Belleau Wood (CVL 24) - Naval Cruise Book

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The first play called for a twofday dash on May 13' 14 at Kyushu, where BELLEAU WOOD planes struck Ohiran, Kanoya, Izumi, Sacki, Ashiya, Gannosou, Ronchifk and Tachiari fields. In sharp contrast to pref vious visits, there was scarcely any airborne opposition--- most probably because of the damaging B429 raids the previous week. There were planes on the ground but when strafed they didn't burn! Maybe the .japs were out of gas! In the photographs they didn't look like dumf mies either. Moving over to Shikoku we pasted field inf stallations and ground targets at Matsuyama, Kochi, and Kokobu airhelds. Over lMatsuyama many phosphorous bursts were observed in the AA barrage thrown up from the AA guns whose fire made the hills appear to blaze. Again there was scarcely any air oppositiong per' haps they were low on pilots as well as gas. IvIay 14 was also a busy day for the ships' gunners. At 0705 twelve Zekes were reported twelve miles away. About that moment a planed dived on the BENNINCH TON. The initial burst of AA exploded him at 2000 yards. On the horizon we could see Task Group 58.3 receiving the brunt of the attack and swatting down seven. Later in the day two more Divine Winds were extinguished in their dives at our group. if In the attack on Ronchi Airfield, the Hellcat piloted by Lieutenant Russell Stephens was hit by AA fre, began to burn, and spun towards the earth. 'Stephens was seen to bail out, his parachute opened, and he landed in the trees of a wooded hill. lNone of the other Hellcat pilots could determine his fate. The Belleau Wood heard nothing more concerning Lt. Stephens until December, 1945 when the following news item from the Chicago Sun edif ition of November ll was received: Lt. Stephens was flying a Hellcat based on the carrier Belleau Wood and was on his 55th bombing mission over enemy ter' ritory, attacking the kamikaze airfields, when his plane was brought down by antifaircraft fire on March 13, 1945. As a wing fell off, I went into a dizzy spin, but bailed out, landing in a tree, he said. A Jap sniper shot at me, but I ducked and sent a bullet t h r 0 ug h h i s h e a d. I W a s trying to make my way to a hilltop to get my bearings w h e n a b o u t 1 ,0 0 0 I a p s came out of hiding. I ran-like a fox pursued by dogs --but they dragged me down and began to beat me I thought it was all over then and said a prayer. It was answered when a civilian policeman, whom I first mistook for a priest, made them lay off. Blindfolded, his hands wired behind his back and a rope drawn tight around his neck, Stephens was marched, shoeless. over stony paths to a village jail. Civil' ians, lined up on the roadside, threw rocks at him and, after he was lodged in jail, took turns beating him with ropes and sticks and spitting in his face. One of them knocked me out, he said. When I recovered consciousness, my eyes were closed and my head was bleeding. 'This can't be happening to me,' I thought. 'It's all a bad dream. I'll wake up after a while.' But it was no night- mare. I wondered if I were going insane. Taken to the Kanoya airfield, Stephens was questioned by his captors, and from there, in ua filthy, slow train, with two guards to protect him from the enraged passengers, he was transferred to Naga- saki. There had been a big air raid that morning and two B29 men had been captured The ,laps taunted us, said Stephens, told us that all three of us were to be shot. A I spent the night in prayer, my thoughts centered on my wife and tW0 children. At dawn the other two boys were mowed down by a firing squad, but for some reason my life was sparedf, Later, at Kanoya, sword dancers gave a demonstration for his benefit, and he was told that he was to be beheaded. Bllf again the Japs changed their minds. He was flown to a small island, kept in solitary confinement for 26 days, starved and tortured. There he fell ill with dysen' tery and berifberi, but was given no medi' cal aid. We were allowed to take a bath OnCe a month-100 of us using the same water. If we killed 100 flies, we were rewarded with a cigarette. I became an expert HY catcher, but I was simply crawling with lice and fleas. Stephens and his fellow prisoners were liberated on Sept 1 by the 11th Air Borne Division r ' ' . , . . . . at I . 6 'vxifum

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HYU H and ECU D Ul-QINAWA CHUI CRUISE 14 l t May 9-June 13, 1945 in the struggle for Okinawa. On May 9 task group 58.1, with the same ships as had arrived a week and a half earlier, steamed off to relieve another task group still in HUSE ten days at Ulithi were simply an intermission the battle area. We picked up where we had left off in April on the mission of intercepting and destroying aircraft, airheld facilities, shipping, and defenses in the Empire and Nansei Shoto, and providing support for the expedif tionary forces in capturing Okinawa. '1 ' 'H-- - - aww-::. 1. gk

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For thc rcst ol May .ind rarly ,lnnv the Alaps' .nr opf position tapered otll, .ind they rarely disputed our conf U-01 of the air. Their niafoi' clloris had tailed and there was not much tight left in them. From May l7fjune 10 our planes continucd to roam the Nansci Shoto, scclcf ing lucrative targets and dishing out the dive homhing and rocket trcatnicnt. l-langars were wrecked and land' ing strips cratcrcd. XVhcn these were nearly repaired, we would hit them again, Small cargo hoats were caught and sunk as they tried to slip from cove to cove. While over Okinawa our planes hlasted the Nips and cracked strong points ahead of our advancing troops. A day of such action was called a strike day. Heres Ensign Dick Saunders' version of a typical strike day in june, 1945: Plan of the day: 0130 Reveille 0145 Breakfast 0230 Flight Quarters 0300 General .Quarters 0330 Start flight operations 0402 Sunrise 0900 Dinner 1615 Supper 1853 Sunset Vwlell, it's another strike day-- Reveille at the awful l'Start eng time of 0130. lt seems as though we just crawled into the sack. But welve got to get up and do it all over again. Doesn't seem like much sense to sit up there on the gun mount all day long just to watch our planes come and go, strike after strike. Breakfast is good. Helps one last the day out. Gunnery Department, Man 'Your Battle Stationsu-6 three minutes later the alarm clangs for routine dawn alert. I know itls dark as Hell topside, but they say that is the most likely time for air or sub attack. The way l feel, you'd think I was the first person in the world to be up this morning. But there you-'re wrong, for the aviation meclis have been up all night in that hot, poorly ventif lated hangar, repairing planes--preparing them for the dawn launch. The ordnance gang has been up for several hours too, arming the planes that leave before sunrise on Strike OnefAble. You've got to hand it to the ordnance- men-tliey get up before we do, work like beavers all day and get less sleep than anybody else-especially dur' ing these days of seventeen and eighteen hours' daylight. l'Stand by to start engines , the Air Ofricerls voice roars out through the darkness over the flight deck bull horn. 'Stand clear of propellersf' inesfl .- I l E 9 3 1 V -a YY,., . ,-.,,,t ,W Q. ..-1. ,.....-.r- Y,.-.-.,,.w........,.........-,,,,.., , V YM-MM Y , ,AK V 5-W -l E W Wm- mr , . ' ' ' ' '