Bullard (DD 660) - Naval Cruise Book

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pnufPt4 She has done her job now. She still is very lively. But one day they will paint a lot of red lead on her, they will lay her up in some forgotten peace- time harbor, and an obscure paragraph will tell the American people that the U.S.S. BULLARD (Destro er 660) no longer is a lady. But they will never tell that to the officers and men who knew her when . . . who knew her when she tore into a hundred and fifty Jap torpedo bombers off Rabaul . . . who knew her when she fought rires on the stricken carrier FRANKLIN from so close aboard you could smell death . . . when she went looking for suicide planes off OKINAWA and found them by the score . . . when she steamed in for the first naval bombardment of the Jap homeland . . . when she shot down her last Kami- kaze hours after the war with Japan had officially ended. Yes, these men will tell you, she could knock down suicide planes with the best and biggest of them. She could make better than forty land miles an hour through the long swells off Japan, and she would beat you up while she did it. She never pampered you. Sleep was hard to get, food some- times ran low, but work never did. She took a lot of cussing. But she was, and is, a grand fighting lady. Her story in the war with Japan is a typical de- stroyer story. But to her own, it is just a little more. 19|