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MAG-25 EmailTHE STORY OF SCAT
Part I
This article
was written in the Pacific war theater by two Marine Corps
Officers,
Capt. Robert Joseph Allen,
former upstate New York newspaper publisher and
1st Lt. Otis Carney,
who co-authored the popular aviation book "Love at
First Flight".
Marine Combat Correspondent
Sgt. Pen Johnson
of Oakland, Calif., former newspaperman and Batten, Barton,
Durstine & Osborn advertising account executive flew most of
the routes described and brought much of the material to the
writers at their headquarters in the South Pacific.
Sgt. Johnson located the manuscript for us after we had been told
of it by Gen. Louis Woods and expressed a desire to publish this
supplement to our articles on ATC and NATS.
Marines call
their airline planes in the South Pacific "Flying Boxcars".
Here their story is told in detail for the first time-a saga of
how SCAT
helped save Guadalcanal and brought wounded out from that and
other hot spots,
how the Marines and the Army teamed up in air supplying their
troops
and Marine and Navy combat aviation.
If you should ask any serviceman in the South Pacific if he had ever heard of the South Pacific Combat Air Transport Command, you would probably get a negative answer. But if you should ask him if he had ever head of its abbreviation, SCAT, you would get an enthusiastic "Yes!"
Many Marine veterans of Guadalcanal and Munda and the islands beyond remember when the transport planes of SCAT, months ago dubbed the Flying Boxcars by the Marines, brought them food or medical supplies or ammunition--and frequently all three--and on the return trip carried out their wounded, when these things meant the difference between winning or losing to the Japs.
Adm. William F. Halsey, Jr., Commander, South Pacific Forces, said: Without the aid of SCAT some of our most important victories would not have been possible."
SCAT now has a timetable with numbered trips. If SCAT had public address systems in its jungle terminals, you might hear something like: "Trip No. 2, departing on the hour for Munda, Treasury Island and Bougainville ! " or 'Trip No. 4, leaving immediately for all Solomons airports ! " or 'Trip No. 6, leaving Munda making connections for Sydney, Australia, and Auckland, New Zealand!"
A fair idea of the scope of present-day SCAT operations can be had by contrasting SCAT's 72 scheduled plane arrivals and departures in one recent day with the more than 100 movements at the Chicago and La Cuardia airports into each of which eight air-lines now operate. Consider also that SCAT had an average of 14 trips a day between Espiritu Santos and Guadalcanal and, at this writing, 30 round trips a day between Guadalcanal and the combat areas. This compares favorably with domestic airline schedules during the prewar peak. In fact, for a time on the combat zone runs, the boxcars were not out of sight of one or another between the hours of 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.
SCAT planes were well within enemy country during at least a third of the time they spent in the air. SCAT pilots were constantly exposed to the danger of being under fire, and have had to ward off Jap planes by skillful flying many times and, though damaged often, have never yet lost a plane in an enemy aerial encounter.
Good Betting Odds
In
one six-month period, SCAT carried:
18,000,000 Ibs. of freight;
6 000,000 Ibs. of mail;
and 130,000 passengers.
During
1943 SCAT planes flew a total of 76,000 hrs.,
covering a total of 11,400,000 nautical miles.
And in the first 18 months after SCAT was formally organized, though it was flying land planes on water-jumps averaging 450 miles, with one of nearly a thousand miles, and all the hazards of war that go with flying in a battle zone, it lost only 14 planes; and of these only eight had fatalities aboard for a total of 123 passengers lost. When you contrast these losses with the fact that during this period SCAT carried approximately 220,000 passengers, you will admit that SCAT would be a pretty good insurance risk.
The origin of SCAT lies in the Guadalcanal campaign of 1942. Soon after the 1st Marine Division had established its bloody beach-head on that dark island in early August it became evident that only airplanes could supply the desperately beleaguered garrison. The Japs then were in control of the sea lanes in the Solomons Slotwat least they had enough control at that time by both surface craft and submarines to subject the Marine forces to a process of attrition. By the end of August, the then Brig. Gen. Alexander A. Vandegrift's 1st Marine Division needed air trans- port in a hurry. SCAT was conceived, born and skipped adolescence.
Haste Not Waste
Before the war many airline pilots belonged to the Marine Corps reserve. By August, 1942, a majority had been called back to duty and were at the Naval Air Station in San Diego, California, acting as instructors. With the rapidly worsening situation in Guadalcanal as its impetus, a transport squadron with those pilots as its flying personnel was hastily organized.
Toward the end of August, this unit, Marine Utility Squadron 253, equipped with Douglases, received orders to depart for the South Pacific. On the night of August 23, 1942, 34 officers and 32 enlisted men took off from NAS, San Diego, flying 12 R4D- 1 's, military version of the reliable Douglas DC-3 of the airlines. This flight was led by the commanding officer of the squadron, Lt. Col. Perry K. Smith. Flying another plane was his executive officer, Col. Wyman Fiske Marshall, then a lieutenant colonel and a former operations manager of Northwest Airlines. Another of the pilots, then a major but now a lieutenant colonel, was Owen Ross, a PCA captain in civil life. Navigators were Marines who had just graduated on that subject.
In a plane which followed the next night, Maj. Walter F. Kimball, veteran pilot of TWA, carried two passengers bound to play an important role on Guadalcanal. They were Brig. Gen. Roy S. Geiger and Col. Louis E. Woods, now also a general. These men later were to command Marine aviation on Guadalcanal. Under them were to sene aces like John Smith, Joseph Foss, and Marion Carl.
Also on that date the remaining ground crews of the squadron, totaling 366 officers and men, embarked by ship at San Diego. With them they carried the supplies and equipment needed to set up and main- tain an airline thousands of miles from the nearest factory.
On August 30, the lead section under Col. Smith crossed the international date line and on the next day landed in New Caledonia. The student navigators had learned their lessons well.
In two more days the Douglases, destined to become famous as the Flying Boxcars, were ready. Col. Smith was first off with Gen. Geiger and Col. Woods as passengers, and on September 3, 1942, at 8:30 p.m., landed the first transport plane at Guadalcanal.
In the meantime, the squadron, having disembarked at New Caledonia, was busy getting settled. Its planes were shuttling over to the large bases in the Fijis to get supplies. But always there was the job at Guadal- canal which could not wait.
Might Have Lost Island
Those first flights to Guadalcanal from New Caledonia were 880-mile over-water flights in the unarmed, unescorted transports. There were no radio ranges then, and everything depended on accurate dead reckoning, pilotage and celestial navigation. For the last 100 miles pilots of the tnp had to push up their power settings to dart by the protecting nng of enemy aircraft around the island. And even if they succeeded in slipping by the Zeros, the dis- heartening possibility was always imminent in those days that Henderson Field itself might have been recaptured by the Japs.
Occassionally dunng that sanguine period we would have control of both ends of Henderson Field and sometimes the Japs would have temporarily recaptured one end of it. To solve the problem posed by this state of affairs, the Manne always had a man stationed at their end of the field to wave signals to oncoming planes as to who controlled the disputed end of the runway at the moment.
On one occasion, a flight of five SCAT planes, one of them piloted by Lt. Col. Halty R. Van Liew, reached Guadalcanal only to find it being attacked by more than 100 Jap planes. Fortunately there were some cumulus clouds to get into or behind until the attack had been driven off and they could land
Smokes and Sweets
The second Douglas flown into Guadalcanal was piloted by Lt. Col. Marshall. Fiske arrived at dusk at Henderson Field. The field was a sea of mud. The Only thing that kept him on the runway was the feeble light of a one-eyed jeep placed at the far end.
His 3,000-lb. cargo included candy and cigarettes and when he saw the haggard, tired look of the Marines clustered around his plane, he let the boys swarm aboard and help themselves. In five minutes the cargo had vanished. The QM department is still looking for that shipment.
The next day Col. Marshall flew out the first casualties to be evacuated from Guadalcanal. These were desperate cases and in four hours the men were in a main base naval hospital.
By the night of the next day, seven planes were racing northward toward Cuadalcanal, all carrying ammunition and badly needed machine guns. In Maj. Harry F. Baker's plane was a complete anti- aircraft unit. When baker approached the island, he received word over his radio that the field was being bombed. Shells and bombs were falling on the run- way when he landed and he was forced to do some abrupt maneuvering of the heavily loaded Douglas. Another boxcar arrived right behind Baker, carrying six Navy pilots as pilot replacements in the fighter squadrons engaged in the battle for Henderson.
Three planes got through on September 12. By this time the embattled Marines were eagerly awaiting the low-flying transports and a large contingent had assembled on the strip just at dawn to assist in any way they could. They unloaded the first transport in one mad rush. It had brought them 500 Ibs. of mail, the first they had received since they began their death struggle on August 7. Many of those letters were never to be opened.
Throwing Weight Around
The cargo of the two other planes was equally as well received. The second had 4,000 Ibs. of food and medical supplies, while the third carried 3,000 Ibs. Of toilet paper, another vital need under campaign conditions.
It is not uncommon for as many as 60 SCAT planes to be unloaded of as high as 120 tons of cargo in a ten-hour period by malting use of spacing and organi- zation, a knowledge learned by SCAT officials the hard way on many an emergency operation on rough jungle landing strips. Not a little credit for this is due Capt. Cecil B. "SCAT" Ray, who pioneered the handling of cargo in the early days.
On the night of the 1 2th the Japs made an infiltration at Henderson Field. While Maj. Harold A. Johnson and his crew were loading casualties on their plane that night, they were being fired on by snipers hidden near the fringes of the jungle. Praying for the inac- curacy popularly attributed to the Japs in pre-Pearl Harbor days, Johnson and his crew loaded their airplane and flew off with twelve wounded Marines aboard. Maj. Baker followed in his DC-3, which carried Adm. John S. McCain and Adm. Richmond K. Turner. This plane was given a fighter escort, a novelty for the boxcars at that time.
By morning the fight was waging fiercely and Maj. Kimball alighted from his plane in the midst of artil- lery shelling. At one time from a slit trench off the runway, he and his crew witnessed hand to hand fighting at the end of the strip When the Marines "had the situation well in hand" "Skip" Kimball loaded his casualties aboard and took off. While Kimball was being shelled on the ground, 2nd Lt. James M. Walker was having his troubles. After taking off he was attacked by four Zeros Having no other means of protection, he ducked into and behind clouds. By sparkling and maneuvering, he was able to keep the Zeros from knocking him down until Marine Wildcat fighters led by Joe Foss shot all four enemy planes down and Walker flew his plane back to its base without further ado.
SCAT planes continued to get the same treatment in days to come. Maj. John W. Burkhardt, carrying land mines, machine guns, and 37-mm. ammunition, was attacked by 14 dive-bombers but succeeded in landing without serious injury. Maj. Owen Ross. the former PCA pilot, was unable to evacuate his 14 casualties that night and slept under the wing of his ship during his brief intermissions from the foxholes.
Every day the situation grew worse on the island. Our supplies were low and the Japs were increasing theirs. The Marines had no supply line except for the boxcars.
October, 1942, was the most hectic month the boxcars might ever face. An immense number of aircraft, engines and fuel were needed at Guadalcanal. Guiding Wildcat fighters and Douglas dive bombers to that island gave the SCAT pilots a new role. If the shepherds' navigation were faulty, the small ships would never reach an alternate base, since their gas supply was limited. Or if weather socked the terminal in, there would be no place for the combat planes to go. The responsibility rested with SCAT crews. The job was done without loss. Transport pilots led 65 combat planes safely to Guadalcanal that month. It became a regular part of SCAT schedule to lead flights of fighter craft to the ever widening Northern battle fronts.
Overloads the Rule
There were other tough problems in October. Jap surface forces had begun to close in on the island. On the third of the month a boxcar winging in under sullen skies sighted and reported an enemy cruiser and four destroyers. Two days later this same Jap force moved up and shelled the field. SCAT was also credited with spotting six Jap sub- marines in less than three months. Then the enemy stretched up his air umbrella over Henderson Field, Smith, Foss and Carl became aces in fighting that umbrella.
There came dire need for engines and other spares with the increase in air combat in the fall of '42 Contrast the lads on SCAT planes with those of commercial airliners of the same type which, under CAA rules, permitted a gross of 25,200 Ibs. Marine flyers, both veterans and young ones just out, Sew ships grossing up to and sometimes in excess of 30,500 Ibs. These heavy loads coupled with long over-water flights through rugged tropical weather became routine. On October 8, a com- bination of bad breaks caught up with TWA veteran Maj. Kimball. Ceiling and visibility were 50 ft. and less than a mile. Kimball volunteered to take a heavy load out. But instrument skill gained in more than 8,000 flight hours didn't offset the hazards for "Skip" Kimball that night. He crashed into a mountain a half mile from the base. The rusty, crushed shell of his ship remains where it hit. On approach charts the jagged mountain is now "Kimball Hill."
An acute gas shortage developed on October 13. If gas were not flown into Henderson on the 14th, combat ships wouldn't fly, leaving the whole beachhead at the mercy of the Jap air strength. Maj. Baker and his crew were at Espiritu Santos, New Hebrides, when theyheardthisdournews. He drained his fuel tanks to barely above the amount needed to reach Henderson and return. Then he loaded 13 drums of gas and urgently needed medical supplies. On the approach he received word that Henderson was being shelled. He landed. The fighters and dive- bombers flew as usual. More gas was flown in the next day to relieve the tense situation. On one of these flights a barrage from surface ships swept the field and struck the plane of Capt. John L. "Doc" Whitaker eleven times. But it was necessary for Doc and crew to take off immediately as they had a load of casualties for the base hospital. The plane was re- paired in makeshift fashion under fire and took off for Espiritu Santos. When he arrived he found that that field was being shelled; this time by submarines Witaker then flew all the way to New Caledonia landing with hardly any gas in his tanks.
Doc's rest was brief. Five days later he was entrusted with flying Gen. Thomas A. Holcomb, then Marine Corps commandant; Gen. Vandergrift, since pro- moted to commandant; and Maj. Gen. Ralph J. Mitchell into Guadalcanal. The generals were offered separate planes, the story goes, but they all refused in the best Marine tradition, saying that every plane possible was needed for supplies. And every plane was needed. The generals actually rode all the way to Guadalcanal astraddle a huge torpedo which had its long length stretched down the center of the fuselage and propped on the sides by other freight to keep it from rolling in flight. A few days later that torpedo tore the belly out of a Jap warship-- fired there by a pilot of a Grumman torpedo-bomber.
By October the boxcars had really established themselves in the Pacific. They had faced two major crises, besides countless minor ones. They had done a job that many had said was impossible. They had done it under the worst possible conditions. They had helped to make victory a certainty at Guadalcanal.
In that October alone the SCAT pilots flew in to Guadalcanal more than 105 tons of ammunition, gas and supplies; five tons of mail; and 339 passengers. On their trips out they evacuated 498 wounded, they would not live if they remained at the primitive field hospitals Since then SCAT has taken out 2,500 in one month; on one day it took out 400.
Near the end of the month another Marine utility squadrons 152. commanded by Maj. E.W. Seeds, flew out from San Diego and joined the original utility squadron in New Caledonia.
This squadron had all young pilots, and some of the veteran airline pilots then flying SCAT were disposed to look down their noses at them. But those young pilots stayed on to build up a magnificent record. They are the respected veterans of SCAT today.
The first Army squadron to join SCAT, the 13th Troop Carrier, commanded by Capt. Felder W. Cullum, AAF, was next on the scene in October, 1942. Fifty percent of its quota of flyers were staff sergeant pilots. Later, during 1943, one of these pilots, Roger J. Bernard, now a first lieutenant, flew Eleanor Roosevelt on one of the legs of her South Pacific trip.
The Marine squadrons already on the ground had been made up into a group, Marine Air Croup 25. It soon became obvious that since two Marine squadrons and one Arrny squadron were to carry on the same type of work over the same route some sort of merger was in order.
Thus the formal beginnings of SCAT were laid. On January 3, 1943, in a ComSoPac order signed by Adm. Halsey, the merger became a reality. Soon SCAT's far-flung system maintained bases from Australia to the Green Islands, 70 miles beyond Bougainville. It will be difficult to record growth from there on.
The operational organization of SCAT consisting of 700 men and 150 officers, as.ide from the squadrons operating the aircraft (pilots, crews, etc.), is com- manded by Col. Allen C. Koonce, USMC, with Lleut. Col. Harry J. Sands, Jr., AAC, as executive officer and Lt. Col. Van Liew as operations officer.
Col. Koonce, an Annapolis graduate with IS years of flying experience behind hirn as a Marine Corps pilot, is an outstanding example of the experienced flyers and technicians who are running SCAT today.
Lt. Col. Van Liew probably has more air time than any other pilot connected with SCAT. As a Marine reserve officer he was with United Air Lines for nine years as copilot and captain.
Lt. Col. Sands, an Ohio State graduate in mechanical engineering, has built up 3,000 hours in the air during his five years in the AAF.
Assisting the above three officers at SCAT head- quarters are:
Comdr. J.S. Webb, USN, medical officer;
Lt. Col. Harry H. Bullock, USMC, assistant operations officer;
Lt. John C. Lee, USN, air trans- portation officer;
Capt. R.S. McAdams, USMC, mail officer;
Capt. H.H. Schmuckal, AAC, cargo officer;
Lt. J.J. Pringle, USN, supply officer;
1st Lt. Byron A. Kirk, USMC, communications officer;
Lt. G.A. Martell, USNR, statistics officer;
C.W. O. Otto J. Dyhr, USMC,
and WO (ig) W.M. Andrews USA, personnel officers.
By May, 1944, five squadrons were operating under the title of SCAT. Three of these are Marine Corps organizations. Utility squadrons 152, 153, and the original squadron, 253. The other two are from the AAF 403rd Troop Carrier Group, the 13th and 63rd squadrons. All planes, Army and Marine, do the same work and no service distinction is made as to pas- sengers. On any SCAT plane you may ride alongside a Navy commander, a New Zealand infantryman, a Seabee, an Army pursuit pilot, an Australian officer or a Marine Raider.
SCAT's operational control is divided roughly into three divisions which, for the purposes of this article, we shall call the Southern Division, the Middle Division and the Northem Division. The Southern Division is under the command of Capt. W.T. Alliston, USMC; the Middle Division is under Maj. Frank H. Collins, USMC; and the Northern Division is under Maj. J.W. Dyer, USMC. On these men rests a great share of the responsibility for the success or failure of SCAT in all its phases. By the same token they are entitled to a great share of the credit for the impressive record SCAT has compued.
There are Army, Navy and Marine Corps personnel assigned to SCAT. ComSoPac, of which SCAT is an integral part has the unique distinction of being one of the few organizations in the United States armed forces today which successfully combine Army, Navy and Marine Corps personnel into one smoothly operating union. For instance, at one Solomons strip an Army captain commands the SCAT detachment. He has a Navy doctor and a Marine lieutenant to help him, along with several Navy corpsmen, three Marines and one Army meteorologist.
After several months in the jungle, all services are reduced to the almost universal uniform of cutoff dungaree shorts and baseball cap.
ON THE MAINTENANCE LINE
SCAT Maintenance and
Overhaul
By MAG-25 and 403 TC Group Service
Squadrons
Commanding Offeer
Col. William A- Willis, USMC
Executive Officer
Lt. Col. William K- Lanman, Jr., USMC
MAG-25 Command
CO. Capt. Thomas M- Heard, USMC
Executive Officer
Capt. Robert J. Allen, USMC
At all hours of the night and day, SCAT transports must be loaded and unloaded, serviced, checked, passengers weighted in and listed on manifests and cargo from many sources sorted and reloaded. All these and many other unspectacular tasks are done by the bogs, gyrenes and Army G.l.'s of SCAT's enlisted personnel. Around the clock these men are really pitching so that SCAT transports can fly and deliver their vital cargos. Doing most of this drudgery uncomplaining and getting little of the glory for SCAT's fine performance, these enlisted men deserve and are accorded by most of the officers who work with them, a place high on the scroll of honor of the South Pacific Combat Air Transport. They are members of MAG-25 or the 403 TC group service squadrons, or attached directly to SCAT's repair and salvage shops. Both groups have an equally important function-training of pilots, navigators, radiomen and crew chiefs.
Radiomen and mechanics receive final training in the field. Many of the mechanics never worked on anything larger than a Ford engine before being assigned to training with MAG-25 or 403 TCG. But this final training is thorough. Eloquent testimony is the fact that SCAT is now flying many planes which have had more than 1,000 and as high as 1,500 hrs. combat transport service under loads deemed unsafe by the airlines. These transports go through complete overhaul and are back on the night line to leg another 1,000 or 1 ,500 hrs.
The Story of SCAT by
Allen and Carney
was published in a magazine called
Air Transport
Part One in December of 1944
and
Part Two in Januarary1995.
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