Bairoko (CVE 115) - Naval Cruise Book

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CAPTAIN H. B. TEMPLE, U.S.N. Commanding The U.S.S. Bairoko CVE 115 Commander Frank F. Gill, U. S. N., whose home is at Livermore, California, was born 14 january 1907. Leaving school in 1928, he went to Pensacola, where he won his wings as a Naval Reserve pilot in 1930. He was commissioned a lieutenant in the U. S. Navy in December, 1940, while chief flight instructor of a reserve air base at Oakland, California. For the first two and a half years of this war, Commander Gill had combat aviation duty which took him into two war theaters. He was aboard the Lexington as arresting gear and gasoline officer the day Pearl Harbor was attacked and was immediately named Fighter Director of that ship, and served through her engagements until she was lost in the Coral Sea May 8, 1942. Until February 1, I944, Commander Gill served aboard the Santee as Assistant Air OHicer and at the Naval Air Station, Miami, as Superintendent of Aviation Training and later as Executive Officer. He reported in for the outfitting of this ship as its Executive Officer 27 April 1945. Captain Harry Brigham Temple was born April 7, 1901, in Leicester, Massachusetts. He was gra- duated from the Naval Academy, Annapolis, in 1924: has been on active duty since that date. In 1929, he reported to the Aviation Flight Training School at Pensacola, Florida. Since completion of Flight Training, Captain Temple has served in many of the various Naval Aviation activities, ashore and afloat, including sea duty on cruisers and carriers, in the Bureau of Aeronautics of the Navy Department, in the Flight Division, with the U. S. Naval Mission to Brazil, in which capacity he served as Aviation Advisor to the Brazilian Naval and Air Ministries and on the Staff of General MacArthur, Commander-in Chief of Southwest Pacific area. This duty lasted for a period of four months and involved service in Australia and New Guinea. He was then de- tached and ordered to report to the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Air, as Head of the Aviation Special Development Section and, later, as director of the Division of Aviation Military Characteris- tics. Captain Temple was detached from this duty and ordered to report to the Commissioning Detail, Tacoma, for ultimate duty as Commanding Officer of the Bairoko. ,f if' 45: ,, .iii V, 2 i ' 1 6 COMMANDER F. F. GILL, U.S.N. Executive Officer 1 I f f l s i s f I L l I 1 l C.

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BAIRGKO HARBOR is a small inlet on the North coast of New Georgia, one of the Solo- mon Islands. A Spanish navigator, coming upon these islands in l567, and hopefully be- lieving he had fiinally touched on the fabled and wealthly lands of the Indies named the group HIlas de Solomonf, Subsequent English eX- plorers claimed part of the group for Britian, and at the outbreak of the war New Georgia was under the English flag. During the early part of l94Z, in their effort to cut the Allied supply line to Australia, the Japanese seized the Solomons and began the construction of a series of air fields throughout the islands-at Vila on Kolombangara, at Munda on New Georgia, and on Guadalcanal. Vila and Munda were mutually supporting Fields. Bairoko Harbor lay between these two airields and was the port of supply for lX4unda. By the spring of l943 Guadalcanal was se- cure, and we had sufficient men and material to open the offensive against New Georgia. On June 30, l943, Rendova Island was seized and lN4unda then placed under artillery fire. lX4a- rines and Infantry landed on New Georgia. In the heat and muck of the tropical jungle they met a bitter Nip foe enraged at the loss of Guadalcanal. R e s i s t a n c e was particularly strong near Bairoko Harbor. After six weeks of desperate jungle Fighting the Munda airstrip was overrun, but Bairoko Harbor did not fall until August 25th. Its seizure marked the end of the fifty-seven day campaign for New Georgia. Bairoko signified the end of this early Pacific campaign-so the name of our ship is a symbol for that final victory which came during her shakedown cruise.

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, 3 A'-- ' 1 Gi.. U ii' E ig ,fig Qi Wg 4 lv Usa .3 EVE We first began to know one another at Breme1'ton. For some of us, the experience of going aboard a new ship had long since lost its newness, but to a greater number of us, this represented something entirely new. Most of us were only beginning to become accustomed to the wearing of a uniform, and even the sight of salt water was, to a few of us, still novel. We had received our orders to report to Bremerton and knew that we would later go aboard the U.S.S. Bairoko, the pronunciation and spelling of which we were never quite sure, and we knew that we were not sure of the jobs that lay ahead of us. In liilay of 1945, we were formed into a pre-commissioning detail and began to learn those jobs, learning both from the instructors in the school there and from those of our future shipmates who were the salts -those who knew carriers from actual experience in battle. It was now that we began to become acquainted with the ship that we were to man. We learned that she was not a converted merchant ship, but that she had been designed throughout for the purpose she was to serve and that we were to have the advantages of lessons in ship designing and outfitting which had been learned in the many battles in which the Baby Flat- tops had participated. Her keel had been laid more than a year previous to our assembly at Bremerton, on the 25th of January 1944 at the Todd Pacific Shipyards, Tacoma, Washingtoii, where the final phases of her construction were in progress. liflrs. J. ,l. Billlfillfiflffi Wife of Rear Admiral Ballentine, had sent the hull sliding down its ways into the waters of Puget SOUHC1 on January 25, 1945, christening the vessel the U.S.S. Bairoko. It was not until July 16 that the ship would be ready for us to go aboard her, just a few days short of 18 months from the laying of her keel until com- pletion, an amazing record for the construction of a ship as large and as complex as this one. About two weeks prior to the time when we were to attend the commissioning ceremonies at 'll2iCOIl'l3, WC got a first-class picture of what our lives aboard Shiv .SJ were to be. For two weeks, we lived and Worked aboard the Commencement Bay, the fiorst of this class of carriers, gaining confidence in our ability to man our own ship. Although the crew of the Commencement Bay was with us at all times, ready to assist and give advice, it was we who were manning the stations. As new as most of us had been when we first reported to Bremerton, here was evidence that we had learned much during those months and were now ready to go aboard our own ship. On Commissioning Day, July 16, 1945, many of our friends and relatives were our guests to see the ship F1CCCD'fCd fOr the Navy by our Commanding Officer, CHDtain H. B. Temple, USN, and to see our first watch set in as colorful a ceremony and gathering as the Hairofo has yet seen, lt now became our task to fit the ship for battle. Offices had to be organized, store rooms had to be filledg there were bunks to be made, lockers to be filled, and soon we were underway for the first time in Puget sound. Day by day, we became better acquainted with the equip- ment we were to handle, Hrst in the inland waters of Puget Sound and then in the open sea en route to San Diego, where shakedown operations were to be conducted under the cognizance of Fleet Operational training Com- mand, Pacific. Assisting us in these days of Training prior to our formal shakedown operations were a group of instructors from Fleet Qperational Training Com- mand, Pacific, who supervised the battle problems and damage control drills which were held almost daily. Un August 7, while the ship was at the Naval Air Station, Alameda, California, the well-known Dr. lylargaret C lWon1 j Chung was a luncheon guest of the ward-room mess. Beloved by aviators and submariners, and particularly by those designated as The Fair Haired Bastards of lWom Chung , Golden Dolphinesn, or Kiwis, lNrIom Chung presented the ship with a special battle Hag. Both Captain Temple and the Executive Officer, Commander Frank F. Gill, USN, are Bas- 7