Word Celebrity Blog

Ernie Pyle And The  USS Cabot


On 9 Feb., Ernie PYLE, A-14 reported on board to gather news by authorization of the 1st Carrier Task Force, Pacific Fleet. PYLE's two weeks aboard was indeed among the highlights of the Cabot's history. Hundreds of newspapers from coast to coast carried his columns, this time dealing with life on a "flattop".





















The 'Skipper' Walton Wiley Smith and Ernie Pyle just after he came aboard.


The Cabot would have become more famous had it not been for wartime security. The Navy would not let PYLE name the carrier or use the names of the crew at first, but PYLE raised such a fuss that he was allowed to use names and hometowns of the men. However, "Iron Woman" was all that would pass the censors in identifying the ship.

PYLE had a low-key style which made him popular worldwide. He discussed the day-to-day life and thoughts of the enlisted men as well as officers. He wrote about a dozen columns while on the Cabot, and many mothers were thrilled when their son's name were mentioned in the articles.


























Having left Europe in August 1944, PYLE was physically and mentally exhausted. He decided he was through writing from the Front, but the Navy put such pressure on him to go to the Pacific that he finally gave in and was flown to Guam. There, the Navy treated PYLE like a prima donna, and his columns lost their friendly  style for a time.

Pyle had come to see and report on the Pacific war, and he had asked to be assigned to a small carrier because he thought he might be able to find a more intimate setting for observing and interacting with the crew than he could find on one of the large Essex-class carriers. He was assigned to the U.S.S. Cabot, known as "The Iron Woman" because she had been continuously at sea and had participated in all of the Pacific campaigns for more than a year.

On 10 Feb., the Cabot was with Task Group 58.4, headed for Tokyo when Lt. (jg) J. B. VAN FLEET crashed on takeoff in his Hellcat. He was rescued by the USS Franks (DD 554), and this was described in one of PYLE's columns.

Ernie PYLE scratched his shortest war "story" on a Zippo lighter enroute to Tokyo. The scuttlebutt from the galley to bridge was that something big was coming.

A halt hour before the operation orders were to be opened, a young officer pumped PYLE to
find out where the ship was going. PYLE wasn't talking, but he asked the officer for his
Zippo lighter. "Stick this in your pocket," PYLE said, "and promise not to look until the orders are opened." With the first blast of the boatswain's pipe, the young officer took the Zippo from his pocket. Scratched on the bottom was the word, "Tokyo". The first all-out carrier assault on the Japanese homeland was to begin.

On 16 Feb., the fleet was speeding at 23 knots for the war's first naval strike on Tokyo. Carrier aircraft of the 5th Fleet attacked the city exactly one year after the first carrier strike on Truk.

Fleet Admiral Nimitz's communique announced the strike, stating, "This operation has long been planned, and the opportunity to accomplish it fulfills the deeply cherished desire to
every officer and man in the Pacific Fleet."




















During the strike an F6F, piloted by Ens. R. L. BUCHANAN of Clemanton, N.J., developed engine trouble and was forced to make a water landing north of O Shima just outside Yokohama. Members of his flight, led by Lt. FECKE, stayed overhead for an hour and a half. They contacted a rescue submarine, the Pomfret (SS 391) and furnished air cover as she proceeded to rescue BUCHANAN. Visibility  was very poor, and sight contact was being maintained only by the pilot's reflector mirror. The sub passed within three miles of O Shima on Tokyo Bay, but was not attacked.





















As fuel ran low, Lt. FECKE sent the fighters home one by one, but he hung on. BUCHANAN was rescued in good condition and returned to the Cabot later.

TG 58.4, under the command of Admiral Radford included fast carriers Cabot, Langley,
Yorktown, and the newly arrived Randolph. Lt.John MONSARRAT was the Flight Director Officer on the Langley and he writes in his book Angel on the Yardarm: "Our main assignment during the operation was to hit Tokyo and its nearby airfields, in order to prevent the Japanese
from sending raids from Honshu down to Iwo Jima to attack our landing forces. While we were to strike Iwo Jima andChichi Jima as part of the prelanding bombardment, this time the provision of air support to the Marines, once landed, was to be left mainly to the escort carriers accompanying the transports...."

"No Navy planes had yet struck Tokyo, although the Army Air Force had begun to hit it with B-29s from Guam and Saipan...the enemy sent large numbers of fighters to intercept our strike planes but, probably because of the very bad weather, did not mount retaliatory strikes against the carriers so very close to the shore of Honshu...."

"For three days after the landings, we augmented the air support the CVEs were providing the troops, and each night retired a little farther from the island to ward off enemy air attacks. When they came, with great pyrotechnics the 'lamplighters' dropped bright magnesium flares on the western side of the carrier force."

"Then, for the first time in our experience, the Japanese made good use of 'window'-small strips of metal foil cut to match the wave lengths of our radar and dropped in bundles just to the east of our ships. When the strips fanned out in the air and slowly floated down, their radar echos were so strong that they blocked out our radar vision in that particular sector. Thus, with our ships brilliantly silhouetted against the flares and float planes to the west, and our radars blind to the east, the enemy torpedo planes had a golden opportunity  to hit us with devastating effect. For some reason they did not take it..."

"Closer to the island, they did press home their attacks on our ships. We had lent the Saratoga to cover those forces with her night fighters. One night, she took no less than five bomb and torpedo hits. She survived, but limped away, never to return".

"Since the Iwo Jima landing was set for 19 Feb., this attack on Tokyo was to give strategic cover by destroying air forces and bringing to the Japanese homefront an awareness of the war's progress."
                     
"Against a loss of 49 planes, 322 enemy aircraft were shot down and 177 destroyed on the ground. After the strike, the fast carriers returned toward Iwo Jima to give direct support for the landings."
 
















Pyle filed numerous stories from the decks of the Cabot but was prevented by censorship from revealing the name of the ship; a fact that, while perhaps necessitated by the demands of the war, ironically kept ihe Cabot anonymous to posterity even though millions of people read about her. She became the most famous ship no one ever heard of. Referring to her only by her nickname, "The Iron Woman". (A book, The Last Chapter by Ernie Pyle, contains a chapter, "Life on a Flat Top" which is about the Cabot. It is particularly interesting reading for anyone connected with the carrier.)"


The Nation Is Quickly Saddened Again.

Ernie Pyle left the Cabot at the end of February 1945. On Easter, April 1, he went ashore with the Marines on Okinawa. Eighteen days later, he was killed on the nearby island of Ie Shima when a bullet from a Japanese machine gun hit him in the left temple below the rim of his helmet.

News of Pyle's death spread quickly by radio to the Pacific, U.S. and Europe. Gen. Omar Bradley was so stunned he couldn't speak. Only six days after the death of Franklin Roosevelt, the country had lost the man through whose eyes they had witnessed the war. President Harry Truman, who had just taken office said, "The nation is quickly saddened again by the death of Ernie Pyle." and no one thought it inappropriate for him to equate Pyle's death with Roosevelt's; such was the emotional investment the public had in Ernie Pyle.





















A few months after his death, in the closing weeks of the war, hundreds of lighters with the inscription, In Memory of Ernie Pyle 1945, suddenly arrived on board the Cabot from the Zippo Lighter Co. Pyle knew the owner of the company and periodically asked that lighters be sent to soldiers he liked. Apparently, Pyle had grown fond of the "Iron Woman" and her crew.





















Ernie wrote about his feelings after coming aboard the Cahot: "It was a great feeling as I staggered up the gangway to the ship with my sea bag in one hand and the mattress cover loaded with blankets, mattresses, etc. , over my shoulder. At last I have a home -- and a warship at that."