USS Osterhaus (DE-164) - Japanese Air Attacks at Guadalcanal

Japanese Air Attacks At Guadalcanal

As Osterhaus patrolled off the beach at Kola Point, Guadalcanal, in the early morning darkness of 11 October, two Japanese planes came in low from the beach for a sneak attack that resulted in damaging torpedo hits on the SS George Bliss and SS John H. Couch. The latter ship burst into flames and was closed by USS Bebas (DE-10) and Osterhaus. For the next two days the two destroyer escorts sent fire and rescue parties on board the merchant ship, finally succeeding in quelling the flames and salvaging ammunition, ordnance equipment and engineering tools.

In the following months, Osterhaus escorted troop and supply ships from advanced bases to Guadalcanal and Bougainville Island in the Solomons with intervals of anti-submarine sector patrols that took her as far from Guadalcanal as the Fiji Islands. After amphibious warfare landing rehearsals in preparation for the invasion assaults on the Marianas Islands, Osterhaus set course from Guadalcanal on 12 June 1944 as a part of the screen for transports carrying garrison troops to Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands. Arriving on 18 June, she passed out to sea the following day for a logistic support area to the east of Saipan where she found no sign of enemy submarine activity as she guarded oilers and other logistic ships replenishing the American invasion fleet.

On 23 July Osterhaus departed Eniwetok in the screen of a troop convoy that landed troops on Guam from the sea on 29 July. The following day the transports entered Agat Bay where Osterhaus witnessed concentrated dive and level bombing by American aircraft on Orote Peninsula and the effective heavy shelling by U. S. warships. On the evening of 30 July she sailed with her Escort Division Eleven to safeguard a task unit of transports returning to Eniwetok.