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LCDR Roger Alaux was the XO for the USS Terror (CM-5) serving in the Asia Pacific arena. Minutes before 4 am on May 1, 1945, as USS Terror lay at anchor in Kerama Retto, a kamikaze dove toward the ship. Darting through a hole in the smoke screen and coming in on Terror's port beam, the attacker banked sharply around the stern, then came in from the starboard quarter so rapidly that only one of the mine layer's stern guns opened fire. As the plane crashed into the ship's communication platform, one of its bombs exploded. The other penetrated the main deck before it, too, exploded. The aircraft's engine tore through the ship's bulkheads to land in the wardroom. Richard Newcomb, an Enlisted Naval Correspondent on board, described the explosion as “a noise that cut life in half, dividing it between the time before you had heard it and the time afterwards.” A ferocious fire soon erupted, raging for two hours. Newcomb recalled the chaos and confusion in those moments as “the ship was struggling back to life.” With flames and wounded everywhere, a few men jumped overboard, while most ventured into the danger to help others, leading Newcomb to recall, “But there were heroes that night, real heroes….” As dawn mercifully arrived, the fire was under control, and the ship was still afloat. Flooding of the magazines prevented possible explosions, and no engineering damage occurred, but the kamikaze had exacted its toll. The attack cost USS Terror 171 casualties: 41 dead, 7 missing, and 123 wounded. LCDR Roger Alaux did not survive.