Rum for the Crew

A trail of phosphorescence bubbled whitely across the black sea off Guadalcanal. A New Zealand patrol boat, spotting the glow in the night, changed her course, ran down the telltale trail and dropped a pattern of depth bombs.

Below the surface a Japanese submarine faltered. The patrol boat circled, dropped more charges. Hurt this time, the Jap came up. With its deck guns it blazed away furiously at its attacker. The patrol boat fired back, turned on her searchlight. The little New Zealander was only 150 feet long; nevertheless she pointed her bow at the sub and charged forward.

Japs began spilling out of the conning tower. The New Zealand gunners peppered them. The Jap commander toppled off the bridge. His men tried to shoot out the patrol boat's light, mortally wounded the seaman operating it. The two vessels crashed.

The New Zealander backed away, guns still blazing. Jap soldiers with full packs poured out of the conning tower and tried frantically to unleash life rafts. Again the patrol boat rammed, sheering off one of the sub's hydroplanes. And once again--said the skipper: "This time we climbed clear over her top and rode her piggyback." They got off by giving the engines full astern.

Smoke billowed out from the Jap's hatches. Lashed by the New Zealander's gunfire, the sub limped towards shore. Off Cape Esperance it suddenly went down at the stern. Said the New Zealand skipper: "There she rested on a reef, and she's still there with 30 or 40 feet of her bow in the air pointed towards Tokyo. I ordered the rum broken out for each man."

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