An amazing and true story:



Oral History-Battle for Okinawa, 24 March -30 June 1945
Recollections of Commander Frederick Julian Becton, USN, Commanding Officer of
the destroyer USS Laffey (DD-724) which, despite being struck by eight Japanese
suicide (kamikaze) aircraft on 16 April 1945, did not sink.
Adapted from Frederick Julian Becton interview in box 2 of World War II
Interviews, Operational Archives Branch, Naval Historical Center.



I am Commander Frederick Julian Becton, Commanding Officer of the USS Laffey.
The Laffey was built in Bath, Maine and was commissioned in Boston,
Massachusetts, at the Navy Yard on February 8th, 1944.

After a brief shakedown period, the ship participated in the Normandy Invasion
in June 1944, after which she took part in the Cherbourg [France] bombardment on
June 25th, 1944 and suffered an eight-inch [German artillery shell] hit which
fortunately did not explode.

Upon returning to the States for repairs and alterations, the ship proceeded to
the Pacific and joined Admiral [William F. "Bull"] Halsey's Third Fleet in
November, 1944, for strikes against the Philippine Islands during the month of
November.

The ship joined the 7th Fleet under Admiral Kinkaid at Leyte Gulf [Philippines]
in early December, 1944 and took part in the landing of the 77th Division of the
U.S. Army at Ormoc Bay, on December 7th, 1944. This was our first experience
with the Kamikaze Suicide Corps [units of Japanese aircraft turned into flying
bombs intended to be crashed by their pilots into U.S. Navy ships to sink or
severely damage them]. The ship and the whole convoy were under incessant
attacks from about 10 o'clock in the morning until dark that evening.

The next landing the ship participated in was at Mindoro on December 15,1944.

The next landing was about two weeks later when the ship left Leyte Gulf on
January 2nd, and proceeded to Lingayen Gulf [also in the Philippines] to assist
with the softening up activities and bombardment prior to the Army landing on
January 9th, 1945.

We remained in the Lingayen Gulf area until about the 22nd of January and then
proceeded to join Admiral Mitcher's task force at Ulithi.

Participated in Tokyo Strikes.

The next operation in which the ship participated was the strikes on Tokyo in
mid-February 1945, after which the carrier task groups headed south to support
the Iwo Jima landing. We went back for the second strikes on Tokyo about the
24th of February, and returning from that, went into Ulithi where we remained
until we were ready for the Okinawa operation.

We departed Ulithi for the Okinawa landings on the 21st of March, arrived at
Okinawa the 24th of March, and performed screening duties with the battleships
and cruisers [protecting them from Japanese aircraft and submarines] who were
bombarding the beaches until the major landing on April 1st, 1945. Thereafter,
we took up station to the north of Okinawa at radar picket station number one
about 35 miles north of Okinawa [these picket stations gave advance warning of
the approach of enemy aircraft or ships].

Our tour of duty on this picket station was uneventful until the morning of
April 16th, when we underwent a concentrated attack by Japanese suicide planes.
The attack commenced about 8:27 [a.m.] when we were attacked by four Vals
[single-engine Japanese Aichi D3A naval dive bomber with a 2-man crew], which
split, two heading for our bow and two swinging around to attack us from the
stern. We shot down three of these and combined with a nearby LCS [support
landing craft] in splashing the fourth one. Then two other planes came in from
either bow, both of which were shot down by us. It was about the seventh plane
that we were firing on that finally crashed into us amidships and started a huge
fire. This marked us as a cripple with the flames and smoke billowing up from
the ship and the Japs really went to work on us after that.

Two planes came in quick succession from astern and crashed into our after [rear
of the ship] five-inch twin mount. The first one carried a bomb which exploded
on deck. The second one dropped its bomb on deck before crashing into the after
mount. Shortly thereafter, two more planes came in on the port quarter crashing
into the deckhouse just forward of the crippled after five-inch mount. This sent
a flood of gasoline into the two compartments below the after crew's head
[bathroom] and with the fire that was already raging in the after crew's
compartment just aft of the five-inch mount number three, we now had fires going
in all of the after three living spaces, besides the big fire topside in the
vicinity of the number four 40 mm [antiaircraft gun] mount.

The two planes... no, the next one was a plane from our port quarter that
dropped a bomb just about our port [left] propeller and jammed our rudder
[steering mechanism] when it was 26 degrees left.

Strafed by Approaching Plane.

The next plane came from the port bow, knocked off our yardarm [a
horizontally-mounted spar on the radar/radio mast], and a [F4U] Corsair [single
engine US fighter with a 1-man crew] chasing it, knocked off our Sugar Charlie
[SC air search] radar. Then a plane came in from the port bow carrying a big
bomb and was shot down close aboard [in the water near the ship's side]. A large
bomb fragment from the exploding bomb knocked out the power in our number two
five- inch mount which is the one just forward of the bridge. Shortly thereafter
this mount, in manual control, knocked down an Oscar [single-engine Japanese
Nakajima Ki-43, Army-type fighter with a 1-man crew] coming in on our starboard
bow [from the right-front of the ship] when it was about 500 yards from the
ship. At the same time the alert mount captain of number one five- inch mount
sighted a Val diving on the ship from the starboard bow, took it under fire and
knocked it down about 500 yards from the ship using Victor Tare projectiles. The
next plane came yardarm as it pulled out of its dive. It was shot down by the
Corsairs ahead of the ship.

The next plane came in from the starboard bow strafing [firing its machine guns]
as it approached and dropped a bomb just below the bridge which wiped out our
two 20 mms [antiaircraft guns] in that area and killed some of the people in the
wardroom [officers' dining and social compartment] battle dressing station. This
plane did not try to crash either, and was shot down, after passing over the
ship, by our fighter cover.

The last plane that attacked the ship came in from the port bow, and was shot
down by the combined fire of the Corsair pilots and our own machine guns, and
struck the water close aboard and skidded into the side of the ship, denting the
ship's side but causing no damage.

The action had lasted an hour and 20 minutes. We had been attacked by 22 planes,
nine of which we had shot down unassisted, eight planes had struck the ship,
seven of them with suicidal intent, two of these seven did practically no damage
other than knocking off yardarms. Five of these seven did really heavy material
damage and killed a lot of our personnel. We had only four of our original
eleven .20 mm mounts still in commission. Eight of the original 12 barrels of
our .40 mm mounts could still shoot but only in local control, all electrical
power to them being gone and our after five-inch mount was completely destroyed.
Our engines were still intact.

The fires were still out of control and we were slowly flooding aft. Our rudder
was still jammed and remained jammed until we reached port. We tried every
engine combination possible to try to make a little headway to the southward but
all no avail. We had lost 33 men, killed or missing, about 60 others had been
wounded and approximately 30 of these were seriously wounded.

The morning of our attack off Okinawa we had a CAP [combat air patrol] of about
10 planes over us. It was entirely inadequate for the number of attacking Jap
planes. Our own radar operators said that they saw as many as 50 bogies
[Japanese aircraft] approaching the ship from the north just prior to the
attack. Many more planes were undoubtedly sent to our assistance and quite a
large number of Jap planes were undoubtedly shot down outside of our own gun
range and to the north of us that morning. When the attack was all over we had a
CAP of 24 planes protecting us.

Threw live bomb over the side.

One of the highlights of the action occurred when Lieutenant T.W. Runk,
[spelled] R-U-N-K, USNR, who was the Communications Officer on the Laffey at the
time, went aft to try to free the rudder. He had to clear his way through debris
and plane wreckage to reach the fantail [rearmost deck on the ship] and, on his
way back to the steering engine room, saw an unexploded bomb on deck which he
promptly tossed over the side. His example of courage and daring was one of the
most inspiring ones on the Laffey that morning.

Another example of resourcefulness exhibited that morning came when two of the
engineers, who were fighting fires in one of the after compartments, were
finally driven by the heat of the planes [flames] into the after Diesel
generator room. The heat from the burning gasoline scorched the paint on the
inside of the Diesel generator room where there was no ventilation whatsoever.
The acrid fumes almost suffocated these two men but they called the officer in
charge of the after engine room, which was in adjacent compartment, and told him
of their predicament. He immediately had one of the men beat a hole through the
bulkhead with a hammer and chisel and then, with and electric drill, cut a
larger hole to put an air hose through to give them sufficient air until they
could be rescued. At the same time other engineering personnel had cleared away
the plane wreckage on the topside and with an oxime acetylene torch cut a hole
through the deck which enabled these two men to escape. Upon reaching the
topside, both of them turned to fighting the fires in the after part of the
ship.

The morning after the action we removed one engine from the inside of the after
five-inch mount which had been completely destroyed and which had had its port
side completely blown off by the explosion of the initial plane, which was
carrying a bomb when it crashed into this mount. The second plane which crashed
into that mount had also done great damage to it. And the next morning we pulled
one engine out of the inside of the mount and another engine was sitting beside
the mount with the remains of the little Jap pilot just aft of the engine. There
was very little left of him, however.

We transferred our injured personnel to a smaller ship that afternoon, which
took them immediately to Okinawa. We were taken in tow by a light mine-sweeper
in the early afternoon, about three hours after the attack and the mine-sweeper
turned the tow over a short time later to a tug, which had been sent to our
rescue. Another tug came alongside us to assist in pumping out our flooded
spaces and with one tug towing us and the other alongside pumping us, we reached
Okinawa early the next morning.

Put soft patches on hull.

After reaching Okinawa and pumping out all our flooded spaces, we put soft
patches on four small holes we found in the underwater body in the after part of
the ship. It took about five days to patch the ship up sufficiently for it to
start the journey back to Pearl Harbor.

After leaving Okinawa we proceeded to Saipan and thence to Eniwetok and from
Eniwetok on to Pearl Harbor.

About the seventh plane that attacked us, it came in on the port bow and he was
low on the water and I kept on turning with about 25 degrees left rudder towards
him to try to keep him on the beam. He swung back towards our stern and then cut
in directly towards our stern and then cut in directly towards the ship. I kept
turning to port to try to keep him on the beam and concentrate the maximum
gunfire on him and as we turned, we could see him skidding farther aft all the
time. I finally saw that he wouldn't quite make [it to hit] the bridge but then
I was afraid he was going to strike the hull in the vicinity of the engine room,
but about a hundred yards out from the ship, he finally straightened out and
went over the fantail nicking the edge of five-inch mount three and then crashed
into the water beyond the ship.

Of course, many people have various ideas about how to avoid these Kamikazes but
the consensus of opinion, so far as I know, to try to keep them on the beam
[i.e., coming in on a 90- degree angle to the long axis of the ship, or directly
from the side] as much as possible or one reason to concentrate the maximum
gunfire on them as they approached. And another reason is to give them less
danger space by exposing just the beam of the ship rather than the quarter of
the bow for them to attack from. The danger space is much less if they come in
from the beam than it would be if they came in from ahead or from astern and had
the whole length of the ship to choose in which to crash into. High speed and
the twin rudders, with which 2200 ton destroyers are equipped, were believed to
have been vital factors in saving our ship that morning off Okinawa.

Interviewer:

Captain Becton, were you on some other destroyer in the early part of the war?

Commander Becton:

Yes, I was in the [USS] Aaron Ward [DD-483] in the early part of the war. I was
in the [USS] Gleaves [DD-423] when the war was first declared, but went to the
Aaron Ward a short time after that as Chief Engineer, fleeted up [was promoted]
to Exec[utive Officer - second in command] and was in there when she went
through that night action off Guadalcanal the night of 12-13 November 1942. We
were hit by nine shells that night, varying between 5 and 14 inches, but
fortunately they were all well above the water line. We were towed into Tulagi
[an island near Guadalcanal] the next day and later repaired.

Interviewer:

Were you also on board when the Ward went down?

Commander Becton:

Yes, I was on board the Aaron Ward when she sank off Guadalcanal in April, 1943.
After that I went to the squadron staff of ComDesRon [Commander, Destroyer
Squadron] 21 and went through three surface actions in the [USS] Nicholas
[DD-449]. The first of these was the night of 6 July, in the First Battle of
Kolombangara or Kula Gulf when the [light cruiser USS] Helena [CL-50] was sunk.
The Nicholas and the [destroyer USS] Radford [DD-446] stayed behind after the
cruisers and other destroyers retired to pick up the Helena's survivors and
fight a surface action with Jap ships that were still there in Kula Gulf.

The next surface action we were in came a week later when the same outfit of
destroyers and cruisers attacked some more Jap cruisers and destroyers that were
coming down from the northwest. We operated under Admiral Ainesworth that night.
The destroyers were under the overall command of Captain McInerney.

After that the next surface action we were in was after the occupation of Vella
Lavella, in which we took on some Jap destroyers and barges [towed craft
carrying troops or cargo] to the north of Vella Lavella in a night action. The
destroyers turned and ran and left their barges and we couldn't catch the
destroyers. We did some damage to them, possibly destroyed some, but the major
damage was done to the barges which they had left behind and many of which we
sank.


Note: USS Laffey survived WWII and is now a memorial ship which can be visited
at Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.


19 February 2001