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SECRET AIR COMMAND SOLOMON ISLANDS SECRET INTELLIGENCE SECTION

HOW TO "WALK AWAY" FROM THE SHORTLANDS:

The following suggestions for pilots landing off Shortland Island have been made by Lt. (JG) E. M. Peck and AOM 2/c S. W. Tefft, whose TBF crashed southeast of Shortland on June 16; 2nd Lt. B. H. King, whose P-38 was shot down (after knocking off 2 Zekes) just off Norgusai Island on July 17; and Ens. J. D. Mitchell, whose TBF went in the water off Shortland on July 18. These men have just returned from the Treasury Island:

1. Attempting to paddle to Vella LaVella from Shortland was difficult as each found a constant wind from the East and Southeast. Storms, which came up suddenly, were usually from the East. 2, Currents in the sea between Shortland and Vella LaVella were Northerly during the day and Southerly at night. 3. Southeast of Shortland there was a Southerly drift which with Easterly winds drove each of the boats Southwest towards the Treasury Island. 4. Suggested heading is the Northern coast of Mono Island (Treasury Group) as the current is in general Southerly around the South of Stirling Island. This area and the coast of Mono Island from Toaloko Point to Stirling Island has steep cliffs and steady 20/30 feet breakers even on calm days. 5. The best landing area is on Mono Island from Soanotalu around to Laifa Point where the sea is calm, the water form 10/15 feet deep along the shore and while there is no beach area, there are frequent indentations along the shore where landings can be made. 6. The natives live in the village of Falamai on the south coast but spend several days a week working their gardens in the flat land near the coast from Malsi (known by natives as Maloini) around to Laifa Point. On September 28, 128 Japs (evacuees from Rekata) arrived, bringing the total on the island to 135, and the natives reported that the Japs were building 1- man outposts at Laifa Point, Malsi and Toaloko Point. They may establish other outposts and natives recommended to our pilots that when landing, pilots should hide out, near a trail, clearing or garden if possible, and wait for natives to appear. Natives are quite well educated, many speaking some English. They are friendly, disliking the Japs as they receive no medical aid from them as they formerly did from British, and they took excellent care of our pilots. They caution pilots not to leave signs of their presence; bury your chocolate wrappers and ration cans, and away from the trails.

It is our prayer that the Great Commission is still being exercised in this uttermost part of the world and if God would so see fit, I would like to someday in the not too distant future return to the Hallowed place. May those that are continuing in that work still have some of the supplies that were brought by the "Black Cats" of 54 doing their good works in 1943, there was so much but if after 40 plus years the supplies are exhausted, I pray that God had others of his that were doing good deeds and the supplies both physical and spiritual have been bountiful on the whole island of San Cristobal.

Now let us move "up the slot" to Bougainville, to Sterling and Mono Islands and look at the "Black Cats" doing good works for necessary uses.

The writer was a lifelong friend of Ed. Peck. Ed came from a big family of devout Catholics and he was also a fine athlete. In 1938 when 9" softball was at its height in popularity, Ed Peck played short field and the writer was catcher for a team that was the City Softball Champions in 1938. Ed Peck is in the back row upper left of this picture.

We all know that before Pearl Harbor that the War Clouds were growing darker with every passing day. As we reflect we are amazed that we were so ill prepared in 1941 but no one could imagine the all-out war that came. Today we are treading along a similar walkway. We all pray that it will be God's will that another conflict never be allowed to happen, but if it does, it is the prayer of us all that we shall have the foresight to "Be Prepared."

It was sometime in the fall of 1941 that Ed Peck and I answered a challenge. If you can remember the posters in front of the Post Offices. Well, one of these had a pair of Navy Gold Wings emblazoned across the poster with a simple challenge to any youthful competitor.

"DO YOU HAVE THAT SOMETHING EXTRA?"

This challenge caught our eyes and we decided to answer, and just see! Well, we made the team. Our paths were separated because he went into Torpedo Bombers, flying the big-bellied TBF or TBM.

We met on our way going down "South" in 1943 in Suva (the Capitol of the Fiji Islands); By the way, the "Black Cat" lumbering along doing long and tedious searches for anything enemy, whether it be shipping, submarines, barges or aircraft. Then to go over Munda or Vella LaVella and drop our "mighty" 250 # bombs blindly, but also to have at least a couple of cases of beer bottles for the boys to throw out the blisters. You would be surprised at the noise an empty beer bottle makes when dropped from several hundred feet. We felt like then, and we still believe, that the "Black Cats" with their harassment raids every night caused the Japs many hours of sleeplessness and thus resulted in them being less alert and more sleepy when they were contacted during the daylight hours.

On the 16th day of June, 1943, Lt. Cmdr. McDonough and his crew were given orders to take off from Henderson Field, proceed to Munda for fuel and food and then to rendezvous with the TBM-TBF and Fighters F4U Corsairs and F4F Wildcats over the harbor of Kahili on the southern end of Bougainville.

The Japs had fallen back in the Solomons and although they had many troops on Vella LaVella and other islands, their decisions had been to make this their stronghold, Bougainville, with heavy fortifications at Kahili. It was a perfect protective deep bay for shipping. Its beaches are perfect for storage of supplies and our coast watchers and intelligence gave us information that it was well fortified, with many men, airstrip and planes and anti-aircraft guns.

Our orders were to rendezvous at a give time and for those of you who have forgotten, the ole "Black Cats" had some special made tubes for us to release 500,000 candle power flares for illumination. The "Black Cats" had encountered much shipping coming southward to Bougainville and the day patrols had verified that they were in the Kahili Harbor.

We did our job and the TBFs and TBMs played havoc with the ships at anchor. If the Japs even attempted to get any planes in the air we did not ever know, but those boys doing torpedo runs at night and skip bombing were doing a great job and playing havoc with the Jap ships but then the anti-aircraft fire of all size and description started to fill the air. Now remember the "Black Cats" were to illuminate and if possible, do "Dumbo" work. We saw this TBF start a slow spiral with smoke coming from the engine. We followed them to the water and the plane made a beautiful water landing. We saw them make their life raft and were able to see that they seemed not injured.

The "Great Commission" had not been so effective or maybe had not reached Central Bougainville. Our coast watchers advised us that there were still tribes of Head Hunters on Bougainville, but on Sterling and Mono Island composing the Treasury Island group the missionaries had been there and the natives were Christian.

Maybe we could have made a night sea landing and reached these three people. The wind was high and the swells so big this near the island made this almost impossible and we still had ten more flares to drop to carry out our original orders. So we returned to our efforts of illumination and somehow felt that those boys would get in good hands. We prayed so anyway. If the writer had know this was Ed Peck, there is no doubt the end of this story would have not been the same.

Years later the writer and Tefft met at a reunion. I wish to cite this small part of this incident so as to convey to you just what "That Something Extra" meant. Tefft said the plane had stayed afloat for over three minutes but that within 50 seconds he and Scott had gotten on the wing, pulled out the life raft and had it inflated and was yelling for Peck to come on.

Well, first Peck had to destroy his bomb sight. A must order. He must dispose of his code book of the day which was bound in a lead folder and do the other procedural abandon plane drills that we had been taught.

Anyway, if you knew Peck and his "by the numbers" attitude in anything he did - sports, studies - anything, you would appreciate this story even more. As they were rowing away from the sinking plane, Peck who never used profanity turned to Tefft and used his first curse word saying "Damn, I forgot to turn off the ignition switches." Tefft said that in all of the seriousness of the situation he could not help but just laugh out loud!

Two days later I found out about Peck, and for weeks I received letters from Mr. and Mrs. Peck - wires through the Red Cross. Somehow I knew that the "Great Commission" was working and although I knew nothing, I kept reassuring Mr. and Mrs. Peck with letters. My mother kept for me the printed stories that follows. I am sure Will Oursler can certainly tell the story better than I could attempt to, especially when it was told the day Ed Peck got back to our camp.

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