Small Ships Courageous Men

By Chandler Whipple

Small Ships, Courageous Men, first published in 1962 as Lt. John F. Kennedy— Expendable!, is an action-packed look at the role played by U.S. Navy PT Boats in the South Pacific during the Second World War. New to the Navy, PT boat tactics and armament were just being developed and tested by their crews, who would set-off on their missions against much larger and better-armed ships of the Japanese. Featured is an in-depth look at the missions and fate of the PT-109, skippered by a young John F. Kennedy, and the story of the 109's crew struggle to survive after the craft's collision with a Japanese destroyer. During the war, author Chandler Whipple was a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy. Included are 11 pages of photographs and maps.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barajima Books
• Release date: Jan 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9781839741906

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Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

SMALL SHIPS, COURAGEOUS MEN

The Story of PT Boats in the South Pacific

CHANDLER WHIPPLE

Small Ships, Courageous Men was originally published in 1962 as Lt. John F. Kennedy— Expendable! by Universal Publishing and Distributing Corp., New York.

* * *

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

Foreword 5

1. The Man They Did Not Want 7

2. Wooden Boats—The Replaceables 14

3. To Fill a Gap 26

4. Kennedy Meets the 109 39

5. First Blood 45

6. Bombs for the 109 54

7. Marooned and Mourned 59

8. Survival 66

9. The Long Wait 75

10. Gunboat Skipper 81

11. MacArthur’s Torpedo Boats 87

12. Honorable Discharge 92

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 97

ILLUSTRATIONS 98

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 109

Foreword

This well written and detailed account of the operations of the motor torpedo boats in the South Pacific in World War II fills a long standing gap in the story of U.S. Naval Operations against the Japanese.

It is a saga of SMALL SHIPS AND COURAGEOUS MEN pitted against large, fast and powerful ships—Torpedo Boat Destroyers—specially designed and equipped as killers of small torpedo boats, and manned by highly trained and skilled night fighters.

PTs are weapons of opportunity which, because of limited seagoing qualities, must operate in the relatively smooth waters of inland seas, straits and narrow passages where favorable sea conditions can be expected. They must depend for their protection on high speed, ability to lay smoke screens and the proximity of high land masses. Ironically—their very high speed makes them particularly vulnerable to attack from the air when they use that high speed at night in the presence of an enemy.

Their gun armament was no match for the larger ships. Enemy ships and even the Japanese landing barges could carry more potent weapons. Their torpedo armament left much to be desired. No doubt the PTs suffered in torpedo performance as did our submarines in the early months of the War when many a Japanese ship was able to reach port undamaged because of defective warhead exploders on otherwise perfect shots. PTs, because of their small size, could not navigate as effectively as could their larger adversaries. Nor could they carry as effective radar as could the Japanese when they finally acquired radar.

In spite of all the disadvantages suffered by our PTs, and in spite of a serious lack of logistic support, these small ships and their officers and men turned in a highly creditable performance of duty marked by great courage and devoted effort.

Perhaps a most important result of the PT Service was the emergence of a large group of officers and men who were destined to render even more important service to our Country in the years ahead. And in our present Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the United States—and in our President—we find the most shining example.

C. W. NIMITZ

Fleet Admiral, USN

Berkeley, California

17 February 1962

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. The Man They Did Not Want

In October, 1941, there were threats of mass desertion among draftees in the United States armed services. The word, OHIO, stood for Over the Hill in October. Nothing came of these threats, but they represented an attitude shared by a vast number of civilians as well as drafted men. Most of Europe was at war. France had long since fallen and Norway and Russia been invaded by the armies of Nazi Germany; British troops had retreated from the continent and were defending England’s beachheads. Japan had invaded Indo-China and Pearl Harbor was less than two months away, but we still hoped to negotiate the Asian problem with the Japanese, and a great many Americans felt that the war in Europe was not our war and we should have no part of it.

The tall, bone-lean young man of twenty-four, who waited in the office of Naval Officer Procurement for his turn, felt differently. Whether or not the war was ours, he knew that we would soon be in it. He had had a chance to observe the struggle at closer range than most Americans, while assisting his father, Joseph Kennedy, our Ambassador to Great Britain. He had even written a book about it while still an undergraduate at Harvard, warning America against making the mistakes England had made." [Why England Slept, by John F. Kennedy]

On this particular day, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was hotly attempting to join the United States Navy. He had offered to do so some time before, but his offer had been refused. Early in the year, he had tried to enlist in the Army, then in the Navy, but had been rejected because of a back injury, an injury he had received in a JV football scrimmage at Harvard. But Kennedy believed in taking his own advice and was not easily discouraged. He had just completed five months of torturous exercises and manipulations to strengthen his back so that he would be accepted by the Navy.

This time he made it. He passed the physical examination, and was appointed ensign in the Naval Reserve.

Kennedy took it for granted that, having joined the Navy, he would, after a few months of training, be sent to sea, but he was doomed to disappointment. He was ordered to active duty at Headquarters, Sixth Naval District, Charleston, South Carolina.

Any seasoned bluejacket will tell you that the worst shore duty is better than the best sea duty, but Kennedy did not agree. He had handled boats, sail and power, since childhood—at Charleston all this knowledge and experience was wasted. His job was to inspect new naval installations being put up in the area.

Pearl Harbor found him still sweating it out in his tiresome assignment and served only to increase his desire to get out of it. His repeated requests for sea duty continued to be rejected until finally, in desperation, he circumvented the Navy. That is, he called upon his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, former Ambassador to the Court of St. James, for help.

Whether or not subsequent events were affected by this stratagem is not, of course, in the record. But the facts are that in the summer of 1942 Ensign Kennedy was transferred to the Naval Reserve Officers’ Training School at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, and that events were shaping up to fit the man.

Since John Fitzgerald Kennedy today is a global figure, perhaps it would not be remiss to review some of these events on a global scale. Until the late spring of 1942, the Japanese advance in the Pacific had continued almost without a halt. Our Pacific outposts—Wake Island, Guam, the Philippines, were gone. The Japanese had occupied most of what is now Indonesia and moved into New Guinea, the Bismarcks and the Solomons. They were menacing our supply lines to New Zealand and Australia itself, where Darwin in the north had been temporarily abandoned as a naval base. Sydney Harbor in the south had been attacked by enemy submarines. For five months we had suffered a series of defeats; it was not until May, in the Battle of the Coral Sea, that we could claim a victory of sorts.

Another victory—this time unquestionably a victory—came the following month, early in June, when Japanese and American naval forces met at the battle of Midway. Four Japanese carriers were sunk, with the loss of but one of our own, the Yorktown. At last the Japanese had been halted, temporarily at least, in their broad sweep to gain control of the Pacific.

But we still seemed a long way—in the summer of 1942—from doing more than slowing or halting the Japanese advance and ever farther from actually mounting an offensive of our own. For more than half a year we had been outmanned, outgunned, and outflown in the Pacific. It would take a lot of men, ships, planes and supplies, to shift the balance.

The gap had to be filled somehow. How it was filled and by whom forms one of the epics of modern war.

An incidental effect was the setting of the stage for the entrance upon the global scene of John Fitzgerald Kennedy—sometimes known as Jack—and if the opening lines given him were small, he acted them out with authority...

In the course of a year, in spite of the disaster at Pearl Harbor, our Navy had more than doubled its personnel, with corresponding gains in ships and in armament. On June 30, 1941 we had had on hand 1,899 naval vessels of all types. On the same date a year later the total stood at 5,612. Almost the smallest in size but by no means the weakest in striking power were the motor torpedo boats, or PTs as they were commonly called.

Despite the fact that the first PT—or Mosquito—was delivered to the United States Navy in June, 1940, the small boats’ entry into the Pacific theater was dramatic, to say the least. Six of the early PTs—though under gunned and experimentally equipped—fired the first shots at Japanese planes at Pearl Harbor and brought down three. The story of what a handful of PTs did during the fall of the Philippines has been thoroughly told and sometimes exaggerated, but their overall record in the early days of the war was truly remarkable. They did not sink any Japanese cruisers as was at the time believed, but they did sink at least two sizable ships and some landing craft, and this in spite of the fact that they were fighting with few repair facilities and with inadequate supplies of gasoline. Even more important than this desperate fight in a losing battle was the fact that they evacuated not only General Douglas MacArthur but other key military and naval personnel from Corregidor and carried them safely to the island of Mindanao, from where they were able to fly to Australia to fight again.

Boats of this type had been used by the British and the Italians as early as World War I, but the United States Navy had been slow in adopting them. After a certain amount of experimenting, the Navy settled upon two types of boat, the Higgins and the Elco, and boat yards in Louisiana and New Jersey began to turn them out in increasing numbers. The Higgins boat was seventy-eight feet long, the Elco two feet longer. Each had its advantages. The Elco rode with its bow well in the air, could get up a little more speed, and was less likely to drench its crew with salt water; the Higgins occasionally nosed under and so was not as dry a boat, but it was more maneuverable.

Each carried three twelve-cylinder Packard engines, which could bring them up to speeds of close to forty knots, or nearly fifty land miles an hour, with a full load. Though they were often called the plywood boats, their hulls actually consisted of two layers of mahogany planking laid over laminated wood frames, with a layer of airplane fabric glued between the two layers of planking. The result was a hull light in weight, yet sturdy and resilient enough to stand up in a heavy sea. Plywood was used only in the deck and superstructure.

These boats originally carried two officers and eight enlisted men, but soon the usual complement was increased to two officers and ten men. Quarters below decks included compartments for officers and enlisted men, as well as a galley with an electric range and refrigerator. There was also a chart house with a radio, and eventually, radar. The engine room was also below, of course, as were the fresh water tanks and three fuel tanks, each designed to hold one thousand gallons of 100-octane gasoline.

The armament of the first boats included just two pairs of fifty-caliber machine guns mounted in turrets, but soon thereafter twenty-millimeter cannon were added fore and aft, and there would be further changes as the war went on. Each boat also carried four torpedoes of the Mark VIII variety and side launching racks were soon added. In addition, the boats carried depth charges, but it is doubtful if these were of much value, since no sound gear was ever successfully developed for the PTs to track down submarines. Some PTs dropped depth charges when they suspected a submarine in the vicinity, but there was never certain proof that they made a kill.

The PTs also had a smoke screen generator, and any PT man who was ever caught in the searchlights and guns of a Japanese destroyer will tell you that this was one of the most comforting adjuncts of the boat.

These were the craft that, in the words of a PT commander of the time, in the course of the war met the Tokyo Express at Guadalcanal. They cut enemy barge supply lines in the upper Solomons and along the New Guinea coast. They torpedoed German cargo lighters in the Mediterranean, and overcame E-boats (German gunboats) in gunnery duels in the English Channel. They contributed to the rout of Japanese task forces in the Battle of Surigao Strait, and successfully countered viciously concentrated Kamikaze attacks at Mindoro. Under cover of darkness they freely landed agents, scouts and reconnaissance parties throughout the Solomons, New Guinea and the Philippines, and on the coasts of France and Italy. PTs were in more frequent contact with the enemy, and at closer range, than any other type of surface craft. They specialized in close-range, close-to-shore attack, and everywhere demonstrated that they could hurt the enemy with proportionately small damage to themselves. [Commander Robert J. Bulkley, Jr., USNR: A History of Motor Torpedo Boats in the U.S. Navy.]

After the loss of the Philippines, General MacArthur wrote Washington from Australia for two hundred motor torpedo boats. With that many, he said, he