Berowne's 140

(For Three-Word Wednesday and ABC Wednesday: "O" is for "Outta here!")

Somehow, the above reminds me of a medal.
What with Veterans Day coming up shortly, I realize that I’ve never told you about my Silver Star.
From time to time in this space, I’ve reported on some of the heroic adventures I was involved in during World War II. It usually turned out that they weren’t all that heroic, but they were adventures nonetheless.
So now I’d like to tell you about the medal that’s one of the highest awards for gallantry in action. Here’s the story.

In 1943 I was convalescing in a jungle hospital in New Guinea, the huge island that dangles just north of Australia. The hospital was in an American camp not far from Lae, which was the major Japanese base on that island.
This seemed to give them the idea that they had the right to bomb the hell out of the Yanks just to the south. I don’t think they had the field hospital I was in as the main target; it just appeared that way.

When the radar signaled that bombers were on their way, the patients who could move were supposed to stagger from their beds and hop out into one of the slit trenches that surrounded the place. Thus entombed, they could neatly lie in perfect comfort as they listened to the bombs gradually getting closer.

When they returned they would find that a platoon of New Guinea insects of all known sizes and shapes had taken over their bed, insects who had obviously moved in to stay. You have not lived till you have tried to sleep with huge insects each as large as a Swiss Army knife crawling over you.
All of which got me to thinking: get me outta here!
After all, I wasn’t performing any labor or doing anything. I wasn’t contributing to the war effort; I was just convalescing. I could convalesce to the south in Brisbane, Australia, just as well. Especially because that’s where my good friend Shirley M. lived.
So one day I quietly exited the hospital and headed for the airport. I found a pilot who was getting ready to fly to Port Moresby – the jumping-off point for Australia – and I asked if I could hitch a ride. I said I was desperate to rejoin my ship so I could continue fighting the war, and so on. (I didn’t mention Shirley.) He said okay, so off we went, into the wild blue etcetera.

The flight was scary; to get to Port Moresby you had to fly in a fairly small plane – no 747s then - over a huge jungle mountain range, with the ever-present possibility of an attack by the Japanese on the way.
So that was it. Not worth a Silver Star, you say? Well, I didn’t think it was either – until...
Years later I read about President Lyndon Johnson, and I was especially interested in his World War II record. He had been awarded the Silver Star.
When he was a congressman he thought it would help his career if he had a war record. He joined up and was immediately upgraded to Navy lieutenant-commander.

He was sent to the south Pacific as an observer. He wound up in Port Moresby and he climbed aboard one of eleven B-26 bombers that were getting ready to take off for an attack on the Japanese air base at Lae. It was definitely a dangerous operation. A number of the planes of the group were hit and one was shot down with everyone aboard killed.
However, not long after takeoff Johnson’s plane had developed generator trouble and had to turn back.

General Douglas Macarthur, in charge out there, believed that LBJ was a popular political figure who looked as though he had an important future - and the General needed all the friends he could get in the U S Congress - so he awarded Johnson the Silver Star.
So I wondered, where’s my Silver Star? I flew that same route in the same war. True, I did nothing heroic and the vital war mission I was on was to see my girlfriend in Brisbane. However, as far as action was concerned, I had seen plenty of that trying to dodge bombs, not to mention insects, back at the jungle hospital.

By the way, here’s a brief note of historical interest. The airport at Lae had become world famous a few years earlier.
In 1937 Amelia Earhart, on her round-the-world flight, landed at Lae. It was on July 2nd, at midnight, that she took off from Lae airport, never to be seen again.

(Also submitted to Sunday Scribblings)