On May 22 we went out on advanced radar picket once more and had one general quarter. Our radar had picked up a bogie. It turned out to be a radar decoy with a balloon on it and we picked it up as it hit the war. It was a large piece of paper covered with lead foil about 3 ft. square and shaped something like a dunce cape. It was attached to a small rubber balloon and had evidently been sent up from Okinawa which was only 52 miles away. We secured from G.Q. and resumed our patrol. Nothing happened until that night when we started to rejoin the fleet we picked up a couple bogies about 32 miles, but nothing developed as they never came within range.
That night we headed south to refuel and take on provisions and ammo. Everyone took time to write a fast letter home as we could only send mail off when we refueled from the tankers. Too, that was the only way we could receive mail so everyone was always glad when we headed out of the danger zone for fuel.
We refueled the next day and passed mail to the larger ships. We remained in the fueling area for one day and started north to Okinawa that night.
For the next few days we were screening the carriers of our task group and continuing our patrol. We had an occasional bogie but nothing developed as our C.A.P. shot them down.
Then on the 24th of May the Japanese planes really came. By noon Okinawa had 20 raids and we had been at general quarters all morning our planes shot down quite a few planes and the ships also added to the score. By the middle of the afternoon things were quiet once again and we secured from general quarters.
After another couple of days of the same cruising we headed for the fueling area once more for fuel. We arrived at the area on the morning of May 27 and commenced fueling form the tankers.
We again headed north to Okinawa and patrolled around it for the next couple days. On the 30th of May we went out on patrol with 3 other cans. We spotted a Japanese mine about 15:30 and we sank it with gunfire. It was a different type mine from the others we had sunk as the explosion was greater and there was a large cloud of smoke from the explosion. Shrapnel rained down on the decks and everyone hunted cover.
After spending three quite days north we spent 24 hours out on the advance picket station. We had a very quiet patrol and after we rejoined the fleet we headed south to fuel. We arrived at the tankers group on June 4 and took on a large amount of ammo. By the time we finished this we started alongside for fueling but secured due to a tropical storm. We started south to try to avoid the storm but during the afternoon the wind rose and it started raining and that night the seas were plenty rough and the ship rolled and pitched like a cork on the surface.
All during the night the storm raged with us in the middle of it. Sleep was impossible and most of the crew was up because they could not stay in their racks.
During the morning the seas seemed to quite down for a short while only to gain in its fury a short time later. The waves were rolling 40 to 50 feet high and the entire main deck was awash constantly. The wind rose to 90 knots and for awhile it seemed that even the staunch little cans could not withstand the terrific pounding.
The storm blew over by noon and we started to join the rest of the task force which was scatter over a couple hundred miles. As the ships started rejoining we could see the damage caused by the elements.