The photos were taken 1943 on the Majuro atoll. Dean was there about one year and recalls Majuro as a beautiful spot, even though it was perhaps 20 feet wide at the narrowest point and about 500 feet wide at the widest. The strip was about “four football fields long”. There was a lagoon and some lush vegetation.
They had two squadrons at Majuro, which at the peak, was about 40 SBD’s. They slept in 5 man tents. Using drinking water for other than drinking/eating was pretty much a court marshal offense. Fresh water was derived from sea water (I don’t know what method they used) and the frequent rain water was collected in drums for bathing. Dean recalls reaching out under the tent one rainy night to adjust the rain gutter contraption they had…only to be bitten in the finger by a huge rat. He had to shake the sucker off!
You’ll see some photos that have a sailboat. Dean recalls that another Marine talked him into buying it from someone else…apparently a Marine that was shipped out. Word had it that the CB’s built it..
He also recalls that sorties were mostly dusk or dawn, as they provided the best silhouette of ships on the horizon. Their jobs were bombing boats, keeping enemy airfields on neighboring atolls unusable, and general scouting.
One C.O. was killed his first day.
In their spare time they’d sail in their little boat and fish. The fishing was great, but it was sport, not eating. I guess there’s this contraption with an electric winch that is used to hoist bombs…well….they modified it a bit and used it to reel in a big shark. They took a slab of bait on a hook and line and swam out to the reef and I guess let it float. A shark hit the line and they used the winch to pull it in. You can guess the attitude of the C.O. when the shark started smelling to high heaven….. Boys at play!!
He got shipped out when the Corps decided to bring in different planes….planes they only kept there for about 4 week before bringing back the SBD’s…..but hey, it got Dean closer to home!
Dean can’t recall who the starlet is in the one photo, but that was taken on Majuro.