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was unfamiliar territory for Shofner. In his twenty-five years, the gung ho Marine had yet to drink from a half-empty glass. He had brought that infectious optimism with him to Corregidor’s North Dock less than thirty-six hours earlier when the 4th Marine Regiment had arrived to assume beach defense duties.
    It was not long after that he discovered the famed fortress island was not al it had been built up to be—both literal y and figuratively.
    Located at the maw of Manila Bay, the tadpole-shaped island—though official y designated Fort Mil s and known the world over as the “Gibraltar of the East”—was affectionately cal ed “the Rock” by American troops. Hundreds of mines sat in the water, just off a perimeter of rocky beaches, vertical limestone cliffs, and the jaws of deep ravines. Craggy hil s swathed in high talahib grass were stratified into three terraces of elevation: Topside, Middleside, and Bottomside. With its own airstrip, Kindley Field, and power plant, the Rock was practical y self-sustaining. The island bristled with dens of artil ery, mortars, and fixed seacoast guns—the largest of which were the 12-inch cannons of batteries Smith and Hearn, which could hurl a 1,000-pound armor-piercing shel seventeen miles. Its most notable feature, however, was the bombproof Malinta Tunnel and its honeycombed maze of reinforced concrete laterals, cavernous 400-foot ventilated shafts used for hospital wards, offices, and storage. “Corregidor was indeed a mighty fortress,” decided Associated Press correspondent Clark Lee. “Doubtless it would have been impregnable—if the airplane had never been invented.”
    A jarring duet of sirens and clanging brass shel casings sounded across the hil s at 1140. Most of the Marines who had been unloading supplies and digging positions casual y looked skyward—the Japanese, their Army comrades had told them, didn’t dare chal enge Corregidor’s defenses. Lieutenant Shofner jumped to his feet. After talking a colonel into the barracks basement, Shofner also headed for the exit.
    Though admittedly discouraged after having seen Corregidor’s “antiquity” up close, he had no intentions of waiting out the raid. The soles of his spit-shined cordovan shoes clacked down the stairs. He pul ed his helmet over his closely cropped chestnut hair, ripped a final drag from his cigarette, and flicked the butt, contemptuously, to the ground. “I wanted to go out and see these planes get knocked down,” he said.
    Eighteen bombers, flying in a V formation at 15,000 feet, arrived to a raucous reception of hundreds of smoke puffs bursting upon the pale blue sky. Hunched behind sandbags, men and machine guns chattered away in separate, frantic staccatos. The twinkling of the metal bombs in the sunlight jolted Shofner to his senses. “I couldn’t tel what their targets were,” he said, “but I hoped it wasn’t me.” He did not wait to find out.
    Just as the first bombs slammed into the Rock, Shofner dove into the barracks, buffeted by blast concussions. It was a close cal , the first of many face-to-face encounters with the specter of death in this war, but luck had been on his side. His father had always told him, if you can’t be smart, be lucky.
    During his formative years in Shelbyvil e, Tennessee, a bucolic town about fifty miles southeast of Nashville, Shofner learned the values of a strong work ethic and self-sufficiency from his father, a schoolteacher and part-time farmer. When his schoolwork and chores were completed—he drove cattle and hauled buckets of spring water on a 200-acre ancestral farmstead—Shofner could be found hunting squirrels and rabbits amid the tulip poplars and hickories in the hol ows along the Duck River, or else on a basebal diamond or footbal field demonstrating the talents that would earn him a reputation as one of the best athletes in Bedford County history.
    His gridiron prowess merited a partial footbal scholarship to the University of