USS MANNERT L. ABELE (DD-733)
12 APRIL 1945
USS MANNERT L. ABELE (DD-733)
WWII generated a boom in warship construction such that the 23 April 1944 launch of the 42nd Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer from the Bath Iron Works in Maine hardly attracted unusual attention. She was commissioned USS MANNERT L. ABELE (DD-733), remembering the heroic skipper of the submarine GRUNION (SS-216), lost off Kiska Island in 1942. Today’s date found ABELE 70 miles northwest of Okinawa at radar picket station No. 14, standing watch for incoming enemy aircraft. The dreaded Japanese kamikazes had been striking US ships since the battle for the Philippines, and of late they had become organized into mass “kikisui” raids of hundreds of planes at once.
The first of this day’s attacks came about 1345 when three “Val” bombers dove for the destroyer. Sailors sprang to their guns and threw up a wall of metal. Two of the attackers turned away, but the third caught fire and streaked across the sky toward another ship, an LSM(R). ABELE’s gunners drove her into the sea however, before she could do any damage.
For the next few nervous minutes the skies quieted.
But the radar shack had been tracking a large shadow to the north. Fifteen minutes had not passed before 20-25 planes appeared on the horizon and began circling station 14’s ships. Except for a lone bomber that was held at bay by ABELE’s gunners, the formation remained out of range until 1440. Three suicide “Zeros” then broke formation and dove for ABELE. One was driven off, another shot down two miles out, but despite a curtain of steel thrown up from the destroyer, the third kamikaze crashed ablaze into her starboard side, penetrating to the after engine room before exploding. Not a minute later, hardly enough time for bowled-over sailors to regain their feet, a strange and evil missile came screaming in at 400 MPH. It was a rocket-powered suicide glide bomb–a “baka.” Its massive 2600-pound warhead exploded at the starboard waterline abreast of the forward fireroom. The destroyer’s midsection disintegrated in a fireball as sailors were cast into the roiling water. The suicide attacks broke ABELE’s keel. The bridge lost power as did the guns and the directors. The bow and stern sank immediately, 82 of the 336-man crew did not escape. Nearby LSM(R)’s-189 and 190 fended off strafing enemy fighters until ABELE’s sailors could be rescued.
MANNERT L. ABELE is the only US warship sunk by the infamous “baka” rocket-bomb, a human-guided precursor to our modern anti-ship missiles. “Bakas” came too late in the war to affect its outcome. Several “bakas” were captured after the war, one of which is displayed today at the Washington Navy Yard museum.
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 19 APR 24
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 4 “L-M”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1969, p. 222-23.
“Johnson Air Base, Japan.” AT: http://users.ev1/net/~vmitchell/ JAB.htm, retrieved 6 October 2006.
Morison, Samuel Eliot. History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol XIV Victory in the Pacific. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co., 1960, pp. 223-24.
Parkin, Robert Sinclair. Blood on the Sea: American Destroyers Lost in World War II. New York, NY: Sarpedon, 1995, pp. 296-99.
Roscoe, Theodore. United States Destroyer Operations in World War II. Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1953, pp. 476-77.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: One of four captured “bakas” stood in front of the 41st Air Division Headquarters at Johnson Air Base in Japan (the former Japanese Toyo-oka training base). “Baka” was an American nickname taken from the Japanese word for “fool.” The Japanese called the device “Okha,” meaning “cherry blossom.” The missile was carried beneath a twin-engine bomber with the pilot locked in the cockpit. Near the target the missile would be released, and a 30 second rocket burn would propel it to 405 MPH while the suicide pilot guided it to impact.
The LSM(R), Landing Ship Medium (Rocket), was a general-purpose amphibious landing ship specially modified to fire barrages of surface-to-surface rockets in support of shore operations. Twelve were commissioned during the last months of WWII, each was 200 feet long and carried a crew of 80. All saw their first combat in March 1945 off Okinawa.
