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KANSAS CITY
BLIC LIBRARY
D DDD1 D33735S 1
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
.The Story of the Cruiser Helena
HUGH B. CAVE
LONG WERE THE NIGHTS
The Saga of PT Squadron X
in the Solomons
'THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
The Story of the Cruiser "Helena"
By
LIEUTENANT C G. .MORRI5, U5NR
With
HUGH B. CAVE
ILLUSTRATED
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
NEW YORK 1944
COPYRIGHT, 1944,
BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM
WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER
THIS BOOK IS MANUFACTURED UNDER WAR-
TIME CONDITIONS IN CONFORMITY WITH
AIX GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS CONTROLLING
THE 1 USB OF PAPER ANI> OTHER MATERIALS
PtBJTH* IM THE HOTTED; STAT1S OF AMERICA
To THE OFFICERS AND MEN, LIVING AND DEAD,
WHO SERVED ABOARD THE GALLANT CRUISER
"HELENA"
Contents
CHAPTER f PAGE
I Something to Remember .... I
II How to Catch a Warship . . . . 14
III Skipper in a Coal Bag . *. , 21
IV Prelude 28
V Moving Up 38
VI The Battle of Cape Esperance. . . 46
VII Torpedo Planes 59
VIII "Take the Big Ones First!" . . . 74-
IX The Battle of Guadalcanal . . . 85
X St. Helena 99
XI "Enemy Installations Were Bom-
barded * . " no
XII The Happy Helena 123
XIII "And Troops Were Landed . . ." . . 134
XIV "Enemy Ships Sighted . . / 7 . . . 143
XV The Last Battle 153
XVI The Sea .163
XVII The Rafts 172
XVIII The Rescue 182
Log of the U.S.S. Helena . . . 190
The Helena's Skippers . . . .192
** CHAPTER ONE **
Something to Remember
"WE don't want to be spectacular. Spectacular people
are likely to shine today and be dull tomorrow, and we
can't have that. We must be good, very good, always."
Lieutenant Commander Irving T. Duke, USN, a stout,
jolly man with an aim in life, mildly waved a hand to
press home his point. He almost never raised his voice.
Patient beyond belief, he liked to say the same thing
over and over, quietly, with gentle emphasis, so that his
men would listen and remember.
Lieutenant Commander Duke was a few months be-
fore my time. In fact, he left the ship before ever she
saw action. But he belongs in the first paragraph of any
story of the United States Cruiser Helena, because it
was he who founded the original "Helena Gun Club,"
and from his persuasive training grew the power and
punch that made his ship one of the ightingest men-o'-
war that ever scoured the seas. That is what the con-
servative United States Navy has called her. And that is
what she was when she died "with her boots on" in the
now historic Battle of Kula Gulf, waged in the early
morning hours of July 6, 1943* against a superior Jap
surface force in the Northern Solomon Islands.
Duke was gunnery officer wheo the Helena hoisted
en
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
her commission pennant at the New York Navy Yard
in September, 1939, under the command of Captain Max
B. DeMott, USN (now retired), of Jamestown, Rhode
Island. On her shakedown cruise, which took the cruiser
to Montevideo, Uruguay, and gave her men a glimpse
of war in the shape of the scuttled German pocket battle-
ship Graf Spee, the commander and his associates in the
gunnery division worked out their theories.
"We want to be consistent," he told his men. "Not
sensational, but consistent. All I ask all I insist upon
is that we get a better than average percentage of hits
every time. And to do that, we must know our guns."
That was important. Very important. A fighting ship,
Duke insisted, was no better than her guns, and the guns
in turn were only as good as the men who manned them.
The Helena bristled with weapons. She carried a
grand total of fifteen 6-inch guns in her main-battery
turrets, and under Duke's patient instruction they ac-
quired the voice of a mighty organ chord of doom. In
her secondary battery she carried eight 5-inch guns which
packed almost as potent a punch and could be used
against enemy aircraft as well as surface ships. She was
swift and lean and rugged: a io,o6o-ton fighting ship
designed to roam far from home and handle herself in
any emergency.
Ironically, the Japanese themselves were responsible
for the existence of this slim, six-hundred-foot ship of
war. She and her sister light cruisers were our Navy's
reply when the Japs, by cunning manipulation of treaty
limitations, produced their Mogami cruisers in the early
1936*$ in a bid for naval supremacy. We answered that
[2]
SOMETHING TO REMEMBER
furtive challenge not by exceeding treaty restrictions,
but by compressing tremendous fire power into small,
swift greyhounds, and placing this power in the hands of
men who pridefully developed every component of it.
The soul of any ship is in the men who fight her, and we
had the men.
Lieutenant Commander Duke was one of them. Lieu-
tenant Joseph P. "Jeeves" Fulsom, his main battery as-
sistant, and Lieutenant (now Lieutenant Commander)
Warren Boles were others. These men knew the Helena's
guns. They knew what could be done with that awesome
store of power. On the shakedown cruise and during fleet
gunnery exercises, they everlastingly drilled the Helena's
gun crews.
"Consistency that's what we want," the commander
insisted. "That way we'll be the fightingest ship in the
fleet." Again and again he said it, gently but with empha-
sis, determined to win for the ship that coveted title.
The officers and men loved every good-humored pound
of him. They smiled at his weakness for prowling at
night about the wardroom pantry, in search of tidbits to
keep his weight at "normal," but worked night and day
to be as good as he begged them to be. The Helena never
lost the inspiration he so gently pressed upon her in those
early days of her schooling. It was Irving Duke who
groomed her for what the Navy has called her "hell-
roaring career."
The cormkander had been assigned to other duties by
the time his thorough teaching first paid dividends. Com-
mander Rodman D. Smith, USN, was "gunnery boss"
of the ship when, on December 7, 1941, the Japs paid
[3]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
their surprise visit to Pearl Harbor. The Helena was
there that Sunday morning. In fact she was their number
one naval target.
The Japs did not mean her to be, of course. Their
principal objective was the battleship Pennsylvania, flag-
ship of the fleet Some of their pilots, shot down that day,
were found to be carrying charts upon which the position
of the Pennsylvania was marked with a red arrow.
But the flagship had been moved into drydock for an
overhauling, and it was the Helena's hard luck to be
where the queen of the fleet was supposed to be* Those
red arrows on the Japanese maps pointed straight to the
Helena.
Bombs had been falling on Hickam Field for about
five minutes when the first enemy torpedo planes swept
in over Ford Island to strike at the harbor. The Japs
sped across the channel in close, low formation and loosed
their torpedoes.
Their aim was not particularly good. With a little of
the right kind of luck, the Helena might have escaped
damage. All but one of the torpedoes fired in that first
swift attack missed the marie by comfortable margins.
That one torpedo, correctly aimed but released from
a poor angle of approach, should by all logic have hit
an ancient wooden mine-sweeper, the Oglala y moored
directly In its path. But it didn't* It freakishly slipped
under the Oglala and continued on course to explode in
the Helenas forward engine room* So tremendous was
the blast that the Qglala, untouched by the torpedo itself,
turned turtle and sank with her wooden bottom com-
pletely crushed by the under-water concussion. Later she
SOMETHING TO REMEMBER
was raised and repaired.
That torpedo was the first to hit Pearl Harbor, and
the Helena, despite her wounds, was the first cruiser in
the fleet to give the Japs an answer. While officers and
men struggled with the dead and wounded in her de-
molished engine room, the ship's anti-aircraft guns de-
fiantly blazed away. Like the rest of Pearl Harbor, the
Helena was caught by surprise, but she recovered quickly
and almost at once was furiously fighting back.
She was an angry ship. A warship is a personal thing,
not a mass of inanimate steel. It is made of men and
moods, loyalties and friendships. The Japs could not with
impunity do what they had done to those men In the
Helenas engine room. The ship's gunners, trained by
Lieutenant Commander Duke, went to work to even the
score. "Ordinary guys" got blazing mad and were heroes.
In one of the 5-inch mounts a young coxswain named
George Keating not a big boy, but rugged stepped
into the "hot casemanV slot. His job there was to snatch
the ammunition cases as they came from the guns, and
toss them out the scuttle. A hot casemaa wears heavy
asbestos gloves to protect his hands, because those empty
cases are as wickedly hot as the thundering guns from
which they are ejected.
Keating didn't have any gloves. There had been no
time to look for any. He handled the smoking ammuni-
tion cases without them, and thought about his hands
later. He was called a hero when It was over, and Admi-
ral Niniitz pinned a decoration on him for his bravery.
But before the Japs put that torpedo into George Keat-
ing's ship, George was just an ordinary fellow who liked
[5]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
to clown around and talk like Mortimer Snerd on the
radio, and always crinkled his eyes shut when he grinned.
Ira Sykes was another who got mad. He was a tall,
long-limbed lieutenant from Texas, in charge of an after
gun director. When the torpedo exploded in the engine
room and crippled the ship's power, Sykes 1 director ceased
to function and he was peeved. The Japs had no right to
put his battle station out of commission at a time like
that.
Ira clambered up on top of the director, the highest
point he could reach, and spread his long legs apart and
brazenly brandished a .45 at the planes overhead. It was
funny in a way, this lanky Texan yelling defiance and
firing a revolver at the Emperor's pilots. But it was not
an isolated case of courage, because the same violent
anger was erupting all over the ship. The Helena was
hurt and bitter. Within her was welling a hate for the
Japs which never subsided, not even when she died in
Kula Gulf nearly two years later.
Not all the ship's personnel were aboard when the
enemy hit Pearl Harbor. Some were ashore, at home
with their families. But the absentees were not long away
from their battle stations, once the bombs began to fall.
They came from all directions, afoot and by car. They
came in a hurry, "on the double/'
Lieutenant Boles a Marblehead, Massachusetts, man
was at home with his wife, Harriet, and his two small
sons when the attack began. He was romping with the
youngsters on the lawn. There's a pkture for someone's
memory book: this tower of a man, well over six feet
and as ruggedly handsome as he is high, legging it across
[6]
SOMETHING TO REMEMBER
the lawn to his car while the two tykes stare at him with
eyes like saucers. They thought he was crazy.
Warren Boles drove pell-mell over the crowded roads
and brought his car to a screeching halt on the pier. His
long legs carried him swiftly to his battle station in Spot
One, high up under the Helena's crow's nest. But the
ship's main batteries were silent that Sunday. Against
the enemy marauders she could use only* her lighter
weapons and anti-aircraft guns. Boles pitched in where
he was needed.
Several days later, when the show was over, he started
for home to find out how Mrs. Boles and the youngsters
had come through the ordeal. The car was on the pier
where he had left it. He stepped on the starter and the
motor responded without protest. But before he had
driven a hundred feet, a headlight fell off, then a fender
clattered to the ground and a wheel rolled away.. Liter-
ally shaken to pieces by the concussion of the bombs, the
car came apart under him. Boles got out and walked.
The Japs were gone then. The torpedo planes had
crippled the fleet and fled, and the last bomb had long
since burst on Hickam Field. Pearl Harbor picked itself
out of the rubble and dazedly took stock. The Helena
and other ships of the fleet cleared away their wreckage
and looked at their wounds.
The Helena's luck had been both good and bad. Bad,
because the torpedo which had hit her should by all rights
have hit the Oglala instead. Good, because a hit of such
magnitude m her forward engine room should have sunk
her and it hadn't. Her engine room casualty list was
long more than forty men killed and a hundred others
[7]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
seriously Injured and in later attacks still more of her
men had been hurt by bomb fragments on deck. But the
angry breath of her guns had kept the Japs at bay and
burned six, probably seven, enemy planes from the sky.
Her gunnery had been superb. Lieutenant Commander
Irving Duke could be proud of his gunners. Her skipper,
Captain Robert H. English, USN, of Washington, D. C.,
was justifiably proud of his ship. She had demonstrated
her ability to "take it."
Could the ship be repaired? Her engineering officer,
Commander Elmer C. Buerkle, USN, said she could be,
and no one disputed his verdict Commander Buerkle
knew the Helena as well as any other man aboard her.
Perhaps even a little better. He loved every inch of her,
and his energy knew no bounds.
He and his crew rolled up their sleeves, made out a
list of the miracles to be performed, and set about get-
ting them done. Not too long later, running on one engine
but under her own power and asking no assistance, the
crippled Helena limped out of Pearl Harbor en route to
Mare Island Navy Yard in California.
It was not a pleasure trip. Even the weather took a
back-handed slap at the battered ship and piled up moun-
tainous seas for her to buck. But her engineers swarmed
over the patched-up engine, holding it together with in-
jections of sweat and Helena spirit. Commander Buerkle
went without sleep to watch over his patient The Helena
made port
When she stood out from Mare Island six months
later, the Helena bore no scars of her Pearl Harbor
[8]
SOMETHING TO REMEMBER
experience. Except for the drabness of her war dress, she
was the same sleek cruiser which had been commissioned
at New York in '39. Many of her personnel were new,
but they were Helena men now, their loyalties estab-
lished, spirits high.
While out of action at Mare Island, the ship had
undergone some changes of command. The war was
young; officers were being shuffled about in an effort to
place each man in his proper niche. Captain English was
relieved by Commander (Now Captain) Gerald D.
Linke, USN, of Plainfield, New Jersey, who served as
acting commanding officer until Captain "(now Rear Ad-
miral) Oliver M. Read, USN, of Yemassee, South Caro-
lina, took over. When the Helena steamed out of San
Francisco for the South Pacific with her last steel plate
welded into place and her new engines tested in a brief
shakedown, Captain Read was her skipper, Commander
Linke her executive officer.
Her assignment was to convoy a detachment of Sea-
bees to the South Seas and escort an aircraft carrier
rushing planes to the Pacific war front.
Much had happened in the Pacific during the Helena's
enforced stay at Mare Island. Wake and Guam were in
the hands of the Japs. The campaign in the Philippines
had ended in disaster. Singapore had fallen. Borneo,
Sumatra, Java had been engulfed by the enemy in a head-
long southward drive, and the Japs were pouring into
New Guinea and the Solomons with Australia their ob-
jective.
We were on the defensive, working frantically to
[9]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
create a series of island bases from which to defend our
lines of communication with Australia. American troops
had been dispatched to Australia and New Zealand;
American Marines and airmen were being rushed to
strategic areas in the South and Southwest Pacific. Logis-
tical problems of staggering magnitude had to be met.
The enemy's advance continued.
In May, 1942, the Allies were at last strong enough'
to strike back. In the Coral Sea battle of May 7-11, an
enemy force of warships and transports was met and
defeated by Allied naval and air units near the Louisade
Archipelago, and the enemy's advance bases on New
Guinea, Rabaul and Bougainville were subjected to re-
peated attacks by army bombers. The Japs paused to
adjust their plans and regroup their forces.
Early in June the enemy again moved to the attack,
this time striking at the island of Midway with a power-
ful naval force including carriers. American carrier planes
and land-based air units met the foe and stopped him in
the now historic Battle of Midway.
These two encounters, the Coral Sea and Midway
Battles, swung the balance of naval power in the Pacific
back into Allied hands and checked the Japanese offensive.
Then on 7, American Marines led by Major
General (now Lieutenant General) Alexander A. Vande-
grift delivered the first offensive land blow for the Allies
by swarming ashore on Guadalcanal and Tulagi to halt
the Jap's southward drive through the Solomons. The
Battle for the Solomons, a three-dimensional conflict of
unprecedented fury, began that day in August.
In the Battle for the Solomons, the Japs scored first
[10]
SOMETHING TO REMEMBER
with a naval victory of such magnitude that the recovery
of our forces was little short of a miracle. The encounter
occurred in the early morning hours of August 9. Allied
transports at Guadalcanal and Tulagi were unloading
men and supplies. Standing by to protect them was a
force of cruisers and destroyers. An enemy force of war-
ships, sighted hours before, was thought to be too far
away to be dangerous.
But the Japs arrived ahead of schedule. Under cover
of darkness they circled Savo Island, between Guadal-
canal and Tulagi, and attacked with shells and torpedoes
before an answering shot could be fired. The attack never
attained the dimensions of a naval engagement. The
enemy delivered his paralyzing punch too quickly. When
he retired, he left the Australian cruiser Canberra and
the American cruisers Astoria, Qulncy and Fincennes in
sinking condition behind him. No one could deny that the
Japs had won round one, decisively.
Round two of the Solomons campaign was Japanese,
also. The prize was the aircraft carrier Wasp, sunk by
enemy torpedoes September 15.
The Helena was deep in the South Pacific then. Her
trip from a West Coast port had ""uneventful, and
upon discharging her convoy duties s|ft%ad been ordered
to* make two quick runs to Guadalcanal That done, she
was assigned to the task force with which the Wasp was
operating. She was there when the Wasp died.
That tragic day in September, the Wasp and her
escorting warships the Helena included were cruising
the Coral Sea, awaiting an expected Japanese attack upon
Guadalcanal. Reports indicated that an enemy naval
[in
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
attack was imminent. The Wasp and her escorts were
ready for action.
But the enemy encountered by the Allied force was not
a surface foe; it was a submarine pack which lay in wait
for the carrier and attacked with torpedoes, without
warning. There was no battle. Mortally hit by three tor-
pedoes, the year-and-a-half-old carrier burst into flames
and was torn by her own internal explosions. Beyond
saying, she was given the coup de grace by her own
destroyers.
It was the second time the Helena? in her brief career
had seen death and destruction wrought by Jap tor-
pedoes. She stood by now, in peril of being torpedoed
herself, to take aboard survivors. Grim in the presence
of death and awed by, the spectacle of a mighty ship in
lames, her men broke open their sea bags and passed
out clothing to the rescued.
There was little extra space aboard the Helena as she
turned about and made for a South Seas base. Her own
men numbered nearly twelve hundred, and with more
than four hundred of the W 'asp's crew jammed into her
cabins and passageways, elbow room was at a premium.
And that old hatred for the Japs, born at Pearl Harbor
and smoldering silently ever since, now flared anew. The
Helena craved action. Her men talked of little else and
prayed for the day when the ship's guns would set their
words to music. The enemy was rampant. The Helena
had not fired a shot since Pearl Harbor.
Loaded with survivors, she put into port, where men
on the decks of other American warships greeted her
with somber gaze. "Here comes the 50," they said.
F121
SOMETHING TO REMEMBER
Fifty five-zero was the Helena's number.
No cheers welcomed her. She was not then the "fight-
ingest ship in the fleet." She was a rescue ship, bleak and
grim, bringing tidings of disaster.
But there were some at the base who, hearing of the
Helena's coming, were elated beyond words. In fact,
there were nine of us. We had chased her across a good
part of the Pacific and when at last we saw the gleaming
white "50" on her bow, our relief was profound. At last,
after weeks of searching, nine of the Helena's officers,
including myself, Chick Morris, had found our ship.
[13]
** CHAPTER TWO **
How to Catch a Warship
YES, we finally caught up with the Helena in the South
Pacific, and if you will forgive a brief digression at this
point, Fd like to tell you something of the time we had
overtaking her.
For me the chase began at Northwestern University,
in Chicago, where I had been studying gunnery, seaman-
ship and navigation, waging a private little war of my
own with a stack of Navy textbooks. I didn't have a
Navy background. Before the war, I had been a reporter
and radio writer in Boston, and director of news and
special events at WBZ. In the Navy, before requesting
duty at sea, I had been radio officer In Public Relations.
Now, in July, 1942, 1 was handed a set of orders instruct-
ing me to report aboard the U.S.S. Helena, "wherever
she may be." She was supposed to be at a West Coast -,
port, so I said farewell to the textbooks and got aboard
a train.
The first man I met on the train was a chap named
Hollingsworth. Ensign (now Lieutenant jg) Sam Hol-
lingsworth. Later we called him "Fightin' Sam" because
he clawed his way to the center of every wardroom dis-
cussion and loved nothing better than an argument. He
had the berth opposite mine on the train, and before
[14]
HOW TO CATCH A WARSHIP
long we got around to discussing the weather and intro-
ducing ourselves. I told him eventually that I was bound
for the West Coast to find the Helena.
Sam blinked at me and said, "Well, what do you know !
Me, too 1" He was an ex-lawyer from Washington, D. C,
and said he had fought so many judges that he was rea-
sonably sure of being able to handle himself in any dis-
pute with the Japs; and he looked as if he could, too.
Later, he proved it. Sam was slight and had a quick smile,
but knew his way around. He even enjoyed the life-and-
limb ordeal of getting through to the diner. It was a
little hard to believe he had a wife and a youngster at
home in Washington.
Later that day we bumped into a fellow whom Sam
had known before the war. Koerner was his name. He
hailed from Pennsylvania and had been a lawyer, too,
before enlisting in the Navy. "Ozzie," Sam called him.
Ensign (now Lieutenant jg) Osborne Koerner. He was
slender, then, with cheerful pink cheeks that gave him
the look of a youngster of seventeen. Later on he filled
out, got chubby, and looked more like the thirty he really
was. The war proved good for Ozzie. He got fat on it.
Where was Ozzie going? Why, to report aboard the
Helena! "It's a diminutive world, even in war time/ 5 he
solemnly declared. "If this sort of thing happened in a
movie, Fd make remarks.' 7
We made plenty of remarks when we arrived on the
West Coast, because the ship for which we were looking
was not there. She had left, we were informed, several
days ago, and at the moment was en route to "somewhere
in the Pacific/'
[15]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
Being faintly green in the mysterious ways of the
Navy, we stood around looking foolish. As I remember
it, we stood around for several days, looking a little more
foolish every day. Nothing in our orders had prepared
us for the fact that the Helena might not be where the
Navy had told us to look for her.
Eventually some kind soul steered us aboard a ship
and advised us not to worry. "Worry in the Navy/' he
said, "will get you exactly nowhere." The ship was a
little different from the fighting cruiser we had pictured;
in fact she was an old United Fruiter, beamy as a barge.
But at least she was going somewhere and we could go
with her. So on August 7, the day the Marines landed
on Guadalcanal, we steamed out of a West Coast port
bound for Pearl Harbor, with a fat gray blimp overhead
to protect us from enemy submarines.
"Heaven only knows," Sam Hollingsworth said,
"what's going to become of us."
We were in pretty good spirits then. A day or so later,
however, we suddenly became very much and very soberly
aware that a war was going on. That was when we heard
the news of the sinking of those four Allied cruisers off
Savo Island.
Ozzie and Sam and I looked at one another. Four
cruisers in one brief skirmish. Four of them. The Helena,
we remembered, was a cruiser too.
At Pearl Harbor there was no time for a Cook's Tour.
The aircraft carrier Hornet was about to depart for the
South Pacific. The campaign on Guadalcanal was not
going too well. Our Marines were holding Henderson
Field and a small adjacent strip of the island, but the
[16]
HOW TO CATCH A WARSHIP
issue was far from settled and reinforcements were des-
perately needed. The destruction of those four cruisers
had left the enemy in control of the sea lanes, and we
needed warships in the area. We needed them quickly.
Ozzie, Sam and I and other Helena^oun.d officers left
Pearl Harbor aboard the Hornet, and during the next
few days got our first taste of Navy life at sea and our
first feeling of being actually in a war zone. It was strange
and a little confusing. The Hornet was a fighting ship,
just back from the Battle of Midway. Her men talked
a fighting language. They hadn't liked those radioed
reports of the Savo Island losses. Not a little bit. Many
of them had friends or acquaintances aboard the lost
cruisers.
As we boiled along at high speed with our escort of
cruisers and destroyers, bound for the region of the
enemy's successes, the Hornet's men talked of "getting
even" and "squaring things for those guys." All over the
ship the men were sore. Their pride was hurt. They tried
to explain away the Allied defeat, which to them was a
wholly American defeat and therefore humiliating, by
saying belligerently, "Those Japs aren't that smart; they
must have got a lucky break. Man for man, ship for ship,
we can lick 'em seven days a week. They slipped in an-
other sneak punch and got away with it again. But it will
be the last!"
Yes, they'd been hurt where American boys like least
of all to be hurt right in the middle of their pride
and the Hornet was a sullen ship, flexing its wings to
give the Japs a sting. We sat in on many a bull session
with the fliers in their rooms, and they talked not of the
[17]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
wonders they had performed yesterday at Midway bir
of what they were determined to do tomorrow. Impa
tiently they reached for the future. For many of then
the future came to an abrupt and tragic end October 26
when the Hornet herself was sunk by Japanese airplanes
But we were not long on the carrier. After eighteer
days of riding her, we were transferred again. And again
We jumped from ship to ship in the damnedest places, a1
the craziest times sometimes in the middle of the night
We rode on a million gallons of aviation gasoline for a
time. We called at island ports of which we'd never hearc
before.
In forty-two days we traveled on nine different ships,
one of them a very ancient repair ship which had been
damaged at Pearl Harbor near the Helena, and anothei
the newest ship in the fleet, the battleship South Dakota.
It was an experience and an education. We even jour-
neyed on a Marine transport to a forward base, only to
find that the Helena, Lord love her, had again refused
to wait for us. Ships at war, like time, wait for no man,
But at the South Sea base, on the morning of Septem-
ber 1 8, which incidentally was the third anniversary of
the Helenas commissioning, the sun shone warmly
through the porthole over my bunk and a voice flowed in
with the gleam of it. "Here comes the 50!"
Five-zero ! I reached for the porthole and pulled my-
self up, unwilling to be convinced that our will-of-the-
wisp chase had at last come to an end. But there she was,
slim and lovely despite the somber gray of her war paint.
There were the bristling guns we had heard so much
[18]
HOW TO CATCH A WARSHIP
about. There was the bold white "50" shining on her
bow!
With Ozzie and Sam and the rest, I clambered into a
small boat a few minutes later, a seabag slung over one
shoulder and a fine feeling of contentment under my belt,
We had chased the Helena so long. We had plagued the
men of a dozen ships with questions about her. It was a
luxurious feeling to walk her deck at last, after all those
frantic weeks of wandering on strange ships, living out
of a canvas bag, sleeping on anything, and being an
"officer without a ship."
Someone said the usual things to us "Glad to have
you aboard ! We'll show you the wardroom" and then
I found myself shaking hands with a six-foot-three lieu-
tenant whose room I was to share. He was the Helena's
assistant gunnery officer, Warren Boles, the man whose
car had come apart under him at Pearl Harbor.
"Come on," he said. "I'll show you around."
As we prowled about the ship he told me quietly that
she was not usually quite so crowded. "We just came in,"
he said, "with survivors from the Wasp. 39 That sobered
me, and the feeling under my belt was not so jubilant.
But we looked at the Helena's guns, all fifteen of those
long, steel snouts jutting from the main turrets fore and
aft, and I said, "I can't wait to see and hear them fire."
Warren put on a semi-solemn expression which I
learned later was characteristic. "Have you ever heard
fifteen 6-inch guns go off in unison?" he asked.
"No," I said. "Not yet."
His expression became a little less solemn. As a gun-
nery officer he knew a good deal about the power and
[19]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
the bellow of the Helena's weapons. And he knew, which
I did not then that the witches' brew in the South
Pacific was swiftly coming to a boil, and the Helena's
guns would soon be thundering.
"It's something to hear for the first time," he said.
"Just be careful which way you jump."
[20]
** CHAPTER THREE **
Skipper in a Coal Bag:
WARREN BOLES walked Into the radio room a few days
later and bent himself over my chair. He was wearing
that semi-solemn look again.
"Do you still want to hear the Helena's guns in ac-
tion?" he asked.
I said I did.
"All right. But remember the first time is always the
worst. We're going to have some test firing."
A few minutes later the ship's loudspeaker system
sounded the usual warning, "Stand by to open fire!" I
was to hear it a good many times in the following months,
but Boles was right the first was the worst. Some of the
radio shack gang cocked an eye to catch my reaction.
They had been through it, and knew. Rebel Sandridge,
one of rny radiomen, rolled a fat nickel stogie in his
mouth and airily waved a hand* "Nothln* to it,*' he said.
Rebel's bright black eyes and contagious grin were a
Helena legend.
I sat there wondering what it would be like. You can't
help that. You think of those whopping big guns topside,
and you know your brains will rattle when they go off.
You furtively watch the clock, counting the seconds, until
presently you realize that the radio room is very quiet
121]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
because everyone else is waiting, too. TheyVe been
through it before, but automatically they hold their
breaths. All except Rebel. Fond of playing tough, he sits
in a slouch at his typewriter, the phones cocked rakishly
on his head. u Huck Finn," I used to call him. Gunnery
practice, huh ! Wait until the real thing comes along !
But you wait just as tensely for the first thunderclap
of those 6-inch guns in practice. You feel like a kid
watching the fuse of a giant cannon cracker, except that
there is nothing to watch in Radio One except the creep-
ing hands of the clock and the expectant faces of the men.
Then you jump. The whole ship is enveloped in one
shattering blast of noise, and you jump like hell. Some
of the boys laugh because they knew you would do it.
They jump, too, though. They always will at the first
salvo, no matter how many times they hear the loud-
speaker's warning and set themselves. No human nervous
system can be trained to accept that torrent of sound
without flinching.
But presently everything is fine again. The guns are
still thundering, the ship still quivers, but you are back
to normal. It was only the first salvo that bounced you
out of your chair and exploded a bomb in your brain.
The boys are typing again. There are schedules to
keep. Rebel has just knocked out a dispatch and is wav-
ing it in front of your eyes, eager for it to be right
because he's a sober kid, really, and every message is
of tremendous importance.
"Is it okay?" he begs. "Did I make any mistakes?"
You look around, aware of the rumble of the ship's
guns. The typewriters jiggle on the tables. But the boys
[22]
SKIPPER IN A COAL BAG
just pound the machines a little harder to hold them
down, and everything is okay, even Rebel's dispatch.
On deck the gunners are soberly at work, going
through a training routine which is now as familiar to
them as eating and sleeping. One of the ship's planes
streaks by, towing a target sleeve, and the secondary
batteries and machine-guns come alive with a chatter
which sounds shrill and womanish against the fat bass
of the main turrets. Turrets and mounts are ant-hills of
activity, every man as deadly in earnest as though the
sea out there were crowded with enemy warships, and
the sky with planes.
They seldom make mistakes. That old inspiration in-
stilled by soft-spoken Lieutenant Commander Duke, plus
everlasting rehearsal, has made each turret team as quick
and slick as precision machinery. Sweating, grimy men
swing their arms with the grace of ballet dancers to main-
tain the flow of ammunition from magazines to guns.
No one has to tell them the importance of their jobs.
And even in practice the Helena hits her targets with
commendable regularity. She has a bull's-eye complex.
The ship was cruising now. Steaming out from base
with ammunition and supplies replenished, she had joined
a carrier task force led by the Hornet and was operating
in the Coral Sea. Day and night she patrolled those dis-
puted waters, ready to intercept the enemy if he at-
tempted to strike in force again at Guadalcanal.
It was a waiting strategy designed to make the most
of the limited strength possessed by the Allies in the
South Pacific. Admittedly we had not yet recovered from
[23]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
Pearl Harbor. The Japs had more than we had and could
risk more than we could. It was their move. But the
Helena's task force stood ready to thwart the move or
try to when they made it.
Radio reports were all of a kind during this period of
watchful waiting. From pilots of reconnaissance planes
came word that the Japs were gathering their strength
at Rabaul and Bougainville, to strike at Guadalcanal.
They had to be stopped, no matter what the cost. Guad-
alcanal was no longer merely an island In a group of
islands. It had become a bloody line on the map of
strategy across which the enemy must not be permitted
to advance.
In September the Helena escorted a converted carrier
Into the area to bolster the island's air strength. Now
through hot days and black nights we patrolled within
striking distance, just beyond reach of enemy "snooper"
planes but ready to move up at top speed when our own
pilots flashed the word that the Japs were "in the Slot."
The Slot was that bloody battlefield of ocean extending
from Guadalcanal northwest to Bougainville, with the
Island chain of Santa Isabel and Choiseul on one side,
New Georgia on the other. It was the way the Japs would
come.
We talked about it constantly. Even in the coding
room, where Lieutenant (now Lieutenant Commander)
V. W. Post and the rest of us in communications spent
many an hour sweating over bits of garbled messages,
struggling to piece them together and make sense of
them, the talk was always of the impending clash with
the enemy's warships. Were we good enough? None of
[24]
SKIPPER IN A COAL BAG
us knew. We had never been through the real thing.
On September 23, while prowling the Coral Sea with
her task force, the Helena received word that Captain
Read had been assigned to other duties. Our new skipper
was to be Captain Gilbert C Hoover, USN, commanding
officer of the destroyer squadron escorting us at the time.
We had heard of Captain Hoover. He hailed from the
old sea-faring town of Bristol, Rhode Island, and wore
the Navy Cross for extraordinary heroism. Helena of-
ficers who had met him were excited and eager at the
prospect of having him aboard. "He'll fit," they pre-
dicted. "He'll be a Helena man the minute he puts a foot
on our deck."
The word went around, of course. A new skipper is an
event. Anticipation and speculation rustled in the ward-
room and crew's quarters, and there was buzzing aplenty
in the junior officers' bunkroom below the communica-
tions platform. The Helena had been blessed with grand
skippers, every one of whom had handled the ship with
the affection and devotion her men appreciated. Would
Captain Hoover be like that?
At the appointed time the destroyer flagship came
alongside. It was a beautiful morning. The sun blazed
on the water so brightly it hurt the eyes of the men lined
up on deck for a look at their new commanding officer.
Snowballs of cloud sat serenely in the sky. The sea was a
slow blue roll and there were white birds flying.
We slowed to a speed of ten knots, and the destroyer
beat along beside us, matching our pace, separated by
fifteen feet or so of soft-green water. Helena men heaved
a line from the quarterdeck, and agile hands on the
[25]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
destroyer caught it, made it fast. A moment later Captain
Hoover's men had rigged a canvas coal bag to the line
and the captain himself was clambering into it.
That was how "Hoover of the Helena" first boarded
his ship squatting in a coal bag slung on a line between
his old and new commands. He wore an aviator's leather
jacket and a jaunty overseas cap. Democratic as a boot,
he waved his free hand to the curious men at the Helena's
rail.
The men were delighted. They liked the way he "came
over the side." They liked his looks and his grin. They
liked the cut of him. His expression plainly said he was
proud to be coming aboard, and that was all they needed
to know.
Late that evening, as communications watch officer, I
went to the new skipper's cabin with some messages from
the radio room. The, Marine orderly opened the door to
announce me, and Captain Hoover looked up from the
chair in which he was sitting. The hour was late and he
was tired. He still wore the aviator's jacket. But he was
poring intently over blueprints of the Helena^ studying
his ship, getting to know her.
"What's your name?" he asked pleasantly.
"Morris, sir. It's good to have you aboard."
"I'm glad to be aboard. You've a good.ship here,"
Captain Hoover said gently.
"We think so, sir."
"I know you do. Sit down."
You knew he was the right man for the Helena. Five
or ten minutes of "shooting the breeze" with him, there
in the quiet of his cabin, was all any man needed to be
[26]
SKIPPER IN A COAL BAG
sure of that. He was not a big man; neither short nor
tall, stout nor slender. In his leather jacket he looked a
little like a middle-aged suburbanite about to go for a
walk in the woods, with a trout rod tucked under one
arm. But that room was a calm and confident place,
mellowed already by the captain's personality. Captain
Hoover belonged in it. And it was important for the
Helenas men, every last one of them, to know that t
because they loved their ship and could not have been
content under a skipper who did not share their loyalty.
[27]
** CHAPTER FOUR **
Prelude
IT was October, and the first of the red letter days on the
Helena's calendar was not far distant. The ship had been
ordered to the vicinity of Guadalcanal again, to patrol
and wait. The tempo of radio traffic had quickened
noticeably. Decisive action appeared imminent.
Those were bright moonlit nights, lovely as a trav-
elogue, but dangerous. On the foc'sle, where the "Junior
Board of Strategy" gathered every evening to read the
flag hoists and discuss the possibilities of our seeing some
action, you could see to play cards by the incredible white-
ness of the moon. But the enemy could use that moon-
light too. Lurking submarines might find it helpful in
silhouetting a target.
One night it happened. Our task force was on the
prowl as usual. The sea was silver, the night shimmering
with light. Lieutenant Sam Leiman, USN, conning the
ship, anxiously scanned that glittering sea through the
pilot house port holes. Suddenly he spotted the wake of
an enemy torpedo.
It was a strange sight in that peaceful night. The fish
was five feet or so under the surface. The eruption in
the water was visible a long way off a rushing streak
of soapsuds topped by a high white feather. In the moon-
[28]
PRELUDE
light the phosphorus in that speeding feather of foam
gave off sparks like a Fourth-of-July rocket.
But $am did not pause to admire it. "Torpedo wake
on the port bow!" he yelled. "Emergency right rudder,
full speed ahead! Sound General Quarters!"
We were lucky that time. Apparently we had run Into
a nest of subs, because even as the General Quarters
buzzer aroused the ship, Sam sighted a second torpedo
approaching us from such an angle that the same sub-
marine could not possibly have fired it.
The Helena heeled over, artfully dodging. One of the
torpedoes streaked past our bow and exploded so close
that a hail of shrapnel screamed over the Helena 3 s for-
ward deck. The other trailed its phosphorescent tail past
our stern, missed another ship in the force by a heart-
beat, and hit a cruiser.
Oddly, some of us had been talking about torpedoes
just before the Jap turned these two loose on us. Below,
in my room, we had been sitting around with our shoes
and shirts off, cursing the heat. Even at night it was
always hellishly hot near Guadalcanal, and you could feel
the sweat wriggling over you from head to foot. The
steel bulkheads were massive and close. The cabin air was
stale. Space was at a premium.
Someone said, "We'd be in a fix down here below the
water line if a torpedo ever smacked us. Ever think what
you'd do?"
I said I'd thought about it often. "We wouldn't do
much of anything," I said.
"I suppose not, but it gives you the wElies sometimes,
thinking about it," someone else said. "You're "so damned
[29]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
hemmed In. No room to move. I feel better on deck these
moonlit nights."
"We've got men on deck to watch out for torpedoes."
"I know. They had lookouts on the Wasp, too."
A lot of torpedo talk went on in that room. The men
who dropped in of an evening to sit around and "bat the
breeze" were evidently torpedo minded. And why not?
You were conscious always of the gray steel walls and
the fact that an enemy fish could make the room its target.
We called our living- quarters u Torpedo Junction."
Ironically, later, they were.
I looked at the clock and it was 9 P.M., time to hit the
sack. That was when the GQ buzzer sounded. We poured
out of there, every man to his battle station on the
double, and the ship was swarming with people in a hurry
by the time I arrived topside.
Across the sea, seemingly a long way off, a ship was
burning. She was one of ours, the cruiser hit by the second
of those two torpedoes. The other ships in the force were
weaving and turning at top speed, churning the moonlit
water to a froth as they swung into evasive maneuvers.
The Helena herself had changed course and was speed-
ing for safety.
We evacuated that perilous area quickly, every man
alert and nervous at his battle station. It is an unpleasant
sensation, knowing there are enemy subs lurking in the
sea through which your ship is blindly seeking a route
of escape. More of those torpedoes may already be hiss-
ing through the depths.
We saw no more torpedoes that night. Our force scat-
tered, leaving a destroyer to seek out the enemy and as-
[30]
PRELUDE
sist the crippled cruiser. A day or two later the cruiser
limped into port for repairs.
The Helena, too, returned to port, but her stay was
short. Refueled and resupplied, she hauled the hook less
than twenty-four hours later and stood out again on
patrol.
These were days of tension. All of us knew that this
weary cruising could not last forever. The Japs would
strike they had to strike but when? The ship's officers
talked of nothing else. The Foc'sle Club, shooting the
breeze at sunset hour, milked the subject dry. Captain
Hoover was restless. Commander Charles Carpenter,
USN, the ship's navigator, paced the bridge incessantly,
scowling until his Charlie Chaplin mustache bristled like
the armament of a porcupine. Sam Maslo, "Sobbin* Sam
the Fire Control Man," gloomed about the ship and pre-
dicted dire things.
"We'll catch it sure," Sam groaned. "They got twenty
ships to our one. They'll murder us." Perhaps he didn't
believe it, but when he solemnly shook his head and
screwed his ruddy face into a vision of grief, you thought
he did.
All day we remained on the alert for air and submarine
attacks, and all night the submarine watch continued.
The Helena's anti-sub planes patrolled constantly. Tired,
tense and apprehensive, we caught our meals when we
could, and stuffed them down in a hurry, hating the
moonlight and remembering what enemy torpedoes, boil-
ing silently out of nowhere, had done to other ships in
those dangerous waters. And always it was wickedly,
depressingly hot. Nowhere could a man escape the smoth-
[31]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
ering blanket of heat.
Long range Navy PBYs were out as usual, patrolling
in wide arcs to the north and west of us, daily reporting
the gathering of enemy forces. Suddenly on the morning
of October 1 1 they reported the enemy on the move. Into
the Helenas radio room poured a flood of messages
reports to the flagship of the force; relayed information
from Comsopac; orders, requests for information; new
reports from the planes all in a steady, chattering
stream that kept the typewriters hopping. All morning
long, officers of the communications division were in an'd
out of the coding room, breaking down the rush of traffic,
sorting it and speeding it to the captain and department
heads.
The Japs were on the move again. There was no
longer any doubt about that.
The tempo increased hourly. PBYs from our advance
bases ranged far over Jap-controlled waters and Jap-
held islands, extending their search for information. The
success or failure of our counter blow was largely in their
hands.
u Twelve enemy ships six cruisers, six destroyers
course one-two-five, speed thirty. Am shadowing." Some-
where in the upper reaches of the Slot, a Navy PBY had
discovered an enemy force of warships on the move.
Tired men, perhaps out on patrol for ten or twelve hours
already, tightened their belts, shook off their weariness
and prepared to keep an eye on the Japs until relieved
or until a swarm of angry Zeros swooped from the clouds
to make the sky too hot for them.
Brave boys flew those PBYs. In their tireless patrols
[32]
PRELUDE
they had saved many a survivor from sunken ships, many
a pilot whose luck had run out over some remote sea.
And on October n, as the opposing forces of the Battle
of Cape Esperance maneuvered into position, the PBY
men supplied our surface ships with amazingly accurate
intelligence. All that day they continued to ferret out the
enemy and shadow him.
Three or four times an hour, as communications watch
officer, I dashed topside to the skipper's cabin on the
bridge that afternoon with urgent messages, battle plan
dispatches, orders from Admiral Norman Scott aboard
the flagship San Francisco. There In his compact little
cabin, the bulkheads lined with charts and his desk
stacked high with official papers, Captain Hoover was
without question the calmest man on the Helena. It was,
in fact, something more than simple calmness. On enter-
ing that cabin from the feverish bustle of the ship, you
sensed a kind of loneliness. You felt the pressure of the
responsibility upon the man who sat there hour after
hour, thoughtfully planning the attack of his ship our
ship.
This was, after all, the Helenas first significant en-
gagement. Her guns when they spoke would be thunder-
ing at enemy ships for the first time. Her officers and
men were already waging that battle within themselves,
measuring their mettle, wondering how they would shape
up in action.
"Good afternoon, Morris." Captain Hoover still had
time to nod pleasantly as he accepted the dispatch board,
"The latest dope, eh?'
He held the board in steady hands and studied the
[33]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
messages, frowning a little under bushy brows. He made
notes on a pad, then handed the board back and turned
in his chair to look at the big Solomons Area charts on
the bulkheads. They were punctured with tiny holes from
the points of instruments, spotted everywhere with small
red dots denoting enemy sub and ship positions. How
many hundreds of times they had been erased, corrected,
brought up to date was impossible to guess, but they were
charts with a history, as thumbed and worn as a well
read book.
The captain rose and carefully marked the latest re-
ported position of the enemy, then corrected the line on
the chart denoting the probable course the Japs would
maintain after dark, when our planes would no longer
be able to shadow them.
"Are we going in, Captain?"
"It looks like it," he said, "if they don't change their
course. We're closing fast." He traced with his finger
the progress of the Jap fleet from the time it had first
been sighted. Our own course was marked there, too*
Obviously we were maneuvering to strike when darkness
fell. The two lines on the chart were twin fuses, smolder-
ing toward each other. When they met there would be an
explosion.
"Yes, I think well see some action," Captain Hoover
said. He was intent again on the papers piled upon his
desk, and looked up only briefly to add, "Show these
dispatches to the department heads."
Commander Rodman Smith, the gunnery officer, was
a seasoned Navy man, tall and husky, with never much
time for pleasantries and now none at all. In his cabin
[34]
PRELUDE
he studied gunnery charts, books, ammunition data, the
hundred and one items that make up a ship's ability to
hit with speed and precision. The commander was not an
easy man to work under. As grim as his guns, he was
sometimes as explosive as the shells that were slammed
into them. But he got results.
He glanced at the dispatch board, initialed it, passed
it to Lieutenant Boles, his main battery assistant. u Cap-
tain seem to be worried?" Boles asked.
I shook my head. "Not a bit."
"Are we going in?"
"He says it looks like it."
"I hope so," Boles said. "The men need something to
shoot at." He said it matter-of-factly, but if it is possible
for a man six-foot-three to grow taller, Boles grew taller.
His hatred for the Japs was no synthetic thing. Many
of the Helena men killed at Pearl Harbor had been his
close friends.
I made the rounds and hurried back to Radio One to
check dispatches which had come in during my absence.
The watch officer waved a sheet of paper.
"This one just came in. It's an urgent, but garbled all
to hell. I can't break it." He knew how important it was
today, of all days for every message to make sense.
All of us in the radio room knew that.
We worked on it. Like a number of others it had been
mangled by atmospheric interference and the operator
had not been able to get every letter. Words and parts
of words were missing. With messages reduced to the
briefest possible form to begin with, it was like solving
brain-twisters to make sense out of these incomplete dis-
[35]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
patches. But we worked on them, and nine times out of
ten we broke them.
So it went, hour after hour. All afternoon the PBYs
shadowed the enemy down through the Slot and filled
the air with reports of his progress. At Admiral Halsey's
South Pacific headquarters these messages were sifted
and evaluated, sent back to the ships of our force with
comments and instructions, even though our own radio
men had received them already.
It was late now. The afternoon had been hot but beau-
tiful, the sea calm, the sky clear. In the distance the blue-
tipped peaks of Guadalcanal were plainly visible as we
steamed north, then west, maneuvering to be ever in the
vicinity but never too close. There was danger always,
of course, that Japanese snooper planes might spot us.
Not until dark could we proceed without fear of being
sighted.
I went topside to the foc'sle. We were moving west,
straight into the sun, the air so clear and still that the
whole visible world seemed splashed with sunset colors.
It was good to stand there and watch the ships of our
formation steaming through that placid sea. And I was
not alone. Other men were thinking the same thoughts.
Some were sitting around the anchor windlasses.
Others were parked on the bitts, quietly "batting the
breeze. " One man was asleep on the steel deck, and an-
other, nearby, was deep in a magazine of Western
stories. The Foc'sle Club watched the flag hoists, reading
our orders for the night, and speculating always specu-
lating.
Then suddenly the sun was gone, the shimmering lights
[36]
PRELUDE
of the afterglow paled and the sky was heavy with over-
cast. And now, in a magical maneuver, our entire force
swung into a single line. In the lead were slim destroyers.
In the line stood the heavy cruiser San Francisco, lag-
ship of the force, the Salt Lake City, the Boise and the
Helena ; with destroyers at the tail -of the procession.
Fighting ships, all of them !
Shortly after this change of formation, we went to
General Quarters. There was no signal, only the passing
of the word. The time had been set long before. In the
coding room I peeled off my shirt and settled down to
supervise the routine traffic.
There was little to do. Our search planes had returned
to their bases and had nothing more for us. The ships
of the force were observing radio silence, lest the Japs
pick up some scrap of talk and be warned of our inten-
tions. Traffic was light.
But we waited, all of us, for word from the flagship
that Admiral Scott had decided to engage the enemy.
Nothing yet was official. Nothing would be official until,
by faint signal lights from the San Francisco , we received
the admiral's last minute decision.
It came at last, relayed over the loudspeakers from
signalmen on the bridge,
"We are going in. Scott."
[37]
** CHAPTER FIVE **
Moving Up
ADMIRAL SCOTT'S message was medicine for fraye4
nerves. We knew now what to expect. The score of men
jammed into the crowded steel cell of Radio One were
all at once at ease.
Blond Thomas Sims, an eighteen-year-old radio
"striker" from a farm town in Alabama, blinked his big
blue eyes and remarked, for everyone, "Well, I guess
that's that. 15 Chief Radioman Alborn adjusted his cap
he always wore that cap and calmly began checking his
equipment. He checked the "Joe pot" (the coffee pot)
too, because no matter how much of a purgatory the
shack became and it was one hundred degrees already
with the doors dogged and ventilation cut off we were
going to want hot coffee.
There was scarcely room in Radio One to breathe. All
radio and battle circuits were manned. There was little,,
if any, air. The shack had the moist, sweaty smell of a
crowded dressing-room, and now and then one of the
men would accept a relief and throw himself down in a
corner to "flake out" for a while.
I went into the coding room, and that, too, was
crowded. All traffic had been cleared up, and the officers
were squatting on the deck, playing rummy. I joined
[38]
MOVING UP
them. But there was one trouble with the rummy game.
Lieutenant J, V. Cooper, the supply officer, had to bound
up every few minutes to answer calls for coffee, sand-
wiches and fruit for the crew. Men get hungry and thirsty
during a long alert. They also get tired. Many are
jammed into small, airless niches where it is impossible
to stretch an arm or leg.
We awaited the zero hour. On the bridge, Captain
Hoover peered into the dark at the long white line of
suds kicked up by the ships in formation. He spoke fre-
quently to his "talkers," who phoned his orders to the
battle stations. The ship the whole ship was Captain
Hoover's responsibility.
With him on the fighting bridge, standing by to inter-
pret any messages received by blinker or TBS (talk be-
tween ships) from the flagship } was Communications
Officer Lieutenant Michael Tyng, USN. A deck below
in the pilot house was the ship's navigator, Commander
Charles Carpenter, USN, who would be called upon to
make split-second decisions of tremendous importance
when, at the height of battle, friendly and enemy ships
milled about in darkness. In battle and at General Quar-
ters, Commander Carpenter was Officer of the Deck.
Signalmen, helmsmen and talkers stood by. Messen-
gers came -and went, hurrying when there seemed no real
need to hurry. But it was difficult now to recognize these
men. Dumpy and fat in fireproof goggles, steel helmets,
u Mae Wests" and gloves, they resembled visitors from
Mars. They moved awkwardly, handicapped by the flash-
proof gear they wore to protect them from enemy fire
and the Helena's own guns,
[39]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
Other responsible officers were stationed at strategic
points over the ship, awaiting the captain's orders. Gun-
nery Officer Smith was beside Captain Hoover on the
fighting bridge. Lieutenant Boles was high up in the Main
Battery Control Station. Director Control Officer Lieu-
tenant (now Lieutenant Commander) Jim Baird, USN,
was awaiting action in Sky Forward, in control of the
secondary battery. Lieutenant Commander Jack Chew,.
USN, was on the fighting bridge as Air Defense Officer.
Deep down in the ship, the plotting room officers and
men stood ready to manipulate the vital fire control gear.
We were going in. Last minute preparations for any
eventuality were rushed to completion. Pharmacist's
mates worked with the doctors to set up auxiliary dress-
ing stations. First aid men checked their gear. Damage
control gangs were at their repair posts, ready to rush
rescue and repair equipment to wherever there might be
need for it. In the turrets, the gun crews waited behind
armor plate. The heat radiated as from an oven, and
when the loudspeaker growled at the men to "relax but
be ready for instant action/' their relaxing was mostly
mental. There was no room for anything more.
It was now ten o'clock. We in the coding room were
watching the clock with increased alertness. Unless the
Jap force had changed its course after dark, we should
meet them between eleven and twelve. The hands of the
clock seemed weighted. The minutes were longer than
hours.
The voice of the captain's talker interrupted the rattle
of the radio shack typewriters. "Radio One Fighting
Bridge give us latest contact reports I"
[40]
Official U. S. Navy Photograph
DESTROYER'S GUNS BLAST JAPS
In die blackness of eight, a U, S. destroyer's guns bombard enemy's f Kula
Gulf installations
Official U, S. tf
LIGHTS OF DEATH AND MERCY
Powerful rays of this searchlight, combing the waters of Kula Gulf for
survivors of the torpedoed U.S.S. Helena, are "whitened out" by the glare
of explosions of the ship's heavy rifles as they continue to blast Japanese
vessels in the night t engagement
Associated Press Photo
HELENA SURVIVORS REACH PORT
Survivors of the 1/.5.5. Helena, sunk in the battle of Kula Gulf early in
July, line the rail of a rescuing destroyer
MOVING UP
It was a routine request. There had been no word from
outside since Admiral Scott's announcement that we were
going in. But it served to break the tension. The reply
went back, "Fighting Bridge Radio One nothing to
report." And we watched the clock again.
The ship was close to Guadalcanal, south and west of
Cape Esperance on a course calculated to hurl us head-on
at the Japs. We were not maneuvering now, but plowing
an arrow-straight gash through the shrouded sea. Over
the loudspeakers, at ten-thirty, came the warning, "Ex-
pect to contact enemy soon. All hands prepare for instant
action!"
We were ready. There was nothing to prepare.
At eleven came the same report, followed by a pause.
Then: "Enemy expected momentarily!"
The clatter of the typewriters four or five of them
now ceased momentarily while those words rumbled
from the speaker. Then it resumed. Battle or no battle,
radio schedules had to be copied and no important code
message could be missed.
A few minutes after eleven, we heard the first re-
port of actual contact with the enemy. The loudspeaker
blared the awaited message without prelude or preamble.
"Enemy contacted! All hands stand by for action 1"
The ship sucked in a breath. The Japs had come down
as expected. They had not changed their course. Our
force of cruisers and destroyers, outnumbered but eager
to fight, raced in single file through a calm sea, under a
heavy overcast, to meet the enemy. The peaks of Guadal-
canal loomed close and dark.
How many ships the Japs had, no one knew. Officially
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
we may never know. At various times throughout the
day, reconnaissance planes had reported seven, then ten,
then twelve. Some were heavy cruisers, others destroyers.
All were loaded with troops troops that must be landed
that night if the Jap bid to retake Henderson Field was
to succeed. The Japs on the island, already committed
to a major drive through the jungles, were counting on
those ships for assistance.
The speakers blared again. "Enemy contact!" All of
us in the radio and coding rooms held our breaths for a,
moment. But nothing happened, and we relaxed again.'
Rebel Sandridge blinked his black eyes and said gleefully,
"It won't be long, boys. Don't get impatient!"
"What about battle clothing?" someone asked. We
had been too interested in the rummy game to think of
that.
But we didn't don any battle clothing. Not then. The
room was too hot, and the thought of struggling into
ten or twenty more pounds of gear was not enticing. The
torment would not be worth the added protection. But
some of the men, veterans of Pearl Harbor who knew
what a flash burn could do to unprotected flesh, did roll
down their sleeves, and most of us followed suit.
Helmets ? To hell with them. If a Jap shell hit Radio
One, we'd get it anyway, helmets or not. We were tough.
We could take it, (We were green then. Very green. In
later engagements we treated our battle gear with a good
deal more affection.)
"Enemy contact!"
We stared at the bulkheads and at one another. "What
are we waiting for?" someone said. "Do we have to see
[42]
MOVING UP
the whites of the bastard's eyes?"
We were waiting for something, that was certain. How
much closer were we going to get before opening up ?
It was too much, even for the "tough guys." Some of
the boys snatched up their battle gear and hurriedly pot
it on. The Japs were evidently sound asleep out there,
but if they woke up and put a shell into us at that range,
we would know all about war in a couple of seconds. We
were deep within firing range now, literally on top of
the enemy. The talker circuits were as laden with business
as a suburban switchboard on Saturday night.
"Enemy contact!" Nothing in that voice from the
fighting bridge gave a hint of the drama that was un-
folding. The speaker was reciting figures, not describing
the awesome spectacle of two powerful fleets of warships
rushing to a head-on collision in the black of night.
In Radio One we were very quiet. Call it the calm
before the storm or what you like we tightened our
belts, pulled in our guts and forgot to breathe while wait-
ing for the roar of the guns.
Over TBS a message flashed now from the Helena to
the San Francisco. "Request permission to open fire!"
It meant we were on the target. We had a Jap in our
sights. But the reply from Admiral Scott was "Wait."
Why wait? With opposing fleets steaming headlong at
each other, the first blow was of tremendous importance.
Properly struck, it could throw the enemy into confusion
and smash his power to resist.
Captain Hoover tried again* "Request permission to
open fire!" Lieutenant W. D. Fisher, signal officer, re-
layed the request over the TBS.
[43]
"THE FIGHTI1SPEST SHIP"
What happened then was one of the most dramatic
misinterpretations of signals in naval history. The flag-
ship received Lieutenant Fisher's message and promptly
replied, "Roger." It was not permission to open fire. It
was merely the San Francisco's signal officer saying, in
effect, "Okay. Your request is understood*"
But "Okay" can mean "Go ahead," also, and In Fish-
er's book that's what it meant. Without hesitation he
flashed the word to Captain Hoover. "Permission
granted!"
A moment later the Helena's battle-phone circuits car-
ried the order ( from Captain Hoover that blew the lid
off the Battle of Cape Esperance.
"Open fire!"
[44]
"if
** CHAPTER SIX **
The Battle of Cape Esperance
THE Helena rolled up the curtain that night. At fourteen
minutes before midnight she overtured the action with
a bellowing blast from her 6-inch guns, all fifteen of them
in full voice and thundering in unison. Her target was a
Jap destroyer.
The night had been still and inky black a moment
before. Now suddenly it was a blazing bedlam. The
Helena herself reared and lurched sidewise, trembling
from the tremendous shock of recoil. In the radio shack
and coding room we were sent reeling and stumbling
against the bulkheads, smothered by a snowstorm of
books and papers from the tables. The clock leaped from
its pedestal. Electric fans hit the deck with a metallic
clatter. Not a man in the room had a breath left in him.
The Jap destroyer, caught by surprise, had no chance
to fight back. Ripped apart by the blast, she rolled over
on her side as though tossed by an upheaval of the sea
itself. Small fires appeared along her hull, running redly
from bow and stern to meet amidships. But she went
down too quickly for the flames to gain much headway.
She sank in just ninety-eight seconds, no trace of her
remaining except a flaming pool of oil above the roiled
waters of her grave. During that ninety-eight-second in-
[46]
THE BATTLE OF CAPE ESPERANCE
terlude the Helena's guns were never silent, and not a
Jap shell was fired In retaliation.
Over the ship's loudspeaker system shrilled the elated
voice of Commander John Morrow in Central Station,
relaying the word from Fire Control, "We've got one
already!" he shouted. "She's burning! She's gone!" Com-
mander Morrow was the last man on the Helena you
would expect to jump for joy. No one on the ship had
ever before heard him in high gear. He was the man who
sat through dinner night after night in the wardroom, so
quiet that one was amazed, on looking up, to find him
sitting there.
All over the ship, men cheered. Commander Morrow's
voice had reached them all, the engine and boiler room
gangs, repair crews, medicos, everyone. We had downed
our first Jap. Now the other ships in our speeding for-
mation were on their targets, lambasting the startled
enemy.
The Japs were startled; no doubt of it. Shells ex-
ploded in their midst from every ship in our task force
before they were able to man their guns. When they did
return our fire they were scattering to collect their wits,
and tossing shells over their shoulders in a kind of frantic
desperation.
On the Helena's fighting bridge, Captain Hoover and
the u men from Mars" eagerly searched the sea for a
second victim, and found one quickly,
"There's a cruiser afire to starboard!" the skipper
said. u Getonher!"
With one Jap to her credit in so short a time that she
herself was a little light-headed, the Helena turned her
[47]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
guns now on victim number two. This one was a heavy
cruiser, under fire from other ships in the formation and
burning brightly, a black silhouette against the red back-
drop of her raging flames.
The Jap was game, though. As she zigzagged crazily
through the night, plowing a phosphorescent furrow in
the sea, her gunners ranged one of our ships and she
fought back with determination.
Shells from the Helena's guns reached out for her
through the dark, arching across a sky streaked with
flames and searchlight beams. To the men topside the
shells seemed to loop through the sky with bewildering
lack of haste glowing balls of fire soaring lazily to the
target. But when they fell, the Jap was under them, and
all those hours of rehearsal were worth the time and
trouble.
The turret teams functioned with flawless rhythm.
Shells flowed from magazines to muzzles in machine-gun
fashion. This was not salvo fire. It was not a series of
thunderclaps interspersed with intervals of silence and
reprieve. It was the continuous, uninterrupted deluge of
destruction for which the Helena was to become famous.
The Jap did not sink. She was blown to bits on the
surface by the Helena's pounding. Fiery chunks of her
soared skyward and fell hissing into the sea, or exploded
horizontally above the water in ragged rockets, too low
in the night to be the comets they resembled. The "men
from Mars" on the Helena's fighting bridge were wide-
eyed at the spectacle.
They were not alone in their amazement. Up in Sky
Forward, Director Control OiEcer Jim Baird stood erect
[48]
THE BATTLE OF CAPE ESPERANCE
In his hatch to check the accuracy of the ship's fire.
"Jungle Jim n hailed from DeWitt, Iowa, and had been a
star tackle for Navy. Big, placid as a teddy bear, he had
enormous shoulders and a habit of not getting excited.
But he was excited now. Not even in practice had the
Helena? f gunners been so consistently u on the beam."
Jim took off his helmet. Sky Forward was a tough
station, but he had to wear phones up there and the hel-
met annoyed him. With a stop watch in one hand he
recorded the Helenas hits, and shook his shaggy head
because he could not believe his own score sheet. Search-
light Officer Ensign Adams, at his side, could not believe
it either. Adams put his head out of the hatch for a look
and promptly hauled it back again. The Helena's own
guns were too hot for him.
Down in the engine room a veteran sea-dog called
Pappy Jones, who had climbed up through the ranks to
become chief warrant machinist, found the Helenas thun-
der too much for his curiosity. Pappy made his way top-
side and undogged a hatch to see for himself what was
going on. He saw a piece of Jap cruiser rocketing sky-
ward through smoke and searchlight beams, and re-
dogged the hatch in a hurry.
"My God 1" Pappy said. "One look at that is enough
to last a man a lifetime !" In a daze he went back to his
engines.
"Check fire! 1 ' was the command now from Rodman
Smith. The Helena's 6-inch guns were silent for a mo-
ment; only her secondaries and machine-guns continued
to shake the night. But that in itself was almost too much
for human eardrums. The men topside did no more talk-
[49]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
ing than was necessary. Every word had to be shouted
into the ear of the man it was meant for.
The Japs, despite their confusion, were doing their
frantic best to put up a fight, and now, as the battle was
joined in earnest, it became obvious that these men of
the Imperial Navy were no second-string foe. They were
veterans, well trained, not easily panicked. Their gun-
ners had been good enough to sink four Allied cruisers
August 8, and now at last they were finding our range.
"Shells bursting to starboard!" croaked the loud-
speakers. The voice was that of Commander Morrow
again, in Central Station, but now he was calm. Only
Helena shells bursting on a Jap target could excite Mor-
row. Jap shells were just annoyances to be reported in
routine fashion.
"Shells to port!" The Jap gunners were coming close.
Too close. Our own gunners worked them over as at
twenty-five knots or so we boiled along in formation,
nearing the prearranged point of our turn.
u Shells over stack 1" Morrow reported. And then, not
quite so calmly, "There's a ship burning up ahead. It's
the Boise/ She's been hit!"
We blinked at that one in the radio room, and grins
quickly faded from triumphant faces. The Boise, skip-
pered by Captain "Iron Mike" Moran, was a ship we
knew well. Except for a few minor details of topside con-
struction, she was a sister of the Helena. We had played
baseball with her men at Noumea, batted the breeze
with them at Espiritu Santo.
With word of the Boise's misfortune, the elation in
the coding room and radio shack suffered a setback. The
[50]
THE BATTLE OF CAPE ESPERANCE
battle had been a game until then. We had pulverized
a Jap destroyer and helped to batter a Jap heavy cruiser
to bits. Our gunners were sinking Japs with apparent
immunity, and the only disconcerting thing in Radio One
was the fact that one of our 5-inch mounts, located
against the coding room bulkhead, was jarring our fill-
ings loose every time it hurled a challenge at the enemy.
Now we looked at one another and were silent. Even
the continuing thunder of the guns could not drown out
Commander Morrow's words. "The Boise's afire 1"
But the battle could not wait for the Boise. The
Helena and our two 8-inch gun heavyweights, the San
Francisco and the Salt Lake City, were pounding the
night apart, and the scattered Japs were doing their best
to find an answer. It was still a good best. No one then
or later belittled the enemy's efforts.
The Boise, battered and blazing, dropped out of for-
mation as the rest of us steamed on. Something like a
head-on collision between heavy freights* must have oc-
curred if the enemy had maintained his formation, too*
but he was ablaze and scattered. The night was blotchily
lit by flames from half a dozen burning Jap ships.
Through the glare of these fires, other ships moved in
silhouette, splashing the darkness with the bright white
lightning of their guns. And above, the swift ghosts of
our planes roared to the attack, dropping flares to guide
our gunners.
On the Helena's bridge, Captain Hoover and his assist-
ants had picked up target number three for the men in
the turrets. A Jap cruiser to starboard was trying to
sneak away in the dark. The flames of battle licked out,
[51]
"THE FIGHTIN'BST SHIP"
momentarily lit her up, and Captain Hoover gave an
order to his gunnery officer. A moment later the Helena's
guns were u on target" and Lieutenant Boles, in Spot
One, gave the turret gangs the order to "pour it to 'em."
They poured it. Once more that continuous torrent of
fire reached out to redden the night. The fleeing Jap was
smothered and lost headway. As flames burst from her
innards, other ships in the formation found her a tempt-
ing target and they too poured steel into her.
Somewhere in the midst of that action the gang in
Turret Four discovered where heroes come from which
is to say that a hero is the fellow who has been working
and living beside you, unnoticed, all the time. They had
a hang-fire. The shell had been slammed into the breech,
the firing key had been pressed, but nothing had hap-
pened.
A hang-fire is a potential block buster In a phone booth.
You don't know why the gun didn't go off until you
u open her up and look" and what happens then may
be an explosion that will mangle the turret and every-
one in it.
It was up to Turret Officer Sam Leiman to say what
should be done about the hang-fire in Turret Four, and
Sam said, "Open 'er up !" Then with Chief Turret Cap-
tain John Colman, he did the opening.
For a heartbeat of time the future of every man in
that steel cubicle was anyone's guess. But their luck held.
Colman hauled the hot shell case out and heaved it over
the side, and a moment later Turret Four was adding its
voice to the tumult again.
But the ship herself was suddenly in peril. Oi to port
[52]
THE BATTLE OF CAPE ESPERANCE
the blazing Boise was an Independence Day bonfire, turn-
Ing night to day as she limped out of line, apparently
done for. The Helena had to pass between her and the
enemy, and was silhouetted by the Boise* s lames.
It was a bad moment and the Japs were quick to take
advantage of it. Once more Commander Morrow's voice
came crisply through the speakers, reporting shells to
port, shells to starboard. Then, her main batteries still
trained on the Jap cruisen afire to starboard, the Helena
made her turn and the enemy's opportunity was gone.
On the fighting bridge, sharp eyes picked out target
number four, an enemy light cruiser trailing the heavy
on which the big guns were finishing their work, The
order from Captain Hoover went out over the battle
circuits.
"Cruiser escaping to starboard !"
"Shift target!"
And from Lieutenant Boles in Spot One : "Set 5 em up
in the next alley. Pour it to 'em."
"Set 'em up in the next alley, huh?" growled Turret
Trainer Chuck O'Connor. "What are we doin* knockin'
over duckpins?"
Not duckpins. The Helena, her secondary batteries
adding to the din, was matter-o-factly pulverizing tar-
get number four. Number three was down. In a few min-
utes number four, under fire from at least three ships in
the formation, was hopelessly battered and doomed to
follow. Flames everywhere painted the sea a sultry,
smoking red.
Everywhere in that eerie glow were swimming men.
[53]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
The flashes of the guns revealed them clearly, hundreds
of heads bobbing in the water, struggling to escape the
blazing oil of sunken ships. Most of the enemy's ships,
now afire, in flight or sinking, had been jammed with
troops. Secondary fire from our ships, reaching out to
range the remaining Japs, whipped the water to froth
and wrought havoc.
In the midst of the holocaust Commander Morrow's
voice came again through the speakers. "Fire," he re-
ported, "on main deck aft." The voice was calm. It was
the Morrow voice we knew in the wardroom. "Repair
parties proceed at once to put It out."
Had we been hit? In Radio One we thought so. For
more than twenty minutes we had been slammed about
by the blast of the ship's guns. Our heads buzzed and our
ears rang like telephone switchboards. For twenty min-
utes there hadn't been a moment of silence as the battle
raged. It seemed unbelievable that any ship, even ours,
could go through such a conflict without stumbling into
at least one enemy punch. ,
But we were wrong. The fire was caused by a hot shell
case ejected by the gang in Turret Five, whose turret
officer was "Mickey" Riley, USN, of Minneapolis. The
danger was real enough. The brilliant blaze on deck dan-
gerously illuminated the ship, and the ventilation system
blew flames and smoke back into the turret, where ex-
hausted men had little enough air as it was. But the
repair party was not needed. Chief Turret Captain Oscar
Point was out of his cubicle before they arrived.
Ignoring the danger of flashback and concussion, Point
[54]
THE BATTLE OF CAPE ESPERANCE
snatched a small hand extinguisher and ducked under the
guns to stop the spread of the flames. He checked them
and kept them checked until Chief Aviation Machinist's
Mate Robinson and some of the damage control gang
arrived on the double with a fire hose, and washed the
blazing case over the side.
"The fire on the main deck aft } n reported Commander
Morrow calmly, a is out."
The battle had passed its climax. By 12 :2O the enemy's
fire had been reduced to sporadic blasts from individual
turrets. All but two of his ships destroyers which had
turned tail and fled into a curtain of darkness were sunk
or sinking. By 12:30 the last Jap gun had been silenced
and total darkness once more covered the sea. The
silence, incredibly complete, was broken only by the throb
of the Helena's engine-room machinery as with the rest
of the force she came about and set her course southeast
for home.
There was time now to take stock of ships and person-
nel, and to weigh our losses against those of the Jap,
We had suffered one certain casualty. The Duncan } a
destroyer with a battlewagon's heart and courage, had
swung out of formation at the height of the battle and
lunged into the enemy's force to launch a torpedo attack.
Enemy gunfire had knocked her out, but not before she
had accounted for a Jap cruiser and damaged a destroyer.
Behind us now, another of our destroyers was painstak-
ingly sweeping the area in search of survivors.
Then there was the Boise. Whea last seen, she had
been ablaze on the horizon, apparently done for.
[55]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
So we had lost the Boise and the Duncan, a light
cruiser and a destroyer. What about the Japs? 1 They
had brazenly steamed into the area with an estimated
ten to twelve ships. Two destroyers had escaped. The
others would never again answer the Emperor's roll
call.
Thus, in the first naval surface action of any conse-
quence since August 8, we had dealt the Japs a thorough
beating and had repaid them in part, at least, for the loss
of those four Allied cruisers.
We had done more than that, really. We had pre-
vented the enemy from reinforcing his troops on Guadal-
canal at a time when even a few thousand additional Jap
troops on that island would almost certainly have meant
the end of Allied resistance. We had held the line on the
map of strategy.
How much of the victory belongs to the Helena? No
one can say for certain. Naval warfare in the black of
night is not a matter of individual ships rushing about on
solo missions, attempting to pile up scores. It is a collec-
tive proposition, team against team. There is inevitable
confusion. You have an enemy in your sights and open
fire on him, maintaining the fire until he is eliminated
1 Navy Department communique No. 149, in which the Battle of Cape
Bsperance was first reported, listed the Japanese losses as four destroyers,
one heavy cruiser, one transport In a later account of the battle, released
by the Navy November 19, 1942, the Boise alone was credited with help-
ing to sink two heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, and three destroyers.
In a third release, dated October 24, 1943, the enemy's losses were placed
at four cruisers, four destroyers, and one transport. The exact number
of Japanese ships destroyed in this engagement will perhaps never be
known, but the latest Navy release probably tells the most nearly correct
story.
[56]
THE BATTLE OF CAPE ESPERANCE
but when he goes down, other ships may be on him also
and entitled to share the credit.
The Helena had opened fire first and had certainly
sunk an enemy destroyer without assistance. She had
helped to sink at least one other destroyer and two cruis-
ers. But her men would paint no "scoreboard" on her
wheelhouse. They were content when their skipper was
awarded the Gold Star emblematic of his second Navy
Cross for their ship's part in the battle.
But the night was not yet over. As the Helena steamed
southeast toward a nearby base, her crew remained at
General Quarters. We had been at battle stations since
dusk the evening before, and were hot, tired and dirty.
Some of us were so weary we could scarcely stay on our
feet. But we were content. Our ship was unscathed and
there were no casualties.
Only when we remembered the Boise were we less in-
clined to boast of our prowess. The thought persisted
that what had happened to the Boise might have hap-
pened as easily to any other ship.
It was about six in the morning when a voice boomed
through the "squawk box" again. "Unidentified ship,"
it reported, "approaching to starboard!"
The Helena's men were already at their stations ; they
had only to shake off their weariness, stiffen their legs
and prepare for action. Aboard the other ships in the
formation the same thing happened. An unidentified ship
in that area had to be a Jap ship, because the disposition
of Allied units was known and charted.
But suddenly the loudspeakers boomed again. "It's
[57]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
the Boise!" was the report. "The Boise is back!"
It was the Boise, her signalman frantically blinking her
identification. She appeared to be In a bad way, down five
feet at the bow, but she was doing twenty-five knots and
apparently required no assistance. Back from the grave
the Boise! As she took her place in line, the cheers that
echoed across the water to her from the San Francisco,
the Salt Lake City y the Helena and their escorting de-
stroyers must have gladdened the hearts of her weary
crew, because she had been hurt and hurt badly. More
than a hundred of her men had been killed.
Soon after the reappearance of the Boise, the all-night
vigil aboard the Helena came to an end and the men se-
cured from General Quarters. But they were on tap again
to a man, all grins and good humor, when the formation
steamed into a Pacific base a short while later. Happy
men crowded the life-lines, proud of their ship and the
reception she was getting.
News of the victory had reached port ahead of them,
and now every ship in the harbor joined in a jubilant
salute to the victors. This was something the Helena's
men had dreamed of while slogging away at gunnery
drills and counting those endless days of patrol. This
made It all the more worth while.
[58]
** CHAPTER SEVEN **
Torpedo Planes
THE Helena's stay in port was too short to provide much
rest for the crew, but there was time, nevertheless, for
a mild celebration. Mostly it took the form of breeze-
batting and kidding among the men themselves. Groups
gathered to re-fight the battle and recall the sidelights.
One who carne in for some high class ribbing was a
little lad named Dupay, chief turret captain in one of
Lieutenant Jim Salassie's 5-inch mounts, Dupay, it
seemed, had earned himself a reputation as a trapeze
artist. The periscope in his mount was too high for him,
and to watch the battle he had been forced to swing on
the 'scope itself. He'd done a lot of swinging.
"But dammit/ 5 he complained, "I couldn't s^e a thing
even then! There was too much shooting going on !"
Another thing that bothered Dupay was the fact that
his mount had been on the disengaged side of the ship
throughout the entire conflict. He craved action. He had
nursed those guns for months. But he hadn't fired a shot.
"What you ought to do," the boys advised, a is turn
that no-good mount into a 'gedunk stand' and peddle pop
and cigarettes. That way you'd get some use out of it."
"Wait," Dupay retorted. "Just wait."
Jungle Jim Baird was kidded, too for having re-
[59]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
moved Ms tin hat up in Sky Forward. The director con-
trol gang had used it for a refuse pail and filled it full
of orange peels and candy wrappers during a lull in the
battle. Jim had put it back on without inspecting it first.
Commander Carpenter, the ship's navigator, was
ribbed but gently for storming around the bridge and
yelling for a life jacket when all the time he'd been wear-
ing one. And for shouting "Where's Sweeney?" every
other minute when Chief Quartermaster Sweeney, his
right hand man, had been at his side constantly.
These were the little things, remembered now in de-
tail and passed from group to group, often distorted be-
yond recognition before they got very far. But it was
good for the ship's morale. Anything was good that con-
tributed to the story of the enemy's defeat. The more it
was discussed, the more confident were the men that next
time, too, the Helena would come out on top.
But it was not all kidding. The pilots of the Helenas
two little biplanes were not ribbed for having hovered
daringly over the enemy formation, dropping flares or
for putting their planes down on the sea in pitch dark-
ness, to ride the water until daylight made It possible for
them to return to the ship. Nor was Captain Hoover
kidded for something he had said to a jittery seaman on
the fighting bridge, when Jap shells were bursting uncom-
fortably close. A skipper who would pause at a time like
that to put a fatherly hand on a boy's shoulder and say,
"Take It easy, son; we'll get you out of this," was a skip-
per to be regarded with affection.
The battle talk did not last long. Reports were coming
in, Indicating that the enemy was regrouping his forces
[60]
TORPEDO PLANES
in the northern islands, still determined to retake Guadal-
canal. As soon as we had unloaded our empty ammuni-
tion cans, provisioned ship and refueled, we were ordered
out again. Once more our task force, the most famous
of all South Pacific task forces, returned to the Solomons
area to be ready for a Jap thrust
But the Japs took their time, and not much happened
in the Solomons during those late October and early
November days. On Guadalcanal our Marines, still
awaiting reinforcements, had consolidated their positions
around the airfield and resigned themselves to the job
of halting frequent Jap attempts to put them out* They
could do little else. By day they were bombed relentlessly,
despite really remarkable work by a handful of pilots
who forced the Japs to pay a frightful price. By night
they were subjected to shelling by small, swift units of
the Jap fleet based at Bougainville the Bougainville or
Tokyo Express, so called against which American PT
boats maintained a nightly patrol. But the Japs refused
to be discouraged.
Heavier units of Allied sea power could not be sent
against the Express. True, the ships of our force often
steamed into the area, and on October 30 we stood off
Lunga Point and Kokumbona for hours while our big
guns hurled shells into the Jap positions on the island,
but we lacked the numerical strength for any nightly ex-
cursions and were forced to husband our power for
counter thrusts at, the enemy's major moves. One such
move had been thwarted. A second was in the making.
The patrols continued. At intervals the force returned
to a base, but the stays were short and the base had little
[61]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
to offer in the way of recreation. With Guadalcanal still
an issue and the enemy denying us its use as a base of
operations, the little port was still the most forward of
our Pacific outposts and therefore the most primitive.
Seabees the men of the Navy's Construction Bat-
talions were on hand, nonchalantly performing their
customary miracles of construction, but the port still
consisted of little more than mud, coconut trees, lizards,
heat, smells and sweat. The men played baseball on coral
diamonds that tore their shoes and clothes and ham-
burgered their hands. Now and then they saw an ancient
movie. Usually they remained aboard ship and threw a
party.
These were the first of the "happy hours" which in
time earned us the nickname "Happy Helena" or
"Happy H n and endeared us to every other ship in the
fleet. The featured attraction, of course, was the band.
Chief Bandmaster Simpson led the Helena's musicians,
and the unit was certainly one of the best in the South
Pacific. There on the quarterdeck, usually at sunset hour
when the thoughts of most of the men were on home
and wives and sweethearts, the band offered music of all
kinds, to suit every mood and taste. Many of Simpson's
musicians had played with big-time orchestras back home.
The bandmaster himself was a musician of long standing.
It was hot, always hot, but morale went up a mile
when the Helena's band performed. Officers and men
gathered quickly. Captain Hoover was an ardent listener.
Men from other ships, and from stations ashore, came
over to listen.
That piece you are hearing now, nostalgic and dreamy,
[62]
TORPEDO PLANES
Is one of Simpson's favorites, and maybe it's a little too
much for some of the boys who didn't get a letter at mail
call today. But wait a minute. Young Remus, the hand-
some blond kid up there with the perpetual smile, is get-
ting ready to give his drums a workout. The boys love
Remus. He's terrific. His drum solos have a magic all
their own, and before you know it, toes are tapping and
grins are very much in evidence. Remus can exorcise the
blues almost as quickly as mail from home !
Another medicine man for the blues is mess attendant
Hayes, a tall, slim, good-looking lad from Louisiana.
That flapping piece of adornment around his middle is
a skirt he picked up somewhere, and the way that boy's
feet y is a caution! He brings the house down every
time. You'd never know, watching Hayes* enormous grin,
that he is one of the Helena's ace ammunition passers
but he is, and he gets as big a kick out of passing the
ammunition as he does dancing. After the Cape Espcrance
set-to he came in to straighten up my room, and when I
asked him how he'd done, he rolled those eyes, grinned
that grin, and replied, "Ah really threw 'em out! Boy,
Ah really did 1"
So it goes. The heat is unbearable, rising like smoke
from the steel decks, but the crew sings, the messboys
dance, the band plays, and sometimes there are boxing
bouts. The grinning faces of the men are streaked with
grime and sweat, but the Helena is In high spirits. Every-
one from the lowliest rating to Captain Hoover applauds
with enthusiasm. It is a little like being home for a holi-
day.
[63]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
Then the holiday is over and the ship stands out on
patrol again.
From the first of November it was apparent that the
Japs were again planning a showdown. Activity was ob-
served at Rabaul, Bougainville, and Truk, and was re-
ported even from the Marshall and Gilbert Islands to
the northeast. To get this information, American pilots
flew daily through some of the worst weather of the
entire South Pacific campaign, and repeatedly fought
their way through swarms of Zeros. They did a courage-
ous and remarkably effective job. Hour after hour their
reports poured into the Helena's radio room.
At a time like that, "a warship's radio room is first
cousin to a beehive, and the men of the Helena's com-
munications division had their work cut out for them.
A constant crackle of code pours from the receiving
apparatus lined along the bulkheads. The men at the
typewriters, most of them in their shirtsleeves, some of
them shirtless, beat out a rattling accompaniment on
their machines. Sweat trickles from under the earphones
and is soaked up by black, bushy beards because some
of the boys have given up shaving.
Day and night this seeming bedlam continues without
respite. Coded orders come in from Comsopac and Cinc-
pac, which itself is naval code meaning Commander South
Pacific and Commander in Chief Pacific. Orders come
from Washington; traffic streams in from all points of
the compass. Without delay this unending wave of war
talk must be decoded, sorted, and relayed to the proper
people aboard the ship.
[64]
TORPEDO PLANES
The ship's heart beats in her radio room. Her main
arteries extend from there, carrying the flow of intelli-
gence without which she could not be informed and alert.
Nothing must interfere with this flow. Atmospheric con-
ditions may be poor, reception may be atrocious, tropical
storms may fill the air with static, but the men with Ihe
earphones must make no mistakes. Mistakes cost lives
and lose battles.
The strain in the Helena's radio and coding rooms was
tremendous as the South Pacific storm clouds began to
gather again. We in communications saw the Japanese
move shaping up. We had at least an idea of the size
of it. What we knew had to be kept to ourselves, of
course, but when we walked into the wardroom at chow-
times, we were always looked at very carefully. If our
spirits were up and we did any clowning, the wardroom
relaxed. If we were tired, tense, in a hurry to get back
to the job, the others had a pretty good idea that trouble
was brewing.
It began brewing in earnest about the end of the first
week in November. By then It was apparent that the
Japs were planning a final, conclusive attack on Guadal-
canal. They had assembled a staggering number of trans-
ports, cruisers and destroyers, and at least one of our
pilots had spotted enemy battlewagons.
But It was we, after all, who made the first move.
At dawn of November 10, the Helena hurriedly left
base with a small force of cruisers and destroyers and
steamed northward once more toward the Solomons,
while from another base on a parallel course moved a
fleet of transports jammed with troops* Our job was to
[65]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
cover the transports to Guadalcanal and stand by to
protect them while the troops were disembarked. Flag-
ship of the task force was again the heavy cruiser San
Francisco, and in charge of the force was Rear Admiral
Daniel Jl Callaghan.
The run was uneventful until, at five o'clock on the
morning of the twelfth, we entered Lengo Channel off
the southeast coast of Guadalcanal and encountered
enemy submarines. They were detected before they could
strike, and our destroyers broke formation to attack
them.
One, at least, was believed sunk. Some of us on the
Helena's foc'sle watched in anxious silence as the de-
stroyers hurled their depth charges. A moment later we
saw white fountains of sea tossed up by the explosions,
and then oil and debris which were evidence enough that
one less enemy sub would answer the roll.
Our fleet of transports, commanded by Rear Admiral
Richmond Kelly Turner, swung in formation toward the
Guadalcanal shore and dropped anchor. The task force
stood out beyond them in the twenty-mile-wide channel
between Guadalcanal and Tulagi, forming a screen. Then
very slowly we beat back and forth, back and forth,
bombarding the island.
There was something fantastic about that morning to
most of us. Despite the thunder of the ship's guns and
the knowledge that the enemy might strike in force at
any moment, the war seemed remote and not quite be-
lievable. The sea was like glass. The sky was clear and
bright. A brassy sun dripped heat and set everything to
shimmering, and the air was lifeless.
[66]
TORPEDO PLANES
There had been no call to GQ. The gunners fired as
though at rehearsal as though Guadalcanal were a tar-
get being towed past for their convenience. With Jim
Salassie, I clambered up to the searchlight platform to
see the show, and though the sun seemed hotter, the air
more stifling up there, it was an excellent balcony seat.
Through binoculars we watched the parallel wakes of
hundreds of landing craft speeding between the trans-
ports and the beaches. We saw artillery bursts from.
enemy positions in the jungle puffs of smoke dissipating
in the sunlight above the trees. And now and then we saw
bright pin-points of light in the gloom of the jungle itself,
which meant that Japs and Americans were firing at one
another with rifles. But still it did not seem real.
The Helena's guns, with those of the San Francisco
and the destroyers in our group, calmly lobbed shells
into the Jap positions, and we watched them explode.
For more than an hour our bombardment mowed down
the island's coconut trees and drilled tunnels in the jungle.
Seabee bulldozers might have done the job as well, but
hardly with such fantastic speed. And as the shells burst
upon impact, spraying shrapnel for yards around, we
watched enemy troops scrambling in panic up the hill-
sides. We watched them die.
Back and forth the formation cruised f while closer to
shore the smaller destroyers maintained a parallel course,
adding to the destruction with their 5-inch guns. Hun-
dreds of Japs were killed on Guadalcanal that morning.
Later we were told that our concentrated pummeling of
the enemy's positions helped materially to slow the tempo
of attacks on Henderson Field.
[67]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
Lunch was a little like a picnic, the men in high spirits,
only a few chronic grousers complaining of the heat
and tortured eardrums. Sam Hollingsworth and Ozzie
Koerner talked law, whenever Sam could stop bragging
about the grand gang of men he had on the forty-
millimeter guns, which were his special province. Dick
Herman Ensign (now Lieutenant jg) Richard O. Her-
man of New York one of the best-read men on the
ship, became involved in an argument about of all
things the relative merits of Sinclair Lewis and Charles
Dickens. Jungle Jim Baird, suffering from prickly heat,
went about asking in his mellow western drawl what a
man could do to get rid of it. But there wasn't a real
worry in the wardroom.
After lunch the bombardment continued. The shells
plowed up the island again and the Japs went on dying,
while American troops continued to swarm ashore from
the transports.
The Helena suffered only one casualty, and that was
slight indeed. Jim Baird, directing the fire from his post
in Sky Forward, again removed his tin hat and laid it
down beside him, and the director control gang slyly
filled it with cigarette butts. They called it the "division
ash tray."
But there was trouble in the making. Jap calls for
assistance had gone out by now, and shortly after one
o'clock in Radio One we pulled from the coding machine
a message that changed the complexion of things.
The message told us that a large force of enemy
bombers was coming toward us. It was from a patrol
[68]
TORPEDO PLANES
plane beating above Jap-held islands to the northwest
of us.
At once our long line of transports hauled hook and
got under way, maneuvering into formation so that our
screening warships could afford better protection. But
the report of enemy interference was premature, and
after an anxious interlude of waiting the troopships re-
sumed unloading. A short time later the operation was
again interrupted.
This time the report was an urgent, from Admiral
Halsey's headquarters, again warning us of an attack.
Again the transports stood out from shore and turned
southward into waters more suitable for large-scale ma-
neuvering. In accordance with a prearranged plan, they
formed a circle and maintained that formation while the
destroyers and cruisers wove a protecting ring around
them. Henderson Field sent up fighter planes to patrol
the skies, and at two o'clock aboard the Helena the call
to General Quarters was sounded.
Lieutenant Commander John Chew, the Helena's air
defense officer, had his work cut out for him now. At his
battle station on the fighting bridge, he scanned the sky
closely while awaiting word of the enemy's coming. He
hadn't long to wait. About twenty minutes past two the
Combat Information Center, CIC, reported the first
enemy planes.
Chew passed it on through his talker to twenty-two-
year-old Jim Salassie up in Sky Forward, who in turn
relayed it to Jim Baird. A moment later the fighting
bridge was "on the phone' 1 again,
"Planes identified as enemy. Do you have a solution
[69]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
plot? Are you on them?"
And over the ship's loudspeaker system, to all battle
stations : "Jap torpedo bombers coming in fast and low.
Get ready to open fire!"
The murmur of the oncoming planes swelled to a roar.
The sky was full of Japs. On the bridge, Jack Chew
awaited the nod from Gunnery Officer Smith and Cap-
tain Hoover, and got it.
"Commence firing! 1 '
The Japs caught it from all directions that day. Every
ship in the Helena's task force, and all the guns on the
transports, opened up on them at once, 5-inch and 3-inch
weapons pounding like sledge-hammers in a rock quarry,
4O-millimeter and 20-rnillimeter guns growling a savage
accompaniment. From above, the Henderson Field fighter
planes descended like plummeting birds, silver in the sun.
It was all over in ten minutes, but in those stampeding
seconds, drama piled upon drama.
The Japs were not good. We on the Helena had
thought they would be. We had heard of their devastat-
ing torpedo plane attacks in other engagements, and
when this swarm of big, twin-engined planes first ap-
peared like locusts in the sky over Florida Island, many
a man aboard the Helena drew a deep breath to slow
the pounding of his heart. But the enemy had been hurl-
ing his best pilots against Guadalcanal since August, and
the little Nip fliers at the controls this afternoon were
scared. Many were kids, and those who were not kids
were suffering severely from combat fatigue. The boys
from Henderson Field, weary themselves but always
[70]
TORPEDO PLANES
ready for a fight, plunged into the Japs and had them-
selves a field day.
We heard them over the radio, on fighter plane fre-
quency, as they ripped open the Jap formation. We heard
them yelling and cussing as only fighter pilots know how
to cuss.
"Give 'em all you got, Joe I Give 'em hell I"
" Watch it. He's coming in on your port quarter!"
u Look out, look out, he's making a run on you!"
"Nice work. You got him. He's smoking like hell I"
"Look at him go ! You hit him in the belly! That's the
end of that son but good !"
"He's on the run. He's baggin' ass. Get on top of the
bastard and finish him !"
The Japs did not hold their formation long. Those
not scattered by our fighter planes lost their nerve, or
seemed to, when they encountered the circular wall of
fire flung out by our ships. Few had the courage to plunge
into that curtain of steel and drop their torpedoes. Most
of them at the crucial moment turned away, losing speed
and presenting themselves as individual "pot-shot" tar-
gets for the ships' gunners.
All over the sky they came apart in gaudy explosions,
trailing smoke and flames as they fell into the sea. The
few who fled in panic were cut down with merciless, as-
sembly-line precision by the fighter pilots waiting above
them.
The Japs scored but one hit and died doing it.
Whether or not the pilot of the enemy plane that plunged
into the bridge of the San Francisco was deliberately
giving his life for the Emperor, no one will ever know,
[71]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
The plane was in flames and had certainly been hit hard
probably by the San Francisco's own gunners. Seem-
ingly out of control, it continued 'to come on, swerving
erratically in the face of withering fire from the cruiser's
after machine-guns.
The gunners stuck to their posts, pouring steel into
the wobbling Jap until it seemed certain he must disinte-
grate, but the riddled plane was still in one piece when
it struck the Frisco's deck. The ship's gunners were buried
under flaming wreckage.
This grim sideshow to the main event, claiming the
lives of nearly a score of men and severely injuring
others, dulled the glitter of the American victory. Never-
theless it was a victory. On all sides the sea was littered
with smoking debris all that remained of the thirty-odd
torpedo bombers which less than ten minutes before had
so confidently attacked our formation. Jap pilots clung
to rubber rafts or paddled helplessly amid the wreckage
of their planes. Our destroyers, weaving in among them,
lowered boats to pick them up.
Many of them would not be rescued, and we marveled
at their determination to die. In the water not far from
us, two hapless airmen clung to a floating wing, one of
them about thirty years old, the other no more than six-
teen. A rescue boat approached, offering assistance.
The youngster was willing enough. Almost pathetically
he held out his hands. But his companion seized him
angrily by the neck and yanked him back, slapping his
hands down. While the boy struggled to free himself,
the big fellow produced a pistol and shot him. Then,
swimming away from the rescue boat, he turned defiantly
[72]
TORPEDO PLANES
and shot himself. We saw it very clearly.
By 2:30 the show was over. The San Francisco had
transferred her injured men to a transport, the sea was
clear and calm again, and our fleet of troopships had
resumed their business of unloading. The task force stood
by to cover.
Aboard the Helena we had suffered one casualty. A
lively lad named Kincaid, renowned for his jokes and
curly black hair, had to be treated for burns and shock.
He was manning a somillinieter machine-gun, one of
the hottest guns on the ship because just over his head
was the belching muzzle of a 5-incher. The flash of the
larger gun had burned him, searing his face, hair and
hands.
But no one was aware of young Kincaid*$ injuries until
the attack was over, and by that time his machine-gun
had knocked down an enemy bomber. Later, when we
returned to base, he was awarded the Silver Star.
[73]
** CHAPTER EIGHT **
"Take the Big Ones First!"
ALL afternoon the little landing boats had scurried back
and forth between the fleet of transports and Guadal-
canal, carrying men, equipment and supplies to the beaches.
It was an orderly, though hurried, operation a race
against time, with little enemy interference. Because, of
course, the troopships had to be out of there before dark,
whether unloaded or not. They could not be left over-
night in such an exposed area, in danger of attack by
submarines.
Our plan was simple enough. If the transports were
emptied by sunset, they would up anchor and proceed
back to port, steaming through the night under the pro-
tection of the cruisers and destroyers of our task group.
If troops still remained aboard, the ships were to proceed
eastward into the safer waters of the Coral Sea, circling
until daybreak when they could return in safety to finish
the job. In either case it looked like a comparatively easy
job for those of us on the warships, even though we had
received hints of an impending attack from the Japs in
the form of a warning of u possible enemy movement."
Half an hour before sunset the transports were under
way, their decks cleared of troops. We moved along with
them, through a sea deceptively calm. The talk on the
[74]
"TAKE THE BIG ONES FIRST I"
foc'sle was of a job well done, and we knew that the
Marines on Guadalcanal must be grateful.
"It won't be long now," Sam Hollingsworth reflected
aloud, "before the Japs are forced to abandon Guadal-
canal altogether. Then we'll be moving up through the
Slot toward Bougainville, pounding the enemy's bases on
New Georgia and Kolombangara." Sam liked to specu-
late and was more often right than wrong in his predic-
tions. He had studied the charts of the Solomons area
so often that every island, every coral reef and bay, was
photographed in his mind. "Kula Gulf," he said, "is
going to be a tough nut to crack. Very tricky proposition.
A ship in Kula will be like a bug in a bottle."
"If you ask me, we'll catch plenty of headaches before
we ever get that far up the Slot/ 1 said Red Cochrane.
Red Lieutenant Richard L., USN was a son of Ad-
miral Cochrane, Chief of the Bureau of Ships, and he
was one of the reasons the Helena was a happy ship* Not
given much to clowning, he hit his stride during our
solemn discussions of strategy. "The whole Slot," he
continued thoughtfully, "is made to order for submarine
traps, and the Japs have enough subs to make the most
of it."
"Amen," said Jack Chew.
We plowed along in formation, the sun dropping plac-
idly into the sea astern of us. Down in the junior officers*
bunkroom, Swede Hanson's phonograph poured out
music, rhythmic and loud, and between records we heard
the sound of a harmonica. It was an astonishingly sweet
harmonica, played by a young gunner's mate, Warren,
[75]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
who had lightened many a condition watch with his
melodies.
Everything was just right: a difficult job well done,
the weather pleasant, evening shaping up, the heat no
worse than usual. On the signal bridge, Chief Flood was
hoisting his flags with the zip and zeal for which he was
renowned, and we watched him while batting the breeze.
The flags and halyards meant a lot to the chief always,
and he haunted the bridge to be sure they were just right.
Any time you glanced up there without seeing him, some-
thing was likely to be wrong.
This evening there was nothing in the flags to arouse
much concern, and the Junior Board of Strategy peace-
fully disbanded. I went to the radio room, where Rebel
Sandridge, parked at a typewriter with the familiar stogie
cocked in his mouth, stopped work to grin at me.
u Have a sandwich, sir?" Rebel asked.
He had three of them, and they were the biggest sand-
wiches in the world, bulging with cold roast beef. Rebel
always knew where to round up something to eat. When
the urge possessed him, he would wander down to Boilers
Forward, or to "Vaps," the fresh water evaporators,
and put the squeeze on the chiefs there. Ask him how he
did it, and he would answer with a broad, goofy grin,
"Oh, I get around I"
I bit Into the sandwich. "Look, sir," Rebel said, with
some hesitation. "Would you have time to read some-
thing I wrote the other night ?"
"Something you wrote?"
"Well . . ." He took a piece of paper from his
pocket and handed it over, his grin slightly sheepish. "It's
[76]
"TAKE THE BIG ONES FIRST!"
a poem, sort of. To my girl. How it happened, I was
stretched out on deck, on the communications platform,
and the moon was big as a house and I got to thinking
about home. You know how it is. A nice night like that,
with the moon up there, you wish the folks back home
could be here for a while just to see it. Especially your
girl. So I came back into the shack and wrote her a
poem."
I knew about Rebel's girl but was not too eager to
read the poem he had written to hen It was a little like
censoring a man's secret thoughts. But he insisted, and
so I read it. And it was good.
That was the surprising thing about Rebel. He clowned
around, grinned at danger, smoked big cigars and loved
to act tough, but every now and then you had a glimpse
of something inside him that shone like a watch-dial in.
the dark. The same was probably true of many others
aboard the ship, but despite the cramped quarters and
lack of privacy, a ship is really a big place and you get
to know few of its personnel intimately. Some men, of
course, are known to everyone. All the officers and men
knew Commander Buerkle. He had the heartiest, loudest
laugh on the ship, and was now our acting executive of-
ficer, taking the place of Commander Linke, who was ill
in port. (Later, Commander Buerkle became exec*)
Everyone knew Bandmaster Simpson. Many knew Jungle
Jim Baird, who had a kind word for everyone and used
to greet me, always, with "How's my boy Chick?" (Jim
had the room next to mine, and it was customary, in the
morning or after a bit of "sack time' 1 in the afternoon,
for the one who waked first to thump on the bulkhead
[77]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
and call out, "Get up !" the answer to which was usually
a reluctant "Yup.")
Swede Hanson, too, was well known almost as well
known as his phonograph. Baseball was Swede's first
love, but his luck in the games at Noumea and Espiritu
Santo was usually bad, and the ship really felt for him.
When he did have a lucky day, it was cause for celebra-
tion; then on the faces of total strangers you'd see broad
grins and be greeted with the gleeful comment, "Swede
got a hit today!"
There was young Warren, with his educated har-
monica. And Chief Flood with his flags. And "Red," the
head laundryman, who suffered the torments of the
damned during those sweltering, smothering days near
Guadalcanal when hot steam transformed his laundry
into a private little hell. And Jake Powell, the chief fire
controlman, who nervously gnawed at his fingernails but
knew more about morale-building than a psychology pro-
fessor. There was a chief watertender the boys called
"Jelly Belly" because he weighed three hundred pounds
and was everlastingly happy, especially when eating. And
P. C. Foster, the ship's philosopher. And the two gallop-
ing dominoes experts, Garner and Gore, who used to give
five-dollar bills to the colored messboys just to see how
wide their eyes would bulge.
You couldn't know everyone. The ship was too big.
Sam Hollingsworth knew hundreds of the men by name,
but was an exception. Most of us found a few special
friends arid had to be content.
1 sometimes think that in telling the story of a warship
and her men, one should invent a purely fictional char-
[78]
"TAKE THE BIG ONES FIRST!"
acter and call him Joe Smith or something equally simple,
and keep him continually in the picture. He would be
tall and short, skinny and fat, sun-tanned and pale. He
would talk with a lazy southern drawl and a quick New
England twang, with a mid-west accent and Brooklynese.
He would be scared sometimes ind incredibly brave at
others, a fanatic on saving the world from destruction*
a matter-of-fact guy doing a job that bored him stiff.
He would read Shakespeare and Superman, write long,
beautiful letters and two-line notes beginning, "Dear Ma,
I am okay." In him would be a little of everyone aboard
the ship, and thus you would overlook no one in telling
the story. Joe Smith would be a handy man to have
around.
So I read Rebel Sandridge*s poem and was sure his
girl would like it. Then I hurried into the coding room
to break a message, and forgot about poetry for a time.
Because the message was a late report from one of our
search planes. It read that several large groups of Jap
capital ships and transports were heading our way. And
we had expected a peaceful night!
From that moment on, it was the old story. The re-
ports came in with Increasing rapidity and were rushed
to Captain Hoover. Department heads were notified. The
ship buzzed with activity and began to vibrate like a
beehive jabbed with a pitchfork. Yet it seemed fantastic.
The reports themselves were unbelievable.
Except for slight variations In wording, the messages
were all the same, warning of the approach of large
Jap formations. Somewhere near the head of the Slot
our night-prowling Catalinas "Black Cats" they were
[79]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
called had spotted the enemy on the move and were
trailing him. But what an enemy! If the reports were
accurate, the whole Japanese South Pacific fleet was on
the way!
And then, unaccountably, the flow of radio traffic
dwindled to a mere trickle. Perhaps the weather in the
upper reaches of the Slot had kicked up, as South Pacific
weather so often does, and the pilots of our searching
Cats were having trouble with rain squalls or heavy over-
cast. Whatever the answer, they apparently lost contact
and could no longer supply adequate information on the
enemy's progress. We knew the Japs were on the move
but could only guess at their whereabouts and were not
sure of their Intentions.
The situation was ticklish. One report had estimated
the Jap strength at forty-eight ships, including heavy
cruisers and at least two battlewagons ! With our light
force of cruisers and destroyers we were no match for
this armada. We were designed to derail the Tokyo Ex-
press, not to wade into the entire Jap Navy !
But the enemy had to be stopped, regardless of size.
The bigger he was, the more desperate became the need
for halting him. For If he succeeded In putting troops
ashore on Guadalcanal from that many transports, our
own move to reinforce the island would be trumped. On
edge and silent, we waited for Admiral Callaghan's
decision.
It carne with the admiral's own announcement that the
Japs were on the way and we were "going out to meet
them."
It was dark now. The force moved up into Indispensa-
[80]
"TAKE THE BIG ONES FIRST!"
ble Strait, on the prowl with feelers extended. Destroyers
led the long battle line, guiding us westward past the
shore of Guadalcanal toward Savo Island for if the
Japs came down the Slot as expected, they would have to
round Savo on their way to the Guadalcanal beaches.
We proceeded In single file. Following the destroyers
were the cruisers, Including the bantamweight Atlanta,
commanded by Admiral Scott* We were a veteran group.
Although not always operating together, we had seen
action enough to give us confidence even In the face of
such opposition as the Jap was reported to be sending
at us. Some of us had fought In the Battle of Cape
Esperance. Some had escorted the Hornet to Bougain-
ville, to bomb the Jap strongholds at Faisi and Buin.
Others had been In the Battle of Santa Cruz, October 26,
when the Hornet went down. Still others had taken part
In the initial assault on Guadalcanal. Now we searched
for the Japs near Savo Island, failed to find them, and
prowled the seas of Cape Esperance, awaiting their
arrival.
At midnight there was still no word of the Japs 1 com-
ing, and the significance of those early reports began to
fade. The men relaxed a little at their battle stations.
Up on the bridge* Commander Carpenter calmly shot
stars while Chief Quartermaster Sweeney scowled at a
stop-watch. "Let's get this one, Sweeney !" the comman-
der sang out. "What's that one, Sweeney?" You could
hear his good-natured bellow all over the ship. But If you
looked closely, you saw that despite his good humor and
apparent lack of tension, the commander was never far
from his two life jackets, even while shooting stars.
[81]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
In the radio room there was little traffic, and by one
o'clock we had convinced ourselves that the early reports
were false alarms. In the coding room a rummy game was
again in progress. Ensign Johnny Cochran of Norfolk,
Virginia, just out of Georgia Tech, chewed the rag with
Lieutenant Cooper, also a Georgia Tech man, and their
discussion of Tech's football prowess made the possibility
of a scrap with the Japs seem remote indeed. Down in
Dupay's turret, the boys were again advising their turret
captain to turn his mount into a gedunk stand.
The Japs wouldn't come now, we said. They had to
be out again before daylight, or our fliers from Hender-
son Field would pulverize them. They'd be crazy to take
that chance. (But the Japs didn't intend to take that
chance. This time they planned to eliminate the danger
of air assault by occupying Henderson Field themselves.)
We were completely relaxed, wondering when we could
secure from GQ and hit the sack. The hands of the clock
hovered near two A.M. Suddenly the loudspeakers shocked
us to attention.
"Enemy ships sighted!"
Over the battle phones went CIC's report of estimated
range and bearing. No wasted words now. Time was sud-
denly of tremendous importance', and every syllable was
precious. Up in Director Control, officers and men were
instantly on the alert, tracking the swift ships closer and
closer while calling out the figures on the instrument scale.
Down in the plotting room, the ship's mechanical brain
absorbed their reports and mulled briefly over a hundred
and one other sets of figures. Without the mechanical
brain, the ship would have required the services of a gl-
[82]
"TAKE THE BIG ONES FIRST!"
gantic office staff of mathematical wizards, for the com-
putations Involved were beyond imagination. We were a
ship of war bristling with guns } bulling through the dark
at high speed, rushing to meet an enemy force moving
with equal rapidity in the opposite direction; yet each of
the Helena's fifteen big guns had to be centered on a
target and held there.
The speed of our ship, the speed of the target, the
force and direction of the wind these were elementary.
But what about the sudden, unexpected variations of
the enemy's course, caused by the carelessness of the
fallible human being at her helm? What about the minute
variations in the fire-power of the Helenas own guns,
the temperature and barometric pressure and the scores
of other calculations which had to be taken into consid-
eration? The list was longer than an income-tax form,
and if computed by human minds it would have taken as
long to figure. But the plotting room, manned by Lieu-
tenant (jg) Steve Washburn and Lieutenant (jg) Joe
Griffin and their crew, required but an instant.
It was incredible, really, but a ship of war Is an in-
credible thing throughout. The turret trainers had their
orders now, and the big guns moved almost in unison
with a sinister kind of slow-motion rhythm. Down in
the magazine, husky boys pushed the powder up to mates
who took it without a ripple of wasted motion and fed
it to the guns. The shells were ready to move in an end-
less chain up the tubes and be rammed home. The eye
would scarcely be able to follow these movements during
the battle, so swiftly and with such apparent lack of effort
did the Helena's turret crews function. No wonder these
"[83]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
men wore their rating badges proudly and walked the
streets of liberty towns with a tell-tale swagger!
"Turret One ready! . . . Turret Four ready! . . .
Turret Three ready! . . ." It was a race to see who
would report most rapidly to Gunnery Officer Smith on
the fighting bridge. Last man in was a goony-bird !
The ships of our force were heading westward in a
long, straight lance aimed at Savo Island. Guadalcanal
was on our left, Florida on our right, both islands dimly
visible as blurred, velvety shapes rising from a blacked-
out sea. The Japs had descended through the Slot as
expected, speeding eastward past Savo on their way to 1
the Guadalcanal shore. They came in two separate lines,
while a third line, consisting mostly of transports and
escorting destroyers, closely followed.
Our own battle force boldly continued on course and
steamed between the Jap lines, in a maneuver as uncom-
plicated as that of a train rushing headlong into a tunnel.
The tunnel was not of great breadth. Its mouth was but
three miles wide point-blank range for even the smallest
ships involved. But Admiral Callaghan and his staff had
decided to do the unexpected and to do it quickly, and
so we steamed into the dragon's mouth with every man
at every gun on every ship holding his breath and wait-
ing for the inevitable eruption.
A moment later from Admiral Callaghan came the
order, "Take the big ones first! Commence firing!"
[84]
** CHAPTER NINE **
The Battle of Guadalcanal
"HOLDING their fire while closing the range," reads an
official Navy release describing the Battle of Guadal-
canal, "the United States craft moved steadily toward
their unsuspecting foe and steamed between the enemy's
two flanks before the Japanese detected their presence.
A cruiser stabbed the darkness with her searchlight,
found the Helena and opened fire. The Helenas main
battery, meanwhile, had been trained on the same cruiser
and had gotten the range. The Helena, as in the Battle
of Cape Esperance, was the first United States ship to
fire."
There was a little more to It than that ! We had the
range, yes, and were ready. As ready as well trained men
and a ship with a fighting heart can be. But when from
the leading ship of the enemy left lank a blinding lood
of light leaped out to engulf us, the heart of the Helena
momentarily stopped beating. "Haile" Salassle said later
In describing that instant, "For those of us topside it was
one hell of a minute like sitting In the front row of a
theater with your pants off when the house lights are
switched 00!"
But the Jap's gunners were not as apt as her search-
light men, and It was the Heleiw, not the Jap^ that
[85]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
opened fire. We had been holding that same cruiser in
our sights, awaiting the word. No word was needed now.
It was kill or be killed. In a thundering fragment of time
the night was such a bedlam of explosions that men on
the neighboring islands complained later of having been
shaken like jelly.
The Jap's searchlight was blasted to bits quickly, but
in a moment more she supplied another kind of light.
Smashed by the Helenas main turrets, she exploded into
a smoky orange bonfire. How high into the sky that
tower of flame extended, no one can say, but the bright-
ness of it was unbelievable. It changed the complexion of
the battle in an instant, turning night into a sinister kind
of day. Still maintaining her course and speed, the blaz-
ing cruiser charged past our formation like a hurt and
infuriated bull, her flames bathing ship after ship, ours
as well as theirs, with light. Then under the Helena's
continuous pounding she began to sink.
The San Francisco, meanwhile, had opened up on the
leading ship of the enemy's right flank, a second heavy
cruiser, and was working her over. The Frisco's 8-inch
guns, nine of them, laid the Jap wide open with the ter-
rible efficiency of a meat cleaver, and she, too, burst into
flames. Both the Helena and the Frisco quickly shifted
their fire to other targets, and then, with every ship in
our formation belaboring the enemy, the battle broke
apart and lost all sense of sanity.
Our destroyers, leading us in, had sped from forma-
tion to rush at the Japs with torpedoes. The Atlanta,
too, swept out of line, her 5-inch guns spitting a giddy
pattern of fireworks. The rest of us stayed in single file,
[86]
THE BATTLE OF GUADALCANAL
led now by the San Francisco, and as we continued at
high speed through the "tunnel," Jap ships were afire
on both sides of us. We were silhouetted like witches
speeding across a Hallowe'en moon. The Jap gunners
found the range, and the battle was on in full fury.
No one man can paint a complete picture of that hair-
raising holocaust. It was too huge. The enemy is thought
to have had two battleships, three heavy cruisers, four
light cruisers and ten destroyers in his main force, with
additional destroyers guarding the troopships behind,
and with our vessels tearing this huge force apart there
were scores of guns in action in an area less than three
miles wide! The men whose job it was to distinguish
between friendly and enemy ships were blinded by gun
flashes and confused by burning ships which lay dead in
the water. Other ships, blazing just as brilliantly, rushed
through the night like giant torches held aloft by invisible
swimmers. It was a picture too vast for the imagination,
and even when it was over no man could quite put the
flaming bits of the puzzle together or be sure of what
he had seen. That is why so many conflicting reports of
the battle have since appeared why details differ and
viewpoints vary.
The Helena, her main batteries having disposed of a
heavy cruiser in four and a half minutes by Jim Baird's
stop-watch, turned now upon a destroyer and cut loose
with her secondaries. The destroyer, too, exploded and
burst into flames. In the glare of her fires* her men were
seen leaping into a sea already crowded with struggling
hunfianity.
Ahead, one of our own destroyers, trapped by enemy
[87]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
gunfire after firing her torpedoes, was aflame and dying,
and the San Francisco had tangled with a battlewagon
to starboard. The Frisco 3 s 8-inch guns kept up an ear-
splitting argument with the Jap across a bridge of blaz-
ing sea about two thousand yards wide. Hit and severely
mauled, the Jap giant nevertheless scored heavily with
her more powerful weapons. One of her salvos raked the
Frisco's bridge, high above the waterline either because
her aim was poor or because her big guns could not be
depressed sufficiently to place their shells where they
would inflict real damage,
They did damage enough. Admiral Callaghan died
there in the tangled steel of the Frisco's bridge. So did
Captain Cassin Young and many other brave men. The
ship's steering gear was partially demolished, she had no
compass, her flag bridge was wrecked and many of her
officers were dead or injured; yet she continued to fight.
Her guns knocked out the Jap. Then as she staggered
along, an enemy destroyer boiled out of the dark, think-
ing her an easy victim, and the gallant Frisco knocked
her out too. At which point Lieutenant Commander
Bruce McCandless, having accepted responsibility for the
ship, ordered her out of the battle and sent her limping
toward the channel between Cape Esperance and Savo.
As she went, the over-eager Japs to right and left of her
poured shell after shell at her fleeing shadow but suc-
ceeded only in battering one another.
The Frisco found her escape route blocked, however,
and under fire again from an enemy ship lying to across
the channel, she turned about. It was a maneuver that
called for courage. Close to the Guadalcanal shore, be-
[88]
THE BATTLE OF GUADALCANAL
tween the Jap right flank and enemy shore guns, she faced
the task of crawling through treacherous waters with
most of her steering gear out of order and her charts
destroyed.
Perhaps she would have succeeded without assistance ;
perhaps not. At any rate, she suddenly found a friend
when she badly needed one, Up behind her out of the
night came the Helena . . and how the Helena hap-
pened to be there at that moment is one more dramatic
chapter in the book of battle.
We had put away two victims, a heavy cruiser and a
destroyer, when during a momentary lull in the battle
Captain Hoover and his men on the fighting bridge ob-
served a line of enemy ships to starboard. Our second-
aries ranged one of these ships immediately and crippled
her with a burst of 5-inch shells which struck her squarely
at the waterline. She was apparently a destroyer. At the
same time a cruiser in the Jap formation opened up oa
the retiring San Francisco.
The Frisco had been hurt and was seeking a lane of
escape. She came about, in no condition to take on so
formidable a foe, and the Helena moved 10 to give the
Jap gunners the contest for which they were asking. For
a few blinding moments the Battle of Guadalcanal was
reduced, Insofar as the Helena was concerned, to a pri-
vate, point-blank duel between our gunners and those of
the enemy cruiser.
We were hit in that duel, but the continuous fire of
the Helena's main-deck guns cut the heavier Jap down
to size very quickly. There was little left of her except
smoke and flames when she died.
[89]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
The Helena turned away. She had sunk four enemy
ships and now her guns were silent as she felt her way
warily past friendly vessels to engage the Japs again.
We had been hurt, but not badly. Our forward turrets
were shrapnel scarred, and shells had crashed into Battle
Two and the stack. An electrician's mate named Harris
a slight, blond, likeable lad of twenty-two, from Phila-
delphia had been cut almost in two by shrapnel which
ricocheted from the steel deck up through the searchlight
platform on which he was lying. Others were injured up
there, but Harris alone had been killed. Dick Herman
he of the bookish debates in the wardroom helped the
wounded men down from the platform as the ship closed
in again to resume the fight.
We ranged a fleeing cruiser and set her afire as she
fled. We raked a destroyer with our lighter guns until
she, too, exploded in flames and smoke. It was a bit fan-
tastic. You found a target and sank it. Over the battle
phones came the order, "Shift target !" You found an-
other Jap. The turret crews went into action again with
scarcely a pause to wipe the sweat from their faces. Jim
Baird, in Director Control Forward, adjusted his sights.
The big guns swung into position and bellowed, the ship
shuddered, and another Jap burst into flames in the midst
of a scene of destruction already lit by blazing ships
everywhere. Never before in the history of naval war-
fare had so much been destroyed so quickly in so small
an area.
By now, of course, all semblance of order had vanished
and the battle had become a series of dogfights. Even the
commands which crackled over the battle circuits of indi-
[90]
THE BATTLE OF GUADALCANAL
vidual ships were without pattern. "Full speed ahead!
Fire to starboard ! Shift target I Get the one on our port
bow; he's firing on us! Full speed astern!" were the
orders from the Helenas bridge as we pursued and en-
gaged the scattered enemy, while from Spot One came
the jubilant chant of Warren Boles, "Set 5 em up in the
other alley! Pour It to *eml" and from the men them-
selves, u jeez, that was a big onei Look at it blow up !"
Savo Island, reddened by battle-lames, was danger-
ously close to us when we made our turn. Now we came
about, guns silent again, seeking something else at which
to fire. The conflict had passed by us in that part of the
area; the Japs that were left had fled out past Savo on
their way back up the Slot. But our destroyers were deal-
ing terrible destruction among the enemy transports
which, ghosting in behind their escort of warships, had
swung toward the beach. Many of the troopships were
ablaze; others vainly attempted to flee. One, wallowing
westward through the inferno, literally leaped from the
sea and exploded in mid air when hit by a torpedo.
Farther down the line, one of our ships later identi-
fied as the Juneau was slugging it out with a Jap twice
her size. A salvo from the Jap roared over her, red
against the night, missed her completely and fell on an-
other Jap ship beyond. Then the Juneau's torpedoes hit
home and Jap number one was afire, exploding as she
sought to retire.
The little Juneau "poured it on/ 1 raking the enemy's
deck and superstructure with her 5-inch 'guns. That was
all she had, but her gunners were superb, and the Japs,
returning the fire, seemed unable to depress their larger
[91]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP'*
guns enough to cause serious damage. A featherweight
* with whirlwind fists, the Juneau pot up a magnificent
fight until a torpedo sent her reeling. Then, out of con-
trol, she zigzagged wildly through the night.
That she missed a head-on collision with the Jap was
a miracle, and that she was not blown out of the water
by Jap number two was a miracle also. Shells ripped into
her bridge and stack, shattered her searchlights and
covered her deck with wreckage, A shell burst in her sick
bay* killing her wounded and many of her medical per-
sonnel. But still her guns spoke and she drunkenly main-
tained headway, boiling through a sea filled with bobbing
Jap heads. Suddenly she sped from the glow of the burn-
ing Jap into darkness, and became a black shadow rush-
ing at the Helena!
Only quick work on the Helenas bridge averted a
collision. Captain Hoover's shouted command, "Hard
right rudder! 11 came without a second to spare. The
Juneau lurched past us as we heeled over, and an instant
later she was gone again in darkness* her part of the
battle over.
We turned again Into the Japs. But our part in the
battle was over* too, A ship loomed in the blackness off
our bow s and at the order, "Shift target!" our big guns
swung to center her. She was a sitting duck.
But the order to fire was not given. Perhaps it was
intuition, perhaps Captain Hoover saw something which
others OB the bridge did not; at any rate, he hesitated.
A moment later a blinker gun flashed from the target's
bridge. She was the wounded San Francisco.
It was Lieutenant Commander Bruce McCandless who
[92]
THE BATTLE OF GUADALCANAL
flashed the Frisco's Identity, and his heart at that moment
must have been well up in his throat. Later, In a maga-
zine article, he wrote, "Captain Hoover, may he live
forever, took a second look before letting us have lt! IJ
Now at last the acting commanding officer of the bat-
tered flagship was able to report the San Francisco* s
damage to a senior officer. He did so by means of the
same blinker tube, and the Helena, with Captain Hoover
assuming command of the force, moved ahead of the
Frisco to lead her out to safety.
"The battle itself was about oven Of the huge Japanese
ieet which had steamed down the Slot hours before,
little remained except a few blazing hulks upon the water-
Remnants of the Ieet fled in disorganized rout, firing at
one another in confusion as they went. The rest, including
many of the transports, had been sunk.
We, too, had suffered losses. The miracle was that
against such opposition we had not suffered more. When
at dawn the ships of our force rendezvoused at the ap-
pointed place and proceeded toward home, several were
missing, and the procession was grim. Those of us who
had come through the battle were In bad shape* The San
Francisco was riddled with shell holes, her superstructure
mangled, her casualty list long. The Juneau, which had
appeared again out of nowhere as the battle ended,
limped crookedly along with her damage control people
still frantically working to keep her afloat, her deck a
shambles, her sick bay filled with dead and wounded. The
destroyers, too, had taken a grisly pounding. The Helena
alone had come through with only minor hurts.
Despite the calm sea, the glittering hot sun and the
[93]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
white birds lying, it was a desolate dawn. Utter exhaus-
tion reddened the eyes of the men still alert at their battle
stations as we limped toward home. Though we had won
a stunning victory, there was no jubilation. Weariness
had dulled the spirit. When at last the night-long watch-
fulness came to an end* many of the men threw them-
selves down without taking a step. It mattered little
where they were, so long as they could sleep.
At eleven A.M. Friday, the thirteenth of November
the Helencts crew gathered aft on the main deck where
lay a canvas bag draped with a flag. The men removed
their caps, and some of those who faced the sun closed
their eyes for a moment to shut out the glare. At Captain
Hoover's side stood Catholic Chaplain Murphy, a Bible
in his hand.
The chaplain finished the burial service and Captain
Hoover moved a step forward. He spoke briefly* as he
might have spoken in the calm of his cabin. A moment
later the body of young Harris, killed by shrapnel on
the searchlight platform, slid gently into the sea.
The Helena steamed on. Captain Hoover returned to
the bridge. Tired men went about their work again.
But the Battle of Guadalcanal was not yet over. One
more chapter remained to be written, and it was ghastly
and grim. It was also terribly brief.
We had been moving through that calm sea for some
time, the Helena- at the head of the line with the San
Francisco on our port quarter, the Jitneau on our star-
board quarter, the damaged destroyers deployed in a
screen* At times the Juneau, her steering mechanism
apparently in bad shape from the pounding she had ab-
[94]
THE BATTLE OF GUADALCANAL
sorbed, appeared to be dangerously close to us. Many of
us aboard the Helena watched her uneasily as with her
bow deep In the water she struggled to keep up.
Suddenly without warning she leaped from the sea in
a blinding burst of light. A single vast thunderclap ex-
ploded within her. Before there was time to cry out, even
to speak, the valiant little cruiser was hidden in a tower
of smoke that shot skyward as though spewed from a
volcano. All we saw of the ship herself was a 5-inch gun
turret, completely intact, hurtling through the air high
above the Helenas stack-
It was not real. To those of us watching, who had
only just begun to relax and feel alive again after a night
of unbearable tension, it was the end of all the world, a
physical and mental shock beyond comprehension. No one
moved or spoke. Stricken, we watched the monstrous
black blossom of smoke with a terrible fascination, wait-
ing to see what would be under it when it lifted.
Nothing was under it. Nothing at all. The Jnneau had
vanished as though she had been a mirage. Only a dis-
colored, oily patch of sea, slightly less smooth than the
calm waters around it, marked her grave. Torpedoes
from a lurking submarine had struck the little ship in
some vital spot and destroyed her in a matter of seconds-
She had blown up like a tin can hurled aloft, in frag-
ments, by a giant firecracker.
It was almost too much for many who saw her die*
A man needs some kind of mental arid physical reserve
to accept such a disaster *when not prepared for it, and
we had exhausted our reserve during the night. This was
not good. It was a shock to over-taut nerves and morale.
[95]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
In battle, with hell erupting on all sides, a man conditions
himself to accept such things; but the battle had been
over for hours* the sea had been peaceful, the sun shin-
lug* the white birds lying, and men's thoughts on peace
and relaxation. Many a man aboard the Helena walked
the decks for the following few hours in a kind of trance,
brooding and frightened.
The man who felt It most, perhaps, was Captain
Hoover himself. He and Captain Lyman K. Swensen,
skipper of the Juneau^ had been classmates and the best
of friends.
Yet despite this tragic finale to the battle, our side had
won a great victory. When conflicting reports of the all*
night engagement are finally fitted properly Into the whole
sprawling picture, It may be considered the greatest naval
victory of the war, perhaps of any war. "There was
nothing like it in World War I or the Spanish American
War," Admiral Nimitz later declared. "Undoubtedly the
Japanese plan was complete capture of Guadalcanal. I
think they brought down everything they had,"
We had lost Admiral Callaghan, Admiral Scott, Cap-
tain Young, and many other gallant men. We had lost
the Atlanta and the Juneau and four destroyers a large
part of our small force of ships. But we had crippled the
Jap leet severely, and as the remnants of It fled toward
Bougainville, American airmen gave it a further pound-
Ing the following morning, while rescue craft from Guad-
alcanal worked over the scene of the night's encounter
In search of survivors from our ships which had been
sunk. Hundreds were saved.
Late that afternoon, November 13, the Japs tried
[96]
THE BATTLE OF GUADALCANAL
again, sending down a heavy cruiser and six destroyers
to bombard the island. As darkness fell they were set
upon by PT boats of famous Squadron X five tiny thun-
der boats which turned them back with a blistering
high-speed torpedo attack. The cruiser was hit and crip-
pled. A destroyer was sunk. At dawn* planes from Hen-
derson Field finished off the cruiser as it limped back to
Bougainville.
Still the Japs were undiscouragedL More of their troop-
laden transports, this time a whole sprawling leet of
them, beat southward all that day despite relentless at-
tack by our planes. Many were sunk. Others were left
blazing and helpless. But the rest came on, and once
again the soldiers and Marines on Guadalcanal dug In
on the beaches to repel an expected invasion. When dark-
ness fell the Japs closed in, led by a battleship task force
of great strength.
They were met this time by Admiral Lee, with an
American force of battleships one of them the 1 6-Inch
gun South Dakota and destroyers. Only four of the
enemy troopships reached shore. These were found the
following morning beached at Tassaf aronga, about seven
and a half miles west of our Guadalcanal holdings, and
were destroyed. Of the escorting force of warships, noth-
ing of importance escaped. We had lost two destroyers.
The Battle of Guadalcanal, a three day holocaust, was
over.
What was the score? Again we cannot be sure. The
text of the Navy communique covering those three bloody
days and nights conservatively places the enemy's losses
as follows: Sunk or destroyed: I battleship, 3 heavy
[97]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
cruisers, 2 light cruisers, 5 destroyers, 8 transports, 4
cargo transports. Damaged: I battleship, 6 destroyers.
Certainly the Japs suffered no less than that. Nor does
the Navy communique take into account the estimated
20,000 to 40,000 enemy troops who perished aboard the
sunken transports.
Our own loses were the light cruisers Atlanta and
Juneau t and six destroyers. And we had once again held
the line on the map of strategy.
Said the Japs, In a short-wave broadcast recorded by
the Federal Communications Commission in New York:
"The Battle of the Solomons Is proving fatal to the
American Navy. The Japanese have the Americans where
they want them and mean to keep them there until no
American warship Is left in active service."
Said Prime Minister John Curtin of Australia: "The
battles are not over but the enemy knows he has been
fighting, and I am grateful to the United States for the
magnificent forces it has used In this important theater,"
And from General Vandegrift, commanding the Ma-
rines on Guadalcanal :
"The battered helmets of the fighting forces on Guad-
alcanal are lifted In deepest tribute to Rear Admirals
Callagfaao, Scott, Lee and Kinkaid and to their forces
who, against seemingly hopeless odds, dld> with magnifi-
cent courage, attack and drive back the first hostile stroke
and make later successes possible. 5 *
[98]
** CHAPTER TEN **
St. Helena
LONG before our battle-weary group reached a nearby
base, the Helena's repair crews were at work, swarming
over the ship to put her in shape again. Though we had
not been hurt badly, there were a thousand and one minor
ailments that required attention.
Onr stack was full of holes. Our searchlight platform
was scarred and twisted. And now we learned that a shell
had gone through the pyrotechnic locker, forward. For-
tunately it hadn't exploded there amid the rockets and
signal lares, or the whole forward part of the ship might
have been blown out with a fireworks exhibition to rival
the Fourth of July. By some freak of chance the shell
had been deflected back up through the deck and had
burst on the foc'sle, amid hundreds of empty ammuni-
tions cans which now looked like Simple Slmon f s sieves.
But miracles become commonplace aboard a fighting
ship, and most of us, though fully aware of what might
have happened had the shell exploded sooner, .merely
shrugged the thought aside. Next time we might not be
so lucky; therefore f why talk about it? Next time we
might get what the San Francisco, for Instance, had got.
At the base I went across to the Frisco to pick up some
dispatches, and found her crew busy with the task of
[99]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
removing the injured men to shore. The ship herself was
a fantastic jungle of twisted steel, her quarterdeck slip-
pery with blood and piled high with wreckage. You
moved about very carefully, watching your feet. Not all
the dead had yet been removed.
It seemed probable, In view of the frightful damage
done to the big cruiser's superstructure, that the Jap bat-
tlewagon which raked her had been armed, not with
armor-piercing shells, but with high explosive missiles
intended for the bombardment of Guadalcanal. Which
meant. If It were true, that the Japs had been unaware
of our presence and expected no naval opposition to their
assault upon the island. We talked about this in the
Helena's wardroom and got nowhere. That is the trouble
with naval warfare, especially at night. So many questions
remain unanswered.
On Monday, November 16, the Plan of the Day con-
tained the following message from Rear Admiral Turner :
u ln dissolving this task force, I express the wish that
the number designating our group In the future be re-
served for groups of ships as ready for high patriotic
endeavor as you have been. Although well aware of the
odds which might be against you, 1 felt that your chance
of night attack on November twelfth was the time when
fine ships and brave men should be called upon to their
utmost. For your magnificent support of our brave troops
on Guadalcanal and your eagerness to be the keen edge
of the sword that is cutting the throat of the enemy, I
thank you* In taking from the enemy a tool of strength
far greater than that which you have expended, you have
more than justified any expectations. For our lost ships
[100]
ST. HELENA
whose Barnes will be enshrined in history, and for long
cherished comrades who will be with us no more, I grieve
with you. No medals however high can ever possibly give
you the reward you deserve. With all my heart I say,
*God bless the courage of our men, dead or alive.* "
So our task force, the fightingest group in the South
Pacific, was to be no more. But we had expected it and
were not too grieved. Refueled and partly repaired, the
Helena stood out to sea again and headed southward for
New Caledonia and a rest.
We had earned a rest. For months we had prowled
the seas, tense and ready for action. Twice we had been
through the blazing hell of night battle with superior
enemy forces. Our list of victims was long now, and Cap-
tain Hoover was to wear still another Gold Star in lieu
of his third Navy Cross. We were proud of our skipper,
our ship and ourselves.
But we were tired, very tired. The base was heaven.
With my best friend. Lieutenant Commander Victor
Post, I went ashore that morning to walk the streets of
the little town. It was a quaint place, small and very
French, but to us it was a metropolis. We did the shops,
where under the Cross of Lorraine* insignia of the Free
French Government, you could buy almost anything
American. We strolled past the little movie houses. But
what we wanted most was to look at the flowers and
the small French houses with their tiny backyard gardens.
And so before long we were outside the town proper and
Climbing a hill that overlooked the harbor.
It was so damned good to be walking on solid ground
[101]
"THE FIGHTIN'BST SHIP"
again ! You went slowly, appreciating every step, almost
tasting the earth with your feet through the soles of your
shoes. All those days, weeks, months of ocean, and now
something brown and firm that you could pick up in your
fingers and look at that you could feel and smell. And
because it wouldn't last, you had the most aching desire
to keep walking^ walking, walking, just to feel it under
your feet*
The lowers were lovely. The little cottages with their
gay little yards were lovely. The sun and the warmth and
even the sight of the sea from the top of the hill were
lovely. We soaked it up in silence.
I suppose Vic, who is slight and wiry, witty and pleas-
ant, was thinking of Redwood City, California, where he
lived. I thought of Boston and a beautiful girl, and of
the boys at WBZ where I had been director of news and
special events. I thought of the folks at home in New
Hampshire.
We came presently to a small and very old church, a
Catholic church, up there on the top of the island just
under the sky. We stopped before it without a word.
I should not like to speak for Vic, but I myself am not
more than a conventionally religious man; yet when we
had stood for a moment watching the sun on ancient
stained glass windows, it was I who said, "Let's 'go in. 1 '
Down below in the harbor our ship lay quietly at anchor
after slugging her way through a. large part of the Japa-
nese fleet, and we owed it to her and to ourselves, I felt,
to kneel for a moment and say thanks. ^
After the bright, blinding sunlight, it was almost dark
[102]
ST. HELENA
inside the little sanctuary. We paused by the door and
I whispered something something quite irreverent, I
recall about having walked in on the middle of the pic-
ture, with the ushers all asleep. Vic did not answer. Some-
one out of sight was playing on a very old, asthmatic
organ, the low notes of which caused the ancient floor
to tremble. There were candles burning at the altar, and
one old lady knelt praying at a bench near the front. She
was the only visible person present.
Above us, as we slipped almost guiltily onto one of
the worn benches, the hand-hewn rafters were festooned
with dusty cobwebs that looked like Spanish moss.
How long we stayed there I don't remember. Not
long, probably. I prayed, I think. I knelt and thought of
guns thundering in the dark, of ships burning and men
shouting as they leaped into oily water. A prayer of
thanks and gratitude was hidden somewhere in those
thoughts, if not put into words. And I was on my knees,
whether praying or not, when I became aware of the
sunlight again.
The sun had fingered a row of windows which before
had been in darkness, and now in bright golden bars It
filled the church with warmth and light.
I looked up at the windows, and one in particular held
my attention. You looked at it because you had to
because in a strange way it beckoned. I had said nothing
to Vic, yet he, too, was very still, staring, and Ms lips
were moving.
From where we sat, the streaming sunlight clearly
illuminated the inscription on the glass, beneath a haloed
[103]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
figure whose face and outstretched hands shimmered with
light It read: "St. Helena."
That day, back home, was Thanksgiving Day.
The Helena was not long at the base, but she did stay
long enough for Captain Hoover to be assigned to other
duties. The ship said good-by to him proudly. He had
taken us almost unscathed through the Battle of Cape
Esperance and the Battle of Guadalcanal, two of the
most violent night engagements In naval history. He had
been devoted to his ship and his men. But war is In too
big a hurry to consider personal feelings, and "Hoover
of the Helena" was needed elsewhere.
Our new skipper was Captain Charles P. Cecil, USN,
of the little town of Flat Rock, North Carolina a vet-
eran Navy man who had little to say at first, but said it
well* No doubt he sensed the Helena? s love for the leader
she was losing. He seemed to, and was respected for It.
With Captain Cecil in command, the ship left port a
few days later.
But something else had come aboard at the base, too.
A rumor. Where it originated, no one could say. It passed
from mouth to mouth as rapidly as the ship's crew had
passed the ammunition on the night of November 12. We
were going home ! Back to the States !
The men put aside their weariness and straightened
their shoulders. They wore grins that had not been hauled
out of storage for weeks. In the wardroom and crew's
quarters, on the quarterdeck and the foc'sle, there was
talk of home towns and families.
u Now me, the first thing I'm gonna do when I get
[104]
ST. HELENA
back to Turner Falls . . ."
"Brother, you can have Turner Falls. Lead me to
Brooklyn!"
u You suppose they'll give us time enough for a guy to
get clear across the country to Connecticut ?"
"If you're goin' to Connecticut, you better plan on
walkin*. Those trains are so loaded with civilians . ,"
It was wonderful.
But we didn't go home. Back we went, instead, to an-
other base, back to the old familiar stamping grounds
in the Coral Sea, to patrol and wait, patrol and wait.
Rumors of that kind are dangerous. They serve only
to lift a man from the daily routine which has become
second nature to him, and then, having blown up his
hopes, they prick the balloon and let him down Into the
depths of cynicism. For a time the Helena was not too
happy a ship as she prowled the Coral Sea. Her morale
had suffered a serious setback and she was sullen. Some-
one had played her men a dirty trick which they right-
fully resented.
The ship herself was not in the best of shape, either.
Her engines were weary and cranky from more than sixty
thousand sea-miles of labor. There were times, even in
waters suspected of harboring enemy submarines, when
we had to slow to a crawl while Commander Buerlde and
his engine room gang, below in their vast, noisy under-
world, made repairs that could not be postponed. The
ship's bottom was fouled with barnacles. She needed an
overhaul* But, instead, she beat back and forth like a
tired old woman walking a treadmill, covering the same
dangerous waters day aftejr day and night after night
[105]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP*
on guard, always on guard.
Our planes played an important part in this arduous
job of patrol. We carried two of them- SOC biplanes
of an old but excellent design, especially suited to anti-
submarine patrol work. But the men who Eew these planes
had to be heroes. The Helena was no Hornet or Wasp;
she had no flight deck from which the little SOCs could
take off and to which they could return in comparative
safety. The planes had to be shot from the ship by cata-
pult and retrieved by crane, and it was a difficult, danger-
ous business. Our four pilots played a continuous game
of tag with death.
These were the boys who had iown their flimsy little
airplanes above the Japanese force and dropped flares
to guide our gunners the night of October 12. But their
assignments, though always dangerous, were not always
so spectacular. Daily they ranged far out over the sea
on patrol, to search out enemy ships and subs. More than
once they left the ship in bright sunlight, only to find her
wallowing through dirty weather and high seas when they
returned with their gas tanks empty. Then they had to
put their flimsy craft down and wait bounced about like
empty beer cans until the crane could swing them
aboard.
They had a right to be high-strung and nervous, but
they were not. Senior Aviator Tex O'Neal, tall and rangy,
almost too big to crowd himself into an SOC's little cock-
pit, was a Texan of the type you see in Hollywood west-
erns. You found him striding about the wardroom in his
helmet, leather gloves and uniform, sometimes grousing
a little, always ready for an argument, but hoarding a
[106]
ST. HELENA
grin beneath Ms scowl. The Navy had cheated Tex. He
should have been allowed to wear chaps and spars, with
a six-gun bolstered at each hip. "What the Sam Hill,"
he'd say ? "at least we get oi the ship once in a while.
That's more than you Joes can say! 11
Tex was an Annapolis man and could iy with the best
of them. In port he liked nothing better than to put his
little biplane into what he fondly called a "power dive/ 1
and zoom down over the ship's stacks while the men on
deck dived for the nearest open hatch ? roundly cursing
him. Later, in April, he was ordered to report to the
admiral of the task force as senior flag aviator, and Lieu-
tenant (jg) "Patches" Perry became the Helena's senior
ier.
Patches had a little of that uncontrollable zest, too.
About twenty-four years old, he hailed from Arizona
and was a graduate of Arizona State College. When a
practical joke was perpetrated in the wardroom, you
looked for Perry and usually found him wearing a tell-
tale grin. He wore the same grin, though with a tense
twist to it, while waiting in the cockpit of his plane for
the neck-wrenching slam of the catapult.
One day, about an hour after Patches had been "shot
off" on anti-submarine patrol, he came up on the plane
radio with a message for the lagship. "Have just sighted
enemy sub which crash dived as I approached. Am drop-
ping smoke bomb. Will trail." He gave his course and
speed, and the admiral hurriedly dispatched destroyers
to the scene. I was on the bridge at the time, as assistant
signal officer, and saw the geysers shooting skyward in
the distance as the destroyers dropped depth charges.
[107]
'THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
Soon over TBS came the message : "Believe we have sunk
sub. Surface of water contains debris." Later it was con-
firmed, and Patches Perry was called to the Helena's
quarterdeck where he was awarded the Air Medal. Sink-
ing a Jap sub was important business.
The routine patrols were also important, and daily
these two fliers, with Lieutenant (jg) Donald Gift and
Lieutenant (jg) Hallenburg, winged out over the sea.
Daily they returned. Their record was remarkable. De-
spite bad weather* faulty gas gauges and interfering
Zeros 9 the Helena lost not a pilot nor a plane during her
entire career.
Now with December nearly gone, the men watched
the calendar as the Coral Sea grind continued. One eve-
ning at sunset hour, as the ship pursued a zigzag course
south of Guadalcanal, the entire ship's company assem-
bled on the main deck aft.
We had seen few evenings more beautiful than that
one. The setting sun was huge and fiery red; the after-
glow draped banners of shimmering light over a peace-
ful sea. Thoughts were naturally of home not of bus-
tling cities or of wet rings on a seaport bar, but of mellow
rooms colored by the lights on Christmas trees. It was
Christmas Eve.
We were in submarine waters, and the everlasting
watch for enemy raiders of course continued without in-
terruption. North of us, the men on Guadalcanal were
crawling through stinking jungles to squeeze out the Japs.
Still farther north, the Jap navy was stirring the witches'
brew again. But the Helenas band played and her men
[108]
ST. HELENA
sang carols. The chaplain read Christmas poems In a
voice that rang out across the water with a resounding
challenge.
The Japs that night were probably bowing In obeisance
to Tokyo, reassuring their bespectacled little Emperor of
their eagerness to die for him. Aboard the Helena we
sang "Silent Night" and a Oh, Little Town of Bethle-
hem/' while the ship's propellers churned and her engines
throbbed and the lookouts stood vigilant against enemy
torpedoes,
"Silent night, Holy night . . ."
[109]
** CHAPTER ELEVEN **
"Enemy Installations Were Bombarded . . "
EARLY In January, 1943? Allied strategy in the South
Pacific began definitely to shift to the offensive, and plans
were under way for a northward drive through the
Solomons.
True, the bitter and at times almost hopeless struggle
for Guadalcanal was not yet over; but the Japs there
were in retreat, the enemy's major drives to reinforce
his troops had been thwarted, the Tokyo Express had
been hard hit by our nocturnal torpedo boats, and the
end was near. Now we were thinking beyond Guadal-
canal. The lines of strategy on the chart lengthened to
grasp at Bougainville, with feelers extended to touch at
Jap installations on the intervening chain of islands.
On nearby New Guinea, also, the Japs had been pushed
back. From their farthest point of advance only thirty
miles from crucial Port Moresby a point reached in
mid-September, 1942 they had been driven across the
Owen Stanley Mountains to the northeast coast. By early
1943 they had been rooted out of their coastal holdings
as far north -as Buna.
Obviously our ultimate aim in both the Solomons cam-
paign and the New Guinea oiensive was the capture of
the important base at Rabaul, on the northern tip of the
[HO]
"ENEMY INSTALLATIONS WERE BOMBARDED . . J 9
Island of New Britain. A study of the map makes that
very clear. In the Solomons this meant first a drive to
liquidate New Georgia and Bougainville.
The new year was not far along when the drive began.
On the afternoon of January 4, the Helena and her task
force steamed westward to begin the softening of enemy
bases. Our destination was the Jap stronghold at Mimda,
jutting into the sea on the jungle-clad, westernmost penin-
sular tip of New Georgia. Standing off the southern shore
of the island. In Blanche Channels we poured shells that
night into the Jap airfield, then repelled a brief attack
by enemy dive bombers and headed for home.
On January 24, we struck again. This time the op-
eration was fraught with possibilities of disaster, even
though our immediate task, as before, was merely to
stand off shore and shell the enemy's installations. The
danger lay in the location of our targets Vila, on the
Island of Kolombangara, and nearby Stanmore Planta-
tion, where Jap ships prowling down from the north at
night deposited men and supplies for transportation to
Munda.
There was no approach to these objectives from the
south, through Blanche Channel. Therefore we were
faced with the job of steaming up through the Slot,
rounding the northern tip of New Georgia at Visuvisu
Point, and stealing In upon our targets through the gulf
Itself.
Kula Gulf Is a sailor's nightjnare s a blind alley, a dead-
end street It was prowled by Jap subs and guarded by
Jap planes operating from Kolombaegara and Bougain-
ville on the west, New Georgia on the east We could
[111]
"ENEMY INSTALLATIONS WERE BOMBARDED . . ."
hardly hope to catch the enemy asleep in so many places
at once, and our chance of retiring without punishment
was remote, even If the attack itself were successful.
Worst of all, we were scheduled to arrive in foil moon-
light, because an effective nocturnal bombardment cannot
be carried out in total darkness. The Japs would love that
moonlight !
At sunset we skirted the treacherous reef off the east-
ern end of New Georgia and nosed up toward Ramada
Bay In single file, destroyers boldly leading our light force
of cruisers. In charge of the adventure was Rear Admiral
Walden L. Ainsworth, a veteran Navy man of whom the
little town of Wonalancet, New Hampshire, may well
take off Its hat In tribute.
Aboard the Helena we knew well enough what we were
up against, and as the dusky ridges of New Georgia
blurred past to port, dark against the darkening sky,
we thought again of the charts we had studied so intently
but a few hours before. It is not difficult to memorize a
chart when you can translate its lifeless lines into a men-
tal picture of enemy airfields, gun emplacements, and
lurking submarines. We knew what Kula Gulf would look
like. We knew that after turning southward past the
probable peril lurking beneath the surface at Its mouth,
we should have to steam for an hour or more straight
into the Solomons 5 darkest death trap. It was not a sub-
ject for light-hearted conversation. The men were quiet
and tense at their battle stations.
In the radio room there was little to do but wait. The
ships of the force were of course observing radio silence,
and traffic of all kinds was light. On the bridge, the cap-
[113]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP'
tain and his department heads were silent, too. They had
discussed the operation down to Its minutest detail. Noth-
ing remained but to hold the ship to the split-second
schedule decided upon.
That was the key to the entire venture split-second
timing* We knew to the Instant when our ship would enter
Kula ? when our guns would range the target and begin
thundering, when we were to make our turn and begin
the retirement. All this was down In black and white.
Now and then, over the loudspeaker system, our progress
was announced to the hundreds of men below decks who
were forced to depend on eyes other than their own for
information.
"We are nearmg Visuvisu Point . . "
"We are turning Into Kula Gulf . . ."
Into Kula Gulf. We were to see a lot of Kula in the
coming months. We were to take this sort of thing almost
for granted, with scarcely a glance at the shrouded,
lumpy ghosts of New Georgia mountains on our left, the
shore of Kolombangara on our right. Tonight, though,
uneasy eyes probed every detail of these strange sur-
roimdlngs ? as well as the sea beneath and the sky above.
"There was a poem I read once In school," Tom Sims
said, grinning at the radio gang. "That wasn't so long
ago either, I guess. Maybe you know It. 'Will you come
into my parlorf 9 said the spider to the fly . . /*
Chief Alborn poured fresh water Into the Joe pot and
measured a generous portion of coffee. It was going to
be a hot, black brew. "If you fellows wouldn't look so
hard at maps, you'd know less and relax more," he ob-
served.
[114]
"ENEMY INSTALLATIONS WERE BOMBARDED . . ."
"Of course you never look at a map, Chief?"
Alborn yanked at Ms cap. "Sure I do. That's the
trouble/ 5
The moon was high now and bright. It whitened the
protruding snouts of the guns and silvered a line of surf
in the shallows along the island's shore. We were close
enough at times to see the feather-duster tops of Indi-
vidual palm trees } and the boys at the twenty- and forty-
millimeter guns trained their sights on them just to keep
in practice and limber their stliened muscles. Standing or
sitting or crouching in one position for hours on end, with
nothing to see but shadows sliding by and nothing to hear
but the changeless hiss of a disturbed sea can be hard
workj even to youngsters who are used to it.
We crept along at half speed, wondering if Jap eyes
on the Kolombangara shore had discovered us if little
men were running through the jungle with news of our
coming, and enemy guns were being trained on us. The
moon was so damned bright! The shore was so close!
Our wake was a glittering gash so long that only the
blind could fall to spot it !
"We are nearing Rice Anchorage/' the loudspeaker
informed us. It was after one o'clock. One A.M. In Bos-
ton and New York, if you discounted the difference in
time, people were sitting in restaurants and bars, discuss-
ing the shows they had seen. In quieter country towns, the
sidewalks had been rolled up long ago.
"We are oi Balroko Harbor . . . All hands stand
By!"
Lookouts, peering red-eyed at the creeping shoreline,
had picked our target out of the bewildering maze of
[115]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
shadows. Which Is to say they had spotted certain fa-
miliar shapes against the sky certain moonlit mountain
peaks for which they had been searching. The target
itself was not visible, but it had been photographed by
our planes, and we knew that when the ship reached a
point from which Peak A was directly in line with Land-
mark B, our objective lay a known number of yards from
the island's edge in a known direction.
Now, as in battle, time was suddenly of great impor-
tance and no words were spent foolishly. In the plotting
room, the ship's brain hummed speedily through a laby-
rinth of figures. The big guns swung into position. Shells
moved up into the turrets and powder cases were rammed
home in the breech. The captain, the gunnery officer, the
director control officer and the hundreds of cogs in the
Helena's human machine were ready.
The captain consulted his watch, the second hand of
which marched with quick little hops toward zero hour.
He glanced briey along the shadowed line of ships mov-
ing in perfect co-ordination along the broad white traffic
stripe of the Helena's wake. It was a beautiful thing to
see. Flawless. The skipper's gaze returned reluctantly to
his watch and he began counting. One, two, three,
four . .
"Commence firing!"
The gun muzzles spat a breath of flame and the ship
slithered sideways. Thunder burst jaggedly in the quiet
night. The captain put his binoculars to his eyes and
turned to study the target.
You have seen photographs, perhaps, of night bom-
bardment. Many are excellent, but even the excellent ones
[116]
"ENEMY INSTALLATIONS WERE BOMBARDED . . ."
do not tell the whole awesome story not even when ex-
posed on color film to recreate the unbelievable brightness
of the gun lashes and the strange spectacle of monstrous
colored lowers, predominantly orange, bursting Into
bloom along a line of ghosting gray ships. Every ship In
the line is hurling its thunder and the night shudders as
though made of jelly, warm jelly, pressing against a
mat^s hands and face and body and trembling there In
shocked surprise.
It is a crazy quilt, a World's Fair exhibit of the elec-
trical wonders of the future, a trick photograph of sum-
mer lightning, a kindergarten blackboard after a draw-
ing session with orange and yellow chalk it is a little
of all these things in one, with everywhere parts of rush-
ing ships silhouetted sharply and blacldy against the
flashes of the guns, and the guns themselves revealed as
jet fingers pointing imperiously at the target
The weirdly beautiful pattern of lights staggers the
imagination. So does the noise, but the noise becomes
changeless after a moment ; it hurts the ears and smothers
a man's power to think, but the very immensity of it soon
reduces the element of shock. The lights, on the other
hand, iasfa across the sky In endlessly changing design,
now formless and supernatural, now amazingly geometric.
Tracers stab thin fingers of flame through the dark.
Flares balloon gaudily and drift earthward like drops
of syrup from a fiery pitcher. It is beautiful and fascinat-
ing, and in Kula Gulf in the early morning hours of Jan-
uary 25 it was devastating.
Up in Spot One, Warren Boles fingered the firing keys,
intent upon the small lights which flashed to inform him
[117]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
the turrets were ready* The organ he played was a sin-
ister one. Its tubes were the jutting gun snouts below,
and the music was a monstrous thunder. Boles knew every
tube of that organ intimately. He knew the capabilities
of every unit in his choir every man in the crowded
steel cubicles who made the thunder possible. The
Helena's fire was tremendous and continuous.
In Director Control, Jim Baird eyed the crimson comet
tails looping from the guns. His job was to check the
accuracy of the ship's fire a difficult job at any time and
a hundred times more so tonight because every ship in
the line was pounding the same small target area. Jim's
talker, an Ohio youngster called "Dead-Ready 11 Barron
who had come to us from the destroyer Benha-m } was at
his side every minute, waiting to relay any corrections.
"We're over," Jim said. "I can see the tracers. Bring
'em down one.* 5
"Down one!" Barron repeated into the phone.
"Ml right, hold it."
"Hold it!" said Barron.
Jungle Jim could see more than the tracers. In the
glare of the ship*s own guns he could see Captain Cecil,
Commander Smith and the signalmen, talkers and others
on the bridge. He could see the men at the machine-gun
stations and the AA crews in their mounts amidships.
The bursts of orange light shone briely on the steel hel-
mets these men wore ? and lit their faces, agleam with
sweat. To Jim they were figures in iasUIght photographs,
queerly stiff and stilted. But that suspended animation
was an Illusion.
Ashore, one small patch of the island of Kolomban-
[118]
"ENEMY INSTALLATIONS WERE . . ."
gara one important patch upon which the Japs had
built an airfield and erected a supply base for their instal-
lations at Munda was furiously ablaze from the high
explosive shells raining down upon it. Jim Baird could
see that, too, very clearly from his lofty station.
Our job three weeks ago had been to smash the Munda
airstrip* Tonight our task was to reduce Vila and Stan-
more Plantation to such a degree that the Japs would be
a long time lugging In new hangars, new planes, new fuel
tanks, and new men to make Munda efficient again. To
do this we had been forced to send cruisers and destroyers
into the cul-de-sac of Kula Gulf, at risk of losing some
or all of them to the enemy. Obviously, before undertak-
ing such a venture, the admiral and his staff at South
Pacific headquarters had weighed the issue carefully to
determine whether the risk involved was worth the re-
sults likely to be obtained. That is war.
The results we obtained were not readily evaluated.
Not, at least, during our brief stay in Kula Gulf. Later,
when our patrol planes winged north from Guadalcanal
to take photographs, they reported great damage; and
a sudden falling off in enemy air activity In the vicinity
of Munda indicated that they were right. But In Kula
Gulf that morning we could only guess.
Our shells were landing with great shuddering crumps
in the midst of the target area, and the jungle there was
violently ablaze* Smoke and lames reached high into the
sky, with a roar that was audible above the thundering
voices of our ships 1 guns. There were explosions too tre-
mendous to be the bursting of shells: explosions that
hurled palm trees and chunks of earth and bits of Jap-
[119]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
built structures high into the air and perhaps bits of
Japs also. There was one deafening roar, accompanied
by a leaping tower of fire, that must have marked the
end of a gasoline donip and caused the Emperor's people
much concern. But we were some distance from all this
and still steaming along in formation on a split-second
schedule, and we could be sure of nothing except that the
Japs were catching wholesale hell.
Then suddenly our guns were silent, as though the
sound track in a theater had broken down In the midst
of a furious battle scene.
We came about, still in perfect formation, still in a
long gray line. Turning, we left a moonlit wake In the
sea that might have been drawn with aluminous compass.
The raging fires on Kolombangara were now on our left
instead of our right as we pushed northward. That was
a break for the lookouts on the port side. Lookouts must
keep their eyes ahead, always, which calls for tremendous
self-discipline. If they forgot to do so on the Helena,
Ozzie Koerner would remind them, and Bandmaster
Simpson, supervisor of lookouts in Control Forward,
would relay Ozzie's reminder.
We steamed north. The leading destroyers Increased
their speed and the cruisers closed up the gaps. The job
was done. All that now remained was to get out of Kula
Gulf and down through the Slot into friendly territory.
But that was a large order. By now, surely, the Japs
had recovered their wits sufficiently to send out a radio
call for assistance.
They had, indeed, but if American assistance had been
that long in coming from bases as close as Buin and Faisi,
[120]
"ENEMY INSTALLATIONS WERE BOMBARDED . . ."
there would have been some blistered ears and crimson
faces the following day! For the Japs were slow. Their
golden opportunity was past and we were out of Kula
Gulf, in an area where it was possible to maneuver, when
the planes came.
We expected them, and they were detected before ever
they reached us. Over the loudspeakers went the warn-
ing, "Stand by for air attack I"
We were still at battle stations, though relaxed a bit
now and filled with a warm glow by the success of our
venture. Tense nerves had unbuttoned as soon as the ship
put Kula Gulf behind her. Now we were well along the
coast of New Georgia, beating eastward through alter-
nate patches of moonlight and rain.
It is difficult to make rhyme or reason out of the
weather in that part of the Solomons. The mountainous
islands certainly have something to do with its whimsies.
The blistering heat perhaps affects it also. Whatever the
answer, you could stand on a bridge bathed in moonlight
and yet see a ship ahead, in the same f conation* plunging
through a torrential downpour. The area was a checker-
board of weather, the black squares splashed with rain,
the red ones aglow with light. The Helena was on a red
square when the loudspeakers blared their warning of
impending air attack. Before the Japs could strike* we
had plowed into the center of a rain squall.
They searched for us. We heard them growling back
and forth above us. But though our anti-aircraft gunners
were on them and itching to open fire, the order was not
given. We could have hit some of those planes the boys
were sure of it but our fire would have revealed us. The
[121]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP*
Japs found us soon enough when we emerged from cover.
With recklessness born of frustration and impatience,
they hurled their torpedo planes at us.
But there was scarcely time for the attack to materi-
alize before we were in the rain again a different pocket
of rain this time and the exasperated Japs were again
impotent Our gunners had fired a few bursts. Other
gunners on other ships had done the same. One of the
Japs had plunged into the sea, trailing smoke, and some
of the others had dropped bombs; and that was ail.
So it went, exciting at first but growing tiresome to
tired men who had been at battle stations since dusk the
evening before. The gunners craned their necks upward
and watched the sky hungrily, praying for a chance to
knock down some Japs because that was their job and
this was the moment for which they had been trained;
but the rest of us wished heartily that the Japs would
give up and go away. Eventually they did.
The ship relaxed. The moon seemed a bit brighter and
the rain had washed away the cordite fumes and powder
smells of the bombardment. Ahead of us the destroyers
plowed alongy cutting a broad white arrow aimed at
home. Behind us lay Kolombangara, still reddening the
sky with flames from the wounds we had opened. The
mission was over.
You read about it, perhaps, in your newspaper. "On
the night of January 24, United States naval forces bom-
barded enemy installations in Kula Gulf, 5 ' It was prob-
ably not on page one* but tucked away somewhere for the
edification of those who digest a paper thoroughly.
Well . . that's what happened.
[122]
** CHAPTER TWELVE **
The Happy Helena
NOT long after bombarding the Japs on Kolombangara,
we returned to Kula Gulf to pound the enemy's instal-
lations at Enogal Inlet and Bairoko Harbor. In both
these places the Japs had invested much time and a great
deal of money to establish themselves. The guns of the
Helena! f s task force laid waste their efforts.
All these bombardments Munda, Vila, Stanmore
Plantation, Enogal Inlet, Bairoko Harbor were effec-
tive; there can be no doubt of It. They were carried out
under a tropical moon which enabled us to line up our
targets and do a thorough job. To further their effective-
ness, the Navy's ubiquitous patrol planes the "Black
Cats 51 again were assigned to assist us, and our own
pilots often elected to go along with them for the ride.
Operating In close conjunction with our warships, the
Cats hovered over the targets to give us "spots," calling
out instructions over the radio.
Two thousand feet up, these iiers watched the burst-
Ing high explosive shells and checked us throughout the
bombardments. "Up five zero 1" they would chant, oblivi-
ous to their own danger from attack by enemy planes as
they circled like buzzards above the blazing jungle,
"Down two zero . . . You f re on, right on . . You're
[123]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
giving f em hell ! . . Terrific ! . . . You're right on the
target !" They deserve a tremendous amount of credit.
Enemy aircraft were active, too. We were usually at-
tacked by torpedo bombers on the way out. But the
weather helped us. The area was never without its check-
erboard pattern of rain squalls, and Admiral Ainsworth
became so adept at using these squalls, guiding us at top
speed from one to another to the confusion of Jap pilots,
that some of the men began calling him with profound
respect, "Chief Rain-in~the-Face. SJ
The Jap pilots were not stupid. They trailed us dili-
gently and plunged to the attack whenever we were visi-
ble long enough to be targets. At times, correctly guess-
ing our course, they flew on ahead of our formation and
dropped flares to light us up. But when they did attack,
they were met by a torrent of fire from AA gunners who
had waited a long time and were eager for a fight. The
Helena shof two torpedo planes down in flames. Other
ships in the force increased the total.
There was danger, always, of enemy attack from other
quarters: from submarines, from swift little torpedo
boats the Japanese version of our marauding PTs
and, of course, from the Japanese fleet. Trapped in Kula
Gulf by the Jap fleet, we might have paid a high price for
our audacity.
But not all was tension and turmoil. The excursions
had their lighter moments as well. At the start of one
bombardment, Jungle Jim Baird in the Director Control
Station was overlooked when the word went out through
the battle phones, and was not informed of our readiness
to open fire. Without warning, the Helena's fifteen 6-inch
[124]
THE HAPPY HELENA
guns bellowed beneath him, and Jim lurched erect with
his arms flying.
"My God!" he shouted in consternation. "We've been
torpedoed I"
For weeks afterward, whenever Jungle Jim showed
Ms face, the classic greeting was, "Watch out, Jinij we're
being torpedoed!"
On another occasion an intrepid goony-bird selected
the Helena's after 5 -inch director for a perch a moment
or two before we opened hostilities. The first salvo so
froze the poor creature with fright that it was unable to
move, and throughout the bombardment it remained
paralyzed. Paralyzed, that iSj except for internal organs
which functioned all too well and occasioned some fine
grousing and buckets of hot water the following morn-
ing, after the bird, recovering, had flown away.
"That goony," said one of the clean-up squad disgust-
edly, "had a bomb-bay big as a 6-17 !"
Meanwhile, the failure of Japanese naval forces to
strengthen and supply their troops on Guadalcanal had
resulted in loss of the island, and on February 9 the last
of the Guadalcanal Japs was rounded up. We could use
the island now for a base in our drive toward Bougain-
ville. Navy Seabees, at work there for months, had al-
ready enlarged the existing facilities and were transform-
ing Tulagiy as well, The harbor at Tulagi was of major
dimensions.
Late in February, American forces took the first north-
westward step by seizing the Russell Islands, next above
Guadalcanal in the Slot. Other steps were Imminent. It
[125]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
was to soften the enemy's resistance to these moves that
Admiral Ainsworth's task force. Including the Helena,
continued its nocturnal pounding of the Kula Gulf instal-
lations.
Then one day the Helena received good news. We
were going to Australia. We had earned a rest.
Australia ! It wasn't home, but at least it was a liberty
port the first in eight months ! And this time the good
word was no mere rumor; it was official.
What a lift! The men began grinning again, kidding
one another. Beards came off. The band rehearsed some
sparkling jive, just to be ready for any eventuality. Swede
Hanson's phonograph came to life in the junior officers'
bunkroom with a din to wake the dead. Commander Car-
penter strutted about the wardroom, twiddling his mus-
tache and wondering where in port he could buy a cap
with "scrambled eggs 1 ' on it
Baby Duck Bernd, a curly-headed kid from South
Dakota, pestered the veterans of the crew for details
on the conformation and disposition of the Australian
gentler sex. Jelly Belly smacked his lips and went about
saying, "M'm. All those things to eat!" The boys even
stopped kidding Dupay about his "gedunfc stand," and
Captain Cecil wore a smile that apparently wouldn't come
off.
We steamed south. For a day only we stopped at a
major base, then pushed on again. Spirits were high and
not even the violent storm through which the ship slogged
her way could dampen them. Before long the boys were
lining the rail, cheering the Australian coast line and
waving at imaginary young ladies who waved back imag-
[126]
THE HAPPY HELENA
inary lace handkerchiefs.
We were twenty days in the Australian port time for
every man to enjoy ten carefree days ashore. It was the
next best thing to being home. Street cars 5 taxlcabs, pave-
ments, people: these were miracles in a magic wonder-
land after you had looked at an ocean too long and heard
the same voices saying the same things too long In the
cramped quarters of a fighting ship. The boys made good
their promises. Some went ashore for a beeij and had
ten. They were entitled to ten times ten for what they
had done to Tojo. Swede Hanson bought some new rec-
ords. Jelly Belly staffed himself. Commander Carpenter
found the hat he wanted, complete with scrambled eggs,
and was proud as punch in it. And the morning we sailed,
one of the ship's yeomen provided the final happy touch
by arriving triumphantly at the dock accompanied by two
very charming young ladies attired only in their nighties.
The Happy Helena had never been happier. No one
groused when we hauled anchor and shoved oi once more
for our old stamping ground. Not even the heat could
dull the edge of gay spirits. Morale had never been
higher.
"Morale" is an overworked word, I know. Like many
another war word and phrase, it has lost most of its
meaning through constant repetition and will probably
mean nothing at all by the time the war has ended. The
dictionary defines it as "State of mind, as of soldiers, with
reference to confidence, courage f etc.** But morale on a
warship has a hundred and one ingredients.
One important component is the relationship between
men and officers. Officers theoretically are human beings
[ 127 1
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
blessed with better than average schooling and intelli-
gence. Unfortunately there is not always time in war to
determine whether or not they are blessed, as well, with
compassion and tolerance. On the Helena we were re-
markably fortunate. Understanding and affection existed
to a wholesome degree in nearly everyone from the cap-
tain to the lowest rating. Loyalty to the ship herself was
partly responsible, but loyalty to a ship exists only when
her men are loyal to one another. The men are the ship,
Any soul possessed by the vessel herself and a ship does
have a soul, of course; let no one deny that for an in-
stant! is a complex thing derived from the men who
live aboard her, soaked up as a blotter soaks up water.
The Helena's officers, particularly the division heads,
uncannily knew when to work the men a little harder or
to rest them a little longer. They knew It because they
knew more about the men than merely their names. When
in port and port life is as important to a ship as sea
life the crews were allowed to exhaust themselves, if
they wished, at games. On the dirty coral ground of
Espiritu Santo, baseball games of World's Series impor-
tance were played whenever the ship dropped her hook
for a sufficiently long time in the harbor. Physically, the
players suffered torments. The sun was nearly always a
blow-torch, and the sharp coral fragments left many a
man with injuries which caused him anguish for days
afterward. But no one for a moment entertained the
thought of forbidding the games on the grounds that they
were detrimental to the men's health.
Instead, rivalry between ships was encouraged, and
officers eagerly volunteered as umpires. The fields were
[128]
THE HAPPY HELENA
named for big league ball parks at home. Here, for a
time, sea-weary men could forget war and be home once
more In spirit, watching a ball game between the Yanks
and Red Sox or knocking out grounders in a corner lot.
If baseball was not what they wanted, there were basket-
ball and softball games, facilities for handball and a
dozen other sports.
The men loved it. Scratched and dirty, exhausted by
their efforts under a broiling sun, they poured a tremen-
dous amount of energy into these hours of recreation,
and for days thereafter they had something solid and
good to "bang their gums 51 or "chip their teeth* 1 about.
The Helena actually had little port life, but made the
most of what she had. Ball games and "happy hours,"
concerts and movies these were the makings of a happy
ship* These, soaked up in port, supplied a good part of
the morale which carried the ship through patrols and
night battles and dangerous sorties Into enemy waters.
Men make their own morale s too, by their associations
aboard ship. A kid from a rural crossroads town may find
It a bit strange, at first, to be thrust among hundreds
of other men from hundreds of other cities and towns,
having nothing in common, nothing to talk about. But
the routine of shipboard life soon brings this youngster
into close contact with his mates, and into extremely close
contact with a small handful of them.
He makes friends. Before long he Is seeking out some
special buddy to kill his spare time with, or getting a
special group together for a game of pitch or blackjack.
Weeks pass, months pass, and his life with these men
becomes almost more normal to him than the life he left
[129]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
behind. He shares memories with his mates now, and can
Indulge in a sailor's most beloved pastime, the fine art of
reminiscing.
"Remember the time back in such and such a place,"
he says, u when Joe had a beer too" many and . . ."
"Remember that Susie gal," he says, "who walked out
on Eddie back in . . ."
He and his buddies are always happylng themselves
with such memories.
He is ingenious, too, in using his head and his hands.
He learns that a warship in the midst of an ocean Is not
Main Street back home, with its two or three theaters
and wide variety of stores. He can buy certain items
essential to his well being; he can even have ice cream
and candy, and perhaps see an occasional movie; but
there are hundreds of articles he cannot buy things
which the Navy, with all its elaborate structure for main-
taining the standards of living, has not seen fit to provide
for him. These he must make for himself.
He learns to sew buttons on his shirt and patch his
pants. He acquires a kind of belligerent pride In the
appearance of his clothes, even of his work dress. He
"takes a reef" in his trousers and makes himself an
artistic belt from which to dangle his locker key. The
chances are he makes a knife, because American sailors
are traditionally fond of knives.
Back home It was a jackknife which Joe Smith lugged
about In his pocket or on the end of his key ring. Aboard
ship the jackknife becomes a sheath knife a handy thing
to have around, Joe is told, In case of sharks. The next
letter Joe writes to the home folks contains the request,
[130]
THE HAPPY HELENA
"Please send me a sheath knife P but he seldom has the
patience to await a reply, and before long he has acquired
an old file, a discarded saw blade or a length of rusty
steel, and Is making himself the knife he wants.
Knives were a fetish aboard the Helena, and many
were works of art worthy of the finest craftsman* Many
a boy employed his leisure time for days on end, shaping
and sharpening a Wont piece of metal until it satisfied
him. It seldom satisfied him until he had rubbed it to
gleaming perfection with emery paper and fashioned an
edge with which a razor blade was deE by comparison.
Then he usually made an ornamental handle for It
(Young Bailey, our "ice cream man," even shaped a gor-
geous handle out of glass!) and tooled a leather case to
protect it from the salt air.
No officer worth his salt ever discouraged this sort of
thing. In fact, many of the Helena's officers caught the
fever themselves and scoured the stores In Australia for
knives of their own.
Morale, then, Is not the simple thing some of our com-
mentators would have us believe. It is as complex as a
ship herself, as sensitive as a barometer, built upon* disci-
pline, intelligence and plain human understanding. Most
of all, perhaps, it is influenced by mail.
Mail from home meant everything to the people of the
Helen, officers and men alike. At mail call the ship
quivered with excitement and burst into a community
shout. Even the Mail Petty Officer reacted with gusty
elation as he scrambled to get the sacks open and dis-
tribute their contents.
At sea and we sometimes received mall at sea, even
[131]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
in dangerous waters this elation was inflated into a kind
of gay delirium. After days, weeks of tension, the men
tired and homesick and wondering glumly when next their
turn in port might come, the word would spread that we
were rendezvousing with, say, a tanker, to refuel. Eager
eyes then watched the horizon, and a moment after the
tanker was sighted, the whole ship knew it.
Men lined the rail, waiting. To hell with the war. They
were individuals now, not cogs in a machine. They were
kids and gray-haired oldsters from Wilmington, Dela-
ware, and Burlington, Vermont, wondering If wives and
sweethearts and mothers and brothers were aware of
their tremendous yearning to hear from home. *
Will there be any mail? They wait to find out. They
shuffle their feet, tug at their clothes, try to think of
something smart to say to conceal their eagerness. When
the line Is cast across to the tanker, they are silent and
tense. When the mail bags begin to slide over that line,
they cheer.
It Is a little like a scene in a madhouse then. Every
man at the rail audibly counts those precious sacks as
they come aboard. Ten, fifteen, twenty the count rises
to a chant. Twenty bags of mail ! The word travels like
wildfire to less fortunate mates who could not be present
at the ceremony. Grinning kids shoulder the bulky sacks
and march oi with them, effecting an elaborate parade
step In honor of the occasion. Down to the post office go
the precious bags, for the stuff to be sorted. Then the
mail call. To hell with the war ! Here's mail ! And here
is morale with a capital M.
Morale, finally. Is no secret thing, smoldering under
[132]
THE HAPPY HELENA
a mask to explode unexpectedly. It is readable in men's
faces, subject to analysis in. their talk and movements.
The letters they write are perhaps the most accurate
barometer of all.
Censoring letters can be a chore. Sometimes it is, when
a man has stood long watches and Is tired. But it can also
be a thrilling and humbling adventure. Censoring hour
aboard the Helena took place in the wardroom, with
officers seated about the long tables and the mail piled
high in front of them. It was an hour of varied moods,
at times like a trip to the circus* at other times like being
in church.
Somehow it seems less than decent to laugh at jokes
not intended for you but the wardroom often rocked
with laughter during censoring hour, because the Helena
possessed a sense of humor that would not be confined.
Somehow it Is not proper to share a man^s grief but I
have seen tears at censoring hour, too. I have heard
poems read aloud for their beauty, and gems of wisdom
so apt that you felt it a shame not to copy and preserve
them*
And sometimes, when reading a letter written by some
youngster who in the business of war had been quite over-
looked, you sat for a moment in contemplative silence,
realizing anew the importance of the thing for which he
and you were lighting.
[133]
** CHAPTER THIRTEEN **
"And Troops Were Landed . . /'
THE Helena was but a few days out of Australia when
Commander Bean, our senior medical officer, called the
bridge one morning and spoke to the captain. The sea
was rough. The ship was pursuing a zigzag course to
lessen the danger from submarines. Commander Bean
was perturbed.
"I need a steady course, Captain," he said, "The ship
rolls too much with this infernal zigzagging."
The skipper was obviously startled, because Doc Bean,
with his wavy gray hair and robust figure, had never been
seasick a day in his life and looked as though he never
would be. Doc had come to us from the Hornet after she
was sunk. He liked to call himself, with a wry smile, a
Hornet veteran, because he had been a member of that
ship's company exactly one day when she went down.
Doc explained his concern briefly. "IVe a youngster In
sick bay," he said. "Bad appendix. Got to take it out,
Hard to operate with the ship plunging about like this."
"When do you want to operate?"
"In ten minutes."
The captain looked at his watch. "In ten minutes well
be on course ," he said, "and well hold it for twenty
minutes. Longer than that would involve too much risk."
[134]
"AND TROOPS WERE LANDED . .
"Good/ 1 said Doc.
Ten minutes later, the Helena* stopped her infernal
can-canning and settled down to be a lady. Doc went to
work. Five of his allotted twenty minutes were still un-
used when he telephoned the bridge. "Finished," lie said
cheerfully. "Everything fine."
The Helena zigzagged again. Before we reached the
base for which we were headed, Doc's patient was sun-
ning himself on deck.
We were not long at base, and there was uneasiness
aboard when the ship departed. Our orders were to pro-
ceed to the Solomons to rendezvous with a task force in
the vicinity of Guadalcanal.
We were to make the trip alone, without escorting
destroyers without even one escorting destroyer and
those were still dangerous waters. True, the Japs 1 last
hold on Guadalcanal had been crushed, but the Coral Sea
was still disputed territory. We were a lonely ship on a
lonely ocean, jittery and scared, with lookouts doubled
and every man doing a bit of lookout duty on his own
initiative. But the Japs were evidently busy elsewhere.
We joined our task force at Guadalcanal and once
more swung into the routine of patrolling. Not until
April 7 was that routine seriously interrupted.
Apparently the enemy* s intelligence was working well
that morning. We had steamed Into Tulagi to refuel and
were sitting there in Tulagi Harbor as placidly as ducks
on a pond, when the airwaves spat a warning of enemy
activity.
"A large number of enemy bombers flying toward
[135]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
Tulagi," read the message we took from the coding
machine. It brought the gang In Radio One up with a
jolt!
Uneasily we awaited Admiral Ainsworth's orders, and
eyed with misgivings the cramped and crowded area in
which we were assembled. Tulagi Harbor was no place
for an American task force if Jap bombers were streak-
ing through the sky to plaster us. Even the Coral Sea
was no picnic ground under such conditions.
The Coral Sea south of Guadalcanal, however, would
undoubtedly be the scene of the battle. That was our
stamping ground; that was where the Japs would swoop
down on us if we were lucky enough to clear Tulagi
Harbor in time.
But Admiral Ainsworth had other ideas, and his
radioed orders left us stupidly staring at one another.
We were not to steam south into the Coral Sea. We were
going in precisely the opposite direction up into the
Slot!
Some of us wondered, privately at least, if the admiral
knew what he was doing. Perhaps he was counting on
the weather, which had been typically explosive for the
past few days. But South Pacific weather was damned
unreliable!
The admiral was indeed counting on the weather
but on Japanese mental rigidity as well. He showed then,
as he showed later in the Battle of Kula Gulf, that he
could outguess the Japs.
The Emperor's bombers, 108 strong, did not look for
us In the Slot because we were not supposed to be there.
They swept serenely through the rain clouds beneath
[136]
"AND TROOPS WERE LANDED . . ."
which our ships were hiding, and used up their precious
gasoline vainly searching for us in the Coral Sea* Nine
times out of ten we should have steamed south from
Tulagi into that very area. We should have done so this
timej toOj if led by a man with less imagination.
For hours the Japs hunted us. Then in disgust they
turned back to Bougainville, unloading their bombs on
Tulagi to be rid of them.
This time, when they passed overhead, we needed no
rain clouds to afford protection. We knew from reports
received by radio that the growling swarm of Jap hornets
was stingless and impotent. We showed ourselves and
gave them the old-fashioned Bronx cheer, thumbing our
noses at Tojo's red-faced airmen. That day, April 7, was
a red-letter day In Admiral Ainsworth's log.
But now for the Helena the campaign in the Solomons
became a process of waiting. We were ordered to a base,
and our port stay was long. American bombers struck
repeatedly at New Georgia; naval task groups hurled
tons of shells into enemy installations in the central and
northern Solomons; but the Helena was idle. Plans were
being shaped for the Invasion of Munda, and we were
to take part in that invasion.
It was to be no hit-and-run af air, this assault. Behind
it were the best naval and military brains in the Pacific,
working under Admiral Halsey, Collaborating with him
were Lieutenant General Millard F. Harmon, comman-
der of the Army forces in the South Pacific, and the com-
bined staffs of both men. The plan, when drawn? was
submitted to General MacArthur and received final ap-
[137]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
proval in Washington from the chiefs of staff.
Some of this elaborate preparation, but far from all
of It, we were aware of. Rear Admirals Richmond Kelly
Turner and T. S. Wilkinson the former had com-
manded amphibious operations in the assault on Guadal-
canal were to lead the amphibious forces. Rear Admi-
ral George H. Fort was to command the fleets of landing
craft which stormed the beaches. Major General Oscar
W. Griswold had been assigned the command of Army
forces ashore, and Vice Admiral Aubrey W. Fitch was to
command the co-operating air forces.
It is important that these men be known and credit be
given them, for the New Georgia campaign was an oper-
ation of tremendous difficulty and vital significance. The
Japanese had built up New Georgia as the bastion of the
Central Solomons. The Central Solomons were the outer
defenses of RabauL We had to smash those defenses.
They could not be hopped and left behind intact to
menace our supply lines.
Meanwhile, the war elsewhere was mounting in fury.
Allied troops on New Guinea had pushed beyond Buna
in a drive through the jungles toward the Jap bases at
Salamaua and Lae jumping-off points for an assault
upon New Britain. Far to the north, American troops
had taken Attu. In North Africa, the Germans and
Italians had been squeezed into their last-ditch stand on
Cape Bon Peninsula and forced to surrender, and on the
European continent British and American liers were
unloading bombs with increasing vigor on targets in
Germany.
This was the picture, then, when the New Georgia
[138]
"AND TROOPS WERE LANDED . . ."
campaign blew the lid off the lull in the Solomons. We
were a happy ship, but restless. The weeks In port had
made us eager for action. Now in utmost secrecy, our
destination still unreveaied to all but the department
heads and those of us in Radio One who had decoded
certain significant messages, we steamed northward to
carry out our assignment.
The New Georgia campaign began about an hour
before dawn, June 30, when American troops, equipped
with the latest weapons for jungle fighting and attired
in harlequin suits of camouiage, pushed ashore at Viru
Harbor on the southern end of the island. The landing
was unopposed. Simultaneously, other forces effected a
landing on the island of Rendova, about five miles south
of the main Jap base of Munda across the treacherous
Munda Bar.
The Rendova invaders met with opposition, and the
landing had to be accomplished in the face of machine-
gun fire from the beach, while escorting warships were
shelled by enemy guns at Munda* The destroyer Gwin
was damaged during the operation.
The Jap garrison, however, was soon crushed; the
machine-guns were silenced. Our engineers were soon set-
ting up heavy guns, including 1 55-millimeter Long Toms,
the muzzles of which* aimed at Miinda, were belching
shells a few hours later.
Before many more hours had passed, the Japs struck
back. An enemy attack by bombers and torpedo plaees
cost us the 77OO-ton transport McCawley, formerly the
Grace Liner Santa Barbara, which was sunk by torpedoes
[139]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
off Rendova. Little loss of life was reported. The Japs
were driven off by American airmen, who struck viciously
and chalked up a high score. Other American flyers,
meanwhile, were methodically bombing Rabaul and Bou-
gainville, as well as enemy bases in the Kula Gulf area,
to pin down the Jap air force.
On Friday, July 2, Allied warships shelled enemy hold-
ings on New Georgia, aided by bombers and dive bombers,
while our forces at Vim Harbor and on Rendova con-
solidated their positions.
Early Saturday morning, in darkness, a Jap naval unit
of three light cruisers and four destroyers steamed down
from Bougainville and shelled Rendova until opposed by
an American naval force of approximately equal strength.
The Japs turned tail without a fight.
On Sunday, July 4, Allied ships shelled and occupied
Vangunu while American airmen continued their relent-
less assault on enemy installations, and our artillery on
Rendova maintained its pressure on Munda,
That night, shortly before midnight, a long gray line
of Allied transports, cruisers and destroyers steamed into
Kula Gulf along the now familiar sea route to the enemy's
New Georgia strongholds.
The Helena was one of those cruisers.
No moon silvered the sea. The sky was overcast and
black as tar. Back home if you discount the difference
in time again the folks were lighting Fourth-of-July
rockets and listening to the din of firecrackers. We were
expecting a different kind of din. Kula Gulf was still and
dark as a grave, and aboard the Helena we were on edge,
taut to an abnormal degree, attempting to quiet our
[140]
"AND TROOPS WERE LANDED . . ."
jumpy nerves by telling one another that we had done
all this before without a hitch.
But tonight was different. Tonight was Invasion night.
Held to a slower speed than usual by the transports,
we ghosted on into the gulf, intently watching the deeper
darkness of the island's peaks and awaiting the thunder
of Jap shore guns. But it was our own guns that spoke
first, after all. Once again the long line of ships belched
a broadside, hurling tons of explosives into Enogai Inlet
and Bairoko.
The Japs came to life then. Now along the shore their
guns began to talk back. But we had the men to attend
to such difficulties. The 6-inch weapons of our cruisers
poured blast after blast into the enemy's gun positions,
silencing their fire. Our destroyers darted back and forth,
their lighter weapons seeking out the batteries which had
been more cunningly placed. After half an hour, the only
bursts of fire to light the brooding jungles of New
Georgia were those caused by our own bursting shells.
But suddenly one of our ships, boiling along in line,
burst into flames and exploded. The island itself must
haye trembled to the shock of that explosion. The sea
did, and the Helena, did* In a moment the gallant little
ship the new, 2ioo-ton destroyer Strong was hope-
lessly ablaze and sinking. A prowling submarine had tor-
pedoed her.
We on the Helena had no means of knowing the fate
of her men, though we saw the destroyer Gw'm break off
the action to go to her aid. Later we learned that many
had been saved. But war does not wait upon human feel-
ings, and our job then was to cover the landing of troops
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
from the transports. They swarmed ashore at Rice An-
chorage into what a Marine Corps photographer, Tech-
nical Sergeant Edward Adolphe of New York City, de-
scribed as u the damnedest, blackest hole you ever saw
right in the jungle." Three miles south lay their objective,
Enogai Inlet. The landing itself was unopposed, except
by jungle and festering swamp.
Back and forth, slowly, beat the Helena and her task
force, covering the landings. The Jap batteries were si-
lent. The little landing boats sped swiftly between trans-
ports and shore, in darkness so intense that only their
phosphorescent wakes were visible.
Then it was over. From Admiral Ainsworth came the
order to retire, and the long gray line of ships moved
northward. An hour or so later we were out of the gulf,
out of danger*
[142]
** CHAPTER FOURTEEN **
"Enemy Ships Sighted . . ?*
JULY 5, 1943, is a date remembered well by Helena men.
All that morning we steamed eastward from our mission
in Kula Gulf, down through the Slot past the green hills
of Santa Isabel, the tiny Russell Islands, Florida and
Guadalcanal. It was wickedly hot. The sea was a mirror,
and from the jungled slopes of the Islands rose waves of
heat that shimmered in the brassy sky. Even when the
sun stopped climbing and began to descend^ we wiped
the sweat from our faces and longed for relief.
In tjie coding room that afternoon the hours dragged
Interminably. I went on watch at twelve. At two, with the
worst of the run behind us, the Helena steamed in line
south of San Cristobal, bound for a spot in the Coral Sea
where she would rendezvous with a tanker to replenish
her fuel. The heat was still with us.
You felt it seeping through the steel bulkheads^ smoth-
ering the air to the deck as under a blanket. The men sat
in their undershirts, listless, tired from the grind of the
past twenty-four hours. But we were not doing too much
grousing. Satisfaction showed in the occasional quick lift
of sagging shoulders or the lash of a smile.
"We did a good job last night," Vic Post said. "A hell
of a good job."
[143]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
"Yon can say that again."
We knew we had done a good job. The troops we had
put ashore at Rice Anchorage would be on their way to
Enogai Inlet even now. Soon they would be closing In
on Munda, aided by others who had swarmed across the
Munda Bar last night from Rendova Island, to land at
Zanana. Despite the loss of the Strong, the expedition
had been highly successful. It had been a dangerous op-
eration, fraught with elements of potential disaster, yet
none of the troopships entrusted to our care had suffered
damage.
Now as the Helena boiled along, proud and satisfied,
her radios buzzed with the usual routine reconnaissance
reports, weather reports, the hundred and one items
necessary to keep a fighting ship informed and ready for
action.
None of us knew, when I stepped from the radio shack
shortly after two P.M. with a handful of messages to be
decoded, that one of those dispatches was the opening
note of a storm which would explode twelve hours later
into the great Battle of Kula Gulf. It was like any other
dispatch a crackle of code plucked from the crowded
ether and typed on regulation paper by a tired man in
shirtsleeves. Even when decoded it was not too impres-
sive. Something about enemy ships in the Shortlands. The
Shortlands were far up the Slot, off the southern tip of
Bougainville, miles from our position.
Twenty minutes later, however, the message came
through again, this time tagged "urgent" Those enemy
ships were causing our reconnaissance pilots a lot of
concern.
[144]
"ENEMY SHIPS SIGHTED . . J*
"It won't afect us," I remarked to Vic Post. "We
couldn't possibly get back up there to intercept them
now."
But I sensed action when I saw the look of concern on
Captain Cecil's face as he read it Watching him, I felt
that old, old tingling of nerves. You can't explain that
feeling. It is a tense bristling of mind as well as body,
a porcupine lifting of quills, impossible to analyze.
We knew, of course, that the Japs would do their ut-
most to trump our New Georgia invasion. We knew that
a force of enemy ships in the Shortlands could mean only
one thing: the Tokyo Express was on the move again
with troops and supplies for the Munda garrison. But it
was not our concern this time. We were out of It.
Then swiftly the storm clouds gathered, as messages
sped across South Pacific skies to marshal American
forces. Through the maze of routine in the radio room
flashed further "urgents" from the men who shape his-
tory. The storm was bigger than we had thought. Hun-
dreds of miles separated the Helena from its core, yet
the skies above us blackened, grew ominous, and we held
our breaths. We no longer talked of last night's affair
at Bairoko. We no longer felt the heat. We waited.
In the radio shack the men were maddeningly unaware
of what was going on, because most of what they typed
was in code, meaningless to them. Most of it was the
same old routine. But the pounding of the typewriters
was a fist beating ever more loudly at a shut door, and
when at last the message came, I was standing impa-
tiently behind the man who received it. As he typed it,
[145]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
I knew from the heading what it was, and snatched it
from his machine.
The message was for us, and it was an order from
Admiral Halsey to the commander of our task force,
Admiral Ainsworth. The message was an order to re-
verse course and return to Kula Gulf!
We were going in again!
I set my own course at top speed for the bridge, but
stopped short* You don't barge in on the captain of a
warship in your skivvies, no matter how unendurable the
heat. I snatched my shirt and wriggled into it en route,
keeping the code tape crushed in my hand so that the
crew, if made curious by my haste, would not see the
tape and do any guessing.
Captain Cecil stood looking across at the flagship, and
when I handed him the message he nodded as though
preoccupied. The iagship, of course, had received it too.
The entire force was coming about, and with all boilers
on the line at flank speed those big, beautiful, deadly
ships, bristling with guns and mobbed with fighting men,
thrust their jaws again at distant Kula Gulf.
As the flagship passed us close to port, I saw the admi-
ral of the task force pacing his bridge. My fingers were
still fumbling with the top button of my shirt, and I was
pop-eyed. The admiral was magnificent In an undershirt I
The Helena throbbed sweetly as she ate through the
sea to keep her appointment. In Captain Cecil's cabin I
looked excitedly at the charts while he spoke of our
chances. A big man, Captain Cecil, A kindly, lumbering
man with a voice that rolled and soothed and was tonic
[146]
"ENEMY SHIPS SIGHTED . . ."
for jumpy nerves. He was anxious. We might not get
there in time.
"But I think we'll make it," he said, ki Yep. Guess we
will. Looks like we're going to meet 'em about midnight*" 1
He traced our course on the charts, u \VeVe enough
fuel," he thought aloud. "Looks like we'll make it. See
that ail heads of departments are notified immediately."
I went over the ship, rounding up the department
heads and reading them the dispatch. They knew nothing
of the drama in the coding room or the messages rushed
to the bridge. They were relaxed ! some of them sleeping,
all of them tired from our job at Bairoko and Rice
Anchorage. Now the ship came awake with almost comi-
cal quickness. There were quick conferences. The sleepy,
satisfied Helena, became magically, in a few minutes* the
same beehive of fighting men she had so often been
before.
With the shift of direction and sudden piling on of
speed, the crew, too, had become aware that something
was up. You heard comments while striding past lifelines
crowded with quizzical seamen. You tamed aside to
avoid stepping on some who had been rolled from choke
slumber-spots by the heel of the ship.
"What's up?"
"We're going in again I"
"Hey I We're going back up the Slot!"
The Helena, was tense again, on tiptoe* You felt It on
foc'sle and quarterdeck* throughout the entire ship. A
giant fist was doubling up s knuckles whitening for com-
bat. Turbines and men vibrated together.
I wondered, as we passed Guadalcanal with the sue
[147]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
setting redly into her gooo-foot peaks, how many more
times, if ever, we should see that familiar shoreline again.
We had hated the island once. For months it had been
a background for violent actions in which the Helena
had played a major role. No man had ever expressed a
yearning to see Guadalcanal again. Now the hated island
was a symbol of security, the most familiar and therefore
the most profound symbol we possessed. We watched in
silence as the ship steamed westward, past Savo, past the
Russell Islands. From the junior officers' bunkroom came
the familiar sound of Swede Hanson's phonograph, grind-
ing out some of the jive records he had picked up in
Australia.
The weather had roughened; the sky was overcast and
dark. We wanted that. Darkness was a thing we had
prayed for often on those moonlit nights in Kula Gulf!
Now, with all information in hand and the entire ship
informed that we were moving up the Slot to New
Georgia again, there was time for a little relaxation.
It was seven P.M. Relieved of further duties, I went
to my room and hit the sack for three hours, and read
my Bible. "There are no atheists in foxholes/' someone
has said. There are none on warships. When you have
seen what an enemy shell or torpedo can do, you are not
reluctant to reach for comfort.
I read the Twenty-third and Ninety-first Psalms over
and over. "Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by
night ... A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten
thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh
thee ..." Those are reassuring words. I was still study-
ing them when Jim Baird, in the adjoining room, rapped
[148]
"ENEMY SHIPS SIGHTED . . ."
on the bulkhead and called in his western drawl, "Get
up, Chick! Time f or GQ!"
"Yup," I answered. "All right."
When I went on deck, I saw men thumbing the worn
pages of the little Bibles that many of them carry. Tough-
ened old seadogs, veterans of many a battle and many
a crap game, were unashamedly praying. Some listened
with solemn concentration while others read aloud.
Afraid? Not if you strip the word of its too glib defi-
nition and search it for the courage and nobility that so
often give it a fuller meaning. The Helena had never
been afraid. And this was the usual pre-battle scene,
though today I was more than usually aware of it,
By ten P.M. the order had been given to dog all doors
and stand by. We went to our battle stations. In a total
blackout now the ship rushed on through the night, fol-
lowing the broad, boiling wake of a cruiser ahead. In
Radio One, all equipment was manned, all frequencies
covered. An incredible amount of stuff poured in infor-
mation, battle plans, instructions. I fed it to Captain Cecil
on the fighting bridge as we neared our destination.
At eleven, the supply officers furnished refreshments.
There were apples, oranges, cups of steaming black coiee
for the men, groups of whom were speculating on our
luck, "We're gonna give 'em hell again tonight/" some-
one said. It was hard to realize that many of these vet-
eran boys, successful already in two difficult night engage-
ments, were only a year removed from boot camp. But
the Helena had always been a proud shipj flushed with
conidence*
You thought back for the reason for this, and the
[149]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
pageant that unrolled was brilliant and bloody. The
Battle of Cape Esperance, the Battle of Guadalcanal,
Munda, Vila, Enogal Inlet, Bairoko Harbor, Rice An-
chorage. In that year-long struggle with the enemy in the
Solomons, the Helena had slugged it out with every foe
she encountered, and had sent more than her share of
Jap warships to the bottom,
"We're gonna give 'em hell tonight!" Sure we are.
You know it even though you have tightened up again
and are beginning to feel scared. That kind of fear is
good for a man; it keeps him alert, shakes out the mental
cobwebs. You're scared because you have seen brave ships
go down, and seen men swimming over their graves* You
remember the JFasp and the Hornet, the Juneau and the
Strong , the Frisco and the Boise and many, many others
that have died or been damaged. But you wouldn't turn
back. Tokyo won't be reached by turning back.
-That night could not last, forever, even with each of
its hours drawn endlessly through the teeth of tension
and the Helena racing at full power through the dark
in the most dramatic and nerve-tingling run of her career*
The Japs were due in. We had passed Visuvisu Point,
and now from the navigating bridge came the telephoned
report that we were turning into Kula Gulf.
The ship held its breath, as it had so often before.
Kula Gulf was still Jap, still the Solomons' meanest trap.
Anything might happen. The men were quiet. Silence
moved on cat's feet over the entire ship, thickening,
solidifying, until its effect was uncanny.
Then, over Radio One's communication circuit came
the voice of Lieutenant Russell Gash 5 reporting to Admi-
[150]
"ENEMY SHIPS SIGHTED . . ."
ral Ainsworth, He was calm and almost matter-of-fact
as, on TBSj he called the flagship.
"Enemy sighted!' 1
The palms of my hands itched and I stood op. No one
spoke. Men who had been holding their breath let It out
in unison and the sound was a sigh of relief. The waiting
was over.
Quiet orders Issued over TBS as the formation changed
course and closed range. The admiral asked each ship if
^she were ready, and the replies were prompt. We had
been ready a long time.
Nothing less than complete readiness would have won
a victory that night for United States forces, for the
Japs were many and powerful. Their force included two
of their newest and best heavy cruisers armed with 8-inch
guns, two light cruisers, and a screen of destroyers. In all,
between nine and eleven ships. Their assignment was
apparently to reinforce their troops at Munda and Bai-
roko Harbor and wipe out as many of our own troops
as possible with a bombardment. Obviously they were
also to patrol the gulf against further American attempts
to invade it.
The weather was made to order for them s but it was
also good for us, the night pitch Hack and gusty with
the rain squalls which in the past had served our forces
so well. Even in sheltered Kula Gulf the sea was rough
and ugly.
The picture then is of a powerful enemy fleet steaming
down through the Slot, around the northern tip of Kolom-
bangara Island and into the rain and darkness of Kula
Gulf, while our own force, outgunned and outnumbered,
[151]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
sped westward to intercept them. The Japs arrived In
Kula first. They were in the gulf and heading northward,
apparently having made a sweep of the area, when con-
tact was established off the Kolombangara shore north
of the Jap base of Vila.
The enemy came on, unsuspecting, in a stretched-out
battle line. Admiral Ainsworth's force, changing course
quickly, swung at right angles across the Japs' route and
"crossed the T. JJ Every ship In our undergunned group
was then In position to hurl a broadside at the enemy,
while the Japs, in single file, could fire only their forward
batteries and even then were In danger of hitting their
own ships.
Now over TBS, In rapid succession, came our' orders
from the flagship. "Prepare to attack! . . . Cruisers
take the big ships ; destroyers take their destroyers ! . . .
Stand by to fire!"
And at last, at 1 158 A.M., "Commence firing!"
[152]
** CHAPTER FIFTEEN **
The Last
THE Helena reared back on her haunches to let go her
Sunday punch, and every ship In the force loosed a broad-
side with her. It was a simultaneous blast that blew the
gulf Into a monstrous geyser of white spray and fire and
seemed mighty enough to topple the neighboring islands
into the cauldron. The Battle of Kula Gulf was on.
We had never fired like that before. The ship seemed
to know that the show tonight was of special significance.
A ship can know such a thing, of course* Ask her captain
or any of her crew ! And tonight you heard, somehow* the
soft voice of Lieutenant Commander Duke, the Helena 9 s
first gunnery officer, saying patiently amid the thunder,
"We must be good, very good, always. That way we'll
be the fightingest ship in the fleet." He was there in
spirit.
The Japs in one of their conymuniques had accused the
Helena of using "new secret weapons 6-inch machine-
guns!" Now those "6-inch machine-guns" spoke with a
bellow that shook the night apart and sent thunder racing
on giant feet over the islands. All up and down the line
our ships were hammering the enemy.
In the radio shack there was the quickening of pulses
that Is sometimes called fear. There was a steeling of
[153]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
minds against the thought that some Jap shell might
come screaming through the steel plates by which we
were so solidly hemmed In. But you know what such
thoughts can do to you, how quickly they can shake a
man, crack him, and you have shut them out so often
that it now becomes automatic muscular, not mental
and the men were outwardly calm. No one spoke. There
was only the continuous, deafening crash of the guns,
while the ship leaped like a shingle in heavy seas.
Just thirty seconds after the first defiant bellow, a re-
port reached us from the bridge. U 0ne down!" To the
men topside, the death of that Jap was an unforgettable
spectacle. She was a light cruiser following the destroyers
which were leading the enemy line, and when smothered
under an avalanche of 6-inch shells, she was torn apart
as though made of paper, exploding with a blinding burst
of light that shot a thousand feet into the sky. While we
swung to targets behind and ahead of her, she exploded
again and again, and chunks of her superstructure went
shrieking through the smoke of battle.
Our fire was continuous. Other ships in our force
loosed their shells in salvos, pausing briefly for breath,
but for nine minutes not a heartbeat of silence Interrupted
the bellowing of the Helena's guns, and the Japs were
torn apart as though caught in a hurricane.
"Two down! There goes another!" came the word
from the bridge. The speaker might have been watching
workmen fell trees in a forest. But to the men on deck
it was an awesome sight The guns of our force had
halted the enemy in his tracks and thrown him into con-
fusion. He fired back wildly. Some of the shells from
[154]
THE LAST BATTLE
Jap ships at the end of the line probably fell on Jap ships
at the head of it. Nearly all the shells that screamed at
us fell short, hurling up columns of water.
The Helena had sunk one cruiser. Our second victim,
a destroyer, had sped from the destructive fire of our
secondary batteries and was blown up as she led. A third
Jap exploded as though by spontaneous combustion when
our tornado of fire fell across her. In nine minutes the
Helenas veteran gun crews had fired more than 1000
rounds, an all-time record* and the devastation was un-
believable.
Now our batteries, both main and secondary, concen-
trated on two more of the Emperor's ships, mauling them
over the gulf while the Japs, in desperation* sent their
destroyers darting through the inferno to launch tor-
pedoes.
Suddenly, in the radio room* I was Eong from my
chair by a louder roar. At 2 : 07 the Hshna had caught
a Jap torpedo. In a heap on the deck of the shack I
looked about in total bewilderment unable to believe we
had been hit. I reached for my headphones; they had
been jolted to the deck. The ship had leaped into the air
and dropped again and now was trembling a curious,
Muttering tremble, almost dainty, like that of a young
girl frightened in the dark.
But her guns were still blazing. The destroyer which
had rushed in to plant the ish in us was ablaze and
sinking.
I picked myself up slowly, and so did the others, piled
atop of one another in a fantastic heap under books and
papers. The Helena? s at last ceased iring and the
[155]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
silence was a smothering thing that made breathing dif-
ficult. In that whole room there was but one sound : the
soft and stealthy settling of dust disturbed by the tor-
pedo's impact.
I had located the headphones and put them back on,
and now returned to my post, stii-legged and strange
as a man learning to walk again after a shock. The others
went back to their posts, too. No one had spoken. The
radio was silent. TBS had nothing for us. There was
only the terrible trembling of the ship, and now for the
first time a sensation of being afraid. Not of the Japs,
but of the unknown.
We were getting over that, becoming calm waiting,
I think, for someone to speak and break the spell when
the second and third torpedoes hit. They struck as one,
so close together that the sound was a single shuddering
blast. The explosion slammed us to the deck again in the
same grotesque heap. But no one cried out.
The lights died. The shock had smashed our gener-
ators and blown out the communication circuits. For a
moment we struggled In darkness to extricate ourselves.
Then the battle lights came on, a dim, weird glow through
which the shaken dust swam redly In space.
The Helena was done for. I knew it. We all knew It.
The second explosion had cleared my mind and 1 saw
things very clearly. But it had to be official before orders
could be issued, and so I went out to be sure.
She was listing badly, her back broken. There was
water over the quarterdeck, midships. Men stood at their
stations, restlessly at attention, awaiting the command to
abandon ship. The ship herself, trembling in torment,
[156]
THE LAST BATTLE
struggled to warn us time was short.
Returning to the radio room I found the men there
on their feet, strapping on money belts and fastening life
jackets. They were bruised, shaken, their eyes glazed,
but none needed assistance. We went about destroying
important papers and publications. When I ordered the
bulkheads undogged, officers and men filed out as they
had a thousand times before when going off watch. Tom
Sims, the blue-eyed kid from Alabama, grinned at me
and said something. IVe always wondered what he said.
It was the last time I ever saw him.
It was then 2 : 20, just thirteen minutes after the irst
torpedo hit. The "abandon ship" order had been given
when I stepped on deck, but there was no panic, almost
no noise. And now, strangely, there seemed less need for
haste.
Incredible things happen aboard a ship of war when
she goes down. Aboard the Helena, twelve hundred men
were thinking of themselves, their shipmates, and their
ship. Some of what happened was only ridiculous. Much
of it was brave.
A youngster named Brandt, from New Jersey, thought
first of a Jap rie he had bought on the beach. Nothing
else mattered but that rifle, which was down in the
armory with his name on it. He tumbled from his station
on the searchlight platform and tried to rush down there
after it, but was too late.
Another boy one of the ship 1 s poker and domino
experts tightened his money belt. The belt contained his
winnings, and rumor insists that he had more than thirty
thousand dollars in his possession when he went to GQ
[157]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
that night. No one will ever know. He was not seen again*
Chief Signalman Flood, whose flags were the pride of
the fleet, was at the captain's side on the bridge. But there
were no flags now- Chief Flood steadily and methodically
flashed a message of distress with a blinker light, hoping
vainly to attract attention to his ship's dire predicament*
With our radio gone, the blinker was our only hope.
There on the bridge was Rebel Sandridge, too, hurry-
ing from the skipper's cabin with an armful of confiden-
tial equipment which, under Captain Cecil's direction, he
threw over the side. He appeared to be having the time
of his life.
Jelly Belly, our 3OO-pound watertender, lumbered up
and down the oily deck in a methodical search for life
jackets. Two were already fastened about him, but he
sought a third. Two, he insisted, would not hold him up.
But he was wrong. Two of them did hold him up, and
he drifted serenely away into the darkness.
The forward engine room had been hit. All in It were
killed- But in the after engine room, the crew picked itself
up after the first torpedo hit and stood by until the second
and third. Aware then that the ship was sinking and time
was running out for them, they attempted to depart from
their dark underworld through an escape hatch, but when
the hatch was opened, tons of water rushed in upon them.
They managed, somehow,, to shut it. But now their
situation was grave. Water had filled the ship as high
as the third deck, and but one means of escape remained
through a scuttle. In single file and in good order, the
engine room gang climbed the ladder ; and with the ship
trembling in her torment, it was akin to climbing the
[158]
THE LAST BATTLE
Inside walls of a factory chimney while a hurricane raged
without.
They climbed. There was no panic. In pitch darkness
they reached the main deck. By then the ship had settled
so deeply that they had only to walk off the deck into
Kula Gulf and swim to the rafts which had been thrown
overside.
In the sick bay* Doctor Bean, Lieutenant John K-
Whcaton, the ship's chaplain, and eight others were on
duty at their battle stations. One man was killed by the
explosion of the first torpedo. By the time the Helena
received her second and third blows, the others were
swimming about in water deep enough to drown them.
Someone opened an escape hatch and they climbed out
on deck just as the order was given to abandon ship.
Strange things happen . .
I stood on deck, uncertain which way to turn. That
warning tremble in the ship had ceased^ and there seemed
to be no great hurry. Men picked their way carefully
through the piles of ammunition cans strewn over the
deck. Others lined the rail, watching the battle in the
distance. Some had gone overside, and I saw hundreds
of heads in the sea small white blurs bobbing about in
the black night, seemingly suspended in space. It was
hard to think of them as men. It was harder still to
realize that the Helena was no longer in action. Beyond
us the Battle of Kula Gulf raged to its climax, and the
horizon was garlanded with looping streamers of fire.
"Like Brooklyn Bridge," I thought
The ship was sinking midships* her bow and stern
high, belly sagging, but there was no hurry. I stood at
[159]
4i THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
the rail, gazing at the eerie display of fireworks over
there across the gulf, and the echoing thunder of the
guns made me feel better about the Helena. We were
giving the Japs a beating*
"There's time enough," I thought, "to go to your room
for the papers you want." They were valuable papers
to me, at any rate and there was all the time in the
world now. The ship herself had said so. She was not
trembling. "Go ahead/* she said.
After eleven months on the Helena, I had no fear of
the dark. I could have found my way over her with my
eyes taped. But the deck was cluttered. Those piles of
ammunition cans, the oil, the water I had to go slowly,
with a hand half lifted in front of me. On the starboard
side of the foc'sle I came upon a man sitting cross-legged
on the deck, and I said, "Well, it's all over." He didn't
know it was all over. He was dead.
My room was at the bottom of the ladder, forward of
number two turret. That Is, It had been. I reached for
the ladder and caught myself just in time, lurched back-
ward and stood shaking, cold and frightened again. An-
other step and I should have fallen into the sea, head-
long.
Because nothing was there now. The Helena's bow
had been blown apart just where my room had been. The
torpedo had gone through the room. "This is how you
feel/' I thought, "when you come home one night and
find only a heap of ashes where the house had stood."
And I thought of the times we had sat in that room,
Ozzie Koerner and Sam Hollingsworth and Vic Post and
Red Cochrane and Warren Boles and Dave La Hue and
[160]
THE LAST BATTLE
the rest of us, discussing what might happen If ever a
torpedo came through the gray steel bulkheads. Well, a
torpedo had come through them. And now I lost that
foolish feeling of security. a Get off the ship!" I thought
frantically. u Get off now!"
She was really going down fast On the foc f s!e some
of the men were trying to cut away the big life rafts, and
I ran to them and tried to help. Boats Linton was In
charge of the group. He supervised the job and we got
the rafts into the water while the sea swirled in an ugly,
oily whirlpool over the quarterdeck. Boats was one of
the last to quit the ship.
It was time to go. Before leaving the radio room I
had snatched up my life jacket and officer's cap* and now,
automatically, I jerked the cap hard on my head and
leaped. It was not a tremendous jump. The water was
but five feet or so below the deck. And it was warm,
almost pleasant But my weight carried me deep into it,
and when my mouth filled with the warm water It was
not clean and salt, but foul with oil. A man jumped on
top of me with heavy shoesj and his heels bit deep below
the edge of my cap. The pain was unbearable* For a
moment I blacked out.
Around the bow, where I had jumped , the suction of
the sinking ship was greatest. It gripped and clung, exert-
ing a steady downward pull. Some of us fought it, throw-
ing our arms about, but that was not good. There was too
much oil. With every gasping breath you drew the sick-
ening stuff into your stomach, and up it came with a rush.
As we struck out to one of the life rafts, some of the men
were terribly ill. We helped as many as we could. Others,
[161]
"THE FIGHTIN J EST SHIP"
exhausted by the agony of vomiting, went under. Not
many, but a few.
On the raft we had more trouble. The suction pulled
us, raft and all, toward the Helena's sinking hull. We
found a line holding us fast to the ship, and one of the
men cut it cut it with a sheath knife he had made him-
self, months ago but still the suction held us. When
thrown from the deck, the raft had turned in mid air
and was now upside down, the paddles lashed beneath it.
In that heaving sea of oil, no man could stay under long
enough to release them. And so, as senior officer, I organ-
ized a hand-paddling detail "Push, paddle, kick! Push,
paddle, kick!" which took us slowly away from the
danger. We were just in time.
We saw the Helena go. It was a sad, an unbelievably
sad moment. What does one say? Not what you might
expect. Nothing smart or slick. Just the so-called "corny"
phrases you have heard time and again in the movies or
read in fiction.
"She was a grand ship . . ."
"She sure was sw T ell . . ."
"So long, Baby . . ."
A queen to the last, she went down gracefully and
quickly*
[162]
** CHAPTER SIXTEEN **
The Sea
THERE were hundreds of us somewhere in that crowded,
night-black sea, clinging to rafts or bits of debris, floating
in life belts or swimming aimlessly in the dark. Our little
group clung to the overturned raft and looked at the
place where the Helena had vanished, and felt alone,
deserted, and it was the end of all the world.
And then the sea began bubbling, boiling, above the
grave of our ship. We watched it, wide-eyed and alarmed.
Up from the depths lurched a strange, awesome shape,
a rnetal island all wet and gleaming, the sea pouring from
its sides as it emerged. It rolled as though shaking its
head; it shuddered and shook the water from its brow^
and at last, sure of itself, settled down to a gentle sway-
Ing. Fifteen feet high, this gleaming thing loomed above
the sea in the dark, while the sea rocked it and the waves
from its resurrection rolled out to bring us Its message.
It was the Helena's bow, her white u ^o" proudly stand-
ing out against the wet gray steel. Down there on the
floor of Kula Gulf, under forty or more fathoms, our
ship had broken In two. The strakes or keel holding her
together midships had let go. This much of her a ship's
spirit proudly encased in steel and bravely holding aloft
her Identifying numerals had returned to comfort us.
[163]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
We were not alone.
Those of us who still clung to the raft gazed at her
in silence. Here was something no man could fail to feel,
whatever his faith. It was not a question of religion. I
have "talked to some of those men since, to be sure of
that. By recalling lessons in ship design and compart-
mentation, one can explain readily why she came up. But
there in the darkness of Kula Gulf, surrounded by death
and loneliness and fear, such material explanations were
inadequate. The Helena had risen in her death agonies
to be sure that we were not left alone to face our fate.
It was with a sense of gratitude and humiliation that
we pushed and paddled! our raft toward the risen remains
of the ship. Other rafts, too, sought security in the
Helenas presence, and soon there were several of us.
We could hope now. When the battle ended, the
Helena would be missed. Our destroyers would surely
come seeking her. And when that happened, this fifteen-
foot monument of comforting steel would be more easily
spotted than a scattered fleet of life rafts.
Ringed about her, we made ourselves as comfortable
as possible, some in the water, some on the rafts. Jungle
Jim Baird, the senior officer present, took charge, but
there was little to do except wait. It was 2 :3O A.M., the
sea fairly calm, the water warm, the oil thick and slip-
pery and strangling. But we did not curse the oil too
bitterly. Without it there might have been sharks.
The battle continued. American and Jap ships hurled
shells across the darkness, and Jap batteries on Kolom-
bangara thundered intermittently as the hours passed. I
was not conscious of fear. For four hours I clung to a
[164]
THE SEA
short piece of rope which hung over the side of the raft,
and was not aware of exhaustion or even of any great
expenditure of effort. But when at last I tried to let go
the rope, my fingers had stiffened so rigidly about it that
they had to be pried loose.
The battle ended. Admiral Ainsworth's force had
wiped out all but two of the Japs, and those two had
stealthily slipped away into some dark part of the gulf,
Our ships retired. There was silence and a strange peace.
Out beyond the gulf, the flagship asked for a roll call.
We learned later the story of that roll call. One by
one the ships' names were read over TBS and checked
off. But there was silence when the Helena's radio name
in that engagement was spoken. Again and again the call
went out. Then at last the truth had to be faced. In a
heavy voice the TBS officer said, "I'm sorry to report,
sir the Helena doesn't answer."
"The Helena doesn't answer." Twelve times in the
triumphant aftermath of major engagements, the Helena
had promptly answered the roll. This time silence.
On orders from the admiral, a pair of our destroyers,
the Radford and the Nicholas, slipped back into the gulf,
feeling their way through the dark. On the alert for the
two Jap ships thought to have escaped destruction, they
circled the area on a sweep. Before long one of them
sighted the bow of the Helena*
Wtit happened then was not the fault of the destroyer
men. It was no one's fault. The object which had been
sighted could not be the Helena; it was too small. Since
nothing else American was in the gulf, it had to be Jap,
One destroyer opened fire.
[165]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
We saw her when she did. Huddled about the Helena's
bow, crowded on the lashed rafts or hanging wearily in
the water, we had been unaware of any movement in the
darkness until the destroyer's guns opened up on us. Then
the night was ripped by flame. Shells screamed into the
sea all about us.
Some of us groaned. Others swore. No man's eyes
were sharp enough to identify the ship, and most of us
thought she was Jap.
We knew what that meant, if she steamed up to us.
After what our Navy had done to the Emperor's fleet,
there would be no prisoners taken tonight. Machine-guns
on that swift black shadow would be trained on us. A few
of us might escape by swimming under water, but only
a few would have the strength. And even they would be
able to swim only a short distance perhaps to Kolom-
bangara. Ten thousand Japs occupied Kolombangara.
A little while ago, despite weariness and the fatalistic
feeling that perhaps, after all, we were not going to be
rescued, the men had been amazingly cheerful. They had
swapped names, told where they came from, helped one
another to fight of the increasing weariness. There had
been a sharp, witty exchange of gags and double-talk.
Now the night was a deafening hell and the sea all about
us was tortured with explosions. Shells crashed into the
steel monument about which we were clustered. Our little
world was being hammered apart
There was no panic, even then. One or two men let go
and struck out Into the darkness; the rest stared steadily
at the black hulk of the destroyer. Was she a Jap? Or
[166]
THE SEA
was she one of ours, confused by the floating remains of
the Helena?
What took place then was a kind of town meeting of
the sea a polling of opinions, orderly and without undue
haste despite the destruction that felt for us from the
ship's batteries. There was calm discussion of the several
possibilities* If we signaled, and she was American, would
she believe us? If Jap, would she strafe us?
Jungle Jirn Baird called for a vote. Should we signal
or not? The "ayes" won it. One man, one only, had a
flashlight and miraculously it was in working order. From
hand to hand it went until it reached the fingers of Vic
Post. Vic was raised to- the shoulders of two sturdy men
on a lurching raft, and the light blinked its message.
"Five-Zero. Help!" And then we waited.
There are no new ways of saying how long a minute
can be. It was a long time, a very long time, because if
our luck had run out, the answer to our signal would
be not the small red flashes for which we prayed, but
almost certain death in the roar of the destroyer's guns
men against a wall of sea, facing a firing squad of Jap
47 s -
We waited, and the answer was a series of quick red
blinks in the dark. "Friendly ship come alongside." And
then we cheered.
But there was still danger. In the dark of the gulf the
two escaped Jap ships had lain in hiding, awaiting an
opportune time to slip out and run for safety. These two
ships, giving up the fight, had undoubtedly crept close
to shore and sought security in silence. Our task force
knew of their existence but not where they were. Kula
[167]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"'
Gulf covers a lot of territory, and the night was dark.
No doubt there were some Jap chuckles when Ameri-
can shells menaced the lives of the Helena's survivors.
No doubt Jap heads came together, scheming. Now as
our two destroyers steamed up and stopped dead in the
water to take us aboard, the sea about the Helena's bow
was suddenly alive with torpedoes. Those Jap ships
and probably some lurking enemy submarines also were
seeking revenge.
It was a ticklish business. The Japs had only to point
their tubes at stationary targets. Our destroyers could
not linger long in such a perilous area; they could but
rush in, snatch a few of us from the sea and speed
out again, with all hands alert for those tell-tale white
feathers of phosphorus in the wake of enemy fish. Time
and again they raced In and out, while the Helena's men
scrambled up ladders or clung to trailing lines and were
pulled aboard.
Then one of the Japs, recklessly bold, showed herself
In a dash for freedom. She was spotted by the destroyers.
From the Radford's bridge came the voice of her skip-
per, shouting through a megaphone to the Helena men
in the water.
"Enemy sighted ! Well be back for you ! Hang on
we'll be back!"
The little destroyers were not gone long. In ten or
fifteen minutes they had closed on the fleeing Jap, which
was also a destroyer, and had sunk her. From our "grand-
stand seats" in the oily mess of Kula Gulf, we watched
the brief skirmish and marveled at the marksmanship of
our destroyers' gunners, and cheered with as much en-
[168]
THE SEA
thuslasm as we could muster when the Jap burst Into
flames. We cheered with even more enthusiasm when the
destroyers resumed their rescue work.
The Radford lowered boats now, two of them. One
was apparently the captain's gig, the other a motor
whaleboat While those of us who still clung to- our rafts
about the bow of the Helena scrambled to catch the lines
and cargo nets thrown over the ships' sides, these two
boats and others from the Nicholas sped into the dark-
ness to round up other rafts which had drifted away ? and
to rescue swimming men who had found nothing to cling
to.
A few moments later the second Jap showed herself.
It happened as my turn came, and I was dangling on a
line midway between the sea and the deck of the destroyer
which had slowed in passing to take me aboard. The
skipper shouted a warning, and some of the men on the
lines below me let go, dropping back into the sea. From
the bridge flashed a signal to the ship's own boats to
stand clear she was going after the enemy again.
Suddenly the gunners on the can's deck found the
enemy in range and hurled a blistering challenge at her !
The ship reared in the water like a kicking mule, and I
swung there against her throbbing plates, helpless, bat-
tered, hanging on with God knows what. But as the ship
leaped forward at top speed to pursue the fleeing Jap,
I was hauled aboard.
The first man I saw when stumbling across the deck
was Rebel Sandridge again. When last I had seen him,
he had been helping Captain Cecil to dispose of confi-
dential equipment on the Helena. Now, still having the
[169]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
time of his life, he was galloping stark naked across the
destroyer's hot steel deck, black with oil but grinning
like a Cheshire cat and yelling like a banshee.
I went to the wardroom, where others from the Helena
had found haven before me. There we sat, aware now of
what we had gone through. Aware, too, of the awful
noise of the destroyer's guns, as she and her sister ship
engaged the Jap, It was almost more than we could
endure.
But it ended, as everything else had. There was a brief,
violent conflict in the dark, our two American cans slug-
ging it out in a running battle with the Jap. The Jap was
a cruiser, big game for two little cans. But the torpedoes
that streaked through the gulf were American now, and
our destroyers' gun crews were superb. The cruiser was
sunk as she fled.
When those two Japs settled to the floor of Kula Gulf,
the battle was over. There were no more of the enemy.
The Emperor had lost an estimated nine to eleven ships,
four of them two cruisers and two destroyers credited
to the Helena. Our side had lost the Helena.
Of our twelve hundred officers and men, some 750 had
been rescued by the Radford and the Nicholas. Of the
remaining 450, some had died aboard ship when the
torpedoes struck, and some had perished in the oil-
polluted waters when the ship went down. The rest were
scattered in Kula Gulf, awaiting rescue which now, with
dawn, seemed remote. For with the coming of daylight
and the threat of enemy air attack, the Radford and the
Nicholas were forced to retire.
But there was hope. The destroyers had left their
[170]
THE SEA
motor whaleboats behind, with men to operate them.
Now, as dawn began to push back the frightening dark-
ness and the complexion of the sea changed to a dirty,
greasy yellow In which men clung to crowded rafts and
bits of wreckage, the boats worked in among them and
the destroyers' men hauled them aboard.
[171]
** CHAPTER SEVENTEEN **
The Rafts
JULY 6 ? '1943. That was a desolate dawn. Between New
Georgia and Kolornbangara, the waters of Kula Gulf
were a sprawling waste of oil, littered with debris. The
rising sun produced strange rainbow colors in that oily
sea. It fingered the eyes of half-blinded survivors. It
gleamed on the upthrust bow of the Helena.
One of the Rad ford's boats, loaded to the gunwales
with humanity, beat back and forth with a pair of rafts
in tow. The rafts, too, were crowded. But there was still
room for a few more, and weary hands hauled survivors
from the gulf as fast as they were found. One of the
men thus saved was Captain Cecil, the Helena's skipper.
Out of the dawn rumbled a boat from the Nicholas,
and a whaleboat which some of the Helena men had
found drifting amid the debris. The little boats drew
together now. Men clambered from one to another, to
make the loads more even and reduce the danger of cap-
sizing. Then the forlorn flotilla turned away In search
of a landing.
Kolombangara was closest, but that island was known
to be Jap infested. On New Georgia, American troops
were battling the enemy, and the natives there had shown
themselves to be friendly. Captain Cecil ordered a course
[172]
THE RAFTS
laid for New Georgia.
The men themselves were too sick to care. Many were
half blind and deaf from the oil. All were exhausted
too tired even to scoop up the salt water and try to make
themselves recognizable. Such clothes as they still wore
were black and stinking.
The little fleet chugged on. Midway across the gulf,
one of the rafts was found to contain some cigarettes and
dry matches, and later some gallon cans of fruit were
discovered floating in the oily water. The cans were
slashed open and the fruit was fed to the men who
seemed to need it most. It only made them vomit.
An hour later a plane was sighted. The sun glittered
redly on its wing Insignia, and it was thought to be Jap.
"If he strafes us, go over the side and get clear of the
boats," Captain Cecil ordered. "Come back when he's
gone." But the plane did not strafe them. It was Ameri-
can. After circling them and dipping Its wings In recog-
nition, it sped away.
Throughout the morning other planes were sighted.
They, too, flew over the survivors and went their way.
A solitary plane of a design the men did not recognize
probably It was Jap was seen to linger in the sky for a
time above the still visible bow of the Helena, but it came
no closer.
At dusk the little flotilla neared the northwestern tip
of New Georgia, miles above the Jap settlement of Eno-
gai Inlet. The rugged shore was forbidding; the shallow
water concealed a submerged forest of spiney coral,
Were there Japs In the jungle? The Helena's men did
not know. Finally a few of them went ashore to invest!-
[173]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
gate. They found no sign of the enemy and signaled to
that effect, and the rest of the tiny fleet, reassured, crept
toward shore. Exhausted men clambered from boats and
rafts and waded to the beach over beds of coral so wick-
edly sharp that the barefoot ones could not endure the
agony they had to wait until those with shoes could
stumble ashore and toss the shoes back out to them.
On the beach, Captain Cecil called the survivors to-
gether and brlely told them what he thought of their
chances.
"We don't know how long we may be here. We have
no way of knowing how close the Japs may be. It's a
nasty spot. All of us will have to keep our heads every
minute, and be everlastingly alert. Don't smoke on the
beach. Keep together as much as possible don't under
any circumstances go exploring." The captain was very
tired, and as sick as any of the men, but he was still
skipper of a fighting ship and these were still Helena
men.
They set up a camp at the jungle's edge. All available
food was pooled; each man's ration was to be two crack-
ers, a cup of water and a small bit of canned meat per
day! Even that would not last long. Coconuts, of course,
were to be had for the climbing. But the jungle was not
inviting some of the men who went into it for a smoke
discovered its dangers very quickly and came running out
again, terrified. u My God I" one of them shouted "The
place is alive with bats as big as eagles !" The giant bats
had hurled themselves at the glowing cigarettes and in-
flicted a nasty gash on one boy's face.
The little group slept that night under the trees at the
[174]
THE RAFTS
edge of the jungle, wondering If the planes which had
roared above them in the afternoon would relay the news
of their plight, and if anything would be done could be
done to rescue them. Among themselves the men dis-
cussed the possibility of following the island's shore south
to Enogai Inlet, in search of American troops. But it was
a long way to Enogai, and their feet were swollen now.
Some of the men were in agony from the coral cuts, and
many were still half blind from oil.
In the morning, watchers were posted, in the feeble
hope that there might be something to watch for. And
there was. About an hour after "breakfast," two Ameri-
can destroyers nosed into Kula Gulf.
The men shouted, waving their arms. Those who could
still walk ran up and down the shore, signaling with their
shirts* Chief Signalman Flood flashed the blinker light
which had not left his possession since his frantic efforts
to obtain help for the sinking Helena.
The destroyers went on by.
It was the end of the world. The men threw them-
selves down on the beach and stared hopelessly out to
sea. And then, miraculously, the two ships returned, still
searching, and in answer to Chief Flood's blinker, the
leading destroyer blinked back.
It was the U.S.S* Gmn which nosed in to shore to pick
up Captain Cecil and his group the same little Gwin
which had been battered by a Jap shell during the Ren-
dova landing; the same Gwin which had paused, during
the landing of troops at Rice Anchorage, to pick up
survivors from the torpedoed Strong. Once more her
wardroom had been converted into a sick bay, and the
[175]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
men of her medical department stood ready now to serve
these survivors of the Helena.
Not all the Helenas survivors were In the group led
by Captain Cecil, or were picked up by the Radford and
the Nicholas. Many others, when their ship went down,
had swum away from the scene in an effort to get out
of the oil. The Radford and the Nicholas had not time
to seek them out. The Kula Gulf currents and their own
elorts to reach drifting rafts or floating debris had
separated them. When dawn came they were still pad-
dling about in widely scattered groups.
Warren Boles was in one of these groups. Soon after
leaping into the water, he had turned to see the ship's
chaplain, Lieutenant John Wheaton, stumbling dazedly
over the side. The Padre had come up from the sick bay,
where the explosion of the first torpedo had slammed
him against a bulkhead and badly hurt him. Boles swam
to his assistance and held him up in the oily water, sup-
porting him until a raft came near. Now, with daylight
revealing the rugged peaks of nearby Kolombangara and
New Georgia, the Padre lay in the raft, surrounded by
men who clung to its sides. There had been more men
in the little group a while ago, but exhaustion and the
smothering oil had reduced their number,
They saw now what they had not seen before in the
dark the bow of the Helena protruding from the sea,
half a mile away. They decided to swim to it, and did so,
pushing the raft ahead of them. On the way they found
a crate of tomato juice in gallon cans, serenely floating
amid the wreckage. With sheath knives they slashed the
[176]
THE RAFTS
cans open. Then they came upon a floating crate of pota-
toes. The potatoes they ate raw.
The ship's bow was already well populated when they
reached it Some of the men who had paddled or swum
to it soon after it emerged from the sea were still there.
Their rescue turn had not come before the Radford and
the Nicholas were forced to depart. Jack Chew was one
of them. Sam Hollingsworth was another. Sam had spent
most of his time rounding up men in the water, collecting
them in groups.
Now some of the men perched on the Helena's bow
like darkies on a rail fence, warming and drying them-
selves in the sunlight, while others, too tired to pull them*
selves up, merely clung to it for support. There was no
exchange of small talk. These men had seen too many of
their comrades disappear. Their own chance of rescue
seemed remote.
They held a conference. Boles and some of the others,
after fortifying themselves with tomato juice and raw
potatoes, decided to try for Kolombangara. There at
-least they would have a chance for survival, provided
they could keep out of the hands of the Japs. They quit
the ship's bow and struck out through the oil, but while
still only part way to the island they heard a plane and
paused to look up.
It was an American 6-24, winging out of the sun from
the east. They watched it circle above the ship's bow
while its crew dropped waterproofed packages to the sur-
vivors. The packages were large and there were three of
them. Rafts, probably. Or food. Boles and his group
held another conference. Some were still in favor of
[177]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
going on to Kolombangara and they went. The others
turned about and wearily swam back to the Helena's bow.
Two of the packages dropped by the 6-24 contained
small rafts, complete with equipment for inflating them.
What the third contained, the survivors will never know.
It sank before they could reach it. Even the two rafts,
however, were gifts from heaven. Wounded men were
placed in them and made reasonably comfortable. Other
men clung to them thirty or forty men to each.
The hours passed. Anxiously the Helena men watched
the sea and the sky, certain now that they were to be
rescued. But the sky remained a blistering blue, empty of
planes, and the gulf was still a vast, sluggish oil slick as
far as half-blinded eyes could see. As the afternoon wore
on, the group held another town meeting to determine
what action should be taken.
They decided to try for Kolombangara, all of them,
hoping to time the trip so as to arrive in darkness. In
the dark they might stand at least a fighting chance of
hiding out from the Japs.
It was hard going. The blazing sunlight acted as a
naked flame against eyes already tortured by oil. The
heat sapped the last of their strength. Many were ill. All
were hungry and thirsty. Some r along the way, let go
their grip on the flimsy rafts and disappeared before their
mates could aid them.
To add to their difficulties, a strong northward current
caught their little flotilla as they neared the Kolomban-
gara shore, and they had not the strength to push the
laden rafts through it. The shore ghosted past, madden-
ingly close but not close enough. The rafts circled the
[178]
THE RAFTS
northern tip of the island and drifted on by. All hope
of a landing on Kolombangara was gone. The current
was carrying them, instead, toward the enemy stronghold
of Bougainville.
And the oil followed them, like some evil sea-monster
determined to haunt their voyage. Pulled along by the
same freak suction that gripped the rafts, it clung as
thickly as ever, with nowhere a patch of clean sea In
which the men might wash the stinking staff from their
bodies and bathe their blackened eyes. Every movement
of the sea flung the foul slime over them to smear them
anew.
It was about noon the next day when these men under
Jack Chew's command were hailed by a swimmer. They
looked the newcomer over carefully as he approached,
for Jap ships as well as the Helena had been sunk in the
Battle of Kula Gulf, and Jap survivors, too, were still
adrift in its oily waters. But this man was no Jap, He
was Major Bernard T* Kelly, Jr., commanding officer of
the Helena's Marine detachment. Apparently he had
been swimming since the ship went down nearly thirty
hours.
Major Kelly had not been swimming thirty hours, but
he had done his share. After the Helena sank, he and five
other Marines had paddled about for fifteen hours, and
then had found an empty raft. On this they drifted with
the current until the major, falling asleep from exhaus-
tion, lost his grip and slipped into the water. He was
alone when he awoke. A pair of sharks, small but per-
sistent, nudged his legs. He shouted, received no reply,
and was heading for shore as best he could against the
[179],
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
current when Jack Chew's flotilla came by.
A little while later the Marines' raft was sighted, add-
ing five more men and still another tiny craft to the fleet.
Now the hours and the sea-miles slid past in monotonous
succession, and the only diversion was provided by Jap
pilots.
The Jap planes were Zeros. Spotting the fleet, they
roared down on It, circled it, and carefully looked it over.
Roaring in again just over the surface of the sea, they
opened fire with their machine-guns.
u But they were not trying to strafe us, n reports one
of the men. "The bastards deliberately missed us, then
thumbed their nasty little noses and grinned at us. Only
a Jap can grin like that, showing his teeth clear back to
his tonsils. They knew, damn them, that as soon as the
oil stopped following us, the sharks would take over
and if the sharks didn't get us, the Japs on Vella Lavella
would. Because by now we were drifting straight toward
Vella Lavella and there wasn't much we could do to
prevent it."
That night more men disappeared. They had hung on
as long as they were able, and in the dark they fell asleep,
lost their grip on the rafts, and vanished. Others kept
awake by recalling bits of songs or old jokes anything
to keep them from growing drowsy. Said one man bel-
ligerently: "Anyway, damn It, this ought to be worth a
trip back to the States 1" And during the night the group
became two groups, drawn apart by the current. The
smaller, numbering about sixty men, made a landing on
Vella Lavella before dawn, wading ashore over coral
spines that slashed their feet to ribbons.
[180]
THE RAFTS
They were discovered at dawn by friendly natives who
brought them coconut milk. Then in low, swampy ground
near the island's edge they did their best, despite sickness
and utter exhaustion, to set up a camp. Later they moved
into a native village of sorts, and moved their wounded
into a house vacated by friendly Chinese.
[181]
** CHAPTER EIGHTEEN **
The Rescue
THE remainder of Jack Chew's little fleet drifted on.
Most of the men had lost all track of time by now, but
it was about noon of July 8 and they had been in the sea
since the early morning of July 6. The current had car-
ried them to within three miles of the Vella Lavella shore
and was bearing them past the island. A few of the
stronger men decided to swim for It and seek help for
their companions.
Jack Chew was in this group. So were Marine Major
Kelly and Warren Boles. Boles, a strong swimmer, was
caught in the treacherous cross-currents near shore and
became separated from the rest.
u The last man I spoke to on the way in, n he said later,
a was Jack Chew. Then I kept on going, with an eye on
a likely looking strip of shore where the coral might not
be too bad. There seemed to be a village of some sort
among the trees.
"The current was too strong, though. It swept me
along the shore and when I finally got my feet down and
could wade, I was a mile or so from where I'd meant to
be. I walked up the beach a little distance and was too
tired to go farther. Found a coconut, opened it, and
[182]
THE RESCUE
drank the milk. Then stretched out under a tree and fell
asleep.
"It was still daylight when I awoke. Hoping Jack
Chew and the others had made the island safely, I started
down the beach again, but without shoes it was hard
going; the beach was coral sand, wickedly sharp, and my
feet bled. It seemed best to swim out again to where I
could get a bearing on the native settlement I'd seen on
the way in,
"That's what I did went back Into the sea and swam
along until I could wade ashore at the settlement. But
the place was abandoned. The natives had cleared out
of their coastal villages and moved inland, we learned
later, because the Japs shelled their villages for gunnery
practice.
"I slept that night in the village, hungry as hell but
reluctant to do any exploring in the dark. In the morning
I heard footsteps and put my head out through the bush
under which I was lying. It was a native, and I hailed
him. For a minute or two we stood staring at each other,
while I waited for him to make up Ms mind. Then he
approached and we jabbered at each other until at last,
by grunts and some idiotic finger-talk, I convinced him
I was not an enemy. He then led me down the beach to
where the other Helena men had set up a camp."
The group was intact when Boles joined it. Jack Chew
ajid the other swimmers most of them had reached
shore safely the day before and had persuaded some
natives to go out and help the men still on the rafts. At
first the natives were reluctant Finally they agreed, with
reservations. Armed with long, sharp knives, they looked
[183]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
at each man carefully before condescending to assist him.
One man slightly built Shorty Carleson, a boatswain's
mate aroused their suspicions to an almost fatal degree,
but his shipmates intervened in time. Very carefully the
natives washed the mask of yellow oil from Shorty's face
and examined him. Only then were they convinced.
Now there were two groups of Helena survivors on
Vella Lavella, separated by thick jungle and miles of
impassable shore line. The smaller group, first to land,
occupied a native village near Paraso. They were fed
and rested, and makeshift clothes were found for them.
Pharmacist's Mate J, G. Layton, of Remington, Texas,
attended the wounded, bandaging coral cuts and treating
the men for shock. Three had suffered leg fractures.
Layton doctored the wounds with sulfa powder, impro-
vised splints and bandages, and so expertly did his job
that all but one of his patients recovered.
Senior officer of the larger group, located near Lambu
Lambu, was Jack Chew. Under him were Boles and
Major Kelly, eight or ten junior officers and about 100
enlisted men. Ahead of them was a future that held they
knew not what, for though the natives were eager to help
and a small group of friendly Chinese had come out of
hiding in the hills to join them, the island was still Jap,
and Jap patrols were everywhere.
"There was a village nearby," Boles reports, "but it
was too open there, too likely to attract attention with
so many of us, and so a day after the group was organ-
ized we set up a camp in the jungle. The natives built us
a huge lean-to, for protection against the rain. Then we
went to work on the problem of just how to let the Navy
[184]
THE RESCUE
know what had happened to us."
How these men did let the Navy Know what had
happened to them is not, at the moment, a matter which
the Navy wants discussed. But having "worked on the
problem," the Helena's officers and men settled down to
the business of trying to keep alive.
For food they had to depend largely on the natives,
who supplied them with taro, tapioca roots, green ba-
nanas, yams and pawpaws. A careful search of the wreck-
age along the shore added emergency rations and five
25-pound cans of coffee to their larder. Twice a day the
cooks carefully hacked open four small cans of meat,
emptied them into a pot, added the vegetables provided
by the natives, and produced a stew which they called
"root soup."
"It was good stew, too," reports Sam Hollings worth.
"Especially after we had been there long enough to get
rid of the oil in our systems. For a time, though, every-
thing we ate tasted like more of Kula Gulf."
To reduce the danger of discovery by Japs, Major
Kelly organized a guard of Marines and sailors and
maintained a careful watch, day and night, around the
camp.
The days went by. Jap scouting parties were sighted.
Jap planes appeared often above the island, circling
slowly as the alert little men inside them searched the
jungle for signs of activity. It became increasingly ap-
parent that the Japs knew of the survivors' presence.
Early one morning a Marine guard on the beach,
armed with an antique rifle provided by the natives, came
swiftly to attention and focused his gaze on two shad-
[185]
'THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
owed objects moving shoreward a few hundred yards
distant. He stared until he was sure, then sped back to
report.
"Landing barges!" he gasped. "Loaded with Japs!"
The word was passed. Tired men scrambled reluc-
tantly to their feet and gathered up their few possessions,
The Helena men prepared to retire deeper into the hills,
where they might have some chance of holding out for
a time.
But as the Japs leaped from their barges and stumbled
ashore, a flight of American planes appeared as though
by divine command and roared down over them. Machine
guns chattered. The Japs dived for the safety of the
jungle. The barges, raked by the planes' fire, burned at
the water's edge.
Jack Chew, Warren Boles and Major Kelly talked it
over. "We'll have to move," Chew decided. "They know
we're here, and will turn the Island Inside out to find us.
Well have to go back Into the hills."
Bearded, bedraggled men pulled themselves together
and began the march. But the following night, at mid-
night, a chosen few were back again on the beach,
anxiously watching the sea.
It was very quiet. The jungle at their backs was dark
and still; the sea was placid in the moonlight; the Larnbu
Lambu River, nearby, sliding into the sea through a wall
of natural camouflage, made no sound.
A little before one o'clock, Warren Boles moved away
from the others and waded Into the sea, pushing a native
pau-pau ahead of him. With a native guide, he clambered
Into the dumsy craft and paddled out through the shal-
[186]
THE RESCUE
low water a dangerous job In the dark for a man un-
familiar with his surroundings, but Boles was the strong-
est swimmer and therefore the logical choice.
He paddled out a considerable distance and waited.
Two o'clock came and went. Anxiously Boles looked into
the darkness. At last he saw what he was searching for
two dim shapes moving along parallel with the Vella
Lavella shore, about three miles out.
With a flashlight Boles blinked a signal.
Half an hour later, a pair of Higgins boats emerged
from the nearer darkness Higgins boats from the two
destroyers lying to off the island. Boles abandoned his
native canoe and clambered into one of them. It was com-
manded by a young ensign, Rollo H. Nuckles, of the de-
stroyer-transport Dent. Out there with the Dent was
another old converted four-piper, the Waters* With an
escort of four modern destroyers, the Taylor, the Maury,
the Gridley and the Ellet the entire expedition com-
manded by Captain Francis X. Mclnerney, of Cheyenne,
Wyoming the rescue ships had completed a bold and
difficult nighttime run from Tulagi, to snatch the
Helena's survivors from under the very nose of the
enemy.
Already the Higgins boats had crept up to the Vella
Lavella shore at Paraso, where the smaller group of
Helena men had established a camp. Now, with these
men safely aboard the destroyers, the rescue boats moved
shoreward again. With Boles showing the way, they
inched through the underwater coral forest and up
against the current of Lambu Lambu stream* Soon they
were nosing in to what remained of a native wharf, while
[187]
"THE FIGHTIN'EST SHIP"
out from the Vella Lavella jungle, as from the grim
shadows of a Dore painting, emerged a long line of men
awaiting rescue.
One by one these men limped across the dilapidated
dock and clambered into the boats. Some had to be
helped in. Their clothes were in rags. For shoes they
wore rice sacks or strips of life belts. Some wore bits of
apparel supplied by the natives. But they were happy,
almost too happy to believe in the miracle of their rescue.
For Vella Lavella was deep inside Jap-controlled waters,
and surrounded by reefs and shoals as deadly as any in
the Solomons suicide waters for which no charts ex-
isted. For the Navy's readiness to risk a fleet of ships in
such an undertaking, and for the destroyer men who had
eagerly accepted the risk, the survivors of the Helena
were devoutly grateful
On the crumbling little dock, Jack Chew kept count
as the men climbed into the Higgins boats. "One hundred
one . . . one hundred two . ."
He looked up. Marine Major Kelly was handing a
rifle to one of a little group of natives standing by. Then
Kelly, too, stepped aboard, and Jack Chew concluded
the count. u One hundred and three."
He shook hands gravely with the native leaders,
thanked them for their help and kindness, and stepped
into the last of the rescue boats.
"That's all/ 5 he said. "That's the lot of us/'
A few hours later, after a dramatic return trip down
the Slot, the rescued men were put ashore at Tulagi,
where their shipmates, saved from Kula Gulf by the
Radford and the Nicholas, and from New Georgia by the
[188]
THE RESCUE
, had also been landed. Some cherished comrades
were missing Bandmaster Simpson, Lieutenant Swede
Hanson, young Tom Sims, Commander Buerkle these
and many others, and the Helena herself, would not
again answer the roll call. But the soul of a warship is
in the men who fight on her, and of the twelve hundred
men who had served aboard the fightingest ship in the
Navy through her thirteen engagements, more than a
thousand had been saved.
They would fight again. Many of them are fighting
again. The Helena the Happy Helena lives on.
[189]
Log of the UJS.S. Helena
September 18, 1939. Commissioned at New York Navy
Yard,
December 7, 1941. Damaged by Jap torpedo plane at
Pearl Harbor. Shot down 6 (possibly 7) enemy
planes,
September 15, 1942. Rescued survivors of the U.S.S.
Wasp.
October 11-12, 1942. Participated In the Battle of Cape
Esperance and was credited with sinking or help-
ing to sink 4 enemy ships.
November 4, 1942. Bombarded Jap forces on Guadal-
canal.
November 12, 1942. Repelled mass assault by Jap tor-
pedo planes, and shot down 4.
November 12-13, 1942. Participated in the Battle of
Guadalcanal and destroyed or helped to destroy 5
enemy ships. Led crippled San Francisco to safety.
January 4, 1943. Bombarded Munda. Repelled dive-
bombing attack by Jap planes.
January 23, 1943. Bombarded enemy installations in
Kula Gulf area. Repelled enemy torpedo plane at-
tack.
May 13, 1943. Bombarded Kolombangara, Enogai Inlet,
Bairoko Harbor. Repelled air attack.
[190]
LOG OF THE U.S.S. HELENA
July 5, 1943, Convoyed troops to Rice Anchorage. Bom-
barded enemy Installations in Kula Gulf and covered
landing operations.
July 6-7, 1943. Participated in Battle of Kula Gulf and
was sunk by enemy torpedoes after destroying or
helping to destroy 4 enemy ships.
July 8, 1943. Captain Charles P. Cecil and others rescued
from New Georgia.
July 1 6, 1943. Lieutenant Commander John L. Chew
and others rescued from Vella Lavella.
[191]
The Helena's Skippers
Captain Max B. DeMott, USN, Jamestown, Rhode
Island
Captain (later Rear Admiral) Robert EL English, USN,
Washington, D. C
Commander Gerald D. Linke, USN, Plainfield, New
Jersey (Acting Commanding Officer) .
Captain (now Rear Admiral) Oliver M. Read, USN,
Yemassee, South Carolina.
Captain Gilbert C. Hoover, USN, Bristol, Rhode Island.
Captain Charles P. Cecil, USN, Flat Rock, North Caro-
lina.
[192]
OUR NAVY, emc conservative, cans nci
"the man-o'-war that ever
scoured the seas/' The men who manned her
battle stations from t& Kula
Gulf had another tsaL
name for her. They called fiK;,"T&t Happy
Helena" and loved every battle-scarred inch
of her from the proud "50" on her bow to
the blistered war paint on her stern.
She fought in the Battle of Cape Esper-
ance. She led the crippled San Francisco to
safety through the blazing fury of the Battle
of Guadalcanal. As a valiant member of the
most famous task force in the South Pacific,
she took part in thirteen dramatic operations,
Legendary names Lunga Point, Kokum-
bona, Vila, Munda, Kolombangara, Enogai
Inlet and Bafroko Harbor appear lime
and again in the long and brilliant record"
of her achievements, and the Japanese propa-
gandists wailingly referred to her guns as
When she _went_d_gwn, __
in Kula Gulf, thirteen enemy ships had felt
the fury of her thunder and her name had
become a legend.
This is her story, the complete record of
the cruiser Helena and her men, told by her
radio officer ~~~~ ~~~ ....... ..... ' ..... ~~~
NEW
IRELAND
NEW
BRITAIN
tyUGAINVILLE.
KlETA
THE
SCLCAVONS
SANTA
/SASL
SALRMfiUfi
MOROBE
GUINEA:
RUSSELL ts
GUADALCANA
SAN CRISTOBAL
SCALE OF MILES
=>
1 34 205
