Between 30 and 38 Japanese dive bombers and fighters came down from the north and bombed and strafed the boats in groups of three and four. The two little PTs were in a jam, for the force attacking them was large enough to take on a carrier task force, screen destroyers and all. The boats separated, went to top speed, and zigzagged toward a bank of low clouds twelve miles away. Japanese planes often made one pass at PTs and then dropped the job if they did not score, but this overwhelming big flight of planes returned for repeated attacks. PT skippers clamored for fighter cover from the beach. Aboard the 191, the skipper was hit in the lungs and Ensign Fred Calhoun took command. A machine-gun bullet pierced his thigh, but he hung on to the wheel to play a deadly game of tag with the attackers. He held a steady course, his eye fixed to the bomb racks of the attacking plane, until the bomb was away and committed to its course. Then he whipped over the wheel to put the boat where the bomb wasn’t when it landed. Nevertheless, fragments from a near miss knocked out a 20-mm. gun and severely wounded the gunner, Chief Motor Machinist Mate Thomas Dean, and the loader, Motor Machinist Mate Second Class August Sciutto. Another near miss punched an 18-inch hole in the portside and peppered the superstructure with steel splinters. Japanese strafers hit the port and starboard engines and punctured the water jackets, which spurted jets of boiling water into the engine room. Engineer of the Watch Victor Bloom waded into the streams of scalding water to tape and stuff leaks so that the engines would not overheat and fuse into a solid mass. Fearing that the gas fumes from punctured lines might explode, he closed off the fuel-tank compartment and pulled a release valve to smother it with carbon dioxide. When he had tidied up his engine room, Bloom gave first aid to the wounded. (Not surprisingly, Victor Bloom won a Navy Cross for this action.) By this time the two PTs had knocked four planes into the sea near the boats. “Toward the end of the attack,” said Lieut. Farley, “the enemy became more and more inaccurate and less willing to close us. It is possible that we may have knocked down the squadron leader as the planes milled about in considerable confusion, as if lacking leadership.” Forty minutes after they were called, P 47 fighter planes from Finschhafen arrived to drive off the shaken Japanese apparently startled by the two floating buzz saws. One of the P 47s was hit and made a belly landing about half a mile from the 190. The pilot, though badly wounded in the head and arm, freed himself and escaped from the cockpit before his plane went down. The 190 went to the rescue of its rescuer, and Lieut. Commander Swift and Seaman First Class Joe Cope jumped overboard to tow the groggy pilot to the undamaged PT.