Author: steve

1-24-16

In early January 1945, the ships of Task Force 38 were not quite done with the Philippines yet.   They spent much of the early part of the month bombarding Formosa and other targets.   On Jan 9, the Task Force headed into the South China Sea.   Halsey believed the bulk of what was left of the IJ Navy was anchored near French Indo China (Vietnam). On the 11th, the Boston joined up with some ships from TG38.2, and formed a Bombardment Group consisting of: 2 battleships (New Jersey and Wisconsin), 2 heavy cruisers (Boston & Baltimore), 4 lights cruisers (Wilkes Barre, San Juan, Pasadena and Seattle), screened by 26 destroyers   –   all screening the carriers Enterprise, Lexington, Essex, Hancock and Independence.   The Japanese fleet was gone, but this group struck and shelled Saigon, Canton and HongKong, before returning to further attack Formosa.   This was all part of the lead-up to the Iwo Jima Invasion.

Frank Studenski’s account of January 21, 1945:   This morning planes took off to hit Formosa, so far everything has been pretty quiet.   About 0900 hours torpedo defense sounded, some bogies were reported in the area, we were at battle stations for about one hour.   Several planes were shot down during the day by our fighters.   Task Force 38.2 was the hardest hit, the Langley took a bomb hit on her flight deck and the Ticonderoga’s air defense was wiped out and her main battery put out of commission.   One destroyer was badly strafed.   Of the 17 planes that came in, 13 of them were shot down. About 1730 hours torpedo defense was again sounded, but no planes came in. We secured one hour later. During sunset torpedo defense planes were reported all around us.   But our night fighters kept them at a distance.   Around 2000 hours we had an alert, but everything was quiet soon after. A plane’s engine could be heard, which did not sound like a Hellcat fighter or Avenger bomber.   It flew right over us at low altitude and could be clearly seen.   It had two engines, which of course was a Jap plane, because we did not have any twin engine planes in the area.   After he flew over us he swooped down and dropped a fish, he was trying to hit the carrier Cabot.   We immediately opened fire.   We were the only ship firing.   He got over to our port quarter and then the five inch opened fire and then the 40mm batteries opened fire.   He was quickly hit and he was a ball of flames and hit the water.   The other ships started firing, but we had already hit him.   Several other bogies were reported in the area.   This plane was a twin engine “Irving.”   We secured from general quarters about 2100 hours.   Tonight we are heading for Okinawa Islands.

(Just in case you though it was dull and boring out there . . . .   Steve)

1-7-16

Inside joke.   No, really.   Bill is working on the officer list for the site.   He automated the crew list years ago, and was able to access crew data in a way that was relatively “user-friendly”.   Through programming and various tedious cross-checks, he put together the crew records database that so many visitors to this site check out regularly.   Unfortunately, he is forced to extrapolate Officer Info from the decklogs   –   a tedious and daunting mess that is not for the faint of digital heart.   I’ll let him explain it himself   –   as I am certain I cannot do it justice even slightly.

Lisa is working on the website –   overhauling the way it looks and the way it works.   I’m sure I’m not doing justice to the effort she’s putting in, so I’ll just shut up and say thanks.   (She has also been working on the “look” of the site as it appears on people’s cell phones   –   a whole new reality that I had not even considered.)

Bill’s been nagging me for the last couple of years to join Facebook   –   which I equate with root canals, knee surgery, going to church, enduring Presidential campaigns and colonoscopies.   However, I finally relented, capitulated, surrendered.   Yup, I’m in.   Bill’s been posting stuff to the CA-69 Facebook page all along, oftentimes starting his post with words such as “Steve posted this on the website…..”

Lisa is adding several new pics of the ship onto the website masthead.   It was my job to search our digital USS Boston files for pictures of the ship   –   which was a lot like looking through a gigantic pile of stuff in the garage for a screwdriver.   Anyway, I found this cool shot of the ship from January 1946 as she left Japanese waters, heading home to San Francisco for the last time.   She’s looking a bit shabby   –   needs a paint job for sure.

steve

January 1, 2016

Happy New Year

History is a long, slow burn.  The story of our species on this planet is piled high with ethnic hatreds – sometimes centuries in the making; ambitious and ruthless conquests of peoples and territories, colonialism and long-simmering resentments.  Oh, and the story is also piled high with megalomaniacal characters who have added their own spice to  history.

The foundation of World War II was laid down on the ruins of WWI  –  the Great War to End All Wars.  All the ambitious fires of nationalism still glowed in the embers of defeat and the redrawing of the world’s map and the redistribution of conquered territories.  The rise of unquenchable nationalism in post-war Japan (our ally in WWI) and Germany in the early 30’s led directly to War a decade later.

The redrawing of the Maps of Europe and the Middle East after WWII has directly led to everything we see unfolding in the Muslim World today – from Afghanistan to Palestine and from North Africa to Syria.  Old resentments, old colonial alignments, ancient tribal hatreds . . .  a long, slow, burn.

And we have the problems that Japan created in China and Southeast Asia when it decided eight decades ago to expand its territory and conquer the countries (and peoples) needed and wanted to support its ambitions for their Asian Axis of Prosperity, centered, of course, in Tokyo.  The horrors they inflicted on the Chinese, Burmese, SouthEast Asians, Indonesians, and all the Pacific Island nations they conquered have not been forgotten. While our relations with Japan “normalized” after the war and they have emerged as a strong ally of the US, the Koreans have not forgotten.  The Chinese have not forgotten.  Their emergence as a world economic power and a center of international influence, combined with their increasing military power and their actions in the South China Sea should cause everyone to “keep their fingers crossed.”  History is a long, slow burn.

New Year’s Day marks a day of hope across the globe.  Let us continue to hope that we have all become a little smarter over the last century, and that we have actually learned something from our garrulous history, and that maybe, perhaps, we can find better ways to inch  forward.

Happy New Year (I really mean it.)

steve

12-19-15

Right from the horses mouths (excerpts):

When we first got to Pearl Harbor, when we were first going through the channel, I remember that you could see oil bubbling up, and it looked like smoke here and there. We were tied up next to the Arizona, and you could look down and see it lying there.   Bob Knight

When we first arrived, it was hard to believe that two years had passed since the December 7^th Attack. The Arizona was ghastly looking and some of the other ships were still half sunk.   George Pitts

LIBERTY

For liberty we went out to Waikiki. We went swimming a lot. We’d go out with a bunch of guys, but I never did tangle up with the women too much. I had a girlfriend back home, and it just wasn’t my thing.     I know some of the guys, the first thing they did when they got off the ship – they all headed down to line up on Front St, I think it was, in Honolulu. That’s where the prostitutes were. They couldn’t wait to get to get down there. For some guys, it was the first stop.   Bob Knight

Well, of course, there were the cathouses — two dollars a pop. The lines! Guys would line up from the ‘registration desk’ all the way down the stairs and out onto the sidewalks below.   Pat Fedele

Pearl Harbor was positively a Liberty Town. It was a sailor’s haven. Barrooms were everywhere. Tattoo parlors everywhere. Club dancers everywhere. You could get a milkshake… they had ice cream, movies. You could go horseback riding, which I did one day. That was a mistake because I never knew anything about horses, and this horse knew that I didn’t know anything and he ran all over the place and I’m just holding on. What did he do? He ended up running right back where he came from. He got rid of me!   George Pitts

A lot of time was spent on the beach swimming; especially at Waikiki Beach. We also went to Diamond Head. About halfway up, there’s a place on the road where the current used to shoot up a geyser of water in between the rocks. The pressure was so strong that the water would shoot up and soak you where you stood. It’s just like the geysers at Yellowstone. It was spectacular!

As I said, we got a chance to see and do everything, but once we got on that ship, that was it. All done. No more fun.   Pat Fedele

 

 

12-12-15

The Boston crew find themselves in Pearl Harbor among the wrecks of the Sneak Attack. They will spend the month with lots of liberty, which they relish with the energy and abandonment of 18 year-olds. When they are not enjoying liberty, the ship sets sail, joining other cruisers and destroyers in joint bombardment and anti-aircraft exercises.

During that period, more warships arrived at Pearl Harbor; some were redeployed from other Task Groups or duties in the Pacific, some were brand-new and fresh from their shakedown cruises. The new arrivals were integrated into the joint training exercises in the waters off Oahu, practicing formation drills as well as ammo training.

In the big picture of WWII, the problem of the Pacific was put indefinitely on the back burner. Even the attack of Pearl Harbor could not be dealt with — primarily because we had only a skeleton Navy of old clunkers (from WWI era mostly) that were spread out across the vast Pacific. (A do-nothing Congress would not free up the Will or the Money to fight the War that was engulfing the world prior to Dec. 7, 1941.)   The naval base of the Pacific, Pearl Harbor, was decimated in the attack, and the only lucky break we caught was that the aircraft carriers were still out on maneuvers and were not seen by the Japanese carrier pilots.

By the time of the attack, our Isolationist Congress was doing everything it could to keep us out of the War in Europe. A persuasive Winston Churchill kept nudging and working President Roosevelt, who eventually involved us by implementing the Lend-Lease program, by which we supplied arms, industrial equipment, planes, ships, railroads, etc. to the about-to-go-under Britain. It wasn’t until after Pearl Harbor that we engaged in frantic shipbuilding and planning for a two-front War (the largest theater by far was the Pacific).

In December 1943 and into early January the men, without realizing the pages of history being written around them, were participants in the creation of the largest armada of naval warships ever assembled. On January 19, 1944, the Boston waited her turn to depart Pearl Harbor. On that day, the beginning of the End for the Empire of Japan assembled in a massive array of warships off the coast of Oahu. Task Force 58 was born.

The ships maneuvered westerly – heading for their first campaign – the liberation of the Marshall Islands.