In April 1945, the war in Europe was almost over, and in the Pacific, the Japanese were aware they were losing, so they sent the battleship Yamato toward Okinawa to shell the Allied troops forming there for the invasion of mainland Japan, and to ambush the American fleet.
A young sailor from Tyrone, Radioman Third Class Nick Leasure, was on duty in the Combat Information Center of the USS Bunker Hill, the flagship of the U.S. 5th Fleet.
Monitoring All Messages
Nick’s job was to copy down all messages he heard on the radio channels. Suddenly, he heard an excited pilot who was out of radio range of everyone else, shouting he had just spotted a large Japanese battleship, a cruiser, and eight destroyers rounding a point of land and heading toward the island of Okinawa.
Nick immediately called the ship’s executive officer over to read the message. The “Exec” instantly said, “Give me that! We’ve been looking for this for a long time. Now, we’re gonna go get ’em!”
Hundreds of Planes
With that, every available Allied combat plane was ordered into the air, and the world’s largest battleship, along with all but one other Japanese ship in the group, was sunk.
That was sixty-two years ago, and for many years, Nick hesitated to say much about his action, because he respected the secrecy of all of the messages he monitored.
Saved Thousands of Lives
Without a doubt, this single action by Tyrone’s own Nick Leasure helped to save the lives of tens of thousands of American sailors and soldiers, as the Japanese Navy was crippled. With the loss of their main fighting vessel, the only offensive weapon remaining for the Japanese were the kamikaze pilots.
The decision to use a nuclear weapon broke the will of the enemy, and the war ended without what could have been the loss of hundreds of thousands of American GI’s lives, plus upwards of a million Japanese.
He modestly says, “I was just doing my job. And, apparently, I was the only one who heard that pilot’s message. The Exec said, ‘Good job, sailor.’ That’s the only recognition I ever got, but that was enough for me.”
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