Army bombers attacked the Japanese bombardment flotilla all night long (and attacked the patrolling PTs, too, seriously damaging 77 with a near miss and wounding every member of the crew—which was more than the kamikazes had been able to do in days of ferocious attack).
Admiral Kimura bombarded the beach for about thirty minutes. It was a most desultory job, did almost no damage, and caused not a single casualty. He fired three poorly aimed salvos at the PTs and left.
Halfway up the western coast of Mindoro, Admiral Kimura ran into Lieut. Swart’s two PTs, hustling back to get into the scrap. Just after midnight the two boat skippers and the Japanese discovered each other simultaneously. The Japanese illuminated 220 with a searchlight and fired dangerously accurate salvos—the first good shooting that force had done that night.
Lieut. (jg) Harry Griffin, Jr., closed his 223 to 4,000 yards and fired both his starboard fish. Three minutes later a long lance of flame shot up from the ship’s side and she went under the waves.
The next afternoon PTs picked up five Japanese sailors from the water. They were survivors of the brand new destroyer Kiyoshimo, victim of Lieut. Griffin’s steady eye.
The worst ordeal of the Mindoro landings was prepared on December 27th, when a resupply convoy shaped up near Dulag on Leyte Island. The convoy led off with 25 LSTs in five columns of five ships; next came three Liberty ships, one Navy tanker, six Army tankers, two aviation gasoline tankers and the PT tender Orestes in five columns at the center of the convoy; last came 23 LCIs in five columns. Nine destroyers formed an outer screen; 29 PTs formed an inner screen on each flank.
Aboard the Orestes was Captain G. F. Mentz, commander of the Diversionary Attack Group of LCIs and PTs which was being moved to Mindoro for mounting amphibious landings behind the Japanese lines.
A Japanese night snooper spotted the convoy about 4 A.M. on December 28th, and at the same time the convoy commander learned that the weather was so bad over Leyte airfields that he could expect no air cover until noon the next day. Unfortunately the weather was fine over the convoy—perfect weather for the kamikazes to draw a bead on the slow ships of the supply train.
In midmorning three planes attacked. The first tried to crash-dive the LCIs and was shot down by LCI 1076. Another overshot the aviation gasoline tanker Porcupine, and splashed.
The third kamikaze made perhaps the most spectacular suicide crash of the war. It hit the John Burke, a merchant ship loaded with ammunition, and pilot, plane, ship, cargo, and crew disappeared in a blinding flash. A small Army freighter went down with the John Burke. The LCI flagship, LCI 624, ran to the rescue, but only two heads bobbed in the water, both survivors of the Army ship, and one of those died almost immediately. All sixty-eight merchant sailors had been vaporized in the explosion.