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Show ST THEY WERE C'W WHITE W.N.U.FEATURES THE STORY SO FAR: The story or their part in the battle for the Philippines Philip-pines Is being told by tour of the five naval officers who are all that is left of Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron 3. They are Lieut. John Bulkeley (now Lieutenant Lieuten-ant Commander), squadron commander; Lieut. R. B. Kelly, second-in-command; and Ensigns Anthony Akers and George E. Cox Jr. March 11 Lieut. Bulkeley showed the squadron their secret orders. They were to take General MacArthur's party and some additional personnel to the southern islands. When they arrived ar-rived safely at Cebu, General Mac-Arthur Mac-Arthur promised Bulkeley he would try to get him and his key men out of the Philippines. in close to shore," said Bulkelely. "The moon wasn't due until 2:30. I was riding in the 41 boat, Ensign Cox commanding, while Kelly had his 34 boat. We'd worked out our strategy. If two .destroyers showed up, my boat was to tackle the leading lead-ing one and Kelly the second. If only one arrived, my boat would attack at-tack her on the quarter, and Kelly's on the bow. "At five minutes to twelve Glover, the quartermaster at the wheel, called 'Look there she is!' A black object was coming round the point. 'Jumping Jesus!' said Glover. 'There she is!' because it was no little Jap destroyer but a thundering thunder-ing big Kuma class cruiser sliding around that point so clear we could almost make out her 6-inch guns. "I gave our boat a hard right rudder, sneaking in toward the shore where the cruiser couldn't see us. Apparently she was alone. Now we curved out, into firing position, on her port beam, making as little noise as we could, and as she passed, five hundred yards away, Cox fired two torpedoes, but they straddled her." "We fired two from our side," said Kelly, "but they also missed." "After that," said Ensign Cox, "we in the 41 boat made a wide arc and attacked again with our last two torpedoes Bulkeley himself firing fir-ing them, and this time two of them hit, right under the bridge. They made no flash, but a good bump and a column of water. But even before that the cruiser had waked up probably saw the wakes of one of the torpedoes anyway she speeded up to twenty-five knots and her searchlight came on and she waved it wildly around in the air, proba- marine's empty tubes we stuffed food, and I kept thinking, as we shoved it in there's another square meal for Peggy back there on the Rock. "But that wasn't half of it. Because Be-cause in addition to the subs the last one shoved off on April 5 there were seven fat interisland steamers being secretly loaded with food down near 'Dad' Cleland's dock medical supplies, quinine the boys were dying dy-ing without, everything they needed to hold on. But how could they hope to get these fat little tubs up through the islands to Bataan? Bulkeley was to find out three days later." "The General in command at Cebu called me in and verified the hints we'd heard of the big American Ameri-can offensive," said Bulkeley. "He assured me everything was set. It was to start at dawn the very next morning. That very night, twelve fortresses and heavy bombers were coming up from Australia. A swarm of P-35's were on their way up from Mindanao to Iloilo, where they were to gas up and go into action. "The bombers were to land at Mindanao, gas up, take off, and blow the be-Jesus out of every Jap warship war-ship in the region, and meanwhile the convoy of interisland steamers would start for Bataan, bringing food enough for weeks. Bataan was to be saved after all. "The General showed me messages mes-sages from all the other generals who commanded in different islands, co - ordinating the offensive. But there was one minor hitch, he explained. ex-plained. "Aerial reconnaissance had spotted spot-ted a couple of Jap destroyers steaming down the coast of Negros CHAPTER XII "The skipper was frantic to get some of our little fleet back Into commission so we could finish out the fight. We'd started the war with six boats. Two were lost off Bataan. Ba-taan. One was lost on the escape trip south. That left only three, and two of these were wrecks, fit only for the dry dock, Bulkeley's being the only craft left in fighting condition. condi-tion. But he was bound to get the others back Into shape. Did I think I could get mine to Cebu? "Well, we could try, and we started start-ed off, my poor old boat with her earthquake making twelve knots, her back end wiggling like a shipwrecked ship-wrecked sailor's dream of a French musical-comedy star. Whatever she was good for now, it wasn't fighting, and I was glad we didn't meet any Japs. "The machine shop was run by 'Dad' Cleland, a seventy-one-year-old American who'd been in the islands is-lands since 1914, and a swell gent he was originally from Minnesota and a typical hulking frontiersman. Didn't look a day over fifty and was a kind of patriarch in those parts. His native name meant 'the old man' or 'the headman' in Taga-log. Taga-log. "He was a great gourmet, too. I Had Bulkeley and me out to dinner and we had bottled beer (a great rarity), a big crab-meat cocktail, and then lobster Newburg, which was delicious, but 'Dad' kept warning warn-ing us to hold back, because then he broke out a couple of roast ducks. "Dessert was simple, like the last bars of a symphony. Just delicious chilled mangoes and Chase & Sanborn's San-born's coffee. It was a magnificent feed after the native chow I'd been eating. We talked about the war. People in Cebu felt the show was about up, unless miraculous help arrived ar-rived soon. " 'What are you going to do when the Japs come?' we asked 'Dad.' He straightened up all six feet two of him. " 'Have my dignity to think about,' he said. 'I'm not going to the hills. I'll stay right here and face them. " 'Dad' was working for the government gov-ernment for a dollar a year. When he finally finished with our repairs they took many days we asked him how much the bill was. "We'll bly looking for torpedo planes." "Our torpedoes were all gone in the 41 boat," said Bulkeley, "but I turned around and ran astern of the cruiser to draw her fire so Kelly could get in for his secpnd attack. Then we saw the destroyers, but they wouldn't give chase, although I tried to create the illusion of a lot of boats by firing machine-gun tracers." "When the cruiser's searchlight came on," said Kelly, "I turned right to cross her wake and came in on her other quarter. She picked me up astern with her lights and began banging away at me with her secondary batteries 50-calibers and 40-millimeter guns from about twelve hundred yards. The stuff was going right over our heads in a continuous con-tinuous stream of fire. "But I was good and mad because our first torpedoes had missed," said Kelly, "so I decided to chase her. I told one machine-gunner to fire at her searchlight, which was blinding blind-ing me, and the others to sweep her decks to get her gun crews. "After a few minutes' chase, we had closed in to three hundred yards so close that her searchlight :rr s:- I , h'i i I K & i I'll - fl seemed to be coming right down on us from an angle about like the sun in mid-afternoon. Then I drew out onto her starboard quarter and fired our last two torpedoes an overtaking shot. They were the last two our squadron was to fire in the war. "Then I gave the boat a hard right forget about it,' he said. 'You fight 'em and I'll fix 'em. It's the least I can do.' "He clenched his big fist, and it was about the size of a nail keg. Since I've come back here I've read about some outfits working on war contracts who were paying their stenographers fifty thousand dollars a year and charging it to the government gov-ernment as expenses until they were caught. It's a waste of time to indict in-dict them. Just get old 'Dad' Cleland Cle-land back here and let him go in and reason with them in their swivel swiv-el chairs. With those big fists of his, he'd know how to expostulate with racketeers like that. "Until we got to Cebu we hadn't rudder and started running away for we were defenseless now except for our machine guns. But the rain of Jap tracers kept right on, and suddenly another Jap ship showed up fifteen hundred yards away. Both started firing their main batteries at me and we were trapped between splashes all around us now, as close as twenty-five yards. We started zigzagging wildly, trying to dodge the two searchlights, and also the stream of fire which was crisscrossing criss-crossing above our heads like wicker wick-er basketry, and landing in the water wa-ter all around us. It seemed like weeks, but was probably only a few seconds. My junior officer, Ensign Richardson, had the wheel, while I was watching the cruiser through my binoculars. Suddenly I saw a big splash and detonation in the middle of her belly another two seconds, another splash and detonation deto-nation right in her engine room! Our overtaking shots had both hit home! Her searchlight went from bright yellow to orange to red to dull brick-red and finally winked out Every gun stopped firing. She was jet-black now. "But I didn't have much time for philosophizing, because this other destroyer was on my starboard bow, closing in, banging away with her 5-inch guns and me with only 50-caliber 50-caliber machine guns left." "Kelly got twenty-three salvoes of 5-inch steel that night," said Bulkeley. "But there was no doubt that his two torpedoes polished off the cruiser. I saw her searchlight fade out, and heavy yellow smoke arise. Her stern was under in three minutes the destroyer put the searchlight on her decks, where the Japs were all running around, not knowing where to go and she had sunk in twenty. "But I was running around with three destroyers after me. which were firing all they had, and I could see another one hot on Kelly's tail. That was the last I could see ol him and I thought he was a goner. "My destroyers chased me down to Misamis. but at dawn I dove into a place to hide there were six miles of shallow water where they couldn't follow even if they had seen me. We spent the day sleeping." (TO BE COMTIMED) "He clenched his big fist, and it was about the size of a nail keg." Island. Somewhat to the eastward there was a cruiser which carried four seaplanes, but they weren't worried wor-ried about it. But that afternoon reports had come in giving the progress prog-ress of the Jap destroyers. Obviously Obvi-ously they were heading toward Cebu. Maybe they had broken down our American codes and knew about the interisland steamers, and were coming in either to blockade them or to shell them at the dock. "Why couldn't we have a part in this great offensive which tomorrow tomor-row was to sweep up and blast Jap shipping and warships between Mindanao, Min-danao, Cebu, and Bataan?" Lieutenant Lieuten-ant Kelly thought, "We could be helpful by going out tonight and knocking off one or both of those Jap destroyers, which by midnight should be approaching the narrow channel between Cebu and Negros Islands. The cruiser never mind her, American bombers would polish pol-ish her off in the morning." "Bulkeley came in at eight o'clock that night and told me about it," said Kelly. "My boat had been in the water just four hours she was supposed to soak for twenty-four before she should be exposed to any pounding, but I asked him if we couldn't go out with him. 'I was hoping you'd like to,' the skipper told me. Think you can make it?' 'I don't know," I said, 'but we'll soon find out. This'll be as good a dock trial for her as any.' " "To man the boats I called for volunteers," said Bulkeley. "I had no trouble about that. I guess they understood by now that any man who doesn't volunteer won't be in the squadron long if I can get rid of him." "They were all tickled to be in on the big offensive," said Kelly. "It was apparently so well prepared that the army had given us the radio frequency of the co-ordinating planes that big American air umbrella um-brella which would be spread over us at dawn in case we needed to talk with them." "We got out to the island pnssape about .11:30 that night and sneaked been paid since the war started. Well, in Cebu the men all got paid and it was quite a spectacle. The dozen on my boat, going from bar to bar, got rid of two thousand dollars dol-lars in three days. If it had been two million instead, they would have got rid of it just as quick, although it might have strained them some. Then they settled back to their routine means of livelihood, which was playing poker with the army. "But things were moving in Cebu, and very secretly we began to hear hints of a big American offensive which was coming rolling up from the south through the islands in time to save Bataan, which was almost out of food and ammunition. Word came that two submarines were arriving ar-riving in Cebu, where they would be loaded with food and returned to Bataan we brought the first one in through the channel. "It was a big secret the area was cleared for two miles around. The loading was done at night and by officers only we helped until our hands were raw because they were fearful that some sailor or soldier might drop a hint of it in a native bar where it would get to the Japs. For three solid nights we worked until my back and arms ached, stowing stow-ing all that stuff in the subs, but all the time I kept thinking of Peggy and the grand old gang up there on the Rock and what was left of the peninsula fighting on without hope or food. Well, here was a little of both we were sending them. To make more room they stripped the submarines of torpedoes gave 'em to us, four for the 35 boat if we could ever get her into action, two for the 41 boat, which already had two, and charged them for us with ; compressed air from the sub-I sub-I marine's tanks. Now" MTB's were j readv for battle, and into the sub- |