Harry Noisette, WW2 VETERAN, HERO (2 Bronze Stars), workout friend, he went through same cardiac rehab that I did, after his TRIPLE BYPASS almost 20 years ago. Today, Sandra Maidment (Red Cross volunteer) and I video interviewed him for the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress.
The peak period of kamikaze attack frequency came during April–June 1945 at the Battle of Okinawa. On 6 April 1945, waves of aircraft made hundreds of attacks in Operation Kikusui ("floating chrysanthemums").[33] At Okinawa, kamikaze attacks focused at first on Allied destroyers on picket duty, and then on the carriers in the middle of the fleet. Suicide attacks by planes or boats at Okinawa sank or put out of action at least 30 U.S. warships[34] and at least three U.S. merchant ships,[35] along with some from other Allied forces. The attacks expended 1,465 planes. Many warships of all classes were damaged, some severely, but no aircraft carriers, battleships or cruisers were sunk by kamikaze at Okinawa. Most of the ships lost were destroyers or smaller vessels, especially those on picket duty.[34] The destroyer USS Laffey earned the nickname "The Ship That Would Not Die" after surviving six kamikaze attacks and four bomb hits during this battle.[36] So many destroyers were attacked that one ship's crew, considering the aircraft carriers to be more important targets, erected a large sign with an arrow that read "That way to the carriers".[citation needed]
Harry Noisette, as a cook on the USS Barry, he also had to be a gunner. His ship sunk subs in the North Atlantic, then cruised to the Pacific, where his ship was sunk by a Kamikazi airplane. He and all the crew were saved. Harry was awarded 2 Bronze Stars.
