Blue (DD 744) - Naval Cruise Book

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Action port Nlght shorc bombardment The Blue in !lCti0Il

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Okino Daito Shima and Minami Daito Shima and shot down several Jap planes. The aircraft were all suicide planes, the type which sank or damaged over two hun- dred ships of the fleet. The Okinawa Campaign ended for the Blue on june S. a day in which the task force had retired southeast of Okinawa to refuel from tankers. It was during that day that twenty-one of the ships were damaged in a devastat- ing typhoon. The Blue was one of the ships damaged. An- other was the cruiser Pittsburghg she lost her entire bow. The Blue was ordered to escort the tug which towed the Pittsburghis bow to Guam. After a week with the Suburb of Pittsburgh, towed at a speed of only three knots, the Blue was relieved by another destroyer so that she could proceed to Leyte Gulf for repairs. A destroyer tender in Leyte Gulf repaired the storm damage to the ship in time for her to get underway with the Third Fleet on july 1 for the final naval operation of the war. The men aboard the ship did not realize then that the next port which they were to enter would be Tokyo Bay. During july and August the carrier groups launched continual strikes against the home islands of the japanese Empire, particularly Honshu and Hokkaido. For these operations T. li. 38 was joined by carriers, battle- ships, cruisers, and destroyers of the British Pacific lileet. On july 22, by orders of Admiral Halsey, Di.sitos. 61 was temporarily detached from its duty of screening the carriers. The squadron was directed to make a high speed anti-shipping sweep into Sagami Wgiti, the entrance to Tokyo Bay. Wliile entering the W.1n in column at thirty knots, the ships spotted a ,lap convoy shortly be- fore midnight and immediately opened fire with torpedoes and five-inch guns. The Blue was credited with assisting in the sinking of three Llap ships in this engagement. HDIESRON 61 was the first group of surface vessels to penetrate the mouth of the dragon. Other units followed to bombard lslonshu with sixteen- inch guns, the B-29's and carrier planes continued to rain death on the homeland night and dayg Russia declared war on japan: the atomic bombs were dropped: and as a result the enemy sued for peace on August IS. At that time the Third Fleet was operating about one hundred miles from Tokyo, off the coast of Honshu. ,lap armies, and ships, and planes began surrendering to the forces of the United States. On August 27, the largest submarine in the world, the japanese l-400, surrendered to the Blue south of Hokkaido. The prile crew from the ship which went aboard the sub to take it into port found that the l-400 carried three seaplanes in addition to her full com- plement of torpedoes and anti-aircraft guns. The ship was proud that one of her last acts in the war was the capture of the enemy's largest underseas monster. The following week she steamed into Tokyo Bay on V-J Day. September 2, 1945, after being at sea for sixty-three consecutive days. The ship was anchored only a thousand yards from the battleship Missouri aboard which the surrender was signed. During the ceremony, an armada of army and navy planes, in a spectacular display of air power, flew over the mass of Allied ships anchored in the bay. -A After V-I Day, the ship moved into the large Jap naval base at Yokosuka. Two weeks there gave the crew . . y 7 d time to visit Yokohama, Hokosuka, and Tokyo, an pro- cure many ,lapanese souvenirs for themselves. Then the long awaited trip back home began with the carrier Ticonderoga, the cruiser Tucson, and the destroyer Mad- dox. On October S. 1945, the group steamed under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. The ship stayed in San Francisco until after Navy Day. October 27, when she moved to Bremerton, Washingtoii, the overhaul that this book was compiled. lt was published in Seattle, in january, 1946, when the ship was twenty-two months for overhaul in the navy yard. It was during old. During those months she has had two commanding officers, Captain Lot Ensey, USN Qpictured on the leftj , who was skipper from commissioning until May, 1945, ictured on the and Commander Louis A. Bryan, USN fp rightj , who relieved Captain Ensey and was still in com- mand at the time of the publication of this book. ln january, the ship was under orders to return to the Wiestern Pacific for peacetime patrol duty, presumably on the China Station based in Shanghai. She returned to foreign duty with a great war record. She is credited with sinking three enemy ships, shooting down four enemy planes, capturing an enemy submarine, participating in two shore bombardments, sinking eleven enemy mines, and rescuing eighteen carrier pilots and air crewmen from the sea. She has earned the American Theater Ribbon, the Pacific Theater Ribbon with six battle stars, the Philip- pine Liberation Ribbon with one star, and the World War ll Victory Ribbon. Thus, these two pages of narrative have told the his- tory of the ship in wordsg the other pages of the book tell the story in pictures. Five pages, however, contain neither a narrative nor pictures, but they tell far more than either. Those pages contain the names of all the offi- cers and men who have served aboard the ship from the time of her commissioning in 1944 to the publishing of this book in 1946. On the Blue, as on any other ship, it is the men who sail the ship that make her what she is. lt is not the steel and iron which make the ship, but the men's thoughts, and sweat, and ideals, and courage, and pride. They make the ship, they are the ship. t. L. , USN Capt. L. A. Bryan, USN Cap Ensey

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Splash one Jap bomber . . . Burning on the water is the first plane shot down by the Blue . . . In the foreground is the Circular wake of a bomb which the plane attempted to drop on the Sh1p. A sulcuclc plum' guts through thc ncksnck to in Cnrrncr lklhf tl few hunrirucl vnrds from thc- Blu.- Qgha M79 ft atv!