Lexington (CV 16) - Naval Cruise Book

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11:25 11:25 at the enemy at a moment when his closeness blows a cold chill down your back. The flares burn out one after another. What a relief! The immediate attack I expect isn't taking placeg maybe they've overdone it-adding the light of the Hates to the moonlight may have cross-lit and confused the picture for them instead of clarifying it. The quartermaster makes an entry on the log sheet. I-Ie holds a red-filtered flashlight close to the paper, its lens masked down to a narrow slit gives the minimum light necessary to see the words as he puts them down. Commands for changes in our course are steadily coming over the TBS from the Hag- ship. The helmsmen swing the rudder for the evasive zigzag twists and turns. These maneuvers are diagramed by the moonlight coming in through the open hatches and portholes of the wheel-house. The probing shafts of light violate the anonymity of shadowsg in the manner of a slow-motion movie film they lugubriously creep and slide along the decks and up and down the bulkheads. At first, the TBS reports and commands came from the squawk-box in the drab monotone of the police precinct routine 'cCalling all carsn . . . but as the battle action steps up it sounds more like the ringside radio report of a fight. It has become evident from the TBS talk that the code name for the Lexington tonight is HANCOCK and that STORK is the Yorktown, Hagship of Admiral Pownall and task group 50.1. There are too many things going on in my mind to make it seem worthwhile to identify the code names of the other ships. I make a guess that FROLIC is the Hagship in a neighboring task group and that SAINT IC is probably one of the outlying scout destroyers. Our radar reports task group 50.1 is surrounded by large and small groups of enemy air- craft on all bearings. A major attack appears to be developing. F rom over the TBS comes: 11:27 THIS IS FROLIC ALERT ALERT RAID ABLE O50 4 MILES OUT 126 5 Sie ,.- - -..anna M..- ,Q-. .A -

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11:01 11:05 11:09 11:20 The Lexington opens fire. We change course. The moon is a blaze of brightness. Its broad glittering moonpath brings memories of a procession of other moon-nights . . . beginning far back in my teens . . . then in my twenties, when to me the moon and the moonlit scene were nature's supreme evocation of beauty, and the nocturne theme became the subject for many of my paintings. Another memory, strangely unrelated, brings up the vivid image of a farm tractor methodically rolling down my delphinium fields, the trailing disc-harrow chopping up the bloom spikes and churning them into the earth. Into this crazy-quilt pattern of memories, emotions, and reactions, flashes the thought that this very night's moon also bathes the hills and home in Connecticut . . . bathes them with a vast soft stillness. BOOM-BOGM-BQOM . . . BOP . . . ABLUMP . . . BUP-BUP-BUPBUPBUP . . . All hell is let loose around us. This moon is no neutral bystander, starkly it points out our ships to the enemy. I can see each unit of our task group, even the farthest carriers, as plainly as by daylight. Black black specks upon the ocher, green-gray tones of the sea, each unit of the fleet trailing a wake that makes a thin, sharp, screeching white line. Howl now hate that smooth bland moon, want to scratch it down, blast it to smithereens. A young officer reading and reporting the distance between us and the Yorktown mutters to himself Damn that moon. Intermittent firing in various quarters keeps on . . . my eyes follow the line of the tracer bullets like they follow color balls from roman candles on a Fourth of Iuly . . . I wish each roman-candle effect will reach and explode a lap plane. Sometimes a section of the sky is covered with colored ribbons made by the tracer shells. Four parachute flares drop almost directly ahead of us about five miles away. The flares slowly drop lower and lower, lighting up this area of the ocean in a new brilliance, with a sinking feeling comes the thought, now the covers are all off . . . we are naked and we'll have to fight it out with the bastards .... Strange satisfaction . . . this swearing E 125

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:Sli LN. l 4 11228 HELLO LOCUST EMERGENCY TURN 500 EMERGENCY TURN 500 ' THIS IS STORK MAKE IT LEFT MAKE IT LEFT EXECUTE p EXECUTE ANTONIO ACKNOWLEDGE 11229 BOGIES NOW o2o S AND 270 6 AND 110 7 S CLOSING SAINT JO OUT ANOTHER PLANE COMING IN ON STARBOARD BOW 6 MILES SAINT JO OUT Our own radar reports enemy planes coming in low on port bow. I 11230 HELLO BEAGLE HELLO EXECUTE T0 FOLLOW BREAK TANGO ROGER BEAGLE THIS IS STORK PLUS 10 I SAY AGAIN EXECUTE TO FOLLOW TANGO ROGER PLUS 10 STAND BY EXECUTE CANEBRAKE DURANGO ACKNOWLEDGE OVER THIS IS CANEBRAKE WILCO OUT HELLO STORK THIS IS WILCO OUT DURANGO BOGIE NOW CROSSING AHEAD 080 6 MILES SAINT JO OUT I 11:51 Our five inch guns fire at two to four planes reported approaching from starboard bowg our 40 mm guns just below the bridge open up, their tracer shells suddenly illuminate the under side of a lap plane as it banks sharply to the right and gets away without being l 3 hit . . . that lap was too close . . . I am holding my breath . . . our guns stop firing ' . . . we are swinging under a full right rudder . . . BRRUUMMMMMMMPH. . . . The Lexington gives a thumping bounce followed by violent up and down whipping movements along the full length of the ship. MATTAPAN THIS IS MASooT DID You RECEIVE FRoLIo'S LAST TRANSMISSION OVER . HELLo STORK IS HANCOCK HIT BY TORPEDO. HAVE LOST STEERING T THIS Q CONTROL. OVER. l 1 5 1 3 ? A l v S 127