[SAMWolf]

'All I could think of as the Jap bore in was 'I'm sitting on top of this 2000-pound torpedo. Let's get the hell out of here!' So I cut the gun, climbed out of the cockpit, and ran forward on the flight deck. I slid under an F6F. When the smoke cleared, I raised my head and bumped against a 1000-pound bomb loaded on the Hellcat. If that bomb had shaken loose I would have been a goner--even if the bomb didn't explode.'

-- W. S. Souza, VT-4 Pilot. USS ESSEX

'I saw all the 20-mm and 40-mm guns shooting at it… it seemed like it was coming in very slow… It was smoking but no one could shoot it down. I jumped back into the Ready Room as it hit. After the explosion, I ventured back on the flight deck--and I wish I hadn't--all those people killed--most burned to death!'

-- Don Gress, VT-4 Crewman. USS ESS

'By the end of the Pacific war records show that:
7,465 kamikazes flew to their deaths

the Allied fleet paid dearly with:
3,048 sailors killed
6,025 sailors wounded.
120 ships sunk'

-- Goralski, Robert. 1981. World War II Almanac

[SAMWolf]

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[facedown]

An observation from someone, maybe Souza, aboard the Essex that day:

The impact of the kamikaze was so severe that I could see the paint bounce off the bulkheads in the wardroom before smoke filled the room. My immediate thought was, "We have been hit by a torpedo or a bomb!" I looked around the room and noticed that nearly everyone else had ducked under the wardroom tables. I thought, "That seems kind of silly since the explosion is over." Then I thought about delayed-action fuses. "They are expecting a second explosion!" So, I got under a table, too.

YIKES!!!

From 12. Essex Takes a Kamikaze

A chapter from Torpedo Squadron Four: A Cockpit View of World War II By Gerald W. Thomas

[MomwithHope]

Thanks for this thread! My dad was on the USS Nicholson DD442 and told us about the kamikaze planes. He was a gunners mate, and had a deafness in one ear to show for it. He also hated the food on board and would get soup bones, etc from the cooks and cook up his own ethnic style soups and stews, Soon he had crew members lining up for his cooking. God bless all vets!