The patrol gathered on the stern of USS Ingersoll to watch Guam sink below the horizon. Soon, all that they could see was a very big ocean all around them.
“I can’t say that I’m gonna miss Guam,” Philly said.
“I reckon you just might change your tune once we get to Leyte,” Deke pointed out.
Philly just shook his head. “That’s what I like about you, Deke. You always look on the bright side.”
“What’s wrong with that? At least you ain’t dead yet.”
“See? That’s exactly what I mean.”
Deke just shook his head, not exactly sure what Philly meant at all, and went off to find a spot on the deck where he could clean his rifle in peace and quiet. He feared that it might start to rust in the salty ocean air.
He soon found that there wasn’t much room to spare on the deck of a destroyer. Almost every square foot of space was covered in nautical gear of one sort or another, and the spaces that weren’t seemed to be filled with antiaircraft batteries or racks of depth charges.
Unfortunately, they were informed by the crew that the Japanese continued to be a very real threat, especially from submarines and planes.
“No matter how many subs we sink or planes we shoot down, the Japs always seem to have more to send,” one old salt pointed out. “If that wasn’t bad enough, we’re heading that much closer to Japan all the time.”
It was also less than reassuring to learn that in order to save time, the captain had been ordered not to follow the usual zigzag pattern that made a ship a more difficult target for submarine and aerial attacks. A ship moving in a straight line would always be easier to attack.
Though fast enough to make a quick run to Leyte, the destroyer was also much smaller than the typical troop carrier. This meant that the crew and passengers felt every wave as the destroyer plowed through the sea at speed.
“You know what, Philly? I do miss Guam already,” Deke announced, then leaned over the rail and promptly threw up. Once again, he was reminded of how much he disliked the sea.
Philly clapped him on the back. “I think it’s going to be a long voyage for you, Farmboy. Although I’ve got to say, I don’t know how anybody could miss Guam.”
Deke didn’t have a good reply. He just wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and nodded, looking distinctly green.
He felt bad enough that he halfway considered finding his bunk, bad as it was. While the food aboard the ship was like a five-star restaurant in comparison to the C rations that the men had been eating on Guam — when they weren’t too seasick to eat — the tight quarters were something that was hard to get used to.
The men were given bunks in their own corner of the crew’s quarters. With only about eighteen inches of space between the beds, sleeping aboard a US Navy vessel felt very much like being sardines inside a tin can. Deke had learned the hard way not to sit up too fast — he had already whacked his head more than once on the bunk above him. Quarters more suitable for an officer had been found for Lieutenant Steele — which meant that he shared a cramped space with two other officers.
Some might say that the bunks were better than a muddy foxhole. After all, there weren’t any mosquitoes or other creepy crawlies to contend with. They didn’t have to worry about enemy infiltrators coming to cut their throats at night.
However, the tight quarters were almost too much even for Yoshio, who rarely complained about anything. “I never thought I’d say this, but give me a foxhole any day,” he said.
One of the ship’s junior officers had gotten the bright idea that he didn’t want the soldiers on deck, possibly interfering with the operation of the vessel. No sooner was Guam out of sight than he informed them that they would be allowed up on deck just twice each day for exercise, for a total of two hours out of their sardine can.
Not long after they complained to Lieutenant Steele, the officer gave them free rein to wander the deck. In fact, the officer now seemed to avoid the soldiers altogether.
“Geez, Honcho, what did you do to that guy?” Philly wanted to know.
“That’s Honcho, sir. The navy isn’t exactly informal, and I don’t see any Japanese in sight, do you?” Back on Guam, the lieutenant had made it clear that he was not to be addressed as an officer in any way in order to avoid becoming a target for Jap snipers.
“No, sir. No Japs here.”
His point having been made, the lieutenant continued. “That officer won’t be giving you any more trouble. It turns out that we’re sharing quarters, and I told him that I’d smother him with a pillow if he wasn’t nicer to my men.”
It was hard to know whether the lieutenant was kidding.
While it was a relief not to be stuck below, it was still no pleasure cruise. On the third day, the ship hit a patch of the Pacific studded with choppy waves that reminded Deke of a newly plowed field. The constant banging against the waves seemed to threaten to pop the ship’s rivets apart, but the sturdy destroyer held up. Those shipbuilders in Maine had done their job well.
Then there was the threat from Japanese planes the closer that they got to the Philippines, where the Japanese still had a substantial force — or at least that was the concern. The closer that they drew to the occupied Philippines, the more that the crew looked to the skies with growing concern.
It wasn’t long before their fears were realized. The men were lounging on the deck one afternoon, staring out at yet more endless seas, when the ship was called to general quarters. Sailors raced to man the antiaircraft guns that bristled from almost every surface, finally putting them into action. The only role that the soldiers were given was to stay out of the way.
“I don’t see a damn thing!” Philly exclaimed. “What about you, Deke?”
“Nothin’.”
“That’s because it’s probably on radar,” Yoshio said. “They know these planes are coming from miles away.”
Sure enough, the ship’s radar must have given advance warning of approaching aircraft. Fortunately, it was not a determined air attack, but a plane that seemed to be scouting for ships. The nickname for it was a snooper. From a distance well out of reach of antiaircraft fire, the plane circled them like a hawk watching a rabbit. The plane finally disappeared, but the sky was not empty for long.
Seemingly out of nowhere, a trio of Betty bombers came racing toward them, skimming just above the waves. It was a common Jap tactic to avoid radar. They could see the flashes from the planes’ machine guns, but more ominously, they could see what looked like bombs slung from the underbelly of each plane. Machine-gun rounds pinged off the deck, but it was the bombs that could sink them.
In the confusion, the soldiers had been forgotten. They scrambled for whatever shelter they could find as tracers from the Jap plane came streaming at them. They could hear the high-pitched whine of the bombers approaching at high speed.
But that was soon drowned out by the response from the destroyer as every gun on deck seemed to open up, trying to blast the planes from the sky. The tracers and exploding shells would have made a fascinating show if it hadn’t been so terrifying. On the bridge, the captain had ordered a series of sharp turns to make the ship a more difficult target.
One of the bombers was hit and cartwheeled into the sea, leaving a smear of flaming wreckage. Another plane billowed black smoke before disintegrating in the air. But the last Betty bomber kept right on coming.
“He’s headed right for us!” Philly yelped. Despite the danger, Philly seemed captivated by the drama unfolding above, plane against ship. Maybe this was something that the destroyer’s crew were used to, but you didn’t see sights like this from the foxhole.