Chester Hill 1988
TINIAN: DUTY IS AS DUTY DOES.
12 January 1945 was a busy day for Swanson, as well as a completely new experience. Captain Alvin J. Greenacre, our Division Commander who was using us as his FLAGSHIP, PATROL AND ESCORT GROUP, Marianas Islands had received a request the day before to supply destroyer firepower to assist the Army Air Corps and their Marine sentinels in cleaning out a problem area on the island of Tinian, just south of Saipan. Tinian had been declared secure a couple of months previously, but there were a few stubborn holdouts – some natives and some Japanese troops – living in caves down the on the narrow beach below the cliffs at the southern end of the island. Chain link fence, topped with barbed wire had kept them away from the B-29s flying from the huge (now fully operational) airfield just above them every day and parked in revetments there every night. They posed no problem at first, but as their food ran out they had begun sneaking up on the airfield, tunneling under the fence, and stealing food at night. That was pesky, but tolerable. However, when they started torching the B29s that was something else. We had seen the glow from a couple of them ourselves, from off shore patrol.
The solution was to embark a Japanese prisoner and a native, both of whom understood a little English, along with guards and interpreters. They brought along a powerful portable bullhorn. Meanwhile, a gate had been cut in the fence on top of the cliffs, with a flag of truce alongside. A ladder had been lowered.
We cruised very slowly back and forth as close to the beach as we dared risk running aground. We could see the people ashore quite clearly, as we must not have been over 200 yards from them. There were men women and children and it was difficult to distinguish possible troops from civilians. We saw two or three cook pots in use. I would estimate that we saw perhaps as many as forty people.
The bullhorn was manned alternately by our prisoner and the native, telling the people ashore who they were and that they had not been mistreated by the Americans. This was followed by instructions to go up to the flag on the cliff and surrender, whereupon they would receive a good meal. They seemed to ignore our presence completely. Then they were given a deadline to comply repeatedly, followed by a minute t minute count down. This did not phase them.
Precisely on the dead line we went to GQ and trained our guns on them. They disappeared into the caves in seconds. We opened fire, mainly aiming into the mouths of the caves, and also at a few dugouts, since there were then no moving targets on the beach itself. We fired intermittently for over three ours, pausing frequently to allow the bull horn messages to be reiterated.
We observed no results of our efforts, but did hear the next day that a few people had come through the gate after we left. No more B-29s were torched, anyway.
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Many years later, when Lieutenant Calley of the Army was court martialled and cashiered for “wasting” a village in Viet Nam I searched my soul for a degree of guilt that we might have engendered, as I had done during the event it self. Our orders were in writing: C.T.U. 94.7 Mailgram 110015. In any event Sherman was right.