Fighting Amphib

By Tyler Francke, Veterans News Magazine

Virgil Borger, U.S. Navy gunners mate aboard the USS LCS(L) 26, lived through the Japanese bombing of Mariveles Harbor during the Battle of Bataan. He just doesn’t remember how.

Borger’s ship was an amphibious warfare vessel used by the United States and British Royal navies in World War II. Their full name was Landing Craft, Support (Large), but they’re almost always referred to as simply LCS(L)s.

Or, they’re known by their more creative nicknames: the Fighting Amphibs, or the Mighty Midgets, because despite their small size, they were heavily armed and played a crucial role in many naval battles.

“Pound for pound, we had more firepower than the battleships,” Borger says, before rattling off the hardware like he just inventoried it yesterday. He’s actually 94, and left service 73 years ago. “We had .50 caliber machine guns; we had 20-millimeter cannons; we had a 40-millimeter gun; we had a 3-inch gun. Plus, we had 10 rocket launchers.”

Borger enlisted in July 1943. He says he picked the Navy because he “made up (his) mind (he) didn’t want to sleep in the mud trench.”

But the recruiter may not have explained the sleeping arrangements he would have in the Navy. It wasn’t for no reason that the LCS(L)s were called “midgets.”

“We had 1,430 square feet,” he says. “You take that, it’d be a nice house. You’d have two bedrooms, two bathrooms, nice dining room, living room. Well, we had 71 people living in that area.”

The ship was built and launched in Portland. From there, LSC(L) 26, Borger and his 70 crewmates sailed to the Philippines, which Gen. Douglas MacArthur was in the process of retaking.

The tiny island of Corregidor and the Bataan peninsula — which the U.S. had lost in 1942 — were both of critical importance to Allied success in the region.

The small harbor of Mariveles on Bataan was located directly across from Corregidor, and its capture would be necessary to take the island.

LCS(L)s 26 (Borger’s ship) and 27 arrived in the area on Feb. 13 and began mine-sweeping operations with the support of designated Navy yard minesweepers (YMS).

“They would cut the mines, and we would blow them up,” he said.

This continued for several days, until they were joined by LCS(L)s, 7, 8 and 49. On the night of Feb. 15, the five ships anchored at the mouth of Mariveles Harbor to provide a protective screen for landing craft on the beach.

Early the next morning, the Japanese attacked. A contingent of 20 Shinyo motorboats, known as “suicide boats,” deployed from sea caves in Corregidor and bombed the picket line under cover of darkness.

Borger doesn’t remember it as the Battle of Mariveles Harbor. He calls it “the night we were sunk.”

The harbor was lit up with burning oil on the water and munitions flying in all directions. LCS(L)s 7, 26 and 49 went down that night, and 27 was severely damaged.

Borger doesn’t remember any of it. He had been assigned to stand watch, and that’s what saved his life.

“It was a good thing I was on the deck, because everybody in the compartment I slept in was killed,” he recalled.

He was at the .50 caliber when the suicide boats started bearing down on them. The gun jammed, and the lights went out. He came to on a life raft with another survivor.

“The guy who was rowing, the skin was hanging off his hands where it had been blown off,” Borger says. “I can still close my eyes and see that picture.”

He’s tried to piece some of it together from accounts by other survivors, but he’s not sure what to trust.

“In combat zone, you lived in your life jacket,” he says. “You ate in it. You slept in it, everything. So I had a life jacket on, and apparently somebody threw me overboard. I’ve been told it was a fella by the name of Munjack, but I don’t know. Like I tell my wife, it’s all hearsay.”

They made it to the rocky shore of Bataan and were later transported to a hospital ship, the USS Hope.

Twenty-six crew members of LCS(L) 26 were killed at Mariveles Harbor, along with 14 wounded. A total of 86 Navy service members died that night — the worst loss the amphibs suffered in the war.

Though he remembers little of the actual experience, the knowledge of it is something Borger has carried with him for 73 years.

“That was 26 young guys who never got the chance to come home, get married, have their first child, buy their first car, you know,” he says.

On survivor’s leave, he proposed to his girlfriend, Jackie, and when he was discharged 10 months later, he married her. They’ve been married 73 years and live on a farm in Haines, which they rent out to a young couple from their Baptist church who treat them like their grandparents.

“The Lord’s been looking after me all my life, and a lot of the time, I was too dumb to know it,” Borger says. “He’s blessed me with two daughters, five grandchildren, 14 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.”

Borger says he has lived a long and happy life, and other than remembering his 26 crewmates and the other sacrifices made that night at Mariveles, his service is not something he thinks of often.

“It’s one of those things, you know,” he says. “The things you saw, you wouldn’t sell it for a million dollars. But you also wouldn’t pay 10 cents to do it again.”