Night Steaming with the San Fabian Attack Force
Destroyers, attack transports, and landing craft of Task Force 78 churned through the dark waters toward Lingayen Gulf on January 7 1945. Vice Admiral Daniel E. Barbey led the San Fabian Attack Force along the western coast of Luzon under strict blackout conditions. Twin five inch gun barrels tracked across the night sky on electric hydraulic drive mounts, their heavy gear assemblies groaning whenever salt spray worked into the training tracks. High in the forward superstructure of an escorting destroyer, an exhausted fire control technician knelt inside the cramped steel shield of a Mk 37 gun director. He manually twisted and taped together raw copper leads that had severed during earlier sea shock. Klaxon horns suddenly blared the general quarters signal across the decks below him, sending sailors scrambling to their battle stations as radar operators picked up unidentified contacts on their green phosphor scopes.
Watch officers on the bridge gripped brass voice tubes and checked their pocket watches, struggling to maintain visual contact with the next warship ahead in the pitch black column. Lookouts strained their eyes through heavy naval binoculars across the blind perimeter, searching the low cloud ceilings for Japanese aircraft dropping flares over the formation. Phosphorescent wakes from churning bronze propellers gave away the positions of the leading transports, drawing single engine bombers that circled just outside the effective range of the screening destroyers. Radar repeaters in the combat information center flickered with false returns caused by nearby island ridges and sea clutter. Tracking officers made split second course corrections to avoid ramming companion vessels in the narrow channel.
Gun crews stood frozen beside hot 40 millimeter Bofors loaders, listening to the drone of radial engines overhead while holding their fire to avoid blinding the entire gun division with muzzle flash. Command duty officers monitored the tactical radio circuits where sudden rudder orders clashed with rigid directives from higher naval headquarters. These directives demanded minute by minute written entries in the ship navigation and action logs regardless of combat conditions. Quartermasters scrawled frantic notes into damp logbooks under dim red battle lamps, documenting boiler pressures, helm bearings, and radar contacts even as enemy engine noises shook the overhead bulkheads. Technicians down in the plotting room worked the mechanical analog computers with hand cranks, recalculating firing solutions every time the ship heeled sharply on an emergency evasive turn.
Shrapnel from near miss bomb explosions occasionally pinged against the outer hull plating, severing internal communications wiring and demanding immediate damage control work. Sailors routed temporary rubber jumper cables along wet steel passageways while dodging through watertight hatches, keeping vital electricity flowing to the forward turrets. Bridge watchstanders maintained steady hands on the engine order telegraphs, knowing any delay in throttle response would cause a disastrous chain reaction of collisions among the crowded assault ships. Throttlemen down in the forward fireroom spun the brass control wheels to meet every sudden engine telegraph signal, instantly venting steam to change propeller revolutions. Salt encrusted the boiler casings as the ship shuddered through heavy turns, holding its assigned station off the flank of the San Fabian transport division.
Aerial Interception of the Destroyer Hinoki
Fifth Air Force night patrol aircraft detected the damaged Japanese Matsu class destroyer Hinoki attempting to escape Manila Bay. Hinoki was fleeing west into the South China Sea after surviving an Allied air attack that had sunk her consort Momi two days earlier. The Japanese vessel operated with damaged machinery and scorched upper decks from the previous battle, trailing a heavy exhaust plume that caught the attention of the American aviators. Twin radar antenna arrays mounted above the American pilot houses registered the enemy hull at long range. Heavy ground clutter spilling from the mountain crests of the Bataan Peninsula broke the electronic return into erratic blips on the radar screens.
Bridge officers squinted into the night, balancing the urgent pilot sightings against confusing radar signals that threatened to draw their guns toward friendly screening pickets. Yeomen huddled over log desks in the charthouse under red bulbs, recording every radio transmission coordinate in compliance with administrative directives. Sea spray leaked through hatch seals onto the stationery, forcing clerks to blot the running ink with their uniform sleeves. Logbooks absorbed damp salt water as watch officers continued transcribing the aerial coordinates, prompting the division commander to order an immediate change of course. Boiler rooms answered the engine order bells with sharp bursts of fuel oil, accelerating the American destroyers through rolling sea swells to cut off the Japanese escape route.
Radar screens continued to flutter with distorted ground echoes, causing operators to mistake rocky coastal islets for additional Japanese escorts. Combat information center teams recalculating the target bearing by hand shouted course alterations through voice pipes to prevent the flanking destroyers from crossing each other's lines of fire. Signal lanterns stayed shut behind heavy canvas hoods to protect the formation from enemy optical spotters. Every vessel remained blind to its partners except for the narrow phosphorescent ribbons thrown by churning wakes. Propeller wakes marked the dark water as trailing warships formed a line abreast battle alignment just as the patrol aircraft dropped illumination flares along the horizon.
Magnesium parachutes burned white over the South China Sea, outlining Hinoki as the crippled Japanese destroyer zigzagged against the surf line to spoil the approaching gunfire solutions. Fire control technicians worked frantically inside the Mk 37 directors to lock optical sights onto the exposed silhouette. Plotting room computers began feeding continuous range and deflection solutions into the five inch gun houses, overcoming the erratic radar clutter with manual tracking inputs. Watch officers recorded the precise compass bearings and fire control readiness reports into the required action summaries. Grease pencils snapped under the grip of tense bridge recorders as the lead destroyers brought their forward main batteries onto target bearing.
Detachment of Task Unit 78.1.11
Commander Task Unit 78.1.11 detached fleet destroyers USS Charles Ausburne, USS Braine, USS Russell, and USS Shaw to intercept the contact. Captain J. W. Boulware led the division away from the main transport screen into heavy tropical squalls, placing his flagship Charles Ausburne at the head of the four ship column. Torrential rain hammered the steel pilothouse windows within minutes, cutting visual range to near zero. Bridge officers navigated purely by magnetic compass bearings and radar returns as the storm swallowed the formation. Lookouts wiped sheets of warm salt water from their optical lenses while the ships heeled thirty degrees through the mounting swell, fighting the rudder torque to keep their guns aligned toward Manila Bay.
Signalmen lashed down their canvas searchlight covers to maintain total blackout discipline, knowing a single stray beam in the squall would expose the entire hunting group to coastal shore batteries. Artillery positions along the cliffs of Corregidor remained blind to the maneuver as radar operators tracked the widening gap between the detached destroyers and the line of friendly troop transports. Russell and Shaw fell into loose column behind Braine, matching engine revolutions by tachometer readings because the blinding squalls masked the phosphorescent wakes ahead. Yeomen in the plotting rooms stood over brass plotting boards with grease markers, manually recording every speed change, rudder angle, and radar distance. These paper records satisfied the rigid logbook standards demanded by Seventh Fleet headquarters despite the chaotic weather conditions.
Salt water trickled down ventilation ducts and dripped onto these paper records, forcing sailors to shield the open log sheets with their forearms while scribbling down tactical coordinates. Gun crews inside the enclosed mounts on Charles Ausburne heard the metallic click of five inch shells entering the hoist trays, preparing for direct surface action the moment the squall opened up. Gun captains inside the forward mounts checked their breech plugs as the four destroyers broke suddenly through the edge of the squall into open water. Green phosphor blips on the surface search radar scopes resolved into a firm contact seven miles ahead. This radar return pinpointed the damaged Japanese warship as it sprinted toward the open reaches of the South China Sea.
Captain Boulware ordered the division to fan out into an intercepting arc, clearing the lines of fire for all sixteen main battery guns without overlapping their radar beams. Fire control directors rotated smoothly on their roller bearings aloft, locking radar range gates onto the enemy silhouette. Technicians monitored the freshly spliced copper wires for any sudden drop in electrical current that would sever the targeting link. Bridge lookouts raised their binoculars and spotted the dark exhaust plumes trailing across the water, confirming the target was directly within range of their forward turrets. Turret trainers aligned their five inch gun barrels to the bearing transmitted by the Mk 37 director aloft, waiting for the bridge to authorize battery fire.
Shipboard Sensor and Director Malfunctions
Charles Ausburne lost targeting synchronization with her trailing destroyers the moment electrical cables snapped inside the forward director tower. This sudden mechanical failure cut off the gun mounts from the bridge control circuits just as the enemy vessel entered effective range. Technicians manually spliced severed wiring leads to keep Mk 37 gun directors operational, stripping rubber casing with pocketknives. They twisted bare copper strands together while sea spray lashed the open access panels aloft. Electric shock numbed the fingers of the repair crew as live twenty four volt control circuits sparked against wet steel bulkheads inside the housing.
Wire splices restored the primary synchro transmissions between the director optical rangefinder and the five inch mounts below. Gun captains watched their bridge repeater dials flicker back to life, confirming electrical power had returned to the elevation gear racks across all mounts. Radar scopes in the combat information center still flickered with distorted target bearings as calibration errors across the SG surface search equipment threatened the newly restored battery alignment. Engineers and fire control crews resolved SG radar calibration errors, gyrocompass sync drift, and saltwater fouled relays under blackout conditions. Gyrocompass repeaters had drifted several degrees off true north due to violent course changes through the swells.
Plotting tables drew false heading vectors that could have directed five inch shells toward friendly pickets if left uncorrected. Technicians crawled beneath the plotting room deck plates with wrenches and alignment tools, resetting the mechanical gyro repeaters by hand to match master compass readings. Fire control officers monitored the adjusted bearing lines on the dead reckoning tracer tables, checking every degree change against visual horizon bearings. Clerks sat beside the plotting tables and logged each mechanical adjustment in official pen and ink. Fleet maintenance regulations required signed paperwork for these sensor repairs even during night surface combat.
Paperwork accumulated on chart tables while saltwater seeped through damaged gasket seals along the exterior bulkheads. This corrosive water fouled the electrical relays that fed target telemetry to the main battery. Electricians opened switchboard housings under total blackout conditions, using dry cotton waste to scrub salt crusts from magnetic contact points. Each cleaned relay restored high voltage signals across the firing network, stopping the erratic sparking that filled the lower equipment spaces with the smell of scorched wire insulation. Gun barrels across the four destroyers locked onto the enemy target bearing the instant the final repaired relays clicked shut inside the switchboard boxes.
Night Interception and Collision Avoidance
Captain Boulware delayed the broadside command as the four destroyers closed from ten thousand yards. The division coordinated radical course changes to avert high speed collisions in zero visibility. Surging bow waves crested across the forecastles of Charles Ausburne, Braine, Russell, and Shaw as the warships accelerated to twenty five knots through dense patches of rain and ocean mist. Helmsmen fought the heavy steering wheels to maintain precise parallel lanes, throwing rudders hard over in direct response to rapid course orders transmitted over the tactical voice radios. Zero visibility hid the churning wakes of the adjacent ships from sight, forcing watch officers to rely entirely on sound powered phone talkers and radar range displays.
Throttlemen in the engine rooms spun their brass handwheels to match every sudden engine order telegraph bell. They bled steam into the astern turbines whenever a warship surged too close to the vessel ahead. Bridge plotters tracked formation silhouettes closely to prevent mutual crossfire between American vessels during the approach. Quartermasters hunched over the glass topped dead reckoning tracer tables under shielded red lamps, sketching grease pencil vectors to monitor the clearance between each destroyer. Radarmen called out distance readings in rapid cadences, verifying no escort slipped into the direct firing arcs of the trailing five inch gun mounts.
Yeomen braced their bodies against the plotting room bulkheads and pinned damp paper logbooks to the steel counters with their forearms. They scribbled down every compass heading and boiler revolution to satisfy fleet record keeping standards. Saltwater dripped from overhead conduits onto the open paperwork, forcing clerks to blot the running ink with cotton rags while gun directors aloft rotated through wide angles. Motors inside the director housings hummed continuously as fire control crews swung their optical rangefinders to track the enemy contact. Lookouts on the bridge wings wiped blinding rain from their optical lenses, straining their eyes into the darkness to identify the fleeing Japanese destroyer before the ships crossed into coastal minefield limits.
Captain Boulware ordered the division into a loose line abreast, spreading the destroyers across the water to widen their offensive front and reduce the risk of accidental ramming. Rudders swung in unison across all four ships, carving wide white curves through the sea that exposed fresh broadsides toward the target. Tension mounted along the gun decks as the distance between the two forces dropped below four miles. Turret trainers locked their elevation handwheels as green ready lamps illuminated across the master fire control panels on Charles Ausburne. Gunners rested their palms against the firing levers and checked their powder hoists one final time, waiting for the signal to send their first coordinated salvos into the night.
Radar Directed Five Inch Battery Engagements
Captain Boulware broadcast the battery release order to end the wait, and between 2230 and 2255 hours, the destroyers opened fire. Blinding orange muzzle blasts ripped through the darkness, illuminating the rain swept decks as thirty eight caliber barrels slammed backward in their hydraulic recoil cylinders. Ammunition crews inside the handling rooms and enclosed gunhouses wrestled fifty four pound high explosive projectiles and brass powder cases onto the hoists. The gun crews sustained fifteen rounds per minute on each mount, filling the lower spaces with searing smoke and the stench of burnt cordite. Yeomen in the charthouse balanced clipboard logs on their knees to record every shell lot number and expenditure count required by administrative fleet regulations.
Geysers of displaced ocean water erupted violently along the port side of Charles Ausburne as Japanese counterfire from Hinoki straddled the American column. Seawater from the falling geysers drenched the forward superstructure, but Mk 12 and Mk 22 fire control radars maintained target lock through squall clutter. Radar operators inside the combat information center tuned their receiver gain knobs to separate the steel hull of the Japanese destroyer from the thick storm clouds and ocean chop. Helmsmen executed rapid rudder kicks to dodge incoming shell splashes, holding tight station with Braine, Russell, and Shaw. Fire control talkers shouted constant bearing adjustments through their sound powered phones to keep the gun mounts aligned with the radar antenna beams aloft.
Plotting officers worked under red battle lanterns to sketch enemy course vectors, pausing only to sign formal verification chits demanded by fleet headquarters for every radar tracking shift. Graphite pencils snapped under the violent vibration of the guns as the continuous salvos shook the plotting room tables. The concussions loosened electrical terminal screws inside the director computers, forcing electricians to drop to their knees with insulated pliers. They tightened loose relay contacts and bypassed shorted circuits to keep the automated gun drives linked to the master directors. Gun captains in the forward mounts took over local pointer control whenever shock waves jarred the synchro receivers, sighting down their illuminated crosshairs to pour direct fire into the target.
Shell bursts tore open the hull plates and upper decks of Hinoki, setting her fuel tanks ablaze and silhouetting her twisted superstructure against the dark water off Manila Bay. Division watch officers watched secondary explosions rip through the burning Japanese vessel, warning their helmsmen to swing clear of floating debris and submerged torpedo hazards. Rudders bit into the foamy wake as all four destroyers turned together to unmask their remaining broadsides and deliver the final crushing salvos into the sinking enemy hull. Ammunition passers cleared empty smoking cartridge cases from the gunhouse aprons, kicking the dented metal cylinders across the wet steel decks to keep the breech areas unblocked. Bridge officers verified every American ship remained clear of friendly torpedo lines and gunfire arcs, maintaining tactical coordination across the division despite the chaos of smoke and rain.
Point Blank Destruction of Hinoki
Helmsmen eased their heavy bronze steering wheels over to swing the division into cruising alignment, but bridge lookouts immediately spotted the dark outline of Hinoki drifting upright through the clearing gunsmoke. Captain Boulware cancelled the disengagement and ordered his column to reverse course and close the distance before the battered target could slip away into coastal shallows. American destroyers closed to point blank visual range, raking Hinoki with concentrated five inch gunfire. Gun mounts on Charles Ausburne, Braine, Russell, and Shaw tracked the burning Japanese destroyer through their optical sights. They poured continuous salvos directly into her hull and upper decks from less than three thousand yards.
Projectiles blasted into the Japanese warship at flat trajectories, ripping away deck gun shields, splintering searchlight towers, and collapsing the battered bridge structure into twisted iron ruins. Ammunition passers in the handling rooms beneath the American gunhouses fed fresh shells onto the hoists without interruption. They drove mechanical loaders at maximum speed while hot cartridge casings piled across the deck plates. Brass cartridge casings clattered across the wet steel decks as gun captains shouted firing orders through sound powered telephone talkers. Fire control crews kept their Mk 37 directors locked on the target silhouette while searchlights snapped on across the American column, cutting through the darkness to trap Hinoki in overlapping beams of brilliant white light.
Japanese crewmen attempted to return fire with their remaining deck guns, but the intense volume of incoming American ordnance silenced the weapons within seconds of their opening discharges. Shrapnel tore through the machinery spaces of the Japanese destroyer, rupturing high pressure steam pipes and setting remaining fuel oil tanks ablaze along the waterline. Bridge officers on Charles Ausburne watched secondary blasts ripple down the length of the Japanese vessel, confirming her internal boiler rooms and torpedo compartments were flooding rapidly. Helmsmen on the four American destroyers maintained their parallel courses at twenty knots, keeping clear of each other while holding their guns unmasked to deliver uninterrupted broadsides. Quartermasters braced their boots against the vibrating deck plates to log each tactical turn on paper chart sheets while the broadsides shook the pilot houses.
Yeomen stood beside the battle plotters under red dimmers, balancing metal clipboards on their forearms to record shell expenditure tallies and boiler revolution rates demanded by administrative fleet dispatches. Technicians in the forward interior communications rooms monitored the spliced wiring leads on the director circuits, holding spare fuses ready in case the muzzle concussions jarred the electrical relays loose. Shock waves from the five inch mounts rattled the radar cabinets in the combat information center, but radarmen kept their gain dials tuned to track surface debris. Hinoki exploded and sank with all hands roughly fifty miles off Manila Bay, concluding the final surface destroyer battle of the Philippine campaign. Internal ammunition magazines detonated with a sudden roar that sent burning metal plates, smokestacks, and machinery parts flying hundreds of feet into the night sky.
Combat Realities and Official Action Logging
Water surged into the shattered hull immediately after the explosion, dragging the Japanese warship beneath the surface within two minutes and leaving only an expanding slick of burning oil on the dark sea. Captain Boulware directed searchlight crews to sweep the oily waters for survivors, but the destroyers found no living sailors among the scattered floating debris. Bridge communicators transmitted the sinking coordinates to Task Force 78 headquarters, while yeomen logged the final rounds expended into the official action report. Quartermasters leaned over the chartroom desks on Charles Ausburne to smooth out water soaked deck logs, attempting to record the final starboard turn before salt spray dried on the heavy rag paper. Bridge personnel were forced to maintain exhaustive navigational logs and formal documentation even as incoming shells straddled their hulls.
Clerks shivered and struggled to grip fountain pens while Japanese explosive shells burst in the sea alongside, sending ocean spray through the bridge windows to soak entire pages of engine revolutions and rudder orders. Concussion from the five inch mounts had bounced metal clipboards across the deck plates, yet naval regulations strictly forbade gaps or omissions in the official record of course changes and ammunition expenditures. Officers wiped gunpowder residue from their hands and began reconstructing missing lines from memory, comparing grease pencil scrawls on radar plotting tables to match the frantic maneuvers of the night. Yeomen worked under red blackout lamps to transfer those rough grease pencil notes into clean columns. They matched radar contact vectors against the handwritten reports delivered from the lower magazine handling rooms.
Naval headquarters required every warship to account for every fired shell casing, radar calibration shift, and tactical voice radio transmission on preprinted administrative forms. This paperwork demand created dangerous distractions on the bridge, pulling vital watch officers away from scanning the dark water while their destroyers were still cutting through active combat zones off Bataan. Captain Boulware and his ship commanders had spent critical minutes checking handwritten logs instead of focusing entirely on lookout reports and damage control priorities. Executive officers initialed each damp page, bundling the charts and ammunition tallies into canvas courier pouches that fleet administrators expected to inspect as soon as the division anchored. Commanders added their own signed statements to those canvas pouches, gathering department heads in the wardrooms to draft the formal after action narratives.
Commanders used post action reports to highlight the friction between rigid higher headquarters bureaucratic requirements and tactical improvisation during night surface combat. Officers pointed out that rigid fleet doctrines and mandatory administrative checklists could not account for the rapid, split second choices required when fighting in zero visibility. Splicing severed director cables with pocketknives, throwing rudders hard over without waiting for coded radio clearances, and aiming guns by eye when radar returns dissolved into squalls had saved the division from disaster. Division captains used their official summaries to demand headquarters simplify combat documentation rules, arguing clerical burdens risked blinding combat teams to immediate tactical threats. Signalmen sealed those finished report packets in waterproof rubber bags, preparing them for transfer to Admiral Barbey as dawn approached over the Lingayen Gulf.