Hero of the Pacific by James Brady Page B

we were in, and that the camp set up outside Brisbane was only temporary,” Basilone is reported to have said. Instead of a rollicking good liberty or a more extended leave, the Marines were marched to a hastily thrown-up military tent city. “We soon learned we were supposed to set up permanent defense positions along the Australian coast.” Where they would presumably confront a Japanese invasion, if and when. And this would be along the hot, fevered, mosquito-blown northern Australian coast, only a hundred miles from New Guinea where the enemy was already established. In the inverted world of the Southern Hemisphere, the south was cool, dry, and moderate, while the north was hot and pestilential like the ’Canal. On top of that, Australia both needed the Americans and resented them.
    Here is John’s account of that first, disillusioning view the Marines would have of their new home, as recorded by Phyllis Cutter: “Coming all that distance cramped in transports, we could hardly believe our eyes when we finally marched and were carried into our rest camp. If we bitched about ‘tent city’ we were sorry. This was even worse. Guadalcanal was paradise compared to this swamp [surely this is typical Gyrene hyperbole!]. Goony birds and mosquitoes made sleep impossible. Our breaking point was not far off. General Vandegrift was furious and after having southern Australia scouted for a more suitable location, he proposed the Division be moved to Melbourne where the climate was cooler and free of the giant mosquitoes. Having decided on the new location, Vandegrift found that the Army could not spare any ships for transporting the men.”
    Marines are celebrated for the profane eloquence of their wrath, and Vandegrift was a celebrated Marine. These were his men who for months had been abiding in hell and, despite everything, had met and defeated the Japanese and captured one of their islands after nearly a year of seeing the Japanese invade and occupy our islands. And now this worn-down, fevered corps of heroes had been billeted in a swamp and barred from more salutary precincts by a lack of Army shipping! The situation did nothing to endear the U.S. Army to the Gyrenes or to their general officer commanding. Alexander Vandegrift’s righteous rage swiftly reached the United States Navy, and more to the point, it got to Bull Halsey, a man who appreciated a good exchange of oaths, who on the spot issued orders to send Navy transports to Brisbane to pick up the 1st Marine Division and deliver it to Melbourne. When the Marines out there in the swamp heard the news, they cheered Halsey’s name.
    Said Basilone, “Our first sight of Melbourne as we docked in the harbor brought tears to our eyes, it seemed so much like home. That is, the home we knew, the Golden Gate in Frisco, the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, Chicago on the Great Lakes, St. Louis and the mighty Mississippi. We disembarked and with the Division band in the foreground, we paraded through Melbourne to the cheers of thousands of friendly people. During our march through the city our eyes drank in the sights. We had forgotten what a simple thing like a wide city street looked like.”
    To men who for months had been slogging through swamps and along narrow jungle trails, such things were startling in their commonplace loveliness, as were the lighted streetlamps of a city not blacked out by night, to say nothing of the dry barracks and clean bunks following the morass of “tent city” Brisbane.
    And the girls, the girls! Basilone marveled at them as well. “They weren’t jealous like girls back home, they’d simply ask each other if they’d had a nice time. It was a little confusing, don’t get me wrong, they were nice girls and wonderful company even if your ego was dropped a bit.”
    â€œWe had by now gotten over the first flush of liberty,” Basilone is quoted as saying, which sounds