Gathering Reunites Shipmates
Fifty-five years ago today, my ship, the USS Pecos, was involved in the rescue of survivors from the USS Langley, which had been scuttled in the Indian Ocean.
The Langley had departed Fremantle, Australia, on Feb. 22 and was en route to Tjilatjap, Java, with her destroyer escorts, the Whipple and the Edsall, to deliver 32 P-40s, 33 pilots and 12 crew chiefs.
On Feb. 27 she was attacked by nine twin-engine Japanese land bombers. After a 2-1/2-hour battle, she had to be abandoned.
The Langley’s escorts had rescued 434 survivors and transferred them on the morning of March 1 to the Pecos, an oil tanker, in the open seas of the Indian Ocean.
But at 11:45 a.m. the Pecos was attacked by four squadrons of Japanese dive bombers.
I was in the mess hall having the noon meal when the first bomb hit. A member of the engineering crew sitting across from me grabbed my life jacket and wouldn’t let go, so I had to run without it to my battle station, the No. 2 starboard broadside gun on the forecastle deck.
When the planes dove out of the clouds toward the bow we hit the deck. But after they had passed and were circling out for another run we would jump up and fire our 5-inch gun at them.
About two hours into the four-hour running battle, we sustained our third direct hit, an armor-piercing bomb that penetrated the deck and exploded two decks below. The splinters from the wood and steel decking wounded several men including me, for which I received the Purple Heart.
After sustaining five direct hits and six near misses in all, we were ordered to abandon ship.
Some crew members had rigged a raft from a mess table lashed to two of the ship’s fenders and were floating by about 20 yards off the port bow. They yelled at me and I jumped in and swam to them.
The Whipple returned at 7:30 p.m. and started picking up survivors. At 9 p.m. another sailor and I were the only two from our raft to swim about 50 yards to the Whipple. Too weak to make the climb, we had to be lifted aboard by knotted lines hanging from the ship’s railings.
On Aug. 20-24, I’ll be in Washington, D.C., for a reunion of American servicemen from the Asiatic Fleet. After 55 years, it will be nice to look up old shipmates and share memories.
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