Black Cats Over the Pacific

 January 2025

America’s defining point of the war was December 7, 1941, when Japanese imperial forces struck Pearl Harbor. This started something that was both tragic and impressive. On a very personal level, my dad and his close friend, Mike Goffus, immediately volunteered to help with the cleanup. Both were still in high school and their mothers said, “No way!” Their response to this war would have to wait until they graduated and did not have to ask for “mom’s” permission.

The Philippines were targeted mere hours after the attack at Pearl. Corregidor and the rest of the island nation fell and McArthur humiliated by the defeat of a country and a people for whom he had great affection, was forced to flee. His response was an impressive promise. “I shall return.”

The response of thousands of individual citizens who answered with characteristic American energy, optimism, and, yes, naivete was just as impressive. They entered with great enthusiasm and though weary and disillusioned as the war ran on, they kept up the fight. When it was over, 29,000 American sailors had slipped beneath the waves of the Pacific. With an average depth of 13,000 feet and the deepest water on earth at 36,000 feet it made for a silent and lonely tomb.

One of these responders was a young University of Pennsylvania graduate. Ensign Jack Mariner was a seaplane (PBY) pilot, and on one warm night a few years after Pearl he would fly his penultimate mission of the war.  White-knuckled and worried about staying safe for his new wife, Jack was focused and intent on doing everything right. He checked the plane thrice during the walk-through.  He made sure the crew was fully briefed and ready to go.  Armaments were checked and re-checked.  Jack’s “Skipper” was the flight lead, and he wanted to strike hard and leave the small Japanese task force in shambles.  Jack would be flying on the skipper’s wing, but was also given the honor of taking the lead run once the destroyers were located. Skipper ribbed Jack because he was not an academy grad like him. He was just one of those “slimy civilians” transformed into a Navy officer in 90 days. Secretly, the commanding officer saw something in his most junior officer and wanted to watch him take the first run at the target.

Later that night, with some moonlight to aid in sighting the Japanese deep ocean patrol, Jack flew the first strike on the picket ship. The “picket,” or sentinel ship, was on the point of the patrol leading the way and treading through dark seas looking for an American Navy target. Jack’s PBY performed beautifully, and the seasoned crew “pickled” the torpedo like the old pros that they were.  As Jack pulled up the old seabird, the crew looked aft to watch the orange flames leap into the sky.  Cheers went up! The first attack run was executed with perfect surprise and a solid hit.  Another low and slow PBY Night Cat hammered the crippled ship with a second clean shot and pulled up to make its egress.  Another round of cheers went up as the destroyer burned brighter. Other PBYs struck the picket and some of her following ships. The kill was on. The fires onboard the Japanese lead ship raged as she listed hard to her port and began to sink. In a few minutes, all that was left were surface fires as her spilled fuel burned.

Aboard the sinking ship was the youngest son of a Japanese fisherman. Moriyoshi was serving on the bridge when Mariner’s lead torpedo hit. Thrown from the bridge, he landed on the deck bruised, but not seriously injured. He was lucky he did not fall into the sea. As he stood up, a second torpedo slammed into the hull just below him. Knocked down again, he was bloodied, and terrified, but functioning. Another and then another torpedo hit the ship squarely. Fires were already breaking out; the bridge was engulfed in flames and fuel was leaking everywhere. The salt waves were hitting hard, and the water spraying across his face and uniform. For a minute he wondered if he was the only one left. It seemed like some surreal hell as the ship rocked and creaked violently to its port side. It was taking on water fast, he thought. Its port deck plating was slipping beneath the waves.

There was no call to abandon ship. The survivors knew what to do. Sailors, what few were left, were leaping into the cold black Pacific while eerie campfires of oil floated and rolled with the waves. Moriyoshi leapt into the sea. Swimming frantically, he hoped to find a piece of debris or even a life boat. After a few minutes that seemed like a lifetime, he bumped into the side of a poorly inflated life raft and with great effort pulled himself into it. He slid over to one of the sailors who was sitting up. Cold and afraid, he leaned against the young man’s shoulder and spoke to him. No reply, just the sloshing of the six or so inches of black water at the bottom of the raft. The young sailor was dead. With the help of a little light from the campfires along with the feel and smell of the dark fluid, he realized he was sitting in a cocktail of seawater and blood. Silently weeping to himself while everything he knew burned and sunk around him, Moriyoshi knew that he would live. And live he did after a harrowing night and some long, lonely years on a Pacific Island. He thought of his older brother in the Army, his mother and father and the imaginary girl he was going to fall in love with and marry when the war was over. The only thought he had for Jack Mariner was that if he ever met that murderous bastard, he would kill him. Little did Moriyoshi know that he would one day play a part in the life journey of his foe.

The flight back was smooth.  The unfortunate Japanese skipper put his ship a little too far “out there,” and the PBY crews wanted him to know that it was never healthy to stick your beak into the Night Cats’ domain.  With the mystical orange glow on their backs, they steered for home.  Spread out in front of them was a beautiful, tranquil scene of sea and sky lit gently by a silver moon. The wave tops sparkled with the shafts of moonlight that fell across the surface of the Pacific. There was a touch of new light on the eastern horizon. The sun was coming. Morale was high.  They had been doing a lot of surface surveillance, and the crews were not finding much. When word came that there was a small Japanese surface patrol probing around, the decision was made to hit them with the PBYs. “Low and slow” and painted black, they could approach the enemy with little chance of detection, hit them like phantoms, then be on their way.  The higher ups felt this was the perfect time for this assault, and they called the mission perfectly. 

 “Did you see that Jap ship burn?”

“Holy Moly, I lined that one up perfectly!”
“When I pickled that torp, I knew she was gonna blast their asses right out of the water!”

They were like schoolboys returning from a victorious ballgame or fight. All comms discipline was “out the window.”

“Cut the chatter!” A pregnant pause. “Right now!”

The radios all went silent.  It was the Skipper.

They didn’t need to be giving the enemy “intel” that would give his Black Cats away.

One young pilot quipped, “Aw, Skip, there ain’t any carriers or Jap fighters anywhere near us.  We were just enjoying the win!”

“Who was that?”

Silence.

They still had some flying left to do, and he did not need any Zeros to come looking for them at dawn. No way. Jack felt the same way and had a bad feeling that day was soon coming.