World War II - D. T. Wrinkle - Diary - Coke County, TX ***************************************************************** USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net/ Submitted by Mary Love Berryman - marylove@tyler.net 20 Sep 2000 ***************************************************************** The Observer/Enterprise, 26 Nov 1999, Robert Lee, TX REFLECTIONS OF THE PAST D. T. WRINKLE PERSONAL DIARY June 14, 1944 - The start of the bombardment of Saipan. From "D: Day until the island was secured we bombarded. We bombarded Tenion while taking Saipan. June 18, 1944 - Task force 58 went to meet the Jap fleet, but couldn't overtake them in their flight back to their home land. Three hundred of their carrier planes were going to attack, but our planes destroyed all but a few planes and we got the rest. July 4, 1944 - We loaded ammo. July 20, 1944 - We bombarded Guam, in the Guam invasion. July 21, 1944 - We fired in the invasion of Tenion, the invasion started that day. August 8, 1944 - We proceeded to Aneweatk for supplies and an 18 day rest August 29, 1944 - We got under way with a fast task force headed for West Pacific. September 3, 1944 - We joined another task force in which there were fifteen carriers and seven battle ships. September 9, 1944 - Two cruisers and four destroyers left the task force on a mission to sink some small ships in the harbor of Undieraia. We sank thirteen and left others burning. This small group of ships was the first to reach the Philippines since the war began. We fired the first salvo that hit the island. We returned to our task force after completing the mission. September 10, 1944 - Still sailing around the Philippines. Our Air Force is bombing up to the Central Philippines. September 12, 1944 - We were attacked by two Japanese bombers. One dropped his bomb which was meant for a carrier, but missed and was shot down later. September 21, 1944 - We are back in the philippine area. We sailed around the island of Luzon close enough, that we could see the island. Our planes bombed this area up to Manila. They shot down 35 planes and sank 353 ships, also bomber shore installations. September 22, 1944 - We were attacked by three Jap planes. They were all shot down and no damage was done to our ships. September 24, 1944 - Our planes from Task Force 384 made another blow at Mirdoia. They found a number of good targets from air and sea. September 26, 1944 - We are headed for some island base for ammunitions and get a few days rest. September 17, 1944 - We dropped anchor in the part of a recently taken island. There was still a few Jap snipers on the island. This island is in the polve group. October 1, 1944 - We are still in the harbor in the Philippine islands. We have taken on ammo here so far. October 2, 1944 - This task force left the harbor in the Polve Islands, the following day about 5 pm. We dropped anchor in a harbor in the Carolina Hiatus. October 3, 1944 - At 4 am a storm hit, while we were anchored in the Carolinas. The ship started drifting and we had to get under way. The sea is pretty rough now. There are swells about 15 feet high at this time, and it is getting rougher. October 4, 1944 - The storm is over, but the sea is still very rough. We are headed for some ports at the time. We returned to the Carolinas Island and anchored. October 6, 1944 - We stayed on shore all night. October 7, 1944 - We got underway at 5:30 am. I don't know our destination, just two destroyers and an air craft carrier, one in the group with us. October 8, 1944 - We joined our old task force, took on fuel at sea and continued on to make a strike at the coast of the Japs homeland. October 9, 1944 - We are still proceeding in a straight course to Japan. Tonight at 6 pm we are within six hundred miles of Japan. The carriers will launch their planes for a strike tomorrow. October 10, 1944 - Our carriers launched their planes at five am to make their raids on the Japs. At eight they had sunch one heavy cruiser and attacked more ships at this time. At 10:00 am the light cruiser Mobil and Santa Fe Left on mission to sink two cargo ships. October 11, 1944 - This task force left the area from which we were launching our planes. Went back to the refueling area for more fuel. The same day we took on fuel and headed for Formosa. We will make our next strike. October 12, 1944 - Our carriers launched their planes at 6:15 am to make the attack. We are two hundred and thirty miles off China Coast, at this time about one hundred twenty miles from Japan. Formosa is between the two. Our planes have found many good targets at Formosa. The population of this island is about six thousand. Mostly Chinese; at one time this task force has been within nienty miles of Japan. October 12, 1944 - At 7 pm we were attacked by Jap planes. This attack lasted all night. There weree several planes shot out of the sky. All of our ships came through, without any major damage. Two destroyers were hit by our air craft. October 13, 1944 - Our planes took off to make another attack on the island of Formosa. Friday night we were attacked by Jap planes. The heavy cruiser Coriberry was hit by torpedo. She is being towed now, her engine room was hit. October 14, 1944 - This same night we had a torpedo launched at us, at two thousand yards, but it missed. We drove the planes away with our aircraft. October 16, 1944 - We were attacked again. The Houston was hit again by Japs, torpedo planes. Two planes struck the group of ships, both were down. There were about twenty four planes attacking the other task force, but our planes shot them down. October 18, 1944 - We have joined our old task force. We have been in a small group of ships escorting the Houston and Coniberry until they were out of reach of the Japs. We also took on survivors from the Houston and took on fuel. October 20, 1944 - We are still at sea, sailing around the Philippines, just standing by in case the Japs fleet come out. October 20, 1944 - About 3 pm the small carrier Princeton got a bomb hit in her gas storage tanks and immediately caught on fire. She was burning furiously at three o'clock that evening. The commanding officer at the time, of carriers, ask for some ships to help fight the fire. Our ship asked for permission to go put out the fire. We got permission and we went along side the carrier, started fighting the fire. Whle along side, we had a sub contact and an air raid, so we had to pull away. The raid lasted about one evening. After that we returned to the carrier to fight fire. We had just pulled along side ship and her ammunition magazine blew up. The explosion killed 305 men on the ship and wounded 250, which I was one of them. The ship was full of holes, but still stayed afloat. All of our power was knocked out. The jap fleet started out and we.... At this time D. T. Wrinkle was hit and spent time on hospital ship. At a later date he was moved to a hospital in the Philippines. He was born on February 26, 1925 and died on March 2, 1982. Wrinkle would have been the next volunteer to go over on the ship, when it blew up. At this particular time 500 men were buried at sea. Permission granted by Enterpriser/Observer for publication in the Coke County TXGenWeb Archives