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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. 1 V u ' ' X V wh- I ' ' -' ' -' Qdensfif mt, , , -,W , 1x4 -S A ., mmwb, K M.. ,. . v---v----------------v-'k X-4vvv-vwwvww-vvwvv Arkansas had at last fired her opening salvo into this war of Shickelgruberls. Through my binoculars, I could see occasional gun flashes from the crests of the cliffs, just aft the port beam. As I trained the glasses over to the area of one Hash, I saw a great cloud of dirty gray smoke and Hame burst, which I later learned had spelled the doom of that battery. We were to see all of them blasted one by one out of existence. Later, as we moved nearer to the beach, we could see the twisted remains of the guns and the piles of rubble that were the shattered pillboxes. I happened to glance at the main batteries and noted that they were training to port. I moved the crews to the leeward side and shortly after heard the word passed, mln one minute the main battery will fire to port !'l A few seconds later, the entire ship shuddered as the big guns thundered their reply to the paperhanger's boast H. . . To- morrow the world I We were prepared for a shock, having experienced main battery firing in practice. However, we had neglected to take into consideration the extra powder charge that ac- companies service ammunition, and we were in- deed literally raised off our feet. .jr ..,, THE ARKY Our target was a heavily fortified gun em- placement. After the first spot, the word came back from the spotting plane that the target was destroyed, and so it was to continue throughout our firing - mission accomplished. A small coastal village, bristling with enemy ammunition dumps, antiaircraft batteries, tanks and troops was to feel the impact of our fire. An inland city was to be fairly blasted out of existence for har- boring enemy troops and supplies. Deadly ac- curate was our fire, and devastating to Nazi troop concentrations, tank columns, fortified houses, and ammunition and fuel dumps which we were called upon to destroy. So accurate, in fact, that from our radio transmitter room, where the oper- ators had been monitoring German broadcasts, came word that a Nazi broadcaster had dubbed us the HDevil Ship, and that the Luftwaffe were out to wget usf, We were to later learn that they were quite serious in their threat, for the repeated air attacks made upon us were quite often the cause of some hair-raising experiences. I I shall never forget a little side show that was performed before our admiring eyes by a plucky little destroyer that had chosen a war all of her own with an enemy observation post and gun em- placement just at the crest of the cliffs off our beam. The Can was incredibly close to the beach, moving parallel with it like a scrappy little dog, stalking back and forth, looking for a fight. Each time the shore battery would open up, the can would reply with everything she had, from five-inch batteries to twenty millimetre machine guns. Someone, watching the scrap, said he would bet even the skipper was out on the bridge, shooting with his forty-five, and it looked just like that. The shore battery scored several near misses ---,------v----v-.AJx.vv,4 5-'V4V15-,-.vwvvw-vvvwv-vv l. .QX 'A' ,Ffh . ., -I ' me - ' 'gnu' - g- I-,A---A-4.-... Vgfkfigfi ' ' iv. 1 . V iff' ' A if . ,