- AND LOW FOR THE LETTER

The Captain was pleased to receive acknowledgment fran some of the
families indicating their appreciation of the "Dear Folks" letters which were
sent home, !

Dear Folks:

"General Quarters} ALL HANDS MAN YOUR BATTLE STATIONS \" is an order
none of the crew of the TELFATR will ever forget, particularly on the evening
of April 2, 1945. That was a night of the wildest possible dreams, And it
wasn't the music of Hoffman's Tales, because the air was filled with Jap planes
out to get us by fair means or foul. We learned that night and saw with our
own eyes what happens when a Jap pilot goes into a suicide dive...but I'm
getting ahead of my story or Chapter 2 of the "TALES". (e call tem "sea
stories"), =

So far as you knew our last definite location was in San Fedro Bay
Leyte, in the Philippines. We had tthat feeling" that we were scheduled for
something big and one day we sailed with some friends heading northwest for
what was to be our eventual destination...OKINAWA and the KERAMA RHETTC. By
this time you must have read news accounts of the general action that took
place there, culminating in Fleet Admiral Nimitz’ announcement on June 21st
that "Organized resistance on Okinawa had ceased", ‘Ye had a full weeks work
immediately before Easter Sunday, which I. am sure we celebrated differently
than you, . oat

It was a real spine tingling thrill to be an eye-witness of the assault
on these Jap-held islands. The bombardment was terrific both from sea and air. —
Tt seemed like there couldn't be a solitary living creature left on any or the —
islands by the time the troops were ready to go in. Strangely enough there were
very few civilian casualties on the adjacent islands. Those natives who were
found to be injured had received their wounds from their own hands, the Japs
having "sold" them on the idea that Americans were really out to slaughter them
whether they bore arms or not,..so there was evidence of where natives were
either killed by the Japs or forced to commit a sort of special Hari-Kari.-

Our preliminary mission having been accomplished, we\were ready for
the Raster Parade", but with steel helmets as our "Raster Bonnets". And that
brings us up to that day in our history, mentioned above, for on that evening
of 2 April 1945 the so-called wiley Jap riding in light bombers and fighters,
tcontacted us" and what followed was real war, ‘We had been attacked the pre-
vious morning by one Jap plane, evidently on reconnaisance, but as he was out
of range the action was short lived.

The attack was our first major action and you would have been proud
of the way our gun crews went into action. Our gunners and crews upheld the
best traditions of the Navy, and of our frontier ancestors by really drawing
a bead on the attacking planes, Officially we,were credited with two and one-
half planes which means that we got two ourselves and gave assistance on get-
ting the third. The quail shooters from the middle west among us found out this
was faster shooting than using the old 12 gauge on Bob ‘hite.

In at least one way, shooting down Jap planes was just like being at
a major league baseball game,..everytine the favorite would get a hit there
would be cheers from the crowd and the grandstands would go wild, ‘Yell, we hit
two homers and were credited with an assist for the third. Hach time one of the
planes went down there would be cheers from everyone aboard, but only while we
were searching the skies for more of the enemy intent upon their suicidal at-
tacks. Yes, we know what a suicide attack means and maybe someday we'll be able
to tell you more about what we've seen. The action lasted about ten minutes
but during those ten minutes the air was filled with planes as well as flak from
our anti-aircraft fire.

ag

NOT FOR PUBLICATION