It is silver in color and quite small. Its purpose is to dive on a ship and both the suicide pilot as well as anything it hits will go down. As yet none have appeared in combat and we were glad to learn about it so when it does come it will not be such a surprise to us. The day of the 6th proved to be quite a day with everyone in the force remaining on their battle stations almost all day. Planes came in almost continually and we really racked up a terrific score. That night over 300 planes had been reported shot down and reports were still coming in from the carriers. They used every type plane they could muster and even bombers were shot down. Many of the planes came in with our formations of planes and the ships accounted for quite a score of them as well as the planes of the C.A.P. One plane made a low circle over a carrier and suddenly pealed into a dive. The carrier was on the ball and the 40 MM’s shot is down when only 30 feet from the ship. The explosion splattered the ship with parts of the plane as well as the pilot. Two men were blown over the side and there wasn’t any dope as to whether they were rescued or not.
As we were relieved early in the morning to once again top off with fuel, we again escaped damage by a very thin margin. The destroyer who relieved us on picket duty was bombed as well as strafed and the damage wasn’t too much. This destroyer picked up a Japanese pilot who had bailed out of a Zeke and to us it seemed very funny because they never try to bailout. All they do is try to crash dive into our ships. As usual we were prepared for nearly anything, but when the destroyer reported the pilot as being an instructor with no combat experience well that was too much. Could be a very serious shortage of pilots in Japan, otherwise your guess is as good as ours. Late that afternoon one plane came in on a run for a CVL which is a cruiser converted into a carrier. They shot the hell out of him and he started climbing as steep as he could trying to gain altitude to make a final dive but they filled him so full of lead that he crashed in the water.
We received orders to get the fish (torpedoes) ready for firing as they think the Japanese fleet is coming down hence all the planes. This was the first time in many months we had so many planes hit us in one day. So we knew there was something in the wind because they used every type that would fly.
We heard too that on this long dreary day, Russia had withdrawn from Japan and Russia’s non-aggression pact so everyone was wondering if that would be the first step for a new front from Russia. With Russia fighting from across the Japan Sea the little boys are going to have more than enough.
The next day proved to be quite a long and very busy one. The Japanese came over nearly all day only the number of planes were very small. We sent out three waves of planes to contact the enemy fleet which consisted of one 45,000 ton battleship, two light cruisers and eight destroyers. The battleship was hit with 6 torpedoes and three 1000 lb. bombs. The first report was the battleship was listing heavily and steaming in circles at 8 knots. This was after she had only had the three bomb hits and two fish. They first wave that was over reported her badly damaged and as the other two strikes went in they polished her off and she sank in a very few minutes. Besides the battle wagon both cruisers and 3 destroyers were hit but there was no sigh of them the following day but it is almost a safe bet that they never reached port because as soon as the fleet started moving south 8 American submarines moved into position behind them cutting them off from port so the subs probably made the three destroyers into new members of Davy Jones’s Fleet.
This was a serious blow to the Japanese as the battle wagon was the last of the Nagami class o new 45,000 tonners and now Japan has five smaller and older wagons left although most of them are being repaired.