Mid August, 1945

8/12/17

August 10, 1945       We met the carriers this morning, the water was a little choppy and while recovering our 4-SCI Seahawks, one of them cracked up, turned over and sank, we lost the pilot.   During the night while on mid-watch, I heard the first peace rumor.   It spread through all of the gun crews on watch and created a lot of excitement through out all of the gun mounts.   Everyone coming off watch was not able to sleep.

August 11, 1945         Bad weather held up our operations today, we did not hear any more news on the surrender.

August 12, 1945         Planes took off to hit northern Honshu, no Jap planes came out after us, a few planes were shot down over the target.

August 13, 1945       Planes took off to hit the Tokyo area this morning.   C.A.P. shot down several Jap planes.   Quite a few planes came out after us.   Peace rumors flew back and forth and we will retire from the area for a few days.

August 14, 1945       Today we moved out of the Tokyo area and will not launch any planes against Japan.   We have our C.A.P. on patrol and there are a lot of bogies in the area.

August 15, 1945         This morning we returned to the Tokyo area and the carriers had launched their planes for the first strike when we heard the final news of the Japanese surrender.   So the war ended for the U.S.S. Boston, 21 months after we left home port.

War Diary U.S.S. Boston CA69   by   Frank Studenski