by Miner, Ron
PBY on island runway
Leap Frog
The battle of Peleliu was underway. The Marines had driven the enemy into their network of caves and tunnels, and finally gained control of the airstrip after a brutal and costly battle. This effort was all the more extraordinary due to the 110-degree heat and a near complete lack of water. The rumor was that the Japanese had poisoned the wells so that what water there was came from Guam.
The theory of sending out small task forces of PBYs on combat missions continued, and with it our nomadic lifestyle. A number of our Black Cat crews were sent over to Palau* to assist in what we were told was a mopping up operation, although Del and two other crews arrived first and were instructed to come in at thirty feet because of the shelling that was still going on above them. At night, landings were accomplished using a makeshift airstrip lit up with jeep headlights and, in fact, VPB-54’s planes were the first to touch down on the island since the invasion began.
Peleliu was an awful mess — there was little left of it but broken palm trees. Things had improved somewhat by the time our crew arrived, but Marines continued to work an upland area called Bloody Nose Ridge above and just north of the airstrip. It was an active and threatening place with sniper fire still killing men down here. Much of this island’s surface was coral, but the northern portion included high hills, cliffs, and steep terrain and was very different geologically. Many of the caves were early mineral and mining tunnels dug out of the clay and lava, and now the enemy had connected them and added hundreds more creating an underground complex to move around personnel and conceal artillery.
The Seabees arrived about the same time as the first of our PBYs and had gone immediately to work rebuilding the runways, even as the Marines continued firing mortar rounds over their heads into the northwest hills. Some of those barrages made our takeoffs a little dicey, as well. There was at least one skirmish between Japanese soldiers and the Seabees who, using everything they had including shovels and bulldozers, quickly sent the intruders scurrying out of a pit and back into their caves.
Bob and I found the Operations Tent and checked in. I saw my name on the schedule board for the next morning with the comment “Napalm Strike.” After searching through several charts, I was unable to find a place around there called “Napalm,” so I asked a lieutenant about it. It was then explained that napalm was an inflammable liquid to be carried in droppable wing tanks! Each tank held about 250 pounds of the stuff.
The idea was to hit the mouth of the caves and effectively burn the occupants out. The targets were so close that we practically stayed in our traffic pattern, simply taking off, circling over the ridge for the drop, and then back in again for a reload. We scarcely reached 400 feet in altitude and were putting the landing gear down again in five minutes.
This went on for a serious part of the day and made you wonder how anyone could survive in those hills for any length of time.
After a day off, we were again readying “Frisco Gal” to Dumbo for an airstrike, this time on Yap, another small island about 300 miles north and east of Pelelieu. I put my earphones on as I stared out the windshield at the 200 foot ridge that a short time ago was smooth, green, and tree laden all along the western edge of the island. A magnificent sunset was developing, painting in crimson these now jagged war-torn cliffs some three quarters of a mile away.
“Standing by, cockpit ...”
The tower responded, “Ready, starboard engine?”
“Standing by, starboard,” I replied. The rising hum of the energizer filled the cabin as I continued to gaze at this changed landscape.
“Contact, starboard.”
“Contact, starboard.” The prop slowly moved, hesitated, turned a few more times, and then finally caught as the engine sputtered once then streamed exhaust.
The grotesque skeletons of once towering trees gave way to a chalky white area of landslides and crumbling cliffs where not so much as a stump remained of the original forest. Nature, herself, in one of her wildest tantrums could not have created any greater havoc. The port engine was now ready and I reached for the ignition.
“Contact, port.”
“Contact,” I replied. The engine flashed flame as it roared to life. “Oil pressure up.”
I glanced at the instruments, setting altimeters on twenty feet and making adjustments, then settled back to wait as the engines warmed up and traces of the soft bluish haze from the exhaust drifted gently through the cabin.
A dark cavern beneath an overhanging rocky crown crumbled away as black smoke billowed from it. I counted the seconds. On the fourth count, an explosion with a concussion that jarred the plane was followed by several more, the red flashes lighting up the sky and some sending showers of white in all directions —phosphorous shells. A tracer streaked from atop the pinnacle and across the runway into a group of parked planes.
I picked up the binoculars and now could clearly see what was unfolding. The small canyon’s shattered walls stretched far back into the hills and the stream that had formed it was slowly being backed up by the crumbling rock. Above it, the smoking cavern was actually a cave entrance, one of many connected by a network of tunnels. Marine marksmen were now hitting the cave, pumping round after round cleanly into the slit, with an occasional tracer lodging in the opening and glowing brightly in the shadows. For a few moments, a volley of return fire sprayed wildly back out of the slit. A glancing tracer raced by us, causing me to instinctively duck, and then the cave went quiet.
There was more going on. While I had been studying the spectacle through my glasses, some eighteen planes had been taking off on the runway between the hills and my vantage point. There was a roar as each would come into view overhead, the colored wing lights suggesting a profile. I could see the pilot peering out over the long F4U engine cowling as he worked the controls to hold the plane in line with the runway. The planes all carried a belly tank and had formed up into three six-plane sections. I noticed all the tracers and artillery firing that had been pummeling the cliff openings had ceased. The lead Corsair abruptly broke away from a section into a long run, the others peeling off systematically behind him. He then let go of his belly tank, and I realized this must be a different kind of napalm run. The tank burst open and sprayed its contents all around a cave entrance before tumbling down the rock face. This material was like the fuel in flame throwers mixed with two parts wax that created a rampaging fire when ignited. I had heard the resulting inferno sucked the air out of the tunnels while providing cover for our advancing troops. One by one, the planes honed in on the rocky ledge and discharged their tanks.
A voice over the headphones pulled me back. “Engines ready for test, sir.”
I revved the starboard engine to 1,800, adjusted the prop pitch and watched the tachometer drop off to 1,050, then rise again to “high.” The plugs were cleared with the engine at 2,200 for a few seconds, both mags checked out OK, and the idling RPM fell off properly to 575. I eased back on the throttle, as a blinding glow drew my attention again to the hills across the runway.
The planes had finished their runs now, and nearby some dug-in Marines lobbed mortar shells igniting the area and creating a seething red flame that spilled down the hillside and over the caves. I still couldn’t imagine how anyone, even with the protection of caves, could hold on in this hellish environment. It had come to this. A cunning and stubborn adversary hiding deep inside the cliffs had effectively sealed their own fate, forcing a new type of warfare. This steep rock was nearly impossible to scale, and that combined with the honeycomb of tunnels, made it the most rugged and costly kind of conflict. Eventually, when the methods our guys knew came up short, they would invent new ones.
“All instruments check out OK in the tower, sir,” came the voice.
“Very well, are all stations ready to taxi?” The stations were secure and ready. I released the brakes and the big plane swung into the taxiway. It was dark now, and in front of us the runway lights stretched almost to th
e horizon.
I spoke over the radio. “Hello, Jungle Tower, this is five-two-Baker, how do you hear?”
“52-B from Jungle Tower, you are cleared for takeoff, course zero-five-zero, over.”
We taxied down the coral mat toward the sea, then turned about. The runway lights formed a pointer toward the foot of the hills where a glowing star shell burst and drifted slowly downward bringing the brightness of day to the battlefield. I could make out the ghosts of other regularly spaced flares that had gone up and burned out. Another sailed aloft and soon there were four at once. “Frisco Gal” was ready to go. She shuddered momentarily, then slowly advanced toward the light. As we gained speed another assault began, a battery of shells exploding over the canyon into white phosphorous sprays and fiery red flower-like petals. Long strings of speeding tracers careened in as the explosions grew more intense. The detonations that we couldn’t hear above the engines were clearly felt throughout the PBY, and flash after flash and thick smoke enveloped the hillside as our wheels left the ground. We slowly climbed above the fray, peering down at this once peaceful South Pacific island. The power of this offensive was breathtaking, and there was a sense of pride among us that we were doing what it took to drive the enemy out of here, but I couldn’t help wondering, “How would it ever recover?”
The smoke covered hillside dimmed the flashes as our altitude increased. Ahead, a last bursting shell fanned out in the clear smokeless sky like a brilliant American star to light our way.
Del’s crew,
Plane Captain Harold Koenig
That night, after the plane was parked and we had eaten, I was watching as an F4U* stalled on the runway while taxiing. He was headed out as part of another airstrike and suddenly he was in a fix, parked right in the middle of the semi-dark airstrip. The pilot in a near panic rushed out of the plane to summon help. The tower immediately fired red flares and tried blinkers, but it wasn’t in time to prevent a two-plane section from attempting a takeoff unaware of the obstruction, and one of them collided with the stalled plane. There was an explosion, but somehow the pilot escaped. The second plane knocked off a wheel, managed to get airborne, but shortly realized his predicament and bailed out over the water. Two more planes collided while taxiing in the confusion. The firefighters, thinking the pilot was still in the stalled plane, moved in on the fire unhesitatingly, with the ammo, fuel, and eventually bombs blowing up more or less in their faces. I was about 200 yards away lying in a ditch, and even from there, the fallout and shrapnel were flying by and raining down all over. I lay there in awe of the bravery of those rescue men. They were amazing.
There was no doubt that confusion was a big part of things out here. Several of us were flying escort for another airstrike on Yap when word came in that an F4U had crash landed on the return leg. Del’s plane captain, Harold Koenig, told us that when they arrived at the crash site, they could see one of the marine aircraft had been trailing gas and the pilot was on the wing with his Mae West* strapped on. They landed and taxied toward the location, but the pilot had by then vanished! Two Marine fighters made runs at the water, presumably above where the airman had last been seen and Del moved the PBY toward the spot. The pilot surfaced, swimming furiously, then disappeared again. It turns out, his chute had deployed, and in spite of his life jacket, the parachute began acting like a parachute, only under water, dragging the poor flier with it. Finally, Del’s ordnanceman, Andy Decker, jumped in and was able to cut him loose, and with the crew’s help, succeeded in getting him on board.
Just a few nights later, another crew was returning from a mission to the somewhat still unfamiliar base and landing area. The runway lights suddenly appeared and the pilot turned to make his approach. At the last moment, he realized something didn’t feel right, and pouring on the power, narrowly escaped a trap set on an enemy held airstrip.
Tiny Peleliu was definitely an active place. In spite of all this, we still were foolish enough to explore a few of the abandoned caves during some down time, again on the lookout for a few souvenirs, sabers, and such and were lucky enough not to have picked up a booby trap instead.
Our Dumbos were on the move again, as they had been almost daily since this latest excursion began. I spent several extremely rainy days in a tent at Emirau Island. The base was on a bend in the river and the mess hall commanded an excellent view of the water downstream. It became our custom when returning from our frequent sorties to form up in three-plane formations and come down the river to zoom the mess hall. PBYs were not fast but they were majestic just the same, and a low flying formation was awfully impressive. A couple of us were standing beside the airstrip when the base commander drove up in his jeep. He was kind of hot under the collar, announcing, “You guys have got to stop these buzz jobs! I laid down the law to my own fighter jocks already, and I won’t tolerate it from you guys either!” We could see in the distance behind him, Gewin leading a trio of Black Cats in from the two-week task force operation at Palau. He was sneaking up the river in a gorgeous three-plane alignment to celebrate. They barely cleared the palm trees, rattling the very bones of our bodies and stunning the commander speechless before sending him off, wheels spinning, in his jeep.
On that day, we all had our sights set on a wonderful swimming hole about a mile from where our camp was perched high up on a cliff overlooking the sea. We hopped a jeep down the winding roadway cut out of the very face of the cliff and continuing through the green woods to the road’s end at the beach. Here the Seabees had blasted a hole out of the reef about the size of a large swimming pool and built concrete walks across the coral from the beach out to it. A few yards beyond, a channel allowed water to enter at low tide and at high tide the waves would crash into the pool over the coral on all sides. At either end, they had installed concrete platforms with ladders into the pool and what looked like the remains of a diving board that had been swept out to sea by a storm. Tides changed quickly here, affecting both the dynamic of the pool and the beach almost before your eyes. Stray sea life was abundant, even octopus.
Nearer to camp and sitting high on stilts over the breakers was the outhouse. It was a ten holer that would spray up at you from below, a peculiar sensation, to say the least.
Our quarters were framed mahogany huts, screened in with a standard tent style roof that, given the nature of rain around here, was leaky but did a fair job. Many of the crewmen had used discarded flare parachutes to double up the tops. Sometimes at night “Old Charlie” would drone overhead and we would dive for the dugouts, not so much from our fear of “Charlie” as the danger from falling shrapnel from our own planes and anti-craft guns. His flights overhead were still part of the strategy of harassment to keep us from sleeping, a favor our PBYs were more than happy to return. With Charlie, if the searchlights were quick enough, they would catch him like a moth at a lamppost. Suddenly, a spray of tracer fire from a Marine night fighter would spit at him and in a little puff of orange flame, he was gone! Some of those night fighters, PV-1s and F7Fs were racking up records of eight kills a watch.
Jack and I finally returned to Espiritu Santo from this marathon 6,000 mile round trip and were feeling awfully glad to be back, and had, ourselves, zoomed the camp in celebration. It seems habits died hard out here. Our path had taken us to the Russells and Bougainville, and then Emirau, Owi, and of course Jungle Tower at Peleliu. We Dumbo-ed * for a strike at Kossel reef and tendered for a night at the USS Pokomok and later at the USS Hamlin (but more typically found ourselves in huts or tents, sometimes with cots and mattresses, sometimes not, and sometimes in cots under the wings of our plane). There was more Dumbo coverage for the Yap strike, then on to Ulithi Reef, Peleliu, and Kossel again. There was a day-long sub search with one of our DDs (destroyer) southeast of Palau. We returned to Palau to evacuate five wounded on a nine-hour leg to Momote and Setter Tower. In the morning, we headed back to Emirau in time to see Gewin’s buzz job and a few days later, hopscotched the rest of the way through Green Island (Ocean Tower)
, Russell Island, and Guadalcanal, finally skimming the mess hall of camp and rattling some glasses of our own. We figured we had it coming.
Now back at Espiritu Santo, the crew tried to unwind. I wrote some more stories and tried to sketch some of what I was seeing, and of course, there were still basketball games, horseshoes, and some general craziness mixed in. However, we were facing a new crisis: our shipment of booze had never arrived. Rumor had it that it had been sent up to Tarawa, perhaps from some confusion about our whereabouts during the Task Force trip. Eventually, as desperation set in, we sent a plane down to Nouméa, New Caledonia, to bring back whatever was available from the French down there — mostly brandy and (ugh) crème de menthe. Anyhow, at least there was something under our bunks for snake bites. In a few days, quite unexpectedly, our original shipment arrived relatively intact from Tarawa. Now our new burden became where to put all of this good stuff along with the French junk. Interestingly, during our time away, the camp had added another new and unique feature, a latrine room. Here, an entire wall was constructed as a monstrous, backlit urinal fashioned from beer bottles set in mortar. There, emblazoned in large red letters was the word “Tojo,” for all to pee upon.
As might be expected, the work could be as preposterous as the play. Al Wilson, Pete, and Peckham drew the assignment, an army request, of bombing a small isle nearby to clear the land of foliage. They presumed it had something to do with security. They set about dropping 500 pound bombs, but with poor results, so they rigged up homemade daisy cutter fuses on 1,000 pounders and let them go. This did the trick. Turns out the army wanted the cleared circles for target practice.
Willlie Sneed
When Willie Sneed arrived back at camp from Palau and Yap, he told us he had gotten himself into some hot water. Up at Yap, the enemy still used the runways and the place functioned as a refueling and resupply point for their aircraft. According to Willie, the Army had planned to take fifty or more B-17s and B-24s to completely annihilate the airstrips, but intelligence and coast watcher reports showed the island to be well fortified with men and anti-aircraft. So they went in expecting the worst. Willie’s crew along with John Love and Gewin McCracken were spread out over about 200 hundred miles to Dumbo for them in case anyone needed to be fished out of the water and were orbiting at low altitude to avoid detection. They reckoned that between them they could respond in thirty minutes to any situation, and they anxiously awaited the arrival of the bombers, expecting to see enough raw power unleashed in the attack to turn the entire island to shambles. Then suddenly through the cockpit bulkhead, Willie’s radarman begins punching him in the leg and yells, “I’ve never seen so many blips in my life! Thank God they are friendly!” The rest of the crew now searched the skies, until one of the boys in the blisters spotted the entourage and Willie swung the PBY about to watch. At 20,000 feet or more and in perfect formation was a most magnificent war time sight: more U.S. bombers than any of them had seen in the air at one time! Suddenly, it was “Bombs away!” as the lead bombardier began the attack. Down rained the bombs from the dozens of bellies of those gallant fighting aircrafts. The crew watched. And as they followed with their eyes this awe inspiring free fall of bombs of every size and shape, what happened next was best expressed by Waist Gunner Grover Smelley:
