The USS North Carolina (BB-55) My all-time favorite warship. As an elementary school student in North Carolina, I donated nickels and dimes to save this ship back in the early sixties.

Monday, July 16, 2018

Kamikaze Strike on USS Tennessee, April 12, 1945


From Wikipedia.

In the last post, I gave Henry Cannon's account of the kamikaze hit on the battleship USS Tennessee.

On the afternoon of April 12, 1945, the Tennessee was one of the fire support battleships when she was attacked by five kamikazes.  Four were shot down, the last three within hundreds of yards of it.  The fifth one, an Aichi D3A Val dive bomber got through and flew at the Tennessee's bridge.

It ended up crashing into the signal bridge. and began sliding aft along the superstructure, crushing anti-aircraft guns and their crews.  It was carrying a 250-pound bomb went through the deck and exploded.

Twenty-tow men were killed or mortally wounded and another 107 wounded.

However, it did not put the ship our of action.  The dead were buried at sea and wounded transferred the following day to the casualty-evacuation ship USS Pinkney.  The ship's crew then did emergency repairs and by April 14, the ship was back in service.

--GreGen

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