Name/Title
Stanley Margolis UniformsEntry/Object ID
NavyUniform2022.7Description
Stanley (NMN) Margolis
SN: 8077277
Ship Fitter Third Class
Enlisted: July 1, 1943
USS Arkansas
Received: September 5, 1943
Transferred: October 26, 1945
Transferred to receiving station Seattle.
Undress jumper top was purchased with bottoms which are named. Dress Jumper, also named, was purchased after by the same seller.
About the Ship:
(Courtesy of the Naval History and Heritage Command)
On 29 January 1942, Arkansas served with New York and Texas in BatDiv 5, along with VO-5, all part of Battleships, Atlantic Fleet. Arkansas spent the month of February carrying out exercises in Casco Bay in preparation for her role as an escort for troop and cargo transports. She then turned southward and arrived at Norfolk on 6 March to begin an overhaul, which included replacing her distinctive “basket” foremast with a tripod. Underway on 2 July, Arkansas completed a shakedown cruise in Chesapeake Bay and then proceeded to New York City, where she arrived on 27 July.
The battleship sailed from New York on 6 August 1942, bound through U-boat-infested waters for Greenock along the Clyde Estuary, Scotland. Two days later, the ships paused at Halifax, then continued on through the stormy North Atlantic. The convoy reached Greenock on the 17th, and Arkansas returned to New York on 4 September. She escorted another Greenock-bound convoy across the Atlantic, then arrived back at New York on 20 October. Capt. Carleton F. Bryant, the ship’s commanding officer, also led TF 38, which generally comprised Arkansas, Brooklyn, and 7–11 destroyers. Rear Adm. Lyle A. Davidson led TF 37, which usually deployed New York, Philadelphia, and 6–12 destroyers. The two task forces escorted convoys averaging 8–15 transports or troopships packed with U.S. and Canadian soldiers from New York and Halifax to Lough Foyle and Londonderry, Northern Ireland, or to the Clyde or the Western Approaches Command at Liverpool on the Mersey Estuary.
The Allies meanwhile prepared for Operation Torch—the invasion of Vichy French-held North Africa. Cargo ship Almaack (AK-27) and transports Leedstown (AP-73) and Samuel Chase (AP-56) formed Transport Division 11 and sailed from Hampton Roads to New York on 19 September 1942. Arkansas and nine destroyers served in TF 38 and covered the trio as they set out as Convoy AT-26 to cross the Atlantic to Belfast, Northern Ireland (26 September–6 October). Almaack, Leedstown, and Samuel Chase waterproofed Army equipment and re-stowed their cargoes, while the soldiers drilled ashore, before they took part in training exercises and stood out for Torch.
Arkansas and nine destroyers in the meantime set out as the screen for a convoy that planners referred to as “the D plus 5 convoy,” meaning that they were supposed to reach their port of disembarkation at Casablanca, Morocco, five days after the initial landings. The fighting against the French damaged the port, however, and Allied engineers incurred delays as they laboriously cleared wrecked ships and repaired disabled facilities. The convoy reached the area but thus marked time steaming evasive courses offshore in heavy seas. The destroyers made multiple sonar contacts on possible U-boats but the convoy escaped any potential attacks, and French pilots and tugs aided the vessels as they finally slid into the harbor at Casablanca on the 18th. Arkansas and nine destroyers +escorted the 19 merchant ships and oilers of Convoy GUF-2, the second homeward-bound convoy, as they cleared Casablanca and returned to New York (29 November–11 December). Arkansas then accomplished an overhaul.
The battleship wrapped up the yard work early in the New Year and carried out gunnery drills in Chesapeake Bay (2–30 January 1943). She returned to New York and began loading supplies for yet another transatlantic trip, for which she made two runs between Casablanca and New York City (February–April). The following month, Arkansas completed voyage repairs and additional work in dry dock at the New York Navy Yard, emerging from that period of yard work to proceed to Norfolk on 26 May. When the ship completed yard work during the war it often involved installing additional light antiaircraft armament, most notably 20 and 40-millimeter guns. Arkansas assumed her new duty as a training ship for midshipmen, operating out of Norfolk. After four months of training cruises and drills in Chesapeake Bay, the battleship returned to New York to resume her role as a convoy escort. On 8 October the ship sailed for Bangor, Northern Ireland, where she remained throughout November before turning around to return to New York on the 1st of December. Arkansas then began some repairs on 12 December before setting out for more convoy duty.
Just two days before Christmas on the 23rd, German submarine U-471, Oberleutnant zur See Friedrich Kloevekorn, operated as part of Wolfpack Sylt and unsuccessfully attacked Arkansas while the battleship screened Convoy TU 5 in the North Atlantic, about 300 miles west of Rockall Bank. Kloevekorn and his men experienced a traumatic day because in addition to failing to attack the American battleship, a British Royal Air Force Coastal Command Consolidated B-24 Liberator of No. 120 Squadron assailed U-471 and wounded three men, though the submarine escaped. Clearing New York for Norfolk two days after Christmas of 1943, Arkansas closed the year in that port.
The battleship sailed on 19 January 1944, with a convoy bound for Northern Ireland. After seeing the convoy safely to its destination, the ship reversed her course across the Atlantic and reached New York on 13 February. Arkansas then (28 March–11 April) went to Casco Bay for gunnery exercises. A number of ships operated in the area at times including battleships led by Rear Adm. Bryant, Commander, BatDiv 5: Arkansas, Nevada (BB-36), New York, and Texas; as well as Quincy, Tuscaloosa; Satterlee (DD-626), Thompson (DD-627), and a variety of escorts, minesweepers, and yard and district craft; along with British frigate Bahamas (K-503). Some of these vessels operated under the auspices of TF 22, Rear Adm. Morton L. Deyo. During the following days the ships prepared for war and carried out evolutions that included shore bombardment against Seal Island and daylight and nighttime antiaircraft practice. Following the training, Arkansas proceeded to Boston for repairs.
On 18 April 1944, she sailed once more for Bangor, and upon reaching Northern Ireland began training to prepare for her new role as a shore bombardment ship to support Operation Overlord—the Allied invasion of the German-occupied Norman coast. The gunner’s mates confidently wrote “You Name it Boss, We’ll Hit it!” on one of their 12-inch turrets as they prepared for what Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, USA, Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, announced as “this great and noble undertaking.” Arkansas sailed for the French coast and Overlord on 3 June.
“I am not under [any] delusions as to the risks involved in this most difficult of all operations...” British Adm. Sir Bertram H. Ramsay, RN, Naval Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Naval Expeditionary Force, penned in his diary on the night of the 5th. “Success will be in the balance. We must trust in our invisible assets to tip the balance in our favor.”
“We shall require all the help that God that can give us & I cannot believe that this will not be forthcoming.”
The battleship charted a course as part of the Western Task Force’s Bombarding Force O, Rear Adm. John L. Hall Jr., who had commanded her earlier in the war. As the ships of the force crossed the English Channel through passages swept for mines they deployed for their assigned tasks and turned toward the landing beaches. Texas led Bombardment Group, Task Group (TG) 124.9, Rear Adm. Bryant, followed (in order) by British light cruiser Glasgow (C-21), Arkansas, and Free French light cruisers Georges Leygues and Montcalm. Baldwin (DD-624), Carmick (DD-493), Doyle (DD-494), Frankford (DD-497), Harding (DD-625), McCook (DD-496), Satterlee (DD-626), Thompson (DD-627), and British Hunt-class destroyers Melbreak (L-73), Talybont (L-18), and Tanatside (L-69), at times screened the bombardment vessels and fired on the German defenders.
Arkansas entered the Baie de la Seine on the morning of 6 June 1944, took up a position 4,000 yards off Omaha beach, and at 0552 opened fire on the German soldiers. The enemy forces included four 150-millimeter guns, a captured Soviet 122-millimeter piece, and a trio of 20-millimeter antiaircraft guns of 4/Heeres-Küsten-Artillerie-Abteilung 1260 emplaced in Widerstandsnest (Nest of Resistance) WN-48 at Longues-sur-Mer, north of Bayeux on a bluff overlooking the beach. The German guns opened fire at British amphibious landing headquarters ship Bulolo (F-82) as she directed the British landings on nearby Gold Beach. British light cruisers Ajax (22) and Argonaut (61) bracketed the battery and the German gunners’ ceased fire while they sheltered from the shelling and repaired the damage. The gunners then resolutely starting shooting again, shifting their fire toward the Americans as they struggled ashore on Omaha. Arkansas, Georges Leygues, and Montcalm answered the call and hurled salvo after salvo at the position, knocking out one of the four casemates and damaging two others. The following morning Allied planes struck the battery again and then British soldiers of C Company, 2nd Devonshire Regiment, 231st Brigade, 50th Infantry Division, from Gold assaulted and captured the guns and their resolute defenders. Arkansas fired 163 armor piercing and 656 high capacity 12-inch rounds, along with 94 5-inch and 104 3-inch shells on D-Day (0605–1300).
Arkansas continued her fire support to the Allied soldiers as they fought their way inland over the ensuing days. On the 13th she shifted to a position off Grandcamp les Bains. A landing craft vehicle and personnel (LCVP) eased alongside Arkansas at one point and transferred wounded men to the battleship for medical treatment. Flares and starshells lit the horizon as the Germans struck back against Allied ships on the evening of 14 June. At 2300 a plane dropped two bombs, possibly Henschel Hs 293s, small but powerful radio-controlled glide bombs equipped with rocket motors to enable them to increase the range of their attacks, near Quincy. The first one splashed bearing 156° about 1,000 yards from the ship and 400 yards from Arkansas as she lay anchored in Berth E-51. The second glide bomb flew toward the ships at 2329 and splashed closer to Quincy, bearing 134° at 700 yards and 300 from Arkansas, and the boil of water rose as high as the battleship’s main deck. Combined headquarters and communications command ship Ancon (AGC-4) signaled incoming radio controlled bombs during the mid watch on 18 June, and Quincy helped jam the enemy wavelengths to disrupt their targeting the destructive devices. Arkansas, Nevada, and Texas came about for British waters later that night, and their departure left Quincy as one of the heaviest ships fighting off Omaha.
A storm meanwhile lashed the beachheads and destroyed Mulberry A, an artificial harbor that helped the Americans’ unload ships off Omaha Beach, and wreaked havoc with the vessels off the beachheads (19–22 June 1944). Arkansas weathered the tempest from her more sheltered anchorage in British waters, but the lack of an adequate port hindered Allied logistics and the storm compounded the delays in the build-up ashore in France. Consequently, the Allies desperately needed a port and dispatched a naval force to support the landward advance up the Cotentin Peninsula to Cherbourg.
Arkansas joined other vessels as they assembled into Rear Adm. Deyo’s Cherbourg Bombardment Force, TF 129, in Portland Harbour in southern England. Deyo divided the task force into two battle groups. Battle Group 1 comprised Nevada (Capt. Powell M. Rhea), Quincy, Tuscaloosa, and British light cruisers Enterprise (D-52) and Glasgow, in company with Ellyson (DD-454), Emmons (DD-457), Gherardi (DD-637), Hambleton (DD-455), Murphy (DD-603), and Rodman (DD-456). Bryant’s Battle Group 2 included Arkansas, Texas, Barton (DD-722), Hobson (DD-464), Laffey (DD-724), O’Brien (DD-725), and Plunkett (DD-431). The first group would attack the port while the second concentrated on nearby Marine-Küsten-Batterie Hamburg, emplaced on a hill near Fermanville, not far from Cap Levi and about six miles east of Cherbourg. In addition, at times ships of the 159th Minesweeping Flotilla and British 9th Minesweeping Flotilla took part in the operation.
Hitler declared Cherbourg a “fortress” and ordered Generalleutnant Karl-Wilhelm von Schlieben, whom the Allies had driven back from the beaches, to defend the city, but the landward defenses lacked strength against the overwhelming forces the Allies deployed against the port. Toward the sea, however, the Germans arrayed potentially heavier defenses, and emplaced four 11-inch guns and artillery ranging from 75, 88, and 150 millimeter guns and up around the area, often in casemated batteries—many of which could engage Allied ships. Both sides anticipated a bitter battle as the 25th of June opened as an otherwise beautiful and warm day. Haze restricted the view until the sun’s rays gradually broke through, and Quincy then logged the day as “bright and clear with a southeast wind of 8 knots.” The warship’s plan of the day called for breakfast and then succinctly summarized her goal as “neutralize Cherbourg.”
Allied planes including USN Consolidated PB4Y-1 Liberators and Eastern TBM Avengers searched for U-boats to the westward, while other planes, among them USAAF Lockheed P-38 Lightnings, flew protective flights over the ships, and still others including British Fleet Air Arm TBMs supported the attack. One of the Allied aircraft spotted what the pilot believed to be a midget submarine during the morning watch near 50°11ˈN, 2°2ˈW, which generated fears among the crews, but the (reported) enemy boat failed to maneuver into an attack position. As the ships of Battle Group 1 negotiated the treacherous minefields and awaited the advancing VII Corps’ calls for fire the German batteries opened up at 1206, the first rounds splashing 190° and about 3,000 yards from Quincy. The enemy guns continued and huge geysers of water erupted around some of the ships. Four 150 millimeter rounds passed over British minesweeper Sidmouth (J-47), the lead sweeper, and a three-gun salvo bracketed Nevada, one of the shells splashing within 100 yards. Rear Adm. Deyo ordered the ships to begin counter-battery fire, but the German gunners shot accurately, scoring a number of hits on some of the other task force ships, and the accompanying destroyers laid smoke.
The “enemy batteries opened fire with extreme accuracy,” Ramsay observed, “whilst the force was turning at slow speed from the approach channel into the fire support area. To avoid heavy damage destroyers had to make smoke and the heavier ships to manoeuvre at increased speed, and, in some cases, without regard to keeping inside swept water, in order to maintain manoeuvering searoom. Despite the accuracy of the enemy’s fire, by frequent use of helm and alterations in speed the Force managed to avoid any but minor casualties and damage, whilst at the same time continuing accurate fire on the enemy’s defences.”
German sailors manned four 11-inch guns at Target 2, Marine-Küsten-Batterie Hamburg, a strong position protected by steel shields—though not entirely enclosed in concrete casemates. Six 88 millimeter and a half dozen each light and heavy antiaircraft guns also protected the battery. Multiple ships including Arkansas and Texas fought Batterie Hamburg and disabled one of the 11-inch guns but failed to knock out the strong position, and Bryant requested that Deyo deploy Quincy from her other tasks to lend a hand. The latter so ordered the ship and a shore party and a plane spotted the fall of shot as the cruiser shifted fire and blasted the enemy, though apparently without effect (1330–1410). Deyo surmised that too many ships attacked the battery and that their gunfire prevented accurate spotting.
The Germans resisted stoutly and Oberleutnant zur See Rudi Gelbhaar of Marine-Artillerie-Abteilung 260, the battery’s commander, unleashed their 11-inch guns against Quincy. Salvoes tore the air barely 20 yards above Turret II, the rounds, one of them apparently a dud, narrowly missing the U.S. warship and splashing 50 yards abeam at 1340. Two minutes later, Deyo ordered Glasgow to come about from the battle and directed destroyers to screen the cruiser while she made repairs. Ellyson laid smoke to protect Quincy as the cruiser opened the range an additional 2,500 yards. Gelbhaar later received the Knight’s Cross for his fight against the Allied ships.
“I regard the operation as highly successful,” Deyo said later that night. The ships of the task force hit 19 of their 21 primary targets with varying degrees of success. Their salvoes disabled some of the enemy positions so that they continued to face to sea (the Germans could have turned some of them inland on the advancing troops). The bombardment thus aided the landward assault and the Allies considered the battle a triumph. Their casualties and inability to knock out all of the defenses, however, weighed on some of their leaders.
“The important lesson to be learnt,” Ramsay summarized the battle, “is that duels between ships and coast defence guns are quite legitimate provided some or all of the above precautions [D-Day] are taken; owing to the prevailing conditions, it was not possible to take the necessary precautions before and during the bombardment,” adding ruefully that enemy gunfire hit some of the ships as a result.
The following morning, Von Schlieben reported to Generalfeldmarshall Erwin Rommel that “heavy fire from the sea” helped the Allies reduce the opposition at the port, and Adm. Theodore Krancke, Commander-in-Chief, Navy Group Command West, subsequently observed in his war diary that the “naval bombardment of a hitherto unequalled fierceness” rendered the defender’s resistance ineffective. The Germans subsequently surrendered Cherbourg but thoroughly wrecked and mined the port, and Allied engineers spent weeks laboriously restoring the facilities to capacity.
Arkansas retired to Weymouth, England, at 2220 that night, and on 30 June 1944 shifted to Bangor. The ship remained under Deyo’s overall command but some shifting placed her within TG 120.6, which also comprised Nevada, Quincy, Tuscaloosa (Deyo’s flagship), Ellyson, Emmons, Fitch (DD-462), Forrest (DD-461), Hambleton, Hobson, Plunkett, and Rodman. The ship then received the group’s Operation Order 8-44, which directed her to the Mediterranean.
The battleship sailed with the group auspiciously on Independence Day. Off the Mull of Cantyre [Kintyre], Scotland, they joined the Clyde Group of assault transports: Anne Arundel (AP-76), Barnett (APA-5), Charles Carroll (APA-28), Dorothea L. Dix (AP-67), Henrico (APA-45), Joseph P. Dickman (APA-13), Samuel Chase (APA-26), Thomas Jefferson (APA-30), and Thurston (AP-77). Two days later the Plymouth Group, consisting of Augusta (CA-31), Bayfield, and Achernar, joined the convoy. The ships passed through the Strait of Gibraltar overnight (9–10 July), and that evening anchored in Mers-el-Kébir near Oran, Algeria. Arkansas steamed to Taranto, Italy (18–21 July), where she remained until 6 August, when the venerable battleship shifted to Palermo, Sicily, on the 7th.
Arkansas did so in order to serve under Vice Adm. Henry K. Hewitt, Commander, Eighth Fleet and Western Task Force in Operation Dragoon—landings by the U.S. VI Corps, Gen. Lucian K. Truscott Jr., USA, and the French II Corps, Gen. Edgard de Larminat, between Cap Nègre and Fréjus in southern France. Arkansas joined Camel Force, TF 87, Rear Adm. Spencer S. Lewis, and supported landings by the 36th Infantry Division, Maj. Gen. John E. Dahlquist, USA, on Red Beach on the eastern (right) flank.
The ship operated as part of Rear Adm. Deyo’s Bombardment Group, which also included at times Tuscaloosa, Marblehead (CL-12), British light cruiser Argonaut (61), and French light cruisers Duguay-Trouin and Émile Bertin, screened by the ships of DesRon 16: flagship Parker (DD-604), Boyle (DD-600),Champlin (DD-601), Edison (DD-439), Kendrick (DD-612), Ludlow (DD-438), MacKenzie (DD-614), McLanahan (DD-615), Nields (DD-616), Ordronaux (DD-617), Parker (DD-604), and Woolsey (DD-437).
Previous Allied landings in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy experienced problems coordinating naval gunfire support between the various navies. The soldiers fighting ashore “became well acquainted with naval gunfire and appreciated its capabilities,” Vice Adm. Hewitt observed in his report on Dragoon. “Both British Forward Observer Bombardment officers, Naval Gunfire Liaison officers, and air spot were used, and the need for a common shore bombardment procedure and code became more apparent.” Hewitt therefore worked with U.S., British, and French naval, air, and army representatives and published and promulgated the Mediterranean Bombardment Code, under which Arkansas operated during the landings.
German Army Group G, Gen. Johannes Blaskowitz, opposed the landings and consisted of the Nineteenth Army, Gen. Friedrich Wiese, deployed along the Riviera coast, and the First Army, Gen. der Infanterie Kurt von der Chevellerie, along the Biscay coastline. “The main line of defense is and will remain the beach,” Wiese ordered his men, adding defiantly that they were “to fight to the last man and the last bullet.” The Germans detached many troops northward to battle the Allies in Normandy, however, and the balance comprised mostly poorly equipped soldiers, including some Ost-Bataillone (eastern battalions) of Soviet émigrés of doubtful combat value. In addition, French Maquis resistance fighters wreaked havoc with their supply lines.
Quincy noted that the night (14–15 August 1944) as they moved into position was “practically cloudless” but light fog lingered in the area. German search radar trained on the heavy cruiser in an effort to track her during the mid watch, and the ship made several attempts to jam the radar. “Sea conditions for craft were ideal,” the Eighth Fleet reported, “being almost calm in the Transport Area. Visibility about 5 to 6 miles with some ground mist…A slight ground haze made beach recognition extremely difficult and prevented the Scout Officer’s light (which had been successfully tried on the rehearsals) being seen. An unexpectedly strong Westerly set close inshore resulted in the landings in some cases being made somewhat to the Westward of the intended positions.”
The Allied soldiers stormed ashore against relatively light resistance for the most part, and many of the Soviet émigrés deserted or surrendered. The landings did not all progress smoothly, however, and the enemy at Saint-Raphaël defied a bombardment by Tuscaloosa, Brooklyn, Argonaut, Duguay-Trouin, and Émile Bertin, as well as an attack by 90 USAAF B-24 Liberators. The Germans defiantly trained their coastal and antiaircraft guns in a withering fire on the invaders. The assault troops thus bypassed those beaches and landed at Agay, Cap Dramont, and Nartelle, pushed inland and enveloped the beach defenses from the rear the following day.
The carriers of the Naval Attack Force, TF 88, Rear Adm. Sir Thomas H. Troubridge, RN, supported the landings. Grumman F6F-5 and F6F-3N Hellcats and TBM-1Ds of Fighting Squadron (VF) 74, embarked on board escort aircraft carrier Kasaan Bay (CVE-69), and F6F-5s and TBM-1Ds of Observation Fighter Squadron (VOF) 1 flying from Tulagi (CVE-72), together with British Grumman F4F Martlets, Hellcats, and Supermarine Seafires from escort carriers Attacker (D-02), Emperor (D-98), Hunter (D-80), Khedive (D-62), Pursuer (D-73), Searcher (D-40), and Stalker (D-91), flew defensive fighter cover over the shipping area, spotted naval gunfire, flew close air support missions, and made destructive attacks on enemy concentrations and lines of communication. Hellcats from Kasaan Bay bombed and strafed German positions and vehicles, attacked tanks of the 11th Panzer Division, Generalmajor Wend von Wietersheim, and splashed two German planes over the invasion beaches.
The Luftwaffe (German Air Force) counterattacked toward dusk, and bombers dropped torpedoes at Brooklyn but the cruiser dodged the attacks and shot nearly continuous antiaircraft fire until the planes disappeared into the gathering darkness. The Luftwaffe developed the habit of deploying their planes, usually Junkers Ju 88s or Dornier Do 217s, singly or in small groups in almost nightly raids, often as the Allied ships retired from their gunnery operating areas overnight to replenish and refuel.
The Allied troops continued to expand their beachhead and on 17 August 1944, Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (the High Command of the Wehrmacht) ordered Army Group G to retreat. Carrier planes and Maquis bands harried the retreating columns of German troops and motor transport, along with their railway rolling stock, and their discipline largely collapsed. The enemy left garrisons behind to hold the crucial ports of Marseilles and Toulon, however, and the Allies thus required additional operations to clear those harbors. Arkansas provided fire support for the initial landings on 15 August and through the 17th continued her bombardment. The ship accommodated a number of German prisoners taken ashore and brought on board as a temporary measure during the fighting.
After stops at Palermo and Oran, Arkansas set course for the United States. She returned to Boston on 14 September 1944, and through 7 November carried out voyage repairs and alterations. The yard period completed, the battleship sailed to Casco Bay for three days of refresher training. Arkansas then on 10 November continued her service in the war but against the Japanese and shaped a course southward for the Panama Canal, passing through the canal on the 22nd. Arkansas entered the Pacific and headed for San Pedro, Calif., participated in exercises held off San Diego (29 November–10 December 1944), and returned to San Pedro.
After three more weeks of preparations, Arkansas sailed for Pearl Harbor early in the New Year on 20 January 1945. One day after her arrival there, she sailed for Ulithi in the Carolines, a major fleet staging area, and continued thence to Tinian in the Marianas, where she arrived on 12 February. For two days, the vessel held shore bombardment practice prior to her participation in Operation Detachment—landings on Iwo Jima in the Kazan Rettō (Volcano Islands) by the 4th and 5th Marine Divisions.
At 0600 on 16 February 1945, Arkansas opened tire on Japanese strong points on Iwo Jima as she lay off the island’s west coast. The old battlewagon bombarded the island through the 19th, and remained in the fire support area to provide cover during the evening hours. During her time off the embattled island, Arkansas shelled numerous Japanese positions in support of the bitter struggle by the marines to root out and destroy the stubborn enemy defenders. She cleared the waters off Iwo Jima to return to Ulithi (7–10 March). After arriving at that atoll, the battleship rearmed, provisioned, and fueled in preparation for Operation Iceberg—the invasion of Okinawa in the Ryūkyū Islands.
Standing out of Ulithi on 21 March 1945, Arkansas began her preliminary shelling of Japanese positions on Okinawa on 25 March, some days ahead of the assault troops which began wading ashore on 1 April. On 6 April the Japanese launched the first of a series of ten mass kamikaze suicide plane attacks, interspersed with smaller raids and named Kikusui (Floating Chrysanthemum) No. 1, against Allied ships operating off Okinawa. These attacks involved 1,465 aircraft through 28 May. Arkansas fended off several kamikazes as she fought for a grueling 46 days in Okinawan waters and delivered fire support for the invasion. The warship then swung around and on 14 May arrived at Apra Harbor, Guam, to await further assignment.
After a month at Apra Harbor, part of which she spent in dry dock for repairs and upkeep, Arkansas got underway on 12 June for Leyte Gulf in the Philippines. She anchored there on the 16th, and remained in Philippine waters until the war drew to a close in August. On the 20th of that month, Arkansas left Leyte to return to Okinawa and reached Buckner Bay on 23 August. After a month spent in port, Arkansas embarked approximately 800 troops for transport to the United States as part of Operation Magic Carpetto return U.S.servicemen home as quickly as possible. Sailing on 23 September, Arkansas paused briefly at Pearl Harbor en route, and ultimately reached Seattle, Wash., on 15 October. During the remainder of the year, the battleship made three more trips to Pearl Harbor to shuttle veterans home.Parts
Count
3Parts
undress jumper, dress jumper, 1 pair of pantsProvenance
Notes
established through names written in uniformsCreate Date
August 15, 2022Update Date
November 22, 2022
