Tin Can Titans

by John Wukovits

  “It’s a Miracle That We Have Survived”

  In December and January, Desron 21 destroyers participated in MacArthur’s three-pronged advance up the Philippines’ western side to gain airfields and staging areas for larger assaults on the way to Tokyo. First the military would transport and land Army units at Ormoc Bay, on Leyte’s northwest side; then they would use airfields and facilities seized at Ormoc to organize and support landings at Mindoro, off Luzon’s southwest coast, and employ facilities at Mindoro to support the third, and largest, assault at Lingayen Gulf, 120 miles above Manila.

  Desron 21 ships faced the same tasks at each assault—escort ships to the landing areas, screen for enemy submarines and aircraft, and provide gunfire support for the troops ashore. Most planners expected the fighting to intensify as the American units moved northward during the three phases, as the Japanese were desperate to retain control of the Philippines and their vital natural resources. Complicating matters was that Desron 21 and every other ship had to operate in narrow channels and wind through hundreds of islands, always within range of enemy airfields. As a result, they would have less maneuverability against kamikaze attacks. “Things might be hot for a while,” Doc Ransom wrote in his diary on December 3, a few days before the Ormoc invasion occurred.8

  Ransom understated matters. Two days later, as La Vallette patrolled the southern end of Leyte Gulf, Japanese aircraft attacked a convoy entering Surigao Strait. Commander Thompson immediately turned La Vallette in their direction to offer assistance, but before he arrived, kamikazes smashed into two transports and one destroyer.

  As La Vallette neared, a fourth kamikaze charged toward that vessel. Thompson ordered hard left rudder to avoid the kamikaze as shells from the ship’s antiaircraft guns kicked up water geysers on all sides of the low-flying plane. At the wheel, Quartermaster Johnson thought the plane was attempting to hit the bridge, and as it drew nearer, he tried to squeeze down between the wheel and the ship’s compass while still keeping a hand on the wheel. “I wanted to get out of there, but I stuck with it.”9

  “We opened fire with everything we had,” wrote Doc Ransom, “and still he headed down at us.” Ransom watched shells bounce off the water, much like those rocks he had skipped across a pond as a child. He felt helpless as he stood there, seeing the plane and its suicidal pilot draw closer through the fire. Finally the kamikaze exploded and crashed fifty feet off La Vallette’s port quarter. “The stern was covered with plane parts and parts of the Jap’s body—two teeth, a forearm and part of the mandible. No damage or personnel casualties!—by the grace of God. We are sure he was hit before he crashed. Hope we don’t have another day like this again.” When kamikazes struck more American ships over the next three days, Ransom added, “Japs are raising hell with destroyers with these suicide planes.”10

  On December 9 La Vallette, joined by O’Bannon, Desron 21 newcomers Howorth and Hopewell, and three other destroyers, rendezvoused in San Pedro Bay and proceeded toward Ormoc for MacArthur’s first step up the islands. La Vallette was assigned to bombard a cluster of buildings thought to be Japanese barracks, while the other destroyers focused on targets nearby.

  Due to the heightened threat from kamikazes, the crew remained at stations all night. With so many enemy airfields close by, Doc Ransom was certain that sooner or later his ship would be attacked. “They were really scary,” said Seaman Robert Whisler on O’Bannon. “There was nothing you could do but hope they got shot down.”11

  At dawn, Thompson moved La Vallette closer to the landing beaches to begin her bombardment. At the prearranged time, La Vallette’s main batteries hurled shells in the midst of the barracks before pulling back to patrol offshore. Again, Doc Ransom treated only one minor casualty when, during the bombardment, a sailor dropped a shell that fell on and broke one toe and badly cut another. The ships returned to Leyte Gulf the same day, happy to have avoided injury. Aboard O’Bannon, Radioman Lee entered in his diary, “Seems like the O’Bannon just misses everything. It is a lucky ship.”12

  They felt more fortunate when they anchored in San Pedro Bay and saw grim evidence of the destructiveness inflicted in the dangerous waters off the Philippines’ western coast. They had already heard of the torpedo that on December 3 tore into the USS Cooper (DD-695), sinking the ship in less than one minute and taking 191 of the crew to their deaths. Now, right beside them, floated what remained of the damaged destroyer USS Hughes (DD-410), with twisted metal and squashed gun mounts where Hughes’s midsection used to be. Sailors had mingled with some of the Cooper and Hughes crews during the infrequent downtimes, making the image of the ruined destroyer more powerful. “It’s a miracle that we have survived,” wrote Radioman Lee after gazing at the Hughes, “but I don’t want to speak too soon. We could get ours in the next few minutes.”13

  If kamikazes were to hit La Vallette during the next operation, the landing at Mindoro, they would have to punch through more than one hundred cruisers, destroyers, and transports. An immense armada of 110 ships traversed the waters, with La Vallette and other destroyers ringing the formation seven thousand yards from its center and powerful cruisers posted inside at each corner. A unit of escort carriers and their fighter aircraft steamed not far away, ready to supply air cover should the need arise.

  MacArthur needed Mindoro so that he could establish airfields and staging areas closer to Luzon, which would be the final step of his Philippines campaign. The operation would again require Desron 21 destroyers to skirt enemy airfields and pass through narrow straits—perfect ambush sites for Japanese submarines—along much of the route. Hanson Baldwin, the respected military correspondent for the New York Times, warned his readers, “We may have to accept large ship losses. For the first time we have sent our shipping into the narrow waters west of the Philippines, waters that are the ‘happy hunting grounds’ of Japanese submarines and torpedo craft, and into areas where Japanese planes can converge upon us from many directions.”14

  December 13 passed uneventfully until midafternoon, when a Japanese plane raced five hundred feet above La Vallette’s bow, passed behind O’Bannon, banked to the right, and dived into Nashville’s port side, causing a huge explosion and fires between the stacks. Already assigned to a recovery unit intended to aid disabled ships, Commander Thompson turned La Vallette toward the stricken cruiser.

  Additional enemy aircraft appeared two hours later. La Vallette guns deflected one bomber toward American fighters, which quickly splashed the intruder, while the other planes dropped errant bombs and disappeared. Three hours later a kamikaze charged through thick fire in a dive on Hopewell, which had joined Desron 21 in October 1943 as a replacement for the lost Strong, but 150 yards off the port beam, the plane’s left wing dipped sharply and scraped the water’s surface, and the aircraft spun into the sea only forty yards from the destroyer. An hour later two more kamikazes approached the formation but were shot down two thousand yards off Fletcher’s starboard quarter. Except for Nashville, the force had escaped harm, but the enemy had been alerted to their presence. The next day, landing day, figured to be tougher than the Americans had hoped.

  Just before daylight on December 15 La Vallette, Hopewell, and O’Bannon followed Fletcher to their fire support areas off Mindoro, later spreading out along a line that paralleled their assigned sectors. Thompson was prepared to bombard the beaches off the town of San Augustin when he spotted natives casually walking near the shore with their flocks of animals. When O’Bannon and Fletcher also reported natives and cattle in their sectors, all three skippers fired warning shots to drive the Filipinos inward and out of harm’s way.

  With the bombardment complete, the invasion forces headed toward shore. An hour after the first troops landed, two kamikazes plunged into LSMs (Landing Ship, Medium). While Hopewell rushed to their aid, another kamikaze dived toward La Vallette. “We fired every kind of gun aboard and we shot him down about 6,000 yards from us,” wrote Ransom, “tense moments those! Luckily, he was flying so low he d
idn’t have far to go to hit the water.”15

  Two other kamikazes raced toward Howorth “with unmistakable suicide intent,” according to the ship’s skipper, Commander Edward S. Burns.16 Burns turned left full rudder and upped speed to twenty knots while gun crews zeroed in. They struck one kamikaze at five hundred yards, causing the plane to spiral out of control; it passed only ten feet over a five-inch gun before crashing into the water twenty feet off the starboard side. The impact hurled parts of the plane onto Howorth’s forecastle and spread sections of the plane and pieces of the pilot aft of the bridge. Just as the first kamikaze hit the water, Burns called for full right rudder, and thirty seconds later the second kamikaze’s undercarriage scraped into the air search radar antenna, which split the plane’s gasoline tanks and sprayed gas onto the deck. The right wing glanced off the port bow seconds before the kamikaze crashed in the water, dousing the men on deck with a column of water.

  By 6:00 p.m. the surviving landing craft had emptied their holds and were ready to depart. La Vallette and her companion destroyers formed a protective screen to escort the ships out of the area toward Leyte Gulf. Doc Ransom observed in his diary: “After that things quieted down and we’re all very tired again tonight.”17

  In their action reports, commanders listed suggestions about how to combat the kamikazes. Wells Thompson of La Vallette urged low-flying fighter patrols, radical ship maneuvering at high speed, heavy gunfire from the ship’s own guns, and “eternal vigilance of personnel.” Commander Burns mentioned the same, and cited “kindly Providence” as a reason his ship had so far avoided harm.18

  The reference to Providence proved apt. With the latter half of December upon them, the destroyer crews planned Christmas celebrations that, they hoped, would provide moments of peace and calm between the actions they were likely to face in the future.

  While they were at anchor Ransom crossed over to O’Bannon to visit an old friend, and then at sundown joined others for a picnic organized by men from O’Bannon and Howorth. As Christmas approached, the O’Bannon crew placed a withered Christmas tree on the ship’s bow, and men on all ships listened to carols played on the radio and thought of family back home. On Christmas morning La Vallette’s crew gathered for a service on the forecastle, after which they enjoyed a turkey dinner with all the trimmings, including dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, apple pie, and cigars. The printed menu contained sixteen dinner items, plus a special Christmas message from Commander Thompson. “Christmas is ordinarily a time when our footsteps turn to home and friends, to be with our loved ones,” Thompson told his crew. “Unfortunately war has changed this, and made it necessary that we make our own ‘home and fireside’ this year right here on the ship. We have had a strenuous year, and recently have gone through some critical times together. Here we are, safe and sound, ‘carrying on’ as a stout ship does, and ‘ready for anything.” He ended his message by saying, “I wish to extend to each of you my sincere wish that your Christmas today will be a happy one.”19

  Like his predecessor, Commander Smith of O’Bannon recognized the toll that the holidays would take on his men. With additional strenuous days ahead, and without the prospect of leaving the combat zone for a break, he arranged what he called “fishing trips” for the crew. Each day during the holiday season a different section of the crew, with each man clutching two bottles of beer, entered the destroyer’s boats for leisurely cruises about San Pedro Bay. The boats never strayed far from O’Bannon, but the outings gave the men a chance to relax, enjoy their beer, and return to the destroyer a bit refreshed. After six days of these outings, on Christmas Eve the War Diary cited a boost to the crew’s morale and claimed that there had been “a big improvement in this otherwise non-recreational area that we have operated in for over six weeks.”20

  With luck, this would be the final Christmas away from loved ones.

  Their assignments for the Lingayen Gulf invasion were carbon copies of those for Ormoc and Mindoro—screen for ships and provide fire support for the forces ashore during and after the landings. The route to Lingayen Gulf, one hundred miles northwest of Manila, again took the destroyers through narrow channels and close to Japanese airfields on Luzon, Formosa, and Okinawa.

  The armada of 164 ships left San Pedro Bay for Lingayen Gulf, 1,100 miles distant. They exited Leyte Gulf and entered Surigao Strait before navigating the Mindanao Sea, where they listened to a Japanese radio broadcast promising a warm welcome wherever they tried to land.

  “Going across Mindanao Sea all day,” Doc Ransom wrote on January 5. “Since this is where the Nashville was hit last time we came up, we kept a very alert watch today. At about 1400 [2:00 p.m.] the cruisers ahead of us about 10 miles were attacked by a sub and although two torpedoes were fired no one was hit. Tense moments from now on, it looks like.”21

  La Vallette’s squadron mate, Taylor, eliminated the submarine threat to which Ransom alluded. While searching the narrow waters between Negros and Mindanao from which the two torpedoes had been fired, Taylor crew spotted a midget submarine surfacing dead astern. The skipper, Commander N. J. Frank Jr., ordered right full rudder and emergency flank speed, and rammed the tiny boat as it tried to submerge. He followed with six depth charges set to ignite at a shallow depth. The explosions jarred all hands, and sailors in the ammunition magazines and engineering spaces below heard scraping noises along their hull. Oil and debris floating to the surface indicated that the sixty-foot submarine had disintegrated.

  Two days later enemy aircraft dropped a bomb one thousand yards from Taylor. “Bogies [enemy aircraft] were around the formation most of the night,” Commander Frank stated in his action report for the night of January 7–8.22 At dawn the planes came again, but their attempts to barge through the thick antiaircraft screen were futile. Later that day, a kamikaze evaded antiaircraft fire and damaged the port side of the escort carrier Kitkun Bay.

  “At 1800 [6:00 p.m.] the whole convoy turned east as we are nearing Lingayen Gulf,” wrote Doc Ransom. “At sunset, although we could not see land, we could hear the battleships bombarding within the Gulf. Tomorrow morning at 0930 [9:30 a.m.] our troops are to land at Lingayen and it should be a busy day for all.”23

  Shortly after midnight the formation entered Lingayen Gulf, at which time La Vallette and the screen moved closer to the transports. Lookouts posted on deck spotted several mines floating within one hundred yards, which Thompson easily evaded. Near dawn an enemy plane dived at La Vallette, but the pilot turned away in the face of the antiaircraft curtain put up by La Vallette gunners.

  Two hours later Ransom’s ship arrived in position off her assigned beach and commenced a twenty-five-minute bombardment. The Japanese response sent enemy shells splashing among the formation, with one coming so close that Ransom heard it swish as it passed over and hit the Jenkins only a thousand yards away. The shell struck one of Jenkins’s gun mounts, punctured the rear of the gun shield, and burst upon hitting the starboard bulkhead, blowing out the door and throwing fragments throughout the gun chamber. Three men died from their wounds and another ten were wounded, but the ship’s captain, Commander Philip D. Gallery, credited the foresight of his medical officer, Lieutenant James Pullman Jr., with saving lives. As Ransom had done aboard La Vallette, Pullman had instructed his crew in basic first-aid techniques, such as how to apply a tourniquet and administer morphine.

  In midafternoon shells again fell among the destroyers. The first struck ahead of La Vallette, and each of the next three landed in the water successively closer to the destroyer. Thompson increased speed and turned his main batteries toward the Japanese gun flashes; joined by the fire from Jenkins, he silenced the enemy guns.

  When by sundown the transports had completed unloading the infantry and supplies, the Desron 21 ships formed their familiar protective screen and escorted the ships back to Leyte Gulf. This time one of their own, Jenkins, had been hit, and the squadron had lost crewmembers. The longer they remained in enemy waters, many thought, the more
likely it was that they would fall prey to enemy shells, torpedoes, or kamikazes.

  Mail from home was the best antidote to those risks, but for reasons Commander Frank of the Taylor could not fathom, his crew had failed to receive any mail since November 1—two months of risking their lives without communication with family and friends back home. He considered the matter so important that he included special comments in his action report for the Lingayen operation. “Only small amounts of mail have reached this vessel during the last three months in spite of repeated requests to Commander Naval Base at Hollandia and Manus. It is believed that extra efforts should be made by planning agencies to insure delivery of mail prior to commencement of extended operations. Mail is extremely necessary for maintenance of morale, especially after a ship has been at sea for one year or more.”24 He hoped that would settle the issue.

  Morale would be a more vital factor in the coming weeks, as two Desron 21 destroyers would learn in the waters off Corregidor.

  “What Kept Us from Blowing Sky High, No One Knows”

  The island of Corregidor was not just another tiny plot of soil in the Pacific with an unfamiliar name. Beginning in December 1941 and continuing into the first months of 1942, Corregidor and the nearby Bataan Peninsula dominated the nation’s headlines. Each day weary, outnumbered American soldiers and their Filipino allies had battled Japanese infantry intent on sweeping them out of the Philippines, and each day the nation followed their progress, bolstered by their stirring fight against overwhelming odds. The Japanese had gradually forced MacArthur to retreat into the Bataan Peninsula, northwest of Manila, and onto the island of Corregidor, an island bastion guarding the entrance to Manila Bay. The Americans and Filipinos had continued their inspiring defense until, running out of matériel and food, and without any chance of rescue, their commander, Major General Jonathan M. Wainwright, who had succeeded Douglas MacArthur when President Roosevelt ordered him off the island, was forced to capitulate to his opponent.