by Miner, Ron
“But what got me,” Doyle went on, “is when the planes we signaled would fly over, maybe fifty feet above us, and you felt them saying ‘hi, guys,’ and then they would fly off to warm food and a clean, dry place to sleep and we would never really get any closer to getting out of there.” Naylon patted old “Frisco Gal” and grinned. “Then today when you flew by and the natives yelled, ‘Flyin’ boat ... look! Flyin’ boat!’ I just couldn’t believe it, I still can’t.
We lifted off again for the last 250 miles to Leyte Bay and our tender there. Five tired but happy Americans would be taken aboard, head down to medical for a check up, and then be whisked away to some clean clothes, dry shoes, and a square meal. Rocky brought his coconut shell rice bowl along with him. It would now be full of ice cream.
They spent a week aboard the tender, were clean shaven and posed for countless pictures together with us and with members of her crew. Fairy tales do come true.
But not always. Doyle came down with malaria and joined Schelitsche, who was being treated in sick bay for anemia. The orders for their “survivor’s leave” came through, and they were feeling really dispirited when Naylon, King, and Roccafortcame in to say goodbye. It seemed to me a shame to break up the five now.
The other three, each holding their priority papers, were ferried in to the airstrip where they climbed aboard the NATS R4D, a big C-47 transport bound for Palau. We assembled at a prime viewing spot high upon the Tangiers and could see the big plane racing down the runway. What we didn’t know was that an army lieutenant was taking his new girlfriend for a joyride in a L-4 cub and picked that moment to buzz the runway. It clipped the C-47’s tail and they both quickly fell to the ground and exploded. All perished, including the girlfriend, a young nurse from the hospital ship that had just arrived.
Moments like that stay with you for a lifetime. I knew this one surely would for me. Doyle, with his malaria, and Schelitsche turned out to be the lucky ones I guess. I heard they eventually made their way home safely.
* * *
*This unique looking aircraft from Lockheed had twin engines and two tails. It was heavily armed and could reach a speed of 400 mph, the fastest fighter in the world at the time. The Japanese knew it as “two planes, one pilot.”
* Banka - canoe
* SB2C Helldiver was a single engine Navy dive bomber with a two man crew, often based on carriers.
Thirteen and Three?
Time was dragging along. Something was afoot in our area and I felt a gnawing apprehension. We were eight months into our second tour. Indiana seemed like a distant memory, and I wondered, “Is this battle fatigue?” I found I was even envying, a little, my friend Jack, back in the states. When we were in Espiritu, Jack and I were between missions and decided to try our hand at tennis. A tropical storm had passed through, and the full sunshine quickly cleared the court of water, save a few small puddles. We hacked away at each other, laughing as much as playing, when Jack suddenly reversed direction to chase a volley and hit one of those wet spots. He fell hard and while obviously hurt, I didn’t realize the extent of his injuries at the time, but he deteriorated rapidly from a combination of the nerve injury suffered in the fall and from the mental strain of his flying duties. He was officially diagnosed with “battle fatigue.” The guys and I all dropped in often, sneaking occasional banned refreshments in to him to his great delight, but he was eventually sent stateside and never fought again. He was probably my closest friend.
Ensign Babb looked for the entire world like a civilian, even a tourist, sitting hatless with a borrowed white island shirt.
We were spending much more time in enemy territory now, and I hoped MacArthur would return to Manila soon. The crew and I had just completed a roundtrip from the northwest coast of Siquijor Isle where a P-51 pilot, 2nd Lt. Robert Guttlieb, was wounded in a crash. We had gone out to bring him back. Today a patrol plane searching along the southeastern shore of northern Palawan had been in contact with a downed Navy FM-2 pilot and promised to return in a few days. We were sent out to find him and headed west toward Mindoro to pick up our P-38 escort.
“Playmate One, this is Possum White, is that you directly in front of us?”
“Affirmative, Possum White, how many hours fuel do you have in a slow cruise, over?”
Our Wildcats had a good four and a half hours flight time, and we had reasoned that gave us an extra hour to play with, so we continued west and sighted Palawan in only an hour. The Japanese held island of Dumaran was ahead as well, and I wanted to cling to the coast and make for a point of land where we expected to start the serious searching. Almost instantly there was a flashing mirror, a nice surprise that called for a closer look. A winding, muddy river lay ahead, flowing down out of the mountains and into the calmer shoreline waters, creating a large, brownish colored area. My first impulse was to land close to our objective in the smoother seas, but some instinct pressed me to head for the choppier, blue water farther out. Of course, a full stall landing was now required and a much longer taxi toward shore. A strong crosswind was blowing and “Frisco Gal” was shipping quite a bit of water, even with bilges on high. Just ahead, I could see the demarcation line of the muddy river water and continued eyeing this area suspiciously, when suddenly she went aground! We abruptly swung into the wind and applied full power. She scratched her way free. An unlucky landing there might have put us on that delta for the remainder of the war. Circling was just complicating things, the bilges were not keeping up, so there was no alternative but to shut down and restart later. A canoe was already well on its way toward us.
Ensign Babb looked for the entire world like a civilian, even a tourist, sitting hatless with a borrowed white island shirt. Behind him, puffing on a large stogie and wearing an oversized, white Panama hat, was the oddest looking character the Pacific has probably ever produced. Babb told us his sidekick was a beachcomber and that they had nicknamed him “Minnie the Moocher” for his propensity for procuring free meals. Minnie claimed he was a prewar millionaire with a large schooner and several estates here and there around the islands. “He hung on to me like a leech,” Babb continued. “Seemed to want to use me to further his own prestige. We’d pass a house and he’d say, ‘Let’s stop here!’ and we’d go in and try for a meal. Then he’d talk your arm off.”
At this point, the large swells were threatening the transfer of our passenger and then abruptly, the PBY stopped bobbing. Another sandbar. This made getting him alongside easier, but each successive swell would lift the plane higher onto the sandbar. Eventually, we were going to be sitting high and dry, hoping for a tide.
Consequently, there was little time for rewarding the natives this trip, the crew pitching a few packs down to them and clearing them out for start up. As soon as we were warm, I began working the inboard engine and when a swell would lift us a bit, would give it another burst of power and move a little. In this way, she inched out into the deeper water adjacent to the bar, and we wasted no time getting away from it.
Babb now startled us with information that another pilot who had been trying to make it to a guerrilla radio station was somewhere further down the beach. It would be a long trip, taxiing clear around the point while sweeping with binoculars as some natives and even small villages slid by along the way. It was slow going, and it seemed sensible to get the fighters involved dragging the beach farther up the shoreline. One of them spotted a signal flare in a cove ahead, but we were only creeping now in a heavy thunderstorm. Visibility was nasty. Somehow they saw us first and had already maneuvered a small sloop well out in our direction.
The passenger, Lt. James Fallon, was anything but what we were expecting. He was not the other FM2 pilot, but a PBM (Mariner seaplane) flyer, who had been shot down on the night of Dec. 26 by the same task force that Lt. Ellenberger had strafed in his P47. Furthermore, he said his entire crew of ten was safe and sound. The Navy had been searching in vain for these guys since that night and was gravely concerned. “What about the other FM2 p
ilot?” I asked.
“Lt. Hobson? He’s on his way down from the radio station right now and should be here in no more than forty-five minutes.”
A guerrilla officer in the canoe with Fallon was a small shriveled man sporting a Fu Manchu mustache. He was obviously very happy, “All my boys go home now!” he said with a twinkle in his eye. He went on to say he had three Japanese prisoners, all officers, and would greatly appreciate it if we could deliver them to MacArthur for him. His companion in the canoe, another guerrilla fighter, said with a smile that if we would just let him have one of our .30 caliber machine guns, he would get us fifteen more in one hour. I politely thanked him, but sixteen extra passengers would be quite enough. I decided it was time to shut down the engines again. This was going to take a while.
The fighters still lingering overhead were beginning to worry about fuel, so they tried to arrange for some fighter relief to meet us on the way back, but couldn’t raise the base on voice. We dismissed them and they darted low, tipping wings and wishing us good luck, and then headed for home.
The canoe continued back and forth, delivering survivors two or three at a time. They were a tired but happy bunch. Now on board, in addition to Babb and Fallon, were Ensign Robert Harper, 1st pilot; Lt. (jg) Erhard Runner, navigator; James Kupper, AMM 1/c; Francis Thierer, ARM1/c; James Walters ARM3/c; Eldred Enloc, AMM 3/c; Raymond Gorea, AOM2/c; Herbert Wells S1/c; Royal Duplontis, S1/c; and Melvin Frank S/1c.
A sloop carrying the Jap prisoners arrived, a sad looking trio all stripped to the waist. They seemed perfectly willing to cooperate and really were no trouble, although it could have been because they were surrounded by carbines and pistols. We sat them side by side on the ammunition container in the blister, and an officer and two of the survivors were detailed to watch them.
The canoe made its way to the sloop for the last of the men, Hobson, and Fallon, who had returned to help with the prisoners. There was a brief delay when the shuttle craft sunk beneath them and needed to be re-inflated, but before long, everyone was on board and the anchor was weighed. The guerrilla officer smiled and saluted as the heavily laden plane pulled away.
The engines had fired nicely and I maneuvered around to gain a better heading with plenty of takeoff room. We were loaded, twenty-five in all, and the passengers all moved aft, with instructions to come quickly forward once she was “on the step.” The plane shuddered, edged forward, and slowly staggered into the air as Roger plotted a course for home.
It was late afternoon and light was becoming a problem. It seemed it was always a race with darkness. We decided not to go by way of Mindoro and dispensed with the fighters, preferring to head directly across Panay, trying to stay low enough to avoid being detected by Jap positions along the way. While we weren’t exactly out of danger, the scenery seemed particularly stunning in the dwindling light, the leafy deep ridges of the mountains with rivers forming intricate networks and patterns as they emptied into the viridescent shallows of the small bays. A rich wide rainbow showed itself, gracing us with a complete circle instead of the familiar arch that is usually interrupted by land or clouds. Ahead, the big round island of Jintotolo was capped by the picturesque little white lighthouse on the central heights. It overlooked the lush farmlands with their herds of cattle and horses, and signified that we were nearing home. It was a long day, but a good one! First Radioman Lambert sent a message ahead advising them of thirteen survivors and requesting a Marine guard to escort our three Japanese prisoners of war.
He took particular delight in “Rogering” the base when they slowly repeated our message to him, then still sounding puzzled, asked, “Playmate One, I thought you said thirteen pickups and three prisoners, could you confirm that?” But when we landed about fifteen minutes before dark, there was a launch with three armed Marines waiting for us alongside our buoy.
This night required a little medicinal alcohol. It took some doing, though. In Espirito we had managed to stockpile a sizable beverage cache, but now that we were aboard ship, regulations required that our liquor be confiscated and stored in the ship’s locker (we wondered if it was actually the ‘Captain’s locker’) until such time as we should have shore leave. In lieu of the “job well done” accolade, I persuaded them to allow a special dispensation, and before long my personal bottle of Scotch appeared and we all happily retired for the evening.
A few hours later, “General Quarters” sounded and an orderly scramble ensued, all of us heading to our battle stations. It was a total blackout, and there were easily a million more stars overhead than usual. The Tangiers guns were all trained skyward as the radar screen rotated wildly on the mast. We whispered among ourselves. Here we were aboard this enormous steel battle machine and we were whispering so the enemy wouldn’t hear us. I searched the sky but nothing moved. Apparently, the radar scope was watching what we couldn’t see, and with a colossal explosive burst, all hell broke loose! On all sides, a complete 360-degree panorama of fire strikes, it was like a thousand ships had decided to pull the trigger all at once, creating this one singular, thirty-second detonation. It was deafening. If something was up there, any evidence was by now surely obliterated by this array of heavy guns and newly acquired rockets. We had come a long way since Pearl.
Mac Attack
VPB-54 was on the move again, at least for a short while. This time it was north to the Lingayen Gulf and a much smaller but familiar tender, the Orca, a converted destroyer escort. Orca had recently had several run-ins with a group of Japanese buccaneers bent on blowing up the ship by planting explosives under the fan-tail. Refusing to surrender, the attempts continued until this bunch was finally dispatched by the ship’s .20 mm cannon.
For the next few days, I shuttled between Leyte and our new home near Lingayen. There was less formality here and that agreed with our small band.
A little island was but a stone’s throw from our berth, and it was in need of a party, primarily because our access to the necessary provisions had improved. Gewin suggested we visit the galley for some olives, and they scrounged up a gallon jug with about an inch of the things in the bottom. As the volleyball game got under way, we broke out the refreshments, added a fifth of gin and some vermouth to the olive jug and voila — the tyrannosaurus of martinis! It was a near bottomless jug and of course, it was necessary to freshen up the gin until the last of those pesky olives was gone, some time considerably after the game had fizzled out. It was about then that Gewin and I decided to sit down in the surf to recuperate. The cool water was soothing, and we both quickly conked out. Moments before Davy Jones claimed us, Willie happened by and, taking hold of our shirt collars, dragged us up to higher ground. Later on, I awoke with a well-earned headache, lying fitfully in my upper bunk. Del saved the day, arriving a few minutes later with a life saving canteen of ice-cold water.
The next morning, I was assigned to the mail plane. This was an arduous task under the best of circumstances and these were not even close. I was probably in no condition to fly, but this was war! I guessed I had no choice. I gripped the yoke as the teeny waves of the gulf bounced the PBY around like a toy, and then gaining speed, the choppy stuff nearly finished me off just as we finally got airborne. I steeled myself as I reached for what we called “autopilot” — three cone shaped knobs on the instrument panel and a long stick with a rubber cup on the end. I sort of invented the long stick part to eliminate the strain of bending forward and named it the “no strain pilot stick.” Within a couple of hours, the device had given me enough relief that I was reasonably recovered. Lesson learned.
Japanese resistance was still strong south of the gulf and throughout much of Luzon. We had Mindoro Island now and continued to pound away at enemy forces in preparation for an invasion of the stronghold in Manila, where some 20,000 Japanese troops were waiting. The Lingayen Gulf was now a critical staging area for supplies and its location on the north end of Luzon gave us positions above and below, effectively straddling Manila. The squadron headed south again to
Leyte and the USS Currituck, our tender there.
The tenders typically had an array of buoys to secure our PBYs. Between the rescues and parking arrangements, we were spending much more time in the salt water than our planes were accustomed to, and even with routine washing of our aircraft, there were sometimes problems. On Tacloban airstrip over in Leyte, a PBY came in for a runway landing only to discover one of the landing gear was locked up, causing the plane to dramatically pull to one side. The wing began brushing the parked planes all along the strip, finally hitting one B-24 and ripping the glass bubble housing of its gun turret cleanly off the top of the fuselage and spinning, one at a time, each of the four props. As it continued along, the Cat racked up varying degrees of damage to each plane, depending on their size and specifics. From that time on, when landing on a runway after a sea takeoff it became our habit to bounce once and have the blister guys peer down at the wheels to make sure they were spinning before settling in for the landing.
There was nowhere to go for shore leave during our stay on the ship, but Leyte airstrip with all its military planes was clearly visible and beckoned. I knew my younger brother, Mac, was based somewhere on Leyte in an Army medic outfit, so I requested permission on my scheduled day off to go ashore on the mail launch and try to locate him. Permission was granted.
Once on the island, I began asking around, beginning with some MP’s and checking at the motor pools. Bit by bit, I pieced together a direction and thumbed my way along from jeep to armored vehicle and from base to muddy jungle road. Finally, through the trees in the distance was the barely distinguishable big red cross of his M.A.S.H. unit.
At that point it wasn’t too tough locating him. And then, there it was. His unmistakable grin lighting up the camp as I appeared unexpectedly across from the mess tent. There was plenty of hearty hand shaking and backslapping, much to the surprise of everyone around, a Navy flier in an Army camp, after all.