“As at Iwo Jima, Admiral Spruance would command the 5th Fleet; Admiral Mitscher commanded Task Force 58; and Admiral Turner commanded the amphibious force. The landing force was the Tenth Army, comprising three Marine and four Army Infantry divisions to be commanded on Okinawa Bay by Lt. General Simon Bolivar Buckner of the US Army.

Admiral Mitscher conferred with his task group commanders on board USS BUNKER HILL. He said he could not predict what the Japanese would do in response to a landing so near their homeland. They would certainly attack from the air and would probably launch air, surface and submarine suicide raids. From all he knew, they might even employ poison gas. Mitscher, Burke and Flatley were planning tactics, mainly what to do about the KAMIKAZEs. None of these three had observed a suicide plane in action, but they had heard from the men who had been under KAMIKAZE attack, it was chilling. The C.O., Gunnery Officer and Division Officers lectured gun crews to stick to their guns, keep firing at the diving Japanese aircraft, the last round might save the ship and crew. No matter where you stood on the ship, the diving Japanese plane seems to be heading right for you.

During the Linguyen operation, our ship OVERTON APD 23 was escorting ten LST’s when out of the sun came a lone Japanese aircraft. All hell then broke loose and the AA burst clipped a wing and the suicide-bent plane crashed close to the center of the LST column. A few minutes after the crash and explosion, one LST left the column and reversed her course and as Escort Commander, we asked for her reason for leaving the formation. The reply was: ‘I am returning to pick up most of my crew.’

A good friend of mine, Lt. Rex Christson (LDO Eng) was the Engineering Officer on that LST and when I told him the story, he verified it was true. He had to pull out his .45 cal. pistol to keep his men in the engine room. This was on everyone’s mind as to how to react during a Japanese air raid, so this story has meaning.

Commodore Burke pointed out to Admiral Mitscher that Kelly Turner’s Op-Order had single DD’s at picket stations around Okinawa. Admiral Mitscher told Burke to go see Turner on this as he considered it was a bad idea. Burke went to Turner’s Flagship to discuss the picket deployment. Burke felt the DD’s should be deployed by divisions as one ship can’t handle a large air attack and a division can. Admiral Turner persisted that he knew amphibious warfare and was upset with this Commodore. Burke offered his DD’s if Turner agreed to pickets at division strength. Turner said: ‘I need your destroyers so badly, so send them over and we will run them the way we think they should be run.’

Burke made a polite non-committal farewell and left. On return, Mitscher said: ‘You have done what you can and if he does not want them, that is his choice.’

‘Well,’ Burke replied, ‘he will lose his ships’ which he did. There were 38 ships lost, 378 ships damaged, 5,000 USN men killed in action, 4,800 wounded and most with horrible gasoline burns caused by the KAMIKAZEs. The ships damaged beyond repair were to be used as ‘tethered goats’ to draw Japanese pilots to attack a ghost ship.

A shipmate, Chief Gunners Mate D. Yaple USN, told me in 1948 that at the Okinawa air battle, he was part of a team who would place small caliber machine guns on derelict ships anchored off Okinawa. The guns were loaded with all tracer rounds and aimed skyward, and remotely controlled from a mother ship. When air raids were plotted near the decoy ships, the guns would be fired skyward and the Japanese would follow the tracers down to their deaths; crashing on derelict ships. I have had this story in many military publications to look for verification. NAVAL HISTORY was of no help as they required verification before they would even give space for a letter to the Editor, and I am a member of the US NAVAL INSTITUTE (1008-1989) and NAVAL HISTORY. The officers and men who thought of this trick should be recognized and awarded the NAVY UNIT CITATION. Surely, someone can trace the assignments of Chief Gunners Mate Yaple and tell us what unit he was assigned on April 1945. As a life member of the Four-Stacker APD veterans, I have written to our historian (Bea Martin) and to date we have heard from the C.O. of USS RATHBURNE, R. L. Welch. His ship did not participate in any decoy operations during the Battle for Okinawa. I have heard from the LSM/LSMR reunion group and according to their records, no LSM acted as a mother ship regarding the decoys.

You know me -- there was no giving up. I wrote to several reunion groups. One, the NAFTS (National Association Fleet Tug Sailors) who publish a magazine called THE TOWLINE with Bob Yates and his wife as editors. They placed my story in their June 1996 issue. In a nutshell, the article asked readers if anyone could verify my story. On 20 June, I received a four-page letter from Lawrence G. Fitzwater (MoM2C, USNR) who served on USS LIPAN (ATF 85). His ship’s divers put a soft patch on BARRY (APD 29) who had her side stove in by a KAMIKAZE earlier. the BARRY was then loaded with 55 gallon drums of empty powder cans to make her air tight and then placed below decks on the BARRY.

Fitzwater wrote: ‘The idea was to set the radio-controlled .50 cal. machine guns to fire skyward when air raids were in the area. These guns were loaded with all tracer rounds and this display was to sucker the Japanese to their deaths.’

He wrote in his second letter that LIPAN had thirteen .50 cal. machine guns installed on her main deck and other ships razzed them about all their fifties.

My next letter was from David Waters, Jr SF2c (USNR) USS BARRY (APD 29). He told the same story - empty drums and cans supplied by LST 53; also the PC-1603’s were being prepared to act as decoys. Waters tells how his crew was transferred to USS NATRONA (APA 214). Waters tells about LSM-59, who had the radio control equipment to fire the machine guns. The LSM-59 mission was to control aircraft drones to train the fleet gunners with A/A targets. So now we have five ships we know about that were involved in the anti-KAMIKAZE group. Nobody ever wrote about this group or their mission. Evan Samuel E. Morrison missed this historic event. I asked all the men who thought up the idea and nobody knew for sure. Waters wrote that smoke pots were used in the ship stacks to give it a live appearance. Those guys were thinking!

My next letter was from George Hinckley, LtJg (USNR) who was on PHibPacFive Staff, VADM Harry W. Hill, the Flagship USS AUBURN (AGC 10). Here we have the officers in charge of the anti-KAMIKAZE Group. Our hero George is modest and says in a phone conversation that he has no idea where the first idea came from. They initially made a raft of 55 gallon oil drums and set them afire. The Japanese thought it was a ship on fire and dove into the fire. You can imagine the pilot’s surprise when he was at a ‘point of no return’! George tells about his radio expert who modified the remote control gear from LSM-59 to operate the .50 cal. machine guns. The US Army were loaded with .50’s and George wrote they traded a dozen steaks for the guns. When BARRY was ready, the tug LIPAN took the tow escorted by LSM-59. George writes: 'It was a picture-perfect morning, clear sky, bright sun and they received a ‘FLASH-WHITE’ alert.’

As they cleared the anchorage shortly after leaving Kerama-Retto, they sighted two planes coming in low over the water. They thought they had two hot-shot P-47 pilots buzzing the ship. But when the planes started shooting at them, they went to G.Q. and LSM-59 fired her 20mm gun. In a very short time, one of the planes peeled off and dove on the BARRY and then the other crossed the LSM portside and hit just below the LSM conning tower where George and the Captain were standing. George wrote: ‘I saw the pilot tossed over the side by the impact. We immediately began to settle and the C.O. gave the order to abandon ship.’

The LSM went down in eight minutes, bow first. George wrote: ‘The last thing I saw were her Colors disappear as if in a John Wayne movie. I floated in the water and saw the BARRY was still afloat under tow by the tug.’

George Hinckley continued: ‘Although we never were able to see our ‘display’, the decoy worked.’

Unfortunately, it cost one LSM and the life of one man (research tells us three men were lost). George recommended the C.O. of LSM-59 for the SILVER STAR. No other person was ever decorated or historians recorded this heroic deed. I propose we correct this wrong!”

A. J., many thanks for this great piece of first-person history. Let me make this suggestion - why not have some of these survivors tell their story and we’ll run them here. If they can put it on tape, that is the easiest. Otherwise, they can type it, write it - chisel it in a tablet of stone for that matter - just get it down before they die. If you can get more of this history for us, we will print their stories.