The Ghost Mountain Boys: Their Epic March and the Terrifying Battle for New Guinea--The Forgotten War of the South Pacific by James Campbell Read Free Book Online

was not his good looks, which he never let go to his head, but his honesty and kindness. “He was the same,” she said. “He never varied in his kindness to people.”
    Once Bailey left for Camp Livingston in April 1941, Katherine and he continued their romance by mail. Two months later, while he was home on extended leave, they were married. It was a small ceremony, just Cladie and Katherine and two witnesses, Sam Bailey (Cladie’s cousin) and his wife Mildred, the couple that had set up Cladie and Katherine’s first date. The reverend, a Hobson family friend, performed the ceremony in his little parsonage. Afterward, Cladie and Katherine walked out into the steamy night air and watched the Fourth of July fireworks flash across the sky, joking for a moment that the celebration was staged in their honor.
    Shortly after the wedding, Cladie and Katherine Bailey set off together for Camp Livingston. In the fall of 1941, Katherine joined Bailey at Fort Benning, Georgia, where he was doing a three-month advanced training stint. Bailey’s schedule even allowed the young lovers to take weekend trips. After Fort Benning, Bailey returned to Camp Livingston and Katherine followed. Then in the winter of 1942, she traveled north by car to Massachusetts.
    When she arrived on base, she drove out to where Company G was marching. When Bailey saw her car, he halted the men and ran over to welcome his wife. The men waited in the cold as Katherine and Bailey embraced through the open car window—then Bailey double-timed it back to the company.
    In Massachusetts, the Baileys rented a small one-room apartment in the town of Ayer near Fort Devens. It was a happy time for Katherine; she was in love, and she was pregnant. In early April, though, the inevitable finally came.

    When Zelma Boice came to see her husband off, she presented him with a small black diary. William “Jim” Boice loved literature and was the proud owner of a collection of first-edition novels. It was one of the traits that Zelma admired most about this thoughtful, reflective man. She was his opposite—spirited, quick to act and speak. Their marriage had yielded one child—Billy Jr.—and she and her son made the same trips that Katherine Bailey did from Louisiana to Georgia, back to Louisiana again, and north to Massachusetts.
    Zelma’s independence and self-reliance had caught Boice’s eye. In Swayzee, Indiana, a small town located in the flat farm country north of Indianapolis, he had been dating her sister when Zelma and a beau joined them on a double date. It quickly became apparent to Boice that he was with the wrong woman. Though Boice would never be described as impulsive, it didn’t take him long to correct his mistake.
    Boice knew, too, that back in Swayzee, Zelma and Billy would be well cared for. Zelma would continue to teach third grade, and on weekends she and Billy would go out to the farm where Zelma’s parents still lived.
    Billy Boice, just two, stood watching his parents say good-bye, too young to understand the psychological burden his father carried. As a boy who had hardly known his own father—Boice’s father was a glass blower who had died young of black lung—Captain Jim Boice was determined to be a loving presence for his own son. The war changed all that.

    Major Herbert Smith had been transferred from the 128th to the 126th and was acting as the 2nd Battalion’s XO (Executive Officer). He was too busy for teary good-byes; besides, his wife Dorothy and their son Jerry had spent a week at Fort Devens in March. He had discouraged their visit, but Dorothy had a mind of her own, and she and Jerry came by train despite Smith’s objections.
    For a week, Jerry followed his father wherever he went and was especially happy when his father took him to see the guys in the 128th, Smith’s old unit. These were men whom Jerry knew from home in Neillsville, Wisconsin, and Louisiana. When the week came to an end and it was time for Jerry and