Thomas E. and Sisters , livre ebook

Thomas E. and Sisters
compiled by
Lawrence S. Saxon
Copyright Lawrence S. Saxon 1997
Publishing Rights: Turner Publishing Company
All rights reserved
This book or any part thereof may not be
reproduced without the written permission of
the Author and Publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog
Card Number: Applied for.
ISBN: 978-1-56311-334-5
Additional copies may be purchased directly from the publisher.
This book is dedicated to the officers and men who earned a place of honor in history and gave their lives for their country while serving in the Naval Minewarfare Service during World War II.

Lawrence S. Saxon enlisted in the US Navy on 5 July 1946. Completing training at the US Naval Training Center at Bainbridge, Maryland with Company # 4636 at the 318L barracks, he was assigned to the USS Thomas E. Fraser DM-24, a destroyer minelayer of the Sumner Class. His duties were with the Engineering Department serving in the forward fireroom. With 21 months sea duty and completion of his Naval service, 2 July 1948, he went into the civilian world working for the Westinghouse Electric Corporation at the firms Pittsburgh R D Center as an Equipment Coordinator in the Semi-Conductor field. He obtain a Commercial Instrument Pilots rating and saw much of his Navy port of calls from the air in the islands. Upon retiring from industry, photography became a hobby which lead to many of the photographs obtained for this book.
Table of Contents
Commander THOMAS EDWARD FRASER
USS WALKE (DD-416)
IRONBOTTOM SOUND SHIPS
THE SAGA OF THE THOMAS E. ERASER (DM 24)
EVOLUTION:
COMMISSIONING AND PREPARATION
THE SHAKEDOWN CRUISE
ASSIGNMENT
THE CANAL ZONE
PANAMA CANAL
The VOYAGE TO SAN DIEGO
OUR DAYS ON THE WEST COAST
OUR DESTINATION IS PEARL HARBOR
PEARL HARBOR
A STOP AT JOHNSTON ISLAND
THE MARSHALS
SAIPAN
THE TRIP TO IWO JIMA
ACTION WITH THE ENEMY
A CHANGE IN OUR DISPOSITION
A DAY AND NIGHT OF BOMBARDMENT
A BREATHING SPELL
JUST SIX MONTHS IN COMMISSION
OLD GLORY FLIES FROM HOT ROCKS
THE FIGHT GOES ON
THERE IS NO TIME TO BE CARELESS
THE MARINES USE MORTARS
OUR LAST DAYS AT IWO
ULITHI!
A BEER PARTY
A PRELUDE TO INVASION
IN WE GO
THE SWEEP CONTINUES
THEY BACK US UP
AMERICAN LIVES ARE LOST
CHALK ONE UP FOR TOMMY
A VAL IS OURS
A CLOSE ONE
WE WITNESS A RACE AGAINST DEATH
WE SPLASH THE THIRD
OUR DEPARTURE FROM OKINAWA
A SAD MESSAGE
THE AFTERMATH OF INVASION
OKINAWA BOUND AGAIN
A REVIEW OF THE PAST
AN INJUSTICE OBSERVED
WE RETURN TO GUAM
THEY CALL US BACK
WAR IN EUROPE IS OVER
A TRAGEDY BRINGS TOMMY TWO MORE
PERHAPS IT WAS A BAKA BOMB
FATE FAVORS THE FRASER
WE DRAW A TOUGH STATION
A CRITICAL NIGHT
WE BECOME A FIGHTER DIRECTOR
BACK TO THE PICKET STATION
MISTAKEN IDENTITY AND IT S NEAR CONSEQUENCE
A DEMONSTRATION OF TEAMWORK
OUR SQUADRON IS SMALLER
A MINE SWEEPING OPERATION
THE OKINAWA CAMPAIGN IS OVER
ANOTHER MINESWEEPING OPERATION
ADVENT OF THE ATOMIC BOMB
JAPAN SURRENDERS
A RETURN TO IWO
THE FIGHTING THIRD FLEET
WE ENTER SAGAMI WAN
WE ENTER TOKYO BAY
THE PEACE TERMS ARE SIGNED
USS ROBERT H. SMITH (DD735) (DM-23)
USS THOMAS E. FRASER (DM-24)
USS SHANNON (DM-25)
USS HARRY F. BAUER (M-26)
USS ADAMS (DM-27)
USS TOLMAN (DM-28)
USS HENRY A. WILEY (DM-29)
USS SHEA (DM-30)
J. WILLIAM DITTER (DM-31)
USS Lindsey (DM-32)
USS GWIN (DM-33)
Aaron Ward (DM-34)
USS PALAU (CVE-122)
USS TERROR (CM-5)
REFUSES TO GO DOWN. 12 April 1945
USS AARON WARD (DM-34)
JAPANESE BAKA BOMB IN FLIGHT
First Ship In Tokyo Bay, USS Revenge AM-110
AT LAST - JAPANESE SURRENDER
OUR STORY
NOTES AFTER ONE YEAR IN COMMISSION
NO SMALL PEANUTS
THE CRACKER BARREL
ALLEN M. SUMNER CLASS DESTROYER
Acknowledgments
Index
courtsey of BIW
Commander THOMAS EDWARD FRASER
He is a concoction of all ages, all races and all men.
In him are combined, none too harmoniously, it is true, the fatalism of the Orient, the joie de vivre of the French, the American s weakness for Best Sellers and the blarney of Erin.
He delights in disorder, and is contemptuous of method.
He early learned the futility of making love on strictly truthful principles, yet frankly admits that he is not susceptible to flattery.
He is somewhat of a literateur, but modesty alone prevents the publication of My Ascent of Mount Pelee , or The Value of Stimulants to the Explorer , and Perfect Behavior for the Bacchant .
Second Class Christmas leave caused him to take more than a professional interest in art, in fact, he maintains that the expression Art for art s sake should be changed to Art for the artist s sake .
Suggest a game of bridge and he proudly points to the crossed spades on the family crest. His expression, Labor ipse voluptas , will always be reminiscent of his industry.
November 14th., 1942
Savo Island, Guadalcanal
Task Force 64
Rear Adm. Willis A. Lee
Battleships: Washington BB-56 Capt. Glenn B. Davis South Dakota BB-57 Capt. Thomas L. Gatch
Destroyers Walke DD-416 Cdr. Thomas E. Fraser Benham DD-397 Lt. Cdr. John B. Taylor Preston DD-379 Cdr. Max C. Stormes Gwin DD-433 Lt. Cdr. John B. Fellows Jr.

National Archives
USS WALKE (DD-416)
USS Walke (DD-416) was laid down on 31 May 1938 at the Boston Navy Yard ; launched on 20 October 1939 ; sponsored by Mrs. Clarence Dillon, grandniece of the late Rear Admiral Walke ; and commissioned on 27 April 1940, Lt. Comdr. Carl H. Sanders in command.
Walke s active service had begun in the spring of 1940 when Germany was unleashing her military might in Norway and the lowlands of western Europe to turn the so-called Phony War into the blitzkrieg which swept across northern France, driving British troops off the continent and knocking France out of the war. The resulting establishment of a new government in that country, more favorable to Germany, aroused fear in Allied and neutral circles that French fighting forces, particularly French warships, might be placed in German hands. Walke would have a role in seeing that this unfortunate development would never take place.
After fueling at San Juan on the 6th, the destroyer got underway on the afternoon of the following day on Caribbean Patrol in company with sistership O Brien (DD-415). Rendezvousing with Moffett (DD-362) and Sims (DD-409) off Fort de France, Martinique, Walke and O Brien patrolled the approaches to that port, keeping an eye on the movements of the Vichy French warships-the auxiliary cruisers Barfleur and Quercy and the aircraft carrier Bearn - through 14 December. Walke then visited Port Castries, British West Indies, on the 15th and embarked Comdr. Lyman K. Swenson, Commander, Destroyer Division 17, who hoisted his pennant in her that day.
Walke then patrolled off the Atlantic coast between Norfolk and Newport well into June, as the Atlantic Fleet s neutrality patrols were steadily extended eastward, closer to the European war zone. She departed Newport on 27 July and screened a convoy to Iceland, reaching Reykjavik on 6 August and turning toward Norfolk the same day, her charges safely delivered.
The destroyer subsequently returned to those northern climes in mid-September- after local operations in the Newport-Boston area-reaching Hvalfjordur on 14 September. She operated in Icelandic waters into late September, before she put into Argentia, Newfoundland, on 11 October, en route to Casco Bay, Maine. She began an overhaul at the Boston Navy Yard on 25 November and completed it on 7 December, the day of infamy on which Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and thrust the United States into war in the Pacific. Departing the yard on that day, Walke reached Norfolk on 12 December, via Casco Bay, and remained there until the 16th when she sailed for the Panama Canal and the Pacific.
After reaching San Diego, Calif., on 30 December, Walke sailed with the newly formed Task Force (TF) 17 bound for the South Pacific, on 6 January 1942, screening Yorktown (CV-5) as that carrier covered the movement of reinforcements for the Marine garrision on American Samoa. The convoy subsequently arrived at Tutuila on 24 January. However, TF 17 remained in Samoan waters for only a short time, for it soon sailed north for the Marshalls-Gilberts area to deliver the first offensive blow to the enemy, only eight weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Walke served in the antisubmarine screen and plane guarded for the Yorktown as that carrier launched air strikes on suspected Japanese installations on the atolls of Jaluit, Makin, and Milli. Although Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, the Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet (CinCPAC), considered the raids well-conceived, well planned, and brilliantly executed, the damage they actually caused was not as great as reported ; and, outside of the boost they gave to American morale, the attacks were only a minor nuisance to the Japanese. Nevertheless, the American Fleet had finally taken the war to the enemy.
Returning to Hawaiian waters on 7 February, Walke trained in the Hawaiian area until 27 February, when she sailed for the Ellice Islands. She later exercised with TF 17 off New Caledonia in early March before she sailed, again screening Yorktown for the New Guinea area, as part of the force put together to check Japanese expansion in that area.
By that time, the enemy advance to the southward, in the New Guinea-New Britain area, had gained considerable momentum with the occupation of Rabaul and Gasmata, New Britain; Kavieng, New Ireland ; and on sites on Bougainville in the Solomons and in the Louisiades. By the end of February 1942, it seemed probable that the Japanese were planning to mount an offensive in early March. TF 11 and TF 17 were dispatched to the area. Vice Admiral Wilson Brown, in overall charge of the operation, initially selected Rabaul and Gasmata, in New Britain and Kavieng, in New Ireland, as targets for the operation.
Walke then screened Yorktown as she launched air s