Chapter 31

At noon on May 29, we finally got the break we needed. The Randolph departed the waters off Okinawa with orders to transport Admiral Marc Mitscher and his staff to Guam. Admiral Mitscher had transferred his flag to the Randolph on May 14, after a kamikaze hit the Enterprise. Just a few days earlier Mitscher had had his flag aboard the Bunker Hill, and she also was hit. The admiral wasn’t exactly a good-luck charm, and so we kept our fingers crossed, hoping that the kamikazes wouldn’t follow him to the Randolph.

Since April 8, we had been in combat for 51 consecutive days. During that time, I logged more than 196 combat flight hours, an average of almost 4 hours per day! Many of my squadron mates had flown as much. We were all well overdue for a rest.

We did not return to Okinawa. We had flown through the fiercest of the fighting, but the island would not be declared secure until July 2, 1945, more than a month later. Ultimately, the Okinawa campaign was the costliest in the history of the United States Navy. Thirty-two ships were sunk—although none was larger than a destroyer—and another 368 ships and other craft were damaged. More than 4,900 sailors died, more than in any other battle of the war. In fact, the loss of lives suffered by the Navy at Okinawa exceeded the Navy’s total losses from all previous wars combined.

I was relieved to have gotten out with my life, but saddened that so many others had not.

After dropping Admiral Mitscher and his staff at Apra Harbor, Guam, on May 31, we made ready to press on to the Philippines, where we were to get some much-needed R&R. But Apra Harbor is not large enough to easily maneuver a ship the size of the Randolph. On that occasion there were no tugboats available. We were more or less stuck in the harbor, pointed the wrong way.

A view from the Randolph as the aircraft carrier Bunker Hill (CV-17) burns in the distance after being hit by a pair of kamikaze aircraft off the coast of Okinawa on May 11, 1945. (U.S. Navy)

To get out of the harbor required a bit of ingenuity on the part of the Randolph’s skipper, Captain Felix Baker. He had the deck crews tie our aircraft securely to each side of the flight deck—fore and aft—with their tails pointing outward. The planes on the starboard side forward and the port side aft were directed to crank up to full power. The thrust they generated slowly rotated the ship, turning it 180 degrees. As the bow approached the proper direction to exit the harbor, the first group of planes powered back and the planes on the port side forward and starboard side aft turned up their engines, thus stopping the rotation. We dubbed the maneuver, “Operation Pinwheel.”

The Randolph arrived at San Pedro Bay, Leyte, in the Philippines, on June 4. Even though there were boats going ashore, I think most of us stayed onboard for the next couple days in order to enjoy the respite from gunfire and calls to general quarters.

On June 7, a big party was scheduled for a day of liberty at the Seventh Fleet’s recreational facilities on the island of Samar. Along with the bases at Guam, Ulithi, and Manus, the port complexes in and around Leyte were developing into some of the Navy’s biggest anchorages in the Pacific. At midmorning a big landing craft dumped several hundred of us on the beach where we found the usual entertainment—softball diamonds, volleyball nets, and horseshoe pits. Also, an area of the beach was cordoned off for swimming. There was plenty of food—hot dogs and hamburgers being the main attractions. It was the standard formula for entertaining young military men who were far from home, and it never really changed during the nearly three decades that I spent in the service.

Of course, there was plenty of warm Acme beer. No base in the Pacific was without it.

We spent the next few hours amusing ourselves with various sports—playing hard, as young men do when they still believe they can make it in the Big Leagues. Between games, during which we endeavored to prove that we really were the best athletes in the world, we ate too much food and drank too much beer. Old sea stories were told and retold, embellished at each new telling, and everyone shared their plans for “after the war.”

But the fun eventually began to wind down, as it always does. The near-­equatorial sun was blistering, and people were sweaty, sticky, and sunburned. Sand that had found its way into clothes and crevices worked its discomfort, and too much beer and not enough water proved a perfect recipe for afternoon headaches. All of this, and the ache of muscles unused to exertion, made for cranky sailors. By midafternoon we were ready to get back aboard the ship.

But our ride didn’t arrive at the appointed time. We waited, increasingly more impatient, in the heat. Someone pointed out a plume of black smoke on the horizon which had been curling skyward for a while and we speculated on its source as we waited. We guessed that one of the ships at anchor was conducting some sort of fire-fighting practice. After all, enemy aircraft had long since been chased out of the area, and it was unlikely that a Japanese submarine could have approached the ships anchored offshore.

Still, we waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, hours after it should have arrived, the landing craft nudged itself onto the beach and we clambered aboard, anxious to get back to the Randolph where we could shower and get a clean change of clothes. When we pressed them about their tardiness, the crew of the landing craft told us what had happened.

Two Army F-5Es, the photoreconnaissance version of the P-38 Lightning fighter, had dived on the anchored Randolph, no doubt intent on “showing the Navy how real aviators flew.” One of the aircraft, piloted by Lewis Gillespie of the 6th Photo Group, zoomed down, just barely above the water, approaching the bow of the ship from a 90-degree angle. Just as the airplane neared the ship, the pilot started a slow victory roll—that he never finished.

With a deafening roar, the Army aircraft smashed into a pack of F6Fs parked on the bow of the ship, killing the pilot instantly. The Navy airplanes caught fire while pieces of the F-5E crashed through the flight deck and started fires below. By the time the crew brought the fires under control, 11 men were dead and 14 injured. Nine airplanes were completely destroyed.

Poor Eddie Jindra—who had tumbled off the flight deck in his airplane during an attack on the Randolph at Okinawa—was sunbathing on the deck when the Army pilot crashed. He suffered third-degree burns from the blast and was transferred to the hospital ship Refuge.

When Hal Vita finally was able to make his way to his stateroom, he found that his bed was already occupied—by one of the F-5E’s still-smoldering Allison engines!

The Randolph seemed to be unlucky at anchor. Since I had come aboard the ship in January, she had been anchored only five times. On two of those occasions, she was smashed into by airplanes—once Japanese and once American. Lives were lost both times. It wasn’t a very good record.

The Randolph as seen from a distance after an Army pilot smashed into it. The pilot, flying an F-5E, the reconnaissance version of the P-38, was showing off . . . poorly. The foolhardy man was killed, as were 11 sailors. Nine aircraft on the Randolph’s deck were destroyed. (U.S. Navy)

We were very fortunate that the Army pilot had hit well forward on the flight deck, because the hangar deck was covered with bombs and ammunition that had been unloaded from an ammo barge tied alongside. Even so, there were anxious moments when blazing gasoline from the damaged planes dripped down through the hole in the flight deck to the hangar deck. Fortunately, the damage-control parties managed to extinguish the flames before any of the ammunition caught fire.

Once again, the repair ship Jason, which had done such a fine job restoring the Randolph at Ulithi, pulled alongside and was able to fix the damage in about four days.