VMF-212:  Immortalized by Max Brand's book

 Fighter Squadron at Guadalcanal

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Novelist Max Brand (real name -- Frederick Faust), a well-known 1930s author of Destry Rides Again, Dr. Kildare and many other stories, wrote his only nonfiction book in early 1943. The unpublished manuscript was discovered by his daughter in 1996 and published as Fighter Squadron at Guadalcanal.

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Brand owned a beautiful villa in Orange County, CA. When the Marine pilots from VMF-212 started returning from Guadalcanal in December 1942, they were invited to stay with him and tell a first-hand story of their heroism at Guadalcanal. I don't believe that Brand interviewed John Sigman, but his photo and anecdotes are sprinkled throughout the book.

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In October 1942, one of John Sigman’s fellow airman, “Cloudy” Faulkner, crashed his Grumman Wildcat on a small island near their home base of Efate. Faulkner was rescued by a local tribe of islanders, and was kept safe until a VMF-212 team could be dispatched by boat to take him back.  Lt. Sigman was part of the rescue mission, and was assigned the task of communicating with the tribe and rewarding them for their kindness: