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"On 11 December 1944 Admiral William F. 'Bull' Halsey led his mighty Third Fleet of carriers, battleships, cruisers, and destroyers out of Ulithi Lagoon to spread his 'big blue blanket' of carrier planes over northern Luzon in support of General MacArthur's drive to recover the Philippines from the Japanese. On that very day, only a few hundred miles east of Ulithi, a malignant air mass from which typhoons are spawned was taking shape. Unseen and unreported, it trailed the fleet, and on 17 December its heavy seas and furious winds prevented much-needed fueling operations. This was the normal season for tropical storms in this area, but no one suspected the approach of a typhoon. Then without warning it struck. Within a few hours, 780 lives were lost, three destroyers had turned turtle and gone to the bottom, and other ships, large and small, were mauled beyond belief.
In June, 1945, the fleet was operating against southern Japan and Okinawa and suffering painful losses of men and ships in nearly constant Kamikaze attacks. The fall of Okinawa was near when typhoon warnings were received, indicating that a typhoon was located to the south-southwest. On 4 June the fleet steamed east, only to run smack into it. Luckily, because of lessons learned in the December typhoon, only six lives were lost, with 36 ships damaged and 76 planes destroyed.
Co-author Captain George Kosco was Admiral Halsey's aerologist. This, therefore, is an eyewitness account of what happened aboard the flagships, as well as how each ship survived or did not survive the typhoons. Here are the true stories, illustrated by pictures taken during the height of the typhoon, of how ships endured hours of rolls up to 70º and lived to tell the tale; of the miraculous rescues of 125 men plucked from the sea; of a cruiser's damage control party who shored up their ship's forward bulkheads after its entire bow had been sliced off and washed away; of an emergency appendectomy aboard a destroyer while caught in the trough of 30 foot waves and rolling 50º. It is a story never before told."

New York, Crown:1967, LCCC 67-27044 (hardcover) courtesy San Antonio Public Library

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"They were called Jeep Carriers, Woolworth Carriers, Kaisers Coffins, and many other names, some unprintable. But no matter what they were called, when they were called for duty, they performed tasks that enabled them and the larger American and British fleet aircraft carriers to take the fight to the enemy."

Carrollton, Texas, Squadron/Signal Publications:1996, ISBN 0-89747-356-6 (softcover) Provided by a gift from Masood Looie

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