Survivors clinging to the three-by-seven-foot balsa oval were the skipper and Ensign Hyde, Watson, Canterbury; Ensign Bruce S. Bales; Allen B. Gregory, QM2c; Harry E. Barnett, RM2c; Henry S. Timmons, Y2c; Edgar L. Schmidt, TM3c; Evo A. Fucili, MoMM3c; and James P. Mitchell, SC3c.
The raft was not built for an 11-man load, so the sailors took turns riding in the slat-bottom craft and swimming alongside. Currents nagged them, and at dawn the raft was still less than a mile off the entrance to the bay, within easy reach of Japanese patrol boats.
During the morning the currents set the boat toward Manam Island, six miles away, and Ensign Cutter decided to make for the island, with the idea that he and his crew would hide in the woods. Maybe they would find food, water, shelter—who knows, just possibly a native canoe or sailboat.
All afternoon the sailors paddled for the island, but the devilish currents were not through with them. Every time they came close to the beach a current would sweep them out to sea again.
Floating on the same currents were two logs which the sailors tied to the raft. After dark the skipper, still hopeful of finding a boat on the island, set out with Ensign Bales to swim to the beach, using the logs as a crude substitute for water wings. For three hours the two young officers swam, only to bump gently against their own raft again. The currents had carried them in a giant circle, back to their starting point.
Hyde and Gregory, tired of inaction, set out for the beach. They were never seen again.
That night the sailors watched the flash of gunfire at Hansa Bay, where their squadron mates shot up the beach in revenge for their loss. No PTs came close enough for the shipwrecked sailors to hail.
By their very nature, PT sailors were men of action. Their solution to any problem was, “Don’t just sit there, do something.” The inactivity of waiting passively for rescue was too much for some of them.
Just before dawn Mitchell set out for the island, and just after dawn Ensign Bales, Fucili, Watson, and Schmidt followed. The others would have gone, too, but they were too weak.
Watson returned to the raft in the middle of the morning. He had swum to within 75 yards of the shore, he said, and he had seen Ensign Bales walking around on dry land, but he had also seen Japanese workmen building boats in a shipyard, so he came back to the raft. All hands abandoned the idea of going to the island. After the war, captured documents showed that the Japanese on Manam Island had captured one officer and two enlisted men of the sailors who had swum ashore, but these three luckless sailors were never heard of after this brief mention.