It was finally over, and the grim toll was staggering: 80 minutes of continuous air attack, 22 separate attacks, six kamikazes crashed into the ship and four bomb hits. Communications circuits began to falter, prompting Lt. Al Henke, the Laffey’s engineering officer, to improvise. Multiplied many times, these tactics might prevent Japan’s utter defeat. The 20mm and 40mm guns finally downed the plane about 50 yards out, but just before hitting the water, the pilot released a bomb that sent shrapnel flying everywhere, wounding several more men and knocking others off their feet. A Val dove in unopposed on the starboard bow; a strafing Judy on the port beam. We still have guns that can shoot. The Barton and the O’Brien took direct hits. Signalman Tom McCarthy saw Laffey‘s colors fall to the deck and wasted no time in remedying the situation. Japan’s aerial strategy, called Operation Ten-Go, combined massed attacks by conventional bombers and suicide aircraft called “floating chrysanthemums.”. A gun captain from the destroyer Purdy, which was anchored nearby, also offered his thoughts about picket duty. Blistering temperatures soared higher. Young LCS skippers like the 51’s Lt. Howell D. Chickering and the 116’s Lt. A. J. Wierzbicki had few illusions about their purpose. He didn’t get far; a Corsair seemed to come out of nowhere to shoot him down several hundred yards off the starboard bow. Thirty-two members of the ship’s crew were killed during the 22-plane attack. “Captain, look what’s up there,” he said, pointing skyward. Rip ’em up! Three hundred rounds of 5-inch ammunition were also loaded aboard so that Laffey would sail with full magazines of all calibers. The port 20mm and 40mm gunners splashed that Judy, but not before its pilot dropped a bomb that exploded directly alongside. Slow — top speed 16 knots — shallow-bottomed, and squat — 160 feet long, with a 23-foot beam — the ungainly LCS’s chief merit was versatility. As other starboard 20s and 40s brought down a 17th attacker, Walker spotted an incoming plane low and far off the starboard beam. After undergoing modifications, the Laffey in late October steamed for the Pacific, reaching the Philippines and Task Force 38 to prepare for screening the invasion of the islands. Meyer Amschel Rothschild, banker and founder of the Rothschild dynasty in Europe. Laffey‘s crew recovered an aircraft code-book and other miscellaneous items that they would turn over to the intelligence section ashore, then sank the plane. The pilot slumped and his plane’s nose jerked up. The Val retreated, but crewmen stayed at battle stations; within 45 minutes, radar detected many more bogies. Men gazed in amazement at the battered newcomer. A rescue ship took the wounded for transfer to a hospital ship. Then, at 8:25 a.m., the radar operator reported a solid cluster of pips too numerous to count approaching at 17,000 yards. “This marked us as a cripple,” he recalled. The situation was about to get worse, however, because the 11th kamikaze came crashing aboard at almost the same spot. The fighter-director team vectored them in, and they destroyed all the aircraft. Fires topside plumed black smoke. The destroyer seemed a lucky ship — but the true test of that reputation waited on the far side of the world. When German coastal batteries threatened Allied minesweepers, destroyers Barton, O’Brien, and Laffey rushed in to lay smoke. But in December 1944, as the Allies began a series of Philippine island invasions, suicide attacks increased in frequency and ferocity. Two more planes came roaring in from the port quarter, and every gun that could be brought to bear on the attackers poured out a steady stream of flak, but to no avail. The rudder was jammed tight and could not be moved. The port side 20mm and 40mm mounts were sending up a steady barrage while trying not to hit the Corsair. With Beau Billingslea. At 6:14 the following morning, April 17, Laffey entered the harbor at Kerama Retto. Next up for the destroyer, however, was duty in the Combined Joint Expeditionary Force invading Okinawa, an island well within the range of planes based on Japan’s home islands. Looking toward the heavens, the destroyer crew saw what seemed to be the entire Japanese Air Force assembled directly above. Although the port 20mm and 40mm guns put out a steady stream of fire, the attacker kept getting closer. Seven bomb-carrying kamikaze aircraft crashed into the vessel and four bombs were dropped on it. The destroyer Laffey, severely damaged by four bombs and five kamikaze hits on April 16, 1945. 1 had also suffered during the agonizing ordeal. Becton hoped his ship would be as lucky, but at the same time, he felt he should speak to his crew about the battle that was bound to come. From the bridge of another ship, Becton had seen the first Laffey go down. On March 29th, 1975 USS Laffey was decommissioned yet again. Burgess asked for a battle ensign; Kelly gave the dying man a flag. Machinist’s Mate John Michel, in the aft engine room, shut down the supply fans. When Mason finished talking, he hesitated a bit and then added: “Captain, we’re in pretty bad shape aft. As happened with each kamikaze that rammed into Laffey, the impact spread gasoline over the adjoining area. A tally revealed 103 casualties on the destroyer, including 32 dead. No, the skipper insisted, not as long as one gun still fired. Damage-control crewmen began to heave the clips over the side of the ship. At Saipan, more repair work was performed, especially on the battered fantail. He told them that he expected to see plenty of Japanese but that he had confidence in the crew’s ability. Refueling at Greenock, Scotland, the ship continued on to Plymouth, England, arriving on 27 May. This article was written by Dale P. Harper and originally appeared in the March 1998 issue of World War II magazine. The 20mm and 40mm guns were hitting the plane, and finally, after a hit in the gas tank, the Judy burst into a fireball and crashed into the sea. On April 16th, 1945 a small destroyer in the Pacific was attacked by 22 kamikaze planes. The deck of the USS Laffey was damaged after at least six Japanese kamikaze aircraft crashed into the ship near Okinawa in 1945. Another German shell landed off the Laffey’s port bow with a huge splash; afterward, damage control personnel discovered an unexploded round on the deck of the boatswain’s locker, a cramped bow space just above the waterline. Laffey, an Allen M. SumnerÂ-class destroyer, had been screening the heavy fleet units that were bombarding Okinawa in close support of the ground forces ashore. Although the ship’s gunners downed many incoming planes, seven suicide planes crashed into the ship, and two other planes dropped bombs that hit the ship. The surviving Oscar was then shot down by Laffey 's gunners. The other pickets, numbered clockwise, also took bearings from Point Bolo. The next attacker, another Val, came streaking in on the port beam. Even as inbound Combat Air Patrol pilots reached LCS-116, two more suicide planes struck the Laffey, each slamming into the after deckhouse, where four sailors died. If it was loud and fast, they would increase the speed. Thursday, April 16th is the 75 th anniversary of the Japanese attack on the destroyer USS Laffey that took place while it was operating off the coast of Okinawa during World War II. A month later, the Laffey recrossed the Atlantic to have repair, maintenance, and modifications done at the Boston Navy Yard. The blast killed a pharmacist’s mate and the sailor he was treating. The Laffey’s breakfast chow line stretched to the main deck when radar operators picked up a single enemy aerial contact or “bogey” — an Aichi D3A “Val” dive-bomber, recognizable by its fixed landing gear — off the port bow. The Corsair clipped Laffey’s air search radar, toppling the “bedspring” antenna but gaining enough altitude for the pilot to bail out. The 20th attacker, another Val, came gliding in from dead astern. Taking inspiration from a legendary “Divine Wind” said to have protected ancient Japan from an attacking Mongol fleet, Japan’s warlords fashioned a modern intervention: aerial suicide crashes aimed at sinking enemy ships — especially aircraft carriers. LCSs were adaptations of Landing Craft, Infantry, heavily armed with .50-caliber, 20mm, and 40mm guns. As tumbling ammunition clips exploded above Davis and his crew, a second enemy flier zoomed in. On April 14, Laffey, accompanied by LCS 51 (landing craft, support) and LCS 116, arrived on station 51 miles north of Point Bolo on south-central Okinawa, which was used as a reference point in aligning the 16 picket sectors. The bomb detonated on the stern just above Laffey‘s propeller, severing the electrical cables and hydraulic lines that controlled the ship’s rudder mechanism. Laffey‘s next stop was Pearl Harbor, where the crew was warmly welcomed and entertained while the ship underwent further patching to ensure its safe passage back to the West Coast. Shortly after dawn on April 13, Becton brought his ship into the crowded harbor at Kerama Retto. Combat Air Patrol fliers squelched the threat, but unease remained. Directed by John T. Wright. Julian Becton, 36, and a core group of veteran officers and petty officers had overseen the commissioning, then trained a 336-man crew, mostly raw recruits. As the dive-bomber’s lacerated wing tanks dripped fuel, its pilot banked between the destroyer’s stacks. By February, after maintenance at Ulithi, the Laffey had joined a fast carrier task force supporting the invasion of Iwo Jima. As soon as Laffey tied up alongside Cassin Young, the fighter-director team of two officers and three enlisted men reported aboard, carrying with them special electronic gear. Only the three fantail 20mms had a clear shot. The whole crew was able to eat breakfast without any interruptions from the enemy. Just as the crew was beginning to get the situation under control, two more kamikazes, both Vals, struck. The gunners zeroed in, but momentum carried the Val into the fantail, scraping away the 20mm mounts, killing six men and bulldozing Delewski’s mount. After suicide attacks they would be dousing fires, moving casualties, and recovering survivors. The crew raced to general quarters and the five-inch gunners in forward mounts 51 and 52 opened fire. Erich Kastner, German poet, novelist and children's author (Emil and the Detectives). Fortunately, the ammo was packed in metal cans that resisted the heat until a damage-control party arrived and hosed down the containers, thereby avoiding disaster. As Laffey prepared to depart, the skipper of Cassin Young offered some advice to Becton: “Keep moving and keep shooting. He grabbed a new flag from the flag locker, shinnied up the mast and attached the new colors with a piece of line. Another man was blown overboard, but he was picked up by LCS 51, along with another crewman who had gone overboard earlier. The destroyer-minesweeper Macomb took Laffey in tow and headed for the Kerama Retto anchorage shortly after noon. The smoke and flames must have indicated to the attackers that Laffey was nearly done for, but they did not ease off. Allan MacLeod Cormack, physicist, developed the CAT scan. It looked as if the pilot was aiming to slam into the aft 5-inch gun, but he came in just a bit high and only grazed the top of it before smashing into the sea off the starboard side, killing one man in the gun crew. After he cleared Laffey, the Japanese pilot lost altitude quickly and crashed into the sea, while the Corsair pilot managed to pull up and bail out before his plane hit the water farther away. Cheers went up — perhaps the worst was over. The navy had commissioned the Laffey in February 1944 to replace a namesake lost off Guadalcanal in November 1942. Many of the ships anchored there had been battered by kamikazes while on radar picket duty. Bandaging the bloody stumps, he calmly asked the astonished pharmacist’s mate who was assisting him, “Who’s next?”. At the same time, a Nakajima Ki-43 “Oscar” was streaking in from the port bow with a CAP Vought F4U Corsair on its tail. About two minutes later, another Val came gliding in from astern, probably because the guns were out of commission there. He told the Laffey crewmen: “You guys have a fighting chance, but they’ll keep on coming till they get you. You’ll knock a lot of them down, and you’ll think you’re doing fine. Laffey continued to make yearly Mediterranean cruises with the 6th Fleet and sailed in many operational and training exercises across the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea. Conditions remained quiet until Sunday night, when all at once snoopers seemed to fill the sky. They hoisted the yard-long, 400-pound projectile through hatches to the main deck and rolled it overboard. The aircraft cleared the 116, barrel-rolled into the water, and exploded. Casualties reached nearly 1,000 killed and 1,500 wounded, for a time dwarfing the toll ashore. Laffey 's main battery destroyed a Val approaching from starboard. Don't miss the top Navy stories, delivered each afternoon. The 17th attacker was eliminated as he bore in from the starboard side. History Channel Video Dogfights USS Laffey may be viewed onboard USS Laffey at Patriots Point. Seconds later, the other plane crashed into the ship in almost the same spot. Communications were knocked out in the forward engine room, but that did not present a problem for the moment. In the brief lull that followed, assistant communications officer Lieutenant Frank Manson arrived on the bridge to report to the skipper. Cmdr. The ammunition racks around the gun tubs were filled with clips of shells, which were in danger of exploding due to the heat. The destroyer was down by the stern; only two dogged-down hatches amidships were keeping it from flooding. On the bridge, Ari Phoutrides had recorded eight planes and eight kills in the log. Gasoline from both planes produced roaring fires that covered the whole aft part of the ship. With a microphone strapped around his neck and plugged into the ship’s loudspeaker system, he climbed atop the pilothouse, from where he could see the onrushing attackers, and directed the gunfire from there. Its bomb exploded, hurling metal through the thin side hatch of mount 52. Luminous dots — most now too near to distinguish, track, or report — pocked their screens. Turning over RP 1 to the Laffey on April 14, the departing destroyer’s commanding officer reported few enemy “snoopers” aloft, and no raids. On April 16, 1945, Laffey came under attack from 22 or 30 Japanese kamikaze and bomber aircraft while on radar picket duty off Okinawa. They went to the emergency diesel generator room and secured the watertight door behind them. He plowed through the three mounts, killing the gun crews, and rammed into a 5-inch gun. The fighter-director team’s two officers requested more help from CAP. Some of them were so hot that the men had to protect their hands with rags. The rudder jammed at 26 degrees left, and the ship began to steam in a circle, still able to maintain speed but without control. The crew’s routine was broken only when Laffey was ordered to steam a few miles east to investigate a patrol plane’s report that a downed Japanese aircraft was in the water. Off Utah Beach on June 6,1944, the destroyer escorted amphibious craft to the beach, then screened larger ships bombarding the shore. But the Laffey’s fight to survive went on. Twenty-four, including 15 destroyers, were sunk or scuttled. In addition to six five-inch cannons, the 376-foot ship, which had come to prepare for a perilous assignment, boasted nearly two dozen 40mm and 20mm antiaircraft guns. 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