The Pittsburgh Press (July 29, 1943)
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
With the U.S. Navy in the Mediterranean – (by wireless, delayed)
As long as this ship of ours sails the high seas, even after every member of the present crew has been transferred away, I’m sure the story of the searchlights will linger on in her wardroom and forecastle like a written legend.
It is the story of a few minutes in which the fate of this ship hung upon the whim of the enemy. For some reason which we probably will never know, the command to obliterate us was never given.
Our great, bad moment occurred just as we had ended our long invasion voyage from North Africa and stopped at our designated place off the south coast of Sicily. Our ship was about three and a half miles from shore which in the world of big guns is practically hanging in the cannon muzzle.
Two or three smaller ships were in closer than we, but the bulk of our invasion fleet stood far out to sea behind us. Our admiral had the reputation of always getting up close where he could have a hand in the shooting and he certainly ran true to form throughout the invasion.
We’d been stopped only a minute when big searchlights blinked on from the shore and began to search the waters. Apparently, the watchers ashore had heard some sounds at sea. The lights swept back and forth across the dark water and after a few exploratory sweeps one of them centered dead upon us and stopped. Then, as we held our breaths, the searchlights one by one came down with their beams down upon our ship. They had found their mark.
Just like sitting ducks
All five of them, stretching out over a shoreline of several miles, pinioned us in their white shafts as we sat there as naked as babies and just as scared. I would have been glad to bawl like one if it would have helped, for this searchlight business meant the enemy had us on the block. Not only were we discovered, we were caught in a funnel from which there was no escaping.
We couldn’t possibly move fast enough to run out of those beams. We were within simple and easy gunning distance. We were a sitting duck. We were stuck on the end of five merciless poles of light. We were utterly helpless.
One of the officers said later:
When that fifth searchlight stopped on us, all my children became orphans.
Another one said:
The straw that broke my back was when the anchor went down. The chain made so much noise you could have heard it in Rome.
A third one said:
The fellow standing next to me was breathing so hard I couldn’t hear the anchor go down. Then I realized there wasn’t anybody standing next to me.
We got all set to shoot at the lights, but then we waited. Our admiral decided there was some possibility they couldn’t see us through the slight haze although he was at a loss to explain why all five lights stopped on us if they couldn’t see us.
We had three alternatives – to start shooting and thus compel return fire; to up anchor and run for it; or to sit quiet like a mouse and wait in terror. We did the latter.
Lights blink out
I don’t know how long the five lights were on us. It seemed like hours. It may have been five minutes. At any rate, at the end of some unbelievably long time one of them suddenly blinked out. Then one by one, seemingly erratically and with no purpose in mind, the others went out too. The last one held us a long time as though playing with us. Then it too went out and we were once again in the blessed darkness. Not a shot had been fired.
Assault boats had been speeding past us all the time and a few minutes later they hit the beach. The searchlights flashed on again but from then on, they were busy fanning the beach itself. It didn’t take our attacking troops long to shoot the lights out from close range.
I’m not sure some of them weren’t just turned out and left off for good. We’ve never yet found out for sure why the Italian big guns on the shore didn’t let us have it. Several of us inquired around when we got ashore after daylight. We never found the searchlight men themselves, but from other Italian soldiers and citizens of the town we learned that the people ashore were so damn scared by whatever was about to attack them from out there on the water that they were afraid to start anything.
I guess I’m always going to have to love the Italians, for had anybody else been behind those searchlights and guns that night, we of this ship would be telling our searchlight yarn to St. Peter by now.