Battle scenes

From The Men of the Gambier Bay by Edwin P. Hoyt. Page 206. The USS Gambier Bay is under fire from the Japanese fleet, including the super-battleship Yamato (largest battleship ever built and with nine 18.1 inch guns). The scene is from the final battle, written in almost a pointillist style, built up from dozens of vignettes from individual participants.

Seaman Heinl felt one shell come through the ship as he was walking from the port magazine to the starboard to check on the men there since the ship was listing. As he came onto the catwalk under the flight deck, he saw the hole through both sides of the ship. He could look right through where the shell had passed.

When Heinl reached the starboard magazine, he found Seaman Mike Williams, who had been telling him a few days before that he was about be returned to the United States for duty. His two elder brothers had both been killed in action, and his mother had asked the Red Cross to bring him home. The Navy had acquiesced, and Mike Williams's orders were being cut. As soon as this engagement ended, Williams was to be flown back to the US. Heinl spent a few moments talking to Williams and to Seaman Klotkowski, who was also on duty there. Then he went back to his own post. As he reached the magazine, the ship shuttered from the impact of another shell, and lights went out. That shell also killed Mike Williams at his post. Heinl went out onto the catwalk again since he could not see inside, and as he came out he saw another shell strike and Klotkowski's left arm disappear. He got to the phone and called for a corpsman, but the corpsman never appeared, and in a minute or two, Klotkowski was dead. (The corpsman was killed in route to the catwalk.)

AAM3c Potochniak was on the catwalk when an explosion behind him knocked him down. As he scrambled to his feet he saw that this first shell had knocked out his oxygen room, just as he had seen it happen in his vision. Where his oxygen room had been was now a large, smoldering hole. He moved up the port catwalk, forward, and his head was tumbling with thoughts. What about his tombstone, with the inscription: "Lost at sea, age 19 years." And what would his family say when they learned he had been killed?

Potochniak reached the flight deck. He saw bodies lying on the bloodstained wooden deck. He headed for the parachute packing light lock. When he arrived, he saw that it had been turned into a first aid station. Just behind him came the flight surgeon, Commander Stewart, followed by two enlisted men, one of whom was AAM3c Marty Showers. Lying on a stretcher was a badly injured enlisted man. Commander Stewart asked Potochniak to move over, since he needed that space to work on the wounded man. Potochniak stepped back and the surgeon stepped up and knelt down by the stretcher. Just then a shell fragment burst through the flight deck, and killed surgeon Stewart. Potochniak saw other men fall. He heard aircrewman G.C. Phillips shout, "I'm hit." Potochniak was hit, too, by small fragments in the hand and legs. He looked at the stretcher. Surgeon Stewart's body was lying across that of the injured sailor, in a pool of blood. The compartment began to get hot, and Potochniak went out the port side of the light lock to the catwalk.

Photographer's Mate 2c Johnson remained at his battle station on the catwalk aft of the landing signal officer's platform. He leaned over the side just as one shell hit the motor whale boat and blew it apart. He watched, fascinated, as shells continued to go completely through the ship and then explode 300 yards further along. He also saw shells ricocheting off the flight deck without exploding. Which, of course, indicated the close range from which the approaching cruisers were firing. He saw Aerographer 1c John Ammon clamber up onto the flight deck from the catwalk, and begin to sprint toward the island. When he was halfway across, an explosion below caused the flight deck to undulate like a wave, and Ammon fell flat on his face, lay there, jumped up and hobbled into the island structure. The whole performance had probably consumed ten seconds, but it seemed like an hour.

Johnson decided to go down to the photo lab and pick up his dress blues. He had them made up in a tight package with a white hat in the center. Months earlier he had been impressed by the tale of one old-timer who described his woes after he lost his ship: Because he had no dress blues he could not go ashore on liberty for months until they reached port and could get re-outfitted. Johnson had determined this would never happen to him, and now, with shells exploding all around, his dress blues were foremost in his mind.

He worked his way back to the passageway that led onto the gallery deck and the photo lab. He encountered heavy black smoke but held the door to the light lock open and let the breeze clear the air so that he could see. It was lucky that he had, for eight feet in front of him was a gaping hole through the passageway deck down to the hanger deck. There was no way to get past. He turned back towards his station, saying goodbye to his dress blues.