SS Charlotte Cushman Gunners Down Five Japanese Planes off Leyte

 

WAR SHIPPING ADMINISTRATION
Washington

Five Japanese flags painted on the midship house of the SS Charlotte Cushman tell the price enemy bombers paid for their futile effort to sink that Liberty ship off Leyte, the War Shipping Administration has been advised. The freighter is one of the large number of American vessels that helped supply General MacArthur’s reconquest of the Philippines.

“This will advise you,” tersely reports Purser Harry Hunt, Route 6, Box 144-B, Tacoma, Washington, “that the above-named vessel was under intermittent bombing and air attacks in the harbor of Tacloban and Dulag on the island of Leyte. The action of the U. S. Navy gun crew and Merchant Marine crew under fire and attack by the enemy is indeed commendable and we have five (5) Jap flags painted on the starboard side of the midship house to testify of our downing that number of planes. Dive bombers and torpedo bombers were shot down; two that had loosed their bombs and torpedoes just after our fire had hit them causing them to swerve off the bow and stern of the ship.”

The Charlotte Cushman, named in honor of the famous American actress, was delivered from the Richmond, California, shipyard of the Permanente Metals Corporation April 14, 1944. Commanded by Captain Ellsworth L. Bush, 5l6 North 122nd Street, Seattle, Washington, the Liberty ship is operated for the War Shipping Administration by the Northland Transportation Company, Seattle.

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02/25/07

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