Arkansas (BB 33) - Naval Cruise Book

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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

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