NavSource Online: Amphibious Photo Archive

USS LC(FF)-367
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USS LCI(L)-367 (1943 - 1944)

Miscellaneous Memorabilia and Newspaper and Magazine Articles

Contributed by Steven Pollack

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Click On Image For Full Size Image	Size	Image Description		Source
	1648k	Certificate issued to USS LC(FF)-367 crew member James Hobbs for participation during the Capture and occupation of Okinawa Gunto campaign as a member of LCS(L)(3) Flotilla Four, Group Eleven		Steven Pollack
	1970k	Certificate issued to USS LC(FF)-367 crew member James Hobbs for participation during the Occupation of Japan as a member of LCS(L)(3) Flotilla Four, Group Eleven		Steven Pollack
	79k	Envelope from a letter home from James Hobbs LC(FF)-367. Showing censor stamp.		Steven Pollack
	570k	A picture clipping from a navy newsletter printed on USS Ajax (AR-6). showing fireworks celebrating the end of the war with Japan in the Service Squadron Ten Anchorage, Leyte Gulf, Philippine Islands. On the back James Hobbs wrote this is where the [USS LC(FF)-]367 was at the time.		Steven Pollack
	384k	USS LC(FF)-367 final Muster Roll, 2 October 1946		Steven Pollack

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Newspaper and Magazine Articles

New York Times July 9, 1945


                                 RYUKYU GLORY WON BY LITTLE WARSHIPS

                              Picket Line Guarding Fleet Off Okinawa Balked Enemy Air
                              Force in Blazing War.



ABOARD A FLAGSHIP, in the East China Sea off Okinawa, June 26 (delayed)—The Navy threw a picket line across “Bogey Highway” to keep Japanese ship breakers out of Okinawa transport area.

     These picket ships—none larger than destroyers—fought and won the longest and hardest battle in the history of naval warfare.  They suffered the greatest losses in men and ships ever sustained by the United States Navy, but they fulfilled their mission of keeping the bulk of enemy aircraft out of the transport area, where vital supplies for soldiers and marines were being unloaded.  It is no exaggeration to say that these little ships, which seldom have the chances for glory given to the air-craft carriers and the battleships, performed a major role in our great victory on Okinawa.

                                                    An Epic in Naval Warfare

     This thrilling story, which can be told for the first time now that the Okinawan campaign is won, constitutes an epic that will live forever in the annals of the Navy.  It is a story of tough little ships and brave men whose extraordinary gunnery took care of the best the Japanese air force could throw at our Okinawan operation.

     They were at “General Quarters” more than 150 times during the eighty-two days of land fighting on Okinawa.  These air alerts lasted from minutes to several hours, and came at all hours of the night and day, the Japanese sent over one to 200 aircraft in a single attack.  Only comp____??? few of the enemy got through to the transport area.

     Commanded by Commodore Frederick Moosbrugger, 44, of Philadelphia, himself a hero of the naval fighting off Vella La Vella in 1943, these little ship stood guard as much as sixty miles away from the Hagushi anchorage.  They were the sentinels to fight approaching Japanese planes, surface craft and submarines.

     The shattered Japanese fleet never got near our main anchorage, but the pickets did have to cope with scores of small suicide boats carrying powerful explosive charges, which naval men called “skunks”.  A few submarines were encountered and depth charges dropped.  Whether any submarines were sunk or damaged has not been announced.

But it was the enemy aircraft, which fighting men call “bogeys”, that made this the toughest duty naval men have had to face in this war.
                                                    
THE 367 LCS, GROUP 11 FLAGSHIP, THAT JAMES “MAJOR” HOBBS (Photo # 1015036703) FOUGHT ON DURING THIS BATTLE – James Hobbs at the top of first gangway to the right.

Move Back and Forth


     To form the picket line, the Navy stationed destroyers, destroyer-escorts and LCS(L) craft in great arcs before the approaches to Hagushi anchorages.  Those pickets moved back and forth throughout the day and night.

     The enemy chose to fight the main battle along the picket line.

     It is in itself a tribute to the men who manned this outer line to report that the statistics on ships sunk or damaged in the battle of Okinawa reflect the splendid manner in which they did their job of keeping the enemy away from the crowed transport area that once sheltered more than 1,00 ships.

     One out of every three ships that served on the outer picket line was sunk or damaged in this fierce, never ending vendetta with the “Kamekaze Kids”.  Of the ships engaged at various times in this duty, nine were sunk and twenty-one were damaged.  Our casualties among these ships exceed 1,000.

     But the Japanese could not win.  Guns of the ship on the outer line accounted for 490 enemy aircraft.

     Between the outer line and the transport area there was another stream of light naval units, which took on the Japanese planes that managed to get by the first group of pickets.  During the campaign we employed several hundred ships in this work, of which three were sunk and more than a score damaged.  It was the inner screen that handled most of the suicide boats.

     It was the fine work of these ships, especially their superb gunnery, that demonstrated conclusively that Kamikaze weapon will never win the war.

     It cannot be denied that this form of attack is damaging.  But it could not destroy many of the ships it hit, and it could not diminish the fighting spirit of the brave officers and men who sailed them.

This page is created and maintained by Gary P. Priolo