Belleau Wood (CVL 24) - Naval Cruise Book

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ready to give the word. Attention, all hands, this is the Captain. We are about four hundred miles from japan. You will be interested to know that we have as our des' tination, Tokyo. Tomorrow afternoon we will start our high speed run in. At dawn the sixteenth we strike the 'lap capitol . He also stated what he expected of us and said he had faith that his expectations would be fulfilled. He closed with this appropriate phrase, We aren't send' ing a boy to do a man's job this time . It was a sober crew when he finished. Everybody was a little uneasy but at the same time proud to be in on this one. Our course was northwest. The weather became cold and the seas rough. It began to rain a dismal rain. The mission of the force: destruction of aircraft in the Tokyo area. This we later learned was to knock out Jap air power that could be used against the Marine Corps as it stormed ashore on Iwo Jima. The weather got worse. But that low dismal cloud cover was a perfect concealing canopy as we raced toward Nippon. Nothing happened on the 15th to make us sus' pect that the Japs knew our location. That night, with the distance to japan shrinking, the men in CIC kept sharp eyes on the radar for bogies. The scopes swept 'round and 'round-and happily remained clear. On the cold, blackedfout bridge, the night watches hovered over their surface radar, alert for skunks fun' identihed surface contactsj. The long night hours slowly crept by. The bridge scope remained black as the night, not an enemy craft appeared. Down in the wardroom Lt. Ben Horr and Ens. Bob Coleman broke the tension with vigorous renditions of Don't Fence Me In . At 0630 the next morning, February 16 we were 119 miles from Tokyo. Task Group 5 8.1 was the nearest to Tokyo of the five groups in Task Force 58. And in Task Group 58.1 the BELLEAU WCOD was the nearest carrier. All night long the redfhelmeted ordnance men had been securing bombs, rockets, and machine gun belts in every plane. Before the first ray of light, all was ready. Like sleeping birds with folded wings aligned on a roost, the silent dark planes awaited their pilots. Then up from the ready room came those pilots-in their weird Zoomie suits bulging at the shins and flapping on the back. Time check! Time Check! Cn the mark it will be sixf thirtyftwof' Air Officer Commander Joe Clymer's voice flooded the dark flight deck. Stand by, Mark! Stand by to start engines Stand clear of propellersn Start engines With a cough, a stutter, a pop, and a roar, those sleep' ing birds came to life. Now they were more like wild horses straining at the harness, spitting fire from the enf gine exhausts. A plane director, scarcely discernible in the darkness save for the glowing flashlight wands in 79 ,

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-..,...... as 4 s . , We could only sit around and listen to scuttlebutt as it spread throughout the ship. Brisbois up in CIC said Tokyo , the gunners on the fantail said China 3 Phillips in Aerology could think only of typhoons. But all agreed it was something important-else why had we been rushed through the yard availability at Huntefs Point eight days ahead of schedule? The quiet, calculating team of Admiral Spruance, Commander Fifth Fleet, and Vice Admiral Mitscher, Commander Task Force 58 had assumed the leadership of the striking forces. Dawn of February 10 found the lagoon astir. Vessels all over the place inched their way toward the channel leading to the open sea. Hour after hour well into the afternoon, the procession filed out, a seemingly endless column of speedy vessels-every one of which could break 30 knots. Outside Ulithi the horizon was dotted with ships. Formed into five task groups, Task Force 58 that day was an amazing affair. There had been 6 carriers on the Gil' bert raids in 1943, twice that number in uthe greatest carrier fleet ever assembled for Truk in 1944. But around Ulithi this February afternoon there were 16 floating airdromes, including the SARATOGA, ENTER' PRISE, 9 big Essex sluggers, and 5 CVL's. The BELLEAU WOOD was part of Task Group 58.1 in which were also present the reliable veterans of many previous operations: the HORNET and WASP, aug' mented by the newcomer, BEN N IN GTON. Included in our support were the INDIANA, MASSACHUSETTS, VINCENNES, SAN JUAN, and MIAMI. All this power and fighting potential was under the direct com' mand of Rear Admiral J. J. Jocko Clark, a man who had led us to triumph in the past, one with whom we were glad to be associated when the fighting got tough. And on across the sea spread other task groups, just as powerful as ours. The carriers in each group were: 58.2 LEXINGTON, HANCOCK, SAN JACINTO 58.3 ESSEX, BUNKER HILL, COWPENS 58.4 YORKTOWN, RANDOLPH, CABOT, LANGLEY 58.5 ENTERPRISE, SARATOGA. A look at the five convincing teams proved something big was stirring. Fifty per cent of the crew were green hands, widefeyed listeners as the older men of experience retold the story of October 30. The Kamikaze boys will go after the big ones first , Mike Schaeffer, BM1c assured. Joe Cristaldi, BM1 c, wanted to know what happens after there aren't any more big ones left. Late in the afternoon of February 14 the PA system began to hum all over the ship-then two experimental blows in the microphone. These were the signals that l a ways preceeded a talk from the captain, the skipper was 78 1 f ---. - 'e '- 8 'M '

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. 5532.1 CLEAR Tl-IE RMI- . I 'i 'I gi' x sa- -, I ,L n j! VE'- fw 'L 2 , N , gm ,s ,, fn, ,J flirt .I M, lf' it ,f Il I' ' ff A I. ,, A dk 'K if , X ' . af f ' ' Q Z ,fad Al x If li I5 bi nhl' 1- - R I Q 'i ' 'K my each hand, signalled the first plane to unlock his wings. A dozen plane handlers leaped to push those wings for' ward into flying position. To the signals of glowing, wavf ing wands, plane after plane spread its wings and taxied up that carpet of night to the catapult. The ships turned into the wind. Airdales on the flight deck instinctively leaned far forward into the breeze to maintain balance, their loudly flapping clothes wrapped violently around them by the draft and propeller slip streams. Dodging around a crowded flight deck in the twilight amid roaring propellers and trying to keep out of the way of prop blasts requires a nimble JackfbefQuick. At 0643, long before sunrise, Hellcats and Avengers roared off our deck, orbited, joined up with other carrier planes, and turned toward Japan. We caught the Nips by complete surprise and kept pounding the airflelds of the Tokyo Plain for the next two days. It is a matter of record however that unpleasant weather conditions-especially the rain and fog-which hid the ships from discovery also hampered the offensive of our own air groups. As the Yanks stormed ashore at Iwo Jima on February 20, the Task Force took position near the Bonin Islands, commencing a series of neutralizing raids against Chichi Jima and Haha Jima, knocking them out as staging areas for Jap raids at Iwo. It was in this area that the SARATOGA was severely damaged by a swarm of Kamikazes. The unpredictable Japs, after letting us cruise unmolested so close to their homeland shores a week earlier, came way down to Iwo to sock the SARA. After a second weatherffrustrated swing at Tokyo and Nagoya, we swatted the Nansei Shoto on March 1. Six VT's attacked shipping in Sakishima Gunto, between Okinawa and Formosa. Ens. Relyea and his two crewf men, Gruett and Cherry, crashed immediately after a bombing run. Lt. Reisert was critically wounded and his plane badly damaged by AA fire after making a direct hit on a destroyer, he flew for an hour and a half to the position of a rescue submarine where he ordered his two crewmen to parachute. Both were rescued, but Lt. Reisert after his heroic performance could not be revived when picked up by the submarine. Three days later our big hook dropped into the waters of Ulithi where for 10 days Mog Mog Island was liberty grounds for the Fifth Fleet. We had delivered the first Navy blow at Japan. We had ubroken ice on the homeland. 80 W .- .,. .. . .... .. ,... -ar ........ .