War came as less of a shock to the east coast. In effect, hostilities between the United States and Germany had begun several months before Pearl Harbor. A de facto war had erupted 4 September, 1941, when U-652 fired torpedoes at destroyer Greer, which was en route to Iceland. President Roosevelt reacted bitterly, terming the attack "piracy" and declaring that "from now on, if German and Italian vessels of war enter the waters the protection of which is necessary for American defense, they do so at their own risk." Thus ended the "short of war" policy. It had been inaugurated soon after Dunkirk with the controversial exchange of fifty old destroyers for British bases in Newfoundland and the West Indies, and had been continued with little significant change, other than hemispheric defense measures, until the 1st Marine Brigade was lifted to Newfoundland by Task Force 16 in June, 1941. At this time, the United States Navy undertook the escort of convoys to Iceland (by Admiral King's definition within the Western Hemisphere and therefore in our purview) on a regular basis. Now a second destroyer, Kearney, was attacked by a U-boat, and on October 31, a third, Reuben James, was torpedoed and sunk with a heavy loss of life. The disaster brought home the full impact of the vicious submarine warfare in territorial waters.
Noted illustrator and muralist Griffith Baily Coale, a reserve Lieutenant Commander, was in the next convoy astern of the doomed Reuben James. In his memoirs, he speaks of the fateful night.
--S.E. Smith
The United States Navy in World War II
Saturday, December 28, 2013
WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THE DOOLITTLE TOKYO RAID (April-May 1942)
With the exception of the Doolittle Tokyo raid, first of the strikes on the enemy's homeland, the end of April 1942 marked the lowest ebb of America's fortunes in the Pacific; never again would they sink so low.
-S.E. Smith
The United States Navy in World War II
-S.E. Smith
The United States Navy in World War II
Sunday, December 22, 2013
ALL GONE, NOW (9, April 1942)
The entrance to Cebu City has Mactan Island on one side and Cebu on the other and is bordered by shoals. Navigation is further complicated by the fact that, particularly at night in wartime when everything is blacked out, there are no distinctive points there that can be used for fixes. When you've seen one part of the coast of Cebu Island, you've pretty much seen it all. It runs on and on repeating itself . . .
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
After 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.
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.
THE LAST GASP OF THE PHILIPPINES PT SQUADRON (9, April 1942)
The last gasp of the Philippines PT Squadron came on 9 April at Cebu. New Jersey-born Lieutenant (j.g.) Ilaf Richardson, executive officer of PT-34, now tells of the death of his stout little warship. After working his way into the hills, Richardson ultimately became a Major in the Resistance and there remained until repatriated in 1944. His collaborator, Ira Wolfert, won the Pulitzer Prize for his news dispatches from Guadalcanal.
--S.E. Smith
The United States Navy in World War II
Preface to Part I: Chapter 11: All Gone Now
--S.E. Smith
The United States Navy in World War II
Preface to Part I: Chapter 11: All Gone Now
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Iliff David Richardson | |
|---|---|
| Nickname | Rich |
| Born | April 9, 1918 Denver, Colorado |
| Died | October 10, 2001 (aged 83) Houston Texas |
| Allegiance | United States |
| Service/branch |  United States Navy |
| Rank | Ensign |
| Unit | PT 34, Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Three |
Iliff David "Rich" Richardson (April 9, 1918, Denver, Colorado - October 10, 2001, Houston Texas) was simultaneously a US Navy Ensign and a US ArmyMajor whilst fighting with the Philippine resistance during World War II. He recounted his exploits to author Ira Wolfert, who published them in the bookAmerican Guerrilla in the Philippines in 1945. A character based on Richardson was played by Tyrone Power in the 1950 film of the same name.
In 1940 he was commissioned an Ensign in the US Navy and was posted to the USS Bittern, a minesweeper in the Philippines. He later transferred to Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Three, commanded by John D. Bulkeley. Richardson was the executive officer of PT 34.[2] After it was sunk by the Japanese, Richardson served with the US Army, setting off demolition charges in Cebu City.[3]
Richardson and a dozen Americans attempted to sail a native outrigger to Australia, but the boat was sunk in a storm. Richardson swam for 24 hours to the island of Mindanao, where he was chased by the Japanese. The men eventually joined the Philippine guerrilla forces. Richardson, a former ham radio operator, set up a radio network to keep the various bands in touch with each other and Allied forces in Australia. For his work, Richardson was made a US Army Intelligence major by General Douglas MacArthur, holding commissions in the army and navy simultaneously. He is the only person to receive consecutive medals in both the Army and the Navy.
Ira Wolfert (November 1, 1908 - November 24, 1997) was an American Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent and writer.
He was born and grew up in New York City. In 1930, he graduated from the Columbia University School of Journalism with a bachelors degree.
RETREAT (12, March 1942)
Darkness has now fallen, and the waters were beginning to ripple from the faint night breeze. The enemy firing had ceased and a mustering silence had fallen. It was as though the dead were passing by the stench of destruction. The spell of filth thickened the night air. I raised my cap in farewell salute, and I could feel my face go white, feel a sudden, convulsive twitch in the muscles of my face. I heard someone ask, "What's his chance, Sarge, of getting through?" and the gruff reply. "Dunno. He's lucky. Maybe one in five."
I stepped aboard PT-41. "You may cast off, Buck," I said, "when you are ready."
Although the flotilla consisted of only four battle-scarred PT boats, its size was no gauge of the uniqueness of its mission. This was the desperate attempt by a commander-in-chief and his key staff to move thousands of miles through the enemy's lines to another war theatre, to direct a new and intensified assault. Nor did the Japanese themselves underestimate the significance of such a movement. "Tokyo Rose" had announced gleefully that, if captured, I would be publicly hanged on the Imperial Plaza in Tokyo, where the Imperial towers overlooked the traditional parade ground of the Emperor's Guard divisions. Little did I dream that bleak night that five years later, at the first parade review of Occupation troops, I would take the salute as supreme commander for the Allied Powers on the precise spot so dramatically predicted for my execution.
The tiny convoy rendezvoused at Turning Buoy just outside the minefield at 20:00. Then we roared through in single file, Bulkeley leading and Admiral Rockwell in PT-34 closing the formation.
On the run to Cabra Island, many white lights were sighted--the enemy's signal that a break was being attempted through the blockade. The noise of our engines had been heard, but the sound of a PT engine is hard to differentiate from that of a bomber, and they evidently mistook it. Several boats passed. The sea rose and it began to get rough. Spiteful waves slapped and snapped at the thin skin of the little boats; visibility was becoming poorer.
As we began closing on the Japanese blockading fleet, the suspense grew tense. Suddenly, there they were, sinister outlines against the curiously peaceful formations of lazily drifting cloud. We waited, hardly breathing, for the first burst of shell that would summon us to identify ourselves. Ten seconds. Twenty. A full minute. No gun spoke; the PT's rode so low in the choppy seas that they had not spotted us.
Bulkeley changed at once to a course that brought us to the west and north of the enemy craft, and we slid by in the darkness. Again and again, this was to be repeated during the night, but our luck held.
The weather deteriorated steadily, and towering waves buffeted our tiny, war weary, blacked-out vessels. The flying spray drove against our skin like stinging pellets of birdshot. We would fall off into a trough, then climb up the near slope of a steep water peak, only to slide down the other side. The boat would toss crazily back and forth, seeming to hang free in space as though about to breach, and then would break away and go forward with a rush. I recall describing the experience afterward as what it must be like to take a trip in a concrete mixer. The four PT's could no longer keep formation, and by 03:30 the convoy had scattered. Bulkeley tried for several hours to collect the others, but without success. Now each skipper was on his own, his rendezvous just off the uninhabited Cuyo Island.
It was a bad night for everybody. At dawn, Lieutenant (j.g.) V. E. Schumacher, commander of PT-32, saw what he took for a Jap destroyer bearing down at 30 knots through the early morning fog. The torpedo tubes were instantly cleared for action, and the 600-gallon gasoline drums jettisoned to lighten the vessel when teh time came to make a run for it. Just before the signal to fire, the onrushing "enemy" was seen to be the PT-41--mine.
The first boat to arrive at Tagauayan at 09:30 on the morning of 12, March was PT-34 under the command of Lieutenant R.G. Kelly. PT-32 and Bulkeley's PT-41 arrived at approximately 16:00 with PT-32 running out of fuel; those aboard were placed on the two other already crowded craft. A submarine which had been ordered to join us at the Cuyos did not appear. We waited as the day's stifling heat intensified, still spots on the water camouflaged as well as possible from the prying eyes of searching enemy airmen. Hours passed and at last we could wait no longer for Ensign A. B. Akers' PT-35 (it arrived two hours after we left). I gave the order to move out southward into the Mindanao Sea for Cagayan, on the northern coast. This time Rockwell's boat led and PT-41 followed. The night was clear, the sea rough and high.
Once more, huge and hostile, a Japanese warship loomed dead ahead through the dark. We were too near to run, too late to dodge. Instantly we cut engines, cleared for action--and waited. Seconds ticked into minutes, but no signals flashed from the battleship as she steamed slowly westward across our path. If we had been seen at all, we had ben mistaken far part of the native fishing fleet. Our road to safety was open.
We made it into Cagayan at 07:00 on Friday, 13 March. I called together the officers and men of both PT's. "It was done in true naval style," I told them. "It gives me great pleasure and honor to award the boats' crews the Silver Star for gallantry for fortitude in the face of heavy odds."
--General of the Army, Douglas MacArthur
From: The United States Navy in World War II
Chapter 10: Retreat
Compiled and Edited by: S.E. Smith
I stepped aboard PT-41. "You may cast off, Buck," I said, "when you are ready."
Although the flotilla consisted of only four battle-scarred PT boats, its size was no gauge of the uniqueness of its mission. This was the desperate attempt by a commander-in-chief and his key staff to move thousands of miles through the enemy's lines to another war theatre, to direct a new and intensified assault. Nor did the Japanese themselves underestimate the significance of such a movement. "Tokyo Rose" had announced gleefully that, if captured, I would be publicly hanged on the Imperial Plaza in Tokyo, where the Imperial towers overlooked the traditional parade ground of the Emperor's Guard divisions. Little did I dream that bleak night that five years later, at the first parade review of Occupation troops, I would take the salute as supreme commander for the Allied Powers on the precise spot so dramatically predicted for my execution.
The tiny convoy rendezvoused at Turning Buoy just outside the minefield at 20:00. Then we roared through in single file, Bulkeley leading and Admiral Rockwell in PT-34 closing the formation.
On the run to Cabra Island, many white lights were sighted--the enemy's signal that a break was being attempted through the blockade. The noise of our engines had been heard, but the sound of a PT engine is hard to differentiate from that of a bomber, and they evidently mistook it. Several boats passed. The sea rose and it began to get rough. Spiteful waves slapped and snapped at the thin skin of the little boats; visibility was becoming poorer.
As we began closing on the Japanese blockading fleet, the suspense grew tense. Suddenly, there they were, sinister outlines against the curiously peaceful formations of lazily drifting cloud. We waited, hardly breathing, for the first burst of shell that would summon us to identify ourselves. Ten seconds. Twenty. A full minute. No gun spoke; the PT's rode so low in the choppy seas that they had not spotted us.
Bulkeley changed at once to a course that brought us to the west and north of the enemy craft, and we slid by in the darkness. Again and again, this was to be repeated during the night, but our luck held.
The weather deteriorated steadily, and towering waves buffeted our tiny, war weary, blacked-out vessels. The flying spray drove against our skin like stinging pellets of birdshot. We would fall off into a trough, then climb up the near slope of a steep water peak, only to slide down the other side. The boat would toss crazily back and forth, seeming to hang free in space as though about to breach, and then would break away and go forward with a rush. I recall describing the experience afterward as what it must be like to take a trip in a concrete mixer. The four PT's could no longer keep formation, and by 03:30 the convoy had scattered. Bulkeley tried for several hours to collect the others, but without success. Now each skipper was on his own, his rendezvous just off the uninhabited Cuyo Island.
It was a bad night for everybody. At dawn, Lieutenant (j.g.) V. E. Schumacher, commander of PT-32, saw what he took for a Jap destroyer bearing down at 30 knots through the early morning fog. The torpedo tubes were instantly cleared for action, and the 600-gallon gasoline drums jettisoned to lighten the vessel when teh time came to make a run for it. Just before the signal to fire, the onrushing "enemy" was seen to be the PT-41--mine.
The first boat to arrive at Tagauayan at 09:30 on the morning of 12, March was PT-34 under the command of Lieutenant R.G. Kelly. PT-32 and Bulkeley's PT-41 arrived at approximately 16:00 with PT-32 running out of fuel; those aboard were placed on the two other already crowded craft. A submarine which had been ordered to join us at the Cuyos did not appear. We waited as the day's stifling heat intensified, still spots on the water camouflaged as well as possible from the prying eyes of searching enemy airmen. Hours passed and at last we could wait no longer for Ensign A. B. Akers' PT-35 (it arrived two hours after we left). I gave the order to move out southward into the Mindanao Sea for Cagayan, on the northern coast. This time Rockwell's boat led and PT-41 followed. The night was clear, the sea rough and high.
Once more, huge and hostile, a Japanese warship loomed dead ahead through the dark. We were too near to run, too late to dodge. Instantly we cut engines, cleared for action--and waited. Seconds ticked into minutes, but no signals flashed from the battleship as she steamed slowly westward across our path. If we had been seen at all, we had ben mistaken far part of the native fishing fleet. Our road to safety was open.
We made it into Cagayan at 07:00 on Friday, 13 March. I called together the officers and men of both PT's. "It was done in true naval style," I told them. "It gives me great pleasure and honor to award the boats' crews the Silver Star for gallantry for fortitude in the face of heavy odds."
--General of the Army, Douglas MacArthur
From: The United States Navy in World War II
Chapter 10: Retreat
Compiled and Edited by: S.E. Smith
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Douglas MacArthur
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur (26 January 1880 – 5 April 1964) was an American general and field marshal of the Philippine Army who was Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. He received the Medal of Honor for his service in thePhilippines Campaign, which made him and his father Arthur MacArthur, Jr., the first father and son to be awarded the medal. He was one of only five men ever to rise to the rank of General of the Army in the U.S. Army, and the only man ever to become a field marshal in the Philippine Army.
Raised in a military family in the American Old West, MacArthur wasvaledictorian at the West Texas Military Academy, and First Captainat the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he graduated top of the class of 1903. During the 1914 United States occupation of Veracruz, he conducted a reconnaissance mission, for which he was nominated for the Medal of Honor. In 1917, he was promoted from major to colonel and became chief of staff of the 42nd (Rainbow) Division. In the fighting on the Western Front during World War I, he rose to the rank of brigadier general, was again nominated for a Medal of Honor, and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross twice and the Silver Star seven times.
Philippines Campaign (1941–42)
On 26 July 1941, Roosevelt federalized the Philippine Army, recalled MacArthur to active duty in the U.S. Army as a major general, and named him commander of U.S. Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE). MacArthur was promoted to lieutenant general the following day,[113] and then to general on 20 December. At the same time, Sutherland was promoted to major general, while Marshall, Spencer B. Akin, and Hugh J. Casey were all promoted to brigadier general.[114] On 31 July 1941, the Philippine Department had 22,000 troops assigned, 12,000 of whom were Philippine Scouts. The main component was the Philippine Division, under the command of Major General Jonathan M. Wainwright.[115]
Between July and December 1941, the garrison received 8,500 reinforcements.[116] After years of parsimony, much equipment was shipped. By November, a backlog of 1,100,000 shipping tons of equipment intended for the Philippines had accumulated in U.S. ports and depots awaiting vessels.[117] In addition, the Navy intercept station in the islands, known as Station CAST, had an ultra secret Purple cipher machine, which decrypted Japanese diplomatic messages, and partial codebooks for the latest JN-25 naval code. Cast sent MacArthur its entire output, via Sutherland, the only officer on his staff authorized to see it.[118]
At 03:30 local time on 8 December 1941 (about 09:00 on 7 December in Hawaii),[119] Sutherland learned of the attack on Pearl Harborand informed MacArthur. At 05:30, the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, General George Marshall, ordered MacArthur to execute the existing war plan, Rainbow Five. MacArthur did nothing. On three occasions, the commander of the Far East Air Force, Major GeneralLewis H. Brereton, requested permission to attack Japanese bases in Formosa, in accordance with prewar intentions, but was denied by Sutherland. Not until 11:00 did Brereton speak with MacArthur about it, and obtained permission.[120] MacArthur later denied having the conversation.[121] At 12:30, aircraft of Japan's 11th Air Fleet achieved complete tactical surprise when they attacked Clark Fieldand the nearby fighter base at Iba Field, and destroyed or disabled 18 of Far East Air Force's 35 B-17s, 53 of its 107 P-40s, three P-35s, and more than 25 other aircraft. Most were destroyed on the ground. Substantial damage was done to the bases, and casualties totaled 80 killed and 150 wounded.[122] What was left of the Far East Air Force was all but destroyed over the next few days.[123]
Prewar defense plans assumed the Japanese could not be prevented from landing on Luzon and called for U.S. and Filipino forces to abandon Manila and retreat with their supplies to the Bataan peninsula. MacArthur attempted to slow the Japanese advance with an initial defense against the Japanese landings. However, he reconsidered his confidence in the ability of his Filipino troops after the Japanese landing force made a rapid advance after landing atLingayen Gulf on 21 December,[124] and ordered a retreat to Bataan.[125]Manila was declared an open city at midnight on 24 December, without any consultation with Admiral Thomas C. Hart, commanding the Asiatic Fleet, forcing the Navy to destroy considerable amounts of valuable material.[126]
On the evening of 24 December, MacArthur moved his headquarters to the island fortress of Corregidor in Manila Bay, boarding the Army transport Don Esteban after 19:00 arriving Corregidor at 21:30, with his headquarters reporting to Washington as being open on the 25th.[127][128] A series of air raids by the Japanese destroyed all the exposed structures on the island and USAFFE headquarters was moved into the Malinta Tunnel. Later, most of the headquarters moved to Bataan, leaving only the nucleus with MacArthur.[129]The troops on Bataan knew that they had been written off but continued to fight. Some blamed Roosevelt and MacArthur for their predicament. A ballad sung to the tune of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" called him "Dugout Doug".[130] However, most clung to the belief that somehow MacArthur "would reach down and pull something out of his hat."[131]
On 1 January 1942, MacArthur accepted $500,000 from President Quezon of the Philippines as payment for his pre-war service. MacArthur's staff members also received payments: $75,000 for Sutherland, $45,000 for Richard Marshall, and $20,000 for Huff.[132][133] Eisenhower—after being appointed Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force (AEF)—was also offered money by Quezon, but declined.[134] These payments were known only to a few in Manila and Washington, including President Roosevelt and Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, until they were made public by historian Carol Petillo in 1979. The revelation tarnished MacArthur's reputation.[135]
Escape to Australia and Medal of Honor
Main article: Douglas MacArthur's escape from the Philippines
In February 1942, as Japanese forces tightened their grip on the Philippines, MacArthur was ordered by President Roosevelt to relocate to Australia.[136] On the night of 12 March 1942, MacArthur and a select group that included his wife Jean and son Arthur, as well as Sutherland, Akin, Casey, Richard Marshall, Charles A. Willoughby, LeGrande A. Diller, and Harold H. George, left Corregidor in four PT boats. MacArthur, his family and Sutherland traveled aboard PT 41, commanded by Lieutenant John D. Bulkeley. The others followed aboard PT 34, PT 35 and PT 32. MacArthur and his party reached Del Monte Airfield on Mindanao, where B-17s picked them up, and flew them to Australia.[137][138] His famous speech, in which he said, "I came through and I shall return", was first made at Terowie, a small town in South Australia, on 20 March.[139] Washington asked MacArthur to amend his promise to "We shall return". He ignored the request.[140]
Bataan surrendered on 9 April,[141] and Corregidor on 6 May.[142] George Marshall decided that MacArthur would be awarded the Medal of Honor, a decoration for which he had twice previously been nominated, "to offset any propaganda by the enemy directed at his leaving his command".[143]Eisenhower pointed out that MacArthur had not actually performed any acts of valor as required by law, but Marshall cited the 1927 award of the medal toCharles Lindbergh as a precedent. Special legislation had been passed to authorize Lindbergh's medal, but while similar legislation was introduced authorizing the medal for MacArthur by Congressmen J. Parnell Thomas andJames E. Van Zandt, Marshall felt strongly that a serving general should receive the medal from the President and the War Department.[144] MacArthur chose to accept it on the basis that "this award was intended not so much for me personally as it is a recognition of the indomitable courage of the gallant army which it was my honor to command."[145] Arthur and Douglas MacArthur thus became the first father and son to be awarded the Medal of Honor. They remained the only pair until 2001, when Theodore Roosevelt was awarded posthumously for his service during the Spanish American War, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.having received one posthumously for his service during World War II.[146][147] His citation, written by George Marshall,[148] read:
For conspicuous leadership in preparing the Philippine Islands to resist conquest, for gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action against invading Japanese forces, and for the heroic conduct of defensive and offensive operations on the Bataan Peninsula. He mobilized, trained, and led an army which has received world acclaim for its gallant defense against a tremendous superiority of enemy forces in men and arms. His utter disregard of personal danger under heavy fire and aerial bombardment, his calm judgment in each crisis, inspired his troops, galvanized the spirit of resistance of the Filipino people, and confirmed the faith of the American people in their Armed Forces.[149]
As the symbol of the forces resisting the Japanese, MacArthur received many other accolades. The Native American tribes of the Southwest chose him as a "Chief of Chiefs", which he acknowledged as from "my oldest friends, the companions of my boyhood days on the Western frontier".[150] He was touched when he was named Father of the Year for 1942, and wrote to the National Father's Day Committee that:
By profession I am a soldier and take pride in that fact, but I am prouder, infinitely prouder to be a father. A soldier destroys in order to build; the father only builds, never destroys. The one has the potentialities of death; the other embodies creation and life. And while the hordes of death are mighty, the battalions of life are mightier still. It is my hope that my son when I am gone will remember me, not from battle, but in the home, repeating with him our simple daily prayer, "Our father, Who art in Heaven."[150]
For conspicuous leadership in preparing the Philippine Islands to resist conquest, for gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action against invading Japanese forces, and for the heroic conduct of defensive and offensive operations on the Bataan Peninsula. He mobilized, trained, and led an army which has received world acclaim for its gallant defense against a tremendous superiority of enemy forces in men and arms. His utter disregard of personal danger under heavy fire and aerial bombardment, his calm judgment in each crisis, inspired his troops, galvanized the spirit of resistance of the Filipino people, and confirmed the faith of the American people in their Armed Forces.[149]
By profession I am a soldier and take pride in that fact, but I am prouder, infinitely prouder to be a father. A soldier destroys in order to build; the father only builds, never destroys. The one has the potentialities of death; the other embodies creation and life. And while the hordes of death are mighty, the battalions of life are mightier still. It is my hope that my son when I am gone will remember me, not from battle, but in the home, repeating with him our simple daily prayer, "Our father, Who art in Heaven."[150]
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