Lowry (DD 770) - Naval Cruise Book

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During lhe air aHacks Roberl Arem' Flc was hi+ and killed ins+an'rly. He was buried a+ lhe moulh of Lingayen Gulf wi+h full milifary honors. All of +he crew no l' on wa'rch lurned ou? To pay 'rheir las? respecfs. The war was brough+ home preHy close 'l'hen. H s one lhing 'fo see ano'I'her ship hif bu'l' seeing one of your shipmales killed is different Upper righi is +he Machine C-Bun Con+rol leam. There's Burgess. Byrne, Reisinger, Farbman and Boehm. Immedi- a1'ely afler This piclure was Taken a Jap plane suddenly dived on us and broke up 'I'his happy B ,ff f ww-,W ,,,ff,vW , f., f' fr ,My ,, fm ,Hy v...-........ scene. All smiles vanished and Byrne swallowed his cigarefie. The day before +he invasion one of our minesweepers was hi+ wifh Jap shore fire. We moved in and 'look of? fheir wounded 'rhen moved on up and pounded fhe beach where +he fire had come from. Lower leff is 'l'he minesweep and l0wer righ'r is Doc+or Pearson +aking one of lhe boys 'ro sick bay. All 'rhe 'lime we were under consldnl' fhrear of enemy air a++acks. I+ is impossible 'fo remember ihe number of fimes we fired on enemy aircrafl diving on us or some ofher ship. L...-nl l

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We fired all nighf ai' snooper planes and feel we downed al' leas+ one if nof fwo planes +ha+ closed us. We had been ai' general quarrers nearly 24 hours by ihen. The nex+ af+ernoon a plane sneaked over The forma+ion and began a dive on +he Lowry For some reason he changed his mind and swerved for fhe des+royer asiern, missing her by aboui IO feel. The frip home was unevenfful. Our nexi ven- 'rure was wirh fhe Cruiser Sfriking force in an eFFor+ +o infercepf a Jap ba++leship force fhaf had shelled Mindoro. No aHack maferialized. We fhen moved in wi'rh rhe main bombardmenl' force in +he lnvasion of Luzon. These were days none of us will ever forgef. For fwo sfraiqhf days we were under consranl sui- cide affack. Ships on all sides were being hir. Upper leff shows one of our uniis being hi'r by a suicide plane. Upon righf is a shoi' of one frying fo sneak around aslern of us. One plane go+ wi+hin a couple of hundred yards before we shof his wing OFF and he +wis+ed over +he ship, missing us by a narrow margin. As we enfered Lingayen Gulf we saw one of our des'rroyers lhaf had been sunk resfing on fhe bo++om llower lefil. The lower righ'I' is a piclure of HMS AUSTRALIA. She held +he record of being hir by 5 suicide planes. The nex+ one +o hi+ her afier 'rhis piclure was 'raken knocked off number 3 slack. Close examinaiion will show 'l'he hole al her wa+erIine where one Jap crashed. In addirion +o air a'r+acks we were consfanily 'Fired a+ by shore ba+'feries. - ss X any 4 NX X X X5 9 S . ,WMI 7' ' R ' si rijuaef rf if: '

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The nexf day we moved in fo shell the beach again. The picfure in fhe upper leff shows a Jap ammuni- fion dump going up. We wenf fo fhe far end of fhe gulf where we supporfed fhe underwafer demolition feamg as fhey cleared away all fhe obsfacles and underwafer mines planfed by fhe Japs fo prevenf our boys from reaching shore. We shelled fhe beach wifh 5 inch and 40MM fo prevenf Jap arfillery or snipers from working on them. Thaf nighf the resf of fhe formafion leff fhe gulf and fhe Lowry sfayed in and sysfemafically shelled Jap posifions wifh 5 inch for fhe balance of fhe nighf. Every once in a while a briqhf red fire and explosion would occur and we would linow we had hif our marlm. The boys in CIC did a fine iob fhaf nighf, lreeping us off f fool: place fhrree days before fhe landings. On Janu- ary 9, I945, fhe firsf American froops wenf ashore. ln fhe firsf half hour we fired 600 rounds of 5 inch proiecfiles af fhe Nips. The picfures on fhe upper righf and lower leff show fhe firsf wave of American froops on fheir way fo fhe beach. Affer fhe firsf wave landed we moved in and provided close supporf. During fhe air affaclrs of fwo days before we had been hif by a 40MM from anofher ship. The hole in fhe bulkhead is shown below af fhe righf. This was fhe only damage done fo fhe Lowry in fhis' series of acfions. We were one of fhe few ships fo gef ouf so luclcy. he reefs and designafing fargefs as well All fhis