Food, as we all knew to our digestive torment, was provided from the United States Army. Even the Marines had to eat Army chow, which they truly resented. Warships were supplied by the Navy at sea, and their food was far superior to the canned-everything that the Army was famous for, mostly because ships had freezers. Beyond basic field rations, the MTB squadron didn’t receive much support from the Navy, mostly because they were based ashore on a series of islands. The Navy resupplied its fleet ships from under way replenishment ships built for that purpose. When a carrier task group refueled it also reprovisioned. Spare parts, frozen food, ammunition for guns big and small, avgas for their scout planes, bombs, replacements—all came aboard through ship-to-ship transfers at sea, usually at night because two large ships tied together by fueling hoses, wire transfer rigs, and personnel high-lines, and steering a straight course at constant speed for sometimes a few hours was a submariner’s dream target.
The result was that the Navy’s MTBs were the orphans of the Navy’s own supply system. They basically had to beg and scrounge for anything they needed outside of the world of torpedoes, ammunition, and replacement engines. As Chief Higgins explained it, the MTB supply system had become something of a criminal enterprise. If the Navy couldn’t, or wouldn’t provide, the torpedo boat squadron’s midnight requisition team would go into action.
“Do I really want to know about all this?” I asked him.
“We-e-ll, you know those generators that provide for the underground bunker?”
“Yes, of course. The Seabees—”
He shook his head. “The Seabees did what they could, and they made us a by-God first-rate bunker, but providing generators isn’t in their mission statement. For that we had to call in Alibaba and his forty thieves.”
“Oh, God,” I said. “Now I know I don’t want to hear this.” Visions of courts-martial were glimmering in my head.
“C’mon, Doc,” he said. “You do need to know this, ’cause this is how things really work out here. You’ve met the supply officer, right?”
I had. Ensign Frank Lang Worcester, SC, USNR, was the scion of a wealthy New England family who’d been slipped into the Navy Supply Corps based upon his finance degree from Yale, probably with the naïve hope that he would thereby avoid combat. Ensign Worcester was a tall, thin, effortlessly effete young man with the appropriate Ivy League accent and academic credentials. He went through life confident that, when all this “Asian unpleasantness,” as he called it, was over, he’d soon be a partner in his father’s Wall Street firm. Ending up here in the Solomons must have shocked the shit out of him, but I’ll give him this: he was nothing if not game. On the other hand, his ignorance of “how things really worked” was as great as mine. The old hands, and especially the chief storekeeper for the squadron, one Chief Petty Officer Eli Caswell, quickly saw a use for this highly presentable Supply Corps officer, who was technically his boss. In the Navy, a ship’s supply officer was called “the Chop” because the Supply Corps collar insignia looked like a gold pork chop. A very junior supply officer was called “the Lamb Chop.”
Chief Caswell, whose nickname was “Alibaba,” ran an informal crew of enlisted men who made up the forty thieves. His best operator was a commissaryman second class named Roosevelt Young, a sleepy-looking and somewhat older black man who hailed from Harlem, New York City, where his family had run a bootlegging operation during Prohibition. Black men in the Navy were restricted to only a few ratings, such as cook (commissaryman), wardroom steward, or ship’s serviceman (laundry) because segregation was still the law of the land back in the States. Alibaba and his forty thieves went into action any time a cargo ship, troop transport, fleet supply ship, or destroyer tender came into Tulagi. Their mission was to midnight requisition anything they could on the “gotta have” list. Batteries, cans of engine lube oil, radar parts, tools, food, hydraulic oil, canvas, rope, toilet paper—all necessities for a squadron of fighting boats but unattainable through regular supply channels.
The procedure was as follows: They’d send the Lamb Chop aboard the target ship in the harbor, where he would dutifully submit a whole bundle of requisitions to the ship’s supply department. The target’s storekeepers would then look over the requisitions to determine if they had what was being requested in their storerooms. They’d then approach their Chop to get his approval. That worthy would then have to come to the supply office and inform our Lamb Chop that none of the things he was asking for were authorized for the motor torpedo boats. Lamb Chop would always ask if that was because the ship didn’t have any of those things. Oh, yes, we do, but the MTB squadron isn’t on our list of supported commands. We have all these things, or most of them, but we simply are not allowed to issue them to your squadron. I’m sorry, but regs are regs, you know? You need to go back to your parent command for these supplies.
Bastards of the fleet that we were, there was no parent command, at least not west of the Panama Canal Zone, where our training center was located. Lamb Chop would come back to the squadron and report the dismal results. Alibaba, on the other hand, now knew that this particular ship—cargo ship, replenishment ship, repair ship—had at least some of the stuff we needed. The only problem now was to find a way to relieve said ship of those materials.
I told him to stop right there. What I didn’t know I could absolutely deny. He was not persuaded.
That was the point where Roosevelt Young came in, he continued. One thing a big ship would not deny a small ship or outfit was a food handout, requisition or no requisition. Our XO, Deacon Haller, would make the first approach. He’d go aboard the visiting ship and speak to her XO. We need food, he’d say. Not much, but something besides C-rations. Can you spare some? Of course, we can, the ship’s XO would say.
Wonderful, Deacon would say. I’ll send over one of my cooks. His name is Roosevelt Young.
Roosevelt would make his way after dark to the supply ship on one of our boats and go aboard, saying he was there to see some of his friends down in the galley and to pick up some chow supplies. Forewarned by the ship’s XO, they’d let him aboard. There was no reason for concern because everyone knew that the black guys liked to get together to visit with each other. Besides, he was just a cook. His boat and crew would stand off out of sight of the quarterdeck, usually back at the stern. When no one was looking, they’d creep in and tie up to the anchored ship’s quarter, opposite of where the officer of the deck maintained his station. Roosevelt would then wander innocently through the ship, nodding politely to officers and chiefs that he encountered. He’d wear his cook’s white jacket, which made him even more inconspicuous.
The supply ships that came into Tulagi off-loaded their cargo on a nonstop basis, with working parties inside the ship moving a constant flow of material to large hatch openings in the ship’s side. Roosevelt would go all the way back to the stern and then pass down a rope, which allowed some of the forty thieves to send up a rope ladder. They would then climb aboard. Roosevelt would lead them to the staging areas for the side hatches, and the PT boat crewmen would casually join the working party going down into the ship’s storerooms and bringing all sorts of “stuff” up to the side hatches. Only not all of it would make it to the side hatches, as individual thieves would get “lost” on the way and then make their way back to the stern, where they’d lower their treasure to the waiting PT boat. Then they’d rejoin the working party.
This would go on for perhaps an hour or so, and then the thieves would decamp back down to their boat. Once the thieves were safely aboard the boat, Roosevelt would appear on the quarterdeck and make obsequious thank-yous to the OOD and his quarterdeck watch as the PT boat approached the sea ladder. They’d ask about the food supplies, and he’d tell them there’d be a Mike boat coming over in the morning. He, himself, was obviously not removing anything from the ship, so they’d send this itinerant cook on his way, just another “invisible” black guy.
A variation on this was carried out when an actual repair ship
came into Tulagi. This time the thieves would be enginemen and gunners who were on the hunt for scarce engine parts or things like machine-gun assemblies. They’d be led by Alibaba himself, only he’d show up on the quarterdeck with some canvas bags and ask for the head of the Chief Petty Officers’ mess. He’d be taken down to the Goat Locker, as the CPO mess was known, where he’d sit down with his fellow chiefs for a friendly cup of coffee. Then he’d open his bags and reveal some interesting Jap souvenirs, acquired during his occasional trips over to Cactus, ostensibly to scrounge for parts but also to collect stuff Marines had looted from the battlefield. He would “pay” for these things in 20 mm ammo, which was in desperately short supply over at Henderson Field. We, on the other hand, had loads of the stuff because the 20 mm cannon, unlike the 50s, used only about 275 rounds per minute; the 50-calibers fired 750 rounds per minute. That math was part of the conspiracy.
Alibaba would tell the chiefs what he needed, in return for forgetting to take his bags, containing his collection of Jap pistols, bandoliers, uniform hats, and occasionally one of their small ceremonial swords. One of the ship’s chiefs would quietly excuse himself, returning in an hour after having organized a quick working party to load the PT boat with whatever they’d come for. Alibaba would then make his manners and head for the quarterdeck, where that PT boat, now riding somewhat lower in the water, would approach the sea ladder to retrieve him.
Alibaba wasn’t above organizing raids on the actual supply dumps on Tulagi Island itself. Sometimes the supply ships would be able to off-load a lot more stuff than the small fleet of amphibious boats could carry over to Cactus, inspired by the knowledge that each sunrise could bring Bettys. All of this material was assembled near the pontoon docks for easy onloading to Mike boats the next day. Chief Higgins played a role in these forays. The supply dumps were guarded by Marines, doing seriously boring duty as sentries. Higgins would supply the raiding party, which would go out after midnight, with canteens of joy juice—usually reconstituted powdered orange juice enhanced with medicinal alcohol.
Three boats would approach the back side of Tulagi and plant their noses into the sand at the beach. The thieves would then walk over to the supply dumps on the other side, each carrying burlap bags. They’d gather near the supply dump, start a small fire, and then pretend to be having an unauthorized late-night party. The Marine sentries inevitably would come to see what was going on, only to be offered some joy juice—in return for looking the other way. Tulagi had been declared secured, so Marines who otherwise would have refused in the face of possible enemy attacks, happily joined in. Some of the thieves would have been designated to “maintain’” the party, while the rest would swiftly go through the pallets of war matériel destined for Cactus and confiscate what they needed.
I just stared at Higgins when he was done with these revelations. He grinned, and then told me that there were still other gambits being employed, but since these were under the personal direction of the XO, Deacon Haller, I probably didn’t need to know about them. I heartily agreed, already wishing I didn’t know as much as I did.
That afternoon the entire squadron was told to stand down in the cove. Something was up and the admiral commanding the waters around Guadalcanal didn’t want PT boats complicating his tactical picture, whatever that meant. After a spiffy meal of Spamburgers, reinforced with some of the locals’ fermented fish sauce and hot peppers, evening prayers convened, but with beers for a change, if only to put out the gastric conflagrations. I asked Boss about the supply problem.
“What supply problem?” he asked. “We have beer, don’t we?”
“The chief told me that we were orphans when it came to getting repair parts, new gear, or anything much out of the Navy’s supply system.”
Cushing brushed off the question. “Don’t worry your head about supply problems, Doc,” he said. “Need another beer?”
In other words, none of your beeswax, sonny, or, more probably, what you don’t know you can’t tell. I took the hint and had another beer.
Sometime that night there was a hell of sea-fight over toward the northwestern horizon. I could hear and even feel the rumble of really big guns, even down in the bunker. I climbed out of my cot and went topside. There, way out beyond the infamous Savo Island, big ships were duking it out in a vigorous display of yellow and red lightning and, more ominously, bulging clouds of yellow, oil-fueled fires, all of it accompanied by a steady rumble of thunder. Some of the boat skippers had come out of their tents to cheer the Navy on. I hoped and prayed that victory was what we were seeing. I made a mental note to grab Chief Higgins first thing in the morning to tell him to get ready for mass casualties.
By the time I got down to the bunker with coffee in hand the next morning I found Higgins was way ahead of me, as befits a competent chief petty officer. He had a working party out exhuming extra bandages and other materials from the various underground dispersal stashes in the palm groves. The Cactus air force was already out in strength, probably bent on taking care of any Jap cripples from the action last night. An hour later I got word from Cushing’s Quonset hut that there would be destroyers coming in shortly with the wounded.
“Any idea of how many?” I asked.
“Very many, from what I’m hearing,” was all he could tell me.
Chief Higgins and I had talked about what we would do if this situation arose here on the Tulagi side. Captain Benson had wanted all large casualty situations to come directly to Cactus, but what if they couldn’t, for whatever reason? I’d then asked Benson for two large medical tents, each with hospital cots for fifty men. We’d put them up with the help of the redoubtable Marines just inside the nearest palm tree grove. They were clearly marked with big red crosses, although the Japs, bloodthirsty bastards that they were, seemed to enjoy bombing those when they found them. The Marines brought up black sand from the beach to “pave” the interior, and they set up a way to catch and store rainwater. Then we buttoned them up to keep out bugs and other critters.
Thank God we did. At around noon three battered-looking destroyers, whose gray-painted five-inch gun muzzles were burned black, eased into Tulagi harbor. Their decks were still littered with brass powder cans, amongst which lay more than three hundred wounded sailors. The same destroyer commodore who’d come in to yell at us was among them. We tried to elicit some help from Cactus only to find out they had even more of their own to deal with. Six-hundred-plus casualties: what in the name of God had happened out there?
We didn’t have time to find out as the depressing process of triage began yet again. Our two new doctors were overwhelmed by what they saw, and not just by the scale of it. A gun battle at sea is a special horror unto itself. Every man in the ship with the exception of the bridge crew and the signalmen is locked into a honeycomb of steel compartments, with steam lines, electrical cabling, ammunition, high-pressure air lines, and flammable fluids of all descriptions keeping them company. When big shells start arriving there’s no diving down into your slit trench. At sea there was also no withdrawing to a safer position on the battlefield once the fleets engaged in a gun battle. An eight-inch-high explosive shell going off in a boiler room meant that everybody down there would be roasted alive by escaping 600-psi steam in about five seconds. The real hell of it was that you, personally, couldn’t do much about keeping alive. You had to trust the captain, the officers, and the gunners to keep that eight-inch shell from making that direct hit in the first place.
No one could explain exactly what had happened out there last night. As best we could tell from all the rumors flying around was that an American cruiser-destroyer formation of some fifteen ships had steamed right into a similar Jap formation, resulting in a melee that Admiral Lord Nelson would have recognized (and probably welcomed). Ships on both sides had maneuvered wildly in the dark at one in the morning to avoid physical collisions, while others drove past each other at ranges of a few hundred yards, trading salvoes whose projectiles probably hadn’t gone far enoug
h to even harm. Some of the destroyer sailors were telling tales of firing 40 mm anti-aircraft cannon directly into the windows of those massive, black pagoda superstructures of the Jap heavy cruisers. Even more ominously, there were mutterings about American cruisers firing into each other in all the confusion. An eight-inch shell of uncertain origin had smashed its way into the flag bridge of one of our cruisers, killing an admiral and most of his battle staff. Whose shell was now a matter of some interest, but there were rumblings that USS San Francisco, a heavy cruiser, was the culprit.
The PT boats were pressed into service to ferry the most seriously wounded across the sound to Cactus. Even though Captain Benson had his hands full, they had a better chance over there than down in my pallet-lined bunker. We thought we were relatively safe from a Betty bombing attack since the morning sky had been filled with Navy and Marine planes hunting Jap cripples. Somebody failed to tell the Jap bomber command. A baker’s dozen of Bettys made a surprise bombing run on Henderson Field, coming this time up from the south. Their mission was to suppress the launch of fighters, and then they came over to Tulagi to attack the three destroyers that were still anchored there. I was up to my armpits in gore when the air raid warning went off so I didn’t get to see what happened next, but Doctor Hobbs, one of the new arrivals, had gone topside for some fresh air and a coffee, and got a ringside seat.
A mighty roar of gunfire erupted seemingly right over our heads out in Tulagi harbor. The three destroyers mustered fifteen five-inch guns among them, plus 40 mm quad and 20 mm twin mounts. From the sounds of it, whatever PT boats were still inport had also joined in. The noise was so overwhelming that I had to stop what I was doing and then quickly drape our patient because the vibration was shaking our log ceiling so bad it was raining dirt. After what seemed like a long time but was probably only five minutes, a white-faced Hobbs came back down and told the story. He sat on an overturned trash can, shaking like a leaf.
The Hooligans Page 8