Immediately after the torpedo was fired, the sailors of the PT-34 boat quickly turned to disengage. The PT-34 boat made a sharp turn to the right, while accelerating desperately, trying to disengage the Japanese ship to the south. Suddenly, a Japanese ship appeared about 2,000 yards away and opened fire on the PT-34 boat, which at this time was still under the searchlight and fire of the light cruiser "Kuma". Kelly identified the sudden appearance of the Japanese ship as a destroyer-like warship, most likely the "Pheasant" mine boat.
In an instant, the US torpedo boat launched an evasive maneuver at the fastest speed. "Sharp right," Captain Kelly shouted, and Captain Richardson repeated the command as he grabbed the steering wheel and slammed it to the right. The PT-34 boat was temporarily detached from the searchlight of the "Ball Mill", but soon returned to the beam of the searchlight of the Japanese ship. In response, Kelly wrote:
"The enemy cruiser turned, apparently to continue tracking us, and, in order to prevent us from escaping, the Japanese destroyer also pressed over from the starboard side. At one point, I thought my ship was trapped. At that moment, I saw through my telescope that two columns of water about 20 feet high and about 30 feet apart appeared on either side of the cruiser's waterline, and the two columns of water erupted about five seconds apart. My first reaction was that the cruiser was hit by two shells fired at the destroyer that fired at us on the starboard side. ”
Torpedo Operations Sergeant Major John Martino, who was also observing the target at the time, reported that the Japanese cruiser was apparently on a torpedo course after turning and was hit by a torpedo. According to Kelly's report, all this happened less than a minute after the torpedo was launched. The searchlights of the cruiser "Ball Mill" immediately began to dim, as if there was a power outage on board, and all the guns on board stopped firing. According to Kelly, "this is the last time I'll see it."
After the mine, the threat of the "Ball Mill" was temporarily lifted, and Captain Kelly was now tasked with concentrating on getting rid of another Japanese warship. The PT-34 boat was also illuminated by the searchlights of the mine boat "Pheasant" and came under heavy fire. According to Kelly, the maximum speed of the PT-34 boat at that time was about 38 knots, due to the fact that the torpedoes on the boat were used up and there was not enough fuel.
Figure 12: On the night of April 8~9, 1942, the mine boat "Pheasant" exchanged fire with the American torpedo boat with the light cruiser "Ball Mill" in the Strait of Tagnon Strait, which was compensated to the Soviet Union after the end of World War II
Recalling those tense minutes, Deputy Captain Richardson experienced that "the days are like years", and in his opinion, the increase in speed of the PT-34 boat was as slow as a snail's crawl. After about 10 minutes of high-speed sailing, "Z" course evasion, and a series of sharp turns, the PT-34 boat finally escaped the fire of the second Japanese warship. Captain Kelly set the course to Cebu City.
The squadron commander, Captain Burkeley, witnessed most of the battles, including the second torpedo attack by the PT-34 boat on the Ball Mill. Captain Burkeley's bullying did not clearly cause the Japanese to panic. However, he noticed that the Japanese cruiser was completely covered in a thick cloud of brownish-yellow smoke, and the searchlight beams on the ship were getting weaker and weaker, and it seemed to him that the PT-34 boat had hit the ship.
Captain Bulkeley wanted to take a closer look, and he was sure it was a sinking enemy cruiser. However, after the sudden discovery of another Japanese warship, he dismissed this idea again. Believing that the route to Cebu City had been blocked by Japanese ships, Burkeley set the route to Mindanao, a large island in the southern Philippine archipelago.
Upon arrival in Mindanao, the PT-41 boat was handed over to the Army on April 13, 1942. Two days later, on April 15, the PT-41 boat was self-destructed at Lake Lanao, the second largest lake in the Philippines, on Minnanao Island, in order to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Japanese army.
Figure 13: Side view of a U.S. PT torpedo boat sailing at sea
After the battle, Robert Kelly gave an assessment of the condition of the PT-34 boat under his command. He instructed two sailors to take the wounded Reynolds to the forward compartment below deck. Reynolds' injuries were so severe that they gave first aid to Reynolds, tried to slow down the bleeding, and lit a cigarette for the brave machine gunner.
The PT-34 boat was not seriously damaged by the large-caliber shells of the Japanese ships during the battle, but the hull was covered with many small bullet holes. The mainmast of the torpedo boat was hit, and the radio equipment was damaged. Richardson lamented that a Japanese bayonet had been stored on the PT-34, but after the battle it was discovered that it was missing, "Our Victory Badge has been lost." ”
The brief lull in inspecting the ship's condition was quickly ended by the sudden discovery of a Japanese destroyer. Kelly wrote of this encounter with the Japanese ship:
"The collision was avoided by making a sharp turn to the left, and we passed near the side of the ship from their starboard side, and they didn't fire a single shot...... But they immediately turned around and began the pursuit, illuminating us with searchlights and firing at us with their main guns. ”
The chase ended at about 1:30 a.m. on 9 April, and due to the high speed of the PT-34 boat, it had already opened up to a distance of five or six nautical miles from the Japanese ship, but the crew still saw the searchlight of the Japanese ship continue to shine far south for half an hour. Captain Richardson recalled that after the danger had passed, all the people came out of the cabin and began to work on their normal shifts. He glanced into the distance and saw the moon rising over the hills of Bohol Island, shining brightly, illuminating the entire coast, and the moonlight that night was comparable to the sun's rays. With the exception of the wounded Reynolds, many of the crew later gathered near the bridge to talk about the battle they had just experienced.
Figure 14. The light cruiser "Kuma", the searchlight located on the foremast can be seen
While the PT-34 boat was sailing for Cebu City, the calendar had flipped to April 9. The crew thought they had sunk a Japanese cruiser. However, post-war records show that no Japanese ships were sunk in this battle. According to the report of the light cruiser "Ball Mill", a torpedo hit the bow of the warship very far ahead, but this torpedo did not explode, but broke in two. A more general opinion is that the "Ball Mill" was hit by one of the torpedoes fired by the PT-34 boat, but that torpedo was a dud.
Robert Kelly's PT-34 boat failed to reach its destination, Cebu City. At the time, they were navigating the narrow waterway leading to Cebu City. However, in the absence of detailed charts, it was difficult for even the most experienced sailors to navigate the boat. Richardson later recalled that although it was a bright moonlit night, it was still difficult to navigate. There were various shoals along the route at that time, with mountains in the background, and few recognizable points to aid navigation.
Fig. 15: Side view of the light patrol "ball mill".
Piloted by Captain Kelly, the PT-34 moved cautiously at the slow speed of the engine in unfamiliar sea conditions. Suddenly, Richardson, the co-captain, felt that something was wrong. He writes:
"There was a soft crunch, and we ran aground. The crew shined their flashlights at the side and could see the water about 20 feet deep, and while that was plenty of depth for a torpedo boat, the sharp coral reef swirled up in the water, less than 5 feet above the surface, like a petrified forest. In the pre-dawn darkness, our ship was hung on a coral reef not far from the harbor. ”
Captain Kelly decided to send his co-captain, Richardson, ashore in a small rowing boat, to find a military doctor to treat the wounded on board, and a tugboat to rescue the stranded PT-34. Richardson recalled:
"At the same time as I put on my coat, the little rowing boat was lowered into the water. I pinned the 11.43 mm automatic pistol to my waist, put on my hat (I never wore a hat on the way due to the strong winds), and boarded the small rowing boat. Two crew members rowed the boat about 200 yards from the shore...... After stumbling across the rugged sandy beach full of crab holes, I came to a fisherman's hut and shouted inside. He quickly rushed to the train station, a mile away. ”
On the other side, the sailors on the PT-34 took off their clothes and turned over the side of the boat to help rescue the trapped boat. After working together, they eventually moved their boat off the reef. It was about 4:30 a.m. on April 9, and it was about to dawn.
Fig. 16 PT torpedo boat damaged in battle, the photo shows the hole in the bow of the PT-61 boat that was drilled by the 120 mm main gun of the Japanese destroyer "Mochizuki" in November 1942
Captain Robert Kelly was faced with a crucial decision as the morning sun was faint and the sea was thick with fog. Captain Kelly decided to wait until half past seven in the morning, and wait for the fog to clear down a bit before entering the approach channel. There is no doubt that they are constantly under threat from Japanese aircraft. In response, Kelly wrote:
"Under normal circumstances, sailing in this area after dawn is tantamount to a suicidal act. However, the Army authorities have assured us of air cover and have provided us with radio frequencies for the designated liaison aircraft. The planes were scheduled to take off from Australia that morning to escort the coastal steamboat that would leave Cebu the next day to deliver food to the Corregido Fortress. ”
Since the radio equipment of Kelly's PT-34 boat was damaged during the battle, he was unable to complete these arrangements. On the other side, the ashore co-captain Iliif Richardson, who did not know what was happening on board, rushed to a small village about 9 miles south of Cebu City. There, he called the local army command. On the phone, he asked the officer on duty to send a tugboat to Mingranilla and arrange for an ambulance at Pier I at Cebu Port at 5 a.m. to pick up one of the wounded, while making all preparations to equip the PT-34 with four more torpedoes, as well as for the PT-41. The last sentence intrigued the officer on duty on the other end of the line, so Richardson told him that they had just engaged a Japanese cruiser.
Figure 17. Schematic diagram of the battle between the light cruiser "Ball Mill" and the mine boat "Pheasant" and the PT-34 boat and the PT-41 boat
After making the call, Richardson hurried back to the beach, only to find that the PT-34 boat was missing, and he quickly deduced that his boat had escaped. So he immediately canceled the request to send a tugboat and waited for the arrival of the PT-34 boat on the seashore. As the morning fog cleared, he saw some kind of confrontation between planes and a small boat in the distance. Richardson suddenly realized that it was the PT-34 boat that was being attacked by Japanese aircraft!
Just after 8 a.m., a near-miss bomb exploded near the port bow of the PT-34, and the air raid began. The explosion blew a large hole in the crew's lavatory, knocked over a machine gun mount, and shattered the windshield of the bridge. Captain Kelly later recalled that they did not hear any aircraft due to the noise of the engines on board. Suddenly, they saw four Japanese seaplanes swooping down from the sun towards the PT-34 boat, the first of which had already dropped bombs. The PT-34 boat and its crew were completely taken by surprise.
In hindsight, it was found that the incoming enemy aircraft was most likely a Mitsubishi F1M Zero water observation aircraft (nicknamed "Pitt" by the Allied Forces) that took off from the ad hoc seaplane carrier "Sanki Maru". In the face of the incoming enemy aircraft, the crew hurriedly took out spare ammunition, and the machine guns on the boat also quickly opened fire. Due to the narrow waters of the fairway, the ability of the PT-34 boat to evade maneuver was severely limited.
Fig. 18: A model of the former Japanese Navy's special seaplane carrier "Sanki Maru". The "Sanki Maru" was completed on May 1, 1939 at the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Nagasaki Shipyard, and on January 28, 1945, it was sunk by a U.S. submarine while sailing with the "ヒ91" group, and was discharged from the country on March 10
During the counterattack, a volley of bullets fired from the PT-34 boat hit an incoming Japanese plane, and the Zero Mizukan began to smoke, but did not crash. Eventually, all the anti-aircraft fire on the PT-34 fell silent, and some of the machine gunners were killed or seriously wounded in the air raids.
The Japanese air raid lasted about 15 minutes, and a total of 8 bombs were dropped, some of which exploded in the water, and some of which were near-missed, causing a certain amount of damage to the PT-34 boat, which was riddled with bullet holes. Captain Kelly later reported:
"When I received reports that the engine room had been flooded with about three feet of water and that the engines could not last much longer, we decided to put the ship aground because we could no longer fight. The ship eventually ran aground near Cavet Island, south of Cebu City, at 8:20 a.m. Due to the constant strafing of enemy aircraft, the sailors had to pull the wounded from the ship to a safer place on the shore. ”
Two crew members of the PT-34 were killed and several others were wounded. The surviving crew returned to the damaged torpedo boat later in the day to salvage the equipment that was still working. After discovering the return of the American troops, the Japanese planes attacked again with bombs and machine guns, but according to Kelly, none of the bombs dropped by the Japanese planes hit, but the torpedo boat caught fire and exploded, apparently the fuel tank was hit by strafing.
Figure 19.The Mitsubishi F1M2 Zero Water Watch, nicknamed "Pitt" by the Allied Forces, was primarily used by the Japanese Navy as an observation/utility aircraft and was the last biplane to enter mass service with the Japanese Navy. On the morning of April 9, 1942, the PT-34 torpedo boat was attacked by four Japanese Zeros and finally ran aground and burned down
The battle of the PT-34 mine against the Ball Mill was heroic, but it is difficult to say how much it helped the Philippine defense: on the same day that the PT-34 was destroyed by Japanese airstrikes, the besieged American and Philippine defenders on the Bataan Peninsula surrendered to the Japanese, and about a month later, the American and Philippine forces at the fortress of Corregido Island and other parts of the Philippines surrendered to the Japanese.
Captain Robert Kelly, the captain of the PT-34, was finally lucky enough to be evacuated by air to Australia. Later, he commanded a squadron of PT torpedo boats in the South Pacific Theater, and Deputy Captain Iliif Richardson was unlucky enough to catch a plane withdrawn to Australia. Unable to evacuate after the fall of the Philippines, he decided to join the local guerrilla resistance movement in the Philippines and remained in the Philippines until he was rescued at the end of 1944.