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[previous] I was with admiral Halsey's 3rd fleet -- headed towards Iwo Jima. We wanted to see Japs -- it's all we wanted to do. We couldn't wait to see the Japs. And then you get in combat and you're thinking What am I doing here? Then you grow up real fast. The air attack off of Okinawa -- it was a blood bath -- we lost more ships and men than in all the wars before combined. There were almost 40 ships sunk. We were only 200 or 300 miles from Tokyo, so they came continually, because they were coming from land bases. It was all day, all night -- they follow your tracers. We were hit by Kamikaze planes three times. We shot seven down, but we were hit three times. It never ended, they were constantly attacking. When they were strafing the deck I could see the bullets coming towards me, the ship was on fire, and my signal flags caught fire. I tried to put them out. You don't know how to react, because you've never experienced anything like that. |
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