From inside Seeadler Harbor they gave the cavalry close fire support with machine guns and mortars. A keen-eyed sailor on 363 knocked a sniper out of a tree with a short burst, for instance, and the crew of the 323 demolished, with 50 calibers, a Japanese radio and observation platform in another tree.
The island of Manus fell quickly, and Major General I. P. Swift, commanding general of the First Cavalry Division, in a generous tribute to a sister service, said: “The bald statement, ‘The naval forces supported this action’ ... is indeed a masterpiece of understatement.... Without the Navy there would not have been any action.”
5.
Along the Turkey’s Back
From the time that American planes stopped the Japanese onrush at the Coral Sea and at Midway, it was a two-year job for the Allies to batter down the Japanese gate at Rabaul and at the Huon Gulf. Once the gate was down, it took MacArthur’s forces only four months to make the 1,200-mile trip down the turkey’s back to a perch on the turkey’s head, just across from the East Indies and the Philippines.
The swift trip was made possible, however, by a leap-frogging technique that left behind a monumental job for the PT navy. General MacArthur made almost all of his New Guinea landings where the Japanese weren’t, by-passing tens of thousands of tough jungle fighters and leaving the job of starving them out to the blockading navy. Except for the brief loan of ships from the battle-line for special missions, the blockading navy was the PT fleet.
The New Guinea PT force was beefed up for the blockade by many new boats and officers. MacArthur had been deeply impressed by the torpedo boats during his escape from Corregidor and used all his influence—which was considerable in those days—to impress every PT possible into his force.
The PTs in New Guinea lost almost all use for their torpedoes, except when they chanced to catch a blockade-running supply submarine on the surface. The boat skippers wanted more guns, more auto-cannon and machine guns for shooting up the Number One blockade-runner, the armored daihatsu—and they got them.
Early in November 1943, Squadron Twenty-One arrived at Morobe base armed with 40-mm. auto-cannon, a tremendously effective weapon for all-around mischief. It was the first New Guinea squadron armed with the newer and deadlier weapon.
More than the size of the new cannon, however, the size of the new officers astonished the veteran PT sailors. Commander Selman S. Bowling, who had replaced Commander Mumma as chief of PTs in the Southwest Pacific, had voluntarily ridden on the Tulagi boats before his new assignment, and he had decided then that PT officers should be tough and athletic. When he went to the States to organize new squadrons, he had recruited the biggest, toughest athletes he could find.
Among the newcomers were Ensign Ernest W. Pannell, All-American tackle from Texas A. and M. and professional football player for the Green Bay Packers; Ensign Alex Schibanoff of Franklin and Marshall College and the Detroit Lions; Ensign Steven L. Levanitis of Boston College and the Philadelphia Eagles; Ensign Bernard A. Crimmins, All-American from Notre Dame; Lieut. (jg) Paul B. Lillis, captain of the Notre Dame team; Ensign Louis E. Smith, University of California halfback; Ensign Kermit W. Montz, Franklin and Marshall; Ensign John M. Eastham, Jr., Texas A. and M.; Ensign Stuart A. Lewis, University of California; Ensign Cedric J. Janien, Harvard; and Ensign William P. Hall, Wabash.