April 9, 1945

9 _____ We got up at 500 _ GQ at 515 till 630. At 700 we came back to N___ bay & we went ... [i]nto the bay at 800 _ at 900 we began [b]ombarding the shore area till 1200 ...nd II [was at] Port had 12 to 4 _ Starboar[d] ... had it till chow then [Port] came back & completed the bombardment. We turrit II fired 45 rounds
___ We had night GQ at 1830 till 1930. We turned and went out to sea again _ we passed a little island & the 40 MM straft the shore line. A lot of Japs could be seen on the small island. On the main island of Okinawa _ they had shore guns that could be seen firing but they didn't hit nothing. Condiction III was set when we cleared the harbor.
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N = Probably Nago Bay, north of Point Bolo. By April 9, U.S. land troops had reached the northern end of the bay. The Mobile's bombardments would have been aimed ahead of this front. Photo is of Nago at that time.

II = gun turret #2: Joe's gunnery assignment. The port and starboard gunnery crews took 4 hour shifts on the guns. Joe was on the starboard crew. Altogether, about 40 men were assigned to each turret, 20 on each shift.

40 MM = 40 millimeter gun

Condiction = condition