I have been writing a novel that no doubt will stand as my greatest effort of a lifetime. Years have passed while I drafted and redrafted the book I now call “Guadalcanal Avengers.” It tells a family story based on the true wartime misadventures of my Uncle Herbert Hopp, a Navy airman. As I write it, I realize Herb’s saga is remarkably similar to Homer’s Odyssey.
While immersed in a project like this, I often seek out music to provide a thematic backdrop to my thinking and typing. Given the great similarity of Herb’s story to Homer’s, it seemed history was repeating itself. I kept hearing in the back of my head David Crosby and his bandmates chanting, “We have all been here before, we have all been here before…” These are lyrics from the song “Déjà Vu” by Crosby, Stills, and Nash. I’ll provide a link below, but first, let me tell you why it’s my choice.
Herb’s storyline is astonishingly close to Homer’s tale of triumph in battle followed by catastrophe on the way home. We all know that Odysseus (or Ulysses) sailed with the Greek fleet to Troy and grasped victory with his Trojan Horse plan. And most know The Odyssey recounts his many vexations while sailing home to Ithaca: captured by Cyclops; enchanted by Circe, lured by Sirens, and finally, challenged by suitors for his wife Penelope’s hand on his arrival at Ithaca.
For comparison, consider Uncle Herb’s true tale of heroism and long journey home: sailing to the South Pacific aboard a warship in 1943; confronting the Japanese Imperial Fleet in the Solomon Islands; striking an enemy destroyer with a torpedo from his Grumman Avenger aircraft; being shot down by vengeful Japanese Zero fighter planes; crashing on a jungle island where cannibalism was not yet eradicated; being rescued by natives and paddled back to Guadalcanal in their own version of a warship, a headhunters’ raiding canoe. The story goes on, but I don’t want to spoil the whole thing for folks who’d like to read it when it’s published. So, I’ll stop the narrative here. Herb faced many more challenges on his Odyssean journey home.
Inspired by the déjà vu qualities of Herb’s story, I searched the Internet and turned up a great rendition of the song recorded by Croz and his buddies in concert in 1989, two decades after its original release on the CSN album of the same name. The song has aged well, and I strongly recommend you follow the YouTube link below and give it a listen. David was not just strumming an oldy but goody and reminiscing. He gave, in this recording, what I think was the performance of a lifetime:
Déjà Vu link
Not only is every note played or sung perfectly, but the recording quality (ripped from a radio broadcast) is exceedingly high. Furthermore, the extended solos on keyboard and guitar are surpassingly grand, and very evocative of the old school psychedelic style pioneered by Crosby among others in the 60s. I am about 99% certain the guitar solo is performed by David himself, not a sideman. It sounds like his work on other CSN recordings and here it is done impeccably.
Listen through to the very end because something else awaits—the rarest of treats. As the final crescendo fades and the crowd roars, three loud shouts are heard. They’re the outburst of delight as a musical artist hears his song reach the finish line without a single flaw, start to finish. A rare moment for any performer and you can hear Croz’s ecstatic joy, especially in his last long shriek.
And finally, back to Herb’s Odyssean saga. Here’s an excerpt covering one of many true events, which I have fictionalized to fill out missing details. But this airplane crash is listed on the logbooks of the aircraft carrier USS COPAHEE, so it shouldn’t be far off the mark. Mind you, this is just a first draft and will require quite a bit of polish before it’s ready to publish. But it will give you a foretaste of the adventure I’m writing.
Excerpt from Guadalcanal Avengers, by Thomas Hopp
Aboard the Wildcat, Moe thought his approach had been pretty spot-on, though COPAHEE’s deck looked like a metal-and-wood version of a bucking bronco: rearing high, ducking low, rolling side-to-side, wallowing left, wheeling right. He fingered the steering stick gingerly, keeping his aircraft centered on the middle of all that motion and watching the Landing Signal Officer at his station at the aft port corner of the flight deck, holding his bright orange signal paddles out to his sides against the black-screen backdrop behind him. Moe held his line true as he neared the ship’s pitching stern, seeing no wave-off from the LSO, who could barely keep his feet due to the wind, let alone give such a signal. As the Wildcat crossed the aft end of the flight deck, Moe was about to congratulate himself on making it look too easy—when all hell broke loose.
The COPAHEE pitched up sharply at the bow, struck by a massive wave much larger than those preceding it. Paired blasts of white spray jetted out and upward, sweeping back over her bows. The force of the wave also drove COPAHEE’s stern down deep, just at the moment the Wildcat’s tailhook should have engaged either the first or second arresting cable. The hook, hanging beneath the plane’s tail, missed both cross cables by a matter of inches as they dropped away from it.
Now a rapid-fire succession of unfortunate events took place. An instant after the cable miss, the Wildcat belly-flopped on the rising deck. The impact splayed the wing wheels to the sides, grinding the nose into the deck and throwing out propeller blades and pieces of decking in all directions. Moe was thrown forward as far as his body could go. The shoulder straps across his chest knocked the air from his lungs like a body punch. His head smacked against the instrument panel, making him see stars.
“Oh my God,” Bill cried as the aircraft careened forward, its speed unabated. “He’s gonna get killed.”
To the already unfortunate combination of momentums, the ocean added a sideways roll that tossed the plane starboard and threw it against the island just below the astonished men on the searchlight platform, giving them a bird’s eye view of the carnage that ensued. The right wingtip tore off and the aircraft continued forward spinning flat on its belly and throwing out sparks that threatened to set its wing tank fuel afire. As the deck wallowed farther starboard, the Wildcat spun again and again until it reached the bow, where it careened over the starboard side headed for the sea. Cries of horror burst from every throat on the searchlight deck as the mangled aircraft teetered for a moment, poised above the violent ocean, then dropped over the edge of the deck, tail up and nose toward the dark and frothing waters.
But as it plunged, the heretofore useless tail hook, of all things, caught on a railing of the gallery deck, five feet below the flight deck—and held!
The wrecked plane hung there, swinging madly as waves lashed the ship’s bow and the dangling aircraft alike.
“That’ll never hold!” Herb rushed to the front rail of the platform. “It’ll bust loose—” Even as he said the words, the tailhook tore off with a t-t-u-u-n-n-ng sound reverberating over the howl of the wind. The plane dropped the three-story distance to the ocean, nose first.
Through all this, Moe had been only semiconscious of being tossed violently forward, sideways, and back. Constrained by his hip and shoulder straps, his senses reeling, he came to when cool ocean water sprayed in from every seam and gap in the cockpit. Gasping for breath, he groped for and found the port and starboard canopy latches. Wrenching them open, he tugged the handles back, intending to climb out, but the mechanism balked and stuck about halfway open under the force of seawater rushing in.
The roiling ocean crashed in around his face, swirling wildly spinning trails of froth and bubbles, pressing him back in his seat. Water went up his nose and partway down his throat, choking him. He unbuckled his belts, sensing that the plane had toppled over after nosing in, coming to rest upside down on the ocean’s surface. From the way trails of bubbles moved toward his feet, he deduced that the plane’s nose had begun to drop into the depths, drawn down by the weight of the engine.
On the searchlight platform, there were cries and shouts of horror from the throats of a dozen sailors witnessing the event. More crewmen rushed out on deck to watch the tragedy unfold. Everyone crowded the outboard railing with eyes rivetted to the foundering Wildcat. Herb pushed in among them.
“Outta my way,” he shouted as he forced his way to the railing.
Below them, the plane was pancaked upside down, bent landing gear up like a dead duck’s feet, scraping and bumping along the hull as COPAHEE glided forward, her engines now reversed and her propellers roiling up fountains of white water at her stern. Nevertheless her momentum still made twenty knots over the sea’s rough, wind-driven surface.
“Can you see Moe?” Bill called through the crowd, pushing in to get to the railing.
“No,” Herb called back. “I’ll bet he can’t get out.”
“He’d better,” Joe said as he pushed in next to Herb. “The plane’s already going down.”
The weight of the engine was pulling the Wildcat’s nose under at an accelerating rate, and waves washed over the belly as it tipped ever more steeply and the tail rose. Herb was aghast at the thought his friend was being killed before his eyes.
Bill found a white life ring strapped to the railing, tore loose the buckles that held it, and tossed it down as the plane scraped by below them.
“Lotta good that’s gonna do,” Herb growled, knowing this would be too little help and too late. Moe, unseen inside the overturned cockpit, was in no shape to use it. But Herb had another thought and reacted instantaneously. He climbed the guardrail and, before Joe could finish shouting, “What the hell are you doing?” vaulted the top rail and plunged toward the sea with his arms extended high-diver style.
Men gasped, and one made a clutching grab at Herb, but missed. Herb went into a headfirst dive right over the Wildcat. As he dropped, he had split seconds to consider the wisdom of his jump. It looked like he might strike the belly of the Wildcat. If so, he and Moe would end up at the bottom of the Pacific together.
But Herb hit the water in a clean dive that just missed the Wildcat’s tail, which was all that remained above the surface. Plunging into the blue depths, Herb realized it was a lucky dive. Not only had he missed the tail, but as he angled his outstretched hands to swoop toward the fuselage, he saw and grasped the half-opened canopy window. Inside he saw Moe, trapped behind the glass. Moe still had his flight goggles on, and his eyes looked huge and round with desperation. He pointed at where the canopy was open about five inches. Herb grasped it in both hands, put both feet on edge of the forward windshield housing, and reefed with all his might. The canopy moved back slowly, grudgingly, but move back it did. Meanwhile the aircraft slid beneath the surface completely, gliding nose-down into the depths.
Moe had unlatched his seatbelt buckles, but now he moved groggily, weakened by lack of oxygen. Herb grabbed him by both shoulders and with his feet on the cockpit coaming, tugged him out in a long, desperate pull. By now, the plane and the two men were easily twenty feet below the surface and descending fast. Herb knew that even he didn’t have enough air in him for a slow float to the surface, so he thought fast. He wrapped his left arm around Moe as he came free of the plane and reached in through the straps of his Mae West life vest—which Moe had wisely chosen not to inflate, or he’d still be stuck in the cockpit, trapped in the upside-down compartment by the jacket’s buoyancy. But now the two men were floating free and slowly rising as the Wildcat vanished into the blue depths. Herb grasped the inflation pullcord at the jacket’s collar and gave a sharp tug, opening a compressed gas cylinder that quickly inflated the vest, which hauled them rapidly toward the surface.
Herb kept a good grip on Moe, and when they burst through the surface, he took in huge gasps of sweet air. He noted gladly that Moe, though coughing and sputtering, was getting his share of oxygen.
By now, the COPAHEE’s full length had swept past them, leaving them a hundred yards astern on turbulent water. But they were safe enough thanks to Moe’s Mae West. And there, beside them, bobbed Billy’s life ring. Herb reached out and clasped it, keeping one hand on Moe’s collar.
The COPAHEE’s reversed engines finally brought her to FULL-STOP. As the prop wash settled, men lined the back railings, cheering and pumping fists to salute their shipmates who had survived coming within a hair’s breadth of death.
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