In the latest issue (March 1998 cover date) of WORLD WAR II magazine,

(see:

although the highlights of this issue are not yet posted as I type, the
Feb 98 issue being there instead) there is an article on the 12 April
1945 ordeal of USS LAFFEY (DD724) which on radar picket station off
Okinawas was attacked by *22* japanese aircraft, shooting down 9, being
hit by *6* Kamikaze attackers and in addition four bombs – and
surviving.

The USS LAFFEY is preserved at Patriot’s Point, Charleston South
Carolina; their URL is:

http://www.state.sc.us/patpt/

An interesting sidebar to this article is on the Bath Iron Works, in
Bath, Maine, on the Kenenebec River, some 12 miles from the sea. The
interesting thing about the sidebar is its end, which says that….
“….from Pearl Harbor to the war’s end, 82 destroyers were built
and delivered – about 25 percent of all destroyers built for the Navy
during the war. During the same period, Japanes shipyards built only
63 destroyers. The Bath Iron Works alone outproduced the Japanese
empire.”

I had never seen it put quite that way….an interesting commentary on
production capabilities.

By the way, uss-salem.org has a complete lsit of ships built by Bath,
at this URL:

http://www.uss-salem.org/navhist/other/biw.html

The cover illustration on this issue of WORLD WAR II is USAAF B-24’s at
low level exiting the vicinity of Ploesti.

-Brooks