Cape Bon, November 8, 1942
PT-109 had a new skipper. The old skipper was recovering in a hospital near Bone from an appendectomy. The new LT was tall, lanky and confident as could be despite only arriving in theatre two days ago. Eight boats from the squadron were trawling the waters off of Cape Bon. Fires ashore had been lit by bombers and the combined Army Group artillery groups where the 1st and 8th Army had started to pound German and Italian hard points. Tunis was still a shambles with most of an Italian infantry division dug into the colonial port and refugees streaming out of the city to Allied lines. Most of the remaining Axis army however was on Cape Bon.
The wooden slasher slowly moved through the water at eleven knots. The other three boats in the division were spread in a line two miles long and they continued their patrol heading north and then east again. A sharp eyed look-out pushed his elbow into his new skipper’s ribs --
“Bumps, Bearing 340”
Five sets of eyes strained. Glasses were raised and heads slightly turned. Soon, two bumps became three. A light flashed off the stern of the torpedo boat and the rest of the division began to assemble on PT-109. The twin fifties and the sole twenty millimeter gun were manned, ammunition made ready as the four boats accelerated. The other division of the squadron had begun to sweep wide.
Eleven knots became eighteen knots. Soon three bumps became six. Two of those bumps came into focus as Italian torpedo boats, actually very light destroyers, came out to meet the American attackers. Star shells illuminated the four attacking coastal torpedo boats. By now, there was no need for radio silence and calls were being made to British and American destroyer divisions to cut off the convoy’s retreat. The four small merchant ships increased speed and their guns also began to fire star shells, quickly illuminating the flanking division.
Water spouts erupted around PT-109 as the engines whined and the screws dug into the water, pushing the boat forward at thirty eight knots. She began to wiggle, she skidded and tightly cornered into and out of turns, chasing splashing while still trying to close the range. Her four torpedo tubes were ready but they were far out of effective range. Steel splinters embedded themselves into the hull after a near miss. One of her companions started to make smoke to hide behind and the LT drove his boat into the enveloping smoke screen before emerging out of the far side on a straight course in.
By now the Italian escorts were split. One was fighting the diversion division while the other’s four inch gun was banging away at the flanker force. PT-109 still had not fired yet, the Oerlikon was theoretically within range while the Brownings were still out of range but the odds of hitting anything besides the blue sea were only slightly better than winning a hand with an eight high. They pressed in even as the escort’s anti-aircraft guns began to fire, sending bright tracers plunging into the sea. Less than 1,000 yards from the escort, PT-109 and PT-162 started their torpedo runs. The heavy Brownings began to chatter even as twenty millimeter shells walked from the sea into the hull. Leaks were not slowing the attack down. The Italian escort had started to turn away, attempting to open the range while decreasing the weight of fire heading towards her attackers.
Six hundred yards away, a few strings of bullets had hit the Italian escort before the replacement Skipper ordered the torpedoes to fire. In seconds, the gyros were stabilizing and then the black powder charges kicked the four torpedoes into the water. The second tube on the starboard side had a grease fire that one of the machine gunners needed to abandon his gun in order to extinguish. Even as the torpedoes began their run, the boat turned and every single horsepower available in the three engines went into the screws. The smoke generator started to pour smoke behind the fleeing boat as shells were still boiling the water around her. PT-162 joined her compatriot in the middle of a smoke screen.
Suddenly a tremendous noise was heard, a torpedo had struck home and exploded. The gunfire from the Italian escort had stopped and when it resumed, it was only from a few anti-aircraft mounts and not the heavy four inch gun. The other two boats of the division pressed in on their torpedo runs. Even as they were breaking through the smoke screen, all the crew members aboard PT-109 checked in; five were wounded, none too bad. Four had various splinters from the damaged hull in their arms and legs while the fifth, a gunner’s mate lost a chunk of his thigh to shell fragment. A tourniquet had stopped the bleeding and morphine had quieted his moans as the patrol boat began the second phase of the action, a hunt for the convoy’s merchant ships.
