Shangri La (CV 38) - Naval Cruise Book

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l , , V , Shangri-La at North Island, San Diego, Calif. and a day after commissioning in Boston, 9,882 water-miles away. A few days' liberty in Yokohama and Tokyo gave her crew a chance to stretch their legs on land after seventy-eight days at sea. Prom the naval base at Yokosuka to Tokyo they saw evidence of the Shungti-La s air strikes and found that the meek, short- statured inhabitants little resembled the conquerors in the infamous March of Death, Wake, or home prisons. The bewildered people of Japan bowed and scraped to Allied servicemen, walked in the street to keep from crowding side- walks, and cleared shops as the Americans followed their national pastime of souvenir hunting. The ,Shangri-La' stood out from Tokyo Bay October l, 1945, en route to Buckner Bay, Okinawa, for passengers on the Magic Carpet run to the States. On a flying trip she crossed the North Pacific in fourteen days, arriving in San Pedro, California, on October 22, 1945. After a rousing welcome in San Pedro on Navy Day, the carrier received her third skipper, Captain E. A. Cruise. Captain Cruise relieved Captain Whitehead on November 26, 1945, as the carrier lay moored to the long dock at North Island, San Dieo. Captain Cruise came to the Shangrz'-La after a tour of duty as Chief of Staff to Rear Admiral Ragsdale at Alameda, California. A graduate of Annapolis, he won his wings at Pensacola in 1925. During twenty years of naval aviation

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l l r i l 1 l1 Of Q .5 ll Q , the shelter of Missouri guns. Even the water of Tokyo Wan reeked of the decay and ruin that met the eye on either beach. Broken, scattered blocks of once-proud fortifications and rusting hulks of bombed-out ships lined the shallows and break- waters near the bay's mouth, south of the B-29 -blitzed Yokohama and Tokyo. About 0900 on September 2, 1945, the formally attired delegates of the Imperial Japanese Government bowed aboard the Missouri for the signing of a formal surrender. They were met by khaki-clad, tieless American Naval and Army oflicers with representatives from each Allied Power, present to sign the surrender document at a table set up on the battleship's spotless, broad teakwood Navy Blimp Welcomels Carrier to Fog-Shrouded San Pedro Bay. quarterdeck. Navy planes roared overhead in a maximum launch from carriers plying the waters off Japanese home islands. Paratroopers held strategic air- Helds and defense positions ashore in a bloodless occupation, while Navy personnel took over local signal control points as the job of cleaning up began. Landing forces from ships anchored in Tokyo Bay were unanimous in requests for dis- infectant, quickly absorbing available supplies in their eagerness to rid quarters ashore of unwelcome occupants. Two destroyers and a carrier en route to the occupation from Ulithi were diverted to Saipan for emergency supplies of DDT. The Shlangrz'-Lal steamed into Tokyo Bay on September 16. 1945, a year

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he has served aboard all of the original IEIVG carriers in the United States Navy, Langley, Wrz'ghlt, Lexington, Ranger and Saratoga, commencing World War Il as Executive Officer of the latter. The Shangrz'-La proceeded to the Puget Sound Navy Yard at Bremerton, Washington, for drydocking and availability during Christmas of 1945. Many of her personnel enjoyed week-end trips to the nearby Cascade Mountains for skiing trips, while others scoured the beaches of Puget Sound for clams and oysters. The Shangrz'-La spent New Year's Eve steaming south along the Oregon coastline en route to Panama and carrier-pilot qualilication trials off Norfolk. Once again new Tigercats landed aboard her broad decks but trials were cut short by orders to proceed to the West Coast for a new duty, the atomic bomb tests at Bikini. Returning to San Diego via Panama Canal, she spent April and May of l946 practicing with radio-controlled drones, launched from the Shangrz'-La flight deck and maneuvered by mother planes in rehearsals for Operations Cross- roads. On May Zlst, she departed from San Diego with a deckload of drones, en route to Roi Island, Kwajalein Atoll, in the Marshall Islands, main base for the Bikini tests. Dick Haymes Broadcast - Navy Day, 1945.