AFTER-ACTION REPORT

"Whooeee. Wish I had a lasso, I'd rope one of them broncos.""
--Caleb Morris

A DET66/MI5-20 team, with a platoon of First Marine Raiders as a security element, was inserted on the Jap-held island of Ahu Jima, in the Bonin group, by the cargo submarine USS Halibut. The island, which housed a Jap research base that had been previously bombed by Hellcats from the USS Cabot, was overrun by lethally venemous giant insects, including velvet ants, puss caterpillars, and short-tailed shrews. DET66 entemologist Dr. Eldon Caufield proved invaluable in identifiying the various creatures and developing countermeasures. The only survivors on the island (which was hastily abandoned by the Japs after their experimental growth chemicals were spilled) were 68 American POWs, the only survivors from a hellship that had been accurately bombed by a Hellcat pilot days earlier. The DET66 team arranged a hazardous daylight pickup for the POWs, and the halibut took them to safety. Now under constant Japanese aerial surveillance, the team gathered as much data as they could and made their way to a rendezvous point on the east coast of the island, finally leaving in a night-rescue PBY Catalina. For their selfless bravery, Caleb Morris and Bradford Mitchell were awarded the Silver Star, and Henry Elsegood the Victoria Cross.