Nice weather. Got underway at 0545 for two day firing. Halsey now with us. Very dull.
Open in the diary →Showers. Jap fleet sighted. Making air strikes on it. Enemy plane dropped bomb 50 yards off our stern while on picket. Attacked again at 1635 but no damage done. Princeton hit seriously. Fueled and formed Halseys special attack group 34.5. Now heading to try and cut off Jap fleet. Princeton has sunk, Burmingham has been hit seriously. Believe we have damaged or sunk over half of the Jap navy.
Open in the diary →Nice weather. Rejoined T.G. 38.2. Fueled from Mongahelm (x42). Halsey gave us a well done on yesterdays work.
Open in the diary →Nice weather. Formed Halseys special attack group again to attack 4 BB’s 6 cruisers and 10 DD’s off Samar. They turned out friendly.
Open in the diary →Nice weather. Our task group joined us today. Plenty of signal work
Open in the diary →Nice weather. Refueled from the Wisconsin (B64). The Wisconsin is a nice looking ship but crew looks awful green. We are now in T.G. 30.1. Three of us destroyers escorting the New Jersey, with Halsey, back to Ulithi. Our ship got a big write up in a paper back up.
Open in the diary →Nice weather. Franklin was seriously hit this morning. Suicide planes tried to get in on us about noon, two were shot down, the others retired. Pittsburgh has Franklin in tow. She is really a wreck. The Halsey Powell was hit at 1500 while fueling from Enterprise. We have been detailed to drop back and guard her. Our two ships we were attacked at 1600. Torpedo plane made run on us but was shot down. One suicide plane made a dive on us but pulled out at the last minute. We really though it was the end of our ship. After the task group left us the Enterprise was hit by a suicide plane. We are now 150 miles off Tokyo and about 100 miles from our group.
Open in the diary →Fueled from tankers today. Halsey now has charge. This is now the third fleet. Going to Okinawa instead of in port.
Open in the diary →