Tears in the Darkness Read Free

(agreeing to pay five dollars a week against the balance), and made a deal with a nearby rancher to pasture his mount. His father shipped him a saddle, and every weekend Ben Steele rode out among the cactus and scrub grass. It was hot, sandy country but he didn’t care—he was on a horse, and a horse reminded him of home.
    The Air Corps made him a dispatcher, tracking flights, and after a month or two of this work he got it in his head that he wanted to be a pilot. Never much of a student, he found a math professor at the University of New Mexico to tutor him privately in the algebra and geometry that he would need to pass the exam to become a cadet. He studied for several months and was about to take the test when word came down that the 19th Bombardment Group was being sent overseas.
    â€œYou can’t ship me out,” he told his commanding officer. “I’m fixing to take the cadet exam.”
    â€œOh yeah, we can,” the squadron commander said. “The whole outfit’s goin’.”
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October 3, 1941
    Dearest Mother and Family,
    Thought would drop you a few more lines before departing the U.S.
    Am sailing tomorrow afternoon . . . We don’t know for sure how long we will have to stay in foreign service but hope it isn’t too long, but it may bealright . . . Will write you every chance I get so you will know about where I am at . . . Just heard we were going to the Philippines, but that is just a rumor not certain. Can’t believe a thing you hear around here . . . Don’t worry about anything, because everything is O.K. Will write as soon as I can make connections. It is possible we will stop at some port along the way, and if we do will send you a line.
    Lots of Love to you all
Bud.
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    AMERICA REMEMBERS the attacks on its bases in the Pacific in 1941 as acts of treachery, but to label them “sneak” attacks is more propaganda than plain truth. For more than twenty years, a standing committee of admirals and generals in Washington had been planning against just such an attack. They looked at Japan as America’s chief antagonist in the Pacific, and they knew well the value of surprise and Japan’s history of success with this tactic. The military planners were sure that when war came, it would begin “with a sudden, surprise attack.” They did not know exactly where or precisely when, but they were convinced that the Philippines, just eighteen hundred air miles from Japan and sitting directly between it and the oil- and mineral-rich Indonesian archipelago in the southwest Pacific, would top Japan’s list of targets. So in the early fall of 1941, with war consuming Europe and with the Japanese Army on the march in Asia, American war planners—more in an attempt to deter an attack than defend against it—began to rush cannon, tanks, airplanes, and men to the Philippine Islands. The men of the 19th Bombardment Group, United States Army Air Corps, were part of that consignment. 4
    The
Holbrook
set sail on the evening tide that October 4. In the ship’s galley cooks had prepared a greasy ragout of pork, and as the men passed through the mess line, stewards slopped the dinner on their trays. Later that night the wind picked up, the waves began to swell and the
Holbrook
began to pitch and roll, and it wasn’t long before all that greasy pork began to reappear. Soon the crappers were clogged and the sinks were overflowing.
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October 10, 1941
    Dearest Mother and Family,
    Have been sitting out on the deck this morning watching flying fish. They are about six inches long and sail through the air like a bird . . . The waterhas been sort of rough all the way . . . The ship is bobbing up and down and from one side to the other till I can’t even sit still. Am sitting here on the deck and writing on my knee. Hope you can read this.
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    AFTER HAWAII, the sailing was easy, flat water most of the