalcanal well.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
And also they early and that been you know, the
buffaloes are flying against the zero, which I think arguably
could be claimed to be one of the most advanced
fighters in the field at that time.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Absolutely, the Zero was a you know, premier naval aircraft
of the of the eras, especially in forty two. But
also you've got to keep in mind that the Ketobu Tai,
the Japanese carrier force, was filled with some of the
best combat aviators and veterans of combat that aviation history
(09:12):
has ever seen. Those guys were incredibly well trained. They
were seasoned in China, and then they.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Were seasoned through the first six months of the war
with all the strikes that the Japanese carriers made throughout
the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. And when you take
a varsity team up against, you know, the freshman, it's
it's going to be an education for the freshmen. And
(09:40):
that's exactly what happened to the American Marines at midway,
John I talk. We got to take a break. When
we come back and want to talk more about your
book and also the three principal characters that you introduced
us to. Ladies and gentlemen, there's your host, Ben Dela Garcia.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Welcome back to American Warrior Radio. Ladies and gentlemen. This
is Ben Bueler Garcia. We're talking with best selling author
John Bruning. John's latest book is called fifty three Days
on Starvation Island. You can find out more about that
visit John Bruning dot com. John, like I said, I
really enjoy the book. You principally tell the story of
this scrappy expendable on That word comes up very often
(10:36):
your book. Group of Marine pounds that were sent to
Guadalcanal to try and help us maintain that island, and
particularly Henderson Field.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
There you talk about.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
There's three folks that stand out, Major John Smith, who
is a guy principally responsible for organizing those air defenses.
Mary and Carl farm Boy from Oregon, who became the
first Marine's first World War two fighter ace. And then
Richard Mangram, who I also find very interesting. He's a
lawyer by trade, but he was in charge of the
(11:08):
bombers there. And I'm probably misquoting this, John, but I
guess the line goes that fighter Palace make the headlines
with bomber Palace make history.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Absolutely true.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Yes, tell us a little bit more about these three
eventual leaders.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
These three men were among the premier leaders in the
Marine Corps in nineteen forty two, and that's born out
over the years to come, where Dick Mangram ends up
becoming the vice Commandant of the Marine Corps in the sixties,
and Marion Carl becomes a major general, and of course
(11:46):
John L. Smith he was passed over for a star
with catastrophic results to his life, but that wasn't a
function of his leadership. That was a function of other
things in his personal life. But in nineteen forty two
they were John L. And Dick Mangram. Both were given
(12:07):
squadrons full of rookie pilots fresh from training, and they
were plussed up with a couple of veterans of Midway
to each squadron, and John L. Had the Fighter Squadron
VMF two twenty three and Dick Magram had the dive
Bomber Squadron, the Dauntless Squadron VMSB two thirty two. And
(12:29):
what they discovered was, with the exception of Mary Carl,
who had been at Midway and had survived and had
actually shot a couple of planes down or won, the
Midway vets were traumatized and very fatalistic, and they turned
out to be almost like a locker room cancer, especially
for T thirty two. Mary Carl was not that. He
(12:52):
was much more of an even keeled, let fate do
what it will, I'm going to go down fighting kind
of guy. And so so he became a key member
of three in the workup because of his skill as
a fighter pilot, he was unparalleled. He was one of
the best in the core. But also his leadership was
(13:15):
just rock steady.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
And this was a guy who in every crisis was
absolutely and completely stone cold calm. He's the reason actually
I wrote the book because he was the first World
War two veteran I interviewed, and I went down to Roseberg,
Oregon and spent a day with him while I was
in grad school, asking him questions. And he was one
(13:38):
of the most impressive human beings I've ever met. Great
human being. When people read the book and you break
it down, I mean, we're literally talking about fifty three
days and we get to be with them for every
one of those days. In your book incredibly detailed. How
did you get I mean, were you able to interview
many of these people?
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Were their records? John?
Speaker 1 (13:59):
How did you How were you able to produce such
detail right on down to individual air combat.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
A number of sources, the interviews that I did for
in grad school, Mary Carl being one of the key ones.
But also I became friends with Dick Mangram's gunner, who
was an exceptional, exceptional guy, exceptional American, and he and
(14:32):
I corresponded for the better part of the nineties. I
interviewed him repeatedly. That he actually wrote me while I
was at Dynamics because he found aces of the Pacific
in one of the missions that the historic missions we
included was one that he and Dick Mangram were on,
and so he was very excited about that. He wrote
(14:55):
to me, and he had been working on a book,
which unfortunately never got published, and nobody has a full
copy of his memoirs, but he sent me several chapters
along with a bunch of primary records and documents that
he copied for me back in ninety seven, ninety eight,
ninety nine that don't exist in the Marine Corps archives.
(15:20):
So I was extremely fortunate to have had that relationship.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
And then as things developed, when I decided that this
is a book I really wanted to write, I had
started accumulating other records and it turns out there's several
different versions of the squadron records and the Marine Air
Wing records or the Marine Air Group records from that period,
(15:48):
and they all very slightly. And one of the vets
from Q twenty three's later tours was a man named
Dick True Tuesdale, and Dick had all of the different
versions and he gave them to me in about two
thousand and one, and I copied them all and put
(16:09):
them onto a PDF. So I'd been tucking these things
away for a long long time, and then combined those
with letters and personal accounts the guys wrote, when the survivors,
when they got back letters. I talked to family members,
and then in twenty twenty one I reached out to
(16:30):
Larry Lsise, who is a remarkable historian. And this book
would not have been able to have been written the
way it was without Larry's help, because he had spent
the better part of fifteen years or so interviewing the
Midway and Bludal Canal pilots, and he opened his archives
to me, and he was an incredible resource. How did
(16:53):
they get the name Cactus Air Force? I mean, are
the Kacuoslam Guadacanal.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
No so so.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Guadalcanal was the the the nexus of the American uh
first offensive of World War two.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
This is where our entire drive back to Tokyo began.
And the code name for the island was Cactus. So
when they started getting the aircraft up to Guadalcanal using
the airfield that was captioned on the first day and
then completed and put into service, more or less the
(17:31):
pieces of air groups and fighter groups that got sent
up there into the teeth of the Japanese opposition, we're
all collectively little labeled and called the Cactus Air Force.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Okay, I tried. We had coming up on another break here, John,
real quick, I want to leave people with a quote
and I can't I get is it Colonel? Is it
Ficky Fike? Colonel, Colonel Colonel Fike, Ladies and gentlemen. As
as you know, John described their letter being sent in
the teeth of the Japanese, who had some of the
(18:03):
best equipments, of the most experienced product, who was truly
truly a rough assignment. And Colonel Fike told, as many said, men,
your job is to buy time with your lives until
the Navy and the Core can get more men and
planes to Guadalcanal. Not exactly the most rousing, morale boosting speech,
(18:26):
but it turns out that he was spot on. You'll
hear more about that when we come back with more
with best selling author John Bruning. Don't forget.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
You can find over.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Six hundred padcasts of this broadcast at American Warrior Radio
dot com. The most recent podcast you can find in
your favorite platform, whatever that might be. If it's a Spotify, Pandora.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
IHeart where everywhere.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Please please share these important stories with other folks who
might be interested. Once again, there's Ben builer Garcia.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Welcome back to America Radio, ladies and gentlemen. This is
your host, Ben Buler Garcia. We're coming to you from
the Silencer Central Studios. Adding a salentarial make shootings safer,
more enjoyable, and improve your accuracy. Begin the process by
visiting Slencercentral dot com to see if only a salentary
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through the permitting process and ship right to your front door.
(19:32):
Call Silencer Central today at eight six six six four
zero three two seven zero, or visit salncercentral dot com
we're talking with best selling author John Brune. You can
find out more about John and his works at John
Bruning dot com. B r U n I n G.
John's latest work, I really really enjoyed his called fifty
three Days on Starvation Island. John, I kind of left
(19:55):
the listeners with at tease that quote by the lieutenant
colonel as these aviators were headed off to Guadalcanal, But
I mean they were expendable. I mean, it's a tough
assignment to get, but you follow orders, I guess, oh.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
One of the big lessons learned from Guadalcanal was that
the air component had to be an integral part of
the planning for any future operations. And when they were
hastily throwing together the Guadalcanal campaign, they were an afterthought.
And as soon as they pushed the Marines up to
Guadalcanal and landed the first Marine division there, caught the
(20:33):
Japanese by surprise. But I mean it was a successful
initial invasion, right, But they had no air power to
protect those Marine Corps units on the island except for
the ones that were aboard the aircraft carriers, and that
the first night after the landing, the Japanese task force
(20:53):
came down, got into Savo sound, saved four Allied cruisers,
three US one Australian in what was one of the
most catastrophic defeats in US Navy history, and very nearly
got to the transports.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Had they done that, it.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Would have been a catastrophe. So because of that, the
amphibious Commander Richmond Kelly Turner decided he could not stay
in the area if he didn't have airpower, and Fletcher,
who was the commander of the carriers, decided to pull out.
So the Navy essentially retreated and left the Marines out
on a limb, and they didn't have enough food. They
(21:34):
didn't they had ammunition for about four or four days
of combat, and the Japanese could bomb them at will
and could run bombardment missions with destroyers and cruisers to
the island at will because they didn't have any air
power to defend against that. So it was crucial that
they get some sort of marine air presence on the Guadalcanal.
(21:56):
But it took from the date of the landing was
the August August seventh, nineteen forty two, and it took
until the twenty first of August for the first two
squadrons to get there and be operational. They arrived in
the afternoon on the twentieth. Nowadays, we're kind of spoiled
with area we're feeling and you know, see one thirty
(22:18):
transports and all this stuff. But I mean even when
the squadrons got there, I mean they, like you said,
they didn't have enough personnel or equipment to property maintain
the aircraft. They didn't have the They had to you know,
load the fuel literally by hand into the They didn't
have lifts or racks to do proper maintenance on these
planes were taking off from a gravel runway of all
(22:40):
these things. I mean, they didn't even have mess kits. John, No,
they did not. They arrived with what they could stuff
into their aircraft, and most of what they stuffed in
were spread parts, and they were launched off the USS
Long Island, which was the very first US Navy escort carrier.
(23:01):
I actually bought a T shirt as I was writing
the book, I would wear that T shirt. And the
thing with the Long Island was it was such a
klooegy conversion from a merchant ship that the only catapult
the ship had was angled at a forty degree angle
(23:21):
or so off the port bow, so it was a
very strange setup and trying to even launch from that
to get to guadal Canal became problematical. Almost none of
the pilots had ever done a cat launched before, and
then they were team cat launched with a five hundred
pounds bomb for the Dauntlesses into a crosswind, so it
(23:41):
was touch and go. And the Colonel Fight, who was
the EXO of the air group, was the senior officer
president during the launch, and he very nearly crashed a
Wildcat and then promptly had a navigational error that would
have taken them into the middle of nowhere, and the
entire two squadroned group would have been, you know, lost,
(24:03):
lost at sea. And it wasn't until Dick Mangram just
basically took things into his own hands, risk the ire
of Colonel Fight and just set the proper course. And
the fighters realized that Mangram was probably going the right direction,
so they followed him. So Fike ended up landing last
(24:25):
when they first got there, which the press reported he
was covering them during the final stages of the land
No he wasn't. He was actually last, because he was
the last one to follow the river. He his navigation
was off.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
John.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
The Japanese are the ones that gave it the name
Starvation Island. But in your book could just replete with
some of the deprivations that I mean not just the
air crews, but of course that you call them the
mud marines, where they're defending that island and defending Henderson
Field had to endure. I mean not just you know,
food and supply issues, but you know, the disease, the
(25:00):
creepy Crawley's, all the critters and snipers up in the
you know, the coconut trees. Ben gets at least one
dumb question to show John, And if you don't count
the cat question, this is my one dumb question. There
are references in the book to the occasional landing by
a bomber. Why on earth could they not have been
resupplied by air? They just didn't have the number of
(25:24):
transports available. They had a few, so occasionally they would
bring in the navy version of the C forty seven,
which was the R four D, and they would occasionally
come in with things that were, you know, a vital
in terms of operational ability, and one of those R
forty's did bring in a load of oxygen bottles for
(25:46):
the Wildcats that John L. Smith was commanding, because otherwise
they wouldn't have been able to function that the high
altitudes that the Japanese bombers were operating at, so I
mean they would have had planes on the ground would
have been useless because the Japanese were up at twenty
thousand feet and you know you got to go on
oxygen around ten. Well, you have a perfect example some
(26:10):
of I don't know if both the Wildcats and the bombers,
but at least one of the aircraft required a hand
crank to turn the engine over initially, and normally that
would be the job of one or two folks, but
they were just so starved and so weak from not
having proper food. Sometimes it'd take three of them to
take turn just to get that engine cracked over.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Oh yes, yeah, I actually wrote a scene later on
in the deployment where these guys, you know, you think
fifty three days in combat, I mean, that's it's going
to be tough.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
It's picnic. Combat's never a picnic, right, But when you
magnify the threat to be aerial attack, ground attack, snipers,
naval bombardment, indirect fire from artillery pieces. I mean, the
(27:01):
threat was ever present. There was no safe spot. You know,
most pilots go back to base and you know they
have a warm caught at night. These guys were sleeping
on the ground and sad. The gunners for two thirty
two were sleeping under their airplanes. And then you have
the factor of disease. The mosquitoes were everywhere. There was
(27:22):
a shortage of agrabeins, so malaria became a really significant
problem in September of forty two, or not just the
air component, but also for the Marines fighting in the jungle,
and then just tons and tons of jungle diseases, dis
irontropical diseases. Yeah, they were very, very sick men, some
of them. I mean they're already lean marines, right, these guys,
(27:45):
some of them lost up to twenty five percent of
their body weight. John, we come back and want to
talk a little more details about these incredible heroes, ladies
and gentlemen. Part of the role the Cactus Air Force
was not only to protect Tenderson Field and the Marines
from air attacks, but also to intercept any reinforcement transports
and other ships are coming in to try and reinforce
(28:06):
the Japanese defenders who, well, in this case, the aggressors
who are already on the island.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
And there's a.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Chapter in John's book where he describes just in vivid detail,
how some of these pilots really evolved from the idea
of Okay, I'm a fighter pilot, it's going to be
all about glory to just the absolute carnage that's involved
in combat, particularly during the Second World War. And John,
we come back. I'd like to use the example to
(28:34):
tell us example of that flying Dutchman situation. Ladies and gentlemen,
there is your host, Ben viler Garcia. You're an American
Warrior Radio. We'll be back with more with best selling
author John Bruning. Don't forget. You can find out more
at John Bruning dot com. We'll be right back. Welcome
(29:13):
back to American Warrior Radio. Lason, gentlemen, this is Ben
buler Garcia. We're talking with John Bruning about his book
fifty three Days on Starvation Island, which describes a very
small group of marine aviators who were sent in to
help protect Guatercanal. John I kind of teased before the
break and that's why I asked about where you got
this information. A lot of the battles that you relate
(29:36):
are just very vivid in their detail, and one of
which was when they caught some Japanese reinforcements on the
beaches and in some of their landing craft and they
went down and were strafing them, and you know, these
piles were just describing about literally what a fifty caliber
round will do to the human body, and just crazy.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
But there's one that I never heard this story before.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
I can't remember which part of it was, but the
chapter was called I think it was called the Flying Dutchman,
just real quick in a couple minutes ago, because so bizarre.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
If you could relate that bet story to us, there
was a Japanese bombing raid where the Japanese were flying
these Betty bombers to an engine Betty's. They hit the
field and as.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
They were coming off target, the Marines were able to
get to them and catch them without any fighter escort.
The fighter escort was out of position, and so the
Marines chopped up these formations of Betty's thoroughly. But the
Betty was very fast and John L. Smith ends up
(30:40):
chasing one of these bettys, I think, like fifty miles
towards their base up the Solomon Islands, and he finally
catches it, and he was about to finish it off,
and he realized that the crew was dead, and I
think he fired a burst, ran out of ammunition, and
then started studying the aircraft because there wasn't any return
(31:03):
flying coming. And he pulled up alongside of it and
saw that the pilots were dead, that it looked like
the rest of the crew was dead except for the tailgunner,
and the aircraft was on fire and gradually heading towards
the sea, so it was a slow descent, and he
(31:23):
watched the tailgunner desperately try to get out of his
turret as the flames.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Got closer and closer and closer to him. And eventually
what happened was there was enough structural damage to the
aircraft that part of the tail stinger tore away and
he fell out and he had no parachute, and John
L watched him plumbing into the ocean, and John L
(31:50):
was haunted by that that entire experience. He brought it
up to several of the pilots after he got back,
and then he talked about it a couple of times
times to reporters during the first Marine Corps Hero Tour
of the war, and later in life he mentioned it also,
(32:11):
so it was something that really stuck with him. That
was a very traumatic experience. I mean a lot of
these guys, you know, when you're fighting in air combat,
you're thinking you're going up against an airplane, and a
lot of the guys the psychology was you didn't even
think that there was a man inside that aircraft. So
when that happened, and you know, the catastrophic results of
(32:34):
fifty caliber machine gun fire were that evident at that
close range, it left a lasting, profound impression on the guys.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Probably the saddest section of the book for me, John
was when Admiral Nimitz finally decided to visit the island
and he's giving out a Madlis and awards, and they
based that on how many awards he happened to have
in his pocket at the time, not necessarily what what
the Marines had actually earned. That was a little surprising. Again,
(33:04):
your book opens with Smith, Carl and Mangrimo on a
war bond tour and they're sitting in these elegant Washington
restaurants and they're looking around, having just come back from
Starvation Island, and it's pretty clear at that point in time,
yet even the November nineteen forty two, our nation did
not recognize the cost of a global war. They saved
(33:28):
a lot of lives there, and they clearly made a
change in the war in the Pacific. But what happened
to these three fellows after the war was over?
Speaker 2 (33:37):
John I decided to start the book with the beginning
of their war bond tour and what became known as
the First Marine Corps hero Tour because the disconnect that
they returned home to was so stark. They'd been starving
in the jungle, dealing with Japanese aids, dealing with you know,
(34:01):
the Battle of Edson's Ridge took place just before a
couple of weeks before they left, and you know, they
had Japanese on the ground getting in onto their aircraft.
That's how dire the situation was.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
We came that close to losing the perimeter that that night,
the second night of Edson's Ridge, and suddenly they're pulled
out of combat. They're pulled away from their unit, and
they're the people who understood what they went through, and
that had a really profound effect, especially on John L. Smith,
who was really a very gentle soul in a lot
(34:37):
of ways. And so I opened the book with them
in a Washington, D c. Restaurant and the disconnect is
just everywhere around them, and they they're just you know,
John L. Goes from sad to angry to sad as
he's experiencing, you know, the fact that that nobody really
(34:59):
seems to understand and what the war means, and that
the found disconnect really existed through nineteen forty two into
early forty three. And it wasn't until the Torch landings,
the end of the Guadalcanal Campaign, the beginning of Sicily,
and the real casualties that those campaigns produced that America
(35:24):
Americans really began to understand just how dreadful and costly
this war was going to be. You could have gone
through much of nineteen forty two and not known any
family that had a gold star in their window through
forty two. I mean, I think the official total in
November of forty two is listed in Time magazine was
(35:44):
somewhere around fifteen thousand killed or missing. So that's the
the first eleven months of the war, and then you
know you're getting that just on one landing, one operation,
and by mid forty three, every street at a gold
(36:04):
star and read drew the fabric of American society in
every town in a way that I don't think Americans
today could ever experience or could could ever truly truly understand,
because you know, the War on Terror and Vietnam, the
casualties produced were nowhere, you know, near.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
The casualty levels that we had in World War Two.
And so I wrote that section first to show what
these guys were like when they came home and why
that disconnect existed was you know, that's that's when I
took everybody back. And the catalyst for that was the
moment where Mary Carl really bonded with his future wife
(36:52):
and began to talk to her about his experiences.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
John Or just down to about two minutes one of
the sadder parts. We talked briefly about what these men
went on to do, and you know, Smith, he ended
up taking his own life.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
He did.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Do you think some of the was a PTSD of
the time.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Or oh absolutely. The guys all came back, almost all
of the pilots and ground crew and gunners spent time
in stateside hospitals because of the diseases that they had
been afflicted with on Golidal Canal, and some of them
(37:36):
the Navy actually wanted to kick out. One of them,
Arthur O'Keeffe, had to get a congressman involved so he
could stay in, and he ended up receiving a Distinguished
Flying Cross for volunteering to fly missions in an unarmed
light observation plane during Ewo Jima. But a lot of
(37:56):
the pilots ended up staying in and several of them
became two and three war veterans.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
And of course John l never got his star, but
Dick Mangram did and retired as a lieutenant.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
General, and Mary Carl was retired as a two star.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
John Bruning, thank you so much for spending your time
with our listeners today. Again, I encourage people to go
to John Bruning dot com or Amazon or wherever you
get your books and look up fifty three Days on
Starvation Island. This is when you talk about just a
small group of heroes that made such a difference in
a much larger conflict. This book is just replete with
their stories and I know you'll enjoy it John, thirty seconds.
(38:39):
What anything else you're working on, we should keep it
out for I'm actually working right now on two other books.
The one that I'm typing on earlier today is the
story of an American gorilla in the Philippines by the
name of Jim Cushing and his band of Filipino loyalists
who secured one of the greatest cups of the Pacific War.
(39:03):
They actually captured the entire plan of operation for the
defense of the Western Pacific that the Japanese had created.
We'll keep an eye out for that so much, John,
Thank you so much. Take care of that cat.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Thank you, Ben. Great talking to you.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
There you go, Ladies and gentlemen. Until next time, all
policies or procedures or remain in place.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
Take care. You've been listening to American Warrior Radio.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Archived episodes may be found at Americanwarriorradio dot com or
your favorite podcast platform.
We all owe them, but very few of us know them.
They are the men and women of our military and
first responder communities.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
And these are their stories.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
American Warrior Radio is on the air. Well, liisen, gentlemen,
Welcome to American Warrior Radio. This is your host, Ben
Bueler Garcia. American Warrior Radio broadcast from the Silencer Central Studios,
the nation's largest suppressor dealer. They're ready to make your
silencer buying journey as simple and painfree as possible. Call
(00:41):
them today at eight sixty six six four zero three
two seven zero to get the process started, or visit
Silencercentral dot com. Be sure to check Silencercentral dot com
first to confirm if owning a silencer.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Is legal in your state.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
In May of nineteen forty two, forces of the Japanese
Empire captured Guadalcanal from the British. They immediately began building
an airfield. Allied leadership recognized the threat to this new
airbase created for supply routes between the US, Australia, and
New Zealand. American troops landed on the island on August seventh,
nineteen forty two. What was to follow would be months
(01:17):
of bloody combat on the ground, the sea, and in
the skies above. Along with the lop sided Battle of Midway,
the capture and retention of Guadalcanal was one of the
most significant achievements leading to eventual victory in the Pacific,
playing a key role in the battle where a hard
scrabbled group of marine aviators sent to the isunlacking an aircraft, supplies, fuel, ammunition,
(01:39):
they were in effect expendable. Their compelling story is related
in fifty three Days on Starvation Island, the latest book
by best selling author and collaborator John Burning. John has
twenty seven books to his credit. John was embedded with
marine units in Afghanistan and his reporting earned him the
Thomas Jefferson Award from the Department Offense. He's been riding
on military history, counter terrorism, and espionage topics for over
(02:03):
thirty five years. John, Welcome to American Warrior Radio, and
thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
It's a real pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Did I get that number right, because then the cover
of fifty three Days it says twenty seven books. On
your website it says twenty five. Yeah, I keep getting
that wrong.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
But slick to under contract for two more so it
will be twenty seven once the contract is completely fulfilled.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Suffice to say, a ton of books. It's been an
incredible career. I have been extremely blessed, for sure, and
it's the readers that have kept me from starvation and
has allowed me to do this. So I just really
appreciate the opportunity to hopefully talk to some of them today,
John Folks. If you want to learn more about John's
(02:49):
books and some of the other stuff about him, visit
John Bruning dot com. BRU and I and gen. Now, John,
you had a we're kind of joking about this off
the air. You had an interesting path becoming a best
selling author. You started in the computer gaming business.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
I did. I did. Actually in the summer of eighty eight,
I was hired by a company called Strategic Simulations Incorporated
to be a playtester between college terms, and that led
to the first writing that I did, which was for
a game called Battles of Napoleon. I wrote the historical
section for that and also worked on another one called
(03:25):
Second Front. And one day in nineteen ninety, the owner
of Dynamics Incorporated heard me talking about my experience at
SSI in a software store in Eugene, Oregon, and he
came up to me, introduced himself as Jeff Tanell.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
And offered me a job right there, and then I
took it.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
I was in grad school at the time, so I
didn't realize it would end up becoming a career like
it did. But I worked for Dynamics from.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Nineteen ninety until ninety six, and then consulted and contracted
with him until I really enjoyed your book fifty three
Days on Starvation Island. I want to talk about that
and help you tell the story about these pilots. There's
just amazing pilots and the ground crews too. But real
quick question before we get into Starvation Island. On your
(04:16):
bio lists that you have a swimming cat among your family.
Where do I get one of those?
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah? I do.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
I was completely accidental, but it turns out I ended
up with a Turkish van. There are a breed that
grew up around a lake in the mountains, and the
way they survived during the wintertime is by fishing, and
I did not realize this until one day I write
up in the coast Range in a I mean the Cascades,
(04:45):
in a little cabin by Detroit, Lake, Oregon, and I
take the cat up there, spend two weeks up there
writing with her and my rescue dog from Jordan.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
And one day we were down by the Brighton Bush
River and she just started going in looking for things
to eat. I couldn't believe it. I'm gonna have to
lift into that.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
We're big cat people are on my house, but to
the best of my knowledge, none of them, none of
them taking a liking to swimming.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
But we'll see. There's always hope. John, early in.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
The books fifty three Days on Starvation Island, you start
off describing how the aviators at Midway Island in that
battle were just absolutely slaughtered. And it's interesting. Last week
my wife was watching the most recent Midway movie and
she asked me, She said, why were we so woefully
(05:34):
unprepared in the Pacific? What is your take on that, John,
based on your research, I would have.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
To say, first thing would be the decades of neglect
to the military budget that we'd already experienced from nineteen
eighteen forward. You can't make that up overnight. And yeah,
in nineteen forty FDR declared a state of limited national
urgency after the fall of France, right and that's you know,
(06:03):
nineteen forty we see the two Ocean Navy Bill pass
and the expansion begins that ultimately saw us through the war.
By my gosh, in nineteen forty there were what maybe
two hundred and fifty Marine aviators total in the fleet.
When Marie Carl joined in thirty nine, there was only
(06:24):
one Marine Corps fighter squadron. So all of a sudden,
you know, we get attacked at Pearl Harbor December seventh,
nineteen forty one. We're not even in full gear and
the expansion yet. Now there are pilots coming through the pipeline,
but there's a shortage of airplanes. There's a shortage of
actual experienced pilots who could teach the new guys the
(06:47):
ropes as to what it actually meant to be in
a Marine squadron, right, And so by the time you
get to midway in June of forty two, the pilots
who are with VMF two twenty one, there's a kernel
of experienced guys who've been flying for a couple of years,
(07:07):
and the rest of them are literally straight out of
flight school and have had almost no time in combat aircraft.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Some of the plane you know, like the Buffalo. Mean,
my gosh, that's just maybe one step above World War One.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yeah, it was a catastrophe. I see online a lot.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
There's there's people who who seem to think that the
Buffalo has gotten a bad rap because it did so
well with the Fins against the Russians during during you know,
the later parts of the of the Winter War, and
then you know in forty two. The reality is that
particular Brewster looked a lot different than the ones that
(07:48):
the Marines were flying at Midway. The ones the Marines
had at Midway were heavier, they had a different configuration.
There was armor plating that.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Made them definitely heavier behind the seat, but there was
no head rest. So after the battle, the supposition was
a lot of the pilots died from wounds to the
back of the head because there was literally no protection
(08:21):
for them. That was a major difference with the Wildcat.
The Wildcat had a fully armored seat that went over
the pilot's head and it saved countless Wildcat pilots at
Midway and later at Guadalcanal well.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
And also they early and that been you know, the
buffaloes are flying against the zero, which I think arguably
could be claimed to be one of the most advanced
fighters in the field at that time.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Absolutely, the Zero was a you know, premier naval aircraft
of the of the eras, especially in forty two. But
also you've got to keep in mind that the Ketobu Tai,
the Japanese carrier force, was filled with some of the
best combat aviators and veterans of combat that aviation history
(09:12):
has ever seen. Those guys were incredibly well trained. They
were seasoned in China, and then they.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Were seasoned through the first six months of the war
with all the strikes that the Japanese carriers made throughout
the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. And when you take
a varsity team up against, you know, the freshman, it's
it's going to be an education for the freshmen. And
(09:40):
that's exactly what happened to the American Marines at midway,
John I talk. We got to take a break. When
we come back and want to talk more about your
book and also the three principal characters that you introduced
us to. Ladies and gentlemen, there's your host, Ben Dela Garcia.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Welcome back to American Warrior Radio. Ladies and gentlemen. This
is Ben Bueler Garcia. We're talking with best selling author
John Bruning. John's latest book is called fifty three Days
on Starvation Island. You can find out more about that
visit John Bruning dot com. John, like I said, I
really enjoy the book. You principally tell the story of
this scrappy expendable on That word comes up very often
(10:36):
your book. Group of Marine pounds that were sent to
Guadalcanal to try and help us maintain that island, and
particularly Henderson Field.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
There you talk about.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
There's three folks that stand out, Major John Smith, who
is a guy principally responsible for organizing those air defenses.
Mary and Carl farm Boy from Oregon, who became the
first Marine's first World War two fighter ace. And then
Richard Mangram, who I also find very interesting. He's a
lawyer by trade, but he was in charge of the
(11:08):
bombers there. And I'm probably misquoting this, John, but I
guess the line goes that fighter Palace make the headlines
with bomber Palace make history.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Absolutely true.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Yes, tell us a little bit more about these three
eventual leaders.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
These three men were among the premier leaders in the
Marine Corps in nineteen forty two, and that's born out
over the years to come, where Dick Mangram ends up
becoming the vice Commandant of the Marine Corps in the sixties,
and Marion Carl becomes a major general, and of course
(11:46):
John L. Smith he was passed over for a star
with catastrophic results to his life, but that wasn't a
function of his leadership. That was a function of other
things in his personal life. But in nineteen forty two
they were John L. And Dick Mangram. Both were given
(12:07):
squadrons full of rookie pilots fresh from training, and they
were plussed up with a couple of veterans of Midway
to each squadron, and John L. Had the Fighter Squadron
VMF two twenty three and Dick Magram had the dive
Bomber Squadron, the Dauntless Squadron VMSB two thirty two. And
(12:29):
what they discovered was, with the exception of Mary Carl,
who had been at Midway and had survived and had
actually shot a couple of planes down or won, the
Midway vets were traumatized and very fatalistic, and they turned
out to be almost like a locker room cancer, especially
for T thirty two. Mary Carl was not that. He
(12:52):
was much more of an even keeled, let fate do
what it will, I'm going to go down fighting kind
of guy. And so so he became a key member
of three in the workup because of his skill as
a fighter pilot, he was unparalleled. He was one of
the best in the core. But also his leadership was
(13:15):
just rock steady.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
And this was a guy who in every crisis was
absolutely and completely stone cold calm. He's the reason actually
I wrote the book because he was the first World
War two veteran I interviewed, and I went down to Roseberg,
Oregon and spent a day with him while I was
in grad school, asking him questions. And he was one
(13:38):
of the most impressive human beings I've ever met. Great
human being. When people read the book and you break
it down, I mean, we're literally talking about fifty three
days and we get to be with them for every
one of those days. In your book incredibly detailed. How
did you get I mean, were you able to interview
many of these people?
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Were their records? John?
Speaker 1 (13:59):
How did you How were you able to produce such
detail right on down to individual air combat.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
A number of sources, the interviews that I did for
in grad school, Mary Carl being one of the key ones.
But also I became friends with Dick Mangram's gunner, who
was an exceptional, exceptional guy, exceptional American, and he and
(14:32):
I corresponded for the better part of the nineties. I
interviewed him repeatedly. That he actually wrote me while I
was at Dynamics because he found aces of the Pacific
in one of the missions that the historic missions we
included was one that he and Dick Mangram were on,
and so he was very excited about that. He wrote
(14:55):
to me, and he had been working on a book,
which unfortunately never got published, and nobody has a full
copy of his memoirs, but he sent me several chapters
along with a bunch of primary records and documents that
he copied for me back in ninety seven, ninety eight,
ninety nine that don't exist in the Marine Corps archives.
(15:20):
So I was extremely fortunate to have had that relationship.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
And then as things developed, when I decided that this
is a book I really wanted to write, I had
started accumulating other records and it turns out there's several
different versions of the squadron records and the Marine Air
Wing records or the Marine Air Group records from that period,
(15:48):
and they all very slightly. And one of the vets
from Q twenty three's later tours was a man named
Dick True Tuesdale, and Dick had all of the different
versions and he gave them to me in about two
thousand and one, and I copied them all and put
(16:09):
them onto a PDF. So I'd been tucking these things
away for a long long time, and then combined those
with letters and personal accounts the guys wrote, when the survivors,
when they got back letters. I talked to family members,
and then in twenty twenty one I reached out to
(16:30):
Larry Lsise, who is a remarkable historian. And this book
would not have been able to have been written the
way it was without Larry's help, because he had spent
the better part of fifteen years or so interviewing the
Midway and Bludal Canal pilots, and he opened his archives
to me, and he was an incredible resource. How did
(16:53):
they get the name Cactus Air Force? I mean, are
the Kacuoslam Guadacanal.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
No so so.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Guadalcanal was the the the nexus of the American uh
first offensive of World War two.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
This is where our entire drive back to Tokyo began.
And the code name for the island was Cactus. So
when they started getting the aircraft up to Guadalcanal using
the airfield that was captioned on the first day and
then completed and put into service, more or less the
(17:31):
pieces of air groups and fighter groups that got sent
up there into the teeth of the Japanese opposition, we're
all collectively little labeled and called the Cactus Air Force.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Okay, I tried. We had coming up on another break here, John,
real quick, I want to leave people with a quote
and I can't I get is it Colonel? Is it
Ficky Fike? Colonel, Colonel Colonel Fike, Ladies and gentlemen. As
as you know, John described their letter being sent in
the teeth of the Japanese, who had some of the
(18:03):
best equipments, of the most experienced product, who was truly
truly a rough assignment. And Colonel Fike told, as many said, men,
your job is to buy time with your lives until
the Navy and the Core can get more men and
planes to Guadalcanal. Not exactly the most rousing, morale boosting speech,
(18:26):
but it turns out that he was spot on. You'll
hear more about that when we come back with more
with best selling author John Bruning. Don't forget.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
You can find over.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Six hundred padcasts of this broadcast at American Warrior Radio
dot com. The most recent podcast you can find in
your favorite platform, whatever that might be. If it's a Spotify, Pandora.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
IHeart where everywhere.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Please please share these important stories with other folks who
might be interested. Once again, there's Ben builer Garcia.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Welcome back to America Radio, ladies and gentlemen. This is
your host, Ben Buler Garcia. We're coming to you from
the Silencer Central Studios. Adding a salentarial make shootings safer,
more enjoyable, and improve your accuracy. Begin the process by
visiting Slencercentral dot com to see if only a salentary
is legal in your state. They can then walk you
through the permitting process and ship right to your front door.
(19:32):
Call Silencer Central today at eight six six six four
zero three two seven zero, or visit salncercentral dot com
we're talking with best selling author John Brune. You can
find out more about John and his works at John
Bruning dot com. B r U n I n G.
John's latest work, I really really enjoyed his called fifty
three Days on Starvation Island. John, I kind of left
(19:55):
the listeners with at tease that quote by the lieutenant
colonel as these aviators were headed off to Guadalcanal, But
I mean they were expendable. I mean, it's a tough
assignment to get, but you follow orders, I guess, oh.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
One of the big lessons learned from Guadalcanal was that
the air component had to be an integral part of
the planning for any future operations. And when they were
hastily throwing together the Guadalcanal campaign, they were an afterthought.
And as soon as they pushed the Marines up to
Guadalcanal and landed the first Marine division there, caught the
(20:33):
Japanese by surprise. But I mean it was a successful
initial invasion, right, But they had no air power to
protect those Marine Corps units on the island except for
the ones that were aboard the aircraft carriers, and that
the first night after the landing, the Japanese task force
(20:53):
came down, got into Savo sound, saved four Allied cruisers,
three US one Australian in what was one of the
most catastrophic defeats in US Navy history, and very nearly
got to the transports.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Had they done that, it.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Would have been a catastrophe. So because of that, the
amphibious Commander Richmond Kelly Turner decided he could not stay
in the area if he didn't have airpower, and Fletcher,
who was the commander of the carriers, decided to pull out.
So the Navy essentially retreated and left the Marines out
on a limb, and they didn't have enough food. They
(21:34):
didn't they had ammunition for about four or four days
of combat, and the Japanese could bomb them at will
and could run bombardment missions with destroyers and cruisers to
the island at will because they didn't have any air
power to defend against that. So it was crucial that
they get some sort of marine air presence on the Guadalcanal.
(21:56):
But it took from the date of the landing was
the August August seventh, nineteen forty two, and it took
until the twenty first of August for the first two
squadrons to get there and be operational. They arrived in
the afternoon on the twentieth. Nowadays, we're kind of spoiled
with area we're feeling and you know, see one thirty
(22:18):
transports and all this stuff. But I mean even when
the squadrons got there, I mean they, like you said,
they didn't have enough personnel or equipment to property maintain
the aircraft. They didn't have the They had to you know,
load the fuel literally by hand into the They didn't
have lifts or racks to do proper maintenance on these
planes were taking off from a gravel runway of all
(22:40):
these things. I mean, they didn't even have mess kits. John, No,
they did not. They arrived with what they could stuff
into their aircraft, and most of what they stuffed in
were spread parts, and they were launched off the USS
Long Island, which was the very first US Navy escort carrier.
(23:01):
I actually bought a T shirt as I was writing
the book, I would wear that T shirt. And the
thing with the Long Island was it was such a
klooegy conversion from a merchant ship that the only catapult
the ship had was angled at a forty degree angle
(23:21):
or so off the port bow, so it was a
very strange setup and trying to even launch from that
to get to guadal Canal became problematical. Almost none of
the pilots had ever done a cat launched before, and
then they were team cat launched with a five hundred
pounds bomb for the Dauntlesses into a crosswind, so it
(23:41):
was touch and go. And the Colonel Fight, who was
the EXO of the air group, was the senior officer
president during the launch, and he very nearly crashed a
Wildcat and then promptly had a navigational error that would
have taken them into the middle of nowhere, and the
entire two squadroned group would have been, you know, lost,
(24:03):
lost at sea. And it wasn't until Dick Mangram just
basically took things into his own hands, risk the ire
of Colonel Fight and just set the proper course. And
the fighters realized that Mangram was probably going the right direction,
so they followed him. So Fike ended up landing last
(24:25):
when they first got there, which the press reported he
was covering them during the final stages of the land
No he wasn't. He was actually last, because he was
the last one to follow the river. He his navigation
was off.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
John.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
The Japanese are the ones that gave it the name
Starvation Island. But in your book could just replete with
some of the deprivations that I mean not just the
air crews, but of course that you call them the
mud marines, where they're defending that island and defending Henderson
Field had to endure. I mean not just you know,
food and supply issues, but you know, the disease, the
(25:00):
creepy Crawley's, all the critters and snipers up in the
you know, the coconut trees. Ben gets at least one
dumb question to show John, And if you don't count
the cat question, this is my one dumb question. There
are references in the book to the occasional landing by
a bomber. Why on earth could they not have been
resupplied by air? They just didn't have the number of
(25:24):
transports available. They had a few, so occasionally they would
bring in the navy version of the C forty seven,
which was the R four D, and they would occasionally
come in with things that were, you know, a vital
in terms of operational ability, and one of those R
forty's did bring in a load of oxygen bottles for
(25:46):
the Wildcats that John L. Smith was commanding, because otherwise
they wouldn't have been able to function that the high
altitudes that the Japanese bombers were operating at, so I
mean they would have had planes on the ground would
have been useless because the Japanese were up at twenty
thousand feet and you know you got to go on
oxygen around ten. Well, you have a perfect example some
(26:10):
of I don't know if both the Wildcats and the bombers,
but at least one of the aircraft required a hand
crank to turn the engine over initially, and normally that
would be the job of one or two folks, but
they were just so starved and so weak from not
having proper food. Sometimes it'd take three of them to
take turn just to get that engine cracked over.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Oh yes, yeah, I actually wrote a scene later on
in the deployment where these guys, you know, you think
fifty three days in combat, I mean, that's it's going
to be tough.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
It's picnic. Combat's never a picnic, right, But when you
magnify the threat to be aerial attack, ground attack, snipers,
naval bombardment, indirect fire from artillery pieces. I mean, the
(27:01):
threat was ever present. There was no safe spot. You know,
most pilots go back to base and you know they
have a warm caught at night. These guys were sleeping
on the ground and sad. The gunners for two thirty
two were sleeping under their airplanes. And then you have
the factor of disease. The mosquitoes were everywhere. There was
(27:22):
a shortage of agrabeins, so malaria became a really significant
problem in September of forty two, or not just the
air component, but also for the Marines fighting in the jungle,
and then just tons and tons of jungle diseases, dis
irontropical diseases. Yeah, they were very, very sick men, some
of them. I mean they're already lean marines, right, these guys,
(27:45):
some of them lost up to twenty five percent of
their body weight. John, we come back and want to
talk a little more details about these incredible heroes, ladies
and gentlemen. Part of the role the Cactus Air Force
was not only to protect Tenderson Field and the Marines
from air attacks, but also to intercept any reinforcement transports
and other ships are coming in to try and reinforce
(28:06):
the Japanese defenders who, well, in this case, the aggressors
who are already on the island.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
And there's a.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Chapter in John's book where he describes just in vivid detail,
how some of these pilots really evolved from the idea
of Okay, I'm a fighter pilot, it's going to be
all about glory to just the absolute carnage that's involved
in combat, particularly during the Second World War. And John,
we come back. I'd like to use the example to
(28:34):
tell us example of that flying Dutchman situation. Ladies and gentlemen,
there is your host, Ben viler Garcia. You're an American
Warrior Radio. We'll be back with more with best selling
author John Bruning. Don't forget. You can find out more
at John Bruning dot com. We'll be right back. Welcome
(29:13):
back to American Warrior Radio. Lason, gentlemen, this is Ben
buler Garcia. We're talking with John Bruning about his book
fifty three Days on Starvation Island, which describes a very
small group of marine aviators who were sent in to
help protect Guatercanal. John I kind of teased before the
break and that's why I asked about where you got
this information. A lot of the battles that you relate
(29:36):
are just very vivid in their detail, and one of
which was when they caught some Japanese reinforcements on the
beaches and in some of their landing craft and they
went down and were strafing them, and you know, these
piles were just describing about literally what a fifty caliber
round will do to the human body, and just crazy.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
But there's one that I never heard this story before.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
I can't remember which part of it was, but the
chapter was called I think it was called the Flying Dutchman,
just real quick in a couple minutes ago, because so bizarre.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
If you could relate that bet story to us, there
was a Japanese bombing raid where the Japanese were flying
these Betty bombers to an engine Betty's. They hit the
field and as.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
They were coming off target, the Marines were able to
get to them and catch them without any fighter escort.
The fighter escort was out of position, and so the
Marines chopped up these formations of Betty's thoroughly. But the
Betty was very fast and John L. Smith ends up
(30:40):
chasing one of these bettys, I think, like fifty miles
towards their base up the Solomon Islands, and he finally
catches it, and he was about to finish it off,
and he realized that the crew was dead, and I
think he fired a burst, ran out of ammunition, and
then started studying the aircraft because there wasn't any return
(31:03):
flying coming. And he pulled up alongside of it and
saw that the pilots were dead, that it looked like
the rest of the crew was dead except for the tailgunner,
and the aircraft was on fire and gradually heading towards
the sea, so it was a slow descent, and he
(31:23):
watched the tailgunner desperately try to get out of his
turret as the flames.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Got closer and closer and closer to him. And eventually
what happened was there was enough structural damage to the
aircraft that part of the tail stinger tore away and
he fell out and he had no parachute, and John
L watched him plumbing into the ocean, and John L
(31:50):
was haunted by that that entire experience. He brought it
up to several of the pilots after he got back,
and then he talked about it a couple of times
times to reporters during the first Marine Corps Hero Tour
of the war, and later in life he mentioned it also,
(32:11):
so it was something that really stuck with him. That
was a very traumatic experience. I mean a lot of
these guys, you know, when you're fighting in air combat,
you're thinking you're going up against an airplane, and a
lot of the guys the psychology was you didn't even
think that there was a man inside that aircraft. So
when that happened, and you know, the catastrophic results of
(32:34):
fifty caliber machine gun fire were that evident at that
close range, it left a lasting, profound impression on the guys.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Probably the saddest section of the book for me, John
was when Admiral Nimitz finally decided to visit the island
and he's giving out a Madlis and awards, and they
based that on how many awards he happened to have
in his pocket at the time, not necessarily what what
the Marines had actually earned. That was a little surprising. Again,
(33:04):
your book opens with Smith, Carl and Mangrimo on a
war bond tour and they're sitting in these elegant Washington
restaurants and they're looking around, having just come back from
Starvation Island, and it's pretty clear at that point in time,
yet even the November nineteen forty two, our nation did
not recognize the cost of a global war. They saved
(33:28):
a lot of lives there, and they clearly made a
change in the war in the Pacific. But what happened
to these three fellows after the war was over?
Speaker 2 (33:37):
John I decided to start the book with the beginning
of their war bond tour and what became known as
the First Marine Corps hero Tour because the disconnect that
they returned home to was so stark. They'd been starving
in the jungle, dealing with Japanese aids, dealing with you know,
(34:01):
the Battle of Edson's Ridge took place just before a
couple of weeks before they left, and you know, they
had Japanese on the ground getting in onto their aircraft.
That's how dire the situation was.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
We came that close to losing the perimeter that that night,
the second night of Edson's Ridge, and suddenly they're pulled
out of combat. They're pulled away from their unit, and
they're the people who understood what they went through, and
that had a really profound effect, especially on John L. Smith,
who was really a very gentle soul in a lot
(34:37):
of ways. And so I opened the book with them
in a Washington, D c. Restaurant and the disconnect is
just everywhere around them, and they they're just you know,
John L. Goes from sad to angry to sad as
he's experiencing, you know, the fact that that nobody really
(34:59):
seems to understand and what the war means, and that
the found disconnect really existed through nineteen forty two into
early forty three. And it wasn't until the Torch landings,
the end of the Guadalcanal Campaign, the beginning of Sicily,
and the real casualties that those campaigns produced that America
(35:24):
Americans really began to understand just how dreadful and costly
this war was going to be. You could have gone
through much of nineteen forty two and not known any
family that had a gold star in their window through
forty two. I mean, I think the official total in
November of forty two is listed in Time magazine was
(35:44):
somewhere around fifteen thousand killed or missing. So that's the
the first eleven months of the war, and then you
know you're getting that just on one landing, one operation,
and by mid forty three, every street at a gold
(36:04):
star and read drew the fabric of American society in
every town in a way that I don't think Americans
today could ever experience or could could ever truly truly understand,
because you know, the War on Terror and Vietnam, the
casualties produced were nowhere, you know, near.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
The casualty levels that we had in World War Two.
And so I wrote that section first to show what
these guys were like when they came home and why
that disconnect existed was you know, that's that's when I
took everybody back. And the catalyst for that was the
moment where Mary Carl really bonded with his future wife
(36:52):
and began to talk to her about his experiences.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
John Or just down to about two minutes one of
the sadder parts. We talked briefly about what these men
went on to do, and you know, Smith, he ended
up taking his own life.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
He did.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Do you think some of the was a PTSD of
the time.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Or oh absolutely. The guys all came back, almost all
of the pilots and ground crew and gunners spent time
in stateside hospitals because of the diseases that they had
been afflicted with on Golidal Canal, and some of them
(37:36):
the Navy actually wanted to kick out. One of them,
Arthur O'Keeffe, had to get a congressman involved so he
could stay in, and he ended up receiving a Distinguished
Flying Cross for volunteering to fly missions in an unarmed
light observation plane during Ewo Jima. But a lot of
(37:56):
the pilots ended up staying in and several of them
became two and three war veterans.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
And of course John l never got his star, but
Dick Mangram did and retired as a lieutenant.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
General, and Mary Carl was retired as a two star.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
John Bruning, thank you so much for spending your time
with our listeners today. Again, I encourage people to go
to John Bruning dot com or Amazon or wherever you
get your books and look up fifty three Days on
Starvation Island. This is when you talk about just a
small group of heroes that made such a difference in
a much larger conflict. This book is just replete with
their stories and I know you'll enjoy it John, thirty seconds.
(38:39):
What anything else you're working on, we should keep it
out for I'm actually working right now on two other books.
The one that I'm typing on earlier today is the
story of an American gorilla in the Philippines by the
name of Jim Cushing and his band of Filipino loyalists
who secured one of the greatest cups of the Pacific War.
(39:03):
They actually captured the entire plan of operation for the
defense of the Western Pacific that the Japanese had created.
We'll keep an eye out for that so much, John,
Thank you so much. Take care of that cat.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Thank you, Ben. Great talking to you.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
There you go, Ladies and gentlemen. Until next time, all
policies or procedures or remain in place.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
Take care. You've been listening to American Warrior Radio.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Archived episodes may be found at Americanwarriorradio dot com or
your favorite podcast platform.
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