Thursday, September 3, 2009

Coron

Day 20: Coron, Philippines
Operations against merchant and escort shipping afforded the air group its first skip bombing experience against live targets. The accuracy and damage inflicted by this type of attack is of such a high order that any other type of bombing against merchantmen is considered a poor employment of weapons. Communications discipline was of an extremely low order on 24th September 1944. Squadrons should train their pilots better so that it is unnecessary to hold long radio discussions on the shortcoming of the plane prior to determining whether or not the plan can continue on a mission. Unnecessary conversation was also prevalent as well as the exasperating tallyhos.
F.A. Bardshar- Air Group Seven
Comments and recommendations on Air Operation against Coron Bay on 24 September 1944

I take it by tallyhos, the good First Admiral means the whooping and yeehawing of the American Hellcat pilots as they divebombed Japanese ships that September day in the Philippines Bay of Coron, during the height of the World War Two pacific campaign. Not sure how well his recommendations were received, all I can say is that if they had half as much fun sinking the ships as we did diving in them I can definitely understand how their emotions might get the better of them on that fateful day.
Left the beautiful El Nido on Monday morning, destination Coron Bay, on a 6 hour Banka Ride across the water. The weather was quite good considering it is typhoon season, every now and then the telltale funnels of the twisters would appear behind the islands but as long as the other Pinoy passengers along on the ride with us kept a calm demeanour then it was obviously business as usual for the boat crew. Got into Coron in the afternoon and found a room at the Seadive Hotel, which was also the centrepoint for diving in the town, despite one of the other guest house operators claiming that all the rooms in town were full and we would have to stay at her hotel. This was the first sign that something was fishy in the town of Coron...
Booked a dive for the next day on some of the WW2 wrecks out on the bay and had an early night a the boat left quite early. Turned out that the boat was a bit late leaving the harbour as one of the passangers was quite late, about 9:00 the guy who was on the bus with us to El Nido arrived looking a bit worse for wear. I thought it was because he had a big night the night before but he was just pissed off that after he checked his money into the safe at the resort, someone (obviously staff) had gone through it and knocked off half his cash, leaving him just enough to get out of Coron (which he was pretty keen to do by this stage). He was also presented a huge bill for all the drinks that his new 'friends' had consumed the night before at a restaurant in town, a scam that they obviously try on with all new arrivals into town. Needless to say he wasn't a happy chappy at all.
Made it out to the first dive around 11, visibility was very poor and my depth gauge wasn't working at all. As I have previously mentioned the Pinoy divemasters aren't big on health and safety, they were quite keen to take us down 30m into the wreck (open water divers are only qualified to 18m) but a few protests from my mate (only his 5th dive) saw us OW divers stopping at 25m and only on the outside. A short dive, quite nice, then up for a surface interval and lunch. The second dive was the great one though, we went to have a look at the Olympia Maru, a Japanese cargo ship that was sunk during the battle. We were feeling a bit more confident about this one so went right inside the wreck for about 15 minutes, from the top to the tail of the ship then up to the surface. Incredible!
The divemaster dived too long so had to drag his dive computer behind the boat to trick it into thinking he was taking a long safety stop otherwise it would lock up, another little trick to get around the pesky rules and regs that modern diving held dear.
Got back to the resort about 5pm and went out to dinner, suprise suprise the restaurant tried to charge me double what I was meant to pay for the meal. Finished the evening sitting in the hammock on the rooftop, listening to the horrible karaoke singing from the bar across the way, sipping a San Miguel and thinking about fighter planes flying over the sea bombing ships.

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