Pearl Harbor & Guadalcanal: Mal Middlesworth

Ken Harbaugh:

I’m Ken Harbaugh, host of Warriors In Their Own Words. In partnership with the Honor Project, we’ve brought this podcast back at a time when our nation needs these stories more than ever.

Warriors in Their Own Words is our attempt to present an unvarnished, unsanitized truth of what we have asked of those who defend this nation. Thank you for listening, and by doing so, honoring those who have served.

Today, we’ll hear from Charles Sternburg. Sternburg served in the Navy in World War II, and was a member of the Black Cats. The Black Cats were a group of bombers that flew stealth missions in the Pacific, tasked often with destroying enemy submarines or flying reconnaissance. They flew seaplanes called PBY Catalinas which were nearly invisible during the night, but were incredibly vulnerable to enemy munitions.

Sternburg flew as a co-pilot and bombardier with the Black Cats.

Mal Middlesworth:

My name is Mal Middlesworth.

Well, in those days, it was apparent to most people that we were going to get involved in this war. And as a young man, I wanted to get involved. I don't know my motivation, but I just wanted to be there. So, I joined the Marine Corps. They picked 3 out of 30 in Chicago, put us on a train. I could never understand why they picked the 3 out of 30. I was the runt of the litter. One of the guys was 30 years old, and I can't remember the third guy.

When we got to bootcamp, I thought this might be a mistake because I walked in, there were two beach boys, what I'd call muscle men from some beach in California. One of them was sitting there crying, and the other guy looked like he was going to hide somewhere. I looked out on the drill field and the drill instructor was pounding a guy with a big stick. I thought this might be a mistake.

And the Marine Corps, they give you a haircut, give you a good pair of shoes, and you get whatever uniform you line up in front of. Unfortunately, I lined up in front of a 44 large and the first button came down to my navel and the crotch came down to my knees. And the drill instructor thought that was humorous. He'd always look down the end of the line and say, “Middlesworth, get off your knees.”

One day he came over and called the other DIs over and said, “Look, do I see a little fuzz there?” And he asked me if I'd shaved that morning. I said, “No sir.” He said, “Why not?” I said, “I've never shaved.” So, then he made my squad leader watch me every morning and I'd shave. And every morning, he'd asked my squad leader if I'd shaved and he'd say, yes because he saw me. I didn't put a blade in it. I didn't have much of a beard. On the San Francisco, we had a beard growing contest and the winner got a case of whiskey. I got a box of Hershey bars.

I was on Marine Detachment USS San Francisco. I had the 8 to 12 noon watch, so it was our job to raise the colors at 8 o'clock.

I came up from the Marine quarters onto the well deck, and I looked over at Fort Island and thought, “Gee, that looks dangerous. They're practicing bombing, looks pretty rough to me, realistic.”

Walking through the hangar, I heard a lot of noise and was shocked to come out the hangar door onto the fantail where I would make colors and see a Japanese plane go right 30, 40 feet from me heading toward the battleship while as rear gunners sprayed our deck with machine gun bullets. Then I realized it was not a drill. And I honestly don't remember if we ever raised the colors or not. I've thought many times to see if we did, but that was our responsibility.

I noticed that the officer at the deck had tears in his eyes during the battle and the fire and everything. And being 18, it didn't affect me that way. That's what I was there for, that's why I joined the Marines because we knew we were going to be in war. So, not having any ammunition on the ship or any fuel, we just kind of stood there with probably the best seat in the house and watched a spectacular event happen. Saw the Arizona go boom, saw the West Virginia and the Oklahoma go over and then back over. So, it was quite an impressive event, particularly to a young teenager.

I could hear the bands from the battleships starting to play the Star-Spangled Banner. Quite an array of sound listening to torpedoes and bombs explode while a band on a battleship is playing Star-Spangled Banner. Quite a collage.

Most of the ships in the harbor were there on repair. Roosevelt had a hard time getting money for fixing up Wake Island, building facilities, ships were way behind. Radar was unheard of at that time. The San Francisco had only 30 and 50-caliber anti-aircraft guns. And while we were there, they put on one-point once, much newer and much more effective than any aircraft weapon.

So, when you come in, they do a lot of welding, a lot of building. So, first thing you do is to take all the ammunition and fuel off. And I still have dents in my shoulder from hauling five-inch shells off. I was new aboard to ship, so I was the bottom of the totem pole. So, you take these five-inch shells in these huge aluminum cases, and they're very heavy.

So, they bring them up with a little elevator type thing. And then you'd take them, put them on a barge, physical manual labor. Then you take them from the barge over to the ammunition depot where you put them on a freight car, and then you put them in a bunker. Of course, then you have to do the reverse.

So, they were pretty heavy. And we worked days to get all the ammunition off and all the powder off. So, we didn't have any eight-inch powder or shells on board. The only thing we had was some Thompson machine guns. We had eight, five-inch anti-aircraft, dual purpose guns, and they didn't have any shells. So, we had nothing else to do but to guard the ship and watch what went on.

Now, a lot of our gunnery people went over on the New Orleans, another heavy cruiser, and worked with the gunners and hauled ammunition and so forth and so on. But we were right in the middle, just down from 10 dock. So, the torpedo planes had to come directly over our fantail to make their torpedo runs at the battleships. So, we had a pretty frontline seat.

It was very frustrating and confusing because nobody knew anything, what was going on. There were rumors that the Japanese had landed. They were on the north shore of the island, all kinds of rumors going around.

So, naturally, the first thing the navy did was dog all the hatches and prepare for water – what do they call it? Waterproof… Tighten all the doors so the water can't get in and so forth in case we were sunk or something like that. But our ship was never hit nor was anybody wounded right in the middle of the process.

people got together and were talking about it. It was actually disbelief. They knew that we were going to be in war, but there was no knowledge up front that anything had happened. That a sub had been sunk or that radar had picked up some planes, there was no word.

The ward actually got a miniature sub. And you think somebody would've passed the word and said, “Hey, we're under attack.” But nobody did. There was no sense of urgency, no panic. People were in just total confusion, not knowing what to do next.

I didn't hear any planes or explosions or anything until I looked over at Fort Island. When I looked there in Fort Island, I saw bombs dropping and I saw them exploding, but I still thought it was a dangerous drill.

There had been some Dutch planes in the harbor that had kind of a red triangle on them, so I didn't think of Japanese and their insignia. But by the time I went through the hangar and came back out on the fantail, then I knew they were Japanese, and we were in a war.

They were looking for the battleships. That's what they were looking for. And the carriers, unfortunately, there weren't any carriers there. Enterprise had just delivered some planes to Wake. The carriers were only in danger from our fire when they came in the next day.

Interviewer:

Because you thought they were Japanese?

Mal Middlesworth:

They were shooting at anything that moved. As I told you before, the Marine captain suggested on the night of the 7th that I deliver a message to the Marine Barracks in Pearl Harbor. I don't know what he had in mind, but Captain Henderson suggested I take this message up to the Marine barracks.

And for the first time, I questioned an officer, I asked him, “How far do you think I'll get?” I had no idea why he chose me. I probably was the most expendable or the smallest, or maybe thought I was swift of foot.

But after I said, “How far do you think I'll get,” he realized that they were shooting at anything that moved. Anybody who got off the ship and moved up a dock or anything was going to be dead meat because they were firing at anything.

I never saw an American plane. When people told me that some American planes were involved, it was a surprise to me. Because obviously, they had planned their attack so well and it was a complete surprise. Surprised the Japanese that it was going to be so easy they started running out of targets. They had to come in pretty shallow right over our fantails because the harbor is shallow, and they had developed their torpedoes so they could operate effectively in shallow waters. The torpedoes were much better than ours. A lot of their equipment was better than ours at the time.

I can't say that I saw any shot down, no. There had to be, but the memories that I have are of the ships exploding. When you see a battleship turn over and roll over, guys falling out and jumping into the water, into the flames, that's the memories I have. I don't remember anything other than the torpedo planes going and making their runs and pulling up and going around. It was mass confusion. I don't remember anybody around us.

Now, we did take some ammunition down to the tracy, which was near us, but that was 30-caliber ammunition. All we had was a little 30 and 50-caliber. Most of our 30 and 50-caliber anti-aircraft were being torn apart. And some was being removed for installation of the 1.1s. Later they were replaced by 20 millimeters and 40 millimeters. So, we were not much of a defense other than helping people.

We stayed out for the 8 to 12 watch at noon. I was relieved, went down below and there was a sailor that one of the boats, whale boats or launches had picked up. They were bringing the sailors who were still covered with oil, and a lot of them were burned on every ship available. And they brought a lot of them down to the Marine compartment because that was next to the medical facilities and the doctor.

There were launches, whale boats, captains, gigs, whatever they could find. One of the most best-known pictures of the battle of Pearl Harbor, the West Virginia, is a picture of a man named Bill Moore in the water off the West Virginia. And he was in our chapter, and his body was burned about 80%. And partially blinded, great guy. And the guy who is picking him out of the water in this famous picture is a friend of mine named John Latco, who was a Marine of the West Virginia. It's one of the better-known pictures. So, there was a lot of that activity.

In the case of Latco’s rescue, there was an officer in charge of this motor launch, and the crew thought they could go further in and get a couple of more guys, but the officer told him, “No, we'll get burnt, we'll all get burned up and everything.”

He didn't want to go. So, they had to go through the process of watching two or three guys just go under and stay under that they thought they really could have rescued.

I came up on top again after I'd changed clothes and so forth. As you probably know, the fire burned for three days and two nights. There was that much oil and each one of these guys that they hauled in were brought to the ship, usually were burnt and they had oil on them.

Well, we'd heard about a previous battle where we lost a lot of cruisers: Astoria, Vincennes, and so forth. And in November, we arrived at Guadalcanal with a bunch of cargo ships with material and ammunition and fuel for the Marines on shore. All the way we were followed by Japanese planes, so they knew where we were all the time. And the night of the 12th, a two-engine betty came in low, and all of the ships were firing at it, and it hit our after-control station. And a couple of guys were killed and a bunch were wounded. So, we didn't have any after-control station. And that turned out to be a problem later on.

But we participated in the battle of … I don't remember whether it's Cape Esperance or Savo Island, November 12th, the night and morning of the 13th. Admiral Callaghan was on our ship, and he was in charge of this operation. And we were the first ship in. He didn't really trust radar. They used to use search lights. And of course, once you turn the search light in, that's a sign where you are. But I was sitting on a gun mount, and I kept hearing the ranges, and finally, they said, “3,600 …” I said my God, “We're going to ram them, not fire at them.”

What had happened, there were two rows of Japanese ships coming down the slot. Fortunately, they had anti-personnel ammunition to shell the Marines on the beach. So, we went up between them and all hell broke loose. It’s probably one of the most explosive and dynamic ship to ship battles in naval history, probably the last of those that'll ever occur. The strategy today is to go where they ain't not where they are.

But I was above the navigation bridge where we lost the admiral, the captain, and all the people on that bridge. And we lost some Marines and a lot of sailors. And after the guns were useless, my friend Jim Olson and I decided that this was not a good spot to be that high up. Callaghan had sent us in so close that the Japanese could not go below our water line. That wasn't much of a consolation to us six decks up, however. So, we thought we'd make our way down. And on the way down, we stopped at the navigation bridge, and everybody was dead laying there. There were body parts that we found the next morning and put heads together and figured out who was who and so forth.

On our way down, we started to go down to the signal bridge and the navigation bridge, and the ladder was shot out from under us. That first step was a killer, but we made it, and we made our way over to the five-inch battery on the starboard side and started to see if we could talk to people or help or do something, and they were all dead, and some of them were strapped in. So, we didn't have a five-inch gun that would work after this.

So, we went up by the number two turret, and we were talking to the guys inside. They were just as apprehensive and wanted to know what was going on outside. We had a much better view. And the ship went around for about 30 minutes inside of Tulagi, Savo, and Guadalcanal without anybody steering the ship. Finally, somebody figured out that nobody was steering the ship, so they called the after-control station down below, the third option. And the third-class quartermaster started steering the ship, and the executive officer took over and we headed for Espiritu Santos.

It was quite a battle. And the next day, we were heading for Espiritu and the Marine captain and I were in the wardrobe. I had a dust band and he had a waste basket. We're trying to get some of the water out of the wardrobe. There was a big hole in the wardrobe. And all of a sudden, the captain, Marine captain look out and he said, “Let's get the hell out of here.” He'd seen the torpedo just missed the ship. So, I'm pushing him as I'm running up the ladder, I don't know what good it would've done is to get on the deck, but it always seemed safe to be out in the open. And I looked over and I heard this explosion, and the torpedo that missed us hit the Juno, and all I saw was smoke. That's where the five Sullivan brothers were on that ship and lost their lives. And after the smoke rose, I didn't see anything, nothing floating, no bodies. I've read since then that a number of people were blown far enough apart the destroyers picked them up and so forth. And one of the most tragic individuals in that whole process was the doctor from the Juno who came over to attend to our wounded because we had so many killed and wounded. And he stood and watched his ship go up like this.

And outside of a little sleep and going to the bathroom once in a while, he stood there all the way to Espiritu Santos just looking out with his glazed look on his face and the tough experience for the man to wonder why he wasn't there with his shipmates.

We had two, SOC3s planes on the San Francisco that we would catapult off. And it was always interesting to see them land. The ship would turn and make a wake, they'd pull up in the wake and then we'd pull them up. That was an interesting process.

When we were in [Mia 00:25:30] one time when Butch O'Hare got his five airplanes in one day, we watched those dog fights. The admiral decided we should leave that area, he was a little afraid of being attacked by the land-based bombers.

So, they had a new rendezvous point, and I was on duty that day. I said, “Well, how about Peterson?” “What about him?” I said, “He doesn't know about the new rendezvous point.” He said, “Oh well, you don't worry about two men when the whole fleet might be attacked.” So, I thought we'd never see Peterson again.

So, after the battle, we went all over the Pacific. We ran for about two weeks and came back and so forth. Talk about good fortune. One morning at general quarters, we all were at our stations in general quarters. And as the dawn began, we almost ran into Peterson and the radioman. He had set a sail up, made a sail out of the parachute, and they were navigating for either Australia or New Zealand.

And even the young chicken radio man had a beard, and they had little corn beef and very little water. But to me, it was a fantastic coincidence that not only our task force, but our ship almost cut him in two two weeks later.

Every time I think of Savo and Tulagi and Guadalcanal, I think of Peterson because one day, we were in Guadalcanal unloading and a young man had an emergency appendectomy on Tulagi. So, he took off and picked him up and he crashed into Savo Island with both he and the patient and the radioman.

So, strange fate that the man was out navigating in Pacific all by himself with a parachute as his sail. Several weeks later, dies on an errand of mercery just running into Savo Island, heading back to the ship.

We left from Guadalcanal with the first division on the assumption that this was not going to be a rough campaign. The intelligence was, there wasn't much water on it. So, we took a lot of water tankers with us. Every truck, every vehicle had water behind them. And I was in the second wave, and the Japanese had changed their philosophy at that time. Instead of meeting people on the beach, they decided to let them come on board, get aways in, and then fire mortars and shells and so forth at them. So, they had all the beaches pretty well covered.

I remember going in because you had to walk about a hundred yards on Purple Beach in the sand with your rifle up above. And so, you were a little … that was a little dicey. You couldn't move too well, too fast. First thing you got rid of was your pack because you knew you'd pick up another pack somewhere along the beach. But I was a little shocked when I got on the beach and we had about 50 yards of territory. I could see the guys darting forward around this. And I was with a supply operation, I was in charge of ammunition. That was rougher than we thought it was going to be.

The first night ashore, we dug foxholes as much as you can on Peleliu in the coral. With those little pickaxes and shovels we carried, you could only go about three or four inches deep. And fell in a foxhole next to me, was baying at it that first night. And he's probably five, six feet away from me. I never saw anybody move. I heard a lot of firing and so forth. I swear I didn't sleep that night. There were two of us in the foxhole, but Peleliu was an abominable place. There were no front lines. It was hard to find the enemy. And they were so dug in, in and in tunnels, and it was just a mess trying to get … and it was a god awful place because we had destroyed the island. I understand it's beautiful now, I can't imagine it. But when I was there, it was 120 in the shade and there was no shade. It was a rough, rough campaign, and we all lost a lot of the first division.

Well, we saw plenty of signs of Japanese being around, we never could catch them. Although one day, the major came to me and said two of my buddies were up in the hills and they were pinned down. We'd send them up in the hills to get some swords and American flags that we used to sell to the sailors. Unfortunately, they'd run into a firefight with the Japanese. And because they were my buddies, I led a crew up to find them. And we came around this big piece of coral, and I was with a guy named Ceholski from Youngstown, Ohio. I always used to say to him, “Every time I tell you to push, you pull,” he was something else.

We came around this big boulder and we walked right into a Japanese soldier who's much surprised as we were. And I just froze there and Ceholski reached out and smacked him and decked him. So, we took him and back in, and so forth.

One of the things we had to do as a supply operation, we had to go up into the hills and pick up the wounded. That was a messy operation.

The coral was so cutting, and it rained so hard. So, physically, it was very tough to do anything, just to move. And you never knew where the enemy was. You could bypass them very easily and they'd come up from behind and so forth.

We had a defense line set up one night, and three or four got in, took water out of the well behind us and we never saw them. But they were more used to that kind of environment than Americans are. Whether you're talking about Guadalcanal or Peleliu or Sipan or wherever. They could exist easier than we could. They could hide better than we could. We couldn't exist on the food that they ate. Little rice, little sacky. They had a lot of advantages in the jungle, whether it's Guadalcanal or Peleliu or wherever. So, we had to learn how to fight a different war really.

The psychology isn't different now. The Marines land in [inaudible], the ships don't go anywhere near the shore, they stay over the horizon, look at the rockets we dropped from other oceans.

So, it's a whole different ball of wax. We just went blindly up the beach, took as much territory as we could, and fought and took all the territory we could till there was no more to be taken. That was a tough strategy, but that's what we were there for. That's what we were trained for.

Well, the psychology has changed today, where we used to run up a beach and take as much territory as we could, as quickly as we could at any cost, today they don't do that. And at Peleliu, as I said before, they changed, the Japanese changed their strategy. They didn't line up on a beach. They let you come in, they suck you in and let you get to shore and then they threw their mortars and artillery in.

One of the things that impressed me about Peleliu was they had guns on freight cars, steel doors opened. So, they were really prepared for people to come on to the beach. Big guns. So, they had them in caves and then would bring them out. They were on rails. They could fire about as far as the ships that were landing the troops.

Once they fired, then they'd go back, close the door and so forth. So, a lot of our offshore bombardment was not as effective as we thought it was.

One of the things I liked about being a Marine on the ship was it was a very clean environment. You'd fight a battle, put the wounded in a bag, dump them overboard with a very solemn ceremony, then go down, take a shower, get steak and eggs, and put on a clean uniform, where running up a beach like Peleliu, was just the opposite.

So, being a seagoing Marine was a good idea at the time. If I had to do all over, I would've stayed on the ship. I only got off the ship because of friendly fire.

Well, we were in a convoy, one of the first convoys I saw, I don't remember … oh, it was Yorktown. We were guarding the Yorktown. Surrounding the Yorktown with cruisers and destroyers. And suddenly, a plane came in off our quarter heading towards the Yorktown.

So, I at the time, was a 20-millimeter gunner and I stopped when it got to a point where I'd hit our plane. But the Yorktown sprayed us from stem to stern. And I was standing here, I went over to train on the airplane, and my loader who was standing where I was about two seconds before, as the plane came in, I stopped following the plane.

I moved over and suddenly, my loader took a 40-millimeter shell through the stomach came out about that big. So, I called up to the fire control where the marine officer was and said, “Hey, I want off the ship.” I don't mind the Japanese, but we lost several people that day. I thought there must be another way to do this.

Being a Marine meant a lot to me because they teach you dedication and teamwork. They teach you that there's nothing you can't do. There's no hesitation. They say take that machine gun as you go. It's not a democracy.

In bootcamp, they turn you into a sheep almost. They cut your hair, they do everything to humiliate you, but they train you properly. There's a reason why you march up and down those drill fields. Instinctively, they tell you left, you go left. They tell you to go right, they tell you to go after this machine gun, that's what you do. It's response. That's how you're trained and dedicated, and you know you can do anything they tell you to do.

I enjoyed being in the service, it was good for me as an individual. Taught me discipline, respect, and how to operate as a team member. I'm a Marine, not an ex-Marine. I'm a marine, an 80-year-old Marine.

Ken Harbaugh:

That was Mal Middlesworth.

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Warriors In Their Own Words is a production of Evergreen Podcasts, in partnership with The Honor Project.

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