Bunker Hill (CV 17) - Naval Cruise Book

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gestive qualities: Japanese ships at anchor, hundreds of antiaircraft guns that lined the hook-shaped estuary, and dozens of airfields that, by dawn, would be sending hundreds of the Emperor's finest birdmen soaring into the Emperor's own unchaste sky. Rabaul. There'll never be anything quite like it. That day--that longest day of our life--stands out not only as the ship's first action, a baptism of fire to take its place among the great battles of the war, but for its defensive brilliance. On this ship Rabaul will be remembered most for the manner in which our squadrons and ships repelled wave after wave of enemy planes in one of the most vicious and prolonged attacks then on record. It all came about as an unscheduled side- show not many days prior to the invasion of the Gilbert Islands. Leaving our Pacific head- quarters we were told of the role we were to play in that invasion. You could hardly de- tCCt signs of approaching battle among the crew, it was still something vague and far away. Sun-bathing and flight deck sports- they Were more like reality. Battle was tomorrow, something that likely would never come. Yet in less than two weeks the Baby of Quincy was cutting her teeth in glorious battle against the enemy, having her flight deck drenched with salt water geysered up by near misses, and seeing her own children countered with death and destruction from the onslaughts of the Nippon tide. The day before November ll was strangely monotonous. Routine duties filled our daily schedule. Having never been through battle, the visions of our foe were somewhat unreal, almost nonexistent. At nightfall the atmos- phere tensed up, however, men about the deck saw loading preparations under way: huge bombs, deadly torpedoes, tons of air- craft ammunition-nothing could be left un- done. The Captain spoke . . . that brought us closer still to what waited us tomorrow: We're steaming up the slot tonight, he said, --the slot so famous for its battles for Guad- alcanal Cthe shores of the Solomons had been sighted at noon that dayj-for the chance we've all been waiting for. fTraining days . . . towed sleeves . . . lifeless target sleds . . . friendly dogfights.J We've been asked to help out on a little job at Rabaul, and we'll contact the enemy in the morning. 1QPhotographic planes had given weird des- criptions of this New Britain base, its land- locked harbor, its numerous associated air- fields. Rabaul-it was a fearful name, after all.j I have every confidence that each and every one of you will do his duty . . . It was just after sunset and the twilight suddenly held mysterious fortunes for tomor- row, a day that had seemed vaguely unreal. Pilots had been briefedgdinner was served. Though it was hot and sultry below decks, the battle supper was nothing short of a har- vest feast. Viewing the kingly setting, Ensign Charley Husted was heard to remark: I hope this isn't the Last Supper . . . For Charley it Was, his plane went down in fiames and he was forced to parachute down over the target into a storm of strafing Jap planes. Tomorrow did come. For breakfast all hands had beefsteak, and at 0645 sixty-nine pilots and their crewmen took off in twenty- seven Hellcats, twenty-three Helldivers and nineteen Avengers. Forced to the sidelines because his Avenger engine was skipping, Lieutenant Bob Higley saw his teammates blend with the dawn, thinking that he alone would have to wait and sweat them out . Before the flight had rendezvoused, his plane was in commission, however, he took off, a solitary figure in the cockpit of his plane, a typical American fighting man that he was- and that's the last memory we have of that gallant airman. He was never seen in the vicinity of the target, and it was feared that he fell victim to jackal Zekes on the lurk for stragglers. Friendly planes appeared overhead: Fight- ing Seventeen, our first fighter squadron that was now land-based in the South Pacific, had come out to keep vigil while the heavy air units winged their way over the target. Twelve of them, headed by Skipper Tommy

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RABAUL Dawn-November 11, 1943: the longest day of our life. It all comes back in the form of mental flashes drawn from a brain file of vivid plc- tures that now yellow in an ash-heapnof memory. We won't forget it. In AmCr1C9- Armistice bands played for holiday parades, and strings of confetti fell like well-wishes from Heaven. A cold wind swept the streets of Chicago, and a brilliant, warmish sun lay close to the heart of Texas, the lemon light of East Forty-Second Street was hardly enough to ward off chill winds that swept up from the man-made canyons of Lower Manhattan, and in Georgia the last locks of cotton were being packed into burlap bags by husky Negroes who sang about Glory and Hallelujah as they worked. That was back home. You have forgotten it by now. This was out here: a small force of carriers and destroyers streaked northward and west- ward through warm, tropical waters, their greyish stacks shimmering in the diffused light of a bright moon that sifted its way through a white skein of clouds. It was an hour before sunrise and you could hardly discern where the moonlight ended and the bluish twilight began. Sailors were going to their battle stations, pilots were climbing into their planes, the bell muzzles of dozens of ready guns pointed solemnly into the winey air of a tropical dawn. Everywhere there was an electrical current flowing and ebbing through the blood of a new crew that waited to light a new ship. Through the minds of these 3,000 men there ran a human movietone of mystery and excitement, they were waiting to meet an enemy they had never seen, an enemy they had sailed thousands of miles to face. Today was the first day, it was the beginning of time, it was the epitome of fanfare and trum- pets, of startling noises and sickening smells, of man's roaring mechanics made to fend off his enemies, of a small kid's willingness to pray-even after he becomes a grown man,

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Blackburn, who was later to lead his WHFFIOYS to a Navy record, landed aboard to refuel after sunrise. TheY Were Covered with eager handshakers who remembered them.as the Bunker Hill's own. Seventeen's Corsairs took back to the skies, climbing high over their mother carrier, and the ship took stock Of IKS own readiness to meet expeCtCd .laP91nFSe counter assaults. Live currents of electricity stirred every compartment, each gun statlon and every control station. The Calm blue water, the white-spotted sky, the stifling heat of mid-morning seemed to be precurSOrS Of storm. For the first time men were wear- ing their helmets of their own free will, and lifebelts were frequently displayed. Mental tension heightened when word came that our strike was returning, that there would be cripples, the injured, the dead, perhaps. Pharmacist's mates and doctors, marked by 'the red cross, took stations at battle dressing areas, the sight of preparations for the seem- ingly inevitable made your stomach tie up in sickening knots. Occasional reports of enemy snoopers stirred the battle stations, quickened the imaginations of men. It had to come. The Japanese never refused a fight, and, damn 'em, let them come . . . But first came our own planes. High above the horizon, like friendly billybees, our figh ters. Below them, accompanied by a throaty roar of heavy engines, came the torpedo planes, the bombers. You counted them. It had to be that Way: some were missing. They the landing soared closer and came into circle. The grim marks of L combat reared their ugly reminders for the first time: Radio- man W. O. Haynes, Jr., was slumped in the rear seat of Lieutenant Bob Wood's Hell- diver-a bullet hole in his jaw. jumped by Jap fighters, he had shot one down ke t others oH' by continually firing his gung, evgn after being painfully wounded . . , The gallant never die, we had heard somewhere . . . Lieutenant Cjgj Carby brought his Avenger in with 207 ,holes showing plainly and the controls shot away. Miraculously, none of the bullets had touched his crew. , l22