Kamikaze Attack
On 13 December, she was struck by a kamikaze off Negros Island. The aircraft crashed into her port 5 in (130 mm) gun mount, with both bombs exploding about 10 ft (3 m) off her deck. Gasoline fires and exploding ammunition made her midships area an inferno, but although 133 sailors were killed and 190 wounded, her remaining 5 in (127 mm) guns continued to provide anti-aircraft fire.
The Attack Group Commander shifted his flag to another warship, and Nashville steamed via San Pedro Bay in the Philippines and Pearl Harbor, Oahu, to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, arriving on 12 January 1945, for heavy repairs. Underway on 12 March, Nashville departed westward from San Diego, California on 15 April after training exercises.
Arriving at U.S. Naval Base Subic Bay, on 16 May, Nashville became the flagship of TF 74. The closing months of the war were spent providing fire support for the landings at Brunei Bay, Borneo, and protecting aircraft carriers in the Makassar Straits, Dutch East Indies. On 29 July, Nashville made a brief sortie from Subic to intercept a Japanese convoy reported off Indochina, but the sortie was soon canceled, ending her final wartime operation.
Read more about this topic: USS Nashville (CL-43)
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