VETERANS DAY
November 11, 2020
Beacon veteran Rocco survived kamikaze attack in World War II by Jim Donick He was only a kid. Or so it might have seemed. But, there was a war going on. Jerry Rocco had left High School in 1943 and was headed for the Navy that autumn. A well connected family friend pulled a few strings for his mother so she could have him home for the holidays. That simply meant he would do his boot camp in even colder and less pleasant weather when he reported shortly after Christmas. At the same time, the United States Navy was still going full speed ahead on a massive ship-building program. They had found success in the island campaigns of the Pacific with small, flat-bottomed ships based on the hull shape of the landing craft that ferried troops into the beaches. Fairly heavily armed, these little ships proved effective in providing additional fire power to support amphibious landings and to go into shallower waters where larger ships could not venture. As the war moved further west, the need for these glorified little gunboats grew and so did their range of missions. As a result, the Navy realized a need for an even larger version with heavier fire power but maintaining the shallow water capabilities that gave them so much utility. The new ship was to be called an LCS (Landing Craft Infantry Support or, more often, just Landing Craft Support). As Rocco, now 95, was completing his training and graduating as a rated radioman, the Navy was beginning the construction of one of these LCS ships at Commercial Iron Works in Portland, Oregon. This one was designated LCS 88, and Rocco’s orders sent him there to assist in the fitting out of the ship and then taking it to war. Only 158 feet long and flat-bottomed, the LCS could float and maneuver in only a little over six feet of water - a great capability for inshore action and a terrible idea for sailing across the Pacific Ocean. Jerry Rocco would get the opportunity to experience both. Shortly after the ship was commissioned her commander, Lt. C.L. Bigos - a veteran of action in the Atlantic - was ordered to take the ship to sea and join the Pacific fleet
This photo showcases the damage to the LCS-88 after a kamikaze plane dropped a bomb and hit the ship with the plane itself. The LCS-88 was the size of a large Hudson River tug boat. Despite only being 30 feet wide and 175 feet long, it included 71 people on board. All told, 25 crew members, including the Commanding Officer, lost their lives in the attack. Courtesy photo near the Philipines. As they sailed out from Oregon, the US 3rd Fleet was suffering a devastating blow from Typhoon Cobra, which resulted in three destroyers capsized and sank, with 790 lives lost. Nine other warships were damaged, and more than 100 aircraft were wrecked or washed overboard. Even the Japanese hadn’t done that much damage to the fleet since Pearl Harbor. Rocco and his mates would get the opportunity to taste the typhoons later in the spring with their much smaller ship than those damaged in Typhoon Cobra. “The most frightening part of all of what we did,” he told his son, “was the typhoons. When we got hit by the kamikaze it was horrible, but it happened and it was over. With the storm it just kept continued on page 3
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Jerry Rocco on board the LCS-88, location unknown. Courtesy photo