The USS Hyman sailed with Admiral Hall's Southern Attack Force on March 27, 1945 and arrived in Okinawa on April 1, 1945.
Her main role was to protect American ships from enemy submarines and planes. She fought off several air attacks and on April 5, led a search group hunting a reported midget submarine. The next day the ship was attacked as the Japanese made kamikaze attacks in hopes of stopping the landing.
On April 6, 1945, the date of the largest mass kamikaze attack of World War II, seven Japanese kamikaze aircraft attacked the USS Hyman (DD-732), (In the Wake of the Jellybean, Ray Novotny, https://www.kamikazeimages.net/books/ships/hyman/index.htm). “The ship's gunners, sometimes with assistance from other ships, shot down all of the attacking planes except one. The fourth plane, a Zero fighter, managed to crash into the ship between the stacks even though heavily damaged by gunfire. Former Hyman crewman Oscar Murray described the Zero that hit the ship:
“My General Quarters station was as a gunner on a 20-mm anti-aircraft gun. I wonder if things would have been different had I been able to fire another two seconds at the Japanese plane that struck and nearly sank us. He was so close.
The head of the pilot turned toward us as he struck the stacks. Just before striking the ship, I, or others, shot off his left wing but the plane's momentum carried him into the ship. The plane's explosion, along with its gasoline, blew away the area between the two stacks almost to the waterline, and with most of the forward torpedo mount. Flaming gasoline flowed in all the surrounding areas, burning or killing many below and several above deck.
As I followed the plane, my gun came to a complete stop, abruptly halted by the gun stops designed to prevent guns from rotating too far and doing damage to the ship's superstructure. By then he was out of sight and immediately struck the ship. Normally, Japanese planes exploded upon a direct hit but this one didn't. Had I or others been able to hit him with more rounds, perhaps he would have done so, I will never know: I know we did our best.”
The crash by the kamikaze plane and the subsequent explosion killed 12 and wounded 41 men aboard the USS Hyman. One of the men who died was Philip’s older brother Hugh Palmer Prince.
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