February 16, 1945 - A Day to Remember

The following is from a diary written by Bill Morton (SoM3/c) written the day we sank the picket ships off the coast of Japan. It is not from memory. It will probably bring back some memories many of you have long forgotten. The feelings expressed at the end were the true feelings I had at the time and which were recorded then, not something I added upon reflection.

     What a day today was! We are a virgin no more since we fired ourfirst shots in this war today. I had the four to eight watch this morning so when the time came for our regular GQ in the mornings, I was ready.

       Today we strike Tokyo. If the people at home only knew this was about to happen, I thought as I put on my heavy clothes to go topside to my GQ station on the bridge. At 0620 it was called.What a dreary day it was cold, cloudy and a choppy sea. Good cover for the fleet but it also hampers our attacks on the target since it may be obscured from any altitude.

       For a short while it sleeted, but it stopped almost immediately. The first strike left the carriers at 0645 and shortly afterward we were secured for chow with a warning to man our stations on the double if the alarm sounded, so, I returned to my watch. I was right in the middle of removing my heavy clothes when the General Alarm sounded.

       I am sure, had someone timed me, I would have been up to the bridge in a matter of something less than a minute. That includes putting on the heavy clothes, dashing to the bridge and getting my phones on. (1JW phone talker).

       The cause of our alarm was a small fishing vessel on the horizon off our port bow. The essential thing was to destroy it as soon as possible in case they had seen us and were radioing our position. We opened fire almost immediately and at the first salvo she started running away.Then both forward five inch mounts opened up and the shells were dropping all around it, then, it turned into the wind,stopped, and dropped anchor and they abandoned ship. We pulled along side them to pick up any survivors.

       The boat was a funny looking thing with its forward part stacked high with barrels. It looked like an old time galley with the bridge slightly aft. The starboard side had been blown out by a five inch shell and barrels were floating around in the water. The after mast was shot off and the whole bridge (if you can call it that) was shattered and shrapnel scarred. For a good while there were no signs of life until we saw one survivor clinging to a piece of wood.

       Everyone started waving and motioning him to come over to the ship but he didn't seem to trust us and made no effort to come aboard.The captain had swung us around to the leeward side and he slowly drifted down on us. Once a wave flipped his board over and we thought he was done for, but he finally came up and just to make sure we didn't think he had drowned, he grinned and waved.

       When he came alongside, they threw him a heaving line and motioned him to put it around his body but instead he put it around his neck and clamped it in his teeth. At first, everyone thought he was going to try and hang himself but finally he made an effort to come aboard and didn't have the strength so he was hauled aboard and frisked for any weapon he might have. When they stood him up to take him into sick bay, I heard him suck in his breath through his gritted teeth and wince in pain. That is when we saw the wound in his leg--a big gaping gash that looked as though someone had sliced his leg clear to the bone and then let the meat hang down.It was not bleeding and it had probably been stopped by the saltwater.

       We backed off from his boat and proceeded to slap some 5" shells in to sink it. We couldn't get the dammed thing to sink because it was made of wood. Then, as we started to pull away they noticed two more survivors but the Captain said "To Hell with them. We have to rejoin the formation" so, we leftthem. It was a damned hard thing to do but the safety of the fleet comes before two enemy lives.

       At last we were secured from GQ and sent below so they could finish feeding the crew but I was just half through my meal when they called us to GQ for the return of the strikes. It wasn't long before they started telling the officers all of the men hadn't eaten so I stuck my bid in and got below for some nice hot flapjacks and coffee, then returned to my GQ station.

       About fifteen minutes later two of our planes circled us at an extremely low altitude and as they went by the second time they waved and signalled for us to follow them. It was then we noticed some planes on our starboard side bombing and strafing some target below the horizon and thin spirals of smoke rising from that direction. Immediately all engines went ahead flank to 25 knots and we headed out there.

       As our range closed and the target came into view we made out two small craft about the size of our sub chasers and by now they were burning fiercely amidships. As our planes swooped in on dive bombingruns, the ship on the left was returning fire from what appeared to be a 50 caliber machine gun mounted forward. This is the one that had aerial wires strung between the masts. As soon as we came into sight, our planes left and we opened fire with the forward mounts.

       After two or three salvos, we pulled alongside to pick up survivors. When we did, one man swam around to the other side,evidently to protect himself from any machine gun fire we might direct toward them. One man was hanging on the rudder which was under water most of the time and another man was acting like he was dead but we picked him up anyhow and in perfectly good condition.The other two made no effort to come aboard at all and I don't blame them because one of the men had a Thompson sub-machine gun and opened up when he thought he had the word from the bridge. If they had any desire at all to come aboard, that soon changed their minds.

       When she floated down our starboard side, you could see two or three Japanese in the very forward part of the bow that had either committed harikiri or caught some shrapnel because you could see their guts hanging out and blood was running down the deck. One was thrashing his arms about in the last throes of death and it reminded me of the times we butchered hogs and cut their throats while they were still kicking. It was really a sickening mess.

       We saw there was nothing we could do so we backed off and blasted again and again. The second and third salvos hit her oil tank so we left her all ablaze and turned to the other one. As we turned away the Jap that had been on the rudder climbed aboard the fantail.

       We shot a few shells into the second one that sent smoke and flames skyward and then moved in for prisoners. There wasn't a sign oflife aboard her or in the water around her. We sent several more salvos into her and she began to sink rapidly, her stern going under first from the weight of the engines and then her nose slid under and all kinds of debris included in which were charts, half burned books, life preservers, a flag and lots of wood. Then, as the bow went under and had already disappeared, a large piece of the side came up and on it was four Japs. Then out of the wreckage and debris came more bobbing up and grabbing wood to help them afloat. The total count was ten. Where they were or how they lived through the firing, I don't know, but they were in the water and we began the job of pulling them out.

       At first they wouldn't take the line heaved to them but pushed it away. Finally, they thought better of it and six of them came aboard. The first four that we spotted wouldn't come aboard but let themselves drift right on by. Two of them were Japanese Naval officers so evidently these two ships were patrol ships or training ships. I think two of them wanted to come aboard but one of the officers kept holding up his finger and telling them they couldn't.(this is an assumption) Finally when they had drifted well past our stern they signalled they wanted to come aboard.

       Two of them had pretty severe injuries. One had half his face shotaway and the other had a bit of his side and rump well shot up. We transferred the three most seriously wounded to the carrier Bunker Hill this evening for better medical facilities along with two of the most intelligent for interrogation by intelligence officers. Westill have seven aboard with minor wounds.

       They found out tonight through a book of terms in Japanese, that one of the fellows was only 13 years old. He is nice looking and seems to be very intelligent when we use sign language. It is funny to watch them eat because they do not know some of our foods but they really get it down in a hurry. Every time you hand them food, or refill their cups with coffee, they give you two or three half bows from a sitting position. I have never seen them ask each other for the cream or sugar or anything. When they want something, they merely get up and reach for it. We had cigarettes on the table for them and one handed the other one of them and that is the first time I had seen them do it. The youngest one really likes coffee. He drank four cups.

       They hardly seem human when you are around them, but are more like well trained monkeys than anything because they go by your sign language and everything they say is in Japanese which is more like the chattering of a monkey than anything else when they talk fast.

       When they brought them aboard, all the fellows were standing around and pulling that "hero stuff"--"Kill the bastards!", "Throw them back in the water.", "What are you carrying him for? If he can't walk, to Hell with him!"

       Even though they are our enemies they are human, wounded and thoroughly beaten. I cannot feel the enmity toward them that some of the other fellows show or, at least, they put on a show of it.What they need is rest, medical attention, food and clothing and I think we should give it to them now even though we might not have been so fortunate as they have been had we been in the same position. I can understand why we would have had to shoot them if they would have refused to come aboard. It would have endangered our fleet if we hadn't and a plane might rescue them with the information. After all, this is still total war and will be until the day the last Jap and German have surrendered.