Babatangon, the Philippines -- It was a beautiful day, the Philippine sun reflected on the wave-dimpled surface of small Opong Bay. We had landed the day before, October 24, at Babatngon, 30 miles from Tacloban through the San Juanico Strait. which separates Leyte from Samar Island.
LCI gunboats and LCM's had taken the 1st Squadron of the 7th Cavalry up from Tacloban to beach in a landing as unwarlike as a picnic outing. It was a peaceful invasion and highly regarded by the natives of Babatgnon. Yesterday the Filipinos of the village, from old men to young boys, had pushed aside the GI's in their eagerness to unload the LCM's.
Pvt. James M. Matthews of Memphis, Tennessee watched them sweat under ammo cases, boxes of "C" and "K" rations, 4.2 motar shell loads and odds and ends of an invasion. He shoved his helmet back from a perspiring face. "Mumph" he said "I never thought I'd see no M's unloaded like that, These people must be crazy." They were crazy with relief after three years under Japanese rule.Now today was beautiful in the still morning. The Gunboat #23 had lazily warfed up the miniature concrete jetty. The crew, a few Army men and a couple of correspondents were chasing their breakfast pancakes with a cigarette and a mug of coffee.
Some still-curious Filipinos loitered around the jetty, shot the breeze in understandable English with the beach guard, or just looked out into the bay. The three other Gunboats idled, waiting for orders to return to Tacloban, some M's milled around. The sun was beginning to burn.
From out of nowhere a Jap plane, a Zeke, flattened out of a glide and dropped two bombs near one of the gunboats, then swung out of the harbor with his tail in the lead of some belated 20mm fire. He disappeared in a sharp bank around a small hill on our left.
Cups of coffee were spilled and forgotten as excited sailors ran for their gun posts, the order was barked to get the hell away from the wharf. With a shrill whine and a staccato pound of its guns, a Val streaked in at us from over the hills behind the beachhead and headed for our boat at the wharf. Tracers etched thin white lines over the ship, ripping a chunk out of the mast. The plane screamed over our heads, starting to smoke and dropped two wing-racked bombs at the stern of one gunboat in the bay. It looked like a hit. The Val slipped away from the blast and wavered away still smoking.
We cast off from the wharf and pulled alongside the blasted ship. Lines made her fast to us and hose was broken out for the fire below decks.Astern on the starboard deck, three denimed sailors lay crumpled, their blood clotting on the blue painted metal. The entire crew of the 3" 50 rifle had been wounded on the LCI 23. One sailor had fallen out of position to the maindeck where he sprawled with horrible limpness, his face hidden by a chalky hand.
At the 40mm gun position a sailor still sat in the trainer's seat, blood running down his face, his dazed eyes fixed on the loader's body huddled under the steel tractor seat at the left of the gun. There was a large jagged hole in the loaders back. A bomb fragment had hit him full in the chest |
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A sailor on deck called, "throw me a blanket, I want to cover Joe." As he stood over one of the dead, his voice was harsh with helpless bitterness. He and Joe had been below arguing about a stateside furlough just 10 minutes before. Two more men died. The splinters from the near miss had shredded the entire deck, the superstructure and the conning tower like a load of buckshot aimed at a tin can. An LCM came alongside and took off the wounded. One more died on the way to the beach less than a hundred yards away. After the hoses were rigged, the crew worked feverishly to flood the smoldering holes. One man went below and began plugging the holes at the waterline with bits of wood. His hammer sounded dully under the excited chatter of the gasoline auxiliary pumps. Skeleton crews manned the guns aboard the craft against the threat of the Japanese plane's return.
Those of us who had no specific duties started to picking up the dead and putting them in chicken wire stretchers and passing them over the side into an LCM. At the door of the galley we stopped. One man said, "Oh Christ" over and over. Finally we edged inside. The chief pharmacist had been getting a second cup of coffee when the bombs hit. The biggest part of the splinters had hit that part of the ship. We dug his body out from under an unimaginable mass of debris ---- coffee, flour, cooking utensils, scraps of aluminum, canned goods split open by concussion. As we worked to place the body into the stretcher, I slipped in a can of spaghetti. Then I saw that it wasn't spaghetti.
Aloft on the tiny gun deck, a sweating, swearing sailor was checking the guns. The 3-inch .50 was out of commission. Two 20mm's and two 50's on the starboard side were bomb pitted and gouged with shining pock marks. They wouldn't fire. The sailor was swearing with condentrated bitterness while he alternately trained and elavated the 40mm. Finally he said. "She's OK, thank Christ." I asked the sailor where he was from, "Me, I'm from here, same damn islands." He wiped his hands on his shirt. "Had a wife and kid in Manila." I was in Pearl when the Japs hit. The family was in Manila."
I asked another question. He nodded. The wife and kid would always be there in Manila. He was coxswain Francis D. Kirkbride.
He looked around. "Hell of a mess isn't it?" he asked. Without waiting for an answer, he looked up and yelled, "Hey skipper, this 40 is OK, but we got no crew to man her."
"I've been through five of these things," he said, "and never had a scratch. Hell, everyone on the 3-inch 50 was wounded and I was right beside 'em. Charmed life, I guess."
Aboard our ship Wallace L. Cook Phm 2/c of Seattle, Washington, put his medical aid stuff back in a little tin box. He has treated five wounded men. It was the first time that he had been through a strafing job. "Well, yeah, I guess I was scared. I dunno but I'd go through it again. I'd like to get even." He looked a little pale. Who didn't?
Later the 23 gunboat was beached and camouflaged with a welter of tree branches and palm fonds. Finally we went ashore in an LCM across the calm waters of Opong Bay.
Note: Of 5 Officers & 48 Enlisted men, 10 Enlisted men were killed, and 3 Officers and 21 Enlisted men were Wounded. The LCI (G) 23 was later towed by an LST to Hollandia, New Guinea for repair and returned to service. |
