The Promise

It was another hot, tropical day in the South Pacific. A distinctive looking blue plane sat on a lone airstrip, awaiting clearance for take off.

The plane, a gull-winged Marine F4U Corsair, taxied to the end of the strip and stopped.  The pilot, a 22-year-old First Lieutenant named Jack Godfrey, turned the giant bird around, pointing south on the runway and eventually out to sea.  The Japanese called the Corsair “Whistling Death” due to the distinctive sound the bent wings made during strafing runs.  She was a beast to fly; but Jack flew her well. He gradually eased the throttle forward, bringing the Marine Corps fighter’s engine to life. The F4U Corsair’s 2,000 hp, 18-cylinder Pratt & Whitney R-2800 radial engine roared as the plane’s prop kicked up dust from the coral airstrip. The silence of the jungle was shaken to life as pilot and his death-whistling chariot headed out on another patrol of “The Slot.”

The Japanese were beginning to taste the bitter taste of revenge for Pearl Harbor.  On that day, Jack Gordon had been on the family farm in Iowa. If not for the December 7th sneak attack, Jack would be on a tractor in the field.  But not now.  His world was changed that fateful Sunday like millions of others.  He and his brothers had been scattered across the globe. His brother Luke had just landed in Normandy.  His other brother Matthew was a pilot of a B-17 bomber.  Little did Jack know that his mother would soon be burying two sons.

These were brutal times. And Jack was facing a brutal enemy.

His Marine brothers in the Corps had fought vicious ground campaigns against the Japanese on islands he had never heard of before. The Navy had battled to the death all across the South Pacific. But in the air, the Japanese pilots and their nimble and quick fighters ruled the day. That was until the Chance Vought Corsair arrived on the scene. It, like the soon-to-arrive Grumman F4F Hellcat turned the tide against the Japanese airmen.  Jack had battled four Japanese Zeros so far. And he had four Japanese flags painted on the side of his plane.  He was one more victory from being an ace.

He remembered the first one like it was yesterday.  His .50 caliber machine guns cut the plane in half, causing the wood and paper plane to explode and burn like a Roman Candle.  The plane’s pilot was cut in half, too. He remembered seeing the poor soul’s burning body fly past his plane.  It was an image that revisited him in his dreams nightly. Sure, he hated the Japanese like everyone else. But some things rock your very humanity.

He looked down at the gauges on his fighter.  Everything looked good as he climbed to his cruising altitude. The Pacific Ocean was the largest body of water on the earth. And if you went down, your chances of rescue were, well, slim.  He looked at this gas gauge, too.  The Pratt & Whitney radial was thirsty.  Feeding the sharks wasn’t on his to-do list.

He was soon joined by six more Corsairs.  They were on a “Fighter Sweep;” a maneuver to taunt the Japanese to coming up from their base and fighting.

“Think we’ll get lucky today?”

The voice of his wingman chimed over his radio.

“Define luck. You mean getting home in one piece or shooting down a Zero?”

Laughter came over the radio. “You sound like an old man, Lieutenant.” It was the voice of the Captain.

“I’d like to become one.” Jack answered with brutal honesty. “Did you hear that ol’ girl? I would like to become an old man.”

Brutal and honesty.  They were two words that had been beaten into him by this war.

Jack adjusted himself in his seat. The flight to the Japanese stronghold of Rabaul would be a long one. There they would be met by a squadron of Army P-38’s. Then the fun would begin.

The dull roar of the Corsair’s engine took his mind back to a cold day in Iowa.  He saw his longtime girlfriend Gail walk away.  “I just hope I see you again.  I just hope I see you again.”

“Six o’clock low,” a voice jarred him awake. “We’ve got company.”

Ten Japanese Zeros flew up to take them on.  Adrenaline pumped through Jack’s veins.  “Got ’em,” he answered back.

The battle looked like a swarm of angry hornets buzzing through the sky. White and blue planes did a three-dimensional dance of death over the Pacific, interrupted by tracer fire and an occasional explosion.  For Jack, flying was as natural as walking. He twisted and turned, using the plane’s natural advantages to full advantage. At one point, he came out of the sun and dove on a Zero that was on the Captain’s tail.  The plane disintegrated has he fired his guns for a long, sustained burst.

“Great job, ACE!” He heard the voice of his Captain cheer.

“You owe me one, Captain!” Jack shouted.  But his celebration was cut short by cannon fire ripping through his plane.  “Dammit! Someone get over here.  I have company.”

The American fighters were blessed self-sealing gas tanks and armored cockpits.  The Japanese Zero, though, had a cannon that could cause all kind of havoc to your plane.  Jack pulled the stick hard to the right, causing the Corsair to weave and then dive. He knew he could run away from the Zero in a dive.  And that would lead him to safety.

“Got him!” another familiar voice chimed in.

“Great,” Jack thought, “But how am I going to get home?”  Black smoke poured from the Corsair’s struck engine.  The oil pressure gauge was beginning to drop.  His cockpit window was covered in burnt oil.  “Someone come down here and join me. I’m lonely and need company.”

Jack knew his plane would be a sitting duck for a Japanese fighter.  Now, he just hoped the Pratt & Whitney could last long enough to get him nearer to home.  “C’mon ol’ girl. I’ll get you on the ground if you get me home.”

Jack remembered his childhood. He remembered his time playing football for Iowa State.  He remembered the smell of his mother’s famous apple pie. When you’re about to die, you remember the strangest things. But the one memory that permeated his mind while he fought his wounded bird was Gail.  He could taste her lips. He felt her hand on the small of his back. He could smell her perfume. “God, let me live through this. I’ll be a changed man.”

A man who had no reason to change was now trying to make a deal for his life.

Miracles do happen, and the Corsair’s engine got the plane back to Vella Lavella Island.  Jack looked out at his stricken wing.  The Japanese cannon shells had walked across his right wing, leaving huge holes in the metal.  They had also hit his hydralic lines, leaving his ability to land the plane in question.

“I still have some control,” he called out to the Captain. “But not much.”

“Bail out!” the Captain barked.

“I think I have this one. I have a promise to keep.”

Jack managed to get the landing gear of the fighter down. He didn’t know whether they were locked or not, but the wheels were down. That, though, committed him to a dry landing and not one on the water.  “I’m coming in,” he said. It would have been easier to bail out. But Jack wasn’t a fan of sharks. He cut the power and lined up on the coral landing strip.  “Here goes nothing.”

“I really want to be an old man. I really, do. Please let me see Gail again. Please let me grow old.”

The Marines on the island watched as the stricken Corsair limped in for a controlled crash.

Jack began to pray loudly as the plane rapidly neared the earth. Three. Two. One. The plane hit. And then there was nothing but darkness.

“Grandpa, are you OK?”

Jack opened his eyes.

The young voice woke Jack out of his daydream. He was sitting in the cockpit of his old Corsair at the Quad City (Iowa) Air Show.

His grandson reached into the cockpit. “Do you need some help getting out?”

Jack smiled, “I got it. Just like I did so many years ago. I got it. Tell your Grandma Gail to come over here and get a picture of me with the ol’ girl.”

Jack Godfrey, fighter ace and winner of the Navy Cross for his heroic landing that day, gingerly stepped out his old plane’s cockpit and onto the wing.  His old plane was repaired after the landing and returned to flight. After the war, it was sold as surplus property to Panama and then brought back to America several years later where it was lovingly restored.  The blue beast looked just like it had on that hot June day in the Solomon Islands.

He walked around to the front of the plane and saw the writing on the engine cowling: “Gail’s Chariot.”  He hugged the big blue bent-wing fighter and said, “Thanks, ol’ girl. Thanks for allowing me to become an old man after all.”

Jack had kept his promise. And the plane had kept its. At the age 90, he was now a very old man.