Hancock (CV 19) - Naval Cruise Book

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-V v? 1 ffl pr 1 The End of Three More Jap Tcmlcers Target for the l7th was Mito, in the Tokyo area with the big sweep on the l8th hitting the important naval base at Yokosuka. Badly damaged from these attacks, the battleship Nagato was rendered uselss, to lay a smoking, blackened symbol of a once proud fleet. Hurricane weather prevented further strikes until the 24th when carrier planes blazed a path across Shikoku lsland to hit Kobe and Kure Naval bases on the Inland Sea. The battleship-carrier ISE, the heavy cruiser ACDBA and carriers, AMAGI and KATSURAGI suffered heavy damage in Kure l-larbor and raids on the 25th and 28th eliminated them from the Japanese surface fleet . The German Navy had been designed as an undersea fleet but the Japanese Fleet rested on the bottom because of American, not Japanese, design. Strikes were launched against Osaka and Kure airfields on the 2Oth but little enemy opposition was met. The planet-shaking atomic bomb floated to earth over the city of Hiroshima on August 6th to wipe out a metropolis of 3l8,000 and to render the soil beneath the rubble of ruin lifeless beyond the lifetime of any surviving witness. Three days later smaller Nagasaki fell under the unleashed fury of the same incredible force, The l-lannah's strikes were dwarfed that day by the lethal power of a single bomb from a single plane.

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OPERATION NINE l Arriving in San Pedro Bay, Philippine Islnads, on June 25th, the Hannah reported to ComThird Fleet, Admiral W. F. Halsey, aboard the Missouri. for operations against the home islands of Japan. During the run northward the force was under constant menace of drifting mines which were quickly dispatched by rifle fire from the destroyer screen. On July 8th the Hanlnah and 'her cohorts rendezvoused with units of Servron Six IService Squadron Sixl to fuel and re-arm. Operating from such bases as Ulithi and Leyte the tankers, ammunition ships, refrigerator ships and even sea-going tugs were able to provide the combatant ships with the necessities of warfare without interrupting the air and surface assault on Japan. I During the final phases -of World War II the replenishment group steamed within 300 miles of the enemy home islands servicing carriers, cruisers, bat- tleships and destroyers under the noses of an impotent Japanese fleet. The Hannah launched her first strike of her ninth operation on July lOth, hitting airfields and air installations in the Tokyo Plains area. Northward to the edge of the Kurile Islands the fast carriers hit installations on the eastern side of Hokkaido Island on the I4th and I5th, knocking out airfields in addition to hitting shipping in'Nemuro Wan and Kushiro Harbor, paving the way for the scheduled landings under Rear Admiral Frank J. FIetcher's Ninth Fleet via the Aleutians. I Cutting the Jap Fuel Line - Z E I I f

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