Evening star., 1942-09-03

| the fog and could see land!
Then we saw for ourselves. long,
blue swell Of 1t, rising to merge with
q cloudbank.
The next picture was more start
ling still: The sun came out through
a rift in the black sky. 1t bathed
Kiska's rugged, snow-spattered pro-
file with light.
Our emergence was electrically
sudden. Already we had gone past
our planned firing point. Now it
was the business of navigators and
sight takers to be instantaneously
sure of their landmarks, and to get
at once the fixes and bearings to
assure us of our position relative to
those of our targets
The commander of the destroyer
division had obtained his already.
1t would take bold man, and brash,
to quarrel with the certainty Of the
voice that cracked through the in
ter-ship speaker: Il have my posi-
ton. have my exact position"
American Guns Reply
For moment the destroyers hung
hfeless against the green and white
backdrop Of Kiska's south head.
Then swift flames stabbed angrily
from their guns. like tiny, concen-
trated patches of sheet lightning.
In q matter of minutes we had
swung to our own position. There
upon, guns began speaking in tones
neither delayed nor muffled. These
were ours. They pounded our ears.
Ihey lifted us from our feet and
threw us against bulkheads. They
hurled acrid smoke and great hand
fuls of burning cork into our ewes
and nostrils. From theif blistering
muzzles they spat great mouthfuls
OF red glare. On our decks the hot
shell men were already thigh deep
IN empty cases, and we were putting
out as many per minute as any ship
in the column.
The last OF our ships came in as
we completed the first phase OF our
firing and in the brief lull We could
afford time to watch and hear their
salvos. They were manv wards
astern and the interval converted
their fulminations into deep
throated, musical roars. Their
flashes were orange fire, flaming
brilliant against the dull gray sides
Of the ships, and the blue surface
OF the sun-bathed sea.
Smaller Excitements,
All this while we had had divers
variations of smaller excitements.
An enemy plane reported here or
there and Immediately the sky
f1lling spouts of tracers from POM
poms and 20 INNS; the report of
any enemy periscope off our star
board bow, just astern of a de-
stroyer. Finally, the ominous splashes
from the shore guns, one, two. three.
four-a perfect straddle and right
on the range. Excellent range find-
ers, the Japs have.
Our skipper told us later. in COM
mendlng the work Of the crews who
blew up the Jap battery, that had
not our own response been so
prompt and efficient, many of us in
topside stations would certainly have
paid a penalty. But this thought
scarcely agitated the mind during
the action itself. Such possibilities
seemed as remote as the forgotten
fogbarlk left behind 40 sn1fnutes-or
was it 40 years-earlier? -
They seem not nearly so remote,
now. as we run for that same fog
bank; that good, old, friendly,
praiseworthy, pro-American fog
bank; not made in Toxic, after all.
Behind us, the rear ships are still
firing at something, presumably en-
emy aircraft. Behind US. also.
though no longer discernible behind
the cloud bank that has again shut
out the sun and settled down for
good over south head, great columns
of black smoke are billowing sky
ward from the Jap installations.
What, exactly, have been our ac-
complishments? Alas, we do not
know, and shall not, until recon-
naissance planes fly over, and photo
graph the damage. And we shall not
see the pictures ourselves, probably,
for days to come Infectious optimism
Is universal and doubtless justified.
Such a weight Of explosive, from so
many guns, in so many ships, can
not have failed to work devastation
OF considerable magnitude. But the
weather, good as 1t has been, never
cleared sufficiently over Kiska Har-
Dor, or over large sections OF the
island, to permit our planes to ac-
complish their spotting missions.
Saw No Army Planes.
We do not know, either, how much
success the Army had had in its