At that moment I heard more airplane engines approaching and then there were smacking sounds in the water around me as those bastards began strafing survivors. Leave it to the Japs to strafe life rafts. By then I was too exhausted to move so I resigned myself to just being killed. As tired as I was, I realized that I was actually ready to die. But then the bomber passed overhead and exploded into a ball of flame as a nearby PT boat raked its belly with 20 mm fire. I hadn’t even been aware that there was a PT boat nearby. The bomber flew into the water about a mile away and disintegrated in a blast of fire and white water.
Yay, team, I thought, and then I think I just passed out.
SEVENTEEN
“Oh, shit—it’s the doc!” someone shouted. I woke up to feel the mahogany bow of an MTB nudging past the raft, casting me into complete shadow. For a moment I didn’t know where I was, or even who I was. Then strong hands were lifting me up onto the boat. The first thing I heard was the dreaded sound of more airplane engines, followed by an ear-splitting racket as the boat’s stern guns lit off. The guys who’d been helping me jumped back to the other gun stations. I bravely crawled under one of the torpedo tube mounts and closed my eyes. The boat accelerated and then began the Betty Jitterbug—a series of high-speed maneuvers aimed at throwing off the bombs and cannons of an approaching Betty bomber. Then came a stem-winder of a turn that catapulted me out from under the torpedo-tube mounts and into the hatchway leading down below. I flailed around trying to find something to grab on to when three booming thumps nearby bounced me off the deck and down the steel ladder, pursued by a wall of seawater from the near-miss bomb explosions. I felt like the proverbial rag doll as I was swept up against a bulkhead, where I finally stopped, sitting in two feet of water. The boat’s coffeepot was dangling by its cord right over my head, dripping hot coffee on my left arm. I righted the pot, seized one of the mugs that was bobbing up and down in the sloshing seawater, and poured myself a cup. The guns stopped their noise about then and the boat began to slow. That’s how the boat’s skipper eventually found me, sipping coffee, sitting at the bottom of the ladder, in two feet of water. His face broke into a huge grin.
He asked me if I was okay, and I nodded. It was true—I hadn’t been wounded or really even injured, other than being scared shitless. Evidence of that was, happily, obscured by the fact that I was soaking wet from head to toe. The coffee wasn’t bad, either, if a bit salty. The skipper offered me a hand up but I chose to remain seated. The water was warm and there were no Bettys down here. He shook his head and jumped back up the ladder. Soon we were nudging into the beach next to our medical aid station. I got to my feet, took a moment to stabilize my gyros, and then went topside. Chief Higgins was already there, and he helped me over the side and down onto the sandy beach. As we walked back up to our private ravine, he told me what had happened out there in the harbor.
Apparently, the Japs had sent a submarine to reconnoiter Rendova Harbor and attack anything it could. The sub couldn’t safely come into the harbor and the presence of American destroyers just outside made life even more difficult. So, the sub had slipped around to one of the unguarded entrances to the harbor and unleashed a salvo of their Type 93 torpedoes into the anchorage. The LST I’d been on had eaten two of them, which blew her in half. Another LST, the one damaged by the first bombing, had been hit at the same time and had capsized. The Bettys then joined the fun and scattered bombs and torpedoes throughout the harbor. One of the torpedoes had run up on the beach not far from the aid station, where it flipped and flopped around in the sand as its screaming propellers chewed up the beach. Then it exploded, creating a new baby cove.
“Can you operate?” Higgins asked.
“Yeah, I think so. I need some dry clothes and a screamer would do nicely. We got customers?”
“God, yes,” he said, with a sick look on his face. “All but one of the LST docs was on Liscomb County and he got killed in the water. You’re it, Boss Man. The Army docs are dealing with their own wounded. It’s bad, Doc. It’s real bad.”
I focused on his face and saw that he was close to tears. “We’ve been here before, Wally,” I said. “It was battleships last time, remember? Let’s get to it. Where’s Bluto?”
“He’s still out there. Most of the boats are searching for survivors. One of the tin cans got hit by a bomb but she’s still afloat. Those Goddamned Japs are watching us from across the channel: the Bettys didn’t come in until the morning Cactus fighters had left for the day, but before the afternoon fighter shift showed up.”
“Guadalcanal was the first time they’ve had to withdraw their army from anywhere,” I said. “And, we’re a hundred some miles closer to Rabaul. If anything, New Georgia’s gonna be even harder than Cactus. Get a signal out to the remaining LSTs and the tin cans. Some of them must have a doc. Tell ’em we need help. Hospitalmen, if there’s no doc. Get some more hands over to the aid station as the boats come back in. Jesus, what a mess.”
It took all night to get the situation somewhat under control, and no one on our little island was really looking forward to daylight. Men were asking: where’s the Navy? They’d sent a small destroyer force to take Rendova, which really wasn’t even occupied. Supposedly a much bigger force was coming to do the New Georgia invasion, but in the meantime, we were getting our asses kicked. Our biggest problem was that we had nowhere to put all the wounded, much less a real operating theater. I finally gave up and got a boat to take me over to headquarters at 2:30 in the morning. Give him credit: the general was up and in the command tent. He was as hollow-eyed as I probably was. I explained what was going on and that we were going to lose a whole lot of men. He nodded.
“We have two LSTs still here,” he said. “They’re supposed to leave tomorrow to pick up cargo and troops for the New Georgia operation. I’ll order them both to ‘land’ on your island and provide facilities for forty-eight hours. After that they’ll have to leave, but that’ll give us some breathing room. My facilities are also overwhelmed, in case you were wondering.”
I thanked him profusely and hustled back down to the beach and jumped aboard my mahogany coach. As we rumbled back to our little island, the skipper of the boat sidled over. He spoke with a Georgia drawl.
“There’s a story going around the boats, that at the height of the bombing raid, after they’d picked you up, they found you down in the crew’s mess, sitting in two feet of water and drinking a cup of coffee. Any of that shit true, Doc?”
“I could either drink it or wear it, Skipper,” I said. “And I definitely needed it.”
“Well, Doc,” he said with an admiring grin, “ain’t you a hot mess, then.”
The general’s plan worked, which is probably why he was a general. The two LSTs drove straight into the beach next to our aid station, dropped their ramps, and suddenly we had beds for the most urgent cases, a clean place where I could do surgery, and two destroyers prowling the harbor nearby. Bluto stationed four PT boats around the LSTs for close-in anti-air protection. Just after noon the next day, the general himself showed up to see how we were doing. All in, we had 342 casualties with injuries ranging from concussion shock to God-awful thoracic and abdominal wounds. I really missed my Yalie ace assistant, but he was now sustaining the wildlife on the bottom of Rendova harbor. Damn! What a waste.
We got a two-day respite from the air raids, during which a small fleet of Catalinas showed up and began a shuttle service down to Cactus and beyond. On the third day a dozen or so Bettys were spotted by a coast-watcher coming down the east side of New Georgia to hide from the air defense radars the Army had put up on Rendova. They came sweeping around the southern tip of the island and ran smack into a full squadron of Marine fighters, who’d been playing their own game of hide-and-seek behind the big volcano on Rendova. Not one of the Bettys made it across the channel, with eight bombers being flamed and the rest running for their lives back up the Slot with a couple of fighters in hot pursuit.
This time the fighters were reli
eved on station to maintain continuous coverage. Sure enough, as soon as the morning’s fighters could be seen making contrails back to Cactus, more Bettys showed up, although this time only four. The Marines’ afternoon “shift” hit them from behind. Three went down in flames; the fourth, burning under both wings, made an attempted suicide run on one of the destroyers, succeeding in clipping the ship’s mast and carrying away her radar antenna. The bomber then disintegrated with both wings coming off, the engines’ propellers still windmilling, while the fuselage went end over end into the water, spewing Japs out onto the surface.
That night our squadron was able to collect all in one place for a change. There were still three boats on watch around the LSTs, with guns manned and the crew sleeping on station. Everyone needed sleep after the pandemonium of the past few days. The boat skippers gathered with Bluto in the now-empty aid station. Higgins had managed to root out the makings for screamers, but it was pretty obvious that anyone who tried for more than one was going to pitch over unconscious. There was one lonely candle burning on the main table as the entire island was under blackout orders.
Bluto filled us in on what he’d been able to find out about the upcoming invasion across the channel, and the extent of our losses to the bombing raids. We’d lost two crews to strafing runs, and a third when the Liscomb County was torpedoed. Although the crews had been wiped out, the boats themselves stayed afloat. I kept forgetting they were made of mahogany, and, excepting a fire on board, they’d still be there the next morning. One was repairable, the other would become yet another hangar queen.
Six more boats were coming up the Slot in a few days, with eight new crews. That meant that we’d finally be able to set up a duty rotation so that the guys weren’t on duty, day and night, continuously. I’d told Bluto that we had several exhaustion cases out there on the boats. He nodded and then said he knew how they felt. We were really starting to admire our new skipper. He’d been everywhere during the harbor battles, rescuing sailors, blasting away at the bombers, and running into the main island to get help from the Army. He seemed to be inexhaustible, but I knew better. I suggested he walk down the beach to one of the LSTs and commandeer a bunk for the night. Ask for the captain, I told him. Tell him who you are. Get six hours in a real bed; it’ll do wonders. To my surprise, he nodded, finished his screamer, stubbed out his cigarette, and headed down toward the beach.
After about an hour, Higgins and I were the only ones left in the tent. We heard waves crashing down on the beach and looked out. The two remaining destroyers were rushing past, headed for the harbor entrance, with definite bones in their teeth. Then we heard booming noises out beyond the harbor. Not guns, but something else. They got a sub out there, Higgins said. Those are depth charges. The ruckus went on for another hour and then subsided. By then Higgins and I had each found empty cots and submerged for the night.
The following morning brought rain, lots of it. That was a good thing—showers for everybody, fresh water sloping down our catchment wall, and shitty flying weather. We took turns going on board the remaining LSTs to get chow. They were turning out to be superb hosts. I was now hoping they’d go through with that idea of using one for a hospital ship. Out at sea the rain squalls kept coming, backed by a warm wind and the occasional rumble of thunder. I noticed that a lot of the guys were jumping when a thunderclap went off, and no wonder.
I spent the morning aboard the two LSTs, checking on the slowly diminishing number of casualties. At noon one of the destroyers was called in to put its bow alongside the LST’s stern. Then came the solemn transfer of the men who’d died the previous night. There were far too many of them, but the weather was preventing any more Catalina flights and there simply wasn’t much we could do. The destroyer backed off and headed for the channel to conduct burials at sea. The rain began to diminish by early afternoon and I was able to make rounds of the remaining ships in the harbor, using one of the PT boats as my taxi. I was boarding my chariot at sundown to go back to Bau Island when there was a lot of shouting topside on the tank deck.
“Wow!” my boat’s skipper exclaimed. “Lookit that.”
“That” was a heavy cruiser entering the harbor, followed by three more. They were big, 10,000 tons, and they each carried nine eight-inch guns. They loomed out of the rainy mist, menacing, dark gray, showing no lights, and approaching us in utter silence. They were followed by some smaller ones, which I recognized as some of the so-called anti-aircraft cruisers. They were almost 6,000 tons and sported eight twin-barreled five-inch mounts. Behind them came a line of transports and their escorting destroyers. The big warships slowed and then seemed to disperse to previously assigned anchorage spots. The harbor was soon filled with the sounds of rattling anchor chains. The ships seemed to be all talking simultaneously using their flashing signal lamps. I guessed that the invasion was on.
Bluto confirmed that in his newly erected command tent. He told us at an all-officers meeting that the boats would be going out tomorrow night with frogmen, who were going to blow up obstacles on the beaches selected for landings. The heavy cruisers were going to make a raid on the Munda airfield, which was the objective of the invasion in the first place. Fresh intelligence suggested that the Jap forces on New Georgia had been reinforced, and, unlike Rendova, this was going to be a tough fight. The AA cruisers would be positioned out in the Blanche Channel to deal with the expected air raids once our troops went ashore. A second destroyer division, which was escorting a formation of more LSTs, was en route. They would then bolster the AA defenses in the harbor; the light cruisers would stay out in open waters in case the Japs sent their own cruisers south from Rabaul. The Cactus air force would continue to provide continuous daylight coverage of Rendova, the Blanche Channel, and the landing beaches.
The good news for our medical team was that each of the cruisers had a doctor and at least four hospitalmen. Even some of the destroyers had doctors. The bad news was that none of the combatants had much in the way of facilities. The destroyers used their officers’ wardrooms as casualty stations during gunfights. The cruisers had sick bays and room to stage casualties, but not much else. I asked about the LST-as-hospital-ship idea. Bluto said he didn’t know if the Navy had decided to do that or not. My job would be to tend to MTB casualties, for a change, while the fleet would look after their own. We would remain based on Bau Island within the harbor. The LSTs, of course, would be over on New Georgia with the landing force. It suddenly occurred to me that, as a medical asset, my team and I would be on the sidelines for this one. I told Higgins that I, for one, was ready for a little sidelining.
EIGHTEEN
Wishful thinking. The landings went well enough for about forty-eight hours. Then the army ran into two immovable objects: the terrain, and the dug-in Japanese army. Their commanding general, Minoru Sasaki, had correctly foreseen that New Georgia would be the next American target because of that big airfield at Munda. During the entire Guadalcanal campaign, they’d had the opportunity to entrench every possible defensive position on New Georgia and reinforce their numbers. The American plan envisioned several separate landings around the island, which meant that no one of them had overwhelming numerical strength against the Jap defenders, who began launching small, individual nighttime terror attacks against the American lines. Our casualties began to mount, while progress inland was pretty much at a standstill.
The Japs continued to send bombing raids against Cactus, even though their troops had been withdrawn from Guadalcanal. This cut into the quality and quantity of air support for the New Georgia invasion. Their navy also contested the invasion during several sea battles, some minor, some bigger, in the area of the Slot near New Georgia. Our MTBs were used for all sorts of missions until the night that one of our guys mistakenly torpedoed the flagship of the American amphibious task group, a large transport configured as a command ship. The ship sank and the admiral and his staff had to hit the lifeboats. After that, the admiral involved, known for his hot temper, didn’t
want to ever see a PT boat in his area of operations again. That proscription didn’t last because the boats were too useful and there were no acceptable substitutes. Bluto solved it by making sure the boats only went out at night. That way the admiral couldn’t see them, just as he had directed. His flagship bore some responsibility for the sinking, having opened fire on a passing division of PT boats without so much as a preliminary flashing-light challenge.
New Georgia quickly descended into a meat grinder. The Army, which had relieved the First Marines on Guadalcanal after most of the hardest fighting was over, had never experienced the full fanatical fury of Japanese troops. The butcher’s bill rose quickly. An LST as hospital ship had never been followed up, so the mounting casualties were being transported by any means possible to a large troop transport, the SS Montrose, which remained at sea except for when she would close on Rendova to load the wounded. The ship was old, having been built in the early 1920s as a passenger liner, and so slow that the Navy had decided to take her out of service on the nearly 4,000-mile Pearl-to-Nouméa run and construct a makeshift hospital on board. A Navy crew would run the ship; the Army Medical Corps would staff the hospital facilities.
As a twenty-two-thousand-ton troopship, Montrose could berth 2,500 men, much more than an LST. While at sea she was escorted by a couple of destroyer escorts, smaller versions of the fleet destroyers, but well equipped for anti-submarine work. When she came into Rendova, our boats provided anti-air escort because the Bettys were a more likely threat. The Montrose came into Rendova at odd times so as not to establish a pattern. It was considered too dangerous for her to go over to New Georgia, especially since the Army was getting nowhere.
I went aboard the first time she came into Rendova harbor, escorting a dozen of the more seriously wounded. The patients had to be loaded by one of the ship’s boom cranes, with the individual litters being strapped down onto tank-size pallets and then hoisted out of the amphibious craft, up over the side, and then deposited down in a cargo hold. The medical staff could then wheel them into the medical complex without ever having to come topside. I learned that there were twelve doctors on board, including some specialists in burns, radiography, and three general surgeons. There were also twenty-five female nurses on board, shanghaied from the big hospital on Nouméa. The surgical suite was contained in what had been the ship’s main dining room when she’d been in civilian service. It was clear that they were still working on some of the physical setup the first time she came into Rendova.
The Hooligans Page 17