PART THREE
The reluctant celebrity.

Johnny Basilone came home with the Medal of Honor and was turned into a bond pitchman. But he longed for the front lines.

The Orange County Register
By Keith Sharon
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
 

Johnny didn’t want people to think the Medal of Honor and the attention had made him soft. On June 21, 1943, Dora Basilone, Johnny’s mother, received a letter in Raritan, N.J., where Johnny had been raised in a neighborhood the other kids derisively called Goosepatch.

"I am very happy for the other day I received the Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest award you can receive in the armed forces. Tell Pop his son is still tough,"
Johnny wrote.

On June 24, 1943, the New York Times ran the headline: SLEW 38 JAPANESE IN ONE BATTLE, JERSEY MARINE GETS HONOR MEDAL.

Johnny expected some attention when he landed at Camp Pendleton in August 1943. He happily signed autographs and granted interviews. Someone showed him the comic book "War Heroes" that included a five-page spread called "Manila John Moves Out."

In colorful pulp fiction style, Manila John "slew 38" and had a physique like Superman.

The U.S. Navy pulled its decorated warrior out of the South Pacific and made him a celebrity pitchman. Johnny was assigned to the war-bond drive, a barnstorming road show featuring Hollywood stars, politicians, military brass and one Jersey Marine.

Johnny traveled with what seemed like half of Hollywood. John Garfield, Virginia Grey, Keenan Wynn, Martha Scott and Gene Lockhart. All of them stars of war movies, all of them sharing the podium with Johnny Basilone.

Johnny was sent to New York City to prepare for the tour. That’s where he met his handler, Marine public relations man Burns Lee, who told him always to use the phrase "Back the Attack" when asking for donations and to show up for appearances in his dress blue uniform.

Johnny hesitated. "Do you own a set of dress blues?" Lee asked.

"What do you think I am, a lieutenant?" Johnny said.

In Washington, D.C., Johnny met the media in the Navy Department press room. He looked thin, sitting in a leather chair. He fumbled with his hat in his hands, sweating.

He explained his movements at Guadalcanal for what seemed like the thousandth time.

Then someone asked him about his medal. "I think only a part of this medal belongs to me," Johnny said. "Pieces of it belong to the boys who fought by my side." The press loved it.

Someone asked Johnny if he was nervous in front of the cameras.

"This is worse than fighting the Japs," he said, prompting a huge laugh.

The problem was that he wasn’t joking. And Johnny’s fame was about to explode.

He was going home.

It shouldn’t be about him.

That’s what Johnny Basilone told the priest preparing the Mass. It should be about the guys he left behind, his buddies still battling in the South Pacific.

The more attention he got, the less he felt he deserved it.

But it was about him. All about him.

It was John Basilone Day in Raritan. The central Jersey town of 6,000 was invaded by 30,000 Basilone fans Sept. 19, 1943. Johnny was pale and skinny and overwhelmed. The most talkative kid in grammar school had become a shy, stammering hero.

At morning Mass, the Rev. Robert Graham said, "His life will be a guide to American youth. God has spared him for some big work."

The parade, in which he rode atop a convertible, stretched from nearby Somerville through Raritan and onto the estate of tobacco heiress Doris Duke, where a grandstand rose over the manicured lawns. The parade did not go through Goosepatch, the poor neighborhood where Johnny was raised.

"Sergeant Basilone," said former New York City Mayor Jimmy Walker, "is an inspiration, not only to other Italian-Americans but to all Americans."

County Judge George Allgair presented him with a $5,000 war bond, and Johnny rose from his seat.

He stood in front of his hometown crowd with all the confidence of a man facing a firing squad.

"I want to thank you Judge Allgair and these very good home folks of Raritan for this wonderful gift," Johnny said. "For all my buddies overseas on the front lines – that they really appreciate everything you wonderful people are doing by backing the attack and buying these war bonds."

It wasn’t grammatically correct, but it was enough.

Johnny was standing on stage when Louise Allbritton, the beautiful 23-year-old star of 1942 films "Danger in the Pacific" and "Parachute Nurse," sauntered toward the microphone.

Earlier, before the show had started, Johnny had sheepishly shaken her hand.

But with 30,000 people watching, she grabbed him and kissed him on the lips.

The crowd went crazy.

And the photographers, dozens of them, missed it. Too busy reloading after Johnny’s speech, they blew the shot.

So, they asked her to do it again. Allbritton happily obliged, while Johnny stood there, a smiling, petrified statue.

"I always wanted to kiss a hero," she said afterward. In all, Johnny’s homecoming raised $1.4 million in war-bond sales in one day. You could buy them for $18.75, and they would be worth $25 in 10 years.

The military didn’t know it at the time, but they had a problem. What if your hero, your bona fide rainmaker on the fund-raising trail, didn’t want to be a hero? What if he really was just a kid from Goosepatch who was a genius with machine guns but a self-conscious, scared public figure?

When Johnny asked to be taken off the publicity tour and sent back to the Pacific theater, the Navy said no. His family and friends couldn’t understand his eagerness to get back to the fight. Take the kisses, they told him. The gifts. The stardom.

"You already done enough for the war," his brother Angelo said.

The Navy offered him a desk job in Washington. Johnny said no. They offered him a job teaching machine gun tactics at Camp Pendleton. Johnny said no.

They offered him, in effect, anything he wanted, except a bunk in the Pacific fleet headed for the Philippines or any other island. Johnny said, "I want the fleet."

Again, the Navy said no.

Johnny was scheduled to give a speech with other World War II heroes at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, when he cornered Maj. Gen. Alexander Vandegrift.

Johnny begged to have the curtain fall on his celebrity tour.

Johnny was running out of chances.

PART FOUR, COMING WEDNESDAY:
Johnny’s dream came true. He was sent back to Camp Pendleton to prepare to fight. But first, he fell in love.

OCRegister.com News
http://www.ocregister.com/news/2004/basilone/part3.shtml