One of the barges had been loaded with two 75-mm. cannon and 45 soldiers. The PT crews tried to pull prisoners from the water, but all but two deliberately drowned themselves.
One of the two captives said to Ensign Cappaert, “Me officer,” and eagerly volunteered the advice that more barges were coming into Nightingale Bay in a few minutes. The PT skippers didn’t know what kind of trap their prisoner might be baiting for them, but they stayed around anyhow. Three more barges came around the bend on schedule, however, and the PT’s riddled them from ambush as “Me Officer” looked on.
The only surviving Japanese from the last three barges was a courier with a consignment of secret documents. The first lesson drilled into American sailors was that all secret documents, code books, maps, and combat instruction, were to go to the bottom if capture was imminent. The Japanese courier clung to his package, at some risk to himself, for it would have been easier to swim without it. He willingly turned over the secret papers to the PT officers.
At headquarters in Aitape, officers questioned the prisoners in their own language, and to the astonishment of the Navy, the Japanese officer dictated a barge movement timetable that helped PTs knock off fifteen barges and a picket boat in the next five nights.
Commander Robert J. Bulkley, Jr., a PT veteran who later became the official naval historian of the PT fleet (not to be confused with John Bulkeley of the MacArthur rescue mission), said of the Japanese conduct as prisoners:
“Most of them preferred death to capture, but once taken prisoner they were usually docile and willing, almost eager, to give information. And while their information might be limited, it was generally reliable. They seldom attempted deception.
“The big job was to capture them, and PT crews became fairly adept at it. One method was to crack a man over the head with a boathook and haul him up on deck. Another technique, more certain, was to drop a cargo net over the bow. Two men climbed down on the net. Other members of the crew held them by lines around their waist so that their hands were free.
“They would blackjack the floating Japanese and put a line on him so that he could be hauled aboard. Those were rough methods, but the gentle ones didn’t work. The Japanese almost never took a line willingly, and as long as they were conscious would fight to free themselves from a boathook.”
As a nice contrast to this careless betrayal of secret information by the Japanese, consider an American PT officer’s reaction to the loss of a secret code book.
On the night of April 2nd, the 114 went aground 400 yards off Yarin, on Kairiru Island. The crew jettisoned torpedoes and depth charges and the boat was pulled off the rock by The Southern Cross (144). The propellers were so badly damaged, however, that the 114 was abandoned. Confidential publications, including a code book, were put into a raft, but the crew carelessly let it drift to the Japanese-held beach.