Wednesday, May 5, 2010

May 5, 1945

5- _____ We started the day off with AA at (225) & GQ at (230 AM)
_____ At 200 AM one group of Jap planes were picked up at 65 miles _ a few minutes later two more groups were sighted. Then GQ went at 230 AM. Sm[oke] screan was laid by LCI. We could hear Jap planes over head but they couldn't see us due to the smoke screan, _ We could see AA firing over Okinawa _ We heard Japs main actack at (Point Bowlow) _ we get out of GQ at 450 only to go back in at 1045 _ no planes showed up.
_____ This afternoon we just kept up the bombardment of (Nakagusuka Bay)
_____ (We were told that our heavy bombardment yesterday had killed 150 Japs & we dist[roy]ed 3 trucks & some gun implasements It was one of the best bombardments so far.)
_____ Navy los[ses] up to now in Okinawa operation are 1200 killed & over 1600 missing & some 2500 are wounded
_____ We also heard that the hospital ship damage by the Jap plane was carrying the wounded from our ship. & one jump over the side.
_ killed were ___ Jump over side
M[?]sak S1/c ___ Rand Cox

_____ We [shifted] birth twice today. in the Bombardment groups are (BB) USS New York & C.A. Wichata & two (DDs.) AA went about 1900 (7PM) to 2015 (815PM)
_______________________

The Story of A Ship lists Bert True Rand, Cox [coxswain], USN. Among the Mobile's Killed-In-Action, no name begins with "M" or resembles "M[??]sak" in any way. Possibly it was a nickname. The men died on April 30.

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