Belleau Wood (CVL 24) - Naval Cruise Book

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U UTU Y El :Hx v-4 6 When we go out to hunt the Jap, to cause him grief and woe and pain, - .aah-. We sail around and up and down, and then sail back again. 4. im 5 All these circles in the sea get darned monotonous to me. f Ah'l -Gib Hughes. The excitement of action ills most of the pages of this book. However, it is erroneous to imply that most of our nautical life was spent in actual combat. In reality, the thrills were brief and far apart. Day in and day out life at sea was plain monotony. Of course there were some whose duties had a flavor of variety. No two days were the same for men involved in flight operations on the flight deck. ln spite of the deafening racket of airplane engines and annoying wind there was enough suspense connected with each landing and enough danger from whirling propellers to keep life from getting dull. There's never a dull moment on a carrier, always some thing new and different was true of flight deck country But few of us outside the airdales participated in the ex' citement of flight operations Boilers engines bulkheads decks mess halls offices and shops always lool the s me no matter what goes on above Every day x as a dupli cate of its predeces or and model for its successor reveille in the dark to sit around battle stations for an hour until sunrise launch aircraft for routine patrols which 90 per cent of the time saw nothing save air, clouds, and water, land aircraft, launch aircraft, land aircraft, three meals a day, scrub bulkheadsg swab decks, run boilers and engines, then fade out with another hour after sunset at battle stations. Relieve the watch. On deck section three. Relieve the wheel and lookoutsf' Relieve the watch-relieve the watch, day after day, week after week. The march of the hours and days and months rumbled steadily past. The sea and sky rolled endlessly by with no glimpse of land from one port period to the next, our eyes became water logged . Water has a way of looking the same wherever you are. This reaction to the life at sea was true of every ship in the fleet, not just the BELLEAU WGCD. Flight operations did give life on carriers a certain flavor which other ships lacked What battleships and cruisers did through the months to fight boredom other than keep station fstay in position is hard to understand Rare indeed was the man who did not lose all sense of time as the metronome of monotony ticked endlessly on . , , . . 7 9 7 , , L -. v . V N . ,, . . . 'Y f - 1 C '.-. 1 t. . - . . ' . . 55 . -H L, ' 1 , V . - 1 - r -'- g V -- - V - , H W ,,-............,............ f s. -- -' fi-'ef-W N - - -Ms--.'-X...-,fs g , a g .w av w p 5-V Jigga? VALLQQ-432 greg: Y V Q

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FIR T TOKYO Pill-GE CRUISE 12 February 10-March 4, 1945 IT was a sunny Saturday morning, january 20, 1945 when this rejuvenated carrier backed slowly into San Francisco Bay, paused while the new U.S.S. RANDOLPH pulled away from the dock at Alameda, and together with her headed out into the Pacihc. It felt a whole lot different this time to see Golden Gate fade in the distance over our fantail-much different than seeing it rise over our bow on November 29. The water of the Pacific once again stretched endlessly before us, the land we were fighting for dropped below the horizon. With our new Air Group we were heading for action. Air Group 30 had come aboard in Alameda with Lt. Cdr. R. H. Lindner, Air Group Commander and Lt. F. C. Tothill in charge of the torpedo squadron. A few hours after reaching Pearl Harbor on January 26 Captain Perry turned the command of the ship over to Captain W. G. Tomlinson, former International Schneider Cup pilot and winner of the Curtiss Marine Trophy Race, 1929. One of the pioneers of naval aviation, he instituted the Aviation Cadet Program and was responsible for the early progress of cadet training. In the early 30's as a Lieutenant, he made the Navy's first dawnfdusk trans' continental flight. The new skipper came to us from Atlantic duty where he was Commander, U.S. Naval Forces, Azores.. Back in late 1942 and early '43 the admirals would have given a bushel of stars for the linefup of ships with which we departed Pearl for Ulithi on Jan' uary 29. Present were five carriers, the U.S.S. SARATOGA, BENNINGTON, BUNKER HILL, RANDOLPH, BELLEAU WOOD, the new battlefcruiser ALASKA. and seven destroyers-all reporting for duty. Sailing into Ulithi on February 7, nobody had any doubt that wherever we were going We would have plenty of company-the whole fleet was in. As yet the destination was unannounced.