USS Clarence K. Bronson, DD-668, off Mare Island, 15 June 1945
Photo credited to Fred Weiss and used with permission of NavSource.org. Visit www.navsource.org/archives/05/668.htm for more wonderful photos of this ship and many others!
PHOTOS OF THE CK BRONSON AND HER CREW TAKEN DURING WW II.
Charles Werner says this photo is of the electricians group that he was the head of near the end of the war. The dog was a white "spitz" that came on board in Honolulu. She had at least four puppies while at sea that were adopted by other ships of the fleet.The dog was totally deaf. Probably from being near one of the 5" guns when it was fired. One of the officers took the dog home after the war. Does anyone remember the dogs name? |  Some shipmates in December 1945. Photo probably taken on leave in San Francisco. L to R - Bob Killian, Charles Werner, Unknown, A.C. Atkinson, and Louis Hlad on the right. |
 Louis "Louie" Hlad on leave in Hawaii. Louie manned a 25mm deck gun on the Bronson. |
 Signalman Third Class |
Robert McMahon was on the original crew of the Bronson and served from her commission in June 1943 through the end of the war in 1945. He came home on leave in May 1945
to marry his fiancée but had to return to the ship less than two weeks later. He supplied the following information regarding the exploits of the CK Bronson in the Pacific theater to his local
newspaper and it was printed in his wedding announcement in May 1945.
Signalman McMahon….. is not yet 21 years old but he wears a gold star and two bronze stars on his Asiatic Pacific ribbon which indicated participation in seven major engagements and in addition
wears two more combat stars for action in the Philippines.
He is a member of the famed Task Force 58 and joined the crew of the Bronson when that destroyer was commissioned on June 11, 1943. At that time he had been in the Navy four months. Some of the
highlights in the record of the Bronson for the past two years start with its first stop in Pearl Harbor, then to Tarawa, its first crossing of the equator on Jan. 22, 1944, then on to Majuro in
the Marshalls, Saipan, Tinian, Guam, A raid on Paula in the Carolines, Humbolt Bay on Hollandia, the second raid on Truk, Eniwetok, Iwo Jima, the Bonins, Luzon, Formosa, Honkong and even Okinawa,
though not in the present invasion but in a preliminary raid.
The job of his destroyer was to help protect the carriers from which the planes were launched against the Jap-held islands. He reports that he saw plenty of Japs, but they were all in the water.
Despite the imposing list of actions in which his destroyer was engaged he says “it wasn’t bad”. The Bronson had plenty of near misses, but was never damaged.
The Executive Officer’s Memo shown by clicking on this link was evidently only the second memo since the ship’s commissioning and was issued in anticipation of the Bronson’s impending “shakedown” cruise.
Imagine the odds of Mr. McMahon saving it throughout his entire tour so we could be reading it almost seventy years later!
Special thanks to Steven McMahon, the son of Robert McMahon, for supplying some of the information and photos used here and for his gracious permission to share them with others.
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THIS IS THE FINE PRINT
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