Jan. 6, 1945

Hi Darling:

We are now in sight of land. The Chaplain, said we were within seeing distance of Bataan, last night.

All the ships are in battle formation and we are getting ready to move into Lingayen Gulf. The mine sweepers are in the lead sweeping the Gulf of all the mines that might be there.

Minesweepers were small, fast ships which had special equipment to get rid of mines.

I am beginning to get pretty nervous. Never can tell when the Japs may start shooting at us. Our first firing will be on San Fernando as it has a lot of warehouses and gasoline dumps there.

Just before we got there we saw a freighter burning. Flames were shooting hundreds of feet in the air. Dive bombers sank it. We have now spotted another tanker. It looks like it is right close to the beach. The New Mexico, has opened fire on it, they are getting close but not close enough. Now a Cruiser at our stern has began to fire and they can’t hit it. I guess they will have to let a good ship shoot at it. It is reported that the tanker has been beached. I sure am disappointed in the navy. But I’ll tell you more when I get home.

We are just about to our target.

We have opened up and are hitting our target. Now all ships opened fire and there are several fires on the beach.

Here come 6 Jap planes. The ships have all stopped bombarding and are firing at the planes. The New Mexico is just ahead of us and a Jap plane is going to crash dive her. They are shooting and we are shooting. The plane hit the yard arm on the port side. The whole side of the ship is covered with fire.

Now the fire is out, casualities amount to 50 men.

The USS New Mexico being hit be a Kamikaze

All the ships are really close together. A plane is diving at the Mississippi, but they blew the plane to pieces before it hit them.

Here are some more planes flying overhead. Our ship and a couple more were shooting at them.  Three of them are ours and one Jap. The Jap plane crashed but  they kept right on shooting at our planes. There were none shot down. I can see another plane diving into a Cruiser. There is another plane flying close to the water and all ships are firing at it but he got away.

There is so much going on that I can hardly remember all that I have seen.

We have started bombarding again and are setting more fires.

We also had another attack, 2 planes shot down.

We bombarded again and then went back to sea.

Jan. 7, 1945

My Darling Kay:

We are headed back in again as we never bombarded San Fernando.  Today we are going clear in, within a few thousand yards of the beach. I am kinda worried that the Japs might start shooting at us.

We were the second ship to open fire. We are firing 16-inch armor piercing shells. In fact that is the only knid we have in 16-inch.

With the glasses I can see a lot of little houses on the beach.

We are not going to shoot as much as we did at Leyte. We don’t want to get caught short of ammunition as we did before. The ships will take turns firing. We will fire for a couple of hours then another ship will fire for awhile.

We had an air attack and one plane crashed into an Australian Cruiser. If it had been a little higher it would have missed them. It hit one of the stacks.

I guess I will be up most of the night again.

Australian cruiser hit by Japanese kamikaze, as seen from the USS West Virginia

Jan. 8, 1945

My Kay:

Up at 3 :30, we started bombarding at 6:00 a.m. We are going to keep the beach clear so that the demolition squads can go in close and clear the beaches of any kind of Barricades. Those guys are very brave. We can now see their destroyer type ship going in.

After they get in pretty close they launch their Higgins Boats and still go in closer. When they get in close enough to see the barb wire structure they dive off the side of their boat and fasten the explosives to the wire. Then they swim back towards their boat. The boat will not stop for them, they  just throw out a line. The guys grab hold or the line and are pulled in. They do this while the boat is going about 20 knots an hour. They have been shot at twice from the beach, we have been firing on the beach all the time they have been working.

The Underwater Demolitions Teams (or UDT) were the precursor to "Frogmen" of later wars.

We just had a report that there were several planes on their way here to bomb us.

The demolition squads are now returning to their ship and are coming back.

Our Combat Patrol, just reported that all Jap planes have canceled their flight. (That means they have been shot down).

As we were moving out we had an attack. I finally saw something I have always wanted to see. I wanted to see what would happen if one of our 5-inch shells made a direct hit on a plane. This Val was going to crash dive one of our Battleships and the ship started firing. On the second shot it hit the plane. There was a big explosion and the plane was blown into. three pieces. I could see the motor going straight toward the Ship but it hit just beside it,water splashed on the ship it was that close to it. The rest of the plane came floating down. To my surprise we saw two parachutes. Those Japs did not bail out of that plane. The plane was blown from them. They just fell out.

Val Two seat bomber

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.

This is an interesting phenomenon that I cannot find any record of anywhere else, that is, hitting the water in front of the attacking Japanese plane and letting the water destroy the plane.

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)

Jan. 28, 1945

My Darling:

We are still at Lingayen Gulf, and have all our ammunition loaded and fuel aboard and are waiting for stores.

Nothing has happened except we have Air Defense every morning and night. We haven’t seen any planes though. I wonder where they are at. It kinda worries me