In the spring of 1943, one of the most unique and yet little-publicized battles of World War II occurred near the former Soviet territory of the Aleutian Islands.
On the morning of March 27 in the northern area of the Pacific Ocean, the heavy cruiser Salt Lake City was commanded on a mission to escort a light cruiser and four destroyer ships to stop Japanese vessels from providing supplies to one of their bases in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. The result of the blockade was the Battle of the Komandorski Islands, one of the longest naval battles of the war.
On the 69th anniversary of the battle, one Delmar resident told his experiences of being on the Salt Lake City.
“I don’t know how many battles I was in, but I was in almost every naval battle of the war except the Battle of Midway and those in the Philippines,” said Adolph “A.J.” Krenn, now 89 years old.
Krenn was originally from Hamden, Conn. He volunteered to enter the Navy at the age of 18 in October of 1940.
“I was of draft age, you see, and I figured I could not picture myself jumping into fox holes, so I volunteered with the Navy for six years,” he said.
After training, he was assigned to the USS West Virginia, a battleship with the home port of Long Beach, Calif. He was there one year, until the ship’s home port was transferred to Pearl Harbor. “Things were heating up by that point with the Japanese,” he said.
On Dec. 7, 1941, the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Krenn was aboard the ship at his station when it was struck by a torpedo. He was blown overboard and for a minute was in a daze, before he could swim to Ford Island. The battleship was struck by six torpedoes in all.
“Luckily I was close enough to land to be able to swim and then crawl to reach an airfield,” he said.
He stayed at Pearl Harbor for a few weeks on guard duty while rescue and clean up occurred, then he was asked by a petty officer if anyone wanted shore duty in Salt Lake City. Looking back, with the country now at war, Krenn said he wished he had been a little more skeptical.
He collected all of the possessions he owned quickly into a bucket, got into a launch with the rest of the volunteers and sure enough, was taken right to the Salt Lake City, floating in the middle of the harbor.
“I asked, ‘That’s our shore duty?’” said Krenn. “He (the petty officer) said, ‘Yep.’ I could have shot him right then and there.”
Krenn said it was hard to adjust from the life aboard an orderly battleship during peacetime to that in a heavy cruiser during wartime. He was extremely unhappy with his decision, not believing that he could possibly be aboard a U.S. Navy vessel.
“It was like going from two extremes,” he said.
He would stay with the Salt Lake City for the next two years of his naval career. The first real action he saw after Pearl Harbor was after his ship picked up Marines in Wellington, New Zealand for the Battle of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands in November of 1942.
“That was night action, and oh boy was that scary,” he said.
The Salt Lake City was then transferred to Alaska, when in March of 1943 it was given orders to escort four destroyers and a light cruiser to stop Japanese supplies from reaching a base in the Aleutians.
An article in the Saturday Evening Post by John Bishop titled “My Speed Zero,” called the battle “one of the strangest sea engagements ever fought.”
“We had been ordered to intercept any Japanese ships going to Kiska, because they had established a foothold there,” said Krenn. “It was the longest battle in United States Naval history. It lasted three-and-a-half hours and there were no aircraft involved.”
As the four American destroyers and two cruisers formed what is called a “scouting line” to form a blockade, two Japanese transports were spotted with destroyer escorts. American ships then turned in attempts to cut off the line of retreat for the ships, but more Japanese were then spotted coming for the east. In total, the Japanese had two heavy cruisers, two light cruisers and four destroyers.
“They got off a couple shots and one caught our main fuel line so we were stuck,” said Krenn.
In actuality, salt water had entered the vessel and extinguished the boilers aboard the Salt Lake City. The only option, then, was to stay and fight. Dozens of men were killed during the fierce battle.
Krenn worked at his station as a signalman, providing a bird’s eye view to officers below.
“Our destroyers set out like David going up against Golith,” said Krenn. “Then they had to get out of there because they were being raked by fire.”
Shots were exchanged until the boilers could be restarted. As the Salt Lake City increased speed and American destroyers continued to fight, the Japanese retreated.
According to the article by Bishop, “Afterward, Americans who were engaged in the (battle) came to look upon it as a miracle at sea. For surely it is a miracle when a great fighting ship walks wounded on the water, halts in her tracks to die, then comes alive to lob victorious shells at her foe.”
According to Krenn, the battle got so bad from the time they were attacked to when the ship was repaired, commanding officers called soldiers to the bridge to drink a farewell toast.
“That’s how bad it was,” he said. “We were lucky.”
Krenn said he wished the battle was better publicized more and was focused on more because to him, the battle was important.
“The way wars are fought now, you don’t even need battleships anymore,” he said. “The fighting style is all different and with missiles you don’t even see the attacks coming. It’s important to remember our history and honor those who are no longer with us. They are the real heroes.”
