Eyewitness from USS Miles

Max. I was a 20mm gunner on gun 25 on the starboard side of the ship just aft of the smoke stack. We only had surface radar , so we were caught by surprise when the Tony came in high. When I got to my gun the Tony was in a steep dive . I began shooting at about a 90 degree angle which put me in a awkward crouch on the metal grate beneath my feet. ( I was 5 foot seven and only about 120 pounds, wet} It looked like my tracers were going right into his propeller hub. He suddenly pulled out of his dive because he was about to overshoot . Then my tracers were bursting on his belly and my slick shoes slipped on the grate and I lost my footing and released my trigger. As I struggled to regain my footing my unloader removed my ammo and my loader was watching the Tony instead of putting on a new magazine. The ship was turning hard to port and the port guns opened fire . The Tony dived down while the ship was still in a hard turn to port . The Tony's right wing decapitated the hot shell man on gun number two [Cecil Allen] and hit in the water on the starboard side and exploded. As the Tony was coming down ,Officer Jacoby hollered "HIT THE DECK" and I unbuckled my gun belt and looked around and he and others were already lying down on the deck so I dived straight out of my mount and landed half on officer Jacoby and an enlisted man.[ didn't get court marshaled for striking a officer]. My sight setter , Parsons, was wearing head phones and did not hear Mr. Jacoby yell. He was just standing there with a black face from the explosion and not a single piece of shrapnel hit him. We counted 57 holes and dents in the shield around the gun mount. Two cables leading to my gun sight were cut in two. These were positioned in front of my chest. I am forever thankful for Mr Jacoby's yelling, "hit the deck". Cecil Allen bunked across from me. Every evening before taps he would in his bunk reading the New Testament issued by the Navy. He was a quiet easy going seaman from North Carolina . I went up to his gun station and his brains were splattered all over the hot bulkhead like scrambled eggs and his life blood saturated the deck. His body was buried at keramo Retto. Later his remains were taken to his hometown for burial. I was told that 11 men were injured. seaman Farmer on gun 26 below me was hit in the neck and had to have a operation. Another man in the engine room was hit in his testicles and sent to a hospital ship. He never returned to the ship.

We had to wait overnight for our relief ship which turned out to be USS Whitehurst DE-634. During the night Miles endured another bomber attack. Again I was firing almost straight up. With very little moonlight, all we could see was wing gun blasts and exhaust
flames. After dropping 2 bombs, one near miss and a dud, the bomber made another pass. An AA round with the new Proximity Fuse exploded near the plane and it disappeared. It was too dark to verify that the crashe so we didn't get credit for downing it.

Just after we were replaced by Whitehurst, we watched a Navy plane chasing the suicide plane headed toward the Whitehurst . The navy plane had to veer off when Whitehurst opened fire. It was a sickening sight to see all the fire and smoke and know that a lot of navy men just died. Whitehurst vet, J.L. Wilson Torpedoman 1/c, told me the navy plane was a Hellcat fighter.

I was a seaman first class and a Sonar striker, which I enjoyed.