Battle Stations - a wartime blog
Of the four years I spent in the U.S. Navy, only a few hours were actually spent in situations where I was involved directly with killing people or in avoiding being killed. The remainder of all that time was spent eating, sleeping, dreaming, training sailors, taking liberty, being trained, standing watch, reading, writing, sailoring, romancing, visiting exotic places or watching the same movies over and over again until we could trade them with another ship.
The incidents I recount in my wartime blog entries are but the punctuation marks in about 1500 days of relative inactivity seventy or so years ago.
Now as I write this in my 93rd year, now and then I’m beset by doubts about the accuracy of my reporting. So, I applied a test by comparing my account with the official records of the Navy Department. I reviewed for example; official U.S. Marine Corps account of activities in China on the Shantung Peninsula with what I wrote and they are in accord. Also, the U.S. Army officers on my ship wrote in April 1945 about the Kamikaze attacks at Okinawa. Again, they agreed with mine. Thus I feel confident that I am still telling it “like it was”.
After that long preamble I’ll here and now recount what stuck with me since one day in April 1945. I was in charge of the midships starboard twin Bofors 40 millimeter anti-aircraft gun. The diameter of a projectile from this weapon is about an one and one-half inches. This gun was served by a crew of about a dozen sailors. Some from the deck divisions, and some were stewards who rarely came on deck except to train on the gun or to reach the ladder for liberty.
Radio and radar confirmed an imminent air attack. “General Quarters” was sounded and all guns were manned. Nearby, destroyers began a barrage of anti-aircraft fire. Soon we could see Japanese planes evading that gunfire and coming at us. Most sailors who have experienced this have remarked, “That plane was flying directly at me.” I’m sure it was.
My gun was firing; actually it was a twin gun – two barrels firing alternately. We were shooting clips of H.E.I.T. from one barrel. Those letters stood for High Explosive Incendiary Tracer. From the other barrel the projectiles were armor-piercing. The tracer shells permitted us to confirm that we were on target.
On this occasion, an ammunition passer, a big man in that crowded iron tub surrounding the gun moat, saw the oncoming plane, aimed, I’m sure, at him and he froze, immobile at his station. Not only was he not passing the clips of ammunition, but in the crowded tub no one else could get around him to do his job.
As the officer in charge, I reached over the edge of the tub, it was about three or four feet high, and with the flat of my hand I slapped the side of his head hard. He came out of his trance immediately and resumed the passing of ammunition.
The action was concluded when our shells hit the Japanese plane and it crashed into the sea only a few hundred feet from where we were standing.
A few Japanese airmen were dead, a shipboard of American seamen were elated, and I reported immediately to the Captain. “Sir, I struck an enlisted man.” I said nothing about us shooting down a plane, nothing. What I was telling him was that I had committed a court martial offense which could be punishable by a term in a Naval prison. The Captain promptly responded “Did the sailor say anything?” I said, “No.” He then said, “Forget it.” But I didn’t.
M F Roberts