May 21, 1943 (Friday)

“Cactus,” Carney Field, Guadalcanal

Patrolled over the equator north of Nauru. Good weather (except for a front over the Solomons); saw nothing. 

Lane (of VB-102) got tangled up with a Mitsubishi 96 which tried to lead him into Kieta, but he declined.

When I took off in 101-B-6 this morning my prop governor quit on #2 engine so I circled once and landed again. Took out one of VB-102’s new (nose and tail turret) PB4Ys. A very nice plane; I wish we had them. It flies about 5 mph faster than ours due to the added weight forward. Not quite as nice to land though as they drop like a rock when the engines are cut. 

When I got back I found that we had all been ordered to return to Button! I told the Skipper that it was like working for an insane asylum! 

Also told him that these patrols we fly out of Button are positively the most useless and wasteful in the whole Pacific area. The vital area that we cover out of Button could be covered in half the time by half the planes flying out of Milne Bay in New Guinea. 

The only useful patrol we’ve ever flown are these 800 mile jobs we fly out of here in an arc extending from a point north of Kavieng, through a point about 300 miles south of Truk, to a point north of Nauru Island. 

The fatheads that are responsible for this idiocy and this tremendous waste of gasoline should be court-martialed! 

No raid last night, but the results of the previous nights raid are apparent in bandages and bruises from a mass rush for the foxhole. The description is really funny. Twenty-seven of our gang were asleep in their hut when Charlie returned and announced his presence with a bomb only a few hundred yards away. Immediately 25 of them jumped up and ran for the two small doors. Sam Glover led the rush to one end; as he near the door Maury Noyer jumping out of his bed collided head-on with him. Sam fell down and 10 people fell on top of them. There was much frantic scrambling while they extricated themselves and rushed on out of the foxhole. Knudson was in the lead by this time and as he faltered a moment at the steps leading down into the hole, someone kicked him and he fell down the steps and cut his forehead open. The rest all fell in on top of him, damn near smothering each other.