contributed by: Ed Beck
Dave Law covered our Baker Crew march in one of his Baker Crew tales, but I wanted to add my memories to what Dave wrote.
This march remains vivid in my memory, especially since it probably was the most trying endeavor in my short AF career. We made the march to get points for a "Crew of the Month" contest that the 313th had started - a contest that awarded points for several things, including performance of military functions.
We embarked on our march with a small field pack including "C" or "K" rations for lunch; and our M-16 carbines (with clips but no ammo). Our march was in June or July. I remember that our march day was the hottest day (to the march date) in 1957. (And, of course, memory now makes it entirely the hottest day in 1957!). I do remember seeing in the paper the next day where the Marines went on a 25 mile march the same day - and half the group were overcome by the heat. Our march was in the neighborhood of 28-30 miles, and we only had one drop-out!
Our first "thrill" was going out the back gate of the base and marching through the town just outside the gate (I believe the town's name was Nago). Anyway, the town was controlled by Communists (remember them?) and was generally off limits to our base. So, starting out the morning marching through the Commie city with carbines on our shoulder kept us on edge - as it must have the residents. But, we marched through with no incidents (and really seeing no adult Okinawans). After clearing Nago, we were quite a treat for the Okinawan children; we encountered many, many curious and friendly children on the way.
Eventually, we reached our goal of Itoman Beach; and we fell out to relax, have lunch, and enjoy the beach and the water. Our enjoyment came to a brief and abrupt halt that sent us scurrying for any cover we could find. One of our Airmen came walking out of the water announcing, "Gee, look what I found"! He was carring an old, rusted hand gernade in his right hand!! (It was almost a monthly occurance reading about a native who had been killed or maimed by an old, exploding WWII explosive). But, our controller, Lt. Qvale, was able to get our Airman to dispose of the gernade (I think he threw it back in the ocean). By the way and coincidentally, this was the same Airman who succumbed to the heat and had to be transported back to the base.
On our march out to the beach, we had all used most of our canteen water supplies (and, we weren't supposed to drink the native water). So, you can imagine our relief when the 313th NCOIC (I forgot his title and name, but he was part of our headquarters staff) arrived in a Jeep with 2-3 five gallon cans of water for us. We drank to our heart's content, then refilled our canteens and embarked on the march back to Naha. Unfortunately, the can we refilled our canteens from had previously had gasoline in it - enough to make the water so bad that we could not drink it. So, we headed back in the heat with little or no water.
About 2/3 of the way back, we were all out of water and exhausted. And, to make matters worse, poor Lt. Qvale's feet had blistered and the blisters had burst. I still remember his bloody feet and socks. Anyway, we took a break by the side of the road and an Okinawan farmer offered us water to drink and to refill our canteens. I don't think any of us thought about the warning to "not drink the water" as we quinched our thirst and refilled our canteens. We then continued our march with no further incidents or problems (and, Lt. Qvale completed the march although he could hardly walk).
In the very early evening, we made it back to our barracks - a tired but happy bunch of Airmen. Unfortunately, even with all this work, we did not win the "Crew of the Month" competition for that month.
Our crew did make another march later in the year that garnered us that coveted "Crew of the Month". Unfortunately, when we made that one, I was back in the US on emergency leave and did not participate.
These marches, as well as the other competition with the other ADCC crews, went hand in hand in devloping the comradarie among a bunch of young men with tremendously varied backgrounds and ethnic upbringings. And, of course, this is what memories are made of.
