Battle of Okinawa
Excerpt from Joe Hagen's book "Memories
of World War II"
OKINAWA --- 22 June 1945
"At 09:20 LST-534, which was unloading on the beach in
Nakagusuku Wan, was hit by a kamikaze and her bow doors and tank deck were
damaged. She lost three killed and 35 wounded." ----Morison
We had completely unloaded our tank deck cargo, and were
anchored in Nakagusuku bay awaiting orders. Since we had a clear tank deck
we were able to set up a screen and projector to show a movie. Movies were
traded between ships and we obtained a copy of Salome, Where She Danced,
starring Yvonne de Carlo. This was the story of Salome dancing for the
entertainment of some king who held John the Baptist prisoner. By performing
the Dance of the Seven Veils, the king was so turned on that he asked Salome
to name her own reward. Salome's mother had some grudge against John and
urged Salome to ask the King for the head of John on a silver platter.
This way the movie had all the ingredients to be a modern successful film,
sex and gore.
We started watching the show about 1800 (six PM). When
we reached the dance portion of the movie we were interrupted by a red
alert and a call to general quarters. We manned all the guns but nothing
happened and after about an hour we were secured and returned to our movie.
By general consensus we started all over again to catch the dance scene
only to be called to GQ again. This repeated itself about a six times without
ever seeing any enemy aircraft. Each time we would start the movie from
the beginning and it was well after midnight when we finally saw it to
the finish. We went back to regular four on and four off watches and everybody
was dragging their butts when morning came and along with it another red
alert with a call to GQ. By now we were bored with the whole deal and assumed
that this was another false alarm. Instead it turned out to be the real
thing.
As executive officer, my battle station was on the bridge
in close contact with the communications room. There were about five or
six LST's in the Wan (bay) and I noticed that some were manning their stations
rather slowly. Suddenly a Jap plane (red meat balls showing clearly) appeared
flying low towards our group. We had orders not to fire until ordered to
by our group commander. We never received an order to fire but the men
manning the guns on the starboard side facing the kamikaze started firing
anyway. This seemed like a good idea to the Captain and we did nothing
to stop the firing and just urged the gunnery officer to make sure the
fire was directed at the kamikaze. Our port side AA guns also opened fire
even though the kamikaze was on our starboard side. The excitement was
too much for them and they fired just because "everybody else was". We
had numerous 20mm AA guns that could bear on the enemy plane but one of
the problems was that in tracking a low flying enemy plane, the gunner
could inadvertently fire on a friendly target. Our ship was protected from
our own guns by a frame work that acted as a line of fire stop. However
the ships in our group were not protected from each other. One of our gunners
tracked the kamikaze until he ended up firing into the mast of another
LST. This LST had been slow in going to GQ and it was a real wake-up call
for them.
We got the impression (probably a false one) that when
they did man their guns that they were aimed in our direction. I never
knew whether we or any other ship hit the kamikaze or how it picked out
it's target. The target was LST 534 which was beached with its bow on the
beach and the entire ship in shallow water. The kamikaze hit the deck aft
of the bow and forward of the elevator. The engine and bomb pierced the
main deck, the tank deck and the bottom hull. Since it was on the beach
the Jap pilot had picked the only ship around that could not be sunk. Since
an LST has many water-tight compartments below the tank deck, except for
the casualties to the crew, the damage would not have been major. The ship
could have completed the unloading and left under it's own power. However,
an accident occurred that resulted in greater damage.
The captain was anxious to clear up the mess and had their
ship-fitter cut away some of the twisted metal with an acetylene torch.
The ship was carrying a cargo of drums of fuel oil on the tank deck and
it was not noticed that some of the drums had sprung a leak from the enemy
action. The torch ignited the oil and the fire quickly spread over the
entire length of the tank deck, invaded other compartments and knocked
out all the power on the ship. The ship's crew responded promptly and did
everything according to the book including flying the flag upside down
to indicate severe distress. However they lacked power to run their fire
pumps.
As soon as we saw the flames we put an LCVP in the water
and manned it with a fire and rescue team complete with emergency gear.
Within minutes we pulled alongside the burning ship. We carried a handy-billy
which is a small gasoline driven fire pump and quickly had a water hose
on the ship. Our main objective was to put as much water as possible around
the magazine compartment to keep the ammunition from exploding. We were
soon joined by rescue parties from other LSTs and in about two hours the
flames were extinguished. When we returned to our ship, I was confronted
by a very angry engineering officer. It was his duty assignment to be in
the fire and rescue team. I had been in such a rush to get to the burning
ship, I had left without him and failed to give orders for him to follow
with a second LCVP. I felt badly about it but knew that the Captain
would have authorized the second team if anyone had suggested it.
As it was, I could not help but have a feeling of accomplishment in that
we were the first rescue team to reach the ship.
Despite our questionable marksmanship, we joined all the
other LST's in our group in claiming a kill and painting a red meatball
on our super-structure. When a ship is in distress, the first duty
of the communications officer is to make sure the codes and confidential
memorandums do not fall into enemy hands. At high sea, these are dropped
overboard in a weighted pouch. In this case it is proper to transfer them
to another ship for safe keeping. This was done by the communications
officer along with a supply of postage stamps. He had not recorded
which ship received the stamps and the next day he went from ship to ship
trying to recover them. By the time he reached us, his search had
not been successful. Thus disaster can come in many forms from a
kamikaze, a Captain eager to clean up the mess or an officer having the
responsibility for several hundred dollars worth of postage stamps.
Okinawa.....What was once Naha
From Buckner bay our orders carried us to the other side
of the island to the capital and port city of Naha. We did not have
any mission here except to wait while the plans for the assault on Japan
itself were formalized. Naha had been treated very roughly by the
invasion. There were few buildings still standing but from the ruins
we could see that it must have been a nice thriving city. It was built
on rising terrain in a curve around the harbor with streets that had apparently
been well planned. There had been a trolley system serving the city but
only tracks and some demolished trolley cars remained. We found in the
debris of one building an apothecary scale, medicine bottles and other
stuff that indicated that it had been a modern drug store. With the exception
of some harbor control buildings, nothing else was recognizable. In the
harbor there were numerous U S ships and some small Japanese vessels that
had been sunk and resting on the bottom. In some cases the superstructure
was above water.
One slightly damaged Japanese vessel was beached and we
had a chance to examine it. It was an open personnel carrier, about 25
feet long and was powered by a straight six Chevy engine. The engine was
probably made in Japan but if it was, they must have made the castings
by making molds from an original Chevrolet engine. The Chevy insignia was
clearly visible. What made this boat particularly interesting was the fact
that it had become the Jap "suicide boat", a sea going version of the kamikaze.
The Japanese would load it up with explosives and their coxs'n would attempt
to drive it up against one of our ships. I do not know if any of
their attempts were successful but the knowledge of this tactic kept us
extra alert on the night watches. It was also said that this type
of boat was used to approach our ships at anchor. Sometimes they
would attach an explosive charge to the hull and other times would send
men climbing up the anchor chain and board the ship. If not detected
they would then slit the throats of the men (preferably officers) while
they slept. Sometimes frogmen would be sent on the same mission.
Since our rooms did not have the luxury of doors, I started sleeping with
my 45 next to me.
Although the island had now been declared secure, it was
not difficult for individual Japanese soldiers to hide out. As mentioned
before there were Japanese ammunition dumps around and mostly unguarded.
The Japanese who had refused to surrender were well armed. The defense
which we employed was the same as we had used in Algiers - at unevenly
spaced intervals, charges of high explosives would be detonated in the
harbor. The concussion would be enough to kill any swimmer.
I am not sure how successful this technique was, but every morning there
would be the corpses of Japanese soldiers floating in the bay. They
could have been killed in an earlier action and just now were rising to
the surface. It was not a pretty sight and I was glad it was not
my assignment to drag them out of the water and cart them off for burial.
A couple of us made a short excursion into the country
hoping to see the Shuri castle. We did not get as far as the castle
but came across several U S military occupation areas.
In
one Army camp they had a detachment guarding an orphanage for the Okinawa
children that had lost their parents. An attractive Japanese nurse
was in charge and we asked if we could take her picture. She agreed
but first changed from the shorts she was wearing to baggy trousers and
an oversized military jacket. As you look at the picture, you will
have to take my word for the part about her being attractive.
Back in the harbor we waited for orders. Nothing
was happening around us but we felt some sharp concussions and in the distance
we could see smoke from one of our large ammunition dumps. It had
been hit by either a kamikaze or an infiltrator. We never did find
out which and fortunately, because the fighting was mostly over, the ammunition
was not missed. We did not see any more kamikazes but word reached
us that one had sunk a capital ship in shallow water. It was said
to be the battleship Pennsylvania but Morison does not even list it as
being involved in this operation. Recently I came across another
source, Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships by James J. Mooney
confirming that on 12 August 1945 while in Buckner Bay the Pennsylvania
(BB 38) was hit by a torpedo launched by a Japanese aircraft.
Finally our orders did come and they were to get the hell
out of Naha and put to the open sea. This time we were running away from
an enemy that all sea faring men dread, a typhoon!
Earlier in the war three destroyers with almost all of
the crews had been lost in a typhoon in the China Sea. This time we were
better prepared. The typhoon was plotted by radar and our course was set
to avoid it. The sea was very rough and this was the only time that
I got sea sick during my Pacific tour. We stayed well outside of
the eye and did not suffer any damage at all. The harbor of Naha was not
as lucky and some of the installations and ships there took a real beating.
We had detached four of our LCVPs with their crews there but never did
hear of their experience. As I write this, I recall the name of the
small boat officer. It is Lt. Maher. Taking some liberty
with pronunciation, we called him Maha of Naha.
Our supplementary orders directed our group to return
to Guam. We reached there without incident. I do not know if we were lucky
or if an LST was not a worthy target for the few Japanese submarines still
on patrol. That they were still operating was tragically demonstrated
a month later when one of them sunk the heavy cruiser, Indianapolis.
The Indianapolis was the cruiser that had transported the atomic bomb to
the island where it was loaded on the aircraft to bomb Hiroshima. The tragedy
of the loss of this ship was compounded by the fact that the war was over
and the Naval Headquarters had not kept in contact with the ship and did
not know that it had been sunk until it was too late it send rescue ships
and planes.
When we reached Guam we found out that not all of the
US Navy had fared as well in the typhoon as we had. Earlier it had been
mentioned that Admiral Halsey had blasted a few salvos at the escarpment
in Okinawa and then took his task force to the north. His mission
was to start shelling and bombing southern Kyushu to soften it up for the
time when we were to invade Japan proper. His task force was a very
large one divided into three groups each under the command of an Admiral.
Each group included fleet aircraft carriers, battleships, heavy cruisers
and destroyers. They received word of the typhoon and with shipboard
radar plotted the position, direction and speed of travel. How Admiral
Halsey and the group commanders analyzed and acted on this information
is not part of this story or of my personal experience. Suffice it
to say that Admiral Halsey was very gutsy and not afraid to attack anything
including a typhoon. He made the decision to out run it and probably
figured that even if they encountered it, his task force could withstand
the heavy seas. He was wrong! His task force ran into gale force
winds and forty foot high waves. At least one of the aircraft carriers
had its flight deck folded back like the top of a sardine can. This
carrier was back at Pearl Harbor at the time of our return so I have first
hand knowledge of the damage.
The heavy cruiser, Pittsburgh lost one hundred and ten
feet of its bow section. The crew had recognized the possibility
of this event and had vacated the bow section and dogged down all the watertight
doors. When the break occurred they were ready and avoided any loss
of life. Both sections remained afloat and the ship managed to run in the
astern direction all the way to a repair station. After the storm,
another ship found the "suburb of Pittsburgh" and towed it to Guam.
Eventually both sections were united at a west coast shipyard and returned
to service. Many years later I meet the engineering officer of the
Pittsburgh. His name is John Wallace and he was president of a company
I represented. In retelling this harrowing experience, I noticed
he had been more concerned about keeping the engines running than in the
possible sinking of the ship. Of course, this may have amounted to
the same thing.
According to Morison the typhoon hit on June 5, 1945.
One hundred forty four ships including six LST's were sunk or badly damaged.
This was not only in Admiral Halsey's task force but in the whole theater
of operations.
Copyright 2002, Joe Hagen