Hell from the Heavens by John Wukovits

Author:John Wukovits
Language: ara
Format: epub
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Published: 2015-02-17T16:00:00+00:00

Admiral Ugaki made certain of that. The commander had been placed in charge of the 6th Air Army for the third kikusui, scheduled for April 16. The optimistic admiral thought that the kamikaze raids might yet turn the fortunes of war in Japan’s favor. He relished the opportunity to toss his three attack groups, waiting and ready at airfields spread throughout Kyushu, at the Americans. Captain Toshio Kimura’s 1st Attack Group, consisting of the 59th Sentai (Air Group) and five suicide units, collected at Ashiya in northern Kyushu, while the 2nd Attack Group grouped Captain Masao Suenaga’s 101st Sentai and Captain Iwao Hayaski’s 102nd Sentai and their three kamikaze units at Miyakonojo in southern Kyushu. Major Michiaki Tojo’s 103rd Sentai commanded another two suicide units at Chiran in the southwestern tip of Kyushu.

Ugaki nearly had to postpone the April 16 attack when US aircraft pounded his headquarters in southern Kyushu on April 15, destroying fifty-one planes on the ground and another twenty-nine in the air. Ugaki was shaken by the strike, but ordered the kikusui attack to proceed as scheduled.

Early the next morning the admiral watched as fifty-eight aircraft lifted from the airfield and turned south for the planned mid-morning strikes against US forces off Okinawa. Another one hundred army fighters and special attack planes rose from their Kyushu airfields, the drones of their engines drowning out all other sounds as the pilots ascended to keep the enemy away from their homeland. If all went as expected, by day’s end American ships would be on the ocean’s bottom and crews would be swimming for their lives.

The men aboard Laffey had no inkling that such an immense air conglomeration headed their way.

“They Caught Us Without Any Fighter Coverage”

The early morning hours of April 16 reminded men of their favorite days back home, when clear blue skies and comfortable temperatures offered idyllic settings for grabbing a pole and sauntering to their favorite fishing hole. Calm seas, good visibility, light breezes, and sixty-degree temperatures greeted the crew as they started their third day at Picket Station No. 1. They had already logged two days at the exposed post without mishap, but few thought they could let their guard down. Hatches had been battened down for days, and near constant sojourns at battle stations kept men on edge, as if, according to Lieutenant Manson, “the entire ship was just holding her breath.”8

Becton kept close watch on the skies when on the bridge, which was always, it seemed, and eight feet from the skipper the astute teenage observer, Quartermaster Phoutrides, expected an attack after the previous night’s interruptions. Facing possible combat, Becton needed the ability to reach maximum speed at a moment’s notice. Consequently the black gang operating the belowdecks machinery had to keep the superheaters cut in, which elevated temperatures in the boiler and engineering spaces to well above a hundred degrees. Becton hated to ask this of his black gang, but he had no choice if he were to operate at maximum efficiency in the event a kamikaze attack occurred.

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