Belleau Wood (CVL 24) - Naval Cruise Book

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rigged up, including electric saws and wickedflooking mallets. Another 'doctor' snapped, 'Say ahhhhhh', then jammed a paint brush, with more of the vile vitamins, down the pollywog,s thr-oat. Busy barbers made bad haircu-ts worse. The stocks were reserved for special cases of stub' born recalcitrants who were locked in, battered with salt water from a hose, painted with more of the royal baby's belly cosmetics, grease, oil, rotten eggs- and just pestered in general. Came the climax of the entire initiation: running the sleeve. A couple of target sleeves had been sewn together end to end making a threeffoot tunnel al' Q x .Xt . most 40 feet long through which each candidate was forced to crawl with a fire hose stream of salt water driving through from behind. The biggest shellbacks with more of those canvas persuaders flanked the tunnel. 'Nuff said. It was either keep your head down and the other end up-or be carried to sick bay for reviving. All of this process produced new shellbacks, with the predominant color for a few days in the blacker and bluer hues. Other than the bruises, each victim had one thing to show for the ordeal: an impressive certificate signed by the skipper saying the :bearer had been 'duly initiated into the order of shellbacksf Q

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Photographs of the results of the attack revealed the laps to be even more expert than we expected at the art of camouflage. It was difficult to determine the damage acf complished. But our fighters had aided in destroying 12 Jap planes on the ground. The Admiral's A GOOD JOB DONE ON THE BETTYS warmed us. Confidence was born It was late in the afternoon of Septemlcr 16 when the task group began its retirement from the one day strike at Tarawa Lt Bob Ross Lt jg Walter Buck Rogers and Ens Robby Robinson were on patrol duty when they received a call to investigate a plane which the ship s radar had picked up The three Hellcats went after the contact overtook a Betty and commenced their Gunnery runs The Betty immediately lo t altitude ind made a full stall landing in the water Straing runs sank the plane Another patrol was in on the kill on an Emily and re turned with some of the Hrst photographs taken of this large patrol bomber Tarawa marked our first contact vtith the enemy With growing confidence we returned to Pearl Harbor We had made the grade BEWARE ALL POLLYWOGS SAID THE GHOSTLY VOICE OVER THE BLATT BOX To say that the BELLEAU WOOD had crossed the equator several times during the preceding days is a simple statement of little import But to the men aboard who had never before seen that glorious line the crossing had re verberatmg significance These greasy slimy pollywogs were now eligible for initiation Into the elite order of shellbacks A pollywog is any person who has never crossed the equator a shellback has Here s Don W Shearon PhoM1c with his account of from pollywog to shellback Tales o terror trzc led throughout the shrp horrzble accounts o the process o bezng converted rom a slzmy pollywog to a nzce clean shellback but the sudden warnzng via the announcmg system was the tzpojjr o what was to ollow 'That was shortly a ter a routtne G one even mg The following mornzng ound pollywogs dressed in bac ward togs everything but their shoes worn hznd szde to and mstde out Some were dressed in out ts that rncluded everything rom unnels to lengths of fire hose others sprouted brzght colored pajamas Pollywog loolqouts spent all mornmg on the orward end o the 1ght dec peerzng through the wrong end o telescopes wartzng to see the line as we approached it In accordance wrth the backward trend they were o course loo mg toward the antazl Eventually each pollywog recerved a summons to the court o Neptunus Rex the summons statzng the o ense or whzch he was to be trred And the charges were rn eepzng wzth all that had gone on be ore they ranged rom rmpersonatrng a shellbac to at temptzng to steal the royal baby s nrpple Finally the notortous day arrived The morning was one o torture At noon the vtctzms were strzpped to the shorts and herded onto the hangar dec In groups of 50 they were escorted by sentrres to the zght dec well pac ed canvas tubes made good persuaders and dzscouraged muttny Arrzvrng upon the rght dec each pollywog was orced to his nees encouraged by electrrc prtch or s 'Travelhng across the ight deck on hands and nees the vzctrm was paraded be ore the Royal Party rncludzng the Royal Baby whose navel had to be zssed Generously smeared with a vile tastzng con coctron the extremely at babys paunch wasnt an rnvttzng place especially when one s head was pushed rom behmd Royal baby usually was the most corpulent shellback aboard A ter the parade thmgs began to get hot 'Tall men were orced into a wooden co n several mches too short then made to he down tn it scootzng bac and orth as a club was pounded rom one end to the other I you dtdn t scoot ast enough well A wild eyed doctor had his operating table all t . l , 1: , , ' . . . . . ff J, r ,g . , U ak. s gf: . ., . y If , . k y .4 .. K f it .. 9 .Q .' . 'L ff' ks It .. f .k ., . .n T' f f ' fr it f . .j J f .k , . . . . . M. t H. r f f . li , f r , f 1 .sr if A - , .U , .f y R. p . .y . i . k g A . ., f , , 5 . , , If f f y .nf , 5 ',. J f f fr R, ' f ' a ' f y .. , . . k .g . f f f It f u .f f r - -1 21

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WA E CRUISE 2 October 1-October 11, 1945 ' HERALDED as the greatest carrier task force ever assembledn, six carriers steamed out of Pearl Harbor on October 1, 1943 to slug Wake Island. Our feelings were different on this raidg we were attacking an enemy entrenched on American soil, soil that bore testi' mony to the fighting spirits of the U. S. Marines. Present to avenge these heroes were the carriers LEXINGTON, YORKTOWN, ESSEX, INDEPENDENCE, BELLEAU WOOD, and COWPENS. It was pitch black that morning of October 5 , rainy and squally too. The first flight took off at O500g one by one the planes roared off the flight deck to circle in the night and rendezvous in the darkness. For two days, October 5 and 6, Wake took a beating twice as vicious as that given Tarawa. To our astonishment we were at no time attacked or engaged by the enemy, thanks to a snappy performance on the part of our C.A.P. which intercepted a group of Jap planes 90 miles away and shot down four Bettys and three Zekes. fC.A.P. is combat air patrol , a group of fighters policing the skies to intercept raids on the ships by enemy aircraftl. The operations against Wake brought the Task Force the following message from CINCPAC fCommander in Chief, Pacificj, Admiral Chester W. Nimitzz U. S. Naval Communication Service THE THOROUGH JOB DONE ON WAKE BY PLANES AND SHIPS OF YOUR TASK FORCE WILL HAVE RESULTS REACHING FAR BEYOND THE HEAVY DAMAGE INFLICTED