"Stand by, Marine One One."
"One One standing by. We are now at three thousand feet, and have the field in sight."
There was a sixty-second delay, during which the two Corsairs dropped below two thousand feet.
"Attention all aircraft in the vicinity of K-l. Be on the lookout for two Marine Corsair aircraft approaching from the east at low level. They will make a low-level, low-speed pass over this field. Marine One One, you are cleared for one low-level, low-speed pass, east to west."
"Thank you ever so much," Pick's voice said. Then, over the air-to-air radio: "Billy, you get that?"
"Affirmative," Lieutenant Colonel Dunn said into his microphone.
"Low and slow, Billy," Pick ordered. "Here we go."
Dunn saw Pick put the nose of his Corsair down, and fol-lowed him. Pick dropped to about a thousand feet over the water, and lower than that once they crossed the shoreline.
"Flaps and wheels, Colonel, sir," Pick's voice said.
The airport was dead ahead.
Dunn's Corsair slowed as he lowered the gear and ap-plied flaps. The airspeed indicator, after a moment, showed that he was close to stalling speed. The airfield was dead ahead; Dunn saw a Navy R5D transport turning off the runway.
Well, he apparently meant low and slow. Why did I think we were going to buzz the place at 400 knots?
Why do I always suspect that Pick will do something crazy?
What he's doing here makes sense. I can see all I really need to know about this airfield making a low and slow. You can't see much from the cockpit of a Corsair on the ground.
This made sense.
They flew straight down the main runway. They were al-most at the end of it and Dunn had reached the gear control when Pick's Corsair, its wheels and flaps going up, raised the nose and gained speed.
"Thank you, K-l," Pick's voice came over the air-to-ground. "You may now tell all your friends that the Marines are here and almost landed."
That's why. He didn't have to get on the air like that.
There's something about Pick that makes him show his ass.
"Having seen just about all the Pusan offers," Pick's voice came over the air-to-air, "we will take a quick look at picturesque Chinhae, not far from here, which will take Piper Cubs and those helicopters, but where landing a Cor-sair would be a little hairy."
Chinhae was maybe thirty miles from Pusan, and Pick- with Dunn copying him-lowered his flaps and gear and flew over it. There was a single runway, with a half dozen Army light aircraft parked on the west side of it.
Dunn saw enough of it to be able to report to General Cushman that it would be usable by the Piper Cubs and helicopters of the brigade's observation squadron when they arrived.
"And now to Taegu," Pick's voice came over the air. "The second-largest city in unoccupied South Korea."
It was a flight of just a few minutes. Pick had climbed to 3,500 feet, and Dunn could see from the exposed, raw earth where trenches and other positions had been built southeast of the city, as if in anticipation that the enemy would take Taegu.
"And the war, Billy, begins just a little farther north." He switched to the air-to-ground.
"Marine Four One One. Any air controller in the area."
There was no reply, and Pick repeated the call. And again there was no reply.
"Aw, come on, fellas, any air controller in the area. We have two Marine F4-U's up here ready, willing, and able to shoot up anything you think deserves a shot."
And again, there was no reply.
Pick switched to the air-to-air frequency.
"Can you believe that, Billy? You think they're asleep? Maybe too proud to call on the Marines?"
"There has to be a reason," Dunn replied.
When he'd heard Pick calling, Dunn had thought there would be far more calls from the ground than they could possibly respond to.
`To hell with it," Pick said. "Let's go shoot up a choo-choo."
A "choo-choo"? Now, what the hell?
"Say again?"
"You never saw those wing camera shots of the Air Corps shooting up trains in Europe? I always wanted to try that, but I never saw one damned choo-choo in all of War Two."
"There was one on the `Canal," Dunn said, with a clear memory of an ancient, tiny, shot-to-pieces steam locomo-tive in his mind's eye, "but somebody shot it up before I had a chance. Is there a rail line around here?"
"I found a couple in my trusty Navion," Pick reported. "Let's hope we get lucky."
Ten minutes later, they got lucky.
"Nine o'clock, Billy," Pick's voice came over the air-to-air.
Dunn looked.
A train, a long train-mixed boxcars, flatcars, and tank cars-powered by two steam locomotives, was snaking along a river.
"I'm going to break left and get pretty close to the deck, and then turn back," Pick said. "I've got dibs on the loco-motive. In the unlikely event I miss, you can try on a sec-ond pass."
"Dibs on the locomotive"! Are you never going to grow up? Good God, you're a Marine field-grade officer!
"I'll be on your tail, Pick," Dunn said over the air-to-air.
And then Pick surprised him again, by rapidly picking up speed, as soon as he had broken to the left.
You can hit a lot more if your throttles aren't at the fire-wall. You know that. What the hell is the matter with you?
Pick completed his turn, and not more than 500 feet above the undulating terrain, turned back toward the train-
-from three or four cars of which came lines of tracer shells.
My God! Why didn't I think about antiaircraft fire?
You make a much harder target if you're flying as fast as it will go.
You knew there would be counterfire.
How?
My God, Pick, did you do a dry run in that little Navion?
You did. You crazy sonofabitch, that's exactly what you did!
Streams of tracers erupted from Pick's Corsair's wing-mounted.50-caliber Brownings.
Dunn saw them walking across the rice paddies and the river toward the locomotives. Steam began to come from the rearward locomotive's boiler. He moved the nose of his Corsair to the rear of the train and pressed the firing button on the stick. The Corsair shuddered with the recoil.
Just as he picked up his nose, the locomotive exploded.
"Goddamn, Billy! Look at that!" Pick's delighted voice came over the air-to-air.
A second later, there was an orange glow from one of the tank cars, and a split second after that, an enormous explo-sion.
Dunn flew for half a second through the fireball, and then was on the other side.
He saw Pick's Corsair climbing steeply and got on his tail again.
"Did you see that sonofabitch blow up?" Pick's voice asked, excitedly.
"I saw it. We also got what had to be a gasoline tank car."
"You got the tank car," Pick said. "I got the choo-choo."
"Whatever you say," Dunn replied.
"Your ADF working?" Pick asked.
Dunn checked.
"Affirmative," he said.
"Mine isn't," Pick replied matter-of-factly. "I guess I lost that antenna."
"Any other damage?"