Jan. 9, 1945
My Sweet:
We are up at 3 :30 a.m. Today is the day all the troops will land. And it is a good thing. If they don’t get the troops in there soon we won’t have any ships left.
There are 8 torpedo planes coming from the port side and I can see them all. They are flying about ten feet of the water and they are going like hell. The ships between us and the planes are shooting at them. Now we are shooting at them.
There are 2 planes going straight towards a Tin Can. The Can is hitting the water just in front or them throwing up a big wall of water. They got one of them.
Right now there is a Val crash diving the Mississippi. ‘There are several ships tiring at it besides ourselves. It hit the Mississippi, on the starboard side and it is burning like the devil.
USS Mississippi
There is so much going on I can’t see it all. In all I saw six of the planes shot down and I think there were two ships that were hit. The California was also hit.
We are now shelling the beach for the troops. Honey, I never saw so many ships. They are all over the horizon. I can’t begin to count them. I’ll bet there are 200 of them.
Now the troops are in their L. S. I.’s and are headed for the beach. In the first wave there must be 100 of them.
Men landing on shore at Luzon
We have changed to rapid fire in fact all the ships have now. The small boats are now shooting and straffing the beach. There are some rocket ships also shelling the beach and they are really doing a good job.
The troops landed 5 minutes late. It is now 9:35 a.m.
Our job is now about done. All we are doing now is waiting for the Army to get a better hold.
The Army has been on the beach for half an hour and finally received some mortar fire and they have sent their tanks in after them.
The Army have asked us to shoot a couple of salvos at a pillbox. We knocked it out. (Hurray)
