ABOVE: The USS Laffey is down by the stern after being attacked by 22 Japanese kamikaze aircraft on April 16, 1945. The mangled remains of the two 5-inch guns in Mount 3 near the stern, one canted up at a severe angle, are the result of one of the kamikazes that crashed into the mount and exploded, ripping open and destroying the mount, killing six and severely wounding six members of the gun crew, and ejecting gun captain Larry Delewski out the far side. After the attack, Jim Spriggs strung his hammock from this shattered gun mount and slept outside, since his berth, below deck in the aft part of the ship, was under water. Bob Karr’s battle station, the gun tub of Mount 43, is visible on the starboard side just behind the number two smoke stack.
I was part of the original crew of the Laffey. I was the gun captain of Mount 3. That was an enclosed gun turret with two 5-inch guns near the back of the ship. I usually slept inside the gun mount itself on corrugated steel. I kept a blanket in a little storage area in the mount where there were tools, and that’s where I kept my blanket. I spent many a night in there because it was not only close to my duty station, but with the living conditions on board ship our bunks were stacked three high in the lowest part of the ship, with a very small overhead. My bunk was the middle bunk. If I was in my bunk and put my fingers to my nose I could touch the guy above me. So it was more comfortable in the gun mount.
We had an experience at Ormoc Bay in the Philippines before we got to Okinawa. One of the destroyers, the Hughes was badly damaged by kamikazes, and the Laffey was sent to take her in tow, which we did. And then a seagoing tug came and took over the tow, and then we tied up alongside and moved along with this other ship. We had first-hand experience of our doctors and our medical people going aboard and helping out. We saw the results of a direct hit up close while the fires were still being fought with their hoses and our hoses as well. So we knew exactly what kamikazes could do.
After that we got sent out to Picket Station 1, which was approximately seventy miles north of Okinawa. The Laffey was part of an umbrella of U.S. warships spread out in position to pickup incoming Japanese planes on radar and to protect the larger ships of the fleet farther south. Once the planes were contacted, the communication team, on temporary duty from its carrier-based fighter squadron, would notify their home base from on board the Laffey. Fighter planes would be launched to intercept the incoming planes. The Japanese came to realize that they were not doing the kind of damage they hoped to do because of this early warning system. They decided they had to get rid of this picket line.
Two basic kamikaze techniques were used. Sometimes a lone raider would sneak in low to the water to do the damage. At other times the pilots might use a mass attack. They chose the mass attack technique for the morning of April 16, 1945, when we were on duty on Picket Station 1. In all, some eighty planes appeared on picket line radar screens that morning. Of these planes, twenty-two chose to dive at the USS Laffey.
Some people ask me if we knew what we were getting into, and the answer is yes. This is because on April 12, just prior to joining the picket line, the Laffey had entered the U.S. anchorage at Karama Reto adjacent to Okinawa. We went in there to reload ammunition and to refuel. We also got our mail that day. And we got two replacements, part of the normal rotation of personnel, one of which was assigned to my gun, and it turned out he lasted three days.
At Karama Reto, when we anchored, what we saw was a graveyard of destroyers and small ships at anchor, some with the front blown off, some with the back blown off, some with the top blown off, you name it. This damage was a result of confrontations with kamikazes on the picket line. These ships had been hit from every possible angle. It was all very real. No, we were not blind and we were not stupid. We knew where we were headed and what could happen. There was no question in anyone’s mind that this was serious business. We knew we had to be at our best. But we were to learn that even at our best, when twenty-two planes dive at a single ship in less than eighty minutes some were bound to get through.
So when we got our assignment to Picket Station 1, it wasn’t like we just went out there and got attacked immediately. The first day it was quiet, and the second day was quiet, but it was the morning of the third day when we had trouble.
My battle station on that morning was as captain of Mount 3, the same as it had been on D-Day and at Cherbourg in Europe. It was the same station I had manned on all Laffey operations, whether with the carriers on a raid of Japanese cities or with a bombardment group in support of an invasion of Mindoro, Luzon, Mindanao, Iwo Jima, or Okinawa. So, the first thing that morning I was waiting in line for breakfast, and I was halfway down the chow line, still on the main deck and hadn’t gotten to the ladder that would have taken us down to the mess hall. So when the enemy planes were detected in our area, general quarters was sounded. At that point, you forget about breakfast!
Yes, my gun crew was experienced and well practiced. We had no trouble firing both guns of the mount every three seconds to take advantage of the latest fuse setting. This rate of fire was especially important when firing at incoming aircraft.
As GQ sounded we all got into the turret, and I was looking for targets. My normal position as mount captain during antiaircraft action was in an open hatch on the top of the mount. This was my lookout position. I saw a Japanese plane off to starboard, and we were aiming in that direction when another Japanese plane slammed into the port side at the main deck level just under a cluster of five torpedoes forward of our mount. The plane hit the after “head” at the main deck level exploded and came apart. Because our turret was turned away, one of the plane’s wings hit the back of the mount, and this caused a terrible fire in this after main-deck area, including the back of Mount 3 above the main deck and in the ammunition handling area below. We had what I call a two-story fire. The fire was in the gun turret and down in the handling room because the gun mount consisted of the enclosed turret mount above the deck and the handling room directly below the mount. The fire spread from the burning gasoline that was in the wing of the plane that hit us. As it turned out, this hit would be critical because the heat of the fire in the after deck-house warped the closing device for my top look-out hatch. Once the fire was under control, the hatch could only be opened a few inches. It no longer was useful as a lookout position.
When we got the fire under control my orders were to switch to local control and pick my own targets. I couldn’t use my top hatch any more, and that’s why I then had to partially hang out the hatch on the side of the mount to find targets. This hatch was on the port side in relation to the ship, but that was the right-hand side of the gun mount since our guns faced to stern.
The area most damaged by this first plane was part of the after deckhouse, which included some officer’s quarters and the crew’s head. This combination shower, sink, and toilet area, while needed, was not vital to the ship’s fighting ability.
Right after we were back in business, my first target came in from the stern slightly to starboard. So I spotted the target by eye and told Calvin Cloer roughly where it was. He was the pointer. He made the guns elevate and depress, and he closed the electrical firing circuit when on target. Jim LaPointe was the trainer. He made the gun traverse horizontally. Once they picked it up on their screen with cross hairs in the middle, which is like a simple sight, they would center on it themselves. There was one person responsible for elevation, and one person responsible for training the gun from side to side. With great teamwork they locked onto the target. So we aimed and fired and shot that plane right out of the sky!
More Japanese planes were coming at us, so we helped the 40-mm crews of the quad-forties on top of the after deck-house to bring down their chosen targets. Then I was in the process of choosing the next target for Mount 3. Because the top hatch was no longer of use, I was hanging halfway out the portside hatch. I was looking out and spotted a Japanese plane that was to port, and we were in the process of training around to that target. I can still remember yelling to “Frenchy” LaPointe to train to a bearing of 135 degrees for the next target. While the mount was turning, another plane came in from the starboard side and made a direct hit on the left side of the gun mount, the opposite side to where I was leaning out the hatch. The plane hit, and there was a terrific explosion. The enclosed gun mount was blown apart, and everyone in the mount was either killed or suffered from internal injuries from concussion. But I was blown out of the hatch by the concussion, and I flew out and over the deck in the direction of the front of the ship. I became a projectile!
The force of the explosion was great enough to drive the left-hand gun so it was pointed almost straight up into the air, in a position at least 70 degrees above the right-hand gun. These guns normally move and remain in tandem. One whole side of the turret was missing, and that was 1-inch thick steel.
In all, six men died in Gun Mount 3 that day. Another six who did survive went to hospitals for anything from a couple of months to as many as twenty months, with severe internal injuries from the concussion and burns.
I have often said that my guardian angel was with me that day. If the mount had turned a degree or two less, I’d have been blown over the side and into the sea. If the mount had turned a degree or two more, I’d have been blown into that still-burning mass of twisted metal that had formerly been the head area. As it turned out, when I regained consciousness I was draped over a K-Gun, which is a depth charge launching device some fifteen feet forward of Mount 3 on the main deck. And amazingly, my injuries were minimal. I had some pieces of shrapnel in my back, which they later picked out and cauterized, and I had some burns above the collar on my neck.
When I opened my eyes the first thing I saw was this communications officer, Commander Runk, throwing a dud over the side. This was an unexploded projectile that was on the Japanese plane, and he just heaved it overboard. The Japanese used makeshift bombs made from stockpiled projectiles from cruisers and other ships that had been sunk.
So, my first reaction was to get back to Mount 3. The first thing when I got back there, I found Chester Flint pinned in the starboard hatch to the turret by parts of the kamikaze’s motor. I tried to free him, but he died in my arms. This was very difficult. You mustrealize we lived closely together, and I was very close to the guys on my gun crew. We were a tightly knit team. So I knew Chester very well. We not only had General Quarters together, but we stood the same watch. Chester came from an area where there weren’t too many people who could read. There were occasions where he wanted to send his girlfriend a gift and I’d write to my mother and she’d mail his girlfriend a gift, and then he’d pay me. And he died in my arms.
On the starboard side there were 20-mm guns right below the bridge, and next thing a Japanese plane hit right over there. A young man who lived no more than fifteen miles from where I live now in Pennsylvania was one of the people killed there. This man who was killed, Wismer, it was only a short time before that that he and a man by the name of Ketron, switched positions at Wismer’s request. Wismer didn’t like the idea of being in Gun Mount 1 with everything closed in, and when there is any kind of weather they really batten things down. And he got tired of being cooped up in the turret. You know, there are thirteen people in there in that small space of the mount, and that’s close quarters, and he got tired of that business, and actually got permission from the people up the line including the gunnery officer to switch assignments with Ketron. And Ketron was equally tired of being out in the weather. And that simple switch determined their fates. Wismer is on the list of fatalities, and Ketron and I just talked the other day.
Do not think for a minute that the attacks were random or haphazard. The first attacker went for the bridge and the radar antenna. The next one was sure to dive into the stern to jam the rudder. Once the crew had to wait to see them and could no longer steer, the ship could become a sitting duck. But not the Laffey. Sure, our radar was gone and the rudder was jammed and almost every compartment aft of the stacks and engine rooms was flooded, but Laffey still made steam and continued moving—in a circle, but we were moving.
So, there wasn’t much more I could do there except go to the bridge and report that Mount 3 was out of action. I was told to take over Mount 2 just forward of the bridge. The man who had charge of Mount 2 , Warren Walker, had gotten some shrapnel wounds and had gone down to see the medics. I had some shrapnel in the back of my neck, which some shipmates picked out. Later the wounds were treated along with some neck burns. Mount 2 was under the control of the fire control people, so at that point it’s just a matter of making sure it’s loaded properly and on time. The actual aiming and fuse setting is done by the fire control people. We were still under attack and Japanese planes were still hitting the ship; I could feel the impact and hear it. And we were firing all the time at planes that were coming at us. Although there was no particular damage to Gun Mount 2, a piece of shrapnel went right through the watertight hatch, and right into the stomach of one of the crew, a guynamed Mele, and he only lived a few minutes. That hatch is just two sheets of aluminum on that watertight door, and it just came right through there and got him.
After the attacks were over I went on back to my area, back around Mount 3, and did what I could to help the damage control party. Their assignment was to know every compartment in their area and where every available source of water would be for fighting a fire. We had all undergone a lot of fire-fighting studies and training.
On that day the USS Laffey lost thirty-two men. Another seventy-one were wounded. Mine is only a small part of the story. There are dozens of individuals who could tell similar stories about their experiences on the Laffey and other ships that served on radar picket duty off Okinawa. There were actually four destroyers hit that same day, and at one point I heard we had as high as eighty enemy planes on our radar screen. Almost 200 men were killed, and another 300 or so were wounded in that one day.
Later in the day on April 16, 1945, seagoing tugs came alongside the Laffey. Lines were put over to help keep us afloat. Pumping did little good because of holes in the bottom. People ask, how did you get holes in the bottom of the ship when the enemy planes and bombs were striking the ship above the waterline? Well it’s because the Japanese had taken big shells from ships that had been sunk, and put fins on them, and made them into crude bombs. So when they dropped one of those on the ship from above, it penetrated the main deck and the decks below and kept going right out the bottom of the ship. And that’s how we got holes in the bottom. The ship was taking on water from those holes so that the main deck was only a couple of feet above the water in the stern before we could temporarily plug those holes.
We were moved to a shallow-water anchorage where underwater welders patched the hull so Laffey could be pumped out. Once Laffey was pumped out and the rudders freed, the ship was steered manually. It was a long way back to Guam, Hawaii, and eventually Seattle.
After the war was over I did have some nightmares and other problems. As a matter of fact, to this day don’t walk up on my blind side or to the side of me. I can be sitting and watching a TV show, and if somebody comes up on the side I’ll jump. That’s part of the enduring thing from the Laffey. In Seattle, when she was once again ready for sea and was heading for Bikini Atoll, the captain called me in and told me he wasn’t taking me along this time, that he thought I had had enough. So I was transferred to the Naval Hospital in Seattle where I proceeded to tear up a few pillows and things in my sleep. I was having nightmares. When my wife and I were first married, we didn’t dare have an alarm clock. She’d get down on the side of the bed and reach in with one hand and shake me to wake me up. She never knew what I would do. It doesn’t happen too often any more.
My experiences on the Laffey affected the rest of my life. One of my prayers that day during the attacks on the ship was certainly that if I was spared I would try and do something worthwhile with my life. I made up my mind right then that if I was spared I was spared for a reason, and I ended up teaching special education for twenty years. I did it and I felt like it was right.