Lieut. Jones continues: “There was the perfect target, a Jap barge loaded with troops—you could see their heads sticking up over the gunwale. “_Open fire! Open fire!_ I screamed in my mind, but no words came out of my mouth. “What was the matter? Why weren’t the guns firing? Thousands of tracers should be pouring into that enemy craft, but no gun on either PT fired. The flare died and I ordered another. “Why was I doing this? Why wasn’t the barge sinking now, holed by hundreds of shells? Why hadn’t the gunners opened fire as ordered when the flare went off? And what was the matter on the Jap barge? Why weren’t they tearing us up with their guns, for the flare lit us up as brightly as it illuminated them? “We closed to 75 yards, still frozen in that strange paralysis under the glare of the dying starshell. “My helmsman spoke up. ‘They’re not Japs, sir, they’re natives.’ “I flipped on the searchlight, and our two boats circled the canoe, searchlights blazing, guns trained. That eerie scene will remain in my memory as long as I live. Thirty natives—some of them boys—sat rigidly still, staring forward unblinkingly. I don’t know if it was native discipline or sheer terror that held them. Even the children didn’t blink an eye or twitch a finger. “We shouted to them that we were Americans, but we gave up trying to get through to them, for they refused to answer or even to turn their heads and look at us. We left them rigidly motionless and staring straight ahead at nothing. “Back at the base we discussed our strange paralysis. Everybody agreed he had first thought it was a Jap barge when the flare burst, and nobody could give a reason for not shooting instantly. If even one gunner had fired, the whole weight of our broadside would have come down on that canoe. “We’ll never understand it, but we are all grateful to Whoever or Whatever it was that held our hands that night and spared those poor natives. And what woolly stories those Halmaherans must be telling their children about that night. I’ll bet by now we are part of the sacred tribal legends of the whole Moluccan Archipelago.” Almost from the beginning of the return trip to the Philippines two years before, General MacArthur had had his eye on Mindanao, the southernmost large island of the group and hence the closest to Morotai. It was on Mindanao that he planned to land first, and from there he could advance up the island chain. Before daring to venture into the Philippines, however, the Allied High Command wanted to make more landings—one at Yap Island, northeast of Palau (where Marines had landed the same day as the Morotai invasion), and another at Talaud Island, another steppingstone, about halfway between Morotai and Mindanao.