Poitevent boldly sailed close to the target—an E-boat—and made friendly looking signals on a blinker light. He eased off in a direction away from the convoy, luring the patrol into harmless waters. It took him fifteen minutes to tease the E-boat off the scene and return to his duties.
The E-boat would not stay away, however, and in its aimless wanderings it blundered across the path of a PT with a deckload of British commandos destined for a preinvasion landing. The commandos slipped over the side, three-quarters of a mile farther out than they had planned, and silently paddled their rubber boats successfully to the beach, around the lackadaisical enemy patrol.
Another PT saw the E-boat also, and thinking it was a friendly, tried to form up in column. Lieut. (jg) Harold J. Nugent, on 210, who was following the bumbling drama on radar, broke radio silence just long enough to cheep the smallest of warnings to his squadron mate. The E-boat crew incredibly fumbled about those waters, teeming with Allied boats, for most of the night and never lost their happy belief that they were alone with the stars and the sea.
PT radarscopes now showed a more interesting target. Coming right up the patrol line was something big, in fact, a formation of big ships, so PT skippers prepared for a torpedo attack. They held back, however, for full identification of the targets, because the ships could just possibly be the invasion flotilla, slightly off course.
At 400 yards, Nugent challenged the approaching formation by blinker. The nearest vessel answered correctly, and a few seconds later repeated the correct code phrase for the period.
Lieut. Nugent continues:
“Being convinced that the ships were part of the invasion convoy which had probably become lost, I called to my executive officer, Lieut. (jg) Joel W. Bloom, to be ready to look up the ships’ correct position in our copy of the invasion plan. I brought the 210 up to the starboard side of the nearest ship, took off my helmet, put the megaphone to my mouth and called over ‘What ship are you?’
“I shall never forget the answer.
“First there was a string of guttural words, followed by a broadside from the ship’s two 88-mm. guns and five or six 20-mm. guns. The first blast carried the megaphone away and tore the right side off a pair of binoculars that I was wearing around my neck. It also tore through the bridge of the boat, jamming the helm, knocking out the bridge engine controls, and scoring a direct hit on the three engine emergency cutout switches which stopped the engines.
“I immediately gave the order to open fire, and though we were dead in the water and had no way of controlling the boat, she was in such a position as to deliver a full broadside.
“After a few minutes of heavy fire, we had reduced the firepower of the closest ship to one wildly wavering 20-mm. and one 88-mm. cannon which continued to fire over our heads throughout the engagement.
“It was easy to identify the ships, as the scene was well lighted with tracers. They were three ships traveling in a close V, an E-boat in the center with an F-lighter on either flank.
“We were engaging the F-lighter on the starboard flank of the formation. As the ships started to move toward our stern the injured F-lighter screened us from the fire of the other two ships, so I gave the order to cease fire.
“In the ensuing silence we clearly heard screams and cries from the F-lighter.
“Two members of our engine-room crew, who were topside as gun loaders during battle, were sent to the engine room to take over the chief engineer’s duties, for I was sure he was dead or wounded. However, he had been working on the engines throughout the battle and had already found the trouble. We immediately got under way.
“We found out, however, that our rudder was jammed in a dead-ahead position, but by great good fortune we were headed directly away from the enemy, so I dropped a couple of smoke pots over the side and we moved off. The enemy shifted its fire to the smoke pots, and we lay to and started repairs.
“Much to our surprise, we found that none of us had even been wounded, but the boat had absorbed a great deal of punishment. A burst of 20 mm. had zipped through the charthouse, torn the chart table to bits, knocked out the lighting system, and de-tuned and scarred the radio and radar. Another burst had gone through the engine room, damaged control panels, torn the hull. All hits, however, were above the waterline. Turrets, turret lockers, ventilators, and the deck were holed.
“We called the 209 alongside, and sent off a radio report to the flagship on the action and the direction in which the ships retired.”
Lieut. Nugent learned from the skipper of the 209 that his boat had been hit only twice, but one of the shells had scored a direct hit on a 40-mm. gun loader and killed him instantly.
The tall, black warriors from French Senegal swept over the island in two days of brisk fighting and Elba was Allied. The sea roads to the south were blocked, and PT action shifted to the north, to the Ligurian Sea, the Gulf of Genoa, and the lovely blue waters off the Côte d’Azur.