Shadows In the Jungle (27 page)

Then, in the confusion, the skipper of the second PT boat in the formation, a new officer with little night patrol experience, cut his wheel to port and took his boat out of position. The 20mm gunner on board the PT, his adrenaline flowing and unaware that his boat was out of line, spotted a large shadow two hundred yards to starboard. He swung his gun around and opened fire.

The shadow was the PT-495.

Rounds from the errant PT boat peppered the 40mm gun position on the
Gentleman Jim
's fantail, and men screamed in pain and shock. The executive officer of the wayward boat saw the mistake and immediately ordered the gunner to cease fire, but the damage was done. At least five sailors were hit, and one would shortly die. Of the wounded, one sailor suffered a bad leg wound and another had an arm blown off, while a third seaman was down with a head wound. A young sailor, his arm badly mangled, staggered forward from the carnage and told his skipper, “Get the hell out. We're all hit back here.”

He did not have to tell the skipper of the
Gentleman Jim
that news. He was one of the seven men who received minor wounds, having been nicked in the shin by shrapnel. Another of the wounded was Alamo Scout Oliver Roesler, who had a piece of an exploded 20mm shell lodged in his neck.

No one on board knew the fire came from another PT boat, and initially no one cared. Help for the wounded was now the job that needed to be done and everyone pitched in. Geiger, who said he would never forget the sight of the bloodied men, helped the XO navigate the boat, while everyone else, including the Scouts, assisted in first aid. Even Roesler, his neck and uniform bloodied from his own wound, helped Ross, who was tending the boy with the mangled arm. As they dumped sulfa powder on his wounds and hit him with morphine before applying a tourniquet, they spoke to him to get his attention off his injury.

“What's your name, son,” Ross asked as he worked on the boy.

“Wilbur,” the sailor muttered.

“Wilbur, huh?” Ross said. “We got a couple of Wilburs in the Scouts. Nice name. Been with this boat long?”

“No,” he replied, groggily. “This is my first cruise.”

“Well, you're gonna spend some time in a nice clean hospital, with good food and pretty nurses,” Ross said. “Maybe you might even get to go home and see your family. Would you like that?”

The youth smiled through his pain and the two Scouts looked at each other, certain he would lose the arm. Whether it was the sight of the crippled boy, or the effects of his wound, or both, Roesler was soon sickened and had to go below. Geiger relieved Ross.

“Take a break, Bob,” he told his friend. “Grab a smoke.”

“Thanks, Geig,” Ross replied. “This has me fuckin' unnerved.”

Of the twenty-two men on board the 495 boat, twelve had been hit. Still, things could have been a lot worse. Two of the 20mm shells had struck near the
Gentleman Jim
's fuel tanks. Had they been a bit closer to the mark, they would have touched off the boat's high-octane aviation gasoline and the boat would have been blown into matchsticks.

Then the rain began to fall. Blankets were brought up from below to cover the wounded and make them comfortable. It was about three thirty a.m. by now, and PT-495 had lost contact with the other two boats. Suddenly one of the PTs, probably the same one that had shot them up, piloted by the same disoriented skipper, materialized out of the darkness, heading for the 495 boat. The
Gentleman Jim
's injured commander tried to wheel his boat out of the way, but the oncoming craft struck the 495's stern. Smoke billowed from the rear of the 495 and someone yelled, “Fire!” However, it was quickly discovered that the smoke was coming from the smokescreen generator on the fantail, which was damaged in the collision.

The third PT boat soon pulled up. The badly injured men were carefully transferred and the boat sent on its way toward its base at Linoan. The PT-495 and the boat that rammed it limped home together, so badly damaged that the men wore life vests just in case.

Safely back at Linoan, McGowen, Ross, and Geiger helped the PT- 495 crew clean the bloodied deck. Roesler was sent to the army hospital at Hollandia, New Guinea, and would be out of action for three months, returning on November 21.

The mission to resupply the Thompson Team was scrubbed. It was also the last mission for the Lutz Team. With its leader gone, the team was dispersed. Ross was sent to the Dove Team. Geiger and Roesler would be recalled by their original units.

* * *

Keeping tabs on Japanese troop movements within Leyte's mountainous interior was a priority for American planners.

On November 12, the Dove Team, under the command of Lt. Woodrow Hobbs since Jack Dove's wounding, along with Bob Sumner's team, were sent to watch Highway 2, the main road from Ormoc north through the Ormoc Valley to Carigara Bay. Sumner's team was to watch the southern stretch of road from Ormoc City to Valencia, while Hobbs and his men kept an eye on the northern leg of the highway from Valencia to Cananga, as well as the road rolling eastward to Carigara, thus putting the entire highway under surveillance.

Hobbs, along with Staff Sgt. John G. Fisher, Sgts. John E. Philips, John E. Hidalgo, Denny Chapman, Irv Ray, William R. Watson, and Ray W. Wangrud—these last two formerly with the Reynolds Team—left the PT tender
Oyster Bay
that afternoon, arriving at San Isidro at three a.m. Met by natives, they were rowed ashore by canoe and spent the night in a nearby house.

On November 15, the team was ferried seventeen miles to the south to the village of Abijao, where they linked up with Maj. Jose Nazareno and his 96th Philippine Regiment, who led them on a mountainous trek eastward to the village of Maulayan, which overlooked the Ormoc-Carigara road. There they set up a radio station and spent the next two weeks reporting enemy activity. Arriving at Maulayan, Hobbs got word through a civilian scouting unit called the Volunteer Guards that three thousand Japanese were massing at Cananga, with another thousand congregated some five miles to the east.

Hobbs radioed that there was a strong possibility that the Japanese were preparing to evacuate across the Camotes Sea to Cebu, adding a report he had received that the enemy already on Cebu were slaughtering entire villages in retaliation for their own losses on Leyte. The lightly armed guerrillas on Cebu were unable to prevent it.

Even before Hobbs radioed his disturbing news, on November 14, Lt. George S. Thompson's Team, which consisted of Thompson, Sgts. Leonard Scott and Charley Hill, Cpl. Gordon Butler, Pfcs. Joseph Moon and Joseph Johnson, and Pvt. Robert Shullaw, formerly of the Lutz Team, along with Vincent Nuivedo, a Filipino radio operator, were dispatched to Poro Island in the Camotes Island group, to watch for enemy barge traffic between Leyte and Cebu.

Landing in rubber boats on the island's northeast coast, they were met by guerrillas, who told them as many as one thousand Japanese were in the vicinity. The Scouts set up a radio station and interviewed civilians. Thompson established a civilian information network as a means of conveying news to the scattered villages. Results weren't long in coming, as the Scouts were informed about enemy barges ferrying troops from Talang Point on Pacijan Island to Ormoc. Japanese forces also reinforced Ponson Island, just northeast of Poro, where they ruthlessly raped, tortured, and bayoneted civilians.

Enemy presence among the Camotes Islands was intense, causing the Scouts to keep on the move, and it was amid this busy time that the Japanese found the Thompson Team.

On the night of December 7, Thompson and his men had settled among a small seaside collection of shanties on Poro Island. Selecting a two-story house right at the water's edge, the men bedded down.

“Indoor accommodations,” Charley Hill said as he stretched out beside Thompson. “That is a rare luxury indeed for us Scouts.”

“Yeah,” Thompson said. “When word gets out to the other teams, we'll be regular celebrities. They'll be wanting autographs and asking to touch us.”

Hill chuckled, then said, “Tommy, can I see your fancy pistol?”

Thompson reached into a shoulder holster and slid out his .38-caliber revolver. He handed it to Hill, who held it lovingly. He especially admired the wooden pistol grips, with Thompson's name carved on one side and “Alamo Scouts” on the other.

“Who carved the grips for you?” Hill asked.

“Bob Ross,” Thompson replied. “He's handy as hell. It's native wood—ash, I think.”

“No shit? Big Bob Ross of the Lutz Team?” Hill asked, then handed the gun back. “But how come you use a thirty-eight? Where's your forty-five?”

“I could never hit shit with a forty-five,” Thompson replied, slipping the revolver back into his holster. He then rolled over to get some sleep.

In the dark of the night, the team was awakened by engine noises. Six barges loaded with Japanese soldiers were landing just outside. At Thompson's signal, the men slipped quietly up to the second floor and kept silent vigil. They watched in growing concern as some of the enemy troops approached the two-story hiding place and a few men went inside.

As the enemy tromped around the ground floor, Thompson said quietly, “Hold your fire.”

Then the sound of boots on the steps was heard as two Japanese climbed the stairway.

“Let's get the fuck outta here,” Thompson said, then he and three of the team leaped from the window and splashed into the sea. Sergeant Scott and the remaining three rushed down the back stairs, pushed past the startled Japanese on the steps, ran out of the house and into the surrounding jungle, gunshots and shouts of surprise and outrage following them.

Reaching dense underbrush, the men dove for cover. Before long, Japanese soldiers approached, and with bayonets mounted on their Arisaka rifles began probing the bushes. The tip of a bayonet nicked Scott in the stomach, drawing blood, but he did not flinch. Soon satisfied that the Americans had escaped, the enemy withdrew back to the village.

Miraculously, the entire team escaped unscathed except for Scott's slight wound, and the men reassembled. However, they had lost their radio and most of their supplies. They eventually linked up with Company I of the 88th Infantry Cebu Command, the only native military group in the Camotes. The Filipinos in this unit were armed with eight carbines, ten Japanese Arisaka rifles, and twelve sidearms. Thompson, using the guerrillas' radio, arranged to supply them with seventy-five M1 rifles, two .30-caliber machine guns, and plenty of ammunition.

* * *

By late November, the only experienced Scout team not deployed was Lt. Thomas Rounsaville's, but he wouldn't be idle for long. On November 21, he and his men, along with Sgt. Lleandro Reposar, a Filipino radio operator, and a guerrilla officer named Captain Avela, who would serve as guide, boarded a PT boat for a trip across a narrow strip of the Visayan Sea to the north, this time to Masbate Island, just off the southeast tail of the main Philippine island of Luzon. Their mission was to help local guerrillas set up a radio and observation network to assist with the upcoming invasion.

The team went ashore from the PT boat at the village of Tenke on the southern tip of Masbate, traveled overland to Esperanza, then by native sailboat, where, sitting on the boat's outriggers, they watched for attacking planes, both American and Japanese. American navy planes soon arrived, diving out of the sky. Everyone went over the side as bullets churned up the sea around them.

“Everyone stay in the water,” Rounsaville ordered, then turned to Sergeant Hard. “Harold, follow me.”

Rounsaville climbed back into the boat, followed by Hard. Both men stripped off their shirts, exposing their white skin. The fighters came swooping down again, noticed the shirtless white men, and peeled off, dipping their wings in apology.

Arriving at Masbate on November 23, Rounsaville was informed that the guerrilla radio operators in the area were unable to help him communicate because they did not know how to decode the incoming messages, so he left Sergeant Reposar behind to create a reliable radio station, and headed along the coast to establish observation posts, both on Masbate and the smaller island of Ticao, just to the north. Observing Ticao across the short strip of water that separates it from Masbate, Rounsaville noticed heavy Japanese air traffic. Through Captain Avela, Rounsaville was informed by natives that the air activity was covering a Japanese attempt to reinforce Leyte with troops from Luzon, sending them on transports through the Masbate Passage and down the slot between Masbate and Samar.

Rounsaville passed the intelligence on, with the result that he and his men had ringside seats as torpedo planes of the 5th Air Force delivered a series of vicious attacks on enemy shipping.

A few days after learning of the reinforcement attempt, the team spotted a Japanese troop convoy steaming through the passage. Rounsaville radioed the coordinates to the 5th Air Force, and before long, American planes were swarming over the ships. The Scouts were mesmerized as they watched water geysers erupt around the enemy convoy. Smoke and flame shot up from some of the vessels, which began to burn and sink. Survivors leaped from the ships to the point where, Rounsaville recalled, the “water was black with Japs.” Fighter planes strafed the men thrashing in the ocean.

In all, six enemy transports were sunk.

Rounsaville's team also called in bomb strikes on Masbate itself, where the Japanese had a major airfield on the outskirts of Masbate City. The raids forced the Japanese to relocate several times.

* * *

By early December, twenty-three thousand Japanese troops were trapped in north Leyte's Ormoc Valley. The American advance combined with Allied airpower had established a firm stranglehold on the enemy by all but eliminating any chance of resupply or reinforcements.