Jap destroyers were more lethal than ours. They were fast, capable of almost 45 mph, and armed with six five-inch guns and those monster Type 93 Long Lance torpedoes. A succession of American heavy cruisers limping into Tulagi harbor with their entire front ends blown completely off was a sobering testament to the power of the Long Lance. While their heavy forces came to Guadalcanal periodically, their destroyers were almost always out there at night and they began taking a real toll on the MTBs. My small casualty station at one end of the bunker quickly morphed into a full-scale emergency surgery room. I was no longer running a casualty collection station, and we had to ask for help from our Marine battalion medics.
I duly sent a message to Guadalcanal, but Lieutenant Commander Garr replied that no help was available and reminded me that surgery was no longer my mission. To my surprise, Captain Benson overruled Garr and sent in two senior hospitalman chiefs who’d received special training for burn casualties. He also sent over a much wider range of supplies. The burn cases were our biggest problem, since the MTBs ran on super high-octane avgas. Being able to stabilize these patients belowground in relatively cool surroundings upped their survival rate significantly. The squadron’s dreams of using the facility to get a good night’s sleep evaporated as more and more Jap destroyers came down from Rabaul to mix it up with the American PT boats.
Cushing decided he needed to change his tactics again. He got some help from a naval aviator one of our boats had rescued over near Florida Island. He was a naval reserve lieutenant, but his pre-war job had been as the resident mathematician on the war-gaming staff of the Pacific Fleet commander. He told Cushing that the Jap bombers had crafted an attack geometry wherein their torpedo planes would fly past their target and get out in front of it, instead of heading in from the sides. They would then split up and take stations thirty degrees on either side of their target’s course, turn inbound, and release their Type 93s in a converging wedge in front of the oncoming target. No matter how their target maneuvered, turning left or right to avoid the torpedoes, at least some of them would hit. The British had lost two battleships, HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse, to this technique off the coast of Malaya.
He told Cushing that roaring in from the beam of your target gave every advantage to the destroyer: all of her guns could be brought to bear on the approaching boats. Attacking from the front meant that only two of his five guns could be brought to bear on you. “If you know where they’re going, get out ahead of the enemy formation and reduce speed to idle so your wake becomes invisible. Spread out so that you can fire a spread of torpedoes instead of a single line. Track them on radar, and when they get into five thousand yards, accelerate to whatever speed it takes to stabilize your torpedoes’ gyros, and launch.” And here was the interesting bit: then, he said, “Keep going, full speed now, and run directly at the approaching Jap formation. They will see you and they will turn to present all their guns—left or right, it doesn’t matter—which will expose their entire length to an approaching swarm of American torpedoes.”
I was present for this briefing and saw that Cushing and his boat skippers were entranced. It made so much sense and, if they could take out the escorting destroyers, the amphibious boats jammed with soldiers and supplies would then become easier pickings.
“Practice it,” our grateful visiting flyboy said. “We own the daylight; the Japs own the night. Practice the maneuver until you can do it with a minimum of radio comms. You only need one working radar and good comms to set it up. A three-boat formation can project twelve torpedoes. You guys should clean up out there.”
Cushing picked three of his best skippers and then took them out into Ironbottom Sound during daylight to practice the maneuver. It was trickier than they had anticipated, especially because they had to wait for the torpedo guidance system gyros to spin up and stabilize on the same heading the boat was running on. Unlike a submarine torpedo, which could be commanded to launch and then turn to the desired heading, the MTBs had been issued older, air-drop torpedoes, which required the plane to remain on a steady course for up to a minute to align the gyros, making them easy pickings for shipboard AA guns. A second problem was that their torpedoes required a boat speed of at least twenty knots to achieve a stable launch if you were in a hurry. At that speed the boats kicked up a wake, which would give the Japs early warning that they were under MTB attack.
Cushing’s solution was to separate the two problems. Don’t be in a hurry. Steady the boat at low speed and then spool up the torpedo’s gyro. Once the gyro was running and stable, close into 3,000 yards instead of 5,000, and do so by letting the Japs close the boats instead of the other way around. Then, at the last minute, accelerate to full power and launch the fish as soon as you were at twenty knots or better. And then keep on accelerating. A Jap destroyer formation approaching at twenty knots, added to the MTB’s speed of forty knots, meant that the combined closing speed was sixty knots. That was a mile a minute. The Japs would then have thirty-four seconds to react to the sudden appearance of MTB wakes dead ahead.
They practiced a daylight attack for two more days and then tried it at night. They found that they had to iron out some radar-directed approach problems, but finally it came together. That night they went out at sunset to intercept an approaching convoy of destroyers and small transports reported by coast-watchers. The anticipated time of intercept was just after midnight. What happened next turned into a lethal fiasco. For some reason, the operations of the MTB squadron this night had not been coordinated with the local naval commander. An American destroyer squadron commander had planned an ambush of the approaching Japanese. He, too, was trying something new. Instead of heading up the Slot until they ran into radar contacts, they took a station west of Savo Island and then waited under radio silence. When our four torpedo boats were detected on radar on the other side of Savo, the destroyers pounced. Thinking the Japs had done some kind of end-around, Boss let fly with three boats’ worth of torpedoes, or twelve fish, keeping his boat’s fish in reserve. Then he ran straight at the approaching destroyers. American destroyers.
The destroyermen opened fire first and began landing shells all around the MTBs racing in at them. Then their sonars detected the torpedo boat engines, which is when the squadron commodore realized he might be attacking friendlies and ordered a cease-fire. That order did not reach the twelve torpedoes, of course, and when the tin cans’ sonars detected those screw-beats the entire confrontation degenerated into a melee of wildly evading destroyers, totally confused PT boats, and a hash of radio communications as each “side” talked right over the other’s transmissions. The squadron commodore ordered up illumination rounds. Radar was wonderful but he needed to actually see what the hell was going on.
Enter the Japanese convoy, which had watched a sudden explosion of gunfire ahead of them and had slowed down. When the American star shells lit up the sea surface, everybody could finally see everybody. The Japanese squadron commodore ordered his three destroyers to charge. The result was what the fighter pilots called a fur-ball. Everybody shooting at everybody and all of them running at full speed. With the exception of Cushing’s boat, the MTBs were, of course, out of torpedoes, so they ran in against the Jap destroyers with their machine guns. The Japs in turn brightened the night with five-inch gunfire. The American destroyers replied in kind and also fired torpedoes at the Japs, who returned the favor. After only a few minutes of this appalling circus, everybody disengaged and withdrew.
Our three boats emerged unharmed. Unfortunately, one American destroyer ate a Long Lance and disappeared in a flash of bright white steam. One wildly maneuvering Jap destroyer somehow managed to cut a second Jap destroyer in half, and then one of our boats nearly collided with the bisected Jap ship. Everyone opened fire with all their guns, which finally caused a magazine explosion on the bisected Jap tin can, finishing her off. Our close-in PT boat went down as well, but almost everyone got off before she sank. The remaining Japs decamped, and the remaining Ame
rican destroyers picked our guys up an hour later.
The following morning, the American destroyer squadron commodore’s flagship, USS Keene, pulled into the harbor at Tulagi. The commodore let it be known that he was there for an urgent conference with Lieutenant Commander Cushing and Captain VanPiet, whom he mistakenly assumed were in charge of the MTB squadron since they were based in Tulagi harbor. The meeting was held aboard the Keene, anchored in the harbor, because the commodore was senior to everyone else there. There were two Navy cargo ships also in the harbor, so all available harbor boats were being used to get cargo over to Guadalcanal, in addition to the usual clutch of Mike boats from Cactus. That meant that VanPiet and Cushing couldn’t actually get out to the Keene for two hours, which didn’t make the commodore any happier. Boss finally had to call for one of the PT boats to come over to Tulagi and take them to the Keene.
Cushing told us the story at evening prayers. They finally got aboard the Keene and were escorted to the commodore’s cabin, where they found a seething ComDesRon 12 pacing the cabin. Cushing and VanPiet were not invited to sit down, but as the commodore began to wind himself up, the Tulagi air raid sirens announced the arrival of six Betty bombers. The skipper of the Keene immediately slipped his anchor and pointed his destroyer out into Ironbottom Sound to avoid being caught stationary by the incoming Jap bombers. The commodore glared at Cushing and Captain VanPiet and then hurried to the bridge as the Keene went to GQ.
The PT boat that had been standing off the Keene, waiting to retrieve Cushing and VanPiet, followed the destroyer out and joined in the anti-aircraft barrage that was exploding over Tulagi. She tucked close in to the destroyer’s stern and added her machine gun and 20 mm fire to the destroyer’s five-inch and 40 mm. The Keene shot down one of the bombers, which crashed close aboard and pelted the Keene’s bridge with wreckage. The PT boat shot down another, and then the Bettys blundered into the rest of Destroyer Squadron 12, which had been loitering outside the Tulagi harbor. When the shooting finally stopped, only one Betty had managed to escape, crapping bombs into the Sound as she fled north.
The appearance of a Jap bombing raid had taken much of the wind out of the commodore’s sails, assisted by the sudden storm of bomber fragments blowing out all the Keene’s bridge windows and encouraging everyone on the bridge to establish close personal relations with the deck. Captain VanPiet salvaged the situation by suggesting that the commodore come ashore for a calm discussion among reasonable men with perhaps some gin thrown in. To VanPiet’s surprise, the somewhat shaken commodore agreed. The PT boat took everyone to the Tulagi pier. From there they went to the planter’s house, where they were joined by a senior intelligence officer on General Vandegrift’s staff.
The upshot was that the MTB squadron was folded into the cruiser-destroyer task group commander’s daily planning. The days of the MTBs going out at night to more or less raise hell with anything Japanese were over. There was an admiral involved now, and what our squadron lost in terms of independence was more than made up for by being part of a bigger, more centralized picture. As Cushing pointed out at evening prayers, the expansion of the naval command and control structure had to mean we were starting to turn the tide against the Japs here in the Solomons. Now all we needed was for someone to convince the damned Japs.
I was a little surprised to have become part of the command inner circle, although, as the squadron doctor, I reported daily to Cushing on what was going on in my underground clinic, which had been surprisingly busy. Every time we thought we’d be able to clear out and clean up, another ship would limp into Tulagi with casualties serious enough to require my efforts as a surgeon. The two chief petty officer surgical assistants were a true blessing, having lots of experience and used to working under less-than-ideal conditions. I told them both that I was always open to suggestions during a procedure, which I think helped tighten the team. They knew a lot, being chief petty officers, and it would have been stupid of me to maintain the all too common “surgeon knows best, and if he wants a suggestion, he’ll ask for it” attitude.
One night a battered light cruiser came in to discharge wounded. Captain Benson arrived from Cactus to observe, without Garr this time. He walked into an imperfectly controlled bedlam of triage: immediate actions for burns, amputations, and a bunker full of men writhing on bloodstained cots. He scrubbed in at once and went to work, which is when I remembered he was an orthopedic surgeon. After three hours of often heartbreaking work, we’d been able to classify the wounded into those who could be transported over to Cactus, those who couldn’t for the moment, and those who would not survive the night. The cruiser herself didn’t survive the night. She rolled over at about three in the morning and slid down the slopes of the undersea mountain whose top we occupied, leaving behind a lone anchor chain and a small fountain of oily water rising from her grave some 3,000 feet down. Fortunately, they’d seen it coming and managed to get everyone off before she capsized.
We took a break while the chiefs and the hospitalmen who’d come with them tidied up. The entire MTB squadron was in for the night because the higher-ups were still deciding on how to employ us so as to avoid a repeat of the other night. The maintenance people worked all night to catch up. I took Captain Benson to evening prayers and told everybody who he was and also that he was an orthopod of distinction. He was in his early fifties, but he now was a lot thinner, with dark pouches under his eyes that he hadn’t had the first time I met him. He was also a lot friendlier. He praised our little bunker hospital and admitted he’d had no idea how seriously overwhelmed our station became if a ship limped in here instead of anchoring off Guadalcanal and transferring wounded. Boss pointed out that most of the cruisers we’d seen here since the landing had their front ends blown off and no longer had anchors. The Japs had been overestimating our ships’ speed, so their torpedoes often got there early, meaning they hit on the bow instead of amidships.
We went back to the medical station, fortified by one screamer each since we knew we weren’t done. Captain Benson made rounds, a procedure I hadn’t had the luxury of doing since coming to the Solomons. I found him a cot when he started to totter and he went down like a tree. It wasn’t as if he’d been goofing off over there on Cactus, but our pace, when the shit hit the fan, was a big surprise to him. The following morning a small fleet of amphibious craft showed up to take casualties over to the Big Tops. Chief Higgins sidled up to me as the captain and two other doctors from Cactus were supervising the onload.
“What now?” I asked, rather abruptly, and then apologized. I was more tired than I realized. He took it in stride.
“Well,” he said, lifting his chin in the direction of the captain. “He’s gonna come kiss you good-bye in a few minutes. Tell you what a good boy you’ve been, after all. When he asks you if there’s anything you need, be sure to tell him that our medicinal alcohol is about to run out over here.”
I gave him a look. “Are you telling me that the only reason I’ve been included in the afternoon debrief was that I just might be the only way that evening prayers can keep going?”
“Heavens to Betsy, no,” he protested piously. “You’ve been included because of your vast strategic knowledge, cunning tactical sense, a beautiful personality, and we hear you make your own clothes.”
He’d just described a homely high school girl that one of her friends was trying to set up a blind date for. I waited with what I hoped was a stern face, but it was really hard.
He had the grace to look embarrassed, although not very. “You sign the supply chits now, remember?” he said. “I was just making sure you didn’t forget something important, that’s all.”
“Okay,” I said. “So, tell me this: where’s the grapefruit juice coming from?”
He gave me a perfectly innocent look. “From grapefruits?” he said.
I couldn’t help it. I spluttered into laughter. Then stopped when I saw Captain Benson coming up the hill as the casualty convoy made preparations to get under way w
ith its dismal cargo of broken nineteen-year-olds.
Let the record show I did take care of business, and that the good captain didn’t bat an eye. Chief Higgins stood ten feet away, nodding his approval. I felt a sudden surge of pride. When a chief approves, you know you’re doing all right.
SIX
Boss Cushing came to see me the next morning in the medical bunker. Apparently Chief Higgins had done a little bragging about his foresightedness and Boss was worried that I’d had my feelings hurt. I reassured him that there was no offense taken and that I was grateful to be kept in the loop about the bigger picture. Even some of his own skippers didn’t enjoy that privilege. A sailor interrupted us with the news that a Mike boat had dropped its ramp at the PT boat pontoons with a load of medical stuff from Cactus, along with two new docs and two new hospitalmen fresh out of school. Those two worthies had news: newly promoted Commander Garr had been sent back to Nouméa to take over one of the departments of the rapidly expanding field hospital operating there. I was saddened to no end, but then they told me that there was scuttlebutt about bringing our whole MTB bunker team from Tulagi back over to Cactus. Boss perked up at that scary rumor and then said he’d go see Captain VanPiet.
Chief Higgins and I went down to the pontoon to supervise a working party who’d been tasked to move the supplies up to the bunker. Sure enough, there were four wooden boxes of something labeled SURGICAL STERILIZATION FLUID CH3-CH2-OH. I immediately recognized that formula as ethanol, which indeed would make an effective sterilization fluid but also a perfectly acceptable screamer. I asked Higgins: “Really, where the hell do you get grapefruit juice?” He took me aside and then, somewhat reluctantly, explained how MTB squadrons obtained supplies, both authorized and unauthorized.
The Hooligans Page 7
