We went into the wrong channel and ran aground on a jut of coral. It worried us. One past time when we had run aground close to shore, the Filipinos had taken us for Japs and shot holes into us. So I went ashore in the Thirty-Four's punt to try to dig up a tug and, anyway, if that failed, to block off whatever shooting there might be with the morning sun. But bu the time I got a telephone--at Minglanilia, the railroad station there--the tide had started to come in and the Thirty-Four's crew had gone over the side and rocked her off the coral and taken off south in the direction where they thought Cebu lay.
It took Kelly time to figure out he was going wrong and backtrack, and he didn't get into the approach to Cebu City until dawn. By then I was standing on Pier One with an ambulance, waiting for the Thirty-Four to tie up.
I could see the Thirty-Four working busily towards us. Then the air-raid alert sounded. Then I saw four Jap float palnes coming in, looking for whatever had pickled their cruiser. I began to jump up and down. "Jesus," I said, "For Christ sake!" I ran back and forth a little way. There was an Army lieutenant standing there, a tall, powerfully built middle-aged man. "What's the matter?" he asked, and I said, "Why, for Christ sake, they're going to get my boat and I'm not on it."
He knew the way I felt. I could tell he knew by the excited way he looked around to see what could be done about it. There wasn't anything to be done. But I liked him right away for the way he knew how I felt--Jim Cushing, a fellow about thirty-five years old who had been a wrestler once and then a chromium miner in the islands before joining the war.
The Japs came on in a "V". Then they peeled out of the "V" one by one to dive. They dove strafing and they dove right into the fire of the Thirty-Four. But torpedo boats in those days weren't what they are today, and we had only two twin-fifties on board and two lousy Lewis guns. The boys dished out what we had and the streams of tracers crossed each other in mid-air while I ran up and down, tearing at myself and letting little noises run out of my mouth. Then I saw the fat, yellow bomb coming out and saw the boat rigid under it, just held there flat and still-seeming. I groaned at the top of my voice.
Kelly was an iron-minded man, all right. He knew what he was doing. He didn't change course until the last possible splinter of a second so as to give the Jap no time at all to change aim. Then he flipped the boat over. The boat kicked to the right and the bomb hit the water near by on the port side.
I thought it had hit on the rail. That's the way it looked from where I was. The whole world stopped for me. White water stood up and hung there suspended. Smoke curled out of it while it stood there. The smoke curled like spumes of snow blown off a snow-smothered tree. Then the small, dark green Thirty-Four weaseled through, all motors roaring, and I shouted, "Missed! Missed! God-damn, if he didn't make them miss," and looked full at Cushing and he grinned back at me with all his strength.
But--as I found out later--Harris (P. W. Harris, Torpedoman 2/c) on the port turret was already dead. He had been putting bullets smack into the Jap. The Jap had started to smoke. It couldn't gain altitude on the pull-out from it's dive. (Later verified reports proved that one Jap plane crashed to the south and west of Cebu City.) "I got one," Harris yelled to Martino (J. Martino, CTM) on the starboard turret. "See it! See it! Did you see it?" turning his head as he yelled and following the plane from starboard to port with head high and neck stretched to receive the bomb splinter. The bomb splinter let him finish what he was saying. Then it went in right under his chin and drove up behind his face into the flesh of his brain.
Then there were more bombs and more strafings. One engine went out and then another. The starboard turret stopped working when Martino took a machine-gun bullet in the thigh. The Lewis gun forward stopped when Hunter (C. M. Hunter, CMM) had his upper arm broken by a bullet. One of a stream of bullets ripping open the canopy of the forward compartment like a can opener went into the groin of Reynolds, lying wounded below, and knocked up through his pelvis and bladder and intestines. The last gun on the boat went out of comission when a Jap bullet tore it right out of Ross' hands (W. L. Ross, QM 1/c), the bullet caroming off the gun and opening his thigh. And now Kelly was in trouble up to his neck and over that, up to his ears and the hairline of his forehead, with no guns left with which to fight back and only one engine with which to maneuver. I saw him sputter and wallow out of sight behind Kawit Island. Then he did not reappear.
I jumped into a car. I don't know how I got it. I was too excited. Cushing jumped in after me. He didn't have any reason. He just did, and we tore on down to Tanke, the nearest point ot Kawit. We drove with hand on horn and foot pressing the gas pedal through the floorboard, the ambulance piling after us.
The airplane had gone away. I ran down to the beach and got a baroto--a dugout canoe--there somehow, I don't remember, just took it, I suppose, and paddled with Cushing for the sound of the Thirty-Four's engine. We could still hear it going.
Then we saw the Thirty-Four aground behind one of those native bamboo fish traps. The flag was still there. It made me feel strange to see it flapping sluggishly in the breeze as if nothing had happened. I suppose your country is always like that. It goes on and on in its own way whatever happens to you, but it made me feel strange to see the flag flapping away in the same old way, and then I scrambled over the stern and I remember the engine blowing fumes in my face and my wrinkling my face up "whew!"--and then there the whole thing was flat before me. A sieve, that's what it looked like, the deck there, a mangled-up sieve of bullet holes with blood dripping through them.
Kelly had got the wounded ashore on Kawit. They had lit out so fast they hadn't had time to shut off the one engine still working. They had left the dead behind. I found Harris lying quietly below, where they had laid him, KIA, sertainly that, oh absolutely that--KIA: Harris, Torpedoman 3d Class, United States Navy. I remember running topside after that, thinking who'd ever have thought Harris would be a KIA, and then seeing Kelly come wading back.
"Congratulations, Mr. Kelly," I said, on his being alive.
"Well," he said, "well, . . ." and stumbled around a little bit in his words, and then said, "Hell, I wasn't worried about me. Hell, they can't get me. I'm too tough."
I was so glad to see him I told him that was true, that was the absolute truth, and then we got busy floating the dead and the wounded ashore on the doors to the forward compartment.
Mrs. Charlotte Martin, an American who lived in Cebu with her husband, "Cap," was at the hospital helping. Reynolds became conscious on the operating table. "I'm going to be very sick, ain't I?" he said to her. That was the only thing he said.
"Oh no," she told him, "only for a little while."
Then she leaned forward to stroke his forehead and saw he was dead.
We tried to save the Thirty-Four. After all Dad Cleland's boys still had their pair of pliers and ten-pound hammer. Lt. Tom Jurika made the inspection. There were two pilot boats for the party. There were a lot of Filipino soldiers to help and other people--including Jurika and Cushing. Then two Jap planes interrupted them with a sneak attack. They chopped off their engines and came gliding soundlessly out of the sun, then cut their engines back in with a Godawful grind and came on shooting.
They cut the Number Two pilot boat just about in half. Then they came back for the Number One boat. Everybody was trying to wade ashore. They were spread out in a rough line about forty-five feet long, all intent on getting ashore. There were about fifteen inches of water and four inches of slimy mud under it. You couldn't figure out whether i was faster to swim or wade. Then the explosive bullets came into the Number One boat behind. It sounded like two machine guns going at once--one from the plane, and the explosive bullets hitting sounded just like there was a machine gun working on the pilot boat.
Then the planes went for the men. They strafed the center of the line. Some tried to dive under the water. They saw the white-beaded line of bubbles from the bullets, but they couldn't stay under. They couldn't keep the water over them as a cover. There was too much positive buoyancy there because it was so shallow.
Incidentally, those who swam got to the beach faster than those who waded.
When the attack was over, there were two dead and there was a third fellow who had squeezed himself for safety in a small forward compartment in front of the cabin of the Number One boat. He had been clasping his knees and legs to fit himself in there. His back had been to the diving plane. A bullet hit him in the right shoulder, came out through a lower right rib, and then went on through the thigh bone, coming out just above the knee, and after that had gone through the calf of his leg, breaking the shinbone on the way out. He had six holes in him and four major bones broken by the one bullet.
And the Thirty-Four was on fire. She was burning like a Christmas tree, hopelessly and beyond redemption.
--Ira Wolfert
From: The United States Navy in World War II
Chapter 11: All Gone, Now
Compiled and edited by: S.E. Smith
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Robert Bolling Kelly | |
|---|---|
(L-R) Cdr. W.R. Specht, Admiral E.C. "Mike" Moran, and LCdr. R.B. Kelly at Rendova, May 1944
| |
| Born | June 9, 1913 New York City |
| Died | January 23, 1989 (aged 75) Columbia, Maryland |
| Allegiance |  United States |
| Service/branch |  United States Navy |
| Years of service | 1935–1961 |
| Rank |  Captain |
| Commands held |
|
| Battles/wars | World War II |
| Awards | |
Captain Robert Bolling Kelly (June 9, 1913 - January 23, 1989) was anofficer of the United States Navy who served during World War II.
In 1941-42 Lieutenant Kelly served as both Executive Officer of Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron 3 under Lieutenant John D. Bulkeley, and as commander of Motor Torpedo Boat PT-34, based in the Philippines.[2]
Kelly took part in the operation to evacuate General Douglas MacArthur and his staff from Corregidor to Mindanao, on the night of March 12/13, 1942[3]and was subsequently awarded the Silver Star.[2]
On the night of April 8/9, 1942 Bulkeley in PT-41 and Kelly in PT-34 engaged the Japanese cruiser Kuma off Cebu Island, firing several torpedoes, only one of which hit, but failed to explode. The next morning PT-34 was attacked by Japanese aircraft, forced to beach and then destroyed.[3] Kelly, who was wounded in the action, was awarded the Navy Cross and the Distinguished Service Cross for "distinguished conduct and extraordinary courage in combat."[2]
Kelly commanded Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron 9 in 1943-44, and earned another Silver Star for his actions during the New Georgia andBougainville Campaigns.[1]
With the rank of Commander, Kelly commanded the destroyer Irwin (DD-794) from June 1945 until her decommissioning on May 31, 1946,[4] seeing action during the battle of Okinawa,[2] and being awarded the Legion of Merit.
Lt. Col. James M. Cushing (1908 - August 26, 1963) was a US Army mining engineer who commanded theguerrilla movement on Cebu Island in the Philippines during World War II.[1] His forces in the Cebu Area Command numbered about 8,500.[1] In early 1944, he was instrumental in the Koga affair in which the Z Plan of the Imperial Japanese Navy was recovered by his guerrillas.[2] Cushing traded Japanese admiral Shigeru Fukudome and other survivors of a plane crash (but not the captured Z Plan) for the assurance that Japanese forces on Cebu would stop murdering civilians; a promise which the Japanese kept.[1] In 1945, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.[3] Cushing survived the war and continued living in the Philippines until his death in 1963.
J. Martino: Home of record: Waterbury Connecticut
Status: POWAfter the loss of his PT Boat in the fighting in the Philippine Islands early in 1942, John Martino joined the defense forces at Bataan and Corregidor, and was captured and held as a Prisoner of War after the surrender.
Rear Admiral Roekwell, Captain Ray and Lieutenant Bulkeley received citations asserting
that they “made detailed plans involvlng exacting preparations for a movement of major
strategic importance and of the most hazardous nature” and that “they execuied the mission
with marked skill and coolness in the face of greatly superior enemy forces.
The following o.fficers and men, received the Silver Star with Citations Stating that they
executed “with marked skill and coolness a mission of major strategic importance and of the
most hazardous nature in the face‘ of greatly superior enemy forces.
(Asterisk indicate Oak Leaf Clusters awarded those officers and men in lieu of second
Silver Stars for “performing their duties gallantly in spite of great odds and under heavy
enemy fire” when MTBRON-THREE damaged the Japanese cruiser in the Mindanao Sea on
April 8.):
Lieutenant Kelly.
Lieutenant (junior grade) Henry J. Brantingham.
Ensign Anthony B. Akers.
*Ensign Iliff D. Richardson.
Ensign Bond Murray, U.S.N.R.
Ensign Cone H. Johnson, U.S.N.R.
Dale Guyot, C.hief Machinist’s Mate U.S.N.
Robert B. Burnett, Torpedoman 2d Class, U.S.N.
Watson S. Sims, Radioman 2d Class, U.S.N.
Clem L. Langston, Coxswain, U.S.N.
LeRoy G. Conn; Machinist’s Mate 2d Class, U.S.N.
George F. Baraett, Fireman 1st Class, U.S.N.
Henry G. Keath, Ship’s Cook 2d Class, U.S.N.
Densil C. Stroud, Chief Commissary Steward, U.S.N.
Ned M. Cobb, Seaman 1st Class, U.S.N.
Herbert W. Grizzardj Machinist Mate 2d Class, U.S.N.
Joseph L. Boydolf, Carpenter’s Mate 1st Class, U.S.N.
James A. McEvoy, Jr., Machinkst’s Mate 2d Class, U.S.N.
*John Martino, Chief Torpedoman, U.S.N.
*Velt F. Hunter, Chief Machinist’s Mate, U.S.N.
Paul A. Owen, Chief Machinist’s Mate, U.S.N.
*Willard J. Reynolds, Commissary Steward, U.S.N.
*Albert P. Ross, .Quartermaster 1st Class, U.S.N.
*George W. Shepard, Jr., Machinist’s Mate 1st Class, U.S.N.
Paul E. Eichelberger, Machinist’s Mate 1st Class, U.S.N.
Jesse N. Clark, Boatswain’s Mate 1st Class, U.S.N.
*David Goodman, Radioman 2d Class, U.S.N.
*David W. Harris, Torpedoman 2d Class, U.S.N.
Charles C. Beckner, Pharmacist’s Mate 3d Class, U.S.N.
- Elwood H. Offret, Chief Machinist’s Mate, U.S.N.
Richard A. Regan, Chief Machinist’s Mate, U.S.N.
Otis F. Noel, Quartermaster 1st Class,U.S.N.
Joseph C. Chalker, Machinist’s Mate 2d Class, U.S.N.
William H. Posey, Ship’s Cook 1st Class, U.S.N.
Henry C. Rooke, Ship’s Cook 2d Class, U.S.N.
George W. Winget, Machinist’s Mate 2d Class, U.S.N.
W.H. Johnson, Seaman 1st Class, U.S.N.
*Morris W. Rancock, Chief Machinist’s Mate, U.S.N.
*James D. Light Chief Torpedoman; U.S.N.
*DeWitt L. Glover, Chief Quartermaster, U.S.N.
*Carl C. Richardson, Chief Machinist’s Mate, U.S.N.
*John X. Balog, Chief Pharmacist’s Mate, U.S.N.
John W. Clift, Jr., Chief Yoeman, U.S.N.
John Shambora, Boatswain’s Mate 1st Class, U.S.N.
Marvin H. DeVries, Torpedoman 1st Class, U.S.N.
*John Lawless, Machinist’s Mate 1st Class, u.S.N.
William F. Konko, Radioman 3d Class, U.S.X.. ’ Ensign George E. Cox.
John L. Houlihan, Jr., Torpedoman 1st Class, U.S.N.
Ernest E. Pierson, Boatswain’s Mate 2d Class, U.S.N.
Job H. Lewis, Machinist’s Mate 1st Class, U.S.N.
Francis J. Napolillo, Jr., Ship’s Cook 1st Class, U.S.N.
*John L. Tuggle, Machinist’s Mate 1st Class, U.S.N.
*Stewart,Willever, Jr., Radioman 2d Class, U.S.N.
*Floyd R. Giaccani, Baker 2d Class,U.S.N.
Harry P. Tripp, Radioman 3d Class, U.S.N.
*Benjamin Licodo, Officer’s Steward 3d Class, U.S.N.
Unbelievable. Thanks to your blog, to this post, I have now known which book is the one in a picture I took in the Philippines. After the Haiyan Typhoon I found a book in a beach nearby where the landed of McArthur took place, opened in front of a devastated resort and totally wet. I took a pic and this pic has become an icon. Now, thanks to you, I know which book is it. The one Robert Bolling wrote. Thanks a lot. If you wanna see the pic, do not hesitate and contact me: roger.calabuig.her@gmail.com
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your comment. Ever since I started doing this, yours is the first one I have received. I read this book cover to cover. I found the accounts so touching and informative that I simply felt it had to be shared. When I looked into it and figured out how few copies of the book actually existed I thought I needed to do something, so in my spare time I have been transcribing my copy. I am sure that I am violating some copy right or something, but frankly I don't care. What these men did (and women) must be remembered. And must be shared. I am seeking no personal gain by my sharing or credit, or anything. Simply the knowledge that this will be known. I am simply trying to do my best in my own way to get it out there. Please. Pass them along. This is taking me forever, but I hope it is informative. Have a good day.
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