Transcript
Paul Harvey (0:00)
The rest of the story. World War II in the Pacific. At dawn, two American destroyers, the USS Connor and the USS Charette, have been trailing a suspicious Japanese vessel all through the night. It appears to be a hospital ship, but the US Navy has reason to believe that the Tachibana Maru, in fact, is a transport vessel carrying troops and weapons. So this is the plan. The two American destroyers will stop the Japanese ship at daybreak, will send 15 unarmed personnel aboard her to investigate. If the Tachibana Maru is what it's supposed to be, the boarding party will leave in peace. But if the ship is what the Navy thinks it is, the destroyer will sink her, whether the Americans on board are able to escape or not. So as the sun peers over the Pacific horizon, those who have volunteered to board The Tachibanu Maru, four officers and 11 sailors finish writing letters to their families, letters which are to be sent in case the men do not return. The Japanese vessel is radioed to halt. Shortly thereafter, the American boarding party arrives in a dinghy. The Japanese personnel greet them with smiles and with bows. This is only a hospital ship, the Japanese captain says through an interpreter, while the American medical officer goes below to inspect the patients. The commanding officer searches for medical supplies, and neither officer finds what he's looking for. The patients, as it turns out, are combat ready Japanese troops, more than 1, 600 of them. The medical supplies, guns, artillery shells, maybe 40 tons of weaponry. The American commanding officer radios back to the destroyers by walkie talkie relating his discovery. And then he turns to the captain of Tachibana Maru, informing him that he's under arrest. Minutes later, before the Japanese are fully aware of what's happened, 70 armed American sailors and Marines are aboard the enemy vessel. But not a shot is fired. That's the wonderful part of this story of the Tachibana Maru. The US Navy takes over and escorts the ship to the nearest allied port, delivering 40 tons of weapons and ammo and 1663 prisoners, all of them unharmed. Not a shots fired. And yet, despite that remarkable and remarkably humane accomplishment, not one person aboard the Connor or the Charrette received a medal, nor even a citation. In fact, what they did barely earned them a brief mention in one stateside newspaper. Because on the day the Japanese ship was brought into port, other news obscured its capture. Seldom in any wartime, any wartime throughout history has such a mercy been recorded. One intemperate command and thousands of lives might have been lost. And yet, because of precision planning and the cooperation of the enemy, and a little bit of luck, the United States Navy made one of the biggest POW hauls of the entire war without firing a shot, without spilling a single drop of blood. And this is the first you ever heard about it. Because the day those 1663 Japanese prisoners were brought mercifully to Morotai, that was August 6, 1945, the same day we dropped the big bomb on Hiroshima. And now you know the rest of the story.