Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 13 February 1942 — Page 14

PAGE 14

Casey's Ringside Story: °

(Continued from Page One)

we should close in to attack at

dawn.

Even when in the sickly gray of

the false dawn we were able tol make out the black line of the is-| land on the horizon, we could tell} nothing about our future. We should have to wait here theoretically chewing our fingernails until our bomber and fighter planes should have come over to begin the festivities (providing always the impatient Japs dién't jump the gun) in about an hour. ! Up on the searchlight platform— long out of use—above the bridge. a stiff wind was sweeping over the ship and for the tropics it was fairly chilly — it always seems chilly somehow before battles. From this! point you could look down over nearly all the forepart of the ship and it was plain that everythin was under control. There wasnt a sound from anywhere save the well deck where the airplanes were] warming up. i You might not have known that] several hundred men were draped | about massive piles, turrets, lookout | posts, the round steel verandahas of gun positions, signal stations and | what not, if a trick of the moon- | light hag not given the glint of their blue steel helmets. i

And Here's How

The ship, you judged was ready, | whatever might happen to it. And this is the way it happened— 6 A. M.—The moon was still big. yellow and brilliant—too brillian Aft, the seaplanes began to gurgle and roar. 6:15—The guns of the after turret swung skyward. Suddenly unseen planes were catapulted out of the black in noisy seguance rose as gray blots against the gray sky with a ghastly blue halo of hot vapor clinging te them. 6:40—The sun seemed to be gling up through lowlying Eight seaplanes cames dim light and took off westward in formation. The land was plainly visible now off starboard. If Japs had anything up the sleeve ready for delivery we would be finding it out presently.

6:45—The

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Losses Compared

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii, Feb. 13 (U. P.) —Comparative damage done by the American raid on the Marshall and Gilbert Islands and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor:

JAPANESE LOSSES

Sixteen ships destroyed, including five warships: A 17.000-ton converted aircraft carrier. One light cruiser. One destroyer. Two submarines. Five cargo vessels. Three large fleet tankers. Three smaller ships. Several ships badly damaged.

Forty-one planes destroyed: Two large seaplanes, 15 fighter planes, 11 scout bombers, 10 additional bombers, and three patrol planes. Six hangars destroyed. Two anti-aircraft batteries. Five intermediate coastal guns. One radic building.

Unspecified number of ammunition dumps, fuel storage tanks, warehouses, industrial buildings.

The American losses were 11 scout bombers and one cruiser damaged by a small bomb hit.

AMERICAN LOSSES AT PEARL HARBOR

Battleship Arizona and Destroyers Cassin, Shaw and Downes destroyed. Target ship Utah destroyed. Mine layer Oglala destroyed. Battleship Oklahoma capsized, but being repaired. “Intensive damage to the Army’s land-based planes” and “some damage” to hangars. (The Navy said Japanese losses at Pearl Harbor were three submarines and 41 aircraft)

smoke was coming up from the is- glistening pipes upward and swung ] dead ahead. It was plain tojabout on the platform like the the naked eve, hanging low over|{throne of a movie organist. But the land though only a little dif- |the lookout identified the planes as from the cloud formationsiour own. the smoky light of dawn. The strafing of the atoll was fin“From Here in It’s Ours” | ished. The bombers were going iback and the job from here in is The island is a typical coral atoll ours. —a string of little palm covered is-| 7 a. m.—The ship swung farther lands circling a lagoon. It was loW|in toward land. With terrible on the horizon notwithstanding the |abruptness the big guns in the for-

ans alll,

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|trees, hardly visible in the dim light ward turrets broke loose with a

for the breakers feathering its reefs.

eternally train of concussions that seemed likely Planes came up on our starboard and everything aboard. The lookout called. The Four shells lit in the lagoon and —Chicago pianos, topped up high fountains. Other the trade calls them—pointed their ships in the unit joined in the fire.

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clouds over the lagoon.

to wrench apart everybody |

|Other shells made odd patterns at |the south end of the largest island of the atoll now lying off our starboard bow. With field glasses it was easy to identify this island as our principal objective. Among the palms you could make out the wrecked towers of the radio station. Some of the buildings were afire behind the trees. 7:05—The lookout called “ship dead ahead, sir.” There it was halfway between us and the horizon—a little thing like an ocean|going tug, but more likely a well(armed patrol boat. It had come blithely from the dawn to run| squarely across the bows of a destroyer—a bit ironic. The tug and the destroyer began to shoot it out. 7:07—There came suddenly the| smash of a time-fused shell almost] atop the bridge of the ship ahead of us—land batteries! Where had they been?—three more shots came over. This time they struck without exploding. All seemed short. All our guns went on firing regularly, not to say brutally.

Throw Stuff Into Clouds

One of the enemy batteries made no attempt at concealment. You could see the yellow flashes where it fired from the beach. More crumps seemed to be floating over from the south end of the island and a couple of ack-ack batteries had begun to throw stuff into the

7:15—The light was getting better now and we had a chance to (note the odd things that were uncovered as our shells painstakingly tore this particular south sea island to bits. : There were wharves stretching out into the opalescent lagoon— dwelling places on the white beach mostly hidden by the north island— and things made of concrete that erupted large chunks and great pillars of gray smoke when dynamite exploded under the trees. The land batteries, if you cared to watch them, were still at work. You could see flashes even if the shells by some odd chance passed you by. 7:26—There was an open spot between two of the islands in the chain where you could see across the reef into the lagoon. As we looked the ship turned up in this frame. She looked to be a freighter of about 6000 tons and apparently {had been blasted out of the shelter ‘of the north island by unexpected long shots.

Nobody Minds Shelling

We shifted fire—two shots over. two shots short. What looked to be a tidal wave came up the lagoon. The ship heeled over on the beam ends. That, you figured, was the end of that. But no. By the time the curtain of water had come down she was on an even keel again and on her way. She slipped behind the southerly island. About this time the destroyer finished polishing off the patrol boat and started back to the main attack. 7:28—Two shells went over wus. They seemed to be considerably off in deflection. No one seemed to notice. We continued our sweep up and down the battered island. 7:40—Two more ships came into the opening between the islands. One seemed to be hunting for shelter as waterspouts broke out between them. The ‘other was heading straight for the beach as if nothing could stop it. Nothing did. It went aground, lifted its prow from the water and with dense smoke pouring from its funnel listed far over to starboard.

Shreds of Black Smoke

v:45—The front of the island was getting hazy under shreds of black smoke. 8:15—Two six-inch battéries or maybe three over there ih the smoke were tossing out shell with no though of economy. The sea between us and the island was tufted with them. And now and then in the fashion of another wellremembered war, one of them would throw a chunk of time-shell at us for adjustment. Our five-inch batteries which had been working on the ship now beached, shifted to shore objectives—all the starboard batteries were working and the din was close to the limit of human endurance. The puffs of the first five-inch salvo and the flashes of a battery in the middle of the island seemed almost simultaneous. The second salvo fell in the same place and another cloud of black smoke went up to join the gathering murk.

Down Goes Another

8:1v—A new ship moved hazily into sight on the lagoon. Our guns straddled it on the third salvo with a tremendous uprush of white water. The ship which had been firing steadily from the guns fore and aft struck her prow down under the swell, shivered, leaned to port and went out of sight. Whoever was aboard went with her. 8:25—After a brief lull and a change of position we were firing everything we had except pompoms. The results were almost immediate. There was a burst of red flame and a tremendous black cloud rolled skyward—oil would be my guess, and a big tank of it. 8:30—We shifted our fire to the north end of the island and most

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Vessel

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

ips Lay Smashed, Their C

Ad

of it went over the crest toward had a segment cut off it on one] targets that only our air observers side — which shows how close it] could see. It was not so spectacu- came. lar now that we could trace it only! Apout then the bridge decided to by little whirls of debris over the gtop this nonsense. We could hear palm tops but we had heard thal telephone men relaying the order three or four auxiliaries besides the already transmitted by other routes ones we had smoked out were jo the engine room— 30 knots.” We anchored there. | swung about almost on a pivot. Our Five-Inch Guns Bark [coop on the foremast rolled over until we were looking almost . . straight down into the blue water teries yee falling nearer. One| nd we came up with a jerk at right batch Jit about 200 yards off port. langles to our original course.

8:35—Four shells tossed white, : water to starboard. There wasn't Four shells fell in a patter astern any doubting what that meant. We 2nd to port. It was excellent shootwere bracketed—the perserving had '€ as We now could admit for we! finally got us dead in their range. wii come out of the bracket. Our turrets were working faster |

now but apparently not on the bat- : ; tery which was working on us. The 8:50—O0ur guns lifted a few salvos

continuous detonation caved in your {rom the stern. Shells began to pile stomach. The five-inch guns had a|UP on the island where the battery continuous bark that jarred some-| Was flashing at us. We were doing thing inside your head. Cotton in|2 Sort of adagio dance—the sort of your ears was small comfort now. {movement one might expect of an 8:41—Another string of geysers | elephant doing a bayonet drill. flashed ahead of us—just the same| Our wake, a broad path of light sort of geysers we tossed up around Plue with fringes of white over the the Jap ship in the lagoon before calm surface of cobalt, was like a she fell apart. The land battery was glittering corkscrew—like “the rollslow but working well. The range ing English road” that the “rolling was now about right—defiection not English drunkard” built. far off. Four white plumes rose, 8:52—Numerous geysers rose about from the island. Somebody had ap- | another of our warships. Apparparently just smashed a large ently the second battery was workwooden building. ge and he had no intention of i quitting. The ship squirmed through Shell Just Misses Stern la barrage that might have been 8:45—Three shells just smashed in| murderous. Our firing went on. front of us; one almost scraped our| 8:33—Another black fire started! stern. From our platform you can | about a’ mile north of the earlier, see the widening circle of green, pillar of smoke. Almost immediately spreading over the deep blue water two more sizable blazes arose to the like ooze on a swamp. Our fantail|north of that. Inflammable stuff

Meanwhile, shells from shore bat-

Sort of Adagio Dance

rews Dead’

[the island. The smoke column was

FRIDAY, FEB. 13 1942 ered a message. “This base, an important part of Japan’s easternmost menace to the United States is now |in irreparable bits—and so are the |seat forts to southward where other rose that looked like beautiful little ships and planes of the fleet have

white birds or butterflies in the sun. spent a busy and profitable couple {We took time to admire them. We of hours. Cease firing.”

had come well out of range of the remaining cannoneers on shore. 8:54—A third fire of first magnitude erupted at the north end of

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now hundreds of feet high and soreading out in a dense mass over the atoll and along the horizon to the south. We dumped a couple of salvos on top of the flashing battery south of the fire. Then there was no more sign of life on the island. 8:55—O0ne of our airplanes deliv-

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