INVASION PRELUDE (10, July 1943)

 Invasion Prelude
By: Ernie Pyle

Ernie Pyle at Anzio, Italy, 1944

The sailors went into . . . Action just as soldiers go into the first battle––outwardly calm but inside frightened and sick with worry.  It’s the lull in the last couple of days before starting that hits so hard.  In the preparation period fate seems far away, and once in action a man is too busy to  be afraid.  It’s just those last couple of days when there is time to think too much.

    One of the nights before we sailed I sat in the darkness on the forward deck helping half a dozen sailors eat a can of stolen pineapple.  Some of the men in the group were hardened and mature.  Others were almost children.  Then all talked seriously and their gravity was touching.  The older ones tried to rationalize how the law of averages made it unlikely that our ship out of all the hundreds involved would be hit.  They spoke of the inferiority of the Italian fleet and argued pro and con over whether Germany had some hidden Luftwaffe up her sleeve that she might whisk out to destroy us.  Younger ones spoke but little.  They talked to me of their plans and hopes for going to college or getting married after the war, always winding up with the phrase “If I get through this fracas alive.”

USS Biscayne (AVP-11) on 29 January 1942

    As we sat there on the hard deck––squatting like Indians in a circle around our pineapple can––it all struck me as somehow pathetic.  Even the dizziest of us knew that before long many of us stood an excellent chance of being in this world no more.  I don’t believe one of us was afraid of the physical part of dying.  That isn’t the way it is.  The emotion is rather one of almost desperate reluctance to give up the future.  I suppose that’s splitting hairs and that it really all comes under the heading of fear.  Yet somehow there is a difference.

    These gravely-yearned-for futures of men going into battle include so many things––things such as seeing the “old lady” again, of going to college, of staying in the Navy for a career, of holding  on your knee just once your own kid whom you’ve never seen, of again becoming champion salesman of your territory, of driving a coal truck around the streets of Kansas City once more and, yes, even of just sitting in the sun once more on the south side of a house in New Mexico.  When we huddled around together on the dark decks, it was these little hopes and ambitions that made up the sum total of our worry at leaving, rather than any visualization of physical agony to come.

Biscayne as an amphibious force flagship 
off Anzio on 21 January 1944 or 22 January 1944
during Operation Shingle. A PT boat is alongside her.

    Our deck and the shelf-like deck above us were dotted with small knots of men talking.  I deliberately listened around for a while.  Each group was talking in some way about their chances of survival.  A dozen times I overheard this same remark: “Well, I don’t worry about it because I look at it this way.  If your number’s up, then it’s up, and if it isn’t then you’ll come through no matter what.”

    Every single person who expressed himself that way was a liar and knew it, but, hell, a guy has to say something.  I heard oldsters offering to make bets at even money that we wouldn’t get hit at all––two to one we wouldn’t get hit seriously.  Those were the offers but I don’t think any bets actually were made.  Somehow it seemed sacrilegious to bet on our own lives.

    Once I heard somebody in the darkness start cussing and give this answer to some sailor critic who was proclaiming how he’d run things: “Well, I figure that captain up there in the cabin has got a little more in his noggin than you have or he wouldn’t be captain, so I’ll put my money on him.”

    And another sailor voice chimed in with “Hell, yes that captain has slept through more watches than you and I have spent time in the Navy.” 

    And so it went on one of the last nights of safety.  I never heard anybody say anything patriotic, the way the storybooks have people talking.  There was philosophizing but it was simple and undramatic.  I’m sure no man would have stayed ashore if he’d been given the chance.  There was something bigger in him than the awful dread that would have made him want to stay safe on land.  With me that something probably was an irresistible egoism in seeing myself part of an historic naval movement.  With others I think it was just the application of plain, unspoken, even unrecognized, patriotism.

    For the best part of the week our ship had been lying far out in the harbor, tied to a buoy.  Several times a day “General Quarters” would sound and the crews would dash to battle stations, but always it was only an enemy photo plane, or perhaps even one of our own planes.  Then we moved in to a pier.  That very night the raiders came and our ship got her baptism of fire––she lost her virginity, as the sailors put it.  I had got out of bed at 3 A.M. as usual to stumble sleepily up to the radio shack to go over the news reports which the wireless had picked up.  There were several radio operators on watch and we were sitting around drinking coffee while we worked.  Then all of a sudden around four o’clock General Quarters sounded.  It was still pitch-dark.  The whole ship came to life with a scurry and rattling, sailors dashing to stations before you’d have thought they could get their shoes on.

    Shooting had already started around the harbor, so we knew this time it was real.  I kept on working, and the radio operators did too, or rather we tried to work.  So many people were going in and out of the radio shack that we were in darkness half the time, since the lights automatically went off when the door opened.

    Then the biggest guns on our ship let loose.  They made such a horrifying noise that every time they went off we thought we’d been hit by a bomb.  Dust and debris came drifting down from the overhead to smear up everything.  Nearby bombs shook us up, too.

    One by one the electric light bulbs  were shattered by the blasts.  The thick steel bulkheads of the cabin shook and rattled as though they were tin.  The entire vessel shivered under each blast.  The harbor was lousy with ships and every one was shooting.  The raiders were dropping flares from all over the sky and the searchlights on the warships were fanning the heavens.  Shrapnel rained down on the decks, making a terrific clatter.

    The fight went on for an hour and a half.  When it was over and everything was added up we found four planes had been shot down.  Our casualties aboard were negligible––three men had been wounded––and the ship had suffered no damage except small holes from near-misses.  Best of all, we were credited with shooting down one of the planes.

    This particular raid was only one of scores of thousands that have been conducted in this war.  Standing alone it wouldn’t even be worth describing.  I’m mentioning it to show you what a taste of the genuine thing can do for a bunch of young Americans.  As I have remarked, our kids on the ship had never before been in action.  The majority of them were strictly wartime sailors, still half civilian in character.  They’d never been shot at and had never shot one of their own guns except in practice.  Because of this they had been very sober, a little unsure and more than a little worried about the invasion ordeal that lay so near ahead of them.  And then, all within an hour and a half, they became veterans.  Their zeal went up like one of those skyrocketing graph-lines when business is good.  Boys who had been all butterfingers were loading shells like machinery after fifteen minutes, when it became real.  Boys who previously had gone through their routine lifelessly had yelled with bitter seriousness, “Dammit, can’t you pass those shells faster?”

    The gunnery officer, making his official report to the captain, did it in these gleefully robust words: “Sir, we got the son of a bitch.”

    One of my friends aboard ship was Norman Somburg, aerographer third class, of 1448 Northwest 62nd Street, Miami.  We had been talking together the day before and he told me how he’d studied journalism for two years at the University of Georgia, and how he wanted  to get into it after the war.  I noticed he always added, “If I live through it.”

    Just at dawn, as the raid ended, he came running up to me full of steam and yelled, “Did you see that plane go down smoking!  Boy, if I could get off the train at Miami right now with the folks and my girl there to meet me I couldn’t be any happier than I was when I saw we’d got that guy.”

    It was worth a month’s pay to be on that ship after the raid.  All day long the sailors went gabble, gabble, gabble, each telling the other how he did it, what he saw, what he thought.  After that shooting, a great part of their reluctance to start for the unknown vanished, their guns had become their pals, the enemy became real and the war came alive for them, and they didn’t fear it so much any more.  That crew of sailors had just gone through what hundreds of thousands of other soldiers and sailors already had experienced––the conversion from peaceful people into fighters.  There’s nothing especially remarkable about it but it was a moving experience to see it happen.

    When I first went aboard I was struck with the odd bleakness of the bulkheads.  All paint had been chipped off.  I thought it was a new and very unbecoming type of interior decoration.  Shortly, however, I realized that this strange effect was merely part of the Navy procedure of stripping for action.  Inside our ship there were many other precautions.  All excess rags and blankets had been taken ashore or stowed away and locked up.  The bunk mattresses were set on edge against the bulkheads to act as absorbent cushions against torpedo or shell fragments.

    The Navy’s traditional white hats were to be left below for the duration of the action.  The entire crew had to be fully dressed in shoes, shirts, and pants––no working in shorts or undershirts because of the danger of burns.  No white clothing was allowed to show on deck.  Steel helmets, painted battleship gray, were worn during engagements. Men who stood night watches were awakened forty-five minutes early, instead of the usual few minutes, and ordered to be on deck half an hour before going on watch.  It takes that long for the eyes to become accustomed to the darkness.

    Before we sailed, all souvenir firearms were turned in and the ammunition thrown overboard.  There was one locked room full of German and Italian rifles and revolvers which the sailors had got from front-line soldiers.  Failure to throw away ammunition was a court-martial offense.  The officers didn’t want stray bullets whizzing around in case of fire.

    Food supplies were taken from their regular hampers and stored all about the ship so that our entire supply couldn’t be destroyed by one hit.  All movie film was taken ashore.  No flashlights, not even hooded ones, were allowed on deck.  Door opening on deck had switches just the reverse of refrigerators––when the doors were opened the lights inside went out.  All linoleum had been removed from the decks, all curtains taken down.

    Because of weight limitations on the plane which had brought me to the ship, I had left my Army gas mask behind.  Before departure, the Navy issued me a Navy mask, along with all the sailors.  I was also presented with one of those bright yellow Mae West life preservers like the ones aviators wear.

    Throughout the invasion period the entire crew was on one of two statuses––either General Quarters or Condition Two.  “General Quarters” is the Navy term for full alert and means that everybody is on full duty until the crisis ends.  It may be twenty minutes or it may be forty-eight hours.  Condition Two is half alert, four hours on, four hours off, but the off hours are spent right at the battle station.  It merely gives the men a little chance to relax.

Mildred Gillars (Midge)
(Bureau of Prisons ID photo)

 

    A mimeographed set of instructions and warnings was distributed about the ship before sailing.  It ended as follows: “This operation will be a completely offensive one.  The ship will be at General Quarters or Condition Two throughout the operation.  It may extend over a long period of time.  Opportunities for rest will not come very often.  You can be sure that you will have something to talk about when this is over.  This ship must do her stuff.”

    The night before we sailed the crew listened as usual to the German propaganda radio program which featured Midge, the American girl turned Nazi, who was trying to scare them, disillusion them and depress them.  As usual they laughed with amusement and scorn at her childishly treasonable talk.

    In a vague and indirect way, I suppose, the privilege of listening to your enemy trying to undermine you––the very night before you go out to face him––expresses what we are fighting for.

PART V: THE MEDITERRANEAN AND FRANCE, VICTORY IN EUROPE

A map of the Allied army amphibious landing in Sicily,
10 July 1943, as part of Operation Husky.

 IN JANUARY 1943, TWO MONTHS AFTER THE NORTH African landings and six months before the successful conclusion of the Tunisian campaign, a preliminary plan was drafted for Operation “Husky”––the invasion of Sicily.  Predicated on the assumption that such an assault would extend Allied influence in the Mediterranean to the point where Italy would be forced to withdraw from the war, while Germany would undoubtedly have to divert a number of troops from the Russian front, the plan for “Husky” (ultimately set for July 10, 1944 [1943]) envisioned an American force assembled in North Africa and a British force assembled in the Near East, converging on the mountainous, triangular-shaped island a few statute miles from the Italian mainland.

Admiral H. Kent Hewitt c. 1945

    American naval might was under Admiral H. Kent Hewitt, now three-stars, who established headquarters in Algiers on March 17 and shared a suite of offices with Commander in Chief Mediterranean, Fleet Admiral Cunningham, RN.  While the two worked together on rough plans “like brothers”, it was not until May 13 that Supreme Command reached a final decision as to how the ambitious assault was to be effectuated, by eight divisions over a hundred-mile front.  On that day Hewitt learned that his Western Naval Task Force was to attack the south coast between Licata and Scoglitti, while the Eastern Force [British, under Vice Admiral Sir Bertram C. Ramsey] was to attack in the Gulf of Noto and along the Pachino Pennisula.  Other measures were calculated to provide complete air supremacy, containment of the Italian fleet, and the seizure of Pantelleria in order to provide a base for fighter planes.  After establishment of a beachhead, American and British troops were to capture Augusta, Catania and Gerbini Airfields, and thence move across the island and seize Messina, a primary objective of the invasion.

Cunningham, John, Admiral, RN (centre)
with Rear Admiral John Mansfield (left)
and King George VI (right).

    Charged with landing Patton’s Seventh Army, the Western Naval Task Force was divided into three Attack groups:

    Task Force 81 (DIME Force) was commanded by Rear Admiral John F. [L.] Hall, with the 1st Infantry Division embarked (Major General Terry Allen), one combat team of the 2nd Armored Division, and a Ranger batallion.  This force was supported by thirteen destroyers and the light cruisers Savannah and Boise, and was responsible for landings at Gela.

USS Savannah (October 1944)

    

Task Force 85 (CENT Force) under Rear Admiral Alan Kirk, with the 45th Infantry Division embarked (Major General Troy Middleton) was scheduled for landing at Scoglitti.  In support were sixteen destroyers and the light cruiser Philadelphia.

Hall, John L., RADM, USN (Left)

   

Admiral Alan Goodrich Kirk

    Task Force 86 (JOSS Force) under Rear Admiral Richard L. Connolly, transported the 3rd Infantry Division (Major General Lucian K. Truscott––“You are about to meet the Boche.  Carve your name in his face.”), and two Ranger Battalions.  Eight destroyers and light cruisers Birmingham and Brooklyn offered support for the Licata landings.

Admiral Conolly, Richard L., in London, England,
circa February 1950

USS Boise (July 1938)

    The British (Eastern Naval Task Force) were positioned on the right flank of Task Force 85, lifting five divisions of Montgomery’s Eighth Army for landings between Pozallo and Cape Murro di Porco. 

Middleton, Troy H., Major Gen., US Army

    Thus was convened the greatest armada in history––greater even than at Normandy.  Excluding landing craft lifted to the invasion aboard ship, there were more than 4000 British and American combat ships and beaching craft.

Allen, Terry de la Mesa, Sr., Major General

    Practically speaking, Sicily’s defense was in the hands of four Italian divisions, two Panzer divisions, and an undetermined number of German E-boats and Italian motor torpedo boats.  So far as Mussolini’s “fleet-on-paper” was concerned, it fortunately remained committed to the defense of the mainland.

USS Philadelphia (April 1943)

    Aboard Conolly’s flagship Biscayne was the beloved correspondent Ernie Pyle.  Esteemed by GI Joe for his warm human-interest stories filed for United Features Syndicate, thin, balding, forty-three-year-old Pyle was famed as a newspaperman who not only told the GI’s story but also shared his unhappy lot in foxholes and shell craters.  From his war memoirs, written a year before his life was snuffed out by a sniper’s bullet on Ie Shima during the Okinawa invasion, we have a rare glimpse of Pyle aboard ship.  He recounts the events from D-5, prior to the time that JOSS Force set sail from Bizerte, when that harbor was subjected to a particularly severe German air raid.

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Major General Lucian K. Truscott

Birmingham off the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, 7 February 1944

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USS Brooklyn (1939)

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Pyle, Ernie, 1945

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From: The United States Navy in World War II
Compiled and edited by: S. E. Smith

FIVE CLASSIC LINES SUMMED UP THE FIGHTING PHILOSOPHY . . .

Burke in 1958

Five classic lines summed up the fighting philosophy of the extraordinary squadron leader, Arleigh A. Burke, then a Commander, and by war’s end Admiral Marc Mitscher’s Chief-of-Staff, a much-decorated hero who eventually rose to become the only three-term Chief of Naval Operations.

DESRON 23 DOCTRINE

If it will help kill Japs it’s important

If it does not help kill Japs––it’s not important

Keep your ship trained for battle!

Keep your material ready for battle!

Keep your boss informed concerning readiness for battle!

Admiral Marc Mitscher and Chief of Staff Arleigh Burke
transfer over to Enterprise after Bunker Hill 
is hit twice by kamikazes.

    THE CLOSE OF THE YEAR MARKED THE BEGINNING OF the effort to capture Rabaul, and the climax of the drive up through the Solomons.  The campaign finally ended in victory on February 15, 1944 when American troops landed in the Green Islands, one hundred and twenty miles from Rabaul.

    Behind lay bloody Guadalcanal––an epitaph, an enduring symbol of American bravery and sacrifice.

From: The United States Navy in World War II
Compiled and edited by: S. E. Smith

THEY CAN FORGET THAT ISLAND FROM NOW ON (19, November 1943)

 They Can Forget That Island From Now On

By: Seaman 1/c James J. Fahey

Fahey, James J., S1C, USN

Friday, November 19, 1943:  Things are pretty quiet at Bougainville.  I guess the Japs’ back is broken.  They can forget that island from now on.
    They allowed a few men from each division to go on the beach this afternoon, for a few hours of recreation.  There is nothing over there but jungle and swamp.  There is a native village further inland but only officers are allowed there.

    Some of the men who visited the Denver while she was in port said that twenty-five men were killed and many were wounded.  The wounded consisted of men with broken backs, eyes blown out, bodies crushed, etc.  The flooded compartments have sailors floating around in their waters.  One of their dead, a chief, still had his pipe in his mouth.  The odor from the bodies, still sealed aboard, is overwhelming.  They cannot retrieve the bodies until dry dock is reached.

USS Denver (CL-58) circa December 1942

    Sunday, November 21, 1943:  We are still at Purvis Bay.  A great many of the men are washing their blues.  We have hopes of being in Australia by January of ‘44.  We had movies on the forecastle for all hands as it was too hot below.  Our regular movies were held in the hangar deck but because of the extreme heat, this was impossible.

    Today I went to church services on Tulagi.  This was the first time on the beach in over a month.  We sang hymns.  The same ones I used to sing in grammar school.  It brought back memories.  I could hear the birds singing in the jungle.  It’s much better here than at Purvis.  This time last year, the Marines were fighting the Japs on the same spot.  The fighting that took place here was a nightmare.  Now peace and quiet has returned.  The Japs are buried close by.  Many are sealed in caves that are not too far away.  They refused to surrender.  It was much easier to seal them in their natural graveyard than risk huge losses.  All of the huts are made of big leaves cut from the jungle.  It doesn’t take the natives long to build a hut.  The little church is also made of the same substance.  Bamboo is also used in these crude living quarters.  The floors are generally dirt.  As for the natives, they are intelligent in appearance.  A large cage is teeming with birds.  I never saw such striking colors before.  The birds were captured by the natives from the jungle.  Some were of enormous size while others had a resemblance to parrots.

    I spent quite a bit of time talking to a fellow who was on one of the invasion barges in action at Bougainville.  He said that the Japs mowed down over 300 Marines in nothing flat while they were attempting a charge on the beach.  That we were only taking a small part of Bougainville, enough for our airfields.  The Japs were to be pushed back into the jungle and there they would starve.  If an attempt was ever made to clear the island of Japs, the process would take years to accomplish.  There are thousands of Japs there and many of them are veterans of the China War.  When the airfield is in operation, Rabaul will be rendered useless.  The Japs will be forced back to their powerful island of Truk approximately 700 miles away.  Truk is the Pearl Harbor of the Japanese Empire.  No white man has set foot on this island in over twenty-five years.  A formidable fortress, Truk can boast of its thousands of troops stationed there, ready and waiting to defend its shores.

    I returned to the ship after church services on Tulagi.  The Denver left for the States today.

    Wednesday, November 24, 1943: Sitting at anchor in Purvis Bay, we took on fuel today.  Espiritu Santo in a few days is the word.  I hope so.  Nothing fit to eat in over a month.  A troopship arrived this morning.  It left this afternoon for Bougainville.  It steamed up from the Fiji Islands.  This will be the last ride for many of those troops.  Some will come back crippled for life.  Going, they are young and in the best of health.  Returning, they are old and beaten shells that once were men.  Troops are transported there nearly every day.  Crowded landing barges are usually their lot.  The barges are very small and many of the troops are stricken with seasickness.  On rainy days they are hearded below where the heat is unbearable and no air reaches them.

USS Foote

    Yesterday, the destroyer Foote left for the states, half of its bow was blown off.  It happened at Bougainville in our sea battle.  The patch job was a credit to the Navy.  Jap torpedoes were the damaging agent and it was a sight to behold.

    A number of the men were diving off the side of the ship having a grand old time until an officer happened by.  Result . . . No diving . . . 

    Twenty new “boots” are on board today.  They arrived by transport.  No movies last night on account of rain.  One of the movies that we have viewed while here was Edison, The Boy.  Mickey Rooney was the star.  It was enjoyable.  

    About a month from now, summer begins.  It’s hot enough as it is.  I can imagine what we will be in for weather-wise.  For now, darkness creeps in at about 7 P.M. Listening to the news report, I learned that the invasion of Tarawa in the Gilberts has begun.  It’s over 1000 miles to the north of us, north of the equator.  It gave no date of the invasion . . .

WITH THE INVASION UNDERWAY, LET US LOOK IN ON . . . (10-11, July 1943)

Admiral H. Kent Hewitt c. 1945

 With the invasion underway, let us look in on Hewitt’s flagship.  The scene aboard Monrovia, in which Patton and his staff are embarked, is one of constant movement from communications office to bridge; of messages being coded and transmitted.  The bridge is filled with anxious officers peering at sky and sea, worrying about the air cover.  Screwed up in his Admiral’s seat, Hewitt is a study in concentration.  

A Vermonter and a recipient of the Distinguished Service Medal, the Admiral remains calm even on D-1 (doing double acrostics!), while the forces are headed northward and the weather begins to make up.

USS Monrovia (APA-31) moored alongside another ship,
date and location unknown

From: The United States Navy in World War II
Compiled and edited by: S. E. Smith

LIGHT CRUISER MONTPELIER ARRIVED IN THE PACIFIC. (19, November 1943)

 Light Cruiser Montpelier arrived in the Pacific at the end of November.  

USS Montpelier (CL-57) in Dec 1942

We meet again the young diarist, Seaman First Class James J. Fahey. 

Fahey, James J., S1C, USN

From: The United States Navy in World War II
Compiled and edited by: S. E. Smith

EMPRESS AUGUSTA BAY (1-2, November 1943)

 Empress Augusta Bay
By: Theodore Roscoe

    When word reached Admiral Kona at Truk that the Americans had dared to put foot on Bougainville, he radioed instructions to strike the interloper and strike hard.  

Admiral Sentarō Ōmori

Rabaul’s air strength was mustered, and with air power to back him up, Rear Admiral Sentaro Omari set out from Rabaul late in the afternoon of November 1 with a bloodthirsty surface force.  Mission: to blast the Americans at Cape Torokina. 

Myōkō in Singapore at the end of World War II.
Submarines I-501 and I-502 are tied up alongside.

    In Omari’s force were heavy cruisers Myoko and Haguro, light cruisers Sendai and Agano, and six destroyers.  Five troop-carrying assault transports sortied with the force, intending to land a thousand soldiers on the Torokina beaches to give battle to the U.S. Marines.  But these APD’s were late for the rendezvous, and after an American sub was sighted near St. George Channel, Omari was glad to send them home.  He wanted freedom for fast maneuver.

Japanese cruiser Haguro

    He needed it.  Halsey had the word on his sortie, and ComSoPac had lost no time in dispatching Rear Admiral Merrill’s task force to intercept the southbound Jap’s.  When Merrill received this flash assignment his cruisers were off Vella Lavella, enjoying a breather after the strenuous bombardment work of the previous day.  Commander B. L. (“Count”) Austin was on hand with DesDiv 46.  Captain Arleigh Burke’s DesDiv 45 was refueling in Hathorn Sound at the entrance of Kula Gulf, but these destroyers topped off with dizzy speed, and by 2315 in the evening of November 1, Merrill’s force was racing headlong to meet the warships of Admiral Omari.

Light cruiser Sendai

    Omari did not expect to encounter a cruiser destroyer force.  He expected, perhaps wishfully, to encounter a transport group.  Bearing down on Empress Augusta Bay, he had his Imperial naval vessels disposed in a simple formation with heavy cruisers Myoko (flagship) and Haguro in the center; light cruiser Sendai and destroyers Shigure, Samidare, and Shiratsuyu to port; light cruiser Agano and destroyers Naganami, Hatsukaze, and Wakatsuki to starboard.

Agano off Sasebo, October 1942

    Merrill’s force was disposed in line-of-bearing of unit guides.  In column to starboard were Burke’s van destroyers: Charles Ausburne (Commander L. K. Reynolds); Dyson (Commander R. A. Gano); Stanly (Commander R. W. Cavenagh); and Claxton (Commander H. F. Stout).  In center column steamed cruisers Montpelier (flagship), Cleveland, Columbia and Denver.  To port steamed Austin’s rear destroyers: Spence (Commander H. J. Armstrong); Thatcher (Commander L. R. Lampman); Converse (Commander D. C. E. Hamberger); and Foote (Commander Alston Ramsay).

Burke in 1958

    Omari’s force suffered the first blow when an American plane, detecting the Jap approach, planted a bomb in the superstructure of heavy cruiser Haguro.  That was at 0130 in the morning of November 2.  Lamed by the hit, Haguro reduced the formation’s speed to 30 knots.  Then one of that cruiser’s planes reported Merrill’s task force coming up.  The airmen erroneously notified Omari that one cruiser and three destroyers were in the offing.  When, a few minutes later, he was informed by another air scout that a fleet of transports was unloading in Empress Augusta Bay, he sent his formation racing southeastward, hot for a massacre.  Apparently the “transports” sighted were destroyer minelayers Breese, Gamble, and Sicard, at that time working along the coast under escort of destroyer Renshaw.

USS Charles Ausburne (DD-570) in the vicinity
of the Solomon Islands, 23 March 1944

    The night was black as carbon.  Several of Omari’s warships carried radar apparatus, but he put more reliance on binoculars.  American “Sugar George” radar was to out-see Japanese vision on this occasion.

    Merrill’s cruisers made the initial radar contact at 0227.  He had already decided to maintain his ships in a position that would block the entrance to Empress Augusta Bay.  Once action was joined, he intended to elbow the enemy westward, thereby gaining sea room which would enable him to fight a long-range gun battle with least chance of danger from Jap torpedoes.  But his destroyers were to open proceedings with a torpedo attack, and the cruisers were to hold their fire until the “fish” had opportunity to strike the foe.

Reynolds, Luther Kendrick,
Commander, USN

    These plans were carefully laid, and they were known, chapter and verse, by Captain Arleigh Burke, leader of DesDiv 45.  Commander Austin and DesDiv 46 were not so well versed in the detail.  They were new to Task Force 39, and Austin was not thoroughly acquainted with Merrill’s battle techniques.

USS Dyson (DD-572) at Sea 09-30-1944

    As soon as radar contact was established, Merrill headed his formation due north.  After a brief run, Burke’s van destroyers sliced away northwestward to deliver a torpedo strike as planned.  Merrill then ordered a simultaneous turn to reverse course.  Austin’s destroyers were instructed to countermarch, and then hit the enemy’s southern flank with torpedoes as soon as they could reach firing position.

Destroyer Squadron 23 officers of the squadron enjoy
a beer at "Cloob Des-Slot", Purvis Bay, Solomon Islands,
on 24 May 1944. Those present are (from left to right):
Commander R.A. Gano, Commanding Officer, USS Dyson (DD-572);
Commander Luther K. Reynolds, Commanding Officer, USS Charles Ausburne (DD-570);
Captain Arleigh A. Burke, Squadron Commodore;
Commander B.L. Austin, Commander Destroyer Division 46;
Commander D.C. Hamberger, Commanding Officer, USS Converse (DD-509);
Commander Herald Stout, Commanding Officer, USS Claxton (DD-571);
and Commander Henry J. Armstrong, Commanding Officer, USS Spence (DD-512). 

    While Merrill’s cruisers were swinging around the hairpin turn, Burke’s destroyers were tacking in on Omari’s port side column.  At 0246 Burke shouted the word over TBS, “My guppies are swimming!”  But the Japs had sighted Merrill’s cruisers, and Omari was turning his formation southwestward.  Because of this sudden turn, the barrage of 25 “guppies” sailed on into silence and oblivion, and Burke’s briskly executed attack failed to score.

    Meanwhile, the Sendai column launched torpedoes at the American cruisers.  But Merrill had not waited for this counterfire.  When C.I.C. Informed him of Omari’s southwestward turn, he ordered his cruisers to let go with gunnery.  I.J.N. Sendai was chief target for this booming fusillade.  She caught a cataract of shells just as she was swinging to starboard, and the explosions blew her innards right out through the overhead.

Captain Arleigh A. Burke, USN, Commander Destroyer Squadron 23 (seated, right center)
with other officers of the squadron, during operations in the Solomon Islands, circa 1943.
Those present are (seated, left to right):
Commander Luther K. Reynolds, Commanding Officer, USS Charles Ausburne (DD-570);
Commander R.W. Cavenaugh; Captain Burke; and
Commander R.A. Gano, Commanding Officer, USS Dyson (DD-572).
(standing, left to right):
Commander Henry J. Armstrong, Commanding Officer, USS Spence (DD-512);
Lieutenant J.W. Bobb; Commander J.B. Morland; and Commander J.B. Calwell.

    Sendai’s abrupt come-uppance threw her column into a jumble.  In the ensuing confusion, destroyers Samidare and Shiratsuyu collided full tilt, and went reeling off in precipitous retirement.  That left the Shigure all by herself, and she chased southward to join the Jap cruiser column.

    Myoko and Haguro made a blind loop that tangled them up with the Agano column.  Although Jap starshells had turned the night into a dazzle, the heavy cruisers failed to sight Merrill’s ships, and they maneuvered right into a tempest of American shellfire.  Steaming in a daze, Myoko slammed into destroyer Hatsukaze and ripped off a section of that DD’s bow.

USS Stanly

    Meantime, Burke’s “Little Beavers,” having launched torpedoes, became separated.  And they did not get back into battle until 0349, when Ausburne spotted Sendai and hurried the vessel under with a volley of shots.  Then Samidare and Shiratsuyu, the two DD’s which had collided, showed up on the radar screen.  Burke took off after these departing enemies at top speed.

USS Claxton in a Dazzle camouflage paint scheme

    Commander Austin’s DesDiv 46 destroyers had run into hard luck.  Destroyer Foote misread Merrill’s signal to turn, and fell out of formation.  While racing to rejoin Austin’s column, she was hit in the stern by a Jap torpedo which had been aimed at the American cruisers.  Cruiser Cleveland swerved just in time to miss the disabled DD by 100 yards.  But destroyer Spence, farther down the line, was not so lucky.  Swinging hard right to give the cruiser column a clear line of fire, she sideswiped destroyer Thatcher.  The 30-knot brush sent sparks and sweat-beads flying, and removed a wide swath of paint, but both DD’s kept on traveling at high speed.  Then at 0320 a Jap shell punctured Spence’s hull at the waterline.  Salt water got into a fuel tank, contaminating the oil, and this slow poison soon reduced the destroyers speed.  As if this was not enough misfortune for one division, Austin’s DD’s lost a fine chance to strike at Myoko and Haguro with torpedoes.  When his flagship sideswiped Thatcher, Commander Austin dashed out on the bridge to see what was what.  Some bright “pips” blossomed on the radar screen; Austin would have fired torpedoes at 4,000 yards or so, but the C.I.C. officer reported the targets were American.  So the little scrape with Thatcher cost something more than a paint job.

USS Montpelier (CL-57) in Dec 1942

    A moment later Spence made contact with cruiser Sendai.  At that time the Jap vessel was a staggering merry-go-round, but her guns were still firing, and she was as dangerous as a wounded leopard.  Austin maneuvered for torpedo fire, and Spence and Converse flung eight “fish” at the cripple.  They did not sink her––Burke’s destroyers would presently perform that chore.  Austin’s three DD’s raced on northwestward in an effort to catch Samidare and Shiratsuyu.

    By 0352 Spence, Thatcher, and Converse had overhauled the two Jap DD’s and 19 American torpedoes were fanning out to catch each by the fantail.  The 19 torpedoes scored a perfect zero.  Some may have been improperly adjusted, but the zero probably had its source in improper fabrication.

USS Cleveland (CL-55), underway at sea in late 1942.

    In counterattack, Samidare and Shiratsuyu flung shells and “fish” at Austin’s three destroyers.  If the Jap “fish” missed, the marksmen at least had an excuse for poor torpedo work––the two Jap DD’s were dodging to escape a tempest of shell fire, and both ships had been badly damaged by collision.

    Now Spence was running low on fuel, and what little she had was contaminated by salt water.  Austin relinquished his tactical command to Thatcher’s skipper, Commander Lampman, and veered away with Spence to disengage.  The maneuver brought his flag destroyer into line for a salvo from Arleigh Burke’s fast-shooting division.  At 0425 a pack of projectiles slammed into the sea around Spence

USS Columbia (CL-56), 15 May 1945

    Over the TBS Commander Austin shouted a plea to Burke.  WE’VE JUST HAD ANOTHER CLOSE MISS HOPE YOU ARE NOT SHOOTING AT US

    Captain Burke’s answer was a classic of Navy humor. SORRY BUT YOU’LL HAVE TO EXCUSE THE NEXT FOUR SALVOS THEY’RE ALREADY ON THEIR WAY

    Austin made haste to get Spence out of the vicinity.  In dodging Burke’s ebullient fire, Spence picked up a good target in Jap destroyer Hatsukaze.

USS Denver (CL-58) circa December 1942

    Hatsukaze was the DD which Myoko had rammed, and she was in no condition to dodge well-aimed salvos.  Spence closed the range to 4,000 yards while her gunners pumped shells into the disabled Jap.  Hatsukaze was soon flaming and wallowing, her engines dead.  Austin yearned to finish off this foe, but Spence’s ammunition was running low, so he put in a call for Burke’s destroyers to complete the execution.  Thereupon an avalanche of 5-inchers from DesDiv 45 buried Hatsukaze.  About 0539 the ship rolled over and descended into the grave.

USS Spence (DD-512) Date/Location unknown

    Spence joined up with DesDiv 45 as Burke ordered a retirement.  Unable to catch Samidare and Shiratsuyu, destroyers Thatcher and Converse were also retiring.  As day was making, Admiral Merrill had already headed his cruiser column eastward.  While his DD’s were trying to tag fleeing Japs, Merrill’s cruisers had been maneuvering across the seascape in a duel with the Jap heavies.  For over an hour the opposing formations had dodged about like gamecocks in a pit, neither side able to score a death dealing blow.  Convinced that he had tangled with no less than seven heavy cruisers, Omari pulled out at 0337 and fled northwest up the coast of Bougainville.  The American cruisers chased until daybreak, then Merrill turned back, anticipating aircraft from Rabaul.

USS Thatcher (DD-514), underway in
Boston harbor, Mass., 28 February 1943.

    Around 0500 Burke’s voice came cheerfully over the TBS.  His destroyers were still to the west of Merrill’s cruisers, and he requested permission to pursue the fleeing Japs.  According to Captain Briscoe, Merrill’s answer to this was, ARLIE THIS IS TIP FOR GODS SAKE COME HOME WE’RE LONESOME

So Burke came steaming south with his seven DD’s to keep the cruisers company.

    “We were glad when those destroyers showed up,” another cruiser man recalled.  “As we pulled away from Empress Augusta Bay the radar screen broke out in a rash of aerial pips.  It looked like a blizzard coming down from Rabaul.”

USS Converse (DD-509) in San Francisco Bay,
9 October 1944.

    Destroyer Foote, with her stern blown open, constituted a problem at this crisis.  Claxton was ordered to take the disabled ship in tow while Ausburne and Thatcher steamed as escorts.  Vectored into position by a fighter-director team, 15 Allied aircraft flew to intercept the Jap planes racing down from the Bismarcks.  Some 100 Jap carrier planes were too much for the Allied 15, and bulk of the defense fell upon Merrill’s weary gun crews.

    About 0800 the Jap aircraft attacked the retiring ships.  The formation roared right over damaged Foote, some ten miles astern of the cruisers.  Lamed though she was, Foote put up an umbrella of flak.  No bombs were dropped upon her, and she saw a plane plunge into the sea.

USS Foote (DD-511)

    Five minutes later, the Jap birds swooped down on Merrill’s task force.  He had the force disposed in a circular AA formation.  As the bombers came over, he maneuvered to bring main batteries to bear, and the destroyers opened up with AA fire at about 14,000 yards.

    Merrill described it in his Action Report:

    The scene was of an organized hell in which it was impossible to speak, hear, or even think.  As the ships passed the first 90 degrees of their turn in excellent formation, the air seemed completely filled with bursting shrapnel and, to our great glee, enemy planes in a severe state of disrepair. . . . Planes were in flames as they passed over the flagship, exploding outside the destroyer screen. . . .  Ten planes were counted in the water at one time, and seven additional were sent to crash well outside the formation.

A Japanese aircraft crashes (upper center) into the ocean
near the US cruiser Columbia on 2 November 1943,
during air attacks on Allied ships off Bougainville,
a few hours after the Naval Battle of Empress Augusta Bay.

    At the height of the battle, Merrill ordered a 360º turn which kept the warship carousel steaming clockwise.  All the gunners seemed to be catching prizes from the air.  Three Japs bailed out in parachutes and landed almost in the center of the wheeling formation.  “Bettys” blew up in the sky and exploded in the water.  Of the 70 or 80 planes which attacked, perhaps two dozen were shot down (Jap figures were never forthcoming).  The Japs landed only two hits on cruiser Montpelier, damaging a catapult and wounding one man.  At 0812 they broke off the attack and ran northward, pursued by Allied fighter planes.

View forward from USS Columbia during the
Battle of Empress Augusta Bay. The ship visible ahead should be
 USS Cleveland.

    The Battle of Empress Augusta Bay and its aerial epilogue were over.  On the sea and in the air the enemy had taken a colossal thrashing.  A light cruiser and a destroyer sunk, two destroyers disabled, heavy cruiser Myoko dented by collision, heavy cruiser Haguro severely damaged––Omari’s force slunk home in sorry defeat.  In Merrill’s force destroyer Foote was the one serious casualty, and even she would live to fight again.  Cruiser Denver and destroyer Spence, with minor damage, would lose little time on the binnacle list.