Cyril C. "Cy" Simonis Jr., Sonarman G 1/c USN

My battle station was normally on the sonar equipment just below the bridge along side the chart house, and just forward of CIC. When general quarters sounded on the morning of April 16, 1945, that's where I reported. However, when we learned that radar had picked up a large group of bogies some miles away, it was decided to secure the sonar gear.

My secondary battle station was with the a repair detail. I no longer remember who I shared this duty with, but I do remember our first assignment was to remove empty shell cases from beneath mounts 51 and 52. This was a duty that has always puzzled me. Prior to my reporting aboard the Laffey, my battle station had always been in or on the main battery as trainer or sightsetter on the 5-inch. Somebody higher up, in all his infinite wisdom decided that sonarmen must have their ears protected from loud noises, otherwise they might not be able to hear the echo of a submarine. It is my belief that it is a lot quieter inside a gun-mount than it is outside, especially under the barrels of twin 5-inchers. My biggest gripe, though, was that I was scared to death when I didn't have something with which to shoot back.

After the first six or seven enemy planes had made their attack and were shot down, damage was limited. The SG radar was knocked out and there was shrapnel damage to the port side of mounts 51 and 52. The shrapnel wounded several of the gun crew. I think this is when Joe Mele was hurt. I remember going below to get a blanket to cover him, and finding a mattress smoking inside its fireproof cover. It had been pierced with shrapnel. I brought it topside and threw it overboard.

I covered the wounded man with a blanket. Mele had a bad spinal injury and couldn't be moved, but we made him comfortable. Our repair party then was notified to report back to the vicinity of Mount 53 to help put out fires in the mount and the after deck house.

I was on the nozzle of a 2 1/2-inch fire hose spraying the mount when another enemy plane started his strafing run on the starboard quarter. His bullets were hitting the bulkhead by the after head. We all hit the deck and started crawling forward to get away. Our fire hose got away from me, and was spraying all over the afterdeck house. I believe this was plane No. 11, which plowed into the starboard side of Mount 53 and killed six of the men in the mount and Ensign Jerry Sheets.

I remember making it up the starboard side just in time to see one of our Corsairs knock the SC antenna off the top of the mast. It landed about six feet from Bill Kelly and me. By that time, I didn't think anything could scare me but that incident did.

Many years later, sometime around 1970, Chief Torpedoman Wayne Haley told me he was in the after secondary conn or on the torpedo tubes. His clothes were on fire from flaming gasoline. Someone hit him with a stream of water, knocking him down and putting out the fire. We came to the conclusion that he was saved from burning by the hose I was handling -- or not handling. He had shrapnel wounds in his legs, and eventually had to have them amputated. Another irony.

I don't remember how or why I was up near Mount 52, but I remember seeing Fred Burgess with one leg hanging by a piece of flesh. He was pleading for someone to help him. Two of us got him down the ladder on the port side outside the chart house and into the wardroom. We laid Burgess on the wardroom table, where Dr. Matthew Darnell place a tourniquet on his leg. I left. When I saw him later, he was still on the table, dead. Burgess had just turned 18 years old.

It was hard to believe we were still alive and afloat after the last plane, No. 22, was shot down. Help came to tow us in to Kerema Retto Harbor, where we were tied alongside a tug for the night. I was sitting on the deck in sickbay, playing cards with my shipmates when several 20mm's on the tug opened up, shooting at a low-flying plane that didn't display proper
recognition signals. It turned out to be a "friendly," but the incident didn't do well to our nervous systems. Where do you hide in sickbay sitting on a steel deck?

Here it is, fifty years later, and we are all wondering about that day and why we are still here and some of our best friends aren't. Who said, "Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do or die"?