From my South Pacific diary

Feb. 2, 1943
04:25   Going up to Cactus

Flew up to Henderson Field, "Cactus," * today.  Got a tent and dug a fox hole for Lt. Burch, Capt. Marion & myself.  Japs dropped four bombs about 9:00 pm on flight strip, got in fox hole & it started to rain.  Got wet & bed got wet.

*Cactus was the code name for Henderson Field on Guadalcanal. 

Feb. 3, 1943
04:50    Search mission

Flew search today to Shortland.**  Climbed to 25000', number 3 & 4 motors acting up, so we ran down to 20,000', #3 o.k. but #4 still rough.  Flew over Gizo** harbor and took pictures, down to Munda Point**, took pictures.  A.A.^ fire not too bad.  Came back.  Saw seven ships beached & sunk on last Jap push
         Two Jap air raids about 8:00 pm dropped about 14 bombs quite a distance away.

** In the Western Solomon Islands.
^ A.A.=anti-aircraft

Feb. 4, 1943

Went out to plane in the morning to check ship.  Looked over 853 which was shot up quite bad.  Bombardier & navigator and one other crew hit.
         Went on alert starting tomorrow.  Ten searches looking for the Jap fleet which is lost.  800 mile searches.
          Japs bombed us all night long.  One plane about every two hours.  We got very little sleep this night.
          Fleet 800 miles out.  9A had two carriers, four battleships, seven cruisers and a lot of destroyers.


Feb. 5, 1943
11:00 hrs.

Up at 2:45 am after being bombed all night.  We got out to our plane about 3:45 am for a 4:30 take off.  While we were waiting to be led out to the mat, we got another alarm and had to stop the engines and head for a ditch.  The search lights picked him up and the anti-aircraft was shooting at him, quite accurately.  All they could use was the bit stuff because he was too high.  Flew all day and sure as hard keeping awake.  We saw one Jap destroyer.  Two other planes found the Jap.