Author: steve

4-17-11

(from the National Archives)

Battle Stations!! The 40mm anti-aircraft guns are manned and ready during Operation Desecrate (the raid on the Japanese stronghold Palau east of Mindanao ) at the end of March 1944.   The Boston (shown here) was a unit of Task Group 38.1. One of the heavy aircraft carriers of the task group is visible on the horizon.

4-9-11

This photo is from the National Archives, retrieved by Bill during his research in Washington DC.   The photo is dated 14 September 43-45.   I don’t know what that means.

When pictures are posted on the internet, some definition is lost because of “file-size” constraints and that people have different size monitors and different types of computers.   A close look at the photo shows four other ships (barely visible) off on the horizon, suggesting that in this picture the Boston is on station in a task group.   This picture then, was likely shot on September 14, 1944 during Operation King. The Boston was supporting the invasion of Morotai in the southern Philippines.

The guys in the lower right are fixing something on the deck.   The guy in the gun turret has earphones on and appears to be checking something.   The uniform below him is just hanging around, drying in the sun.

3-19-11

After the signing of the documents of Surrender in the ceremony in Tokyo Bay aboard the battleship Missouri on September 4, 1945, the crew aboard CA-69 got the bad news   –   they were not going home.   Instead, the Boston became the flagship of a group of vessels tasked with Demilitarization Duty   –   the capture and destruction of small arms, submarines and suicide boat facilities up and down the coast of Honshu.   Much of their time was spent on the east coast of Honshu, north of Tokyo.

This is exactly the area where the epicenter of last week’s massive earthquake is located — just offshore of Sendai — a coastal city that received a lot of attention from the Boston. I can’t shake the images — captured on video and posted on YouTube of the tsunami waters raging outside the windows of the airport, sweeping cars, boats and buildings past the terminal while horrified passengers ran away from the glass.

The coastal cities and towns from Sendai to Tokyo (the areas of “direct hit” by the tsunami) where well known to the Boston sailors.   Also well-known to the crewmembers were Hiroshima (still smoldering 8 weeks after the Bomb when they visited) and Nagasaki. The men had a close-up view of the hellish scene of mass destruction unleashed by these two “Atomic Bombs”.

Now, almost seven decades after unleashing the fury of America following their ill-advised attack on Pearl Harbor and the resulting near-total devastation of their homeland and their people, Nature has unleashed a furious one-two punch on Japan.   And in a very cruel irony, the only nation (so far) on the receiving end of the horrors of nuclear weapons, the same atomic power   –   used for peaceful purposes (electricity generation) –   is on the brink of once again leveling that unfortunate country and their ill-fated people.

May God have mercy on Japan.

1-29-11

There were two distinct phases of naval action in the Pacific War.   In the aftermath of the Japanese attack on the ships and facilities of the US Navy in Pearl Harbor, Phase One was played out in the South Pacific   –     mostly between the Equator and the islands north of Australia.   During that time, the United States was bogged down in aiding the British Government’s desperate fight against the relentless aggression of Nazi Germany.

When the heavy cruiser USS Boston arrived in Pearl Harbor on December 6, 1943, one day short of two years after the Attack, Phase Two was ushered in with the creation of Task Force 58. The Boston was a unit of this one hundred-warship fleet that systematically and aggressively took the fight to the enemy.   The combination of carrier fighter planes and the heavy artillery of American warships reduced the Japanese Navy one ship at a time for a year and a half.   When Japan surrendered in August of 1945, all that was left of her Navy was the hulks of a few destroyed ships sticking up in the shallow harbors of her Inland Sea.

I have recently read two amazing books about the War, No Ordinary Joes (2010 by Larry Colton) and Japanese Destroyer Captain (1961 by Tameichi Hara)   –   both essentially about the War in the South Pacific.

I don’t want to spill the beans, so I won’t go into much detail.   No Ordinary Joes is the remarkable account of four submarine sailors whose sub (USS Grenadier) was torpedoed by a fighter plane and sunk in the Java Sea.   Survivors were rescued (captured) by a Japanese merchant ship.   The book chronicles their hellish survival as POWs through the balance of the War, and follows their post-war lives.

The first-hand account of a Japanese Naval Officer’s experiences during World War II was so compelling, I could not put it down.   In Japanese Destroyer Captain, intelligent, dedicated and operationally-successful Captain Tameichi Hara recounts his bird’s-eye-view of the great Naval Battles of the South Pacific of which his ships participated in and was on the receiving end and “giving end” of   ship destroying torpedo attacks.   (Of great interest to me was his first hand account as a ship commander of the Final Japanese Sortie of the War, in which the Super Battleship, Yamato, Mara’s cruiser and a handful of destroyers were sent on a suicide run against the US invasion of Okinawa.)

This book is awesome!   My hats-off to Captain Mara for having written this insightful, honest account of the War from viewpoint of a Japanese Officer.   His revelations of the workings of the decision-makers in command of the Japanese Army and Navy were in line with everything I have already read.   What was fascinating to me was realizing that the turning of the tide in favor of the Americans came much earlier than I had realized. By the time Task Force 58 assembled off Oahu in January 1944, Japan’s capacity to wage war was pretty much done.   It took another year and a half of countless bombs, blood and casualties on both sides to finally bring the devastated Empire of Japan to her knees.

Oh, the book is long out of print, but can be found in used book stores and online at places like Amazon and Ebay.   WORTH THE HUNT!

Oh yeah, the Ballantine paperback (1965 edition) cost 75 cents. . .

1-9-11

Here’s what I know about Ensign Dwayne Russell Witherspoon.   His wife, Mrs. Mildred Witherspoon, was kind enough to send me several letters full of information about “D.R.” and his service aboard the Boston.   He was finishing high school in Kansas in 1943, just when the Boston’s work crews were scrambling round-the-clock to get her finished. He attended college in MO and Midshipman’s School in Fort Schuyler, NY.

His Separation Papers show that he was commissioned Ensign and assigned to the Boston in early July 1945.   Here’s where it gets a little fuzzy. The Boston was anchored at San Pedro, CA for several months while being retrofitted with new radar and other improvements in preparation for the Invasion of Japan.   She sailed from San Pedro back to the war on June 1, 1945, a month before Ens. Witherspoon was assigned to the ship.

In October 1945, Witherspoon was among a party of Boston sailors and officers who visited Hiroshima, less than 3 months after the A-bombing. (The one-of-a-kind picture below graciously supplied by the Witherspoon family).   We also know that D.R. was aboard throughout Occupation Duty and stayed attached to the ship through her retirement in Bremerton, WA, detached from duty on Aug. 6, 1946.

How did he get onboard?   The Boston was back on station in Task Force 38 late in July and participating in the late war bombings of Japan.   Among his “Navy things”, his wife Mildred found a copy of the Boston Cruise Book.   But she also found a copy of the Cruise Book of the Battleship USS Colorado. Did he fly to Pearl Harbor and then hitch a ride on the Colorado and get transported via destroyer to the Boston?

Eventually, Bill and I think we’ll find the answer, or at least part of the answer.   Whenever he came aboard, it will show up on the daily Deck Log.   Bill has been mining the deck logs (from whence comes the “promotions” and “discipline” entries that he is adding to the Crew Records.)   It’ll be a while before he gets there . . . .

By the way, Bill tells me he will eventually get to the Officers (and Aviators)   –     after he finishes the Enlisted Men.

HIROSHIMA VISIT 1945, Mike Lusk’s Party

Ens. Witherspoon, second row, seventh from right

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