A Sailor's History of the U.S. Navy (22 page)

Before the realization of what was happening could cause him to panic, West heard Chief Rollins—who was still watching his stopwatch—in a calm voice, say, “It's about time for something to happen.” And something did.

As if cued by Rollins's words, a huge fireball erupted from the darkness to the south of them. Before the sound of the explosion could reach them, two more detonations flared from the sea in the same direction. It was a beautiful and a horrid sight, conjuring a strange mix of fear, awe, and elation in West. He could hardly tear his eyes away, but the continued sound of explosions much closer to him wrested his attention once again as his ship weaved her way north in a frantic dash for survival.

As the final hour of the midwatch began, the flames of burning ships marred the natural darkness of Surigao Strait, and the ominous rumblings of hostile gunfire and exploding ships broke the stillness that normally would have reigned in these wee hours of the night. And there was more to come.

Roy West and the other torpedo men remained clustered together near
McDermut
's torpedo tubes as the destroyer charged northward. Japanese shells were no longer falling close aboard; there was little to do besides bask in the exhilaration that often follows when one has survived the dangers of combat.

Then, one of the torpedo men said, “Would you look at that?” His voice was full of wonderment. “Over there. Off the starboard side. In the sky.”
West peered in the direction indicated and saw several crimson streaks of light flash across the sky from north to south like meteors. Several more followed almost immediately. A throaty rumble, like distant thunder, felt more than heard, rolled in from the north. “The heavies are shooting,” someone said.

The “heavies” were U.S. battleships and cruisers that Admiral Oldendorf had positioned horizontally across the northern end of Surigao Strait, their heavy guns lined up with a clear shot down the strait.

An old saying often heard around the Navy warns “paybacks are hell.” The phrase probably has its origins in money lending, where high interest rates can make the paying back of the sum borrowed a painful experience. But in the Navy it has come to be used in a wide variety of situations. For example, a Sailor who asks a shipmate to swap duty days might have to agree to do two for one. Or even if there is an even swap, fate may intervene, involving the arrival of bad weather or a surprise inspection or some other unexpected situation, making the newly acquired duty day much worse than the one originally scheduled.

“Paybacks are hell” also has a larger meaning that involves great events and proves that seeming victories can later have serious consequences. An example of this is the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. What must at first have seemed a great victory to Osama bin Laden and his followers quickly resulted in the loss of the terrorist training haven in Afghanistan as well as a worldwide War on Terrorism that has had many serious consequences for those who once celebrated those 9/11 attacks.

This night in October 1944, the Imperial Japanese Navy was about to learn that paybacks could indeed be hell. Among those battleships waiting at the northern end of Surigao Strait was USS
West Virginia
!

In fact, all but one of the battlewagons there that night had been at Pearl Harbor nearly three years earlier.
Pennsylvania, Maryland,
and
Tennessee
had all been heavily damaged in the Japanese surprise attack, and both
California
and “Weevee” had been sunk and later resurrected from the bottom of Pearl Harbor. These ships had a score to settle.

And settle it they did. When the first Japanese ship had closed to within twenty-eight thousand yards, the American fire control radars locked on target, and Oldendorf ordered “commence firing.” With a tremendous roar, some of the most powerful artillery pieces in the world breathed fire into the night and hurled gargantuan projectiles—some of them weighing more than a ton each—at an enemy sensed but, as yet, unseen.

The log entries for
West Virginia
on the night of 24 October 1944 read:

This rather laconic account of the gunfire phase of the Battle of Surigao Strait captures the essence of what occurred. What it does not describe is the awesome power of those many ships delivering terrible devastation in the form of heavy-caliber seagoing artillery. What it merely hints at—by the mention of the gunnery officer's chuckling—is the high level of emotion felt by the men delivering those blows. What it refers to as a “pip” blooming and then fading is actually the catastrophic loss of a giant ship and the hundreds of men crewing her. What it does not record is the irony of the moment, as this great battleship, once burned and sunk in the humiliation of a successful surprise attack, later resurrected, now struck back in retribution.

As the sun rose next morning, several columns of thick black smoke towered into the brightening sky like remnants of the black shroud that had engulfed Surigao Strait the night before. The morning light revealed clusters of men clinging to debris littering the waters of the strait and large
smears of oil stretching for miles. As U.S. destroyers moved in to pick up the Japanese survivors, most swam away or disappeared beneath the oily water, shunning rescue in one last great act of defiance.

Far to the north, in Leyte Gulf, American Sailors in the amphibious ships that had brought the invading troops to the Philippines had spent the night watching in fascination and some dread as the flashes of gunfire had reflected off the clouds to the south of them. They need not have worried. The scorecard for this battle was an impressive one, and notably one-sided.

The Japanese fleet that had come up from the south to disrupt the amphibious landing had been annihilated. The Japanese had lost two battleships, three cruisers, and four destroyers as a result of this last of the great gun and torpedo battles. By comparison, one American destroyer and several PT boats had been damaged in the action. One of the PTs was sunk, but no other U.S. ships had been lost.

Exact personnel casualty figures for the Japanese are unknown, but they were in the thousands. The Americans had lost but 39 men, with another 114 wounded.

Two years, ten months, and seventeen days before, the Japanese had dared to tread on the toes of a sleeping giant. On that night in Surigao Strait, they learned the true meaning behind those four words on that early Navy Jack:
Don't Tread on Me.

Almost a century and a half before that epic clash in Surigao Strait, another group of aggressors in another part of the world would learn that treading on the toes of the United States could bring an unexpected reaction. The story begins in tragedy and ends in triumph and is one that will never be forgotten as long as there is a U.S. Navy.

“Had Homer written an epic poem on the subject, he would have shown that every step in the chain of events was caused by a deeply laid and cleverly conceived conspiracy of the gods to bring fame to Stephen Decatur and we would agree that poor Bainbridge had been but a plaything in their hands.” Holloway H. Frost wrote these words in his book titled
We Build a Navy,
published by the U.S. Naval Institute in 1929. Evidently, Frost—a naval officer himself—was trying to put a “spin” on a tragic event to make it just a bit more palatable. Frost was referring to one of the lowest points in the Navy's history, which occurred in those early years when the newly established service was just getting its sea legs.

This “conspiracy of the gods” unfolded in 1803 when USS
Philadelphia,
one of the young Navy's few frigates, arrived in the Mediterranean
Sea to make a show of force against the marauding vessels of the Barbary States (Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli), which had been preying on American merchant shipping engaged in trade in the Mediterranean. While attempting to blockade the port city of Tripoli,
Philadelphia
's captain, William Bainbridge, gave chase to a native vessel that was attempting to get into the harbor. Not only did the latter have a considerably shallower draft than her American adversary, the Arab sailors were also very familiar with their home waters. With all sail set, Bainbridge took his frigate in close to the shore, trying to cut off the blockade runner. With neither a native pilot nor an accurate chart, it was a risky venture. Bainbridge had taken the precaution of stationing three leadsmen to test the depth, but the ship was moving along at a brisk eight knots, thus allowing very little reaction time when the men began singing out rapidly decreasing depth readings. Before Bainbridge could respond to the warnings of rapidly shoaling water, there was a terrible grating noise and the ship slammed to a halt, throwing many of her crew off their feet.
Philadelphia
had run her whole length well up the sloping shoal, leaving her bow four feet out of the water above her normal waterline. It was 1130 on the worst day of William Bainbridge's life.

Frantic efforts to free the ship ensued—removing the foremast, jettisoning the water stores, moving some of her cannon aft, even throwing some of the guns into the sea—but to no avail. The ship was hard aground. Worse, nine Tripolitan gunboats had emerged from the harbor and were fast approaching. Before long, the enemy craft were firing on the helpless ship.

Four hours passed, with the situation not improving in the least. Bainbridge at last called his officers to a council of war, and they concluded that there was no choice but to surrender the ship. In the words of Midshipman Henry Wadsworth, the decision was based on the desire to “save the lives of the brave crew.” But many of the “brave crew” did not agree and exhorted Bainbridge to reconsider. There seemed no hope of getting the ship free. Because of her list he could not bring his remaining cannon to bear on the enemy, and the latter continued to fire into his ship at will. Bainbridge concluded that refusing to surrender would simply result in the pointless loss of 307 Sailors, and the ship would still fall into the hands of the enemy. He issued the painful order to a nearby Sailor to strike
Philadelphia
's colors. The man refused to carry out the order, even when threatened with severe punishment. Finally, one of the midshipmen seized the halyard holding the nation's flag aloft and hauled it down.
Philadelphia
's crew was taken prisoner and were further humiliated when a storm several days later freed the ship from the shoal and permitted the Tripolitans to bring the ship safely into Tripoli harbor. The United States of America had truly been trod upon.

William Bainbridge would later command another ship (USS
Constitution,
“Old Ironsides,” no less) and bring great glory to himself and his nation by defeating a powerful British frigate in a hard-fought battle during the War of 1812. But for now, it was Stephen Decatur who would rise to the occasion.

At the time of
Philadelphia
's capture, Lieutenant Decatur was serving as commander of the twelve-gun schooner
Enterprise.
Decatur paid a visit to Commodore Edward Preble, the officer in charge of all U.S. ships in the Mediterranean, and proposed a daring plan. Impressed with the young lieutenant's thinking and spirit, Preble gave his approval.

Decatur returned to his ship and mustered the crew. He told them that he intended to sail into the harbor at Tripoli and destroy
Philadelphia
rather than let her remain in enemy hands. When he asked for volunteers for the dangerous mission,
every man stepped forward.
Knowing that the likelihood for hand-to-hand combat was high, Decatur chose sixty-two of the fiercest, strongest Sailors and Marines.

Some time before,
Enterprise
had captured a Tripolitan sixty-four-ton ketch named
Mastico
; she had been renamed
Intrepid
and taken into service. Because she looked like—indeed had been—a Tripolitan vessel, the Americans believed they might be able to sail her into the harbor without being challenged. To complete the ruse, a Sailor named Salvador Catalano—who looked the part and spoke Arabic fluently—was designated to masquerade as
Intrepid
's captain.

With Preble sending them off with a prayer—“May God prosper you in this enterprise”—and one of the midshipmen leaving behind a letter to his mother—“Dear Mother, I sail for Tripoli”—the intrepid crew of
Intrepid
got under way.