Reluctant Warriors (30 page)

“Pete, we want you and
Kaulk
to be dead astern of that cruiser. That will give us
the crescent or arc. You follow her wherever she goes, but lag behind the two sides
eight hundred or so yards. The three of us will conform to your course changes just
as you conform to hers.”

One of them began to interrupt, but Rodgers continued.

“No, just listen for a minute. That'll put the wings or sides about two thousand
yards apart. C.T., Dude, shoot only at those two destroyers. We know they'll turn
and launch torpedoes against us. But with us fanned out, Sam and I don't think they
have much of a chance of hitting a thirty-nine-foot-wide destroyer with a torpedo
from six miles off.”

The men all agreed.

“
Kaulk
and
Reed
are going to tackle this Tiger cruiser. Pete,
Reed
is going to ‘front'
that thing for you as best we can. We're going to fire at him as fast as we can and
put on a good show. With the rest of us weaving and them weaving, which will spoil
everyone's aim some, they might just forget about you trailing behind. Unless they
fire at you, don't weave. You should have the best chance to make hits.”

Rodgers continued. “Here's the last part. If that thing turns to give us some broadsides,
I want all of us to converge on her and ignore those destroyers. If we don't, she
could sink one of us in a hurry. So, let's try this arc setup. If it's not working,
I'm sure you'll tell me. Then we can try something else. Open fire when you want.”

Again all three men concurred, and Rodgers hung up.

“Sam, what's the range now?”

Cashion answered as he hung up the phone to “Guns.” “Eighteen thousand.”

“That's too far. When do you want to open fire?”

“Sixteen thousand would be good,” Cashion said.

“Okay.”

At 1252, the Japanese beat the Americans to the punch when the light cruiser,
Akasi
,
opened fire. In two minutes, the two Japanese destroyers,
Mishi
and
Shimia
, opened
fire. They were still out of range, and the shells fell about half a mile short.
Reed opened fire at 1308, at some sixteen thousand yards. The Fletchers followed
within a few minutes.

Japanese fire from the cruiser came close in the beginning, twice straddling
Paulley
and coming reasonably close to
Bindle
. When it became obvious to the enemy that
Paulley
and
Bindle
were firing at the two destroyers, the cruiser shifted over to
Reed
.

Nevertheless, despite their preponderance of shell power and advantage in range,
the Japanese only hit
Reed
once during the entire engagement, at 1415, when a dud
hit the deck in front of “A” turret.

Rodgers and the others were knocked to the deck. Amazingly, the debris from the impact
hurt no one. As unflappable as always, the squadron commander looked down carefully
on the smoking hole in the bulkhead. He grinned and ordered a course change. But
none of the subsequent six-inch shells landed within two hundred yards.

Reed
's fire was furious enough that the crew felt it throughout the big destroyer.
Sailors standing on the deck bounced several inches high with each report of the
four forward guns. Metal trays in the crew's mess clanged, and the china in the officer's
mess clattered.

It didn't take long for the heat of the tropics to exhaust the men in the turrets
and one deck below in the shell hoists. It was ninety-five degrees outside on this
afternoon. Inside the ship, it was even hotter. Despite the ship's speed, temperatures
reached 140 degrees in these very confined areas. Men could only stand up to it for
about an hour before they fainted.

“Sir,” Cashion told Rodgers, “we can't continue like this.”

“Why, what's on your mind?”

“We're expending ammo at a very fast clip, and we have gun crewmen passing out every
few minutes or so. If we come to a crunch here, we don't want to have our efficiency
impaired.”

“What do you recommend?”

“Let's fire six rounds a minute. That will give us hours' worth of shells. And tell
the guys to go to a regular system of rotating the crews.”

Rodgers nodded, and Cashion passed the word around. Still, the crews continued to
approach exhaustion. The men who fainted, caked in dirt and grease, were carried
out on the deck by their fellows, where they were cooled off and rehydrated. Then
most went right back into the turrets. Some passed out two, even three times but
were still ready to go back in.

While all of the other ships on both sides gyrated continuously in their movements,
Kaulk
did not. She began to hit
Akasi
almost from the beginning of the engagement.
The crew could see the hits through the Model 37 Fire Control System. But the range
was still great enough that the hits weren't visible through binoculars on the bridge
of any of the American ships, and this caused much soul-searching.

At about 1425, Rodgers got Reed's young fire director on the phone. “Don, are you
hitting that thing?”

Lieutenant Lanaman replied. “Sir, I believe we've hit her at least once. Several
near misses.”

“What about
Kaulk?
” Rodgers wanted to know.

“Sir, I have no idea what they're doing that I'm not, but I think they've put three
or four shots into her.”

“Really!” Rodgers smiled.

“Yes, sir. And maybe, ah, seven–eight near misses. Sir, there's no doubt that we
are
hitting her!”

“Thanks,” Rodgers said with a shrug, hanging up the phone and relaying the news to
Cashion. “Well, Sam, are we not piercing the armor on that thing or what?”

Cashion, who had been constantly looking through his binoculars, had no answer. “I
have no idea. I haven't seen a hit yet. If we are hitting her, why
aren't we seeing
anything? If our stuff 's just bouncing off, we're in big trouble. Maybe she has
more armor than we thought.”

Meanwhile, Trediger and Hennessey were conducting their own battle on the other side
of the crescent. At 1502, they called their commander, who had been listening to
them talk to each other on the TBS for quite a while.

“Sir, it's C.T. Dude and I want to know if we can cross each other's wakes.”

“Why?”

“Sir, to throw off their fire, confuse the hell out of them, you know.”

“Sure. It
does
increase the chance of them putting a torpedo into you. But do whatever
you want, so long as you stick to the original deal. Have they hit you?”

“No, sir.”

“Are you hitting them?”

“We have one hit on each destroyer at least, a lot of near misses. We haven't slowed
them up yet though. You're obviously doing better than we are.”

“Really! We can't see that from here at all.”

“Sir, you're hitting that cruiser for sure,” Trediger contended.

Hennessey interrupted. “I think we have the best angle. We can't tell which one of
you is hitting her, you or
Kaulk
, but we think you've made five or six good hits;
maybe nine to ten near misses. You guys are right on!” He paused for a second or
two. Then he added, excitedly, “My people think they hit that trailing destroyer
again!”

Trediger came on again. “Sir, you might watch yourself now. Those destroyers are
turning some to the east, probably launching torpedoes.”

“Okay,” Rodgers responded. “Let's wait on you guys crossing and head directly toward
them, to reduce the angle and present a smaller silhouette.”

All three captains answered, “Yes, sir.”

Torpedoes did begin to come in within a few minutes. The six-thousand-pound, steam-driven
Model 93 24-inch-diameter monsters soon came streaking toward the Americans at nearly
fifty knots. Men watched from
the decks as the speedsters zoomed menacingly by the
squadron, their wakes bubbling. Only one came very close, a hundred yards off
Paulley's
port side.

As the battle continued, with
Kaulk
trailing directly behind the cruiser, her rear
turrets never came to bear. But with the other American destroyers bobbing and weaving,
their rear turrets did occasionally have the opportunity to shoot. Then, when the
ships headed over on a new course, the rear gunners would lose their angle and curse
their luck.

The enemy, with less speed, had no chance to deviate much from their base course
and was not able to bring their forward guns to bear at all. Nevertheless, they did
weave slightly, and thus their accuracy suffered. The two Japanese destroyers made
three hits during the engagement, one on
Paulley
and two on
Bindle
.

On
Paulley
, the 4.7-inch, forty-two-pound shell hit aft. It glanced off the “Y ”
turret, which was not in use at the time. The explosion did no damage to the ship
but killed five bluejackets who were on deck.

The two hits on
Bindle
were a little more serious. The first exploded against the
radar mast, destroying it.The second hit in the aft of the ship above the engine
room. Luckily, the impact was mostly absorbed by gear on the deck.

The battle was entering its fourth hour. The shells that had been stacked in odd
places on the American decks had long been used up. The shells remaining in the forward
magazines were rapidly being depleted. This necessitated bringing shells from the
rear magazines. A continuous line of bluejackets, grunting in the heat, becoming
increasingly dirty and exhausted, spent the rest of the engagement manhandling the
fifty-four-pound projectiles forward.

By 1530, it was obvious that the Japanese cruiser fire was no longer coming close.
Rodgers and Cashion concluded that her control system must have been hit, which was
corroborated after the war. Still, the American shellfire seemed to have had no effect
on the enemy at all. There were no detectable fires on the ships, their speed remained
at about thirty-three knots, and they continued their slight maneuvering like cagey
boxers.

This continued until almost 1600, when a terrific explosion lit up on the cruiser.
Many men heard it as well, a series of almost simultaneous blasts that erupted in
a great orange ball, creating a large fire easily visible from the American ships
without binoculars. The pent-up frustration of the Americans produced a great cheer.
After the war, members of
Akasi
's crew claimed that their flagship's deck had been
a shambles by this time.

The Americans had closed the range to fifteen thousand yards, and their accuracy
continued to improve. They had made ten hits on
Akasi
so far. While the inch-thick
deck armor protected the ship's vitals, twisted metal was everywhere. The shell that
caused the explosion struck amidships as torpedoes were on the deck being reloaded
into tubes. Some of the Torpex explosive detonated, blowing a massive hole in the
deck and destroying some engineering spaces below. Immediately,
Akasi's
speed fell
off and she turned to port, seriously wounded.

At 1601, Rodgers looked up to see the same young signalman hurrying toward him from
the radar room one deck below.

“Billy, what's up?”

“Sir, radar has a target on the screen bearing north-northwest, almost eighteen miles.”

The young sailor walked off as Rodgers turned to Cashion.

“I sort of figured they wouldn't leave us alone, Sam.”

Cashion, half in the enclosed part of the bridge and half out the door on the wing,
was already picking up his binoculars. He took a long look.

“I can't see yet, too far.” He gave the glasses to a young sailor. “Son, your eyes
are young. You look.”

“Well, I'll wager that it's the cavalry,” Rodgers said.

The young sailor handed the glasses back to Cashion. “I can't tell, sir. I see two
bigger ships. I think five ships.”

The young signalman approached again.

“All right, Billy, what do they say now?” Rodgers asked.

“Sir, ‘Guns' has five ships. They think two are cruisers but can't tell what kind
yet.”

“Thanks.” Shrugging, Rodgers turned toward Cashion. “Sam, I would
sure like to polish
off this guy before his pals show up. Ask Chief Clark to come up here, and get the
guys on the horn.”

In a moment, the three captains were on the phone.

“I am sure you see we have guests,” Rodgers said, trying to keep his tone light.
“I want you three to forget about those destroyers and line up on the cruiser. She's
badly hurt.”

Hennessey jumped into the conversation. “Sir, we've just put two more shots into
the rear destroyer, and she has slowed. Let the two of us finish her off.”

“All right, make it count.”

Both Trediger and Hennessey signed off, leaving Pete Bernhard of
Kaulk
on the line.

“Pete,” Rodgers told him, “I want you and Sam to put everything you have into that
cruiser. We should get close soon.”

“Yes, sir!”

Chief Clark, who had been with Rodgers on
Mackson
and
Grand Rapids,
entered the bridge
and came over to the commander.

“Sorry to drag you up here, Frank. You've probably heard. They've turned the tables
on us. Five ships headed toward us. What have we been making, thirty-five knots?”

The completely gray, diminutive, sixty-five-year-old chief stood up straight. He
responded proudly: “We got 35.8 for you, sir!”

“Can we continue to make that kind of speed for maybe three, four hours more? Will
your geared turbines stand up to that? I know they're not as young as those on the
Fletchers.”

“Well, sir, probably, but no guarantees. We're out on the limb now trying to keep
up with the Fletchers. She's doing more than she should.”