The Hooligans

by P. T. Deutermann

  “Get well, Captain,” I said, not wanting him to spill any more secrets. “You pop a fever, say something. Whatever went through your lung was probably dirty. You get a headache, sweats, aching bones: bitch and moan. Okay, sir?”

  “Yes, Doctor,” he said with a weary smile. “Keep the faith, young man. You’re better than you know.”

  I walked back down the aisle between all the beds. At one level I was scanning the wounded, looking for crises. At another, I felt humbled. There were too many people believing in me, and I was scared to death that, inevitably, I was going to disappoint. Just before the intersection with the other three Quonset huts I spied an empty bed. I stopped, looked around. No one was watching. I sat down on the bed, then stretched out. It was a whole lot better than the OR cot. I closed my eyes and thought: I’ll just catch a quick nap. The last image in my mind was of Helen’s face when she pulled back. Gotta work on that, I thought. Then I remembered her hand on mine.

  I’d had no time for med-school romances back in Durham. None of the residents did. They were either already married or, like me, just so submerged in the program that the only women they saw were surgical staff. My mother was from a prominent family in Raleigh, and she had given up trying to introduce me to “suitable” young women in the capital’s social set. I’d had the occasional weekend fling with a couple of the nurse anesthetists, but there’d been no romance involved, just the healthy needs of young professionals. I knew now that the chances of my ever seeing Helen Carpenter again were truly slim. But one could hope. I really liked her.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  “’Bout Goddamned time,” Bluto grumped when I showed back up on the Tutuilla. “What’cha got for bunions?”

  “Torpedo tube grease, twice a day. And bigger boots. Japs bombed Munda, tore up the airfield, killed some docs and nurses, amongst others.”

  “Just their style,” he said, and spat into the trash can. They’d given him his own stateroom, and he was a lot cleaner than the last time I’d seen him. “Godless monkeys that they are. You back for real?”

  “I think so,” I said. “There’s a new medical boss in town. Says we’re gonna bypass Rabaul; next stop is some islands called the Gilberts?”

  “Gilberts-Schmilberts,” he snorted. “All these Goddamned islands look the same to me. Palm trees with snipers in ’em. Red dirt. Fucking volcanoes. Waters full’a reefs. Rain and more rain. Bugs. Malaria. Trench foot. Bunions.” He sighed. “One of the Navy guys said it’ll be better when we get to Japan. They get snow there in the wintertime.”

  “That seems a long way from now,” I said. “We’re still here in the Solomons. That’s closer to Australia than Japan proper. What are the boats doing?”

  “Usual stuff,” he said. “Running errands, like retrieving AWOL squadron doctors from supposedly secure islands. We did manage to ruin some barges up on the north end of this island. Nobody knows if they were comin’ or goin’, but they’re all fish bait now. A destroyer came in afterwards. CO said he watched it all on radar. Wanted to know if we wanted some ice cream.”

  “Ice cream,” I said. “What’s ice cream?”

  He laughed. Then his face sobered. “The Navy’s finally got a mission for us,” he said. “I don’t know if I wanna do it.”

  “That’s a first,” I said. “The Navy wanting us to do anything but get out of their way.”

  He nodded. “They hit Rabaul with a carrier strike,” he said. “Then the Army sent bombers. Word is, there were a lot of ships there. They want an MTB to go into Simpson Harbor and see what they actually accomplished.”

  “That’s crazy,” I said. “Into Rabaul’s harbor? Where they have, what: lebenty-thousand troops? Hundreds of planes? Mines up the ass?”

  “Which is why they don’t want to send destroyers, or even submarines, for that matter. Supposedly, this is coming from Halsey himself: he wants a couple of MTBs to creep into Simpson Harbor at night for a look-see. He also wants the boats to leave a message. A life raft, with an American flag on it.”

  “You’re kidding.’

  “I am not kidding. And that’s not all: he wants the boat crews to take a crap in the raft. Toilet paper and everything. Apparently, that’s the biggest personal insult you can offer a Jap. To crap in his presence.”

  I had to laugh. Halsey. God love him. Commander of the entire Central Pacific war effort, responsible for managing the logistics, the armies and the navies, taking the time to deliver an insult to the Jap hordes based at Rabaul.

  “And you have volunteers for this crazy thing?”

  “Only every boat skipper in the squadron,” he said proudly. “I’m gonna lead it.”

  “Want a doctor along?”

  He hesitated. “Yes, and no,” he said. “I’ve been hearing things about you, as a surgeon. They’d kick my ass if I risked taking you along for this ride.”

  “I’ll kick your ass if you don’t,” I said. “I wield a mean scalpel. Creep up here in the middle of the night, expose something important, slice, slice.”

  He grinned. “Okay, okay,” he said. “It’s a dangerous mission. I guess I should have a doctor along for the ride. Just in case.”

  We looked at each other and started laughing. That excuse would protect him for a good three seconds, at best. But I really wanted to go along. This is what the MTBs were for, doing the outrageous. I knew the medical establishment out here would be outraged, but that same establishment hadn’t been all that good to me. And besides: I knew I was good, but not that good. If a never-ending siege of surgeries taught you anything, it was that there was an infinite supply of deadly surprises waiting for you when you first picked up that scalpel, starting with the scalpel, if it hadn’t been properly sterilized. The truth was that I was in the truly productive phase of an extended surgical residency. Helen had hit right on it: war was the best incubator of medical technology. I think even Garr would have been proud of me for saying that, even if he would never have admitted it. He was probably going to sue me for “mutilating” him, once the war was over.

  The MTB mission to Simpson Harbor departed our comfortable nest alongside Mother Tutuila two days later at sunset. Two boats, one with Bluto in charge, the other with one of our more experienced skippers, Lieutenant Bruce Ponts, at the helm. Ponts was one of those guys everyone liked. Funny, profane, a hellcat on liberty, but a skipper who’d never abandon you in a pinch and who liked a good brawl. A third boat came along, carrying a deck-load of fifty-five-gallon drums full of high-octane gasoline. Her job was to refuel the two mission boats about twenty miles out from Rabaul and then run for home.

  Bluto had briefed the mission in great detail before we left. Simpson Harbor was Fortress Rabaul’s harbor. Ashore, there were nearly one hundred thousand Japanese troops, five airfields, a vast warren of caves and tunnels, and the remains of the Japanese 2nd Air Fleet, the source of all those Betty bomber attacks we remembered so fondly. The harbor was a natural deepwater haven, surrounded on three sides by impressively active volcanoes. The Japs had seized it early on in the war, fully understanding that it was the logistical key to all the Solomon Islands to the south. And the Solomons were important because they could provide Japan with an unsinkable aircraft carrier that could interdict American supplies going to Australia.

  Our recent airstrikes had wrecked the airfields, but we all knew that airfields could be restored in as little as one night. The strikes had also destroyed dozens of Jap planes, and that was the more important result.

  “The intel people are telling me that the Japs expect us to invade at Simpson Harbor,” Bluto had said. “They’ve been shrinking their defensive lines throughout New Britain Island in anticipation of this. Some genius decided we’d let them withdraw into their fortress, and then drive right on by. Remember, the objective is Japan itself. We need bases out in the Central Pacific, for both our ships and some new bombers called the B-29. General MacArthur is advancing up the coasts of New Guinea. Admiral Nimitz is advancing up the Central Pacific isl
and chains. The whole idea is that both commands will join up in the Philippines and then take the whole shootin’ match to the Japanese home islands.”

  One of the skippers had raised his hand. “You’re telling us that Guadalcanal, New Britain, and now Bougainville—these were just stepping stones?’

  Bluto had sat down with a heavy sigh. “I’m telling you that the Pacific Ocean is huge, vast beyond comprehension. The Japs started this shit back in the nineteen-thirties when they invaded China and Manchuria. Then they went through southeast Asia like a dose of salts. They destroyed MacArthur’s whole air force and then captured all his troops. They sank British battleships, overran Singapore, and then captured all the British troops. They sank whatever US Navy that was out here except for some subs that had to vamoose all the way to Australia. Singapore, Indochina, China itself, the Dutch East Indies, Malaya, Burma, New Guinea, the Philippines, the Solomons, the Marianas, the Gilberts, and a bunch’a smaller island chains: what they accomplished is nothing short of amazing.

  “But: they are seriously overextended. Look at that map over there: the Japanese home islands are tiny in comparison to what they’ve bitten off, and some of their ‘possessions’ are literally thousands of miles from their home base. Our strategy is all about rolling up their empire until we end up on their front door. We’ve pushed them off Guadalcanal. We pushed them off New Georgia. We pushed them off Bougainville. That’s how this war is gonna go, boys. We’re going to push the little bastards all the way back to their home islands, one island chain at a time, and we’re only gonna get stronger while they get weaker. Then we’re gonna flatten them.”

  The expedition boats refueled from our version of a German “milch” cow, and then we headed in toward Simpson Harbor. We knew the Japs had laid minefields all around the likely approach routes to the harbor, but they were aimed mainly at US subs. Besides, we were riding wooden boats. The navigation was pretty easy: two of the volcanoes that loomed over Simpson were raising hell, with sheets of red lava flowing down their cinder cones and a continuous rumbling that filled the air—and masked the sound of our engines. We kept to the southwest side of the harbor, hoping that any shipping would then be silhouetted against the lava flows. Our mission, besides the insult, was to determine how much damage had been done to shipping during the carrier strikes. We were looking for ships that had been intentionally grounded to prevent them from sinking, or masts sticking out of the water.

  Bluto was taking no unnecessary chances, knowing that there might be Jap patrol boats or even a bad-tempered destroyer loose in the anchorage. He ordered the raft inflated and suitably “anointed,” then put it over the side on a sea painter, which we towed as we made our reconnaissance. The docks, piers, and warehouse facilities were seven miles up the five-mile-wide harbor, so we stayed in the lower reaches, where the carrier bombers had worked over a fairly large collection—thirty-six ships in all—of anchored cargo ships, troop transports, oil tankers, and even a couple of cruisers. It was a spine-tingling excursion—two MTBs prowling around the outskirts of the Japs’ biggest base south of Truk. Halfway around, a heavy rain squall swept through the harbor, creating an impressive red cloud of steam that bloomed above the volcanoes. Dante would have loved it. But then a big, carbon-arc naval searchlight flared to our north. Bluto took that as an invitation to declare victory and exit the area. We cut loose the stinky raft, with its brave little American flag and noisome cargo, and then we turned toward the sea and Mother Tutuila.

  We never knew, of course, if the Japs even found the little raft, but word of the expedition quickly spread around the troops mopping up on Bougainville. We had also sighted several wrecks along the coast, which must have pleased the carrier admirals no end. Both boats got back safely. The next morning, however, we learned we were moving. Again.

  PART IV

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE PHILIPPINES

  OCTOBER, 1944

  Battleships. The word hung in the air like a verbal time bomb, with everyone in the briefing hut afraid to say anything lest they set it off.

  Bluto, now a full commander, sighed and nodded. He didn’t look all that well these days. He’d lost some more weight over the past year and a half, as many men in the squadron had. Gone also was the profane bravado of Rendova, when he’d taken a boat out into the harbor to eagerly go head-to-head with a flight of Betty light bombers. He hadn’t slept much over the past week during the landings on Leyte Island and his hands were trembling a little from all the caffeine he’d been ingesting just to stay vertical.

  “That’s the word,” he said. “The intel people are saying that a formation of battleships left someplace called Brunei and are headed east. The formation includes the two biggest battleships in the world, the ones with eighteen-inch main guns. Battleships, some heavy cruisers, and of course some destroyers.”

  He nodded to one of the radiomen standing next to a large chart with a sheet covering it. The radioman pulled the sheet aside to reveal a map of the southern half of the Philippine Islands. Bluto walked over to the chart.

  “This here is where we are right now, in Leyte Gulf. To the right, or north, is the main island of Luzon. Across and northeast of where we are is the island of Samar. The great bulk of the Jap armies are up on Luzon, from the city of Manila on north. They’ve been there ever since they chased Dugout Doug out of the Philippines.”

  He moved to the left, or western part of the chart. “This is where Brunei is. It’s the anchorage where the Jap capital ships have been holed up for the past year. It’s eight hundred miles from Leyte. If they’re going twenty knots, they can be here in two days. Naturally, Halsey and his carriers are gonna hit them as soon as they’re within carrier bomber range. He’s got six carriers’ worth of bombers, so they oughta be able to put a pretty big crimp in their style.”

  “So, what will we be doing,” one of the skippers asked, “going somewhere else?”

  “Hold your horses, Pancho,” Bluto replied, as the nervous laughter in the hut subsided. “I’m gettin’ to that.”

  He moved back to the right side of the chart. “This stretch of water”—he pointed to a gap between the main island of Luzon and the next one down—“this is called the San Bernardino Strait. Intel thinks the Japs are planning to go through San Bernardino two nights from now and then turn south to come here and tear up all the amphibious shipping as well as blasting away at our troops who are already ashore on Leyte. Some of you might remember when they did that to Cactus.”

  I remembered. It seemed like a hundred years ago. But I vividly remembered it, as did anyone over on Henderson Field who’d lived through it.

  “Intel is calling the big battleship formation the Central Force. But, apparently there’s a second battleship formation coming, which they’re calling the Southern Force. This one has two battleships, some cruisers, etc., and it’s supposed to go south of where we are, penetrate the Surigao Strait, which is right here, and then turn north and join the Central Force coming down from the San Bernardino force. The Army would call this a pincers movement.”

  “How the hell do we know all this?” one of the newer skippers asked.

  “The Intel briefer did not share that with me,” Bluto said. “But you gotta remember, we’ve got subs all over the Western Pacific now. We’ve probably got one, maybe even two sitting off that Jap anchorage at Brunei, keeping tabs on all those big boys. Anyway, Halsey and his carriers are supposed to take care of the Central Force. We will be part of a blocking force that’s being put together to make sure that those two battlewagons in the Southern Force never get through to Leyte Gulf. Halsey is gonna go after the main force with carrier air. Admiral Oldendorf is gonna head up the defense of the Surigao Strait. He’s the admiral who’s got all those old battleships they raised up from Pearl Harbor. You’ve seen ’em—those big gray shapes way out there lobbing fourteen-inch shells into the landing zones for the past eighteen months?”

  Everyone nodded. That was a good description.
Those elderly dreadnoughts sat ten miles out there in the smoke and the mist, barely visible until their main battery muzzle-flashes revealed their presence.

  He asked the radioman to put up a second chart.

  “This is a chart of the Surigao Strait, which cuts between the bottom half of Leyte Island and an island called Dinagat. The Southern Force is supposed to come into the strait right here, next to Panaon Island, sometime after midnight two days from now, then turn left and come toward Leyte. Oldendorf’s blocking force will consist of four layers. The first layer is us—MTBs hiding along the coves of Panaon Island, right—here. We’ll launch torpedo attacks against the entire formation—two battleships, three heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and four or more destroyers. We’re gonna take the entire squadron in—all sixteen boats.”

  “Once we attack, we’re supposed to get out of the Jap formation any way we can and regroup behind them, just to the west of Panaon Island. That’s because two of our destroyer squadrons will be coming down from the northern end of the Surigao Strait, one squadron on each side of the strait, for a coordinated torpedo attack. Once they get done, they’ll get out of the way and then the four heavy cruisers stretched across the strait will get their turn. And once the cruisers open up, the battleships, lined up above them at the top of the strait, will start shooting. I think there’s gonna be six of ’em, lined up right here across the top of the strait, shooting fourteen- and even sixteen-inch shells under radar control.”

  There were quiet mutters of “Jee-zus” and “Goddamn” throughout the briefing room.

  “Like I said, some of those battleships are the ones the Japs sank at Pearl,” Bluto continued. “They were raised, repaired, modernized, and sent out here to provide gunfire support for all these invasions we’ve been doing. This will be their one and only opportunity to get revenge for Pearl. Think about that.”