The Chorito Hog Leg, Book 1: A Novel of Guam in Time of War

by Pat Hickey

Chorito is the name of a cliff overlooking the Asan beaches on Guam. In 1944, the 3rd Marines assaulted Chorito Cliff and Bundeschu Ridge. A Hog Leg is the nickname for an 1860 Colt .45 Revolver. Within the carnage of battle is a war pitting a young man, Tim Cullen, against his battalion commander over the possession of an 1860 Army Colt .45 Hog leg revolver which can be traced back to Capt. Myles Keogh who died with Custer. The last owner is the doomed Lt. Jack Buck of Giddings, TX. Buck will be killed in the taking of Bundeschu Ridge, but Jack Buck had exacted a promise from Pvt. Tim Cullen of his platoon to keep it from the hands of Major Lucas Opley, an up from the ranks Marine of legend, and return the Colt to his family in Texas. Parallel to Cullen's ordeals and suffering on Japanese occupied Guam are movie house operator Juan Cruz and his family, as well as an exiled Japanese American Dentist and his movie star wife. Exacting the cruelty is the oafish Boson Otayama and the American educated Lt. Kato. Awaiting liberation are also such historical figures of Guam's history as Father Duenas and Pastor Sablan. The revolver, in its shoulder holster, will be taken from Lt. John A. Buck's body by Cullen at an aid station on Guam's Red Beach 2 and cause Cullen no end of problems. The Battalion commander wants the Colt Hog-leg. Cullen hangs on to the weapon but never uses it and is repeatedly ordered by Maj. Opley to hand it over. Opley wants it for himself. This through-the ranks career officer will undo himself through his own devices and be sent home under a cloud after years of service to the Corps after the Guam Campaign.

Genres: Fiction

408 pages, Paperback

First published April 6, 2007

Reviews

[Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pat Hickey's debut book "Every Heart and Hand: A Leo High School Story" was an excellent addition to Chicago-themed literature. "The Chorito Hog Leg", his second offering, is a story of two battles: World War Two's Guam Campaign, and Private Tim Cullen's struggle to keep an 1860 Army Colt .45 hog leg revolver from falling into the hands of his Battalion commander. Cullen had promised the dying previous owner that he would return the gun to the man's family in Texas. It's a vow that makes Guam more of a hell for Cullen than expected.

Hickey pulls no punches in his description of Pacific combat operations. The Japanese occupying force in Guam, the Marines who landed on the island, and the stricken inhabitants caught in between are presented to the reader with brutally direct detail. The author's grasp of WWII military lingo is so good that I sometimes wondered if this was some sort of cloaked memoir. But it isn't- Pat Hickey just has an innate ability to absorb his subject and create a truly believable peace of historical fiction.