Raider: The True Story of the Legendary Soldier Who Performed More POW Raids than Any Other American in History
336
Raider: The True Story of the Legendary Soldier Who Performed More POW Raids than Any Other American in History
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Overview
Raider is the true story of the legendary soldier who performed more POW raids than any other American in history.
He went into battle as a boy. And on one of the most daring missions of World War II, he became a man-- and the perfect soldier for America's next wars...
Galen Charles Kittleson was slight, modest, and born to wage war. The son of an Iowa farmer, Kittleson volunteered in 1943 and caught the eye of his commanders. By 1945, PFC Kittleson was selected for the Army's smallest elite unit, the Alamo Scouts. While U.S. forces were pushing back the Japanese in the Pacific, the Alamo scouts unleashed legendary raids deep behind enemy lines, including the liberation of over 500 starved, beaten prisoners of the Bataan Death March in the Philippines. For Kittleson, a career as a raider had just begun...
Charles W. Sasser chronicles the remarkable journey that was Kit Kittleson's courageous life in the service of his country. Now a veteran after first going to war as a boy twenty-five years ago, Kittleson volunteered for one last mission-- the most extraordinary and daring POW raid ever attempted by secret American Special Forces in Vietnam...
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781466858855 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | St. Martin's Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 12/03/2013 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 336 |
| Sales rank: | 517,846 |
| File size: | 462 KB |
About the Author
Charles W. Sasser is a decorated Vietnam veteran and Green Beret, as well as one of today's most respected military and true crime writers. He has authored more than a dozen books, including Taking Fire and One Shot, One Kill.
Charles W. Sasser served in the U.S. Army Special Forces, the Green Berets, for thirteen years, and has spent time in Vietnam and Central America as a war correspondent. He has been a full-time freelance writer/journalist since 1979 and has over 30 published books to his name, including None Left Behind and Raider. He lives in Oklahoma.
Read an Excerpt
Raider
The True Story of the Legendary Soldier Who Performed More POW Raids Than Any Other American in History
By Charles W. Sasser
St. Martin's Press
Copyright © 2002 Charles W. SasserAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4668-5885-5
CHAPTER 1
There was no moon at the moment, but there would be one later. It would be red and menacing like the Japanese Rising Sun, and it would ride low on the watery horizon of the wartime Pacific, building a bloody shimmering boulevard across the sea to the two PT boats whose navy crews would await the outcome of the raid. Aboard the PT boats in the near-total pre-moon darkness, two teams of 6th Army Alamo Scouts — thirteen elite soldiers — prepared to slip over the PT gunnels into a pair of rubber boats. Dark-skinned native New Guinea guides in khaki shorts lay on their bellies, one guide on each patrol boat, and attempted to steady the rubber craft that bounced alongside on a roughening sea. Dutch Coastwatcher Louie Rapmund, a skinny sunburned man wearing an Aussie hat with one side of the brim turned up, stepped back and braced himself against the PT cockpit. He rebelled against being among the first into the unsteady rubber boats.
"Mate, I never been much at riding bucking brumbies," he whispered to the dark shadow of the Scout next to him.
"You get used to it," the Scout replied.
"Like a toothache?" the Dutchman said.
There was no further conversation. Rapmund stayed out of the way of the Scouts' preparations and watched. He accompanied the raiding party only because he spoke the local native lingo and because it was to him the native had come after escaping from the Japanese. The man told of how a former Dutch governor, his family, and their Japanese workers — sixty-six men, women, and children in all — were being held by the Japs at slave labor in the village of Maori on Cape Oransbari in the Vogelkop area of northwestern New Guinea.
General Douglas MacArthur's headlong rush of island-hopping to retake New Guinea and keep his promise to return to the Philippines had resulted in isolating more than 200,000 Japanese troops in pockets of resistance throughout northern New Guinea. Within these pockets, Japanese soldiers retained "prisoners of war," most of whom were Melanesian, Dutch, and Australian planters and their families — forced labor for the Emperor's army.
"We have a good chance to rescue at least one batch of them," Lieutenant Bill Nellist had explained in a pre-mission briefing to his Scout team six days earlier at the Navy PT boat base on Woendi Island.
Nellist bent over a map of the Vogelkop, his tall figure resembling a stork's intent on pouncing on a fish. A kerosene lamp burned on a map table, around which gathered the other six members of the team. Their shadows loomed on the tent walls.
"This is Maori," he said, jabbing a finger at the map. "PT boats will insert our team and Rounsaville Team on Cape Oransbari about three miles from the village. Guides will take us there through the jungle. We expect about thirty Japs at the village. But, fellas, there's a Jap garrison about twenty miles away with two thousand other heavily-armed Nip troops. We can't afford to screw up. We have to get in fast, kick ass, and get out of there with the prisoners."
It was 28 September 1944. The Nellist and Rounsaville Teams had graduated from 6th Army's Alamo Scouts on 6 September. For the past three weeks, Scout operations officers like John M. "Jack" Dove had used the new teams sparingly to break them in — overnighters reconnoitering areas of light occupation by the Japanese, quick missions to contact Coastwatchers or to question natives. The fledgling Scouts chafed at the bit, eager to stretch their legs and run. They had been trained and trained hard to infiltrate and operate behind enemy lines in small six- and seven-man guerrilla elements: reconnoitering Jap installations; blowing up barges and truck convoys; sabotaging enemy movements; training natives to spy, sabotage, and raise hell with the Nips. They were ready to get on with their part of the war.
Jack Dove was a husky six-foot two-hundred-pounder from Hollywood, California. Handsome enough to be a movie star — say, a John Wayne type — he flashed a constant boy-next-door grin. "You'll all get your chance to fight the Japs," he reassured the new Scouts.
The Oransbari raid promised to test the Nellist and Rounsaville Teams. It was their first real mission.
"We're going to lose our virginity," hooted Willie Wismer.
"You are too ugly to lose yours," big Gilbert Cox hooted back.
Twice before during the past four nights the raiders had attempted landings. The first time a sudden squall prevented the teams from departing Woendi. On the second attempt, one of the PT boats tasked with transporting the raiders struck a floating palm and twisted its screws.
Tonight, however, looked to be a "go."
The PT boats' big Packard engines idled almost without noise, their exhausts underwater and therefore muffled. The boats were grungy, battle-scarred, rat-ridden, cockroach-infested 80-footers with high prows, each armed with four torpedo tubes, a .50-caliber mounted machine gun and an antiaircraft gun. Waves pounded and sucked against the ply-board hulls. Wave action tossed each rubber boat high and against its mother ship with a slithering sound.
Private First Class Galen Kittleson knelt on the deck of his PT and reeled in the rubber raft by its painter. For Christ's sake, where is it? It was that dark. He flopped out on his belly next to the native guide and reached over the side to find the raft. He felt wet rubber and made out the little boat's outline.
No more hesitation. He grabbed his .45 Thompson submachine gun and sprang with it into the rubber boat. Waves bounced it up to receive him. He sprawled backwards, but sponged to his feet and steadied the boat against the PT for the others to board.
"Move it!" hissed team leader Lieutenant Nellist. The five other soldiers of Nellist Team — Tech Five Willie Wismer, Corporal Andy Smith, Staff Sergeant Tommie Siason, Private First Class Gilbert Cox, Private First Class Sabas Asis — pounced in with Kittleson, using his body to steady themselves while they found positions. The native guide nimbly piled in on top, while Rapmund the Coastwatcher would have gone overboard had Nellist not grabbed his battle harness. Big Gilbert Cox took over and wedged the Dutchman between Asis and Wismer at the bow. Lieutenant Nellist and a private named Hill were the last aboard. Hill and Jack Dove in the other boat would return the rubber rafts to the patrol boats.
By this time Rounsaville Team had loaded its rubber raft. Kittleson grabbed a paddle and pushed off from the PT boat. It disappeared almost instantly into the darkness. The two rafts bobbed low in the water, rising and falling together, their occupants paddling almost side by side to maintain contact.
Kittleson peered ahead into the South Pacific night. He either saw the darkened inkline of land dead ahead or it was his imagination. He dipped his paddle deep and threw his shoulders into the resistance. The Tommy gun rested across his thighs, always within reach.
Kittleson was a diminutive soldier, barely five-four on a tall day. At nineteen years old, he was the youngest fighter in the elite Alamo Scouts. Despite his age and size, however, the farmer kid from the Iowa cornbelt had already won a Silver Star for Valor by single-handedly knocking out a Jap machine gun on Noemfoor.
The kid had volunteered for the army and had volunteered for the paratroops. Now, in volunteering for the Alamo Scouts, he had volunteered for the most hazardous missions the army could throw at him in the fight against the Japs. Before, while he was in action with the 503d Parachute Regiment, U.S. 6th Army, the other GIs treated him almost as a good luck amulet. "Kit" Kittleson, they said, only half jokingly, lived a charmed life, and that charm protected his buddies.
Kittleson knew better. It wasn't charm; it was faith. His was a simple and direct faith. On the PT boat en route, he had bowed his head and silently asked the protection of God for himself, the other raiders, and the prisoners they were attempting to rescue.
And now he was ready. Ahead, breakers shallowed into shimmering white foam, creating an eerie phosphorescent effect in the black night. The rafts together shot into a small protected cove. Their bottoms scraped on coral. Looking like a child's stick figure, Nellist sprang from the boat into the surf. The others followed. The hulking figure of Gilbert Cox slapped Kittleson on the butt as the team waded quickly ashore.
Even the night birds went silent for the landing. The beach was only about a yard wide, one step between the saltwater and the beginning of tropical rain forest. A black wall. Kit dropped to one knee with Cox at arm's reach on one side and Asis on the other; he was damp from the ocean spray. No one spoke, not even a whisper. Voices carried long distances at night. Even sweating when you were behind enemy lines seemed deafening. It was up to Rapmund and the natives to find the footpath.
Kit asked God to have mercy on the souls of those who must die tonight.
CHAPTER 2This was Rounsaville's show; he was calling the shots as mission leader. Lieutenant Thomas "Stud" Rounsaville was a long man, all legs and shoulders. He dropped to his knees next to Kittleson. Kit shifted his ear close to the officer's lips.
"Take point with the Melanesian when they find the trail," he said, then melted away with Nellist to check on the other men. It wouldn't do for anyone to become separated from the others on a night like this.
The natives located the trail after a short search. It started at the beach near the mouth of the Wassoenger River. It was not much of a trail, more a faint footpath slippery and sticky with mud from the afternoon's rain. Trees dripped water. In the distance, back from the beach, night birds began calling again as from a Tarzan movie.
Kittleson and the two natives took point. Kit used a night lens on his flashlight. It emitted a faint red glow hardly visible from fifty feet away, but was sufficient to keep the trail underfoot. The little force lined out caterpillar-style on the path, while Lieutenant Dove and Private Hill lashed the rafts together and returned to the PT boats to man the communications net and wait out the hours until the rescue attempt.
The trail led dark, wet, and silent through heavy foliage, south across the Oransbari Cape to its south shore and the village on the Maori River. Although the escaped native New Guinean insisted the Japanese occupiers felt comfortable in their little jungle redoubt and that security was therefore lax, only potentially dead men took anything for granted in enemy country. Kittleson sweated from tension and effort. He tested each footstep for the crack of a twig or the scraping of a rock before trusting his weight to it. He paused frequently to listen to the dark and sniff the dank air, his eyes all but useless underneath the overhanging forest canopy. No words were spoken or needed.
The red moon climbed out of the sea as the two Scout teams snail-paced through the jungle toward the target, but the forest canopy squeezed all light out of the atmosphere before it reached the jungle floor. Rotting vegetation produced foxfire — phosphorescent eyes glowing balefully in the darkness, watching the movement of the intruders as though resenting it. Great glowworms appeared to float in an ocean of black.
Tropical jungle at night is a threatening and alien world — especially if it conceals men whose desire is to kill you in the quickest and most savage manner possible.
The raiders had departed the PTs at 1700 hours, shortly after nightfall. They had until dawn to cover the three miles to Maori.
Kit focused all his senses into the blackness ahead.
A rifle shot barked somewhere ahead, so suddenly and unexpectedly that Kittleson's war-honed instincts dropped him face down into the mud even before he thought about it. A second shot following immediately after the first registered more rationally in his brain. The shots came from farther off than he first supposed, but they were still near enough to pose a possible threat. Japs weren't shooting at them, though. But what the hell were they shooting? Prisoners trying to escape?
No one moved for a quarter-hour, not even to scratch his nose or brush away the swarms of mosquitos that covered him like a living cloak. Gradually, Kittleson's heart stopped thumping so heavily against the mud. He strained his senses to penetrate the unknown distance ahead.
Lieutenant Nellist crept forward to the pointmen, startling Kit with his silent approach.
"Damn, Bill," Kittleson breathed. "You trying to give me a heart attack?"
"We're getting close," the lieutenant whispered. "The natives think the Japanese were shooting wild pigs. They hunt them at night. Let's move out. But take it slow."
They couldn't have gone much slower.
The raiders crossed the Maori River upstream of the village an hour before the first smear of dawn. The river was more like a shallow creek heavily wooded on both sides. Kittleson waded across. It was knee deep. He pushed his way silently into a thick copse of undergrowth. The teams quickly formed a perimeter. It was still so dark, the red moon having sunk now beyond the forest, that the Scouts set up within arm's reach of each other. Kittleson smelled cooking fires from the village still hidden ahead but now so near that the crowing of a rooster and a dog's barking sounded almost within the tight perimeter. He hoped the fires were last night's and that the Japs were not yet stirring. Surprise was a necessary prerequisite of the assault.
Rounsaville dispatched the escaped prisoner to scout the enemy camp for last-minute intelligence. Only seven days had passed since the man's break for freedom. Sending him back in was risky business, but riskier still lurked the possibility that the Japanese may have reinforced the village's defenses during the intervening week.
By the time the spy returned, gray morning twilight had crept into the blackness of the night. Day birds were awakening in the jungle, muttering sleepily, and a brown hen with its ass worn bare clucked nearsightedly past not ten feet from where Kittleson lay. It surprised him that he could see it. He glanced to his left and made out the tall prone form of Andy Smith. Smith looked back. He was 6th Army's top athlete and its most valuable basketball player. He was also something of a good-natured bullshitter who let the other men know he was 6th Army's top jock.
The Melanesian slipped back into the perimeter wearing a broad grin on his swarthy face and carrying three Jap rifles he had relieved from their sleeping owners. Team members huddled close in the bushes around the spy and the Coast-watcher to receive the report and finalize assault plans.
"Nothing change," the former POW whispered in pidgin English. "I count so many, this." He held up splayed hands and flashed off the number 23 on his fingers. "This many" — eighteen fingers — "him sleep now in this one house."
He drew in the dirt with a stick.
"This many" — five — "him in this house. Here. Dutch peoples and other peoples, him in this house and this house ..."
Using Rapmund as an interpreter, Rounsaville quickly drew a schematic on the ground. A long nipa hut barracks on stilts against rainy season flooding apparently housed the main body of the Japanese — the eighteen from whom the native had stolen the rifles. It was set nearest the jungle and farthest from the beach and the mouth of the Maori River. A smaller stilted hut nearby housed five Jap Kempeitai, Japanese intelligence specialists, and the native chief who was being held hostage.
Between these two structures and the beach rose several smaller huts and another long stilted bamboo building into which the prisoners were herded each night for sleeping. There were no guards over them, but any captive caught outside after lockdown was subject to execution on the spot.
The only defenses appeared to be along the beach where the Japs had dug shallow emplacements and set up a Dutch heavy machine gun and a Japanese light machine gun. The sentries there occupied a small, hastily-built palm-and-bamboo hut.
The Japs felt so secure they hadn't bothered establishing night sentries.
They were making it too easy.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Raider by Charles W. Sasser. Copyright © 2002 Charles W. Sasser. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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