USS MANNERT L. ABELE (DD-733)

WWII generated a boom in warship construction such that the 23 April 1944 launch of the 42^nd 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 41^st 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.

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                                              USS OMMANEY BAY

The twin-engine Japanese medium bomber, converted into a flying bomb herself, dove toward USS OMMANEY BAY (CVE-79).  To the American crew it was a complete surprise!  Screened by the numerous small Philippine islands nearby, Ommaney’s radar never picked up the plane.  Only New Mexico (BB-40) detected her presence but was not able to shoot her down.  The suicide plane clipped the escort carrier’s island, then crashed her forward starboard flight deck.  Two bombs penetrated, the first exploded among fully fueled aircraft on the hangar deck.  The second penetrated farther, cutting the fire main on the second deck and exploding in the forward engine room.  An oil fire quickly erupted, filling the ship with acrid black smoke.  Communications from the bridge were paralyzed.  In an instant, the fires blazed too intensely for damage controlmen to make headway.  Power failed throughout the ship, aircraft gasoline tanks exploded, and cooked-off .50 caliber ammunition peppered the decks!

OMMANEY BAY was part of the task force intent on re-taking the main Philippine Island of Luzon.  The force had left Leyte Gulf and headed west through the Surigao Strait, then turned north through the Sulu Sea.  They were to converge on the Lingayen Gulf northwest of Manila, the site of the Allied landings.  Kamikazes had been a constant threat throughout the Philippine campaign.  Indeed, this same afternoon another kamikaze missed LUNGA POINT (CVE-94) by only 50 yards.  Now it was OMMANEY BAY’s turn.

By 1730 the fires had spread throughout the hangar deck.  The flight deck above became untenable as flames and smoke engulfed it as well.  Burned and injured sailors cried out in agony.  Nearby destroyers attempted to close the stricken “baby flattop,” to help put out her fires–only to be driven off by the intense heat and flying debris.  Worse, the flames threatened to reach the carrier’s stockpile of torpedoes!

Burned and injured sailors were strapped to cots, covered with kapok life vests, and lowered over the side with two able swimmers accompanying each.  Then about 1750, a massive explosion sprayed metal shards that killed two sailors aboard EICHENBERGER (DE-202).  Skipper CAPT H.I. Young had no choice but to order “Abandon Ship!” and at 1812 he, too, went over the side.  Six minutes later the flames reached the torpedo lockers.

Oppressive heat and secondary explosions from the flaming carrier spelled her doom.  In all 93 OMMANEY BAY mates were lost and 65 injured.  BURNS (DD-588) was ordered to scuttle the stricken carrier.  Seven other OMMANEY BAY survivors died as well when rescuing ships were also crashed by kamikazes in the ensuing days.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  11 JAN 24

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Cooney, David M.  A Chronology of the U.S. Navy:  1775-1965.  New York, NY: Franklin Watts, Inc., 1965, p. 358.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 5 “N-Q”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1979, p. 154.

Morison, Samuel Eliot.  History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol XIII  The Liberation of the Philippines: Luzon, Mindinao, the Visayas.  Little Brown and Co., Boston, MA, 1959, pp. 99-101.

Poolman, Kenneth.  Allied Escort Carriers of World War Two in Action.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1988, pp. 235-36.

Robbins, Gary.  “Wreckage Found Off Philippines is WWII Aircraft Carrier Which Deployed from San Diego.”  military.com website, 12 July 2023.  AT: http://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/-7/12/wreckage-found-off-philippines-wwii-aircraft-carrier-which-deployed-from-san-diego.html, retrieved 12 July 2023.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  The Casablanca-class “Jeep carriers” were the most prolific of WWII, comprising fully one-third all of US carriers commissioned during the conflict.  Hers was the first class of escort carrier built from the keel up for that purpose (rather than from conversion of merchant hulls).  Most were named for bays, inlets, or peninsulas—Ommaney Bay is in southern Alaska.

In 2019 the wreck of OMMANEY BAY was discovered off Mindanao, Philippine Islands.  The Naval History and Heritage Command confirmed the identity of the carrier in 2023.

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                USS PORCUPINE AND THE IX-TANKERS

The Allied island-hopping drive across the Pacific in WWII created logistical problems for our Navy.  Not the least was the need to fuel our massive naval and air fleets.  Rather than build fixed tank farms ashore that would become targets for enemy action, the Navy elected to pre-position stores of fuel aboard old tankers, converted for duty as mobile storage facilities.  Approximately 40 tankers, some from civilian WWI vintage, were purchased and filled with bunker oil or avgas.  These were anchored in strategic Pacific island harbors and moved forward as the fighting progressed.  All were given IX hull numbers, signifying the “miscellaneous” category.  The seventeen Armadillo­-class (IX-110 to 128) tankers were converted from Liberty ship hulls purchased from the Maritime Administration–all named for small American animals.

USS PORCUPINE (IX-126) had served at Noumea, New Guinea and the Admiralty Islands before moving forward with the invasion of the Philippines in late 1944.  After the successful recapture of Leyte Allied attention shifted to Mindoro, a large island just south of Luzon.  On 15 December US forces landed near the town of San Jose on Mindoro with the hope of establishing an airbase there.  The last week in December a major supply convoy of over 100 vessels departed Leyte for the Mindoro landing beaches.  Among the ships was PORCUPINE carrying thousands of gallons of 120 octane aviation gasoline.  The overcast weather hampered US air cover efforts, and the enemy kamikaze pilots flying from Cebu plagued the convoy all the way into Mangarin Bay.

Here at 1540 this day a low-flying Val bomber approached PORCUPINE off her port beam.  Her quills bristled, but PORCUPINE’s gunners could not knock this kamikaze out of the sky.  It released a bomb just before crashing into the after main deck.  Avgas tanks erupted in a giant mushroom cloud, the engine room flooded, and the entire after section was engulfed in flames.  The engine of the attacking plane crashed completely through the ship, blowing a large hole in the hull below the waterline.  Seven sailors disappeared in the explosion and fire; the rest abandoned ship.  The nearby destroyers GANSEVOORT (DD-608) and PRINGLE (DD-477) were hit by kamikazes as well, but when the forward section of PORCUPINE was in danger from the fires, the wounded GANSEVOORT was ordered to torpedo PORCUPINE’s  flaming stern in hopes the explosion would blow-out her fires.  But Mangarin Bay proved too shoal for torpedoes and despite one hit, PORCUPINE’s forward tanks exploded.  She burned to the water line as spreading flames chased the rest of the convoy from the bay.  PORCUPINE was the only IX-tanker to fall to enemy action in WWII.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  4 JAN 23

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 5 “N-Q”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1979, p. 353.

Grover, David B.  “IX Ships:  The Navy’s Forgotten Flotilla.”  Sea Classics, Vol 40 (8), August 2007, pp. 44-49, 67.

Morison, Samuel Eliot.  History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol XIII  The Liberation of the Philippines: Luzon, Mindinao, the Visayas.  Little Brown and Co., Boston, MA, 1959, pp. 42-47.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  The convoy of which PORCUPINE was a member was called “Uncle plus 15.”  “Uncle” was code for the Mindoro D-Day, and “plus 15” was the date the convoy was to arrive off the landing zone.

Duty aboard such tankers as PORCUPINE was filled with thankless heavy labor, punctuated by long periods of boredom.  Such is illustrated well in the Hollywood movie Mr. Roberts, about an officer aboard a similar pre-positioned supply ship in the Pacific.

PORCUPINE was abandoned where she lay and struck from the Navy list on 19 January 1945.

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                   TWO CARRIERS IN HARM’S WAY

As the third day of the battle for Iwo Jima began, the ships of Task Force 58 kept up their shore bombardment and their efforts against Japanese sea and air defenses.  Indeed, on this morning, USS SARATOGA (CV-3) and three destroyers were detached from Task Group 58.5 to provide combat air patrol over the amphibious landing zones from a position 35 miles to the northwest of the island.  But just as SARATOGA arrived on station at 1628, an inbound flight of aircraft was seen on radar.  Initially identified as “friendlies,” it was not for 20 minutes that the inbounds were revealed to be 25 enemy kamikazes.  In only ten more minutes the planes were upon SARATOGA!  The first two fell ablaze from anti-aircraft fire, but bounced into the carrier at the waterline, releasing bombs that penetrated and exploded.  Another crashed the anchor windlass on the bow, taking out of action most of the forward flight deck and a plane about to launch.  All within a span of three minutes, yet another kamikaze struck the port catapult, and a fifth took out the starboard crane and gun gallery.  The carrier got up headway and turned away from the wind while damage control parties fought the fires.  The situation gradually improved, but at 1846 a final suicide plane slammed unseen out of the darkness onto the flight deck.  The bomb it dropped blew a 25-foot hole in the deck and started new fires.  Despite losing 36 planes to fires and water landings, 123 sailors killed, and 192 injured, SARATOGA was not crippled.  She ultimately steamed under her own power to Eniwetok for repairs.

But at that same 1845 moment, 45 miles east of Iwo Jima, the escort carrier BISMARCK SEA (CVE-95) was approached on her port bow.  All eyes turned in that direction as anti-aircraft guns blasted the onrushing manned missile.  Quietly from the opposite side a G4M3 “Betty” bomber glided in low.  She wasn’t spotted until only 1000 yards out.  The guns couldn’t be depressed sufficiently, and she struck the after aircraft elevator.  Debris and flaming gasoline shotgunned through the hangar, and the elevator platform crashed to the deck, cutting the fire mains.  Fully gassed planes and bomb and torpedo lockers were engulfed.  That same moment from above, another kamikaze carrying two bombs struck vertically at the same spot on the flight deck.  Exploding aircraft and ordnance spread uncontrollable fires throughout the ship.  Moments after CAPT J.L. Pratt called “Abandon Ship!” and stepped off, a tremendous explosion blew off most of the carrier’s stern.  BISMARCK SEA burned for three hours, rolled, then sank.  Some 218 sailors went down with the carrier.  Six destroyers crisscrossing the area through the night rescued the rest of her 943 crewmen.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  28 FEB 22

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 1 “A-B”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1959, p. 126.

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. 52-55.

Poolman, Kenneth.  Allied Escort Carriers of World War Two in Action.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1988, pp. 239-40.

Sweetman, Jack.  American Naval History:  An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3rd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2002, p. 185.

Wheeler, Richard.  Iwo. Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1980, p. 145.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  As above, by the Iwo Jima campaign the kamikaze was proving to be Japan’s most effective weapon against our Navy.  During the course of WWII more sailors and ships were lost to kamikazes than to Japanese submarines, surface actions, conventional air attacks, mines, or manned torpedoes.

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                      CDR GEORGE F. DAVIS

Since October 1944, the Allied assault on the 7000 islands of the Philippines had been steadily progressing.  Leyte, Samar, and several more of the Visayans had fallen, though the main island of Luzon remained to be retaken.  Here, the Allies planned the same approach the Japanese had used so successfully three years earlier, landing on the less populated western shore of Luzon at the Lingayen Gulf then sweeping southward toward Manila.  From 2-8 January advanced elements of Task Force 77 approached the Lingayen Gulf to sweep mines and soften-up shore defenses.

The enemy resistance was expected to include their deadly new weapon, the kamikaze.  WWII was the first time American sailors faced an enemy bent on suicide attacks, and initial incredulousness had given way to determined countermeasures.  Kamikazes were part of the reason the van of the advancing force this day included a four-destroyer section of pickets.  USS Walke (DD-723) was one of these destroyers, captained for the recent six weeks by CDR George Fleming Davis.  Davis had been born to American parents in Manila in 1911 and was familiar with the territory his Navy was about to attack.  He had served as a LT aboard USS Oklahoma (BB-37) at Pearl Harbor and had become a seasoned combat veteran in the Aleutians, Guadalcanal, and Guam campaigns.  His reputation for steadfastness was about to be reaffirmed.

Around noon, a massed flight of kamikazes appeared on the horizon.  They began diving toward the battleship New Mexico (BB-40), the van of destroyers: Walke, Allen M. Sumner (DD-692), Richard P. Leary (DD-664) and the former destroyer, now minesweeper, Long (DMS-12).  Four “Oscars” turned toward Walke, whose gunners came alive.  Forty millimeter and 5-inch shells filled the air in a massive anti-aircraft defense.  The first kamikaze broke up and landed close aboard.  Likewise, the second was deflected from its path.  But the third, following close on the tail of the second, crashed into the base of Walke’s superstructure.  The bridge was splashed with liquid gasoline and in a millisecond was aflame.  Comms, power, radar, and fire control were knocked out.  Neither was CDR Davis spared, crewmen pounded the flames that engulfed him from head to foot.

Despite his burns, he remained on the bridge conning the destroyer to put the fire to leeward.  He directed AAA defenses, splashing the fourth kamikaze.  He then coordinated the damage control efforts, indeed, only when his ship and crew were safe did Davis allow himself to be carried below.  But it was too late.  His life could not be saved.  Davis was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions this day. 

Watch the POD for more “Today in Naval History”

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Rehabilitation Medicine

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 2 “C-F”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1977, p. 244-45.

Goodspeed, M. Hill.  U.S. Navy:  A Complete History.  Washington, DC: Naval Historical Foundation, 2003, pp. 501-02.

Morison, Samuel Eliot.  History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol 13  The Liberation of the Philippines: Luzon, Mindinao, the Visayas.  Little Brown and Co., Boston, MA, 1959, pp. 104-05.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Walke’s damage did not preclude completing her mission as the vanguard of the invasion force.  She was detached shortly thereafter for repairs.  She returned to action in time to see preparations for the final invasion of Japan.

The Forrest Sherman-class destroyer Davis (DD-937) honors CDR Davis.  The John C. Butler-class destroyer escort of WWII, George E. Davis (DE-357) honors a different hero.  LT George Elliot Davis, Jr. was the No. 3 turret officer aboard USS Houston (CA-30) when that vessel was attacked off Borneo on 4 February 1942.  LT Davis was killed in the action.

USS Walke is one of three warships that honors CDR (later RADM) Henry A. Walke, USN, a hero of combat in the Mexican War and the Civil War.

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