"Munda was the 'Hell Hole'
of all creation"
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"We
left Espirito Sept. 3rd, 1943 and under cover of darkness
went into Guadlcanal in a transport plane. We stayed
there until Sept.5th. 8 of us escorted a DC-3 transport
filled with the rest of our pilots, (we left our ground
crew at Espirito Santo) to Munda. Munda was the “Hell
Hole” of all creation. Mud was knee deep all over
the place. If you ran off the runway in your plane it
would stick up in the mud & nose over."
-excerpt form diary of Capt. W.O. "Pappy"
Reid |
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"The
trees were all blown to pieces by our shelling and bombing
when the Japs had it. Shell craters were all around
the place Flies were terrible and the stink of dead
Japs was worse. They buried them with bulldozers dozens
at a time and lots of them weren’t covered or
buried at all. We lived in tents that had foxholes on
the inside of them."
-excerpt form diary of Capt. W.O. "Pappy"
Reid |
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"We
raided Kahili, Kieta, and Ballale on Bougainville Island.
Our job was mostly to escort B-24 bombers at 30,000
feet. On my first hop over enemy territory we escorted
B-24’s to Kahili. Several Zeros tried to intercept
us. The last man in the division got shot up pretty
bad and started back home. Williams, the second leader,
went back with him (Joe Craig) to fight the Japs off.
Craig jumped out over close to Vella La Vella and went
into the ocean. Williams attracted the attention of
a boat and started them to the rescue and he went out
of gas, and he made a crash landing 500 yards from Craig."
-excerpt form diary of Capt. W.O. "Pappy"
Reid |
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"In the meantime, Volcansek and I sighted
a lone Zero and dove on him. He missed him and went
on by him as the Zero turned over on his back. I was
behind Volcansek and shot the Zero as he was on his
back and started down into a “Split S”.
He was smoking and going straight down when I saw
him last. Volcansek and I headed for home because
we were low on gas, right after shooting the Zero.
Six Zeros got on our tail so we nosed over and opened
the F4U’s wide open and shook them from our
tail. I ran out of gas right at the field and made
a water landing. I didn’t get hurt and a boat
picked me up. Volcansek ran out of gas just as he
hit the runway. Just as I went in Lt. Johnny Morris’s
motor quit and he went in the water about 300 yards
behind me. He was hurt a little but not bad. "
-excerpt form diary of Capt. W.O. "Pappy"
Reid |
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| Possibly Capt. Reid's ditched F4U off of Munda airfield.
Aircraft shows no visible battle damage and appears
to have made a "perfect" water landing as
told by Lt. Col Reid to the Webmaster. Photo courtesy
of Howard
Sawyer. |
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Flight
Log of Capt. W. O. Reid USMC-R
| Date |
Type
of
Machine |
Number
of
Machine |
Duration
of
Flight |
Character
of
Flight |
Pilot |
Remarks |
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