Call to Arms

Chapter Twenty-one

(One)

Butaritari Island, Makin Atoll

0700 Hours, 17 August 1942

At a quarter to six, a runner from Lieutenant Plumley's Able Company had reported to Colonel Carlson that his point (that is, the leading elements of Plumley's troops) was at Government Wharf and that he had captured Government House without resistance. Carlson sent the runner back with orders for Plumley to move down the island in the direction of the other installations, that is to say, southeast, or to the left.

Carlson had expected the bulk of Japanese forces to be in the vicinity of Government House, and had made his plans accordingly. Now it seemed clear to him that the Japanese were in fact centered around On Chong's Wharf, about two miles away. If he had known that, he could have ordered Plumley to move quickly down the island, so that he could get as far as possible before he encountered resistance.

But once the presence of the Raiders on Butaritari became known to the Japanese-and the goddamned fool who had fired his Garand had taken care of that-the situation would change rapidly. If he were the Japanese commander, Carlson reasoned, he would move up Butaritari's one road as fast as he could, until he ran into the enemy.

Carlson's prediction was quickly confirmed. Another runner appeared, saluted, and, still heaving from the exertion of his run, announced, "We got Japs, Colonel."

Carlson extended his map.

"Show me where, son," he said, calmly.

When the runner pointed to the Native Hospital, Carlson nodded. His professional judgment was that the Japanese commander had established his line at the best possible place; the island was only about eleven hundred feet wide at that point.

He turned to his radio operator and told him to try to raise either of the submarines. So far Carlson's radio communication with the submarines had been just about a complete failure, but his time, he was lucky.

"I got the Argonaut, sir," the radio operator reported.

Carlson snatched the microphone and requested Naval gunfire on both the island (to shell Japanese reinforcement routes) and the lagoon, where two small ships were at anchor.

"We do not, repeat not," the Argonaut replied, "have contact with our spotter."

"Then fire without him," Carlson snapped, and tossed the microphone to the radio operator.

There came almost immediately the boom of the cannon firing, and then the whistle of the projectile in the air. Then there was the sound of a shell landing on the island, and almost simultaneously an enormous plume of water in the lagoon.

"Get them again, if you can," Carlson ordered the radio operator. "Tell them to keep it up."

Without thinking about it, without realizing he was doing it, Carlson counted the rounds fired by the cannon on the submarines, just as a competitive pistol shooter teaches you to habitually count shots. When the booming stopped, he was up to sixty-five, and both of the ships in the lagoon were in flames.

And then the Nautilus called him, and before the voice faded, Carlson heard that the Japanese-language linguist aboard the Nautilus had heard the Japanese send a message in the clear reporting the Raider attack and asking for reinforcements. Carlson asked if there had been a reply, but the radio was out again.

That made Carlson think of McCoy, and to wonder if it would not have been smarter to leave him aboard the Nautilus or not even bring him along at all. Japanese-speaking Americans were in short supply.

A moment later, McCoy showed up in person.

"I thought you would want to know what we're facing, sir," he said, and pointed out on Carlson's map the locations of four Japanese water-cooled machine guns, two grenade launchers, and a flame thrower.

"They got riflemen, a bunch of them, filling in the blanks in the line," McCoy said, pointing, "and snipers in the tops of most of the coconut trees along here."

"You didn't want to send a runner?"

"I didn't have one handy that I trusted with a map, sir," McCoy said.

"Well, then, Lieutenant, you can just keep running. Go find the Baker Company commander and tell him I said to get moving, down the island."

"Aye, aye, sir," McCoy said, and ran off.

In the next four hours, a procession of runners reported that Baker Company was making slow but steady progress down the island.

At 1130, two Japanese Navy Type 95 reconnaissance planes appeared over the island, flew back and forth for fifteen minutes, dropped two bombs, and then flew away. Carlson knew that meant the Argonaut and the Nautilus, essentially defenseless against aircraft, had dived, and there was no longer any reason even to try to raise them on the radio.

The Nautilus surfaced again at 1255, but immediately dived again after their radar detected a flight of twelve aircraft approaching the island. The submarines would remain submerged until 1830 hours.

At 1330, the Japanese aircraft arrived over Butaritari Island. It was quite an armada: two four-engined Kawanishi flying boats (bombers); four Zero fighters; four Type 94 reconnaissance bombers; and two Type 95 seaplanes. They promptly began to bomb and strafe the Raiders, and they kept it up for an hour and a half, but without doing much real damage.

Then, apparently convinced they had wiped out whatever antiaircraft capability the Raiders might have had, one of the four-engined Kawanishis and one of the Type 95s landed in the lagoon. They were promptly engaged by.30-caliber Raider machine-gun fire. The Type 95 caught fire. And the Kawanishi hurriedly taxied out of.30-caliber range and began to discharge its passengers-thirty-five Japanese soldiers intended to reinforce the Butaritari garrison-apparently oblivious to the fact that a slow but steady fire from a Boys.55-caliber antitank rifle was being delivered.

When the Kawanishi made its takeoff, it almost immediately entered into a series of violent circling maneuvers. The last of these sent it, with an enormous splash, into the lagoon.

The Japanese aircraft that remained over Butaritari then left, but more Zeros returned at 1630 and bombed and strafed the island for another thirty minutes. From the way they were flying and choosing to drop their bombs, it was evident to Carlson that there was little if any communication between the Japanese defenders of Butaritari and the aircraft that came to their assistance: The Zeros were attacking a portion of the island he had ordered the Raiders out of (to better counter Japanese sniper fire). And the Japanese had promptly moved into this position. The Zeros were consequently attacking Japanese positions and troops.

By 1700, Carlson understood that he had an important decision to make. He had two options. His mission was to destroy enemy forces and vital installations, and to capture prisoners and documents. So far, the Raiders had killed a number of Japanese, but there were no prisoners, no documents, and no serious damage to installations.

Choice One was to continue his advance.

But the operations plan called for the Raiders to evacuate Butaritari at some time between 1930 and 2100. And it also called for attacking Little Makin Island the next morning.

Choice Two was to hold his present position and make a very orderly withdrawal by stages to the beaches, the boats, and ultimately the submarines. If he did that, he would be in a position to attack Little Makin on schedule. After some thought, he decided that made the most sense.

By 1900, Carlson had established (under his own command; he felt it his duty to be the last Marine off the beach) a covering force for the disengagement, and the bulk of the Raiders were on the beach, loading the rubber boats for the return to the submarines, which had surfaced at 1845, and were now prepared to cover the withdrawal with Naval gunfire in addition to taking the Raiders aboard.

But now he was facing another enemy, the sea. The surf, which had posed no serious problems as they landed, now wouldn't let them off the island. This came as a surprise; for the waves were not especially large. And until he actually got in them, he didn't see what the problem was. They were moving very fast, and succeeding waves piled in very quickly. The trouble was that the waves were crowded too close together for the boats to operate.

Raiders walked their boats into the surf, and they generally managed to get past the first four waves without trouble. But then the agony started. Only a few of the outboard engines could be made to start, and those that they did get running were quickly drowned as waves crashed over the bows of the rubber boats and soaked coils and points.

After that, the Raiders tried paddling.

But paddling rhythmically and furiously for all they were worth, the Raiders could not make it past the rollers coming into the beach; they would make it over one roller only to be hit and thrown back by the next before they could gain momentum.

Boats filled to the gunwales. The Raiders bailed furiously. Then they loosened the outboard motors and dropped them over the side. And then they got out and pulled the boats by their own efforts, by swimming.

Surf turned boats over, which sent the Raiders' weapons, ammunition, and equipment to the bottom. But even empty, it was impossible to get the boats past the wave line.

After an hour, Carlson ordered back to the beach everybody that had not made it through the close-packed waves. When he got there, he found that less than half of the boats had made it through the surf. Thus more than half of the Raiders were still on the beach, and they were exhausted. Most of them had lost their weapons and equipment and rations. And there were a few wounded men, including four stretcher cases. These then were in pain, and obviously in no condition to keep trying to get off the beach.

So Carlson ordered all the boats pulled well up on the shore. He collected what weapons there were, set up a perimeter defense, and did what he could for the wounded. Then he formed teams to keep trying (it was possible that the surf was a freak condition, which would pass) to get through the surf, one boat at a time.

Carlson conducted a nose count. There were 120 Raiders still on the beach. And then, as if to suggest that God was displeased, it began to rain.

As soon as daylight made it possible, the Raiders tried Carlson's idea of forcing their boats through the surf one at a time. When one boat made it, another tried, and when it made it, then another tried. The wounded, Carlson knew, could not be extracted this way, and he would not leave them. He therefore ordered Captain Roosevelt into one of the boats so he could assume command of the Marines on the submarines. When he was sure Roosevelt had made it, he ran another nose count. Now there were seventy then on the beach.

At 0740, five Raiders aboard the Nautilus volunteered to take a boat with a working motor as close to shore as it could manage. Then one of the Raiders swam ashore from it with a message from Commander Haines that the subs would lay off the island as long as necessary to get the Raiders off the beach.

Then Japanese Zeros appeared. And the subs made emergency dives. The Japanese strafed the beach, and then turned their attention to the rubber boat with its volunteer crew. Nothing more was ever seen of it-or of them.

When Roosevelt, whose rubber boat had been the fourth and last to make its way through the rollers, started counting noses aboard the Nautilus, he came across Lieutenant Peatross and the remaining eight of the then who had been with him in his rubber boat during the initial landing.

He was convinced that Peatross and his then had been swamped. But they hadn't. The current had taken them a mile farther down the beach than any of the others, where they had made it safely ashore. When they heard the firing, they had literally marched toward the sound of gunfire. And then he and his then had spent the day harassing the Japanese rear. They had burned down his buildings, blown up a radio station, and burned a truck.

And in compliance with orders, still not having made their way through Japanese lines to the others, they had at 1930 gotten back in their rubber boat and made it through the surf to the waiting submarine.

During the afternoon of August 18, Carlson moved what was left of his forces to Government House on the lagoon side of the island. There they found a sloop. And for a short while

(until it was determined that the sloop was unseaworthy), there was a spurt of hope that they could use it to get off the island.

Meanwhile, a radio was made to work long enough to establish a brief tie with the Nautilus. Evacuation would be attempted from the lagoon side of the island at nightfall.

Carlson sent then to manhandle the boats from the seaside beaches across the narrow island to the lagoon. Then he led a patrol toward the Japanese positions. He stripped the deserted office of the Japanese commander of what he had left behind (including his lieutenant general's flag, which the Raiders forwarded to Marine Commandant Holcomb). And then they burned and blew up one thousand barrels of Japanese aviation gasoline.

The fire was still burning at 2308 hours, when Colonel Carlson, believing himself to be the last man off the beach, went aboard the Nautilus.

There was no question of attacking Little Makin Island. For one thing, they would be expected. And the then not only had no weapons, they were exhausted.

The Raid on Makin Island was over. The Nautilus and the Argonaut got underway for Pearl Harbor.

(Two)

Pearl Harbor Navy Base, Territory of Hawaii

26 August 1942

It is a tradition within the submarine service for the crew to stand to on deck as the boat eases up to its wharf on return from a patrol. In keeping with this tradition, then were standing on the deck of the Nautilus. In fact, the deck was crowded; for in addition to the crew, the Marine Raiders who'd been "passengers" on the boat were on the deck, too.

The Raiders would have failed an inspection at Parris Island (or anywhere else in the Marine Corps). And they would have brought tears to the eyes of the gunnery sergeant of a Marine detachment aboard a battleship, a cruiser, or an aircraft carrier.

They were not at attention, for one thing. For another, no two of them seemed to be wearing the same uniform. Some were in dungarees, some in dyed-black khaki, some wore a mixture of both uniforms, and some wore parts of uniforms scrounged from the Nautilus's crew. Some wore steel helmets, some fore-and-aft caps, and some were hatless.

There was a Navy band on the wharf, and it played "Anchors Aweigh" and the "Marines' Hymn," and the Raiders watched with their arms folded on their chests, wearing what were either smiles of pleasure or amused tolerance.

The Pearl Harbor brass came aboard after that. And on their heels corpsmen started to offload the stretcher cases and ambulatory wounded. A line of ambulances, their doors already open, waited on the wharf behind the gray staff cars of the brass and the buses that would carry the Raiders.

Lieutenant W. B. McCracken, Medical Corps, USNR, was wearing, proudly, dyed-black trousers and an unbuttoned Marine Corps dungaree jacket-as if to leave no question that he had been the doc of Baker Company, survivor of the Makin Raid, as opposed to your typical natty, run-of-the-mill chancre mechanic. McCracken walked up to Second Lieutenant Kenneth J. McCoy, USMC, grabbed his dungaree jacket, and looped a casualty tag string through a button hole.

"Go get in an ambulance, Killer," he said.

"I don't need it," McCoy said.

It was neither bravado nor modesty. He had not, in his mind, been wounded. A wound was an incapacitating hole in the body, usually accompanied by great pain. He had been zinged twice, lightly zinged. The first time had been right after they'd started moving down the island. A Japanese sniper in a coconut tree had almost got him, or almost missed. A slug had whipped through his trousers, six inches above his knee, grazed his leg, and kept going. It had scared hell out of him, but it hadn't even knocked him down.

Almost immediately, he had seen another muzzle flash and fired four shots from his Garand into the coconut tree. The Jap's rifle had then come tumbling down, and a moment later the sniper followed it-at least to the length of the rope he'd used to tie himself up there.

After that McCoy had pulled his pants leg up, then opened his first aid packet and put a compress on the hole, which was a groove about as wide as his pinky finger and about as long as a bandage. And then he'd really forgotten about it. Or rather, the wound hadn't been painful until that night, when he'd waded into the surf and the salt water had gotten to it and made it sting like hell.

And he had been zinged again the next morning, when he'd led a squad down the island to see what the Japs were up to. He had been looking around what had been a concrete-block wall when a Japanese machine gun had opened up on them. A slug had hit the blocks about two feet from him, and a chunk of concrete had clipped him on the forehead; It had left a jagged tear about three inches long, and it had given him a hell of a headache, but it hadn't even bled very much. And it was not a real wound.

The doc on the Nautilus had put a couple of fresh bandages, hardly more than Band-Aids, on him; and until now, that had been the end of it. He had spent the return trip trying to come up with a casualty list: who had been killed; who was missing from the fucked-up landing and the even more fucked-up withdrawal from the beach; and who, if anybody, was still unaccounted for. He hadn't thought of much else after it had become apparent to him that they had left as many as eight people on the beach.

"Hot showers," Doc McCracken said, pushing him toward the gangplank, "sheets, mattresses, good chow, and firm-breasted sweet-smelling nurses. Trust me, Killer."

Doc McCracken was smiling at him.

"What the hell," McCoy said. "Why not?"

It took about two hours before he had gone through the drill and was in a room in the Naval hospital with something to eat. A couple of doctors had painfully removed the scabs and dug around in mere as if they hoped to find gold. Then they'd given him a complete physical. And of course the paper pushers were there, filling in their forms.

McCoy was just finishing his second shower-simply because it was there, all that limitless fresh hot water-and putting on a robe over his pajamas, and getting ready to lie on his bed and read Life magazine, when Colonel Carlson pushed open the door and walked into the room. He was still in mussed and soiled dungarees. McCoy supposed he'd come to the hospital to check on the wounded. The real wounded.

"Go on with what you were doing," Carlson said, as McCoy started to straighten up to attention. "Go on, get on the bed. It's permitted. Then tell me how you feel."

"I don't think I really belong here, Colonel," McCoy said, climbing onto the bed.

"Clean sheets and a hot meal," Carlson said, smiling.

"That's what the doc said, sir," McCoy said.

"I'm about to go out to Camp Catlin," Colonel Carlson said. "I thought I'd drop by and say 'so long.'"

"Sir?"

Carlson dipped into the cavernous pocket of his dungaree jacket and came out with a sheet of teletype paper, which he handed to McCoy.