_August 28, 1944_: PTs 188 and 144 west toward Hollandia, with a squad of Army radio-men aboard to contact a land patrol. This is enemy-held territory and the patrol was in hopes of taking a few prisoners. Just after sunrise we received a radio message to pick up Jap prisoners at Ulau Mission. We proceeded to the mission and I asked some P 39s that were strafing the beach to cover us while we made the landing. Lieut. (jg) Harry Suttenfield, skipper of the 188, and I launched a life raft and headed in to pick up prisoners from the Army patrol. We made it OK until we got into the surf, then the breakers swamped us. There were many dead Japs lying around, and the soldiers were burning the village. The natives took the prisoners out to the boats and then swam us through the surf, pushing the raft. We turned the prisoners over to the Army at Aitape. More and more as the by-passed Japanese became progressively demoralized by lack of food and rest, the PTs were pressed into service as Black Marias, police vans for carrying Japanese captives from the front lines, or even from behind the lines, to Army headquarters where Intelligence officers interrogated the prisoners. Most Japanese simply would not be captured, and killed themselves rather than surrender. Many of them made dangerous prisoners, for they surrendered only to get close enough to their captors to kill them with concealed weapons. On the night of July 7, 1944, Lieut. (jg) William P. Hall, on the 329, dropped a fatal depth charge under a 130-foot lugger south of Cape Oransbari. The crew snagged four prisoners, one of them a lieutenant colonel, one of the highest ranking officers taken prisoner in New Guinea. One of the prisoners attacked Lieut. Hall, who flattened him with a right to the mouth. Hall sprained his thumb and badly gashed his hand on the prisoner’s teeth. He was awarded the Purple Heart for being wounded “in the face of the enemy.” Oddly enough, what few Japanese did let themselves be taken made docile, even eagerly cooperative, prisoners. PT crewmen could never tell what was coming on a Black Maria mission. Either the captives tried to kill themselves or their guards—or they tried to help the guards kill their former comrades. On the night between March 16th and 17th, Lieut. H. M. S. Swift (the Lieut. Swift of the great air battle at Aitape) was out with Lieut. (jg) Eugene E. Klecan’s 367 and 325. Off Pak Island, the two boats caught nine Japanese in a canoe. As the PTs approached, one Japanese killed himself and three others with a grenade. Another was shot by PT sailors when he resisted capture. The others came aboard willingly.