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Author Name: BECTON, F. JULIAN with, MORSCHAUSER, JOSEPH III
Title: The Ship That Would Not Die
Binding: Hard Cover
Book Condition: Very Good
Publisher: Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Prentice Hall, 1980
ISBN Number: 0138089981 / 9780138089986
Seller ID: 19839
[12],287 pages, 8 plates, cloth, very good. From the Arlington National Cemetery website: "A native of Arkansas and a 1931 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Admiral Becton was a lieutenant when the war broke out. He was to see action in the Atlantic and Pacific Theaters and would win many decorations and medals for his exploits. The most dramatic came in April 1945, when the destroyer USS Laffey, commanded by Admiral Becton, was off Okinawa on radar picket duty. The Laffey was a relatively new ship but had already been bloodied - in June 1944, when it supported the D-Day invasion of Normandy and participated in the bombardment of Cherbourg, France. Among its scars from that engagement was an unexploded 8-inch shell lodged in the superstructure. By this late stage of the war, the Japanese had begun to expand the use of kamikaze attacks, the suicidal crashing of armed planes into Allied ships. For the Laffey, the attack began shortly after sunrise April 16 with a formation of four planes. The kamikazes split up to make it more difficult for the crew to keep guns trained on them, and the assault was on. It was to last 79 minutes, and eventually, 22 planes drew a bead on the Laffey. Admiral Becton, wearing a steel helmet and life vest, stood in the open to better see the action. Planes seemed to come from every direction and altitude, he said in an Inquirer interview shortly before the 50th anniversary of the battle this year. Though the Laffey's gunners and those from nearby craft were aided by US warplanes, some of the kamikaze inevitably found their mark. "Each time one crashed, there was always a flood of gasoline from the plane - and one hell of a fire," Admiral Becton told The Inquirer. The guns took out at least eight of the planes, but five hit the destroyer, jamming its rudder and spreading fire everywhere. "Near the end of the action, one of my officers, Frank Mason, came to me and said, 'Captain, we're in pretty bad shape aft. Do you think you'll have to abandon ship?' "It never entered my mind to abandon ship. The ship might sink under us. We might not be able to sail her. But I wasn't going to abandon her. "So I said, 'No, Frank, I'll never abandon ship as long as a gun will fire.' Thirty-one crew members died, and the Laffey had to be towed to Seattle, where a newspaper reported that it was "riddled like a sieve above the water line." The citation for the Navy Cross praised Admiral Becton's "extraordinary heroism" in keeping his ship afloat and in action."
USS LAFFEY WORLD WAR TWO WWII NAVAL OPERATIONS U.S.
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