Foote (DD 511) - Naval Cruise Book

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We had almosT conTinuous general quarTers unTil we reached LeyTe on ChrisTmas Eve. The mosT any oT us wanTed Tor a ChrisTmas presenT was a Tull nighT's sleep, buT The Japs weren'T playing SanTa Claus, so we spenT all oT ChrisTmas Eve, and mosT oT ChrisTmas day looking up inTo The skies Tor planes. Several days laTer we were well aT sea escorTing The TirsT wave oT Troops carrying craTT desTined To Take The beach- head aT Lingayen GulT on Luzon. We weren'T sure whaT we were geTTing inTo aTTer The small TasTe oT Jap DO- OR-DlE spiriT we had had aT lvlindoro, An experience like ThaT gives rise To a loT oT nasTy ThoughTs. I-lowever, we made The iourney in comparaTive peace and quieT excepT Tor a Tew minor incidenTs in which we, as a crew, had noT acTive parT. One oT Them was The ramming and sinking oT a Japanese midgeT submarine ThaT had Tired a Tish aT The CRUISER PHOENIX . . . The ship ThaT was carrying General MacArThur To his beachhead. AnoTher can did The ramming . . .when The convoy came abreasT oT Manila Bay, during The nighT, a lone Japanese desTroyer oT The I-laTshuhara Class was spoTTed. I-le never had a chance: Desdiv 45 opened Tire on him and iTs doubTTul ThaT The crew ever knew whaT hiT Them. We were on The oTher side oT The TormaTion. The morning oT January 9Th, l945, Tound us lying liTTle more Than a sTone's Throw OTT The Lingayen invasion beachhead. The heavies were Tossing Tons oT shells righT over our heads as we lay To waiTing our Turn. AT This Time The USS COLUMBIA re- porTed ThaT she had been hiT by a suicide bomber and had incurred well over a hundred casualTies. OTher Than ThaT, Japanese air acTiviTy was pracTically negligible, To our inTense relieT. The ships which had parTicipaTed in The pre-invasion bombard- menT didn'T geT oTT so lighTly, we learned laTer. We Threw someThing like 500 rounds oT Tive inch ammuniTion inTo WhiTe Beach j:l,'2 ThaT morning, and aT TirsT we received no reTurn Tire, buT when The heaT oT The TirsT Tiring had died away and The Troops had landed wiThouT opposiTion, we sTarTed To geT reporTs oT shore baTTery opposiTion. The USS JENKINS, abouT IOOO yards away, was hiT by a Three inch shell in gun qEl:5 handling room. ShorTly ThereaTTer, one oT The shore baTTery shells landed close aboard our ship on The sTarboard quarTer. The shore baTTery ceased To exisT immediaTely Tollowing The incidenT. Lingayen was an easy landing, as amphibious landings go: G.l. Joe wenT ashore sTanding up and so did lvlacArThur. AT l-I-hour There was no aerial opposiTion, buT, as I said beTore, The NAVY Took a considerable beaTing on iniTial bombardmenTs. ITJS a wonder ThaT we missed iT. We leTT Lingayen on The evening oT January lOTh wiTh a convoy oT empTy TransporTs headed Tor LeyTe. We had iusT abouT reached The harbor enTrance when a couple oT Jap planes sneaked in Trom somewhere, and There we were righT in The middle oT iT. One oT Them crashed inTo The waTer and The oTher smacked inTo The supersTrucTure oT one oT The TransporTs. We sTayed in l.eyTe a Tew days and Then Turned righT around and wenT back To Lingayen: This Time we were desTined To sTay unTil lvlarch, l945. Though There's noT much To be said Tor our sTay, mosT oT iT was paTrol duTy, digging a big ruT in a liTTle space oT ocean, back and TorTh like a pendulum. The Jap's had been broken in I8

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or occasionally boarding a vessel wifh a low freeboard and frying fo carry off supplies or slhf a few fhroafs. Accordingly. a number of fhe boys were insfrucfed in fhe use Q l fi fornmy gun and posfed fore and aff as senfries. Nofhing ever happened . . . lusf like if never does when you're all ready for if. A few days lafer we sailed off fo rendezvous wifh several carriers off Mindanao. We escorfed fhem for a couple of weeks and several fimes were affacked by small formafions of enemy planes. Affer a few weeks we puf in fo lvlanus Island in fhe Admiralfy Group. A If was here fhaf we gof our firsf look af ships fhaf fhe Jap's Kamikaze flyers had plowed. The AULICK had faken fwo of fhem. The CLAXTON was also fhere wifh a couple of shell holes in her. Bofh ships were members of our squadron. While we were fhere in lvlanus some of us wenf ashore for recreafion. Recreafion consisfed of a fwo hour boaf ride, a couple of boffles of beer, a hof sun, and plenfy of sand. Lafe in November we moved up fo Leyfe. A couple days prior fo our arrival fhe air raids had been numerous and fierce, buf affer we arrived fhey suddenly slacked off and excepf for an occasional Bogey if was quief mosf of fhe fime. Abouf fhe middle of December we escorfed fhe firsf resupply fo Mindoro. The landing ifself had been a snap and fhe damage fo fhe fleef had been very lighf buf affer we had been on our way for abouf fhree days we sfarfed fo gef Bogies quife frequenfly. Af firsf fhey were iusf single spoffer planes. An occasional lighf bomber would sneak in over fhe wafer and drop a few bombs info fhe convoy buf we suffered no damage af all unfil fhe evening of December 2l, when we wenf fo general quarfers in earnesf. Fiffeen planes affacked fhe formafion and fhree of fhem headed for fhe FOOTE. All were suicide planes. They iusf kepf boring in. The five inch guns opened fire and fhen fhe forfies, and fhen fhe fwenfies, and fhen fhere was a wrenching and crunch of an explosion and fhe OLD FOOTE liffed her fail ouf of fhe wafer and shook herself all over like a wef dog. l'lif sure as hell! Buf we weren'f hif we were iusf shaken up preffy badly. Thaf plane was a Jap Toio and fhe official reporf sfafed fhaf he crashed fen lIOl yards off fhe porf beam. Af fhe same fime a second plane came up fhe sfarboard side and fried fo crash info our bow buf fhe capfain gave fhe com- mand Hard leff rudder and fhe plane exploded in fhe wafer a bare hundred' feef away showering fhe decks wifh pieces of fuselage. The fhird plane came direcfly over- head buf changed his mind and decided fo affack fhe convoy. According fo several eye-wifnesses he was hif and smoking when he furned away from us. We suffered no permanenf damage buf power was ouf fhroughouf fhe ship for several minufes. Two of fhe LST's llarge slow fargefsl in fhe convoy were damaged and sunk. There were a number of cifafions given for performance of dufy in fhis acfion all of which will be lisfed in ofher porfions of fhis book. We picked up fwo of fhe survivors from fhe LST's. One we fook aboard from a merchanf ship affer fhey had picked him up, fhe ofher we picked up ourselves iusf as if was geffing foo dark fo see. Thaf boy was preffy badly burned buf was fhankful fo be alive. Anofher few minufes and if would have been so dark fhaf we would have missed him complefely. I 7

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The Philippines and They knew iT . . . we began To realize iT as day aTTer day oT This duTy wore on and noThing happened. Then, iusT as we were beginning To geT used To The place, we goT orders To reporT back To LeyTe and Thence To IvIoroTai, Tor inclusion in whaT we supposed would be anoTher invasion armada. When we goT To LeyTe we were ordered To escorT Two LST's To Manus while They loaded wiTh supplies and Then reporT To IvIoroTai Tor orders. By This Time iT was April I3Th and we had all Tigured ThaT we were going To be in on The invasion oT Borneo. Somebody had plans Tor us. - AT This Time, our capTain, Commander AIsTon Ramsay was relieved by our presenT capTain, LT. Commander I-I. W. IvIcEIwain and iusT To upseT all The nice prophesies we had made Tor ourselves The ship Turned around and headed back To LeyTe To ioin up once again wiTh DESRON 23 as a compleTe squadron. CompIeTe, ThaT is, buT Tor The absence oT The USS SPENCE IDD 5I2I which had been sunk in a Typhoon oTT The norThern Tip oT Luzon a Tew monThs previously. While we passed The days in LeyTe geTTing The ship inTo condiTion The idea began To dawn on us ThaT we were going To Okinawa as repIacemenTs Tor The desTroyers which had gone down in ThaT hell-hole. The USS CALHOUN had been assigned To The LITTLE BEAVERSH as a replacemenT Tor The USS SPENCE, buT aT The Time she was assigned she was headed Tor Okinawa and wiThin a Tew days we goT word ThaT she Too had been sunk. Nice, brighT TuTure we had To look Torward To. Finally, in The early parT oT May we headed Tor The Ryukiusg USS CI-'IAS. AUS- BURNE, USS DYSON, USS CLAXTON, USS EOOTE, USS. CONVERSE, USS AULICK, USS TI-IATCI-IER, and The USS BRAINE which had been assigned The USS CAL- I-IOUN'S place on our TirsT Team. When we came coasTing inTo Okinawa ThaT morning in May we expecTed The worsT. The TighTer-direcTor on The island designaTed raids sTarTing wiTh number one aT midnighT and conTinuing in numerical order unTil The Tollowing midnighT. When we arrived iT was abouT six A.IvI. Icivilian Timel and The raids were already up To Twelve. We had a loT oT hoT Times in Okinawa, whaT wiTh The planes and The Typhoons. The Typhoons The navy and marine TighTer piloTs had no conTroI over, buT There is noT one oT us who wouIdn'T spend his IasT haIT dollar buying a drink Tor Those TighTer piloTs Tor The iob They did againsT l'IirohiTo's boys. NeverTheIess TighTer piloTs or no TighTer piloTs, we hadn'T been in The area a week beTore our squadron had losT Two oT iTs acTive ships. The USS BRAINE Took Two hiTs and managed To sTay aTIoaT and The USS TI-IATCI-IER Took one and sTayed on Top. There are a loT oT Things ThaT mighT be said abouT The Time we spenT in Okinawa, buT The memory is sTill a biT Too Tresh Tor a compleTe reTrospecTive look aT iT. We did our share oT The TighTingg we added a Tew more planes To our score, and a num- ber oT grey hairs To mosT heads, and we are living To see TuIlTiImenT oT The adage HOME ALIVE IN 45. I9