The Color of War Read online

  ALSO BY JAMES CAMPBELL

  The Final Frontiersman

  The Ghost Mountain Boys

  Copyright © 2012 by James Campbell

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Crown Publishers,

  an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group,

  a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  www.crownpublishing.com

  CROWN and the Crown colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Campbell, James.

  The color of war: how one battle broke Japan and another changed America / James Campbell. —1st ed.

  p. cm.

  1. Port Chicago Mutiny, Port Chicago, Calif., 1944. 2. Port Chicago Mutiny Trial, San Francisco, Calif., 1944. 3. World War, 1939–1945—Participation, African American. 4. United States. Navy—African Americans—History—20th century. 5. World War, 1939–1945—Campaigns—New Guinea. I. Title.

  D810.N4C36 2012

  940.54’5308996073079463—dc23 2011023913

  eISBN: 978-0-307-46123-0

  Maps by Joe LeMonnier

  Jacket design by Gabriele Wilson

  Jacket photographs: (top) W. Eugene Smith/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images; (bottom) Schomburg Center, NYPL/Art Resource, NY

  v3.1_r1

  In memory of my mother-in-law,

  Elaine DeGaetano Harvey

  Show me the two so closely bound

  As we, by the wet bond of blood.

  — ROBERT GRAVES

  I believe as long as we allow conditions to exist

  that make for second-class citizens, we are making

  of ourselves less than first-class citizens.

  — DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  A GUIDE TO THE BOOK’S MAJOR CHARACTERS

  MAPS

  FOREWORD

  PROLOGUE

  1. “Another Sunday, Another Pearl Harbor Attack”

  2. Big Dreams

  3. Leaving Texas

  4. Mosquitoes, Mud, and Mayhem

  5. Semper Fi

  6. Eleanor Roosevelt’s Niggers

  7. The Right to Fight

  8. The First

  9. Port Chicago

  10. Bombs for the Black Boys

  11. Like a Dog on a Bone

  12. A War of Their Own

  13. A Desolate Place

  14. Whom Are We Fighting This Time?

  15. Waiting for War

  16. Broken Promises

  17. Ernie King’s Beloved Ocean (the Strategic Picture)

  18. Baptism by Fire

  19. Paradise

  20. Camp Tarawa

  21. Ernie King’s Victory

  22. Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition

  23. Where Young Men Go to Die

  24. The Terrible Shore

  25. A Long, Bitter Struggle

  26. A Healthy Spirit of Competition

  27. The Devil’s Backbone

  28. Valley of the Shadow of Death

  Photo Insert

  29. Tapotchau’s Heights

  30. Gyokusai

  31. Red Flags

  32. Island of the Dead

  33. Hot Cargo

  34. End of the World

  35. Down the Barrel of a Gun

  36. Proving Mutiny

  37. Putting the Navy on Trial

  38. Punishing the Seamen

  39. The Sins of a Nation

  EPILOGUE

  NOTES

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A GUIDE TO THE BOOK’S MAJOR CHARACTERS

  U.S. COMMAND STRUCTURE

  Admiral Ernest King: commander in chief, United States Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations

  Admiral Chester Nimitz: commander of the Pacific Fleet

  Admiral Raymond Spruance: commander of the United States 5th Fleet (originally the Central Pacific Force)

  Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner: commander of the Joint Expeditionary Force and Northern Attack Force and commander of the amphibious landing

  General Holland “Howlin’ Mad” Smith: commander V Amphibious Corps and commander of all expeditionary troops

  General Douglas MacArthur: commander in chief Southwest Pacific Area

  General George Marshall: U.S. Army chief of staff

  Frank Knox: secretary of the Navy

  James Forrestal: secretary of the Navy following Knox’s death

  Vice Admiral Randall Jacobs: chief of naval personnel

  SAIPAN

  Second Lieutenant Carl Roth: E Company, 23rd Regiment, 4th Marine Division

  Gunnery Sergeant Emberg Townsley: E Company

  Robert Graf: E Company, from Ballston Spa, New York

  Dick Crerar: E Company, Graf’s buddy

  Bill More: E Company, Graf’s buddy

  Lieutenant James Stanley Leary Jr: G Company, 23rd Regiment, 4th Marine Division, from Ashokie, North Carolina

  Sergeant Jack Campbell: G Company, platoon sergeant

  Carl Matthews: G Company, Gold Dust Twin, from Hubbard, Texas

  Richard Freeby: G Company, Gold Dust Twin, from Quanah, Texas

  Wendell Nightingale: G Company, from Skowhegan, Maine

  Sergeant John Rachitsky: “Bastard” Battalion, 29th Marines

  Frank “Chick” Borta: “Bastard” Battalion, 29th Marines, from Chicago

  Glen “Pluto” Brem: “Bastard” Battalion, 29th Marines, from Gilroy, California

  Richard Carney: “Bastard” Battalion, 29th Marines, from Bronx, New York

  Milt Lemon: “Bastard” Battalion, 29th Marines, from Texas Panhandle

  MONTFORD POINT

  Edgar Lee Huff: One of Montford Point’s first black recruits, from Gadsden, Alabama

  Colonel Samuel Woods: commanding officer of Montford Point

  PORT CHICAGO

  Black Seamen

  George Booth: carpenter striker, Division #4, from Detroit

  Sammie Lee Boykin: carpenter striker, ammunition handler and winch operator, Division #1, from Bessemer, Alabama

  Percy Robinson, Jr.: hold boss and winch operator, Division #4, from Chicago

  Spencer Sikes: boxcar inspector and shore patrol, from West Palm Beach, Florida

  Joe Small: cadence caller and winch operator, Division #4, from Middlesex County, New Jersey

  White Officers

  Lieutenant Ernest Delucchi: head of Division #4

  Captain Nelson Goss: commanding officer at Mare Island and Port Chicago

  Lieutenant Commander Alexander Holman: head loading officer and officer in charge of training

  Captain Merrill Kinne: officer-in-charge of the Port Chicago Naval Magazine

  Lieutenant Commander Glen Ringquist: assistant loading officer

  Lieutenant Richard Terstenson: assistant loading officer

  Lieutenant James Tobin: head of Division #2

  Lieutenant Raymond Robert “Bob” White: junior officer in charge of Division #3

  KEY FIGURES OF ALLEGED MUTINY AND TRIAL

  Black Seamen

  Ollie Green: witness for the defense

  Joseph Gray: witness for the prosecution

  Edward Longmire: witness for the defense

  Alphonso McPherson: witness for the defense

  Edward Stubblefield: witness for the prosecution

  Joe Small: witness for the defense

  Thurgood Marshall: chief counsel of the NAACP’s Legal and Educational Defense Fund

  White Officers

  Lieutenan
t Commander Charles Bridges: executive Officer Mare Island Naval Barracks

  Lieutenant Commander James Coakley: head of the prosecution team

  Lieutenant Commander Jefferson Flowers: chaplain, Mare Island

  Rear Admiral Hugo Osterhaus: head of the seven-member general court martial

  Lieutenant Gerald Veltmann: head of the defense team

  Rear Admiral Carleton Wright: commandant of the Twelfth Naval District

  FOREWORD

  The inspiration for the African American portion of this story dates back to 2005 when I began writing The Ghost Mountain Boys. While researching that book, I first found out about the 96th Engineers, a group of black laborers that braved snakes, malaria, endless rain, and some of the roughest terrain on the planet to build roads, airfields, and piers throughout New Guinea. En route to the island, their ship docked in Brisbane and Townsville, Australia. In both places they were refused entrance to the city. The story of the 96th is told by one of its white officers, Captain Hyman Samuelson.

  If not for Captain Samuelson, the travails and accomplishments of the 96th might have gone unmentioned. Black narratives about the war, and historical accounts of the contributions of black servicemen to it, are hard to find. According to historian Ulysses Lee, who conducted a study titled “The Employment of Negro Troops” for the U.S. Center of Military History, Negro units in the Pacific were primarily “quartermaster, port, and engineer types, attached to divisions, engineer special brigades, construction groups, or boat and shore battalions.” In light of General Douglas MacArthur’s comment that the war in the Pacific was an “engineer’s war,” one in which military support groups played a critical role, the lack of black history struck me as conspicuous. Certainly the extraordinary victories could not have happened without the support of a great war machine and the forgotten sacrifices of the men behind the scenes.

  African American servicemen performed their jobs ably. Then why was there not a larger record of their achievements, I wondered. Certainly a pervasive racism accounted for the military establishment’s historic reluctance to use black troops in battle. Perhaps much of that same racism prevailed when chronicling the history of the Good War. Perhaps, too, it was a function of mythology. The reality of the black experience does not conform nicely with the celebrated stories of white heroism and sacrifice.

  Black servicemen were often treated as nuisances and troublemakers. Soldiers were court-martialed, hanged, beaten, mugged, belittled, and forced to endure the indignities and humiliations of Jim Crow wherever they went. If, as William Manchester writes, the war provided a “tremendous impetus to egalitarianism,” that egalitarianism was resisted by both the military and the country at large. The Baltimore Afro-American published an editorial saying that the war would help blacks to “breathe the air of freedom.” The truth was that African Americans had to fight fiercely for the advances they made. Perhaps nothing captures the reality of that ordeal like the story of the Port Chicago Naval Ammunition Depot.

  PROLOGUE

  From deep in the hold, the black sailors looked up and saw the six-foot-long, one-ton projectile looming above them momentarily blotting out the light of the sun. The white lieutenant who was supervising the loading had told them that these were the weapons that were going to save America’s boys in the Central Pacific.

  Although the dock’s crew had replaced the old, overworked cable and had attached steadying wires to the shell’s nose and tail to keep it from bucking, the sweating men, dozens of feet down in the gut of the ship, knew that a sudden strain could snap the cable like a dead branch. The ugly green monster would come hurtling toward them. Fortunately their best man was on the winches. Slow and steady, they thought as they craned their necks. Set it down like a newborn baby.

  The winch driver put the projectile on the floor of the deck and the crew unhooked the harnesses. Now came the hard part. Using five-foot steel pinch bars, four sailors maneuvered the shell toward the bulkhead. The idea was to do it as gently as possible without banging it. Once they had positioned the shell just right, someone would take a pinch bar and wedge it in just behind the nose while the three men spun the tail.

  The plan was to put down the first layer before their shift was over. If they succeeded, the loading officer might reward them with a twelve-hour pass. Most of them, though, would barely make it to the showers. After manhandling shark-sized shells all day, few would have the energy to hit the town.

  Once the sailors got the shell moving, the hold’s crew chief yelled up to the signalman. Up above, the sailors had wrestled another projectile off the boxcar and put it on the pier. The goal was to keep the process moving: while one was being stored, another was being lowered. Days later, filled with nearly 9,000 deadweight tons of cargo, the liberty ship would steam downriver, past the city of San Francisco and out into the Pacific Ocean.

  The white lieutenant boasted that the Navy would use the two-thousand-pounders to plaster godforsaken South Seas islands, paving the way for the Marines to come in and kill every Jap soldier they could. High-capacity projectiles would scatter shrapnel that could slaughter or maim everything in its path. The armor-piercing shells would put gashes in the hulls of enemy ships or shatter their bunkers like a bunch of boys blowing up woodchuck holes. This was the kind of patriotic talk that the lieutenant thought would motivate the men. They were not allowed to carry rifles and fight. They were not permitted to do anything more than serve as stewards or cooks aboard ship. But they could load ammunition. They could do their part.

  As the shell neared the ship’s hull, the men realized that it was rolling too fast. When the aluminum nose hit the steel ladder with a loud clang, they jumped back and everyone tensed. The projectile hissed like a boiler spitting steam, and red dye leaked from a puncture hole. The black sailors ran for the ladders, fleeing to escape the hold before the flying metal tore everything apart. In the mad scramble, two men tumbled from the ladder. Later both would be taken to sick bay, one with a broken arm and another with a fractured leg. Up on the deck of the ship, the men ran to the gangway. Before they could dash across to the pier, the white lieutenant shouted for them to stop.

  “There’re no fuzes* in them damn projectiles,” he cried. “They’re harmless.”

  Then one of the black sailors told him that it was hissing like a snake.

  “That’s spotting dye,” he said. “You’re lucky it wasn’t filled with Torpex. Then it won’t matter how fast you run.”

  * The official Navy spelling, which will be used throughout.

  CHAPTER 1

  “Another Sunday,

  Another Pearl Harbor Attack”

  On May 20, 1944, Robert Graf’s landing ship, tank (LST) 43 arrived in Pearl Harbor. Although the LST was capable of twelve knots on the open water, the captain had powered down the big General Motors diesel engines. As it made its way past Battleship Row, young Robert Graf and his fellow Marines assembled at the ship’s rails. For many, it was the first time they would see the destruction caused by the December 7, 1941, Japanese military strike. Graf looked out and saw a battleship lying on her side like an injured fish gasping for air. Beside him, a sailor spoke: “The Arizona—sunk.” The sailor paused long enough for the men to absorb the reality of the disaster: the hulking, 600-foot ship and nearly 1,200 men aboard, lost. Then he continued: “The California—sunk; the Maryland—damaged; the Nevada—beached; the Oklahoma—sunk; the Pennsylvania—damaged; the Tennessee—damaged; the Utah—sunk; the West Virginia—sunk.” Graf felt his stomach knot up. Two and a half years had passed since he’d first heard the words he had vowed not to forget: “The Japanese are attacking Pearl Harbor.” He clenched his fists as tears welled in his eyes. Then, lowering his head, he mumbled a prayer.

  The convoy then separated and the various vessels went to anchorages throughout the harbor’s West Loch channel. One and a half miles from shore, LST 43 tied off to two other LSTs anchored in the middle of a group of eight. The Navy called this gathering of shi
ps a “tare.” A sailor dropped the hook to prevent drifting. Graf looked around West Loch, the staging area for the first two waves of the upcoming invasion of Saipan. It was full of 330-foot LSTs, all grouped in tares, and all packed with Marines, many of whom would be going into battle for their first time.

  Originally designed to deliver troops during island assaults, LSTs had been replaced by 1944. Encouraged by huge shipbuilding budgets, American engineers experimented with designs ideally suited to the island campaign of the Central Pacific and developed smaller, more versatile amphibious vehicles. Amtracs capable of transporting a platoon of men through the surf and onto an invasion beach took the place of the durable LSTs, which, with their 2,100-ton capacity, were increasingly used to transport troops, wounded soldiers, and cargo across the Pacific Ocean.