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The Cost. The Ti had lost all communication, but finally a blinker signal came to the Essex: "Captain and executive officer seriously wounded. Air Officer Miller killed, Gunnery Officer Fulmer missing. Many other casualties. Cannot raise for ward elevator, signal bridge out. Hangar deck gutted from forward elevator to aft of deck-edge elevator."
The Ti had plenty of heroes. They worked like madmen with fog nozzles and hoses, flooded magazines, went into blistering compartments to rescue trapped men. Within an hour and a half the Ti was no longer dying — she reported that the fires were under control.
A few days later, in port, I went aboard the Ticonderoga. She had lost 143 men killed or missing, 202 others wounded —the worst Kamikaze casualties up to that time. (Among the dead: the two Jacksons.) Dixie Kiefer, who stayed in command until late next day, had lain on a mattress on the bridge for eleven hours with his right arm mangled and his body punctured by 65 small-bomb-fragment wounds.
A severed artery in his neck was held together for a while by a seaman to whom Kiefer said: "I'm sorry I had to bust you." Dixie had reduced him to seaman from petty officer a few days before.
Even before she reached port, escorted by the cruisers Flint and Biloxi and three destroyers, the Ti perked up. Of the dead, 123 were committed to the deep. Crews repaired the flight deck, and the Ti began taking on planes again. The Biloxi radioed: "Ticonderoga doing splendidly with her damage repair. Will launch her own CAP today. We are proud to escort her." Before they carried the Captain to the hospital ship Samaritan, Dixie called for the bullhorn mike once more (see cut).
Said he: "I'm proud of you men of the Ticonderoga, you lived up to my fondest expectations." The crew cheered its Captain.
* Now Commodore Kiefer, commander at Quonset Point, R.I. and still in bandages.