2. Travel

Philippines

In 1969 Patrol Squadron 46 is doing a split deployment in Southeast Asia. Some of our P-3 Orion fanjets are stationed at Sangley Point near Caviti City, on Luzon in the Philippines. I’m with the deployment stationed on Cam Rahn Bay, Vietnam. This split deployment allows me to travel Luzon about once a month for short visits. A few hours in the Philippines and it becomes apparent that crews who are in the PI are getting the best end of the deal. In Vietnam we are getting shot at and have to hunker down through rocket attacks. Cavity City and the lovely Luzon Island are a joyous paradise for young sailors. Chief Louis Hinojosa is in charge of the Sangley Poing base photo lab, and he gives the photographers in his charge many opportunities to get out and see the islands. Hinojosa invites me over to his house for dinner with his family and tries to talk me into a Navy career. Only after I leave the Navy do I realize being a Navy photographer was the best job I had ever had.
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The Office of Naval Investigation (ONI) needs a photographer for a most unusual undercover assignment. Posing as a gay journalist covering the annual transvestite ball for a San Francisco magazine, I'm sent to record faces of the cross-dressers. The Benny Boys, as local queens are called, had been luring sailors into dark places and rolling them. There had even been killings. The team assigned to the project are Ron Latarte, an armed Filipino ONI agent and me. While I attempt to photograph every face in the ballroom, Letarte is there to produce an indoctrination slide presentation. The presentation was used to warn newly arrived sailors, and the mug book was to identify criminals. The Benny Boy shown here is the person I foolish told my real name to and royally blew our cover. Read the story under the next photo.
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The Office of Naval Investigation (ONI) needs a photographer for a most unusual undercover assignment. Posing as a gay journalist covering the annual transvestite ball for a San Francisco magazine, I'm sent to record faces of the cross-dressers. The Benny Boys, as local queens are called, had been luring sailors into dark places and rolling them. There had even been killings. The team assigned to the project are Ron Latarte, an armed Filipino ONI agent and me. While I attempt to photograph every face in the ballroom, Letarte is there to produce an indoctrination slide presentation. The presentation was used to warn newly arrived sailors, and the mug book was to identify criminals. The Benny Boy shown here is the person I foolish told my real name to and royally blew our cover. Read the story under the next photo.

bal

  • Using my camera Cope shoots slides as we push the raft to the side of the falls to enter the hidden cave. As I recall we used the current and pulled ourselves by underwater vine to these rocks
  • This shot is taken in the cave behind Pagsajan Falls. The bamboo raft and vine rope are the only way to enter the cave. It's a strange wet world of moldy smells and filtered light. The noise is deafening and one feels like this might be the gate to a lost world. I made a second trip with a Nikonos underwater camera just for this shot. If I ever go again, I’ll take a flash.
  • This photo, taken by Richard Cope, shows a group of us returning from the bamboo raft trip after visiting the massive cave behind Pagsajan Falls. I have the base photo lab's Nikonos underwater camera around my neck. The first time I saw the cave, I can't rest until I go back with a camera.
  • The Manila American Cemetery contains the largest number of foreigned burried America’s military dead from World War II. I walk among the 17, 206 graves with my camera. I’m not sure what I’m looking for here. It’s something to do with my father, and the wounds and metals he brought back from Normandy. It seems I’m here to pay respect. War is also about secrets and many were taken underground here. <br /> <br /> My father has countless stories that start out, “Our unit was pinned down by German shelling and machine gun fire, and the guy beside me got hit….” This is how I expect war to be, and Vietnam is nothing like my father’s stories. Vietnam shows me I’m not the decorated, hard charging soldier I imagined. Going to Southeast Asia with World War II stories sends me wandering graveyards seeking answers. <br /> <br /> Navy duty allows me to leave the war in Vietnam for a few days and I find myself searching for an image among the endless rows of crosses. A Star of David speaks to me, and I stop in my tracks. I frame this shot and walk away feeling as if I’ve placed reverent flowers.
  • Is this where we ate dog? The native guides are from a mountain tribe that connects machismo with eating. Eat lots and eat loudly a group of sailors from the base at Sangly Point are told before the trip. Our guide at the end of our visit goes up to a house and announces loudly that he wishes to honor us—he will buy us food. He, evidently being quite an important man who had taken us all over the Luzon Mountains in his World War Two Jeep, would buy. We sit on a back thatched patio. The lady of the house brings a wooden oblong platter for our guide, me, and another Navy man whose name I cannot remember. The giant plate looks as if it carries about six pounds of barbequed meat. I wonder if we can eat it all. She sets the giant Monkey Pod wooden platter in front of me, and brings two identical platters for the guide and the other sailor. It’s impossible to eat that much meat but somehow I get about half down. The flavor is actually quite good and reminds me of Texas style barbeque. To stall for digestion time I ask what kind of meat our guide is he honoring us with. I point to a caribou in a rice field but no this meat is from a different animal. He can’t remember the word in English. It’s not a chicken or duck we eat. In time, I get about two-thirds through my barbequed flesh mountain. It starts a warm rain out in the valley below, and the air smells rich and foreign. An old bitch hound comes under the porch for shelter. She fills the room with sadness and the smell of a dirty wet dog. Rain pours all the harder and dances the neighbors’ tin roofs. A crowd had gathered to watch us show our manhood. They watch us eat, and the tin roofs play like a million drums. The smell of dog brings back our guide’s English vocabulary. “Dog!” he says and stands up for punctuation. My mouth, suddenly full of puppy, had the flavor of wet dog. The other sailor refused to eat another bite. This refusal to respect the tribe’s macho display made him invisible to our guide. I wonder if this is why I can’t remember the man’s name. Our gravely guide is embarrassed before his fellow villagers. I suddenly remember that this tribe still practices ritual beheadings. The mad needs to save face. “What? Your friend is not hungry?” the slighted guide says scornfully. I say nothing, look at my plate and keep eating. “I think we need to eat this man’s meat for him,” he says looking through the invisible man to take his plate. This act is evidently a great face-saving gesture. We split the remainder of the other sailor’s meat. Still I eat. The native becomes friendly again. The neighbors relax. I think I’ve won. Then I hear, “But I’m still hungry.” This was impossible. Still, he orders another platter that had to have come from another hut. We eat another puppy platter as the storm passes. I’m not mad at my traveling companion, and completely understand his inability to eat dog. In fact, I wonder still. Who was he?
  • The Office of Naval Investigation (ONI) needs a photographer for a most unusual undercover assignment. Posing as a gay journalist covering the annual transvestite ball for a San Francisco magazine, I'm sent to record faces of the cross-dressers. The Benny Boys, as local queens are called, had been luring sailors into dark places and rolling them. There had even been killings. The team assigned to the project are Ron Latarte, an armed Filipino ONI agent and me. While I attempt to photograph every face in the ballroom, Letarte is there to produce an indoctrination slide presentation. The presentation was used to warn newly arrived sailors, and the mug book was to identify criminals. The Benny Boy shown here is the person I foolish told my real name to and royally blew our cover. Read the story under the next photo.
  • Magically the evening of the Benny Boy Ball is timed with Night-Blooming Jasmine’s peek bloom. An intoxicating aroma waifs from flowering vines that hang off every fence and tree. Sultry island breeze flows scented over our faces as we buzz like honeybees in motorcycle sidecars through the island night.<br /> <br /> Manila Bay in silver moonlight dances gaily to our west. A nervous Naval Investigations officer leads our busy formation of three motorcycles. He’s a huge man who conceals 45 automatic under his traditional dress shirt known as barong tagalog. He worries about working with amateurs, and keeps looking back urging our drivers to keep up. <br /> <br /> We weave and dart with reckless abandon through the Jeepney traffic. Jeepneys, colorful mini busses mounted on old World War Two Jeep chassis, are parties on wheels. No one in the city but the three of us seems in a hurry. Passengers hanging on the mini busses are off for Friday night fun and they wave, laugh, and some even dance on the overloaded mobile rainbows. Ron Latarte and I are excited. We can’t believe we are actually off on an undercover assignment. <br /> <br /> The plan is for each of us to arrive at the ball at different times so we don’t appear to be together in a group. Watching a red island sunset and drinking ice cold beer, we had received our night’s instructions in an outdoor café. The scowl never left the Filipino ONI officer’s face as he went over details of our assignment. He made it clear, as he sat across the table sipping a San Miguel, that he would feel much better working with trained agents. We evidently strike him as having too much fun with the idea of posing as gay journalists to gather photographs of the area Benny Boys. <br /> <br /> “Look,” he says shaking his head at our light-hearted attitudes, “Here in Cabeetee Seetee (as Cavite City is locally pronounced) dees guys are really a big problem. Ju sailors can’t tell dem from da hookurs.” With some pride he allows that Cavite City hookers and transvestites are perhaps the most beautiful in the world but, “Tree guys from Bee Pee Porty-Six have been hurt already,” he goes on hoping to rally us in support the men of VP-46 who need a mug book to identify their muggers. “Dis is also not good for da Pill-la-peens.”<br /> <br /> Still, he wants us to know he will do his best to protect us if we follow his rules. We should stay in character, swish a little, let the wrists go limp, lisp a bit but don’t go overboard. We shouldn’t talk to anyone too much and give as little information about ourselves as possible. We should keep him in view at all times. Most important of all, we should not draw attention to ourselves. We are journalists for a San Francisco cross-dressing magazine and we should “juss keep it simple and ju guys will do fine.” <br /> <br /> I’m the last to arrive at the hotel banquet hall. I hop out of my sidecar and organize my cameras as I enter the hotel using ONI provided press credentials at the ball door. The hall is packed and I wonder if I’ve enough film to document the hundreds of faces I’m there to record. I go to work and shoot feverishly trying to cover every face in the event. The ONI agent stays as promised across the hall watching our every move. Letarte is socializing, taking his time and having fun. His job is to shoot a slide presentation so he is seeking out only the most beautiful of the lovelies. It’s debatable which queen’s feminine charms are more likely to fool a drunken seaman after several months at sea. Letarte, a sailor from Maine, is clearly doing his best to sort them out.<br /> <br /> I see the prettiest boy in the room about the same time as Letarte. We find ourselves shooting her side-by-side for a few minutes until our guard signals that we should spread out. So like a pretty young girl, the Benny Boy shows me how sailors are blown off course and fooled. I foolishly chat away with the lovely lass, and drop my lisp in the process. Then I hear myself telling her my real name. Trying to recover, I’m quick to point out that I’m a photographer visiting from California. “Gotta get back to work sweetie,” I say as I swish off. <br /> <br /> This is when the 1970 Queen of the Benny Boys arrives. Having already been chosen earlier tonight is her coronation. She is beautiful from a distance. Letarte and I photograph her arrival like Paparazzi. The master’s of ceremony is calling the plays, and making humorous quips as the queen mounts the stage and assumes her throne. She’s given a robe and scepter and the beautiful moment is shattered by an unbelievable announcement, “Bill Gann, a photographer visiting from California,” the announcer says cheerfully, “has been given the honor of crowning the queen.” <br /> <br /> Before I know it the pretty lady/boy I had given my name to is dragging me on stage as the ONI agent sputters apoplectically. I had bought a lavender shirt for the evening and Letarte nabs a slide showing my embarrassed face in matching hues. I’m given a trophy and pushed to the queen. The crowd loves my shyness and laughter shakes the building. I hand the queen the trophy and try to back away when he grabs my arm and says, “Plees kess me, Bill Gann.” Letarte has his flash cycled, his focus nailed, and the exposure set. His Nikon is on motor drive, and I’m about to be remembered in a Philippine slide presentation as the sailor who kissed the Queen of the Benny Boys. <br /> <br /> I pull away and the crowd roars. I could actually see people rolling on the floor in laughter. When I try to exit the stage, I’m blocked by the pretty Benny Boy. He gives me the crown, and pushes me back to stage center. So much for the rule of not drawing attention to one’s self. The scene repeats, as the announcer becomes comedian and says, “Looks like Bill Gann is too shy to kiss the Queen.” <br /> <br /> The audience is given one of the best shows in years. The Jasmine scented night is likely still remembered by some who were there. Our cover blown, the ONI officer herds us out of the hall and onto a waiting Jeepney. Shaking his head, he keeps his hand near the 45 as we exit. Still we have hundreds of images, both slides and black and white prints so our mission is accomplished.<br /> <br /> Back at the lab I’m not allowed to print my black and whites. Lab Chief Hinajosa says ONI doesn’t want me to be tempted to steal any of their precious shots. ONI even keeps the negatives. For the same reason, Letarte isn’t allowed to soup his slides either. Thirty years later Letarte and I are exchanging E-mails and we discover we had both clandestinely gone to the lab technicians and begged sample photographs from the evening. I got a few prints and Letarte got a few slides. Color images shown here are Letartes’ while the black and whites are mine.
  • Wrist bent his finger points coyly as he beckons my camera. He sits in a cloud of perfume, dressed in white lace and pink chiffon. The dress, jewelry, and well-applied makeup hide his secrets. The night was all about not so well kept secrets.
  • The queen and his escort have their way with me. I’ve blown my cover on an undercover assignment. I give them great sport, and become a hit with the crowd. Among men who dress like women someone being exposed for what they really are, is a great joke all understand.
  • Oh but you show way too much to a man who sees a woman’s body as a work of art. I shoot my shot and bite my tongue. I want to tell him that’s not his best look, and that a true art critic loves womanly hips.
  • Ron Letarte sent me some of his slides ten years ago. This is one of his shots. For 30 years we keep a secret, and finally discover we had both clandestinely kept these images. Now it’s been 40 years since the magic night of the Benny Boy Ball, and we let our captured images out of the closet.
  • This is the photograph that Ron Letarte took of me after giving the Queen of The Benny Boys 1970 both the trophy and crown. He kept saying, “Keeees me Bill Gann.” I manage to get by with a hand shake and provide great entertainment for the crowd.
  • Letarte is shown here it a photo taken at a local strip club with a local Caviti club hostess.
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