Lunga Point (CVE 94) - Naval Cruise Book

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address all hands over the general announcing system every night that he had something of interest to tell about our own operations or the progress of the war in general. He constantly kept us informed as far as he could conscien- tiously do so, and this expression of confidence in us undoubtedly made us try a little harder to deliver the goods. Between 1930 and Qojgo nearly every night while underway, it became quite common for us to hear the Boslnls Malta' sound attention over the general announcing system, followed by, 4'Testingg I-Q-3, Uh, this is the Executive Cfiicer speaking. I have the Captain here to talk to you, so everybody stand by. Everybody stand byf, Our mission in the Leyte operations was to proceed with CarDiv 29 to Leyte Gulf where our planes were to cover the convoys as they sailed through the Gulf in to the Leyte beaches. Our planes did a magnificent job of covering the convoys as well as our own Task Unit, and 74011-' i'Pollywogs', in supplicating attitude on occasion of our second crossing oi the line, bwlnw: Four 'tljollywogsi' with new 7 hair-do s, the work of the Royal Barbers. uianv at ship got salelx through to l.t-vie that might not otherwise hate inade it had it not been for our pilots. In tart, all the Squadrons in Cfarlliv QQ turned in a inost creditable per- fornianee. I nzs'r IM' I'i sixrvii. Tuesday, QI Noveinlier 1944: 08-ig Steaming as before. o9r,Q Sighted .lap 'Francis'. Ship went to Cieneral Qluarters. Plane passed overhead tiring her guns. Dis- tance about Boo yards. 11953-japanese plane disappeared bearing jgQ5O'.l'.'5 At 0952 uthat gong rang out its doleful notes. ln a llash, all hands were at their Battle Stations. Wfith all our speed, however, we did not fire a round at him. The Jap had paid us a surprise visit. Not a ship in our Division had picked him up until he was virtu- ally on us, having just sneaked in as they do occasionally. He came zooming by the Bis- marck Sea QCVE 955, which was dead ahead of us, crossed our bow, and new down our port side at about Qoo knots or better and only about 8oo feet above the water. He was strafing as he Hew by, but his strahng hit the waters of the Pacihc only. We could have opened fire with our Condition III guns very easily except for the fact that the Captain saw that our range was fouled by the Bzsmarclr Sm CCVE 955 and the iUa!fz'n Island QCVE 935, and they probably failed to open fire for the same reason. That Son of Nippon missed a golden opportunity to score, because it is not often that an enemy plane can get in that close without our knowing heas coming long before he gets within range of our guns. We will never know what he was up to, and, as he flew over the horizon, we again settled down to our routine with some- thing to talk about for the remainder of the Leyte operation, because it was the first Jap plane most of us had ever seen. We had a most unfortunate occurrence on the morning of 25 November when two of our Torpedo Bombers collided in mid-air at about 6ooo feet, within view of our ship. The cause ofthe collision was undetermined and resulted in the death of Ensign Wilbur Francis Bcrauer, USNR, the pilot of one of the planes, and his two Air Crcwmen, Emmett Douglas Fort, Jr., ARMQCT, and Cordon lvfalcolm Greene, AlXfIlVI jgc. The other plane made a successful forced landing and the entire crew was picked up by one of our screening destroyers. The loss of

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in-as ,Mr V W I lim-ww iluunmm , tlonxov ol lb l 's approau lung I.:-y te, Noveinber 11944. Even before we got there, we recalled that the Palau Islands had ,just recently been taken by our forces, in fact, all of them had not yet been taken, and haven't been at this writing. We were anchored about 8000 yards otl' Babel- thaup, one of the larger ot' the Palaus, and it added nothing to our peace ot' mind to learn. on anchoring, that thc xjaps still held that island. We understood, however, that though the island was heavily defended, all their big guns were pointed south in a tixed position. and fortunately, we were north of it. It was mighty fortunate for Hour side that the tlaps eouldn't train their guns on us, because the anchorage was literally full of all types ot' naval vessels. Naturally, we not only didn't get ashore here, but we had no desire to. It did atlord us much satisfaction, however, to listen to the radio in Combat and hear our Peleliu-based pilots talk- ing to each other as they bombed and strafed the Jap installations on Babelthaup, while, out- side, we could see the columns of smoke rising from the island, proving to our satisfaction that the attack had not been in vain. About the only recreation for all hands while in Kossol Roads on this particular visit was swimming over the side, which was enjoyed by the majority of otlieers and men, despite the possible presence ol' sharks that might be usyrnpathetie to thc enemy. Foreseeing this danger, however, thc llxee posted men with rifles on the forecastle and t'anta.il, and the Lite Guards in the No. 2 hflotor Wvhale Boat were 3180 armed. While the swimming was en- g, OO mjoyed, it was marred by an unfortunate oc- currence when Dr. Tirrell, our Senior Medical Ollieer, tried to keep up with the young Blue- jackets by diving from one of the Sponsons and came up with a broken arm, which later nec- essitated his being detached. Having taken on all the supplies and fuel we needed, on HlNlonday, I3 November 1944: 04-o8 Anchored as before. 0630 Stationed all special sea details. blade all preparations for getting underway. O657 Underway from Kos- sol Roads on various courses and speeds con- forming to channel. Captain at the eonn. Executive Ullicer and Navigator on the bridge. O71 5 Exercised at General Quarters as modified by special sea details. o726 Passed through Kossol Passage: took departure on course 275017 and p.g.e., 2780 p.s.c. Steaming at I5 knots. o74Q Secured special sea details. O747 e s to 18 knots. o75o Proceeding to position tooo in cruising formation 5-LS at IQ knots? We were linally underway on our first actual operation of thc war, and that night the Cap- tain Hgavc us the wordf, It seems that things were not going too well with General Mac- Arthur's invasion of Leyte as far as his supply line was concerned, and the Old Man told us that they had called on the Lunga Point and VC 85 for support. This talk of the Captain's was the tirst he had made to us to keep us in the know, but, from then on, he never failed to

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ghggr men was kt-1-iilytkilt hy .ill Ship rind sonnrl, hut wats iirtrptt-tl ill tht- . ngble spirit that is .tltxttys liotttid on tht- hg of one's Shiplliatrs, strontgly t-x1tl1'11t'1-tl ln, a grim determintttion to txirry on .ind lirintg honor to our ship :ind stittiidroii with t't'l'liIlll knowledge that thost' who hint- gout- lN'liUl't' tll't' equally responsililt' for httttrt' Alt'lllt'X't'llll'lllS. The Captain gittcttdt-tl the Mt-111o1'i41l St-1'x'i1-1-s the Squadron held lilbl' these 1111-11 411 l'Ullillll .Xir Strip on I7 Ijl'l't'lllllt'l' while tw txt-rc Qlllt'llHI't'tl at Mantis, i11 the .Xdinirtilty lsltinds. R 1f.v1aNo1-1 IS Sw 111113 1' After il rather lll't'SUlllt' sind 11ot too i11tt-1't-st- ing an ope1't1tion, and with our mission Sllt't't'SS- fully Complt'tt'd, wt' llt'2lill'l'l south, and tht- idea Oferossing the l'itittz1tort1g11i11zippt-ztllt-d to IllUSl of us on hoard, liergittst' the gl'l'2l.l. tiiatiority had at this time hceti trusty old Slit-llharks for at least four months, and the idea ol' gvttitig rt-- venge for all we took at tht' hands ol' King Neptune when we dt'st'rtt'd the ranks ol' tht- Pollywogs was most pleasing. WR- crossed the line this time on Sunday, Qti Ntivt-iiilit-t', and tht' great majority ol' ottr Pollywogs wt-rt' in tht' Sttll2itll'Ull. As at matter of fact, the only ones wt' 1't't'11ll otttsidt- oi' the Squadron that walked the fonts on this st-cond crossing were Lt. Cdr. Sands, l.t. tlorkran, Wat-r, Sic, Longoria, Flc, rind Mtilntosh, llA1t'. In any event, we had 111-otiiirl 1511 to work on, and when it was all ow-1' wt- lk-lt that, after all, it was worth being itiitizttcd jttst to wreak vengeance on that inno- t't-nt Zlllll ttiisuspt-citing hunch of 'cland- l1tl1l1t'1's.l' Wt- had hardly gotten the ship looking ship- shzipt' l1l'l.l'l' tht- crossing the line ceremonies NN'llt'Il till t'Mo11dziy, 27 Novcinher 1944: 118- 1 2 Str-arniiig as ht.-fore. 0813 Changed to 'lii111t- font- og st-t ship's clock hack one hour. o84o t' s to 414 knots. 0841 Stationed all the ztnrhoi' dt-tail. ogto Commenced manuvering on variotts courses and speeds to enter Seeadler llarhor, Adiniralty Islands. IOIO Anehored to tht- starhoard anchor in I2 fathoms of water, 43 fathoms of chain to the waterjs edge, in St't'2.lCllt'I' Harbor, Wlestern part of Admiralty Islands, in Berth XV-go. 1032 Secured the zinrhor detail. Set normal port routine. .' 't will Sol l . lictwvt-11 ollicers and chiefs 11t Pityilu. 57