ich he, Lee had participated. They were also
picked from documentaries which the government had never dared to let
the public see ... close-ups of a torpedoed troop carrier, capsizing,
coming down upon the struggling survivors in the shark-infested sea. It
had been his own ship, the _Monticello_, but he had never known that an
automatic camera had operated in the nose of the plane which had circled
the scene....

Port Darwin--Guadacanal--Iwo Jima: close-ups of flame throwing tanks
advancing up a ridge. He had commanded one of them.... Antlike human
figures of fleeing Japs and the flames leaping at them.... So vivid was
the memory that the smell returned to his nostrils, the sickening stench
of burning human flesh. It tortured him. His voice was husky with
revulsion as he said:

"What's the good of all this; take it away."

"Oh, no," one of the medics answered. "We couldn't think of that. We've
got to see this to the end. What are your physical sensations now, Dr.
Lee?"

"It's fingers now--soft fingers. They are tapping me from all sides
like--like a vibration massage. It's strange though--they're tapping
from the inside--little pneumatic hammers at a furious pace. They seem
to work upon my diaphragm for a drum. But it doesn't pain."

"Good, very good; that was a fine description, Lee. That burning city
was Manilla wasn't it, when MacArthur returned? You were in that second
Philippine campaign too weren't you, Lee? That was when you won the
Congressional Medal of Honor."

Yes, it was Manila all right, and there was Mindanao where the Japs had
put up that suicide defence of the caves.

Lee's battalion had been in the attack; steeply uphill with no cover, it
had been murder.... And seeing his best men mowed down, he had turned
berserk. He had used a bulldozer for a battering ram, had driven it
single handed directly into the fire-spitting mouth of the objective,
raising its blade like a battle-axe. An avalanche of rocks and dirt had
come down from the top of the cave under the artillery barrage and he
had rammed the stuff down into the throat of the fiery dragon, again and
again. He never rightly knew he did it. It had all ended in a blackout
from loss of blood. It had been in a hospital that they pinned that
medal on him which he felt was undeserved....

Now the reel showed him what at the time he hadn't seen; the end of the
battle for the Philippines: Pulverised volcanic rock seen from the air,
battle planes sw