northward into the Flying Fish Channel. Backing any vessel is difficult, and backing an LST is very difficult. He elected his other option.
He went to his flying bridge and picked up the bullhorn.
“Ahoy, the Higgins boats, I am about to turn 180, into the current.”
There was no reply.
“Anybody out there?” Captain McNear called over the bullhorn.
“We heard you, Captain,” a voice unaided by a bullhorn replied, faintly, but audibly.
“Bring her around 180 to port,” McNear ordered, as he went back on the bridge, and himself took over the controls to quickly turn his ship around.
“Hey, look at that!” Captain Dunwood called in surprise.
“Not now, for Christ’s sake, Howard!” McNear said, angrily, disgustedly.
Captain Dunwood, more than a little embarrassed, fell silent, and then after a moment left the bridge and stood on the flying bridge.
And then, Captain McNear, as the bow of his ship finished its turn, said exactly the same thing Captain Dunwood had said.
"Hey, look at that!”
All along a quarter of the horizon, to port from dead ahead of LST-450, there were white flashes, immediately followed by fiery red glows. Ships—and in some cases, their naval cannon—appeared momentarily in the blackness, and then a moment later, the sound of projectiles passing overhead became continuous.
He turned to see Captain Dunwood’s reaction. Dunwood was nowhere in sight.
Goddamn, now what? Did he fall overboard? Did I collide with one of those fucking Higgins boats?
“Take the wheel,” McNair ordered. “Hold what we have!”
“Hold what we have, aye, aye, sir,” the helmsman said.
McNear found Dunwood leaning on the aft rail of the flying bridge, looking down the Flying Fish Channel.
“Howard, I guess the naval gunfire has commenced,” McNear said, dryly.
“Yeah,” Dunwood said. But then he added what he had been thinking—this was not the first time he’d heard naval gunfire passing overhead—“but it’s not landing on my islands. It’s landing way the hell and gone down the channel.”
“Yeah,” McNear agreed thoughtfully.
“And that light over there, the fire, whatever. What’s that?” Dunwood asked, pointing.
McNear looked.
“Unless I’m a hell of a lot more lost than I think I am, that’s the lighthouse that was supposed to be leveled yesterday by that massive naval gunfire barrage we heard so much about that didn’t come until just now.”
“I thought lighthouse lights went, you know, on and off,” Captain Dunwood said.
“They rotate,” Captain McNear said. “That one’s not rotating. But that’s the lighthouse. Come back inside, Howard, I may need you.”
Three minutes later as LST-450’s chief boatswain (actually a petty officer second class) reported to Captain McNair that the Higgins boats were tied alongside, and McNair had been debating with himself whether he should make another 180-degree turn so that he would be pointed down the Flying Fish Channel again, the radio operator came onto the bridge with a new Urgent Message from ComNavFor.
McNair read it and handed it to Dunwood.
SECRET
URGENT
0335 13 SEP 1950
FROM COMNAVFORCE
TO LST-450
ON RECEIPT YOU WILL IMMEDIATELY DEPLOY FROM USMC LANDING TEAM ABOARD AND LANDING CRAFT ATTACHED AS FOLLOWS:1. ONE HIGGINS BOAT WITH MARINES ABOARD TO FLYING FISH CHANNEL LIGHTHOUSE PURPOSE OF GARRISONING ISLAND, MAINTAINING EXISTING LIGHTHOUSE FIRE UNTIL DAYLIGHT, AND EVACUATING USMC PERSONNEL PRESENTLY HOLDING LIGHTHOUSE.
2. TWO HIGGINS BOATS WITH MARINES ABOARD TO TOKCHOK-KUNDO ISLAND PURPOSE OF GARRISONING ISLAND, AND EVACUATING USMC PERSONNEL PRESENTLY HOLDING ISLAND.
3. USMC PERSONNEL EVACUATED WILL BE TRANSPORTED TO USS MOUNT MCKINLEY.
4. COMNAV FORCE WILL BE ADVISED MOST EXPEDITIOUS MEANS OF DEPARTURE OR LANDING CRAFT; LANDINGS ON LIGHTHOUSE AND TOKCHOK-KUNDO ISLAND, AND ETA EVACUEES MOUNT MCKINLEY.
END
SECRET
“What the hell is this all about?” Dunwood asked.
“Howard, I haven’t a clue,” Captain McNair confessed. “But it looks like somebody beat you to those islands.”
Dunwood considered that.
“Yeah,” he said, finally. “Maybe all we were was a backup force, in case something went wrong.”
“Could be,” McNair agreed.
They could have told us that, the sonsofbitches, Captain Dunwood thought, instead of giving us the whole-invasion -depends-on-you-grabbing-those-islands bullshit.
Goddamn the Marine Corps!
Dunwood felt a little better after he told his Marines about the change of orders. After he went through the “Any questions? Anything?” business, Staff Sergeant Schmidt raised his hand.
“Okay, Sergeant?”
“Captain, right after we landed at Pusan, they put out a call for all former Marine Raiders . . .”
“And?”
“Well, sir, grabbing these islands sounds like something the Raiders would do, sir. Just a thought, Captain.”
“Well, we’ll find out, won’t we?” Dunwood said. “But you’re right, Schmidt. Grabbing these islands does sound like something the Marine Raiders would do.”
[FOUR]
TOKCHOK-KUNDO ISLAND 0515 15 SEPTEMBER 1950
“Captain, there’s an American flag flying on the back of that junk,” Staff Sergeant Schmidt called