“The gunners fired a steady stream of shells into one plane as it came down in a steep dive and crashed fifteen feet off the port bow. The second plane circled until he saw his partner had missed, and he dived on our stern, strafing as he came. The gunners fired on him until he crashed _three feet_ off the starboard bow, spraying the deck with debris and water. One man was blown over the side by the concussion but was rescued uninjured.” The last plane was shot down by the combined fire of the PTs before it could even pick a target. That afternoon as 224 and 297 were leaving for the night’s patrol, two planes dropped three bombs but missed. The ships in the bay shot one plane into the water. The other was last seen gliding over the treetops, trailing fire. On the afternoon of December 17th, three planes came into the bay. One went into a steep dive aimed at Lieut. Commander Almer P. Colvin’s 300. The _kamikaze_ had been studying the failure of his comrades, with their suicidal sacrifice, to inflict any damage on the swift PTs. Lieut. Commander Colvin gave the 300 a last-second twist to the right, but the pilot outsmarted him, anticipated that very move, and crashed into the engine room, splitting the boat in two. The stem sank immediately and the bow burned for eight hours. Lieut. Commander Colvin was seriously wounded, four men were killed, four reported missing, one officer and four men wounded. Only one man aboard escaped without injury. That night Lieut. Commander N. Burt Davis’ boats carried sealed orders from General MacArthur to a guerrilla hideout on the other side of Mindoro and delivered them to Lieut. Commander George F. Rowe, U. S. Navy liaison officer to the Mindoro Underground. The boats picked up eleven American pilots, who had been rescued and sheltered by the guerrillas, and brought them back to Mindoro. Some of the Japanese High Command wanted to write Mindoro off as already lost; others wanted to make a massive counterlanding on the north beaches to fight it out at the perimeter defense and push the American airfield off the island. The two groups compromised, and as often happens in a compromise, they sent a boy to do a man’s job. Admiral Kimura left Indo-China with a heavy cruiser, a light cruiser, and four destroyers, on a mission of bombarding the Mindoro beachhead. It wasn’t much of a naval task force to send into those waters, but as it happens, every American capital ship in the area was at Leyte, too far off to help. The only naval forces handy were the PTs. The PTs had been up against this very problem before. Twice, at Guadalcanal, they had tangled alone with a bombardment force and a far mightier bombardment force than the one approaching from Indo-China. “Recall all patrols to assist in the defense of Mindoro,” Lieut. Admiral Kincaid ordered Lieut. Commander Davis.