Death on the Hellships. Gregory F. Michno
rafts, and wreckage. Miraculously, only 1 had been killed. Blinn had them all roped together as they rationed their small supply of food and water. Hope was that they would be found by a friendly submarine. That night a red flare was fired, but it accomplished little except to briefly illuminate the lonely sea with an eerie glow. In the gray and drizzling morning they started the whaleboat’s engine in the hope that the boat could tow them to Java. Near midnight they spotted four Japanese destroyers, but still hoping to be rescued by friends, they shut down the engine and remained silent. The DDs passed by at one thousand yards but did not spot them. On 3 March, the whaleboat’s engine ran out of fuel. A low-flying Japanese seaplane hovered over them for a time, then flew off. Almost out of food and water, many began to think that it might be better to be captured than to die at sea. That night the last of the supplies were consumed and they waited. Bright moonlight rippled the wavelets in silver, and they were settling down for another lonely night when a black shape loomed. A signalman hoisted a waterproof battle lantern. The ship slowed and turned on its recognition lights. It was the Inazuma again, back in the area after dropping off Exeter’s survivors. A voice called out in Japanese, and Lt. William R. Wilson, fluent in the language, quickly explained their predicament. The DD hove to, turning on her lights and dropping a Jacob’s ladder over the side.
Once on deck, Lt. (jg) John J. A. Michel was grabbed by two sailors while a third sprayed him with a carbolic acid mixture and a fourth rifled through his pockets and relieved him of his wallet and a rosary. Michel was taken to the forecastle, where the rest of the officers were assembled. Canvas screens and mats were rigged up, and they were motioned to sit. Michel was happy to comply, especially when given hardtack and a warm, sweet drink with a lemon flavor. They hungrily ate and lay down for a night’s sleep.17
More prisoners were caught as Allied ships fled Java. The Japanese destroyer Ikazuchi spotted an escaping Dutch tanker and tried to capture it, but the crew scuttled the ship. If he could not seize the ship, Lt. Cdr. Kudo Shunsaku would bag the crew. Ikazuchi gathered them up and carried them to Bandjarmasin.
Next to run afoul of the victorious Japanese was the U.S. submarine Perch. On 25 February off Celebes, Lt. Cdr. David A. Hurt was about to make a night surface attack on a lone merchant ship when its concealed deck gun put a shell through her conning tower fairwater. Perch pulled clear. Three nights later she received news of the Java Sea battle and was told to head for the scene. Early in the morning on 2 March, about 20 miles north of Surabaya, Perch was on the surface recharging batteries when she was spotted by Amatsukaze, once again combing the area. Hara spun his ship around and charged in, letting go several salvos and claiming a direct hit on the conning tower. Following behind, the Hatsukaze echoed Hara’s moves. But Hurt had already gone to periscope depth and watched the charging destroyers. With a zero angle on the bow, Hurt decided to head for 200 feet. Unfortunately, the sea bottom was at 140. As Perch punched into the mud, Amatsukaze crossed over with a string of charges, blasting the sub. Hurt cut the motors while Hatsukaze dropped her charges, shaking the boat again. The Perch was badly damaged: the engine-room gauges were broken or jammed, air banks in the after battery were leaking and the hull had been pushed in, the batteries showed full ground, the hull exhaust duct in the control room was flooded, the conning tower was dented in, the number two periscope was frozen, the crew’s toilets were shattered, and several hatches were leaking. The crew waited in silence.
Above, the Amatsukaze’s sonar could not pick up a target. The area smelled strongly of oil, and Hara was elated, certain that he had made his first definite kill. The destroyers steamed away. It was lucky for Perch that they did, for Hurt, also hearing nothing from above, started his motors and, after struggling for a while, broke free and rose to the surface at about 0300. He had missed the destroyers by minutes.
In the predawn, the crew came topside to assess the damage. The antenna and blinker lights were down and the number one main engine was malfunctioning. Worse, Perch had only been up an hour when two more destroyers were seen heading her way, this time the Ushio and Sazanami. Hurt took her down to rest on the bottom, this time at two hundred feet, but the DDs had seen her and dropped several strings of depth charges. Main ballast tanks one and three ruptured. The engines’ circulating water lines leaked. The bow planes were pushed in, and the rigging panel was burned. Torpedoes in number one and two tubes made hot runs. The hull over the officers’ staterooms was dished in. The electric and telephone circuits went dead. After these attacks, the Japanese destroyers again steamed away, confident that they had made a kill. This time, however, Perch could not free herself from the muddy bottom. Before the crew could go full throttle and blow all remaining ballast in the hope of rising to the surface, they would have to wait until dark.
For thirteen hours the crew suffered in silence, quietly making repairs to ready the boat. About 2000, Hurt gave the command for full power to both shafts. After several tries, full forward and full astern, Perch pulled loose. She popped to the surface once more at about 2100 on 2 March. The crew faced a seventeen-hundred-mile trip to Australia, uncertain if they could submerge with any hope of surfacing. The Perch crept along, heading east. An hour before sunrise on the third, Hurt decided to make a test dive to assess the boat’s condition. It didn’t work. They could flood down, but they could not blow out the water fast enough. By blowing all ballast, Perch barely clawed her way to the surface, but the water in the engine-room bilges was up to the generators. Only the pumps running at maximum could keep her afloat.
As luck would have it, the breaking dawn also brought back the snooping destroyers, followed by cruisers Nachi and Haguro. It was over. Hurt ordered Perch scuttled and abandoned. Torpedoman Sam Simpson passed through the control room and got the word that they had better hurry because the sub was already sinking. He rushed out the conning tower hatch, then ran aft and sat down and took off his shoes. Classified material was given the deep-six, flood valves were opened, and nine officers and fifty-three men went over the side. Simpson floated in the sea while guns flashed and shells fountained up geysers of water. The Perch seemed to slip backward, then her bow rose and she slid below, stern first. Within the hour the Ushio, under Cdr. Uesugi Yoshitake, picked up the entire crew and headed toward Borneo.18
It was a veritable ABDA sailors’ reunion in Bandjarmasin, although under the auspices of the Imperial Navy. Men from Exeter and Encounter were placed in the bowels of an old tanker, which contained four levels of wooden decks hastily constructed to carry Japanese troops to the beaches. “It was no consolation to us to know that we were being treated no worse than the Japanese soldiers,” said Lieutenant Blain. The hatches were open, and Blain complained that the temperature was 90 degrees in the shade. But, he said, “there was no shade, and more important, there was no ventilation in the tanks.”
They sat in the sweltering heat for three days. The Japanese had water, but the POWs had no containers to drink from. As men collapsed from heatstroke, they were brought on deck a few at a time. After another day of heat, thirst, and interrogation, Op ten Noort pulled alongside. The Japanese minelayer (CM) Tsubame was in port, and its sailors helped load and guard the more than nine hundred prisoners who transferred to the hospital ship. It was cleaner and cooler than the tanker, said Blain, but the Dutch crew shunned them, refusing even to treat their wounded. “What do you expect?” said one of the doctors. “You are only prisoners of war.” The British sailors were fed rice balls supplied by the Japanese, while the Dutch ate their own rations and made no secret of it.
After a few days of chasing Allied submarines across the Java Sea, the Amatsukaze also returned to Bandjarmasin for fuel and supplies. Hara, still concerned about the drifting sailors he had seen near Bawean Island a week earlier, visited the hospital ship. He was relieved to learn that almost everyone had been picked up and Op ten Noort was filled with nearly one thousand prisoners. Seeing the cramped men huddled in narrow spaces reminded Hara of his cadet days. It was distressing, and he made an earnest wish never to be captured. Soon after, Op ten Noort weighed anchor for the trip to Makassar, Celebes.
Meanwhile, Ushio brought her catch of Perch men directly to Makassar, as did Inazuma with the Pope survivors, reaching port the next day, 5 March. Embarking on a landing barge off Inazuma,