After making my way up the ladder, out onto the weather deck and up another ladder to the superstructure deck, I went forward to my battle station on torpedo tube mount one and proceeded to put on my life preserver, ear phones and oversized speaker's helmet, all of which constituted my GQ uniform. I mounted the tubes and settled back to watch the day arrive.
Going to battle stations before first light must go back to World War I, or before, when predawn attacks were predictable, but for all our time at sea, there was not one such occurrence, even at Iwo Jima where we had just completed our task in assisting the landings, that I could remember. It was, however, one of the few items of discipline that was strictly observed in the relatively undisciplined life on a destroyer at sea in wartime.
It was still dark. Without competition from any other light, the stars were beautifully brilliantly, so many of them, so many constellations and the spectacularly dense Milky Way. With a familiarity of the heavens gained at sea it was not difficult for me to ascertain that the ship was on a westerly heading. The eastern horizon was just starting to glow a little.
As the light in the east encroached on the night, the brightness of the stars diminished and visibility over the water began to improve. Off to the port side of the Uhlmann was our sister ship and partner on picket patrol, the Cushing, DD-797. The squadron's insignia of a black cat in a yellow circle on her forward stack was evident. We were both part of the Tom Cat Picket squadron, currently doing our assigned duty of watching for and providing advanced warning to our task group out over the horizon of any approaching enemy aircraft. What was somewhat unusual this morning was the number of seabirds that were more apparent as the light improved. The sighting of an occasional albatross or other pelagic bird was, in fact, somewhat notable, but a display of this amount gulls this far at sea was strange indeed. And as the visibility kept improving, it became apparent that another strange phenomenon was presenting itself. Dead ahead was a large dense mass of what must be fog, but the weather this morning was surely not the kind to generate fog at sea. I called up to the bridge to Arnold "Rebel" Madden, who had the torpedo director as his GQ station, and asked him if we were indeed headed into that fog bank up ahead. His response was, "Hell, that's no fog bank, that's Japan,"
It took a little while for that to register. Here we were, 35 miles in advance of our task group, just two small ships and still headed west toward that misty form dead ahead. All these years we had been fighting an enemy who was visible to us only in bits and pieces as his ships and planes came into contact with us. But now, in solid, concrete form, was Japan, the enemy, right in front of us. Not since December 7, Pearl Harbor Day, had any surface combat ship been this close to the mainland of Japan. And yet we continued on a westerly heading, directly toward what we later learned was Shikoku, Japan.
It was a dangerous situation and, as had happened many times before, a feeling of excitement and sharpened alertness, undoubtedly caused by a spurt of adrenaline, started to take its effect. I was seeing things in much sharper focus and in greater detail and was aware of my own excited heartbeat. As the daylight increased, even before the rising of the sun, features of the landscape became discernible such as the Mondrian-like divisions of the fields on the side of the former fog bank, different shades of gray in the different shapes of patches that covered the side of the rise in terrain that was closest to us.
Things were moving more slowly through my senses and every movement and moment seemed to be making a deep etching of events in my mind. The sky was becoming bluer, the color of the sea was changing from nighttime gray to cobalt blue and benign little powderpuffs of clouds were picking up the crimson of the impending sunrise and turning it to pink on their flat bottoms. Following each ship was a trail of the purest foamy white which, as it became distant from its origin was reabsorbed by the blue around it. On the side of the ever-enlarging landfall the fields exchanged their misty gray tones and became shades of green and yellow and bronze, with lights and darks and in-betweens of each. In the east, the sky was getting prepared to herald the arrival of the sun by filling with exotic shades of red and yellow and purple. And then the first flattened edge of the sun presented itself tentatively before it finally broke through the horizon with all the energy needed to break the surface tension of the water. The rising of the sun continued until the birthing was almost accomplished, but just as the horizon was reluctant to let the process begin, it was reluctant to let it finish and held on to the bottom of the sun, distorting it, until the force of inevitability permitted it pop free from the sea and assume its own true shape. What a beautiful day, at least, so far.
But things often have a way of being too idyllic, too quiet. Something was going to happen and we all knew it. Instead of securing from general quarters after sunrise, which was the normal routine, the condition was maintained. The crews in the 40MM gun mounts on either side of the torpedo tubes were chatting nervously and craning their necks looking at the sky. Suddenly, their guns, which were on automatic with the gun director, started to move in jerky motions to port and then to starboard. The five inch gun mounts joined the 40s and swiveled back and forth. Rebel called down through my headset and warned there were bogeys all over the place and coming in from all over the western front. It was difficult to know if the bogeys were interested in the big ships of the task group out over the horizon or if we, two destroyers, were a profitable target for them, possibly both options were possible. The guns were jumping back and forth trying to establish the best targets but seemed not to be able to choose the first one. Then the 5 inch guns started firing, first to starboard high, then to port low then everywhere in-between. It was difficult to see what they were firing at because the little white clouds had become larger and the amount of blue sky smaller. The bogeys were still not too close because only the 5 inch guns were firing. Then, even with my earphones on I reacted with a start when the sharp staccato of the 40s let loose. They're coming in close. The guns were swinging back and forth, firing in all directions and still no visual contact with the targets. All guns swung to port and started firing high. They finally had a good target and stayed locked in The Cushing was firing sporadically, too. What were those bogeys doing? Almost simultaneously, all the guns fell silent and started again into the dance of indecision.
Something aft on the starboard side caught my eye. I studied the sky but didn't see a thing. And suddenly, there it was, bursting out of a cloud, just high enough above the water to take advantage of the clouds but low enough to be under our radar. It all happened in a few seconds but to me it seemed to be happening in slow motion. The plane had two engines and was much bigger than a Zeke and looked shiny new. As it approached, I could see that the two bomb bay doors were opened and a large bomb was swinging out of them, directed not only at the ship but exactly for the space I was occupying. As the bomb arched down from the plane I could see it was marked with bands of different colors, green, yellow, red, white, black. There was a small propeller in its nose that seemed to be producing a long detonator devise. The tail of the bomb was wobbling a bit off its axis and was making a noise very similar to the gobbling of a turkey, faintly at first but very discernible as it came closer.
After releasing the bomb the plane turned sharply to starboard allowing me a close view of its meatball insignia and clear vision of its pilot and behind him, another face, probably a gunner, both of whom were looking very intently at the spot on which I was now standing. It didn't take too much sense to know we were going to be hit and the multicolored gobbling bomb was about to deliver its message. I dived headlong under the torpedo tubes toward the port side of the deck just as the bomb slid down the starboard side of the ship and exploded in the water blowing the helmet off my head and propelling me almost over the side of the upper deck. Only the wire of my telephone headset restrained me from going over.
The plane kept going. The guns resumed firing and during all the morning's action, the Uhlmann and the Cushing splashed at least two bogeys. Did we get the bomber? I don't know, but he damned nearly got us.
Then the bogeys were gone. Things simmered down, the ship secured from general quarters and some patching and repairing of a few split seams in the hull was accomplished and we were finally headed east, going back to join our task group which had come under heavy air attack at about the same time as we did. The aircraft carrier Franklin was hit and needed all the fire power she could muster to protect her from further, and probably fatal, damage.
As we proceeded on an easterly course, a tower of black smoke could be seen rising out of the horizon. The Franklin was burning. Even with all the guns available in a large task group of carriers, battleships, cruisers and destroyers, some of those bogeys had gotten through and bombed one of our largest carriers. We were supposedly going back to add support but maybe our mission would be to pick up the pieces. Flank speed could be over 30 knots, but with a slightly damaged hull and the Cushing with a few glitches of her own, 21 knots would have to do. It was the middle of the afternoon when we rejoined Task Group 58.2 and immediately saw the immense damage that the Franklin had sustained. She was listing badly to starboard and had lost weigh completely. The light cruiser Santa Fe was alongside taking aboard the wounded and playing fire hoses where they could on the burning wreckage. There were crew members clinging to the port side of the Franklin and many in the water. Most of the remaining crew were assembled along the port side of the flightdeck providing as much ballast as possible to prevent additional listing. It was a terrible sight.
It was later learned that a single Japanese plane had come in low in the cloud cover and under the radar and dropped two armor-piercing bombs on the flightdeck and that started it all. That plane was undoubtedly one of the bogeys that passed over our picket position earlier in the day.
The Franklin was taken into tow by the cruiser Pittsburgh and headed back to Ulithi Atoll, our base of operations, but before very long she had partially corrected the 13 degree list and had gotten up steam enough to get under weigh. She made it safely back to Ulithi on her own. She was out of action for the remainder of the hostilities.
Unbeknownst to us at the time, the Uhlmann and the rest of the Tom Cat Picket Squadron still had plenty of action to come what with the Okinawa campaign with its kamikazes, a submarine sinking, another typhoon, pilot rescues, the atomic bombs, the occupation of Japan and the surrender ceremonies in Tokyo Bay. But today, March 19, 1945 was certainly a day to remember.
Bob Gilchrist
go20bob@flinet.com