Shangri La (CV 38) - Naval Cruise Book

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Avenger over Okinawa. Shima. One Helldiver spun in over the field with no chance of escape for pilot or crew, while a sister hit the sea five miles north of the tiny, phosphate island. The pilot and crew were rescued and Hnally transferred back aboard by destroyers. A TBM Avenger was set afire by antiaircraft fire, forcing pilot and aircrew- man to bail out a sea. Covered by fighter planes, a Dumbo amphibian rescue plane picked up the wounded aircrewman but the pilot was lost before a life raft could be dropped. Thus the carrier suffered her first war casualties even as she chalked up her first splashed Bogey. The Hazelwood and the Haggard, destroyers on duty as radar pickets, were hit by Kamikazes on the same day as the enemy commenced an all-out war r I Q I I I x v as 'F v 1 l l I l i l I l

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v 1 1 field and southern Okinawa until Kamikaze attacks on the hospital ship Comfort, and her escorts, on the 29th, necessitated diversion. Flying night CAP over the task force, Ensign John S. Patton was vectored out to intercept a bogey picked up on shipboard radar fifty miles from the formation. Silhouetted in the morning twilight, the Jap Betty fell to the Hghter , pilot's flaming guns at 0233, April 29th, 1945-the Shangri-La's first flag on the island scoreboard. Enemy planes heckled the task force throughout the day as carrier planes raided Kikai Shima to the north of Okinawa. Intense antiaircraft fire accounted for three Sharzgri-Lal planes in seventy sorties flown over Wan Airield, Kikai Invasion fleet south of Yontan Field.

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At sea off Okinawa. against the invading fleet. COn'ly a month before, the Haggard had suffered damage in ramming a submarinej Task Force guns and the CAP shot down seventeen enemy planes during raids which continued through the 30th, gvvith the Shangrz'-La CAP chalking up a Jill stalker. Enemy troops boreiithe' brunt of air strikes through May 3rd as they attempted a counter-attack against Tenth Army troops. Midst all the fury of War and the devastation wrought ash-ore by daily bombings and straiing, the Navy spared no effort to rescue downed aviators or personnel in distress. Through April and May, almost daily rain squalls ham- pered flight operations ashore and at sea. During one such rainy day, the ship's