VMF-224 Scrap Book
Tutuila - American Samoa
September 1943
American Samoa ......
   
"When we arrived in Samoa and got to our "Fales" we had a few pieces of ice put into a steel helmet, poured a bottle of bourbon into it and passed it around,  each one taking a gulp like Indians passing a peace pipe.  That jungle living was some experience!  The food was really poor. All the bread was filled with weevils, and meat and fresh vegetables were just not available.  Our new F4U's were lifted off a ship and placed on the dock in Pago Pago.  Some were dropped and damaged beyond repair.  We parked them off of trails into the jungle.  You could get lost taxiing to the strip!"
  
VMF-224 pilot, Ken B. Nelson 

"Our new F4U's arrived at Pago Pago strapped to the top of tankers and were lifted off onto the docks.  They were then towed by jeeps to the airfield where they were made airworthy.  The month in Samoa was spent getting the F4U's operational and with squadron training activities." 
                                   
            VMF-224, pilot, Jack W. Morrision 

 "Our favorite recreation (during happy hour) at Samoa was shooting rats (large enough to ride - almost) with .45 pistols until the threat of hack time knocked it off."
  
VMF-224 pilot, George C. Knapp
For the pilots of MAG-13 life on Samoa has been described by one of their number as "constant patrol and alert, chasing bogeys that always turned out to be friendly."  Certainly there enough alarms - on more than one occasion the pilots sat up all night, waiting for the enemy that existed only on primitive radar screens.  But the defenders of Samoa were taking no chances.  Wasn't the top brass always saying Samoa's time would come?  If Guadalcanal were lost, as seemed likely until November, Samoa was an obvious plum.  As late as March 1943 Canton Island was bombed three times, and on the 28th of that month Admiral King warned the Joint Chiefs of Staff that, although New Caledonia and Fiji were now safer, "Samoa is definitely exposed ... the enemy can seriously damage Samoa unless we are on guard." 
  
Text form the book "History of Marine Corps Aviation in WWll" page 217.
Western Samoa currency from William Boshart Collection
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