Our
almost getting sunk occurred a couple of nights after the shellback
initiation. General quarters sounded in
the middle of the night. The chilling
klaxon howled and I could hear the voice of the boson on the speaker throughout
the ship saying, “GENERAL QUARTERS—MAN YOUR BATTLE STATIONS! THIS IS NO DRILL!” as, life jacket and steel
helmet in hand, I shot up the long ladder from the hangar deck to the flight
deck where my battle station was at the Number Four F4F.
I
yanked the canvas engine cover off, pulled the propeller through, loaded the
shotgun starter, and then scrambled into the cockpit ready to start the engine
if the order came. While I waited
tensely in the cockpit of the F4F, I could clearly hear the voices from the low
bridge on the superstructure. Our radar
had picked up a bogey ten thousand yards out off our port bow. It was apparently a large surface ship.
Sweat
trickled down my face even in the cool of the night as I listened to the
captain’s talker repeating the ranges and bearings of the unknown ship. It closed to within eight thousand yards
(five miles) then the range opened while it moved around to our starboard beam
where it once more started to close, apparently looking us over in the
moonlight.
If
the bogey was a heavy enemy warship, our little destroyer/escort would be badly
out-gunned but COPAHEE was in his charge.
When the unseen ship was again at eight thousand yards and still closing,
the DE went to flank speed and took fof for the larger ship. The bogey continued to close as the talker read
off the ranges—“seven thousand—six thousand—five thousand.”
At
four thousand five hundred yards (less than three miles) the radar blip of our
escort neared the bogey and the range and bearing became constant for a
while. We still waited tensely. One hand was on the engine primer pump and
the other poised to fire the starter cartridge.
It
seemed like an hour but was probably not more than five minutes when a blinker light
showed from the DC. The signalman was
too fast for me to read the message but in a few minutes the ship’s speakers
came alive, “SECURE GENERAL QUARTERS.”
After
re-installing the engine cover on my airplane, I went to the mess compartment
for a cup of coffee where I got the full story.
The bogey was an American heavy cruiser on patrol alone that our
schedule did not show, nor did the cruiser’s schedule show us in the area. When he had closed on the boy our silhouette
appeared to be that of a RYUKO-class Japanese carrier.
The
cruiser had opened the range then and moved around to our beam where he began closing
with his guns manned and ready. He had
intended to turn at the four thousand yards and fire a broadside at the
carrier. Fortunately, at four thousand
five hundred yards, less than a minute before opening fire, a telescoped picked
up the white stars on the airplanes on our flight deck and that delayed him
until the DE got there and confirmed our identity with the proper recognition
signal for that date. I sat there and
thanked The Man Upstairs that we had scrubbed the lampblack off those white stars.
