The Ely miner., 1943-05-20
CHAPTER VII


landing party and been headed
home. One was dead, two were
wounded, and one of these two was
a Jap officer.
''BuIkeley had his As in his hand
when he jumped aboard, and i'm
mediately this Jap officer went to
his knees and began to call, Me
surrender!-Me surrender!
He was talking fast" said Bulke-
ley little grimly, land he had
his hands stuck up very high and
stiff, and that ought to stop the
myth about how Japs are too noble
ever to surrender. I put a line
around his shoulders and we hoisted
him aboard the "a boat.
Then began rummaging around
in that sludge for papers, brief cases
and mapsacks. collected, among
other things, the muster list of the
landing party and their operations
plan, before the boat sank beneath
me-Kelly pulled me into his boat
as the barge sank.
Zone of our men was standing
guard over the Jap captain with a
As, and the captain was meeling
with his eyes closed, waiting for
what he was sure would be the final
shot. He would hardly believe it
wasn't coming even when / wiped
the oil out Of his eyes and looked
at his head wound. When he found
we weren't going to shoot him, he
got little surly. The soldier asked
for cigarette, but when I offered
the Jap captain one, he shook his
head. Pretended he didn't speak
English, but when they got him back
to base, Intelligence found he spoke
plenty, but wouldn't tell them any,
thing"
"a queer thing had happened to
u.s." said Kelly. eve couldn't be
mad any more. Ten minutes before
we'd all been pumping steel, hating
every Jap in the world. Now we
were sorry for these two, they were
so abject, sitting there on the deck
little haf-pint guys-the youngest
boy In our crew looked like a full
grown man beside them. Our crew
all came up to take look. People
had been scared Of these guys? It
seemed impossible! Any man could
handle two of them in fight. There
they were, avoiding our eyes, and
yet we had to hand it to them
they'd put up damned good fight.
And our crew were very much i'm
pressed by how much a few men
can do if they're willing to die. The
little private who sat there putting
the cigarette had five holes in him.
''The ambulance doctor, glancing
at them, said he thought the Jap
officer would pull through, but that
there wasn't much chance for the
little private putting the cigarette.
Matter of fact, he died on the way
to the field hospital at Little Ba-
guio."
You never know when you're 60
ing to run into something" said
Bulkeley. "a couple of nights lat
er, I was riding the IL boat on
routine patrol off the west coast of
Bataan. When we began to get near
to Biniptican Point, the entrance to
Subic, we cut it down to one en-
gine, to make the least possible
noise. Just before ten o'clock, I
spotted Jap ship which seemed to
be lying to, near shore. We called
general quarters and began sneak
ing up on her-stil using only one
engine until we got within about
twenty-five hundred yards. Then we
gave everything the gun and roared
m-but almost into trap. Because
the Japs had prepared a little well
come for US, and this ship was
seemingly the bait to a trap-they
had floating entanglements and
wires in the water which might foul
our propeIlers and leave us a dead
target for their batteries. We saw
them just in time, and now we saw
they were trying to unbait the trap
because that big ship was showing
wake, trying to get under way.
''At thousand yards we fred our
first torpedo, and it had hardly hit
the water before the Jap ship opened
up on US with a pom-pom. They'd
been playing possum, waiting for
US. But what the hell-we wanted
to be sure we'd stolen the bait from
the trap, so we went right on in,
ahead of our own torpedo, and let
her have another at four hundred
yards. Then I gave hard rudder
and as we turned abeam of her, we
sprayed her decks with the SOS,
and every man on board picked up a
rifle and began pumping at her
just for the hell of it-and the Japs
were dishing it right back, but not
for many seconds. Because all of
a sudden-Baml It was our first tor
pedo striking home, and pieces of
wreckage fell In the water all around
us. The explosion gave US our first
clear look at her. She was-or had
been until then-a modern, stream
lined 6,000-ton auxiliary aircraft car
rier. Pretty expensive bait for any
trap.
But the Japs weren't through
with US. A battery of about half a
dozen 3-inch guns opened up on US
from the shore-by the flashes we
could see they were pumping it to US
as fast as they could load, and they
certainly took our minds off our
other troubles. So with big splashes
all around US, we executed that na-
val maneuver technically known as
getting the he'll out of there, swerv-
ing, weaving, avoiding those damned
wire nets, and trying to figure out
where the Japs would place their
next artillery shots, to make sure we
wouldn't be under them-giving her
every ounce of gas we could stuff
into those six thousand horses, until
we were out of range. I think the
Japs were getting tired of US MTB's.
and risked exposing that ship to rid