Hero of the Pacific_ The Life of Marine Legend John Basilone - James Brady [56]
Basilone had been rewarded with a promotion by temporary warrant to corporal, a swift promotion in those days, which must say something about his performance, professional skills, and attitude as a relatively new Marine. When you think back to those three years of consistently “excellent” fitness reports during Army service, he seems to have been a born soldier.
There was a brief stop at his old boot camp at Quantico, a base now expanding rapidly. A short furlough later that month was followed by what sounds like seagoing duty, aboard the Harry Lee from June 7 to July 23 and then aboard the Fuller from July 24 to August 13. On September 30, 1941, Basilone arrived in North Carolina and went ashore at a new and growing base called New River. Also on that day, in Russia, Kiev having been taken, Guderian’s panzer army wheeled toward Moscow. It looked as if the Soviets were next to finished, the Germans closing on victory. There was no comment on this that we know of from Basilone.
Phyllis in her account has her brother touching not on the world war but about his latest duty station in the Carolinas: “If we thought Cuba and Culebra were bad, our first look at New River made them look like the Riviera.”
Marine Barracks, New River, North Carolina, what is now known as Camp Lejeune (or in Marine jargon, “Swamp Lagoon”), was a new East Coast Marine base on a big river flowing into the nearby Atlantic. In 1941 the Navy Department and Marine brass, increasingly concerned about the Japanese, were considering an expansion of the Marine Corps from a mere 7,000 troops and 500 officers to something a lot bigger, a Corps that would have need of large new bases. Basilone is quoted as describing New River this way: “Picture if you can over 100,000 acres of plains, swamps, water infested with snakes, chiggers and sand flies. No mountains or hills, just flat, swampy terrain, and you get an idea of what our playground was.”
With winter coming on, Basilone’s outfit was still housed in tents in the cold and damp, the heating supplied by smelly stoves prone to starting fires and very good at putting out soot, with lighting mostly limited to candles. The training concentrated on amphibious warfare drill, men climbing down cargo nets into small boats, much of the time using mockups on dry land since neither large transports or landing barges were available, though cargo nets were plentiful. There were no USO shows coming to New River, the only medium was the local weekly newspaper, and perhaps out of sheer boredom, Basilone resumed boxing, again going undefeated, though against what quality of competition isn’t clear. He enjoyed a week’s furlough that ended with his return to New River on November 26, two weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor, a shattering and historic event about which, by my reckoning, Basilone has absolutely nothing to say. The Japanese had surprise-attacked us, and Corporal Basilone issues no comment, displays no reaction.
The United States had been attacked and was now at war, the entire country was up in arms, our military men and bases were on alert, Basilone was a serving Marine, yet there is nothing at all recorded of letters or calls or any exchanges whatsoever between him and his folks. Its is tempting to