But our first sighting was a formation of four Wildcats. They climbed away from us, probably worried about itchy trigger fingers. It wouldn’t have been the first time.
Then we saw what the Wildcats were after. A large formation, twin-engine bombers. Betties, they looked like, heading for Henderson Field. From above the Betties, Japanese fighter planes dove into the Wildcats, trying to intercept them before they had a chance to turn a Betty into a fireball. Cluster shouted an order to the engine room and the PT boat picked up speed, headed away from the dogfight and the oncoming bombers. The wind whipped against us, salt spray coating our faces. I glanced at Kaz, who had a landlubber’s pale look to his face. Me, I’d grown up going out into Massachusetts Bay with my dad’s fisherman buddies, so I enjoyed a ride across the wave tops. It was the men in aircraft trying to kill us I could do without.
I saw one plane go down in flames, but it was hard to tell what it was. The sky was a confusion of contrails, smoke, flame, and the distant chatter of machine guns. A few minutes later, Cluster eased up on the engines.
“What gives?” I asked.
“We’re getting close to Tulagi,” he said as an island came into view. “We don’t run the engines at full bore for long. Wears them out. We’ve put enough water between us and the Jap planes. They’re probably going to hit Guadalcanal in any case.”
That was a reasonable guess, but in short order we were watching two fighters circle, dive, and climb in a fight for advantage. As they dueled for position, they drew closer to us and farther from the other aircraft to our rear.
“Looks like a Wildcat,” I said. “What’s the Jap fighter? A Zero?”
“Nah, we don’t see many Zekes down this way,” the gunner next to me said. “They’re carrier-based. These are Jap Army planes from their bases on Bougainville, probably.”
“It’s a Tony,” the other gunner yelled. “He’s headed for us!”
The Wildcat dove to the deck, trailing smoke and heading for home. The Tony-I guessed fighters were boys and bombers girls-swung around to come at us from the port side. Kaz and I ducked behind the low bulwark behind the bridge and peeked out to watch the Tony’s approach. Cluster zigged and zagged, making for Tulagi and the protection of the antiaircraft batteries there.
The Jap fighter was too fast for us. We were still a mile or so out when he opened up, his machine guns sending up spouts of water in our wake. Our machine guns and the twenty-millimeter cannon on the aft deck returned fire, sending the fighter into a climb to escape the tracers seeking him out. He made a giant arc across the sky and came at our starboard side. I saw a thin wisp of white smoke coming from his engine. Had we scored a hit?
Then the Tony did. Rounds chewed into the bow of the PT boat, narrowly missing the bridge. Our guns followed the fighter as he roared overhead, staying with him this time. The trailing smoke grew as black and orange flames spread across the fuselage. A cheer went up from the crew, just in time to see the pilot bail out. The plane went into a spin and crashed into the ocean as his parachute opened, stark white against the blue sky.
“Let’s go get ourselves a prisoner, boys,” Cluster announced as he steered the boat toward the downed flyer.
As we neared the pilot, I leaned over the bulwark and watched him release his parachute and fumble with his life jacket. A crewman with a gaff stood at the bow, ready to pull him in. Jap prisoners were rare; I’d read about their last-ditch banzai charges and how they’d commit suicide with grenades rather than be captured. But this guy waved his arms as if he couldn’t wait to be hoisted aboard.
Cluster shouted an order to the engine room and the PT boat slowed as we came within reach. The sailor extended the gaff to the pilot who took hold of it, jerking on it suddenly and pulling the crewman into the water. He reached into his life jacket and came up with a pistol. He fired two shots at the bridge as he screamed, his face now contorted with hate and fury. Paddling with his free hand for a better angle, he squeezed off two more rounds, aiming at Cluster and his executive officer. He was so close, the machine gunners couldn’t depress their guns to fire a burst at him. More shots rang out as the crew ducked for cover and the sailor in the drink swam for it.
Kaz and I drew our weapons. Kaz crouched behind the bulwark and fired over the top, hoping to distract him. Our first shots went wide, and I saw the pilot load a new clip into his automatic, all the while yelling what may have been curses at us or prayers to the emperor. I heard Cluster order the engine to be reversed as we popped up again and fired, only to duck as rounds whizzed by our heads.
“Stay down,” a voice said from behind, followed by the welcome sound of a Thompson submachine gun wielded by a gunner’s mate. He fired two quick bursts, hot ejected shell casings showering our shoulders. “Now you can get up, lieutenants. Welcome to the Solomons.”
We stood. The top of the pilot’s head was gone, the sea around him stained red.
“Nice shooting, Chappy,” Cluster said, tossing a life ring overboard for the crewman still in the water.
“Everyone okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, he put some holes in my boat but no one got hit,” Cluster said. “And for the record, that bulwark isn’t metal, it’s plywood. If he shot at you through that, you’d get wood shards as well as a bullet.” Kaz rapped on the low wall and got the hollow sound of three-quarter-inch wood.
“Is there anywhere safe on this boat?” I asked.
“Hell no,” Chappy, the gunner’s mate, said. “We’re a plywood boat sitting on three thousand gallons of high-octane aviation fuel. That’s why we like to go real fast.”
Recovering the gaff and the overboard sailor, Cluster had the pilot’s body pulled in to search for documents. There were a couple of maps in his flight suit and a picture of a young girl in a kimono in his shirt pocket. Cluster kept the maps. The body was tossed overboard, the photo flipped into the sea as an afterthought. The engines roared into life as the PT boat made for Tulagi and a safe harbor. Kaz and I stood on the bridge, the cool breeze and calm coastal waters a relief after the blood and terror of crossing Ironbottom Sound.
“I should have seen that coming,” Cluster said as the island loomed closer. “It’s never over with the Japs. The warrior code of Bushido and all that. They consider surrender a dishonorable disgrace to the soldier and his family.”
“It’s hardly surrender when you’re shot down during aerial combat,” I said.
“Death in battle, especially if many enemies are killed in the process, is the most honorable fate for a Japanese soldier,” Kaz said. “To that poor fellow, there was no difference between the machine guns in his fighter and the pistol in his hand. It is what he was taught.”
“I have a hard time thinking of him as a poor fellow,” Cluster said. “A classmate of mine, a marine officer, was on Guadalcanal in the early days. After a failed banzai charge at the Tenaru River, marines went out to help the Japanese wounded. The Japs set off grenades. Blew themselves and the marines who were helping them all to hell. That was the last time he let any of his men go to help Jap wounded.”
“It’s a different war out here,” I said.
“The Germans can often be barbarians,” Kaz said. “Very occasionally, honorable. You never can tell. At least out here you know what to expect. No quarter, no surrender.”
“That’s what our boys learned real quick,” Cluster said. “If you give up to the Japs, they’ll probably torture or kill you, so you might as well go on fighting. Shoulda seen it coming.” He shook his head the way people do when they can’t believe how gullible they’ve been. I shook my own head, trying to rid it of the vision of the pretty girl in a kimono.
Cluster skirted westward of Tulagi, coming into the harbor at the PT boat base at Sesapi. Across from the larger Florida Island, the Sesapi anchorage provided secluded and calm waters for the small craft and seaplanes tied up at the docks. Cluster eased his boat into his mooring and we clambered off, Kaz especially glad to be on dry land.