USS Columbia - Naval Cruise Book

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he ixspectiox of truk AAN September 9, the COLUMBIA proceeded - to Guam via Iwo Jima and Saipan, assist- ing in the transportation of troops. Upon arrival at Guam on September 18, she was assigned duty as flagship of Vice Admiral G. D. Murray, USN, Commander Mariana Islands. On October 1, 1945, the COLUMBIA left Guam bound for Truk. She was to serve as headquarters ship for Brig. General Robert Blake, USMC, future Island Commander of the atoll, and members of his party who were to make a survey of conditions existing on the former Jap stronghold. Truk atoll had been completely neutralized by severe poundings during the war from Allied Air and sea forces, and a tight naval blockade had prevented importation of materials and supplies. The Japanese military commanders and the civil governor of Truk had surrendered to Vice Admiral George D. Murray, USN, Commander Marianas, aboard the USS PORT- LAND on September 2, but since that time no United States occupation troops had been sent ashore. Jap air support. As the COLUMBIA lay ofl Truk on October 3, Lt. General Shunzaburo Magikura, com- mander of the 31st Imperial Japanese Army and military chief of the vast Nipponese com- mand based on Truk atoll, with his conferees, arrived on board at 0900 to report on the prog- ress of Truk ' s demilitarization and to be informed of inspection tours planned by the American survey group. The Japanese delegates arrived alongside the COLUMBIA in a highly polished and well-kept gig, manned by Japanese sailors done out in their dress uniforms. The delegates themselves were dressed in their formal military uniforms, thus affording the Gem ' s crew their first glimpse of what the well dressed Japanese officer wears. Close inspection, how- ever, revealed many a patched trouser and frayed cuff in the Japanese group. The pre-inspection conference lasted for two hours and was held in the CO LUMBIA ' S ward room. The Jap conferees answered extensive verbal questionnaires and also presented data they had previously been directed to compile. (They also enjoyed a few American cigarettes). The Jap General revealed the urgent need for food. Truk, he said, had been cut off from supplies since June 1944, when the last transport to sneak through the American blockade brought 600 tons of rice. Approximately 4,000 Japs died after that time 60 percent of them from disea.se and malnutrition. General Blake and his party went ashore on October 4, to make their first inspection. It is believed that General Blake ' s inspection marked the first time since 1935 that an American had set foot on the shores of the Jap Pearl Harbor. Inspecting Dublon Island on the first day, the American party found the naval base site had been bombed into uselessness and that broken skeletons of planes littered the ramp from which hundreds of Jap pilots had left to scout the sea lanes and cut off American shipping earlier 39

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High Japs bow low to the Gem. Signing Occupation Terms (aboard COLUMBIA). General Blake, USMC, and staff.

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Jap hospital — Truk. in the war. Only five planes had escaped destruction on the whole atoll. Many military installations had been removed, as directed in the surrender documents signed September 2, but scores of huge bomb craters pocking the island near the beach gave evidence of the thoroughness with which all military targets were blasted. Huge fuel storage tanks, twisted into grotesque shapes by fires which raged after bombs struck; a few crumbled shells of concrete buildings; shattered hulks of storage buildings; hulls or sterns of sunken ships sticking out of the water; scores of vehicles rusting away after bombs or flames had crumpled them; — all these gave proof of the deadly precision with which American fliers had rained down destruc- tion on the former home of the Imperial Japan- ese Fourth Fleet. Only intensive cultivation of almost every inch of arable ground, saved the Japs from being completely starved out. On a visit to the Japanese Naval Hospital on Dublon, numerous patients suffering from malnutrition and allied diseases testified to the urgent need of the garrison for food. Leading natives as well as Jap civil government officials were inter- viewed by General Blake ' s party and it was found that the 10,000 natives on the atoll were in fairly good health. Although many of the natives were unfamiliar with Americans, they appeared to be ready to cooperate. General Blake, USMC, checks Jap gun. 40