Rescue at Truk, Page 2 · Rescued Pilots · Map-Truk Lagoon
Rescue at Truk, Page 2
 
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Matter and his crew were hardly aboard the Tang when Lt. Burns radioed Comdr. O'Kane that three more rafts had been sighted east of Truk. The sub started after them but was still 15 miles away when F6Fs reported sighting two other men down between Truk and Kuop. Since this was nearer, the Tang followed and picked up Lt. Harry E. Hill of Virginia, Minn., and Lt. (Jg) James G. Cole of Kileen, Tex.
Hill had been in his raft overnight, while Cole had been in the water less than an hour. Cole, however, had been supported only by a May West and was ill from sea water he had swallowed. To pick up Cole was a ticklish job. Lt. Comfr. Murray B. Freeze, navigator of the Tang, stood in the tower watching the reefs as the sub came in slowly within 400 yards of the surf.
In the meantime, Lt. Burns, worried by the delay in the Tang's arrival, had landed his Kingfisher again to continue his private taxi service for stranded airmen. The first man he picked up this time was Lt. (Jg) Robert T. Barbor of Rockville Center, N.Y., pilot of an F6F. Then, at 1415, with Barbor on his wing, Burns taxied up to a raft carrying three more men.
The wind, still strong, caught Burn's plane as it had caught Dowdle's and plunged the lee wing into the water for half its length, but radioman Gill somehow scrambled out to the tip of the high wing and brought the plane back to an even keel. As he did so, a wing float punctured the life raft and it shortly disappeared, carrying along the meager supplies its three occupants had salvaged from their TBF. The airmen Lt. Robert S. Nelson of Great Falls, Mont., a section leader; Robert W. Gruebel AMM1c of Memphis, Tenn., his gunner, and J. L. Livingston ARM1c of Lander, Wyo., his radioman climbed on the Kingfisher's wings, where Burns was already perched.
Then Burns taxied the plane toward another raft a half-mile farther out to sea. He found Ens. Carrol L. Farrell of Ada, Okla., Joseph Hranek ARM2c of Philadelphia, Pa., and Owen F. Tabrum AMM2c of Portland, Oreg., whose plane had been next to Lt. Nelson's when Nelson's was downed during a formation approach to Dublon.
Ens. Farrell's plane and another from the formation had circled Nelson's life raft until fighter cover was available and then asked for permission to go in and dump their loads on Dublon.
"There was a jar," said radioman Hranek, "just before we dropped our bomb. We pulled out around 3,000. It was too high for good strafing but I couldn't resist all those targets so I gave them a few rounds as we left.
"The engine was windmilling no power and we sat down about a half-mile seaward of Nelson's crew. It was a beautiful landing. I've landed with more force on carriers now and then. We had plenty of time. Mr. Farrell and Tabrum inflated the raft on the wing and stepped into it, barely getting their feet wet. I had to climb out the bomb-bay hatch into the water."
Burns took the men from Hranek's raft aboard and spaced his passengers three on each wing and one on the ledge of the cockpit beside him. Everyone on the plane is still awed at the way Burns taxied his overloaded Kingfisher toward the tang, which was coming to meet them.
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The cross wind was severe and the plane took a terrible beating, but Lt. Burns radioed the sub that he had plenty of gas and was doing all right. After taxiing more than two hours with the seven-man overload, the Kingfisher met the Tang at 1730 hours.
The pounding waves had sprung the rivets in the float, and the plane had a severe angle. "If we'd had
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 Flyers on Plane
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to remain in the water much longer" Lt. Burns said later, not finishing the sentence. So Burns and his radioman Gill went aboard the Tang with the men they had rescued. "We sent Burns and Gill below so they couldn't see," said Comdr. O'Kane, "and then we sank their plane with gunfire." In its last 7 hours of existence, the Kingfisher had saved 10 men.
The Tang's final rescue took place just at dusk. Lt. Burns had heard earlier that an SBD (Douglas Dauntless) had been downed by ack-ack from Eten Island and had landed in the ocean 500 yards from Ollan Island, the Tang's familiar hunting ground. Burns had passed up this crew for the larger group.
But now the sub sped to the scene, arriving just as Lt. Donald Kirkpatrick Jr. of Evanston, Ill., and Richard L. Bentley AOM2c of Los Angeles, Calif., fired their last Very flare. Kirkpatrick had been shot down once before and was once pictured by Life magazine as the "typical dive-bomber pilot." Bentley enlisted in the Navy on May 8, 1942, his seventeenth birthday.
The two had rowed desperately against the wind, which was forcing them toward Ollan's shores. "Then, when the wind died down," Bentley said, "we figured to stick around for a while and if we weren't picked up we'd try to sail to New Guinea. We had our parachute for a sail, and even if that was too far for us to make, it would have been a lot better than sitting around waiting to die."
After rescuing Kirkpatrick and Bentley, the Tang headed for sea and a 16-day ptrol assignment. Comdr. O'Kane put the flyers to work standing watches so there would be enough bunks to go around. Even so, it was crowded.
"They can have it. I'll stick to planes," said Gruebel, who has a Jap plane to his credit. "If the Navy did away with their air arm, I'd go into subs, but not before."
"If you like the air so much," drawled Gunner White, "why don't you stay in it? Then, on our next run, we might have time to get us some Japs instead of sailing around to fish you flyers out of the water."
 (Reprinted from YANK Down Under, August 11, 1944. YANK Down Under was published by the enlisted men of the U.S. Army Information and Education Section, USAFFE.)
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