Toledo (CA 133) - Naval Cruise Book

Page 11 text:

MIKI over, HELENA and TOLEDO enter Pearl for liberty For the first time since the Taft administra- tion, the truth of that old chestnut, 'CA sailor is never too tired to go on liberty, was placed in doubt. MIKI had taken a heavy toll, and there were bodies aboard that were powerless to make it to the gangway. Never- theless, after a sound sleep of, say, ten min- utes, even the worst cases had recovered, and of we went . . . to-Honolulu, to Waikikit, to a bar. Three days, to a sailor, is sufficient time to see all the sights of a fair-sized continent. A little island like Oahu was just duck soup. Full of thoughts of the pretty hula gals and humming 66Now Is the Hour, we made our reluctant way to the ship as practically qualified natives. Sea details, one long blast on the bugle, and TOLEDO was once more doing what she did best . . . and in a westerly direetion. Japan lay ahead, and the intervening days were filled with training. exercises, and the inevitable drill periods. Over the dateline, lose at day. turn the eloek bark at 1900, darken ship, Man Your Bat- tle Stations! Tokyo, here we eome!

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The TOLEDO left Long Beach for the Orient on the evening of 14 October 1949. The operating schedule called for a tour of duty for the cruiser in WesPac, or Western Pacific, including Japanese waters and prob- ably the Philippines. With CA-133 were the HELENA, our partner in CruDiv 3, De- stroyer Squadron 1, and several auxiliaries. The trip over was routine, with the ex- ception of Operation MIKI, a minor peace- time invasion practice about the size of the recent affair at Normandy. Almost the whole Pacific Fleet was there-carriers, cruisers, destroyers, and auxiliaries, with the Army and Air Force also operating in force. For nearly two weeks, our diet in- cluded dawn and dusk alerts, General Quar- ters, Air Defenses, and miscellaneous exer- cises and night actions . . . never more than twenty-two hours a day. Climax of MIKI was the mock invasion of Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands, defended by 6cAggT9SSOT,, forces supplied by our sister services. After a pre-invasion bombardment by the big guns and aircraft, waves of landing craft hit the beaches north of Barber's Point, and not long afterward we had met the enemy and they were ours. TOLEDO and HELENA then proceeded to Pearl Hwrbor for liberty -three whole days-before again heading westward. f it v ff 1 X ' 1 ' f'f' rf' f, ,' ,,wf,fy,Uki7,', ,f f

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