More human interest brought to you by Aerothentic

The date is 15th June 1942, and Col. Bryan "Shanty" O'Neill poses for the publicity of the camera. He is (shaking hands, and on the right) farewelling men of the 22nd Bombardment Group who he had led from The U.S in their brand new Martin B-26A Marauders. For the purposes of this photo O'Neill had just accepted command of the 38th Bombardment Group who were just arriving in New Guinea with strafer-converted B-25C and Ds. Notice the gentleman to the right who is wearing Australian fleece-lined flying boots. Many Australians flew as co-pilots in the early New Guinea B-26 missions.  

This photo was taken just below O'Neill's pyramid command tent, on the side of a hill with a direct view over 17-Mile airfield, also known as Durand Drome.

Shanty did not wish to leave his squadron, for he had gone overseas with them and they had only been in combat for a little over four months. However, duty called and Shanty became CO of the 38th Bomb Group, serving as their leader until October, 1943, when Lt. Col. Larry Tanberg took over the Group. An interesting note: Larry was born on 19th January 1919, and was promoted to Colonel on 3rd June 1943, at age twenty four. O'Neill was, perhaps, an exceptional leader, but then the Fifth had many such officers, encouraged by General Kenney who wanted "operators" to fill the ranks of his Air Force. In the Fifth Air Force's early days, Group orders were cut which prohibited Squadron and Group commanders from flying combat. However as Commanding Officer of the 22nd Bombardment Group, it was common for O'Neill to disobey the order, and lead from the front. He kept leading from the front when he changed Groups.

Fellow pilot Walter Krell would record his memoirs many years later, and Aerothentic thanks Krell's initiative for doing so, especially the ones on O'Neill and his ilk.

Krell recalls that O'Neill was fond of telling his fellow officers that the only reason for rank was that it offered opportunity to argue with the brass. On one occasion at around one o'clock in the morning, O'Neill and his Squadron Commanders were working late, trying to finalize a mission ordered foir next morning by Fifth Bomber Command. Finally, in exasperation, O'Neill declared the whole thing unworkable: wrong bombs, wrong approach, wrong everything. He grabbed the phone and got General Howard K. "Roger" Ramey, Commander of Fifth Bomber Command, out of bed. He told Ramey the mission orders were unsatisfactory and he wanted them changed. Ramey wouldn't budge and hung up.

O'Neill said to Krell, "C'mon Walt, let's take a ride", and so the two drove their jeep along the long, unlit and dusty road from 17-Mile airfield to Kila Drome which rests in the shadow of a huge dome-shaped hill, still there to this day. Kila Drome was where the Fifth Air Force brass lived, and O'Neill pounded on the door of General Ennis Whitehead's wooden hut. Whitehead was then top brass of the entire U.S Air Forces in New Guinea at the time, being Commanding General of the Advanced Echelon (ADVON). The two entered and O'Neill explained why he had bothered the general. Whitehead listened, then delivered a long-winded soliloquy as he shuffled around his quarters in pyjama shorts and slippers. Whitehead's antics would have intimidated most, but not O'Neill who sat there containing a quality of concealed mirth. Whitehead, according to Krell, ended with, "All right O'Neill, it'll be your way , but if anything goes wrong, you're finished. Get Ramey on the phone for me."

Krell recalls further that when O'Neill took over the 38th Bombardment Group and their Mitchells, there were only two squadrons (two had been transferred to the Solomons and New Hebrides). Krell was assigned the 822nd, and Barney Johnson, the 823rd. New crews were to be trained at Charters Towers, some seventy-five miles west of Townsville. The base commander at Charters Towers was an old-fashioned colonel, recently evacuated from the colonial comfort of the Philippines. As a more junior officer, Krell was constantly the target of his complaints. Soon Krell had had enough, and asked O'Neill to intervene on his behalf. So, shortly afterwards he and O'Neill drove out to the Colonel's headquarters at Charters Towers. There they discovered that his quarters were pitched slightly to one side off the end of the runway. For half an hour O'Neill listened in deadpan silence while the Colonel clarified his dissatisfaction about the undisciplined Air Corps echelons, including their poor observance of sartorial standards. O'Neill and Krell listened to the tirade, then departed.

As they taxied out in their Mitchell to return to Townsville, O'Neill asked, "Which runway goes over the old bastard's camp?" Krell replied that the wind was the other way, to which O'Neill responded that he had not asked about the wind. Their Mitchell was light that day, and O'Neill had it airborne halfway down the runway. Wheels and flaps were quickly retracted, yet O'Neill kept the bomber airborne just above the bitumen. O'Neill guided the bomber gently towards the Colonel's pyramidal tent, straddled the peak with his props, then hauled it upwards. The tent was flattened. Krell returned to Charters Towers after leaving O'Neill in Townsville. There the Colonel delivered a tirade in which he instructed Krell to track down and identify the perpetrator.

There would be a court martial, he shouted, shaking his swagger stick in the air. Krell responded that O'Neill was at this very moment on his way to Brisbane to talk to General George Churchill Kenney, overall Commander of the Fifth Air Force, to find a new training base for essential combat units where they would no longer be an inconvenience to the Colonel. Within two days, the Colonel had been relieved of his command.

The 38th had their own song for Shanty called "Ode to Shanty O’Neill" and here are the original words:

Oh, the 38th Group's been in Guinea too long

We're mighty hard up for a drink

For want of a women we're all going nuts

Oh, Shanty please say what you think

There are snakes in the jungle and bugs in the grass

Mosquitoes have seven inch prongs

The rain falls in buckets clear up to our ass

Oh, Shanty we've been here too long

We've been over Buna, we've been over Lae

We've been out to sea after ships

We've been to Gasmata and Vunakanau

Oh, Shanty it gives us the shits

O, the airplanes all stink and the pilots all drink

The navvies don't know where the are

The bombardiers can't hit a bucket of shit

Oh, Shanty please send us afar

Now Shanty's our leader and this you can trust

He's as Irish as a Banshee's wail

But the truth of the story, and take from us

He's half Scotch and half ginger ale

 

(Author unknown)

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