Bill walked north past the wreckage, his destination the intersection of Azcarraga and Quezon. The prison was circled on a map that the kindly Replacement Center nurse had given him—though most of the places and streets it marked had long since been destroyed. Homeless dogs roamed, sniffing mounds of trash and other leavings of a citizenry caught between warring armies: a child’s shoe, a broken doll, a cane, a smashed baby stroller.
Along the way, Bill checked himself against unrealistic hopes and girded for bad news. Who could possibly have survived this devastation? With little time left, he hoped to find critical clues on Barton’s whereabouts—before all the information was shipped out and dispersed among the Pentagon’s harried bureaus.
When he finally arrived at Bilibid, he found a letter appended to the heavy entrance gate. It had been posted by fleeing Japanese guards:
The Bilibid Hospital
Manila P.I.
February 4, 1945
11:30 A.M. (Tokyo)
1. The Japanese Army is now going to release all the prisoners of war and internees here on its own accord.
2. We are assigned to another duty and will be here no more;
3. You are at liberty to act and live as free persons;
4. We shall leave here foodstuffs, medicines and other necessities of which you may avail yourselves for the time being.
Another sign read simply:
Lawfully released prisoners of war and internees are quartered here. Please do not molest them unless they make positive resistance.
Imperial Japanese Army
At the prison office, Bill described his quest to the GI on duty. He responded, as the nurse on Lingayen had, that army officials had only just begun to sift through the thousands of records and grave registrations the Japanese had left behind. And more were arriving, daily, from several other prison compounds. He would do what he could to help, but recommended that Bill first review the batch of grave-registration lists. It might save them both a lot of time.
Even with the clerk’s assistance, this task alone took Bill the better part of the day; the thousands of names were neither alphabetized nor divided by service. At the start of each list, Bill braced himself for what he might find. But when he came to the last page of the last one, he allowed a measure of relief. While he knew these lists were hardly an exhaustive accounting of prisoner dead, A. Barton Cross Jr., USNR, was not on any of them.
He then turned to the dozens of other rosters stuffed in various files, few of which had been reviewed—or even translated. “Bilibid—1942, 1943, 1944, 1945.” “Cabanatuan—Camp 1, Camp 2, and Camp 3.” “DAPECOL; O’Donnell.” “Puerto Princesa.” And on and on. There were also dozens of recovered jars that prisoners had buried containing messages, sketches, letters, and diaries. It was overwhelming, and Bill came to the rueful conclusion that he’d arrived too late to rescue Barton but too early to grasp what had happened to him.
As he pored over prison camp rosters, the clerk pulled another stack of lists from a box on the floor. These were prisoner transport manifests, he explained; maybe Bill should go through these next. This was when Bill began to fully comprehend the extent of the massive prisoner transfers from the Philippines to Japan—aboard ships named Shinyo Maru, Hofuku Maru, Yashu Maru, Rakuyo Maru, and Oryoko Maru. It was here he learned that Mac McCollum’s cousin Shivers had been aboard the fated Arisan Maru.
The final manifest was of the last prison ship to depart Manila Bay before the Allies sealed it off to enemy traffic. The ship had departed December 13, almost exactly twelve weeks earlier. Bill was momentarily stunned. After all this time, Oryoko Maru manifest in hand, here it was, finally: Cross, Arthur Barton Jr., Ensign, USNR. He peppered the clerk with questions on what was known of this ship and its destination, then rose wearily and thanked him. He would be back, he said, but it might be awhile; he was shoving off for Okinawa shortly.
While the PT commander negotiated his way out of the shipwreck-ridden Manila Bay, Bill was quiet. But when it came time for them to turn south toward Eldorado’s Leyte anchorage, he made an impulsive request. Might they detour briefly north—to Subic Bay?
The sympathetic helmsman, who by now knew the story, pushed up the throttle and made a graceful northward arc into the South China Sea. But no clues of past disasters awaited Bill at Subic Bay—it had been under refurbishment by army engineers for weeks.
“The ones that could swim made out better than the ones that couldn’t, that much I can tell you,” the Bilibid clerk had said. He didn’t have much more information than that, just that the survivors that did make it ashore needed clothing and other supplies. And he knew that only because the navy doctors who were being evacuated from Bilibid when he arrived told him that they had been ordered to assemble supplies for the prisoners who had just shipped out on Oryoko Maru. The ship had been bombed not long after exiting Manila Bay, they were told. But there had been a large number of survivors.
“Where did it go down?” Bill had asked, with out-of-body composure.
“Subic Bay, off Olongapo. Survivors came ashore by the old navy base. I mean, damn, the last ship the Japs got out, and it gets sunk.”
It was nightfall before the PT boat pulled into Leyte Gulf. After expressing heartfelt thanks to the PT commander and the promise of a steak dinner after the war, Bill boarded Eldorado, saluted the officer of the deck, and went straight to his cabin. He wanted to write Benny about the day’s events while they were fresh in his mind. He hadn’t found Barton, but he hadn’t found him dead, either.
With Eldorado’s imminent departure, there was no more time to run down the details of Barton’s doomed ship—or the survivors. It would have to wait until their return to Manila, after Okinawa.
38
A SAILOR’S NIGHTMARE
APRIL 13, 1945, EAST longitude time, dawned sunny and warm off Okinawa, but it would soon become the blackest Friday the thirteenth Bill Mott would ever remember. At 0700 he was in Eldorado’s CIC poring over two final drafts on the same critical subject. One was the first-ever press communiqué on the Kamikaze Corps. The other, stamped “S-E-C-R-E-T,” was a directive from Admiral Turner to all hands. Entitled “Information and Means for Combating Suicide Plane Attacks—Revision 1,” the memo had been hastily drafted the previous evening at the conclusion of another massive kamikaze raid on the ships standing off Okinawa—the second since the invasion of the island began.
Just 340 miles from Kyushu, Japan’s southernmost island, Okinawa was prized by the Allies for its proximate air base potential for a final assault on mainland Japan. For this same reason, preventing Okinawa’s fall was crucial to the Japanese. A fight to the finish had been expected.
The Easter Sunday landings of tens of thousands of army troops had gone eerily unopposed—unlike the furious and bloody start at Iwo Jima. Kelly Turner was so amazed, he radioed Admiral Nimitz at his CINCPAC headquarters on Guam: “I may be crazy,” Turner said, “but it looks like the Japs have quit the war.” Having seen intercepts indicating the enemy was lying in wait farther inland, Admiral Nimitz flashed back, “Delete all after ‘crazy.’ ” By the end of Okinawa’s first week, that intelligence proved brutally correct. Only after Allied troops moved inland did the enemy bare itself—both on the island and over the 1,418-ship anchorage.
Despite ongoing pleas by Robert Sherrod, war correspondents had been forbidden to report on the intensifying kamikaze menace since its debut at Leyte Gulf the previous October. The months-long news embargo had been intended to protect soldier and sailor morale, among other reasons. But the carnage from these last two attacks—by rapid, sequential waves of kamikaze bands called kikusui—changed all that.
Hundreds of planes at a time had screamed over the horizon at random intervals and hurled themselves at the anchorage. The first of these airborne banzai charges began at dusk on April 6. Like swarms of angry bees, hundreds of aircraft at a time dropped through the low cloud ceiling, fanned out, and roared toward target ships. Of all the scenario
s anticipated in the thousands of pages of Iceberg planning documents, this one had not even been dreamed of.
Stunned fleet defenses were quickly overwhelmed in the first attack. Three destroyers, two ammunition ships, and one landing vessel were sunk. Ten other ships were damaged so severely that they were forced to withdraw. But kikusui number one was far from over. At dusk the next day, hundreds more planes lit up radar screens across the fleet.
Flyers from Admiral Mitscher’s fast carrier group shot down a number of them, but 116 hell-bent suiciders punched through the protective air perimeter. The next line of defense was Combat Air Patrol (CAP)—made up of Hellcats and “whistling death” Corsairs—which splashed 55 more. But 61 kamikazes still managed to pierce both air defense rings and strike at the fleet’s 1,200 ships. The rest was up to the ships’ antiaircraft batteries.
Literally shooting in the dark, gunners sent up thousands of tracer shells, leaving a mad scribble of red lines through the Southern Cross. They shot down 39 of the attackers, but 22 were able to complete their deadly missions. A cacophony of distress signals erupted, jamming circuits. Fire and rescue triage began immediately—in rolling seas, billowing smoke, and stygian darkness.
The second twenty-four-hour kikusui had ended the previous evening, April 12. Eighteen more ships, including Enterprise, were crippled in the onslaught. A five-hundred-kilogram bomb exploded at the turn of her bilge, causing severe shock damage. An hour later, a second “Yokosuka Judy” just missed Enterprise’s starboard bow, but its bomb detonated, puncturing the carrier below the waterline.
Frantic control parties miraculously sealed the breach, even as water gushed through with the force of a colossal fire hose. Their heroics prevented Enterprise’s capsize, but the mighty carrier was also forced to withdraw for major repairs. It was one action by that gallant crew that Bill was grateful Benny had missed.
By the morning of the thirteenth, the number of navy casualties in the waters off Okinawa competed with those ashore, and the injuries weren’t just physical. The suggestive crackling of ships’ loudspeakers alone had become cause for emotional breakdowns among crews. Across the flotilla, officers and men were inching toward nervous exhaustion from the perennial state of high alert.
For the antiaircraft gunners, the worst part was a kamikaze pilot’s deep maniacal stare as he bore down—even if hit and aflame—through a barrage of bullets. For others, it was the sight of fellow crewmen ejected high into the air and blown apart. Back down they inevitably came, like so many broken pieces of a toy soldier: a helmeted head, a booted foot, a flaming torso. Such images wedged deeply into survivors’ psyches, and nervous breakdowns had become as numerous as the climbing fatalities.
And the previous night, as if in celebratory finale to kikusui number two, the Japanese also launched their first oka: a rocket-boosted suicide glider that could dive at speeds of five hundred miles per hour. The debut oka hit destroyer USS Mannert L. Abele with such force that she broke apart and sank in five minutes.
Admiral Nimitz had thus far resisted making the kamikaze threat public, partly for morale reasons but also to deny the Japanese confirmation of their successes. He finally relented the previous evening. The American people, he decided, needed to know about these “witches on broomsticks” and the increasingly diabolical mental state of the enemy. Bill proofed the final release before transmitting:
CINCPOA PRESS RELEASE #72, APRIL 13, 1945
The Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet and Pacific Ocean Areas, has authorized the following statement:
For some months the Japanese have been employing aircraft on a gradually increasing scale in suicidal attacks upon our forces in the Western Pacific. These aircraft were initially piloted by a group of pilots who were known as the “Kamikaze Corps” by the Japanese. The enemy has made much in his propaganda of this “sure-death-sure-hit” suicide technique which is simply an attempt to crash planes on the decks of our ships.
The “suicide attack” and the so called “Kamikaze Corps” are the products of an enemy trapped in an increasingly desperate situation. Pushed back upon their own inner defenses the Japanese have resorted to fanatical methods which, from a purely military viewpoint, are of doubtful value.
The “Kamikaze Corps” is apparently being used not only to attempt to damage our ships but also to stir the lagging spirits of the Japanese people. Although these “sure-death- sure-hit” pilots are reported to be volunteers, many have very willingly become survivors of “suicide” missions and are now [our] prisoners of war.
The “suicide” technique is continuing at the present time. Although it is always considered and prepared for as a factor in estimating the enemy’s capabilities, it cannot prevent our continuing success in the war in the Pacific.
The press release was directed as much at the Japanese as it was at the American public.
THE SECOND DOCUMENT WAS Admiral Turner’s amended guidelines for combating the suicide attacks. Reflecting very recent intelligence from the previous evening, this latest All Hands Tips-for-Survival primer had updated guidelines on radar, CAP vectoring and tactics, communications among ships, and revised directives on radical maneuvering, antiaircraft defense, damage control, rescue, repair, and salvage. It began with a simple restatement of the problem:
The principal difference between suicide plane attacks by the Japanese on a large scale and conventional airplane attacks are as follows:
(a) The range of enemy attack is greater because no return trip is necessary;
(b) Percentage of hits is higher because the missile is aimable right up to the point of impact;
(c) Suicide pilots are more determined and daring and are not deterred by actual or psychological obstacles;
(d) The suicide plane, with or without a bomb, is an extremely effective incendiary agent because of the gasoline carried;
(e) No standard pattern of attack is apparent and to date no cure-all solution has been found.
Bill understood the primal fear a kamikaze attack inspired. On Easter Saturday—twenty-four hours ahead of the paschal invasion of Okinawa—he had just left USS Indianapolis’s mess, where he’d thought to catch a quick breakfast following the final pre-invasion briefing on Admiral Spruance’s flagship. But a recalcitrant stomach shortened his meal, and he quickly exited the mess to catch the launch back to Eldorado. The time was 0710.
On his way up to the quarterdeck, he paused at the shrill report of the boson’s whistle. Before he could comprehend its meaning, Bill was knocked off his feet by a rocking explosion from below. Sure as hell, the ship had been struck by a torpedo, he thought, scrambling to his feet.
Only after fire and rescue teams emerged from the Indianapolis mess carrying the charred remains of his fellow breakfasters did Bill learn it had been the work of a kamikaze. One fast-acting gunner had deflected the aim of the suicider, whose plane sank off the fantail. But its bomb had released just before crashing, penetrating the port quarter’s deck armor and tearing through the mess, a berthing compartment, and fuel tanks before exploding under the hull.
The wounded Indianapolis was forced to withdraw to a California shipyard for repairs—the start of a tragic odyssey for the famed cruiser. Admiral Spruance reluctantly shifted his flag to the USS New Mexico.
Bill’s timely departure from the mess left him shaken. It was the first of many deeply unsettling blows off miserable Okinawa. Another took place a few minutes later as he labored over the twin kamikaze missives.
The duty radioman alerted him to an urgent message that was starting to click through: “To All Hands: From Secnav to All Nav.” Navy Secretary Forrestal was not one to send routine messages in the heat of battle. Bill hovered over the teletype, as was his habit, reading each new line as it hammered out Secnav’s message. The first sentence stunned him no less than had it reported a death in his own family. Forrestal wrote:
I have the sad duty of announcing to the naval service the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the President of
the United States, which occurred on twelve April.
The world has lost a champion of democracy who can ill be spared by our country and the Allied cause. The Navy which he so dearly loved can pay no better tribute to his memory than to carry on in the tradition of which he was so proud.
Colors shall be displayed at half mast for thirty days beginning 0800 thirteen April West Longitude Date insofar as war operations permit. Memorial services shall be held on the day of the funeral to be announced later at all yards and stations and on board all vessels of the navy, war operations permitting.
Wearing of mourning badges and firing of salutes will be dispensed within view of war conditions.
The president had died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage at “the little White House” in Warm Springs, Georgia, near the healing mineral waters that had long soothed his polio-withered legs. Vice President Harry S. Truman had taken the Oath of Office within hours of FDR’s death. A new president! Choked with sadness and deeply preoccupied, Bill made for Admiral Turner’s cabin just as ships’ loudspeakers sounded the report across the fleet. The announcers’ voices were thick with emotion:
“Attention! Attention! All hands! President Roosevelt is dead! Repeat, our supreme commander, President Roosevelt, is dead.”
A typhoon roaring over the horizon could not have struck with greater impact an audience with scant memory of any other sitting president. Roosevelt had led the country for twelve turbulent years—a majority of the sailors’ young lives. They mourned all the more because Roosevelt had been the navy’s president, a sailor at heart.
As Bill carried Forrestal’s memo to Admiral Turner’s cabin, he replayed his last Oval Office conversation with Roosevelt. “Mr. President, I hate to leave, but you may be sure I’ll be back for the peace conference.” Roosevelt had met his gaze and then looked away. “Well, son, I’m not sure there will ever be one.”
The Jersey Brothers Page 41