So far, so good. But how to get Ensign Thompson out of Wasile Bay if a Catalina couldn’t land there? After all, the fighters couldn’t cover the wounded pilot till the war was over. Somebody thought about the PT fleet, and so the carrier division commander called the PT tender Oyster Bay and asked if there was anything the PTs could do.
Certainly there was something the PTs could do; they could rescue the pilot.
Lieut. Arthur Murray Preston, commander of Squadron Thirty-Three, picked two all-volunteer crews, and they put to sea in Lieut. Wilfred Tatro’s 489 and Lieut. (jg) Hershel F. Boyd’s 363.
The boat arrived off the mouth of Wasile Bay in the middle of the afternoon. Lieut. Preston knew there was a minefield, backed up by a light shore battery, at the eastern side of the entrance. A powerful and hitherto unsuspected battery opened fire on the western shore, however, and Preston chose the lesser danger of the minefield and the lighter battery.
Shorefire from both beaches was so heavy that the PTs had to fall back. The fighter pilots spotted their difficulty and made strafing runs on the shore batteries. The Japanese guns still fired on the PTs, but at a slower rate, and Lieut. Preston decided to risk a run through the narrow straits.
“Strafing by the planes unquestionably reduced the rate of fire to make a safe passage through the straits possible,” said Lieut. Preston. “Safe” passage, indeed!
The inside was no improvement on the entrance, for the bay was small and ringed with guns, all of which could reach the PTs. The shooting was steadily improving also as Japanese gunners found the range.
Lieut. (jg) George O. Stouffer called from his torpedo bomber to ask Lieut. Preston if he would like to have a little smoke between the PTs and the shore gunners.
Would he like a little smoke? Just all there is. Stouffer flew between the PTs and the beach, laying a dense curtain of smoke to blind the gunners. He dropped one smoke pot squarely over a particularly dangerous gun battery, blanking off its view in all directions. The plane also dropped a smoke float to mark the location of the downed pilot’s raft.
During the approach of the two PTs to the armored lugger, they added their guns to those of the planes lashing the beach, but lookouts kept a nervous watch on the Japanese boat—nobody could be sure that the lugger was not manned by enemy sailors waiting to shoot up the rescue craft at the moment they were most occupied with the downed pilot. The closer the boats came to the lugger, the more the planes concentrated their fire on the nearby beach.