BLACK CATS AND PT BOATS (PT. 2)
A month later, Lieut. Clyde W. Curley, also of VP-12, took off at midnight to help some PT boats work on the Tokyo Express. His job was chiefly to point out the route. Fifteen miles off of Cape Esperance he saw three destroyers, and simultaneously, a light cruiser. For an hour Curley trailed the cruiser, giving continual reports to the four PT's that were detailed to attack it. Once he came down to 350 feet and again to 500, dropping smoke lights ahead of the cruiser to direct the PT's. They joined the battle, and the Cat saw tracers from both the PT's and the cruiser. After working in close enough to deliver their Sunday punch the PT's withdrew, without being able to check the damage. Twice during the melee the Cat narrowly escaped destruction, once getting caught squarely in the ship's searchlights, making a perfect target. One of the most interesting parts of this mission occurred when Curley was returning to his base, which was then Henderson Field, Guadalcanal. Another plane seemed to be following him in, he reported to the field. The plane's lights were directly on him. He decided that if the condition existed when he sighted the field, he would open fire. While he circled for a landing, however, the plane shot by without any hostile action. It turned out to be a Navy plane whose pilot said that he had not even seen the Cat, thereby proving the effectiveness of the black paint, the sealed-in navigating compartment, and the like. His statement also made clear why Black Cats prowl on their own.
The pilots of VP-54 keep equally busy. The night of July 2 Lieutenant Commander Schoonweis and Lieutenant Erhard rescued eight Dauntless pilots and one Corsair pilot at Rennell Island after the strike of June 30. On the same night Lieutenant Anderson, feeling in an indestructible humor, took on a heavy cruiser, two light cruisers and four destroyers. He dropped some big ones on the heavy cruiser and some more on one of the destroyers. After his bombload was expended, he tracked the Japs until daylight.
Again, on July 19, Lieutenant Johnson made a night contact with an enemy task force of a heavy cruiser, two light cruisers, five destroyers, and three transports ten miles off of Fauro Island. He tracked them into Vella Gulf and made a glide bombing run on the three transports, which were in close column formation. All of his bombs were dropped in a stick. Result: all ships hit and two left smoking. Intense antiaircraft fire was encountered which resulted in severe damage to the Cat. Avengers then went out and scored repeatedly.
A Black Cat can be hit. Lieut. (j.g.) Samuel Lefcourt Lanier, of VP-81, discovered this fact during a joint air and surface attack on Jap shipping near Oema Atoll, the night of February 16. Lieutenant Lanier had a great many hours under his belt at the time, as befitted a patrol plane commander.
The crew consisted of 10 -- three pilots, a navigator, a radioman, and an ordnance-man. The action did not start immediately. The Cat first joined the PT boats at Choiseul Bay around 10 o'clock and dropped flares for them at Emerald entrance. The boats asked the Cat to search along the southeast coast of Bouganville and to meet them again at Oema Atoll in an hour's time. Since the search yielded nothing, the Cat rejoined the PT's, picking up an indication which was thought to be Oema reef. As it homed on this indication a wake was observed. Eyes accustomed to the dark strained to see more. It wasn't any reef; it was a ship of about 1,200 tons surrounded by a cluster of 80 foot craft, and all heading south. The central craft was a gunboat of a new type, later reported by the PT's to be carrying 7.7, 20-, and 37mm guns.
As soon as this group was sighted, both the PT's and the base were informed of the contact and the Black Cat went to work on its own. The first run was easy. The Jap will invariably hold his fire until he is positive he has been discovered. Jap ships, incidently, are always very careful about shooting down their own night fighters. On the first low strafing attack the big gunboat was clearly visible -- about 50 feet wide with one stack located amidships. After the second run, the Cat held off a few minutes until the PT's came up.
The PT's and the Black Cat complement each other perfectly. As soon as the torpedo boats arrived, they informed the Cat that one of the smaller Jap boats was already smoking, plainly in trouble. A co-ordinated attack was then planned. Flares went down from the plane, lighting up the target for the torpedo boats. Then the plane and the PT's closed in together. The three torpedo boats closed to 200 yards, firing every available gun at two of the barges. At the same time the Cat strafed from one end of the Jap group to the other. Shortly after this the PT boats reported that two more barges were smoking.
The Cat then requested the PT's to hold off while it tried a bombing attack. In hot spots like this the Catalina usually climbs upstairs and dives across, pulling out at moderate altitude over the target. On this particular attack Lanier wanted to make sure, so he went down much, much lower before releasing two bombs and six frags. These were reported by the PT's as effective near-misses. Encouraged, the PBY tried a fourth pass, strafing and tossing out more fragmentation bombs.
This time the Cat was hit. The oil pressure on the port engine dropped to zero and all the instruments on the left side of the pilot's cockpit quit functioning. The PT's likewise were in distress, two with an engine out apiece, and all three with holes in the hull. Lanier's plane was having real trouble staying up on one engine. It had been hit at 900 feet and immediately he had to put full power on the good engine. A PBY usually cruises at 115 m.p.h. and cannot maintain altitude at less than 98 m.p.h. with a heavy load. Lanier was doing only 95 and losing altitude rapidly. He dropped the two remaining bombs and then the waist and tunnel guns and the rest of the fragmentation bombs and flares. But it wasn't enough. So he took a chance and dumped 450 gallons of gasoline. Everything that could lighten that plane had to go -- even a cup of coffee cream.
Finally, while struggling along at 800 feet, the base at Treasury Island was raised. Searchlights shot up and Lanier brought his plane down at night on a runway where he had never landed before. When the damage was determined, several holes from explosive shrapnel were found, the oil tank was split, the tab control panel was shot away and the main spar in one wing was hit. Yet not one man in the plane received a bruise. There is no way to tell accurately what happened to the barges, but it was reasonably certain that they were put out of commission.
As these accounts indicate, the bulk of Black Cat work against enemy barges is carried out in close co-operation with the little PT boats. Co-ordination between air and surface craft, even in a broad daylight attack, requires the utmost in staff work and co-operation of the personnel involved. To do this at night is doubly difficult. Plane crews and PT boat crews become well acquainted with the other by radio, yet they seldom, if ever, actually see each other.
An effort to remedy this situation slightly was made by some of the officers of VP-81. They invited Lieut. (j.g.) Tom Leydon, the intelligence officer for the PT boat group to come up for a visit. The visit was to include "a ride about the circuit in a Black Cat." Lieut. W.K. Love, the squadron intelligence officer, was officially the host. They had dinner at the mess hall.
The mission that night turned out to be pretty much of a three-ringed circus. The PT intelligence officer climbed into the plane piloted by Lieut. C.N. Vogt. Just as the night flyers made contact with the PT boat support they picked up three large Jap barges heading toward Oema Island. The Cats made a pass over the barges, dropping flares. Then, at the request of the PT boat, Lieutenant Vogt dropped his four bombs. He was unable to observe the results, but the PT boats reported direct hits on one barge. Immediately the Cat turned and made a strafing run on the wounded barge. Enemy searchlights caught the plane but the antiaircraft fire was ineffective. The only trouble from the barges was the blinding glare of the Jap tracers. In the meantime, shore batteries from Oema had opened fire, and at the same time a bogey (Navy code for unidentified plane) was picked up.
The PT boats suggested that the plane proceed to Tauro Bay and operate in that area for the rest of the night. They would follow along, they added. By the time the PT's closed to within 100 yards, the Japs sent one barge on the beach and the other high-tailing seaward. Later on that night Vogt's plane encountered an additional five barges heading toward Ratan Island, which he strafed with good results.
Long before dawn the surface boat officer got another chance to see from the air the close tie-up between the Cats and the PT's. Jap barges headed for the river that drains Lake Lohalla were spotted, and the Black Cat dropped flares which showed them clearly. The PT's came up and opened fire, while Vogt's gunners strafed.
Later, with his ammununition expended, Vogt dropped his last seven flares along the shore line so that the PT boats could continue, then he returned to base. It was three o'clock in the morning when Lieutenant Leydon landed.
"Wonderful," he said. "Now I understand why you birds can't judge your own bombing results but can still direct our fire. Damned fine work, I call it."
"Those PT gun crews aren't so dusty, either," said Vogt.
"I guess we all are just about perfect," admitted Leydon modestly.
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