Belleau Wood (CVL 24) - Naval Cruise Book

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BHK, AIPAN, HE objective of the next cruise remained shrouded in secrecy as, on February 12, the giant hook lifted from the water, the engines throbbed, and the ship crawled into the long column of ships steaming out of Majuro. Two Groups of Task Force 58, 158.2 ESSEX, YORKTOWN, BELLEAU WOOD, and 58.5 BUNKER HILL, COWf PENS, MONTEREYJ headed west-but where? That is what the crew wanted to know. Then came the shattering announcement that we were on our way to Truk! A brief description of Truk as we felt it existed was a group of islands, packed with major warships, loaded with enemy planes, bristling with guns manned by highly trained personel. The greatest drawback for us was the lack of information--the Japs had made Truk such a guarded bastion for so long that no one had penetrated its secrets. Knocking out this fortress was imperative-a vital bridge on the Road to Tokyo . But there were other reasons for slugging Truk. Far to the eastward our landing forces were primed for a February 17 assault on Eniwetok. It was our job to touch off the fireworks at Truk on February 16 and draw Jap attention, air' power, and surface forces away from Eniwetok. And there was an added attraction at Truk. For the first time in months we had reason to believe we 29 TINIAN CBUlSE 5 February 12-February 26, 1944 might trap the enemy fleet which for so long had refused to fight. Photographs taken by a daring Marine search plane the previous week revealed that many of Nippon's major ships were there. f Corner the fleet. For three days the fleet sneaked westward through the Oarolines stealthily approaching Japan's Pearl Harbor. Secrecy of the operation was threatened once when a Jap patrol plane approached within a few hundred miles, but Lt. Bill Sours and his division found him first and shot him down before he could discover the task force. At dawn on February 16 the target lay only 46 minutes flying time away. Fortyfsix minutes after the first ight-er sweep took off there began one of the' fiercest battles ever fought in cloud country. A By midfafternoon over 204 enemy planes had been destroyed, 127 of them in the air. That was the finish of Jap air power over Truk. The Task Force had lost only 19 planes. From then on the targets were picked at ran' dom. For two days showers of bombs rained down on Truk. Long spirals of smoke surged upward from supply dumps, barracks, blazing planes, and burning ships in the lagoon. In the vicinity of our ships the BELLEAU WOOD patrol shot down a Betty and a Kate. if xl

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42514 A-if w .' F. f 0000 ,. Ja W was , Y 94 ind, K O7 :Zh ply X 1 01 'QM-fi X if F- ' WAX f 131, T- fp G.. 1' L U k A ,Q ,Q .:.....'i'1 TQ Lf was .e f mf X f -at - ' f ' , tv U gig Zig Q v 1 0 , -:W 0 ' :IC 0. 'I 1 5 1 L ' I , Pd write a verse on Navy chow but stuff like this llff if - V011 f rhimf 'om' h W Our greatest disappointment was failing to Hnd the enemy fleet which had slipped away before our arrival. Only a few warships remained, and these did not stay afloat very long. The final tally of ships for Task Force 58 included 23 sunk Q2 light cruisers, 3 destroyers, 18 cargo ships and oilersj and 17 other ships damaged. Flushed with victory the fleet boldly strutted up from Truk. Japan's central Paeihc empire was crumbling fast. Truk was no longer a menace. But far to the west stretched the Marianas, a six hundred mile long chain of islands only 15 00 miles from Tokyo, containing the major supply bases of Japanis outer empire. We proposed to crack this solar plexus. We aimed deep. In addition to inflicting the maximum damage to Tinian, Rota, and Guam, we had to test the enemy's strength on Saipan where landings were scheduled in June. Now Saipan was no flat, narrow island' or atoll like all our previous targets-Baker, Tarawa, Wake, Makin, Taroa, Kwajalein, and parts of Truk. After hopping across the Pacific from one coral reef to another we had at last come to a significant land mass of mountains and cultivated slopes. From the air Saipan looks a lot like Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands. This probing raid on the Marianas was scheduled for February 22, 1944. After refueling at sea following the highly successful Truk operation we headed straight for the target. This was the deepest we had ever been in enemy waters. It was late in the afternoon of February 21 that a lookout noticed a strange twinfengine bomber far out on the horizon. Our luck had run out at last. After months of catching the enemy off guard we Hnally had been spotted. All night long we fought. our way in. The laps kept up sporadic attacks which cost them fourteen planes and did us no harm. Dawn of VJashington's birthday found our first strike warming up on the flight deck for the inif tial swat at the target when a group of ten Jap planes began a masthead bombing attack. The screening def stroyers and cruisers knocked down some, but a few got through. One headed our way on a waterfskimming run for the starboard quarter. A cruiser opened up with all she had. Soon every ship that could bear joined the ex' plosive chorus and poured a hail of destruction at the enemy fidentified as a Bettyl, but she came on in directly for our bridge. Captain Pride swung the helm over hard to dodge the attack. By the grace of God that flaming plane missed the bridge and skimmed the top of OUT radar screen between the stacks. He had cleared us by 30 feet. The sieveflike appearance of his fuselage and the inferno inside could be plainly seeiieeemaiid felt! The plan? crashed just off our port beam with a tremendous explO' sion in the morning twilight. So close was the burning mass that the faces of those topside were hot from radiatf ing heat. This was our second narrow escape. One half hour later another Betty repeated the AIP' proaeh, this time on the port bow. lt also penetrated tl1C screen and, flying about fifty feet off the water, pressed home the attack. Our port battery opened fire with brilf