Black Cat in the Night, Part 1

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The matte black skin of the plane positively radiated heat in the dank, humid, setting of the sun. Av-gas, cigarette smoke, decaying plants, Spam and rice? open slit trenches, and a not so faint whiff of death, all assaulted the nose.

One at a time the two big radial engines coughed, whined, and sputtered their way into a powerful roar, decisively drowning out all other noise on the Marston matted parking area. The sun was below the horizon and as usual in the tropics, darkness came on quickly. They taxied down the ramp and to the water’s edge, some “pilot stuff” was going on up forward, and the mechanic was adjusting fuel pressure and timing on those big radials. They sounded a bit better. He was an aviation gunners mate (reserve), but wanted to “strike” for an active duty Mechanic position.

Stephen, “Steve, Sven, The Swede (he wasn’t Swedish)”, just a big strawberry blonde country boy... wouldn’t have anything to do until they got airborne, (and hopefully a few hours after that). Once up, he’d ready his .50cal waist bubble gun, test fire it and start scanning the moon glow off the water for dark shapes that shouldn’t be there.

Almost no wind, sea just off the beach smooth as glass, loaded as they were, the takeoff would be a long one. It was almost better to have a bit of chop on the water to help break the surface tension of the water “hanging on-to the hull”. They’d waste some fuel turning the “boat” into an aircraft.

“Gosh, let’s get going, air flow!, it’s an oven in here” He said out loud, nobody could hear.

Comms checks with the cockpit and each other, called out, those experienced talk in a normal voice, younger guys tended to yell a bit more until they figured things out. Still it was jarring, quiet, BLAST of static and a voice yelling in your ears.

Moving … nose pushes into the water, down farther then, that familiar feeling of buoyant floating, slight bob. The engines come to full power as she turns to parallel the beach for takeoff. Beautiful, almost full moon, it would be good hunting the next few nights weather permitting. Nightmare missions.

Steve had taken to squatting down flexing his legs and bracing against the bulkhead during takeoff and landing. That was more for rough takeoffs, this one would prove very smooth (and yes it took awhile to break free of the ocean).

.50 cal Browning loaded, charging handle racked back twice, “Starboard waist testing gun” squeeze the butterfly paddles … BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM. Okay, good to go. The other gun positions call out their tests, satisfactorily. He hears the twin .30’s chattering in the bow, the single .30 aft, and his other waist gunner’s .50 on the port side. Matter of habit, he gathers loose spent brass and belt links, off the deck and tosses them out, footing got slippery with a bunch of round brass and steel links all over.

Slight shiver as the couple hundred feet altitude change and the airflow in the open gunports, doubled to evaporate the sweat out of his dungaree shirt. The pilot was good and cared for “His Lads”, he had pulled up higher than “mission Normal” of wave-top height to cool down the boys in back … They loved him for those little gestures.

Pilot’s voice “You lads good?”

“Yessir, were all cooled down here Pink!”

Pink was our affectionate nickname for our pilot, and he was head over heels over a Georgia debutante who just loved the color pink, She sent him letters on pink stationary, He wore a shockingly bright pink silk scarf she sent him, and he named our Black Cat PBY … “Pink Kitty.” We forgive him, he is that good.

He dropped us back down to wave height for safety.

Scanning the surface and shorelines for anything out of place, surface with the moon behind, might as well be a searchlight. Shorelines were more difficult especially at night, things like straight lines stood out. Other than that just dark blobs.

The co-pilot and bow turret gunner call out “contact” at almost the same time, “Two … wait, three cargo ships.”

“What do you see?”

“I might have five?”

The plane banks, lining up, one torpedo, a couple 500 lb. bombs, and a handful of 250 pounders, alone, five or more ships … IJN running the “Slot.”

Steve swings his .50 to fire as far forward to centerline as he can and waits …

Moon on the other side of the plane ocean black, can’t see a thing. Plane level and steady, then the upward lurch, "Torpedo away!" The port side gunner starts banging away at something.

Then the deck tilts to port and the twin bow .30’s light off, “pocka-pocka-pocka.” Ahead he can see outgoing tracers, swinging to his side … Incoming tracers claw their way up to them, Sven sees the source and locks onto where the tracers are coming from … The Swede goes to work.

Hard to see the sights but with short bursts he’s able to get tracers on target. The short bursts get longer as he is rewarded with secondary fires and adrenaline. The torpedo must have hit some ship to port. As the sea lit up from the fireball he could see two ships on his side, one showing some small fires from damage, the other dark except for AA fire.

As they swept past the ships Swede swung the Browning around for a fleeing tail shot, armor piercing incendiaries, and saw a couple tracers ricochet into the sky … Still getting hits. Now he can’t see anything. Plane banking on another run, oh wow, that torpedo hit ship is burning so bright … There are so many more ships out here than we could see. The whole area is lit up.

We start another run lining up, the officers up front doing their thing. Browning forward (fresh belt in), looking for anything. The ship they’d damaged with gunfire was covered in more fires, he gave them a couple more bursts and concentrated on the undamaged ship, firing a much longer burst than taught, tracers hitting, flying left, right, and up … no secondaries yet.

The plane lurches again, a 500 lb. and two 250 lb’ers ride Newton’s physics (and a bit of luck) to the surface. The bombardier released at mast height just as the ship filled the forward windshield. The starboard side bomb went long and bounced off the port bow without exploding (which it did a couple heartbeats later in the water). The 500 lb'er was a perfect midship centerline hit, boilers out … dead in the water. The starboard bomb hit the side if the ship a couple feet above the waterline, tore through a berthing compartment and exploded in the aft steering space. The ship was dead.

Steve swings the gun aft again as they break away for their last run, hopefully. Fresh belt, get the foxtail and dustpan busy on clearing the footing. Bank done, leveling, engines powering up, he hasn’t heard any hits yet, yes they were painted flat black and hard to see, but they’d usually get hit a few times. Enough lead and enough luck. Then, with the onboard guns blasting away, you might not hear a small incoming hit.

Steve wasn’t sure what they were lining up in front, but they had more ordnance to expend, by his reckoning another 500 and twin 250‘s left.

Cockpit calls out we have four burning, two dead in the water, two fighting fires, and returning fire at us.

“I’m lining up on the biggest thing I see and we’ll pickle everything we got."

The Swede looked for anything to target, light, fire, tracers … Target to starboard, most likely one he’s hit before and sends a couple long bursts into the burning ship. Swing to stern as we fly past. The deck drops and slams back up banging a knee, unexpectedly. In pain, no target, he strains to see anything.

They did whatever they were doing up forward, and the plane lurched up again after losing 1000 pounds. Two 250 lb. bombs and a 500 pounder screamed down into whatever target they’d picked. We turned back to “Cactus,” Steve saw fireballs, but no details, just flame.

Keep scanning , though rare, there were sometimes night fighters about. Not tonight … Return to base.