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UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY

SIXTIETH GRADUATION ANNIVERSARY OF THE CLASS OF 1940

This is a transcript of "The Long Voyage of the Class of Forty-U. S. Naval Academy" taken from the book The Class of Forty After Fifty Years © W. M. Carpenter 1990. Original text by C. H. Hall and W. D. Lanier.

1945, the year of victory, is remembered most vividly by most of us as the Year of the Kamikazes. With over two hundred of us involved in one way or another, and with over 3,000 suicide attacks, sinking 39 ships and damaging 369 others, the number of direct encounters and close calls is legion. A few examples won't even begin to tell the story.

In January, in Lingayen Gulf, Mike Alpert was in COLUMBIA, which took three kamikazes on board, while shooting down nine planes. The Gem of the Ocean was awarded another SecNav Commendation for not missing a beat in supporting the assault forces while being clobbered. Art Esch was in LOUISVILLE, which took two kamikazes, one on the bridge killing RADM Theodore Chandler.

In February, the Marines went ashore at Iwo Jima, to encounter another form of suicidal tenacity. John Antonelli, Fred Karch, Jack Partridge, Erwin Wann and Paul Treitel commanded battalions in this bitterest of struggles. John won the Navy Cross. The experience of Paul's battalion is indicative--out of 1,000 officers and men, 667 casualties, 67%. Ray Hundevadt was flag navigator for ComPhibGroup One who commanded the advance force for the landing.

In March Jughead Wood, flying with VPB-149, was killed in action in the Philippines. His body wasn't found until years later, in 1950. Non-grad Tom McCann, in the same month, was shot down and lost over Luzon.

In the carrier strikes on Kyushu, later in March, Willy Beck, leading a fighter sweep by VF-6, was shot down by enemy aircraft and lost. In the same operation, FRANKLIN was set ablaze by two direct hits from a Japanese dive bomber. With successive explosions from ammunition and gas tanks tearing her apart, she appeared doomed, but was saved by the heroic efforts of surviving officers and men. Leading the fire-fighting for this epic feat, Bill McKinney won the Navy Cross, along with the Purple Heart. John Lacouture and Jim Hedrick, of FRANKLIN's air group, survived the holocaust, as did Dave Marks, on the staff of ComCarDiv Five.

The landings on Okinawa on April 1 initiated the longest continued engagement in naval history. For over three months, 108 days, the Fifth Fleet remained at sea and in action, launching attacks on the enemy and fighting off attacks by the enemy.

On April 6, Dick Shafer's THREADFIN reported a Japanese Force centering around super-battleship YAMATO debouching from Bungo Suido. On the following day, the fast carriers of Task Force 58 launched a series of strikes that sank six ships of that force, and damaged the remaining four so that they had to limp back to port. Harry White, of ESSEX's VT-83, won the Navy Cross leading the attack that sank YAMATO.

On April 16, a kamikaze crashed BRYANT, on picket station. Among those killed was Tate Preston. Connie Carlson in picket destroyer FOX, Pappy Dupzyk in ZELLARS, Tad Lothrop in HAYNESWORTH, and Ward Witter in NEVADA survived hits by suiciders. Ted Hill, in the cockpit of his fighter on the flight deck of BUNKER HILL, was bracketed by two kamikazes, one directly forward of him and one aft. Paul Desmond also had a close call in this attack, and Fred Pennoyer once again scrambled over the side as CTF-58 shifted his flag.

As the kamikazes kept coming, day after day, our fighter pilots kept busy with intercepts. Among those engaged in this activity were Sandy MacGregor of LEXINGTON's VF-94, Mike Michaelis of RANDOLPH's VF-12, Pete Peters of BON HOMME RICHARD's VF-16, Bob Miller, Commander Air Group 32 in CABOT and Pat Clancy, Commander Air Group 47 in BATAAN. Doc Weatherup of VF-46 shot down Shoichi Sugita, one of Japan's leading aces, with over 70 victories.

The shooting was not one-sided. Merlin Paddock, of VF-23, was killed in action in April, as was Hank Graham of VFB-83.

Also busy on a day-after-day basis were our dive-bomber and torpedo plane pilots, flying repeated missions over Okinawa and then, after a very brief respite, hitting targets in the home islands, Kyushu, Honshu, and Hokkaido, throughout June and July. Jim Elkins, of YORKTOWN's VB-88, won the DFC. Franz Kanaga, CO of TICONDEROGA's VB-87 won the Navy Cross, plus a DFC and an Air Medal. Art Maltby, CO of SHANGRI LA's VB-85, won two Navy Crosses, two DFC's, three Air Medals, and a Purple Heart. Bill Bush, of WASP's VB-86, was shot down twice, both times over Japan, but managed to reach the sea each time and was picked up, first by a destroyer and then by submarine WHALE.

But here again we paid a price. Ed DeGarmo was killed on a bombing mission in June, and Charles Sawers, flying with VBF- 16, was lost in July. Elsewhere, Paul Thompson was killed in an operational accident, as was non-grad Virgil Lusk, who had been our plebe summer "five striper." Karl Stefan, flying night fighters off BON HOMME RICHARD, had a crash that put him in the hospital for a year.

Others of our aviators were seeing their share of action in distant places. Moe Mendenhall, with VFB-413, and Dave Wolfe, with a B-25 squadron, were flying missions for the Marines. Ed Hayes, CO of VPB-136, and Ted Rodgers, CO of VPB-131, were doing battle with the weather as well as the enemy, in the Aleutians. Lon Wellman was flying with VPB-132 in Morocco, and John Refo was flying PV-ls in the Mediterranean.

In July, in one of the final and most excruciating tragedies of the war, Bob Hurst was among those lost after INDIANAPOLIS was torpedoed and sunk.

As our submarines ranged farther and hunted harder, in search of worthwhile targets, their work got even riskier. Bill Butler went down with BARBEL in February, in the China Sea. In March, Bob Dodane was lost, when famed TRIGGER disappeared, somewhere in the China Sea. In June, in a wolf pack penetration of the Sea of Japan, Fraser Knight was lost in BONEFISH.

On the plus side of the ledger, Snuffy Smith's TINOSA, with "Hydeman's Hellcats", sank 27 ships in the Sea of Japan in the space of 11 days. BESUGO sank four Japanese ships and a German U-boat, and Don Kable added a Silver Star to his four Bronze Stars. Phil Glennon's FLASHER completed her sixth war patrol with a record score for an individual submarine--21 ships, over 100,000 tons. Phil established some sort of record of his own, with three Silver Stars and a Legion of Merit.

Over in the Atlantic, in April, NEUNZER, with Virgil Gex as CO, sank U-546.

During the course of the year, a number of us moved up to DE, destroyer, and submarine commands, and to important staff jobs. Ned Bent, Bob Tackaberry, Bob Roberts, Tad Lothrop and Burke Gill took over DEs. Destroyer skippers included Benjy Frana of KENDRICK, Vince Healy of DYSON, Ed Hearn of ROE, Bob Kirkpatrick of HANK, Gene Lamiman of PHILIP, Felix Englander of HICKOX, Lou Mayo of ISHERWOOD, Mark Varland of STEVENSON and non-grad Tom Bellinger of HULBERT. Tommy Taylor took over command of VAN VALKENBURGH, with Otto Treanor as his Exec.

Joining Al Bergner on the roster of submarine COs were Julian Burke, GUARDFISH; Phil Eckert, GAR; George Kittredge, GROUPER; Bob Quinn, SARGO; Roy Smallwood, SEARAVEN; and Harvey Smith, BARBERO.

In August came word of some kind of super-bomb, dropped on Hiroshima by a B-29, with devastating effect. Many of us received the news with skepticism, if not with total disbelief. We were, however, more than pleased to be proved wrong. The operation plan for the invasion of the home islands, distributed about this time, made grim reading. Anything that would spare us, and the Japanese people themselves, the agony of a final, last-ditch struggle and a blood-bath of incalculable proportions, was welcome.