Brooklyn (CL 40) - Naval Cruise Book

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7 RED ANZIO I was a veteran at Anzio, This wasn't my first close shave! Yet when the J'U?s came circling, I envisioned a Tyrrhenian grave, Yes, I was a beach-head supporter, Helping out with the Fifth Army Show: But it got hot as hell, When straddling bombs fell, To the accompanying shout, Red Anzi03 . Night gave us scant protection, Flares lit up the sea in lanes, While sticks of deadly calling cards, Dropped from those damned Junker planes. The Luftwaffe was having a field day, Attacking with a sledge hammer blowg I saw ships torn apart, Where bombs found their markg No warning was needeC, Red Anzio! . But our Old Man was a cool one, His ship handling was of the best? He knew hor: to outsmart the Nazi, We wouldn T he caught with the rest. Before Sieily's beaches and Salerno, HQ had learned to deal with the ioeg Sc he snealf1e.i our ship out, By wave ruund about, And get us away from Red finzio3 . Oh ga-g'nnp.r don't look so askanceg L, . . ., l I'm -1 'victim of combat fatigue, ' If K7 carcusiug, to you, is unseemly, Believe liquor is just what I need. For in my memory is sharply chiseled, The image of that pyrotecnnic tableau. So let's drink all around To help shut out the sound, Of that alarming cry, Red lfin.zio3 . . Anonymous Exhausted, the Yanks fought with their backs to the sea. Yet the beleagured Anzio beachhead held in the face of heavy odds and every type of counter-attack and counter-measure which the panicky Germans could muster. No little credit for this feat of defiance was given the accurate shelling by the Navy vessels under the Flagship BROOKLYN. Legion of Merit winner, Captain Cary fawarded him for his handling of BROOKLYN at Anziol, was temporarily relieved of his command by Captain F. C. Layne, USN, until Captain F. R. Dodge, USN, took command 12 April 1944. ' .f . Captain Frank R. Dodge takes over from Captain Frank C. Layne 12 April 1944 In May the British Eight and American Fifth Armies cracked the Gustav line wide open, slugged their way through crumbling enemy lines, stormed or by-passed snow-capped mountains. BROOKLYN returned with other units to -the Anzio-Nettuno area to lend support to the victorious Army troops along the Western Italian Front, actually forming a left flank. Acting on a rotation basis, the cannonading ships CUSS PHILADELPHIA, USS BROOKLYN, HMS PHEOBE and ORIONJ took turns carrying out daily firing assignments. Ammunition dumps and railroad guns were destroyed, reinforced concrete pillboxes ground to rubble by the cruisers' fire. The Fifth Army turned the enemy's right wing and compelled him to abandon his mountain strongholds, formed a triumphal motorcade down the ancient Appian Way. Rome was ours. As the Normandy invasion got underway on Tuesday, 6 June 1944, the Allied forces in the Mediterranean area were feverishly active in preparing for the coordinating effort. A number of heavies of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet CUSS NEVADA, USS TEXAS, USS ARKANSAS, cruisers USS TUSCALOOSA, USS QUINCY, USS AUGUSTA, USS CONCORD, USS CINCINNATI, several escort carriers and destroyersj sailed in to swell the Mediterranean armada. BROOKLYN was ready for her fourth and final major amphibious operation - the invasion of Southern France. The huge flanking movement COperation Anvili was underway on 14 August 1944 as the 1500-ship invasion force assembled and set course for the French playground seaboard between Toulon and Cannes. After steaming through the night, BROOKLYN arrived in her assigned area and commenced a one-hour, pre-invasion barrage ten miles west of CANNES. Approaching Southern France 8-14-44 Gunners Watching

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- ini-'M' ' ...A -......,.,. 'T I .. vvgwyc The Executive Officers word on Palermo Liberty. Mid-November that year found BROOKLYN escorting the USS Iowa through the Straits of Gibraltar to Oran, North Africa, with President Roosevelt and his many starred Staff who travelled on further to Teheran, Iran, for another Big Three Meeting.-At this time BROOKLYN was the Major American Warship attached to the Mediterranean Fleet. She was the Flagship of Cruiser Division Eight's Rear Admiral Lyal A. Davidson. Christmas 1943 was spent at the shell-pocked Island of Malta, the British Mediterranean citidel which had withstood the crushing blows of constant enemy aerial poundings. The Crew was warmly welcomed by the Maltese inhabitants. They reciprocated by throwing a Christmas party for the many Maltese Orphans. The Maltese returned the favor many times with parties and a lot of good will to every member of BROOKLYN,s Crew. Nothing that weekend was too good for them. This Christmas tree has a special meaning to the members of BROOKLYN's Crew. Seems Chaplain O'Leary wanted a tree for the Christmas party. He sent some, Good Sailors, for a tree. Never dreaming that the, Best Place, was the Island Governors drive. This is a true Sea Story, it did happen. Maltese Orphans enjoying a Christmas Dinner. After a good battle, a Good Liberty, Palermo, Sicily Later, in 1944, at a press conference, Navy Secretary James A. Forrestall said, Malta is a jewel in the crown of England, being place there by the many sacrifices of countless British flyers and sailors - a symbol of the tenacity and resolution of British character. Charging up the boot heel to Rome, the American invaders had been stopped cold at the Gustav line. To deploy the dogged Nazi troops and engage their tactical reserves, the Yanks poked a double-thrust into Italy's western coast some fifty miles to the North of the Gustav defenses at the twin resort towns of Anzio and Nettuno. BROOKLYN was called in for artillery assistance and was quick to answer the call. The amphibious landing craft had met little opposition as they proceeded into shore on 22 January 1944, but once they had beached themselves and disgorged soldiers from their gaping mouths, all Hell broke loose. The sky was filled with zooming Nazi planes of every nomenclature. One seventy millimeter guns posted in the mountains inland rained a steady' stream of flaming steel on the Americans crowded in that little pocket of Italian soil. With meticulous plotting by her Navigation Officer, BROOKLYN eased her way through mine fields to shallow water positions where her main batteries were within range of hostile shore targets on the morning of D plus 1. BROOKLYN'S Captain Cary rendered outstanding service as Commander of the gunfire support flotilla, raked the Anzio-Nettuno area with her pulverizing 6-inchers as Army spotters indicated the targets. The Navy sharpshooters standing off Anzio underwent air raids throughout the day and night Cless concentrated attacks in the daytime, large scale bombings during the nightj. At dusk on the evening of the 24th, BROOKLYN sustained without damage the heaviest aerial assault of her career. below, Flares dropped by a Hi-flying German Plane, during the Anzio Operation, night of 24 January 1944. 4.

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Sometime the blue and peaceful Mediterranean could get very rough for short periods of time. The supreme executors of Operation Anvil fArmy: Maj. General Patch, Navy: Admiral Hewittl had timed it perfectly. No sooner had the Naval guns finished wiping out obstacles on the beach in the early morning hours on 15 August, than four to six waves of General Patch's Seventh Army shock troops, together with units of the vengeful First French Army, swarmed ashore to get and hold a foothold of this most desired real estate. All day long BROOKLYN, teamed with the Flagship TUSCALOOSA, kept up her persistent fire. The demoralized Nazi 19th Army was making tracks in a decidedly unmilitary manner. Planes from our carriers took off to control the air, BROOKLYN launched her own planes to gain topographical information and seek out the enemy gun emplacements. At dusk, German aircraft made abortive attacks on our shipping, made several potential torpedo runs on the cruiser BROOKLYN only to be balked by her very accurate and devastating anti-aircraft fire. On the 22nd of August, with the Seventh Army forces having penetrated French soil almost 140 miles BROOKLYN and two American destroyers entered narrow La Napoule Gulf to draw out the fire of the enemy's shore Z' batteries and complete the ruination of their defenses. Captain Dodge's cruiser did her job well. The shoreline was 7 , V a - , WMM p ripped apart by her leveled guns as tons of explosives were ffl -i.,,,a , , , .i.' ,.rl ts' lobbed into the enemy lines. Flames licking the muzzle of New .ffr W1 ,rt, s.la l,ni in , lvii one of her 6-inch guns would herald the flight of yet another as i ii meiieii missile- iii the .ieee ef this iiiieiiiiiiiei?ie fire, www surroundedby their burning tanks and shattered plllboxes, the terror-filled Germans threw down their weapons by.the hundreds. Cannes fell. Her Job over, BROOKLYN cruised e to e Corsican seaport fer replenishment ef her empty As the Convoy approaches the South Coast of France. The wake just under the gun barrels is from the mine sweeping paravanes, rigged from BROOKLYN is gi l s I a v 2 1 i Salvo, and the fight is on for the beginning of the end for the Axis and Hitlers Armies. IIlagaZlIl6S. On 22nd October, Vice Admiral Hewitt, Commander Eighth Fleet, established BROOKLYN as his Flagship, went on an inspection tour of all newly annexed U.S. Naval bases in the Mediterranean theatre - Toulon, Naples, Palermo, Bizerte, Algiers and Oran. The venerable light cruiser received reassignment orders at Oran at the end of the tour. After a lapse of fifteen .months without touching an American port, BROOKLYN was going home. Brooklyn's Best Slugger ls Home terday after 15 months of hazardous duty in the Mediterranean where the seven-year- 18 The U. S. S. Brooklyn came home to roost at the N. Y. Navy Yard, Brooklyn, yes- S old light cruiser's deadly, p and Southern France. oint-blank gunfire supported the landings at Salerno, Anzio The Brooklyn came throughiher commander, Capt. Frank R.. without a scratch after a score of ticklish tusslea with German lanes and artillery. Lucky? Yes, the crew agreed, but luck dldn't count half as much as the fighting ability of the ship and In Mediterranean wafers with ihe U. S. S. Brooklyn for 15 months, Capt. Frank R. Dodge frighil and Cmdr. H. F. Eckel- berg brought fhe light cruiser home-io Brooklyn. Dodge of Philadelphia. The really lucky ones were 36 hometown oficers and men de- posited practically in their Flat- bush backyards ln time for Christmas. g The Brooklyn is a work- horse shlp, Capt. Dodge said, describing the battlewagon's operations along the French coast. She's not the spectacu- lar type. We simply followed American troops from Cannes along the coast of France dur- lng the August invasion. When the troops ran up against an enemy strongpoint, Capt. Dodge said, the Brooklyn andy' other ships let the Germans havej t with six-inch shells until the-'J nemy force was neutralized.' 5 Capt. Dodge said the ship sper ome time at the Monte Carlo gaming resort. 'Break the Bank' I We hoped to 'break the bank' at Monte Carlo-with six-inch shells, Capt. Dodge sighed. But the Germans had evacuated the Casino and there were too many French flags flying. Because of the Brooklyn's marksmanship, Capt. Dodge pre- dicted there'1l be considerable activity for some time by the building trades ln southern France. The Brooklyn was in on the North African landings ln 1942 .and the invasion of Sicily. She was in New York Navy Yard for minor repairs when the Salerno landings took place in September, 1943, but she hurried across and, subsequently, supported the 5th Army on the beachhead. Buy Bonds. Serve Your Country! Save Your Money! 15