Chapter 5

Action against the Japanese

The next operation was screening for the Enterprise and Saratoga. These flattops were launching air strikes on Iwo Jima. We were close in to the island in our operation. We could not see the land but were told on the ships PA that it was just over the horizon. The SARATOGA left us with the Enterprise and the very next day the SARATOGA was hit by suicide planes. We stayed with this until the island was secured. We did finally get close enough for a look at this island. It was to be used for an air base for the B29 that would raid Japanese with firebombs.

There was a period of time between Iwo Jima and the time we arrived at Okinawa that I am unable to relate with great accuracy. We did shoot down an enemy plane and did a lot of support work. This plane was the fourth the LAWS received credit for shooting down. We did a lot of shelling of the islands. This included daytime as well as star shells at night. This shelling was for our troops ashore. Our shells managed to keep the enemy harassed and provided illumination to watch for unexpected raids.

The actual invasion of Okinawa started on Easter Sunday morning. We were part of a diversion from the real landing area. We continued our bombardment and also were called into picket duty. This picket was for radar surveillance since there was no land-based radar at that time. The picket consisted of the destroyers taking stations north of the island and relaying any air activity to the forces on the island.

We were like sitting ducks for the Kamikaze planes to try for us. This picket line duty was said to have been the force that made it possible to occupy this island and ultimately the greatest contribution to Naval Warfare. On April 2nd one of these suicide planes headed for us but who knows if it was the rapid fire of our guns or that the Cruiser we had been screening was a juicer target. At any rate the plane turned and headed for it. Our guns made a direct hit and the plane was history. This made our fifth plane shot down.

Captain Wood was always on the bridge and in full control of the ship. I am certain that he was our real salvation in not getting hit by one of those suicide planes. I might remark that the captain's cabin was on the rear of the bridge so he did not have far to go to be on the con. The life of the captain was, I am sure, very stressful, probably more so than most of the crewmembers. He was the one that saved or lost a ship.

We continued to bombard some of the small islands. One of them had a lighthouse on it and the enemy was using this for cover and as a gun emplacement. We destroyed it in short order. We got in so close to some of these Islands that we drew small arms gun fire. There were rifle shots that did hit the deckhouse and stacks at times so no personnel were on that side of the ship without cover. Their mortar fire did not reach us at all so we did not record injuries or damage of any consequence to the ship or it's equipment.

We also were called to support the invasion of Le Shima on the west coast of Okinawa. This was a very close in operation, if you had field glasses you could see the invasion troops advancing from the beach up the hill. This Island had a hill on it and there was a resort of some type on the side of the hill. The attack planes were using rockets to destroy it. That is the first time we had seen anything like that. Those rockets were really devastating. I remember standing in the mess line and watching this as best I could without any field glasses.

This is the Island that Ernie Pile lost his life on. We did not know this at the time of course. I used to read Ernie's column before going into the service; I always liked to read it, as it was so life like and factual. This Okinawa campaign was our big one and we continued it by throwing hundreds of shells at it. Our firing was so accurate that we were well known with the shore troops and the support planes. They trusted our firing very close in front of them for cover. This shelling continued day and night, not at a rapid fire rate but almost constant as long as the shore troops called for it. We only stopped when our shells and supplies ran low and we had to return for replacements.

This campaign was taking its toll on the destroyers. Not only the suicide planes but a couple of the cans ran aground on a reef, first one then another trying to help. I heard that shore batteries destroyed them. On Saturday June 16 we were the first on the scene to aid the TWIGGS, which was thought to be caused by a magazine explosion in the forward magazine. Why this occurred was not known, be it from enemy causes or some other mishap I never heard. No "BOGEYS" were reported in the air. The forward part of the ship was blown back against the bridge. The entire ship was burning and nothing could be done to save it.

We turned on searchlights to try and see survivors in the water and clinging to the fantail by lines and anything they could grasp. Our boats, as well as boats from other ships, were out picking up. The boats delivered the survivors to the nearest ship to expedite there getting back and getting more men out of the water. We had some brought aboard the LAWS as well. We stood on deck watching the big fire and we could see men who had not jumped to get free of the ship. Then the ship exploded.

The fires must have reached a magazine and then it was gone. If only those poor soles had taken their chances in the water they probably would have survived. The water had lots of burning oil but there were some spaces that did not have fire and the boats were going through the fire to pick up survivors.

Okinawa was occupied and for the most part considered to be ours. That meant that supply ships were arriving and anchoring in all the harbors. This provided targets for the enemy Kamikazes; therefore the picket line had to be constantly maintained with destroyers that had the radar to detect these bogies. This meant we were out there our share of the time.

Later that month we had orders to relieve the CALLAGHAN. She was slated to return to the USA the following day. We were about thirty minutes from the relief when bogies were reported. We were called to GQ and then we got word that a suicide plane had hit the CALLAGHAN. We increased our speed only to get word the CALLAGHAN was abandoning ship. That undoubtedly saved many lives.

We rescued 107 officers and men and had them aboard until the next morning when we transferred them to another destroyer that returned them to port. We stayed on the picket line. On this same night the PRITCHETT had been hit and the CASSIN YOUNG fought off an attack. She had splashed the zeke that tried to dive into her. These two ships returned to port the next morning with the survivors that we transferred to them, leaving us on the line with two other destroyers.

Late that afternoon the CASSIN YOUNG ran out of luck, a suicide plane hit her and several men were killed. Her captain was one of those killed. He had taken over earlier in the day. We realized that as more of our fleet of destroyers was destroyed our chances of going home were sure getting slimmer. The scuttlebutt was really flying around that our five inch guns were so worn out the shells were starting to come out cross wise. We were long over do for a complete overhaul and the men were really battle weary and wanted nothing but to go home.

Then on August 6th we had news of the dropping of the ATOM BOMB on Japan. That had a real boost to morale. Finally the word was passed that Japan had surrendered. This was a general news item among all the ships and land personnel. This created a very dangerous situation as celebrations were consisting of shooting off all sorts of munitions on the island of Okinawa. We were called to GQ in order to keep our personnel from following suit. It was reported later that six soldiers were killed on shore due to this demonstration. Very sad that they had to be killed from our own and after the enemy had surrendered.

Later that week an enemy air attack took place over Buckner Bay. The war was not entirely over! The battleship PENNSYLVANIA was hit with a torpedo. It had only arrived that afternoon. The evening another air strike hit a transport doing a lot of damage. This was proof that the Kamikaze pilots were not ready to give up. Other reports also came in that army personnel were hit on Le Shima.

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