US troops had the same idea… but… well, ice cream

Operation Freeze flights soon became routine, rotated between the squadron’s pilots and airplanes. They went off without a hitch, wrote Reinburg, until his boss, group operations officer Colonel Caleb Bailey, called to make clear that he didn’t buy the “test flight” ruse. “Listen, goddammit, you guys aren’t fooling me,” Bailey told a VMF-122 officer. “I’ve got spies. You tell [Reinburg] I’m coming over there tomorrow and get my ration.”