Garrett briefed O’Toole and Durham using the map as a reference. “Here’s our situation: Mujatto is a strategic island. MacArthur wants the island because an air base here can control the sea approaches to New Guinea and the Philippines. We need it, and the Japs need it for the same reasons. They’re determined we’re not going to take it away from them.
“We hit the beach a week ago with over six thousand marines. By now, the marines should be mopping up the island. However, the Japs managed to reinforce their garrison here and dug in deep. We’ve been shelling the beach twenty-four hours a day for a week, and we are still fighting to control the beachhead.
“All of my ships are low on fuel, almost out of ammunition, and yes, the crews are exhausted. I asked for the Farnley, Arbor and the two destroyer escorts to relieve some of my ships, but that’s not going to happen.
“We’ve picked up two Japanese battle groups heading our way. One is coming from the east and one from the west. At their current course and speed they will be here at dawn tomorrow morning and will execute a hammer-and-anvil attack.”
“What about air cover?” O’Toole asked.
Garrett shook his head. “Bull Halsey withdrew his flat-tops to refuel and re-arm. His planes won’t be back in range until noon tomorrow. By then it’ll be too late.
“However, inside all this bad news is some good news we can capitalize on. From what we know, the eastern Jap force is the weaker of the two, with one battleship, two cruisers, and four destroyers. We need to defend both entrances to the gulf with just the Oregon, four cruisers, and six destroyers. There are ten other destroyers, but I need to keep them shelling the beach.
“The eastern Jap force won’t enter the gulf. They’ll wait outside for the larger western force to drive us out of the gulf and through the eastern strait. Once in the strait, they will cut us to pieces. The Japs put together an impressive western force: a Yamoto-class battleship, four cruisers, and six destroyers. They’re going to be the hammer for the anvil. The scary part is their western force includes three troop ships and a cargo ship. They intend a mount a significant ground counterattack.”
O’Toole didn’t like the way this discussion was unfolding and was growing aware of the weight of Hatfield’s brass balls in his pocket. A knot in his stomach was pumping acid up his throat.
“Admiral,” he said, “if I understand what you are saying, your only option is to use your forces to guard the eastern entrance, and you need us to blockade the western entrance.”
“Almost,” Garrett replied. “I’m going to position the Oregon and two cruisers inside the western entrance. Our other ships will guard the eastern entrance. No matter what happens, with two cruisers and a battleship we can make it costly for the larger force to enter the gulf from the west. The bad news is we are almost out of ammunition and can’t stand toe-to-toe with them for long. If they are determined, they’ll get through, and six thousand marines on the beach will die. That’s the bottom line. I need your interdiction force to turn the western force back. Stop them.”
“Stop them?” Durham asked.
The room fell silent. O’Toole and Durham stared at the map. Garrett lowered his eyes and turned his head away. Without taking his eyes away from the map, O’Toole asked, “Ron, how many PT boats are available?”
“Twelve, organized into three squadrons.”
O’Toole didn’t ask about the other twenty-four boats. The room fell silent again. O’Toole didn’t need to do the math. Twelve PT boats, two escorts and two destroyers against a Yamoto-class battleship, four cruisers, and six destroyers equals a suicide mission.
O’Toole saw the pain in Garrett’s eyes.
O’Toole took a deep breath. “There’s a full moon tonight, isn’t there?”
“I checked on that,” Garrett began. “It is a full moon tonight, but moonset is at 0430, so there won’t be any moonlight when the Jap force arrives. I know it doesn’t mean anything, but moonset coincides with a full lunar eclipse.”
Durham’s voice was soft, almost distant. “The end of days. ‘The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.’ Joel chapter 2, verse 31. It’s a blood moon; the moon will glow red in the eclipse.”
“I didn’t need to know that,” O’Toole said.
O’Toole stood and said to Garrett, “Yes, sir. We’ll give you our best.”
Turning to O’Toole, Garrett seemed to struggle to find words. “I guess that’s it. You’re in command of the interdiction force, O’Toole. There is another space just like this one deck below. It’s at your disposal. Good luck, gentlemen.”
They shook hands in silence before Durham and O’Toole left.
§
Durham ran Garrett’s orders through his mind as he and O’Toole navigated the ladder to the compartment below. He didn’t want to say anything and guessed O’Toole felt the same way. O’Toole unrolled a chart on a small table in the center of the compartment. Durham stared at the chart, trying to map out the battle in his mind. Their situation was hopeless.
“What are you going to do, Pat?” he asked.
O’Toole let out a sigh. “When you’re in command, command . . . I guess.”
“And what do you think about this whole thing?”
“Let me quote you, Ron: It’s a good night for a fight.”
O’Toole assembled the destroyer captains and the three PT squadron commanders to work out a battle plan. O’Toole briefed the group while Durham listened. Durham watched each of the officers trying to evaluate the others. Munroe had given O’Toole his first PT boat ride. Mabury, the Arbor’s captain, from Abilene, Texas, spoke with a flowing Texan twang and wore cowboy boots. Mobley, an escort captain, peppered the briefing with probing questions.
Mabury, the Texan, concerned him. He was pale, walked slow, and sat gingerly on the edge of his chair. Durham couldn’t decide if his slow speech was due to his Texas drawl or something else.
“Are you feeling okay?” he asked Mabury.
“I got some kind of jungle rot in my gut. I’ll be okay,” Mabury said.
O’Toole finished the briefing by saying, “There it is. Our job is to stop them. Questions?”
The room fell dead silent. Everyone avoided eye contact and stared at the chart. After several seconds, Munroe asked, “So, you want us to defend the strait?”
With a jerk, Mabury shoved his chair back and vomited on the floor. He gagged and coughed a few times, and Durham thought he was about to recover when Mabury fell to the floor in a fetal position, moaning.
Ten minutes later the Oregon’s surgeon turned to Admiral Garrett as two men carried Mabury through the door on a stretcher. “I’m pretty sure it’s acute appendicitis. No matter what, he’s out of action for a while.”
Admiral Garrett nodded then looked at O’Toole.
Admiral Collins, Garrett’s chief of staff, entered. “I just checked, the Arbor’s XO was wounded two weeks ago and was evacuated. The next senior officer on Mabury’s ship is too green to be given a ship. Should I pull an officer off the staff to take command of the Arbor?
Garrett started to speak, but O’Toole cut him off. “Admiral, with all due respect, I would prefer a man who has seen recent action and someone with fresh destroyer bridge time.”
“Do you have someone in mind?” Garrett asked.
“Yes, sir. My XO is a senior lieutenant, and I have trained him for command in combat situations. He is as good as they come.”
Garrett glanced at his chief of staff. “I think O’Toole has a valid point. We’ll go with his executive officer.”
Admiral Collins nodded and left.
Twenty minutes later, O’Toole started the briefing over for Paxton’s benefit. When he finished, Munroe said, “We’re back to my original question. I want to make sure I understand: our mission is to defend the strait.
“I want to make something clear,” O’Toole said, “This is an offensive operation. As long as we hav
e one boat and one bullet left, we’re on the offense. We need to figure out how we’re going turn the Japs back.”
O’Toole’s words silenced the room. Well spoken, Durham thought, but against these odds who could believe such a thing?
After several seconds, Mobley asked, “How do we go on the offensive against a battleship, four cruisers, and a half-dozen destroyers, for Christ’s sake?”
“The Japs will expect us to take a defensive stand inside the strait to protect the gulf. That’s why we are going to attack. We take the initiative and gain the element of surprise. Audacity in the face of adversity creates opportunities. Our job is to find those opportunities,” O’Toole replied.
The room fell silent again. Durham studied O’Toole’s face. Harder and more focused, this O’Toole differed from the man he knew. Either O’Toole was the greatest actor on the planet, or he believed this stuff.
O’Toole broke the silence, “Sunrise is at 0548 tomorrow morning. With the predawn twilight, they’ll want to break into the gulf about 0515. What does that tell us?”
“Our only chance is to trap them in the strait, but the strait is only a mile long. It’s narrow enough but not long enough to help us.”
“Forget about the strait. That’s what they will expect. We’ve got to hit them earlier.”
“What will it take to get them to turn back?”
“We would need to sink the battleship or a couple of cruisers or one of the capital ships and the troop transports.”
“Can we create a diversion?”
“How do you create a diversion in the open ocean? Geesh.”
“I think the key is the battleship. If we can take that away from them, the battle is half won,” O’Toole said.
“We don’t need to sink it, just take it out of action; get a hit on the rudders or screws.”
“Yeah, don’t think about sinking it, think about wounding her bad, or get her to capsize so she sinks herself.”
“If we capsize her, it will shake the Japs up bad.”
“They won’t bring the troop ships up until they secure the gulf. That means they’ll leave some destroyers behind to guard the troop ships.”
“Yeah, they will protect those troop ships at all costs.”
“Wait,” O’Toole interrupted. “Maybe that’s their Achilles heel. What would they do if we attacked the transports?”
“They would turn their column to be broadside to our attack right before they cut us to ribbons.”
“Do you guys think six torpedoes are enough to sink a battleship?” O’Toole asked.
“What are you thinking?”
“Don’t know yet. Is six enough?” O’Toole said.
“Four would be real iffy. Six is better, but if you want to make sure, eight or more.”
“Who talked about a diversion?” O’Toole asked.
“I did,” Paxton said.
An hour later, all they had was a bunch of crazy ideas, but Durham sensed the tentative confidence in the room. O’Toole stopped the group and said, “Let me tell you what I think the best battle plan is. When I get done, we can polish it.”
Pointing to the chart, O’Toole said, “We’re going to split into four groups and attack in sequence: first from the southwest, then the northeast, then the southeast and finally the northwest.” O’Toole continued outlining the battle plan, which used the group’s best ideas and included some of his own in a unified structure.
Durham listened as O’Toole unfolded his plan. As expected it was anti-doctrine, but the brilliance and simplicity of the plan amazed him. When O’Toole finished, Durham said, “It’s going to get ugly, but it might work.” Everyone else agreed.
The escort captains, Paxton, and the PT squadron commanders left O’Toole alone with Durham. “What do you think?” O’Toole asked.
Durham felt there was an outside shot at pulling it off. They weren’t going to win, but they might do enough damage to give Garrett a chance to finish the job for them. In the back of his mind, he realized he would probably be dead by morning. He kept those thoughts to himself. “I think I am going to make you take back every word you said about us PT boat guys being crazy.”
“Like you said, throw away the book. It doesn’t apply here.”
“Good luck tonight.”
“You too.”
O’Toole reached out and put his hand on Durham’s shoulder. Durham couldn’t think of a word to say. There was no way to say goodbye to a friend when both were going to die in a few hours. He put his hand on O’Toole’s shoulder. They looked at each other and shook each other’s shoulders for several seconds. O’Toole said in a whisper, “Kate’s pregnant.”
Durham’s mind went blank and he struggled to find something to say. His first impulse was to say congratulations, but under the circumstances that would be cruel. Then he wanted to say he was sorry, but that wouldn’t be right either. He bit his lip, turned, and walked to the door in silence.
§
Aboard the Farnley, O’Toole told the quarterdeck to pass the word for officers, chiefs and petty officers to muster on the mess deck. As he hoped, Mohr was in the wardroom talking to a few of the junior officers. O’Toole addressed Mohr, interrupting the discussion. “Admiral Garrett assigned us a very dangerous mission. If you stay on board, the odds say you’ll die. I recommend we transfer you to the Oregon immediately.
All eyes were on O’Toole. Mohr glanced at the junior officers before he locked eyes with O’Toole. “I would prefer to stay.”
“I am not saying this to get rid of you. I am dead serious about what I said. You deserve to know what your choices are. Are you sure?”
“Yes, I want to do my job.”
“Will you give me your word you will write it the way it happens; none of this legend crap?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Good, because if we live through it, your article will be the final tribute to a lot of brave men.”
“You have my word.”
O’Toole saw nothing but sincerity in Mohr’s eyes. “I know you have a job to do. Perhaps I misjudged you, Tom. For that I am sorry; there’s hope for you, and you might just make adequate before this is over.”
34
Blood dripped from the setting moon, scattering rivulets of blood across a sea the color of death. The shadows of fifteen Imperial Japanese ships stole across the sea, steaming eastward toward Mujatto. Spearheading the column, the 86,000-ton super-battleship’s prow pressed forward with lethal resolve. Shunning the power of the sea, the leviathan’s bow neither rose nor fell to acknowledge the three-foot swells. Only startled phosphorescent algae protested, glowing feebly in her wake.
Aft the super-battleship Yamua followed four heavy cruisers with eight-inch armor plate, six destroyers, and four auxiliaries. Nine eighteen-inch guns, thirty-six eight-inch guns, and fifty six-inch guns stood ready to serve death to any who would oppose the column’s advance.
Scattered across a small string of islands, O’Toole’s forces hid in the shadows and burrowed deep against island shores. With solemn resolve, the Farnley, the Arbor, two destroyer escorts, and a dozen plywood PT boats awaited the column and its ninety-five heavy guns. O’Toole’s force would open the battle with thirteen five-inch guns between them.
35
Never in his wildest dreams could O’Toole have imagined this: he commanded over a thousand men, and he would lead them in a desperate battle to save the lives of thousands more.
Recalling the dream about Commodore Barry’s assault on the British fleet with a few longboats made him shudder. The parallels were surreal. He and his longboats would attack a vastly superior force, but his longboats would also attack a ship-of-the-line, a super-battleship. This was neither greed nor ignorance of his limits as Commodore Barry had cautioned. This was necessity.
He prayed God would forgive him for his plan and the events he put into motion. He understood Admiral Garrett’s dilemma. O’Toole would sacrifice his ship and his life to save the lives of othe
rs. He was satisfied with that, but prayed Kate and his child would have a happy life. Perhaps she would remarry and give his child a father. He grieved not for himself, but for the sorrow Kate would feel over his death, and his child who would never know a father.
He wondered where his fear of failure had gone. He was calm and resolute; what would come would come. In this battle, he could not fail, for success was in the effort and sacrifice, not in outcome; but he prayed his ships would weaken the Japanese force so Admiral Garrett’s capital ships could save the marines.
He didn’t know what would happen, but he knew his crew would fight bravely and with skill honed by relentless training. If they survived this battle for but a bare moment, or if even a single man survived, all he had learned and all he had taught would have been worth something. Perhaps some would survive, perhaps he would be there to thank them, but how would he repay his debt to those who fell in battle? He had no answers, but it didn’t matter anymore because his time was at hand.
He had split his forces into four groups. The first group’s attack would trigger the second and so on like a line of falling dominoes. Once started, no one could stop the chain reaction. The dominoes would fall, and the Fates would determine the outcome.
“Sir, radar reports contact with the Japanese force.”
His heart leapt in his chest, forcing him to concentrate on his voice. “Very well. Remind radar no more than one sweep per minute.”
He pushed his foot against the bulkhead to stop the trembling. “Sound battle stations.” He gave Ship Shape a hug and said, “Battle Station, Ship Shape.”
Ship Shape jumped off his lap and pushed himself into the corner under the captain’s chair. O’Toole slipped out of this chair and headed for the bridge wing. He blocked out Skittles’ dour monotone:
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Vows to the Fallen: O'Toole (The Marathon Series) Page 30