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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Continuing attacks on the lOth, in preparation for the coming landings on the Japanese home islands, the Hannah's planes hit Northern Honshu air- fields, railroads and factories, crippling transportation and communication in the same effective manner laid down by the Allies in Europe. The first news of Japanese acceptance to the terms of the Potsdam Confer- ence were received aboard ship about midnight and wit-hin a few minutes the men off watch on the darkened ships were being awakened by shipmates bearing the glad news. Pending official recognition of the Japanese surren- der the Navy continued to launch strikes against the home islands, hitting the Tokyo Shibaura Electronics Plant and the Japan International Aircraft Company at Hiratsuka on the l3th. Attacks on the l5th were called back at i633 before they reached their targets but the photo division was attacked by seven Japanese planes over Sagami Wan. Three were shot down and a fourth escaped in a trail of smoke. At 0839 word was received that the Secretary of the Navy Forrestal and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Com- mander-in-Chief Pacific Fleet, had confirmed the capitulation of Japan. At l302 Admiral Bull Halsey addressed the powerful Fleet assembled off Japan in a stirring speech broadcast over every ship's public address system. Rank and rate were temporarily forgotten as everyone congratulated every- one else on the cessation of hostilities. Ships steaming in orderly columns Funeral Pyres