The Jersey Brothers

by Sally Mott Freeman

  DAVAO PENAL COLONY, OR DAPECOL as it was called, was a maximum security prison established by the Philippine government for habitual and incorrigible prisoners. Its location—still marked “Unexplored” on a 1940 map—was in the middle of a rain forest barely north of the equator. But to the prisoners from Cabanatuan, it seemed the answer to so many prayers. It had acres of rice fields, and crops of coffee, papaya, and mung beans. It also boasted pig and chicken farms, a lumber mill, carpentry shop, hospital, and chapel. Though rough and unpainted, the tin-roofed barracks were water tight, alone a substantial improvement over Cabanatuan. The prisoners felt the promise of survival.

  After inspecting the new arrivals, however, DAPECOL’s camp commander, Major Kazuo Maeda, complained angrily to the assembled group that they resembled walking corpses. He had been told, he said, that he was being sent the strongest of the POWs for his mission of running the farm to supply food to Japanese soldiers in the Philippines.

  Nonetheless he proceeded to deliver the following speech, with his ls replaced mostly with rs—the prisoners’ scant and only source of humor for the day: “You have had soft, easy life since your capture. All that will be different here. You will learn about hard labor. Every prisoner will work unless he is in hospital. Punishment for malingering will be severe.”

  14

  AND THEN THERE WAS ONE: USS ENTERPRISE VERSUS JAPAN

  IN MID-OCTOBER 1942, THE USS Enterprise was again poised to move out of Pearl Harbor’s narrow channel, bound for the South Pacific. The ship had been in drydock for two months, undergoing repairs from three bomb hits she’d received in August at the Eastern Solomons battle. One hit alone had killed thirty-eight men in the gun gallery on the carrier’s aft starboard side.

  Benny worked with navy dentists for hours following to help identify his dead gunners. The boys’ clothes were vaporized by the initial blast, and identification was made harder yet by the furious gunpowder-fueled fire that ensued. Like uncovered remains at ancient Pompeii, a number were frozen in the stances they’d held on impact: one still seated, leaning into his sights, training his gun on an incoming plane; another handing over a powder keg, the hands of both giver and receiver still outstretched; pointers and trainers were hunched over in their seats as though resting. Benny had the further unhappy task of writing to the families of the fallen men. His heart heaved with each note, knowing how his own mother might receive such news.

  Stories of the fierce clash in the Solomons had been fully reported by the time mutilated Enterprise limped back into Pearl Harbor for repairs. Waiting for Benny was a hastily composed and badly typed letter from Bill:

  Dear Benny,

  The suspense I have gone through since hearing from you last has been terrific. If you do get this letter which Praise God you will, call me collect at the White House at your earliest opportunity, sometime between the hours of eight and twelve in the morning or five to seven at night. I have told the White House operators that you might call, so they will be expecting it. The times given above are Eastern War Time which is the same as Zone Plus Four.

  Devotedly,

  Bill

  Benny placed the call immediately. As he waited for the White House operator to put him through to the Map Room, he tore open his one other piece of mail: a legal notice indicating that his wife Jeannette had requested that his life insurance policy eliminate Helen Cross as a joint beneficiary and name her as sole beneficiary. The explanation given was that she would need all the proceeds to support herself and their daughter, given the high probability that something would happen to her husband. Benny was crushed.

  He set aside the rude shock when Bill’s voice broke in on the line.

  “Jesus, you had me worried this time!” Bill said, trying to sound jocular, but his voice was thick with emotion.

  “Yup—well, this one was a nail-biter, I don’t mind telling you,” came Benny’s reply, also tinged with forced cheerfulness. “Thanks for your note. I just got it. Matter of fact, we just got in.”

  The two brothers spoke at length of their shared relief that Benny had survived another terrifying ordeal, the details of which Bill already knew well. Enterprise had pulled through again, if barely, this time listing and afire, spewing black smoke and loaded with charred bodies. Benny had lost many friends, and he admitted to Bill he was badly shaken. “Worst one yet, this one—for me, anyway.” Benny let out a disconsolate chuckle before sharing the contents of his other letter. “Nice homecoming present, eh? Guess she was hoping I was one of our casualties.”

  Bill assured Benny he would assume the task of responding to Jeannette’s shabby request and that “two-bit lawyer” she had engaged even as her husband had steamed toward battle. When they hung up, Bill heaved a deep sigh and scrolled a piece of White House letterhead into his typewriter. In an instant, he went from enormous relief to a controlled state of rage. Still, rigorous legal training had taught him to hew to the facts. He was pleased to report, he began, both as Commander E. B. Mott’s brother and now his legal representative, that Benny had survived the recent engagements in the Pacific, rendering Jeannette’s concern over his life insurance policy premature.

  In any case, the policy was indeed being revised, Bill continued coolly—by giving Helen Cross, the existing joint beneficiary, special new powers. Her role would be to see that any amounts that might at some future point be due Jeannette would instead be placed into trust for young Jeanne Marie. Bill could be contacted at the White House if the lawyer misunderstood any of the foregoing. Only on the last line did Bill yield to temptation, concluding the missive with the following remark: “I cannot understand for the life of me why any woman would want to torture and make miserable the life of anyone who is already giving so much for his country, but I guess this war has shown there are a lot of things about human nature that are inexplicable.”

  As Bill saw to Benny’s painful marital matters, Benny returned to urgent ship business. While Enterprise was under repair, he’d managed the critical installation of powerful and more precise 40-millimeter quad-mounted guns, plus new mounts to the bow of the ship on the forecastle. Forty-six new 20-millimeter guns were installed as well. In all, the carrier now had much more powerful and protective antiaircraft batteries than in the Eastern Solomons, and Benny was confident they would do valiant service in upcoming battle.

  With customary good rapport, the Gunnery and Air Departments worked together to train the ship’s gunners—both green and veteran—on the new equipment. Benny and Enterprise’s air officer, Commander John Crommelin, met on the flight deck each morning for target practice with the new guns. The two officers worked closely together on the complex carrier minuet that combined air combat with sea fighting. Thousands of lives and survival of the ship itself depended heavily on the quality of their cooperative efforts.

  During these exercises, Crommelin would order a group of planes to fly over the ship so that the gunners could practice training their gun sights onto enemy aircraft. Benny would then give commands over the flight deck bullhorn to commence and cease fire. They would conduct these exercises for hours at a time.

  Whenever the men called for a break, Benny, with the quick, flat wit of a train conductor, would issue the following over the bullhorn: “Boys,” he said, then sighed and paused for effect, “I’d like you to think about something on your little break. There are two kinds of people in gunnery. The quick and the dead.”

  That usually made the point that the long, hot practices were crucial. In battle, the time a gunner had to train his artillery on a dive bomber and then fire on it was between five and eight seconds. In that minuscule flash of time, the attacking plane would have to be downed or the aim of the pilot spoiled if the ship was to be spared. Only practice improved those odds.

  ON OCTOBER 16, 1942, Enterprise departed Pearl Harbor for certain battle. After six days at sea, she merged with the USS Hornet’s convoy and several new crew members zipped over to Enterprise via high line, a conveyance cable suspe
nded between support and troop vessels and warships. Benny and Commander Crommelin interrupted their morning rehearsals while the new recruits came aboard. Both men commented on the questionable wisdom of adding inexperienced crew members so soon before battle.

  Their musings turned from concern to salty invective when a smiling young ensign swayed and dangled on the high line between the troopship and Enterprise, and then dropped to the deck with golf clubs slung over his shoulder and carrying a tennis racquet.

  Other newly boarded men would distinguish themselves in a different way. One was a naval aviator named Robert Emmett Riera, a 1935 Annapolis graduate who had also worked in gunnery before attending flight school in Pensacola, Florida. Riera was joining Enterprise from his first Pacific piloting assignment with Scouting Squadron Sixteen. Benny naturally liked the fact that Riera knew gunnery and was also an Academy man—particularly with so many novice pilots joining the fight. This was the type of naval aviator that rose quickly in rank in officer-starved 1942, assuming he continued to make good decisions.

  The brutal work ahead for the Enterprise crew was the continuation of what they had begun in August in their harrowing foray to the Solomon Islands. Their mission then was to assist in the landing of the First Marine Division on a little-known island called Guadalcanal. It had been a deadly two months since. The protracted air, land, and sea battle to control that remote but strategically invaluable jungle outpost was showing no sign of letting up.

  It all began in July with a tip from hidden Australian coastwatchers that the Japanese were building an airfield on Guadalcanal. Admiral King reacted immediately. Not only did Guadalcanal mark the outer perimeter of mainland Japan’s defense, but King instantly understood that an enemy airfield there would also give long-range Japanese bombers a launch pad for decimating US-Australia shipping and supply lanes. With Roosevelt’s direct support, King ordered an immediate naval counteroffensive.

  When Admiral Nimitz asked for Seventh Fleet ships to assist with the campaign, General MacArthur registered his fury with Washington. Alleging that the “navy cabal” was attempting to relegate him to a subordinate role in the Pacific, he claimed Nimitz had violated the divided command structure by not going through him to request access to the US Navy’s Australia-based ships. And, he declared, any US Navy offensive to seize Guadalcanal was a further “breach,” as Guadalcanal was part of the Solomon Islands chain, the dividing line between his command purview (Southwest Pacific) and Admiral Nimitz’s (Central Pacific).

  In a radiogram to both the War Department and the White House Map Room, MacArthur alleged:

  “IT IS QUITE EVIDENT . . . THAT NAVY CONTEMPLATES ASSUMING GENERAL COMMAND CONTROL OF ALL OPERATIONS IN THE PACIFIC THEATER, THE ROLE OF THE ARMY BEING SUBSIDIARY AND CONSISTING LARGELY OF PLACING ITS FORCES AT THE DISPOSAL OR UNDER THE COMMAND OF NAVY OR MARINE OFFICERS.”

  The incoming rant raised plenty of eyebrows in the Map Room, but at the Navy Department, the veins in Admiral King’s neck reportedly bulged at the news. Imagine his having to request permission from General MacArthur for access to the navy’s own ships! MacArthur’s petulant missive thus effectively reignited the Washington turf battle over which service would take overall command of the Pacific theater of war. As the command scuffle was thrashed out in Washington, the Japanese made handsome progress toward completing their airfield on Guadalcanal. Many senior navy officers were implacably hostile toward MacArthur forever after.

  THE ISSUE OF OVERALL command in the Pacific had been simmering between the army and the navy since war was declared seven months earlier. To CNO Admiral King, the matter was simple: the battlefield in question was a multimillion-square-mile expanse of open ocean—emphatically and logically suited to naval command. Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall, however, argued in favor of awarding command of the Pacific to General MacArthur—himself a onetime army chief of staff and already on duty in the Philippines. Marshall was not about to let MacArthur become subordinate to naval command.

  Admiral King, just as adamantly, refused to allow the precious remaining ships of the Pacific Fleet to be placed under Army General MacArthur. This was not only because King disliked and mistrusted MacArthur—whom he considered a megalomaniac—but also because MacArthur’s knowledge of basic naval operations was critically deficient. King’s own solution for overall Pacific command was, to him, the obvious choice: the commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet (CINCPAC): namely, Admiral Chester Nimitz, who was also at the ready in Pacific-bounded Hawaii.

  Unable to reach consensus on either the army’s or the navy’s proposal, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) elected to split Pacific command between MacArthur—by then in Australia—and Nimitz. The command area dividing line was drawn along the Solomon Islands chain. MacArthur was named commander in chief of the Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA) and charged with subduing the Japanese at Port Moresby, New Guinea, and then driving his forces north from Australia to the Philippine archipelago.

  Admiral Nimitz was named commander in chief of the Pacific Ocean Areas (POA) and charged with advancing easterly across the Central Pacific—clearing enemy resistance in the Marshall Islands and the Marianas—and ultimately converging with MacArthur’s forces in the waters off the Philippines. The combined Allied force would then retake the Philippines, beginning logically with Mindanao, its southernmost island, and then make its final move against mainland Japan.

  Under the Joint Chiefs’ agreement, if either service happened to be operating within the other’s command area, they would become subordinate to that area’s theater commander, even if interservice radio channels were poor or nonexistent—a risk at any time, but particularly during war. The JCS’s imperfect resolution solved the immediate spat but seemed destined to produce fractured communications, a disunity of effort, and enormous loss of life. Moreover, it had only temporarily solved the Pacific command scuffle.

  MacArthur’s petulant objections delayed the urgent Guadalcanal counteroffensive for weeks while a revision to the command geography was hammered out between General Marshall and Admiral King. The resulting amendment nudged the dividing line westward, placing the lower Solomons—including Guadalcanal and nearby Tulagi—under Admiral Nimitz’s command. The agreement also allowed General MacArthur to lead future Allied moves against Rabaul, New Guinea, as well as New Britain, located northwest of Guadalcanal.

  Finally, in early August, carriers Enterprise, Wasp, and Saratoga—and a cobbling together of nearly every available support naval vessel in the Pacific, including Seventh Fleet ships from “MacArthur’s Navy”—had pressed toward Guadalcanal at flank speed. They were carrying a landing force of 19,000 marines. The mission was named Operation Watchtower, but a nickname quickly circulated among Washington military planners: “Operation Shoestring.”

  The stakes were high for both sides. The Allies could not allow a completed enemy airfield on Guadalcanal, especially since the Japanese could use it to attack all remaining Allied bases in the South Pacific—as well as Australia and New Zealand—with land-based bombers. The Allies also wanted Guadalcanal, the “unsinkable aircraft carrier,” as a launching point for their own land-based bombers. Neither side could afford to lose it to the other.

  The First Marine Division was landed on Guadalcanal and Tulagi, but nearly everything else about the operation’s launch went badly. In this very first amphibious landing of the Pacific War, the newly named amphibian force commander, Admiral Richmond “Kelly” Turner, was forced to withdraw his ships prematurely “in view of heavy impending air attacks.” The aircraft carriers—commanded by Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher—had withdrawn first, denying Turner’s supply vessels crucial air cover. Turner was forced, therefore, to order withdrawal of all remaining ships, which had not yet unloaded armaments, rations, and medical supplies—and a thousand-man reserve force. In one of the proudest chapters of Marine Corps history however, the food-and-supply-strapped Corps on Guadalcanal still managed to seize the airfield, which they promptly rechri
stened Henderson Field in honor of a fellow marine killed at Midway.

  Loath to lose the strategic benefits of the Guadalcanal airstrip, the Japanese staged a series of counteroffensives to repel the US Marines and retake the island. For the next two months, both sides poured blood and treasure into their dueling claim for that malarial speck of jungle in the Central Pacific. On October 22, the Japanese, supported by a forty-warship naval force, launched a massive ground offensive, with the additional objective of striking a decisive blow against approaching US naval forces, especially her aircraft carriers. For four days and nights, outnumbered, underfed, and exhausted, the marines continuously beat back the strengthened attack force at the airfield perimeter. Incredibly, on October 26, when Enterprise, Hornet, and their escorts arrived to assist with the counteroffensive, the marines still held Henderson Field.

  THAT MORNING, ENTERPRISE STOOD west of Guadalcanal, just north of the Santa Cruz Islands. At first light, Admiral Halsey’s order came through from his island headquarters at Nouméa, New Caledonia, 5,700 miles southwest of their location. The radiogram required no signature to identify its sender: “Attack. Repeat, Attack.”

  At 0630 Benny was in Sky Control, squinting eastward through his field glasses. Tense and expectant, he had just learned that one of Enterprise’s PBY scouting planes had been spotted by the Japanese. Suspecting their position, the enemy naval force had turned north to confront the American convoy. All was ready for certain battle; now only the dreadful wait.