Our arrival in Wellington was inauspicious. We docked at 2100 hours but no one was to go ashore until the next day. The chaplain had some report to deliver that had to be done that evening, so we got a jeep and headed for town. After I dropped him off he said I should get lost for about an hour and I did. He knew I had been dating a girl that lived only about a half mile away from where we were. I drove over to her place and fortunately she was home. When she saw me she rushed into my arms and the first thing she said was, "Oh, you stink!" Welcome home, soldier.
Some of the men had come down with malaria on the way back and the first order of the day was to get them off the ship and to a hospital. Then we unloaded the ship, loaded the trucks and set out for Camp Russell, which turned out to be just across the railroad tracks from McKay's Crossing. This was a new camp and was not yet completed, but it was to be a tent camp with six-man tents lining the company streets.
When we were looking for the chaplain's tent he invited me to share the tent with him because he had the whole thing to himself. So we had a Navy officer and a Marine sergeant sharing the same quarters. It didn't seem right to me, but again I thought of the fox and the chickens. This arrangement continued even after his office was built, although a bed had been installed there and he had a kerosene stove. We had only canvas cots and a coal-fired stove in the tent. It was early spring and each day was damp and chilly. We took to wearing sheepskin coats when outside.
About three weeks after our return, I was in the chaplain's office with a couple of the men and I was sitting near the stove with my sheepskin on. Suddenly I felt cold. I was so cold that I drew the stove over right in front of me and wrapped my coat around it for further warmth. Then I began to shiver and shutter like I'd never experienced in my life. It was a terrible experience, but I knew what it was — malaria.
After being cold for a long time I began to sweat. Water just rolled off me and I became very weak. The guys that were present helped me over to sickbay and I found out then that so many had come down with it that the hospitals were full, so they had set up "regimental hospitals" in some of the wooden buildings. That was where I went.
Quinine was the only effective medicine and that was what we got. In about two weeks we would be released with the admonition, "Don't let it happen again!" In about two weeks I was again heading for sickbay. This time I was a little more fortunate. They told me I was going to the hospital but I didn't know whether this was good or bad news. I was too weak to care. When we got there I found the place was called Trentham. I didn't learn until later that its full name was Trentham Race Track. The "hospital" was the area below the grandstand where galley facilities had been installed and where every other inch of the place was filled with canvas cots placed head-to-toe and set side-by-side. All were occupied.
I was led to one in the center of the place and a corpsman came over to get my vitals. I said, "To hell with this. I'm going to bed." They didn't want anyone just loafing around (why I don't know), but I told them to kiss off and became a bed- ridden patient. Later that afternoon the corpsman came around and stuck an intravenous needle into my arm so I would get some nourishment. The man to my right, whose name I've forgotten, seemed to be out of it most of the time, but he got up for every chow and even brought me something to eat. However, I was in no shape to eat anything.
The third night I was there I awoke about 0400 to a sort of gagging noise and noticed this man was having a hard time breathing. I called the corpsman, who came right over, but the guy would not respond so the corpsman called the doctor. There were three or four doctors there trying to revive him, but he was dead. The corpsman told me later that they had preformed an autopsy and found his liver had shriveled up to about the size of a bean.
Father O'Neill's assistant, whose name I can't remember, was in the same hospital, but I didn't know it until I became able to walk around and go to chow. We met in the chow line and then we began to compare notes. This place was a real hellhole. For all the hundreds of men there they had only two old bathtubs. I think they used to wash horses in them.
In spite of all that, I decided one day to bathe. After cleaning the tub for about half an hour I could hardly stand, but I filled it and got in. The water was hot and soothing so I just lay in it for about an hour. I don't know if I smelled like a horse when I got out, but I felt cleaner. My clothes, however, still stank of stale sweat.
We never had visitors at the hospital and as I recovered I began to think of Peg, the girl I'd been dating before I crapped out. I'd been in several poker games and had about $300 that I'd left with her when I was on liberty, because I didn't want to leave it in the tent or carry it around with me. Now I began to think about my money, maybe because we became so hungry as our strength began to return. If it looked like it could be eaten we ate it, whatever it was.
After about three weeks we went back to duty. I never did see Chaplain O'Neill's man after that, and don't know what happened to him. When I got back to camp I found out Chaplain Toleffsen was in the hospital, but it was a better place than we had been. He was there for a couple weeks and I went to visit him a few times. With him gone there wasn't much for me to do.
This scenario repeated itself about every two or three weeks. Then along with the malaria came dengue fever, which none of us had ever experienced either. During this time the chaplain went to South Island on furlough, so I had the whole place to myself. One afternoon I didn't feel well so I hit the sack for a while. When I woke it was dark and I had the most severe headache I ever had. I thought I'd go to sickbay and get some aspirin.
When I stood up I felt very dizzy but I was determined to keep going. I got to the tent door and looked across the street at the opposite tent. I noted that they had two light bulbs burning. I wondered how that could be so I covered one eye and I saw only one light. I covered the other eye and I saw only one light. I looked with both eyes and I saw two lights. I said, "Uh-oh! What the hell now?"
I had a very difficult time getting to sickbay, but I made it only to learn that the best they could do was the regimental hospital. I was there so I stayed. The chief corpsman thought I had dengue fever, but I didn't care. I just wanted something to ease the pain in my head. They assigned me a cot close to a stove that was at the head of the bed. I was shivering by now and the headache was worse so I climbed in the sack and tried to get warm. My legs were hurting, my back was hurting and I could not move my arms.
I learned later that they call dengue fever "break-bone fever" because it feels like every bone in the body is being slowly broken. I don't know how long I lay there, but in the early morning, while still dark, I woke to the heat of the stove at the head of my bed pulling all my strength out through the top of my head — or so it seemed. I tried to get up but it was so painful to move that I just lay there and suffered the pounding in my head, until I felt I could not take it any longer.
Later I told the chaplain that was the night I found out there was no God, because the pain and headache were so bad I prayed to die. I prayed like never before and promised I would do anything, and what an exemplary person I would be (the stupidity of it all!) if only I could die. I didn't die, so I concluded there is no God. The chaplain didn't see it that way but neither of us could convince the other, so we let it lie.
My girlfriend, Peg, had kept the money I gave her and later told me she thought I was paying her off. I said, "What for? Nothing happened short of me holding your hand and having a couple of dances. I wouldn't pay off on that." That became a joke between us for many years afterward.
I lost my best friend while I was in the hospital with dengue. The
colonel decided to inspect the company area and came across the
BAR gun. The chaplain
was a master of
ambiguity when he
wanted to be and had a
good time explaining to the colonel that he had no idea I was carrying a BAR gun or where I got it. The colonel wasn't very impressed and had the weapon confiscated. To add insult to injury, he explained in no uncertain terms that officers do not bunk with enlisted men. When I got discharged from the hospital I came home to an empty nest. The chaplain had flown the coop and moved to his office.
Somewhere along the line we began calling malaria "the bug." When one had an attack he "had the bug." I had so many attacks, both recorded and unrecorded, that the bunch nicknamed me "Bugs," and it stuck. Bugs Bailey.
I was unaware of it, but there was a move afoot to send to the States all the men who were severely ill with malaria. Doc English let it be known that I was being considered to go back. I asked him how I could get around it and he said, "Once your name makes the list there is nothing you can do. You go." It took a little persuasion but in the end we reached an agreement that putting my name on the list could be delayed.
About this time we learned that the colonel who had taken our letters back to the States was in big trouble and that he had been court-martialed. When the whole story came out I felt responsible for what had happened. When the flag got to my home there was a short note with it that I had written. In it I had said, "Maybe you can have your picture taken for the paper." Of course, they did and under the picture (right) the newspaper printed the following comments:
Parents Get Flag — A Jap flag "in OK condition except for about four bullet holes in it" now is in the possession of Mr. and Mrs. Edwin F. Bailey, above, 4219 West Eighth Street. The flag was taken from a Jap by the Bailey's son, Richard, a sergeant with the United States Marines on Guadalcanal Island. In a letter accompanying the flag, Sergeant Bailey wrote, "Hope the folks around town like it. Maybe you can have your picture taken with it for the papers." So here's the picture, Sergeant. Dated March 5, 1943.
That flag was then displayed all over the place because it was the first one to arrive in my hometown and the first to arrive in Minnesota. It didn't take very long before the local FBI was once again ringing the front doorbell. They already knew I was still overseas. In the meantime my father had already mailed the flag to my older brother (in DC), who was in the Intelligence Division of the Chief of Naval Operations. He had given it to the language department for translation. A part of the translation said that the flag,
". . .was owned by a Private Makoto Kifayashida, who was in the Fifth Sasebo Special Naval Landing Force. He came from the island of Palau. He was aboard the Japanese cruiser Chakoi when it sank the American cruiser Astoria on 9 August 1942. He landed on Guadalcanal on 18 August, 1942."
With all this publicity it didn't take the FBI long to find out how the flag got there and who was the responsible party. I had some long talks with the chaplain about this because I felt responsible. He kept telling me I was not the one who breached security, but it didn't help much. I still felt really bad about it.
Because I was also in the process of getting permission to get married, I didn't want anything to mess up the process. It was an exhausting procedure, but we finally got approval and Chaplain Toleffsen performed the ceremony at the First Presbyterian Church in Wellington. There was a large crowd in attendance, both from the Sixth Marines and from the New Zealand Land and Income Tax Department, where Peg worked.
A few weeks after the wedding a new major was assigned to my old section in D-3 and he was looking for people. One day he appeared at the door of the chaplain's office, unannounced. Needless to say after all the polite things were said it boiled down to, "It's really not a request, chaplain." My days with the chaplain and the Sixth came to an end. Back to the miscellaneous department I went, as a corporal.
