“Fire Torpedoes When You’re On, Whitey!”
By: Lieutenant (JG) J. H. Clagett
From: The United States Navy in World War II
Compiled and edited by: S. E. Smith
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| John Henry Clagett, Lt., (J.G.) |
It was black dark. Guadalcanal faded from view, except for the eerie illumination of the lightning. Savo was a shadow. The wake rolled back, glowing green.
“Lots of phosphorescence tonight,” muttered Whitey.
“Yes.”
“Lots of phosphorescence tonight,” muttered Whitey.
“Yes.”
A faint hum to the north grew into a roar, and the two planes skimmed again low across the dark bowl of the sky. We knew we were the objects of this search, and almost ceased to breathe as the planes circled twice, then vanished.
Up on the mountain over Esperance the three lights winked out.
The quartermaster touched my shoulder.
“There they are, sir.”
And they were. A number of dark shadows moving over the dim line between sky and sea, on the starboard bow.
“Come right. Whitey, you fire ‘em.”
The bow swung to the right. I gave the alarm over the radio. Hardly had I finished the terse phrases when another voice joined: “Josephine. Off Aruligo. They’re close!”
And another: “They’re coming around the north side of Savo. Two destroyers.”
The gunner’s voice came, with a strained accent: “Skipper! Behind us, this side of Savo! Some more of ‘em!”
“Jesus Christ!” Whispered Whitey. It wasn’t profanity; it was a prayer. We were completely surrounded.
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| 10 September 1942 Off Norfolk, VA Skipper LTJG John Clagett at the wheel with his executive officer Ensign Aaron White beside him |
“Jesus Christ!” Whispered Whitey. It wasn’t profanity; it was a prayer. We were completely surrounded.
The One Eleven moved steadily toward the middle column. They would be th1e troop carriers. They were heading for Esperance. Action and the world seemed suspended in an eternity as the range closed. My knees were weak, and my stomach was heavy and cold. My hands were wet, and the heavy glasses nearly slipped from them. I fought to keep my voice steady.
“Speed up a little, Kinlaw. We want a good shot at ‘em. We got to make ‘em good.”
The pulse of the engines stepped up slightly. The range narrowed. Seven hundred yards. Silence, and the soft beating of great black wings. Six hundred yards. The green white wake at the bow of the landing ship was plainly seen now. Thunder muttered louder. I sat back on my little seat high on the cockpit. My legs shook a little. Five hundred yards. The gunner in the forward turret sighed. It could be heard in the quiet.
“Fire torpedoes when you’re on, Whitey.”
“Three and four, fire.” The boat lurched. Two torpedoes threw up spray and vanished, trailing green wakes. “One and two, fire.” The other two fish hit the water. A bit of excess oil in one of the tubes flared up. I groaned. The boat turned abruptly about, the engines moved up the scale, and the wake rose and spread. Red flares mushroomed out from the leading ships. Shells rumbled overhead. Searchlights came on. Tracers streaked. The engineers opened the mufflers, Kinlaw shoved the throttles, and the One Eleven tore through the exploding water at full speed. Her bow climbed, and the wet spray shot back. I noticed oddly that my sleeves were still rolled up, and thought of the hell Westy would raise over that. As in a dream I saw the leading Jap explode in a tower of fire.
Shells landed near the bow. The boat pitched. I whipped out my forty-five and fired two shots, the emergency smoke-signal. Mike had been waiting. The smoke rose in a billowing cloud. The boat turned and leaped. Shells burst on the starboard bow, cracking shrapnel through the air, and dazzling us.
“Hard left! Left!” I shouted. And the world turned to glaring flame! It was hot, and sulphur was thick. The bow dropped, flame and fragments flew, and I heard myself crying, “Oh, Jesus Christ! We’re hit!” And thinking simultaneously, “That’s a trite thing to say!” It was searing hot; and then it was black fog, and piercing the black came a terrible scream. “Oh, my God! The pain! The pain! I can’t stand it.––”
The black fog lifted. It was oddly quiet, except for the crackling of greedy flames. I was alone in the cockpit, and the flames leaped about me. I was standing. I tried to walk, my one thought to escape this terrible hotness that was devouring. I couldn’t walk, my knees buckled, and I crawled on hands and knees through a wall of flame, over a deck where fire oozed through the cracks. It was like a nightmare, when you’re in some invisible morass, with death at your heels. I thought of the thousand gallons of hundred-octane gas beneath me. It might go at any second. At last I was at the edge of the deck. Without hesitation, and with my last strength, I heaved down into the welcome blackness.
The cool, cool water, delicious and unbelievable in its coolness, closed over me. I sank into the coolness. I thought crazily: “That’s my last ride in a PT boat.”
My life-jacket dragged me to the surface. Face and hands felt numb but there was no pain. The One Eleven swung around, broadside presented, and I saw the length of the deck covered with flames, and the shattered side.
The steel helmet was heavy on my head. I reached up my hands to unbuckle the strap, but to my amazement they wouldn’t work; and agony shot through the fingers when they touched the rough canvas of the strap. I tried to take the heavy seven-fifty binoculars from around my neck, but failed. I tried to unbuckle the pistol belt, but the fingers wouldn’t function, and pain forced me to stop. Light from the burning boat was all about me. I held my hands up in it. They were swollen and dark, and long strips, white in the firelight, hung from them and floated in the water. The air started to burn, and I slid my hands beneath the water.
“I’m burned!” I said to myself. “I’m burned bad as hell!”
My face too was burning. I dipped it into the water. The burning stopped. Nature brings an anesthetic with severe injuries. I felt no great pain, and somehow fear seemed a muffled and useless thing. I felt like a spectator.
A shape drew near to the edge of the light. Red flashes burst from it, and I heard a faint rattling. A flurry of splashes rose from the water a few feet away. More flashes, and more little spouts. I was mildly interested. I heard a familiar voice from a hundred yards away. It was Whitey.
“Get the hell out o’ here! They’re shooting at us!”
A dull panic filled me. I rolled to my side and tried to swim. No use. The resignation overtook me again. The firing continued spasmodically for a while, and then the Jap, forsaking pleasure for business, fled into night. The flames from the boat died, but as I looked about the bay I could see five other separate fires, glowing where ships and PT’s were burning fiercely.
The helmet was growing heavier. With an effort I could stay on my back for a while, and then I’d roll over on my face. The helmet’s two pounds would slowly force my face under water. I would gather strength and thrust my head back. Then again the unceasing weight would push it slowly beneath the surface. This seemed to go on forever.
I heard Whitey shouting the names of the crew, and listened to the answers. When Whitey called, “Skipper! Skipper! Are you O.K.?” I summoned enough strength to answer: “I’m all right. A little scorched but still kicking. Everybody accounted for?”
The answer came back: “Everybody here except Phil. Nobody’s seen him. I’m afraid he never got into the water. Sparks is hurt awful bad. I’ve got some morphine in him, and he’s out now. Some of the other guys are hurt. Nobody else seems bad.”
More ages passed. The little wavelets slapped my face. I pushed it from the water. The helmet pushed it back. Someone in a great black cloak drew the rim of it across my eyes, and the fierce scene of burning ships faded away.
I came to again, choking. I was very low in my life jacket. It wasn’t tight enough, and I was slowly slipping out of it. It was hard to open my eyes. They were swelling shut. I saw a gleam of phosphorescence in the water beneath me. It described a circle. A shark! I choked back a panic that tried to rise at the thought of the depths beneath me and the thousands of dead men there. Was I to join them?
I raised my voice. It sounded almost normal, and I was surprised at it’s strength.
Oh, boys! Boys! Where are you?”
A hail came back: “Over here, Skipper. Are you all right?”
“I’m afraid not, fellows. My hands are burned and I can’t get my helmet off, and my eyes are swelling shut, and I’ll be out of this life-jacket pretty quick. Can a couple of you swim over here and give me a hand?”
The voice came back: “Hang on, Skipper. We’ll be with you in a jiffy. Keep yelling so we’ll be able to find you.”
I continued to yell, and the friendly anxious voices came closer. Just when I thought I couldn’t hold my head up another minute, Long and Elsass swam out of the darkness and grabbed my life-jacket with strong hands. They tore off the helmet, let the glasses sink into the water, and took off my forty-five. They retied the life-jacket, turned me on my back, and started towing toward Savo, two miles away.
“That was just in time, boys. Thanks a lot. I’ll never forget it.”
“You should’ a’ yelled sooner. Skipper. How are you?”
“Not so hot, boys. You haven’t got something you can hit me over the head with, have you?”
“Nothing lighter than a forty-five, Skipper. We’ve got a little water, though. Have a drink.”
I hadn’t realized how thirsty I was until I discovered I had emptied the light canteen. It brought new life. My eyes became even harder to open. The night stretched on for eternity on eternity. The black robe covered me again with its soft folds. I awakened to concussions in my ear. Long was firing his forty-five in the water to scare off the sharks, which were closing in. I was burning up. Thirst grew to an unbearable thing. But there was no water. That was a mockery. No water, but cool water lapped my chin. It was all I could do to refrain from opening my burning lips, and letting the coolness run down my throat. Something restrained me.
I heard Whitey dimly.
“Sparks is dead. We’ve got to leave him. Damn those Japs! Why doesn’t someone come?”
More black ages, scarlet-lined with thirst. Then Walter Long shook me gently.
“Skipper, we’ve found a floating coconut, and I’ve got it open. We’re not hurt, and we don’t need it. Here, open your mouth.”
Almost gasping in eagerness, I threw back my head, felt the rough bark of the nut on my lips, and drank deep of a nectar that dashed through my veins, drove madness from my blood, and gave the power to open my eyes and murmur broken thanks.
The minutes crawled by. There was no light. Once a PT boat searching untiringly for survivors passed close enough for us to hear the engines. We fired and screamed, but weren’t heard, and the boat passed us by. It left hope in its wake though. Each man knew his friends would keep at it all night, and all the next day if necessary.
The cold of the water seemed to creep all through my body. Sharks came again, to be frightened off by the concussion of fifty-fives fired close to the surface. They weren’t really hungry. Luckily none of us three were bleeding. I could feel the dead of Iron Bottom Bay calling me, and dragging at my feet dangling helplessly in the water. Just in time the dark Someone came to my rescue again, and I drifted off into unconsciousness.
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| Map of the location of PT-111 and other World War II shipwrecks in Ironbottom Sound in the Solomon Islands |
When I forced my eyes open, it was dawn. A clear light covered the bay. It was like waking from a nightmare––and finding the nightmare still with you. It was wonderful to be able to see again, and I seemed dully numb. Nothing hurt much, and nothing seemed worth worrying about. The clinging dead men seemed to have sunk again to the dark bottom. I tried to realize that Phil and Sparks were now among them. I couldn’t keep my eyes open for more than a minute. I sank into a half stupor. The water now felt cold, but it soother the burns and made them bearable. I longed for water to drink. Even more I longed for something solid beneath my feet, something dry to lie down on, to go to sleep on, something between me and the sharks and waiting monsters of the black depths. And faintly over the water floated the sweet smell of the islands, of flowers and black earth.
“Where are we, boys?”
“Just about where we were, Skipper. The tide’s pretty strong, and we haven’t made much headway.”
Even in the deep lassitude that was on me I could realize something of the devotion and unselfishness these two men had displayed. They could have let me go, and been safe on good dry land hours ago, but they had fought on, through the long night, to give me a chance for life. Walter Long, ship’s cook. . . . Mike Elsass, torpedo-man: If you read these words some day, just this: Thank you friends.
The sun climbed above the horizon. It turned the water to gold, and new hope warmed up with its rays.
Long said, with a gulp of thanksgiving:
“Here comes a PT, She’s heading for us. Get out your forty-five, Mike. Everybody splash and yell.”
Two forty-fives cracked in unison. Mike and Walter yelled. I threshed my feet in the water and was surprised at the strength that hope brought with it. There were a few minutes of unbearable suspense, and then Mike announced quietly, but in a happy voice:
“They see us, Skipper! They’re coming for us! We’ll be out of this in a few minutes!”
It was too much for me. Everything went dark. When I opened my eyes again, the side of a PT towered high above us. Its apparent height from the surface was surprising. I felt as if I would kiss the boards if I could move. Then I felt lines beneath my shoulders and knees. I was lifted slowly into the air, out of the water that seemed to hold on with clutching fingers to the prey that was escaping it. And then the blessed dryness, and the solidness of the warm deck that was so protectingly beneath me. I sighed and relaxed my mental grip on the valve in my brain to which I had held all through the dark hours lest I scream, and cry, and grow mad from fear. I opened my eyes. A ring of familiar, anxious faces bent over me. . . . I managed a smile, even though my lips felt huge and stiff.
“Good morning, fellows. Thanks a lot. Got any water?”
A canteen was held gently at my lips, and I forgot everything as the sweet water poured down my parched throat. . . .
“How are you, Johnny? Want some morphine? Gee, we’re sorry this happened to you.”
I thought with longing of the morphine and sleep. But I remembered the two boys who had been killed. I didn’t know whether anyone else had seen that Jap explode, and I wanted Phil and Sparks to have at least the credit of having taken some Japs with them.
“Not till I can make my report. I don’t feel so bad. It just feels like something awful heavy on top of me.”
“Here’s Mr. Westholm’s boat coming over. Doc Lastreto’s aboard, and he’ll fix you up. They’re coming alongside now.”
Things went black again. The next impression was the kind face of the Doc bending over me, lips grim beneath the Groucho Marx mustache, of gentle hands, and the Doc saying:
“Hello, Clag, old boy. How’re you feeling?”
I answered something, then drifted off again. Next I remembered giving my report to someone, slowly and painfully, but with the feeling that when it was finished, I could sleep. The words seemed to form of themselves. I was conscious of someone working over me as I talked, of cooling things on my arms and hands. I finished, paused, and then whispered:
“Thank Long and Elsass for me. Say hello to Whitey and the boys.” I didn’t feel it when the morphine needle pierced my arm, but I drifted gratefully away into wonderful sleep, in utter comfort, upheld by the warm, soothing clouds of the merciful drug. My dark night was over.
I had faint memories of being carried in a stretcher along a surface that resounded hollowly, like a wooden dock, and of being transported in some sort of open vehicle. Then came an interval of fiery discomfort as someone with a soothing voice hacked and sawed away at my Naval Academy class ring. The ring came away after a long time, and I mustered the energy to ask that the ring be kept with me. It was in pieces now, but it could be fixed. Familiar life was vanishing away, and I felt a strong desire to hang onto something what was a material link with my past. The blackness drifted down again.
There followed a long and hazy time, in which nothing seemed completely real. I was kept filled with dope, which kept me comfortable, but it did queer things to my mind. Mostly, though, it was dark. I felt myself being carried, and then lifted at a sharp angle. Then I felt something rising and falling beneath me, and there was a roar in my ears. . . .
A long time later I awoke again, and was in a hospital ward on a cot. My eyes didn’t open, but I heard someone mention Espiritu Santu, and Solace. I was very confused. More time passed, lots of it. My mind seemed to be getting hazier and to be splitting in two. Several times I met myself walking down a gray street.
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| USS Solace |
Then somehow the dull heat that seemed to surround me constantly, melted away. I felt the bed heaving and there was no mistaking the cradle of the sea. My mind became clearer, and I could smell salt air. Then one day I opened my eyes to see a brown-haired girl bending over me with a glass of water. . . .
She lifted my head. It frightened me to feel that I couldn’t do it myself. I took the glass tube between the center of my lips and drank thirstily. It felt cold and good.
“Thanks. Where am I?”
“You are on the hospital ship Solace, and we’re halfway to New Zealand. They’ll fix you up as good as new in the big hospital there.”
“When will I get back to the Solomons?”
“It’ll be a long time, Lieutenant. You’re slated for transfer to the U.S.”
Home. It hadn’t been so long, but it seemed like centuries. I sank again into darkness, but it seemed reassuring now. . . .
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