Suicide Bomber Letter from Battle at Okinawa May 4, 1945
Blogmaster Note:
(Suicide bombers were prevalent in World War II although in much different form than in today's Mid East. The following is an exact transcript of a letter written from the sea battle off Okinawa from Naval Gunnery Officer Lawrence Warneke to his mother and father in White City, Kansas. I found this in a stack of letters at a flea market including some from Warneke's time after the war as a government official on the South Pacific island of Yap. I paid $3.00 for the letters and did not see the suicide bomber letter until later -- what I saw was Warneke's jungle letter from the Island of Yap and I wanted to compare jungle stories. What is interesting to note is how many hundreds of times this battle scenario and others like it were played out in the Battle of the Pacific. This incident caught my attention because of Warneke's articulateness, accuracy, vantage point and the fact the letter was written during the battle period to his parents. I would especially like to thank Warneke himself and doubt he would ever have imagined his letter would later be posted on Internet for all the world to see. Also see the prior two posts regarding Ungrateful Americans. Jack D. Deal)
Dear Folks: May 4, 1945
We arrived in San Diego on the 30th of April and now are undergoing a short yard period. We will probably leave again on the 14th of this month so once more there isn't enough time to get much leave. We are getting the usual five days. That isn't much but it helps.
Julia was here when we got in and we are now living in Coronado. I am taking the second leave so don't get ashore much this week (every other day.) We have so much to do on the ship -- it makes pretty long days when you only have half of the ship's company aboard.
I received a bunch of the registers (ed.note: newspaper from White City, Kansas) when we got here but haven't been able to read them yet. We had a little action while on this trip and you will probably want to hear about it so I will start from the beginning of the cruise.
We left Pearl Harbor with 65 Marine pilots and planes who were to be land based at Okinawa as soon as an airfield was taken. The ground forces were expected to take a certain field 5 days after they landed at which time we were to be stationed 90 miles from this field so we could send planes in.
We arrived in Ulthia two days before the strike so expected to lay around for five days. The landing forces surprised everyone by taking the field intact the first day so naturally they began yelling for the planes. Here we were three days travel time from there and they needed the planes now. We oiled as soon as we could and left for the area. Just before we got there we received orders not to come in but to reverse our course as the area where we were to launch our planes in was infested with Jap planes. Also, the island was under constant attack.
For a day and a half we stayed clear but finally we received word the area had cleared somewhat. We steamed in to about 60 miles. With us was two destroyers and another carrier. About 1300 we started launching planes. All the time some of us were listening to the play by play account of the battle, just 40 to 60 miles away. For one hour I listened and heard the Navy splash 28 planes.
Several times we went to our battle stations because Radar kept picking up Jap planes which would close in to about 20 miles and then go out again.
At about 1500 we had just five planes left to launch when we went to our battle stations again. Radar had picked up two planes at about 25 miles on our port bow. They were tracked at that range around to the port quarter. One plane went on aft and Radar lost him at 50 miles but the other stayed at about 25 miles. We were about to secure from our stations when we received word he now had closed to 20 miles. Some of the planes we had launched were still flying around so we directed them to investigate. By this time he had closed to 11 miles and we could see it by eye but weren't sure what it was, friend or foe.
At five miles (coming in from the port quarter) we knew it was a Jap because he was heading for us, altitude about 1000 feet speed 420. At about three miles from the ship our own planes winged over and headed for him. We wanted to open fire but hesitated because our own planes were in the line of fire. When he reached two miles from the ship we knew we had to open up or he would get us. Our planes had hit one of his engines and it was smoking but it didn't slow him up any. When we opened up he was on the beam altitude about 80 feet speed about 450. All our guns on the port side put lead right in his nose (we were also clipping our own planes but they soon got out of the line of fire) but he kept coming on in headed for the bridge. At 500 yards we saw his whole forward section catch afire and at one hundred yards he blew up with a terrific explosion. People inside the ship thought we were hit. When the plane exploded cheers went up from the crew as if someone had scored a touchdown in football.
We now have seen a suicide plane and know they are very determined to get what they are after. No one cares to see any more. Several pieces of the wreckage hit the ship but no damage was done.
One hundred yards on land seems like quite a distance but on the sea you just don't get that close to each other -- then to something coming at you in excess of 400 miles per hour covers that distance in the flick of an eyelash.
My station is gunnery control officer on the Bridge so I could see it all. I always thought I would get very nervous but never at any time did I ever think of it. When he blew up I noticed how calm I had been in directing the fire and my hands were not shaking a bit. Everyone around me had no color in their faces, maybe I didn't either -- I don't know.
When the plane was real close I did get behind the shield in gunnery control -- which comes to my shoulder -- and ducked so that only my eyes were exposed, helmet covering my head. The reason was that I expected him to open up with his machine guns. He did but they went wild.
I hope I have made this clear so you can understand it. There are a lot incidents I failed to see as others saw it but as a whole there wasn't much I missed.
Lawrence
