Leyte (CV 32) - Naval Cruise Book

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OI DIVISION GROUP I I Lks ondhzff OI DIVISION GROUP 2

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OPERATIONS DEPARTMENT Commander Day-our genial and efficent boss Should rain tomorrow at eight OI DIVISION I THE OI division plays a vital role in flight operations and all operations of the ship. Under the supervision of ,Commander Day, the Operations Officer, C.l.C. sends a steady flow of information to the bridge, flag plot and air defense. OI provides the radar men and lookouts, who give the OOD the hot scoop on raid Baker as well as keeping a sharp search topside for mines and MIG 15s. Next we have aerologists or weathermen who predict Whether strike three will be able to blast the Sinuiju bridges. Long before Fox is dipped LT. Sanborn has decided if some Siberian warm front will prevent flying. Once the planes are airborne LCDR. Skinner and LT. Bell in air plot send them on their assigned missions. LCDR. Lumpee, LTs. Goodwin, Cullotta and Rolle-ri in C.I.C. then take over and vector out our combat air patrol to intercept any possible raid. Once the planes return Ensign Chapman s photo gang develops yards of film to see what bridges are still standing or if some pilot really toasted a camel with his Napalm bomb. Besides developing gun camera film, the photo lab also turned out those gruesome OLD. photos and most of the photos in this book. Finally we have the Intelligence Section under LT. Elefter. This team keeps track of bomb lines and any other data that our pilots require. They brief the pilots prior to take off and analyze our strike results after interrogating returning pilots. Looks like hail in North Korea Geronimo five-orbit base-Over

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l 1i g ,, p i C CM M U N ICA TI CNS ... , OMMUNICATIONS is often called the Mlife bloodv' of naval operations. t V l q L y f It is certainly true that the swift and reliable transmission and receipt of messages is essential to the success of any naval mission, for communi- ss,tl cations in one stroke can make or break an organization. ' i, i Vrgyyst -svs Wlith the above in mind the Leyteis comm. outfit-Radio Gang and Signal Gang alike-teamed up to meet the gargantuan demands of an aircraft carrier sti,. -,s. tiling ',ers rfi st' P atasi at war. With Lieutenant Commander Carl Baker as 1tS guldmg SP11'1t, the Leyte's communications organization absorbed the hitherto unheard of traflic load -brought on 'e by' operations in the Koreans theater. 'Dispatches flew thick and fast. Much of the daily traffic that found its way from Radio Central or the Signal Bridge, to Main Comm. and thence to the Messenger's Board was routine run-of-the-mill operation dope-the kind of information that any carrier conducting constant flight operations might need. But a good per- centage of it was something special. Communications proved to be the key to first-rate, up-to-the- minute intelligence, and the long hours of labor by the communicators culminated in a series of complicated maps and charts that kept the pilots briefed on the latest situation at the battle- fronts. Always alert, always ready, the Leyte's comm. team could-and did-meet any emergency. An example of this sort of teamwork occurred when Air Plot reported a downed pilot, within two minutes a mes- sage had been transmitted to half-a-dozen rescue activities, and almost immediately a rescue heli- copter was on the way to the scene of the crash. Finally, one phase of communications not to be overlooked was the wonderfully morale-building labor of the men in the Post Office. Their work-consisting quite often of distributing 150 bags of mail within a few hours to waiting thousands-may not at once be apparent as being fundamental to the success of our operations, but it was just that, as every Leyte man knows. That large batch of letters every 3 or 4 days was a real comfort during those long and seemingly endless 52 days at sea. O-R DIVISION THIS division is otherwise known as the Radio Gang. While the manning of numerous radio circuits is its primary function, O-R also provides men to handle the sl1ip7s huge transmitters as well as personnel to perform write-up and messenger jobs in the Comm. office, yeomen to assist the Registered Publications Oflicer, and postmen to keep tl1e thousands of odd letters coming and going. Versatility is the mark of O-R. W