Hell and High Water in the Pacific: The Story of the USS Lowry, DD 770
by John Glenn Acord and Jimmie Lewis Holbrook
Vantage Press, 2000, 144 pages
The destroyer USS Lowry (DD 770) fought off kamikaze
planes in both the Philippines and Okinawa. This destroyer earned the nickname
of Lucky Lowry by escaping damage for five months until being struck by
a suicide plane on May 4, 1945. Luckily, only two Lowry shipmates died
when the plane's wing clipped a 5-inch gun mount at the ship's stern and the
plane's bomb exploded. This history, written by two gunner's mates who served
aboard Lowry, describes many harrowing moments of this destroyer's
encounters with kamikaze from December 1944 to June 1945.
The diary and gun log kept by Jimmie Lewis Holbrook provide
the principal sources for this chronological account of USS Lowry's
combat operations. However, in places it becomes confusing as to when the
narrative shifts to the book's other author, John Glenn Acord. The two authors
paint an extremely positive picture of the destroyer's officers and crew. The
two men worked together for a year to research and write Hell and High Water
in the Pacific, which includes detailed descriptions of key events in Lowry's
battle history. However, the book has few specifics on their job duties as gun
mount captains. In addition, the book lacks any photos except for two wartime
photos of the authors on the back of the book jacket.
After Lowry's commissioning in July 1944 in San
Pedro, California, the crew of 342 officers and men went on a shakedown cruise
(trial run) prior to heading for battle in the Philippines. In the last half of
December 1944, Lowry supported the invasion of Mindoro, where the ship's
gunners shot down their first kamikaze plane and the crewmen witnessed for the
first time a ship hit and sunk in a kamikaze attack. In January 1945, the
destroyer participated in the invasion of Lingayen Gulf, which the authors refer
to as "Suicide Gulf" due to the huge number of kamikaze planes and
suicide explosive motorboats encountered by Allied ships. During the next month, Lowry joined a task
force that launched carrier plane attacks against Tokyo and then proceeded to
Iwo Jima to protect aircraft carriers near the small island.
On March 21, 1945, Lowry left Ulithi to proceed
toward Okinawa to support the invasion there that started on April 1. The month of
April turned out to be relatively quiet for the destroyer whose main duty
consisted of escorting the carrier force. However, the next two months were
anything but quiet for Lowry's crew as they fought against numerous kamikaze
attacks during radar picket duty. The US Navy had assigned destroyers to 16
radar picket stations around Okinawa in order to protect the main fleet by
picking up Japanese planes early by radar and then guiding Combat Air Patrol
planes to destroy them. However, many kamikaze planes targeted and hit these
destroyers at radar picket stations rather than trying to get through to reach
ships in the main fleet. The war ended with Lowry in the Philippines,
but the destroyer then went to Japan to support the Allied occupation, and the crew
observed the signing of the official Japanese surrender on the battleship Missouri.
Lowry's crew witnessed several ships hit by Japanese
kamikaze and several kamikaze planes shot down, but three attacks stand out. On
January 9, 1945, while the ship was not at General Quarters, a lone Japanese plane
suddenly came up over a hill behind Lingayen Gulf and swept down to hit the first
ship in sight. A Lowry crewman named Doyle quickly jumped into the
harness of an unmanned 20-mm gun and started firing, and he and another
destroyer brought down the kamikaze plane. The kamikaze plane that approached from
starboard and hit Lowry on May 4, 1945, came as a surprise, since the gunners'
attention had been focused on two kamikaze planes on the port side that had
been making a run on another destroyer ahead of them at the same radar picket
station. The plane crash and its bomb killed two and wounded about 20 men aboard
Lowry, but
the ship escaped serious damage. Later in the day the souvenir-hunting crew
helped themselves to pieces of the plane's wing that remained on the deck. In
the early morning of May 28, 1945, the two destroyers Drexler and Lowry
were stationed at Radar Picket Station 15 when a group of Japanese kamikaze
planes attacked. Two planes, including one that passed directly over Lowry,
crashed into Drexler and sank the ship within less than a minute after
the second plane hit. The LCI (landing craft) that picked up Drexler
survivors also took aboard three Lowry crewmen who had cracked up that
morning due to
shock.
The two authors admit up front that they did not know
much about publishing a book. However, this history of the destroyer Lowry
turns out to be a valuable firsthand account by two gun mount captains who
witnessed many kamikaze attacks in the Philippines and Okinawa.
Lowry Memorial Plaque at
National Museum of the Pacific War
(Fredericksburg, Texas)
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