Wenner Hoffert - World War II Part II
When we left Wenner, he had just completed boot camp and volunteered for Radio School.
From Mirimar, the group of ten was sent to Jacksonville, Florida. The first day they were told that of the 80 that were there, only 40 would make it. The top 10% would leave with the rank of corporal. The last two weeks there were empty seats on every side. Those who flunked out went to Cherry Point where they became ground radio operators. These men soon became buck sergeants.
Wenner passed the course and was assigned flight duty. He was checked out by a psychologist who asked to see his hands. They didn’t want any one on flight duty whose fingernails were bitten. He was asked if he liked girls. He passed both of these tests and then continued with 3 or 4 months of intense training in Jacksonville, Florida. ‘’It was ten times worse than boot camp. It was hot; the sand fleas and mosquitoes bit you; and the discipline was tough. The toughest job you ever have to do is the one you cherish the most.’’ He went to classes to learn Morse code and other skills. He had to decipher 20 words a minute to pass. It was hard because it was so hot that his fingers kept slipping on his pencil.
Still as a PFC, he was then shipped back to Cherry Point and then to Bogue Field near Morehead, North Carolina. There he joined his unit VMSB 331 Squadron. To his amazement he was assigned job training in gunnery school. General Byron said, ‘’Do you doubt our ability to train gunners?’’ So off he went to his two-man plane, the SBD (Scout Bomber Douglas), to learn to man guns, radio and radar. On Wenner’s first flight, the pilot took the plane up to 12,000 feet and then made a dive straight down. Sick and nauseated, that night Wenner was ready to quit. But when he reported the next day, his name was first on the list to go up again. After the second flight he was ready to go.
The two-man prop SBD was capable of carrying a 1,000 pound bomb. It was the same as planes aboard aircraft carriers. It was used in surveillance. According to Wenner, the radar and radio equipment cost more than the rest of the plane.
On October 1, 1943, Wenner went on board the ship Puebla. His ship was build as a German luxury liner, but it sank off the coast of Mexico. Their trip was its maiden voyage after it was restored. Unescorted and after a short time at sea, its diesel engines quit and it was ten days before they could be repaired. The ship was wall to wall with troops and food became short. Wenner remembers that one day all he was given was a half an apple and the next day, a half slice of bread with peanut butter. Altogether the ship took 35 days to reach American Samoa. He was then assigned to Wallis Island which was a leper colony in the old days. Later he had operational duty on the Nukifatu Atoll and then on to patrol duty over Tarawa. Wenner thinks that securing Tarawa was a turning point in the war in the Pacific.
In early February, 1944, Wenner and the VMSB 231 and the 331 squadrons arrived on Majuro in the heart of the enemy held Marshall Islands. For eight months these squadrons alternated in trying to keep the Japanese battered and bewildered on the heavily fortified islands which had been bypassed for invasion.
On March 4, the 331 made the first bombing mission, staged from Majuro against Jaluit Atoll Forty per cent of their planes were hit by intense ack-ack fire even though that atoll, like the other atolls of the Marshalls, Einwetok, Ponape, Wotje, Maloelap, Mille, etc. had received 498 tons of bombs since November by Army and Navy planes. A major goal was to prevent all Japanese planes from leaving or landing from their airstrips on those islands. Our planes pockmarked those airstrips every day. Japanese ships were also targets.
Among the four atolls in the Marshalls that had been leapfrogged (Wotje, Maloelap, Mille and Jaluit) 13,701 Japanese were stationed in heavily fortified positions. Only 6,261 survived, 2,564 were killed in action and 4,876 starved or died of disease. On Mille, 200 were killed trying to dynamite fish which would furnish oil and flavor the boiled rats.
Bombing missions alternated with patrol. The patrol missions were the worst. Eighty per cent of the 331 planes were hit at some time or other by antiaircraft fire. They were patched up again and again. Wenner and his pilot, O.M. Russell also were involved in dropping leaflets stating easy terms if the Japanese surrendered, but none of them ever did.
The End of Part 2
- Percy