Reluctant Warriors (29 page)

After making radio contact with US forces at Bosnik, the four-ship squadron proceeded
directly for Noemfoor. Reed was in the van, and the three Fletchers followed in line:
Kaulk, Paulley,
and then
Bindle
.

By 0615, they were making fifteen knots and about six miles short of the nearly round
eleven-mile-wide island. Suddenly, a shell jarred
Reed
as it hit some five hundred
yards to starboard.

Battle Stations sounded throughout the squadron. Sailors jumped to their feet and
scrambled to their places. Rodgers and Cashion went to the edge of the bridge, only
to be greeted by another, and nearer, miss.

“What in the hell was
that?
” Cashion complained. “They must have some coastal cannon
hidden behind one of those little hills we saw on the map.”

“What's the height of those hills?” Rodgers asked.

“Four hundred feet?” Cashion guessed.

“That's all jungle though, isn't it? Those shells are at least five inchers. It's
hard to drag guns like that around in terrain like that. I don't see it.”

As the day lightened, minute by minute, other shells exploded around the destroyers
in intervals of about fifteen seconds.

“Look at that color in the water from that last one, red,” said Cashion. “Those are
naval cannon. The army's not going to use dye markers so you can tell one gun from
another.”

Rodgers agreed, watching another shell hit near
Paulley
.

“Yeah, a blue color on that last one. I'll bet they're coming from one of those two
bays we saw on the map. What was that one to the southwest, Roembi or Roemoi? Another
bay on the east side.”

“They have a cruiser in one of those bays,” Cashion guessed. “Let me get ‘Guns' on
the phone and see what Lanaman says.”

He walked toward the phone and in a few seconds was talking to the officer one level
above. “Don, what's the direction of that fire?” Then he relayed the answer to Rodgers.
“Sir, he thinks it's northwest.”

“They have a cruiser in that bay on the southwest side of the island!” the squadron
commander said, lifting his eyebrows. “They must have a spotter somewhere on one
of those hills.”

The shells came closer, with geysers erupting seventy feet in the air, well above
the tallest masts on the American ships. Every time one came close to one of his
ships, Rodgers winced a little, thinking of the underwater damage such a concussion
might cause.

“Get on the TBS [radio voice system] to the guys,” he ordered. In a minute, a signalman
handed him the phone.

“Guys, I want to pull out of here before they put holes in us. Sam and I think they
have a cruiser, a light cruiser, in that bay to the southwest of the island. I want
all of us to execute a 180 turn to port in fifteen seconds from now. Mark! ‘Dude,'
that will put you in the van. Head out at, ah, 100 degrees. We will follow you.”

The little squadron smartly made its turn and headed to the southeast, rapidly drawing
out of range.

“Well, sir,” Cashion said, “That ship wasn't there yesterday according to the fly-boys.
Here's the chart of the island. See, Roemboi Bay. ”

The two men talked for several minutes. Then Rodgers turned to a sailor. “Ask Lieutenant
Pruitt to come out here.”

Executive officer Weldon “Skip” Pruitt came in from the plot room behind the bridge
where he was in charge of navigation, plotting the courses of all American and hostile
ships as well as planes on a big wall chart.

“Skip, figure this out for us,” Rodgers began. “We need a setup. Where are we, right
here?” He pointed.

“Yes, sir.”

“Assume that they have a cruiser in Roemboi Bay, here. Assume that they shove off
right now, knowing that we'll call in planes to blow them up if they don't. Assume
that they already have steam up, because they'd be crazy not to, even though we saw
no smoke. They must go north until they clear the New Guinea mainland to the west
here.” He pointed again. “After that, assume that they head west to Sorong, Ceram,
or some place like that in Indonesia. Assume that they build to, ah, twenty knots
as soon as they can. It'll take them a while to light up all of their boilers and
build steam. We want a course and speed to go around the island the other way, up
the east side, and meet them north of Noemfoor. I'm guessing we have a little farther
to go, though not much.”

As he spoke, Rodgers displayed mannerisms that had become his trademarks. When making
a detailed point, he would frequently point his fingers at the chest of the person
he was speaking to, with his right hand
fashioned as though he were holding a baseball.
Then, when he finished his point, he would flop his right hand over so that the palm
was up. It was the same motion baseball pitchers have made for a hundred years to
indicate to the catcher that their next pitch would be a curveball, that they wished
to “turn the ball over.”

“But, Skip,” he continued, “here's the important part. We can't wind up ahead of
these people, or even with them. We think it's likely that they've brought a convoy
of reinforcements up during the night and that this cruiser has some destroyers with
her. So I want to come out behind them. I want a stern chase. If they're too strong
for us, say a load of destroyers with this cruiser, they could put us all in the
water in a hurry if we come out ahead of them and they're between Humbolt Bay and
us. We sure can't stand up to broadsides from a cruiser. We must be able to get out
if things get too hot for us. I am betting we have more speed than they, so they
can't catch us, but we can catch them. Give me a plot for that.”

“Yes, sir.”

Within five minutes, Pruitt returned. He was carrying the map, with a course suggestion
drawn on it.

“Sir, we're here now. We've passed the eastern edge of Noemfoor. If we take up zero
degrees now, taking us directly north at twenty-seven knots, it'll bring us abreast
of the north edge of the island in about forty minutes. From what you say, the enemy
will take on a track of about 340 degrees and be, say, fifteen miles ahead. Of course,
the more northerly they go, if they take up 0 degrees, the closer they'll be to us
when we both clear the island. But it's hard to see that they'll be closer than ten
miles.”

“Okay. Skip, thanks. Sam, you okay with that?”

“Sure, we have to try something. That's good.”

Rodgers nodded. Cashion went to the phone in the bridge and informed the other captains.
The little squadron took up the course and speed recommendations, and Cashion and
Rodgers spent the next two-thirds of an hour discussing possibilities.

“I agree that there's certainly no logic in them staying in that bay with that damn
cruiser, sir,” Cashion said.

“Yes, exactly,” Rodgers said, running his hand over his face, which never would be
shaven that day. “Unless they want to sacrifice that ship for the defense of the
island and try to camouflage it so the fly-boys can't see it. We never did see any
smoke.” He shrugged.

“I can't imagine they intend to do that,” Cashion theorized. “They must suspect that
we intend to invade, but for all they know Admiral Crutchley and his cruisers are
right behind us. A light cruiser wouldn't hold up his people for twenty minutes,
camouflaged or not. No place on that scrap heap is high enough to hide any kind of
a ship for long. They must have brought up reinforcements, like you said.”

“Well, we'll find out soon enough. Tell me what kind of hitting power they might
have on that cruiser.”

They spent the next few minutes discussing the hitting power of the various calibers
of Japanese cruiser guns: 5.5-inch, 5.9-inch, and six-inch guns.

As they came near the northern edge of the island, radar began to pick up the images
of ships on the other side. Cashion got the first report and went back to Rodgers.

“Sir, radar thinks there are three of them, no idea of size.”

“Okay.”

In the next five minutes, both forces crested the northernmost point of the island,
and the signalman approached the squadron commander.

“All right, Billy.” Rodgers smiled at the young man, now all of nineteen.

“Sir, it's a light cruiser and two destroyers. ‘Guns' thinks it's a six-inch cruiser.”

Rodgers interrupted before the boy could finish. “What's the range?”

“About twenty-four thousand yards, sir.”

“Well, Sam, it's no load of destroyers,” Rodgers said, obviously pleased.

“Yes, sir, this is what we hoped for. It's a bigger cruiser than what we would have
liked, but don't you want to tackle them?”

“Sure! We are ordered to attack any force mousing around this island, so long as
they're
not
superior to us. These people are not superior to us. Besides, now that
they've seen us, if we let them go, they could sneak back with more
ships and reinforcements
anytime they got around to it. It could ruin the invasion timetable. What time is
it?”

“It's 1035, sir.”

Rodgers turned to Cashion and kindly touched his shoulder. “As usual, Sam, I want
everyone in the command to have his lunch before we open up.”

“Yes, sir!”

Cashion went to the phone and communicated with the other captains.

Men stood silently on the decks of the American ships.The fleeing enemy was in full
view in the distance, and sober looks came upon their faces. Some busied themselves
with petty tasks, but many stopped and stared. What they had feared so often during
the long periods of tedium now struck them hard. Their fragile hold on life, and
their helplessness against the heartless power of weapons, came to them all too clearly.
They felt like insignificant specks on the surface of the Earth. A well-placed shell,
an unknown element, a single misstep, could take their lives in a split second. Nothing
in their past seemed to count for anything now. All of the things that had protected
them from infancy, a mother's love, a father's strength, what they had learned, and
what skills they had built, now seemed absent, pushed away.

Some could not keep the fear from their faces. Each looked inward, searching his
heart. Many of the youngest men, just kids really, who had been in high school a
year or so before, thought of their mothers, home. Most thought of their wives, sweethearts,
and children, wondering if they would ever see them again. Those who had no one,
the older men especially, worried over their ship and what would befall her. Their
gaze did not last long. In a second or two or ten, they stopped staring and went
about their work.

What occurred to many was another emotion: pride. They thought of their training,
their leaders, their weapons, and their ships—the things that had absorbed so many
endless hours, days, months, and changed them so much. And they had the competitive
zeal of young men who itch to be in the contest, to win. For some, it was easy to
think of battle in the same way they had thought of a high school football game,
as a mere contest, even though the issue was now life and death. Most would have
agreed with the old salt
on the
Kaulk
, who mumbled under his breath, “I guess it's
time.” Many took a second to pray, feeling awed by the stakes and their frailty.
Many sought forgiveness for their sins.

While the slowly converging forces were quite equal on paper, the truth was that
the Americans had every advantage. Only the chance of battle held any hope at all
for the Japanese. The Americans had superior leadership, five men who worked together
as well as any on Earth, innovative men who would find an enemy's weaknesses and
exploit them. They had more experienced crews and better quality ships with the Fletchers
and the big-gunned
Reed
. And they had the best naval weapon in the world, the five-inch,
.38-caliber dual-purpose main gun.

One of their advantages, though as yet unknown, was the fire control officer on
Kaulk
,
Lieutenant Frederick C. Harner. Looking back on this day, some in the squadron would
conclude that the young officer's knack in aiming the five-inch guns amounted to
witchcraft. All four fire control directors in the squadron, all young lieutenants,
used the Model 37 Fire Control System present on all US destroyers and cruisers.
But Harner had much more success with his guns than the others. With his two forward
firing guns out of the squadron's ten, Harner was able to make as many hits as the
rest of the force combined! In time, all were to see that it was actually skill,
a sixth sense with weaponry that was enough to make him a future chief of the Bureau
of Ordnance.

A stern chase was always a long chase. This one was no exception. As the American
ships built up steam and speed and blacker smoke billowed out of their funnels, it
soon became obvious that they were about three knots faster than the Japanese. This
gave the squadron commander just enough time to organize his force as he wished.
After about twenty minutes conferring with Cashion, Rodgers ordered him to get the
others on the TBS. In a few seconds, the other three captains were all listening,
and Rodgers came to the phone.

“You three there?”

All three acknowledged.

“This is pretty much what we want. We do
not
want to follow these
people in line.
They're likely to pump torpedoes into us if we make it easy for them. Let's fan out
in a sort of crescent formation with C.T. out the farthest to port, and next, Dude,
you two fairly close to each other. You two decide how close.
Reed
to starboard.
Those are the two sides of the crescent, each side of it about a thousand yards on
either side of the base course of that cruiser.