USS Callaway (APA-35)

An On-The-Scene Account of the U. S. S. Callaway's January 8, 1945 incident while en route to the Lingayen Gulf on the island of Luzon in the Philippines for the January 9, 1945 invasion at Blue Beach.

By Laurence E. Michaels, B-Battery, 80th F.A., 6th Infantry Division.
Service #39468165

The day started out like most others, lounging on the deck, reading, or napping, or whatever, thinking about our D-Day, H-Hour destiny the next day at Blue Beach in the Lingayen Gulf. As the day went along, we were alerted numerous times with the big gong sounding and loud speakers announcing, "This is a red alert, this is no practice," with most being false alarms. This meant to go below deck on air raids or go up on deck in case of submarine attack.

All of a sudden, another of those annoying red alerts occurred, so below deck we went. I was one of the last to get to my compartment in the bow of the ship, sitting on the bottom steps of the stairway, waiting for the all clear to sound so we could return to the upper deck again. Then all of a sudden, the ship's guns started firing. It sounded like every gun tub on the ship was firing and the three inch guns on the bow over our compartment joined in. The concussion of the three inch gun in the compartment was like being inside a drum. Then all of a sudden, there were three loud explosions, making the ship shake and shutter from end to end. Later, we discovered these were three bombs, two that missed the ship off the port stern and one just missed, landing off our starboard bow, just outside our bow compartment. The next thing were the loud speakers calling the ship's fire and damage control crews to the bridge, followed by an announcement for litters and litter bearers from the 80th Field Artillery to report to the bridge to help care for the dead and injured (a very disturbing experience for a 19-year-old).

Being the last to get below deck, my litter partner and I were first up the stairway and on our way to the bridge. As I opened the compartment door, we were facing the bridge toward the rear of the ship. The first thing I saw was an airplane wing sticking out of the bridge with a red circle on it. It ran through my mind "That's a Jap plane". Later we found out that this two-man bomber was on fire from the ship's guns after strafing and dropping its three bombs on the Callaway. Apparently, the Japanese decided to do as much damage as possible and did a Kamikaze type suicide dive into Callaway's bridge, thus killing 23 of the ship's crew. The 23 sailors were buried at sea that afternoon. Apparently, there were six more, dying later on the hospital ship.

The Callaway went on to deliver our battalion to Lingayen Gulf, Blue Beach, in the early a.m. the following day, January 9, 1945.