BRITISH SHIPS BEAT OFF SUICIDE PLANES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 146, 22 June 1945, Page 5

BRITISH SHIPS BEAT OFF SUICIDE PLANES

SAKASHIMA WATERS

Youthful Gunners Steady Under Fire British Official Wireless Rec. 2 p.m. RUGBY, June 21. Five units of the British Pacific Fleet, including an aircraft-carrier, have been hit by Japanese suicide planes during recent operations off the Sakashima Group, to the southeast of Okinawa, states a correspondent with the British Pacific Fleet. The attacks were made over a combat period of two months in the Sakashima area. None of our ships were put out of action and all continued on their way normally within a few hours of the attacks.

The aircraft-carrier was hit twice in two separate attacks some days apart, once while its own planes were away on a mission. After one suicide plane, like a blazing comet, had plummeted past the carrier's bridge within a few feet of the captain, to dive into the sea, the captain himself went to the ship's loudspeaker to describe how the plane had "nearly taken off the end of my nose."

Another plane hit the ship with a terrific impact, throwing pieces all over the flight deck and injuring some of the men. Within two hours all trace of the plane was gone and the injured were under treatment. The carrier was proceeding normally and the flight deck was ready to receive the returning planes.

The British ships met the attacks calmly and the damage was light compared with that suffered by the Americans in much heavier and more sustained attacks. Bravery of Gunners There are many stories of bravery by our gunners, who remained firing until the blazing suicide craft exploded on the deck, instantly killing some of them. One marine gunner in charge of the aircraftcarrier's wartime gunners, told how he went from one gun to another to see whether any of his younger wartime gunners needed steadying. Nobody flinched as the flaming plane hurtled at them.

There were some near misses when Japanese planes exploded in the water alongside our ships with such force that bits of plane and the pilot were thrown aboard. In one such case only the pilot's watch was recovered —still ticking.