Kamikazes, Corsairs, and Picket Ships: Okinawa 1945 by Robin L. Rielly

Author:Robin L. Rielly [Rielly, Robin L.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Bisac Code 1: HIS027100
Publisher: Casemate
Published: 2008-09-05T04:00:00+00:00

I was surprised there was anyone alive. They had every kind of wound and burn. I helped pull one aboard whose feet were blown off and when we laid him on the deck, I pushed his legs together because his guts were coming out. We tried to pull one aboard that we knew was dead because he was floating face down. When we lifted him up by his life jacket, we saw that his whole face was blown away.8

The total number of Morrison survivors on board the gunboat numbered 187, of which 108 were injured. Also on board were the survivors from LSM(R) 194. With her decks and below deck areas crowded with the injured and wounded, she headed to port.

Ingraham came under attack at 0822 when a Val was sighted off the starboard bow. Her 5-inch battery made short work of the plane. At 0823 a Hellcat chased a Betty toward the ship and the ship’s gunners splashed it fifty yards astern. Debris from the splash hit the ship and one of the plane’s propellers put a hole in the deck. Ingraham took another plane under fire and it veered away and crashed near LCS(L) 31. The CAP fighters and Ingraham’s gunners made short work of another enemy plane at 0833. Shortly thereafter, float biplanes appeared near the formation and one landed in the water near the destroyer; Hellcats finished it off. From 0838 to 0840, the action accelerated. With Morrison and LSM(R) 194 sunk, the Japanese turned their attention to Ingraham. In the space of a few minutes the destroyer shot down four more planes, but the fifth crashed into her. The Zeke that hit her had taken off from Miyakonojo Airfield in Southern Kyushu that morning. Piloted by Kanichi Horimoto, it crashed into the port side of Ingraham at the waterline. Its bomb went off in the forward diesel room and heavily damaged the number one boiler. Power to the forward 5-inch mounts was knocked out, as well as their fire directors.9

LCS(L) 31 had her share of the action as well. A Zeke made a suicide run on her port beam at 0822. As it approached the 31, it was hit repeatedly by fire from the ship’s 40mm and 20mm guns. Its port wing was shot off and it passed over the ship’s conning tower. The Zeke’s wing clipped off the halyard for the ship’s ensign and it crashed into the water ten feet to starboard. A second Zeke came in from the port side. This one was also hit repeatedly, and its port wing hit between the conning tower and the forward twin 40mm mount, killing two men and injuring another. The starboard wing slashed a two by six foot hole in the pilot house and destroyed the starboard 20mm gun. After passing the ship it exploded in the water, killing three more men and wounding another.

Another Zeke made a run on the 31 and was shot down at0832 and, shortly thereafter, a Val made a successful attack on the ship.

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