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Show Sf IP THEY WERE fT white y'2.Z'2Mif3- -" Pines Is belnj told by lour ol tha . who are all "at U fe,t l"t clT f Bulkcley now ""en- aid fi" Uy' "ona-ln-command; nd Enslrf. Anthoy Aker, and George J,n. ,L D"rlne rala 6alnt the tare. PT bat Captured ' 1""S barge and took prisoner a Jap captain and on. ol his men. But Squadron 3 had " 1 ' two ol their original ,i, boat,, and they were plan-nlng plan-nlng to escape to China, when all of their torpedoe, were gone, unles, help ar- CHAPTER Vin "When we went out that night," said Bulkeley, "we didn't dream we were to take our final crack at the Japs off Bataan. I took two boats-Kelly boats-Kelly in the 34, riding myself with Akers in the 35 to see if we couldn't bag one of the Jap destroyers which the army could see in Subic Bay. They'd been driven far back, but from the highest ridge of the Bataan Ba-taan mountains they could still look down into Subic with their 20-pow-er binoculars. "But the admiral had said we weren't to go into the bay. We must coax 'them outside. The Japs had the bay's rim lined with guns, and it would be suicide. We got outside of Subic about eleven o'clock. All according to plan, Kelly Kel-ly hid his 34 boat in a cove just outside out-side the bay, while I went into the entrance and raised a little hell-fired hell-fired my machine guns so they could see the tracers, hoping a Jap destroyer de-stroyer would follow me out, whereupon where-upon Kelly was to come out of the cove and lam a couDle of tomedoes into their engine room. It didn't work. The Japs had had all they wanted of us. But just as I was about to leave, I saw from the entrance en-trance the outline of a big ship tied to Olongapo dock." "She was a big one," said Akers, "maybe 10,000 tons. A tanker, we learned the next day. So we turned back, sneaked toward her there was no fire on us yet and cut loose two torpedoes. By the time they exploded, we had cleared the mouth of the bay. But from the mountains of Bataan the army watched her burn all night, and in the morning there she was, sunk at her dock." "They were our last torpedoes fired in defense of Bataan," said Bulkeley. "Since December 7 we had probably sunk a hundred times our own combined tonnage in enemy ene-my warships. While we'd lost two of our six boats, neither had been hit by the enemy both had gone aground in the dark. "On the way back I realized that we had fired our last torpedoes, except ex-cept those we would need to fill our tubes for the run to China. And we had just about enough, gas to get us there, with hardly a barrel to spare. If we were ever to make the run, we must make it soon. And it was getting plain that we couldn't do much more for Bataan, which was on its last legs." "I can tell you about the army," said Cox. "I used to get bored at Sisiman Cove and take trips to the front sometimes up into the outposts. out-posts. There were a lot of men in uniform on Bataan, but the frontline front-line fighting soldiers consisted, first, of about two thousand Americans, well seasoned and good fighters. Then, about twelve hundred Filipino Scouts equally well trained 'and equally good. Lastly, they had in the fighting line about twenty-seven thousand Filipino trainees young kids who had never worn a uniform until a few weeks before the war started. "Their officers were equally untrained. un-trained. Toward the end, it was grotesque. Tough, experienced American Regular Army privates would be giving orders to Filipino generals. "Those two thousand Americans and the twelve hundred Scouts were the only real fighting men on Ba-. Ba-. taan, and they were run ragged-, ragged-, every time the Japs punched a' hole in the line, these experienced troops : would have to be thrown in to plug everywhere at once. , "Then there was the item of equip-; equip-; ment-no spare parts. They had a 1 . i. ,ith thpir treads few tanKs ic"i falling oft. A missing fan belt would pU an entire tractor out of the war Lfor want of a tread, a tank would hp iunk by the roadside. .That's more or less how it looked t0 ,JS on March 1." said Kelly, -which is a day I'll never forget Tt started off in a curious way-it eemed that General MacArthur wanted to take a ride on one of our boats with Bulkeley. We felt honored hon-ored but I couldn't just understand wrlv the General would choose a fe uke this for a pleasure trip. Etm orders were orders, and even toe air force got theirs-or rather hat was left of it, which was exact-W exact-W four decrepit P-40's patched together to-gether from the pieces of many oth- erf.This proud American air force . a air superiority over guarantee lu. air sup Gen superior J gp mile force was able to g J the General w a mething had WaSWrrwhh might upset our dash Tcl 5 1& see the ren didn't understand it either, and were starting start-ing to speculate and gossip. "But the General explained everything every-thing when he returned from the ride, by officially presenting Bulkeley Bulke-ley with the order decorating him with the D.S.C. We'd known about it for weeks, but this, it seemed, was the official presentation. He also congratulated con-gratulated the men on the fine work they had done, and handed each a package of cigarettes. It wasn't until un-til that night that Bulkeley told me all this had been camouflage. For that morning the General had called him in and told him of the new plan. China was out for us, all right. Because Be-cause Washington had made Mac-Arthur Mac-Arthur Commander in Chief for all the Pacific and ordered him to leave. A submarine had been suggested, sug-gested, but MacArthur had said Bulkeley was the only commanding officer he knew in whom he had complete com-plete confidence he was sailing with Buck. But he'd wanted to make a trial run first, and so added the little ceremony to allay the suspicions suspi-cions of the men. Because we were leaving Bataan in absolute secrecy and very soon. "Of course to us this means that the China trip our last hope of seeing see-ing America and escaping death or a Japanese prison was gone forever. for-ever. Now the MTB's were like the rest here in the islands the expendables expend-ables who fight on without hope to the end. So far as we knew, we would now finish up the war in the southern islands, when the Japs got around to mopping up the last American Amer-ican resistance there. "The minute we knew we were to leave Bataan soon," continued Lieutenant Lieu-tenant Kelly after a pause, "we got U !; h "But the General explained everything every-thing when he returned from the ride." to work on the four boats. We knew the trip would be tough, and the boats were old now. The engines had had double the number of hours' service without their customary thorough overhaul and returning, so they were making half their original speed. "We planned to scrape the bottoms bot-toms and overhaul their struts, but this was done for only three. My boat's turn was last, and meanwhile it was used for patrol. "Overhauling these motors without with-out any replacement parts was a terrible job. For instance. Any tank-town tank-town garage which overhauls a flivver fliv-ver back in the States always replaces re-places the gaskets with new ones. Only we didn't have any. Or any sealing compound. So those old gaskets gas-kets had to be carefully removed, handled as gently as though they were precious lace, and laid back in place when the motors were reassembled. re-assembled. "How much gas could we carry? We experimented put down planks on those -inch plywood decks to strengthen them, and finally decided we could take a chance on piling twenty of those fifty-gallon drums on each boat. "Naturally the crews got curious about all these preparations. Since we knew so much about what the Japanese were doing across the bay we assumed their means for finding out about us were equally good. Anyway, Bulkeley and I had decided that there is only one way of keeping a valuable secret during a war: don't tell it yourself. "But we had to tell the men something. some-thing. So we said maybe, after we had exhausted all our gas here on Bataan, we would head down for Celu in the southern islands. Cebu. where there was plenty of food and more torpedoes, and where they had the most beautiful and languorous girls on the islands, and plenty of gasoline. "We pointed it as a golden spot. Only Bulkeley and I knew that when we got to Cebu we would be doomed there was no gasoline there and only a little in Mindanao. We could never hope to get to Australia. "But then there were the two correspondents cor-respondents Clark Lee and Nat Floyd of the New York Times, and also Colonel Wong. They knew about the Chinese trip because the Admiral Ad-miral had authorized them to go with us. So we told them yes, we were still going to China, but we didn't know when maybe not for a long time and advised them if they had any other chance to get out, by all means to take it. Meanwhile Mean-while we kept on the boats all that landing-gear equipment we had assembled as-sembled for the China trip so if any hint of it had leaked out to the crew, they would think it was still on. "Meanwhile MacArthur had told Bulkeley that Bataan would fall shortly, and Corregidor would go soon after if it didn't get help from the States immediately. No help was being sent. Apparently it couldn't be gotten to us. Then the Japs could mop up the southern Philippines. "It was a grim picture for us. But here was our last big job. Mac-Arthur Mac-Arthur was the brains of the organization organi-zation the only general who could take that territory back. The whole allied defense depended on getting him to Australia. "Bulkeley was reporting to him every other day, but MacArthur refused re-fused to set a date for leaving he wanted to stay as long as he could. At this time the boys on Bataan were back in their strongest positions also their last-ditch defense line and the Japs had had about all they wanted monkeying with this line, and were waiting for reinforcements. But when news came that their General Yamashita was on his way with many transports, bragging he would capture MacArthur within a month, our departure date was set for March 15. "But to keep the men occupied and also to keep our secret, we went right on with plans for developing our shore base at Sisiman Cove. We installed a good cook's galley, fixed up the mess hall, screened in everything, every-thing, as though we hoped to live there for months. "We even took all our clothes off the boats and moved them into the nipa huts ashore. "On the fourth of March there came a nice break for me. Peggy got me word that she ' had been transferred to Little Baguio hospital on Bataan, relieving one of the girls who had been working too long under un-der fire, and I got the idea of inviting invit-ing her down to our base for chow and to spend the evening. Dr. Nelson, Nel-son, who had been looking after my hand, was also on Little Baguio, and I invited him and his girl friend, too. "You should have seen my ship perk up when I told them. The skipper skip-per was going to bring a girl aboard! They had the ship all spit and polish, ready for the big event. My cook, Reynolds, and the Filipino Fili-pino mess boy were tickled pink. They were going to show the army I "You see the week before I'd gone over to Little Baguio I'd had only breakfast and arrived on foot late in the afternoon for my dressing, to spend the night and walk back. But they told me, regretfully of course, of a new ruling: rations were tightening tight-ening they were down to dried fish, plain rice, and one slice of bread so absolutely no visitors could get food at the hospital. So I went to bed supperless, got up, watched them eat breakfast they said how sorry they were they couldn't offer me any hiked back all hose miles over the hills, and at nfne o'clock, sitting sit-ting at our own mess table, ate seventeen sev-enteen hot cakes as fast as Reynolds Rey-nolds could turn them out of the pan. "Now their one idea was to show the army what real navy hospitality can be. It's true Peggy brought the coffee we were out of that but they rustled the rest. It started off with fruit cocktail, then a real pot roast of fresh meat with brown gravy, and in this a whole can of mushrooms, which they'd been hoarding for some big occasion. Then rice and canned peas and beans, a delicious apple pie, and then coffee like only we can make in the navy. There was never such a dinner. Then we sat and talked, while the little waves lapped along the cove. "I told Peggy I wanted to see her again, and soon. She said they were keeping her very busy, but she might get a night off on the fifteenth or before. There was no way I could call her, so she said she'd get to the signal-corps field telephone tele-phone and ring me up about six o'clock on the eleventh, when we could make a definite date. "I asked her if she couldn't make it sooner, and she said of course she wanted to, but didn't see how she possibly could. I wanted to tell her why I wanted it sooner. Then I stopped myself. Because in a war you don't tell anybody. Not anybody. any-body. And if they have any sense, and Peggy had plenty, they understand under-stand this and don't want to be told. "So instead we talked about the war, and how they were low on quinine qui-nine now just had enough to give the worst malaria cases a light slug which would last only a short time and how tired the soldiers were, how uncertain everything looked. " 'It's uncertain for us in the navy, na-vy, too,' I said. 'One of these days even I am liable to disappear, without with-out telling you good-by.' I ITO BE COXT1MED) |