In my job I'm often in contact with people much older than myself, which means at age 51, these folks are REALLY old. Last Thursday afternoon, I ran into one of these guys. He was 85 years old and as sharp as a new sunrise. He knew I was a retired military man, and I asked him about this bag he had on the chair next to him, and he said that was a memento from the U.S. S. Ticonderoga.It seems when this man was a mere 19 years old, he was smart enough and brave enough to be commissioned an officer in the U.S. Navy, sent to flight school, and taught to fly a "Hell Fighter" lightweight bombing plane that were docked on aircraft carriers in the South Pacific. He began to relate a story to me, and I found myself easing into that chair that formerly held the bag.
He spoke. I listened. Wordlessly. And I am now repeating this to you from memory. Memory tends to be good when one is impacted by the event.
I was impacted.
During the night of 9 January and 10 January, TF 38 steamed boldly through the Luzon Strait and then headed generally southwest, diagonally across the South China Sea. Ticonderoga provided combat air patrol coverage on the 11th and helped to bring down four enemy planes which attempted to snoop the formation. Otherwise, the carriers and their consorts proceeded unmolested to a point some 150 to 200 miles off the coast of Indochina. There, on the 12th, they launched their approximately 850 planes and made a series of anti-shipping sweeps during which they sank an incredible 44 ships, totaling over 130,000 tons. After recovering planes in the late afternoon, the carriers moved off to the northeast. Heavy weather hindered fueling operations on the 13th and 14th, and air searches failed to turn up any tempting targets. On the 15th, fighters swept Japanese airfields on the Chinese coast while the flattops headed for a position from which to strike Hong Kong. The following morning, they launched anti-shipping bombing raids and fighter sweeps of air installations. Weather prevented air operations on the 17th and again made fueling difficult. It worsened the next day and stopped replenishment operations altogether, so that they were not finally concluded until the 19th. The force then shaped a course generally northward to retransit Luzon Strait.
Admiral Halsey was known as a risk taker, and it was this fearless attitude that led Halsey to make the decision to attack the Japanese fleet with the carrier group that contained the Ticonderoga. The three task groups of Task Force 38 completed their transit during the night of 20 January and 21 January. The next morning, their planes hit airfields on Formosa, in the Pescadores, and at Sakishima Gunto. The good flying weather brought mixed blessings. While it allowed American flight operations to continue through the day, it also allowed for Japanese kamikaze operations.
Just after noon, a single-engine Japanese plane scored a hit on The Langley (a Destroyer) with a glide-bombing attack. Seconds later, a kamikaze swooped out of the clouds and plunged toward Ticonderoga. He crashed through her flight deck into the lower areas. One of those area's was the storage for ammunition, and abreast of the No. 2 5 inch (127 mm) mount, and his bomb exploded just above her hangar deck. Several planes stowed nearby erupted into flames. Death and destruction abounded, but the ship's company fought valiantly to save the threatened carrier.
My new found friend explained to me that there were three places a pilot could be on a carrier in 1944. In his bunk sleeping, in the ready room prepping for a mission, or in his plane in the hanger getting ready to fly. Many of my friends buddies were in those planes that exploded that day. He himself was with 13 other pilots in the ready room, only 57 feet starboard of the initial impact of the kamikaze. My then 19 year old friend was in a predicament. A large number of his friends were dead and he didn't know - but was prepared for the worst - he and the other 13
pilots were all simultaneously deaf from the explosions...one...after another...after another. He went on to say the sound mixed in with the minds ability to fantasize all things unimaginable was the most frightening thing. Having been there myself, my grunting was his acknowledgement that I full well knew what he meant. Besides the noise and the fear, they quickly became aware of the very real physical problem they had:
Fire.
Fire on a ship is like a flood in the desert. You would think the environment would be perfectly suited to handle both, but the truth is 100 miles the opposite. The pilots...deaf...are now coming to the realization at lightning speed that they are surrounded by fire in all compartments around the ready room, and where there is fire, there is smoke.
Thick. Black. Fuel-filled, burning steel smoke.
The only escape for these pilots was a gang-way, 450 feet to the aft of the ship. This gangway was 3 feet wide, totally enclosed like a large underground water pipe you would see at a large construction site, and it was filled with a combination 90% smoke, 10% fire. 19 years old, and this is your choice. He could stay and pray, or he could muster up he courage of an entire den of Lions, and in a crouch, make his way the 450 feet. The smoke was incapacitating, the the flames started their clothes on fire and burned their skin as they pushed on....panicked....blind....still mostly deaf from the concussions still occurring...and yet they pushed onward. 450 feet later, 9 of the 14 opened up a hatch above their heads, and got their first breath of air in minutes.
The other 5 never got out of the tube.
They never finished the 450 feet.
As my friend came up out of the hatch, he noticed for the first time that most of the skin on his right arm was gone, seared nearly to the bone by the dancing flames. He was coughing and spitting up a combination mucous and blood, but he was in fact - alive.
All of them split up to go find their aircraft - or IF they still had an aircraft. My friend told me he was standing up watching the Kamikaze's targeting successfully the other ships in the Task Force when a huge Marine Gunnery Sergeant yelled up at him from his perch behind this steel wall on the edge of the main turret area, "Hey Lieutenant, you like your head? If you don't move your dumb-ass down here right now, you won't fucking have one in about 20 seconds". My friend...knowing that a seasoned non-commissioned officer is almost always correct, did as he was told. He recanted to me that less than 5 seconds later, a spray of 20MM fire from a Japanese attack plane splattered the wall behind where he had just been standing with about 50 rounds in 3 seconds, and thank God in heaven for non-commissioned officers.
Wounded denizens of the deep often attract predators, and Ticonderoga was no exception. Other Kamikazes pounced on her like a school of sharks in a feeding frenzy. Her antiaircraft gunners struck back with desperate, but methodical, ferocity and quickly swatted three of her tormentors into the sea. A fourth plane slipped through her barrage and smashed into the carrier's starboard side near the island. His bomb set more planes on fire, riddled her flight deck, and injured or killed another 100 sailors, with Capt. Kiefer one of the wounded. Yet Ticonderoga’s crew refused to submit.
Capt. Kiefer conned his ship smartly. First, he changed course to keep the wind from fanning the blaze. Then, he ordered magazines and other compartments flooded to prevent further explosions and to correct a 10-degree starboard list. Finally, he instructed the damage control party to continue flooding compartments on Ticonderoga’s port side. That operation induced a 10-degree port list which neatly dumped the fire overboard. Firefighters and plane handlers completed the job by dousing the flames and jettisoning burning aircraft.
An then it was over. Two hours. 30 minutes of fighting followed by 90 minutes of survival. 218 men died that day, 436 were wounded. The Ticonderoga was out of the war forever.
It took over 30 minutes for my new friend to tell me his tale. He spoke eloquently, and with a memory that was as if it happened last Tuesday, not 65 years ago. I was in my uniform when this happened.
I stood up and he saluted me and said, "That's my report Captain. Permission to stand down." While hiding the tears that were seriously welling up in my eyes, I couldn't help but think that I have my life, my kids, my family, and my freedom because of this man, and he won't be with us too much longer. After he saluted and gave me his "report", my mind raced to find the words while my body tried to fight back the tears. All I could manage...all my eloquence and intellect notwithstanding...was a firm handshake and one word:
"Thanks".
Hell Fighter WWII
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