Griffin W.E.B. - The Corps 09 - Under Fire

You just can't sail large unarmored vessels slowly past artillery, and that's exactly what was going to happen un-less Baker Company could (a) seize the islands, and (b) hold them against counterattack long enough for the Navy to get some cruisers and destroyers down the channel past them.

And the more often Baker Company rehearsed its role, the more Dunwood was sure that Division G-3 had come up with a pretty good plan to do what had to be done, and that the plan-now changed by what they'd learned in re-hearsal-was now as good as it was going to get.

What was going to happen now was that during the hours of darkness-probably meaning as soon as it really got dark-LST-450 would end its circling and move to a position just off the lighthouse marking the entrance to the Flying Fish Channel.

There, it would rendezvous with five Higgins boats put into the water from the USS Pickaway (APA-222).

Starting at 0330 the next morning-14 September-af-ter they had had their breakfast, Company B would begin to transfer from LST-450 to the Higgins boats. There would be twenty men and one officer on three of the boats, and twenty men under the first sergeant on the fourth, and twenty men under a gunnery sergeant on the fifth.

The naval gunfire directed at the channel islands would begin at 0400 and end at 0430. As soon as it lifted, the Hig-gins boats would enter the Flying Fish Channel, move down it, and occupy, first, Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do Islands, and then, depending on the situation, other islands in the immediate vicinity.

They would then establish positions from which they could defend the islands from enemy counterattack. That was the plan.

What Captain Dunwood privately believed would hap-pen was that when the Higgins boats appeared off Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do, North Korean troops would come up from the underground positions in which they had been-successfully-shielding themselves from the naval gunfire, unlimber their machine guns, and fire upon the Higgins boats approaching their shores.

Captain Dunwood's experience had been that light ma-chine guns (the Japanese rough equivalent of the U.S..30 caliber) would sometimes penetrate the sides of a Higgins boat and that heavy machine guns (the Japanese rough equivalent of the U.S..50 caliber) almost always would do so.

With the result that if the projectiles did not immediately encounter a body inside the boat, they would often ricochet around the interior until they did.

To take his mind off that unpleasant probability for himself and his men, Captain Dunwood called to mind again the face of that candy-ass "Marine" captain who'd dislocated his finger, and was at that very moment proba-bly having a predinner cocktail with his wife, the gen-eral's daughter, in the O Club at Sasebo. The sonofabitch had probably heard there were some real Marines on the base and been smart enough to make himself scarce while they were there.

Lieutenant John X. McNear, USNR, waved Dunwood onto the bridge.

"My orders are pretty open," McNear volunteered. " `The hours of darkness' is a pretty vague term. I was thinking I'd wait until about 2100 and then start edging over."

"I was wondering," Dunwood said, as he helped himself to coffee.

"I'm supposed to check in with ComNavForce-the Mount McKinley-when I leave here. I expect that I'd hear from them soon enough if they thought I should have left earlier."

"I'm sure you would," Dunwood replied.

"Bridge, Radio," the intercom metallically announced.

McNear pressed the lever beside his chair.

"Go, Sparks," he said.

"Skipper, I'm getting an Urgent from ComNavForce."

"Well, then, when you have it typed up and logged in, why don't you bring it to the bridge?" McNear said, and turned to Dunwood. "See, I told you."

Two minutes later, the radio operator, a nineteen-year-old in blue dungarees, came onto the bridge and handed McNear a sheet of typewriter paper.

McNear read it and handed it to Dunwood.

SECRET

URGENT

1530 13 SEP 1950

FROM COMNAVFORCE

TO LST-450

REFERENCE OPS ORDER 12-222

PARA III B 6. IS CHANGED TO READ AS FOLLOWS:

LST-450 WILL DROP ANCHOR AT POSITION 23-23 NLT 0400 15 SEPTEMBER 1950 AND RENDEZVOUS WITH

LANDING CRAFT FROM USS PICKAWAY.

REMAINER OF ORIGINAL PARA III B 6 IS DELETED AS IS ALL OF PARA III B-7.

FURTHER AMENDMENTS TO FOLLOW.

END

SECRET

"What's it mean?" Captain Dunwood asked. "You saw where it said the fifteenth?" McNear asked. Dunwood nodded.

"It used to read the fourteenth, tomorrow morning," Mc-Near said. "For reasons ComNavFor has not chosen to share with me, it means he has changed his mind. Or MacArthur himself has. Specifically, it means we don't have to go to the mouth of the Flying Fish Channel until the day after tomorrow, and when we get there, you don't have to get in the Higgins boats-that we just sit there un-til they make up their minds what to do with us," the cap-tain said.

[THREE]

ABOARD LST-450

37 DEGREES 36 MINUTES NORTH LATITUDE,

126 DEGREES 53 MINUTES EAST LONGITUDE

THE YELLOW SEA

0320 15 SEPTEMBER 1950

As oceangoing vessels go, LSTs are not very large, and LST-450 was moving at steerage speed, so ordinarily she would not be thought to be posing much of a threat to other vessels operating in the vicinity of the mouth of the Flying Fish Channel.

However, to the coxswain of one of the five Higgins boats bobbing in the water, the bulk of the LST approach-ing them, even barely moving, was a bit disturbing.

"Fuck him," the twenty-one-year-old coxswain of the nearest boat said to no one in particular, and then took ac-tion that he considered to be necessary and of paramount importance to the safety of his vessel and crew.

He took a powerful searchlight from its compartment, turned it on, and shined it directly at the bridge of LST-450.

"We're dead ahead of you, you dumb fuck!" the coxswain said. "See us now?"

On the bridge of LST-450, the sudden very bright light coming out of the blackness literally blinded the master, the helmsman, and Captain Howard Dunwood, USMCR.

"Full astern!" Captain McNear ordered. "Keep your eyes closed until that fucking light goes out! Where the fuck were the lookouts?"

"What the hell was that?" Captain Dunwood asked, his eyes tightly closed. He now saw an almost painful red ball, which took a long time to fade, even after the white light went out.

"I think we were just about to run over the Higgins boats," McNear said.

In the next few minutes, it became apparent to Captain Mc-Near that he had two choices regarding maintaining his po-sition-three, if dropping anchor was included, something he did not want to do under any circumstances. One was to put his ship into reverse and try to hold it against the heavy tide now moving northward into the Flying Fish Channel. Backing any vessel is difficult, and backing an LST is very difficult. He elected his other option.

He went to his flying bridge and picked up the bullhorn.

"Ahoy, the Higgins boats, I am about to turn 180, into the current."

There was no reply.

"Anybody out there?" Captain McNear called over the bullhorn.

"We heard you, Captain," a voice unaided by a bullhorn replied, faintly, but audibly.

"Bring her around 180 to port," McNear ordered, as he went back on the bridge, and himself took over the controls to quickly turn his ship around.

"Hey, look at that!" Captain Dunwood called in surprise.

"Not now, for Christ's sake, Howard!" McNear said, an-grily, disgustedly.

Captain Dunwood, more than a little embarrassed, fell silent, and then after a moment left the bridge and stood on the flying bridge.

And then, Captain McNear, as the bow of his ship fin-ished its turn, said exactly the same thing Captain Dunwood had said.