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diff --git a/old/65550-0.txt b/old/65550-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 7e43a25..0000000 --- a/old/65550-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6657 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Mosquito Fleet, by Bern Keating - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The Mosquito Fleet - -Author: Bern Keating - -Release Date: June 7, 2021 [eBook #65550] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Stephen Hutcheson and the Online Distributed Proofreading - Team at https://www.pgdp.net - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOSQUITO FLEET *** - - - - - THE MOSQUITO FLEET - - - BERN KEATING - - SBS SCHOLASTIC BOOK SERVICES - New York Toronto London Auckland Sydney - - -_To Lieut. Commander Brinkley Bass and Lieut. Commander Clyde Hopkins -McCroskey, Jr., who gallantly gave their lives during World War II. They -were brave seamen and good friends._ - - -Photographs used on the cover are courtesy of the U.S. Navy. This book -is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be resold, lent, or -otherwise circulated in any binding or cover other than that in which it -is published—unless prior written permission has been obtained from the -publisher—and without a similar condition, including this condition, -being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. - -Copyright © 1963 by Bern Keating. This edition is published by -Scholastic Book Services, a division of Scholastic Magazines, Inc., by -arrangement with G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 4th printing January 1969 - Printed in the U.S.A. - - - - - CONTENTS - - - 1. The First PTs: Facts and Fictions 1 - 2. Attrition at Guadalcanal 13 - 3. Battering Down the Gate: the Western Hinge 51 - 4. Battering Down the Gate: the Eastern Hinge 71 - 5. Along the Turkey’s Back 92 - 6. The War in Europe: Mediterranean 125 - 7. The War in Europe: English Channel 170 - 8. The War in Europe: Azure Coast 181 - 9. I Shall Return—Round Trip by PT 201 - Appendix 1. Specifications, Armament, and Crew 249 - Appendix 2. Losses Suffered by PT Squadrons 250 - Appendix 3. Decorations Won by PT Sailors 251 - - - Historical material in this book comes from action reports, squadron -histories, and other naval records on file at the historical records -section in Arlington, Va. Most valuable was the comprehensive history of -PT actions written by Commodore Robert Bulkley for the Navy. The Bulkley -history was in manuscript form at the time I did research for this book. -The broad outline of naval history comes mostly from the _History of U. -S. Naval Operations in World War II_ of Samuel Eliot Morison. I am -grateful to several PT veterans for their generous contribution of -diaries, letters, anecdotes, etc., which have been drawn on for human -interest material. Among these kind correspondents are: James Cunningham -of Shreveport, La., Roger Jones of Nassau, Bahama Islands, Lieut. -Commander R. W. Brown of Scituate, Mass., Capt. Stanley Barnes of the -War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pa., James Newberry of Memphis, Tenn., -and Arthur Murray Preston, of Washington, D. C. The officers of Peter -Tare Inc., a PT veterans organization, have been helpful. - - - - - 1. - The First PTs: Facts and Fictions - - -In March 17, 1942, General Douglas MacArthur arrived safely in Australia -after a flight from his doomed army in the Philippine Islands. The -people of America, staggering from three months of unrelieved disaster, -felt a tremendous lift of spirits. - -America needed a lift of spirits. - -Three months before, without the formality of declaring war, Japan had -sneaked a fleet of planes from a carrier force into the main American -naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, and in one Sunday morning’s work -the planes had smashed America’s Pacific battle line under a shower of -bombs and torpedoes. Without a fighting fleet, America had been helpless -to stop the swift spread of the Japanese around the far shores and -islands of the Pacific basin. - -Guam and Wake Island had been overrun; Manila, Hong Kong, Singapore, the -East Indies, had been gobbled up. Our fighting sailors, until the -disaster of the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, had been boasting around -the navy clubs that the American fleet could sail up one side of the -Japanese homeland and down the other side, shooting holes in the islands -and watching them sink from sight. Now they ground their teeth in -humiliation and rage, unable to get at the Japanese because the Pacific -Fleet battle line lay in the ooze on the bottom of Pearl Harbor. His -Imperial Japanese Majesty’s navy was steaming, virtually unopposed, -wherever its infuriatingly cocky admirals willed. - -When a combined Dutch-American flotilla had tried to block the Japanese -landings on Java, the Allied navies had promptly lost 13 of their -pitifully few remaining destroyers and cruisers—and the tragic sacrifice -had not even held up the Japanese advance for more than a few hours. - -The naval officers of the Allies had had to make a painful change in -their opinion of the Japanese sailor’s ability; he had turned out to be -a formidable fighting man. - -On land, the Japanese army was even more spectacularly competent. Years -of secret training in island-hopping and jungle warfare had paid off for -the Japanese. With frightening ease, they had brushed aside opposition -everywhere—everywhere, that is, except in the Philippine Islands, where -General MacArthur’s outnumbered and underequipped Filipino and American -fighters had improvised a savage resistance; had patched together a kind -of Hooligan’s Army, fleshing out the thin ranks of the defenders with -headquarters clerks and ship’s cooks, with electrician’s mates and -chaplain’s assistants, with boatless boatswain’s mates and planeless -pilots. - -MacArthur’s patchwork army had harried the Japanese advance and had -stubbornly fought a long retreat down the Island of Luzon. It was -bottled up on the Bataan Peninsula and on the island fortress of -Corregidor in Manila Bay, and it was already doomed, everybody knew -that. The flight of its commanding general only emphasized that it had -been written off, but the tremendous fight it was putting up had salved -every American’s wounded national pride. Besides, the very fact that -MacArthur had been ordered out of the islands clearly meant that America -was going back, once the nation had caught its breath and recovered from -Pearl Harbor. - -General MacArthur, with a talent for flamboyant leadership that amounted -to genius of a sort, emitted the sonorous phrase: “I shall return.” - -A few sour critics, immune to the MacArthur charm, deplored his use of -the first person singular when the first person plural would have been -more graceful—and more accurate—but the phrase caught on in the free -world. - -“I shall return.” The phrase promised brave times ahead, when the -galling need to retreat would end and America would begin the journey -back to Bataan. - -A stirring prospect, but what a long journey it was going to be. The -most ignorant could look at a map and see that MacArthur’s return trip -was going to take years. And yet his trip out had taken only days. A few -of the curious wondered how his escape had been engineered. News stories -said that MacArthur had flown into Australia. But where had he found a -plane? For days America had been told that on the shrinking Luzon -beachhead no airstrips remained in American hands. Where had MacArthur -gone to find a friendly airfield, and how had he gone there through the -swarming patrols of the Japanese naval blockade? - -The full story of MacArthur’s escape, when it was told, became one of -the top adventure stories of World War II. - -First came the bare announcement that it was on a motor torpedo boat—a -PT boat in Navy parlance, and a mosquito boat in journalese—that the -general had made the first leg of his flight across enemy-infested seas. -Then a crack journalist named William L. White interviewed the officers -of the PT rescue squadron and wrote a book about the escape and about -the days when the entire American naval striking force in the -Philippines had shrunk to six, then four, then three, then one of the -barnacle-encrusted plywood motorboats hardly bigger than a stockbroker’s -cabin cruiser. - -The book was called _They Were Expendable_, and it became a runaway -best-seller. It was condensed for _Reader’s Digest_ and featured in -_Life_ Magazine, and it made the PT sailor the glamour boy of America’s -surface fleet. _They Were Expendable_ makes exciting reading today, but -the book’s success spawned a swarm of magazine and newspaper articles -about the PT navy, and some of them were distressingly irresponsible. -Quite innocently, William White himself added to the PT’s exaggerated -reputation for being able to lick all comers, regardless of size. He -wrote his book in wartime and so had no way of checking the squadron’s -claims of torpedo successes. Naturally, as any generous reporter would -have done, he gave full credit to its claims of an amazing bag—two light -cruisers, two transports and an oil tanker, besides enemy barges, -landing craft and planes. - -Postwar study of Japanese naval archives shows no evidence that any -Japanese ships were torpedoed at the times and places the Squadron Three -sailors claim to have hit them. Of course, airplane and PT pilots are -notoriously overoptimistic—they have to be optimistic by nature even to -get into the cockpits of their frail craft and set out for combat. And -yet any realistic person who has worked in government archives hesitates -to give full weight to a damage assessment by an office research clerk -as opposed to the evidence of combat eyewitnesses. - -Postwar evaluation specialists would not confirm the sinking of a -5,000-ton armed merchant vessel at Binanga on January 19, 1942, but Army -observers on Mount Mariveles watched through 20-power glasses as a ship -sank, and they reported even the number and caliber of the guns in its -armament. - -On February 2, 1942, Army lookouts reported that a badly crippled -cruiser was run aground (and later cut up for scrap) at the right time -and place to be the cruiser claimed by PT 32. Evaluation clerks could -not find a record of this ship sinking either, so the PT claim is -denied. - -Unfortunately, the most elaborately detailed claim of all, the sinking -of a _Kuma_ class cruiser off Cebu Island by PTs 34 and 41, most -certainly is not valid, because the cruiser itself sent a full report of -the battle to Japanese Navy headquarters and admitted being struck by -one dud torpedo (so much at least of the PT claim is true), but the -cruiser, which happened to be the _Kuma_ itself, was undamaged and -survived to be sunk by a British submarine late in the war. - -The undeniable triumph of Squadron Three was the flight of MacArthur. On -March 11, 1942, at Corregidor, the four surviving boats of the squadron -picked up the general, his staff and selected officers and technicians, -the general’s wife and son and—most astonishingly—a Chinese nurse for -the four-year-old boy. In a series of night dashes from island to island -through Japanese-infested seas, the little flotilla carried the escaping -brass to the island of Mindanao, where the generals and admirals caught -a B 17 Flying Fortress bomber flight for Australia. - -The fantastic and undeniably exaggerated claims of sinkings are -regrettable, but in no way detract from the bravery of the sailors of -Squadron Three. They were merely the victims of the nation’s desperate -need for victories. - -William White’s contribution to the false giant-killer image of the PTs -is understandable, but other correspondents were less responsible. One, -famous and highly respected, said that all PTs were armed with -three-inch cannon. Putting such a massive weapon on the fragile plywood -deck of a PT boat was a bit like arming a four-year-old boy with a -big-league baseball bat—it’s just too much weapon for such a little -fellow to carry. The same reckless writer said that PT boats cruised at -70 knots. Another said that a PT could pace a new car—which amounts to -another claim for a 70-knot speed. Almost all of the reporters, some of -whom surely knew better, wrote about the PTs’ armament as though the -little boats could slug it out with ships of the line. - -In the fantasies spun by the nation’s press, the PTs literally ran rings -around enemy destroyers and socked so many torpedoes into Japanese -warships that you almost felt sorry for the outclassed and floundering -enemy. - -PT sailors read these romances and gritted their teeth. They knew too -painfully well that the stories were not true. - -What was the truth about the PT? - -Early in World War II, before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor pulled -the United States into the war then raging in Europe against Germany and -Italy and in China against Japan, the American Navy had been tinkering -around with various designs of fast small boats armed with torpedoes. -British coastal forces had been making good use of small, fast torpedo -boats, and the American Navy borrowed much from British designs. - -On July 24, 1941—four and a half months before America entered the -war—the Navy held the Plywood Derby, a test speed run of experimental -PTs in the open Atlantic off Long Island. The course ran around the east -end of Block Island, around the Fire Island lightship to a finish line -at Montauk Point Whistling Buoy. Two PTs of the Elco design finished -with best average speeds—39.72 and 37.01 knots—but boats of other -designs had smaller turning circles. Over a measured mile the Elcos did -45.3 knots with a light load and 44.1 knots with a heavy load. - -On a second Plywood Derby, the Elcos raced against the destroyer -_Wilkes_. Seas were running eight feet high—in one stretch the destroyer -skipper reported 15-foot waves—and the little cockleshells took a -terrible beating. Most of the time they were out of sight in the trough -of the seas or hidden by flying spray. The destroyer won the race, but -the Navy board had been impressed by the seaworthiness of the tough -little boats, and the Navy decided to go ahead with a torpedo-boat -program. The board standardized on the 80-foot Elco and the 78-foot -Higgins designs, and the boatyards fell to work. - -The boats were built of layers of plywood. Draft to the tips of the -propellers was held to a shallow five feet six inches, so that the PT -could sneak close to an enemy beach on occasion as a kind of seagoing -cavalry, to do dirty work literally at the crossroads. - -Three Packard V-12 engines gave a 4,500-shaft horsepower and drove the -boats, under ideal conditions, as fast as 45 knots—but conditions were -seldom ideal. A PT in the battle zone was almost never in top racing -form. In action the PT was usually overloaded, was often running on -jury-rig repairs and spare parts held together with adhesive tape and -ingenuity. In tropic waters the hull was soon sporting a long, green -beard of water plants that could cut the PT’s speed in half. Many of the -PTs that fought the bloody battles that follow in these pages were doing -well to hit 29 or even 27 knots. - -The American Navy had learned the hard way that any enemy destroyer -could make 35 knots, and many of them could do considerably -better—plenty fast enough to run down a PT boat, especially after a few -months of action had cut the PT’s speed. - -The normal boat crew was three officers and 14 men, though the -complement varied widely under combat conditions. The boat carried -enough provisions for about five days. - -As for that bristling armament the correspondents talked about, a PT -boat originally carried four torpedoes and tubes, and two 50-caliber -twin machine-gun mounts. In combat PT skippers improvised installation -of additional weapons, and by the war’s end all boats had added some -combination of 40-mm. autocannon, 37-mm. cannon, 20-mm. antiaircraft -autocannon, rocket launchers, and 60-mm. mortars. In some zones they -even discarded the torpedoes and added still more automatic weapons, to -give themselves heavier broadsides for duels with armed enemy small -craft. - -Pound for pound, the PT boat was by far the most heavily armed vessel -afloat, but that does not mean that a PT flyweight, no matter how tough -for its size, was a match for an enemy heavyweight. PT sailors never -hesitated to tackle an enemy destroyer, but they knew that a torpedo -boat could stand up to an all-out brawl with an alert and aroused -destroyer the way a spunky rat terrier can stand up to a hungry wolf. -After all, the full and proper name of a destroyer is _torpedo-boat_ -destroyer. - -The PT’s main tactic was not the hell-roaring dash of the -correspondents’ romances, but a sneaky, quiet approach in darkness or -fog. The PT was designed to slip slowly and quietly into an enemy -formation in bad visibility, to fire torpedoes at the handiest target, -and to escape behind a smoke screen with whatever speed the condition of -the boat permitted. With luck, the screening destroyers would lose the -PT in the smoke, the confusion, and the darkness. Without luck—well, in -warfare everybody has to take some chances. - -What most annoyed the PT sailors about their lurid press was that the -truth made an even better story. After all, they argued, it takes guts -to ease along at night in an agonizingly slow approach to an enemy -warship that will chew you to bloody splinters if the lookouts ever spot -you. And it takes real courage to bore on into slingshot range when you -know that the enemy can easily run you down if your torpedoes miss or -fail to explode, as they did all too often. Compared to this reality, -one of those imaginary 70-knot blitzes would be a breeze. - -One disgusted PT sailor wrote: “Publicity has reached the point where -glorified stories are not genuinely flattering. Most PT men resent the -wild, fanciful tales that tend to belittle their real experience.... -There is actually little glamour for a PT. The excitement of battle is -tempered by many dull days of inactivity, long nights of fruitless -patrol, and dreary hours of foul weather at sea in a small boat.” - -He griped that the PT sailor would prefer the tribute of “They were -dependable” to “They were expendable.” - -Maybe so, but the public just would not have it that way. The dash and -audacity of the sailors of those little boats had appealed to the -American mind. It was the story of David and Goliath again, and the -sailors in the slingshot navy, no matter how they balked, joined the -other wild and woolly heroes of legend who go joyously into battle -against giants. - -This is the story of what the mosquito fleet really did. - - - - - 2. - Attrition at Guadalcanal - - -In August 7, 1942, exactly eight months after Pearl Harbor, American -Marines landed on Guadalcanal in the southern Solomon Islands, as the -first step on the long road to Tokyo. The Japanese reacted violently. -They elected to have it out right there—to stop the Allied recovery -right at the start and at all costs. - -Down from their mighty base at Rabaul, they sent reinforcements and -supplies through a sea lane flanked by two parallel rows of islands in -the Solomons archipelago. The sea lane quickly became known as The Slot, -and the supply ships, usually fast destroyers, became known as the Tokyo -Express. - -The night runs of the Tokyo Express were wearing down the Marines. As -they became more and more dirty and tired they became more and more -irritated to find that the Japanese they killed were dressed in spruce -new uniforms—sure sign that they were newcomers to the island. - -Even worse was the sleep-robbing uproar of the night naval bombardments -that pounded planes and installations at Henderson Field on Guadalcanal, -the only American base where friendly fighters and bombers could find a -home. The American hold on the island was in danger from sheer physical -fatigue. - -The American and Japanese fleets clashed in the waters around the -Guadalcanal landing beaches in a series of bloody surface battles that -devoured ships and men on both sides in a hideous contest of attrition. -Whichever side could hang on fifteen seconds longer than the -other—whichever side could stand to lose one more ship and one more -sailor—was going to win. - -At the very moment of one of the big cruiser-destroyer clashes (October -11-12, 1942)—officially called the Battle of Cape Esperance—American -naval reinforcements of a sort arrived in the area. Forty miles east of -the battle, four fresh, unbloodied fighting ships were sailing into -Tulagi Harbor at Florida Island, just across a narrow strait from -Guadalcanal. - -It was half of Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Three, four PT boats, the -first American torpedo boats to arrive in combat waters since the last -boat of Lieut. John Bulkeley’s disbanded Squadron Three had been burned -in the Philippines seven months before. - - [Illustration: SOLOMON ISLANDS] - -The PT sailors came topside as they entered the harbor to watch the -flash of cannonading in the sky to the west where American and Japanese -sailors were blowing each other to bloody bits. For them, training time -was over, the shooting time was now, and the PT navy was once again on -the firing line. - -All day on October 13, the PT sailors scurried about, getting the little -warships ready for a fight. Their preparations made only a ripple in the -maelstrom of activity around the islands. - -Coast watchers—friendly observers who hid on islands behind the Japanese -lines and reported by radio on ship and plane movements—reported a new -menace to Guadalcanal. They had spotted a Japanese naval force coming -down The Slot, but they said it was made up only of destroyers. - -When Lieut. Commander Alan R. Montgomery, the PT squadron commander at -Tulagi, heard that only destroyers were coming, he begged off from the -fight—on the extraordinary grounds that he preferred waiting for bigger -game. - -Montgomery’s decision is not as cocky as it first sounds. The Japanese -presumably did not know about the arrival of the PTs on the scene, and -if ever a PT was going to shoot a torpedo into a big one—a cruiser or a -battleship—it was going to be by surprise. No use tipping off the enemy -until the big chance came. - -The big chance was really on the way. The coast watchers had -underestimated the size of the Japanese force. It was actually built -around a pair of battleships, escorted by cruisers and destroyers, all -bent on pounding Henderson Field and its pesky planes out of existence. - -The Japanese command obviously expected no American naval resistance, -because ammunition hoists of the Japanese fleet were loaded with a new -kind of thin-skinned shell especially designed for blowing into jagged -fragments that would slice planes and people to useless shreds. The -bombardment shells would not be much use against armor. The Japanese -ammunition load would have been a disaster for the task force if it had -run into armored opposition—cruisers or battleships of the American -Navy—but the Japanese knew as well as we did that there was little -likelihood our badly mauled fleet, manned by exhausted sailors, would be -anywhere near the scene. The Japanese sailed down The Slot with one hand -voluntarily tied behind them, in a sense, supremely confident that they -could pound Henderson Field Without interference. - -Shortly after midnight on October 14th, two Japanese battleships opened -up on Henderson Field with gigantic 14-inch rifles shooting the special -fragmentation and incendiary shells. The two battleships were -accompanied by a cruiser and either eight or nine destroyers. A Japanese -scouting plane dropped flares to make the shooting easier. An American -searchlight at Lunga Point, on Guadalcanal, probed over the water, -looking for the Japanese, but American 5-inch guns—the largest American -guns ashore—were too short of range to reach the battleships and -cruisers even if the searchlight had found them. The big ships hove to -and poured in a merciless cascade of explosive. - -For almost an hour and a half, Marines, soldiers and Seabees lay in -foxholes and suffered while the Cyclopean 14-inchers tore holes in the -field, riddled planes with shell fragments, started fires and filled the -air with shards from exploding shell casings—shards that could slice a -man in two without even changing the pitch of his screams. - -At the PT base in Tulagi, Lieut. Commander Montgomery was awakened by -the din across the way. He knew that no destroyer force could make that -kind of uproar. The earth-shaking cannonading meant that the big boys -were shooting up Guadalcanal, blithely assuming that the U. S. Navy was -not present. - -But it was. Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Three was on the scene and -waiting for just such a target. - -Montgomery called in his four young skippers—Lieuts. (jg) Henry S. -(Stilly) Taylor of PT 46, Robert C. Wark of PT 48, John M. Searles of PT -60, and his brother Robert Searles of PT 38. - -At two o’clock in the morning of October 14th, Commander Montgomery -ordered: “Prepare for action. All boats under way immediately.” - -It was the first combat order given to PT boats since the debacle in the -Philippines. - -The PTs left the harbor together but scattered quickly. They had all -spotted the Japanese bombardment fleet by the orange flashes of its -guns, and they lost each other in the darkness as they deployed to -attack. - -Somebody on a Japanese cruiser must have been at least mildly nervous, -for a searchlight came on, swept the water toward Tulagi, zipped right -across Bob Searles in 38, and then went black. Searles stretched his -luck; he cut his speed to 10 knots and began a slow stalk of the cruiser -that had muffed its chance to sound the alarm. - -So cocky were the Japanese that the cruiser was almost dead in the -water; even at 10 knots, the 38 closed the range from behind. - -Bob Searles greased the 38 along the still waters of the sound, holding -his breath and dreading to see the glare of that searchlight again. He -could see the target clearly silhouetted in the gun flashes, and it was -a brute—a light cruiser, Bob thought, judging from its shape, its size, -and the roar of its guns. Searles figured that he would probably be the -first and only PT skipper to enjoy the carefully preserved surprise that -the PT sailors hoped would bag them a big one—so he had to make his -first shot good or waste the chance they had all been hoarding. - -A torpedo, like any other weapon that has to be aimed, is more likely to -hit the closer you get to your target before you shoot. So Bob went in -to 400 yards in stealthy silence. Four hundred yards in a naval battle -is the equivalent of arm’s length in an infantry fire fight. At 400 -yards, a spread of torpedoes will usually score, but the machine guns -and autocannon of a cruiser’s secondary battery, guided by a -searchlight, will almost certainly tear up a torpedo boat. Searles, just -to be sure of a hit, was doing the same thing as a commando would do if, -armed with a high-powered rifle, he crept to within five feet of a -sentry armed with a sawed-off shotgun. At any range that rifle is a -deadly weapon—like a torpedo—but at close range the shotgun is just as -deadly and ten times surer of hitting with the first shot. - -At 400 yards Bob fired two fish. He chased along behind them to 200-yard -range—almost rock-throwing range—and fired his last two torpedoes. The -instant he felt the boat jump from those shots, he poured on the coal -and roared past the cruiser, 100 yards astern. As they went by, all -hands topside on the PT felt the scorching blast of a double explosion -forward of the cruiser’s bridge. - -The surprise was over. From here on the whole Japanese task force would -be alarmed and shooting back—but that big boy the PT sailors had been -after was in the bag. The 38’s crew was sure of it. Searles had the good -sense not to hang around the hornet’s nest he had stirred up. His -torpedoes were gone anyhow, so he lit out for home, convinced that he -had scored the first PT victory of the comeback trail. - -The other PTs had scattered, looking for other targets in the dark. -There were plenty of targets, for they had penetrated the destroyer -screen, without either side knowing it, and were in the heart of the -Japanese formation. After the blast from the 38’s torpedo attack on the -cruiser, the PTs themselves were as much targets as they were hunters. - -Lieut. Commander Montgomery, riding with John Searles on the 60, was -stalking a big ship—possibly the same cruiser Bob Searles had already -attacked—but the escorting destroyers were roiled up and rallying -around. - -A searchlight poked about the water, looking for the 60 which had -probably been dimly spotted by a lookout. The searchlight never found -the 60, but it did silhouette the PT for another destroyer. Japanese -shells from the second destroyer screamed over the PT, but Montgomery -held steadily to his attack course on the cruiser—or whatever it -was—until two of the 60’s fish were off and running. - -John Searles spun the rudder over hard left and shoved the throttles up -to the stops. Smoke poured from the generator on the stern, to cover -their escape, and so the crew of the 60 didn’t see the end of the -torpedo run, but it claimed a hit, anyhow, from the sound of a massive -explosion. - -If it was a torpedo hit and if the hit was on the same cruiser Bob -Searles said he hit, that cruiser was in sad shape. Not so the -destroyers. They were full of fight and boring in on the 60. - -Smoke makes a fine screen for covering escape, but only for a time. -After the initial escape is successful, a continuing smoke cloud only -marks the course of the fleeing PT boat, just as a tracer’s -phosphorescent trail tracks a bullet through the night. So Montgomery -shut off the smoke when he thought they were free, but he had waited a -moment too long. - -Just as the smoke-screen generator hissed to a halt, a destroyer pinned -the 60 down in the blue glare of a searchlight and a salvo of Japanese -shells, landing 20 feet astern, almost lifted the 60 out of the water. - -The Japanese destroyer captain did not know it, probably still doesn’t -know it if he is even alive, but when he turned his light on the 60, he -simultaneously lost the chance to sink one PT boat by ramming and just -possibly saved his own ship from being sunk by still another PT. - -Robert Wark’s 48 was sneaking up on the destroyer in a torpedo attack on -one side; Henry Taylor’s 46 was roaring across the water, looking for -targets on the other side, quite unaware that the destroyer was in its -path. When the searchlight glare hit the 60, Taylor saw the Japanese -ship dead ahead and put the rudder of the 46 over hard. He barely missed -a collision with the can, a collision that would have reduced his little -warship to a floating carpet of matchsticks. But, in skimming by the -destroyer, Taylor almost rammed Wark’s 48 and spoiled its torpedo -attack. Wark lost contact with the destroyer in the wild careering -around the sound that followed the double near-collision, and he didn’t -get off his torpedoes. - -The whole time the Japanese captain was so intent on sinking the 60, -pinned down by his searchlight, he apparently missed the near-collisions -right under his nose. His shells were creeping up the wake of the -fleeting 60 and he doggedly plowed into the stream of 50-caliber bullets -from the PT antiaircraft machine-gun battery, willing to take the -punishment in exchange for a chance to run the torpedo boat down. - -Lieut. Commander Montgomery turned on the smoke generator again and had -the inspiration to drop two depth charges into his wake. The charges -exploded just ahead of the Japanese destroyer, and the Japanese skipper -shied away from the chase, fearful that the closer he got to the PT -boat, the more likely he was to be blown in two by a depth charge right -under the bridge. The 60 escaped in the smoke, lay close to the beach -for the rest of that night, and drifted aground on a coral reef near -morning. - -Wark, who had picked up his original target again, was still trying to -shoot a fish into the destroyer that had abandoned the chase of the 60. -Wark did not know it, but he was himself being stalked. From 200 yards -away, a Japanese destroyer caught the 48 in a searchlight beam and fired -all the guns that would bear. - -A searchlight beam is a two-edged tool. It helps the aim of the gunners -on the destroyer; at the same time it makes a beautiful mark for the -PT’s machine guns. C. E. Todd, the ship’s cook, pumped 50-caliber -bullets into the destroyer’s bridge and superstructure until the light -was shattered. The destroyer disappeared and nobody knows what damage it -suffered, but it is highly improbable that it could be raked by -50-caliber fire from 200 yards away without serious damage and -casualties. - -The 48’s skipper could say: “He never laid a glove on me.” - - -Aboard the Japanese flagship, the admiral, apparently alarmed by -unexpected naval resistance no matter how puny, ordered a cease fire and -a withdrawal. Eighty minutes of shellfire had left Henderson Field in a -shambles anyhow. Forever after, Guadalcanal veterans of the night -between October 13 and 14, 1942, talked about The Bombardment—not the -bombardment of this date or the bombardment of that date. Simply The -Bombardment. Everybody knew which one they meant. - -What had the PTs accomplished on their first sortie? Bob and John -Searles claimed solid hits on a cruiser. Postwar assessment of claims -says that there is “no conclusive evidence that any major Japanese ship -was sunk” on that night. But the next day a coast watcher reported that -natives had seen a large warship sink off the New Georgia coast, to the -north on the withdrawal route. Radio Tokyo itself acknowledged the loss -of a cruiser that night under the attack of “nineteen torpedo boats of -which we destroyed fourteen.” - -That last bit—public admission by the Japanese of the loss of a cruiser -to a PT—is the most convincing. The Japanese played down their own -losses ridiculously. Sometimes they even believed their own propaganda, -so much so that they deployed for battle forces which had been destroyed -but whose loss they had never admitted, even to themselves. - -A curious incident during the almost nightly naval bombardments of -Henderson Field shows the Japanese sailor’s fatal desire to believe his -own propaganda. Eight Japanese destroyers and a light cruiser bombarded -the field the night of October 25, 1942. They sank two small ships, but -they called off the shore bombardment after only a feeble effort. - -The reason? - -A Japanese officer ashore had sent a message: BANZAI. OCCUPIED AIRFIELD -AT 2300. - -He had done no such thing. Indeed, the very planes spared by that -spurious message sank the cruiser the next morning. - -Perhaps a more important result of the first PT foray than the hit on a -cruiser was the shock to the Japanese nervous system. The Japanese navy -had an inordinate horror of torpedo boats—possibly because the Japanese -themselves were so diabolically good at surface torpedo attack. The -knowledge that American torpedo boats were back on the scene must have -been a jolt to their sensitivities. - -Nobody can prove that the Japanese admiral called off the bombardment -because of the torpedo attacks—after all, he had already shot up -Henderson Field for eighty minutes and had expended almost all his -special bombardment ammunition—but it is a remarkable coincidence that -the shooting stopped almost immediately after the PTs arrived, and the -withdrawal followed soon after the torpedoes started swimming around. - -Half an hour after their sortie from Tulagi, the PTs saw a vast armada -of Japanese ships turn tail and leave the field to them. - -The Marines didn’t quibble. They crawled out of their foxholes, those -who could, and thanked God for whoever had run off the 14-inchers. -Henderson Field had survived, but barely, and the Marines were willing -to give anybody credit for running off the battleships, if whoever it -was would just keep them off. The PTs were willing to try. - -The night between October 14th and 15th was the low point of the Navy’s -contribution to the Guadalcanal campaign. Two Japanese cruisers -insolently pounded Henderson Field with 752 eight-inch shells, and the -Navy could not lift a finger to stop them. The only Navy fighting ships -in the area were the four PTs of Squadron Three, but the 60 was still -aground on a reef, the 38 had left all of its torpedoes inside a -Japanese cruiser the night before, and the other two PTs were escorting -two little supply ships across the channel between Tulagi and -Guadalcanal. The cruisers had a field day. - -The next night two Japanese cruisers fired 1,500 punishing eight-inch -shells at Henderson Field. - -Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, in Washington, after studying the -battle report, could say only: “Everybody _hopes_ we can hang on.” - -Admiral Chester Nimitz was even more grim. “It now appears that we are -unable to control the sea in the Guadalcanal area. Thus our supply of -the positions will only be done at great expense to us. The situation is -not hopeless, but it is certainly critical.” - -Perhaps the PTs had arrived too late to do any good. Certainly a navy -that consisted of three torpedo boats afloat and one on a reef was not -going to win the battle for Guadalcanal. - -The Japanese, beginning on November 2nd, spent a week running destroyer -and cruiser deckloads of soldiers down The Slot—65 destroyer deckloads -and two cruiser loads in all. - -On November 8th, PTs hit the destroyer _Mochizuki_ but did not sink it. - -This kind of reinforcement by dribbles was not fast enough to satisfy -the Japanese brass, so they planned to stop sending a boy to do a man’s -job. At Truk, they organized a mighty task force of two light carriers, -four battleships, 11 cruisers and 36 destroyers to escort 11 fast -transports to Guadalcanal on November 14th. - -Before risking the transports, jammed with soldiers to be landed at -Tassafaronga, the Japanese planned to bombard Henderson Field for two -straight nights to eliminate once and for all the dangerous Marine -airplanes based there. - -The climactic sea struggle for Guadalcanal began on the night of -November 12, 1942. - -American scouting planes and Allied coast watchers sent word that a -frighteningly powerful bombardment force was on its way down The Slot, -and the most optimistic defenders of Guadalcanal wondered if this was -going to be the end. Two Japanese battleships, the _Hiei_ and the -_Kirishima_, a cruiser, and fourteen destroyers were in the Japanese -fleet. (The Japanese had learned to fear the PT boats of Tulagi; the -fleet commander had posted two destroyers on one advanced flank and -three destroyers on the other, as a torpedo-boat screen. In addition, he -had assigned three other destroyers, not counted among the 14 under his -direct command, to rove ahead on an anti-PT patrol.) - -In a swirling, half-hour action on Friday, November 13th—the opening of -the three-day naval Battle of Guadalcanal—the United States Navy lost -the cruiser _Atlanta_, the destroyers _Barton_, _Cushing_, _Laffey_, and -_Monssen_, and suffered severe damage to the cruisers _Portland_, _San -Francisco_, _Helena_, _Juneau_, and to three destroyers. Admiral Daniel -J. Callaghan was killed. - -Limping home after the battle, the cruiser _Juneau_ was torpedoed by the -submarine I-26 (whose skipper admits that he was aiming at another ship -entirely). The _Juneau_ disappeared in a blast of smoke and flame. In -one of the most tragic and inexplicable misadventures of the war, the -survivors of the _Juneau_, floating within easy reach of the PTs at -Tulagi, were abandoned, and no attempt was made to rescue them until all -but a handful had died of exposure. - -It is possible that the PTs—excellent rescue craft manned by sailors -eager to help stricken shipmates—were so new to the theatre that the top -brass didn’t even know of their presence, or at least weren’t in the -habit of thinking about them. At any rate, the PTs were tied up at -Tulagi while American sailors drowned almost within sight of the harbor. - -On the night between November 13th and 14th, two Japanese heavy -cruisers, screened by a light cruiser and four destroyers, steamed -toward Guadalcanal with another load of bombardment shells. - -The situation on Guadalcanal was grave. The base was crammed with the -sick and weary survivors of the naval battle. The veteran defenders knew -another punishing flotilla was on its way with possibly the final, fatal -load of fragmentation shells aboard—and there were no big American ships -near enough to say them nay. - -The United States Navy had almost shot its bolt, at least temporarily. -Almost but not quite. - -Two PTs were still in the fight. - -One, commanded by Stilly Taylor, and another, commanded by John Searles, -had been screening the heavy cruiser _Portland_, which had been badly -damaged in the previous night’s battle and was being towed to Tulagi. - -Stilly Taylor tells what happened in one of the most momentously -important torpedo-boat adventures of the Pacific War: - -“The Japs began to shell Henderson Field, first putting a very bright -flare in the vicinity of the field, and so naturally both of us [the two -PTs] started in on them independently.... - -“As soon as the Japs opened fire it was obvious to us that there was at -least one fairly heavy ship. We thought it was probably a battleship.... -We could tell it was definitely a heavy ship because of the long orange -flash from its gunfire rather than the short white flash which we knew -from experience was the smaller fire of the destroyers.... - -“Due to the light put up by the Nip flares, I was able to use my -director for the first time. I set the target’s speed at about 20 knots, -and I think he was doing slightly more than this. I kept him in the -director for approximately seven of his salvos and really had a -beautiful line on him. [PT boats usually were forced, by bad visibility -at night and in bad weather, to shoot from the hip. A chance to use a -director for visually aimed fire was an unaccustomed luxury well worth -gloating over in an action report.] - -“After closing to about 1,000 yards, I decided that if we went in any -farther we would get tangled up in the destroyer screen which I knew -would be surrounding him at about 500 to 700 yards. - -“I therefore fired three fish. The fourth misfired and never left the -tube. The three fish landed beautifully and made no flash as we fired -them. - -“We immediately turned around and started back for the base, but we had -the torpedoes running hot and straight toward the target. - -“I am positive that at least one of them found its mark. - -“_Certainly the Nips ceased fire immediately and apparently turned right -around and limped home._” - -Nobody knows what damage these two PTs did that night. Planes the next -day found a badly damaged cruiser leaving the scene, and that could well -have been Taylor’s victim. At any rate, the material damage inflicted by -these two brave seamen and their crews is comparatively unimportant. - -What is important is the almost incredible but quite possible fact that -the two cockleshells ran off a horribly dangerous Japanese surface fleet -prepared to give Henderson Field what might well have been its death -blow. As soon as the torpedo boats attacked, the Japanese stopped -shooting and ran. - -It is not hard to understand why. The American fleet had been badly -battered during the previous night’s battle, but so had the Japanese -fleet, and Japanese nerves were probably raw and jumpy. - -The two PTs achieved complete surprise, and a surprise attack in -restricted waters is always unsettling to naval officers, even the most -cocksure and well rested. The Japanese could not be sure exactly who was -attacking and in what force. They could have had only a dim idea of what -damage they had done to the American Navy the night before, and, for all -they knew, the torpedo tracks they saw came from a dangerous destroyer -flotilla, backed up by who knows how many mighty ships of the line. - -With their nerves shaken by the suddenness of the torpedo attack and -with no knowledge of what was prowling around out there in the dark, it -apparently seemed best to the Japanese commanders to abandon the -bombardment quickly and save their ships for another day. - -The two glorified cabin cruisers had driven off the Japanese task force -when only three planes had been destroyed and 17 damaged (all the -damaged planes were in the air before the end of the next day), and -Henderson Field was still in action. The next day, November 14th, a -smoothly functioning Henderson Field was host not only to the Marine -planes permanently based there but also to Navy planes from the carrier -_Enterprise_ which landed at Henderson for refueling during shuttle -trips to attack 11 fast Japanese transports coming down The Slot. - -All-day attacks on November 14th, by the Marine, Navy, and Army planes, -saved from destruction by the two PT boats, sank seven of the transports -and worked a hideous massacre among the Japanese soldiers on their decks -and in their holds. Four of the transports and 11 destroyers survived -and at sunset were sailing for the Japanese beach-head of Tassafaronga -Point. The destroyers carried deckloads of survivors from the sunken -transports. - -The destroyer commander was Rear Admiral Raizo Tanaka, perhaps the most -brilliant combat officer of the Japanese navy. He repeatedly showed a -fantastic devotion to duty that enabled him to carry out his missions in -spite of seemingly impossible difficulties. Tanaka _was_ the Tokyo -Express. - -To give Tanaka a little help with the disembarkation of the troops at -Guadalcanal, the Japanese planned to bombard Henderson during the -landings as a diversion—and just possibly as a _coup de grâce_ to -further American air resistance. They sent a battleship, two heavy -cruisers, two light cruisers and nine destroyers to do the job. This -time the light cruisers and destroyers were deployed in a formidable -anti-torpedo-boat screen to prevent a recurrence of the previous night’s -spooking from a measly two-boat PT raid. - -The Japanese had lost their chance, however, for much more American -naval power than a brace of torpedo boats stood between the Japanese and -Henderson Field. Admiral W. A. Lee, on the battleship _Washington_, had -arrived from the south, accompanied by the battleship _South Dakota_ and -four destroyers. He sailed north to meet the Japanese across Iron Bottom -Bay (so called because the bottom was littered with the hulks of -Japanese and American ships sunk in earlier battles. There were so many -hulls on the ocean’s floor that quartermasters reported to their -skippers that magnetic compasses were deflected by the scrap iron). - -The American admiral—known to his intimates as “Ching” Lee—had a bad -moment when he overheard two PTs gossiping about his battleships over -the voice radio. - -“There go two big ones, but I don’t know whose they are,” said one PT -skipper. - -Admiral Lee grabbed the microphone and quickly identified himself to -shore headquarters before the PTs could get off a nervous shot. - -“Refer your big boss about Ching Lee; Chinese, catchee? Call off your -boys.” - -The PT skippers answered, with good humor, that they were well -acquainted with old “Ching” and promised not to go after him. - -The PT crews watched Admiral Lee sail into the decisive last action of -the three-day Battle of Guadalcanal. That night his ships sank the -Japanese battleship and routed the Japanese bombardment fleet. But the -mixed transport and destroyer reinforcement flotilla was taken, -nevertheless, by the stubborn and wily Admiral Tanaka, around the action -and to the beach at Tassafaronga where he carried out his reinforcement -mission almost literally “come hell or high water.” - -The Japanese had made a mighty effort, but American fliers, sailors, and -PT boatmen had spoiled the assault. The only profit to the Japanese from -the bloody three days was the landing of 2,000 badly shaken soldiers, -260 cases of ammunition, and 1,500 bags of rice. - -But the Japanese were not totally discouraged. They had the redoubtable -Tanaka on their side, and so they went back to supply by the Tokyo -Express. The idea was for Tanaka’s fast destroyers to run down The Slot -by night to Tassafaronga Point, where sailors would push overboard drums -of supplies. Troops ashore would then round up the floating drums in -small boats. In that way, Tanaka’s fast destroyers would not have to -stop moving and would make a less tempting target for the Tulagi PTs -than a transport at anchor. - - -On November 30, 1942, Admiral Tanaka shoved off from Bougainville Island -with eight destroyers loaded with 1,100 drums of supplies. At the same -moment an American task force of five cruisers and six destroyers—a most -formidable task force indeed, especially for a night action—left the -American base at Espiritu Santo to break up just the kind of supply run -Tanaka was undertaking. - -The two forces converged on Tassafaronga Point from opposite directions. -The American force enormously outgunned Tanaka’s destroyers and also had -the tremendous advantage of being, to some extent, equipped with radar, -then a brand-new and little-understood gadget. Thus the American force -could expect to enjoy an additional superiority of surprise. - -And that is just the way it worked out. At 11:06 P.M., American radar -picked up Tanaka’s ships. Admiral Tanaka’s comparatively feeble flotilla -was blindly sailing into a trap. - -American destroyers fired twenty torpedoes at the still unsuspecting -Japanese, who did not wake up to their danger until the cruisers opened -fire with main battery guns at five-mile range. - -The Japanese lashed back with a reflex almost as automatic for Tanaka’s -well-drilled destroyer sailors as jerking a finger back from a red-hot -stove. They instantly filled the water with torpedoes. - -No American torpedoes scored. Six Japanese torpedoes hit four American -cruisers, sinking _Northampton_, and damaging _Pensacola_, -_Minneapolis_, and _New Orleans_ so seriously that they were unfit for -action for almost a year. Cruiser gunfire sank one Japanese destroyer, -but the rest of Admiral Tanaka’s ships, besides giving the vastly -superior American force a stunning defeat, even managed to push -overboard many of the drums they had been sent down to deliver. - -Tanaka had once more carried out his mission and had won a great naval -victory, almost as a sideline to the main business. - - -On the first anniversary of Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1942, Admiral -Tanaka came down again with eleven destroyers. - -This time it was not a mighty cruiser-destroyer force waiting for him, -but only eight PTs from Tulagi. They were manned, however, by some of -the most aggressive officers and men in the American Navy. The boats -were deployed around Cape Esperance and Savo Island, on the approaches -to Tassafaronga. - -Two patrolling torpedo boats spotted Tanaka’s destroyers and attacked, -but one broke down and the other came to his rescue, so no shots were -fired. Nevertheless, the Admiral was spooked by the abortive attack of -two diminutive PTs, and retreated. He recovered his courage in a few -minutes and tried again. - -This time four PTs jumped him and fired twelve torpedoes. When their -tubes were empty, the PTs roared by the destroyers, strafing with their -machine guns—and being strafed. Jack Searles, in 59, passed down the -_Oyashio’s_ side less than a hundred yards away, raking the destroyer’s -superstructure and gun crews with 50-caliber fire. The 59 itself was -also riddled, of course, but stayed afloat. - -Admiral Tanaka, who had run around the blazing duel of battlewagons at -the Battle of Guadalcanal to deliver his reinforcements, who had bored -through massive day-long air attacks, who had gutted a mighty cruiser -force to deliver his cargo to Tassafaronga, turned back before the -threat of four PTs, abandoned the mission, and fled back to -Bougainville. - -The PT navy at Tulagi (and the Marines and soldiers on Guadalcanal) had -good cause to celebrate a clear-cut victory on this first anniversary of -Pearl Harbor. - - -Times were too hard for the PTs to get any rest. Jack Searles patched up -his bullet-torn 59, and, with another boat, put out two nights later, on -December 9th, to machine-gun a Japanese landing barge sighted near Cape -Esperance. During the barge-PT duel, one of Searles’ lookouts spotted a -submarine on the surface, oozing along at about two knots. Jack whipped -off two quick shots and blew a 2,000-ton blockade-running submarine -(I-3) into very small pieces. There is no way to deny the submarine to -Jack Searles’ bag, because a Japanese naval officer, the sole survivor, -swam ashore and told the story of the I-3’s last moments. - - -On the night of December 11th Admiral Tanaka began another run of the -Tokyo Express with ten destroyers. Dive bombers attacked during -daylight, but made no hits. The job of stopping Tanaka’s Tokyo Express -was passed to the PTs. They zipped out of the harbor at Tulagi and -deployed along the beach between Tassafaronga and Cape Esperance. - -The night was bright and clear, and shortly after midnight three PTs, -commanded by Lieut. (jg) Lester H. Gamble, saw the destroyer column and -attacked. The other two boats were skippered by Stilly Taylor and Lieut. -(jg) William E. Kreiner III. - -The Japanese destroyers turned on searchlights and let go with main -batteries and machine guns, but the three torpedo boats got off their -torpedoes and popped two solid hits into the destroyer _Teruzuki_. The -Japanese ship blazed up, and for the second time Tanaka had had enough -of torpedo boats. He went home. - -The PTs had not yet had enough of Tanaka, however, for Lieut. Frank -Freeland’s 44 heard the combat talk of his squadron mates on the voice -radio, and came running. He roared past the burning _Teruzuki_, chasing -the retreating destroyers. Two things were working against him; Lieut. -Freeland did not know it, but one of the destroyers had stayed behind -with the _Teruzuki_, and the flames from the burning ship were lighting -the PT boat beautifully for the hidden Japanese gunners. - -Aboard the 44 was Lieut. (jg) Charles M. Melhorn, who reports his -version of what happened: - -“We were throwing up quite a wake, and with the burning cargo ship [he -probably mistook the burning _Teruzuki_ for a cargo ship] lighting up -the whole area I thought we would soon be easy pickings and I told the -skipper so. Before he could reply, Crowe, the quartermaster who was at -the wheel, pointed and yelled out ‘Destroyer on the starboard bow. -There’s your target, Captain.’ - -“Through the glasses I could make out a destroyer two points on our -starboard bow, distant about 8,000 yards, course south-southwest. We -came right and started our run. We had no sooner steadied on our new -course than I picked up two more destroyers through my glasses. They -were in column thirty degrees on our port bow, target course 270, coming -up fast. - -“The skipper and I both saw at once that continuing our present course -would pin us against the beach and lay us wide open to broadsides from -at least three Jap cans. The Skipper shifted targets to the two -destroyers, still about 4,000 yards off, and we started in again. - -“By this time we were directly between the blazing ship and the two -destroyers. As we started the run I kept looking for the can that had -fired.... I picked him up behind and to the left of our targets. He was -swinging, apparently to form up in column astern of the other two. The -trap was sprung, and as I pointed out this fourth destroyer the lead -ship in the column opened fire.” - -The 44 escaped from the destroyer ambush behind a smoke screen, but once -clear, turned about for a second attack. The burning _Teruzuki_ -illuminated the 44, and _Teruzuki’s_ guardian destroyer, lurking in the -dark, drew a bead on the ambushed PT. - -“We had just come out of our turn when we were fired on.... I saw the -blast, yelled ‘That’s for us.’ and jumped down on the portside by the -cockpit. We were hit aft in the engine room. - -“I don’t remember much. For a few seconds nothing registered at all. I -looked back and saw a gaping hole in what was once the engine-room -canopy. The perimeter of the hole was ringed by little tongues of flame. -I looked down into the water and saw we had lost way. - -“Someone on the bow said ‘Shall we abandon ship?’ Freeland gave the -order to go ahead and abandon ship. - -“I stayed at the cockpit ... glancing over where the shell came from. He -let go again. - -“I dove ... I dove deep and was still under when the salvo struck. The -concussion jarred me badly, but I kept swimming underwater. There was a -tremendous explosion, paralyzing me from the waist down. The water -around me went red. - -“The life jacket took control and pulled me to the surface. I came up in -a sea of fire, the flaming embers of the boat cascading all about me. I -tried to get free of the life jacket but couldn’t. I started swimming -feebly. I thought the game was up, but the water which had shot sky high -in the explosion rained down and put out the fires around me.... - -“I took a few strokes away from the gasoline fire, which was raging -about fifteen yards behind me, and as I turned back I saw two heads, one -still helmeted, between me and the flames. I called to the two men and -told them that I expected the Japs to be over in short order to -machine-gun us, and to get their life jackets ready to slip. I told them -to get clear of the reflection of the fire as quickly as possible, and -proceeded to do so myself. - -“I struck out for Savo, whose skyline ridge I could see dimly, and -gradually made headway toward shore. Every two or three minutes I -stopped to look back for other survivors or an approaching destroyer, -but saw nothing save the boat which was burning steadily, and beyond it -the [_Teruzuki_] which burned and exploded all night long. - -“Sometime shortly before dawn a PT boat cruised up and down off Savo and -passed about twenty-five yards ahead of me. I was all set to hail him -when I looked over my shoulder and saw a Jap can bearing down on his -starboard quarter. - -“I didn’t know whether the PT was maneuvering to get a shot at him or -not, so I kept my mouth shut. I let him go by, slipped my life jacket, -and waited for the fireworks. - -“The Jap can lay motionless for some minutes, and I finally made it out -as nothing more than a destroyer-shaped shadow formed by the fires and -smoke. - -“I judge that I finally got ashore on Savo about 0730 or 0800. -Lieutenant Stilly Taylor picked me up off the beach about an hour -later.” - -Lieut. Melhorn was in the water between five and six hours. Only one -other sailor survived the explosion of the 44’s gas tank. Two officers -and seven enlisted men died. - -Flames on the _Teruzuki_—the same flames that lit the way to its fiery -death for the 44—finally ate their way into the depth-charge magazine, -and just before dawn the Japanese destroyer went up with a jarring -crash. - -More important to the fighters on Guadalcanal than the sinking of the -_Teruzuki_ was the astonishing and gratifying fact that Admiral Tanaka, -the destroyer tiger, had been turned back one more time by a handful of -wooden cockleshells, without landing his supplies. The big brass of the -cruiser fleet that had been unable to stop Tanaka at the Battle of -Tassafaronga must have been bewildered. - - -After the clash between Tanaka and the torpedo boats on December 11th, -no runs of the Tokyo Express were attempted for three weeks. The long -lull meant dull duty for the PTs, but was a proof of their effectiveness -in derailing the Tokyo Express. Japanese soldiers on Guadalcanal were -down to eating roots and leaves—and sometimes even other Japanese, -according to persistent reports among the Japanese themselves—before -their navy worked up enough nerve to try another run of the Tokyo -Express. - -On January 2nd, ten destroyers came down The Slot. One was damaged by a -dive bomber’s near miss, and another was detached to escort the cripple, -but the other eight sailed on. - -That night, eleven PTs attacked Tanaka’s destroyers with eighteen -torpedoes, but had no luck. Tanaka unloaded his drums and was gone -before dawn. - -No matter. As soon as the sun came up, the PTs puttered about Iron -Bottom Bay, enjoying a bit of target practice on the drums pushed off -the destroyers’ decks. One way or the other, the torpedo boats of Tulagi -snatched food from the mouths of the starving Japanese garrison. - -A week later a coast watcher up the line called in word that Tanaka was -running eight destroyers down The Slot. Rouse out the PTs again! - - -Just after midnight on January 13th, Lieut. Rollin Westholm, in PT 112, -saw four destroyers and called for a coordinated attack with Lieut. (jg) -Charles E. Tilden’s 43. - -“Make ’em good,” Lieut. Westholm said, so Lieut. Tilden took his 43 into -400-yard range before firing two. Both missed. To add to his disastrous -bad luck, the port tube flashed a bright red light, a blazing giveaway -of the 43’s position. - -The destroyer hit the 43 with the second salvo, and all hands went over -the side, diving deep to escape machine-gun strafing. The destroyer -passed close enough so that the swimming sailors could hear the Japanese -chattering on the deck. - -Lieut. Clark W. Faulkner, in 40, drew a bead on the second destroyer in -column and fired four. His heart was made glad by what he thought was a -juicy hit, so he took his empty tubes back home. - -Lieut. Westholm, in 112, took on the third destroyer and was equally -certain he had put one into his target, but two of the destroyers had -zeroed in during his approach run, and two shells blew his boat open at -the waterline. Lieut. Westholm and his eleven shipmates watched the rest -of the battle from a life raft. The other PTs fired twelve fish, but -didn’t even claim any hits. - -Either Lieut. Westholm or Lieut. Faulkner had scored, however, for the -_Hatsukaze_ had caught a torpedo under the wardroom. The Japanese -skipper at first despaired of saving his ship, but damage-control -parties plugged the hole well enough so that he was able to escape -before daylight. - -When the sun rose, the PTs still afloat picked up survivors of the two -lost torpedo boats and then went through the morning routine of sinking -the 250 floating drums of supplies the destroyers had jettisoned. The -starving Japanese watching from the beach must have wished all torpedo -boats in hell that morning. - -The Japanese did come out to tow in the wreckage of the PT 43, but a New -Zealand warship stepped in with a few well-placed broadsides and reduced -the already splintered torpedo boat to a mess of matchwood before the -Japanese could study it. - - -Nobody but the Japanese High Command knew it at this point, but the -plane and PT blockade of the Tokyo Express had won; the island garrison -had been starved out. - -During the night between February 1st and 2nd, coast watchers reported -20 Japanese destroyers coming down The Slot. The American Navy had no -way of knowing it, but the Tokyo Express was running in reverse. The -decks of those destroyers were clear—they were being kept clear to make -room for a deckload of the starved-out Japanese on Guadalcanal. Japan -was finally calling it quits and pulling out of the island. - -Whatever the mission of the Japanese ships, the mission of the American -Navy was clear—to keep the Japanese from doing whatever it was they were -doing and to sink some ships in the process. - -Three American mine-layers sprinkled 300 mines north of Guadalcanal, -near Savo Island, in the waters where the destroyers might be expected -to pass. Eleven PTs waiting in ambush attacked the destroyers as they -steamed by the minefield. The PTs rejoiced at a good, solid hit on a -destroyer by somebody—nobody was sure whom—and the destroyer _Makigumo_ -admittedly acquired an enormous hole in the hull at that very moment, -but the Japanese skipper said that he hit a mine. He said he never saw -any PTs attacking him. - -Postwar assessment officers say that he probably hit a mine while -maneuvering to avoid a PT torpedo. Avoid a torpedo attack he never even -saw? Someone is confused. Some of the PT sailors who were sure of hits -on the _Makigumo_ have a tendency to get sulky when this minefield -business is mentioned, and nobody can blame them. The _Makigumo_, at any -rate, had to be scuttled. - -Regardless of what damage they did to the Japanese, the PTs themselves -suffered terribly in this battle. - -Lieut. (jg) J. H. Claggett’s 111 was hit by a shell and set afire. The -crew swam until morning, fighting off sharks and holding up the wounded. -Two torpedo boatmen were killed. - -Ensign James J. Kelly’s 37 caught a shell on the gas tank and -disappeared in a puff of orange flame. One badly wounded man survived. - -Ensign Ralph L. Richards’ 123 had stalked to within 500 yards of a -destroyer target when a Japanese glide bomber slid in from nowhere, -dropped a single bomb, and made possibly the most fantastically lucky -hit of the war. The bomb landed square on the tiny fantail of the racing -PT boat. The boat went up in a blur of flames and splinters. Four men -were killed. - -In spite of the fierce attacks of the PT flotilla, Tanaka’s sailors -managed to take the destroyers in to the beach, load a shipment of -evacuees, and slip out again for the quick run home. - - -This was the last and by far the bloodiest action of the PTs in the -Guadalcanal campaign. The PTs had lost three boats and seventeen men in -the battle and had not scored themselves—unless you count the destroyer -_Makigumo_, which PT sailors stubbornly insist is theirs. - -An over-all summary of their contribution to the campaign for -Guadalcanal, however, gives them a whopping score: - - A submarine and a destroyer sunk [not counting _Makigumo_] - - Two destroyers badly damaged - - Tons of Japanese supply drums riddled and sunk - - Dozens of disaster victims pulled from the water - - Two massive bombardments just possibly scared off - - And—by far the most important credit—the Tokyo Express of Rear Admiral - Raizo Tanaka ambushed and definitely turned back twice after a - powerful cruiser force had failed at the job. - -Even after the postwar assessment teams cut down PT sinking credits to a -fraction of PT claims, there is still plenty of credit left for a force -ten times the size of the Tulagi fleet. - - - - - 3. - Battering Down the Gate: - the Western Hinge - - -Toward the end of 1942, as the Japanese defense of Guadalcanal was -crumbling, American forces began to inch forward elsewhere in the -Pacific, most notably on the island of New Guinea, almost 600 miles to -the west of Guadalcanal. - -New Guinea is the second largest island in the world (only Greenland is -larger). Dropped over the United States, the island would reach from New -York City to Houston, Texas; it is big enough to cover all of New -England, plus New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Ohio, -Kentucky, and all of Tennessee, except for Memphis and its suburbs. Even -today, vast inland areas are unexplored and possibly some tribes in the -mountains have never even heard about the white man—or about the -Japanese either, for that matter. The island is shaped like a turkey, -with its head and wattles pointed east. - - [Illustration: PHILIPPINE ISLANDS] - - Mindanao - Palau Is. - Celebes - Timor - Arafura Sea - Guam - Caroline Islands - Micronesia - New Guinea - Hansa Bay - Nassau Bay - -Early in the war, right after the fall of the Philippines and of the -East Indies, the Japanese had landed on the turkey’s back. The -Australians held the turkey’s belly. The Japanese had tried to cross the -grim Owen Stanley Mountains, to get at the turkey’s underside, but tough -Australian troops had slugged it out with them and pushed them back. The -fight in the mountains was so miserable for both sides that everybody -had tacitly agreed that the battle for New Guinea would be decided along -the beaches. - -Splitting the very tip of the turkey’s tail is Milne Bay, a magnificent -anchorage. Whoever held Milne Bay could prevent the other side from -spreading farther along the coast. Australians and Americans, under the -command of General MacArthur, moved first, seized Milne Bay in June of -1942, and successfully fought off a Japanese landing force. - -A curious example of the misery the homefolks can deal out to front-line -fighters is the mix-up caused by the code name for Milne Bay. For some -obscure reason, the Gili Gili base, at Milne Bay, was called “Fall -River.” Naturally, according to the inexorable workings of Murphy’s Law -(if anything _can_ go wrong, it _will_) many of the supplies for Milne -Bay were delivered to bewildered supply officers at Fall River, -Massachusetts. - -Despite this foul-up, by the end of October, 1942, Milne Bay was safely -in the hands of the Allies and ready to support an advance along the -bird’s back. All movement had to be by sea, for there were no roads -through New Guinea’s jungles, and the waters around the turkey’s tail -were the most poorly charted in the world. Navigators of deep-draft -ships were horrified to have to sail through reef- and rock-filled -waters, depending on charts with disquieting notes like “Reef possibly -seen here by Entrecasteaux in 1791.” No naval commander in his right -mind would commit deep-draft ships to such uncharted and dangerous -waters for nighttime duty. Which means that the times and the coastal -waters of eastern New Guinea were made for PT boats, or vice versa. - -On December 17, 1942, less than a week after the PTs of Tulagi had -fought the last big battle with the _incoming_ Tokyo Express, the PT -tender _Hilo_ towed two torpedo boats into Milne Bay and set up for -business. Other PTs followed. For seven more months motor torpedo boats -were to be the entire surface striking force of the U. S. Navy in the -Solomon Sea around the tail of the New Guinea turkey. - -By the time the _Hilo_ had arrived at Milne Bay, the fight for the -turkey’s back had moved 200 miles up the coast to a trio of villages -called Buna, Gona, and Sanananda. Two hundred miles is too long a haul -for PT boats, so the _Hilo_ stayed at Milne Bay as a kind of rear base, -the main striking force of PTs moving closer to the fighting. They set -up camp at Tufi, in the jungles around Oro Bay, almost within sight of -the Buna battlefield, and began the nightly coastal patrols that were to -stretch on for almost two weary years before all of New Guinea was back -in Allied hands. - -First blood was drawn on Christmas Eve. Ensign Robert F. Lynch -celebrated the holiday by taking out the PT 122 for a routine patrol, -looking for small Japanese coasters or submarines running supplies and -reinforcements into Buna. The night was dark and rainy, and the PT -chugged along without much hope of finding any action. PTs had no radar -in those days, and a visual lookout was not very effective in a New -Guinea downpour. - -Even in New Guinea, however, the rain cannot go on forever. When the -rain clouds parted, a bright moon lit up the sea and a lookout snapped -to attention. - -“Submarine,” he hissed. “Dead ahead, a submarine.” - -Hove to on the surface was a Japanese I-boat, probably waiting for -Japanese small craft to come from the beach for supplies, or else -recharging its batteries, or probably both. Ensign Lynch began his -silent stalk and closed to 1,000 yards without alarming the submarine’s -crew. He fired two torpedoes and kept on closing the range to 500 yards, -where he fired two more. The submarine went up in a geyser of water, -scrap iron, and flame. - -Ensign Lynch thought he saw a dim shape beyond his victim and was alert -when another surfaced I-boat shot four torpedoes at him. He slipped -between the torpedo tracks, but could do nothing about retaliating, -because he had emptied his tubes. He had to let the second I-boat go. -Postwar assessment gives Ensign Lynch a definite kill on this submarine. - -The same Christmas Eve, two other PTs from the Oro Bay base sank two -barges full of troops. - -Ensign Lynch’s torpedoing of the submarine—the first combat victory of -the PT fleet in New Guinea waters—was a spectacular triumph, but the -sinking of two barges was much more typical of the action to come. - -The terrible attrition of ships in the Guadalcanal fight had left the -Japanese short of sea transport. Besides, Allied airmen made the sea -approaches to New Guinea a dangerous place for surface craft in -daylight. Nevertheless, the Japanese had to find some way to supply -their New Guinea beachheads by sea or give them up, so they began a -crash program of barge construction. - -The barges were of many types, but the most formidable was the -_daihatsu_, a steel or wooden barge, diesel powered, armored, heavily -armed with machine guns or even with automatic light cannon. They could -not be torpedoed, because their draft was so shallow that a torpedo -would pass harmlessly under their hulls. They could soak up enormous -amounts of machine-gun fire and could strike back with their own -automatic weapons and the weapons of soldier passengers. A single -_daihatsu_ could be a dangerous target for a PT. A fleet of _daihatsus_, -giving each other mutual fire support, could well be too much to handle -even for a brace of coordinated PTs. - -The naval war around New Guinea became a nightly brawl between -_daihatsu_ and PT, and the torpedo function of the PT shriveled. -Eventually many of the boats abandoned their torpedo tubes entirely and -placed them with 37-mm. and 40-mm. cannon and extra 50-caliber machine -guns, fine weapons for punching through a _daihatsu’s_ armor. The PT in -New Guinea gradually changed its main armament from the torpedo—a -sledge-hammer type of weapon for battering heavy warships—to the -multiple autocannon—a buzz-saw type of weapon for slicing up small -craft. - - -At the Buna-Gona-Sanananda battlefield, the Japanese were dying of -starvation. It was the story of Guadalcanal again—with supply from the -sea cut off by aggressive American patrols, the emperor’s infantry—no -matter how desperately brave—could not stand up to a long campaign. - -The night between January 17th and 18th, the _Roaring Twenty_ (PT 120) -caught three barges trying to slip out of Sanananda. The PT recklessly -took on all three in a machine-gun duel, sank two of them, and set the -third afire. PT sailors were the first to know that the end had come for -the Japanese ashore, because the barges were loaded with Japanese -officers trying to slip away from their doomed men. Next day Sanananda -fell to the Australians. - - -When both the base at Sanananda, on the turkey’s tail, and Guadalcanal -fell to the Allies in the first months of 1943, the Japanese tried to -slam an impenetrable gate across the path of the Allied advance. The -eastern hinge of the gate was to be the mighty naval base and airfield -complex at Rabaul, on the island of New Britain. The western hinge was -planned for the place where the turkey’s tail joins the turkey’s back, -an indentation of the New Guinea coastline called Huon Gulf. - -To build up the western hinge of the gate, the Japanese landed at the -ports of Lae, Salamaua, and Finschhafen, on the Huon Gulf. The Japanese -wanted Huon Gulf so badly that they even dared send a fleet of surface -transports to ferry 6,900 reinforcements across the Bismarck Sea to New -Guinea. The convoy run was daring, because it would be within reach of -land-based Allied bombers almost the whole way. - -Escorting the eight transports were eight destroyers, veterans of the -Tokyo Express. Tanaka, however, was no longer with them. He had been -relieved of his command for telling the high navy brass in Tokyo some -unpleasant truths. He spent the rest of the war on the beach as a -penalty for speaking up about mistakes made at Guadalcanal. - -The Japanese convoy sailed from Rabaul, at the eastern hinge of the -gate, on March 1st, under cover of a terrible storm which the ships’ -captains hoped would ground Allied bombers. On March 3rd the storm -lifted unexpectedly. The seasick soldiers felt slightly less miserable. - -In Japan March 3rd is Doll’s Day, a sentimental family holiday when -little Japanese girls dress up their dolls and parade them about the -streets under the fond eyes of admiring fathers. Many of the soldiers -were depressed at being on such a martial mission on Doll’s Day, so -their officers passed out candy as a little touch of holiday. The -officers did not tell the soldiers that the lifting of the storm had -been a disaster, that an Allied snooper had already spotted the convoy, -and that Allied bombers were almost surely on the way. - -Worse was on the way than ordinary bombers. - -Back in Australia, the American bomber force had been working on a new -dirty trick, and bomber pilots were eager to try it on the transports -crowded with candy-munching soldiers. - -Mechanics had torn out all the bombardier equipment from the nose of B -25 attack bombers and had mounted eight 50-caliber machine guns. Under -each B 25 they had slung two 500-pound bombs armed with five-second -delay fuses. The idea was to make a low-level bombing run, so as to skip -the bombs across the water like flat stones. The delayed-action fuses -were to keep the bombs from detonating until they had slammed into the -ships’ sides. When the snooper reported the convoy, it sounded to Allied -bomber pilots like the perfect target for testing the new weapon. - -While fighters and high-level bombers kept the Japanese convoy occupied, -the converted B 25s came at the Japanese so low that the blast of their -propellers churned the sea. The Japanese skippers thought they were -torpedo bombers—which they were, in a sense—and turned into the attack, -to present the narrowest possible target, a wise maneuver ordinarily, -but this also made the ships the best possible targets for the long, -thin pattern of the machine-gun ripsaws mounted in the bombers’ noses. -The ships were ripped from stem to gudgeon by the strafing runs. Then, -when the pilots were sure the antiaircraft gun crews had been sawed to -shreds, the low-flying B 25s charged at the ships broadside and released -the skip bombs, which caved in hull plates at the waterlines and let in -fatal doses of sea water. It was almost impossible to miss with a skip -bomb. By nightfall the Bismarck Sea was dotted with rafts, lifeboats, -and swimmers clinging to the debris of sunken ships. Only darkness -stopped the slaughter from the air. - -After that sunset, however, the slaughter from the sea became more -grisly than ever. Eight PTs from New Guinea, under Lieut. Commander -Barry K. Atkins, fought their way to the battle zone through the heavy -seas in the wake of the storm which had so treacherously deserted the -Japanese convoy. - -Just before midnight they spotted the burning transport _Oigawa Maru_. -PT 143 and PT 150 each fired a torpedo and blew the transport out of the -water. The PT sailors searched all night but could find no other -targets—largely because almost all of them were already on the floor of -the Bismarck Sea. - -When the sun came up they had targets enough, but of a most distasteful -kind. The sea was swarming with Japanese survivors, and it was the -unhappy duty of the PTs to try to kill them to the last man, so that -they could not get ashore on nearby New Guinea. - -On March 5th the same two PTs that had sunk the _Oigawa Maru_ jumped a -Japanese submarine picking up survivors from three boats. The PTs -charged, firing torpedoes, but they missed the crash-diving submarine. -Then they were presented with the hideous problem of what to do with the -100 helpless soldiers who watched fearfully from the three boats. The -Japanese would not surrender, and they could not be allowed to escape. - -The two PTs turned on the machine guns and set about the grim butchery -of the unhappy Japanese. When the execution was over, they sank the -three blood-drenched boats with a shallow pattern of depth charges. - -Scout planes conned other PTs to lifeboats and rafts crammed with -Japanese. More than 3,000 soldiers died, but so thick were the survivors -that several hundred managed to swim ashore despite the best vigilance -of the small-craft navy. The natives of New Guinea, who had long chafed -against the Australian law forbidding head-hunting, were unleashed by -the authorities and had a field day tracking down the few Japanese who -made it to the beach. - -Eighteen Japanese made an astonishing 400-mile voyage through -PT-patrolled waters to a tiny island in the Trobriand group. They were -captured by the crew of PT 114 in a pioneer landing party operation of -the PT fleet. - -The skip bombers of the American Air Force had sunk four destroyers and -eight transports, killed 3,000 Japanese soldiers and sailors, and shot -down 30 planes. The Battle of the Bismarck Sea was a smashing blow to -the Japanese, and they never again risked a surface transport near -eastern New Guinea (except for a one-night run of four destroyers in a -feeble and abortive attempt to set up a spurline of the Tokyo Express.) - - -The American Navy had an official torpedo-boat doctrine, of course, and -PT officers were well drilled in the proper manner of delivering -torpedoes in combat before they left the States, but this night-prowling -business against torpedo-proof barges called for new torpedo-boat -tactics. - -Lieuts. (jg) Skipper Dean in PT 114, and Francis H. McAdoo, Jr., in PT -129, tried the still-hunt methods of Mississippi, where sportsmen hide -themselves beside a known game trail and let the stag walk right up to -his death. On the night between March 15th and 16th, the two PTs set up -an ambush in a known barge rendezvous. They slipped into Mai-Ama Bay, a -tiny inlet on the Huon Gulf shoreline, which they suspected was a -Japanese barge terminal, and there they cut their engines and waited. As -usual, it was raining and visibility was virtually zero. - -The current persisted in setting the boats toward the gulf, so the 114 -dropped anchor. Lieut. McAdoo found that he was too restless for a still -hunt, so he oozed the 129 back into the gulf on one engine, to see if -any barges were unloading south of the entrance to the bay. - -The PT sailors didn’t know it, but six Japanese barges had arrived -before them and were unloading all around in the darkness. Two of the -drifting barges, already unloaded and idling about the bay until time to -form up for the return trip, bumped into the side of the 114. To the PT -sailors it was as though a clammy hand had touched them in a haunted -house. They were galvanized. - -Silence and stealth were second nature to them, however, so they moved -quietly to battle stations. The Japanese on the barges, happily assuming -that the PT was another Japanese ship, chattered amiably among -themselves. - -Machine-gunners on the PT strained to depress their 50-caliber mounts, -but the barges were too close. Sailors quietly cocked submachine guns -instead. - -At the skipper’s signal, with blazing Tommy guns, the crew hosed down -the decks of the two _daihatsus_ that were holding the PT in their -embarrassingly close embrace. The PT anchor was snagged to the bottom, -so a sailor parted the line with an ax, and the PT tried to put a little -distance between itself and the Japanese. - -The aft 50 calibers sank one barge, but the other caught under the bow -of the PT and plugged its escape route. Skipper Dean solved the problem -by shoving the throttles up to the stops and riding over the barge, -which swamped and sank under the PT’s weight. - -The 114, once free from the two _daihatsus_, turned back into the inlet -with guns roaring. The 129 came running, and the two PTs mopped up the -rest of the six-barge convoy. - - -The Australian army had taken on the job of throwing the Japanese out of -the three Huon Gulf villages that formed the western hinge of the -Japanese gate. They were doing as well as could be expected with the -nasty job of fighting in the filthy jungles of New Guinea, but they were -having supply problems almost as serious as those of the blockaded -Japanese. The Allies had no beachhead near the Australians, and -supplies, in miserly quantities, had to be flown to a jungle airstrip -and packed to the troops by native bearers. - -The PT fleet in New Guinea had become so sophisticated by this time that -it had acquired a formal organization and an over-all commander, a -former submarine skipper named Morton Mumma. Aboard one of his PTs, -Commander Mumma had gone poking about the little-known shoreline around -the Huon Gulf (Mort Bay was named for him, because he first explored -it), and he had found a fine landing beach at Nassau Bay. The beach was -right under the nose of the Japanese garrison at Salamaua, it’s true, -but it was also temptingly handy to the Australian lines. - -On the last day of June, 1943, three PTs packed a company of riflemen on -their deck. With 36 small Army landing boats, the PTs sortied into a -foul sea, lashed by high winds and rain. Total naval escort for the -amphibious armada was PT 168, which presumably was in better fighting -trim than the others, because it carried no seasick passengers. PT 168 -promptly lost its convoy in the storm. - -_The Flying Shamrock_ (PT 142) missed the landing beach at Nassau Bay -and did a countermarch. In the rain and darkness, the _Shamrock_ beat -the astronomical odds against such an accident by ramming the tiny PT -143, to the alarm of the miserable foot soldiers on both boats. - -The Army landing craft scattered in the storm, and the two PTs had to -round them up and guide them to the beach, where several broached in the -high surf and were abandoned. Short of landing craft to put their own -sea-weary passengers ashore, the PTs had to carry them back to the -staging area. - -Despite the less than 100 per cent efficiency of the operation, the few -American soldiers who had reached the beach threw the Japanese garrison -into a panic. A lucky bomb hit had killed their able commander, and -without his support the 300 Japanese assigned to guard Nassau Bay broke -and fled before the insignificant Allied invasion force. - -Puny as they were, the landings at Nassau Bay threw the Japanese high -command into a flap. They saw clearly, possibly even more clearly than -the Allies, that the Nassau Bay beachhead was going to unhinge the whole -Japanese gate across the Allied path. The landings also paid an -unexpected bonus far to the east, where American soldiers were landing -on Rendova Island, as part of the island-hopping advance up the central -Solomons toward the eastern hinge of the Japanese gate. The Japanese at -Rabaul were so alarmed by the minuscule PT operation at Nassau Bay that -they jammed their own radio circuits with alarms and outcries. The -Japanese at Rendova couldn’t get anybody to listen to their anguished -cries for help, and the American troops went ashore with almost no air -opposition. - -Ashore on Huon Gulf, the Australians still had the uncomfortable job of -convincing the stubborn Japanese foot soldiers that they were doomed, -and previously the only way to convince them had been to kill them by -bullets or starvation. The PTs tightened the blockade by night. - -Just before the end at Finschhafen, when the Japanese were getting ready -to give up the Huon Gulf, barge traffic increased. It was the same story -as the earlier abandonment of Buna, Gona, and Sanananda. The Japanese -were slipping out by night. - -On the night between August 28th and 29th, two PTs patrolled off -Finschhafen. Ensign Herbert P. Knight was skipper of the 152; Lieut. -(jg) John L. Carey was skipper of _The Flying Shamrock_ (PT 142). Riding -the _Shamrock_, in command of the operation, was a most distinguished PT -sailor, Lieut. John Bulkeley, rescuer of MacArthur, back from his tour -in the United States as the number one naval hero of the Philippines -campaign. - -Lookouts spotted three barges, and one went down under the first attack -by the two PT boats, but the other two were still afloat after the third -firing run. Ensign Knight dropped depth charges alongside, but the -barges rode out the blast and were still afloat when the geysers of sea -water settled. Lieut. Carey made a depth-charge run and blew one of the -barges apart, but the other still survived. - -Aboard the _Shamrock_, Bulkeley decided to finish the job in the -old-fashioned way—by hand. - -For the first time in this century, with a cry of “Boarders away,” a U. -S. Navy boarding party, weapons in hand, swarmed aboard an enemy craft. -One Japanese made a move in the darkness, and Lieut. Bulkeley blew him -down with a 45 automatic. The other passengers, twelve fully equipped -soldiers, were already dead. - -The boarders picked up what documents and equipment they thought would -be interesting to Intelligence, and reboarded their PT. The 152 pumped -37-mm shells into the barge until it slid under the water. - -Ashore, Intelligence captured the diary of a Japanese officer named -Kobayashi. Under the date of August 29, 1943, was the entry: - - Last night with the utmost precaution we were without incident - transported safely by barge between Sio and Finschhafen. _So far, - there has not been a time during such trips when barges have not been - attacked by enemy torpedo boats._ However, it was reported that the - barge unit which transported us was attacked and sunk on the return - trip last night and the barge commander and his men were all lost. - -The PT blockade at sea and the Australian drive ashore pinched the -Japanese hard, and on September 16th Australian infantrymen walked into -a deserted Finschhafen. The western hinge of the gate had been broken. - - - - - 4. - Battering Down the Gate: - the Eastern Hinge - - -The western end of the Japanese gate was nailed to the great land mass -of New Guinea, and its unhinging was a natural job for the Army. The -eastern hinge was at Rabaul, in the tangle of islands and reef-strewn -sea channels that make up the Solomon and Bismarck archipelagos. -Reduction of Rabaul was naturally a Navy job, to be carried on -simultaneously with the Army effort in New Guinea. - -After the fall of Guadalcanal in February, 1943, the master plan in the -South Pacific, under Admiral William Halsey, was to hop from island to -island through the central Solomons, reducing one by one the Japanese -bases arranged like steppingstones between Guadalcanal and Rabaul. - -PTs were moved up as fast as new bases were established, because they -were short of range and useless if they fell too far behind the front. - -The night the Army went ashore at Rendova (June 30, 1943), three PTs -sailed up Blanche Channel, on the approaches to the Rendova landing -beach. Coming down the same channel was the American landing flotilla, -transports, supply ships, and escorting destroyers. The destroyer -_McCawley_, damaged by one of the few Japanese air attacks that opposed -the Rendova landings, was being towed to Tulagi, but was riding lower -and lower in the water and its survival was doubtful. Rear Admiral -Richmond K. Turner (riding _McCawley_ as flagship of the Rendova -invasion force) was debating whether or not to give the stricken ship -euthanasia by friendly torpedo when his mind was made up for him by two -mysterious fish which came out of the night and blew _McCawley_ out of -the water. - -The deadly PTs had struck again! But, alas, under the illusion that they -were hitting an enemy transport. Explanation of the snafu? The usual -lack of communications between PTs and other commands. The PTs had been -told there would be no friendlies in Blanche Channel that night—and the -only friendlies they encountered just happened to be the entire Rendova -landing fleet. - - -American soldiers quickly captured Rendova Island, and the PT navy set -up a base there. Across Blanche Channel, on New Georgia Island, Marines -and soldiers were fighting a heartbreaking jungle action to capture the -Japanese airfield at Munda, but they had taken over enough of New -Georgia for another PT base on The Slot side of the island. - -Business was slow at first for the PTs. The big-ship admirals, who were -fighting repeated destroyer-cruiser night actions in those waters—and -who were possibly nervous about the PTs since the _McCawley_ -incident—ordered the PTs to stay in when the big ships went out. - -Concern of the admirals over poor communications between PTs and other -units was justified. Early on the morning of July 20th, three torpedo -boats were returning to Rendova Base through Fergusson Passage. Three B -25s—the same kind of aircraft that had performed such terrible execution -of the Japanese in the Bismarck Sea—spotted the patrol craft and came -down to the deck for a strafing run. - -Aboard PT 168, Lieut. Edward Macauley III held his gunners in tight -check while they suffered under the murderous fire of the friendly -planes. Repeatedly the gunners of the 168 held their breath as the B 25s -raked them with bullets—but they held their own fire in a superb display -of discipline. Not so the other two boats. Gunners were unable to stand -being shot at without shooting back, and the first PT burst of -counterfire brought down a bomber in flames. - -Somehow the other bombers came to their senses and the strafing runs -stopped, but all the boats had already been riddled and two were -burning. The 166 was past saving. Sound crew members helped the wounded -over the side into life rafts and paddled frantically away from the -burning craft. They made it out of danger just as the gas tanks went up -in a blast of searing orange flame. - -Lieut. Macauley and his brave crew—the only group to come out of the -ghastly affair with unblemished credit—took their still burning 168 -alongside the stricken bomber to rescue survivors before the plane went -down. Three of the bomber crew were dead; the three survivors were -wounded. One bomber and one PT were lost in the sad affair. One officer -and ten men of the torpedo-boat patrol were wounded. - -Reason for the tragic mistake? Same as for the _McCawley_ sinking. The -bomber pilots had been told that there would be no friendly vessels in -those waters at that time. - - -PTs were harassed, during the night patrols, by Japanese seaplanes -escorting the Japanese barge convoys, so one PT skipper and a night -fighter plane rigged an ambush. An American night fighter was to perch -aloft, the PT was to charge about, throwing up a glittering rooster’s -tail of a wake to attract a float plane, and the night fighter was to -jump on the float plane’s back. - -The plan worked like a fifty-dollar clock. The noisy, rambunctious PT -lured down a float plane—OK so far—and the PT’s skipper conned the -escorting night fighter in to the counterattack. - -The first word from the night fighter, however, was a disconcerting, -“I’m being attacked by the float plane.” - -“Bring him down to two feet,” said the PT skipper, “and _we’ll_ get on -his tail.” - -Nobody was hurt. - - -PTs fought some lively barge actions on July 23rd and 27th, but the big -battle—the naval battle which has earned what is surely the most -exaggerated fame of all time for its importance—the battle of the 109, -took place the night between August 1st and 2nd. - -On the afternoon of August 1st, search planes saw four Japanese -destroyers coming down The Slot. They were loaded with 900 soldiers and -supplies for the embattled defenders of the Munda airfield. It was a -typical run of the Tokyo Express and a prime target for PTs. - -During the afternoon, when the Japanese destroyers were still far from -Rendova, the Japanese showed their deep respect for motor torpedo boats -by socking the Rendova base with bombs from 25 planes. - -Two PTs were sunk by a bomber which crashed into their nest. One of the -PTs destroyed was 164, which had survived the tragic strafing by B25s -just eleven days before. - - -At sunset 15 PTs—four of them equipped with the new-fangled gadget -called radar—sortied from the base under the command of Lieut. Henry I. -Brantingham aboard 159. Brantingham was another veteran of the MacArthur -rescue run in the Philippines. The PTs were deployed around the -approaches to the Japanese landing beach for resupplying Munda airfield. - -Lieut. Brantingham, naturally, had chosen a radar-equipped boat for his -flagship, and so was the first to pick up the Tokyo Express, just after -midnight on August 2nd. Brantingham, for some reason, thought his radar -pips were from landing craft, and closed for a strafing run, but -4.7-inch shells from the destroyers persuaded him that his targets were -fair torpedo game. He and Lieut. (jg) William F. Liebnow, Jr., in 157, -fired six torpedoes. No hits. The two boats escaped behind puffs of -smoke. - -Worse than the six misses was the lack of communication. The other PTs, -most of them without radar, didn’t even know the destroyers had arrived -on the scene, much less that they had been alerted by the torpedo runs -of 157 and 159. - -Next to pick up the cans was the radar-equipped 171, carrying the -division commander, Lieut. Arthur H. Berndtson. The boat’s skipper, -Ensign William Cullen Battle, closed at a slinking ten knots to 1,500 -yards, where Lieut. Berndtson fired a full salvo of fish. All four tubes -blazed up in a grease fire that was as helpful to the destroyer gunners -as a spotlighted bull’s-eye. Shellbursts splashed water aboard the 171 -as the boat ripped out to sea. - -Again the attacking PT which had missed its target failed to report by -radio to the other PT skippers, who were straining their eyes in the -darkness looking for ships they didn’t know were already on the scene. - -A third radar boat, Lieut. George E. Cookman’s 107, picked up the cans -on the radar set and missed with four fish. Three other PTs, aroused by -the flash of destroyer gunfire, came running from the southeast. A -Japanese float plane strafed them, and destroyer salvos straddled the -boats, but they got off all their torpedoes—12 of them—and all 12 -missed. - -The Tokyo Express went through the strait and unloaded 900 soldiers and -supplies. - -So bad were communications between the PTs that most of the 15 skippers -who had started the patrol still didn’t know that the destroyers had -arrived and been unsuccessfully attacked, much less that they had -already discharged their cargoes and were going home. And that meant the -destroyers were coming up on the PT lookouts from behind. - -At the wheel of the 109 was Lieut. John F. Kennedy. The boat was idling -along on one engine to save fuel and to cruise as silently as -possible—good PT doctrine for night patrol. - -A lookout on the destroyer _Amagiri_ saw the 109 at about the same -instant a lookout on the PT saw the destroyer. Making a split-second -decision, Japanese Commander Hanami ordered the helmsman to spin the -wheel to starboard and ram. - -The _Amagiri_ crashed into the starboard side of the 109 and killed the -lookout on the spot. The boat was cut in two; the rear section sank; -burning gasoline covered the sea. The _Amagiri_ sailed on, but at a -reduced speed, because the 109, in its death agony, had bent vanes on -the _Amagiri’s_ starboard propeller, causing violent vibration at high -speeds. - -PT 169 fired torpedoes at the _Amagiri_, but at too close a range for -them to arm and explode. PT 157 fired two that missed. Thirty torpedoes -were fired that night, and the only damage inflicted on the destroyers -was by the quite involuntary and fatal body block of the 109. It was not -the greatest night of the war for the PT navy. - -Eleven survivors of the 109 searched surrounding waters for two missing -shipmates, but never found them. They spent the night and the next -morning on the still-floating bow section. By midafternoon they decided -that no rescue was on the way. Since they felt naked and exposed to -Japanese plane and ship patrols, they set out to swim three and a half -miles to a desert island, the skipper towing a badly burned shipmate for -four hours by a life-jacket tie-tie gripped between his teeth. - -After harrowing nights spent on several desert islands—nights during -which the skipper showed most extraordinary stamina, resourcefulness, -and courage—the ship-wrecked sailors were found by native scouts. They -took the heroic skipper by canoe to a coast-watcher station, and there -he boarded a rescue PT and returned for his marooned companions. - -The skipper of the 109 was, of course, the same John F. Kennedy who on -January 20, 1961, became the thirty-fifth President of the United -States. - - -After Munda fell and with it all of New Georgia, American strategists -studied the map and decided that island-by-island reduction of Japanese -strength was too tedious. They decided to start by-passing some of the -bases, cutting off the by-passed garrisons and starving them behind an -American sea blockade. More night work for the PTs. - -Up the line a bit was the island of Vella Lavella, only lightly held by -the Japanese. American strategists chose a beach called Barakoma as a -possible landing spot and ordered a reconnaissance. - -Four PTs, on the night between August 12th and 13th, carried a scouting -party of 45 men to the beach at Barakoma. A Japanese plane nagged the -boats with strafing and bombing runs for two hours. A near miss tore up -the planking on the 168 and wounded four sailors, so the 168 had to drop -out of the operation, but the other three boats put their passengers -ashore safely. Scouts reported that the only Japanese around that part -of the island were ship-wrecked survivors of an earlier sea battle, so -thirty-six hours later four more PTs landed reinforcements. - -Japanese snooper planes spotted the PT passenger runs, but apparently -the Japanese high command couldn’t think of torpedo boats as invasion -craft, so the scout landings were made without interference. - -The main force followed, and by October 1st all of Vella Lavella was in -American hands. - - -The Japanese began shrinking their Solomon Islands perimeter, falling -back to the islands on the near side of the new American base at Vella -Lavella. American destroyers, out to smash the evacuation bargeline, met -a Japanese destroyer screen for the _daihatsus_ on the night between -October 6th and 7th. As usual, Japanese torpedoes were deadly. One -American destroyer went down and two others were sorely damaged. More -important, the Japanese supply and evacuation train ran its errands -without molestation from the American cans. - -The American destroyers did sink the Japanese _Yugumo_, and American PTs -were sent to pick up 78 survivors. Aboard the 163, an American sailor -offered a cup of coffee to one of the captive Japanese, who killed the -Good Samaritan (and of course died himself at the hands of the murdered -sailor’s shipmates). PT sailors felt less uneasy about the massacre of -the shipwrecked Japanese at the Bismarck Sea after the treacherous -murder of their comrade by a rescued Japanese. - - -Having successfully leapfrogged once, American strategists looked at the -map again. The whole point to the island-hopping campaign was to put -American fighter planes close enough to Rabaul so that they could screen -bombers over that base and keep the Japanese pinned down there under -constant bombardment. The best site for a fighter base was Bougainville -Island, so American planners put their fingers on the map and said: -“This is the place for the next one.” - -Accordingly, Marines landed at Cape Torokina, on Bougainville, on -November 1st. Their mission was to capture enough of the island to build -and protect a fighter strip. The rest of the island could be left to the -15,000 Japanese soldiers who defended it. Nobody cared about them. -Rabaul was the real target. - -The Japanese high command at Rabaul sent down a cruiser-destroyer force -with the mission of getting among the American transports in Empress -Augusta Bay, off Torokina, and tearing up the helpless train ships like -a pack of wolves in a herd of sheep. - -An American cruiser-destroyer force met them just after midnight on -November 2nd, and sank one Japanese cruiser and a destroyer. More -important, the American flotilla ran off the Japanese marauders before -they reached the transports. - -American reconnaissance planes, however, spotted a massive concentration -of heavy cruisers and destroyers building up in Rabaul Harbor, a -concentration too great for American naval forces then in the South -Pacific to handle, because most American capital ships of the Pacific -Fleet had been pulled back toward Hawaii to support an operation in the -Gilbert Islands. - -Admiral Halsey scratched together a carrier task force, and even though -a carrier raid near a land-based airfield was then against doctrine, he -sent the carrier’s planes into the harbor. They damaged the cruisers -badly enough to relieve the immediate threat to the Torokina landings. -The carrier raids stirred up a hornet’s nest around Rabaul. - -Eighteen Japanese torpedo bombers took off to smash the brazen carrier -task force. Just before total dark they found American ships and -attacked. Radio Tokyo broadcast, with jubilation, that the score in this -“First Air Battle of Bougainville” was “one large carrier blown up and -sunk, one medium carrier set ablaze and later sunk, and two heavy -cruisers and one cruiser and destroyer sunk.” Rabaul’s torpedo bombers -won a group commendation. - -An American staff officer, hearing the account of this First Air Battle -of Bougainville as reported by Japanese pilots, could only hold his head -in his hands and hope his own pilots were not feeding him the same kind -of foolishness. - -Here is what really happened in the First Air Battle of Bougainville. - -A landing craft, the LCI 70, and the PT 167, were lumbering back from a -landing party on the Torokina beachhead. Just after sunset the Japanese -bombers struck in low-level torpedo runs. The PT brought down the leader -by the novel method of snagging him with its mast. The plane’s torpedo -punched clean through the PT’s nose, leaving its tail assembly, -appropriately enough, in the crew’s head. - -The torpedo boat’s 20-mm. cannon shot down a second torpedo bomber so -close to the ship that the sailors on the fantail were soaked. - -Four torpedo bombers launched their fish at the LCI, but since the -torpedoes were set for attack on a deep-draft carrier, they passed -harmlessly under the landing craft’s shallow hull—except for one which -porpoised and jumped through the LCI’s thin skin, unfortunately killing -one sailor. The unexploded warhead came to rest on a starchy bed in the -bread locker. The torpedo was still smoking, so the LCI’s skipper, -Lieut. (jg) H. W. Frey, ordered “Abandon ship!” - -Time passed. No explosion. A damage-control party reboarded the LCI and -rigged her for a tow back to Torokina. PT 167 raced ahead with the -wounded. - -Rear Admiral T. S. Wilkinson radioed congratulations to Ensign Theodore -Berlin, skipper of the PT, for knocking down a plane with his mast. -“Fireplug sprinkles dog,” is the way the admiral put it. - -So ended the First Air Battle of Bougainville. - - -PTs quickly set up a base on Puruata Island, just off the Torokina -beachhead, even though the Marine foothold was still feeble. Sea patrols -of the torpedo boats were still vexed by poor communications. The night -of November 8th, for instance, the destroyers _Hudson_ and _Anthony_ -came up to Torokina, sure that there were no friendly PTs in the bay, -because higher-ups on the beach had told them so. Naturally, when radar -picked up the pips of patrolling PTs 163, 169 and 170, they let fly with -everything. - -The PTs, equally misinformed about what friendlies to expect, took the -destroyer broadsides to be a most unfriendly action and maneuvered for a -torpedo run. The skipper of the 170 tried to decoy the two American -destroyers into a trap. He called the 163 by radio, to warn him that he -was leading “three Nip cans” into their torpedo range. PT 163 got off a -long shot at the “three” cans, which fortunately missed. - -There has been much fruitless speculation about that third mysterious -can reported by 170. Aboard the 170, the radar screen showed a big -target—not one of the two American destroyers—10,000 yards dead ahead. A -salvo of shells that “looked like ashcans” passed overhead, coming from -the same direction as the radar target. To this day nobody knows who was -the assailant with guns big enough to fire ashcan-sized projectiles. - -The running duel lit up the bay for forty-five minutes. The torpedo -boats were just coming around for a new torpedo run when _Anthony_ -figured out what was going on. - -“Humblest apologies,” the _Anthony_ said by radio in a handsome bid to -accept all the blame. “We are friendly vessels.” - - -Farther west near Arawe, on New Britain, on Christmas Day 1943, Lieut. -Ed Farley’s 190, with Lieut. Commander H. M. S. Swift aboard, and Ensign -Rumsey Ewing’s 191 were returning to the Dregar Harbor base in New -Guinea, after a dull patrol. - -Between 30 and 38 Japanese dive bombers and fighters came down from the -north and bombed and strafed the boats in groups of three and four. The -two little PTs were in a jam, for the force attacking them was large -enough to take on a carrier task force, screen destroyers and all. The -boats separated, went to top speed, and zigzagged toward a bank of low -clouds twelve miles away. - -Japanese planes often made one pass at PTs and then dropped the job if -they did not score, but this overwhelming big flight of planes returned -for repeated attacks. PT skippers clamored for fighter cover from the -beach. - -Aboard the 191, the skipper was hit in the lungs and Ensign Fred Calhoun -took command. A machine-gun bullet pierced his thigh, but he hung on to -the wheel to play a deadly game of tag with the attackers. He held a -steady course, his eye fixed to the bomb racks of the attacking plane, -until the bomb was away and committed to its course. Then he whipped -over the wheel to put the boat where the bomb wasn’t when it landed. - -Nevertheless, fragments from a near miss knocked out a 20-mm. gun and -severely wounded the gunner, Chief Motor Machinist Mate Thomas Dean, and -the loader, Motor Machinist Mate Second Class August Sciutto. Another -near miss punched an 18-inch hole in the portside and peppered the -superstructure with steel splinters. - -Japanese strafers hit the port and starboard engines and punctured the -water jackets, which spurted jets of boiling water into the engine room. -Engineer of the Watch Victor Bloom waded into the streams of scalding -water to tape and stuff leaks so that the engines would not overheat and -fuse into a solid mass. - -Fearing that the gas fumes from punctured lines might explode, he closed -off the fuel-tank compartment and pulled a release valve to smother it -with carbon dioxide. When he had tidied up his engine room, Bloom gave -first aid to the wounded. (Not surprisingly, Victor Bloom won a Navy -Cross for this action.) - -By this time the two PTs had knocked four planes into the sea near the -boats. - -“Toward the end of the attack,” said Lieut. Farley, “the enemy became -more and more inaccurate and less willing to close us. It is possible -that we may have knocked down the squadron leader as the planes milled -about in considerable confusion, as if lacking leadership.” - -Forty minutes after they were called, P 47 fighter planes from -Finschhafen arrived to drive off the shaken Japanese apparently startled -by the two floating buzz saws. - -One of the P 47s was hit and made a belly landing about half a mile from -the 190. The pilot, though badly wounded in the head and arm, freed -himself and escaped from the cockpit before his plane went down. The 190 -went to the rescue of its rescuer, and Lieut. Commander Swift and Seaman -First Class Joe Cope jumped overboard to tow the groggy pilot to the -undamaged PT. - -Authorities were as astonished as the Japanese attackers had been by the -savage and effective response of the two PTs to the massive attack which -should have wiped them out, according to all the rules. Smaller and less -determined air attacks had sunk cruisers and destroyers in other waters. - -Commander Mumma, with justifiable pride in his two boats, said of the -action: “It has shown that the automatic weapon armament is most -effective. It has demonstrated that ably handled PTs can, in daylight, -withstand heavy air attack.” - - -On the same Christmas Day 1943, the Bougainville bomber strip went into -business, and the fighter strips were so well established that American -forces could afford to settle down behind the barbed wire of The -Perimeter, content with what they already held. From here on out, they -could afford to ignore as much as possible the 15,000 Japanese still on -the island. From that day Rabaul was doomed to comparative impotence -under a merciless shower of bombs. - -Not that Rabaul was a feeble outpost. One hundred thousand Japanese -soldiers, behind powerful fortifications and with immense supplies, made -Rabaul a formidable fortress—too tough for a direct frontal -assault—until the end of the war. Without air power, however, the -Japanese there could do nothing to hold back the Allied advance except -to glower at the task forces passing by just out of gun range on their -way to new island bases farther up the line. - -The Japanese gate was unhinged at both ends and the Allies poured -through the gap. - -American strategists decided to jump over Rabaul, leaving its defenders -to shrivel away behind a sea blockade. Some of the PTs leapfrogged with -the rest of the Allied forces and readied for more night patrol in the -waters farther along the sea lanes to Tokyo; some of them stayed behind -to make life as miserable as possible for the bypassed Japanese on -Bougainville and the other islands cut off from home. - - -PTs played a big part in the last jump that isolated Rabaul. The -landings in the Admiralty Islands were on Leap Year Day, February 29, -1944, by units of the First Cavalry Division. The Admiralty Islands are -a ring of long, thin islands enclosing a magnificent anchorage called -Seeadler Harbor. The fine anchorage and the airstrips planned for the -islands would give the Allies the last brick in the wall around Rabaul. - -Faulty reconnaissance from the air had shown that the islands were free -of Japanese. Actually there were 4,000 Japanese in the islands, and -their commander was insulted that the Americans landed a force only a -fraction the size of his. He counterattacked violently. The only Navy -fire support available was from destroyers and small craft. - -Among the small craft were MTB Squadron Twenty-One, commanded by -Lieutenant Paul Rennell, and Squadron Eighteen, commanded by the same -Lieut. Commander H. M. S. Swift who had surprised the Japanese air -command by the vicious antiaircraft fire of his two torpedo boats near -Arawe on Christmas Day. - -The PTs went to work for the cavalry as a kind of sea cavalry, running -errands, carrying wounded, towing stranded boats off the beach, handling -the leadline to measure a poorly charted harbor bottom, and even -carrying cavalry generals on scouting missions. - -From inside Seeadler Harbor they gave the cavalry close fire support -with machine guns and mortars. A keen-eyed sailor on 363 knocked a -sniper out of a tree with a short burst, for instance, and the crew of -the 323 demolished, with 50 calibers, a Japanese radio and observation -platform in another tree. - -The island of Manus fell quickly, and Major General I. P. Swift, -commanding general of the First Cavalry Division, in a generous tribute -to a sister service, said: “The bald statement, ‘The naval forces -supported this action’ ... is indeed a masterpiece of understatement.... -Without the Navy there would not have been any action.” - - - - - 5. - Along the Turkey’s Back - - -From the time that American planes stopped the Japanese onrush at the -Coral Sea and at Midway, it was a two-year job for the Allies to batter -down the Japanese gate at Rabaul and at the Huon Gulf. Once the gate was -down, it took MacArthur’s forces only four months to make the 1,200-mile -trip down the turkey’s back to a perch on the turkey’s head, just across -from the East Indies and the Philippines. - -The swift trip was made possible, however, by a leap-frogging technique -that left behind a monumental job for the PT navy. General MacArthur -made almost all of his New Guinea landings where the Japanese weren’t, -by-passing tens of thousands of tough jungle fighters and leaving the -job of starving them out to the blockading navy. Except for the brief -loan of ships from the battle-line for special missions, the blockading -navy was the PT fleet. - -The New Guinea PT force was beefed up for the blockade by many new boats -and officers. MacArthur had been deeply impressed by the torpedo boats -during his escape from Corregidor and used all his influence—which was -considerable in those days—to impress every PT possible into his force. - -The PTs in New Guinea lost almost all use for their torpedoes, except -when they chanced to catch a blockade-running supply submarine on the -surface. The boat skippers wanted more guns, more auto-cannon and -machine guns for shooting up the Number One blockade-runner, the armored -_daihatsu_—and they got them. - -Early in November 1943, Squadron Twenty-One arrived at Morobe base armed -with 40-mm. auto-cannon, a tremendously effective weapon for all-around -mischief. It was the first New Guinea squadron armed with the newer and -deadlier weapon. - -More than the size of the new cannon, however, the size of the new -officers astonished the veteran PT sailors. Commander Selman S. Bowling, -who had replaced Commander Mumma as chief of PTs in the Southwest -Pacific, had voluntarily ridden on the Tulagi boats before his new -assignment, and he had decided then that PT officers should be tough and -athletic. When he went to the States to organize new squadrons, he had -recruited the biggest, toughest athletes he could find. - -Among the newcomers were Ensign Ernest W. Pannell, All-American tackle -from Texas A. and M. and professional football player for the Green Bay -Packers; Ensign Alex Schibanoff of Franklin and Marshall College and the -Detroit Lions; Ensign Steven L. Levanitis of Boston College and the -Philadelphia Eagles; Ensign Bernard A. Crimmins, All-American from Notre -Dame; Lieut. (jg) Paul B. Lillis, captain of the Notre Dame team; Ensign -Louis E. Smith, University of California halfback; Ensign Kermit W. -Montz, Franklin and Marshall; Ensign John M. Eastham, Jr., Texas A. and -M.; Ensign Stuart A. Lewis, University of California; Ensign Cedric J. -Janien, Harvard; and Ensign William P. Hall, Wabash. - -Also bulging with muscle were Ensign Joseph W. Burk, holding the world’s -record as single-sculls champion; Ensign Kenneth D. Molloy, All-American -lacrosse player from Syracuse University; Lieut. John B. Williams, -Olympic swimmer from Oregon State; and Ensign James F. Foran, swimmer -from Princeton. - -Commander Bowling was right. PT crews had to be tough for the kind of -warfare they were waging. Shallow-draft _daihatsus_ clung to the shore, -and the PTs had to come in as close as 100 yards from the beach to find -their prey. For 1,200 miles the shoreline was lined with ten of -thousands of blockaded Japanese soldiers, every one of them itching to -get a crack at the patrol boats that were starving them to death. The -Japanese set up shore batteries and baited traps with helpless-looking -_daihatsus_ to lure the PT marauders within range. In this deadly -cat-and-mouse game, the PT did not always win. - - -About 2 A.M. on March 7th, PTs 337 and 338 slipped into Hansa Bay, a -powerfully garrisoned Japanese base by-passed early in the Allied -forward movement. The PTs poked about the enemy harbor and picked up a -radar target close to shore. From 400 yards away, the two skippers saw -that their radar pip came from two heavily camouflaged luggers moored -together, a prime bit of business for PTs. Before they could open fire, -however, they discovered that they had been baited into an ambush. - -Machine guns opened up on the beach, and the PTs returned the fire, but -the best they could do was to strafe the bush at random, because the -Japanese gun positions were well concealed. - -The machine guns at close range were bad enough, but the PT crews -“pulled 20 Gs” when a heavy battery began firing from the mouth of the -bay. The PTs, already deep inside the bay, would have to pass close to -the heavy guns to escape from the harbor. The worst was that the gunners -were obviously crack artillerymen, for the first shell hit so close to -the port bow of the 337 that water from the spout sluiced down the decks -and shrapnel whizzed overhead. - -The sharpshooting gunners of the shore battery put a shell from the next -salvo into the tank compartment below the port turret. All engines went -dead and the boat burst into flame. The skipper, Ensign Henry W. Cutter, -pulled the CO₂ release valve but it was too late—the boat was doomed. - -Francis C. Watson, Motor Machinist Mate, Third Class, who had been blown -from the port turret by the shell blast, got to his feet and started -forward, away from the searing flames, but he turned back into the fire -to help William Daley, Jr., who was crawling painfully out of the -burning engine room. Daley had been badly wounded in the neck and jaw. -Watson pulled Daley from the flames and with Morgan J. Canterbury, -Torpedomen’s Mate, Second Class, carried him forward. Ensign Cutter put -a life raft into the water on the side away from the big guns, and -Daley, dazed but obedient, tried to get into the raft, but slipped -overboard. The skipper and Ensign Robert W. Hyde jumped after him and -towed him to the raft. - -The crew paddled and pushed the raft away from the burning boat and out -to sea, but a strong current worked against them and in two hours they -made only 700 yards. When their boat exploded, the concussion hurt. - -Searchlights swept the bay and guns fired all night at the 338, which -had escaped behind smoke and was now trying to get back _into_ the -death-trap to find out what had happened to their comrades of the 337. -The crack gunners ashore were too good, however, and repeated brackets -from heavy salvos kept the 338 outside until the rising sun drove the -worried sailors home. - -Daley died before sunrise, and—in the formal language of the Navy -report—“was committed to the sea.” - -Survivors clinging to the three-by-seven-foot balsa oval were the -skipper and Ensign Hyde, Watson, Canterbury; Ensign Bruce S. Bales; -Allen B. Gregory, QM2c; Harry E. Barnett, RM2c; Henry S. Timmons, Y2c; -Edgar L. Schmidt, TM3c; Evo A. Fucili, MoMM3c; and James P. Mitchell, -SC3c. - -The raft was not built for an 11-man load, so the sailors took turns -riding in the slat-bottom craft and swimming alongside. Currents nagged -them, and at dawn the raft was still less than a mile off the entrance -to the bay, within easy reach of Japanese patrol boats. - -During the morning the currents set the boat toward Manam Island, six -miles away, and Ensign Cutter decided to make for the island, with the -idea that he and his crew would hide in the woods. Maybe they would find -food, water, shelter—who knows, just possibly a native canoe or -sailboat. - -All afternoon the sailors paddled for the island, but the devilish -currents were not through with them. Every time they came close to the -beach a current would sweep them out to sea again. - -Floating on the same currents were two logs which the sailors tied to -the raft. After dark the skipper, still hopeful of finding a boat on the -island, set out with Ensign Bales to swim to the beach, using the logs -as a crude substitute for water wings. For three hours the two young -officers swam, only to bump gently against their own raft again. The -currents had carried them in a giant circle, back to their starting -point. - -Hyde and Gregory, tired of inaction, set out for the beach. They were -never seen again. - -That night the sailors watched the flash of gunfire at Hansa Bay, where -their squadron mates shot up the beach in revenge for their loss. No PTs -came close enough for the shipwrecked sailors to hail. - -By their very nature, PT sailors were men of action. Their solution to -any problem was, “Don’t just sit there, _do_ something.” The inactivity -of waiting passively for rescue was too much for some of them. - -Just before dawn Mitchell set out for the island, and just after dawn -Ensign Bales, Fucili, Watson, and Schmidt followed. The others would -have gone, too, but they were too weak. - -Watson returned to the raft in the middle of the morning. He had swum to -within 75 yards of the shore, he said, and he had seen Ensign Bales -walking around on dry land, but he had also seen Japanese workmen -building boats in a shipyard, so he came back to the raft. All hands -abandoned the idea of going to the island. After the war, captured -documents showed that the Japanese on Manam Island had captured one -officer and two enlisted men of the sailors who had swum ashore, but -these three luckless sailors were never heard of after this brief -mention. - -That night, their third in the water, the sailors were exposed to a -nerve-racking and mysterious inspection. A small boat pulled out from -shore and circled the raft at 200 yards. Two Japanese trained a brace of -machine guns on the Americans, but held their fire. The shivering -sailors looked down the muzzles of those two machine guns until four -o’clock in the morning, when a squall with six-foot waves drove the -patrol craft back to the beach. After the squall passed, the PT sailors -were alone again—more alone than ever, for the delirious Canterbury had -swum away during the storm. Barnett, a first-rate swimmer, had chased -after Canterbury to bring him back, but had lost him in the heavy seas. - -That morning the five surviving sailors spied an overturned Japanese -boat. It was fifteen feet long and a luxurious yacht compared to their -flimsy raft, so they righted the boat and bailed it out. A crab was -running about the bottom, and during the chase for this tasty tidbit the -sailors let their life raft drift away. Nobody really cared; they had no -fond memories of the balsa boat. - -The sailors suffered horribly from thirst and they eagerly pulled in a -drifting coconut, but it was dry. They were badly sunburned and covered -with salt-water sores. Another chilly night and another blazing morning -passed without relief. - -At noon on March 10th, three Army B 25s flew over. The planes circled -the frantically waving sailors, and Ensign Cutter sent a message by -semaphore, a dubious method of communication with Army pilots, but -better than nothing. - -One bomber dropped a box which collapsed and sank. On his next pass, he -dropped two more boxes and a small package fixed to a life preserver. -They plunked into the sea not ten feet from the boat. The sailors -eagerly tore open the packages and found food, water, cigarettes, and -medicine. A marked chart showed them their position, and a message said -a Catalina flying boat was on its way to pick them up. - -The Catalina took its time, however, for the sailors had one more trying -night to endure before the Cat, screened by two P 47s, landed on the -water and picked up the five exhausted survivors. - - -The old problem of bad communications between the different services -bothered the PTs worse than ever in New Guinea waters. - -On the morning of March 27th, Lieut. Crowell C. Hall, on Ensign George -H. Guckert’s PT 353, accompanied by Ensign Richard B. Secrest’s 121, -went into Bangula Bay to investigate a reported enemy schooner. - -That morning, at Australian fighter squadron headquarters on Kiriwina -Island, a careless clerk put the report of the PT patrol in the wrong -file basket, so fighter pilots flew over Bangula Bay, with the -information that no friendly PTs would be out. This was the same setup -that had already caused repeated tragedies and near-tragedies in other -waters. - -At 7:45 in the morning, admittedly an unusual hour for the -night-prowling PTs to be abroad, four P 40s of the Australian squadron -flew over the boats. Lieut. Hall asked them, by radio, to investigate -the schooner, which was beyond a dangerous reef from the PT boats. The -plane pilots looked it over and told the PT skipper that it had already -been badly strafed and wasn’t worth attacking further. - -The boats turned to go home. Four other P 40s and two Beaufighters of -the same squadron came down out of the sun in a strafing run on the PTs. -One of the Beaufighter pilots recognized the boats and frantically tried -to call his mates off the attack, but nobody listened. The gallant -Australian pilot even put his fighter between the strafing planes and -the boats, trying to block the attack with his own body. No luck. - -The PT officers held their men under tight discipline for several -punishing runs, but the nerves of the gunners finally gave way, and each -boat fired a short burst from 37- and 40-mm. cannon and the 50-caliber -machine guns. The officers sharply ordered a cease-fire, and for the -rest of the attack the PT crews suffered helplessly while the planes -riddled their craft and killed their shipmates. Both boats exploded and -sank. - -The first quartet of P 40s, the planes that had chatted with Lieut. -Hall, rushed back to the scene when they heard the radio traffic between -the attacking fighters and suspected what was happening. They dropped a -life raft to the swimming survivors and radioed headquarters the story -of the disaster. Two PTs were dispatched to the rescue. - -Four officers and four enlisted men were killed, four officers and eight -enlisted men were wounded, two PT boats were lost to the deadly fire of -the friendly fighters—all because one slipshod clerk had put a piece of -paper in a wrong file basket. - - -Even worse was coming. - -The combat zone in the Pacific was divided into the Southwest and the -South Pacific commands. Communication between the two commands at the -junior officer level was almost nonexistent. Everybody was supposed to -stay in his own backyard and not cross the dividing line. - -On the night of April 28th, Lieut. (jg) Robert J. Williams’ 347 was -patrolling with Lieut. (jg) Stanley L. Manning’s 350. The 347 went hard -aground on a reef at Cape Pomas, only five miles from the dividing line -between the south and southwest zones. Lieut. Manning passed a line to -the stranded boat, and the two crews set about the all-too-familiar job -of freeing a PT from an uncharted rock. - -At 7 A.M. two Marine Corps Corsairs from the South Pacific zone, through -faulty navigation, crossed the dividing line without knowing it. -Naturally they had no word of these PTs patrolling in their area, -because they weren’t in their area. They attacked. - -The PTs did not recognize the Corsairs as friendly, and shot one of them -down. (This is an extraordinary mistake, also, for the gull-winged -Corsair was probably the easiest of all warplanes on both sides to -identify, especially from the head-on view presented during a strafing -run.) - -Three men were killed in the first attack on the 350, and both boats -were badly damaged. The skippers called for help. The tender _Hilo_, at -Talasea, asked for air cover from Cape Gloucester (in the Southwest -Pacific zone and hence out of communications with the South Pacific base -of the Corsair pilots). The tender sent Lieut. (jg) James B. Burk to the -rescue in PT 346. - -The pilot of the surviving Corsair reported to his base at Green Island, -in the South Pacific zone, that he had attacked two Japanese gunboats -125 feet long in Lassul Bay. (The PTs were slightly more than half that -long. Lassul Bay was actually 20 miles from Cape Pomas, the true scene -of the attack, and hence fifteen miles inside the South Pacific zone and -not in the Southwest Pacific zone.) - -Green Island scrambled four Corsairs, six Avengers, four Hellcats, and -eight Dauntless dive bombers to finish off the stricken PTs. The -powerful striking force, enough air-power to take on a cruiser division, -found no boats in Lassul Bay, but they, too, wandered across the -dividing line and found the PTs at Cape Pomas. - -By then the 346 had arrived. The skipper saw the approaching planes, but -recognized them as friendly types and thought they were the air cover -from Cape Gloucester, so the PT crews ignored the planes and continued -with the salvage and rescue work. - -First hint that something had gone wrong was a shower of bombs that -burst among the PT boats. The PT officers frantically tried every trick -in the catalogue to identify themselves, and in despair finally turned -loose their gunners, who shot down one of the planes. The loss of one of -their mates angered the pilots and they pressed their attacks harder. -Two of the three PTs went down. - -The plane flight commander called for a Catalina rescue boat to pick up -the downed pilot. The Cat never found the pilot, but instead picked up -thirteen survivors of the torpedo boats. Their arrival at Green Island -was the first word the horrified pilots there had that their targets had -been friendly. - -Three PT officers and 11 men were killed, two plane pilots were lost, -four officers and nine men were wounded, two PTs and two planes were -destroyed, in this useless and tragic encounter. - - -Most PT patrols were not as disastrous, of course, but it was a rare -night that did not provide some adventure. Lieut. (jg) James Cunningham -kept a diary during 1944, and a few extracts from this journal show the -nature of a typical PT’s blockade duty: - - _March 12, 1944_: PTs 149 (_The Night Hawk_) and 194 patrol the north - coast of New Britain. At 2300 we picked up a target on radar—closed in - and saw a small Jap surface craft. We made a run on it and found out - it was aground and apparently destroyed. We destroyed it some more. - - We moved to the other side of Garove Island, where we saw a craft - under way heading across the mouth of the harbor. Over one part of the - harbor were very high cliffs, an excellent spot for gun emplacements. - We blindly chased the craft and closed in on it for a run. Just then - the guns—six-inchers—opened up from the cliffs on us, and it seemed - for a while that they would blow us out of the water. We left the - decoy and headed out to sea, laying a smoke screen. The concussion of - the exploding shells was terrific. I still believe the craft was a - decoy to pull us into the harbor, and we readily took the bait. The - thing that saved us was that the Japs were too eager. They fired too - soon before we were really far into the harbor. On the way home, about - 10 miles offshore from New Britain, we picked up three large radar - pips and figured they were enemy destroyers, because they were in - enemy waters and we were authorized to destroy anything in this grid - sector. We chased within one mile, tracking them with radar, and got - set to make our run. We could see them by eye at that range and - identified them as a destroyer and two large landing craft. - - We radioed for airplanes to help us with this valuable prize. Just as - we started our torpedo run from about 500 yards away, the destroyer - shot a recognition flare and identified themselves as friendly. It was - a close call. We were within seconds of firing our fish. The task unit - was off course and had wandered into a forbidden zone. - - _June 23, 1944_: PTs 144 (_The Southern Cross_) and 189 departed - Aitape Base, New Guinea, for patrol to the west. - - We closed the beach at Sowam after noticing lots of lights moving. - They appeared to be trucks, moving very slow. Muffled down, hidden by - a black, moonless night, we sneaked to within 150 yards off the beach - and waited for a truck to come around the bend and onto the short - stretch of road that ran along the beach. Here came one, lights - blazing. Both boats blasted away. The truck burst into flames and - stopped, lights still burning. The last we saw of the truck (shore - batteries fired on us immediately, so we got out) it was still - standing there with headlights burning and flames leaping up in the - New Guinea night. It has become quite a sport, by the way, shooting - enemy trucks moving along the beach with lights on. The Japs never - seem to learn. We fire at them night after night. They turn off the - lights briefly, then they turn them back on again when they think we - have gone. But we haven’t gone. We shoot them up some more, and they - turn off the lights again. And so on all night long. - -The Japanese apparently smarted under these truck-busting attacks, for -Lieut. Cunningham’s entry three nights later tells a different story: - - _June 26, 1944_: PTs 144 and 149 left Aitape Base, New Guinea, to - patrol toward Sowam Village, where the road comes down to the beach. - We were after trucks. We closed cautiously to three-quarters of a mile - off the beach, then it seemed that everything opened up on us, 50 and - 30 calibers, 40 mms and three-inchers. At the time they fired on us we - were dead in the water, with all three engines in neutral. To get the - engines into gear, the drill is to signal the engine room where the - motor mack of the watch puts the engine in gear by hand. There is no - way to do it from the cockpit. Then, when the gears are engaged, the - skipper can control the speed by three throttles. - - I was at the helm in the cockpit when the batteries opened fire, and I - shoved all three throttles wide open, forgetting that the gears - weren’t engaged. Of course, the boat almost shook apart from the - wildly racing engines, but we didn’t move. The motor mack in the - engine room below wrestled against me to push the throttles back. He - was stronger than I was and finally got the engines slowed down enough - to put them into gear. _Then_ we got moving fast. We made it out to - sea OK without being hit, but I sure pulled a boo boo that time. - - _August 28, 1944_: PTs 188 and 144 west toward Hollandia, with a squad - of Army radio-men aboard to contact a land patrol. This is enemy-held - territory and the patrol was in hopes of taking a few prisoners. - - Just after sunrise we received a radio message to pick up Jap - prisoners at Ulau Mission. We proceeded to the mission and I asked - some P 39s that were strafing the beach to cover us while we made the - landing. - - Lieut. (jg) Harry Suttenfield, skipper of the 188, and I launched a - life raft and headed in to pick up prisoners from the Army patrol. - - We made it OK until we got into the surf, then the breakers swamped - us. There were many dead Japs lying around, and the soldiers were - burning the village. The natives took the prisoners out to the boats - and then swam us through the surf, pushing the raft. - - We turned the prisoners over to the Army at Aitape. - -More and more as the by-passed Japanese became progressively demoralized -by lack of food and rest, the PTs were pressed into service as Black -Marias, police vans for carrying Japanese captives from the front lines, -or even from behind the lines, to Army headquarters where Intelligence -officers interrogated the prisoners. - -Most Japanese simply would not be captured, and killed themselves rather -than surrender. Many of them made dangerous prisoners, for they -surrendered only to get close enough to their captors to kill them with -concealed weapons. - - -On the night of July 7, 1944, Lieut. (jg) William P. Hall, on the 329, -dropped a fatal depth charge under a 130-foot lugger south of Cape -Oransbari. The crew snagged four prisoners, one of them a lieutenant -colonel, one of the highest ranking officers taken prisoner in New -Guinea. - -One of the prisoners attacked Lieut. Hall, who flattened him with a -right to the mouth. Hall sprained his thumb and badly gashed his hand on -the prisoner’s teeth. He was awarded the Purple Heart for being wounded -“in the face of the enemy.” - -Oddly enough, what few Japanese did let themselves be taken made docile, -even eagerly cooperative, prisoners. PT crewmen could never tell what -was coming on a Black Maria mission. Either the captives tried to kill -themselves or their guards—or they tried to help the guards kill their -former comrades. - - -On the night between March 16th and 17th, Lieut. H. M. S. Swift (the -Lieut. Swift of the great air battle at Aitape) was out with Lieut. (jg) -Eugene E. Klecan’s 367 and 325. Off Pak Island, the two boats caught -nine Japanese in a canoe. As the PTs approached, one Japanese killed -himself and three others with a grenade. Another was shot by PT sailors -when he resisted capture. The others came aboard willingly. - -One of the captives asked for a pencil and wrote: “My name is Kamingaga. -After finished Ota High School, I worked in a Yokohama army factory as -an American spy. I set fire to Yokohama’s arsenal. Later, I was -conscripted into the Japanese army, unfortunately. I was very unhappy, -but now I am very happy because I was saved by American Army. To repay -your kindness I will work as a spy for your American Army.” - -He was turned over to skeptical Army officers, who did not make a deal -with the traitorous captive. - - -Another Japanese canary, however, sang a most profitable song to his -captors. - -On the night between April 28th and 29th, Ensign Francis L. Cappaert, in -370, and Ensign Louis A. Fanget, in 388, sank three barges in -Nightingale Bay, east of Wewak. - -One of the barges had been loaded with two 75-mm. cannon and 45 -soldiers. The PT crews tried to pull prisoners from the water, but all -but two deliberately drowned themselves. - -One of the two captives said to Ensign Cappaert, “Me officer,” and -eagerly volunteered the advice that more barges were coming into -Nightingale Bay in a few minutes. The PT skippers didn’t know what kind -of trap their prisoner might be baiting for them, but they stayed around -anyhow. Three more barges came around the bend on schedule, however, and -the PT’s riddled them from ambush as “Me Officer” looked on. - -The only surviving Japanese from the last three barges was a courier -with a consignment of secret documents. The first lesson drilled into -American sailors was that all secret documents, code books, maps, and -combat instruction, were to go to the bottom if capture was imminent. -The Japanese courier clung to his package, at some risk to himself, for -it would have been easier to swim without it. He willingly turned over -the secret papers to the PT officers. - -At headquarters in Aitape, officers questioned the prisoners in their -own language, and to the astonishment of the Navy, the Japanese officer -dictated a barge movement timetable that helped PTs knock off fifteen -barges and a picket boat in the next five nights. - -Commander Robert J. Bulkley, Jr., a PT veteran who later became the -official naval historian of the PT fleet (not to be confused with John -Bulkeley of the MacArthur rescue mission), said of the Japanese conduct -as prisoners: - -“Most of them preferred death to capture, but once taken prisoner they -were usually docile and willing, almost eager, to give information. And -while their information might be limited, it was generally reliable. -They seldom attempted deception. - -“The big job was to capture them, and PT crews became fairly adept at -it. One method was to crack a man over the head with a boathook and haul -him up on deck. Another technique, more certain, was to drop a cargo net -over the bow. Two men climbed down on the net. Other members of the crew -held them by lines around their waist so that their hands were free. - -“They would blackjack the floating Japanese and put a line on him so -that he could be hauled aboard. Those were rough methods, but the gentle -ones didn’t work. The Japanese almost never took a line willingly, and -as long as they were conscious would fight to free themselves from a -boathook.” - -As a nice contrast to this careless betrayal of secret information by -the Japanese, consider an American PT officer’s reaction to the loss of -a secret code book. - -On the night of April 2nd, the 114 went aground 400 yards off Yarin, on -Kairiru Island. The crew jettisoned torpedoes and depth charges and the -boat was pulled off the rock by _The Southern Cross_ (144). The -propellers were so badly damaged, however, that the 114 was abandoned. -Confidential publications, including a code book, were put into a raft, -but the crew carelessly let it drift to the Japanese-held beach. - -When the boats returned to the tender, the skipper reported the loss of -the codes to Lieut. Commander Robert Leeson, who jumped into 129, -commanded by his brother Ensign A. D. Leeson, and took off for Yarin. -Ensign Edmund F. Wakelin tagged along in 134. - -The two PTs hove to off the beach at Yarin, and the officers studied the -situation. They could see the raft on the shore, but it was in full view -of a Japanese military hut, 600 yards away, and Yarin was the site of a -known powerful shore battery. - -Commander Leeson wanted those books, though, and he wanted them badly, -so he jumped over the side and in full daylight swam the 400 yards -across the reef to the beach. While crews of the two boats watched the -beach with fingers crossed, dreading the sight of the first puff of -flame from the hidden shore battery, Commander Leeson pushed the raft -into the water and towed it back to the boat. The secret publications -were taken aboard intact. - -The Japanese chose that moment—the moment just after their last -chance—to wake up and plunk a salvo of shells around the boats. - -Commander Leeson, not satisfied with having saved the PT code in one of -the most daring exploits of the Pacific war, decided to hang around -until after nightfall. After all, the PTs had come all that long way -from the tender and had not yet worked any mischief. - -After dark the boats slipped in close to the beach and sank two out of -three heavily loaded barges. The third barge blew a 14-inch hole in the -exhaust stack of the 196, knocked out the starboard engine, and started -a fire. - -Clarence L. Nelson, MoMM2c, put out the fire, but he and A. F. Hall, -MoMM3c, passed out from the fumes. Ensign Richard Holt dropped his -battle duties long enough to give the two sailors artificial -respiration, and very probably saved Hall’s life. The 129’s engine was -definitely dead, however, and nothing would bring it back to life, so -Commander Leeson went on fighting with two-thirds power. - -After airing out the 129’s engine room, the redoubtable Leeson, with his -crippled boat, led a limping charge straight into the mouth of the -Japanese cannon. The two boats launched a ripple of twenty-four rockets -at close range, and nothing more was heard from the beach. - -When the sky turned light in the east, Commander Leeson took his sailors -home. - - -The spearhead of the Allied advance left New Guinea for Morotai Island -in September 1944. The landings there were supported by navy planes from -six escort carriers. On D-Day plus one, Ensign Harold Allen Thompson -took off from the deck of the carrier _Santee_ in his fighter plane to -strafe Japanese positions around Wasile Bay on nearby Halmahera. His -sortie touched off one of the most heroic adventures of the Pacific war. - -According to the report of the carrier division commander: “Success of -the landings on Morotai depended upon keeping the Japanese continually -on the defensive ... thus making it impossible for them to launch -counteroffensives until American forces were established in strength on -the smaller island [Morotai].” - -Ensign Thompson’s job was to beat up Japanese barges in Wasile Bay. -While he was in a steep dive on his fourth strafing run, the Japanese -made a direct hit with a heavy shell on Ensign Thompson’s plane. - -The carrier division commander reports: - -“The next thing he knows he was being blown _upward_ with such force -that his emergency gear was even blown out of his pockets. He pulled the -ripcord and on the way down he found himself literally looking down the -barrels of almost every gun in the Japanese positions about 300 yards -away. - -“On hitting the water, he discovered that his left hand had been badly -torn, presumably by shrapnel. His life jacket had been torn in front and -would only half inflate. His main idea was to get away from the beach -and out into the bay, but progress was difficult.” - -His comrades stayed with the downed pilot and strafed the beach until a -PBY patrol plane came, but the rescue Cat could not land. The pilot -dropped a life raft instead, and Ensign Thompson climbed aboard. He put -a tourniquet on his bleeding hand and then paddled to a pier to hide in -the shelter of a camouflaged lugger. - -“These pilots heroically covered all the beach area with a devastating -attack so that little or no fire could be directed at the pilot in the -raft,” says the division report. “The attacks drove the Japanese gunners -to shelter, but after the attacks they returned to their guns.” - -Ensign Thompson said it was a wonderful show to watch, but it was a -tragically expensive show. Ensign William P. Bannister was hit and -crashed 150 yards from Ensign Thompson, gallantly giving his life to -save his fellow pilot. - -Ensign Paul W. Lindskog was also hit, but flew his wobbly plane safely -to a crash landing outside the Japanese lines. Almost all the planes -were holed, but they continued the strafing runs until Thompson had -worked his way behind the armored lugger. - -When fuel ran low, another flight of fighters came up to strafe, and the -carrier set up a system of shuttle flights to keep the beach under -constant attack. - -So far, so good. But how to get Ensign Thompson out of Wasile Bay if a -Catalina couldn’t land there? After all, the fighters couldn’t cover the -wounded pilot till the war was over. Somebody thought about the PT -fleet, and so the carrier division commander called the PT tender -_Oyster Bay_ and asked if there was anything the PTs could do. - -Certainly there was something the PTs could do; they could rescue the -pilot. - -Lieut. Arthur Murray Preston, commander of Squadron Thirty-Three, picked -two all-volunteer crews, and they put to sea in Lieut. Wilfred Tatro’s -489 and Lieut. (jg) Hershel F. Boyd’s 363. - -The boat arrived off the mouth of Wasile Bay in the middle of the -afternoon. Lieut. Preston knew there was a minefield, backed up by a -light shore battery, at the eastern side of the entrance. A powerful and -hitherto unsuspected battery opened fire on the western shore, however, -and Preston chose the lesser danger of the minefield and the lighter -battery. - -Shorefire from both beaches was so heavy that the PTs had to fall back. -The fighter pilots spotted their difficulty and made strafing runs on -the shore batteries. The Japanese guns still fired on the PTs, but at a -slower rate, and Lieut. Preston decided to risk a run through the narrow -straits. - -“Strafing by the planes unquestionably reduced the rate of fire to make -a safe passage through the straits possible,” said Lieut. Preston. -“Safe” passage, indeed! - -The inside was no improvement on the entrance, for the bay was small and -ringed with guns, all of which could reach the PTs. The shooting was -steadily improving also as Japanese gunners found the range. - -Lieut. (jg) George O. Stouffer called from his torpedo bomber to ask -Lieut. Preston if he would like to have a little smoke between the PTs -and the shore gunners. - -Would he like a little smoke? Just all there is. Stouffer flew between -the PTs and the beach, laying a dense curtain of smoke to blind the -gunners. He dropped one smoke pot squarely over a particularly dangerous -gun battery, blanking off its view in all directions. The plane also -dropped a smoke float to mark the location of the downed pilot’s raft. - -During the approach of the two PTs to the armored lugger, they added -their guns to those of the planes lashing the beach, but lookouts kept a -nervous watch on the Japanese boat—nobody could be sure that the lugger -was not manned by enemy sailors waiting to shoot up the rescue craft at -the moment they were most occupied with the downed pilot. The closer the -boats came to the lugger, the more the planes concentrated their fire on -the nearby beach. - -“This strafing was maintained at an almost unbelievable intensity during -the entire time the boats were in the vicinity of the downed pilot. This -was the ultimate factor in the success of the mission,” reads Lieut. -Preston’s report, which makes no mention of another factor—the -incredible tenaciousness of the two PT crews. - -The first smoke screen was beginning to thin dangerously when the 363 -hove to beyond the lugger and raked the beach with its guns. - -The 489 went alongside the lugger. - -“Immediately and on their own initiative, Lieut. D. F. Seaman and C. D. -Day, MoMM1c, dove overboard and towed the pilot in his boat to the stern -of 489. The pilot was in no condition to do this for himself and -appeared to be only partly conscious of his circumstances and -surroundings,” wrote Preston. The rescue took ten minutes. - -The PTs were not through fighting yet. Lieut. Heston remembered that the -primary mission of PTs in those waters was destruction of Japanese -coastal shipping, so he ordered the two PTs to put a few holes in the -lugger and set it afire before leaving. - -The fighter cover ran low on fuel, and there was a near-disastrous -breakdown in the shuttle timetable. - -Preston reports what happened: - -“While we were hove-to picking up Thompson there was a group of planes -giving us the closest possible cover and support. As we left the scene -the planes did not remain quite as close to us as they had -previously.... It was shortly after this that we learned that the -fighters were critically low on fuel and some of them out of ammunition. -Nevertheless, they were still answering our calls to quiet one gun or -another, sometimes having to dive on the gun positions without firing, -because their own magazines were empty.... They were magnificent.” - -The PTs zigzagged across the minefield with heavy shells bursting within -ten yards on all sides. When they finally broke into the open sea and -roared away from the enemy beach, Ensign Thompson had been in the water -for seven hours, the PTs had been under continuous close-range fire from -weapons of all calibers for two and one-half hours. The boats were -peppered with shrapnel, but, miraculously, none of the PT sailors had -been scratched. - -Dr. Eben Stoddard had a job, though, trying to save the pilot’s left -hand, which was so badly mangled by shrapnel that three fingers dangled -loosely. - -The seven hours of protective strafing had blown up an ammunition dump, -destroyed a fuel dump, wrecked stores, silenced four heavy gun positions -at least temporarily, and certainly prevented the Japanese from getting -to the downed pilot. - -Lieut. Preston was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for this -action, one of the two Congressional Medals of Honor awarded to PT -sailors. (The other was given to Lieut. John Bulkeley for his exploits -during the fall of the Philippines.) The two swimmers and the two -skippers won the Navy Cross. Every other member of the two crews won a -Silver Star. - -Ironically, the day after incredible escape of all PT hands without -injury, Lieut. Tatro, skipper of the 489, while working on a 20-mm gun, -let a wrench slip and a trunnion spring threw the heavy tool into his -forehead, injuring him seriously. - - -By November 1944, there was no more work for the PTs in New Guinea, and -the last patrol was made just twenty-three months after the first one, -1,500 miles to the east. The PT navy in New Guinea had grown from one -small tender and six boats to eight tenders and 14 squadrons. - -Almost nightly action had taken a terrible toll of the Japanese. The -shore was littered with the wreckage of _daihatsus_ and the jungle was -littered with the skeletons of thousands of Japanese soldiers who had -died for lack of supplies. - -Major General F. H. Berryman, Commander of the Second Australian Corps, -wrote the PT commander: - - The following evidence emerging from the recent operations will - illustrate the cumulative effect of the activities of your command: - - - A. The small degree to which the enemy has used artillery indicates a - shortage of ammunition. - - B. The enemy, in an endeavor to protect his barges, has been forced to - dispose his normal field artillery over miles of coast when those guns - might well have been used in the coastal sector against our land - troops. - - C. Many Japanese diary entries describe the shortage of rations and - the regular fatigues of foraging parties to collect native food, which - is beginning to be increasingly difficult to obtain. - - D. A Japanese prisoner of war stated that three days’ rice, augmented - by native food, now has to last nine days. This is supported by the - absence of food and the presence of native roots on enemy dead. - - E. There is definite evidence that the enemy has slaughtered and eaten - his pack-carrying animals. - - - From the above you will see how effective has been the work of your - squadrons and how it has contributed to the recent defeat of the - enemy. - -The war in New Guinea was over, but the Allies were still a long way -from Tokyo. Across the water were the Philippine Islands, garrisoned -with tens of thousands of Japanese. There was hard fighting ahead for -the PTs. - - - - - 6. - The War in Europe: - Mediterranean - - -While Americans and their Allies were fighting the Japanese in the -Pacific, on the other side of the world their comrades in arms grappled -in a Titanic struggle with the other two Axis powers. Half of the -European Axis partnership was halfhearted Italy, but the other half was -the martial and determined state of Germany, led by an insane genius at -the black arts of killing named Hitler. - -The naval war in the coastal waters of Europe was eminently suitable to -torpedo-boat operations. The British had been making spectacular use of -motor torpedo boats for years—in fact, American PTs had been patterned -after British models. The Axis powers also used torpedo boats. German -E-boats prowled the English Channel and the Mediterranean. Even the -Italian MAS boats made Allied Mediterranean naval commanders nervous, -for the torpedo boat had been an Italian specialty since its invention -and the officers who manned Italian small craft were the most aggressive -and warlike in all the Italian Armed Forces. - -American troops went ashore in Northwest Africa on November 8, 1942. (On -the other side of the world, the Japanese were just forming the massive -relief fleet that was smashed and dispersed definitively a week later in -the great three-day sea battle of Guadalcanal.) The United States Navy -rushed to put American torpedo boats into the Mediterranean to join the -British in harrying Axis shipping. - -In New Orleans, in late 1942, Squadron Fifteen was organized. Its -commander was Lieut. Commander Stanley Barnes, destined to become -probably the most dashing of all American PT sailors, as the squadron -itself was to become the most spectacularly successful PT command in -either theatre. - -On commissioning day the squadron members didn’t feel elated about their -future. Their first assignment was to patrol the warm blue waters off -Midway Island, far behind the fighting lines in the Pacific. While the -Tulagi PTs fought almost nightly battles with Tanaka’s Tokyo Express, -Squadron Fifteen was promised long, lazy afternoons of cribbage, 3,500 -miles behind the combat zone. Its assignment gave its members slight -headaches every time they thought about it. - -Lieut. Commander Barnes assured his squadron mates that somehow, -somewhere, he was going to find somebody for them to fight. But nobody -believed him—not even he, as he later confessed. - -The squadron sailed for the Panama Canal and was well on the way to the -gentle duties of Midway when the radioman came running with a dispatch. - -Orders to Midway were canceled! “Report to Commander in Chief, Atlantic -Fleet, in Norfolk,” the message read. - -At the giant Virginia naval base, Barnes had his conference with the -upper echelons of brass and rushed back to his squadron mates with the -news that they were indeed going to find somebody somewhere to fight. -They were going to the Mediterranean as the first American torpedo-boat -squadron on the European scene. - -The barman at the Navy Officers’ Club in Norfolk was famous in those -days—and may still be—for his Stingers, a most appropriate toast to duty -in the Mediterranean mosquito fleet. - -The 201 and 204 crossed the Atlantic immediately as deck passengers on -the _S. S. Enoree_, and Lieut. Commander Barnes followed on the _S. S. -Housatonic_, with 205 and 208. The _Enoree_ arrived at Gibraltar first, -on April 13th. Boats were in the water the next day, and Lieut. Edwin A. -Dubose—also destined to make a name as a brilliant PT sailor—took them -to the British torpedo-boat dock, loaded a full cargo of torpedoes, and -set sail for Oran in North Africa. Skippers of the other boats followed -as fast as longshoremen could swing the PTs into the water. - -Disappointment awaited the crews in Oran, where the high command sent -the boats to Cherchel, 300 miles from the nearest action, for an -indefinite period of training. - -“I decided to take the bull by the horns and bum a ride to Algiers in an -Army truck to see Vice Admiral Henry K. Hewitt,” said Lieut. Commander -Barnes. - -Admiral Hewitt was commander of all U. S. Naval forces in northwest -African waters, and Barnes hoped to persuade him that the PTs should be -based at Bône, 265 miles farther east and within easy reach of trouble -at the front. - -“That trip took me several hours and by the time I got there I was -chagrined to find that orders had already been issued and Lieut. Richard -H. O’Brien, my next in command, had gotten the boats under way and was -in Algiers before me. The admiral himself brought me up to date with the -information that my boats were already there. Most embarrassing!” - -The next day, April 27th, Lieut. Dubose took his boats to the forward -base at Bône, and that night they went out on their first patrol in -combat waters. - - -Bône was also the British forward base for motor torpedo boats and -gunboats. Like the American PTs, the British MTBs carried torpedoes, but -the British had already converted some patrol craft to gunboats, similar -to the heavily gunned PTs of New Guinea. The gunboats carried no -torpedoes. - -The British had been fighting in the Mediterranean for months, so -American PTs made most of their early patrols with British officers -aboard to tip them off to local conditions. - -The North African campaign was drawing to a close. General Erwin -Rommel’s crack Afrika Korps was bottled up in Tunisia, and torpedo boats -patrolled nightly to prevent escape of Rommel’s soldiers to Sicily, just -90 miles across the strait from Tunisia’s Cape Bon. - -Lieut. Commander Barnes, in the 106, joined three British torpedo boats -under Lieut. Dennis Germaine, in a patrol down the east side of Cape -Bon. At Ras Idda Bay, Lieut. Germaine took one British MTB inside the -harbor to investigate a possible target. - -Lieut. Commander Barnes continues the story: - - “Pretty soon Germaine came up on the radio with the startling - statement that there are lots of ships in there, so I took the - remaining British boats with me and started in. It was as black as the - inside of your pocket, but sure enough, right there in front of me was - a ship. - - “By the time we saw it against the dark background of the land we were - inside the torpedo-aiming range and had to go all the way around the - other side of it before getting a good shot. - - “Thinking there were other targets around, I lined up and fired only - one torpedo—our first! - - “It ran hot and straight, and after what seemed like an interminable - time made a beautiful hit forward. The whole ship blew up in our - faces, scattering pieces of debris all around us and on deck. Just - like the movies. - - “We immediately started to look for other ships but could find none. - Neither could we find our British friend, who, it turned out, was - temporarily aground, so we just eased around trying to rendezvous. - Pretty soon he found us—and promptly fired two fish at us, one of - which passed right under our bow and the other under the stern, much - to our alarm and his subsequent embarrassment. - - “About half an hour later, bombers started working over the airfield a - couple of miles away, and with the light of the flares we managed to - join up with Germaine. - - “I personally think that ship was aground—the ship we - torpedoed—although it certainly made a fine spectacle going up, and - one of our officers who was along that night subsequently flew over - the area in a plane and reported it sitting nicely on the bottom. - - “Actually, Germaine had not seen any ships and had mistaken some - peculiar rock formations for a group of enemy vessels.” - -That was not the last mistake of the British Navy. Unused to working -with their new Allies, the British boats took one more near-lethal crack -at American PTs. - -Lieut. Dubose, in Lieut. (jg) Eugene S. Clifford’s 212, with Lieut. -Richard H. O’Brien in 205, left Bône on the night of May 10th to patrol -Cape Bon. On the way home after a dull night, the two boats cut deep -into the Gulf of Tunis to keep clear of a British destroyer area. - -The Gulf of Tunis was supposed to belong to torpedo boats that night, -but two British destroyers came roaring out of the night on an opposite -course only 900 yards away. The destroyers opened up with machine guns -as they passed, so the PTs fired two emergency recognition starshells -and ran away behind a smoke screen. - -Two German E-boats, lurking in the darkness for a crack at the two -destroyers, opened up on the PTs instead, and the British took _all_ the -torpedo boats under fire, distributing shells and bullets on American -and German boats with impartiality. - -The two PT skippers were given the thorny tactical problem of dodging -friendly destroyer fire while simultaneously taking on the German boats. -Lieut. Clifford turned back through his own smoke, surprised the E-boats -at close range when he burst out of the screen, and raked the enemy with -his machine-gun batteries. He ran back into the smoke before they could -swing their mounts to bear on him, so he couldn’t report results of his -attack, but destroyer sailors saw one of the E-boats burst into flame. -The other ran from the fight. - -Not so the destroyers. They chased the PTs for an hour, firing -starshells and salvos from their main battery. Fortunately their -shooting was poor, and the PTs got out of the battle with only a few -machine-gun holes. - -Days later one of the destroyer skippers called to apologize. “We hadn’t -been able to find any action in our assigned patrol area,” he said, “so -we decided to have a bit of a look in the PT area.” - -The destroyer skipper’s action was dashing and bold, but it was also a -fine way to catch a friendly torpedo in his own ship or to kill a dozen -or so of his Allies. - -Three E-boats had attacked the destroyers at the precise instant that -the American PTs arrived on the scene, according to the British officer -who had heard a German radio discussion of a plan to attack the -destroyers. Naturally the alarmed British began blasting at any torpedo -boat in sight. Everybody saw Dubose’s recognition flares, but took them -for tracer fire, a common mistake. - - -A strange aftermath of the running gun battle was the naval occupation -of the great port of Bizerte by a lone PT. - -The 205 lost the other boat in the night and put into Bizerte for -gasoline. The port had just been taken by Allied troops a few hours -earlier. - -The shore batteries, now in friendly hands, nevertheless fired the -“customary few rounds” at the arriving PT boat, but the imperturbable -Lieut. O’Brien said: “The shots were wide, so I continued in and tied up -at the dock.” - -Two hours later a newsreel photographer asked O’Brien to move his PT out -of the way so he could photograph some British landing ships just -arriving as “the first Allied craft to enter Bizerte.” - -Lieut. O’Brien wondered what his own boat was if not an Allied craft, -and he had been in Bizerte long enough to be bored with the place, but -he patiently moved aside. - -The brush-off from the newsreel man was only the beginning of the -stepchild treatment the PTs suffered at Bizerte. - -Squadron Fifteen cleaned up a hangar and scrounged spare parts and -machinery from all over the city. When the big boys came into the -harbor, their skippers were delighted with the tidy PT base and -ruthlessly pushed the little boys out the door. - -“We cleaned up half the buildings in Bizerte,” said one veteran of -Squadron Fifteen. “As fast as we made a place presentable, we were -kicked out. We ended up with only a fraction of our original space, and -we had to fight tooth and nail for that.” - -Late in May the squadron was filled out to full strength and the newly -arrived boats were fitted with radar. The British boats did not have it, -so the two torpedo-boat fleets began to experiment with a system of -radio signals to vector British boats to American radar targets in -coordinated simultaneous attacks. - - -After the collapse of the Afrika Korps in Tunisia in mid-May 1943, all -of North Africa was in Allied hands and Allied attention turned toward -Europe, across the narrow sea. - -To mislead the enemy about the spot chosen by the Allies for the next -landing, British secret agents of the Royal Navy elaborated a fantastic -hoax worthy of the cheapest dime novel. The amazing thing is that it -worked. - -The British dressed the corpse of a man who had died of pneumonia in the -uniform of a major in the Royal Marines. They stuffed his pockets with -forged credentials as a Major William Martin, and they planted forged -letters on the body to make him look like a courier between the highest -Allied commands. The letters “revealed” that the Allies would next land -in Sardinia and Greece. The body was pushed overboard from a submarine -off the coast of Spain. It washed up on the beach as an apparent victim -of a plane crash and was frisked by an Axis agent, just as the British -had hoped. - -Hitler was taken in by the hoax and gave priority to reinforcing -Sardinia and Greece, widely separated, not only from each other, but -also from Sicily, where the Allies were actually going to land. - -To help along the confusion of Axis officers (most of whom were of a -less romantic nature than their _Fuehrer_ and were not taken in by the -Major William Martin fraud), the Allies mounted another hoax almost as -childishly imaginative as the planted cadaver trick. - -On D-Day, July 10, 1943, Commander Hunter R. Robinson in PT 213 led a -flotilla of ten Air Force crash boats to Cape Granitola, at the far -western tip of Sicily, as far as it could get from the true landing -beaches around both sides of the southeastern horn of the triangular -island. - -The crash boats and the PT were supposed to charge about offshore during -the early hours of D-Day, sending out phony radio messages, firing -rockets, playing phonograph records of rattling anchor chains and the -clanking and chuffing of landing-craft engines. The demonstration didn’t -seem to fool anybody ashore, but the little craft tried. - -Most of Squadron Fifteen was busy elsewhere on the morning of D-Day and -narrowly missed being butchered in one of those ghastly attacks from -friendly forces that were so dangerous to PT boats. - -One force of American soldiers was going ashore at Licata. Twenty-four -miles west, at Port Empedocle, was a flotilla of Italian torpedo boats -which so worried the high command that Empedocle had been ruled out as a -possible landing beach. To keep the Italian boats off the back of the -main naval force, a special screen was thrown between Port Empedocle and -the transport fleet, a screen of seventeen of Lieut. Commander Barnes’ -PTs and the destroyer _Ordronaux_. After the war, historians discovered -that the much-feared Italian torpedo boats at Empedocle had accidentally -bumped into the invasion fleet the night before the landings, and had -fled in panic to a new base at Trapani at the farthest western tip of -the island. - -Another one of those terrible blind battles between friendly forces was -prepared when nobody told the westernmost destroyers of the main landing -force that PTs would be operating nearby. The skippers of the destroyers -_Swanson_ and _Roe_, nervous anyway because of the Italian torpedo-boat -nest at Empedocle, charged into the PT patrol area when they saw radar -pips on their screens. Lieut. Commander Barnes flashed a recognition -signal, but the destroyer signal crews ignored it. - - [Illustration: TYRRHENIAN SEA] - - TUNISIA - PT 205 "CAPTURES" BIZERTE - SICILY - PT FAKE LANDINGS - U.S. LANDING FORCS - LANDING FORCES - ITALIAN PATROL BASE - PT BASE - AELIAN ISLES CAPTURED BY PTS - AXIS FERRY - ITALY - SWAY SHOOTS UP GEN. MARK CLARK IN PT 201 - ANZIO LANDINGS - SARDINIA - PT BASE - -Just as the destroyer unit commander was about to open fire at 1,500 -yards, Roe rammed Swanson at the forward stack. _Roe’s_ bow folded up -and both ships went dead in the water. The _Swanson’s_ forward fireroom -was partly flooded. Both ships had to be sent to the rear for repairs, -carrying with them, of course, their five-inch cannon which were sorely -missed by the assault troops of that morning’s landings. - -Two nights later, on July 12th, Lieut. Commander Barnes split his PTs -into two forces to escort twelve crash boats for another fraudulent -demonstration of strength at Cape Granitola. The two forces ran parallel -to the beach behind smoke, and noisily imitated the din of a force a -thousand times their true size. - -Searchlights blazed out from the shore, and the second salvo from shore -batteries landed so close to the boats that the skippers hauled out to -sea. - -“The shore batteries were completely alerted,” said Lieut. Commander -Barnes. “Apparently the enemy was convinced that a landing was about to -take place when it detected the ‘large number’ of boats in our group -approaching the beach, for they opened a heavy and accurate fire with -radar control.... I immediately reversed course and opened the range. -One shell damaged the rudder of a crash boat and another fell ten yards -astern of a PT. - -“The demonstration was called a success and we withdrew.” - -The next day enemy newspapers reported that an attempted landing on the -southwest coast of Sicily had been bloodily repulsed. - - -Soldiers of the American and British landing forces swarmed over Sicily, -taking Italian prisoners by the hundreds. Some Americans were amused, -some depressed by the standard joke of many surrendering Italian -soldiers: “Don’t be sorry for me. I’m going to America and you’re -staying in Sicily.” - -Palermo, major city on the northwestern coast, fell to the Allies on -July 22nd, and the jaunty boats of Squadron Fifteen were the first -Allied naval power to show the flag in the harbor. They picked their way -through the sunken hulks of fifty ships. The dockside was a shambles. In -a word, Palermo was a typical PT advanced base. - -The squadron moved up from Bizerte the same day and began patrolling the -Tyrrhenian Sea, those waters boxed in by Sicily, Italy, Sardinia and -Corsica. - -Isolated in the Tyrrhenian Sea, about thirty miles north of Palermo, is -the island of Ustica. On the first Tyrrhenian patrol Lieut. Commander -Barnes led his boats toward Ustica to see what was going on in those -backwaters of the war. - -“At dawn we were off Ustica,” the squadron leader reports. “First thing, -we saw a fishing boat putt-putting toward Italy. We found a handful of -very scared individuals crawling out from under the floor plates, -hopefully waving white handkerchiefs. This was the staff of an Italian -admiral at Trapani [site of the Italian torpedo-boat base at the western -tip of Sicily, bypassed by the fall of Palermo]. - -“Only reason we didn’t get the admiral was that he was late getting down -to the dock and his staff said the hell with him. - -“In addition to a few souvenir pistols and binoculars, we captured a -whole fruit crate of thousand-lira notes which we reluctantly turned -over to Army authorities later. One of the other boats saw a raft with -seven Germans on it, feebly paddling out to sea. We picked them up too.” - - -The next night three PTs of Squadron Fifteen patrolled to the Strait of -Messina, right against the toe of the Italian mainland itself, and two -nights later, off Cape Vaticano, the same three boats—under Lieut. E. A. -Arbuckle—found the 8,800-ton Italian freighter _Viminale_ being towed -toward Naples by a tug. - -For some reason, the freighter was being towed backward, almost causing -the PT skippers to take a lead in the wrong direction, but they sank -both ships in the first U.S. Naval victory in the Tyrrhenian Sea. - -On the night of July 26th, near the island of Stromboli, three PTs -commanded by Lieut. J. B. Mutty ran into their first F-lighters, those -powerfully armed German landing craft and general-duty blockade runners -that were to become the Number One enemy of PTs in the Mediterranean. - -The F-lighters were slow and cumbersome, but they were armored and -mounted extremely heavy antiaircraft batteries which could saw a PT into -toothpicks. Gun turrets were lined with cement and often mounted the -much-feared 88-mm. rifle, thus enormously outgunning the PTs. - -Holds of the F-lighters were so well compartmented that they could take -terrible punishment without going down. With only four and one-half feet -of draft, they usually slid over PT torpedoes, set to run at eight-foot -depth. An F-lighter was a serious opponent for a destroyer and much more -than a match for a PT—in theory. - -The three PT skippers at Stromboli didn’t know about that theory, -however, and probably wouldn’t have hesitated about attacking even if -they had known how dangerous an F-lighter was. They fired six fish and -thought they had blown up two of the F-lighters, but postwar assessment -says No. Neither side was badly hurt in this first duel, but more -serious fighting was to come. - -The next night, July 28th, three boats commanded by Lieut. Arbuckle -fired at what the skippers thought were F-lighters, but were really -Italian torpedo boats. American torpedoes passed harmlessly under the -hulls of the enemy boats; Italian machine-gunners punched sixty holes in -PT 218 and seriously wounded three officers, including Lieut. Arbuckle. -The boat got back to Palermo with 18 inches of water sloshing about -below decks. - - -The F-lighters were ferrying Axis troops out of Sicily, across the -Strait of Messina. The Allied high command had hoped to catch the whole -Axis force on Sicily in a gigantic trap, and the Messina ferry had to be -broken up. - -The Navy tried a combined torpedo boat-destroyer operation against the -ferry, but as usual, communications between the American ships were bad -and the destroyers opened fire on their own PTs. - -The first salvo from the American destroyers splashed water on the PT -decks. The PTs were five knots slower than the American cans. (Remember -those news stories, in the early days of the war, about the dazzling -70-knot PTs—fast enough to “run rings around any warship afloat”? During -the summer of 1943, few of the Squadron Fifteen boats could top 25 to 27 -knots.) Because they couldn’t run away from their deadly friends and -because they feared American gunnery more than they feared Italian -gunnery, the PT boats actually ran for the enemy shore to snuggle under -the protection of Italian batteries on Cape Rasocolmo. The enemy guns -obligingly fired on the American destroyers and drove them away. The PT -sailors went home, enormously grateful to the enemy for his involuntary -but effective act of good will. - -In August the Axis powers ferried most of their power to the mainland -across the three-mile-wide Strait of Messina, in a brilliant escape from -the Sicilian trap. - -PT skippers knew about the evacuation, but had orders to stay away from -the scene. British torpedo boats that tried to break up the evacuation -train were badly mauled by shore batteries. One torpedo boat -disappeared, with all hands, in the flash of a direct hit from a -gigantic nine and one-half-inch shell. - -Chafing at the order that kept it out of the action, the PT command -dreamed up an operation to relieve the tedium. It decided to mount an -invasion of its own to capture an island. - -Setting up a jury-rig invasion staff, the officers pored over charts, -looking for the ideal enemy island to add to the PT bag. Lieut. Dubose, -returning from a fight with German mine sweepers on the night of August -15th, picked up an Italian merchant seaman from a small boat off Lipari -Island, in the Aeolian Group, a few miles northwest of the Strait of -Messina. The sailor said there were no Germans on Lipari and the -islanders would undoubtedly be delighted to be captured by the American -Navy. - -When the admiral heard the squadron’s proposal he radioed: “Demand the -unconditional surrender of the islands, suppress any opposition, bring -back as prisoners all who are out of sympathy.” - -Three PTs, their crews beefed up by 17 extra sailors, six soldiers and a -military government man—with a destroyer following behind as main fire -support—sailed into Lipari Harbor at 11 A.M. on August 17th, guns manned -and trained on the beach. At precisely the critical moment, the -destroyer hove into view around a headland, giving the impression of a -mighty fleet backing up the puny invaders. - -The commandant of the Italian naval garrison came down to the dock -himself to handle mooring lines for his captors. - -The American Military Government man stepped gracefully ashore in the -first assault wave and set up a government on the spot. PT men rounded -up military prisoners, hauled down the Italian and hoisted the American -flag. - -The Italian commodore slipped off in the excitement and tried to burn -his papers, but a sailor persuaded him to stop by pressing the muzzle of -a 45 automatic to his brow. - -Sailors confiscated the documents and collected souvenirs, while the -commandant radioed the other islands in the group and the PT skippers -accepted their surrender by long distance. Only Stromboli resisted, so -the PTs chugged over to find out what was holding up the breaking out of -peace on that volcanic pimple. - -They found an Italian chief petty officer and a 30-man detail, blowing -up their radio equipment. The American sailors indignantly halted the -sabotage—then destroyed the stuff themselves. - -All the Italian navy saboteurs were put under armed guard for transport -to American prisons in Sicily, but a pregnant woman burst into sobs, -pleading that one of the men was her husband, a fisherman who had never -spent a night away from Stromboli in his life. Six other women joined -their wails to the chorus. The local priest assured Lieut. Dubose that -their stories were true, so Dubose granted the prisoners a reprieve. - -The boats returned to Lipari, picked up fifty merry military prisoners -there, and departed for Palermo to the cheers of the entire town. - -Messina fell that same day, and the Sicilian campaign was over. - - -Three weeks after the fall of Sicily, on the morning of September 9th, -Allied troops went ashore in force on the mainland around the -magnificent Bay of Salerno, just across a headland from Naples, second -port of Italy. - -Invasion chores were not strenuous for the PTs—a little anti-E-boat -patrol in the bay and some light courier and taxi service for Army and -Navy brass. Dull duty, but the boats had to fly low and slow, because -they were almost out of aviation gasoline; their tanker had failed to -arrive on schedule. - -By October 4th, however, the gasoline was in and the British had taken a -splendid harbor at La Maddalena, off northeast Sardinia, so Squadron -Fifteen sailed to Sardinia, from where it and the British boats could -prey on enemy traffic north of Naples. Almost immediately, part of -Squadron Fifteen moved still farther north to Bastia, on Corsica, which -the Free French had just taken back from the enemy. These two bases put -PTs on the flanks of coastal shipping lanes deep in the heart of enemy -waters. Genoa itself, the largest port in Italy, was now within reach of -the squadron’s torpedoes. Hunting was especially good in the Tuscan -Archipelago, a group of islets and rocks between the PT base and the -mainland. - -Something had to be done about the PT torpedoes, however, for the -squadron was equipped with old Mark VIIIs, built in the 1920’s, -crotchety, unreliable, and worst of all, designed to run so far below -the surface that they couldn’t touch a shallow-draft F-lighter. - -PT torpedomen tinkered with their fish to set them for a shallow run, -but the Mark VIII was frisky without eight feet of water to hold it -down. The shallow-set Mark VIIIs porpoised, alternately leaping from the -water and diving like sportive dolphins. PT skippers set them shallow -anyhow, and fired them with the idea that there was a fifty-fifty chance -the porpoising torpedo would be on the upswing when it got to the target -and might at least punch a hole in the side. - - -In Italy, as the contending armies fought slowly up the peninsula, the -German situation became somewhat like the Japanese situation at that -same moment in New Guinea. Powerful Allied air strikes disrupted supply -by rail from Genoa and Rome to the front, so the Germans had to rely on -waterborne transport to run down the coast at night. - -To protect themselves from marauding Allied destroyers, the Germans -fenced off a channel close to the shore with a barrier of thousands of -underwater mines. At salient points they mounted heavy, radar-directed -cannon—some as big as nine and one-half inches in bore—to keep raiding -destroyers pushed away from the mine-protected channel. - -The mine fields worked. Deep-draft destroyers did not dare chase Axis -vessels too close to the beach. The shallow-bottom PTs skimmed over the -top of the mine fields, however, so the Germans countered by arming many -types of small ships as anti-PT boats. They took over a type of Italian -warship called a torpedo boat, but actually a small destroyer, fast and -heavily gunned, eminently qualified for PT-elimination work. - -Night patrols became lively, with PTs harrying Axis coastal shipping and -the Germans hunting them with E-boats and armed minesweepers, torpedo -boats and F-lighters. - -The first brawl after the PTs set up base on Sardinia and Corsica came -on the night between October 22nd and 23rd. Three PTs, under the -indefatigable Lieut. Dubose, sneaked up on a cargo ship escorted by four -E-boats and minesweepers. The PTs fired a silent spread of four, and the -cargo ship disappeared in a violent blast. Lieut. (jg) T. L. Sinclair -was lining up his 212 to work a little more destruction, when a wobbly -out-of-control Mark VIII torpedo from another PT flashed by under his -stern. - -“How many have you fired?” Lieut. Dubose asked Lieut. Sinclair by radio. - -“None yet. I’m too damned busy dodging yours.” - - -Between Giglio and Elba, in the Tuscan Archipelago, on the night between -November 2nd and 3rd, two PTs, under Lieut. Richard H. O’Brien, made a -torpedo run on a subchaser and blew a satisfactorily fatal hole in the -hull with a solid hit. The stricken vessel went down, all right, but it -went down fighting, and one of the last incendiary bullets from the -dying ship bored through the gasoline tank of the 207, touching off an -explosion that blew off a deck hatch. Flames as high as the radar mast -shot through the open hatchway. - -A radioman turned on a fire extinguisher, threw it into the flaming -compartment, and slammed down the hatch again. Miraculously, the fire -went out. - - -Early in November, Lieut. Commander Barnes, who had been doing some deep -thinking about the war against F-lighters, came up with a new tactical -idea. - -His reasoning was: PTs are radar-equipped, hence better than British -boats at finding enemy vessels and maneuvering for attack; British -torpedo boats use better torpedoes than American Mark VIIIs, for they -are faster and carry heavier explosive charges; British gunboats have -heavier firepower than PTs, for they usually carry at least six-pounder -cannon and so can take on heavier opponents. - -So Lieut. Commander Barnes and his British counterpart worked out a -scheme of joint patrolling, the Americans acting as a scout force and -finding targets by radar. The targets once found, the PTs were to guide -the British boats in a coordinated attack. From November 1943 until -April 1944, joint patrols had fourteen actions, in which skippers -claimed 15 F-lighters, two E-boats, a tug and an oil barge sunk; three -F-lighters, a destroyer, a trawler, and an E-boat damaged. - -As winter came on, winds mounted and seas ran high, but the PTs -maintained their patrols. On the foul night of November 29th, Lieut. -(jg) Eugene A. Clifford took his 204 out with another PT for a patrol -near Genoa. Within two hours the wind built up to 35 knots, water -smashed over the bow in blinding sheets and drowned out the radar, -visibility dropped to less than a hundred yards. The PTs gave up the -patrol and turned back toward Bastia. In the stormy night the boats were -separated and the 204 plugged along alone, lookouts almost blinded by -the spray. - -Out of the darkness four E-boats appeared within slingshot range, -laboring on an opposite course. A fifth E-boat “crossed the T,” but not -fast enough, for the PT and the E-boat struck each other a glancing blow -with their bows. - -From a ten-yard range, the two small craft ripped into each other with -every gun that would bear. The other four E-boats joined the affray, and -for fifteen seconds the 204 was battered from broad-jumping distance by -the concentrated fire of five enemy boats. - -The PT escaped in the darkness and the crew set about counting its -wounds. Bullets had torn up torpedo tubes, ventilators, ammunition -lockers, gun mounts. The deck and the superstructure were a ruin of -splinters. The engine room had a hundred new and undesired ventilation -apertures. - -The skipper polled his crew to prepare the melancholy roll of dead and -wounded. Not a man had been nicked! The gas tank was intact. The engines -still purred along like electric clocks. The 204, outnumbered five to -one, had stood up to a fifteen-second eyeball-to-eyeball Donnybrook and -was nevertheless bringing all its sailors home in good health. - - -Two of the squadron’s PTs were detached in January 1944, and went south -again for duty in the ill-fated Anzio landing. Lieut. General Mark -Clark, commanding the Fifth American Army, wanted the boats for -water-taxi duty between the main American lines near Naples and the -Anzio beachhead, thirty miles south of Rome. Usually the taxi runs were -dull for sailors of the PT temperament, but not always. - -On the morning of January 28th, General Clark and some of his staff -boarded Lieut. (jg) George Patterson’s 201 at the mouth of the Volturno -River, and in company with 216 set sail for Anzio, seventy-five miles to -the north. - -Twenty-five miles south of Anzio, the minesweeper _Sway_ patrolled the -southern approaches to the beachhead. The captain had just been warned -that enemy airplanes were attacking Anzio, and he knew that the Germans -often coordinated air and E-boat strikes, so when he saw two small boats -ripping along at high speed and coming down the sun’s track, he -challenged them by blinker light. - -Without reducing speed, Lieut. Patterson answered with a six-inch light, -too small a light for that distance in the daylight. Besides, the -signalmen on the _Sway_ were partly blinded by the glare of the sun, -just rising behind the 201. - -_Sway’s_ guns opened fire. Lieut. Patterson fired an emergency -recognition flare, but it burst directly in the face of the sun, and the -_Sway’s_ bridge crew missed the second friendly signal from the torpedo -boat. The 201 even reduced speed as a further friendly gesture, but the -slower speed only made the boat a better target. - -The next shot hit the boat in the charthouse, wounding Lieut. Patterson -and his executive officer, Ensign Paul B. Benson, and killing an officer -passenger and a sailor. - -“Let’s get the hell out of here,” suggested General Clark. - -Ensign Benson, though wounded, took the wheel from the sagging skipper -and zigzagged the boat away at high speed back toward Naples, until he -was out of range of the _Sway’s_ batteries. A few miles down the coast -the crew of 201 transferred dead and wounded to a British minesweeper. - -The _Sway_ still stood between the boat and Anzio, but General Clark -wanted to go to the Anzio beach, so the 201 crept back at a -peaceful-looking speed and spoke up from long distance with a bigger -light. The sun was higher, _Sway’s_ signalmen read the message, and the -skipper waved them by. - - -Lieut. Commander Barnes still restlessly experimented with armaments and -tactics, looking for a combination of weapons and methods that would -counter the dangerous weapons of the F-lighters. Rocket launchers were -being mounted on landing craft, and the small vessels were delivering -devastating ripples on enemy beaches. Their firepower was all out of -proportion to the size of the craft. A few PTs were playing around with -rocket launchers in the Pacific. It’s worth at least a try, thought -Lieut. Commander Barnes. - -On the night of February 18th, 1944, Barnes went out in Lieut. (jg) Page -H. Tullock’s 211, with Lieut. Robert B. Reader’s 203 and Lieut. (jg) -Robert D. McLeod’s 202. - -As Lieut. Commander Barnes tells the story: - -“I saw a small radar target come out from behind the peninsula and head -over toward one of the small islands south of Giglio. Thinking it might -be an F-lighter, I ordered rocket racks loaded. - -“He must have seen us, because whatever it was—probably an -E-boat—speeded up and ducked into the island before we could make -contact. That presented the first difficulty of a rocket installation. -There we were with the racks all loaded and the safety pins out. The -weather had picked up a little, and getting those pins back in the -rockets and the racks unloaded was going to be a touchy job in the pitch -dark on wet, tossing decks. I decided to leave them there for a while to -see what would happen. - -“About midnight it started to kick up a good deal more. I had just about -decided that whatever it was we were looking for wasn’t going to show -up, and I was getting pretty worried about the rockets heaving out of -the racks and rolling around in a semiarmed condition on deck. I decided -to take one last turn around our patrol area and head for the barn. - -“On our last southerly leg we picked up a target coming north at about -eight knots, and I closed right away, thinking to spend all our rockets -on whatever it was. As we got closer, it appeared to be two small -targets in column—a conclusion which I later used as an outstanding -example of ‘Don’t trust your interpretation of radar too blindly.’ - -“Just about the time we got to the 1,000-yard firing range the lookouts -started reporting vessels everywhere, all the way from our port back -around to our starboard bow. I had arranged the other two boats on -either side in line abreast and ordered them to stand by to fire on my -order over the radio. I gave the order and we all let go together. - -“During the eleven seconds the rockets were in flight nobody fired a -shot, but a couple of seconds after the rockets landed what seemed like -a dozen enemy craft opened up. The formation was probably three or four -F-lighters escorted by two groups of E-boats. We had passed through the -two groups of escorts on our way to our firing position. - -“Now it was time to turn away, and as my boat turned to the right we -found that the 202 was steaming right into the convoy. To avoid -collision we had to turn back and parallel the 202. - -“Just at that time the engines on my boat started to labor and -unbelievably coughed and died—all three of them. We were smack dab in -the center of the whole outfit, with the enemy shooting from all -sides.... The volume was terrific. - -“The 203 had lost all electric power, including the radar and compass -lights. She saw the two of us off our original course and came back to -join us, making a wide circle at high speed and laying smoke. It is -impossible to say exactly what happened; the melee was too terrific. - -“The 202 had a jammed rudder which they were able to clear. She -eventually got out by ducking around several vessels, passing as close -as 100 yards. The 203 likewise got out by ducking in and out of the -enemy formation, but we on the 211 just sat there helpless, watching the -whole show. - -“This business lasted for at least four or five minutes and even the -shore batteries came into illuminate with starshells. Fortunately, there -was enough smoke in the air to keep the issue confused. That confusion -was the only thing that saved us. - -“None of our boats was using guns at all, and it was obvious that the -enemy was frightfully confused with us weaving through the formation. -They were hard at work shooting each other up. I am sure they sank at -least one of the E-boats, because several minutes later they started -firing again off to the north, and there was a large gasoline fire in -the channel which burned for a long time. - -“We got clear by the simple process of just sitting still and letting -the enemy pass around us and continue north. - -“I finally got one engine engaged and went to our rendezvous which was -only a couple of miles away, but by the time I got there I could just -see the other two boats, on the radar screen, leaving. I tried to call -them back, but I couldn’t get a soul and waited around for some time -thinking they would come back. They didn’t, however, and went on back -individually, for which they got a little private hell from me later. - -“I had no alternative but to go back myself. I expected to find the -other two boats pretty well shot up, as it was a miracle that we weren’t -lost ourselves. Strangely enough, I found that they were not damaged, -and except for the fantastic coincidence of all three of us being more -or less disabled simultaneously, we were OK.” - -Apparently, the rockets did no damage, and further installation of -rocket racks on his PTs was firmly rejected by Lieut. Commander Barnes. - -The American PT commander was not the only one concerned about the heavy -ordnance of the F-lighters. Captain J. F. Stevens of the British Navy’s -Coastal Forces in the Mediterranean said: - -“While coastal forces are the most suitable forces to operate in mined -areas, the enemy has so strengthened his escorts and armed his shipping -that our coastal craft find themselves up against considerably heavier -metal. Furthermore, the enemy’s use of F-lighters of shallow draft does -not provide good torpedo targets. Everything that can be done to improve -our chances of successful attack is being done. Torpedoes will, if -possible, be fired at even shallower settings. Meanwhile, if they cannot -achieve destruction, coastal forces will harry the enemy and endeavour -to cause him the utmost possible alarm, damage, and casualties.” - -Officers at La Maddalena gave longer thought to the problem and came up -with an idea called Operation Gun. - -Lieut. Commander Barnes’ combined operation—the plan to use American -radar for scouting and conning heavier-armed British boats to -targets—had been a promising beginning, but even the MBG gunboats were -not a real match for the F-lighters. - -Commander Robert A. Allan, British Commandant of the Sardinia base, cut -three landing craft out of the British amphibious fleet and armed them -with 4.7 naval guns and 40-mm. autocannon. The landing craft were big, -flat-bottomed tubs, wonderful platforms for the hard-hitting 4.7 -inchers. To man the guns, he assigned crack gunners of the Royal Marine -Artillery. - -Commander Allan organized an interesting task force around the three -landing-craft gunboats (designated LCGs) as his main battle line. They -were screened against E-boat attack by British torpedo boats, and -controlled by the radar-equipped American PT scouting force. - -Commander Allan himself went out on the first sweep of his beefed-up -inshore patrol on the night of March 27th. He rode Lieut. (jg) Thaddeus -Grundy’s PT 218, so that he could use American radar to assign targets -to his gunboats and give them opening salvo ranges and bearings by -remote control. - -When the gunboat battle line arrived off San Vicenzo, south of Leghorn, -a scouting group of two PTs, under Lieut. Dubose, went off on a fast -sweep, looking for targets. At 10 P.M. the PTs had found six F-lighters -going south, and Commander Allan brought his main battle force up -quickly to intercept them. - -At 11 P.M. Lieut. Dubose sharply warned the main force that two -destroyers were escorting the lighters on the seaward side. “I am -preparing to attack the destroyers,” he added. - -Commander Allan continues the story: “Until he carried out this attack, -it was not possible for us to engage the convoy, as our starshells being -fired inshore over the target [to illuminate the F-lighters for the -gunboats] would illuminate us for the escorting destroyers which were -even farther to seaward than we were. Fire was therefore withheld during -several anxious minutes.” - -During this ten-minute wait for the PT scouts to take on the destroyers, -both the German forces, escort and convoy, came on Commander Allan’s -radar screen. - -The PT scouts crept to within 400 yards before firing torpedoes, and ran -away behind heavy smoke. Nevertheless, the destroyers laid down such a -heavy fire that they hit 214, even in the smoke screen, wounding the -engineer of the watch, Joseph F. Grossman, MoMM2c, and damaging the -center engine. Grossman ignored his wounds and tended the stricken -engine until it was running well again, staying below with his engines -until the boat was out of danger. - -The skippers of the scouting PTs heard the usual large explosions on one -of the destroyers and hoped they had scored but couldn’t be sure. Hit or -no hit, the destroyers reversed course and ran up the coast, abandoning -their convoy—an unthinkable act of cowardice for Allied escorts. - -Sunk or run off, it was all the same to Commander Allan, who wanted only -a free hand with the F-lighters. When the destroyers were gone, he -passed radar ranges and bearings to the gunboats, and the Royal Marines -lit up the night over the convoy with a perfect spread of starshells. - -Startled gunners on the F-lighters, unused to this kind of treatment in -waters where vessels with 4.7-inch guns had never dared venture before, -took the lights for plane flares and fired wildly into the clouds. - -The Royal Marine gunners took their time for careful aim under the -bright glare of the slowly sinking magnesium lights. At the first salvo, -one of the F-lighters blew up with a tremendous explosion. Within ten -minutes three F-lighters were burning briskly. The gunboats spread out -and pinned the surviving boats against the beach while the Marine -artillerymen methodically pounded them to scrap. - -“Of the six F-lighters destroyed,” says Commander Allan, “two, judging -by the impressive explosions, were carrying petrol, two ammunition, and -one a mixed cargo of both.” - -With what sounds like a note of wistful disappointment, Commander Allan -added: “The sixth sank without exploding.” - -The Operation Gun Task Force sortied again on the night of April 24th. -The coastal waters around the Tuscan Archipelago were swarming with -traffic that night. Early in the evening the gunboats blew two -F-lighters out of the water. Burning debris, cascading from the sky -after the explosions, set fires on the beach. - -Shortly afterward the Marine sharpshooters picked off a tug and three -more F-lighters. - -Radar picked up still another group and star-shell from the gunboats -showed that they were three flak lighters—medium-size craft powerfully -armed as antiaircraft escorts for daylight convoys. The Royal Marine -gunners smacked their first salvos into two of the flak lighters, which -burned in a fury of exploding ammunition. - -The third lighter poured an astonishing volume of fire at the unarmored -gunboats, and Commander Allan, in PT 218, made a fast run at the enemy -to draw fire away from his gunboats. The Marines put a shell into the -flak lighter, and it ran off behind smoke, but the 209 led a charge -through the smoke, fired off its fish, caught the flak ship squarely -amidships, and blew it in two. - -Lieut. Dubose’s scouting torpedo boats found a convoy escorted by a flak -lighter, but at that moment the gunboats were engaged in another fight, -so rather than break up the show of the main battle line, the PTs -attacked the enemy themselves. At least one of three fish connected, for -the flak lighter blew up in a jarring explosion. - -Ashore, fifty miles away at Bastia, squadron mates sat outdoors to watch -the flash and glare of the all-night battle against the eastern sky. -Things were just threatening to get dull after midnight when shore radio -at Bastia called Commander Allan with a radar-contact report of an Axis -convoy between the gunboats and Corsica. The PTs got there first and -found two destroyers and an E-boat in column. - -When the PTs were still 2,500 yards away—too far for a good torpedo shot -from a small boat—the destroyers fired a starshell. PT 202 was ready for -just that emergency. A sailor standing by with a captured five-star -recognition flare fired the correct answering lights and calmed the -enemy’s nerves. - -The PTs moved in under the guise of friends and fired four fish at 1,700 -yards. As they ran away they felt a violent underwater explosion, so -they claimed a possible hit. - -On this one wild night of action Commander Allan’s strange little navy -had, without damage to itself, sunk five of the formidable F-lighters, -four heavily armed flak lighters, and a tug; scored a possible torpedo -hit on a destroyer; and pulled a dozen German prisoners from the water. - - -Hearts of the PT sailors were lifted with joy in May 1944, when the Mark -XIII torpedoes began to trickle into their bases and the heavy -old-fashioned torpedo tubes were replaced with light launching racks -that gave the boats badly needed extra bursts of speed. More boats had -been arriving, too, and eventually there were three PT squadrons working -out of Sardinia and Corsica. - -As torpedomen installed the new fish and the new launching rigs, a PT -skipper rubbed his hands and said: “Wait till we get a good target now. -These Mark Thirteens are going to sweep these waters clean.” - -Lieut. Eugene A. Clifford, in 204, led two other PTs in the first attack -with the new torpedoes on the night of May 18th in the Tuscan -Archipelago. The PTs had two flak lighters on their radarscopes. -Determined to try out the new torpedoes, they bored through the massive -barrage from the flak lighters’ antiaircraft guns, firing from 1,000 -yards. - -One of the highly vaunted Mark XIII’s made a typical Mark VIII run and -hit the 204 in the stern. Fortunately, when this Mark XIII goofed, it -really goofed, so it did not explode, but punched through the PT’s skin -and lodged its warhead inside. Its body dangled in the PT’s wake, like a -sucker-fish clamped to a shark’s tail. - -Lewis H. Riggsby, TM2c, went into the lazaret to stuff towels into the -vanes of the impeller to keep the torpedo from arming and exploding. - -The flak lighters chased the PTs and hit 204 with 20-mm fire, but the -boat escaped behind smoke, one of the famous Mark XIII torpedoes bobbing -and dangling from the stern. - - -Dominating the Tuscan Archipelago, within sight of the Italian mainland, -is the island of Elba, first home of Napoleon in exile. The island -attracted the Allies, because big guns on the point closest to the -mainland could reach the coastal road and also close off the inshore -passage to coastal craft. Once Elba was in Allied hands, southbound Axis -land traffic might be chased a few miles inland to less-developed -mountain roads, and sea traffic would certainly be squeezed into the -thirty miles of water between two Allied bases at Elba and Corsica. - -One problem annoyed the planners of the Elba landings. What to do for -naval support? The waters around Elba were probably the most heavily -mined on the Italian Coast, and deep-draft ships could not be risked -there. But then, hadn’t PTs been scooting about the coast of Elba for -nine months? - -On the night between June 16th and 17th thirty-seven PTs joined other -shallow-draft vessels of the Coastal Force to support landings of -Senegalese troops of the French Ninth Colonial Division, plus mixed -elements from other Allied forces. - -Five PTs approached the northern coast at midnight, and about a half -mile from shore put 87 French raiders in the water in rubber rafts. The -five PTs joined another quintet at the farthest northeast point of Elba, -the point closest to the mainland. - -At 2 A.M. three of the ten PTs went roaring along the northern coast, -smoke generators wide open and smoke pots dropping over the side in a -steady stream. When the shoreline was sealed off behind a 16,000-yard -curtain of smoke, four more PTs moved down the seaward side, with -loudspeakers blaring the sounds of a great fleet of landing craft. The -PTs launched occasional ripples of rockets at the beach to imitate a -preinvasion shore bombardment. - -The three remaining PT skippers carried on a lively radio exchange, -straining their imaginations to invent a torrent of orders for an -imaginary invasion armada. - -Searchlights from the beach swept the water, looking for a hole in the -screen. Land guns on the shore and in the mountains to the west poured -shells into the smoke screen, thus pinpointing themselves nicely for an -Allied air strike that slipped in just before dawn. - -At the true landing beach on the south coast, Lieut. (jg) Eads -Poitevent, Jr., captain of the 211, was posted as radar picket to guide -landing craft ashore. He was alarmed when he saw a radar target creep -out of the harbor at Marina de Campo. He could not attack without -alerting the beach, and yet the oncoming enemy vessel had to be kept -away from the landing flotilla at any cost. - -Poitevent boldly sailed close to the target—an E-boat—and made friendly -looking signals on a blinker light. He eased off in a direction away -from the convoy, luring the patrol into harmless waters. It took him -fifteen minutes to tease the E-boat off the scene and return to his -duties. - -The E-boat would not stay away, however, and in its aimless wanderings -it blundered across the path of a PT with a deckload of British -commandos destined for a preinvasion landing. The commandos slipped over -the side, three-quarters of a mile farther out than they had planned, -and silently paddled their rubber boats successfully to the beach, -around the lackadaisical enemy patrol. - -Another PT saw the E-boat also, and thinking it was a friendly, tried to -form up in column. Lieut. (jg) Harold J. Nugent, on 210, who was -following the bumbling drama on radar, broke radio silence just long -enough to cheep the smallest of warnings to his squadron mate. The -E-boat crew incredibly fumbled about those waters, teeming with Allied -boats, for most of the night and never lost their happy belief that they -were alone with the stars and the sea. - -PT radarscopes now showed a more interesting target. Coming right up the -patrol line was something big, in fact, a formation of big ships, so PT -skippers prepared for a torpedo attack. They held back, however, for -full identification of the targets, because the ships could just -possibly be the invasion flotilla, slightly off course. - -At 400 yards, Nugent challenged the approaching formation by blinker. -The nearest vessel answered correctly, and a few seconds later repeated -the correct code phrase for the period. - -Lieut. Nugent continues: - - “Being convinced that the ships were part of the invasion convoy which - had probably become lost, I called to my executive officer, Lieut. - (jg) Joel W. Bloom, to be ready to look up the ships’ correct position - in our copy of the invasion plan. I brought the 210 up to the - starboard side of the nearest ship, took off my helmet, put the - megaphone to my mouth and called over ‘What ship are you?’ - - “I shall never forget the answer. - - “First there was a string of guttural words, followed by a broadside - from the ship’s two 88-mm. guns and five or six 20-mm. guns. The first - blast carried the megaphone away and tore the right side off a pair of - binoculars that I was wearing around my neck. It also tore through the - bridge of the boat, jamming the helm, knocking out the bridge engine - controls, and scoring a direct hit on the three engine emergency - cutout switches which stopped the engines. - - “I immediately gave the order to open fire, and though we were dead in - the water and had no way of controlling the boat, she was in such a - position as to deliver a full broadside. - - “After a few minutes of heavy fire, we had reduced the firepower of - the closest ship to one wildly wavering 20-mm. and one 88-mm. cannon - which continued to fire over our heads throughout the engagement. - - “It was easy to identify the ships, as the scene was well lighted with - tracers. They were three ships traveling in a close V, an E-boat in - the center with an F-lighter on either flank. - - “We were engaging the F-lighter on the starboard flank of the - formation. As the ships started to move toward our stern the injured - F-lighter screened us from the fire of the other two ships, so I gave - the order to cease fire. - - “In the ensuing silence we clearly heard screams and cries from the - F-lighter. - - “Two members of our engine-room crew, who were topside as gun loaders - during battle, were sent to the engine room to take over the chief - engineer’s duties, for I was sure he was dead or wounded. However, he - had been working on the engines throughout the battle and had already - found the trouble. We immediately got under way. - - “We found out, however, that our rudder was jammed in a dead-ahead - position, but by great good fortune we were headed directly away from - the enemy, so I dropped a couple of smoke pots over the side and we - moved off. The enemy shifted its fire to the smoke pots, and we lay to - and started repairs. - - “Much to our surprise, we found that none of us had even been wounded, - but the boat had absorbed a great deal of punishment. A burst of 20 - mm. had zipped through the charthouse, torn the chart table to bits, - knocked out the lighting system, and de-tuned and scarred the radio - and radar. Another burst had gone through the engine room, damaged - control panels, torn the hull. All hits, however, were above the - waterline. Turrets, turret lockers, ventilators, and the deck were - holed. - - “We called the 209 alongside, and sent off a radio report to the - flagship on the action and the direction in which the ships retired.” - -Lieut. Nugent learned from the skipper of the 209 that his boat had been -hit only twice, but one of the shells had scored a direct hit on a -40-mm. gun loader and killed him instantly. - -The tall, black warriors from French Senegal swept over the island in -two days of brisk fighting and Elba was Allied. The sea roads to the -south were blocked, and PT action shifted to the north, to the Ligurian -Sea, the Gulf of Genoa, and the lovely blue waters off the Côte d’Azur. - - - - - 7. - The War in Europe: - English Channel - - -In England, as May 1944 turned into June, it didn’t take a genius to -know that something big was afoot. Military traffic choked the roads -leading to the Channel seacoast and the coastal villages. Troops were in -battle dress, officers were grim faced, all hands hustled about on the -thousands of mysterious errands that presage an offensive. Everybody -knew it was the Big Landing—the assault on Fortress Europe—but where? - -Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Two, under Lieut. Commander John Bulkeley -(with only three boats this was the smallest squadron ever organized), -had helped to make the decision where to land. Assigned to the Office of -Strategic Services—America’s cloak-and-dagger outfit for all kinds of -secret business—Squadron Two had run a ferry service between England and -the enemy-occupied continent to deliver secret agents, saboteurs, spies, -resistance officers, and couriers for the governments in exile. - -The sailors of Squadron Two carried out their orders, of course, but on -some of their errands they could mutter the old Navy adage: “I may have -to take it, but I don’t have to like it.” - -For example, the night they were sent across the Channel to land on the -Normandy shore, there to scoop up several bucketfuls of sand. The crews -grumbled about taking their fragile craft under the guns of Hitler’s -mighty Western Wall just to fill the First Sea Lord’s sandbox. - -They did not find out, until long after that night, why they were sent -to play with shovels and buckets on the Normandy beach. A scientist who -claimed to know the beaches well—beaches that had already been picked -for the Normandy landings—said that they were made of spongy peat -covered with a thin layer of sand, and that Allied trucks and tanks -would bog down helplessly on the soft strand, once they left the hard -decks of the landing craft. - -The samples brought back by the PT sailors proved that the scientist -didn’t know sand from shinola about Normandy beach conditions, and the -operation went ahead as planned. - -On June 6, 1944, the first waves of American and British troops landed -on Omaha and Utah beaches and began the long slugging match with Marshal -Erwin Rommel’s Nazis to twist Normandy out of German hands. - -During the landings proper, PTs were used as anti-E-boat screens, but -made their biggest contribution by dousing flare floats dropped by -German aircraft to guide their night bombers. - -At the beginning the assigned duties of the PTs were not heavy, but -there is always work for a fleet of small, handy armed boats in a big -amphibious operation. - -On June 8th, for instance, as the destroyer _Glennon_ jockeyed about off -the Saint Marcouf Islands, north of Utah Beach, getting ready to bombard -a shore battery, she struck a mine astern. One minesweeper took the -damaged destroyer under tow, and another went ahead to sweep a clear -escape channel. Just before 9 A.M., the destroyer-escort _Rich_ closed -the ships, and the skipper asked if he could help. The captain of the -_Glennon_ answered: “Negative; clear area cautiously, live mines.” - -Too late. A heavy explosion stopped the _Rich_ dead in the water. A -second explosion tore away fifty feet of the stern. A third mine -exploded forward. The destroyer-escort was a shambles, its keel broken -and folded in a V. The superstructure was festooned with a grisly -drapery of bodies and parts of bodies. - -PTs rallied around the _Rich_ to take survivors from the deck or from -the mine-filled waters around the shattered vessel. Crewmen on the 508 -saw a sailor bobbing by in the sea, and the bowman picked up a heaving -line to throw to his rescue. The man in the water calmly refused -assistance. - -“Never mind the line,” he said, “I have no arms to catch it.” - -The PT skipper, Lieut. Calvin R. Whorton, dove into the icy Channel -waters, but the armless sailor had gone to the bottom. - -The _Rich_ followed him in fifteen minutes, with 79 of the crew. -Seventy-three survivors were wounded. - -The _Glennon_ itself went aground, and two days later a German shore -battery put two salvos aboard. The destroyer rolled over and sank. - - -American soldiers ashore pushed rapidly northwestward along the coast of -the Cherbourg Peninsula, to capture the port of Cherbourg, sorely needed -as a terminal to replace the temporary harbor behind a jury-rig -breakwater of sunken ships at the landing beaches. The Nazi garrison at -Cherbourg put up a last-ditch stand, however, and on June 27th, forts on -the outer breakwater and a few coastal batteries still held out. - -The Navy sent a curiously composed task force to reduce the forts. With -the destroyer _Shubrick_, the Navy sent six PTs to deal with the holdout -Germans. It is hard to understand what PTs were expected to accomplish -against heavy guns behind concrete casemates. Perhaps the reputation of -the PT commander had overpowered the judgment of the Navy brass, for it -was none other than Lieut. Commander John Bulkeley, hero of the -MacArthur rescue run and the New Guinea blockade, come to try his mettle -in European waters. - -Leaving four PTs with the destroyer as a screen, Bulkeley, in 510, with -521 in company, cruised by the forts and sprayed them with machine guns -at 150-yard range. The stubborn Nazis poured out a stream of 88-mm. -shells and hit 521 hard enough to stop her dead for five minutes while a -motor machinist mate made frantic repairs. Lieut. Commander Bulkeley ran -rings around the stalled craft, laying a doughnut of smoke around her -for a screen. - -The _Shubrick_ herself was taking near misses from shore batteries, so -the skipper recalled the PTs and departed the scene. The two -“bombardment” PTs followed suit, having accomplished little except to -exercise the crew. Fortunately no American sailors were hurt in this -most inappropriate use of PT capabilities. - - -Even after the Allies had taken the whole Normandy coast, the Germans -clung to the offshore Channel Islands of Jersey, Alderney, Guernsey, and -Sark. On Jersey, they maintained a base for small craft which made -annoying nightly sorties. - -To seal off the Jersey base, the Navy ordered PT Squadrons Thirty and -Thirty-four to patrol nightly from Cherbourg to the Channel Islands in -the company of a destroyer escort for backstop firepower and for radar -scouting. - - [Illustration: ENGLISH CHANNEL] - - NETHERLANDS - BELGIUM - FRANCE - PT 509 SUNK BY MINESWEEPER - PTs 510 and 521 “BOMBARD” FORTS - RICH SUNK BY MINES - -On the night between August 8th and 9th, the _Maloy_ and five PTs were -patrolling west of Jersey. The weather was good all night, but shortly -before dawn a thick fog settled over the sea. At 5:30 A.M. the radar -watch on the _Maloy_ picked up six German minesweepers. - -Lieut. H. J. Sherertz, as the officer in tactical command of the PT -patrol, was riding _Maloy_ to use its superior radar. He dispatched -three PTs from the northern end of the scouting line to attack the -Germans. The skipper of PT 500, one of the north scout group, was Lieut. -Douglas Kennedy, now editor of _True_ magazine. Blinded by the -peasouper, the PTs fired torpedoes by radar, but missed. - -Thirty minutes later, Lieut. Sherertz vectored the southern pair of -torpedo boats to the attack. The 508 and 509 approached the firing line -through the fog at almost 50 knots. Lieut. Harry M. Crist, a veteran of -many PT battles in Pacific waters and skipper of 509, risked one fish by -radar aim from 500 yards. Lieut. Whorton (the officer who had tried in -vain to save the armless sailor of the _Rich_) couldn’t fire, because -his radar conked out at the critical moment, so the PTs circled and -Lieut. Crist conned the 508 by radio. The boats fired but missed. - -As they came about to circle again, Whorton reported that he heard heavy -firing break out between the other PT and a minesweeper, but he couldn’t -shoot because his buddies were between him and the Germans. Whorton lost -the 509 in the swirling fog, and when he came around again, everybody -had disappeared. He searched almost an hour and returned to the _Maloy_ -on orders of Lieut. Sherertz, because his burned-out radar made his -search ineffective. - -The 503 and the 507 took up the search for their missing comrades. At 8 -A.M. they picked up a radar target in the St. Helier roadstead at -Jersey, and closed to 200 yards. The fog lifted briefly and unveiled a -minesweeper dead ahead and on a collision course. The 503 fired a -torpedo, and both boats raked the enemy’s decks, but suffered hard -punishment themselves from the enemy’s return fire. Before the boats -escaped from the enemy waters, two PT sailors were killed and four -wounded on 503, and one wounded on 507. - -The next day a search plane found the body of a sailor from the 509, and -ten days later a bullet-riddled section of the hull was found floating -in the Channel. It was not until after the war that the fate of the 509 -was learned from the sole survivor, a liberated prisoner of war named -John L. Page, RdM3c. Here is his story: - -“After firing one torpedo by radar, the 509 circled and came in for a -gunnery run. I was in the charthouse on the radar. Lieut. (jg) John K. -Pavlis was at the wheel. I remember we were moving fast and got pretty -close before receiving return fire. When it came it was heavy and -accurate. - -“One shell burst in the charthouse, knocking me out. When I came to, I -was trying to beat out flames with my hands. I was wounded and the boat -was on fire, but I pulled the detonator switch to destroy the radar and -then crawled on deck. - -“The bow of our boat was hung up on the side of a 180-foot minesweeper. -From the deck of the enemy sweeper, Germans were pouring in small-arms -fire and grenades. Everything aft of the cockpit was burning. I -struggled forward through the bullets and bursting grenades to the bow—I -have no idea how long that journey took—and the Germans tossed me a -line. I had just enough strength to take it and they hauled me aboard.” - -The Germans stretched Page out on the deck and attacked the PT’s carcass -with crowbars, frantically trying to pry themselves loose from its -clutches. Just as the PT broke loose, it exploded with a tremendous -roar. - -“I couldn’t see it,” says Page, “but I felt the heat and the blast.” - -Free of the PT, the minesweeper ran for the shelter of home base at St. -Helier. The Germans carried Page back to the crew’s quarters to tend his -wounds. He had a broken right arm and leg, thirty-seven bullet and -shrapnel holes in his body, and a large-caliber slug in his lungs. While -they were working on him they were carrying in their own dead and -wounded. - -“I managed to count the dead. There were fifteen of them and a good -number of wounded. It’s difficult to estimate how many, because they -kept milling around. I guess I conked out for a while. The first thing I -remember is a first-aid man putting a pack on my back and arm. Then I -could hear the noise of the ship docking. - -“After they removed their dead and wounded, they took me ashore at St. -Helier. They laid me out on the dock for quite a while, and a couple of -civilians—I found out later they were Gestapo agents—tried to question -me, but they saw I was badly shot up, so they didn’t try to question me -further.” - -Page was taken to a former English hospital at St. Helier, where -skillful German surgeons performed many operations—he couldn’t remember -how many—to remove dozens of bullets and fragments from every part of -his body. The final operation was on December 27, 1944. - -While he was in the hospital, the bodies of three of his shipmates -washed ashore on Jersey. The British Red Cross took over the bodies and -buried them with military honors. - -Page was regularly annoyed by Gestapo men, but he said: “I found that -being very correct and stressing the fact that my government didn’t -permit me to answer was very effective. They tried a few times and -finally let me alone.” - -Page was liberated on May 8, 1945. - -The Channel Island battles were vicious and inconclusive, in a sense, -but the German gadflies stayed more and more in port—became more and -more timid when they did patrol. Nightly sweeps of the PT-destroyer -escort teams bottled up the German boats and cleared the Channel waters -for the heavy traffic serving the voracious appetite of the armies on -the continent. - - - - - 8. - The War in Europe: - Azure Coast - - -After Allied troops had chopped out a good firm foothold on the -northwestern coast of France, the Allied Command found that the Channel -ports were not enough to handle the immense reserve of men and materials -waiting in America to be thrown into the European battle. Another port -was needed, preferably one on the German flank in order to give the -enemy another problem to fret about. - -Marseilles was the choice, with the naval base at Toulon to be taken in -the same operation. The Allies set H-hour for 8 A.M. on August 15, 1944, -and assembled their Mediterranean naval power in Italian ports. Among -the destroyers assigned to the shore fire-support flotilla were ships of -the Free Polish and Free Greek fleets. - -Lieut. Commander Stanley Barnes, when he heard about these new comrades -in arms, paraded his PTs past the Greek destroyer in daylight so that -the Hellenic sailors could see what an American torpedo boat looked -like. With a strong sense of history, Barnes remembered the Battle of -Salamis, and he didn’t want the Greeks to mistake his boats for -Persians. - -As it turned out, the first duty for the PTs was to be mistaken for what -they were not. - -With two British gunboats, a fighter director ship and three slow, -heavily armed motor launches, PTs of Squadron Twenty-Two sailed from -Corsica on August 14th, bound for the coast of France. This task unit -was under the command of Lieut. Commander Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., the -American movie star. - -Three of the PTs were detached to sail for the northwest as an -anti-E-boat patrol. Four others took 70 French commandos northwest to -land at the Pointe des Deux Frères, in the beautiful Gulf of Napoule -that washes the beach at Cannes. (The French commandos ran into a mine -field ashore, were strafed by friendly planes, and captured by the -Germans.) - -The rest of the task unit sailed straight north, as though headed for -Genoa, trailing balloons as radar targets, with the hope that the enemy -would think a big invasion force was bound for the Italian seaport. - -At Genoa, the phony flotilla turned west for the waters off Cannes and -Nice, still trailing its radar target balloons. The launches and PTs -maneuvered off Antibes, making as much of an uproar as possible, while -the British gunboats bombarded the beach. - - [Illustration: AZURE COAST] - - SARDINIA - MADDALENA BASE - PT HAPPY HUNTING GROUNDS - CORSICA - BASTIA BASE - TUSCAN ARCHIPELAGO - LANDING BEACHES - ITALY - PT DIVRSION SMOKE SCREEN - OPERATION GUN - PT 206 VS. HUMAN TORPEDOS - FRANCE - PT FAKE LANDING - PTs 202 and 208 SUNK BY MINES - PTs FAKE A LANDING - PT 555 SUNK HERE - BOOBY-TRAPPED DUMMY PARATROOPERS DROPPED HERE - SPAIN - -The minuscule fleet was delighted to hear from Radio Berlin that a -massive Allied landing near Cannes had been pushed into the sea with -heavy losses, and that Antibes and Nice had been bombarded by four large -battleships. - -Captain Henry C. Johnson, commanding the diversion groups, said: “The -decoy screen proved effective as in addition to several enemy salvos -falling short of or bursting in the air over the gunboats, the PTs and -the launches were subjected to a considerable degree of large-caliber -fire which passed well over them.” - -Happy with the confusion they had sown, the eastern diversion group -sailed west to join a western task unit with a similar mission. - -Off the Baie de la Ciotat, between Marseilles and the port of Toulon, -the eastern group joined company with four more launches, 11 crash -boats, and eight PTs of Squadron Twenty-Nine, under the control of the -destroyer _Endicott_. Skipper of the destroyer was a sailor who might be -expected to know a bit about a PT’s capabilities. His name was Lieut. -Commander John Bulkeley. - -The armed motor launches and the destroyer bombarded the beach behind a -screen of PTs. The crash boats trailed balloons, laid smoke screens, -fired ripples of rockets at the beach, laid delayed-action bombs in -shallow water to imitate frogmen at work, and broadcast noises of many -landing craft. The crash boats hoped to give the impression of a convoy -ten miles long and eight miles wide. - -At 4 A.M. troop-carrier planes flew over the town of La Ciotat and -dropped 300 booby-trapped dummy paratroopers. - -Radio Berlin broadcast an alarm. “The Allies are landing forces west of -Toulon and east of Cannes. Thousands of enemy paratroops are being -dropped in areas northwest of Toulon.” - -With great bitterness, five hours later, Radio Berlin broadcast: “These -paratroops were found later to be only dummies which had booby traps -attached and which subsequently killed scores of innocent civilians. -This deception could only have been conceived in the sinister -Anglo-Saxon mind.” - -This complaint came from the nation that was the world’s acknowledged -master at the nasty and unmanly art of booby-trappery. - -Radio Berlin continued: “Large assault forces have attempted to breach -defenses west of Toulon, but as the first waves have been wiped out by -mine fields, the rest lost heart and withdrew and returned to an area in -the east.” - -For two more nights the deception forces shelled the beach and made -noises like a mighty host. - -For two days the Germans announced that the main Allied intention was to -take Toulon and Marseilles by direct assault, and talked of driving off -an invasion force including five battleships. - -Before sailing away after the last phony demonstration, Lieut. Commander -Bulkeley broadcast a message, saying that the landings at La Ciotat -would be postponed for a few days “because of the furious resistance on -the beach,” but that they would definitely come. The Germans reinforced -the La Ciotat area with mobile artillery and infantry units, sorely -needed elsewhere. - -Radio Berlin, after the final demonstration, said: “An additional and -futile attempt of the American forces to land large bodies of troops -west of Toulon has failed miserably.” - -Lord Haw Haw, the English traitor who broadcast for the Axis, said: “The -assault convoy was twelve miles long, but for the second time in three -nights the Allies have learned of the determined resistance of the -_Wehrmacht_, to their cost.” - -The Axis broadcasts had the unexpected result of terrifying crews of -German warships ordered out to attack the “invasion fleet.” Prisoners of -war later reported that some of the ships would not sail because they -had lost heart after listening to their own broadcast alarms. - -Some ships did venture out, however, for one of the crash boats, -retiring from the demonstration area after the final show, ran into two -enemy corvettes—heavily armed escort vessels. The crash boat called -loudly for help, and two antique British river gunboats, the _Aphis_ and -the _Scarab_, came running. The British and German ships battled for -twenty minutes. Lieut. Commander Bulkeley’s _Endicott_, already almost -out of sight on the southern horizon, steamed back at flank speed and -opened fire at seven and one-half-mile range. Fire was slow, however, -for the _Endicott_, trying to imitate a large bombardment force earlier -that night, had shot its five-inchers so fast that all but one breech -block was fused from the heat. The one remaining gun shifted fire from -one corvette to the other. - -Two PTs, screening the destroyer, closed the corvettes to 300 yards and -fired two fish, but missed. The _Endicott_ also fired torpedoes, and the -corvettes turned bow on to comb their tracks, thus masking their own -broadside. The _Endicott_ closed to 1,500 yards and raked the corvette -decks with 20-mm. and 40-mm. autocannon, driving gunners from their -stations. - -The British gunboats and the destroyer pounded the now silent corvettes -until they sank. The ships and PT boats picked up 211 prisoners from the -_Nimet Allah_, a converted Egyptian yacht, and the _Capriolo_, a smartly -rigged light warship taken from the Italian navy. - - -In southern waters the PTs had been immune to mines, but off the -Mediterranean shores of France they suffered terribly from a new type of -underwater menace. - -Following standard PT practice of moving the base as close to the -fighting front as possible, Lieut. Commander Barnes set up a boat pool -in the Baie de Briande, near Saint Tropez, almost as soon as the troops -went ashore. The boats were close to the fighting and ready for action, -but their gas tanker didn’t show up. By the evening of August 16th the -boats were low on fuel, so the skippers puttered about the coast, -running down rumors of gas tankers anchored here and there. - -Lieut. (jg) Wesley Gallagher in 202, and Lieut. Robert Dearth in 218, -set sail together to look for a tanker reported to be in the Gulf of -Fréjus, fifteen miles to the northeast, the other side of Saint Tropez. -At 11 P.M., as the boats were rounding the point of St. Aygulf to enter -the harbor at Fréjus, the bow lookout on 202 sang out that he saw a -boxlike object floating 150 yards dead ahead. The skipper turned out to -sea to avoid it. - -During the turn a mine tore the stern off the boat, blew stunned sailors -into the water, and threw a column of water, smoke, and splinters -hundreds of feet into the air. Four sailors jumped overboard to rescue -their shipmates. - -Lieut. Dearth brought the 218 over to pick up the swimming sailors and -tried to approach the floating section of the 202 to take off survivors, -but the stern of his boat was blown off in the stunning explosion of -another mine. - -The two skippers abandoned the shattered hulks of their boats. In the -life rafts they held a muster. One man was missing and six men were -wounded. Amazingly, the engineers of the watch on both boats survived, -though they had been stationed right over blasts so powerful that heavy -storage batteries had whizzed by them to land on the forecastle. - -The sailors paddled shoreward. German planes were raiding the beach at -that moment, and shrapnel from the antiaircraft barrage rained down on -the rafts. - -Shortly after midnight, the sailors landed on a rocky point chosen by -the skippers because it looked least likely to be land mined. Lieut. -Gallagher picked his way through a barbed-wire barricade along the beach -and found a deserted and partly destroyed fisherman’s cottage where the -sailors lay low for the rest of the night, not knowing whether they had -landed in friendly or enemy territory. - -Soon after dawn the skippers made a tentative venture into the open. -Half a mile from the cottage they ran into soldiers—American -soldiers—who took over the wounded men and guided the other sailors to a -Navy beachmaster who gave them a boat ride back to their base. - - -A week later, on August 24th, task-force commander Rear Admiral L. A. -Davidson heard that the Port-de-Bouc in the Gulf of Fos, west of -Marseilles and at the mouth of the Rhone Delta, had been captured by the -French Underground. He ordered minesweepers to clear the gulf, and he -sent Capitaine de Frégate M. J. B. Bataille, French naval liaison -officer on his staff, to scout the shore around the harbor. Capt. -Bataille rode to the gulf in Lieut. Bayard Walker’s ill-fated PT 555. - -The boat passed the minesweepers and came close aboard an American -destroyer whose skipper notified Lieut. Walker that coastal shore -batteries were still shooting near the mouth of the Gulf of Fos. - -Lieut. Bayard reported: “It was decided that we could enter the Gulf of -Fos, despite fire from enemy coastal batteries, since we presented such -a small target.” - -So—as he put it—they “entered the bay cautiously.” - -One wonders how you go about entering a mine-filled bay, by an enemy -shore battery, “cautiously.” - -The crew saw the French flag flying in a dozen places on the beach, and -landed at Port-de-Bouc where they were welcomed by a cheering crowd, -waving little French flags. Capt. Bataille met a fellow officer, French -Navy Lieut. Granry, who had parachuted into the area several weeks -before, in civilian clothes, and had organized a resistance cell to -prevent demolition of the port when the Germans retreated. After a -pleasant half-hour ashore, gathering information (Lieut. Walker spoke -excellent French), the party re-embarked, set a two-man watch on the -bow, and headed for sea at 29 knots. - -“A few minutes later,” said Lieut. Walker, “a terrific blast exploded -beneath our stern, carrying away the 40-mm. gun and the gun crew and -almost everything else up to the forward bulkhead of the engine room.... -The four torpedoes were immediately jettisoned and we anchored with two -anchors from separate lines.” - -Volunteers manned the life rafts to pick up the men in the water. They -returned with a body, one uninjured sailor, and a man with a broken leg. -Four other sailors were never found. - -One of the rafts could not return to the boat because of strong -currents, so Lieut. Stanley Livingston, a powerful swimmer, swam the 300 -yards, towing the bitter end of a line patched together of all available -manila, electric cable, halyards, and odds and ends, buoyed at intervals -with life jackets. Sailors on the boat then pulled the raft alongside. - -A French pilot boat and a fisherman in an open boat came out from the -beach to help. Overhead, fighter planes, attracted by the explosion, -took in the situation and set up an impromptu umbrella. - -The sailor with the broken leg needed help. Lieut. Walker put him and -the dead sailor’s body into the fisherman’s boat with the pharmacist’s -mate, and climbed in himself, as interpreter. They shoved off for -Port-de-Bouc. - -One hundred yards from the PT boat, Walker saw in the water a green line -with green floats spaced every foot. He yelled a warning at the -fisherman, but too late. A violent explosion lifted the boat in the air -and threw the four men into the water. - -Lieut. Walker came up under the boat and had to fight himself free of -the sinking craft. He took stock. The dead sailor had disappeared -forever. The pharmacist’s mate, about sixty feet away, was shouting that -he couldn’t swim, so Walker went to the rescue. The injured man was -hauled up to the bottom of the overturned boat where, in Walker’s words, -“He appeared to be comfortable.” - -The ordinary non-PT man might consider a perch on the bottom of an -overturned and sinking fishing boat as being somewhat short of -“comfortable” for a man with an unset broken leg. - -“The situation seemed so good,” continued Lieut. Walker in the same -happy vein, “that I decided not to take off my pistol and belt.... The -French pilot boat came to our rescue, and the injured man was put aboard -without further harm. The fishermen’s boat upended and sank as the last -man let go.” - -Walker confessed to a tiny twinge of disappointment at this point in his -narrative. A scouting float plane from the cruiser _Philadelphia_ had -landed near the shattered boat, and the PT officers had hoped to get off -their message to the task-force commander, but the pilot took fright -when the second mine went off under the fishing boat, and he left for -home. - -“We had two narrow escapes getting back to the PT boat,” Lieut. Walker -said. “I requested the pilot, Ensign Moneglia of the French Navy, to go -between two sets of lines I could see, rather than back down and turn -around as the majority seemed to wish. It proved to be the safe way -between two mines.” - -The crew jettisoned all topside weights except one twin 50-caliber -mount, so that they would have some protection against air attack. - -Captain Bataille and Lieut. Livingston set out in a rubber boat for the -town of Carro, at the eastern entrance of the Gulf of Fos, about five -miles away. They were frantic to complete their mission by sending a -message to the task-force commander, and they hoped to find an Army -message center to relay their report that Port-de-Bouc was in French -hands. - -Two teams of bucket brigades bailed out the leaking hulk, but the water -gained on them steadily. At midnight the sailors jettisoned the radar -and brought up confidential publications in a lead-weighted sack, ready -to be heaved over if they had to abandon the boat. The off-duty bucket -brigade had to share a few blankets, because the night was chilly. - -About an hour after sunrise Captain Bataille and Lieut. Livingston -returned from Carro in a fishing boat, followed by another. That brought -the little flotilla to two pilot boats, two fishing boats, and a -battered piece of a PT. The two message-bearers had been unable to find -an Army radio. - -Two of the boats passed lines to the PT to tow it ashore, and the other -two went ahead with Captain Bataille and Lieut. Livingston in the bows, -as lookouts for moored mines. They found so many on the road to -Port-de-Bouc that the flotilla turned and headed for Carro, on Cape -Couronne, instead. - -At the Carro dock, the PT settled to the bottom. An abandoned house -beside the dock was turned over to the homeless sailors, and the French -Underground trotted up five Italian prisoners to do the dirty work of -making the place presentable. - -Best news in Carro was that the cruiser _Philadelphia_ had just sent an -officer ashore with a radio, to send out some news of possible targets -along the shore. Lieut. Walker tracked down his colleague, and after -bloody travail, finally sent off his message to the task-force commander -that Port-de-Bouc was indeed in friendly hands, but that the harbor -waters were still acting in a very unfriendly manner indeed. - -Walker threw in a little bonus of the fact that 3,000 enemy troops were -only a few kilometers away and that the French Underground fighters were -afraid they might escape via Martigues. He relayed the resistance -officer’s plea for an air strike to break up the escape attempt long -enough for American troops to arrive and sweep up the Germans. - -Lieut. Walker adds a touching finale to his report: - -“I had asked the pastor of the Catholic church at La Couronne, a village -slightly more than a mile from Carro, to say a Mass on Sunday morning -for the five men we had lost. A High Mass was celebrated in the church, -crowded to the doors, at 10:30. - -“The pastor and local people had gone to considerable trouble to -decorate the church with French and American flags and flowers. The -choir sang, despite the broken organ, and the _curé_ gave a moving -sermon in French. Four FFI [Underground] men, gotten up in a uniform of -French helmets, blue shirts, and white trousers, stood as a guard of -honor before symbolical coffins draped with American flags. - -“After Mass our men fell in ranks behind a platoon of FFI, and followed -by the whole town, we marched to the World War I monument. There a -little ceremony was held and a wreath was placed in honor of the five -American sailors. - -“We were told that a collection was in the process of being taken up -amongst the local people, in order to have a plaque made for the -monument planned for their own dead in this war. The plaque will bear -the names of the five Americans who gave their lives here for the -liberation of France.” - -The people of La Couronne did not forget. In that tiny village, on the -lonely coast at the mouth of the Rhone River, is a monument with a -plaque reading: To Our Allies, Ralph W. Bangert, Thomas F. Devaney, John -J. Dunleavy, Harold R. Guest, Victor Sippin. - - -One of the most brilliant Anglo-American teams was Lieut. R. A. Nagle’s -559 and the British MTB 423, both under command of the dashing British -Lieut. A. C. Blomfield. - -During the night of August 24th, the marauding pair entered the harbor -of Genoa to raise a bit of general hell. Off Pegli, about five miles -from Genoa, they sighted what they thought was a destroyer, and put a -torpedo into it. The vessel was only a harbor-defense craft, but a fair -exchange for the one torpedo it cost. - -Two nights later the pair jumped a convoy of three armed barges, and -sank two of them. For the next nine nights they tangled almost hourly -with F-lighters (four sunk), armed barges (eight sunk), and even a -full-grown corvette, the UJ 2216, formerly the French _l’Incomprise_, -which they riddled and sent to the bottom as the top prize of their -11-day spree. - - -Hunting got progressively meager as winter came on. PTs prowled farther -afield and closer inshore in a ferocious search for targets. On November -17th, Lieut. B. W. Creelman’s PT 311 pressed the search too far, hit a -mine, and sank. Killed were the skipper and his executive officer and -eight of the 13-man crew. - - -The last big fight of the American PTs with enemy surface craft came two -nights later when Lieut. (jg) Charles H. Murphy’s 308 and two British -torpedo boats sank a thousand-ton German corvette, the UJ 2207, formerly -the French _Cap Nord_. - -The naval war was nearing its end for the Germans, and they turned to -strange devices—human torpedoes, remote-control explosive boats, and -semisuicide explosive boats. The remote-control craft didn’t work any -better for the Germans than they had for Americans in the Normandy -landings. So it was, also, with the human torpedo. - -Lieut. Edwin Dubose, on PT 206, on September 10th, spotted a human -torpedo in the waters off the French-Italian frontier. The PT sank the -torpedo and pulled the pilot from the water. With great insouciance, the -pilot chatted with his rescuers and treacherously told them where to -find and kill a comrade piloting another torpedo. - -In those waters that same day, planes, PTs and bigger ships sank ten -human torpedoes. - - -As naval resistance lessened, the Western Naval Task Force, under -American Rear Admiral H. K. Hewitt, was broken up and redistributed. -Many PTs were assigned to the Flank Force, Mediterranean. Since most of -the ships in the force were French, the PTs came under the command of -French Contre-Amiral Jaujard. - -Because Mark XIIIs were arriving in good numbers—the torpedo targets -were getting scarce—the French admiral authorized the PTs in his command -to fire their old and unlamented Mark VIIIs into enemy harbors. - -On the night of March 21st, PTs 310 and 312 fired four Mark VIIIs, from -two miles, into the harbor of Savona, Italy. Three exploded on the -beach. - -The same boats, on April 4th, fired four at the resort town of San Remo. -Two exploded, one of them with such a crash that it jarred the boats far -out to sea. - -On April 11th, the 313 and the 305 fired four into Vado, touching off -one large explosion and four smaller ones. - -The last three Mark VIIIs were fired from the 302 and the 305 on April -19th. Lieut. Commander R. J. Dressling, the squadron leader, launched -them into Imperia where a single boom was heard. - -“During these torpedoings of the harbors,” said Dressling, “Italian -partisans were rising against the Germans, and there is little doubt -that the explosions of our torpedoes were taken by the enemy as sabotage -attempts by the partisans. At no time were we fired on, despite the fact -that we were well inside the range of enemy shore batteries.” - -Lieut. Commander Dressling thought that “to a small extent the actions -assisted the partisans in taking over the Italian ports on April 27th.” - -The night after the Italian ports all fell to the Italian Underground, -Admiral Jaujard, with a fine Gallic sense of the ceremonial, led his -entire Flank Force, including PT Squadron Twenty-two, in a stately sweep -of the Riviera coast. It was partly the last combat patrol and partly a -victory parade. - - -Ten days later, on May 8th, the Germans surrendered and the war was -over—the war was over in Europe, that is, for on the other side of the -world the PTs were involved in the bitterest fighting yet. - - -PTs had operated in the Mediterranean for two years. The three squadrons -lost four boats, five officers and 19 men killed in action, seven -officers and 28 men wounded in action. They fired 354 torpedoes and -claimed 38 vessels sunk, totaling 23,700 tons, and 49 damaged, totaling -22,600 tons. In joint patrols with the British they claimed 15 vessels -sunk and 17 damaged. - - - - - 9. - I Shall Return: - Round Trip by PT - - -With the whole of New Guinea and the island base at Morotai in Allied -hands, the Philippine Islands were within reach of Allied fighter planes -and it was time for General MacArthur to make good his promise. - -There was a lot of mopping up to do around Morotai, however, because the -taking of the island had been a typical MacArthur leapfrog job. Morotai -was a small and lightly defended island, but twelve miles away was the -big island of Halmahera, defended by 40,000 Japanese. MacArthur had -jumped over it to continue his successful New Guinea policy of seizing -bases between the Japanese and their home, then isolating the by-passed -garrison with a naval blockade. - -The best way to bottle up the Halmahera garrison was to call on the PT -veterans of the New Guinea blockade, so the day after the landings on -Morotai, September 16, 1944, the tenders _Oyster Bay_ and _Mobjack_, -with the boats of Squadrons Ten, Twelve, Eighteen, and Thirty-three, -dropped anchor in Morotai roadstead. The first adventure of the Morotai -PTs was the rescue, on the very day of their arrival, of a wounded Navy -fighter pilot. (A full account of this is given at the end of [Chapter -5].) - -PT sailors sometimes wondered what the Stone Age people of Halmahera, -people who fought with barbed ironwood spears, made of the strange war -being fought in their waters by the white and yellow intruders from the -twentieth century. Lieut. (jg) Roger M. Jones, skipper of PT 163, tells -about an encounter that has probably entered the mythology of these -pagan people. - -In October 1944, Lieut. Jones’s boat and the 171 left Morotai for a -routine patrol to keep the bypassed Japanese of Halmahera from crossing -to Morotai. In the six weeks since the landings, PTs had already sunk -fifty Japanese barges, schooners, and luggers carrying troops and -supplies. - -During the New Guinea campaign, as the use of torpedoes shriveled for -lack of suitable targets, the 163 had mounted an awesome battery of ten -50-caliber machine guns in twin mounts, two 20-mm., a 37-mm., a 40-mm. -autocannon, and a 60-mm. mortar. - -The night’s problem was simple. Intelligence had told the PT skippers -that there would be no friendlies in the patrol area on the west coast -of Halmahera—no friendlies at all. “Shoot anything that moves.” - - [Illustration: PHILIPPINE ISLANDS] - - LUZON - MACARTHUR MAKES ROUND TRIP TO CORREGIDOR BY PT - MINDORO - PT 233 SINKS DESTROYER KIYOSHIMO - LANDING BEACHES - KAMIKAZES STRIKE AT PTs - BRESTES HIT - SAMAR - TRACK OF CENTRAL STRIKING FORCE - BATTLE OFF SAMAR WITH CENTRAL STRIKING FORCE - PTs SINK SC 53, PC 105 and UZUKI - LEYTE - BATTLE OF SURIGAO STRAITS - PT 493 LOST HERE - MINDANAO - TRACK OF SOUTHERN STRIKING FORCE - 1st PT SIGHTING OF JAPANESE FLEET - -To make a coordinated attack, the two PTs hardly needed to communicate. -They had gone through the motions so many times that they performed the -maneuver like a reflex. The drill was to close a radar target slowly and -silently to 200 yards, fire a mortar flare, and open fire with every gun -that would bear instantly as the flare burst to smother the surprised -Japanese before they could answer. - -That split-second timing, the business of opening fire simultaneously -with the bursting of the star-shell, was drilled into gunners repeatedly -by dummy attacks on floating logs. - -Twenty-five miles short of the patrol area, the radar man found a target -five miles off the beach. The two skippers were jubilant; here was a -target made to order—too far out to sea to run for the beach, out of the -range of protecting shore batteries, in water deep enough for a -high-speed strafing run by the PTs, with no chance of hitting a rock. -The boats went to general quarters and closed the target. - -Lieut. Jones took the unnecessary precaution of warning his gunners. -“Look alive, now—open fire the _instant_ the flare goes off.” - -At 200 yards the skippers could make out a dim shape, but details of the -target were hidden in the darkness. Lieut. Jones gave a last warning to -gunners to be quick on the trigger, and fired his flare. Twenty-four gun -barrels swung to bear on target. - -The flare burst. - -Lieut. Jones continues: - -“There was the perfect target, a Jap barge loaded with troops—you could -see their heads sticking up over the gunwale. - -“_Open fire! Open fire!_ I screamed in my mind, but no words came out of -my mouth. - -“What was the matter? Why weren’t the guns firing? Thousands of tracers -should be pouring into that enemy craft, but no gun on either PT fired. -The flare died and I ordered another. - -“Why was I doing this? Why wasn’t the barge sinking now, holed by -hundreds of shells? Why hadn’t the gunners opened fire as ordered when -the flare went off? And what was the matter on the Jap barge? Why -weren’t they tearing us up with their guns, for the flare lit us up as -brightly as it illuminated them? - -“We closed to 75 yards, still frozen in that strange paralysis under the -glare of the dying starshell. - -“My helmsman spoke up. ‘They’re not Japs, sir, they’re natives.’ - -“I flipped on the searchlight, and our two boats circled the canoe, -searchlights blazing, guns trained. That eerie scene will remain in my -memory as long as I live. Thirty natives—some of them boys—sat rigidly -still, staring forward unblinkingly. I don’t know if it was native -discipline or sheer terror that held them. Even the children didn’t -blink an eye or twitch a finger. - -“We shouted to them that we were Americans, but we gave up trying to get -through to them, for they refused to answer or even to turn their heads -and look at us. We left them rigidly motionless and staring straight -ahead at nothing. - -“Back at the base we discussed our strange paralysis. Everybody agreed -he had first thought it was a Jap barge when the flare burst, and nobody -could give a reason for not shooting instantly. If even one gunner had -fired, the whole weight of our broadside would have come down on that -canoe. - -“We’ll never understand it, but we are all grateful to Whoever or -Whatever it was that held our hands that night and spared those poor -natives. And what woolly stories those Halmaherans must be telling their -children about that night. I’ll bet by now we are part of the sacred -tribal legends of the whole Moluccan Archipelago.” - - -Almost from the beginning of the return trip to the Philippines two -years before, General MacArthur had had his eye on Mindanao, the -southernmost large island of the group and hence the closest to Morotai. -It was on Mindanao that he planned to land first, and from there he -could advance up the island chain. - -Before daring to venture into the Philippines, however, the Allied High -Command wanted to make more landings—one at Yap Island, northeast of -Palau (where Marines had landed the same day as the Morotai invasion), -and another at Talaud Island, another steppingstone, about halfway -between Morotai and Mindanao. - -While the Palau and Morotai landings were going on—indeed a few days -before they started, but too late to stop them—Admiral Halsey made a -bold proposal to cancel all intermediate landings and take the biggest -jump of all, completely over Talaud, over Yap, even over Mindanao -itself, all the way to Leyte in the Central Philippines. - -The Joint Chiefs of Staff of all the Allies, then at a conference in -Quebec, swiftly accepted the recommendation and set October 20th as -target date, chopping two months (and nobody will ever know how many -casualties) off the life of the Pacific war. - -In a wild flurry of activity, planners concentrated the preparations of -three months into a month, diverted the forces for the other landings -into Leyte force, and made bold carrier strikes at Formosa, in -preparation for the landings in the Central Philippines. - -An example of the incurable tendency of high-level Japanese officers to -believe in their own foolish propaganda is the fact that on the very eve -of the Leyte landings the Japanese defenders of the Philippines relaxed -their guard, because they thought the Third Fleet had been wiped out. - -American carriers had been roving the waters off Formosa during the week -before the landings, and carrier planes had chewed up enemy airpower. -Japanese Intelligence officers, however, believed the fantasies told -them by their pilots returning from attacks on the American fleet. Radio -Tokyo solemnly announced that the Third Fleet had been annihilated with -the loss of 11 carriers, two battleships, three cruisers, and one -destroyer. - -The Japanese public went wild with enthusiasm. The Emperor made a -special announcement of felicitation to his people, and victory -celebrations were held at army and navy headquarters in the Philippines. - -The Third Fleet had actually suffered two cruisers damaged. - - -The first American troops—a scouting force—landed on October 17th on -Dinegat and Suluan islands, across the gulf from Leyte. Minesweepers -swept the gulf and frogmen poked about the shoreline. Bombardment ships -pounded the beaches, and carrier planes blasted enemy airfields. Ships -of the attack landing forces entered Leyte Gulf during the night of -October 19th, and next morning troops went ashore on four beaches on the -west side of Leyte Gulf and on both sides of Panoan Strait, to the -south. - -PTs were rushed up from New Guinea, 1,200 miles away. Forty-five of the -boats, under the tactical command of Lieut. Commander Robert Leeson, -made the trip on their own power with a stop-over for rest of a sort in -Palau and a refueling at sea, so as to arrive with enough gas to start -patrols immediately. They arrived in the combat zone on the morning of -October 21st, and began prowling that same night. - -Times were lively in Surigao Strait, and the PTs had good hunting, but -nothing compared to what was coming. - - -Since a series of stinging setbacks from America’s carrier planes during -operations in the Central Pacific, the main body of the Japanese -fleet—still a formidable host—had held back from fighting American ships -in strength. Landings in the Philippines were too much to put up with, -however—too close to the beloved homeland; His Imperial Japanese -Majesty’s ships had to fight now, no matter how desperate the -situation—or rather because the situation _was_ so desperate. - -The Japanese executed a plan long held in readiness for just this -event—the _Sho_ plan, or Plan of Victory, as it was hopefully called, -though the Japanese navy’s chief of staff more realistically called it -“Our last line of home defense.” - -The stage was set for the greatest naval battle of all time, the Battle -of Leyte Gulf. - -The naval lineup on the eve of battle—greatly simplified, perhaps -oversimplified—was as follows: - - - U. S. Navy - - _Seventh Fleet_, under Vice-Admiral Thomas Kincaid: - - This slow but powerful force included six over-age battleships, 18 - small, slow escort carriers, five heavy cruisers, six light cruisers, - 86 destroyers, 25 destroyer escorts, 11 frigates, and the usual - gunboats, supply train and landing craft for an amphibious - operation—plus all the PTs on the scene, the 45 veterans of the New - Guinea blockade. Mission of the Seventh Fleet was close support of the - Sixth Army landing force. - - _Third Fleet_, under Admiral William Halsey: - - This fast and mighty force had six new fast battleships, 16 fast - carriers, six heavy cruisers, nine light cruisers and 58 destroyers. - Mission of the Third Fleet was to prowl the waters north of the - landings on the lookout for a chance to destroy once and for all the - main Japanese battle fleet, especially its remaining carriers. - - - Japanese Navy - - _Northern Decoy Force_, under Vice-Admiral Ozawa: - - Four fat carriers, prime targets for the aggressive Halsey, were - screened by eight destroyers and one light cruiser. Mission of the - force was suicidal. Without enough planes to make a serious fight, - Admiral Ozawa nevertheless hoped to lure Halsey’s powerful Third Fleet - away from the landing beach, thus exposing American transports to - attack by two powerful Japanese surface striking forces that were to - sneak into Leyte Gulf through the back door, or rather two back doors - at San Bernardino and Surigao Straits, north and south of Leyte - Island. - - _Central Striking Force_, under Vice-Admiral Kurita: - - Five battleships, ten heavy cruisers, two light cruisers and 15 - destroyers. Admiral Kurita was to take this formidable surface fleet - through San Bernardino Straits, at the northern tip of Samar, to come - down on the transports “like a wolf on the fold” while Halsey’s force - was wasting time on the sacrificial carrier decoy in the north. - - _Southern Striking Force_, under Vice-Admiral Shima: - - Formed of two task units—a vanguard under Admiral Nishima of two - battleships, one heavy cruiser and four destroyers, plus a second - section under Admiral Shima of two heavy cruisers, one light cruiser - and four destroyers. These two southern forces were to come up from - the East Indies and pass through Surigao Straits—happy hunting grounds - of the PTs—to join with the Central Striking Force in Leyte Gulf for - the unopposed and leisurely destruction of the Sixth Army. - -The Japanese apparently could not believe that the U.S. Navy—once Halsey -had been suckered into chasing off after the decoy carriers—had enough -ships left afloat to resist the two striking forces. Had not the entire -Japanese nation just celebrated an Imperial proclamation of the near -annihilation of the American fleet? - -All three Japanese forces converged on the Philippines simultaneously. -By October 24th, the three forces had been spotted and reported by -Allied scouts. Torpedoes and bombs from planes and submarines had made -punishing hits on the advancing Central and Southern Striking Forces, -but the ships kept plodding on toward the straits north and south of -Leyte. - -And Admiral Halsey snapped at the bait dangled by Admiral Ozuma’s -carriers. For a man of Admiral Halsey’s temperament, the reported -sighting of the northern carrier group was too much to resist. He lit -out to get them all—leaving unguarded the Strait of San Bernardino, back -gate into Leyte Gulf and the transport area. - -For once, an American command staff had fallen into the chronic error of -the Japanese. Admiral Halsey apparently believed the exaggerated claims -of his pilots and thought that the Central Striking Force had been -decimated and the remnants driven off. The Japanese had actually lost -only three cruisers to submarines and a battleship to aircraft. After a -short retreat, Admiral Kurita reconsidered and turned back during the -night to resume the transit of San Bernardino Strait. His powerful fleet -was steaming toward the transport area at 20 knots. - -Admiral Kincaid misinterpreted a message from Admiral Halsey and thought -a part of his Third Fleet was still on station, corking up San -Bernardino, so Kincaid dismissed the central force from his mind and -turned his attention to the southern force heading for Surigao Strait. -Not even a scout submarine was watching the northern pass into Leyte -Gulf. - -Shortly after noon of October 24th, Admiral Kincaid notified his entire -command to prepare for a battle that night. He cleared Surigao Strait of -all unnecessary traffic, and gave Rear Admiral Jesse Oldendorf the job -of not only stopping but destroying the enemy column. - -Admiral Oldendorf had been commanding the bombardment and support -forces, and had in his control all the heavy guns of the Seventh Fleet. -In a phrase which infuriated the Japanese when they heard it, Oldendorf -said that he deployed his forces according to the professional gambler’s -code: “Never give a sucker a chance.” - -Surigao Strait is a narrow strip of water about thirty-five miles long, -running almost north-south between Leyte and Dinegat islands. By its -shape and location, the strait was going to force the Southern Striking -Force to approach Leyte Gulf in a long, narrow column. Admiral Oldendorf -deployed his ancient but still hard-punching battleships in a line -across the mouth of the strait where it opens into Leyte Gulf. Thus, -without further maneuver, Oldendorf was certain to open fire with his -battle line already crossing the T of the Japanese column. His fleet -could swing its entire broadside to bear simultaneously; the enemy could -fire only the forward turrets on the lead ship. - -Admiral Oldendorf was not satisfied with depending entirely on this -setup, murderous as it was, so he deployed every other fighting ship in -his command to work maximum destruction on the Japanese. He posted -cruisers and destroyers between the battleships and the mouth of the -straits, as a combined screen and supplementary battle line. Other -destroyer squadrons were posted near the strait, so that they could -launch torpedoes and then get out of the way during the gunfire phase of -the battle. - -Admiral Oldendorf’s position was good—except for one thing. The warships -had fired off most of their ammunition in beach bombardment, and -magazine stocks were low, especially in the armor-piercing shells needed -for fighting heavy battleships. Oldendorf ordered the battleships to -hold their fire until they were sure of making hits—and he ordered -maximum use of torpedoes. - -That meant torpedo boats, so 39 of Commander Selman Bowling’s PTs were -deployed in 13 sections of three boats each along the shores of Surigao -Strait, and also along the coasts of Mindanao and Bohol islands, far -into the Mindanao Sea on the other end of Surigao Strait. The farthest -PTs were stationed 100 miles from the battleline. - -The Seventh Fleet had no night scouting planes, so Admiral Oldendorf -informed the PTs that their primary mission was scouting. The boats were -to patrol the approaches to the strait and to hide along the wooded -shores fringing the coming scene of battle. They were to relay radio -contact reports as the Japanese passed their station. - -_Then_ they were to attack and do all the torpedo damage possible before -the Japanese came within gunshot of the Seventh Fleet battleline. - -The PTs took up their stations during the night, and all hands topside -peered out to sea, watching for the telltale white bow wave of the first -Japanese ship. - -The torpedo boat actions that followed are often hard to understand. -PTs, by the nature of their attack, provoke wild melees, and survivors -of melees rarely remember precisely what happened. What they do claim to -remember is usually faulty and contradicted by circumstantial evidence. -PT skippers kept only sketchy logs, and those entries giving the time an -action took place are often especially inaccurate. As nearly as a -historian can tell, however, here is what happened to the PTs. - -At 10:15 P.M. Ensign Peter B. Gadd, skipper of PT 131, on station 18 -miles south of Bohol Island almost exactly in the middle of the Mindanao -Sea and 100 miles from Admiral Oldendorf, picked up two targets on his -radar screen. They were between the three-boat section commanded by -Lieut. W. C. Pullen, and Bohol Island to the north. Lieut. Pullen tried -to reach Admiral Oldendorf by radio, but failed, so he led the PTs 152, -130 and 131, in a torpedo approach. - -The radar pips broke into five separate targets, and when a light haze -lifted, the skippers clearly saw what they thought were two battleships, -two cruisers and a destroyer. The enemy opened fire at three-mile range, -with his biggest batteries. Starshells burst overhead and the PTs tore -away through a ghastly glare that made them feel naked under the rain of -high explosive. - -An eight-inch shell hit a torpedo of 130 smack on the warhead and tore -through the bow. Miraculously, there was no explosion. - -The 152 was hit by a 4.7-incher, probably from a destroyer that was -closing fast, with searchlight blazing. (This destroyer, the _Shigure_, -was the only ship of the Japanese van to survive the coming massacre.) -The explosion tore away the 37-mm. cannon, killed the gunner, stunned -the loader, and wounded three sailors. The boat was afire. - -Aboard the stricken 152, Lieut. (jg) Joseph Eddins dumped two -shallow-set depth charges into his wake and pumped 40-mm. shells at the -pursuing destroyer. - -“Our 40 mm. made the enemy reluctant to continue the use of the -searchlight,” said Lieut Eddins. - -The destroyer snapped off the light and sheered away from the geysers of -exploding depth charges. - -The fight had lasted 23 minutes. Now there were two more targets on the -radar screen and the PT sailors were frantic to get their radio report -through to the waiting battleline. - -Lieut. (jg) Ian D. Malcolm of 130 ran south until he found Lieut. (jg) -John A. Cady’s section near Camiguin Island. He boarded PT 127 and -borrowed its radio. Just after midnight on October 25th, Lieut. Malcolm -made the first contact report of the position, course, and speed of the -enemy. It was the first word of the enemy received by Admiral Oldendorf -in fourteen hours. - -Aboard the 152, the crew put out the fire, and the skipper gave the boat -a little test run. The bow was stove in, but the plucky boat could still -make 24 knots, so Lieut. Pullen ordered a stern chase of the -disappearing Japanese. He had to abandon the attack, however, because -the Japanese were too fast for him to catch. There is something touching -and ludicrous in the picture of the tiny, bashed-up PT trying to catch -the mammoth Japanese battleline. - - -Lieut. (jg) Dwight H. Owen, in charge of a section near Limasawa Island -next picked up signs of the approaching fleet. He tells how it looked: - -“The prologue began just before midnight. Off to the southwest over the -horizon we saw distant flashes of gunfire, starshells bursting and -far-off sweep of searchlights. The display continued about fifteen -minutes, then blacked out. Squalls came and went. One moment the moon -shone bright as day, and the next you couldn’t make out the bow of your -boat. Then the radar developed the sort of pips you read about.” - -Lieut. Owen jumped for the radio, but the enemy was jamming the circuit -and he could not get his report off. He did the next best thing—he -attacked. - -At 1,800 yards, the cruiser _Mogami_ snapped on its searchlight and -probed for the boats. PT 146 (Ensign B. M. Grosscup), and 150 (Ensign J. -M. Ladd), fired one fish each, but missed. The destroyer _Yumagumo_ -caught the 151 and the 190 in a searchlight beam, but the boats raked -the destroyer with 40-mm. fire and knocked out the lights. The boats -zigzagged away behind smoke. - -Admiral Nishimura, commanding this van force of the two-section Southern -Striking Force, was delighted with himself at this point, and sent a -message to Admiral Shima, congratulating himself on having sunk several -torpedo boats. - - -At the southern entrance to Surigao Strait, Lieut. Commander Robert -Leeson, on PT 134, commanded the section posted on the western shore. -The boat crews saw flashes of the battle with Lieut. Owen’s boats, and -half an hour later picked up radar pips ten miles away. Leeson promptly -passed the radar sighting to Admiral Oldendorf, and then—the milder duty -done—led a torpedo attack. - -Lieut. (jg) Edmund F. Wakelin’s 134 was caught by a searchlight while -still 3,000 yards from the two battleships. Shells fell close aboard on -both sides, splashing water over the boat, and shrapnel from air bursts -banged against the deck, but the skipper bore in another 500 yards to -launch his fish. The boat escaped from the Japanese and hid in the -shadow of Panaon Island, where later in the night the sailors fumed -helplessly as four Japanese ships steamed, “fat, dumb, and happy,” past -their empty torpedo tubes at 1,000-yard range. - -All the torpedo tubes of the section were not empty, however, for Lieut. -(jg) I. M. Kovar, in 137, at 3:55 A.M., picked up an enemy formation at -the southern end of the strait and attacked. He had no way of knowing -it, but this was Admiral Shima’s second section, coming up to the relief -of Admiral Nishimura’s van that had already entered the strait, and -indeed had at that very moment been shattered by a vicious American -destroyer-torpedo attack. - -Lieut. Kovar crept up on a Japanese destroyer, maneuvering to take -station at the rear of the enemy column. He let fly at the can and had -the incredible good luck to miss his target entirely and smack a light -cruiser he hadn’t even seen. Aboard the cruiser _Abukuma_, the explosion -killed thirty sailors, destroyed the radio shack and slowed the cruiser -to ten knots, forcing it to fall out of formation. - -The crippled _Abukuma_ was caught and polished off by Army bombers the -next day. It was the only victim of Army aviation in this battle and the -only positively verified victim of PT torpedoes, though there is some -evidence that a PT may have made one of the hits claimed by American -destroyers. - -The rest of Admiral Shima’s formation sailed majestically up the strait, -fired a spread of torpedoes at two small islands it mistook for American -warships, and managed somehow to collide with the fiercely burning -cruiser _Mogami_, only survivor—except for the destroyer _Shigure_—of -the vanguard’s slaughter by the torpedoes and guns of the Seventh Fleet. - -Gathering in the two surviving ships, Admiral Shima led a retreat down -the strait. At the moment _Shigure_ joined the formation, Lieut. C. T. -Gleason’s section attacked, and the Japanese destroyer, which was doing -some remarkably able shooting, hit Ensign L. E. Thomas’ 321. - -Most sorely hit of the torpedo boats, however, was Lieut. (jg) R. W. -Brown’s 493, which had had John F. Kennedy aboard, as an instructor, for -a month in Miami. The crew had named the boat the _Carole Baby_ after -the skipper’s daughter, who, incidentally, was celebrating her first -birthday the night of the Battle of Surigao Strait. - -Lieut. Brown tells the _Carole Baby’s_ story: - -“I was assigned a division of boats to take position directly down the -middle of the strait between Panaon and Dinegat. - -“While we were under way to take station, the moon was out but heavy -overcast on the horizon threatened to bring complete darkness later. We -spotted an occasional light on the beach and we passed an occasional -native sailing craft, so the crew’s light mood changed to tension, -because they thought we were being spied on. - -“When we were on station, strung out across the channel so that the Japs -couldn’t get by without our seeing them, I stretched out on the dayroom -deck for a little relaxation, but the radio crackled the report that the -first PT patrols had made contact. - -“‘All hands to General Quarters,’ I ordered. ‘Take echelon formation and -prepare to attack.’ - -“The radarman called up ‘Skipper, eight targets distant twelve miles, -estimated speed 28 knots.’ - -“We closed to three miles, and seconds later my number two boat reported -its four torpedoes were in the water. Number Three reported two more -fish off and running. I had been maneuvered out of firing position and -hadn’t launched any torpedoes yet, so I came around for another attack -and was separated from the rest of the section. - -“Powerful searchlights pinpointed the two other boats, and starshells -lit up the night with their ugly green glare. The two other boats shot -up the enemy can and knocked out two of the lights. I didn’t open fire, -because the Japs hadn’t seen the _Carole Baby_ yet and I wanted to shoot -my fish before they found me. - -“At about 500 yards, I fired two and opened up with my guns. The enemy -fired starshells and turned on the searchlights. At this close range we -could see Japanese sailors scrambling about the ship, and we poured it -into them, but the concussion of their exploding shells was creeping -steadily closer, so I ordered my executive officer, Nick Carter, to come -hard left, open the throttles and GET OUT! - -“I went aft to release smoke for a screen so we could return to fire our -remaining torpedoes, but we had penetrated an outer destroyer screen -without knowing it and had Japs all around us. Eight searchlights pinned -us down like a bug on a needle. - -“It’s a funny thing how the mind works. I took time at that moment to -notice that all those searchlights were turning the sea about us to a -beautiful phosphorescent green. - -“Our guns blew up two of the searchlights, but we were being hit hard. -A. W. Brunelle reported from the engine room that the boat was badly -holed at the waterline. I found out later that he took off his kapok -life jacket and stuffed it into the hole as the only cork he could find -right at hand. - -“A blinding flash and terrific concussion threw me out of the cockpit. -Stunned, I reeled forward to find that most of the chartroom had been -blown away. - -“I told Nick to head the _Carole Baby_ for the Island of Panaon, and we -limped off with the Jap cans chasing us. When we were out of torpedo -range of the capital ships, they turned back but kept throwing shells at -us to be sure we didn’t return to attack. - -“_Return to attack!_ We weren’t even sure we could stay afloat. The -engines were almost completely underwater and though they were still -working, they couldn’t chug along forever with water steadily rising in -the hold. - -“The last destroyer left us just as the bow of the _Carole Baby_ scraped -on a coral reef one hundred yards off the beach at Panaon. - -“When the shooting stopped, a weird silence settled over us. I went over -the boat to see what condition we were in. We were in bad condition. The -_Carole Baby_ had been hit by five shells. Two of them had passed clean -through us without exploding, but the one that had exploded in the -charthouse had killed two and wounded nine of my crew. - -“And that isn’t all. We were high on a reef, within rock-throwing -distance of an enemy shore. I had to know if those lights we could see -came from a Japanese camp, so I armed ten of us with machine guns and -grenades and we slipped over the side. - -“We found a little village. Somebody had been there, but had run off as -we approached, so we decided to search farther. This type of warfare was -different from the one the crew was used to, and everybody was ill at -ease.” - -It is interesting to note that by inference the sailors were _not_ “ill -at ease” in the type of warfare they had just been subjected to. - -“One of the sailors was almost strangled by what he thought was a -low-hanging vine, but we found it was a telephone wire leading to a -small hut. We crept close to the hut and listened. No good. Japanese! - -“We cut the wire and returned to the safety of our reef.” - -Again, consider the character of sailors who talk about the “safety” of -a shattered boat, filled with dead and wounded shipmates, stranded on a -rock in the midst of history’s greatest naval battle and within pistol -range of an enemy shore. - -“We expected that wire-cutting bit would stir up some Jap patrols, so we -made ourselves into a Little Gibraltar with all the weapons we could -scrape together—and on a PT boat that is plenty of weapons.” - -Lieut. Brown tells of settling down to enjoy the unaccustomed role of -spectator at a battle. Through the night the crew watched the flash and -glare of gunfire and exploding ships up the straits. - -“We couldn’t tell who was faring best. Through binoculars we could see -ships afire and sinking, but we couldn’t tell if they were Japanese or -American. Long before dawn the eastern sky looked like sunrise, because -of the orange glow of burning ships. - -“When day did break we saw natives creeping back to their village, so we -waved and yelled ‘_Americanos_’ and ‘_Amigos_’ and friendly stuff like -that. They finally believed us and waded out to our boat where the -sailors set about their eternal bargaining for souvenirs. I believe an -American sailor would bargain with a cannibal tribe while they’re -putting him into the pot. - -“One of the crew yelled and pointed out to sea. Three PTs were roaring -up the straits in broad daylight and we could see what they were -after—it was the crippled cruiser _Mogami_, trying to limp home after -the fight. - -“I watched one of the PTs fire two fish and then race toward us when the -cruiser fired at her. We were glad to see her coming, but then we -realized with horror that the skipper thought our poor beat-up old -_Carole Baby_ was a Japanese barge, and he was getting ready to make a -strafing run on us. We jumped up and down and waved our arms and yelled -like crazy, even though we knew they couldn’t hear us. - -“Just before they got to the spot where I would have opened fire if I -had been skipper, we saw the gunners relax and point those gun muzzles -away as they recognized us. It was PT 491 that came to our rescue. - -“We tried to pull the _Carole Baby_ off the reef, but she was too far -gone. She went down in deep water—the only American ship, incidentally, -lost in the Battle of Surigao Strait.” - -Admiral Chester W. Nimitz radioed from Hawaii: - - THE SKILL, DETERMINATION AND COURAGE DISPLAYED BY THE PERSONNEL OF - THESE SMALL BOATS IS WORTHY OF THE HIGHEST PRAISE.... THE PT ACTION - VERY PROBABLY THREW THE JAPANESE COMMAND OFF BALANCE AND CONTRIBUTED - TO THE COMPLETENESS OF THEIR SUBSEQUENT DEFEAT. - -By contrast to the corking of Surigao Strait, at the unguarded San -Bernardino Strait, the powerful Central Striking Force that morning -passed unopposed into Leyte Gulf and jumped the escort carriers and -their screen. Something close to worldwide panic broke out in American -command centers when the brass realized that the Central Striking Force -was already in the gulf and Admiral Halsey’s force was off chasing the -carrier decoy—too far off to engage Kurita’s fleet. - -A handful of destroyers and destroyer escorts of the screen threw -themselves between the Japanese wolf and the transport sheep. Planes -from the escort carriers made real and dummy bombing runs on Kurita’s -ships. Between them the desperate escort forces—planes and -destroyers—battled Kurita to a standstill in the most spectacular show -of sheer fighting courage in all of naval history. - -Incredibly, Admiral Kurita, with a victory as great as Pearl Harbor -within his grasp—the very victory that the northern decoy carrier force -was being sacrificed to buy—turned his mighty fleet about and steamed -back through San Bernardino Strait, content with sinking two of the -escort carriers and three of the screen ships whose gallant skippers had -put their destroyers between the enemy and the helpless transport fleet. - -Admiral Halsey sank all four carriers, three destroyers, one light -cruiser and a fleet oiler of the decoy force. - -The _Sho_ plan had worked almost perfectly for the Japanese—but with an -unexpected outcome; the Japanese surface fleet, instead of wiping out -the American transport fleet, was shattered. Its carrier force virtually -vanished. His Imperial Japanese Majesty’s navy could never mount a major -attack again. - - -With the main battleline of the Japanese fleet driven from the scene, -the PTs were right back where they had been in New Guinea and -Guadalcanal—busting barges and derailing the Tokyo Express. - -On the far side of Leyte Island the waters are reef filled, the channels -shallow and tortuous. The Japanese were using the dangerous waters of -the Camotes Sea and Ormoc Bay to land supplies at night behind their -lines. A familiar enough situation for the PT sailors, so the skippers -took their shallow-draft torpedo boats into Ormoc Bay, looking for -trouble. - -On the night between November 28th and 29th, Lieut. Roger H. Hallowell -took PTs 127, 331, 128, and 191 around the tip of Leyte and headed up -the western shore for Ormoc Bay in the first combat patrol of these -waters. - -PTs 127 and 331 entered the bay while the other two boats patrolled the -islands outside. In the light of a tropical moon, the skippers inside -saw a subchaser and crept to within 800 yards before the Japanese opened -fire. The two boats launched eight torpedoes and a ripple of rockets -(enough explosive to tear a battleship in two, much less a little patrol -craft). The retiring PT skippers reported the usual loud explosion, -indicating a torpedo hit, which virtually all retiring torpedo-boat -captains always reported. This time, however, they were right. The -Japanese themselves later admitted the loss of the subchaser SC 53. - -The two retiring boats, all their torpedoes spent, met the 128 and 191 -at the entrance to the bay, and Lieut. Hallowell “transferred his flag” -to the 128 to lead the two still-armed boats in a second attack. - -All four boats went in, the two boats with spent tubes planning to give -gunfire support to the armed duo. All hands searched for the original -target, but could not find it—for the good reason that it was on the -bottom. - -Lieut. Hallowell saw what he thought was a freighter tied to a dock, so -the two skippers, ignoring fire from the beach, launched all torpedoes. - -Ten days later, when the Army had landed at Ormoc and taken over the -harbor, the PTs promptly moved in and discovered that Lieut. Hallowell’s -“freighter” was the Japanese PC 105, clearly visible at the dock, -sitting on the bottom with a fatal gash in her side. - - -Lieut. Melvin W. Haines, early on the morning of December 12th, led PTs -492 and 490 in a classic attack on a convoy in Ormoc Bay. The PTs -stalked silently to close range, launched torpedoes, and retired -zigzagging behind smoke in a maneuver right out of the PT textbook. They -were rewarded by a great stab of light behind them. One of the boats, or -perhaps both, had hit the destroyer _Uzuki_, which went up in a great -column of orange flame. - -This kind of night warfare was only too tediously familiar to PT -sailors, but right then the war took a nasty new turn for them—indeed -for the whole Pacific Fleet. - -Desperate because of the swift deterioration of their position, the -Japanese switched from all reasonable kinds of warfare—if there are -such—and developed the suicidal _kamikaze_ tactic. - -Through the war, Japanese fliers—and Americans, too, for that -matter—already hit and doomed, often tried to crash-land on ships under -attack, to take the enemy down to death with them. - -During the Leyte surface-air battles, however, many of the Japanese were -dedicated, with great ceremony, to making deliberate suicide dives into -American ships, as a kind of human bomb. The toll was already -frightening to American naval men, and threatened to get worse. - -In mid-December two _kamikaze_ planes crashed into the 323 in Surigao -Strait, and destroyed it utterly so that the PTs crews were served -notice that they were not too small a prize to merit attention from the -sinister new air fleet. - - -MacArthur had returned, all right, when he went ashore at Leyte, but it -was only a kind of tentative return—a one-foot-in-the-door return. Until -he landed on Corregidor in Luzon, he wouldn’t really be back where he -started. Luzon was the goal. - -Just across the narrow Verde Island Passage from Luzon is the island of -Mindoro, and MacArthur’s air commanders sorely coveted that piece of -real estate for airstrips so that they could bring Luzon under the -gunsights of their fighters before the Luzon landings began. - -On December 12th MTB Squadrons Thirteen and Sixteen, plus PTs 227 and -230, left Leyte Gulf in a convoy with the Eighth Army’s Visayan Task -Force to invade Mindoro Bay, 300 miles to the northwest. Because of the -sharply mounting kamikaze attacks, the Navy did not want to risk a -tender in Mindoro waters, so the squadrons, with the help of the -ingenious Seabees, planned to set up a base of sorts on an LST. - -During the afternoon of December 13th, a _kamikaze_ slipped through the -air cover and crashed into the portside of the invasion force flagship, -the cruiser _Nashville_. The pilot carried two bombs, and their -explosion touched off five-inch and 40-mm. ammunition in the ready -lockers topside. The shattering blast killed 133 officers and men, -including both the Army and Navy chiefs of staff and the colonel -commanding the bombardment wing. The _Nashville_ had to return to Leyte -Gulf. - -Later, ten more Japanese planes attacked and one got through to the -destroyer _Haraden_. The explosion killed 14 sailors and the destroyer -had to go back to Leyte. The PTs huddled close to the rest of the -convoy, to add their batteries to the curtain of fire. - -Troops went ashore on Mindoro at 7 A.M. on December 15th, and met little -opposition. Half an hour later, PTs were operating in the harbor. The -infantry quickly set up a perimeter defense, pushing back the small -Japanese garrison to make room for an airfield at San Jose. As they had -at Bougainville, American planners wanted only enough room on Mindoro to -establish and protect a fighter base. It was not Mindoro but Luzon that -was the basic goal. - -The Japanese didn’t intend to let the Americans have even that much -land, however, without lashing back furiously at the invaders of this -island almost within sight of the city of Manila. - -Just after 8 A.M. the _kamikazes_ arrived. Three of the planes dove on -destroyers and were shot down by the combined fire of all ships. The -fourth flew over the stern of Ensign J. P. Rafferty’s PT 221, caught the -full blast of the PT battery, and cartwheeled along the surface of the -bay, spraying water and flames until it sank from sight. - -Outside the bay, the sailors saw the _kamikazes_ coming, so Lieut. -Commander Alvin W. Fargo, Jr., commanding Squadron Thirteen, ordered the -PTs still escorting the convoy to get between the LSTs and the -approaching planes. Seven _kamikazes_ strafed the PTs ineffectively, and -the boats brought down three of them. Of the four that penetrated the -screen, two were shot down by the combined fire of the LSTs and the PTs. -The other two dived into LST 472 and LST 738, setting them afire. -Eventually, destroyers had to sink the burning hulks with gunfire. PTs -picked up a hundred survivors. - -Next morning all the PTs were in Mangarin Bay at Mindoro, site of the -landings, and the LST 605, destined to be their base ship, was unloading -on the beach. PTs 230 and 300 were entering from the night’s patrol, -when a single plane glided out of the sun and strafed the 230, without -hitting it. The _kamikaze_ circled and started his dive on the LST 605. -The landing ship and all the PTs opened fire and shot off the plane’s -tail. The _kamikaze_ crashed on the beach fifty yards from the LST, -killing five men and wounding 11. - -Half an hour later eight planes came after the PTs. - -Lieut. (jg) Byron F. Kent, whose 230 was a target, tells of applying -broken-field running football tactics to the problem: - -“Three of the planes chose my boat as their target. All our fire was -concentrated on the first as it dove for the boat in a gradual sweep, -increasing to an angle of about seventy degrees. I maneuvered at high -speed, to present a starboard broadside to the oncoming plane. When it -was apparent that the plane could not pull out of the dive, I feinted in -several directions and then turned hard right rudder under the plane. It -struck the water thirty feet off the starboard bow. - -“The second plane began its dive. When the pilot committed himself to -his final direction, I swung the boat away from the plane’s right bank. -The plane hit the water fifty feet away. - -“The third plane came in at a seventy-degree dive. After zigzagging -rapidly as the plane came down, I swung suddenly at right angles. The -plane landed in the water just astern, raising the stern out of the -water and showering the 40-mm. gun crew with flame, smoke, debris, and -water. All of us were slightly dazed, but there were no injuries and the -boat was undamaged.” - -Lieut. (jg) Frank A. Tredinnick, in 77, was attacked by a single. He -held a steady course and speed until just before impact, and then -chopped his throttle. The _kamikaze_ pilot, who had quite properly taken -a lead on the speeding boat, crashed ten yards ahead. - -Lieut. (jg) Harry Griffin, Jr. swung his 223 hard right just before -impact, and his attacker showered the boat with water. - -With two planes after him, Lieut. (jg) J. R. Erickson maneuvered at top -speed. - -“The gunners fired a steady stream of shells into one plane as it came -down in a steep dive and crashed fifteen feet off the port bow. The -second plane circled until he saw his partner had missed, and he dived -on our stern, strafing as he came. The gunners fired on him until he -crashed _three feet_ off the starboard bow, spraying the deck with -debris and water. One man was blown over the side by the concussion but -was rescued uninjured.” - -The last plane was shot down by the combined fire of the PTs before it -could even pick a target. - -That afternoon as 224 and 297 were leaving for the night’s patrol, two -planes dropped three bombs but missed. The ships in the bay shot one -plane into the water. The other was last seen gliding over the treetops, -trailing fire. - -On the afternoon of December 17th, three planes came into the bay. One -went into a steep dive aimed at Lieut. Commander Almer P. Colvin’s 300. -The _kamikaze_ had been studying the failure of his comrades, with their -suicidal sacrifice, to inflict any damage on the swift PTs. Lieut. -Commander Colvin gave the 300 a last-second twist to the right, but the -pilot outsmarted him, anticipated that very move, and crashed into the -engine room, splitting the boat in two. The stem sank immediately and -the bow burned for eight hours. Lieut. Commander Colvin was seriously -wounded, four men were killed, four reported missing, one officer and -four men wounded. Only one man aboard escaped without injury. - - -That night Lieut. Commander N. Burt Davis’ boats carried sealed orders -from General MacArthur to a guerrilla hideout on the other side of -Mindoro and delivered them to Lieut. Commander George F. Rowe, U. S. -Navy liaison officer to the Mindoro Underground. The boats picked up -eleven American pilots, who had been rescued and sheltered by the -guerrillas, and brought them back to Mindoro. - -Some of the Japanese High Command wanted to write Mindoro off as already -lost; others wanted to make a massive counterlanding on the north -beaches to fight it out at the perimeter defense and push the American -airfield off the island. The two groups compromised, and as often -happens in a compromise, they sent a boy to do a man’s job. - -Admiral Kimura left Indo-China with a heavy cruiser, a light cruiser, -and four destroyers, on a mission of bombarding the Mindoro beachhead. -It wasn’t much of a naval task force to send into those waters, but as -it happens, every American capital ship in the area was at Leyte, too -far off to help. The only naval forces handy were the PTs. - -The PTs had been up against this very problem before. Twice, at -Guadalcanal, they had tangled alone with a bombardment force and a far -mightier bombardment force than the one approaching from Indo-China. - -“Recall all patrols to assist in the defense of Mindoro,” Lieut. Admiral -Kincaid ordered Lieut. Commander Davis. - -A patrol line of the nine most seaworthy boats was strung out three -miles off the beach. Two more boats, under Lieut. P. A. Swart, had -already left to call on the Mindoro guerrillas, but Davis called them -back, vectoring them toward the approaching Japanese, with instructions -to attack on contact. - -Army bombers attacked the Japanese bombardment flotilla all night long -(and attacked the patrolling PTs, too, seriously damaging 77 with a near -miss and wounding every member of the crew—which was more than the -_kamikazes_ had been able to do in days of ferocious attack). - -Admiral Kimura bombarded the beach for about thirty minutes. It was a -most desultory job, did almost no damage, and caused not a single -casualty. He fired three poorly aimed salvos at the PTs and left. - -Halfway up the western coast of Mindoro, Admiral Kimura ran into Lieut. -Swart’s two PTs, hustling back to get into the scrap. Just after -midnight the two boat skippers and the Japanese discovered each other -simultaneously. The Japanese illuminated 220 with a searchlight and -fired dangerously accurate salvos—the first good shooting that force had -done that night. - -Lieut. (jg) Harry Griffin, Jr., closed his 223 to 4,000 yards and fired -both his starboard fish. Three minutes later a long lance of flame shot -up from the ship’s side and she went under the waves. - -The next afternoon PTs picked up five Japanese sailors from the water. -They were survivors of the brand new destroyer _Kiyoshimo_, victim of -Lieut. Griffin’s steady eye. - -The worst ordeal of the Mindoro landings was prepared on December 27th, -when a resupply convoy shaped up near Dulag on Leyte Island. The convoy -led off with 25 LSTs in five columns of five ships; next came three -Liberty ships, one Navy tanker, six Army tankers, two aviation gasoline -tankers and the PT tender _Orestes_ in five columns at the center of the -convoy; last came 23 LCIs in five columns. Nine destroyers formed an -outer screen; 29 PTs formed an inner screen on each flank. - -Aboard the _Orestes_ was Captain G. F. Mentz, commander of the -Diversionary Attack Group of LCIs and PTs which was being moved to -Mindoro for mounting amphibious landings behind the Japanese lines. - -A Japanese night snooper spotted the convoy about 4 A.M. on December -28th, and at the same time the convoy commander learned that the weather -was so bad over Leyte airfields that he could expect no air cover until -noon the next day. Unfortunately the weather was fine over the -convoy—perfect weather for the _kamikazes_ to draw a bead on the slow -ships of the supply train. - -In midmorning three planes attacked. The first tried to crash-dive the -LCIs and was shot down by LCI 1076. Another overshot the aviation -gasoline tanker _Porcupine_, and splashed. - -The third _kamikaze_ made perhaps the most spectacular suicide crash of -the war. It hit the _John Burke_, a merchant ship loaded with -ammunition, and pilot, plane, ship, cargo, and crew disappeared in a -blinding flash. A small Army freighter went down with the _John Burke_. -The LCI flagship, LCI 624, ran to the rescue, but only two heads bobbed -in the water, both survivors of the Army ship, and one of those died -almost immediately. All sixty-eight merchant sailors had been vaporized -in the explosion. - -Another _kamikaze_ hit the merchant ship _William Ahearne_ on the -bridge, setting it on fire. The ship was towed back to Leyte. Loss of -this ship was a sad blow to the forces ashore at Mindoro, for included -in her cargo was a large stock of beer. - -Friendly air cover arrived and ran off that particular flight of planes, -but the convoy was under almost constant attack that night. In the -moonlight, about 7 P.M., a torpedo bomber put a fatal fish into LST 750. - -Three LCIs each shot down a plane. Sailors on the LCI flagship had the -harrowing experience of hearing a torpedo scrape along the ship’s flat -bottom from stem to stem without exploding. Some of the LCIs had -surgical units aboard, and many of the wounded were run over to these -handy, impromptu hospital ships. - -Air attack was incessant, in daylight and dark, and too monotonously -similar to recount in detail unless there was scoring. - -During the morning of December 30th, three planes were shot down, one by -a PT that knocked down its victim as the _kamikaze_ was diving on an -escorting destroyer. - -The last attack of the morning came just as the convoy was entering the -harbor at San Jose. The landing-craft flagship shot down a _kamikaze_ -with a short burst of 40 mm. - -Inside Mangarin Bay the ships hurried with the stevedoring, because the -sailors were eager to leave this unfriendly land. No planes appeared -until almost 4 P.M. - -Five Japanese dive-bombers pierced the friendly fighter cover and -whistled down from 14,000 feet in their suicide dives. One hit the -destroyer _Pringle_ and did only light damage. Another hit the aviation -gasoline tanker _Porcupine_ with such an impact that its engine went -clear through the decks and out the bottom, tearing a large hole in the -hull. Seven men were killed and eight wounded. The stern burst into -flames, a dangerous development on a ship carrying a tankful of aviation -gasoline forward. - -The fourth plane dove on the destroyer _Gansevoort_ and crashed it -amidships. The main deck was peeled back like the lid of an empty -sardine can. The impact cut power lines and set fires, but caused -surprisingly light casualties. - -The destroyer _Wilson_ came alongside and exercised the fire-fighting -crew by putting them aboard the Gansevoort to fight the flames. - -The _Gansevoort_ was towed to the PT base. There she was given the -bizarre task of torpedoing the burning _Porcupine_ to knock off the -blazing stern before the fire reached the gasoline tanks forward. The -trick didn’t work, for the blast just spread burning gasoline on the -water, endangering the _Gansevoort_ herself and setting new fires, so -she had to be towed to a new anchorage. There she was abandoned, but a -volunteer crew of a nearby PT boarded the destroyer and put out the -fires. _Porcupine_ burned to the waterline. - -The most grievous blow of the _kamikaze_ attack, however, was struck at -the PT navy. - -The fifth Japanese dive bomber dove on the PT tender _Orestes_, was hit -by tracers from PTs and LCIs, hit the water and bounced upward into the -starboard side of the tender. The plane’s bombs punched through the side -and exploded within, blowing many officers and men into the bay. The -ship burst into violent flame, and fire mains were ruptured by the -blast. Fifty-nine men were killed and 106 seriously wounded. - -The waters around the _Orestes_ were teeming with swimming sailors, and -PTs bustled about, pulling in the stunned survivors of the blast. - -The LCI 624 went alongside and Commander A. V. Jannotta, the LCI -flotilla commander, led a volunteer fire-fighting and rescue party -aboard the ship, which had become a hell of exploding ammunition and -burning aviation gasoline. - -Commander Jannotta was awarded a Navy Cross for his heroic salvage work -of that afternoon. Captain Mentz had been severely wounded in the -_kamikaze_ blast, and his chief of staff, Commander John Kremer, Jr., -had been killed, so Commander Jannotta took over as commander of the -whole task group. He was given a Silver Star for his performance in that -capacity. - -Led by Lieut. Commander Davis, many PT sailors went aboard the burning -_Orestes_ to pull wounded shipmates out of the fire. - -By 9:45 P.M., flames were out on the _Orestes_ and Commander Jannotta -lashed an LCI to either side and pushed it up on the beach. - -At dusk, PTs and LCIs scattered and hugged the shoreline, to make the -worst possible targets for night marauders. The small craft had good -reason to be shaken. The five _kamikazes_ had made 100 per cent hits, -and any weapon that is 100 per cent effective is a fearsome weapon. - -That same night four PTs shot down a plane as they left the bay on -patrol. - -Early in the morning of New Year’s Day, 1945, bombers came over the base -again. One fragmentation bomb killed 11 men and seriously wounded ten -others, most of them survivors of the _Orestes_. - -The _kamikazes_ were not through with the Mindoro shipping. On the -afternoon of January 4th, PTs 78 and 81 set fire to one of four enemy -fighters that flew over the bay. Trailing smoke and flame, the plane -glided into the side of the ammunition ship _Lewis Dyche_, anchored a -quarter mile from the two PTs. - -The ship exploded with a roar, taking her 71 merchant sailors to the -bottom with her and lifting the PTs out of the water. The concussion -badly damaged the boat hulls; two PT sailors were killed and ten men -wounded by the blast and falling debris. It was the last visit of the -_kamikazes_ to Mindoro, but a spectacular one. - -As Commander Jannotta said in his report: “This new weapon employed by -the enemy—the suicide diver or human torpedo—constitutes a serious -threat to naval forces and to shipping.” - -The Mindoro PTs won a Navy Unit Commendation which read: - - As the only naval force present after retirement of the invasion - convoy, this task unit served as the major obstruction to enemy - counterlandings from nearby Luzon, Panay, and Palawan, and bore the - brunt of concentrated hostile air attacks through a five-day period, - providing the only antiaircraft protection available for persons - ashore. The gallant officers and men ... maintained a vigilant watch - by night and stood out into the open waters close to base by day to - fight off repeated Japanese bombing, strafing, and suicide attacks, - expending in three days the ammunition which had been expected to last - approximately three weeks in the destruction or damaging of a large - percentage of attacking planes. - -When fighter planes began to fly in Mindoro, Americans went ashore on -Luzon. Some hard fighting remained, but the war was nearing the end. - -The last two PTs lost in the war were, sadly enough, victims of their -own mates. - -During the landings at Nasugbu, in western Luzon, on the night of -January 31st, ships of the screen were attacked by twenty or more -Japanese midget submarines. One of the little craft sank the PC 1129. -Immediately afterward the destroyer escort _Lough_ attacked a swarm of -thirty or more _kamikaze_ explosive boats. Naturally the screen vessels -were nervous about small vessels in those waters. - -On the following night, Lieut. John H. Stillman set out to hunt the -suicide flotillas with PTs 77 and 79. (The 77 had already been treated -roughly by friendlies; it was the boat damaged by American Army bombers -during the repulse of Admiral Kimura’s bombardment flotilla.) - -Lieut. Stillman’s orders were to stay south of Talim Point, because the -American destroyers were patrolling north of there. While the PTs were -still three miles south of Talim Point—well within their assigned -area—they ran into the destroyer escort _Lough_, the same ship that had -shot up the explosive boats the night before, and the destroyer -_Conyngham_. - -The _Lough_ fired starshells and the PTs fled south at high speed, -trying to identify themselves by radio and signal light. The destroyers -meanwhile were trying to raise the boats by radio but failed. They did -not see the PT light signals. - -The PTs still might have escaped, but hard luck 77 picked that evil -moment to run aground. A shell from _Lough_ hit her, blowing the crew -into the water. The _Lough_ shifted fire to 79, and hit her on the -portside. The boat exploded and sank, carrying down with her the -skipper, Lieut. (jg) Michael A. Haughian, Joseph E. Klesh, MoMM1c, and -Vincent A. Berra, QM3c. - -The 30 survivors of the two boats, swimming in the light of the burning -77, assembled and held a muster. Besides the three dead on the 79, -Lieut. Stillman was missing. He was never seen again. - -The shipwrecked sailors swam together to an enemy-held shore two miles -away. Guerrillas sheltered them until February 3rd, when they were -picked up by PTs 227 and 230. - -On March 2, 1945, just two weeks short of three years after he left the -Rock on Lieut. Bulkeley’s PT, General MacArthur landed on recaptured -Corregidor. Finally, he had returned. And he returned the same way he -had left—by PT 373. - - -In the last days of the war, the PTs fought the familiar kind of mop-up -action against bypassed pockets of Japanese troops that they had been -fighting for three years in the Pacific. Nightly patrols fought minor -actions, but targets became harder and harder to find. When the war -ended on August 14, 1945, the Japanese came out of the woods and the PTs -learned for the first time the tremendous enemy power they had kept -bottled up far from the fighting front. - -At Halmahera, for instance, six PTs picked up Lieut. General Ishii, -Commanding General of the army forces there, and Captain Fujita, Naval -Commander, and took them to 93rd Division headquarters on Morotai, where -they surrendered 37,000 troops, 4,000 Japanese civilians, 19,000 rifles, -900 cannon, 600 machine guns, and a mountain of miscellaneous supplies. - -For almost a year the PTs of Morotai—down to two understaffed squadrons -at the end—had held at bay a Japanese force powerful enough, in the days -of Japanese glory, to conquer whole nations and to hold vast stretches -of conquered lands in iron control. - -The Japanese themselves paid the top tribute to the PT fleet. “The enemy -has used PT boats aggressively,” one of their tactical publications -read, “On their account our naval ships have had many a bitter pill to -swallow.” - -So much for the past of the torpedo boat. What about its future? - -The PT fleet was quickly disbanded after the war. Today, although the -Soviet navy has more than 500 motor torpedo boats—according to _Jane’s -Fighting Ships_—and even though Soviet-built torpedo boats ply Cuban -waters almost within sight of American shores, the U. S. Navy has not a -single PT in commission. - -But in the waters of Long Island Sound and in sheltered bays on the -Pacific Coast strange craft are roaring about—experimental craft that -lift out of the water to skim along on hydrofoils at dazzling speeds -(though even the modern hydrofoil cannot attain the breath-taking speeds -ascribed to the PTs by overeager reporters during the days of the -MacArthur rescue run). - -The Navy is puttering about with these hydrofoils, arming them with -homing torpedoes, experimenting with tactics to use against swift -nuclear submarines—the capital ships of future navies. - -There may again be a job in the Navy for the dashing young sailor who -prefers the swift give and take of small-boat service to the staid and -plodding duty on ships of the line. There may still be room in America’s -arsenal for David’s giant-killing slingshot. - - - - - _Appendix 1_ - Specifications, Armament, and Crew - - -American PT boats, with only a few exceptions, were of two types, -78-foot Higgins-built boats and 80-foot Elcos. Draft to the tips of -propellers was five feet six inches. Power supply was from three Packard -V-12 engines giving 4,500 shaft horsepower. Tanks held 3,000 gallons of -high-octane gasoline and 200 gallons of potable water. Normal crew was -three officers and 14 men, though the complement varied widely under -combat conditions. The boat could carry enough provisions for about five -days. The boat weighed 121,000 pounds, of which 30,000 were contributed -by four torpedoes and tubes, a 40 mm., two twin 50 caliber, and one -20-mm. antiaircraft gun, one 37-mm. cannon, two rocket launchers with -eight 5-inch rockets, a 60-mm. mortar, and a smoke-screen generator. In -combat, PT skippers often improvised other armaments to adapt to local -conditions. Pound for pound, the PT boat was by far the most heavily -armed vessel afloat. Top speed under ideal conditions was 43 knots. -Conditions were seldom ideal. - - - - - _Appendix 2_ - Losses Suffered by PT Squadrons - - - Destroyed by surface ships: - by gunfire, 5; - by ramming, 1 (this one, 109, was destined to become one of the most - famous boats of all time, because of the subsequent employment - of its skipper, John F. Kennedy). - Destroyed by aircraft: - strafing, 1; - bombing, 4; - _kamikaze_, 2. - Destroyed by shore batteries: 5. - Destroyed by mines: 4. - Damaged by surface ships and beached to prevent capture: 1. - Lost in transit on transports sunk: 2. - Grounded in enemy waters and destroyed to prevent capture: 18. - Destroyed to prevent capture: 3 (the boats left behind by Lt. - Bulkeley’s squadron on quitting the Philippines). - Destroyed by U. S. aircraft: 3; - by Australian aircraft, 2. - Destroyed by surface friendlies: 2. - Destroyed possibly by enemy shore battery, possibly by friendly - destroyer: 1. - Lost in storms: 5. - Destroyed by fire and explosion in port: 6. - Destroyed in collision: 3. - Total: 69. - - - - - _Appendix 3_ - Decorations Won by PT Sailors - - - Congressional Medal of Honor: 2. - Navy Cross: 19, plus two Oak Leaf Clusters. - Distinguished Service Medal: 1. - Distinguished Service Cross, Army, with Oak Leaf Cluster: 1. - Distinguished Service Cross, Army: 2. - Distinguished Service Medal, Army: 1. - Silver Star with Oak Leaf Cluster: 30. - Silver Star: 342. - Legion of Merit, Degree of Officer: 1. - Legion of Merit with Gold Star: 2. - Legion of Merit: 29. - Navy and Marine Corps: 57 (including one awarded to John F. Kennedy). - Bronze Star with Gold Star: 4. - Bronze Star: 383. - Commendation Ribbon with Gold Star: 3. - Commendation Ribbon: 120. - Distinguished Conduct Star, Philippines Government: 4. - Distinguished Service Cross, British: 6. - Distinguished Service Medal, British: 2. - -[Illustration: Camouflage paint and nets protect PT boats from detection - by Japanese air patrols. (New Guinea, 1943)] - -[Illustration: High-speed, lightweight “Mosquitoes” on patrol at Midway - (1943)] - - [Illustration: The old and the new: Filipino outriggers and PT boats - combine forces for a sea rescue operation. (1944)] - - [Illustration: PT boats not only spot and attack Japanese craft, but - also pick up survivors. (Battle of Surigao Strait, 1944)] - - - SBS SCHOLASTIC BOOK SERVICES - New York Toronto London Auckland Sydney - - - - - Transcriber’s Notes - - ---Silently corrected a few typos. - ---Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook - is public-domain in the country of publication. - ---In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by - _underscores_. - - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOSQUITO FLEET *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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