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Show SSSrfir THEY WERE T- , WHITE W.N.U.FEATURES had dumped most of its gas at dawn, and couldn't proceed much farther at high speed. "This was a rendezvous not only for our four MTB's. but also for General MacArthur's second means of escape a submarine. It had all been carefully worked out, and the submarine would bob up in this cove tomorrow. Had we been attacked at-tacked or broken down, the General could have left us here, and continued con-tinued his trip on down to Australia by submarine. "General MacArthur, Admiral Rockwell and Lieutenant Bulkeley talked about the night's plans the advisability of continuing with us tonight or going by submarine," went on Lieutenant Kelly. "The Admiral Ad-miral was for staying with us, but the General was undecided. The afternoon trip had been rough, and Bulkeley had warned the night would be rougher. Yet as we lay there in the cove, the sea seemed calm enough, and the sky gave no hint of bad weather. So on the assurance as-surance of the Admiral that it would be good weather, the General decided de-cided they'd continue with us. "Then, as Bulkeley had said, there was the problem of what to do with the 32 boat, which had dumped much of her gasoline. She did not have enough left to make the fast run with us to the island of Mindanao, where the General's party par-ty would get the plane for Australia. So Bulkeley gave her different orders. or-ders. Her generals were to be transferred trans-ferred to my boat. She was to wait here in the rendezvous until tomorrow tomor-row when the submarine arrived. She was to tell the submarine that everything had gone well, the G-en- V ' " ;T " . . & 1 & t'fk S i! " ? Wt 7 ! . I ' -' ' I j, , .v , . ' I r . - . ' ; I . "tl''- f " ' I -TCI 1 ' ' THE STORY SO FAR: The story of (heir part In the battle for the Philippines Philip-pines is being told by four 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 carry General MacArthur's party and some additional personnel to the southern islands where they would be met by transport planes which would carry General MacArthur to his new headquarters. When Kelly arrived at the rendezvous the others were missing. CHAPTER X "I had an idea where they would be, and I explained. Bulkeley, I was sure, would take no chances with women and a child aboard. Of course he'd seen the Japanese signal sig-nal fire the night before. Planes might be out spotting us for destroyers, de-stroyers, and as soon as dawn broke Bulkeley undoubtedly had made for the nearest of those other Cuyos picking one from his chart (we'd never been here before) which was surrounded by reefs and water so shallow that no destroyer could venture ven-ture within gun range or even within sight. There he would wait all day, if not until dusk, at least until he thought the danger of spotting spot-ting planes was past, before coming com-ing to join us here. "So at 8:37 we dropped a hook In the cove and I sent two men ashore with semaphore flags to climb the island's single five-hundred-foot hill and stand continuous watch for the other three boats of course, but particularly for Japs. "At 5:30, when we figured any spotting planes would have had to head back for home, I was about to pull our lookouts from the hill and get under way when they wigwagged wig-wagged down that they saw a ship apparently friendly, maybe an MTB. I picked it up with my binoculars bi-noculars and presently made out the 32 boat, which soon tied up alongside along-side us. "It was this boat, remember, which had been repaired after its explosion. The cook had been blown into Sisiman Cove. During the night its struts started coming loose, so they could use only one or two of their three engines, and they, like us, had lost touch with the other boats in the night. But instead of falling far behind the flagship, they had somehow managed, in the darkness, dark-ness, to get out in front of it. "In the first gray light of dawn, their stern lookout reported a strange ship gaining on them. Looked like a Jap destroyer. Now an MTB in good condition can outrun any warship afloat. But the 32 boat was hobbling on two engines, so although al-though he was running full throttle, its commander wasn't surprised that the strange craft kept gaining. In order or-der to lighten his boat and pull away, he dumped six hundred gallons gal-lons of gasoline in drums over the side, but still the enemy was closing clos-ing on him. There seemed nothing to do now but fight before the destroyer de-stroyer opened with its 3-inch guns. They readied two torpedoes and turned dauntlessly for the attack, to discover just in time that the strange pursuing craft was the 41 boat their own flagship with General Gen-eral MacArthur aboard. "So here they were loaded down to the water line with seasick and puzzled generals. Just at this point there was a rising roar from seaward, sea-ward, and the 41 boat came around the point, Bulkeley and General MacArthur's party." "We'd lost sight of you a few hours before dawn," said Bulkeley, "when you stopped to clean your strainers. I went on ahead because I wanted to get as deep as possible into the Cuyo Islands before sunrise. sun-rise. , "As the sky pinkened I headed for the nearest and best it was one of the prearranged crosses on the map. It wasn't much of an island only a quarter of a mile wide but it had plenty of shallow water to keep off Jap destroyers. 1 "Lying at anchor, some of the crew picked off a little sleep as we rolled gently in the sunshine. Presently Pres-ently the General came on deck; i he was a fine figure in his camel's- ' hair coat and gold hat, frowning a little as he squinted in the sunshine at Uie water and white sand. Then Mrs. MacArthur and the little boy and his Chinese amah came up to sit in wicker chairs in Uie sun-i sun-i shine. It was too bad little Arthur couldn't have played on the beach, but I told the General no one should go ashore. Because if dive bomb-' bomb-' ers came over and spotted us, we " would have to get the hell out of that cove quick, leaving even the lookout behind, and out into open water where we could dodge and twist. "I figured the morning would he the dangerous time for bombers, if they knew we had slipped out, so by two o'clock I felt it was saf- to get under way. and we threaded down through the little shoaly chan nels between the islands, which would defy a destroyer or cruiser to follow, approaching the Inst one, which was our general rendezvous. In the distance I could see the other two boats also heading for it. and when we arrived. Kelly in the 34 aoat was already there and waiting. "Then there was the problem of what to do about the 32 boat, which r expecting something, they could onlj make twenty-seven. So we had a good chance of keeping away from them it might be dark before they could close in. "Meanwhile I was hoping they hadn't seen us and praying that the sun would hurry up and set, but it just pooped along seemed to hang there above the horizon for weeks, and finally bobbed under at seven o'clock. "If you've never been in the tropics, trop-ics, you don't realize how fast it gets dark almost no twilight at all." "I think it was the whitecaps that saved us," said Bulkeley. "The Japs didn't notice our wake, even though we were foaming away at full throttle. "During- the excitement, the General Gen-eral was lying down in the cabin with his eyes closed, but Mrs. Mac-Arthur, Mac-Arthur, who was with him, heard everything that went on and she didn't turn a hair. She took it like a lady went right on rubbing the General's hands to keep up his circulation, cir-culation, though she was seasick herself. "I never went below, and all my men stayed at battle stations, so the people in the cabin took care of themselves there was no one to wait on them. The General saw that I was supplied with cigars. They were pretty well provisioned. They'd brought from Corregidor, among other things, a few cases of Coca-Cola Coca-Cola the first I'd tasted in many weeks and some of the tenderest ham I ever ate. "It got dark fast after sunset, a wind sprang up, and ahead we could see lightning flashes. But these didn't help us find the narrow passage pas-sage into the Mindanao Sea. We were going in the dark entirely by dead reckoning. At midnight we figured we'd be off the strait so we turned into the pitch-blackness, holding hold-ing our breath, but still we didn't hit anything: I had no charts, I'd never been there before, I could see absolutely nothing, but since we didn't crash into a beach, we kept on going, and at last I knew we were through and safely into Mindanao Min-danao Sea our dead-reckoning navigation had been right." "And there we really caught hell," said Kelly. "Big foaming waves fifteen or twenty feet high thundering over the cockpit, drenching drench-ing everybody topside. Also, because be-cause of the speed, water and wind, it got damned cold. Our binoculars binocu-lars were full of water and our eyes so continuously drenched with stinging sting-ing salt that we couldn't see, in strange waters with islands all around us. We could see the outlines out-lines of the big ones Negros and Mindanao very dimly against the horizon through the storm. But there were dozens of small ones and probably prob-ably hundreds of 'reefs. "The sea was on our port bow, tending to drive us south. We expected ex-pected to make a landfall forty miles dead ahead a small island where we would turn and let me tell you this was an unpleasant situation situ-ation for a navigator. The helmsman's helms-man's eyes and ours were full of salt, you had to keep one hand in front of your eyes to avoid the slapping slap-ping force of the water, and yet you needed both to hold on. The Admiral Ad-miral was pretty wrought up. 'I've sailed every type of ship in the navy except one of these MTB's,' he shouted at me above the wind, 'and this is the worst bridge I've ever been on. I wouldn't do duty on one of these for anything in the world you can have them.' "It was a real problem to keep astern lookout for the 41 boat so we wouldn't lose it. Three good waves in a row and we'd be out of sight, and in that weather we could pass within seventy-five yards ano never see each other. The 41 wa now keeping about two hundre( yards astern, hunting for the smooth est part of our wake, to keep th. General's party comfortable. Th General had said that if his boa slowed, we who were ahead shoult also slow, letting them set the pace I know seasickness can be very un pleasant, but I wanted to get then, safe in port by dawn, in case there were Jap planes about, -so I kept pulling them on. It got roughei and rougher, and the Admiral kept remembering it had been he who had assured MacArthur that Bulkeley Bulke-ley was wrong about the weather it would be calm. " 'The General's going to give me hell for this in the morning, he said, uneasily. 'Damned if I thought Bulkeley knew what he was talking about but he surely did.' "The Admiral stayed with me up on the bridge the whole trip, in spite of the weather. Every half-hour half-hour I would send a member of the crew over the boat for inspection, to see how its hull was standing the strain, for we were taking an awful licking. "During one of these I noticed a figure by the machine-gun turret, sitting with his feet propped up on a torpedo tube. His stomach was long ago empty, but he was leaning forward, for-ward, retching between his knees. From this I guessed it might be ! one of our passengers, and sent a j quartermaster to ask him if he wouldn't care to go below. The i i quartermaster returned and salut- cd: 'The Ger.eral says he doesn't ! : want to move, sir he kr.ows what's best for him.' (TO BE COTIL ID) "They wigwagged down that they saw a ship apparently friendly." eral had gone on to Mindanao and would go to Australia by plane, as planned. Having delivered this message, mes-sage, the 32 boat was to go to Iloilo on the island of Panay, only one hundred and twenty miles away. There she could get repairs and enough gas to bring her on down to Cagayan to join the rest of us in the other three boats, and we would finish the war together in the southern south-ern islands. "What went wrong with this plan, we don't know to this day. The boat's commander, Lieutenant Schumacher, Schu-macher, must have decided that it wasn't in condition to follow these orders. Anyway, when the submarine subma-rine arrived, he had it shell the 32 boat, so it would not fall into Japanese hands, and boarded the submarine, which dropped his crew off at Corregidor, and took him safely safe-ly to Australia. "We found out much later that he had gotten to Australia. For some time their disappearance was a mystery, and Bulkeley here spent several days flying out over all those islands trying to find some 1 trace of the 32 boat. Some day, of course, there will be a full report on exactly what did happen which will explain everything. "All we know is that we last saw them back there in the cove as we left the harbor a hard right turn and then out to sea, at about 6:30. We were leading, so that the flagship, just behind us, could soarch out the smoothest part of our woke, so that MacArthur's party par-ty could ride comfortably. We'd been going about fifteen minutes when the port lookout called 'Sail-ho!' 'Sail-ho!' and there she was three points on our port bow, distance about five miles. 'Looks like an enemy cruiser!' said the lookout. I grabbed my binoculars, and so it was! Hull down, but masts and superstructure plain. On the course we were steering we would cross her bow. I gave the 34 full right rudder and full speed ahead it was much faster fast-er than eiditcen knots, because the carbon had burned cut of our motors. mo-tors. I knew that type of Jap cruiser cruis-er eould mnke thirty-five knots with "U steam up. But unless they were |