Bon Homme Richard (CVA 31) - Naval Cruise Book

Page 11 text:

eaaleala Pfgsidgnt ............................ Chief of Naval Operations -------- Commanders Naval Air Pacific ------ Captains ............................. Execg .............................. Visiting Di gnitaries - - DEPARTMENTS Administrative ---.---- 145, ................. Communications ------ Dental ............ Engineering ----.- Gunnery . . R .... . Medical ----- Navigation- - Opeyations ........................... . . . .............................. . . . CARRIER AIR GROUP NINETEEN 1112.191 ......,............. A ,..........,.... V,4.19 2 ....,........,...................... 1111.19 3 ...... 144.19 5 ........... 114-195 ...,......... VAI-I-4 Det E -'--- VAW-11 Det E Hu-1, Det Ev Home Port ------ Good Byes ....... Headed Home ------

Page 10 text:

5230 Oh, I' have slipped the surly honds of earth Hnd danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings. Sunivard I've climheah and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds-and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of-Wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there, I've chased the shouting wind along, and jqung My eager craft through footless halls of air. Up, up the long, delirious, hurning hlue I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace Where never lark, nor even eagle jqervl And, While with silent, lifting mind I've trod The high untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand, and touched the face of God. -john Gillespie Magee, jr. 1''ll'Il :l'll'ln ll'll'hl'ul IH' I ll ll'hi'll'll'inl'll'il nl'lI'll lI'll'l1 l ILIEUCGJICID iCIHl15A'VlEZ QU,A.DfIKlES DEUEif'iXID IH7IHIiHY'EF'IEH3INf?xBS HAf?xWVlRIlENiC3EE CCCIDTf'TI'G:D'QN JCOJTEHIN 'TT'T2'fUD'elf'AlN 3P'.AXIR?.IBKSa JOHN ?P'ATUSTI 6 i

Page 12 text:

ie Uzdgiaaf M.. :Dm your 9 aaa sm BON HOMME RICHARD was immortalized by her captain, John Paul Jones and his words I have not yet begun to fight which he spoke minutes before the ship and her dead went to a watery grave. This has been a symbol of inspiration to every seagoing American warrior for the last two hundred years. The determined spirit of its predecessor is personified inthe success of CVA-31, the new BON HOMME RICHARD. I The original ship was a high poop-deck Indiaman built in 1776 by the East India Company to serve as a merchant ship between France and ports in China and India. John Paul Jones, together with King Louis XVI and Benjamin Franklin, who was the Colonies Commissioner to France at the time, made plans for an American squadron to prey upon British commerce and aid in the fight for independence from Great Britain. These plans culminated in Franklin buying the India- man, then named the DUC DE DURAS, during the Revolutionary War. Jones supervised her conversion from a merchant vessel to a man-of-war, including the addition of 42 guns provided by the French, and made her ready to lead a combined French and American force. The frigate was renamed BON HOMME RICHARD, which was the French idiom for Franklin's book, Poor Richardis Almanac. Jones, in redesigning the frigate into a two-deck war- ship, had little with which to work. She was notoriously slow, old, weak, and her brine-soaked hulk had been condemned by insurance companies. Beside the fact that her sails were rotton, her hull barnacled, and her deck blistered, the guns were museum pieces with cannon balls so small that oakum wads were wrapped around them. A This 152 foot continental frigate sailed from La Orient, France, on June 19, 1779, with Jones as her captain, leading a seven-ship squadron toward the coast of the British Isles. Enroute they encountered fierce gales which wreaked havoc on the ships. Further, a conflict of interests with the captain of the ALLIANCE, also an American frigate, resulted in a collision of the two ships and the BON HOMME RICHARD losing her jibboom. Ultimately, the squadron came across the Baltic Merchant Fleet which Jones had been eagerly seeking to engage. The combat, which began at dark was BON HOMME RICHARD,s last and most famous battle. BON HOMME and HMS SERAPIS, commanded by Captain Richard Pearson, simultaneously ex- changed broadsides with more powerful SERAPIS inflicting severe damage to the BON HOMME RICHARD. The SERAPIS gave another broadside, again riddling the BON HOMME. The ALLIANCE, failing to recognize Jones' ship in the moonlight, fired on both ships, almost sink- ing the BON HOMME RICHARD. Finally a favorable wind allowed Jones to ram the SERAPIS, and with heavy hawsers his men lashed the enemy's bowsprit to the BON HOMME RICHARD's shrouds. Pearson, seeing Jones' ship riddled from stem to stern and fires raging close to the maga- zines, asked Jones if he wanted quarter. In view of the naval axiom that no ship is lost until her captain thinks it so, Jones replied with his famous words that have been immortalized in United States Naval History ever since. The battle turned swiftly. Jones' marines, acting as snipers from the rigging, had cleared the SERAPIS' gun decks. Accurately tossed granades had detonated her powder in a huge burst of flame and smoke carrying away the mainmast and taking many lives. Jones' boarders swarmed over the rails onto the SERAPIS and attacked with pike and cutlass. Captain Pearson had seen enough bloodshed and personally struck his colors. Captain John Paul Jones then transferred his command to the SERAPIS and cut away what was left of his former ship, which soon settled by the bow with her stern lifting high out of the water. The American flag was the last part of the proud BON HOMME RICHARD seen, the l21Sf SyII1b0l Of the ship which started out a tramp, became a wreck, and was enshrouded with glory lilly her crews' performance in the last big engagement fought overseas by the American Continental avy.