STUCK

It’s late summer, 1942. Glenn Miller rules the radio. Abbott and Costello dominate the silver screen, though Mrs. Miniver, a sensitive film about the English during the Nazi raids on London, is the top-grossing film so far of the year. Byron Nelson wins the Masters. And World War II is eight months old. In the Pacific, the U.S. has enjoyed two great victories, one in the Coral Sea in May, another at Midway in June. It seems real progress is being made against Japan.

In the southwest Pacific, six thousand miles from the United States, it doesn’t seem so to Lt. Jay Zeamer Jr. Zeamer, 24, is an undistinguished copilot with the nomadic 22nd Bomb Group, stationed, for now, at Woodstock, an air base in the northern open bush country, similar to American chaparral, of Australia. A gravel airstrip surrounded by scores of pyramidal, canvas tents and no fixed facilities, Woodstock looks more like a Civil War encampment than a modern airfield. A motorcycle has to be used to clear cattle off the runway. Barely edible food, hordes of sticky flies, and endless monotony plague their days. Dust and overuse have worn down their planes, and being at the end of the supply chain has left them not scores, or even tens of aircraft to attack their formidable enemy, but a mere handful at any one time. A handful to cross hundreds of miles of shark-infested ocean, unescorted, through the most violent storms on Earth, to bomb one of the most fortified harbors in the world. Europe this is not. Even so, the threadbare bomb groups in the theater have done an almost miraculous job slowing down the Japanese advance. But slow it down is all they can do. What Jay Zeamer and everyone in the fight can plainly see is that the Japanese have absolute superiority in the air, bombing Allied forward bases at will and still pushing inexorably toward Australia.

Zeamer, however, doesn’t show it. He is a quiet, affable, unflappable man, well-liked by his squadron, sought out in private moments for his counsel. The modest exterior, however, belies a powerful need to excel, based on his own high standards, sometimes going around the rules to do so if necessary. He is, after all, a man who at age ten built his own primitive boat to sail around Boothbay Harbor in Maine, who became an Eagle Scout by the age of fourteen. A man who, failing the Navy eye exam, spent three months strengthening his eyes using now-discredited self-help eye exercises, and passed the Army exam. For Jay Zeamer, there is always a way. Now he is eager to do his part to move the war effort forward. Convinced in his belief that preparation and the confidence it creates are the surest way to survival, Jay wants to be a pilot and lead his own crew into combat.

For nine long months, though, he has been unable to achieve that goal, due to his inability to check out as first pilot in the bomber the 22nd Group flies, the unfairly maligned B-26 Marauder. It is a high-performance aircraft infamous for its reputation for killing those who attempt to land it with Zeamer’s relaxed approach. His personality simply doesn’t fit the plane. The result has been Jay’s eternal status as copilot, and an undercurrent of unease throughout the squadron in flying with him. It’s one thing to like someone; it’s another to trust him with your life in the air. The combination has left Zeamer a well-liked outsider in his own squadron.

THERE'S ALWAYS A WAY

Up to now the 22nd has been busy with some of the first strikes against Rabaul, the major Japanese stronghold in the Pacific—and the first combat missions of the B-26 in the war—making it possible for Zeamer to ignore his status. But now, with his squadron idled for rest and its aircraft dwindling, Jay sees his prospects for making a difference his way diminishing. For three months he has practiced landings, sometimes six at a time, with his flight school buddy and best friend in the squadron, Walt Krell, in an effort to “get the monkey off his back,” as Krell puts it. But the monkey won’t leave; Zeamer simply can’t overcome his naturally relaxed approach in the B-26.

His predicament only gets worse when, in August, his regular pilot and crew are lost on a mission over New Guinea without him. As perhaps the most experienced copilot in the entire group, and a solid pilot in the air, missions continue to come his way, but now with double the skepticism—one for his known issues on landing, another in the skepticism of outsiders by crews with months of camaraderie behind them.

Ever the engineer and monk, Jay doesn’t get frustrated—Krell will say later he never saw Zeamer show any frustration, no matter the circumstance—but with little to challenge him, he does disengage. On a mission to Lae on September 13, 1942, stuck again as copilot, Zeamer is paired with an up-and-coming pilot on one of his first missions as first pilot on a combat mission. When the pilot calls for power going into the bomb run, nothing happens. Another call to Zeamer, and still nothing. Falling back from the lead bomber and now out of formation, the desperate pilot looks and discovers the problem: Jay, with little to do or asked of him, has fallen asleep. It was said the imperturbable Zeamer could sleep anywhere; here, even in his Mae West and the WWI helmet he wears for protection against flak, was proof. An arm across his chest wakes Zeamer and he immediately gets the power up where they need.

The mission is still a success, but there’s little question of the trouble awaiting him upon landing. Even Krell, a much respected leader in the squadron, will be of little help.

As it turns out, Krell will help, but in a most unintentional way...