CHAPTER 18 MARCH 10, 1945 -- JUNE 1,1945 OKINAWA OPERATION

The Petrof Bay had been commissioned in 1944 and had been involved in three invasions with VC-76 aboard before we relieved them. It had been a good ship and VC-76 a good squadron both with fine records which we expected to live up to. The accommodations for the squadrons officers were two and four man staterooms for the lieutenants, a single for the squadron commander and nine man bunk rooms for most of the ensigns. There were a few state rooms for some of the less senior lieutenants and those ensigns that didn't object to being deep in the ship in what we called "torpedo junction". If one of those CVEs took a torpedo, it would practically sink before you could get out of bed. That is, if the torpedo didn't explode in bed with you.

Ready for fly away take-off

The ship was about 500 feet long and the flight deck was about 490 feet and 70 feet wide. The landing area was contained on the after third of the flight deck. For a fly-away take off the forward two thirds of the deck was used. The ship had one catapult for launching planes into the air. This was on the forward left hand corner of the flight deck. The tail end of the plane was snapped to the deck by a metal

hook with a breakable metal ring. The forward end of the plane was attached by a wire rope sling to a hook in the deck. This hook was only about 70 feet from the leading end of the flight deck. The hook was fired down the deck by compressed air at a speed of 70 knots. The plane was instantly traveling 70 knots and was thrown off the front end of the flight deck where it was now flying under it's own power. It is quite an operation, exciting, a little spooky at first but once fired you are sure you are going to leave to ship. All you need is for that engine to keep running full power.

Life aboard a carrier is quite pleasant for the officers and I would say that it is not bad for the enlisted men either. Certainly, the food is a darned sight better on a large ship than on any small vessel.

On March 10th we departed Guam for Ulithi. As we sailed into the Ulithi anchorage, I was on deck, as I usually was when entering or leaving a harbor. The first thing I saw was ships. War ships, cargo ships, tankers, hospital ships every kind of ship you could imagine. Thousands of them. All the way from carriers and battleships to LCTs and PT boats. Impressed! You can't believe how impressed I was or how you would have been if you had been there.

The Petrof Bay dropped anchor amongst the "big boys": the battleships and carriers and right along side the Indiana. It was late afternoon so I decided that I would wait until the next morning and try to catch a motor launch or a mail boat for a ride over to the Indiana and surprise Melv. Early the next morning I awoke, went out on deck and "lo and behold", it was gone. Not only the Indiana but the whole damned "fast fleet" was gone. All the new battleships, big carriers, new cruisers, new destroyers and their support vessels were gone.

Mog Mog village

All that was left in the harbor were the escort carriers, old battlewagons, old cruisers and an array of destroyers and invasion vessels. The big fleet had left for a strike at Japan and to place a defensive force between the next island scheduled for invasion and Japan. This island was to be Okinawa. What was left in the harbor was the invasion force and it was loaded and ready to go in a matter of a few days. I, the squadron and the Petrof Bay were a part of that force. So again I had missed Melv. Maybe it was a good thing, had I gone over the night before, I might have stayed all night and spent a considerable time on a battleship and not with the blessing of the Navy.

Mog Mog Cemetery

For the few days we were at Ulithi anchorage we were anchored 26 miles from the island called "Mog Mog". Other than the warm beer, one of the two things I remember about Mog Mog was how high the beer cans were piled. I guess when you pour beer down the throats of a couple hundred thousand sailors and marines, even for a few days, its not hard to make a mountain of beer cans. The other thing I remember was the native cemetery. The bodies were buried on top of the ground under slabs of rock. This was

because the elevation was probably three feet high and the bodies won't stay under the surface of the ground due to water level. Reminded me of the cemetery that Bloski and I visited in New Orleans.

On the last evening we were in the Ulithi anchorage several of us caught a LCT and rode to the island called Falalop to go to a movie and just get off the ship for a couple of hours. Falalop was another of the atolls like Mog Mog that lie in a circle and formed an anchorage that was capable of harboring very nearly the entire United States Navy. This island contained the only air strip around the anchorage and was operated by a Marine squadron. It was on the way in to Falalop that we were to see the USS Randolph, CV-15. The Randolph had been left behind by the fast fleet because of a big hole in her flight deck. On the day before we arrived at Ulithi a couple of Japanese planes flew in from Yap Island a couple of hundred miles away. One dove into the flight deck of the Randolph and the other dove into the runway on Falalop, probably thinking it was the flight deck of a carrier. I'll bet that guy was sure surprised for a few seconds!

We were to be at the boat landing to meet the LCT at 2200 hours. We left the movie at 2130 hours and was at the landing about five minutes later. No LCT! It had already left and wasn't even in sight. There were several of us and we lodged a loud complaint with the harbor master. The basis of our argument was that the invasion fleet was to hoist anchor before dawn the next morning and we were suppose to be going with it. The harbor master knew this was true and called for a PT boat and we were treated to about a twenty mile ride at fast clip. Don't think this was PT-109, though, unless they resurrected it.