Manchester (CL 83) - Naval Cruise Book

Page 106 text:

CALCULATED RISK After a week of continuous day and night firing on Wonsan, our magazines had begun to drain, and the problem of re-arming and replenishing presented itself for the first time. Complete re-armament of the entire Wonsan task element out at sea would require far too many wasted hours off the firing line. The answer was to risk the operation in Wonsan harbor. On the afternoon of February 27th, we drew along- side the ammunition ship Paricutin . . .

Page 105 text:

On February 25th, the Manchestei .mil d ind frigates thai constituted th group were firing back .it Kalma (i.ik. It wis soon evidenl thai guns on tins peninsul drawn oul oi theii obscure caves, fired, then pushed back in before our batterii el a1 them. Furthermore, the} usually fired in late afternoon, as the sun silhouetted the hills. The K.ihn.i G.ik problem would nol be easily solved — nor w.is there anj ■ mine thre.it Several tiny South Korean minesweepers had succeeded in clearii foi us only aftei previous days ol c ntinuous sweeping and check sweeping — and this tuted less than .1 tenth of the total numbei of mines reported still al large in the harbor. In spite of the harbor situation we began dealing with our priority objectives in dead earnest. Wonsan was beginning to receive severe wounds . . .

Page 107 text:

We worked fast that day and throughout the night. We had no desire to prolong operation powder-keg . . . e-V