Arkansas (BB 33) - Naval Cruise Book

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,vm-, Y. . , ,, A ' i 1 V -WW ,. I. .,.. ,r . ,.-. .. is , i5J5sTi,7?i7-'rl-.ii-, 1 1' Q31 Jil 'kwa-.A.1 -.--... - v - , v Y MWE WERE THERE About mid-afternoon, Tuesday, September 17, 1912, a brand new battleship, the pride of the Fleet, was commissioned amid much ceremony and speech-making. Many Hne things were said about her and many fine things were predicted of her. Thirty-two years later, after a flawless ca- reer, though still more or less unstained by the rigors of war, and despite the pessimistic pre- dictions of fcDoubting Thomasesn and arm-chair strategists, the U .S.S. Arkansas entered active com- bat and received her Baptism of Fire. After more than a quarter of a century, the 'CArkie'9 made those fine predictions come true. It was early Spring, the eve of the greatest invasion of all history and the Arkansas was an im- portant part of that greatest Armada involved. As one privileged to have been a part of that gal- lant ship's crew, let me relate here a small part of what I saw: When we started into the channels leading ultimately to the landing area, we were all keyed- up to a high pitch, and then, when D-day had to be postponed for a day because of unfavorable seas and weather, we were left hanging high and dry in an emotional pitch, having steeled ourselves for what was to come. As the weather opened up and, once more, we began to move toward the landing area, gathering ships as we went, we be- came accustomed to the electric tension in the air. We were in a constant state of alertness those few hours previous to H-hour, for we were passing through heavily mined waters all the time. As H-hour drew nearer, there was a marked and every turn of the engines brought us nearer to, we knew not what. Over in the east, there was only the faintest hint of approaching dawn. At last, what had appeared to have been an unusu- ally high horizon, and toward which I had been steadily training my binoculars, began to take on definite shapes and outlines, and I realized that it was not more water, but the coast of France - Normandy. When the sky finally began to get lighter, it did so quickly. The old saying, The hour is al- ways darkest before dawn, is certainly true, and I believe that particular hour is the darkest I have ever witnessed. During the blackest hours just prior to early morning light, our bombers began to come over in drovesg so that there was a steady hum of engines overhead. Though we could not see them, the sound was a comforting one. There were hun- dreds of them. They had been bombing the beachhead area heavily for twenty-four hours prior to our arrival. quietness about the ship, for it was still very dark, 'I'HE ARKY tgvg vvvvv vvvv vvvvv v,,vv.v.v.,.,v,vvvv,v,vv v vvvxxgt ,M , ,AL my . a ,pa iii' i..i A .i ,

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Wi SdX.4X.fv-vvv-vvvv Thenight, black as pitch, would be pierced periodically by tracer fire from the beach - Ger- man AA fire, visible from quite a distance. Ig- noring this and the heavy AA bursts that threw flak among them, however, the bombers came on, dropped their 'fsticksw and went back for more. As the bombs hit the beach, the entire horizon would come ablaze with light, like the bright red sun coming up. Time after time the bombers hit, mercilessly, steadily, unerringly, till it seemed there was not a square inch they had missed. All this was not confined to the beach alone, for we witnessed dogfights in the air, not being able to see the planes, but by watching the straight, then arching, then sharply-falling lines of horizontal tracer fire. Many times we witnessed a plane- go down in a spectacular mass of flames, then the subsequent blinding explosion as the fire- ball struck the ground. One marine standing near me, watching the bombers, work, said fervently, If anyone ever makes a crack about a 'dog-face, again, heill have me to whip! And that was representative of all our feelings, particularly after the troops began to hit the beach. During those long, tiresome, sleepless vigils we were to keep, when normally, grousing would have been at its best, there was a marked absence of fatigue. We had only to think of those heroes so few yards away fighting the toughest kind of a battle, and the gripe was killed at the outset. By the time we had gotten within five thou- sand yards of our firing position, the sky was bright enough to see the beach clearly, and make out the cathedral spires and larger buildings. When we reached our firing position, the sky was quite bright, though the sun had not yet made its appearance. The high cliffs to our left loomed ominously nearby, and to our right, the beach head was still caught in shadow. We had not yet had our HBaptism of Fire. However, it was soon to come. No sooner had we reached our anchorage when a large well of foam appeared just off our port quarter, about six hundred yards out, from which arose a high column of water. Shell splashes! We had begun to receive fire from the beach. Judging from the size, the guns firing at us must have been seventy-five millimetre can- non. Shortly after the first splash appeared, the report came up, 'fSplash off stern? I looked M Zig' -1.5. , 7 .if 2L.,,,-':., ..,.,-J-., ,M 1 - ,:twgr-- z- 3-.ig - -, Tb 2 5 X.-, . - 'i1'4A..ff13-f fg s .45 L lu-j. fav, fl,g,s,,.g I 5.31-, if-gin. ' y 1- , . I . A If -vip fyj, ' 1 I -'t- A f' f - . ,. , . , , , MS-eg, f 'ata . I K ,...,. v -------J-ds.------.1-J-.J-.Ji . . back and saw a white circle of water settling back into a maze of concentric circles, with a small cloud of black smoke hovering above it. Regu- larly, then, the splashes were reported all around us. It was quite plain that we were being strad- dled, and we were more or less apathetically wait- ing for the Hthirdi' salvo that would spell a hit. About the time I was getting ready to give voice to the query, f'Why donat we fire?',, a tremendous blast from our port secondary battery answered my unspoken question. I remember then passing the word down through the phone circuit that the x,, A Y-vvvvvvvvvvv 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 J V wr-.1-.------v--:-.li ..-at . -........nH