THE OLD LADY—USS CANOPUS (AS-9)
Old China hands referred to her as “the Old Lady.” Actually, she was the Canopus, one of three tenders assigned to Submarine Squadron 20 of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet. Built as a passenger liner, she was purchased from the Grace Line in 1921 and converted by the navy into a tender—a mother ship for S-type submarines, or pigboats, as those squat, cramped, ungodly hot, undersea boats commissioned in 1923 and 1924 were disparagingly called.
To pigboat sailors, the tender was a floating home away from home. Her sleeping accommodations and chow-line fare beckoned like a Ritz Carlton to submariners eager for a respite from the austere life they led in their own boats. But the Old Lady was much more than that. She was a seagoing miniature navy yard. She was so well equipped with machine shops, forges, and spare parts of all kinds that there were few things her top-flight crew of artisans couldn’t do to keep an S-boat in operating condition. To replenish her brood, she carried fuel oil, food, and ammunition—including torpedoes. Little wonder, therefore, that rock-hard S-boat crews regarded her as their Old Lady. The Canopus, with a division of six S-boats, arrived on the China Station in 1925 and was still there in December 1941, when all hell broke loose at Pearl Harbor. Her only armament was four 3-inch antiaircraft guns and an assortment of .50-caliber and .30-caliber machine guns—hardly a warship to strike terror into the hearts of Japanese bomber pilots. Nevertheless, she had been keeping her guns manned and ready from dawn to sundown for a week prior to that fateful day.
That first day of the war, the Canopus, whose commanding officer was Commander Earl L. Sackett, lay at anchor off the Cavite Navy Yard, across the bay from Manila. Japanese planes ignored Manila and ships in the bay, but, around noon, 108 twin-engine bombers escorted by 84 Zero fighters pulverized the U.S. Army Air Forces base at Clark Field—60 miles north of Manila. The rumble of exploding bombs and giant pillars of oily black smoke smearing the distant sky grimly testified to the fact that great damage was being inflicted.
More bombers came that night. Guided by flares ignited by fifth-columnists, they attacked Nichols Field on the outskirts of Manila. Flames from burning fuel dumps vaulted into the sky, weirdly illuminated the city and the bay, making a ghoulish mockery of the night. Rolling volumes of dense smoke shrouded the countryside, while high overhead the sky was brilliantly punctured by bursting antiaircraft shells and crisscrossed by the fiery tails of tracer bullets, all of which sought in vain to bring down the attackers. This ghastly spectacle, accompanied by thunderous explosions, brought to the men of the Canopus the sickening reality that war had in fact come to the Philippines and they were helpless even to defend themselves. Frustrated and fighting mad, they swore violent oaths that somehow they would strike back.
For the defenders of the Philippines, that first day of the war was a depressing one. Before midnight tolled, the smouldering debris of more than half the bombers and two-thirds of the fighters in MacArthur’s small Far East Air Force littered the gutted airfields. From then on, the Japanese ruled the skies over the entire Philippine Archipelago and the contrails of their warplanes spelled defeat.
The message delivered by Japanese bombers came in loud and clear—ships in Manila Bay were sitting ducks. At dawn the Canopus moved from her anchorage to moor alongside a dock in the port area of Manila, where she had less then 4 feet of water under her keel. Here, if holed by a bomb, she would simply rest on the bottom, her decks above water. It was hoped that this would permit the salvage of valuable equipment and stores needed to keep submarines of the Asiatic Fleet operating. To minimize losses, many torpedoes and spare parts were hurriedly off-loaded and sent by barge to Corregidor for safekeeping; other stores were put aboard a small inter-island steamer. To disguise the Canopus, bluejackets painted her superstructure to match the docks and spread camouflage nets overhead. Her exposed fuel tanks were filled with water in order to reduce the danger of fire if she should be hit by a bomb. In a word, everything possible was done to ready her for the worst.
On 10 December 1941, Japanese bombers, flying beyond the range of the defenders’ antiaircraft batteries, demolished Cavite Navy Yard, the navy’s only ship-repair and supply facility in the Far East. The important role that the Canopus instantly assumed became vital the following day, when the Holland and Otus, the only other submarine tenders in Asia, were ordered out of Manila Bay to safer ports in the Netherlands East Indies. From the bombed-out navy yard, battered ships limped to the “Old Lady” for help, and her crewmen responded like surgeons in an emergency room. Night and day they toiled to ready these ships for sea while, at the same time, equipping their regular submarine brood for offensive patrols. When the doleful wailing of air-raid sirens interrupted work, the submarines sought refuge on the bottom of Manila Bay and all hands aboard the Canopus manned battle stations until the sounding of “all clear.”
After two weeks of sporadic fighting to stem the Japanese advance on Manila, General MacArthur conceded that without air support the effort was futile. To spare the city from certain destruction, he abruptly declared that, effective midnight 24 December 1941, Manila would be an “open city.” MacArthur had not discussed such an eventuality with Admiral Hart, commander in chief, Asiatic Fleet, and this sudden directive, delivered to the admiral just before noon on the twenty-fourth, caught him totally unprepared. Vital naval supplies were scattered throughout the waterfront of this Manila base, from which the admiral had planned to conduct submarine warfare until forced by the enemy to withdraw. Given just twelve hours to close down his headquarters and move ships, supplies, and personnel to Corregidor and Bataan, Hart was understandably furious. The decision meant that he would no longer be able to sustain submarine operations from the Philippines, and the short notice he was given meant an appalling loss of precious supplies that could not possibly be moved in the time available.
That night, Christmas Eve, Japanese bombers attacked Manila. One bomb hit the headquarters of Captain John Wilkes, commander, Submarine Squadron 20, which had been established in the newly completed Enlisted Men’s Club near the dock area, showering fragments and debris on the decks of the Canopus. The ship immediately got under way for the Corregidor area. As she steamed down the bay, she could see large fires in and around Manila, some caused by bombs, but most of them purposely set to prevent fuel and other valuable supplies from falling into enemy hands. Early on Christmas morning, the Canopus arrived in Mariveles Bay, at the southern tip of the Bataan Peninsula. Lying just across a narrow stretch of water from the guns of Corregidor, this bay had been considered relatively safe from air attacks but, as the tender nosed into the harbor, she was greeted by a depressing sight. A bombed and burning merchant ship, victim of the previous night’s raid, bore mute testimony to the fact that no place in the Philippines could now be considered safe.
With great hopes of hiding from the enemy, Sackett moored his ship close to the shoreline in a small cove partially protected by high hills. To help blend her with the adjacent jungle, the crew spread camouflage nets over her decks, applied lavish quantities of green paint topside, and lashed branches of trees to her masts and upper works. Unfortunately, a nearby rock quarry caused a large white gash in the cliffs forming a backdrop that, viewed from one direction, was impossible to match. They would have to live with this chink in the camouflage and pray that no enemy plane photographed the area from that direction.
Whether enemy agents, who haunted Bataan, or “Photo Joe,” a Japanese plane that made daily reconnaissance, disclosed her presence is not known, but on 29 December the Canopus was unmasked. During most of that day, Japanese bombers, contemptuous of the small-caliber antiaircraft guns defending Corregidor, hammered the island fortress. The Canopus lay ignored until the last group of nine, twin-engine bombers wheeled in from the exposed quadrant and bracketed her with a perfect pattern of thirty-six bombs. Moored to the beach as she was, her guns unable to reach the high-flying attackers, she was struck, amazingly enough, by only one of the closely bunched missiles. But that one, armor-piercing bomb ripped through all her after decks, exploded atop the propeller shaft, blew open her port after magazine, and started fires that could detonate the ammunition. The Canopus shuddered violently with this near-fatal rendering of her vital parts, while rocks, gouged from the hills by exploding bombs, slammed down on her decks. Smoke pouring from ammunition scuttles leading from her magazines, coupled with muffled secondary explosions below decks, were grim reminders that her magazines could blow at any second. These, however, served only to speed all hands to rescue wounded shipmates and to fight the fires which threatened to destroy their beloved ship. It took four grueling hours to extinguish the fires and permit examination of the magazines, where seventy-five crushed and exploded 3-inch powder charges were found. It was a miracle that the general magazine did not explode when the bomb set off those charges. To the men of the Canopus, it was indeed a miracle that bomb fragments severed water and steam pipes near the magazines, and the resulting deluge automatically isolated them from the flames.
The Canopus was grievously hurt. Six of her crew were dead and six seriously wounded, but she was far from being out of action. At dusk, when enemy bombers no longer haunted the sky, it was “business as usual” on board the Old Lady. While repair parties, spurred on by the ardent hope that they would soon be steaming south to join the fleet, were hard at work patching up the damage, other crew members were busily servicing submarines for their war patrols.
The bomb completely wrecked the supply officer’s compartment and cindered all his accounts. From that day forward there would be no supply accounting. Whatever was aboard the ship could be had without the usual red tape. Since there was nothing for which men could spend money, pay days were abolished. Ice cream and canteen supplies were free. Clothing became community property and was allocated to those considered to be in the most naked condition. As Sackett wrote:
This Utopian state inevitably welded us all into a great family working and fighting in a common cause, with only one aim—to do our damndest to lick the Japs.
Curiously enough, the boys who had been the worst troublemakers in time of peace, became our most shining examples in wartime. Perhaps they had just too much restless energy for their own good when things were normal, but this same quality enabled them to perform prodigies [sic] when the chips were down.
Ordinary methods of discipline of course failed, since the men got no liberty or pay anyhow, and what would normally be extra duty was now only the usual stint for everyone. But punishments were fortunately unnecessary, as the spirit of the community would tolerate no shirkers, and the men themselves saw to it that no one was derelict in his duty.*
Two days after the bombing, the last of the submarines pulled out of Manila Bay, bound for new operating bases in the Netherlands East Indies, leaving the crew of the Canopus feeling depressed and abandoned. To a man, they desperately wanted to do their share in the war against Japan. They argued strongly that a submarine tender without submarines to tend was a waste of talent and equipment, and the Canopus should, therefore, be permitted to go south. Although fully aware of the many dangers inherent in such a voyage through areas now dominated by Japanese sea and air forces, the crew was eager to take the risk. The high command, however, had other ideas and the tender was ordered to remain in Mariveles Harbor.
It did not take long for the word to spread that the Canopus, with her well-equipped machine shops and talented craftsmen, was looking for work. The submarine rescue vessel Pigeon, several minesweepers, motor torpedo boats, and other auxiliary vessels also left behind were constantly in need of repairs, and soon came to the Old Lady for help. But those were not her only “customers.” When army and army air forces units got the message, they too came to her in droves to have their damaged ordnance and transportation equipment put back in operable condition. Suddenly, the men of the Canopus, finding themselves busier than ever, realized that they were very important to many people, especially those on Bataan, and readily adapted to their new mission—to help hold Bataan.
The magnificent efforts of the Canopus’s men were attested to by the fact that, besides dealing with a constant stream of repairs, they manufactured 150 machine-gun tripods, improvised mounts for naval guns to be used in coastal defense, and made mounts for more than 40 .50-caliber machine guns for use in antiaircraft defense. They charged torpedoes for the motor torpedo boats and even put structural steel plates on many an army motorized unit to protect it against small-arms fire. There seemed to be no limit to what the ship’s company could do.
The first bombing attack made everyone realize that daylight hours aboard ship were not conducive to longevity, and it became doctrine to send most of the crew ashore to sleep during the day and bring them back to work all night. Only the gun crews remained on board ship during the hours of danger.
On 5 January 1942, the Japanese tried again to eliminate the Canopus. Flying out of gun range, as usual, seven heavy bombers dropped twenty-eight bombs. Again, luck was with the Canopus, because only one of the bombs scored a direct hit. It struck the side of her towering smokestack and literally sprayed her upper decks with small chunks of metal. The gun crews ducked behind their splinter shields just before the bombs landed, but that gave them little or no protection from shrapnel coming from above, and fifteen men were wounded. Fortunately, no one was killed. In a matter of minutes, the sailors ashore raced out to their ship with stretchers for the wounded and quickly went to work repairing damage.
Damage to the ship was superficial. The bomb started several minor fires, which were soon extinguished, and some of the upper works, where hundreds of fragments had punctured the light plating, looked a bit like Swiss cheese. The near-misses, though, had left their marks. Both sides of the ship were pierced above the waterline by shrapnel thrown up by the bombs that exploded on contact with the water. Other bombs exploded deep underwater and dished in her hull two or three inches, cracking plates and causing heavy leakage through loosened rivets.
Since the Canopus had to remain moored to the beach in Mariveles Harbor and the Japanese knew she was there, something had to be done to keep her alive and well. There being no antiaircraft protection, Sackett decided that survival lay in making the enemy think that his ship had been polished off by the most recent bombing attack. To that end, all hands worked throughout the night to prepare the Old Lady for the arrival of Photo Joe, whose pictures would show an abandoned hulk in all but sinking condition. They flooded empty fuel tanks in order to give the tender a starboard list. They made her cargo booms look forlornly askew, and blackened large areas to look like bomb holes from which smoke, derived from burning oil-soaked rags in strategically placed smudge pots, would ooze skyward for several days. Photo Joe’s pictures would not disclose that, every night, the “abandoned hulk” hummed with activity, forging weapons for the beleaguered forces on Bataan.
Realizing that by firing her futile antiaircraft volleys at enemy planes, the Canopus was only attracting attention to herself, Sackett had all .50-caliber machine guns removed and mounted in the surrounding hills. Two of her four 3-inch antiaircraft guns were damaged in the bombing and, since there was little ammunition left for the other two, they were dismantled to provide spare parts for similar guns that the marines were manning at the head of Mariveles Bay.
When it was decided that the ship would be abandoned during daylight hours, her company took over a large, recently completed storage tunnel near Mariveles, in which they built bunks, fitted out office spaces, hospital accommodations, a telephone communications center, and a makeshift galley. Although more than a hundred men were living in this shelter and many of the repair force slept there during the day, most of the men scorned the tunnel’s dank atmosphere and took their chances beneath the shade of tropical trees in the hills, leaving a lookout to warn them in time to dive into foxholes whenever marauding planes appeared.
Canopus sailors who were not in the “night owl” group of workers, manned machine guns on the hilltops surrounding Mariveles and waited impatiently for a chance to get an effective crack at any Japanese plane foolish enough to venture within range. Others manned lookout and signal stations on the same hilltops. Equipped with telephones removed from the ship, wires for which they strung throughout the entire system, these men continually searched the skies for enemy planes.
Mariveles Harbor was generally considered well defended against surprise attack from the sea. Although enemy naval forces were always hovering off the coast of Bataan, the big guns on Corregidor forced them to stand their distance, and, 20 miles to the north, the army had stabilized the front on the China Sea side of the heavily jungled Mariveles mountains. One man, Commander Francis J. Bridget, a naval aviator in command of the remnants of Patrol Wing 10 that had not been able to fly out of the Philippines with their squadron mates, took issue with the prevailing belief that the area was safe unless the front lines failed to hold.
The seacoast between Mariveles and those lines was not defended because treacherous, rock-strewn beaches, crouching before sheer cliffs backed up by seemingly impassable jungles were not regarded as likely places for Japanese landings. Bridget noted that in several areas, the only road to those front lines ran close to the sea. If the Japanese succeeded in making a landing, they could cut the road to prevent reinforcements and vital supplies from moving up. Such a maneuver could spell disaster, and Bridget was determined to forestall it. The army, hard-pressed, could ill afford men to defend such unlikely landing areas, but the navy could. To start with, Bridget had under his command about 150 aviation ratings and a few officers. After describing the situation as he saw it to others, he was able to augment his force with 130 men from the Canopus, about 80 from the navy’s ammunition depot, and 100 or so marines. Thus was formed the Navy Battalion on Bataan, with Lieutenant Commander Henry W. “Hap” Goodall of the Canopus second in command to Bridget. A few marine and naval aviation officers became company commanders.
It has long been an adage in the navy that you can’t make a soldier out of a sailor. No way! Bridget, however, was determined to try. Equipment posed a serious problem. The marines were ready for field duty but the sailors did not have even the bare essentials. Rifles and ammunition were begged, borrowed, or stolen. Some shotguns turned up and arguments ensued that, according to international law, they could not be used. However, those who had them stoutly maintained that it didn’t matter a damn what you killed Japs with, they’d still be dead, and rather than go unarmed, they kept the weapons. Perhaps two-thirds of the sailors knew which end of a rifle to point at the enemy and had even practiced on a target range, but none of them had the slightest concept of how to act in the field. Experienced marines were spread thinly throughout each company in the hope that their example would help the sailors to shape up. White naval uniforms were hardly suitable for jungle fighting, and attempts to dye them khaki by boiling them in coffee resulted in their being a sickly mustard yellow. Only one canteen could be rounded up for every three men, so the great American tin can was pressed into service to make up the deficiency.
In late January, when the Navy Battalion, a rag-tag outfit if there ever was one, had been together only a few days, it was decided that, to harden them up, a hike along the coast road was in order. With spirits high and considerable wisecracking filtering through the ranks, the men sallied forth on what might be considered their first training exercise. They had gone only a few miles when, at the base of Mount Pucot near the China Sea, they came across a group of soldiers who were highly agitated because they had just been rudely ejected from their signal station atop the mountain by Japanese soldiers. Commander Bridget’s worst fears were confirmed when it was discovered that the enemy, having landed at nearby Longoskawayan Point, was working inland toward the vital communications road.
It suddenly became “field training” with a vengeance for the fledgling infantrymen. At Bridget’s command to “go get ’em,” men of the battalion, equipped with little more than enthusiasm and determination, moved out. Up various mountain trails they went, soon to be swallowed in an all-but-impenetrable jungle. With no means of communicating, units became separated and, in the next five days, some of the weirdest jungle fighting of all time ensued. It wasn’t long before the men in the van made contact and the sound of gunfire resounded through the jungle. It was apparent that the Japanese had landed in force and the Navy Battalion had a “bear by the tail.” Nevertheless, they succeeded in driving back the enemy’s advance patrols, then dug in to plot their next move. They were not equipped for sustained warfare, and no thought had been given to logistics. But when the Canopus received a hurried call to send plenty of everything, all work was dropped and food, water, ammunition, blankets, and stretchers were rushed to the new battle zone.
What little contact the units of the Navy Battalion were able to maintain with each other during daylight hours went completely by the board at nightfall. Trails through the jungle, difficult to follow in daylight, were impossible to find in the dark. The Japanese, however, were masters of night jungle-fighting and put their famous infiltration tactics to good use. This, however, did not produce the expected results. The sailors, not having been indoctrinated in the time-honored army principle that it is fatal to be outflanked, simply held their ground and, at dawn, sent back detachments to clear out the pesky intruders.
The Japanese landing party consisted of picked men, larger and stronger than the average, and well equipped for jungle fighting. Had they made a determined assault, they might have wiped out the ragged but resolute Navy Battalion. However, being well versed in the precepts of war, they refrained from making such an assault until they knew the location of the strong reserve, which they assumed was backing up the small force they had encountered. Little did they suspect that the Americans didn’t have a reserve anywhere.
After two days of hard fighting in the snake- and mosquito-infested jungle, the Navy Battalion was still holding out, but Japanese mortars were adding to the unpleasantness of their situation. To counter this enemy advantage and help to delude the Japanese as to the size and composition of the force pitted against them, sixty marines equipped with mortars were brought over from Corregidor. Strangely enough, the inadequacy of the Navy Battalion’s communications facilities helped to fog the Japanese estimate of the situation. Several times, rumors somehow reached pockets of Canopus men that their ship was getting under way to join the fleet and their presence on board was required. Eagerly, they made their way to Mariveles, only to learn the rumor was someone’s pipe dream and be immediately ordered back to man their positions. The noisy scurrying along the jungle trails that these trips to Mariveles entailed led the Japanese to believe that reinforcements were moving up. A diary later found on the body of a Japanese officer confirmed that the enemy was completely bewildered by the conduct of the Navy Battalion. He described the men as “the new type of suicide squads, which thrashed about in the jungle, wearing bright-colored uniforms and making plenty of noise. Whenever these apparitions reached an open space, they would attempt to draw Japanese fire by sitting down, talking loudly, and lighting cigarettes.”
On the fifth day, the 57th Regiment of Filipino Scouts relieved the battered and hard-pressed Navy Battalion. In three days, these tough jungle fighters, assisted by the murderous fire of huge mortars on Corregidor, literally tore the enemy to pieces. Hundreds of Japanese dead littered the jungle, and the remnants of a once-elite force retreated over the cliffs. Holed up in deep crevices and caves which honeycombed the sheer cliffs, these desperate men could be expected to fight to the death. To shoot it out with them from the land side would not only be intensely difficult but would exact an unacceptable price in dead and wounded Filipino Scouts. Yet, the Japanese presence posed a serious threat that could not be ignored.
Acutely aware of the Scouts’ dire situation, Canopus men contrived an ingenious way of helping them out. They would attack the enemy from the sea. Even as the plan was being approved, shipfitters were hard at work converting three of the tender’s 40-foot motor launches for combat. Thus was spawned what was to be pridefully known as “Uncle Sam’s Mickey Mouse Battle Fleet.” Armed with .50-caliber machine guns and a light field piece with protective boiler plate around the engine and gun positions, the first of the “Mickey Mouse battleships” was soon ready for action. Manned by Hap Goodall and a crew from the Canopus, the little craft put to sea. It was an 8-mile cruise to Longoskawayan Point, where the Japanese were holed up, and, on her first operating day, this unorthodox naval weapon made two round trips, blasting scores of Japanese from their caves. As evidence of her success, the “battleship” brought in two live but dazed enemy prisoners and the corpses of three others who had been wounded but failed to survive the trip.
The second midget man-of-war was completed the following day, whereupon both sallied forth to continue the mopping-up. This time, only four of the enemy were found and, in short order, dispatched to the land of their ancestors. Thorough reconnaissance of the area revealed that it had been swept clean of Japanese troops, and the Canopus sailors at last felt avenged for seven shipmates killed in the land fighting and the six who died in the first bombing attack on their ship.
Goodall’s “Mickey Mouse fleet” was not about to be mothballed, for within a matter of days a large Japanese force tried to land on Quinauan Point, several miles north of the site previously used. This landing met with fierce opposition: boats of Motor Torpedo Squadron 3 viciously attacked the landing craft and escorting destroyers, while three P-40 fighters, the last in the army’s inventory, doggedly bombed and strafed the invaders. Although thirteen troop-laden barges were sunk and a destroyer was crippled by a torpedo, a sizable force managed to get ashore, which meant more work for the Filipino Scouts. The Japanese made persistent efforts to reinforce their beachhead and air-dropped supplies to the men ashore. It took the scouts and other army units more than a week of hard fighting to drive the remnants of this contingent back to the cliffs. Then, once again, Hap Goodall was called upon to clean out the caves.
By this time three midget men-of-war were available for the attack. They shot up everything in sight and when the dead enemy soldiers were laid out for inspection, the count ran to thirty-three. Mission accomplished, the little task force headed for home, but en route it was attacked by four Japanese dive-bombers. As the boats scattered and took evasive action, a salvo of bombs bracketed the lead boat, blowing a hole in her bottom, killing three of her crew, and wounding four, one of whom was Goodall, who was hit in both feet. It was an uneven battle which they could not hope to win, so Goodall ordered the two remaining boats beached, permitting the survivors to scramble for safety among the rocks.
After shooting up the beached boats and making several unsuccessful strafing runs on the survivors, the enemy planes flew away. Once the danger had passed, the Canopus men improvised crude stretchers and carried their wounded comrades over the rugged jungle terrain until the exhausted little group eventually came to the west coast road. There, they were able to flag down an army truck and get a ride back to Mariveles.
The “Mickey Mouse fleet” was no more, and, with the army having mounted guns along the exposed China Sea side of Bataan to hold off any more landings, the Navy Battalion was designated “T” Company and incorporated into the Fourth Marines. On 16 February 1942, “T” Company, along with their “leatherneck” fighting mates, was moved to Corregidor to man guns defending the beach approaches to the island fortress. There were 130 Canopus sailors in “T” Company, all of whom still had visions of the Old Lady steaming south to join the fleet. As they boarded boats, Corregidor-bound, they threatened their shipmates with dire consequences, should they steam off leaving them behind.
Very little bombing of the Corregidor and Mariveles area occurred between 11 February and 23 March 1942, and it was generally believed that the enemy had changed tactics from seeking a clear-cut military victory to one of starving the Filipino and American troops into submission. Actually, the lull resulted from the stinging reverses suffered by the Japanese on Bataan early in February, coupled with their diverting men and equipment from the Philippines for the all-out offensive to capture Singapore and the Netherlands East Indies. In any event, throughout that period, the machine shops on board the Canopus never ceased to hum with activity during the hours of darkness.
With her amply-stocked refrigerators in operating order, the Old Lady served up ice cream and sandwiches to any Filipino Scout, soldier, sailor, or marine who managed a half-way plausible excuse to come on board. Until near the end, when the food ran out, the ship was a haven and, as Commander Sackett wrote:
Nearly every evening, Army officers and nurses who were able to snatch a few hours of leave from their duties, gathered on board the Canopus. We had refrigeration, excellent cooking facilities, and decent living quarters, which seemed heaven to them compared to their hardships in the field. To enjoy a real shower bath, cold drinking water, well-cooked meals served on white linen with civilized table ware, and the greatest luxury of all, real butter, seemed almost too much for them to believe. When these favored ones returned to their primitive surroundings and described these “feasts” topped off with ice cream and chocolate sauce, they were often put into the same “dog house” as the optimists who claimed to have seen a fleet of transports steaming in.*
During the last week of March, the Japanese launched an all-out offensive against the exhausted, half-starved defenders of Bataan and, every day, wave after wave of bombers dropped their deadly loads on Corregidor and the Mariveles area. Singly and in pairs, they kept up the pressure with nightly nuisance raids. Most of the navy’s oil supplies, dispersed in small caches throughout the underbrush around Mariveles Harbor, were destroyed. Bombed-out water lines and power and communication lines required constant repair. The Old Lady herself was subjected to four more attacks, but she led a charmed life and the salvos exploded harmlessly around her.
The ferocious tempo of these attacks was maintained and it was hardly a surprise to men of the Canopus when, on 6 April, word came that the front lines were in serious trouble. Following days of murderous artillery fire, exhausted Philippine Army troops in the center of the line had given way, exposing to capture the crest of Mariveles Mountain. Unless the lost ground could be recaptured and that commanding position denied the enemy, the entire peninsula would be at the mercy of Japanese artillery fire. All available reserves were frantically thrown into the breach but the men, weakened by dysentery, malaria, and hunger, could not stem the onrushing enemy hordes. On the eighth it was learned that army forces on the eastern flank were in full retreat toward Mariveles, destroying ammunition dumps and stores of all kinds as they came.
To avoid certain capture or death, everyone on Bataan wanted desperately to fall back to Corregidor, which was considered impregnable. The rock, however, was overcrowded, and General Jonathan Wainwright, commanding all American and Filipino forces in the Philippines, issued orders which strictly limited the number of those on Bataan who would be permitted on Corregidor. About 2,000 persons, including all of the nurses and most of the navy personnel on Bataan, managed to reach Corregidor.
The evacuation had to be completed before dawn, when Japanese bombers could be expected to attack anything attempting to cross the 3-mile strip of water between Mariveles and Corregidor. It was a fiendish night. The ground constantly shook from the violent explosions of ammunition dumps, which hurled flaming showers of bursting shells high in the sky. Burning supply dumps for miles around cast a weird yellow glow over the slopes of Mariveles Mountain and, above all this madness, the rolling thunder of artillery fire coming ever closer grimly tolled Bataan’s death knell.
Spurred on by thoughts of impending disaster, the men of the navy worked fast. They dynamited all tunnels to prevent their use by the enemy, blew up the Dewey Floating Dry Dock, which had served the Asiatic Fleet for so many years, and sank minor vessels that could play no part in the defense of Corregidor. All night long, they lugged to evacuation boats large quantities of machine guns, rifles, ammunition, food, and fuel urgently needed on Corregidor.
The submarine tender USS Canopus (AS-9), scuttled by her crew on 10 April 1942 to avoid capture when Bataan fell to the Japanese. National Archives, 1014614
In the midst of this feverish activity, a skeleton crew boarded the Canopus with the unhappy assignment to scuttle her and, in so doing, end forever her valiant crew’s dream of steaming south to join the fleet. The proud Old Lady, whom the Japanese had not been able to finish off, was able to back out under her own power to anchor in 14 fathoms of water off Lilimbon Cove. Working with desperate abandon, the crew wrecked all her machine tools and valuable equipment to ensure that any enemy efforts to salvage her would prove futile.
When the wrecking crews had done their work and doors to all below-decks compartments had been opened to permit water unhindered access to all parts of the ship, the sea valves were opened. With volumes of water rushing into her guts, the USS Canopus soon took on a 10-degree list to port, whereupon the crew abandoned her. From a safe distance, the men sadly watched the slow death of their beloved ship. Lower and lower she settled until, with a final convulsive shudder racking her from stem to stern, the grand Old Lady vanished beneath the sea.
It was almost dawn when the last of the evacuation boats, three motor launches filled with weary Canopus men, pulled away from the docks at Mariveles. Hardly had they set for Corregidor when they were numbed by shock waves from a tremendous explosion. Undoubtedly, what had happened was that gasoline drums stored in one of the hillside tunnels broke open when the entrance was dynamited earlier, causing fumes in the corked-up tunnel to build to a massive explosive charge, which somehow ignited. When it blew, the entire hillside was engulfed in sheets of raging flame, and huge boulders ripped from the craggy slopes were hurled a half-mile out into the bay. Torrents of rocks and debris churned the calm waters into frothing, angry waves, and the three motor launches were caught in the midst of this diabolic barrage.
Boulders crashed down on two of the boats. One, her entire stern sheered off, sank instantly. Miraculously, no one on board was injured. The other lost an officer and three enlisted men when a boulder crashed through her canopy, and nine enlisted men were wounded. Although seriously damaged, this launch was still able to run, and her crew, overburdened with dead and wounded shipmates, assisted in the rescue of all hands from the sunken boat. A long hour later, both boats arrived at Corregidor.
The Old Lady was no more, and the savage battle for Bataan had been lost. For nearly four months the crew of the Canopus had fought with marked ingenuity to stave off a Japanese victory. The shattering of their cherished dream of joining the fleet so that they could more effectively use their skills in the war against Japan in no way dulled their determination to produce “beyond the call” when the chips were down. Now, they were faced with another last-ditch battle. The Battle for Corregidor.
Oddly enough, these Canopus sailors had come to be considered “seasoned troops” and, as such, were thrust into the outer defenses where, with the marines, they manned machine guns and automatic rifles to defend the beaches. When Corregidor’s big guns and defensive positions were finally blasted into bloody rubble and the Japanese launched their decisive assault on the “rock,” men of the Canopus were in the thick of the fighting. Many were killed or wounded. The survivors, captured by the Japanese, spent three and one-half terrible years in prisoner-of-war camps, where more died of disease and malnutrition.
For navy men, particularly submariners, the stirring saga of the USS Canopus, like the star of the first magnitude for which she was named, will shine forever in the galaxy of naval history, a proud beacon for all to see.
*Sackett, “The History of the USS Canopus,” p. 8.
*Sackett, “The History of the USS Canopus,” pp. 17–18.
