Admiral W L Capps (AP 121) - Naval Cruise Book

Page 68 text:

K. X . , 4' Q XX gg Q . t X X-Q t X X A A Quiet Day on the way to Olqinawa headed directly for the destroyer's midsection. The destroyer called all hands to 'cprepare to abandon ship. However, by letting go both anchors and backing down full, we were able to stop about twenty feet short of disaster. There may have been another solution to this situation which would have caused less grey hairs but since this one was successful, we will be satisfied with it. We tied up to a floating pier at Saipan, disembarked the passengers, fwho took along with them everything they could find of value which was not welded down,j and after partially refueling, cast off again and sailed with no passengers at all, for Panama and the Atlantic. This new routing was not a surprise. It had been known for quite some time that troops were being transported directly from Europe to the Pacific areas. The ADMIRAL CAPPS probably would have been in the Atlantic earlier if the third trip hadn't stretched out so long a time. X s N. R ,X A ff t ff, ,f 'uf ,ff ' P , jill? Part of our convoy on the way to Haguch Bay Oar ,riff X Nalza after the B-24,5 had passed The only interruption div rsion on IQ Iulfi to 31-U ed guard crew of the S. oui orders to rendezvous Ha vaiian Sea Frontier anc to Barn the details about th fer him to our ship using tl rally assuming that theiris we met them they had tro' hat trouble lowering the s twf, other men for bout pa' ach: and the other with ' GH, when their boat came

Page 67 text:

rv! that r 8 H he Q-.l.in,j wlnlld ht xiii' lf' Aff lhcwt sl' F S t m '+V alml . .A Q. .,,,.N,mj lf'l.1'ft,'tgj,,HiUf l A rlwv Q Hlr ' 'veil on .1 'Mtg and lit drinks. l Ratt Alerts -r 1' alone QF :ht fda. fs, Heart -ft shoot at them. Three of the tive alerts were the re- sult of our own planes approaching the atoll with their recognition appara- tus out of order. The other two were K probably of lapan- ese origin because Yap Island was only about 60 miles away and they had b 0 m b e d G u a m while we were at Ulithi, Cindicating that they still had some planesj Balcony seats az the Hot Air Theatre Finally, hfty-five days after leaving Seattle, the ADMIRAL CAPPS joined a convoy on 28 Iune and sailed for Okinawa. This was an 11.5 knot convoy and didn't arrive there until the afternoon of 2 Iuly. The disembarking of troops and unloading of cargo commenced immediately. QA brigadier general of the Army Med- ical Corps came aboard to take the nurses ashore.j All of the passengers were off early the next morning but the cargo took four days, in which the crew worked day and night operating Winches. Uurs was the largest auxiliary vessel to enter the Okinawa area up to that time, and it was greatly desired to get us out before the Kamikaze Corps spotted us. There had been suicide attacks in the area just before we arrived and there were some just after we left, but while we were there, only one enemy plane entered fbut did not leavej the area. There were three Flash Red alerts in the six days but no action resulted for the ADMIRAL CAPPS. We loaded about 3000 Marines on the 7th of Iuly and sailed in convoy on the 8th for Saipan. This convoy made I5 knots and we ar- rived there in the morning of the 12th. It was in en- tering Saipan har- bor that the AD- MIRAL CAPPS had her closest ap- proach to tragedy. We stopped to pick up the pilot in the channel with the wind blowing on our starboard beam. Un our port side were anchored a number of destroy- ers and destroyer es- Tfze skipper gives Mag-Mog ez brief tour corts in a line parallel with the channel. While the pilot was coming aboard, we began to drift down on a destroyer escort and in order to avoid it we had to come ahead quickly with left rudder while the DE veered her anchor chain. This maneuver brought us directly between the destroyer escort we had just missed and the destroyer next in the line - with quite a bit of headway on and

Page 69 text:

,. i 1 In ,f .. X. e, i 2 X ' . . . if . Q 5 fl ' ii ff X . QNQTNTY X ' sf-SHN 4 N-sift Our hrs! loolq at the Panama Canal The only interruption in our trip to Panama was a little diversion on IQ Iuly to give medical aid to a member of the armed guard crew of the S. S. JASPER CROPSEY. We received our orders to rendezvous with her from the Commander, Hawaiian Sea Frontier and then made radio contact with her to learn the details about the sick man. It was decided to trans- fer him to our ship using the IASPER CROPSEY'S boar Qnatu- rally assuming that their's would be better than ours.j When we met them they had trouble lowering their boat. Then they had trouble lowering the sick man. Then they brought along two other men for 'cout patient treatment - one with a tooth- ache and the other with general pains. To top everything off, when their boat came alongside, one of our seamen tossed them a heaving line which hit one of their boat crew on the head, cutting it open, thus creating another patient. As soon as all of the patients were treated, they shoved oH in their boat which promptly broke down. We then had to lower one of our boats and tow them back to their ship. The whole operation required three hours with both ships lying dead in supposedly dangerous waters. We arrived at the Canal Zone early in the morning of I2 Iuly and made the transit the same day. We arrived at Cristobal late that evening and tied up to a pier. The next day we re- mained at the pier to take on fuel and supplies. In the mean- time the crew got their first real liberty in almost three months -four whole hours for each section. The city of Colon wel- 'ii Everybody cheered when he saw this headline