Death Watch at Kamikaze Corner: The Ordeal of the USS Hadley DD-774 at Okinawa

The USS Evans (right) and the USS Hadley during the epic 11 May 1945 battle.

by Robert O'Neill

The Japanese knew the invasion of the home islands was coming, and they prepared for it by organizing the "Divine Wind," known also as kamikaze—the suicide planes whose one mission was to crash-dive into ships of the American fleet. I hope that this article may in some small measure serve as a tribute to the Iron Men who bore so much of the brunt of the fanatical ka­mi­kaze attacks, the American de­stroyermen in the picket line off Okinawa. They went into battle formations and held, to come out covered with glory—and bright red blood.

Okinawa was "the last battle" of World War II. It was the last battle, in truth, for many a man and a ship and plane. But for the destroyermen of the United States it was a nightmare come true. What the de­stroyermen took, and what they dished out there, seems unbelievable now.

Okinawa was the last, insanely reckless struggle of the crashing Japanese Empire. In one final burst of teeth-grinding fury, Japan's suicide squadrons literally hurled themselves at the Americans. And to stop this ma­ni­a­cal burst of desperation, the burden fell on a long, thin screen of destroyers.

It was men who wanted to live against men who wanted to die. Men in thin-skinned, skittering little "cans" against men in swift-hurtling planes, rockets and torpedoes. And, almost incredibly, it was the men in the little ships who won. Pure skill, bulldog te­nac­ity, and death-defying bravery won out. Men who were too proud to run from defeated men who were determined to die.

There were many good little ships in the picket line that surrounded bloody Okinawa. Many good men in them, too. Men like Shipfitter Art Ehrman of the doomed Abele, who dove off a rescue ship to save two drowning buddies, when he himself had just been fished out. And men like Water Tender First Class Pete Branigan of the Lalley, who stayed at his post shutting off valves on burst steam lines while live steam scorched his skin off.

It would be hard to say "This ship and crew was better than that one" in the stubborn line. But there was one destroyer that somehow symbolized the spirit of all the gallant "small boys" of the American fleet. USS Hadley somehow typified the skill and uncon­quer­a­ble fighting spirit of all Yankee destroyermen.

Destroyer USS Hugh W. Hadley had been com­mis­sioned in November 1944. She was the latest thing in swift surface ships when she headed west with her new crew. DD-774 was her battle number. Commander B. J. Mullaney was her skipper when she underwent her ordeal by fire in April and May of 1945. Her men were to win a Presidential Unit Citation then, in an unparalleled series of blazing life-or-death battles. But twenty-eight of them were destined to die in the flaming hol­o­caust, and sixty-seven to be burned and torn in the howling hell of the kamikazes. Hadley herself was to emerge a shattered, staggering wreck.

The kamikazes were the reason for the bloody, fire-seared chaos off Okinawa. To Americans, to whom the individual and his life are sacred, the Jap­a­nese kamikaze seems an insane horror produced by diseased minds. Not so to the fatalistic Nipponese.

Suicide weapons had been tried before, but never on the horrible scale of Okinawa. Japan's Imperial Navy had secretly launched a whole "Kikusui" plan, using a new "Special Attack Corps" of suicide vol­un­teers. The Ka­mi­kaze ("Divine Wind") plan was well under way as 1945 began. By March some 190 Jap­a­nese pilots, sworn to seek death, already had crashed about 130 planes into American ships, and almost sixty more into the sea in near misses.

Often dressed in ceremonial "hara-kiri" (ritual suicide) robes, insanely fanatic Japanese pilots flew the kamikaze planes, or steered the one-way "Oka" jet-propelled flying bomb-rockets. The torpedo-shaped, stub-winged Oka rock­ets were called "Baka" by the Yanks. "Baka" means "idiot" in Japanese. They were flying bombs packed with nearly 3,000 pounds of high explosives, carried under the belly of a medium or heavy bomber. Once near the target, they were released, to be ridden into the target by a suicide pilot who served as a living aiming and exploder device.

Besides the plane and rocket pilots, there were other death-dedicated suicide volunteers. Speedboats, packed with high explosives, were used, too. Midget submarines, op­er­ated by one or two suiciders, were used as living torpedoes. They actually were torpedoes fitted with housings in which Japanese volunteers rode as living aiming and firing mech­a­nisms.

Before it was stopped, the grisly "Divine Wind" took a terrible toll. This last-gasp struggle alone killed over 12,000 Americans, and wounded many times that number. On Okinawa itself nearly 7,000 GIs and Ma­rines died. At sea it cost the U.S. Navy more men and ships than any other comparable battle-time campaign. Over 5,000 seamen died; another 5,000 wounded; thirteen destroyers and one de­stroyer escort sunk; thirteen carriers, ten battleships, and five cruisers severely damaged; and forty-seven destroyers and de­stroyer escorts mauled and battered. How many Japanese died, no one will ever know. This battle ended the Japanese Empire.

The picket line at Okinawa was the worst ordeal ever faced by the American Navy. Most of the blows were taken by the swift "small boy" ships. Their eggshell hulls, built for speed, not for slugging, were ill-suited to such brutal, head-on smashes. Nev­er­the­less, they won out, by sheer guts and gunfire. They choked the "Divine Wind" in the throats of their foes. No less than ninety-eight destroyers and fifty-two destroyer escorts fought in "the last battle" of the Japanese. Sixty-one of them were hit in the furious day and night battles.

Operation Iceberg was the code name of the Amer­i­can invasion plan for Okinawa. It aimed to seize the big island as the base for the final invasion of the Japanese home islands. As March 1945 ended, the Fifth Fleet headed for the China Sea—and Okinawa. April 1st—ironically named "Love Day"—was the opening day.

Well aware of the ferocity of defense to be expected, wise old Adm. Nimitz sent a huge force to tackle the for­mi­da­ble task. The Japanese surely would fight like cornered animals to defend their home grounds. Nearly 1,500 Amer­i­can ships, manned by over half a million men, sailed west to the far end of the Pacific to beard the tiger in his lair. Over 1,200 transport and supply ships, carrying 182,000 assault troops, aimed for Okinawa, with some three hundred fighting ships to protect them.

In the great anchorage area off the west coast of the long, narrow island, the vast transport fleet would have to sit for days and weeks. Such a huge assem­blage of juicy targets would tempt the Japanese to wild attacks. If they could destroy the transports, they could isolate the invasion army, for leisurely butchery later.

Protection of the transport area would depend on a distant screen of swift fighting ships—the DDs and DEs. In a ring encircling the island, the destroyers and destroyer escorts would patrol, on constant radar picket duty. They would guard the vital convoy lanes, and flash warnings of aircraft or other enemies approach­ing the vulnerable trans­port area. More impor­tant, they were to stop the attackers with a wall of anti-aircraft fire—and with their ships and bodies, if need be.

Seventy miles out from the island coast the first picket line took stations. Forty miles from shore the second line began its picket runs. Then, 20 miles out from the transport area the last line was set up. The rings of picket groups were named Task Flotilla 5.

In each little picket group a fighter-director team kept in constant touch with some assigned fighter squadron. Two LCSs or other support craft went with each picket group. They were called "the Pall­bear­ers," with typically salty Navy humor.

At first only one destroyer was assigned to each picket group. But as days of furious attacks followed one another, more were added. Towards the end, in May, two or three DDs were in each group. Four to twelve planes were assigned on call solely as cover for each picket group. Destroyer escorts, not heavily enough armed for the outer line, served in the inner lines.

As many as nineteen picket groups ringed the island until shore radar stations could be set up. In each, two, three or four DDs and two to four LCSs cruised, each group usually in an Indian-fighting circle, for mutual help. Whenever enemy planes were spotted, timely warning enabled the transport area guards to blanket the helpless transports with protective smoke.

It was up to the "tin cans." The big carriers, much too clumsy for this job, stood far away beyond the horizon. Their fighter planes came on call. Bom­bard­ment battleships and cruisers came in for short-time gun attacks on the is­land, and as quickly drew back from the danger zone. Block­ad­ing submarines stood far out, to warn of approach­ing surface attack.

It was from the air that danger would come. For that, the destroyermen were sent out. As usual, the men of the "tin can Navy" went to it quickly, quietly, efficiently—and bravely.

USS Hadley joined one of the picket groups (Group 15, north of the transport area), like all the other DDs, and settled down to alert patrolling. It was not a new job to many of her men; but it was to some. She had been com­mis­sioned only a few months before. A fighter-director team was aboard, to control the twelve fighter planes assigned to this group's control.

Hadley was a good ship, with a good crew. One gun pointer of her crew, for example, was Jim Kaslov of Sharon, Pennsylvania. Kaslov once said, "After all, the ship is only a mount for the guns." He was right. His twin 40-mm crew could knock the eye off a mos­quito at 1,000 yards. And the crews of the 5-inchers and other guns were just about as good. It was well for this ship's crewmen that they knew their business. Their lives were to depend on their skill—and in­tes­ti­nal fortitude.

Hadley worked in a team with another crack DD—the Evans. Between them, they were to blast some forty-five suicide planes and rockets out of the air in one terrific day. Incred­i­ble as it sounds, that score was literally true. One day of furious action—11 May—was typical of how the iron men in the "tin ships" could fight.

Early in the morning of the 11th, the kamikazes came like flies. Out of a misty haze to the north, the first one came, straight for Hadley.

Lookouts shrilled the alarm, and tense men at the guns crouched ready. The tiny spot in the sky grew rapidly big­ger. It was a float plane, the first of over 140 mad death-seekers that were to attack the two destroyers that day.

As the racing kamikaze came into range the guns of the Hadley opened up with a snarling roar. Tracers and bursting shells began to spot the sky around the Japanese plane. Suddenly there was a terrific explosion about 1,500 yards from the destroyer. The plane dis­ap­peared in a blasting flash of yellow flame and gray smoke. Direct hit—right on the nose! One kamikaze gone to join his ancestors; first score for the Hadley.

Another plane came hurtling out of the mist, higher up this time. The gun muzzles on the destroyer rose swiftly, like insect feelers, pointing towards the new enemy. Behind the guns, tight-lipped crewmen braced for the next attack. Mount captains and gun captains spoke tersely to their crews. Ammunition and powder men swung to their jobs. Pointers peered through their sights.

While the guns lifted their muzzles, the fighter-director chief studied his radar screen and spoke to his air unit. "Bandits coming in from the north. We've got a snowstorm of bogies, one-five-zero. Big raid coming up." Back on the car­ri­ers, far over the horizon, waiting fighter planes roared along flight decks, and leaped into the air. CAP (Combat Air Patrol) would be wanted—and how! The mist was swarming with kamikazes.

The approaching plane was a Val. Snapping gun­fire on the Hadley mounted to a roar, as the ship heeled around to bring all guns to bear. Fire control men sweated suddenly as the careening plane swerved and maneuvered, swinging around in an arc to hit from the rear. How could they figure the deflection rate? The plane swerved from side to side, skidding, slip­ping and barrel rolling; speeding up and slow­ing down, in a great circle.

At 5,000 yards the air around the careening Val was plastered with 5-inch bursts, while streaming 40-mm tracers seemed to frame the darting, dancing plane. Still it came on, closer and closer. At 2,000 yards it turned sharply, and bored in toward the ship. The 20-mm guns opened up, adding their shrill racket to the uproar. A thin wisp of black smoke began to stream from the onrushing plane.

As it came on, right over the ship's wake, the after 5-inchers crashed savagely. Each blast almost knocked down the crew of the nearby aft 20-mm gun. Cold sweat beaded the gunners' brows.

The Val was smoking badly now, but it still came on like a rocket.

Yammering guns ripped desperately at the plunging kamikaze, tearing at the wings and fuselage. Suddenly, a wing seemed to detach itself from the onrushing plane. It floated like a leaf, swaying to and fro as it dropped. Then the plane turned lazily up into a long, graceful arch and flipped over on one side. Its dead pilot, riddled by flying steel, no longer controlled the explosive-packed machine. It dropped suddenly, nose first, and plunged into the sea, in a splashing column of foam—not a hundred yards from the Hadley.

As the guns suddenly fell silent, the men of the Hadley stared at each other, ashen-faced. How much of this sort of thing could men take? That plane had been death itself, plunging at them like a ghastly night­mare of murderous purpose. How long can men who want to live fight off men who want to die?

Veterans of dozens of deadly battles bit their lips, and clenched their fists to keep their hands from trem­bling. This wasn't battle. It was insanity—lunatic idiocy!

That was the reaction of all the men, in all the racing DDs and DEs of the great picket line. Each ship, in the whole long, scattered line was to go through this soul-searing experience—not just once, but many times. Off Okinawa, the seamen of America fought not only men, but grim, brain-addled death itself. That they stayed on, and fought this nightmare enemy to the end, almost passes belief.

But they stayed.

Here and there, on the crowded little ships, a man's nerves broke. A few men became hysterical, gibbering with horror as the maniacs crashed into their ships. But the men who cracked were very few. Al­most every man held on and took it. Sick with horror and disgust, they stayed put, and beat off the swarming lunatics; and patched their ships after weird collisions with death-drunk foes, to fight again.

Hadley was only one of the many destroyers at Oki­nawa. Her men were only one crew, of the many who rode through the inferno there. They are symbols, one man for hundreds, one crew for many, one ship for all. In these sailors, American men-at-war reached an incredible peak of sheer cold courage, against in­sane enemies armed with horrible weapons and bent on death.

Over 140 suicide planes hurled themselves at the Hadley and the Evans alone on that awful day in May. Wave after wave of madmen came hurtling out of the sky. How many more were shot down, high above, in wild aerial dogfights, no one will ever know.

For almost two hours the waves of suicide planes came roaring at the defiant ship. One after another, they were beaten off. As the bellowing guns thudded and spat, their muzzles became black with powder flash. Gunners and crewmen became glassy-eyed with endless tension and effort. A few exhausted men retched and vomited with shock and nausea; but they came back to their posts, every time.

Each time, after the first solo attacks, four, five, or six Japanese would plunge at Hadley together. One would dive straight down from above. One would come screaming down at a 45 degree angle. Another would come gliding in at 30 degrees. And another would skim the waves, low and level. From every quarter of the com­pass, they bored in on the racing destroyer—some bow-on, some from astern, and some from the sides.

Her guns spat death back at the plunging ka­mi­ka­zes. Like a porcupine, her guns bristled in all di­rec­tions, fighting off attackers. A canopy of streaming steel, flame, and smoke hung over her, like a wall to hold off the swarms above. Her men labored and sweated, feeding and firing their guns like lost souls doomed to everlasting labor in the fiery pits of hell.

By 0900 hours the Evans was three miles away, des­per­ately fighting for her own life. Then Evans was hit, and out of action; and Hadley was alone under the buzzing beehive of maniacs.

From 0830 to 0900 the keen-eyed gunners on Hadley speared one plane after another—twelve in all. In a sweltering chaos of diving planes and roaring guns firing in all di­rec­tions, she splashed the sea with a dozen dead Japanese planes.

At 0905 the weird attackers pierced her defenses. A high-flying Japanese bomber released a "Baka." Like a jet-propelled stone the huge rocket fell straight onto the Hadley. With a terrific explosion it tore through her deck, shattering her power and control connections. A spout of flame boiled up from the stricken destroyer. Torn fragments of dead men lit­tered her seared decks, as repair crews ran to stop her wounds. Burning and racked with pain, the little ship fought on. Then a hurtling bomb smashed into her, tearing at her vitals. Then a Nate plummeted onto the Had­ley, crashing aft on the deck.

A shattering explosion tore the gallant ship, blow­ing her steadfast after gunners to shreds. But the other guns kept right on firing.

Another Val was diving for the hull of the stricken destroyer. Oblivious to the storm of flying steel, the fanatic Japanese pilot held his "Divine Wind" plane straight in line to crash. It struck square amidships.

A dull, jarring boom signaled the smash. Terrific concussion drove in the side of the staggering ship. Water rushed in. Drunkenly, the Hadley began to heel over. Tons of green water pressed her down. She began to list and settle.

But the men on Hadley were still fighting. Every gun that had not been blasted was still firing.

The last of the howling kamikazes came on, to finish the job. Clawing, spitting gunfire ripped it out of the sky, plunging it to its death in a foaming geyser in the sea. It was as though the furious men of the Hadley were reaching long, talon-tipped claws into the sky, tearing their tor­men­tors down. Then suddenly, they were gone. There were no more left.

Wallowing heavily, Hadley seemed to be mortally wounded. Damage repair crews seemed to be losing the grim struggle with fire and water. At any moment she might roll over and sink.

Calm and restrained, the captain's voice sounded the order to prepare to abandon ship. But grief and pain racked him even as he gave the necessary order. Mullaney himself, and some forty officers and men, stayed aboard.

In quick, orderly fashion, life rafts were pushed over the side. The wounded were carried gently to safety on the rafts, and most of the crew went over the side, too. Their LSTs (the Pallbearers) were coming up fast, to lend a hand.

On board, the few remaining men labored in fran­tic haste, lightening the laboring ship and stopping her wounds. In a frenzied half-hour of Homeric labor the damage was brought under control. Hadley would live, after all.

Battered, torn, and fiercely triumphant, Hadley did survive, after her unbelievable ordeal. Laboring heav­ily, she was towed to safety at Ie Shima, just south­west of Oki­nawa. She would ride the seas again. Her mission was accomplished. She had given the Japanese a bitter bellyful of suicide. And the transports she had protected were safe.

Hadley paid the price, as did so many other de­stroy­ers of the immortal "picket line." Twenty-eight of her men were dead. Sixty-seven were terribly wounded. The ship was a battered mess. But she was still there, and her indom­i­ta­ble men were triumphant.

The kamikaze had blown itself out. What was the use of suicide tactics that cost almost twenty-five crack planes and pilots to damage one little ship. Not the grinning mask of death itself could break the American de­stroyermen. The Japanese were finished, and they knew it.

That was how it was on the "madhouse run" in the Okinawa picket line. It took iron men. Lucky for America that her destroyer sailors are iron men. Their flesh and bones can be torn and smashed, like other men's. But their will and courage are of hard, un­breaking stuff. They faced the ultimate enemy at Oki­nawa—gibbering death itself—and won.

It was a solemn roll call, when the battle was over. Many a fine ship and its men were gone forever—the Abele, the Bush, the Callaghan, the Colhoun, the Drexler, the Little, the Longshaw, the Luce, the Mor­rison, the Ober­render, the Pringle, the Porter, the Twiggs, the Underhill. And many DDs and DEs torn and battered, like Hadley and Evans, and the gallant Hazelwood, Leutze, Hyman, Ben­nion, and Laffey, to name only a few of the sixty-one that were scarred there.

What a fearful toll the little ships exacted from the Mikado's madmen can only be guessed. Suffice it to say that Japan was utterly broken and defeated when this battle ended. The U.S. Naval Institute's History of Destroyer Operations in World War II hazards a guess but says that it is only a guess.

All in all, it says, the Japanese lost about 7,830 aircraft in the great defeat at Okinawa—over three thousand by Navy and Marine planes, and over 410 by Navy guns; two-thirds of these by guns of the DDs and DEs. A tremendous additional number were stopped and tar­geted by the destroyer fighter-director teams. They set up the enemy aircraft for the kill by American planes. Undoubtedly, the real score for the destroyers ran well into four figures.

Be that as it may, the important thing is this: de­stroy­ers are the bulk, sinews, and ranging power of the U.S. Navy. They are the workhorses of the ocean teams. Destroyermen are the real strength of our fight­ing ships, our wall of iron men.

At Okinawa, American destroyermen wrote in blood and fire a saga of courage and fighting hearts that will never die. Against the most fearful death-seeking foemen in his­tory, they fought and won.

The U.S. Naval Institute, and many seamen who fought the kamikaze, said of suicide plane attacks that they were "practically impossible to stop." But the destroyermen at Okinawa stopped them.

USS Hugh W. Hadley (DD-774).

USS Hugh W. Hadley (DD-774). This February 1945 photograph of the Sumner-class destroyer USS Hadley shows the destroyer three months before its fateful rendezvous with swarms of Japanese Kamikaze aircraft off Okinawa. The destroyer’s combat career comprised less than two years of service.

The Fletcher-class destroyer USS Evans (DD-552) was on station with the Hadley on May 11, 1945, and was seriously damaged by Japanese Kamikaze planes. Photo taken 28 June 1943.

Vice Admiral Matome Ugaki commanded the Japanese Fifth Air Fleet and launched waves of Kamikaze aircraft against the U.S. Navy ships supporting the Okinawa landings.

Radar Picket Station 15 off Okinawa on 11 May 1945. "Starboard side pumping was futile. Bomb exploded beneath the ship humping the keel about 54 inches with many holes, breaking both shafts, driving one back into the rudder." Report of LTJG Douglas G. Aitkin, USS Hadley.

Looking aft at portside on the Hadley: nothing is left of the quad 40mm except the geared base ring. The mount crew was KIA.

Top of the Hadley's aft deck house.

Hadley's aft gun deck showing both Mk 52 40mm Gun Directors miraculously only slightly damaged even though both gun mounts were destroyed.

LCS(L)83 first vessel to come to Hadley's aid, ties up on starboard side.

Condition 1 Easy on Hadley after Kamikaze attack.

USS LSM(R)193 after helping Hadley to fight the ship's fires, casts off to hunt for survivors in the water.

USS LSM(R)193 in the act of picking up Hadley's  men in the water. After picking them up it came alongside to starboard to help until it was relieved by Tawakoni in early afternoon. After the two rescue tugs were alongside, the LSM(R)193 took Hadley in tow heading for Ie Shima and to its only sandy beach.

USS Tawakoni ATF-114. Tawakoni was on the port side of Hadley, and the USS Deliver ARS-23 on the starboard side of Hadley, relieved the landing craft, coming alongside to assist in trying to keep Hadley afloat, both vessels using their high volume pumps. Then later on they escorted her to Ie Shima and stayed with her until 14 May. On that date Hadley was towed by Tawakoni the 37 miles to the Kerama Retto Anchorage. Hadley was later dry docked in ARD-28 and repair work to the hull was started.

USS Deliver (ARS-23).

Taking Hadley aboard the floating dry dock, ARD-28, at Kerama Retto Anchorage. The dock is lowered into the water by filling ballast tanks, similar to a submarine. When the load is in position the tanks are slowly pumped out while the shoring is installed under the bottom to keep the load on an even keel and for the repair work on the hull.

Hadley high and dry in dry dock. Note repair ship Zaniah standing by, aft to the left. The other clutter of ships are those who are damaged or those working to repair those damaged.

The severity of Hadley's damage can be seen in this photo, where the starboard screw is noticeably out of position. Notice how much farther aft it is than the port screw.

Starboard screw being held by starboard rudder, after damage to the Hadley had forced the propeller shaft aft. Later found that both propeller shafts were sheared.

Underwater damage on Hadley, Station 110. Keel was stoved in as much as 6 feet at damaged area.

Hadley hull damage on or about Station 110.

Portside of Hadley's Flying Bridge as it was in 1945. LT Pat McGann, Hadley Gunnery Officer.

Scoreboard of Japanese aircraft destroyed by the Hadley.

The same score board as it appears today (photo taken in 2003). This portion of the Hadley bridge, saved from the scrap yard, was given by the ship's veterans association to the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas. It was donated by Hugh Hadley Birdwell, grandson of Commander Hugh W. Hadley, USN, who was killed in action in the Solomon Islands in September 1942, and for whom the ship was named.