April 12, 1945

12 _____ 330 GQ went & again at 515. AA went again at 830. GQ at 900...planes showed up. We were told...[over] speaker _ Were detached from our force to go to our bombardment cover area. orders were changes & we stayed with fleet _ [we] joined during night _ it consist of the following

__ 9 BB- _________ 4- CA
U.S.S. Texas ___ Salt Lake City
U.S.S. N. York __ Frisco
U.S.S. Ark. ____ Wichata
U.S.S. W.V. ______ ?
U.S.S. Colorado ____ 3-C.Ls
U.S.S. New Mexico_ (Mobile)
U.S.S. Tenn ______ Bir
______________ St. Louis
& a large number of (DDs)

1500 Planes came & (USS Tenn) took on Su____. _ . _ one DD got
Bow [k]nock off. Japs lost 30 planes. We had AA defense & GQ
around 20.00 till 23.45
__________________

BB = battleships
CA = heavy cruisers
CL = light cruisers
DD = destroyers

Ark. = Arkansas
W.V. = West Virginia
"Frisco" = USS San Francisco
Bir = USS Birmingham (one of Mobile's sister ships)

Su = "suicide plane" - not sure what other spaces were left for.

Photo is of the Battleship Tennessee.