Show THEY WERE WHITE THE STORY SO The story of their pan In the battle the pines Is told by four of the five aval who are all that Is left of Motor Ti Hnat Squadron They are Lieutenant idi squadron R. B second-In and Anthony Akers and E. Cox taking General Mac Arthur and his party safely to In the Islands Squadron 3 pre- to participate In a planned against the Hut our I planes and ships that were supposed to come didn't and Kelly's I boat and the one Bulkeley was In were forced Into hiding CHAPTER XIII didn't get us said I midnight our escape The destroyer lost me with Its light so I did a L turn so as to pass I astern of her and lose I con-K on that course five B heading directly away from I then to the left in another degree and I started looking around the i found my port gun- ner was also had been ahot through the throat and der I got him down below and t had the chief and the I radioman give him first found our mast had been shot a foot over my so we C couldn't use our radio for sending I The port turret had been hit and Its guns were out of Lieutenant Kelly objective now was to get Reynolds to a We were going like a bat out of helL I couldn't tee the 41 boat it was so dark I couldn't even see the I just had to look at the compass and make mental estimates as to how far we had gone in various directions since I last had seen land I and then guess where we now I thought we were near the narrow channel between the would another Jap destroy er be laying for me directly a t searchlight came less than a I mile away a Jap steaming full speed at I barely had time to give a hard left and a hard right I and we went scooting past each er at a relative speed of sixty knots I before he had a chance to fire a He holding me down J- with his light like a bug under a I and started blaz-j lag away with big guns two four hundred feet two more fifty feet I started zig-ging to squirm out of that light wouldn't let my gunners fire a it would help him keep our I was getting all but he for ten although his accuracy was going to By I could barely see his which was waving searching the water back of t kept wondering A how we'd ever get since we had J no it was black as T and I knew coral reefs must be all I around At four o'clock I slowed I down and headed into where I hoped the beach taking The water suddenly shoaled off and we were aground a pinnacle of coral under her ing down with flashlights we could 1 the water was twenty feet deep t with coral pinnacles all around us i about every twenty like a petri- fled rising to within five feet II t of the I the shore I real-t we were about ten miles too far I. Up the I sent Ensign Richard-t ton ashore in a rowboat to send an doctor and ambulance out 3 from Cebu for and also tug for the next hour we sallied trying to jiggle it off the backing with the engines finally managed to roll it was feeling fine Td suddenly remembered a little present Pew had given me on the went down to my locker and brought it up for him a couple of tablets and a sedative pill Now he was sitting topside he couldn't drink because Hie water would leak out the hole pi his throat They'd been short of on the but she sneaked out for me just in case I got founded out on A hell of a thoughtful and much more and useful than a gold cig-rette k f came with a low fog which ft out coastal and of all the coral we had to 1 well off the The sun 9 was well up but that didn't worry with air superiority we didn't to stalk in the dark any Py the sun had burned the fog y and we started out on two one screw had banged up but didn t matter now- but would quickly fix At o'clock we spotted the en-ance to the long channel and there we heading up the narrow at fifteen when all a It was a bomb which landed about our 1 looked and here- n was peeling out of a But Instead of he big white stars of the American BPS corps n her there were flaming suns of didn't have time even to wonder what in hell had become of our big American offensive and the air because I had to throttle stopping the boat momentarily so that the next bomb would land twenty-five feet in of squarely on us Then I gave her the gun and started trying to zigzag In that narrow meanwhile giving word to our machine guns to start bombed us for thirty and the farthest bomb was thirty feet away We would wait for the bomb see it start falling then I'd give hard rudder and it would miss by a few All the while we had to keep in this narrow channel so we couldn't be beached helplessly on a coral and work our way down it toward where presently some of the newly arrived American planes would sec what was going on and come to We didn't of that they'd Four Jap seaplanes were after working in rotation undoubtedly those from the second cruiser the army had reported as being their bombs were exhausted they began diving down just over our mast stub to strafe With their first salvo they killed Harris He was my and also manning the starboard 50 caliber machine guns a fine kid he was he slumped down from his guns and rolled on the deck when a bullet ripped into his So I put in meanwhile Ross had shot down one of the four or started but found they had also hit the gun and put it out of meanwhile with the starboard machine had shot down one of the four The next plane got Ross in the and also put out his So we now had no only two engines and a boat full of holes with three planes diving down to less than one hundred raking us with fire which we couldn't return only try to engineer now reported the engine room was full of water and the boat was so there was nothing to do but beach if we were to save the wounded I headed her over towards nearby and there she beached hard and There were about twelve hundred yards of shallow four feet of water over an uneven bottom of coral and and then the The planes kept up their strafing as we lay but there was nothing to do now but dodge while we got the wounded went down into the engine room and there was my chief machinist's with his arm practically blown off a bullet had entered his elbow and gone out a three inch hole in his but he was still manning the I gave the order to abandon It turned out that there were only three of us so it was a job getting the wounded out while the Japanese dived to rake We made the mistake of taking off our and the coral cut our feet to ribbons as we staggered carrying the found who had been wounded in the throat during the now lying with his hand over his he me I the planes be didn't seem to be anything for me to so I went below and lay down on Brantingham's They hit me In the belly while I was lying I'm done I'll be all right You get out the the hell with So in spite of his Martino and I carried him Then we went back for a last Only Harris was lying where he had tumbled into the tank But the radioman and I carried his body because we hoped to give him a decent After reaching shore at Cebu Lieutenant Kelly turned his attention to his casualties rounded up some native who got and in these we carried the wounded to the other side of the island where they could be loaded into a putting them in charge of a first-class machinist's to get them to the hospital this point a banca showed and it was a native the one we had sent Ensign Richardson ashore before for who by now was en route to the So I loaded the ship's and stuff into this and with them I shoved off for over the three planes came back and we tried to hide behind a fish trap a net with bamboo poles sticking up out of the But they weren't strafing They were looking for the fourth plane we'd shot down They scoured the area for twenty After they left we went on and of course I went straight to army and met the colonel in charge the 2 officer of the he hadn't heard from but he'd send out a radio message to hunt for him if he was still alive And maybe I'd better give my report direct to the I wanted and also I wanted to find out what had happened to our big American Offensive we had been asked to be part and that air umbrella which should have protected us this general had been having a conference at the bar of the American sitting with some other officers and some civilians who were now all having a Now a general is pretty and you don't just go barging into his conferences not if you're a mere naval lieutenant in command of a little seventy-foot following the lead of this conducting we stood off a bit and waited until the general gave us the signal to come on in and tie up at his He saw us all but he didn't give us the signal just went on talking to the other officers and thinking I realize It was a most important But at the time I was because I had just come from my boat in which I'd fought all through the war and with which we'd just helped to sink a Jap cruiser my boat which was now lying beached across the with one man another and all the rest but three I suppose I was unstrung I wanted to have him make my report by radio about the And although maybe it wasn't my I'd have liked to find out about that American offensive he'd invited us to join the night kept standing the two of while I got madder and I see now it was but I couldn't help it Finally it embarrassed even the colonel and he invited me to step over by the bar and have a drink with I said I had work to but I'd have a Coca I stuck around ten more minutes drinking it and since the general gave us no I shoved arranged to have the boat Because I wouldn't yet admit that maybe both it and we were expended High tide was at four Couldn't we maybe patch her float her over to get torpedoes and a crew from and maybe fight her just once went over there to where Brant-ingham and the 35 boat taking the stuff I'd salvaged from the and they gave me some lunch as I talked about the fight and what had happened to and during it Ensign Richardson telephoned He said Reynolds and they were burying fum and Harris in the American cemetery with a military escort and a at four I said of course I would and would meet Richardson at the bar of the American from which we'd go over got there but Richardson didn't show I stood I was tired and mad and lonesome as helL Finally a civilian came up and I got to talking to He was a very nice guy vice president of the I told him our story and he said how sorry he and asked if he might go to the funeraL He was the first sympathetic person I'd a truck driven by a Filipino soldier with a message for me that the funeral had been postponed until ten o'clock This American found out I knew nobody in hadn't and had no place to so he invited me out to his house for dinner and the Before I I located our three men who were I gave them fifty pesos and told them to go ashore and get drunk and forget the whole mess if they BE |