Chapter Two, my Father in the Pacific.

An insight into my old man is the other chapter to who are we. From my earliest memories I can hear my dads war stories, I still hear them today and for anyone that truely knows me it goes along way to explain why I like the things that I do.
At any rate my father, John Tesoriero Snr, served in the Pacific, in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. He was stationed up there from about 1943 onwards. He had two paricularly good skills, he was an amazing artist and a crack shot with a rifle.
One day whilst on patrol with buddies along the Yalu River he sighted on a large Cockatoo flying and screeching high above the tree tops, he lead him and then took a shot on the wing and then to everyones amazement it fell like a stone at their feet. At the same moment, they heard a splutter and looked up to see a plane coming down from a great height, tumbling like a leaf, no smoke or fire as usually imagined.
At that point a white parachute ejected, carrying the pilot who swung down slowly. It was an American plane, a P-39 Aircobra and then two similar aircraft flew tight circles around the pilot as he came down.
Dad's mates in jubilation at the shot were shouting a lot of nonsense while this went on, such as 'Wow, what a terrific shot! The bird and the plane with one bullet.' It didn't seem to matter that it had been one of ours that fell from the sky. They later learned that the pilot was rescued and was earlier stricken in a dog fight but this didn't stop the rumours from circling the camp as to Dad's marksmanship.

In this photo my father on the left is with mates overseeing the guarding of supplies that had recently been unloaded at Lae.

One of his sketches showing a huge American LST on the beach spilling forth activity and supplies.