2-27-16
From Feb. 23 through the 27th, the ships focused on launching carrier plane bombing strikes on Tokyo and the surrounding areas, where much of Japan’s airplane industries were centered. The goal was to continue to lessen Japan’s abilities to move planes and launch airstrikes against what was to be our last invasion of Japanese defensive territory prior to the Surrender. I am talking, of course, about Okinawa, which for the sailors aboard the ships of Task Force 58 (totaling around 100,000, BTW), began on March 1, 1945.
I digress. It was my intention months ago to harvest the hours of interview tapes I have (backup drives) of Julian Goldstein, Bob Knight, Pat Fedele, Frank Studenski, George Pitts and John Farkas (original crewmembers.) [I also have many hours of interview with Norm Bayley, who boarded the ship late in the war and was the Commanding Officer of the Marine Detachment. (Norm turned 98 this past October)] I wanted to post a couple of audio files in which Pat and George (whose stations aboard the ship gave them amazing “visuals” of the action) give a summary of their memories of Iwo Jima. Alas, that did not happen – I did not find the time or the energy for that endeavor . . . . So, I guess you’ll have to settle for reading . . .
From Baked Beans, Vol 2:
When we bombarded Saipan, Tinian, Iwo Jima . . . my ship was, for the lack of a better term, really alive – we were in motion. The ship was firing like crazy to make cover for the Marines that were landing. Actually, I never realized how much hell those fellows went through until I saw the PBS series about the Pacific. The segment on Saipan and Tinian caused me to remember; really brought back memories and I never realized at that time the hell those guys went through . . . except for the fact that aboard the ship we had an intercom system hooked up to the landing ships and we could hear everything that was going on, especially in the Fire Control Rooms. We couldn’t see it of course – no television, but we could hear those guys having one hell of an experience. It was very . . . very . . . well, it was an experience you just could not forget. Julian Goldstein
We supported the landing. They were firing rockets at us. Our gooney bird was up there. He was telling us where to point the guns and we took care of that problem. On the second day, maybe the third day, I’m looking up at the hilltop through the binoculars. I could see the group of guys up there and I saw them put up the flag, which turned out to be the wrong flag. Later they put up a bigger flag – the one we now all know about – the famous one that became the statue. I saw that too.
The poor Marines. When they landed out of the transport rigs, you could see them getting fired on from pillboxes everywhere. A couple of brave Marines who had tanks on their backs crawled up. I watched them. They opened up and you could see big flames shooting out – then I saw guys running out from the holes all roasted and on fire. That’s the only way they could stop those guys – they were holding up the landing.
What entered my mind during all this was the year before, on July 4th, we bombarded the hell out of Iwo Jima. We didn’t see any pillboxes. In a year’s time, they built everuything up – new airfield, all kinds of tunnels, etc,etc. – while the war was going on. They say that the walls and tunnels were a couple of feet thick. How they formed them and built them – I’ll never know. Pat Fedele
We weren’t there when they were landing, but we got there while they were all fighting, though. We were parked – we weren’t anchored, so we could get out of there in a hurry. We were about two miles off the island. Both our 8 inch and 5 inch – for two days we did nothing but fire those things. We had certain targets. That place was loaded with caves – they had a whole city underneath that island – all tunnels. In some of the huge caves they had their weaponry. We received six salvos that landed close to the ship. That no sooner happened than our main battery went off and there were no more salvos. They knew where it came from and knocked it right out.
We kept banging away at the certain targets we were supposed to do. We kept at it all day long. At night, we’d stop firing and we’d cruise back and forth. I wish there was some way I could explain what it looked like at night. Both armies were fighting each other and you saw nothing but thousands and thousands of streaks of yellow – those were the tracer bullets going back and forth. On our ship we had a big telescopic sight that we used to read our signal flags. I was using that to scan the island. I saw a tank – I believe it was ours – a tank that would hold maybe two men – a small one. I saw that thing pop up into the air, do a big spiral, and come down and crash. It must have run over a mine.
The planes – what a sight that was! We were all mesmerized. The dive bombers and the fighter planes. The fighter planes had belly tanks for extra gas. The dive bombers would go up over Mt. Suribachi and drop their bombs. They’d explode, of course, and fire would all go down the side of the mountain. But when the fighters went up, they’d drop their belly tanks. What an explosion those things made as far as flames go. They’d have the whole side of the mountain in flames. And the planes are going back and forth constantly. I don’t know how anyone could live through that.
We spent two days there and fired all our 8 inch and5 inch until we ran out of ammunition. At one point, the 40 millimeters opend up, but I don’t know why. Maybe some small boats were trying to get out of there. That was quite a mission. But Iwo Jima was only wht, 300 or 500 miles from Japan – a very important place.They could stock it with planes and ammunition no sweat. They died like hell trying to hold onto that place. We lost – what – 5,000 men? A small little island like that. George Pitts
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