“Cactus,” Carney Field, Guadalcanal

This horses ass of a skipper of VB-102 (Van Voorhis) cooked up a night strike for six planes (3 of 101’s and 3 of 102’s) last night in stinking weather. They left here at dusk to attack one CL and three DDs near Treasury Island on their way south to bombard Rendova. The ceiling was 500 feet with heavy rain. Within an hour most of them were lost. No one ever saw the target and it was only by the grace of God that they all managed to find their way back to the field on radar.

Lousy weather all day. Fellows returning from patrol were exhausted from fighting instrument weather the entire patrol. 300,000 square miles of foul weather!

This evening that bastard Van Voorhis cooked up another strike but the Japs didn’t materialize. I was scheduled for it, but fully intended refusing to take off. I came down here to get killed by the Japs, not to ram a mountain on instruments; I could’ve done that the States in comfort!

A Lt.(j.g.) here by the name of Wroble spent a year in the States going to five different Navy ordinance schools to become an aerial mine expert. Sent down here on rush orders he was assigned to FABU 13 and is now fully occupied as an assistant male censor, with very little hope of ever using his training. C’est la Guerre!