California (BB 44) - Naval Cruise Book

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at F se? r , 2 3 . .W e our faces raw: the us like a great dry box- Our turrets had fired. The Calgirr- nia was in the battle. By now the night was rent and gashed with blinding flashes and resounding detonations. All the ships in the gulf were hurling fiery tons of steel with each salvo. Projectiles weighing over two-thousand pounds looped in blazing arcs across the sky as steadily as machine gun bullets. Periodically, our turrets erupted like volcanoes around us, the gulf was an inferno of sound, the night was splintered with cease- less explosions. The Japanese took by far the worst of it. At first they energetically fired back, then the exchange of tracers looked like a cops and rob- bers gun fight. But in the end, their ships just bumed, exploded and sank. In Sky Forward nobody spoke. We stood agape at the altercations as between monsters. Once a shaky voice queried, '4Jeez, do ya think we'll get a star in our ribbon for this'?', Then the whine of an enemy salvo passed overhead, we ducked and shivered and terror sprouted from our eyes. That ghostly, death-presentment sound seared to the roots of our beings. In the next flash we saw what weak, frightened ani- mals we were. None of us could ever brag about his courage again, we had looked into each other's souls and we turned our heads away for fear reveals too much. The spell was broken when an enlisted man, having bumped into an officer, said, Ex- cuse me, sirf, In the middle of that awful hu- man destruction, those simple words of civil- ity sounded sweet and warm. They reminded us that for all the horror, there was still the friendly human spirit which somehow manages to survive. At last, for lack of targets the firing cased. Night came rolling back to reclaim its domain, the silence beat against our ears. A lone star glistened in the sky like that lad's kind words of courtesy. The seas moved once more and I heard again that restless murmur of the dis- tances beyond the horizon. Since the first shot had been fired, thir- teen minutes had elapsed. The action was for us a clear resounding victory. United States ships definitely sank two Japanese battleships, two heavy cruisers, two light cruisers and two or three destroyers. The whole engagement, under the command of Vice Admiral Oldendorf, was brilliantly conceived and executed. Our fleet performed that age- old naval maneuver of crossing the The Japanese came out of the straits in column. We passed at right angles to them so that only their leading ship could fire while we could bring the main batteries of our entire formation to bear. They never had a chance. We got on the target after the first salvo, with our superior fire control equipment we stayed on and kept hitting, hitting, hitting until there wasn't enough steel in the water to form a line of sight. It was complete and utter destruction, and the little Japanese on those ships went through and to hell. When the dawn came, our cruisers and destroyers investigated the area of the battle and found over two-hundred survivors in the water. At first the Japanese absolutely refused to take our lifelines. A few of them even tried to swim away. However, Vice Admiral Oldendorf had put out the order to take aboard as many as possible so our ships were patient. Even so some of the yellow men by their own choosing stayed in the sea and drowned. Their utter disregard for life, their complete willing- ness to sacrifice themselves for a holy cause even when the cause will not be furthered by their sacrifice is an attitude incomprehensible to the Occidental mind. It leaves us wonder- ing whether as we inevitably reoccupy all the Japanese territory, there will be any Japanese left in the world. An emphatic point must here be made. The battle described above was only one phase of the numerous engagements with the enemy fleet in the around the Philippine Island straits between the 23rd and the 25th. The magnifi- cent part played by Admiral Halseyls Task Force 38, by a squadron of jeep carriers, by our submarines and the Army Air Force has been barely mentioned. As a matter of fact, at this writing, the fighting and strategic maneu- vering is still going on. Some day history books will place this campaign among the most deci- sive of the war. Furthermore, there is a singular one-di- mensional aspect to this story. Contained herein is only what I saw and I felt. Left completely untold are the happenings on the bridge, the brain and nerve center of the ship, where Cap- tain H.P. Burnett expertly directed the Calqfor- nia through her first surface battle. He was ably assisted by Commander F.R. Bunker, Execu- tive Officer, Commander A.B. Mayfield, Navi- gator, Commander G.P. Garland, First Lieu- tenant and Lt. Commander J .P. Faries, Signal Officer. Likewise not a word has been said about the neat professional job performed by Commander R. Mandelkom, the Gunnery Of- ficer, and by his adjutants, in the directors, Lt. Stu Swacker of Glendale, California, and Lt. Charley Curtis of Boston, in main battery plot- ting room, Lt. Joe Perry of Maine, and Lt. Jim Lynch of Chicago, in the turrets, Lt. Sam Killingsworth of Washington, LTCJGJ Leo Mack of Milwaukee, Lt. Jack Grady of Chi- cago and LTCJGJ Frank Wilson of Chicago. Furthermore, where is the peens of praise for the anonymous sailors who perform instead of command, men like Bill Fuhriman of Logan, Utah, on the fire control platform with the gun- nery officer, recording and talker, Ken Edelen of Brooklyn, Iowa, who placed the powder of the loading tray, Joe Joyner of Atlanta, Geor- gia, who put the values into the intricate com- puter, Dan Scott of Ann Arbor, Michigan, who trained on the target and Bill Welch of Chey- enne, Wyoming, who closed the firing key which ignited the primer, which exploded the powder, which propelled the projectile, which sank the Japanese ship. To all the two-thousand officers and blue- jackets on the Caljornia as well as the crews of the other battleships, cruisers and destroy- ers whose names are censored but whose deeds are just as valiant, that night was one of the most memorial of their lives. As they return to their home towns and families, the tales of their participation in the engagement will grow longer and longer until the action becomes not merely the most bloody of this war but of any in history. However, when the Battle of Leyte Gulp Cas one sailor called ith is mentioned, one man must maintain an abashed silence. For Lt. Charley McVey of Olympia, Washington, who had trained for twenty-three years for such an occasion, the night before took an overdose of headache powder, and slept right through the entire action. The surface engagement might have been the climax but it was not the end of our expe- riences in Leyte Gulf. For the next eight days Cfrom October 25 to November lj we were under almost constant air attack. During that period we went to General Quarters forty-four times, during that period no one on the ship got more than three or four hours sleep in twenty-four. It was the most dogged, persis- tent rat-race any of us had ever known. No sooner would we secure from one air raid than we would be racing to our battle stations to repel another. The men became so tired they wouldn't even look at AA fire in any other sector but their own. The endless hours of searching for Japanese planes up and down the billowy mountains of clouds, in and out the brilliant sumises and sets, around and about the neighborly constellations were a stretch of light and darkness without demarcation. Time completely slid away from us. What I remem- ber is a series of disembodied experiences in an otherwise brain-numbed vacuum. One moming twenty Japanese Vals ap- peared off our starboard bow. As they maneu- vered for the attack, I saw a kid suck in his breath and his eyes grow as large as water- melons. We stood by our guns and waited for them to come into range. But they never did. Five of the Japanese made a dive-bombing run on a poor old destroyer which snaked through the water like a frightened eel. They never hit her either. The rest flew away to the seaward. Later the same day, we girded ourselves for another surface action as we steamed out of the straits to aid a CVE task force under attack by the Japanese. However, we never made contact for Task Force 38 beat us to the scene. Later we learned that the small carriers had had a rough time of it, though their planes wracked vengeance by torpedoing two Japa- nese battleships and stopping one cruiser dead in the water. That, incidentally, was the sec- ond force of the Imperial Navy which was waiting for us to come out of the Straits the night of the battle but our admirals never al- lowed us to be mouse-trapped. Once in the gray dawning, three Japanese dive bombers passed along the starboard length of the ship. Our 40s and 5 commenced firing on them, a few seconds later the middle one plunged into the water. It was an exhibi- tion of beautiful shooting by Lt. Gordon Tumer and his director crew. One moment the plane was sailing along on even keel, the next its nose dipped, its wings spiraled and with a high splash, it disappeared into the sea. I remember a tired look-out unable to keep

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I In a way AA firing is an extremely excit- ing game. The Japanese pilot has the ball and is trying to drop it on the ship. Our purpose is to prevent him by either tuming him away or shooting him down. Anything goes and each side endeavors to outsmart the other. The Japa- nese have many tricks of which that light on the towline was only oneg others dive out of a cloud or down from the sun, releasing flares on one bearing to attract attention and attack- ing from another direction, and many more which cannot yet be told. We have to keep thinking to stay ahead of themg we must an- ticipate their maneuvers and act to block their attack. For example during the day we keep our guns trained into the sung we divide the ship's guns into sectors with a control officer in charge so all our fire will not be concen- trated on one bearing, we maneuver violently through the water when planes are attackingg finally, our various caliber AA guns provide a defense in depth which makes a fiery gauntlet to run. As a result far far more planes are shot down than ever get through to score a hit. However, despite the percentages, the stakes are high-death and defeat to the loserg destruction of the enemy and in the end vic- tory for the winner. The competition is stiff: the steadier eye, the more vigilant lookout and the sharper spur-of-the-moment thinking spells success. It is a red-blooded man's sport-the most fascinating in the world. During the rest of the 23rd the Calyfarnia continued to bombard the island. However, we on the ship never saw the splashes as they were falling deep inland. In the aftemoon General MacArthur made a speech. There was a band and much fanfare. He spoke from the steps of a marble court house and in a grandiose manner declared, I have decreed all Japanese law in the Philip- pines Islands abolished. I have liberated the Filipinos, our little brown brothers. While he orated, sweating soldiers a mile away cut through the jungle, charged up the hills, died in the swamps. Not the bemedalled commander, beloved of the throne Marching cock-horse to parade when the bugle is blown, But the lads who carry the koppie and can- not be known. Though the Japanese returned in the evening, there was little shooting. However, some sudden flashes on the beach had us puzzled until Seaman Robert Benson from Baltimore, cracked, Hell, do you know what that is, it's the photographers still taking Dug- Out Doug's picture. In the moming of the 24th the Japanese attacked three times with more planes and with greater ferocity than in any of the previous raids. This time they scored hits on a Liberty ship and an LCI. This living in danger and under constant pressure of attack bred a certain detached atti- tude toward life. It was as if we could not quite believe the real us was being involved. I kept getting the feeling I was watching myself do- ing things as if I were another person. Maybe it was because I was so damned tired the con- sciousness of self was atrophied. At any rate, I know that even now as I write this, I have to dig hard to remember. What I supposed were the most vivid impressions are dusky shadows in my mind. During the actions the essential me seemed to be someplace else, a guy named Joe took over. I imagine that is why fellows back from the front can tell so little of what actually happened to them, they simply were not there-really. Ever since we arrived in Leyte Gulf, ru- mors had been current that elements of the imperial Navy were in the vicinity. For a week Task Force 38 had been playing hide and seek with them among the innumerable Philippine Island straits. Therefore, nobody was surprised when in the aftemoon of the 24th a message was received from Vice Admiral Kinkaid that engagement with surface units of the Japa- nese Fleet is imminent tonight. Chancing to be on watch when the word was passed, I overheard the director crew dis- cussing the prospects of battle. Ralph Park, Slc, a serious lad from Tacoma, Washington, was saying, I don't want no part of it. I had enough on the Helena. Man, if I ever see a Japanese 16 salvo again, it wonlt have to hit to kill meg I'll die just watching it. Have you ever heard shells whizzing overhead in the night. Oh God that's a spooky sound, like ghosts wailing in a cemetery. Well, I don't knowfl remarked Jim Lewis, a young gunner's mate from Los Angeles, If every one else is scared, I guess I'll be too. But if I can be kept busy loading the guns, I don't think I'd mind. In a way I'd kinda like to see a night battlef' Coxswain Roscoe Swain, from Columbus, Ohio, chimed in, Hell, I'm not afraid of any- thing the Japanese can do. Welre four times as strong as them. Besides, to tell the truth, I just can't imagine myself dead. The conversation drifted away to another subject and shortly afterwards the watch was relieved. During the rest of the day rumors intensi- fied as to the impending surface engagement. After the Japanese lamp-lightersl' made their noctumal visit, the pre-war battleships, the Calyfornia, West Wrginia, Tennessee, Pennsyl- vania and Maryland, formed the traditional battle line. It was a maneuver these ships had been practicing for twenty years but had never put to use in actual combat. It was a revival of old glory, of things pastg there was even a feel- ing of nostalgia in watching these OBB's go through their paces like an over-aged football team at an alumni reunion. After all, the fat new BB's and carriers were now the scourge of the ocean, and though these more ancient vessels were still valuable for support of am- phibious operations, no one expected them to engage the Japanese fleet. As a matter of fact even as we swung into the battle-line, reports were received that Task Force 38 had already met phases of the enemy navy, bombed one battle-wagon, rocketed and strafed two heavy cruisers. In light of this information most of us went to sleep with little hope or dread Cas the case might bel of any action during the night. At 0230 October 25, 1944, the General Alarm sounded: All Hands Man Your Battle Stations. I didn't merely wake up, I shot like a projectile out of my bunk for those are the most blood-curdling, leg-galvanizin g words in the English language. While yanking on my clothes, I exclaimed to my roommate, Holy Christ, George, this is it. Lt. Cottrell of Hol- lywood, California, scoffed at my melodramat- ics, f'Don,t be a Humphrey Bogart, he said, It's probably only a Japanese reconnaissance plane. Nevertheless, we both dressed rapidly and burst out of the room. S'Good luckj, George, I shouted after him. He waved his hand and disappeared around a bulkhead. The passageways were flooded with hur- rying, nervous men. Though the dread of the unknown hung over them, for the next sound might be an enemy shell ripping through the superstructure, there was no unnecessary shouting or pushing. Fear is the most commu- nicable emotiong the slightest taint of it in a crowd will cause a panic. Yet the best evidence I know of the discipline and self-control of the American sailors is the orderly, dignified way they hasten to their battle stations. Kaleido- scopic glimpse of stern, set faces show plenty of fright, but no panic. However, even this clutching fear lasts only until the men get to their guns, then the familiarity with their jobs and the knowledge that they can fight back brings confidence, and they are ready to face the unknown with the one thing it understands, a salvo of hot lead. I have mentioned fear so often because in action fright and the lust for the kill are the only two emotions. They are so overpowering that one remembers little of the actual events of the battleg nonparticipants can describe that. A sailor can only tell you how scared he was. When I arrived at Sky Forward, it was excitedly fidgety over the news that the Japa- nese Fleet was coming through Stuigao Strait. A squadron of PT boats, stationed in the chan- nel had given the warning and made a torpedo attack. Though beaten off with fairly heavy losses, they had heroically done their job: they were the Paul Reveres of the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The night was very dark. Fortunately, we did not have long to wait. Suddenly the gulf was illuminated by a shower of starshells. The Japanese were coming out of the Straits shoot- ing their pyrotechnics in an effort to locate our position. Actually, they only succeeded in giv- ing themselves away like a midnight express shrieking through the valley. Every man tightened at his station. This was it. For a moment there was an awful por- tentous silence like feeling a snake crawl across your leg. Then a ship on our right flank fired. We could see the winking flash long. long be- fore we heard the cracking report. Tension on the California was electric: every nerve. muscle, eyeball strained to the limits of its plasma. The years of training and discipline were paying off g it took the self control of men of steel to restrain shooting until within range. Another ship opened up. It was much closer to us for we caught some of the concussion. Red tracers arched in the sky like lazy fly balls. Unexpectedly. there was a vicious explo-

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his eyes open. After valiantly trying, he leaned his forehead against his binoculars and fell sound asleep. He was eighteen years old, he had been fighting a man's war but now he slept like a boy. I did not have the heart to awaken him. There were GQ's with an ammunition ship alongside when Japanese planes were sighted and AA fire broke out all around us. One lucky hit, one near miss would have blown us sky high. However, we were all too tired to be afraid and the gun crews on the unengaged side slept through the attack. Again in the early moming a single en- emy aircraft came winging over our disposi- tion. In an instant the sky was speckled with 5', burstsg the plane wobbled drtmkenly among the air explosions, lost control and plummeted into the sea. I saw a ship sink slowly, tragically, ago- nizingly, dying like some mute animal in mor- tal paing over its grave for hours afterwards oily smoke sailed skyward like a pagan funeral pyre. Though many American boys lost their lives, I felt no compassion. I could imagine them fighting through blazing compartments, melting to liquid before the hell-furnace heat, but I could not feel sympathy. It was too far from meg because at that stage my feelings of humanity and tenderness were too atrophied. I was completely insensitive to anything but a bomb bursting twenty-feet away. I was even beyond hating myself for such indifference. The truth is I was just too damn tired to care. However, one vivid experience did rouse us from our lethargy. As before it occurred during a dusk General Quarters. Enemy planes had been reported earlier in the evening but now the sky seemed clear. The sun dropped like a glowing brand into the banks of low- lying clouds along the horizon, setting them aflame. The day was dying. Yet still the high dome with its circular floor of the sea was magically illuminated as by the proximity of a wonderful presence. Somewhere the doors of glory had been left ajar. The holy time was quiet as a nun breathless with adoration. Suddenly - whoosh! - out of the crisp ash of a cloud zipped a Zero straight toward the ship. 20mm Gunner Cordell Wiser of Pulaski, Tennessee, fired first followed imme- diately by the barking and thumping of the whole machine gun battery. The bastard kept barreling through despite numerous hits. It dropped no bombsg it did not strafe, it shot like a projectile toward the bridge. Thousands of tracers clawed and bit at the evil thing. It swerved to starboard, shrieked down the length of the ship and crashed twenty feet off the bow. Instantly the plane exploded, by a curious freak a parachute blossomed over the wreckage in which was the upper trtrnk of a man with bits of one leg danglingg it floated gently into the water like a girl curtseying in a flowing gown and vanished. Though the whole thing took ten seconds, as long as we live none of us will ever forget that red-spotted, maniacal plane streak- ing toward the ship. And so the time passed. Yesterday and tomorrow were a thousand years apart. We were engulfed in the Huge Now, in the all-ab- sorbing tension of the moment, and yet each moment was a separate, surprising shock like the uneven stones on a cobble road. There was no past and no future, there was no continuity except a crushing weariness that deepened and deepened into our bones until our bodies felt like blocks of granite. Then one morning I awoke to discover we had not gone to General Quarters for twenty- four hours. I lay in my bunk and felt the life stirring inside me. I began to notice how things looked around me, what they smelled and sounded like, and I obtained as great a plea- sure out of my newly recovered senses as if I had been deprived of them. I flexed my limbs ' and watched my muscles grow taut and relax. I wiggled a toe and it seemed a miracle that way down there that scrawny thing belonged to me and I willed it to move. As I dressed, I observed how expertly my fingers operatedg no mechanical contrivance could do as well, what wonderful universal joints my elbows and knees were. When I walked across the room, my legs worked per- fectly under me. I had discovered a new thrill, the joy of mere physical existence. After reviewing all that had happened to the Caldornia in the past three weeks, I felt satisfied just to be among those present. I realized then that through the rest of my days, no matter what fortune or mis- fortune befell me, no matter what station in life was allotted to me, I would never never complain again. Being alive was enough! BoA'r RACE by Carlos J. Badger I joined the USS Caljornia at Bremerton in 1922, and was assigned to the boiler divi- sion. But CDR Turner Clater Admiralj held an IQ test for all ensigns just reporting to the ship. Although I was the lowest man on the totem pole, I turned out to be number one in the IQ test. He immediately changed my assignment from boiler division to F Division!Special Jobs. For several years, the HSky Pilotu of the USS Mi.s'.s'i.s'.s'ippi had been winning the dinghy contest to the discomfitures ofthe Naval Acad- emy. CDR Turner told me to pick a crew and take as much time as I needed to figure out a way to out-sail the chaplain from the Mi.s.si.s- sippi. I spent several hours for at least two weeks before the race, sailing around San Pedro Harbor and making note of shifts in the winds and currents. I finally came to the conclusion that the CUITCHIS were much more important than the winds. The day of the race, the winds were very strong. We started with the pack in the 2nd or 3rd position and I immediately made it appear that we had lost control of the right jib because we had lost our boathook. The pack went downwind, tacking back and forth to get in position to pass the second stake buoy. We let our sails flap and drifted slowly toward the second buoy. When we got to it, we trimmed our sails to the wind and came roaring home more than an hour ahead of the next contes- tant. CMy roommate, then Ensign McComsey. had the misfortune of snapping the mainmast on a motor-sailor and finished last.j CDR Tumer had everyone aboard man the rails to welcome us aboard and ordered me to write up the race and have it recorded in the log. My next race at Cheefoo, China was quite different. The race started the day after I reported aboard. I had no knowledge of the wind and cur- rents, and nearly got blown to sea, finishing last. An experience I will never forget was watching a battle-practice off Panama in which the Calyfornia and Mississippi were imperson- ating aircraft carriers. A squad of destroyers fired one torpedo each Cwith dummy warheads of coursej, three of them hitting the Caljomia and four of them hitting the Mississippi tor visa versaj. The sea was so calm and the day so quiet that you could watch the wake of the tor- pedoes for several hundred feet from my van- tage point. I could not help but think. 'lWhat would happen if those were real torpedoes and each destroyer had fired a full compliment of twelve'?,' ...Something like that must have hap- pened at Leyte Gulf. . Nix ,Mx W N ma. W W 1 No. I raceboal crew, USS California. CJ. Lev was rh 1 1 I 'M ' I 1 fn Lx anne on rn' crew. fCUlll'l't'.V,X' QfCJ. Let-,l I 4 9 14? ini 'I 5:31:5- 1' 'lf : it A