The Ellis Memoir

VMD-154 Formation & Training

The following early history of VMD-154 covers squadron formation and training. This handwritten history was found among the papers passed on to the office of the Secretary/Treasurer. Unfortunately the author appears to be an anonymous squadron member. Initial investigations indicate that the author may have been Bruce Ellis aka Dennis Ellis. If anyone can positively identify the authorship of this history, please notify the webmaster at vmd154.reunion.assn@insightbb.com so that proper credit can be given.


In early 1942 while planning committing troops in the South Pacific, the Marine Corps realized the almost total lack of accurate maps and charts of that area. All existing information had been mostly compiled by the French and Japanese and was unavailable to our forces.

Two photographic squadrons were organized and designated VMD-154 and VMD-254, one of which was formed at old Hangar 2, NAS North Island, San Diego, CA under the command of Lt.Col. Elliott E. Bard. In the summer of that year, the flight line was composed of two SNJs, one Brewster Buffalo, and a Grumman Duck.

We lived in the hangar as no barracks were available and reville was usually accomplished by the Duty NCO driving a jeep between the rows of bunks with the horn blaring. Not a pleasant way to start the day.

As I had been assigned to the radio section, we began training on Morse code and the other sections boned up in their own areas. This squadron was completely self contained including mess, laundry, cobbler, intelligence, metal shop, ordnance, camp maintenance, postal, P.X., and a dozen or so other sections necessary to carry out the mission.

About this time, two PB4Y-1s (B-24s), Bureau Numbers 41940 and 41943, were delivered and prepared for their role. Aerial cameras were installed in the starboard rear bomb bay and auxilliary gas tanks were placed in the two front bays. Gasoline had to be pumped from those tanks into the wing tanks on its way to the four Pratt Whitneys , so naturally there was no smoking during this operation.

The CO and two crews flew these two birds out to Espiritu Santo early that fall and began operations in the Solomons. Espiritu was about five hundred miles south of Guadalcanal. These were long hops as Henderson Field had not been secured and all the flights were non-stop round trips.

Meanwhile back at North Island, the main part of the squadron was going through its drill. Pilots and crews did their flight time in the SNJs, working on everything from navigation to being airborn targets making dummy runs over the area for tracking practice for our 50 cal. Brownings. This progressed in a routine manner until Lt. Brent Myking came in low enough in the F2A Brewster to blow the papers off a one-star general's desk on the second deck across the street. We didn't fly that low again til the old man cooled off.

All the while,
Consolidated Aircraft across the bay was building our other four birds, Bureau Numbers 31959, 31962, 31985, and 31994. These were delivered at random and the flights in and out of North Island absolutely terrorized the control tower as the runway was only about 3,500 feet. Many sets of brakes were smoking before they ran us out to Camp Kearney, the current site of NAS Miramar. There were no showers, one water faucet, and a few eight-man tents so living was a bit rough. I was raised in Iowa, but I don't ever remember being as cold as on that mesa north of San Diego. Luckily, old Camp Elliot was fairly close by so we did get hot showers and mess facilities there on occasion.

VMD-154 was a rather strange unit. All senior officers, and a captain in those days was pretty senior, were not qualified aircraft commanders in the PB4Ys. Young 2nd lieutenants were trained elsewhere to qualify as first pilots so rank in the cockpit was reversed in the left and right-hand seats. The Marines had no trained multi-engine navigators so four enlisted buddies of mine were selected at random and trained by Capt. John Reed who had transferred down from the RCAF. As the PBYs were the first four-engined aircraft the Marine Corps had seen, it was a case of learning what you had to do and hope the unexpected never happened. Naturally, it did on occasion, but we stumbled through.

In November and December after many training flights things started falling in place so a three plane flight was organized to proceed to Espiritu Santo and join the CO and the first echelon. We loaded up at NAS and departed for Hamilton Field north of San Francisco, arriving there on 5 January 1943. After receiving an Air Force briefing, which few of us understood, we departed at midnight on 6 January for
Hickam Field.

Shortly after take-off, the fun began. The weather was lousy, and we were in a blinding fog. Compounding this, the landing lights would not shut off or retract so it was like flying into a big white sheet. How to shut down the lights was one thing the flight engineer failed to master so Lts. Roberts and Stewart rigged up the blind flying curtains on the cockpit windows and flew by instruments until the weather cleared up some hours later. Meanwhile, the formation became seperated and some twelve hours after take-off, we were all alone on a bright clear day, completely lost in the middle of the Pacific. Lady Luck stayed with us, and we picked up a faint radio signal from Hawaii and homed in to Hickam with the radio compass. Those islands looked wonderful after logging 15.3 hours getting there.

On our arrival at Hickam, they told us we had to go to
NAS Barbers Point and on landing there, they reshuffled us to the airfield at Ewa. The bunk sure looked and felt great that night.

On 8 January, we flew over to Hickam for three days where they made some modifications on the PB4Y. As I recall, they cut a hole in the belly and installed a set of 50 cal. guns that ran manually on a circular track.