Posted on 02/18/2017 10:57:53 AM PST by Peter Gunn
"I was in a funny position to be cheering for the thing, but I was really tickled to see the dive bombers really pasting them even though they were in pretty bad shape. But during the afternoon after they pretty well burned themselves up, the larger one close to me there, the Akagi, sank just after dark, the cruisers raked her with fire finished her off, and the other two, the Kaga and the Soryu, burned all night, but they didn't necessarily explode. As a matter of fact, the Japs were there trying to put the fires out. I could seem them playing around, searchlights, picking up people and trying, I think they were trying to salvage these two ships; but the explosions that I heard the next morning turned out to be our submarines putting torpedoes into these things and they finished them off. That was early the next morning just as dawn was cracking."
(Excerpt) Read more at ibiblio.org ...
Hey Redleg- were you by any chance an artilleryman?
Over 25 years worth.
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