The
Time: Night of February 20-21,
A hard-shooting ship, USS Henry A. Wiley was nicknamed "The
Hammering Hank" for her exploits in bombarding the Japanese on shore and
for her ability to blast them out of the sky. Originally designed as the
DD-749, but was converted to a 2200 ton destroyer minelayer. One of a squadron
of twelve, she was built by the Bethlehem Steel Company, Staten Island, N.Y.,
and commissioned at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on 31 August 1944, commander R.E.
Gadrow, USN took over as the first commanding officer of the ship.
The shakedown cruise was in Bermuda, where ship and
crew were tuned like a harp. A brief period in the Brooklyn Navy Yard and the
Henry A. Wiley reported "ready for distant service." On 8 November
1944 she took departure from Ambrose Light to rendezvous with the battleships
Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri for the long trip to Pacific waters.
This is the story of the U.S.S. Henry A. Wiley, a
destroyer-mine-layer, and how she helped build the last two stepping stone to
Tokyo and Victory.
This is the story of the men and the boys of the
Wiley--of the officers who directed her movements and operations and the
enlisted men who fired her guns and ran her engines and dropped her buoys and
manned her decks and cooked the chow and cared for the sick and performed the
scores of other big and little tasks that go into the maintenance of a little
city at sea.
This isn't the whole story. You do not take war and
wrap it up with neat little ribbons of nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and
exclamation points and say: "This is how war was."
Here, rather, are some of the days . . . some of the
nights · . . some of the spectacular and frightening and routine events
which the men and the Wiley saw and heard and felt.., clays like May 4, 1945,
off Okinawa, when the Wiley went to the aid of the sinking U.S.S. Luce to become
not only the first ship in the Okinawa area to knock a Baka Bomb from the air,
but the first in the fleet to win credit for two... Nights like at lwo Jima,
when the Wiley pulled up close to shore and helped repel a suicide attack by
enemy troops... Close enough that the crew could have tossed potatoes at the
Japanese soldiers had they not been so busy pumping 5-inch and 40MM and 20MM and
50 calibre shells in that direction.
Planes and bombs splashed and shores bombarded by a
destroyer-minelayer. What kind of ship is that?
A fighting ship, a versatile, tough, streamlined
fighting ship, that originated in the shipyards as a half-breed, part destroyer
and part minelayer.., and wound up the war recognized as a thoroughbred with a
hard-won and well-won berth in the frontline fleet.
The Wiley didn't lay a single mine. She planted some
buoys as mine field markers with her mine-laying equipment and she provided
protection for minesweeps, but she fulfilled her destiny running interference
for the big ships.., serving as radar picket... moving up with the battlewagons
and cruisers for shore bombardments.., making the airways extra hazardous for
Japanese Jills, Jakes, Judys, Bettys, and Bakas.
Some Navy men say the destroyer minelayer, with the
possible exception of lack of torpedo tubes, is an improvement over the
traditional destroyer. Their thought is the built-in mine apparatus tends to
give greater structural strength, that the ship can better survive damage. The
men of the Wiley wouldn't know about that for sure on the basis of their own
experience. The Wiley, in the face of rugged duty, crippling or fatal to scores
of ships, suffered only a few scratches, no cuts.
The Wiley made her war debut at lwo Jima. The official
battle action report for February 16 to March 9, 1945, says she was engaged in
"Bombardment, illumination and routine screening." That's short, and
true, but these five words include a series of one-act plays like this one:
The
Place: Mt. Suribachi,
lwo Jima. Night of February 20-21, 1945.
As the action unfolds the stage is covered by the
curtain of night. Land, sea and sky blend into a uniform blackness.
The first sound is radio request, directed to the Wiley
from the beach, asking that the ship come in near the mountain to lend all
possible fire support. The Japs, it was explained, were massing for a suicide
counter-attack.
A black ghost in a black night, the Wiley starts in at
a good clip. As the ship cuts its way through the water and nears its goal,
speed is reduced. But she doesn't stop. (The action report will eventually say
she pulled up within 500 yards of the shore line, but men who claimed to hear
the bow scrape bottom will say even half that figure represents a masterpiece of
understatement).
But finally the Wiley stops. The night has an ominous
quiet, broken only at intervals by the crack and flash of Japanese sniping.
Then the word is passed: "Now hear this--the
searchlight crew man your stations." A sailor mumbles the thought that
immediately hits all minds, "We'll be a perfect target."
The curtain goes up as the darkness is slashed by the
light's glare· The beam searches out the Iow plateau and breaks against the
sheer, cave-pocked face of Suribachi. The silence that a moment ago blanketed
everything is simultaneously shattered. All hell breaks loose as the guns open
fire--rapid fire. There is the stutter of the 50's . . . The bop-bop-bop-bop of
the 20's . . . The hard, sharp crack of the 40's . . . The thunder of the six
5-inchers. It is like all the Public Park American Fourth-of-July Fireworks
displays rolled into one.
A few shells from unknown sources burst near the ship
and sometimes there is the spa-n-n-n-g of a rifle bullet against steel.
That's it. The lights go out, the firing stops, the
black curtain falls back into place, the Wiley eases out to sea.
POSTSCRIPT: There were no drama critics from the newspapers there. The actors themselves made up the audience. The principal players
ashore, for whom the Wiley men constituted a supporting cast were the Fifth
Marines. They liked the play. They transmitted a review which went something
like "Well Done Hank" and "We owe you a cigar on that one."
And that's all there was to it -- except that with a few changes in time and
scenery the Wiley supplicated the performance with a fair degree of regularity.
It was not until 12 March that the Wiley secured her
position off Iwo Jima. For three weeks the ship kept up a steady pumping of her
fire into caves, revetments, pill boxes and enemy troop concentrations in
support of the marines who were inching their way up the tiny island. On the
bloody island behind her she had pockmarked the battle scene with over 3,600
rounds of explosive 5-inch shells· With nine pill boxes confirmed destroyed her
gunnery was good and all her men knew it.
For the folks back home, the invasion of Okinawa
started April 1, 1945, when the troops moved in for what eventually proved to be
the last lap of the road to occupy Tokyo.
The
Wiley was at Okinawa eight clays before that. Okinawa wasn't secured until late
June.
Between March and June the Okinawa campaign, for the
Navy, proved in personnel and ship losses the most rugged action of the war
since Pearl Harbor itself.
The
Wiley was in all of it.
She began the campaign as a support vessel for mine
sweeps assigned to clear the Okinawa Gunto area of mines and other menaces to
invasion navigation. Before it was over she had splashed ten Japanese planes and
two Baka bombs, had assists on two other downed planes and was credited with
still another probable . . . She had bombarded beaches... Dropped depth charges
on submarine contacts... Searched for Jap suicide ammunition barges · . . Picked
up a downed American pilot as well as survivors from an
American destroyer. Had seen a Japanese pilot adopt the salt water method of
Hara-Kiri by discarding his life jacket as the Wiley approached with the
intention of rescuing him... Had felt the jar of an exploding Jap torpedo, which
missed . . . And had put in a full share of duty as radar picket, one of the
most vital and at the same time most hazardous of all the Okinawa Fleet
operations.
It is a long time from the twenty-first day of March
until the twenty-third day of June in any year. But, comparatively, the period
28-29 March, 1945, seems in the memories of many Wiley men to make up the
greater share of the total campaign time.
Starting at 6:15 a.m. the 28th they were at battle
stations continuously until the following night. They began by dunking their
first Japanese plane, a Nate attempting a suicide dive. Before the hour was out,
they downed another. In the same morning they were alerted for suicide boats,
and also delivered harassing fire to the beach. Before midnight a vicious air
attack was beaten off, but the ship was jarred by a torpedo which exploded at
the end of its run--a near miss.
The
next day was no better.
A Jake aimed a bomb which fell into the Wiley's wake,
70 yards astern. Two Nates, with suicide intentions, were knocked down--the
second splashing just 75 yards off the starboard bow after the 20MM guns had
sliced off a wing. Meanwhile, there were miscellaneous irritations from above
and a sub contact from below.
There were plenty of Wiley men who never expected to
see the end of those two days, and now, when you ask how it was done, one will
say: "Recognition. Our guys could really pick out those plane profiles and
identify the Jap bogies fast enough to have us ready for them." Another
will say: "Good Gunnery. The gunners were as scared as everyone else all
right, but they knew all the time it was either us or the Japs and they stayed
right in there and pitched the ammunition right down the middle ." Another
will say: "Good Seamanship. The Captain knew how to change the pace with
this baby to keep the Japs off balance. The time the torpedo missed he had
kept her slow until the Japs were set to attack, then he shoved her up to 25
knots or so, just like that. That's why the torpedo missed--We fouled up the
Japs timing." Another will say: "Every guy knew he had responsibility
for the other guy." Another will say: "Luck." Another will say:
"We prayed a lot, and the prayers were answered."
The right answer is probably the total of all the
answers offered. Skill, leadership, loyalty, faith, confidence, and acceptance
of responsibility.
Officers and men who rate those March dates as the
toughest on the Wiley calendar put May 4 in second place. Others give the top
spot to May 4, and second to March 28-29. Anyhow, here's the dope on May:
Trouble tumbled in before dawn, when three enemy planes
closed in on the Wiley. One of the three was set afire and crashed into the sea
after passing over the ship. Ordinarily, after a splashed bogey hits the drink,
it burns but a short time. But this one showered flame into the air for more
than an hour and the other Japanese pilots, doubtless thinking it a burning
American ship, made five bomb runs on the blaze. That kind of warfare the Wiley
men liked.
Shortly after morning chow, the Wiley was told to
proceed to the assistance of the U.S.S. Luce, reported sinking. The planes which
had set the Luce afire were still waiting in the area for the rescue ships, and
when the Wiley came into view she got the works.
Two Jills opened the attack, but were driven off.
Minutes later a Betty came in and was splashed at 3000 yards, but before anyone
could find time for a cheer a Baka bomb was sighted. (Later analysis indicated
the Betty had released the Baka then circled as a decoy.) The 20MM boys saw the
Baka first and opened up. The bomb, with its human pilot, crashed about 75 yards
off the stern.
It
proved to be only the Baka beginning. Another was soon taken under fire at two
miles and was forced into the sea by the Wiley fire at 1200 yards. The warhead
separated from the after body of the bomb, skittered along the water like a
well-thrown flat rock and ricocheted over the Wiley's fantail before exploding.
Then the planes came back. A torpedo carrying Jill was taken under fire as it
roared in from the port side. At almost the same time a Marine Corsair came in
for the fight from the opposite direction. Starboard guns held their fire as the
Corsair passed directly over the Wiley but the port guns--naturally--couldn't
stop. The Marine raced through the thick AA fire to attack the Jill, and brought
him down. Although the ship's guns probably would have accounted for the enemy
plane, the Marine pilot speeded the final results considerably and his
courageous act brought a "Well Done" from every man on the Wiley.
Still there was no respite. Another Jill came in from starboard and met the same
splashing fate as her mates. The enemy had apparently had enough for awhile and
the Wiley could turn its attention to the survivors of the sunken Luce. Eleven
men were taken from the water and thirty others, picked up by an LCI, were taken
aboard for medical attention.
May 4 didn't end the war. The war didn't end until
August, on the 12th of June the Wiley entered the East China Sea as the flagship
of her Division Commander, Captain Henry J. Armstrong, USN. She was charged with
the task of screening against air and surface attack the minesweepers who were
just then commencing the enormous task of clearing the seas of mines from the
Northern tip of Formose to the shores of Kyushu. On the night of 12 August in
Bucknet Bay, Okinawa, about to depart for the completion of her third operation
in the East China Sea, she joined in the wild burst of enthusiasm which welcomed
the first rumors of the Japanese surrender. On the night of 14 August, the
night before final orders were received to cease offensive operations against
the Japanese, darkened under war cruising conditions the Wiley was at General
Quarters six times because of the approach of enemy aircraft, and on the sixth
opened fire as an attack run was commenced. The attack was driven off, and the
only too familiar crash of her guns was the accolade of dawn . . . and peace . .
.
But peace did not bring an end to the Wiley's duties,
she was assigned as a unit of the active Pacific Fleet. As a member of Minecraft,
Pacific Fleet she was committed to the task of flag and navigational vessel for
the smaller minesweepers whose work lay uncompleted: the clearing of the Pacific
Ocean Areas of the hundreds of thousands of mines that the invasion jittery
Japanese had sown. Twice during September she entered Empire Waters, once into
the Kii Suido and once into the Bungo Suido. Three times too, during this time
she fled the typhoons which struck savagely, and with little warning, from the
south. But the luck of the Wiley held good and on 21 October she joined a task
force sweeping Tsushima Straits and after a brief rest in Sasebo, Japan, on 1
November commenced operations in the Yellow Sea.
Another rest in Sasebo and she was attached to the
Seventh Fleet, commencing operations off the Northern tip of Formosa. On 26
November as Commander of a task unit, the Wiley commenced operations in the
Pescadores Islands and the Formose Straits. After a stop in Amoy, China she was
ordered to Shanghai for the Christmas season: a ten day reward she richly
deserved.
On January 3rd, she departed Shanghai for Sasebo when final orders were received
to return to the United States for overhaul. On 17 January 1946, a year almost
to the day that she had left Pearl Harbor for the forward area, the Henry A.
Wiley stood out of Sasebo Ko, her homeward Bound Pennant reaching over the
fantail. As she passed her flagship, and the crew at the rails stiffened to
attention as she rendered honors, the signal flags fluttered "Well
Done," and Rear Admiral A.D. Struble, Commander Minecraft, Pacific Fleet
sent, "CominPac commends you for a job well done and all MinPac will long
remember the important part you had in the many Pacific operations. Goodbye,
Good Luck, and Smooth Sailing." The Wiley turned eastward to retrace her
long and tedious track.