Underway

The stores on load this time was coordinated a little bit better than Operation Talisman Saber. The other dominant factor was that I was not trying to fill my storeroom to the brim. I did purchase a number of new items for the crew to try, a little bit of a risk so most quantities were small. Given the fact that the ship was not scheduled to be underway for that long, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to try out some new items.

As we departed from Yokosuka, there was a noticeable lack of warships left in port. The carrier and its escort group had left several weeks earlier for sea trials after a maintenance period. They would be finishing those trials before we caught up to them but we had no plans of joining the escort, the exact opposite actually. We joined a group of Japanese warships, they represented a significant portion of the JSDF. We were the only American ship in the group. A couple of Japanese Officers joined the crew for the duration of the exercise. We loaned two American Officers to one of the Japanese Destroyers.

Our mission was to attack the carrier strike group. We were to support the Japanese fleet in first preventing the carrier from supporting an amphibious landing and then attacking the amphibious units including the USS ESSEX. Given the fact that many of the junior Officers were attending various classes in the U.S. and back in Japan, manning the watches became difficult. The only two options came down to assigning new Officers to watches or merging the sections. Merging sections would have meant more watches for the remaining Officers. I was selected for my first watch underway, Conning Officer.