Earning Glory in a Forlorn Defense

At 0330 on 8 December 1941 (7 December in Hawaii), the U.S. Asiatic Fleet communication station in Manila, the Philippines, intercepted an urgent radiogram: “Air Raid on Pearl Harbor X This is no drill.” Admiral Thomas C. Hart, the fleet’s commander-in-chief, was awoken with the news. He immediately notified his dispersed command: “Japan has started hostilities. Govern yourselves accordingly.” 

A few mile southwest of Manila at Cavite Navy Yard, Lieutenant John D. Bulkeley’s Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Three (MTBRon 3) went to high alert. The Navy’s motor torpedo boats, or patrol torpedo (PT) boats, were relatively new arrivals to the U.S. Fleet, and MTBRon 3 was one of only three U.S. MTB squadrons. However, over the next four months, the exploits of Bulkeley’s small unit in the forlorn defense of the Philippines would raise the diminutive wooden-hulled vessels’ profile high in the eyes of the Navy, the American public, and the Japanese and boost morale during the dark early stage of the Pacific war.

The Japanese Strike Cavite

MTBRon 3’s six boats—PTs 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, and 41—had arrived at Cavite on 28 September 1941. Six other craft were to complete the squadron but would be caught in the Pearl Harbor attack and never make it to the Philippines. Already at Manila Bay was Ensign Iliff D. Richardson, who was serving on board the minesweeper USS Bittern (AM-36). Spying some of the sleek PT boats moored along the Manila waterfront soon after their arrival, and having heard the squadron needed more officers, Richardson stopped, introduced himself to Lieutenant Bulkeley, and told him he would like to apply. After his transfer was soon approved, Richardson joined MTBRon 3 as executive officer of PT-33.

While the squadron went on alert with the 8 December news, it wasn’t until noon on 10 December that “the air raid signal was sounded and all hands were called to ‘General Quarters,’” Richardson recounted. “The moorings were slipped, engines started, and [we] got underway. Three groups of nine bombers each [were] headed in our direction.”

Five twin-engine bombers of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s 11th Air Fleet peeled off from the main formation and swooped down on the PT boats. The sailors closely watched the attacking aircraft, and when they reached their release point, each helmsman put his boat’s wheel hard over to avoid the bombs. None of the PT boats were hit as they maneuvered over the open waters of Manila Bay, and the squadron claimed to shoot down three of the attackers, two by PT-31 and one by PT-35.

While the squadron was dodging bombs, and airfields and other targets around Manila were hit, the navy yard was being destroyed by wave after wave of Japanese bombers. “The largest and fiercest fire was [at] the Navy Yard,” Richardson recalled. “Immense volumes of black smoke billowed slowly into the air . . . which was visible stretching over an area of twenty to thirty miles.” The destruction was nearly complete; the power plant, dispensary, repair shops, warehouses, and barracks sustained direct hits. The USS Seadragon (SS-194), Sealion, (SS-195), and Bittern were among the vessels damaged, with the last two being scuttled, and thousands of drums containing valuable high-octane gasoline were lost. More than 500 men were estimated to have been killed or wounded. At one point, Richardson counted 80 Japanese aircraft overhead and asked himself, “Where the hell is our air force?” Meanwhile, Japanese troops began landing on Luzon, and their advance would force American and Philippine defenders to abandon Manila and retreat to the Bataan Peninsula.

Damage at Cavite forced Bulkeley’s squadron to set up a new base, in an abandoned native village in Sisiman Cove, on the southern tip of the Bataan Peninsula. The unit was assigned two missions: serve as fast messenger and passenger couriers between the various command posts at Corregidor Island; Mariveles, just east of Sisiman Cove; and Manila, and patrol along the Bataan coast north of Manila Bay and in waters south of Manila along the Batangas Peninsula and as far as Verde Island. 

All PT boats were confined to night patrols. They alternated duty, so that each boat would get one night patrol and one night of rest. Daylight hours were spent in upkeep, overhauling carburetors, fuel pumps, and gas strainers and refueling from the scattered caches of gasoline drums. 

On the night of 17 December, the squadron was called out on a rescue mission. The SS Corregidor, a Filipino ship carrying 1,200 evacuees from Manila to the large southern Philippine island of Mindanao struck a mine. Within less than two minutes the ship sank, leaving the passengers struggling in the water. PTs 32, 34, and 35 rescued 282 survivors, 196 of them by PT-32. 

Fifth-Column Sabotage

The heavy demands placed on the torpedo boats taxed the overworked crews. Maintenance and spare parts became problematic, as well as the availability of “good” gasoline and oil. “The Japanese ‘Fifth Column’ was working at its best when it polluted the gasoline . . . with a combination of camphor and wax,” Richardson related. “This mixture was designed to cause the engines to ‘freeze up,’ which sometimes happened at crucial moments.” Filipinos were caught with blocks of paraffin on board one of the boats’ supply barges. Bulkeley ordered their arrest and raged, “I ought to shoot the bastards myself.” Later, PT-34 barely would escape an air raid because “sabotaged gas trouble developed and the boat could not make sufficient speed to get out of the bombers’ path.”

Frozen engines were not the only danger resulting from bad gas. In January 1942, an explosion rocked PT-32. Richardson described how “the decking and hatch over the engine room shot twenty feet into the air with life jackets, boat hooks and other equipment flying in all directions.” It was discovered that multiple cleanings of the gas strainers because of sabotaged gas had allowed some fuel to find its way into the bilges. Vapors had formed, and an electrical spark set them off. The heavily damaged boat had to be taken out of service for repairs.

The First Boat Lost

On the night of 24 December, while patrolling south of Manila Bay in tandem with PT-31 and the destroyer USS Pillsbury (DD-227), PT-33 ran hard aground on a coral reef. “I was thrown violently into the cockpit and my head [struck] against the sharp corner of the windshield,” Richardson recalled. After the crew assessed the situation, “all hands got into the water and we tried in vain to rock the 33 boat and push her off.” To add insult to injury, early the next morning Philippine troops mistook the boat for a Japanese landing barge and started shooting. Boatswain’s Mate Ernest E. Pierson waded ashore with a white bed sheet and, after a long, heated conversation, convinced the commander that the stranded boat was a U.S. Navy vessel.

At about noon, Lieutenant Bulkeley with two PTs arrived and made three attempts to pull PT-33 off the reef, without success. The boat then was stripped of everything useful. “At sunset the American flag was hauled down for the last time,” Richardson described. “The boat’s commander, Lieutenant (junior grade) Henry J. Brantingham, took off the ship’s plate to keep as a souvenir of his command.”

The next morning all the combustible material on board was piled belowdecks in the forward compartment and soaked with 100-octane gasoline. Setting fire to a broom topside, Brantingham returned belowdecks and threw the flaming stick onto the soaked pile of rags and debris—and BOOM! Richardson, in a small boat at PT-33’s stern, saw “the deck of the forward compartment . . . rise instantly about 75 feet in the air.” Meanwhile, Brantingham was blown topside against the cockpit bulkhead. Temporarily knocked out, he sustained minor burns and a bruised ego. 

The lost vessel’s officers and men were assigned to other PT boats, with Richardson reporting aboard PT-34.

A Daring Strike and Another Boat Lost

On 18 January, Bulkeley received a message: “Army reports four enemy ships in or lying off Binanga Bay. Force may include one destroyer, one large transport. Send two boats attack between dusk and dawn.” After careful preparations, PTs 31 and 34 left Sisiman Cove after dark for the bay located just inside Subic Bay. Just outside the mouth of Subic, the two boats split up; 31 would patrol the eastern entrance of the bay while 34 reconnoitered the western entrance before they would rendezvous near the mouth of Binanga Bay and launch a joint attack on the expected enemy ships.

PT-34 was under the temporary command of Ensign Barron Chandler, with Richardson serving as executive officer. Also on board was Bulkeley, overall commander of the operation. After patrolling the western entrance, the boat reached the rendezvous at 0100 on 19 January and waited 30 minutes for PT-31 to show up. Bulkeley then decided PT-34 would advance into Binanga Bay alone.

She proceeded cautiously, with the lieutenant manning the torpedo director, Chandler the torpedo firing keys, and Richardson the steering wheel and throttles. The only ship spotted was a two-masted freighter. Just as preparations to fire two torpedoes at her were completed, a spotlight from the ship illuminated the PT boat. The two fish were quickly launched (although it was later discovered one had become stuck in its tube), and on Bulkeley’s order, Richardson “spun the wheel to the hard right and advanced the throttles to their maximum limit,” he recalled.

As the boat sped away, crewmen saw an explosion and fireball and later secondary explosions. U.S. newspapers desperate for positive war news would publicize the daring raid. Japanese records, however, do not confirm that a freighter was sunk that night in the bay.

As for PT-31, soon into her patrol her two outboard engines, clogged with wax, shut down. While repairs were underway, the center engine died and the powerless boat drifted onto a reef and could not be refloated. The crew was able to get off a message before setting out on a makeshift raft at 0300 and the skipper, Lieutenant Edward DeLong, set the boat on fire before abandoning her. After fruitlessly searching for the raft, DeLong swam to shore. Meanwhile, as the unmanageable raft drifted toward deeper water, nine of the sailors on board decided to swim to the beach; the raft eventually would reach the shore, but the three who had remained on board were captured by the Japanese and would not survive the war. 

Reaching the beach, the nine swimmers hid nearby in the underbrush, where they were joined by DeLong. They remained in the thick bushes all that day and watched Japanese soldiers pass within 50 yards of them. That night they stole several native canoes and reached what passed for American lines. After a tense few minutes, the sentry realized they were Americans and took them to his headquarters, where they were fed and transportation was arranged for their return to Mariveles.

Further Night Action

Less than a week after her Binanga Bay raid, PT-34 was on a routine patrol off the western coast of Bataan the night of 22–23 January when, “out of the blackness a long low boat was just visible and all hands were called to battle stations,” Richardson described. Lieutenant Bulkeley challenged the stranger and received an answering barrage of machine-gun fire, which pelted the PT boat and wounded Ensign Chandler in the legs. The Navy gunners returned a torrent of .50-caliber machine-gun fire as PT-34 circled the enemy vessel, a landing craft. “The fight was over as suddenly as it began,” Richardson said. “The landing barge simply disappeared.”

Just after dawn, another landing barge was discovered and taken under fire. She was quickly overwhelmed. A wounded Japanese sailor was standing with his arms raised in surrender. He was brought aboard the PT boat along with another critically wounded man. Bulkeley boarded the barge as she was sinking and commenced throwing documents and equipment onto PT-34. “As a sign of victory,” Richardson said, “the crew wired a Japanese bayonet and a helmet to the top of the mainmast.” 

Over the following weeks, MTBRon 3 continued to fulfill its missions even as it was increasingly crippled by fuel shortages and maintenance problems. PT-41 torpedoed a transport just inside Subic Bay on the night of 24 January. Eight nights later, PT-32, repaired after her January explosion, reported scoring a torpedo hit against what was thought to have been a cruiser. Bulkeley, on board PT-35, returned to Subic Bay on the night of 17 February. The boat launched torpedoes at two vessels, but no hits were reported.

The MacArthur Mission

With Japanese forces advancing down the Bataan Peninsula, as well as elsewhere in Southeast Asia, General Douglas MacArthur, commander of U.S. Army Forces in the Far East, was ordered to depart the Philippines. Just before dusk on 11 March, Bulkeley’s PT-41 pulled alongside the North Dock at Corregidor and embarked MacArthur; his wife and son; Major General Richard K. Sutherland, MacArthur’s chief of staff; and some other passengers. MacArthur had been ordered to Australia to assume command of all Allied forces in the Southwest Pacific. It was decided that Bulkeley’s PT boats would take him on the first leg of the journey. 

The other three boats—32, 34, and 35—fell in behind PT-41 and proceeded out to sea to avoid being spotted by the Japanese. During the night, the boats became separated because of mechanical problems and rough weather. The passengers suffered greatly from seasickness. MacArthur was quoted as saying he would have signed away the remainder of his life’s salary to be put ashore. All four boats made it safely to their rendezvous, Tagauayan Island, but PT-32 was short on gasoline and only one of her three engines was operable. She had to be left behind and later would be stripped and destroyed. The other boats made it safely to Mindanao, where U.S. Army Air Forces B-17s flew the MacArthur party the rest of the way to Australia. By the end of the month, U.S. newspapers were crediting Bulkeley and his boats for their key role in slipping the general out of the Philippines.

While at Mindanao, PT-34 was at anchor when “the gangway watch suddenly shouted, ‘We’re dragging anchor!’” Before the crew could react, “Crunch, we were aground,” Richardson recounted. About a week later, PT-35 struck a submerged object, ripping a gaping hole in her bow, which left only Bulkeley’s PT-41 to evacuate Philippine President Manuel Quezon, his family, and members of his staff to Mindanao later in March. Meanwhile, PTs 34 and 35 were repaired in Cebu City in the central Philippines.

A Heated Battle and PT-34’s Demise

On the night of 8–9 April, PT-41, in company with PT-34, attacked the Japanese light cruiser Kuma off the southern tip of Cebu Island. PT-41 launched two torpedoes that ran erratically and missed the cruiser, followed by two more that passed under the big ship. Next, PT-34 approached the cruiser and unleashed two torpedoes just as the ship sped up and a searchlight was switched on, which soon lit up the attacking boat. With Lieutenant Robert Kelly in command and Richardson at the wheel, 34 dodged heavy fire and the searchlight’s beam. 

With her two torpedoes having missed, the boat fell back before again approaching the cruiser. Kelly launched the last two torpedoes and ordered a hard right turn. As 34 made maximum speed, she came under fire from an escorting destroyer or large torpedo boat. Other escorts appeared and PTs 34 and 41 sped away. Kelly and a crewman claimed to see the cruiser being hit by the torpedoes and losing power, but she was struck by only one, which was a dud. 

Later, in the early hours of 9 April, PT-34 ran aground near the channel to Cebu City. After being rowed to shore, Richardson went to request that a tug be dispatched to the PT boat. Meanwhile, 34’s crew was able to free her from coral outcrops, but with daylight came Japanese planes, which bombed and strafed the boat as Richardson helplessly watched from the shore. After PT-34 was run aground, her survivors made their way ashore. One crewman had been killed, three others wounded, and a wounded passenger was again wounded, fatally. Further air attacks set the boat aflame. “The gasoline tanks caught on fire and dense clouds of pungent black smoke and cherry orange flame signaled the end of U.S.S. PT-34,” Richardson recalled.  Meanwhile that day, the worn-down U.S. and Philippine forces on Bataan surrendered. 

Fate of the Remainders

A few days later, PT-35 was burned while being repaired at Cebu to keep her from being captured by the enemy, which was advancing on the city. That left only Bulkeley’s PT boat. However, she had no torpedoes and no more were available; PT-41’s career as a torpedo boat was over, and later she was destroyed. Meanwhile, Bulkeley was ordered to Australia. Five of MTBRon 3’s men had been killed in action. The 83 officers and men who remained became widely scattered. A few were able to escape to Australia, 38 were taken prisoner, and several would serve with Philippine guerrilla forces—including Iliff Richardson, who set up numerous radio stations in the islands and reported on Japanese ship movements. Upon MacArthur’s return to the Philippines, the general rewarded the Navy ensign by appointing him a U.S. Army Intelligence major.