Local Legend has a Bigger Story
Conversations with Coach Rosenfield
by Debbie Berges
The date was December 7, 1941. Dick Rosenfield was a first semester freshman at The University of Kansas, planning to play football the next year as a sophomore. However, on that day, December 7, Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese. Dick, along with most of the freshmen boys, would not stay for their second semester at KU. Dick was called to active duty in the military over Christmas vacation. He reported to the Great Lakes Naval Training Station near Chicago. Dick served in the U.S. Navy until December 5, 1945 when his tour of duty was over. At this point, Dick was a Petty Officer 2nd Class.
When asked, “Why the Navy?” Coach shrugged, saying he had had enough of the Army, being raised in Junction City. His father was ex-Army and his big brother Joe was in the Army. Coach thought the Navy would be a good alternative to the Army.
Following his training at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station, Dick went to his specialized training at the Motor Torpedo Boat Training Center in Melville, Rhode Island. Upon completion of this training, Dick reported to Brooklyn Naval Base in August, 1942, where he was assigned to the newly commissioned boat PT126. PT (Patrol Torpedo) boats were motor torpedo boats, designed to “deliver sudden punches close to shore and relatively near their bases” (http://www. Ptboats.org/20-70-05-reports). The boats were nicknamed the “mosquito bites” for their small size, speed, and a deadly “bite” of a launched torpedo.
Upon boarding the PT 126, the crew took the boat to Norfolk, Virginia, where each PT boat was loaded with 4 torpedoes. The crew consisted of eight enlisted men and two officers. Six PT boats and crew members were loaded onto a Merchant Marine cargo ship named SS Roger Williams and sailed to Panama Canal where they stayed for one week before being loaded onto the USS Patuxant Naval ship for New Zealand.
They arrived at Noumea, New Caledonia, an island off the coast of Australia. From there the PT boats comprising Squadron 6, including the PT 126 of Coach's crew, were unloaded off the Navy Tanker that transported them to this base, refueled, and readied to be sent to the Solomon Islands. They were escorted to the Solomon Islands by an aircraft carrier where they arrived at the Naval Base on Tulagi (Tulaghi) which is part of the Florida Islands, next to Guadalcanal. The crew of the PT 126 was part of Squadron 6. The base was the site of PT boat maintenance as well as replenishing torpedoes and other ammunition onto the boats. Once a PT boat came off night patrol, a base crew of four sailors immediately went to work on any repair or maintenance concerns as well as replenishing the boat with gas (“each gulping 180 gallons of high-octane gas an hour at full speed”), ammunition, torpedoes, and other supplies while the night crew slept. Coach related that as soon as he got off patrol and back to his “shack”, he would fall asleep on the wooden floor.
Coach explained how the first torpedoes were set off from torpedo tubes made of heavy steel but were later replaced with roll-off racks. According to PT Boats, Inc. the tubes were quite heavy, consuming too much gross weight which could be used for more armament. The roll-off racks used a smaller Mark XIII torpedo. Each PT boat was also equipped with two twin .50-caliber machine guns mounted in turrets and an Oerlikon 20 mm cannon mounted in the stern of boat. Since the PT boats went out every night, they spent more time in combat than any other war vehicle.
Arriving in Tulagi, the assignment of the PT boats was to patrol “The Slot” from sunset to sunrise, returning to Base during the day-time. The purpose of night patrol was to spot Japanese barges trying to bring supplies and reserves to the Japanese forces on other islands and to “torment” the barges; thus cutting off supplies to the enemy. The PT boats could easily outrun a barge. Dick’s held two assignments on his PT 126 boat: that of Quartermaster, who assists the navigator, and machine gunner. Every night at sunset, Dick and his crew on the PT 126 would set out for the Slots, traveling the twenty-one miles from Tulagi to Guadacanal before they would enter the Slots for patrolling. Coach noted that intelligence information came from the Australians living on Japanese islands north of the Solomon Islands. They would watch from a high point on the island and radio what they had seen coming into the Slots to the PT boats.
At the beginning of our conversations, Coach shook his head and said he wouldn’t know where to begin in telling his experiences in the military. When I indicated to him, that he could just start at the beginning, Coach said there were good times and bad times. He ended our first conversation with a “bad time”.
Coach recalled one early morning as they were returning to Tulagi from their nightly patrol, being fired upon. U.S. Marine airplanes of the Blacksheep Squadron, flying overhead under the command of Pappy Boyington, noticed their PT boat coming into shore. One of the U.S. pilots mistook the PT126 for an enemy barge and fired upon it, killing one officer and two crew members. Upon being fired upon, one turret gun fired back and shot the plane down.
Coach recalls that the crew was given the choice of burying the dead at sea or returning to Tulagi to bury them at the Base. The seamen were buried at the Base, later to be returned to their respective cemeteries in the United States. (More on this “friendly fire” encounter can be found under PT-126 web site.)
Another time, it was necessary to take a turret apart on the boat to fix it. While in this process, they were fired upon by the Japanese. With the superhuman strength of an adrenalin rush, the crew was able to lift the turret back on its pedestal and fire back.
At the war’s end, Coach had been sent to Notre Dame for officer’s training; however, since the War was over, he took his discharge and returned to the University of Kansas to pursue his degree in education.
This article was written as a tribute to a World War II veteran who became a special teacher, mentor, and coach at Onaga High School.
By Debbie Berges
