South of San Juan

By Dick Shead

Back from the Navy after WW2, Mike Gilroy and his partners, Della and Todd Abbin, are planning on expanding their airline in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Mike's girlfriend, Beth Ross, joins them when she is discharged from the Royal Navy in Kingston, Jamaica. As a beginning they buy a war surplus C-47 and charter it to a Venezuelan oil company. The plane is stolen in the wilds of southern Venezuela. Mike learns the leader of the thieves is a wanted Nazi war criminal who will stop at nothing to protect what he considers his property, be it airplane, cocaine fields or wife. The local police and the army are helping the Nazi with his plans. The chances of Mike and his friends getting their plane back are slim to none.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9781613094518

Book preview

What They Are Saying About South of San Juan

We sometimes forget that there was a significant window for women during (and for a little bit after) WWII to garner leadership and technical jobs because there just weren’t enough men. Somehow things fell off the cliff in the 1950s. I liked your women.

—P. S. Gingrich MA, MBA, Flight instructor.

DICK SHEAD’S South of San Juan is an exciting yarn with leading characters whose sense of right and wrong is strong. I felt reassured spending time with these characters, who are building a business, loving and traveling to beautiful places—and getting themselves into thrilling, tight spots—while working hard to see that good triumphs over evil. It’s handy if you know aircraft and a little German when you read this, but I know neither and was able to navigate the plot and enjoy the ride. Shead’s sense of humor also delights (Sea stories are like fairy tales, except that where fairy tales start, ‘Once upon a time,’ sea stories start, ‘No shit, man, there I was...’) I found myself hurrying back to pick up the novel because I couldn’t wait to see what happened next!

—Lenann McGookey Gardner, President: Lenann McGookey Gardner Management Consulting, Inc.

South of San Juan

Dick Shead

A Wings ePress, Inc.

Historical Novel

Wings ePress, Inc.

Edited by: Jeanne Smith

Copy Edited by: Brian Hatfield

Executive Editor: Jeanne Smith

Cover Artist: Dick Shead

All rights reserved

NAMES, CHARACTERS AND incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Wings ePress Books

www.wingsepress.com

Copyright © 2021 by: Dick Shead

ISBN-13: 978-1-61309-541-6

ISBN-10:

Wings ePress Inc.

3000 N. Rock Road

Newton, KS  67114

Dedication

To my wife Charlene for moral support and my son Tim for helping me keep the story on track.

Prologue

The first class petty officer with an SP armband started to salute me until he saw the ruptured duck on my uniform. Then he wasn’t sure what to do. I was walking out of the baggage area in the terminal building thinking how much easier it would be to carry a sea bag rather than the two Seapack suitcases I was burdened with. The sailor walking in front of me had his one sea bag balanced on his shoulder, which left a hand free to pull out his orders and show them to the Shore Patrol. I idly wondered if he was heading for NAS Isla Grande, or Roosevelt Roads on the east end of the island. The petty officer nodded to me as I walked by.

Outside the terminal building, I could see the PBMs and PVs at the Navy end of the airport. I headed in the other direction toward the row of smaller airline buildings stretched out along the runway. San Juan hadn’t changed much in four years, at least not the Aeropuerto de la Isla Grande. I couldn’t say yet about the city in general.

I walked into the lobby of the MAG Airlines building and looked around. Now I saw changes. There was nothing I could put my finger on, but the place looked more...lush. New, or nearly new, furniture sat on the polished floor. Apparently, the airline was making money. Several folks were sitting, waiting, either to depart or to meet someone. I headed for the reception desk. Occupying the center of the room, it was topped by a sign announcing the person behind the desk was Miss Pesquera. Miss Pesquera definitely added to the attractiveness of the room She looked up from her typing and said, May I help you, Lieutenant?

I sat my suitcases next to the desk. Della here?

Yes sir. She looked at the suitcases and gave me the up and down. May I tell her who is calling?

Mike! I looked around and Della was bursting from an office at the back of the room with her arms spread wide. She hit me hard enough to pop the ribbons off my uniform and wrapped me in a bear hug. My god I’m glad you’re home. She kissed my cheek and held me at arm’s length, You look like you lost 20 pounds, was it very rough?

I smiled, It’s all over now. Boy, it’s good to see you, Della. You haven’t changed a bit. She was a good-looking woman about two years older than me with the same shoulder-length dark-brown hair cut to the latest style. A well-cut suit fit her curvy frame. She always had a good fashion sense. Shortly after we met her in ’38, she lost her newly-wed husband (long story) and hooked up with Todd Abbin, my best friend. They had lived together without the benefit of matrimony for most of the time I had known them, but Todd married her so she would have his insurance when the war started and he went back into the service. I love them both but I have always felt some envy toward Todd.

Gloria, she addressed the receptionist, Meet another one of your bosses. This is Mike Gilroy, one of the owners of this airline. He’s home from the war and just out of the Navy. Mike, Gloria started working here about two years ago when Viola left to get married.

Gloria and I said hello to each other as Della took my hand. Come on in and sit down. I’ll catch you up.

We walked into her office and I sank down on a worn leather couch (not new, we were out of sight of the customers) and lit a cigarette. What do you hear from Todd?

"Commander Todd Abbin is sitting on the USS Intrepid in the middle of Tokyo bay. It’s not clear when he’ll be released from active duty. I can’t decide if I’m more pissed at Todd or the Navy. How did you get out so soon?"

Hey, I wasn’t a squadron commander, and with the war over, Uncle Sam’s Canoe Club didn’t need so many fighter pilots littering up the promotion list. They handed me my discharge papers, a ruptured duck, and showed me to the door.

Ruptured duck?

Yeah, I pointed to the pin, a circle containing a bird with outstretched wings, on my uniform. It shows that you’ve been honorably released from active duty. Since no one in the military was allowed to wear civilian clothes for the duration of the war, the Navy had to do something so they could tell the sailors from the new civilians. It’s really an eagle but somebody called it a ruptured duck and the name stuck. Incidentally, where are my civvies? I’d like to get out of this uniform.

I have them stored at our apartment. You do look hot in that uniform, why not take off the jacket? Oh, have you seen your folks?

Della was right about the jacket; the Puerto Rico temperature made Navy blues the wrong fashion choice. I shed the jacket and tie. I felt better with my sleeves rolled up. Yeah, I came by way of New Jersey. Dad is out of the hospital and I think he’ll make a fairly complete recovery from his wounds. I pictured the skinny man with the too-big joints and stumbling walk and remembered back to the robust Army officer I had bid goodbye to when he and Mom transferred to the Philippines in 1937. Thank God Dad had sent Mom back to the States in 1940. I guess he could see the war looming.

They’re calling it the Bataan Death March. Dad not only survived the march but four years as a POW. It will be a long time until the Japs are admitted back into the civilized world. It was time to change the subject. This place is starting to look like a real business. How are we doing?

As I told you in our letters, we’ve grown over the last four years. The business was good during the war with us flying supplies for the Navy establishment here. To meet the demand, we now have two Twin Beechcraft D-18s I bought on the surplus market. In order to attract customers after the armistice, I started a scheduled route around the Antilles. We run from Cuba to Trinidad twice a week with the D-18s. That attracted enough business our way that I added another Goose for travel through the Virgin Islands and up to the Turks and Caicos, even up to the Bahamas. With five airplanes, we had to add more pilots and mechanics. That required administrative staff. We have ten pilots, four mechanics, three clerks and Miss Pesquera. The businessmen seem to like her. About ten more people work at various airports around the Antilles as ticket agents and baggage handlers.

Wow! Todd and I should just stay away and let you run everything. That’s great, Della.

We continued talking for quite a while, mostly about the changes since I had joined the Navy in late '41, just after Pearl Harbor. Della, her boyfriend Todd, and I had started MAG Airlines in '38. MAG stood for McClusky (Della), Abbin (Todd), and Gilroy (me). Right after Pearl Harbor, Todd was recalled to active duty as a lieutenant in the Navy and I joined with the expectation of becoming a Naval aviator. With our multi-engine time in our Grumman Goose, we were both expecting to wind up flying some type of patrol plane, but my short height (five foot nine) made me perfect, in the Navy’s eyes, for a fighter pilot. After eight months’ training to be an officer and a gentleman, learning much more than I wanted to know about the black-shoe Navy, my previous experience allowed me to skip most of Pensacola and go right into basic training. I thought I was a pretty good pilot until I got caught up in formation flying, acrobatics, and, hardest of all, carrier deck operations. Ten thousand of us graduated as naval aviators in '42. I spent most of the last three years flying F4Fs and F6Fs off the USS Essex.

Todd had experience in dive bombers from his active duty hitch before the war and went back to an SBD squadron. With the promotions during the war, he wound up as a commander with his own squadron of SB2C Helldivers aboard the USS Intrepid. Now, in April of 1946, he was eagerly awaiting his discharge.

Finally, Della stood. Come on, I’ll introduce you around. We walked out to the front office and I met the staff.

When we started the airline, I was the vice president of maintenance and chief mechanic, actually the only mechanic. After it was up and running, Todd and Della had convinced me to go back to school, on the airline’s dime, and while I was attending Georgia Tech, I had hired Paul Ruiz to fill the slot. Paul was still working for Della who had added three more mechanics for Paul to supervise. That seemed like a workable plan for the next two years until I completed my degree, but I wondered how Paul would like it when I came back full time.

Two of the pilots were on hand, getting ready for a hop in a Twin Beech to Charlotte Amalie in the Virgin Islands. Della told me they would continue around the Antilles chain over the next two days, winding up at Port of Spain in Trinidad. They would reverse the route the following day. The other Twin Beech (I still thought of them by the Navy designation, SNB pronounced Sneeb) was in Havana and would start its trip along the route day after tomorrow.

I was startled when Della introduced me to the pilots. Mike, this is Max Baecker and Emilio González. Max was about my age, taller and heavier. His black hair and narrow mustache reminded me of pictures I’d seen of Adolf Galland, one of the leaders of the Luftwaffe. Max smiled at me and extended his hand.

"Sir des gutenmorgens. I stiffened. Max sensed the uneasiness. You have some problems with Germans? You were in the Atlantic during the war?"

I was in the Pacific during the war. My problem with Germans goes back to before the war.

"Ach, ja. Mrs. Abbin has told me a little about your experiences with spies and U-boats. That surprised me. Evidently Della was very comfortable with this German. I fought nobody during the war. I was flying a Focke-Wulf Condor around Argentina for the German embassy. I was lucky. I was in Buenos Aires when the war ended and managed to stay on this side of the Atlantic."

What about your relatives back home?

I have no one left in Germany. My parents died in a bomb raid and my brother was killed in Russia.

I said ‘sorry’ and nodded; Della led me on. She had really built our business into a first class airline. We had a hangar on the ramp, a lobby in our office building for passengers to meet their contacts, and office staff to handle the day-to-day business requirements.

As long as we are talking about the business, when do you want to start back to work? Actually, I suppose I should say, ‘what are your plans?’

If possible, I’d like to borrow the Staggerwing tomorrow and hop over to Jamaica. I’ll start whenever and wherever you need me after I get back from that trip.

Have you been in contact with Beth?

We’ve been writing each other, of course. I haven’t seen her since the war started. We lost track of each other since my discharge, but she is supposed to be mustering out in a few days. I’m hoping she wants to stay down here. In that case, I was thinking I could pick her up and bring her back to San Juan.

Sure, take the Staggerwing. I can spare it for a couple of days. She’s a radio operator, isn’t she?

Yeah, why?

It would be handy to have our own communications system. Perhaps she could set it up.

Hey! Great idea. I’ll see if she’s interested and you can interview her when she gets here. Meanwhile, do you have any idea where I can get a decent apartment? I’ll get that out of the way.

Yeah, let me write down some addresses. Actually, I think there’s a vacancy in my apartment building. Why don’t you start there?

Della’s apartment complex did have an available apartment so I moved in on the spot. No big deal since I only had uniforms with me. The war had frozen men’s fashions for the last four years, since service members were not allowed to wear civilian clothing. Service members in civvies were assumed to be deserters. So the clothes I packed four years ago would serve me for the foreseeable future. I got my trunk out of Della’s apartment and started unpacking. It would be a treat getting to decide what I wanted to wear, although the smell of mothballs would follow me around for a while.

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Della and I rode to the airport together in her '32 Ford Roadster. Della had arranged for the Beechcraft D-17, better known as the Staggerwing, to be available before we left last night and the ground crew had it tied down on the line when we pulled up. Della had picked good people for the airline, so I knew the plane would be fueled and ready to go.

I checked the weather and worked out my flight plan. While the plane had the range to go direct from San Juan to Kingston, it’s not a good idea. If a problem developed at the Jamaica end that I didn’t know about until I got there, like a sudden storm, I wouldn’t have the fuel to go somewhere else, like up to Cuba. I worked out a flight plan to Santiago, Cuba where I would stop for fuel and then fly on to Kingston. I had flown the various legs of the journey before the war, now it seemed like old times.

Looks wise, the Staggerwing hadn’t changed since I had last seen it in '42...it had the same paint job as when we acquired it, yellow with a fancy black stripe down the length of the fuselage. It was the only plane in the MAG fleet with no airline markings. We had acquired it from some German agents who stole it from a Jewish German doctor. Della had tried to locate the doctor before the war, but no luck. If we ever found him or his family, we would buy the plane from them. All we had changed on the aircraft was the registration number from German to U.S. after we started the airline; it still looked like a private aircraft. Many of our customers told their customers it was their private business plane.

As I did the preflight check, something seemed different. I tried to put my finger on that difference. After checking everything in the cockpit twice, I suddenly realized it was the lack of company. I hadn’t flown anywhere by myself in three years. It seemed strange not to have other airplanes on either side of me. Our squadron of F6F Hellcats generally consisted of thirty to thirty-six planes, depending on how many we could get into the air. We flew in groups of four for combat air patrols and flew with a dive bomber squadron when we were involved with anti-shipping or close air support. Anyway, it had been a long time since I had gone anywhere by myself.

As it happened, the weather today was CAVU, ceiling and visibility unlimited. With several hours of cruising ahead of me, I lit a weed and started daydreaming about the other times I had flown to Kingston.

IT WAS IN JUNE OF '41 and Britain was at war, but the U.S. wasn’t. I had met Beth for the first time that summer; she was a passenger I was supposed to fly from Santiago, Cuba to San Juan, Puerto Rico. Instead, we were hijacked by a German engineer who pulled a gun and demanded I fly him to an island off Venezuela. The situation snowballed into a kidnapping and my first experience with submarines. We escaped from the Germans and I wound up flying Beth to a rendezvous with a British sailing vessel where she would become part of the crew. Beth, as it turned out, was in the Royal Navy. The schooner, the Bluehorse, had been accepted as an RN auxiliary and was searching for German subs.

Unfortunately, the sub they were searching for found the Bluehorse and sank it. By sheer good luck, I was able to fly the survivors to the nearest British port: Kingston, Jamaica. In an unusual move, the Brits chartered the Goose to find the sub. After we chased down the sub, Beth spent the rest of the war in Kingston (Port Royal) as a radio operator.

I WAS PAST HAITI AND over the Windward Passage, and it was time to get my mind back on the flight. I headed south of Guantanamo Bay and started watching for the landmarks leading to Santiago de Cuba. I was holding the Staggerwing to 150 knots and it didn’t take long to get to the airport.

After a quick check with customs, I grabbed a sandwich and cup of coffee while the Staggerwing was serviced. In an hour, I was headed southwest to Kingston.

My thoughts about Beth were muddled. Although we had corresponded through the war, I hadn’t seen her in almost four years and we’d only had three real dates after the submarine incident. Those were spread out over the two months before I went back to Georgia and school. I hoped the spark I had felt four years ago was still alive.

Beth’s brother was killed during the retreat from Dunkirk at the beginning of the war. In 1944, near the end, her mother died in a V1 rocket attack. Her father had died years before in a farm tractor accident. When it became obvious the war was about over, I had written trying to convince her that, under the circumstances, she should move to San Juan and work for MAG Airlines, if she were so inclined. Moving to Puerto Rico was something of a gamble, especially for Beth. After four years, what if the spark were no longer there? At that time, I was moving around the Pacific a lot and then the States and never received a reply.

HMS Buzzard airfield is on a peninsula forming the east side of the Kingston harbor. It was built as a Royal Navy Air Station, but I imagine it will be turned over to the city of Kingston now that the war is over; even during the war it handled more civilian traffic than military. As I turned onto the base leg of the landing pattern, I could see the Navy yard at the end of the peninsula, an old trawler converted for anti-submarine warfare moored at its quay. I set the plane down and taxied to the transit parking area.

A line man directed me to a parking spot and I pulled off the mixture and watched the propeller wind down. I just sat in the cockpit thinking about the reunion. I decided I would never know if we had something going for us unless I got my ass in gear and found Beth. A short cab ride later and I was outside the Port Royal Navy Yard.

The gate guard stopped me and I showed him my Navy reserve ID card. That satisfied him and I walked down to the communications center. A seaman in the front office went to find Leading Wren Ross.

I was looking out the window at the quay and trawler, trying to decide if it was the same one as the first time I had been there, when someone behind me said, Hello, sailor. Looking for a good time?

I spun around and Beth was smiling at me. Hey, good looking, how are you? I started to hug her.

She grabbed my hand and led me toward the door. Let’s go outside. They don’t like public displays of affection in here.

Outside Beth answered me. Hunky-dory, I’ll be aces after I’m discharged tomorrow.

Tomorrow! I didn’t realize it was so soon. I thought you said your enlistment ran through to the end of the month.

It does. But I’m getting an early out for the convenience of the service. I told my boss about you and that I intended to stay in the Caribbean and he helped me get the early out and a passport.

Great! Uh, where does that leave us?

It leaves us as friends that have had three dates and intend to have at least a fourth.

That’ll work. What time do you get off and do you have liberty tonight?

Yes. I have to work until seventeen hundred. Why don’t I meet you outside the gate? I know a nice place I want to take you for supper and we can discuss our plans.

That’ll work. I held her at arm’s length and looked her up and down. The white skirt and shirt of her uniform didn’t really show off her figure to its best, but it would be impossible to disguise it completely. She was tall, about five foot seven. In heels she could look down at me. Her black hair was cut shorter than I remembered, easier to get under a uniform cap. Her blue eyes and pale skin brought back my remembrance of the first time we met. I thought she was beautiful then and I did now. My God, it’s good to see you, you look as beautiful as when we met.

Beth blushed. You’re talking blarney...I was worn out from traveling then, I’m worn out now from pulling a double shift.

You look good to me.

Thank you, sir. Pick me up at the main gate at seventeen thirty and we’ll make some plans for dinner and... we’ll see.

I got to the gate about fifteen minutes early. I had found a hotel for the night, had a shower, and changed clothes. I think I made the guard nervous, walking back and forth near the gate, chain smoking. Finally, Beth walked out. I gave a wolf whistle when I saw her...this time she was wearing civvies, a brightly patterned dress and high-heeled shoes. Nylon stockings were available now that the war was over and the seams, following the curves up the back of her legs, really accented the gams.

Hey, good lookin’. Ready for a night on the town?

She smiled, Reet. I know a nice café for dinner and then perhaps a cinema?

Whatever you want. How about dancing after the movie?

I suppose we could find some place to dance. That sounds marvelous.

At dinner she asked me, In your letters you never said much about the war. How did it go for you?

All right, I guess. I wound up as the squadron maintenance officer, wouldn’t you know, so I didn’t get to fly as much as the other pilots.

Did you see any action.

I started to get uncomfortable. Some.

Did you shoot down any Nips?

Yeah, I got a couple.

Well, tell me about it.

Not much to tell. Most of the good Jap pilots were killed by the time I got to the Pacific. The ones I shot down seemed like sitting ducks. I know it had to be done, but the one I got at Okinawa didn’t even know how to fly. I think they told him how to take off and he tried to crash into a ship. I had to shoot him down but it wasn’t glamorous or anything close to it." We dropped the subject. There were no movies Beth wanted to see, so we found a small bar with a three-piece band. We danced until two. We didn’t talk as much as I thought we would; I just enjoyed holding her. We held hands as we walked back to the base in the darkness, a few cats our only company.

Next morning, I met her in the headquarters building. She finished up her paperwork and said goodbye to the crew. Smart girl. She must have remembered the flights in the Staggerwing because she was wearing slacks for the flight. I picked up her sea bag and suitcase of civilian clothes and we headed for the airport.

On the flight back to Santiago, I mentioned Della’s idea of a company radio network. Would you be interested in setting it up?

"Very much. Actually, Mrs. Abbin and I have discussed the project a couple of times via letters. One