Lexington (CV 16) - Naval Cruise Book

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l1 ,9- The Battleship lse is blow U.S.S. Hancock. , .W WM fo . ,, , 5 X9 X ixs 49 n to glory. This p if ,fx a icture was taken by the

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A cruiser lies camouilaged at Kure, Iuly, l945. The rugged terrain gives an idea of the difiiculties facing attackers. gaging in gunnery exercises on the 16th and l7th the Task Force rendezvoused with the replenishment group at dawn on the 18th and for the following week, in an area 200 miles southeast of Honshu. contented itself with replenishment, routine patrols over the force, anti-aircraft gunnery training, and exercises in which the Task Groups drew together and the full strength of American and British ships were maneuvered as a unit. The period of marking time terminated on August 25 when the Lexington moved to within approxi- mately lUO miles off the coast of l-lonshu and began a series of patrol missions designed to precede and accompany the initial occupation landings to be made in the Tokyo area. Our planes were directed to patrol coastal waters and airfields, to fly over populated centers, to locate prisoner-of-war camps and to be constantly on the alert for any indication of treachery on the part of the Iapanese. Five prisoner-of-war camps were located, each marked with large letters PW and identified by hundreds of hysterical white men. Within two hours after the camps had been sighted a Lexington flight was on its way toward the camps loaded with l3UO pounds of supplies, toilet articles, food, clothing, magazines, comic strips and a specially printed edition of the Sunrise Press, the Lexington daily newspaper, were loaded into sea bags for the pris- oners. All hands turned to on these Mercy Flights, from the news editors and printers who ran off a

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71 at Two Iapanese carriers lie shattered at their moorings in Kure after the Iuly 28111 gfrike. One. upper, left, still smokes: the other is a dead hulk. I