Night in Macassar

Over Balikpapan on the east Borneo coast the smoke hung thick; flames from the oil wells fired by the Dutch stabbed red into the murk. The Japanese were closing in. Off the port in the Strait of Macassar a great Japanese convoy stood, ready to move south toward Java. Before the next dawn. Feb. 24, it had been slashed into gaping disorder in one of the wildest naval raids in modern naval history.

In a great burst of overdue news about the desperate, last-ditch struggle to hold the Dutch East Indies, the U.S. Navy last week told the story in detail. Its narrator was six-foot, whip-lean Commander Paul Hopkins Talbot, leader of the squadron of four 1917-model destroyers that needled the convoy again & again & again, and got away without dropping a stitch.

Desdiv (destroyer division) 59 was cruising south of Celebes when it got word to head for Macassar Strait. It quickly found out why. It was to blast the convoy at Balikpapan, peppered that day by Dutch bombers. The monsoon was kicking up a rough sea when Talbot's division set out, at 25 knots.

Next nightfall the division was south of the Strait. The old destroyers boiled up to 27 knots and the bones in their teeth broke and swept across the flush decks knee-deep in spray and foam.

The smoke from Balikpapan's fires lay low and heavy on the water and the night was moonless. After midnight four Jap destroyers burst out of the gloom across the course of Desdiv 59. Talbot swung to starboard to avoid them, hoped they would not see him. They disappeared in the night and Desdiv 59 dashed into the middle of the convoy.

No man could identify the targets, whether oiler, transport, freighter or warship. But they were Japanese, and that was all the destroyer's men needed to know. At short ranges, never over 500 yards, her torpedoes shot into the sides of ships that were out of sight before the roar of the explosions.

There was no chance of missing. There was also no good reason for slowing up to see what damage was done. Once through the convoy, the division wheeled, hammered on a reverse course, let go with more torpedoes. In an hour it made three round trips through the convoy's five-mile length. On the last run the division was out of torpedoes.

Only then did Commander Talbot order gunfire. His 4-inchers blazed. The Japanese began to fire from armed merchantmen and destroyers. But it was much too late. Only four U.S. sailors were wounded when Desdiv 59, blacked out and wondering just how much damage it had done, bore south through the Strait again. When daylight came, the division looked forward to its leading ship, saw that Talbot had run up the signal that Navy men prize most:

"Well Done."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.