The _Gansevoort_ was towed to the PT base. There she was given the bizarre task of torpedoing the burning _Porcupine_ to knock off the blazing stern before the fire reached the gasoline tanks forward. The trick didn’t work, for the blast just spread burning gasoline on the water, endangering the _Gansevoort_ herself and setting new fires, so she had to be towed to a new anchorage. There she was abandoned, but a volunteer crew of a nearby PT boarded the destroyer and put out the fires. _Porcupine_ burned to the waterline. The most grievous blow of the _kamikaze_ attack, however, was struck at the PT navy. The fifth Japanese dive bomber dove on the PT tender _Orestes_, was hit by tracers from PTs and LCIs, hit the water and bounced upward into the starboard side of the tender. The plane’s bombs punched through the side and exploded within, blowing many officers and men into the bay. The ship burst into violent flame, and fire mains were ruptured by the blast. Fifty-nine men were killed and 106 seriously wounded. The waters around the _Orestes_ were teeming with swimming sailors, and PTs bustled about, pulling in the stunned survivors of the blast. The LCI 624 went alongside and Commander A. V. Jannotta, the LCI flotilla commander, led a volunteer fire-fighting and rescue party aboard the ship, which had become a hell of exploding ammunition and burning aviation gasoline. Commander Jannotta was awarded a Navy Cross for his heroic salvage work of that afternoon. Captain Mentz had been severely wounded in the _kamikaze_ blast, and his chief of staff, Commander John Kremer, Jr., had been killed, so Commander Jannotta took over as commander of the whole task group. He was given a Silver Star for his performance in that capacity. Led by Lieut. Commander Davis, many PT sailors went aboard the burning _Orestes_ to pull wounded shipmates out of the fire. By 9:45 P.M., flames were out on the _Orestes_ and Commander Jannotta lashed an LCI to either side and pushed it up on the beach. At dusk, PTs and LCIs scattered and hugged the shoreline, to make the worst possible targets for night marauders. The small craft had good reason to be shaken. The five _kamikazes_ had made 100 per cent hits, and any weapon that is 100 per cent effective is a fearsome weapon. That same night four PTs shot down a plane as they left the bay on patrol. Early in the morning of New Year’s Day, 1945, bombers came over the base again. One fragmentation bomb killed 11 men and seriously wounded ten others, most of them survivors of the _Orestes_. The _kamikazes_ were not through with the Mindoro shipping. On the afternoon of January 4th, PTs 78 and 81 set fire to one of four enemy fighters that flew over the bay. Trailing smoke and flame, the plane glided into the side of the ammunition ship _Lewis Dyche_, anchored a quarter mile from the two PTs.