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Show tar ft THEY WERE T- WHITE W.N.U.FEATURES it was their first crack at the Japs. I remember Chalker's face; he's a machinist's mate from Texarkana a shootin' Texas boy. He was pouring pour-ing 50-caliber slugs up at them, cooler cool-er than a pail of cracked ice, but that long, straight, pointed jaw of his was set. Houlihan, who was firing the other pair of 50's, was the same. They'd picked out one plane and were pouring it up into the sky, when we saw the plane wobble, and pretty pret-ty soon she took off down the bay, weaving unsteadily, smoking, and all at once, two or three miles away, she just wobbled down into the drink with a big splash. So we know the 35 boat got one. Meanwhile the 31 boat had shot down two more. After that the planes didn't bother strafing straf-ing the MTB's. Guess the Jap pilots back at their Formosa base passed the word around. "We went on back to Cavite and offered to carry more wounded. The big base was one sheet of flame except ex-cept for the ammunition depot. Only a piece of the dock was left, and through the shimmering flames you could see only jagged walls. Then we saw Admiral Rockwell he was directing the fire apparatus which was trying to save the depot. He is a tall man, a fine figure of a sailor, but his head was down that day. In a dead voice he told us we'd better get out that the magazine was liable lia-ble to go up any minute. We offered to take him with us to Mariveles, but he said no, his job was here, to w '73h i 'if v r-'c V ' I r i ' ( 'Y 1 MLS Ki THE STORY SO FAR: The story of their 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. After learning that Pearl Harbor had been bombed, Lieut. Bulkeley Bulke-ley ordered Lieut. Kelly to take three of the six torpedo boats to Bataan where they would get provisions and fuel from a submarine tender. But when they arrived, ar-rived, they found that the tender had been ordered away. So they set up headquarters in Slsiman Cove. CHAPTER n "For the most part we lived on our boats had to, because we never nev-er knew when we would have to haul out Into the bay in case of a dive-bomber attack. Anyway we had a base again. "Next, we found our barges loaded with gasoline in drums which had been towed out into the bay for us by the navy if they got smacked by bombs, they didn't want them burning near the wharves. There was nobody in charge but a watchman. watch-man. Each boat holds two thousand thou-sand gallons, and of course it was a job pouring all that through a funnel. fun-nel. "We noticed, as we poured, that this gas had both water and rust in it yet there was no way to strain it out; we had no chamois. What we couldn't then know was, this gas had been sabotaged. We'll never find out when or where the guy who did it is safe, if he's alive. But someone had dissolved wax in it wax which congealed inside our gas tanks in a coat half an inch thick wax which clogged our filters so that sometimes we'd have to stop and clean them after an hour's run. That's the fuel we had to fight the war on, we were to find out. "Then I went over to the section base to make arrangements for our food, and we got another bump. The navy already realized a food shortage was coming and cut us down to two rations a day breakfast break-fast and supper. All you got for lunch was stomach cramps about noon. There was plenty of them. "I also thought I'd better have the doctor look at my finger. I'd snagged it a few days before and hadn't paid much attention, but now it was swollen about as thick as a walnut. I guessed maybe it was a minor strep infection. What I didn't know was that out East the streptococci strepto-cocci are bigger and meaner than bulldogs and not to be fooled with. He took one look and began to talk about the hospital, but I said the hell with that I was the second officer of-ficer of the squadron and badly needed. need-ed. "We settled that I'd come over to see this doctor daily. "The big alarm came at noon on December 10 we'd pulled up alongside along-side a mine sweeper for water when word came that a large flight of Jap planes was headed toward the Manila area, coming from the direction di-rection of Formosa. We pulled away from the tender, out into open water, wa-ter, and fifteen minutes later we saw them several formations I counted about twenty-seven to twenty-nine planes in each two-motor bombers lovely, tight, parade-ground parade-ground formations, coming over at about 25,000 feet. But, I thought, when our fighters get up there and start rumpling their hair, those formations for-mations won't look so pretty. Only where were our fighters? The Japs passed on out of sight over the mountains, and then we began hearing hear-ing the rumble of bombs only first we felt the vibrations on our feet, even out there in the water, and we knew something was catching hell. But what? Manila? Maybe Nichols Field? Or even Cavite, our own base? We couldn't know." "I did," said Bulkeley laconically. laconical-ly. "I was there, at Cavite. The Admiral sent us a two-hour warning that they were coming from Formosa, For-mosa, and headed on down in our direction across Northern Luzon. So we hauled our boats out into the bay. They kept beautiful formations, forma-tions, all right. The first big V had fifty-four planes in it, and they came in at about 20,000, with their fighters fight-ers on up above to protect them from ours only ours didn't show! We couldn't figure it. First they swung over Manila and began to paste the harbor shipping. It was a beautiful clear day, and I remember remem-ber the sun made rainbows on the waterspouts of their bombs. They were from a hundred and fifty to two hundred feet high, and it made a mist screen so dense you could hardly tell what was happening to the ships. It turned out nothing much was they only hit a few. "But then that big beautiful V pivoted piv-oted slowly and moved over Cavite began circling it like a flock of well-disciplined buzzards. "They were too high to see the bomb bay doors open, but we could see the stuff drop slowly, picking up speed; only as we watched we found we had troubles of our own. Because five little dive bombers peeled off that formation, one by one, and started straight down for us. When they re down to about fifteen hundred feet, they leveled off and began unloading. Of course we gave our boats full throttle and began circling and twisting, both to dodge the bombs and to get a shot at them. Our gun.iers loved it Manila I saw something very queer shipping of all descriptions was pouring out of that Manila breakwater break-water into the open harbor destroyers, destroy-ers, mine sweepers, Yangtze River gunboats, tramp steamers, all going hell for breakfast. And then I saw them a big formation of about twenty-seven bombers. By then I was beginning to learn that if we saw planes in the air, they would be Japs, not ours. Then came another formation of twenty-nine, and still another of twenty-six. "If they were after shipping, we shouldn't get too close to the other boats, so I changed course. They wheeled majestically around the bay's perimeter, and each time tr.y passed Manila a load would go wius-tling wius-tling down and presently huge columns col-umns of black and white smoke began be-gan rising we could even see some fires, although we were still eleven miles away. " 'Where in hell is our air force?' our crew kept asking me. 'Why in Christ's name don't they do something?' some-thing?' "But the thing that really got me was that these big Jap formations, circling the bay like it was a parade maneuver, each time would sail impudently im-pudently right over Corregidor! Didn't they know we had anti-aircraft guns? "They knew all right, but it turned out they knew something I didn't. For presently all twenty of Corregi-dor's Corregi-dor's 3-inchers opened fire, and it made me sick to see that every one of their shells was bursting from 5,000 to 10,000 feet below that Jap formation. Those pilots were as safe as though they'd been home in bed. Later I found out what the Japs apparently ap-parently already knew that the Rock's anti-aircraft guns didn't have the range. And only then did it begin be-gin to dawn on me how completely impotent we were. "When the Japs cleared out," continued con-tinued Bulkeley, "Kelly and I headed head-ed for Manila and docked about three o'clock. When we reported, Commander Slocum told me the Admiral Ad-miral was considering sending our three boats on a raid off Lingayen, and were we ready? We said we were rarin' to go. So he said to stick around a couple of hours, and meanwhile to load the boats with files, records, and so forth, because they were moving headquarters. It had escaped so far, but right here on the water front it was too vulnerable vul-nerable sure to get smacked. Through the open door we could see the Admiral conferring with his chief of staff. "But just then," said Kelly, "Commander "Com-mander Slocum looked down at my arm, which was in a sling, frowned, and said I should get over to see the fleet doctor. The doctor took off the bandage and began to talk tough. Said he couldn't do anything, and that I was to get that arm to a hospital as fast as I could. "I was dead set on that raid, but I decided it wouldn't be tactful to bring that up, so I said, 'Aye, aye, sir,' and skipped it. We loaded the boat with records, and then went back to headquarters, where we were told that the Jap convoy off Lingayen included eight transports and at least two battleships (one of these must have been the one that Colin Kelly 'later got), but that we weren't going to be sent. They were saving us for 'bigger things." " 'My God!' my junior officer said later, 'I didn't know they came any bigger! What do they think we are?' "Anyway the Admiral patted Bulkeley on the shoulder and said, 'We know you boys want to get in there and fight, but there's no sense sending you on suicidal missions just now.' "So that was that, and we went on out across the bay, to our thatched village. "You might call the next few days quiet for us, although my arm began be-gan giving me hell. "Presently Bulkeley dropped in on us in the 41 boat, bringing us some stuff issued by the navy to replace everything we'd lost at our quarters in Cavite a shirt each, underdraw-ers, underdraw-ers, a few tubes of toothpaste, and razors two for each boat, one for the men and one for the officers. But with each razor there were only three packages of blades, so we saw beards in the offing. "Bulkeley had heard about my hand from a pharmacist's mate and asked me if I could stick it for two more days until he could relieve me. He himself had to be on call for consultation with the Admiral, while they needed DeLong and his boat for courier duty. I said 'sure.' "But the next few days were hell. The whole arm began swelling, and my hand was the size of a catcher's mitt. The nights were worse because I couldn't lie down for any length of time. Also I had to keep my arm held up, or blood running down into it would drive me nuts, and it stiffened stiff-ened that way. The doctor at Mariveles Mari-veles kept offering me morphine, but I didn't dare. There might be an emergency where we'd have to get the boats out to sea quickly. Bulkeley Bulke-ley had left me in charge, and morphine mor-phine might make me sleep so hard I couldn't waken for an air-raid alarm. The worst thing was the flies they kept buzzing around try-ing try-ing to get into that open incision in my finger as I held my hand up in the air. And also I was running a little fever about four degrees. (TO BE COSTIMFD) "Later I found out what the Japs apparently already knew." do what he could to save the magazines. maga-zines. "So we picked up from the gutters gut-ters and streets a lot of cans of food we knew we would need they were from the bombed warehouses stacked them in the boat, and set out." "I was back there a couple of days later after the fires were out," said Ensign Cox, a good-looking yellow-haired youngster from up-state New York. "They were burying the dead which consisted of collecting heads and arms and legs and putting put-ting them into the nearest bomb crater and shoveling debris over it. The smell was terrible. The Filipino Fili-pino yard workers didn't have much stomach for the job, but it had to be done and done quick because of disease. To make them work, they filled the Filipinos up with grain alcohol." al-cohol." "That raid gave me my first big shock of the war," said Lieutenant Kelly, "but it wasn't the damage they did. From over in Mariveles I couldn't see what was happening after the Jap bombers disappeared over the mountain. I got my shock after they had unloaded, and flew over us on their way home the same beautiful tight formations not a straggler. Where was our air force? "From over towards Cavite we could now see that huge column of smoke rising into the sky as the Japs left the scene. "It wasn't until Lieutenant De-Long De-Long dropped in at four o'clock in the 41 boat that I knew how bad off we were. He said the Cavite base was a roaring blast furnace the yard littered with those mangled man-gled and scorched bodies and furthermore fur-thermore that all our spare parts for the MTB's engines and everything every-thing had been blasted to bits. Machine Ma-chine shops completely gone. Not so much as a gasket left to see us through this war, with the factory halfway around the world. "Also he said the Cavite radio had been hit. That still left the short-wave voice stuff to talk with Manila or Bataan or the Rock, but of course this couldn't be secret from the Japs, so they would be depending de-pending on our six boats for courier duty to relay all confidential stuff." "So I wasn't surprised," said Bulkeley, "when early the next morning I got a hurry call to report re-port to the Admiral in Manila. As our 34 boat cleared the mine fields around Bataan, looking over toward |