Night Fighter

by Hamilton, William H. ; Sasser, Charles W. ;

  After the war ended, most of the thirty-four UDTs in service with their 3,500 swimmers were reduced to a skeleton crew of seven officers and forty-five enlisted men. While most officers with stars in their eyes moved on to “the real Navy,” Commander Fane, better known as “Red” or “Red Dog” until after his hair turned white, took charge of what remained of the dying UDTs on the East Coast and fought to preserve and expand them into his vision of naval special warfare. The UDT fighting song, patterned after that of the Georgia Tech football team, was attributed partially to Fane and his struggle to build unconventional warriors.

  When the Navy gets into a jam

  They always call on me

  To pack a case of dynamite

  And put right out to sea.…

  Out in front of the Navy

  Where you really get the heat

  There’s a bunch of crazy bastards

  Pulling off some crazy feat.…

  “I realized,” Fane preached, “that if we were going to come in, in future wars, we would have to be better prepared. I thought of working underwater all the way. Working with submersibles out of submarines. Coming in surreptitiously at night. Of being dropped by helicopters into the water. I envisioned the whole system.”

  His guidance had already moved UDT a long way toward forming underwater warriors of tomorrow. While I was flying Panthers off Happy Valley, he and UDT-3, a detachment of eleven men, were operating with the CIA out of bases in Japan. He and Lieutenant Commander Bucklew, who joined Fane from time to time, added UDT-1 and UDT-5 to make three teams and three hundred men clandestinely giving the NKs headaches in their own territory.

  But the man whose path I would soon cross, and who would eventually share with me the most direct impact on the development of Navy commandos, arrived off the Korean coast a month after the war kicked off. The light cruiser USS Worcester, the Wooster, the Big Woo, had pulled out of Greece with orders to join the Seventh Fleet. Grizzled twenty-eight-year-old Bos’n Mate First Class Roy Boehm was in charge of the vessel’s Third Division, which included half the Big Woo’s gun mounts.

  Boehm had encountered UDTs while fighting the Japanese in the Pacific as General MacArthur’s and Admiral Chester Nimitz’s “island hopping” campaign proceeded toward Japan. He was immediately captivated by them. A seed began germinating in his mind—undersea warriors who could be used in a variety of ways to revolutionize warfare.

  Now, a decade later and after surviving my engagement with the Soviet MiG, I stood on Happy Valley’s catwalk with Tex Baker and watched the tough-looking UDT men spring into a ship’s launch and breeze away across the ocean. At that moment, I had no way of knowing how my destiny would become entwined with theirs and with bold and visionary men like Draper Kauffman, Phil Bucklew, Red Fane, and Roy Boehm as naval special warfare began to emerge ready and tailor-made for the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

  Korea would prove to be the turning point.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I NEEDED TO GET A firsthand look at Navy commandos in action by participating in one of their missions. Linking up with the team was verboten. But with a little jockeying, I latched on with a U.S. Marine squad that went in ahead of the Frogs to set up security.

  “Hellfire and dumplings, man, if you’re crazy enough to fly a fucking unarmed jet into MiG Alley,” the Marine captain reasoned, “I guess you’re loco enough to get your butt shot off with us. If you don’t come back, we’ll tell your commander we never knew ye.”

  Tex Baker shook his head. He always looked like he should be wearing a ten-gallon hat with a grass stem stuck out of his mouth. “Bone, you are one crazy sonofabitch. So you got a bullet hole in your plane, so now you go out and get a bullet hole in you. What do you want me to tell your wife?”

  “Tell her it was destiny.”

  Things weren’t that hunky-dory anyhow between Elinor and me. Letters I received from my new bride sounded like she found life with a Navy pilot on deployment less glamorous than she supposed. It appeared her mama was talking to her, like Mama thought the Navy wasn’t paying me enough to keep her daughter in the style to which she aspired. Wasn’t much I could do about it from halfway around the globe.

  The UDTs of Korea were not the same as their forerunners in the previous war, who were largely confined to the role of amphibious recon and the clearing of beachheads. Aside from Inchon, there hadn’t been any beachheads in Korea to seize. As a result, their mission capabilities expanded to include activities such as demolition raids on enemy shipping and supply lines, sabotage of port and harbor facilities, clearing of sea and shipping lanes, intelligence gathering from behind enemy lines, and other classic commando- and guerrilla-like activities.

  Tonight’s mission was to infiltrate enemy country fifty miles north of the battle line, blow a section of train rail over which Chicoms—Chinese communists—transported troops and war materiel to the front, and then slip out again. UDTs continued to venture farther and farther from the high water line to which they were restricted during World War II.

  “Contact is not only possible, but probable,” the UDT commander said as his rowdy-looking bunch, along with the Marines and me, crowded into the ops room for briefing aboard their “lily pad,” a high-speed transport. He was the same man who decided upon our first meeting aboard Valley Forge that I might be crazy enough to be a Frog.

  He was lean and sharp-featured, with his face painted black and green. He wore what appeared to be the same filthy camouflage as when I first saw him. His men were likewise fierce-looking bastards, scary even, laden as they were with knives, pistols, submachine guns, and leather demo bags. He raised a brow as he studied me, the tall stranger in their midst. It was obvious that I didn’t quite belong, although I had blackened my own face and borrowed a set of utilities and a boonie hat from the Marines.

  “Action on objective,” he said, addressing his team and Marine security, “is to get in quick, do the job, and get out quick.” His eyes returned to regard me. “Bone? That’s what they call you? You’re too big to carry out. You’re on your own if you get fucked up.”

  I couldn’t tell if he meant it or not.

  “Bone, you do know how to shoot?”

  He handed me an M-1 carbine, short and stubby with a box magazine. I took it and pretended to know exactly what I was doing. One of the Marines handed me a full ammo belt. I buckled it around my waist.

  Most pilots carried the .45 pistol as part of their standard survival gear. Otherwise, the only guns most sailors needed to be familiar with were anti-aircraft machine guns and the big cannon aboard ship. Navy brought Marines with them to do the ground fighting.

  This was my first time thrust into circumstances that might entail personal combat mano a mano. I found a bit daunting the prospect of venturing out of my element into the dark sea where savage little men lurked to do me in if they got the chance. The cavalry was not apt to bugle in to save the day if we got caught in a jam.

  I tightened my grip on the carbine. My mouth felt and tasted like a porcupine had crawled inside and taken a leak. My respect grew for those bold men who dared take such risks.

  The patrol boat, with all lights extinguished, steamed north and pulled up in black waters, north of the battle line drawn across the narrow waist of the Korean peninsula. I assisted the six-man Marine security detail in lowering an inflatable boat by rope. The Marine patrol leader tapped me to go over the side of the APB into the raft. Which I did, rather clumsily. It was a bit more chancy than climbing into the stable cockpit of an F9F.

  Armed with the carbine and my .45 in a web holster, I crunched into the wet bottom of the raft while two alert Marines with weapons ready rode shotgun at the prow and the other four dipped paddles into the surf for the short, silent ride to shore. White-foamed breakers shone in the dim starlight, spray hissed cold into my face, and I sniffed the rancid scent of danger.

  Land appeared in a black outline wedged between the lighter sky and the sea, low near the water but r
ising sharply into hills beyond. I heard rollers lapping against sand and rock as Marines paddled the rubber boat through the surf. Everyone went silent and watchful. The oily snick of a Bren gun selector switch clicking off safe made a startling sound as the forward lookouts prepared to spring ashore.

  The boat nudged land with a rubbery bump. Lookouts disappeared. The rest of us followed. Cold seawater rose to my shins as I helped drag the boat out of the water. Waves licking and splashing the rocky shore covered any sounds we made.

  Among the competent night fighters I felt like a toddler taking his first steps. I merely tagged along and did what they did, dropping down among a field of boulders to listen and look with them, trying not to embarrass myself with incompetence and maybe bring down the entire Red Army on our asses.

  The railroad lay about a half mile inland, according to the briefing map. That was a long damned way to run in the dark over this terrain should we make unintended contact with enemy troops. Happy Valley had lost several pilots forced to bail out over enemy country; now I knew how they must have felt.

  One Marine remained behind with the raft to guide the Frogs ashore when they arrived. They were about two minutes back. I followed the others across the beach and through a field of short seagrasses and into a copse of trees. Beyond, terrain rose to a low plateau bisected where rails glistened like parallel lines in the rising moonlight. A birdcall gave me a start, made me think of Old West movies in which Apaches surrounded John Wayne and communicated with each other in birdcalls just before the first arrow pierced a cavalryman’s back.

  Otherwise, nothing appeared to move out there. What we counted on was Chicoms, Chinese communists, not being able to guard every mile of their supply lines, and that this was one of those unguarded miles. Air recon photos from today revealed no activity in the area, a good sign.

  The patrol leader fanned out target security up-track and down-track, two Marines on each point to watch for enemy approaches. They disappeared silently into the darkness. The patrol leader and I watched until he thought they were in place before he and I slipped farther uphill to obtain a high-ground view of the objective. No alien sounds or movement other than a night bird that jumped up ahead of our approach. Perhaps the same one I had heard before. He was unarmed.

  I sprawled on my belly behind a rock, rifle ready, and squinted into the surrounding night, my mouth dry and my heart pounding against the sand. After what seemed at least three days but might have been only three minutes, my Marine received a predetermined signal by radio squelch. Shortly thereafter, stealthy shadows emerged from the night to our rear. UDTs passed on through to lay explosives along a section of the rails.

  I waited for another eternity until the Frog team returned to retrace our steps back to the rubber boats. Security Marines closed in to cover the rear of a rather anticlimactic withdrawal.

  We were on our rafts and halfway back to the APB when the sabotage explosion went off. A flashing series of detonations slashed the night sky. Fiery light reflected off our faces. Explosions rumbled through the hills, reverberating like approaching thunder.

  Damn! What a rush! Men clapped each other on the back and hooted with laughter as we clambered back aboard the lily pad.

  “Another kick in the Chink’s drawers,” the Frog commander cheered. He pounded my back. “What do you think now, Fly-Fly Boy?”

  Before I had time to respond, a heavy machine gun from somewhere out there began to saw out rounds. Shooting at shadows, proving that the enemy had been present all the time, even though unseen and not confronted. It was a blow for me to accept how close the enemy had been all the time without our even knowing about it—and how close we had been to them without their knowing it.

  * * *

  Such missions were becoming standard fare for Korea-stationed Underwater Demolition Teams. While many high-ranking officers in the traditional Navy objected to the expansion, others saw it as a necessary move in the right direction.

  Six weeks after the U.S. entered the war, Vice Admiral C. Turner Joy, Commander of U.S. Naval Forces in the Far East, tasked UDT-3 with its first clandestine mission to blow up a critical railroad bridge at Yosu forty-five miles behind enemy lines and about three hundred yards from the sea.

  On the night of August 5, 1950, Lieutenant (JG) George Atcheson and his team in a rubber raft infiltrated from the USS Diachenko (APD-123). Atcheson and Bos’n Mate Third Class Warren “Fins” Finley scout-swam ahead of the boat in swift current and scrambled up a seawall a short distance from the target to conduct a hasty recon.

  Finding the area apparently secure, they signaled the rest of the team to bring in explosives. Just as the Frogs began work, a squad of North Korean soldiers pumping a railroad handcart emerged from a tunnel overlooking the bridge, spotted the intruders, and opened fire. A bullet struck Finley’s thigh and knocked him off the ledge along which the rails ran. He fell twenty-five feet and shattered his kneecap to become the first U.S. Navy casualty of the Korean War.

  Carrying the wounded operator with them, team members returned fire and tossed hand grenades to cover their withdrawal to the sea.

  A week later, UDT-3, with Lieutenant Atcheson again in command, embarked against a second pair of tunnels and a railroad bridge at Tanchon, 160 miles up the North Korean coastline. This time the detachment succeeded in blowing up the tunnels and bridge with a ton of TNT.

  By the time I reached Korea with VC-61, UDTs were in the process of acquiring all sorts of new commando tasks—inserting and handling spies, sabotaging enemy shipping, rescuing our downed airmen from behind enemy lines, destroying NK fishing nets to deprive the enemy of a major food source, prisoner snatches, hit-and-run ops. … Korea was changing the nature of war and the Navy was adapting.

  CHAPTER SIX

  SHOOTING PICTURES WAS A helluva way to fight a war. At least when I went with UDT-5 to blow the railroad I had the option of shooting back with real bullets. All I could do from the cockpit of an unarmed Panther was dodge flak, avoid and evade MiGs, and take pictures.

  “I’m beginning to think I’m pushing my luck,” I confided in my wing mate, Tex Baker. We were smoking and having coffee together in the galley, coming down off our afternoon missions.

  Mine had been a hairy one. Exploding flak peppered the sky in a blazing panorama starting at the Sea of Japan and spreading across the Korean peninsula to the Yellow Sea. Flying through it was like dodging raindrops—or hailstones that exploded if they hit you.

  “Man, this war can’t last much longer,” Tex drawled, blowing cigarette smoke at me across the narrow table bolted to the deck. “Stick out the tour, Bone, and we’re on our way up the ladder. We’ll both be admirals by the next war.”

  “All we have to do is stay alive and not go down with the airplane, right?”

  Pilots kept failing to return from sorties. We Glory Guys launched from the flattop decks with our jaunty put-on grins and cocky salutes—and then those who did return waited on the catwalks and anxiously scanned the sky for those of us who did not return.

  Commander Paul Gray of VF-94 was having a run of bad luck. He ditched three damaged Panthers at sea and crash-landed another ashore and had to be rescued. Other pilots with typical graveyard humor erected a sign in the ready room: Use caution when ditching damaged airplanes in Wonsan Harbor. Don’t hit Cdr. Gray.

  “Bone,” Tex said. “You and me, we’re like cats. We got nine lives.”

  “Cats don’t fly,” I pointed out.

  Naval aviation was relatively new and small, but it was a rapidly growing field that promised an exceptionally bright future. It was definitely the right career path to advancement for ambitious young officers. It appeared that pilots and former pilots might dominate the upper echelon of the Navy and run it at least for the rest of the twentieth century.

  “It just don’t get no better than this,” naval aviators cheered.

  I wasn’t sure about that.

  “Your fresh little bride have anything to do with your
new attitude?” Tex asked slyly.

  “Leave her out of it.”

  Leaving Elinor out of it wasn’t so easy.

  I had met her at a private party while attending aerial photo recon training in California. Young, eligible women around naval air stations looked upon dashing young pilots as trophy catches. In full dress uniform, I sauntered into an upscale two-story residence in suburban Del Mar with several other aviators from nearby Miramar Air Station who were invited to the party by local girls. Booze flowed, cigarette smoke swirled, and the wonderful laughter of young ladies on the make was enough to swell the chest of any testosterone-stoked god of the skies.

  A slight brunette with big brown eyes and an inviting smile waltzed up to me. I caught the sweetness of her scent, the lure of not-quite-cleavage not-quite-exposed by her full party dress. She wore a pink ribbon in her long hair. The top of her head barely reached my chest. She had to take a step back to look up and meet my eyes.

  “You’re a big one,” she said admiringly. “I’m surprised they have an airplane your size.”

  I grinned back. “I have a pocket you’ll fit in if you want to see my plane.”

  We were married three months before I shipped out for Korea. From the tone of her letters, the romance of being married to a naval aviator had failed to live up to her expectations.

  Tex Baker shook his head with a wry look and took a big draught of coffee. “So, Bone, you think she’ll like you going under water any more than you flying above water?”

  “She wants me to resign my commission and leave the Navy.”

  “And what’s your response?”

  “Navy is the only thing I’ve known my entire life. I grew up around saltwater.”

  I was born almost on the sea in 1927 while Dad was stationed at North Island Naval Air Station, Coronado, California. Near the Naval Amphibious Base that would train UDT men for war in the Pacific. In a manner of speaking, Mom was likewise from the sea. Reared in and around San Francisco, Marjorie developed into a great swimmer who had won several swimming awards and once competed in the race across the Bay, a feat attempted only by accomplished and courageous swimmers.