World War II: The Autobiography (41 page)

12.20 p.m. . . . The end is near, although I didn’t know it.

A new wave of planes appears, flying around us in formation and gradually coming nearer. The
Prince of Wales
lies about ten cables astern of our port side. She is helpless.

They are making for her. I don’t know how many. They are splitting up our guns as they realize they are after her, knowing she can’t dodge their torpedoes. So we fire at them to defend the
Prince of Wales
rather than attend to our own safety.

The only analogy I can think of to give an impression of the
Prince of Wales
in those last moments is of a mortally wounded tiger trying to beat off the
coup de grâce.

Her outline is hardly distinguishable in smoke and flame from all her guns except the fourteen-inchers. I can see one plane release a torpedo. It drops nose heavy into the sea and churns up a small wake as it drives straight at the
Prince of Wales.
It explodes against her bows.

A couple of seconds later another explodes amidships and another astern. Gazing at her turning over on the port side with her stern going under and with dots of men leaping from her, I was thrown against the bulkhead by a tremendous shock as the
Repulse
takes a torpedo on her portside stern.

With all others on the flag-deck I am wondering where it came from, when the
Repulse
shudders gigantically. Another torpedo.

Now men cheering with more abandon than at a Cup Final. What the heck is this? I wonder. Then see it is another plane down. It hits the sea in flames also. There have been six so far as I know.

My notebook, which I have got before me, is stained with oil and is ink-blurred. It says: “Third torp.”

The
Repulse
now listing badly to starboard. The loud-speakers speak for the last time: “Everybody on main deck.”

We all troop down ladders, most orderly except for one lad who climbs the rail and is about to jump when an officer says: “Now then – come back – we are all going your way.” The boy came back and joined the line.

It seemed slow going. Like all the others I suppose I was tempted to leap to the lower deck, but the calmness was catching. When we got to the main deck the list was so bad our shoes and feet could not grip the steel deck. I kicked off mine, and my damp stockinged feet made for sure movement.

Nervously opening my cigarette case I found I hadn’t a match. I offered a cigarette to a man beside me. He said: “Ta. Want a match?” We both lit up and puffed once or twice. He said: “I’ll be seeing you, mate.” To which I replied: “Hope so, cheerio.”

We were all able to walk down the ship’s starboard side, she lay so much over to port.

We all formed a line along a big protruding anti-torpedo blister, from where we had to jump some twelve feet into a sea which was black – I discovered it was oil.

I remember jamming my cap on my head, drawing a breath and leaping.

Oh, I forgot – the last entry in my notebook was: “Sank about 12.20 p.m.” I made it before leaving the flag-deck. In the water I glimpsed the
Prince of Wales
’s bows disappearing.

Kicking with all my strength, I with hundreds of others tried to get away from the
Repulse
before she went under, being afraid of getting drawn under in the whirlpool.

I went in the wrong direction, straight into the still spreading oil patch, which felt almost as thick as velvet. A wave hit me and swung me round so that I saw the last of the
Repulse.

Her underwater plates were painted a bright, light red. Her bows rose high as the air trapped inside tried to escape from underwater forward regions, and there she hung for a second or two and easily slid out of sight.

FLYING TIGER: AMERICAN VOLUNTEER GROUP PILOT IN ACTION AGAINST THE JAPANESE, 19 DECEMBER 1941

Claire L. Chennault, AVG

A former USAAF pilot, Claire Chennault, recruited American volunteers to help the Chinese resist the Japanese invasion (begun in 1937). The first missions of the American Volunteer Group of the Chinese Nationalist Air Force began in December 1941. Eventually the “Flying Tigers” were reorganized as the 23rd Fighter Group of the USAAF.

By dawn on the nineteenth we had thirty-four P-40s ready to fight at Kunming with a fighter-control headquarters hooked into the Yunnan warning net and the Chinese code rooms that were monitoring Japanese operational radio frequencies and decoding enemy messages. For the first time since mid-October I breathed easier.

It was this kind of lightning mobility that was necessary to realize the full potential of airpower. To achieve it meant that I would always have to operate on a skeletonized basis with airmen doubling in ground duties and a few key men doing the work of an entire staff. It meant that I could never afford the excess staff personnel required by more orthodox military organizations.

It was this ability to shift my combat operations six hundred and fifty miles in an afternoon and a thousand miles in twenty-four hours that kept the Japanese off balance for four bloody years and prevented them from landing a counterpunch with their numerically superior strength that might easily have put my always meager forces out of business.

We had little strain on our patience for the first pay-off on these tactics. December 19 passed quietly with three P-40 reconnaissance patrols over southern Yunnan but no sign of life from the enemy. At 9:45
A
.
M
. on the twentieth my special phone from the Chinese code room rang. It was Colonel Wong Shu Ming, commander of the Chinese Fifth Air Force and Chinese chief of staff for the A.V.G. His message said, “Ten Japanese bombers crossed the Yunnan border at Laokay heading northwest.”

From then on the battle unfolded over Yunnan as it had done a hundred times before in my head. Reports filtered in from the Yunnan net as the enemy bombers penetrated deeper into China.

“Heavy engine noise at station X-10.”

“Unknowns overhead at station P-8.”

“Noise of many above clouds at station C-23.”

Position reports recorded on our fighter-control board added up to a course designed to bring the enemy bombers to about fifty miles east of Kunming, from which point they would probably begin the circling and feinting tactics designed to confuse the warning net before their final dash to the target.

I ordered the Second Squadron to make the interception. Jack Newkirk, of Scarsdale, New York, led one four-plane element in search of the bombers while Jim Howard, of St. Louis, son of former medical missionaries in China, led another four-plane formation on defensive patrol above Kunming. Sixteen planes of the First Squadron commanded by Robert Sandell, of San Antonio, Texas, were held in reserve in the stand-by area west of Kunming, ready to join the fray at the decisive moment.

I fired a red flare sending the Second and First Squadrons into the air and drove with my executive officer, Harvey Greenlaw, and interpreter, Colonel Hsu, to the great timbered clay pyramid looming above the grassy mounds of a Chinese graveyard on a gentle slope overlooking the field. This was our combat-operations shelter with a duplicate set of radio and phone communications. Inside the dark, dank interior we studied the plotting board by the light of matches held by Greenlaw while Hsu took phone reports from the Chinese net. Outside, the winter air of the Kunming plateau was crisp and clear. Scattered puffball clouds floated lazily above the city at 10,000 feet. Weather reports to the south indicated a solid overcast brushing the mountain peaks.

This was the decisive moment I had been awaiting for more than four years – American pilots in American fighter planes aided by a Chinese ground warning net about to tackle a formation of the Imperial Japanese Air Force, which was then sweeping the Pacific skies victorious everywhere. I felt that the fate of China was riding in the P-40 cockpits through the wintery sky over Yunnan. I yearned heartily to be ten years younger and crouched in a cockpit instead of a dugout, tasting the stale rubber of an oxygen mask and peering ahead into limitless space through the cherry-red rings of a gunsight.

Suddenly voices broke through the crackling radio static.

“There they are.”

“No, no, they can’t be Japs.”

“Look at those red balls.”

“Let’s get ’em.”

Then maddening silence. I ordered Sandell’s reserve squadron to dive to Iliang about thirty miles southeast of Kunming along the Japs’ line of probable approach. There was nothing more on the radio. The Chinese net reported the bombers had reversed course and were heading back toward Indo-China. Sounds of gunfire were heard, and the heavy fall of Japanese bombs in the mountains near Iliang was reported. There was nothing to do but return to the field and wait.

Chinese were already streaming back to the city from their refuge among the grave mounds, incredulous that no bombs had fallen. Howard’s patrol over Kunming came down. They had seen nothing. Newkirk’s flight returned, sheepish and chagrined over a bad case of buck fever on their first contact with the enemy. They had sighted the Jap formation of ten gray twin-engined bombers about thirty miles southeast of Kunming, but for a few incredulous seconds could hardly believe the bombers were really Japs. The bombers jettisoned their bombs, put their noses down for speed, and wheeled back toward Indo-China. By the time Newkirk’s flight recovered and opened fire, the bombers had too big a lead – too big that is for everybody except Ed Rector. The last the other pilots saw of Rector he was still chasing the Japs at full throttle.

Finally Sandell’s squadron came straggling in. From the whistling of the wind in their open gun barrels and the slow rolls as they buzzed the field, we knew they had been in a fight. They had sighted the Jap formation in full retreat over Iliang about thirty miles southeast of Kunming, scuttling along on top of a solid overcast with Rector still in pursuit.

As the P-40s dived to attack, everybody went a little crazy with excitement. All the lessons of Toungoo were forgotten. There was no teamwork – only a wild melee in which all pilots agreed that only sheer luck kept P-40s from shooting each other. Pilots tried wild 90-degree deflection shots and other crazy tactics in the 130-mile running fight that followed. Fritz Wolf of Shawano, Wisconsin, shot down two bombers and then cursed his armorer because his guns jammed.

When he landed and inspected the guns, he found they were merely empty. When the P-40s broke off three Jap bombers had gone down in flames and the remainder were smoking in varying degrees. Ed Rector was the only A.V.G. casualty. His long chase left him short of gas, forcing him to crash-land his P-40 in a rice paddy east of Kumming with minor injuries.

Back at the field most of the pilots were too excited to speak coherently.

“Well, boys,” I told the excited pilots, “it was a good job but not good enough. Next time get them all.”

I herded them into the operations shack for an hour before I let them eat lunch. We went over the fight in minute detail pointing out their mistakes and advising them on how to get all the bombers next time.

THE FALL OF SINGAPORE: A CIVILIAN DIARY, 9–15 FEBRUARY 1942

Dr OE Fisher, medical officer

After inflicting a humiliating defeat on the British in the jungles of Malaya, the Japanese proceeded to Singapore – Britain’s supposedly impregnable island naval base. Unfortunately, most of Singapore’s 15 inch guns pointed seawards and the Japanese attacked from the landwards side. On 15 February the demoralized and ill-led British and Commonwealth forces on Singapore surrendered to the numerically inferior Imperial Japanese Army of General Yamashita. Well over a hundred thousand troops and civilians passed into captivity, many of them to die. Churchill called the surrender of Singapore “the worst disaster and largest capitulation in Britsh history”.

Wednesday February 4th

My birthday! Air raid 9 a.m. – went for docks again. Second air raid 11 a.m. – several sticks dropped fairly close to here. Few casualties admitted here. Caught out with one air raid casualty – house collapsed on him – no marks of external injury but abdomen swollen and tender – diagnosed intraperitoneal bleeding – cut open. Cirrhosis of liver with ascites.

Pahit party at Sister’s Quarters in evening. After dinner Rupert Shelley got going with bawdy songs à la Residents’ dinner.

Cable from Father. Short alert during night.

Thursday February 5th

Artillery fire throughout night and this morning. Went to town 10 a.m. First alert not till 10.30 a.m. Lasted 1¾ hours. Went for docks again.

Met Black and Sola in town. Sola told me everyone in Brunei captured save Coghill and Cliffords who got away up Limbang river. Others interned in Belait Rest House. Sultan asked for Graham M.O. Brunei to remain but request refused. Our fighters very active in afternoon. Large fire out at sea. Did a few air raid casualties in evening. Governor visited hospital.

3 alerts in early hours Friday morning.

Friday February 6th

Two alerts in morning. One in afternoon.

Terrific smoke pall from burning oil dump at Naval base. Artillery fire all day.

Letter to Kitty. No alert during night.

Saturday February 7th

Japs shell town. I hear whistle of shells for first time. Went down town to collect pay. Met Joe Anderson and Kennedy. Hear that 300,000 cases whisky destroyed – deny our troops.

Sunday February 8th

Two air alerts in morning. Went to Seaview hotel in morning with Rupert Shelley, Sisters Jones and Bullock. Operating in afternoon from 3.30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Terrific artillery fire all through night. Can see gun flashes all along north coast – both sides firing. Went up on roof to see it – saw coastal search light sweeping Johore Straits.

Monday February 9th

Learnt that Japs had landed on north coast of island last night – fierce fighting taking place. Two air alerts in morning.