Aaron Ward (DM 34) - Naval Cruise Book

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space and fire room, the ship steamed all theiway .t-o the New York Navy Yard, Brooklyn, on one propeller and one engine, for refitting. She is now undergoing repairs in the yard. But the beginning goes back many months to building, launching and commissioning at the Bethle- hem Steel Corporation yards at Terminal lsland, San Pedro, California, last year. Orginally Destroyer No. 773, the 2200-ton Aaron Ward is the third can to bear the name of ia Spanish-American war hero. The first Aaron Ward, a World War l ufour-piper , was transferred to the Royal Navy in l94l. The second, a Federal vessel built at Kearny, N. I., was sunk off Guadalcanal in 'l943. The third 'Aaron Ward, the unsinkable bearer of that name, was not completed as a destroyer, but was converted to a destroyer minelayer. ln the late summer of 1944 the crew began gathering, some three- quarters green hands, mostly youngsters just out of bootcamp, with a leaven of experienced chiefs and petty officers. Of the score or so of officers, few were battle-wis-e. The skipper was an old destroyer sailor who had had two commands in the Atlantic earlier in the war. A native of San Diego, where he now resides at 3421 Herbert Street with his wife and young son and daughter, -Commander Sanders entered the Naval Academy back in 1926 the hard way, from the ranks, when he couldn't clinch an Academy appointment as a civilian. Fifteen years as a naval officer have given him a sun-bronzed skin and graying hair and in-tensified and unruffled manner which he probably has had since youth. l-le's the best liked skipper in the Navy, his junior officers say. He's never feazed. He's the coolest guy you've ever seen. He never gets excited under any circumstances. ' Of his junior officers the gunnery officer, youthful Lt. Comdr. Cthen Lieutenantj David Rubel, U.S.N., a l94l Academy graduate, a fellow San Diegan and the assistant gunnery officer, Lt. Lefteris Lavrakas, U.S.N., Naval Academy, class l943, of Old Sudbury Road, South Lincoln, Mass., were combat veterans. So was the executive officer, Lt. Comdr. Karl F. Neupert, U.S.N.R., of 6115 Southeast 34th Ave., Portland, Oregon. Most of the other officers, like the enlisted men, were young and green. But willing and eager. From the start we had a fine spirit aboard, said Captain Sanders. Usually when a ship puts to sea headed for the combat zone, there's a man or two who goes AWOL. But not on the Aaron Ward. That morning when we were to leave San Pedro last February to report for action every man was aboard and ready. The Aaron Ward was like that from the first, its officers say with pride. l-ler marksmanship in training was exceptional. And as soon as she went int-o action the Aaron Ward was singled out for special commendation. Almost the first time she was under attack she splashed three lap planes and rated a congratulatory message from Admiral 'Richmond Kelly Turner. From the day she reported for the Okinawa operation, her first, the Aaron Ward was in the thick of things. Bef-ore love day she provided fire support for minesweepers, operating under lap guns which didnt fire, in accordance with the defense plan of waiting until after the landings. After love day she operated with bombardment vessels, and almost every night was under plane attack. Aaron Ward sailors saw some lU s-uicide crashes. They saw an ammunition ship blow up after she was suicided, they were near witnesses when the Pinckney was hit. During this time the Aaron Ward had several close calls. One plane dropped a bomb only 50 feet away. Other bombs dropped nearby. But no suicide planes came in successfully. lt is relatively simple with one plane coming at y1ou, said Commander Sanders. We frequently took single planes under fire, and drove them away. We were plenty cocky, said Lt. Lavrakas, the exuberant young assistant gunnery officer. We knew we could shoot and the kids all were lo-oking for more planes to shoot at. We were just hoping we d get attacks so we could splash some more Nips. A We had had plenty of training-that's the Navy policy-We had more shooting in training than ships used to get in a lifetime. We were achin' for Iaps even after we had seen what Kamikazes had done to other ships. . The kids got all the planes they had dreamed of the afternoon of May 3. The Aaron Ward was on radar picket station that aft-ern-oon some 80 miles westward of Okinawa.. Radar pickets are vessels stationed on the outskirts of an area of formation to pick up enemy planes in the distance .4131-

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gangs?-'Q-:J Atv- ,W , ,, .-..- .-. V -.-... ,,-.-,......-.--v--sf -sf-N-H - - '1-:.,Ann.ai- V - ,V Y -. .-.W-H Y , --M . Y 4 Y -f , , ,.,. .V THE AARON WARD EPIC A lustrousfnew chapter in the annals of bravery at sea was revealed today, and another Yankee ship and crew took their place in the top rank of naval gallantry when the Navy told for the first time the story of the Aaron Ward, destroyer minelayer No. 34. A F Many epic chapters have come out of the furious sea battle of Okinawa, when the Iapane-se Kamikaze tactics reached their greatest ferocity. No story of American boys sticking to the guns under fire-of never giving up the ship even though it was almost under water-can eclipse that of the Aaron Ward. T This destroyer type vessel, in her maiden campaign, took six suicide planes aboard in 52 minutes of hell the late afternoon of May 3. Three of them dropped bombs that blew holes deep in the hull. Five of them exploded, spreading flaming death over the main and superstructure decks. The after stack toppled, blazing ammunition exploded lethally, the steering gear was one of the first casualties, and during' the action the Ward steamed in a circle like the British Battleship Warsp'ite at Iutland. Both engine rooms were pierced and flooded. But the Aaron Ward never stopped fighting. lmpenetrable smoke poured from the pierced stack, mask- ing Iap suicide planes as they made their runs, but A-aron Ward'.s guns kept blazing. Five Kamik-azes were blasted into the sea before they reached their targets. Five others which crashed the Aaron Ward were hit hard during their runs. But these five laps-and one more which sneaked in undetected-hit their mark in one of the most intense and carefully co-ordinated mass suicide attacks on record. When the attack was over the Aaron Ward lay dead and low in the water, listing eight degrees to starboard, her main deck only five inches out of the w-ater. Fires were blazing aft and amidship. Engine spaces were flooded. All 'power was gone. Darkness had set in over the Pacific, but the flames of the Aaron Wiard lit the fwater for miles, providing a beacon for other enemy planes. Now, the ship's action report records, began the nightlong fight to save the Aaron Ward and her crew by the damage control parties and the medical department. Assisted by smaller vessels which came alongside, the Aaron Ward s officers and men fought the flames. The powder magazines were sprinkled down by hand by brave kids who didn't bat an eyelash though they knew the magazines might go up any minute. Damage control parties manned gasoline pumps. A herculean task faced the ship's doctor, Lt. I. K. Barbieri CMCD, USN, an.d his small staff of hospital corpsmen. F V Nineteen members of the crew lay dead. Six were mortally wounded, forty-nine others were seriously wounded, twenty others, blown overboard, were missing and were never recovered. . ' 'The first suicide plane had dest-royed the after battle dressing station. The sick bay was a mass of debris from another Kamikaze. Corpsmen and sailors' from all divisions picked their way through a gantlet of flames and exploding ammunition carrying wounded shipmates to the wardroom for t-reatment. Sulfa drugs, penicillin and blood plasma in whole-sale quanties were administered to shocked, bleeding blue- jackets, with only flashlights and emergency battle lanterns to give illumination. Some 55 major injuries and '20 lesser cases were treated during the night. ' ' The next morning, when the Aaron Ward, under tow, reached a haven near Okinawa, the wounded were transferred to another ship. The rest of the men of the' Aaron Ward turned to on the work of 'clearing out debris and extricating bodies of the dead. A ship, that the flaps must have marked sunk, had been saved to fight another day, ' ' C I D' That the ship was saved to fight again after such punishment in the face of overwhelming odds, Captain Sanders' report said, bears witness to the wonderful work and high calibre off fighting officers and men I had the good fortune to have assigned to my command. 'l cannot say en-ough to express my complete admiration for them. n A Others have echoed the captain's words. From squadron, division and fleet commanders messages of glowing praise flashed into the battered radio shack of the Aaron Ward. The big boss of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral -Chester W. Nimitz, spoke for all in his following dispatch from his advance headquarters a few days after the action: , We all admire a ship that can't be licked. Congratulations on your magnificent performance. ' The high points in the Aaron Ward story were emblaz-oned during Sl minutes of action Ma-y 3, and the l4 agonizing hours afterwards, when the almost sinking' ship was towed into Kerama Bet-to, with other attacks expected any minute and the horizon flashing with anti-aircraft fire of other ships. From there, after repairs by her own engineering department had restored the forward engineering -I 121,

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-..YHA ,,,,.v Wi, .Rev 1. 43 m, f- 4----' -- -N-F. Nf.,.- ,,..k .f - ' -,L,,,,-,, ,V as they approach. ln their isolated positions these picket vessels are easy marks for the ene-my, and at Okinawa hundreds of Kamikazes met death trying to crash the picket vessels. Many attacks were by single planes or small groups, against the Aaron Ward the dozen or more attacking planes were co-ordinated and timed with accuracy, and one of the Kamikazes circled out of range acting as a suicide director . l-le was a traffic cop of death with wings, in the words of an Aaron Ward officer. 4 The Ward was steaming on picket station with a destroyer, the U.S.S. Little, and four landing craft as supporting vessels the late afternoon of May 3. ' The weather, overcast earlier, had cleared. The wind was light. The sea was calm. Enemy air attack was more or less expected, the battle report says, due to the decided improvement in the weather. lt came. At 5522 PM., or l822 ships time, 45 minutes before sunset, the Aaron Ward sounded the general alarm when planes were detected about 25 miles distant. ln a few minutes the Bogies .came within visual range, and six planes were sighted, four of them friendlies of the Wards combat air patrol. The laps managed to evade attack by the American planes and at l829, seven minutes after GQ had sounded, the attack began. From then on it went something like this: l829 Val sho-t down, landing l00 yards from Ward. Engine propellor and wing section hit Wardg no clam-age. ' l830 Second Val shot down, l,200 yards from ship. l83'l. Third Jap, a Zeke, taken under fire at 5,000 yards, hit repeatedly, but continued Kamikaze attack from port quarter. Plane released bomb which pen.etrated portside to after engine room, and in split second plane its-elf crashed ship on superstructure deck amidship, just below after quad gun- mount. This plane and bomb caused fire topside, put after engines out of commission, and jammed rudder left, causing ship to circle. A l83l to Planes circled at distance, were taken under fire but made no attack runs. Three planes attacked l859 Little, which sank in short time. LSMKRJ l95 attacked and sunk. LCSCLD 2.5 attacked and damaged. l359 Val made attack, destroyed at 2,000 yards. Ship still circling and speed reduced to give partial manual contr-ol of rudder. - l904 Betty circling at l0,000 yards taken under fire and destroyed Cthis believed to be the suicide plane directorl. l908 U Val made steep attacking dive, swerved because of heavy fire and crashed into water after left wing clipped forward stack and carried away radio antennae. Damage to Ward slight. l9'l3 Few seconds after above entry Val crashed be-low bridge. l9l6 Zeke approached through smoke, crashed on superstructure deck amidship. Belly gasoline tank exploded, spraying burning gasoline over the deck. Ship now dead in water, fires raging, casualties strewn about the decks. i , l9Zl Unidentified plane crashedat base of Numbered 2 stack, bomb exploding. Stack, gunmount and searchlight blown into air and crashed on deck. This was the las-t attack, but no one aboard the Aaron Ward knew it. All that the men of the Aaron Ward knew was that their ship was a desperate case and that their job was to save it. H y Even with guns blazing and planes crashing the ship, the first lieutenant's men had been fighting fires, and insuring the watertight integrity of unflooded spaces below. Working amid flames and exploding ammunition, these men continued their job. A Gunnery men and sailors from the black gang whose stations were no longer tenable helped out, and the work of handling the wounded. Only a few of the guns could still shoot, and these were manned. Gas fumes were so thick insid-e the five-inch mounts that gr.imy sailorsstaggered -out and vomited on the deck. Then, gulping a little fresh air, they returned to their posts. Everybody pitched in, said Captain Sanders, 'Those whose guns had been put out of acti-on were taking the wounded to the fantail or to the wardroom, or helping the doctor, or helping the damage control parties. H During the entire time, he reported, men constantly braved exploding ammunition and the blazing inferno to res-cue and render aid to their injured shipmates. Acts of heroism above and beyond the call of duty were common occurrences rather than the exception. -U41-A