Let’s Throw A Round Robin And Invite The Japanese To A Mowdown
When the five surviving members of the Japanese torpedo boat that PT-188 killed, are fished out of the water, LT (s.g.) Burke “Bunt” Smith directs the men to an open area on the foredeck, in front of the still smoking muzzles of the forward forty-sixty. He assigns two of his own men, armed with Johnson auto- carbines, to watch the Japanese prisoners for any sign of treachery.
Imperial Japanese Navy CDR Yamada, Mitsui-the actual commander of the Japanese MTB squadron that PTORPron 23 had just destroyed in Indispensable Strait this night of 25 Aug 1942, his adjutant LT (s.g.) Hara, Aioki went forward meekly enough. The other three Japanese sailors, who appeared to be rates to Burke’s not too welled trained rank recognition eye, posted themselves protectively between their own officers and the two alien American tars who menaced the Japanese party with long arms. The three protectives were dangerously close to the PT-188’s cockpit, which causes Smith’s own exec, LT (j.g.) Paul “Shorty” Glaser to react. Glaser orders, SM1st Tim “Moose” Watkins and RM3rd Bob “Robbie” Tall Bear to give the three Japanese a pointed reminder of who was in charge aboard PT-188
Shorty, a non-nonsense Rhode Islander, and a champion short stop in college, hence the nickname, joined his own two men, climbing over the cockpit windscreen with practiced athletic ease. The three Japanese rates were apparently body guards for the two Japanese officers, which in Shorty’s mind did not speak well of the quality of a Japanese officer corps who needed bodyguards to protect them from their own crews. Shorty put down in the PT-188 journal later;
“The three goons, I confronted, were apparently petty officer muscle boys, 海軍暴力団 (Kai-gun-oi- yo-ku-san or IJN bully boys, McP.). They handled their officers like weasels handle duck, taking half steps, and stopping at certain points looking for any opportunity to turn the tables on us. I was not about to put up with it, so I yelled at them; "ねえ!弓の上にあなたの体を取得したり、我々はあなたを撃つと船外にあなたをダンプ!" ("Hey! Get your bodies on the bow or we shoot you and dump you overboard! "). The funny thing to me was that the bluff worked. I thought the Japanese were all about giving their lives for their emperor, but apparently these three must have not gotten the word. Anyway they figured I meant business. Maybe Moose poking the fat one with a bayonet was the clincher. They moved forward to join the two officers. We kept an eye on them just the same, but from that moment the five of them squatted down on their heels and gave us no more trouble."
PT-188s fishing of these men out of the water off of Tanatau Point was just the last act in a night long filled with confusion, terror, comedy and tragedy for the USN and the IJN as for the first time, the fast attack craft of both navies come to blows. At best; the action can be called fairly “conclusive” for the Americans as the Japanese, for once, neither demonstrate much in the way of anything that can be called proficiency or tactics or common sense in a night surface battle. Perhaps the saving grace for the outnumbered Americans in the Indispensable Strait during the bright as the inside of a lighted bowling alley brawl (It is a brilliant gibbous moon this night and for once the sea is as smooth as glass and not a cloud in the sky, so the Americans can see their adversaries for kilometers as the Japanese boats put out flame exhausts from their lousy muffled engines. McP.), is the painfully learned discovery that their IJN clumsy MTB counterparts are slower, much larger, cannot turn as tightly and for once come to the game with much worse weapons than their American PT boat counterparts. The Type 96 25/70 mm auto-cannon leaves a great deal to be desired as a gun armament when compared to the Bofors 40/60 mounted on the US boats. Similarly the 13.2 mm Type 93 heavy machine gun (What is with all the Type 93s? Sort of confusing is it not? McP.), seems markedly inferior to the Browning 20 mm auto-cannons that equip US boats.
As for the Type 91 torpedoes the Americans encounter and which the Japanese surprisingly try to use against the ELCO “wooden wonders”, the fish seem markedly faster than the Mark XIIIs the Americans bring to the fight, but then an ELCO at her 20 m/s can just outturn and outrun a Type 91 Japanese fish with ridiculous ease. The Mark XIIIs may only run at 15 m/s; but then the American fish seem to have much longer runs; 300 seconds as opposed to 100 seconds. The 45 cm Japanese fish packs a wallop when it explodes, though as PT-172 discovers as the Japanese fish that misses it explodes into the rock outcropping labeled Nggela Pile on the charts, chips the size of bowling balls rain down around the American PT boat. Fortunately none hit her. Then it comes down to the guns and a turning fight after the Japanese botch their head on firing pass. The Japanese fight in three trios and a pair, as if by divisions. The Americans fight in pairs and always scissor across each other in turns as they run circles around their Japanese opponents in mid channel. The fight drifts to the southeast starting near Ngella Sule and finally finishes when Baker Section of Apple Division makes a gun pass at the last surviving Japanese boat and rips its superstructure to bits with 40 mm fire, leader and buddy line ahead fashion parabolizing past the hapless Japanese victim at less than 500 meters range. The seven Japanese survivors burn like merry bonfires marking the battle’s trajectory from start to finish for the Australian coast-watchers and indigenous peoples who watch all the shooting from Siota and Kembe. One of the Australians, Mr. Hubert Klein, about 0500 26 August 1942 and quite drunk on fermented coconut milk, and located at Siota, gets on the radio and reports the fireworks. He ends his little chat with; “What the bloody hell are you Yanks doing out there? You’ve scared off the natives from putting out to fish. How the bleeding hell can I find out anything, if my fellas can’t canoe the channel?”
It seems this drunken missive is the first indication to anybody at Lunga Point or at Tulaghi that there is a fight in progress inside the Indispensible Strait or that the Japanese just might have been up to funny no-good business at the eastern end of the anchorage. OOPs.
So how did PT-188 and her 7 sisters wind up in the middle of a night battle with eleven No 10 and No. 11 IJN motor torpedo boats? Just how did the 25-year-old Rhode Island native, LT (s.g.) Burke “Bunt” Smith , end up off the coast of Florida Island, skipper of an 24.4 meter wooden boat loaded with 11,500 liters of 100-octane aviation gasoline and that bristles with weapons?
======================================================
Half Baked Naval Officer In The Making
“I always loved the idea of going to sea—just loved the notion ,”
one reads in :”Bunt” Smith’s diary.
“At one time, my parents, my sisters, and I lived in a little furnished apartment in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. While we were there, the harbor was dredged so ocean-going vessels could come all the way up to where we lived.”
With big ships coming and going in his hometown, just how powerful is the pull of the sea on young Hank’s impressionable mind?
one reads further,
“and my mother wanted to be sure I received proper religious training. So she would give me a nickel for spending money and send me away, push me out the door, to go to a Methodist church that was across from where we lived.”
“But I’d take that nickel, go down to the waterfront, and buy a bag of peanuts. I’d feed the peanuts to the birds so I could be around the water! I just loved the water … and I wanted to be in the Navy.”
Burke is bitten by the sea bug, and when the United States enters World War II there is no doubt regarding which branch of the service he will be joining. Three months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he decides to skip graduation and enlist.
“Leaving college early meant I was going to miss the graduation ceremony,”
Bunt writes,
“but I had enough credit hours to get my physical education degree, and I graduated cum laude. Following my induction and basic training in March 1942, I was assigned to the midshipman’s school at Philly University. My bachelor’s degree was in health and physical education, so I was assigned to instruct drill, basic boat handling of which I knew nothing, overall physical training, and swimming. Instructing swimming was a great feature for me due to my love of the water.”
("Bunt" is apparently a physical fitness nut as well as not too right in the head in other respects. McP.)
Bunt’s skill in the water is apparent to the officer in charge of the 90 day wonder ensign program, and he gives Burke a free rein to develop the swimming course.
“They asked me to take this one platoon on a recreational swim. I think I had 36 guys in there, and 30 percent of them couldn’t swim the length of a swimming pool, yet these guys were going to be naval officers!”
“So I right away got busy and hustled up some other swimming pools in the Philadelphia area and enlisted the help of other fellas with swimming skills equal to mine. We taught not just recreational swimming, but also what to do during evacuation and rescue in the water. There are a lot of things you can do to stay afloat using life preserving equipment once you are thrown into the water.”
(Like drown. The USN life preservers of the era were outrageously awful. McP.)
Smith’s swimming program for the midshipmen demonstrates his initiative and organizational skills, vital wartime capabilities that do not go unnoticed by the commanding officer. Bunt continues,
“So on the basis of the quality of the swimming program, the CO—I don’t remember his name, but he was a commander in rank—said, ‘You have officer quality. Are you interested in a commission?’ Well, I was happy with my situation at that point: I was married and had one child. But the more I thought about it….”
(First indicer, that Burke Smith is not qualified to lead a chewing gum detail. McP.)
So Bunt somewhat casually considers the offer to become an officer in the United States Naval Reserve. Never mind that he lacks the mathematical background or any practical on the water sailing experience of any kind to make up for his lack of acumen. He writes;
“The commander had prepared a letter of recommendation for me, and when he handed it to me he said, ‘The day you want to become an officer, you turn this letter in and you’ll have gold braid hanging from you!’ And that moved me out of the physical fitness program and on into officers training.”
So instead of training 90 day ensigns in how to dogpaddle, a war useful skill Burke Smith shows he can do well, that actually contributes to the Republic’s effort to turn out decent leaders of men, this new father decides he wants to become one of those 90 day ensigns?
Service On A PT-Boat
The thought of becoming a naval officer is an exciting and interesting prospect for Bunt, but the initial coursework is anything but easy.
“I was then going to classes that I had previously omitted in college,”
explains Hank, “so it was rather hard, especially the higher mathematics and especially trigonometry! But anyway, I eventually finished with officer training school. That’s when I put in a request for PT-boat service. You don’t need much math for that!”[/quote]
Why did he choose the PTs, which patently does need a good working knowledge of how to navigate by dead reckoning as well as how to solve trig in your head (Launching torpedoes without an aim assist device is largely a matter of angle solutions on the fly and done by eye and worked out through trig. It is a ___ ___ed TORPEDO BOAT. McP.).
“Oh, just the excitement of it,”
. Burke writes;
“In school I had been active in athletics, football, and wrestling. I liked the excitement. I liked to fight. From college I also knew a lot of All-American football players who joined the PTs. I knew I didn’t want to get on some tub that goes out and changes the buoy markers in a harbor or something like that! I wanted to get into the action, so I applied for PT duty and that’s what I got.”
Somebody must have helped Burke Smith cheat his way past the quals?
If Bunt’s explanation for why he chooses the PTs seems a bit gung-ho (insane), it is because he is. It is just this type of aggressive, can-do spirit that the U.S. Navy looks for when choosing candidates for motor torpedo boat command. But the mathematics sure would help.
On the plus side for Burke Smith; life on a PT boat during wartime is perilous and it is leadership by example without fear. With a small crew of 14 to 17 men under one’s command, leading by such bold example and being willing to take the war to the enemy, even if one does not have a clue, it done without hesitation or doubt, are critical attributes for a successful PT boat captain.
Learning To Handle PT-Boats
Once Burke Smith receives notification of his acceptance into the Navy’s Motor Torpedo Boat program, it is time to travel to Melville, Rhode Island, where the MTB School is located. As with many cities and towns with a prominent military presence nearby, available housing is in short supply as in nonexistent.
“I moved my family up to Newport where we lived in a one-room apartment. I mean everyone was crowded! We had one of the second-floor rooms in the building,”
he writes;
“Melville was just up the river from Newport, but with my training I was only able to get home every third night.”
Burke is busy with the numerous classes taught at the school—courses on navigation, gunnery, engine mechanics, torpedo maintenance, and boat handling among others. He does well in some of his courses, but his performance in one area really stood out as a bolo. It was that darned mathematics. That is where he meets his soon to be best friend, Paul “Shorty” Glaser, who is the fellow who coaches him through those courses. Glaser is a good teacher, but Burke is about as dumb as Plymouth Rock when it comes to numbers. Somehow Burke manages to clear that hurdle. But he is smart enough to latch onto Glaser and keep him close, even if Glaser is the class behind Burke Smith. "Shorty" is actually Burke's metaphorical life preserver in a sense and Bunt realizes it.
“Once our training was over, a lot of my classmates were immediately assigned to overseas boats,”
Burke writes.
"I made sure Shorty and I stuck together, which kind of kyboshed his chance to go overseas right away."
“We were assigned back into Squadron 4, which was the training squadron based at Melville. I was 24 years old at the time and did some teaching of various courses involving boat handling. Shorty taught some courses, too, including some experimental work with radar tracking. Soon I showed what I could do with boat handling. I was exceptional at it, had a real knack for it. Boat handling came naturally to me. So I put up with that for a while. Shorty, meanwhile, was a whiz at radars and torpedoes. Man, he was some kind of magician!”
Overnight trips out to sea is one reason "Bunt" rarely makes it home to his family’s one-room apartment each night.
“Thorough training of new recruits included a trip from Melville to Bayonne, New Jersey, where Elco was building the boats,”
Burke records;
“The purpose of these trips was to acquaint the rookie guys with long-distance navigation and nighttime travel with the PT. Along the way we encountered all kinds of lights, buoys, and signals of all sorts, and traveling at night was an educational experience for me and the recruits. Once we reached Bayonne, they got to observe the construction of new boats. Normally the navigation would have flummoxed me, but I made that trip so many times, I could do it with my eyes closed and know where I was.”
Inexplicably (To me, McP.) Burke continues as a boat handling instructor until he is assigned as second officer on a boat at Newport. A lot of the time his skipper is absent, so he becomes basically a second officer who handles the majority of the boat work.
“After a given time, I was assigned to overseas duty and given notice to go from Newport to San Francisco for shipping out. I took my family home and on 29 June 1942, I received change-of-duty orders from Squadron 4 to Squadron 23.”
Joining Squadron 23 in the Pacific
Hank left on 1 July 1942 for the SWPOA. He shipped out on a converted cruise ship that had a lot of soldiers but few sailors. "Shorty and I went past some of the larger islands on our way across the Pacific, to arrive at Efate, and then on to Guadalcanal where we joined Squadron 23. We never saw Australia. Someone was in a hustle to get us out to the middle of nowhere in a hurry!”
At the time of Burke’s arrival, PTORPRon 23 was under the command of LCDR. Howard “Silly” Tyler, a veteran of the early PT boat actions in the Philippine Islands. Ron 23 (The PT crews referred to a Patrol Torpedo Boat squadron as a “Ron”. McP.), had arrived at Lunga Point in mid August 1942, when the boats idled into the motor torpedo boat base on Tere Bay off of the coast of "that ___ ___ed island" near Kali Point just east of the mouth of the Tenaru river. One could still see the wrecked transports left over from the misnamed
Battle of Savo Island sitting half sunken and half beached at aforesaid Lunga Point from the PT boat base.
Over the next two months, Ron 23 will engage the Japanese in the waters around the islands of Guadalcanal, Florida and Malaita in what will be the opening phase of the "Barge War". On 20 August 1942, the squadron moves to Gavutu Harbor located on the south coast of Florida Island in one of those eerie precognitive hunches that seems to afflict RADM Norman Scott, currently running the naval side of things for WATCHTOWER locally, then in early September 1942 it receives orders for the move to the new forward base at Langa Langa Lagoon. Another Scott "hunch" as it turns out. The move winds up as a massacre of a Japanese slow convoy near Bualla on Santa Isabella Island. Three transports do not escape the ambush on 17 September 1942.
Ron 23 overall comprises PT-186, PT-187, PT-188, PT-189, PT-160, PT-161, PT-172, PT-173, PT-174, PT-175, PT-176, and PT-178. It will see action all around Guadalcanal, Florida, Malaita and as far up the Slot as Choiseul, where the American boats engage numerous enemy vessels and shore targets. This is the Barge War in earnest. Casualties in boats and men will be severe.
“At one time there had been a small Royal Navy coaling site at Choiseul,”
Burke writes;
“In the past, when the Royal Navy had steamships rather than oil-fired ships, they had to have locations all over the world where the ships could fuel up with coal. Rob Roy off southeast Choiseul was one of their protected anchorages where they would tie up and transfer coal out of a collier that came up from Brisbane for that purpose. That is where we intercepted our first Japanese barge train trying to move troops down to wipe out our Marines on Guadalcanal.”
Ron' 23's stay at Guadalcanal was punctuated by an event that was occurring less and less frequently over the island. Even though CACTUS had won air superiority in the skies over Iron Bottom Sound by late August, there was still the occasional Japanese Rikko air raid.
“I remember almost the end of the first month there or close to it,”
Burke writes.
“We had a red alert and went to general quarters. A tremendous searchlight onshore was shining straight up on a Japanese bomber that was sailing over, and this Skyrocket went straight up the shaft of light and caught him. I’ll always remember that.”
End of Part 1.