Bunker Hill (CV 17) - Naval Cruise Book

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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

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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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been notified that huge Jap attack forma- tions were on their way to wipe out our force. Word was passed out to the gunnery sta- tions, and the batteries were galvanized into readiness. Flight deck crews, unaware of the enemy's approach, were busily engaged in launching planesg the engineers below decks took orders for maximum speed on minimum notice. The Japs were coming. Far above the flight deck, in air forward, a sailor lookout suddenly stopped his search- ing glass. He had settled on a formation of thirty-three dive bombers headed straight for our formation. Lieutenant Cjgj Charley Sim- mer, recognition ofiicer, took over and con- firmed the identification: Vals, the deadly Jap dive bombers. Guns trained out, power drives purred and whined. In one sudden burst a veritable inferno went up on the starboard bow. Plane crews stopped their launching and watched the last fighter sent off sail down the deck and shoot down a dive bomber just a few yards ahead of the ship. The five- inchers' first salvo sent two more spinning into the water, flaming. The battle was on. The madness lasted for fifty-two minutes, a record for Pacific air attacks up to that time. Vals were joined by Kates and Bettys and Zekes and Tonys. A wild, ensuing melee stopped all time, while guns roared and men ducked violent splashes from near misses. Strafers cut open fuel tanks on already armed bombers lined up on our decks, the fumes of gasoline permeated the wild, smoky air. Hard- hitting Hellcats and Corsairs sent scores of Japs to their graves just short of the Nippon goal, and guns belched death over what had been a sober, placid sea. Let 'em come, damn 'em, let 'em come . . . And until mid-afternoon Tojo sent them into our caul- dron of brimstone. A combination of willing, ready men and leadership saved us that day. Captain Ballen- tine conned his ship through her first storm with the calm and genius of a truly great military man. Fighter planes-the Corsairs and Hellcats launched from our decks--pen formed like the veterans that recorded history has now shown them to be: Fighting Eight- een's Hellcats got thirty-four planes in all that day, Fighting Seventeen's Corsairs burned nineteen of the attackers out of the sky in a matter of several minutes-being led by Ike Kepford, who got four Nips that afternoon and started on his way to become the N avy's leading ace with sixteen confirmed kills, six Nips were shot down by our ship's guns, with several probables. These figures, coupled with the returns from a sister carrier and a CVL plus the kills accredited to our screening force, account for virtually all of the estimated 150 Rising Sunshiners who came out to destroy us. The formation left wakes that reminded you of a mess of pretzels spread out on a blue tablecloth, Fighter Pilot jack Crawford re- marked after he returned aboard that night. High above the formation, for miles, the sea appeared to be one enormous funeral pyre. The plumes of smoke marked the end of Japanese pilots and their aircraft. Our losses for the afternoon were reported as one fighter plane failed to returnf' Several near misses splashed salt water and shrapnel over our decks, but the Skipper whirled the Bunker Hill's rudders from port to starboard and back, dancing her through hails of bombs and tinfish. Night came painfully on. A white, full moon cut its way over a low cloudbank and perched itself in a latticework of fuzzy clouds. More than once the engine noises of Japanese search planes were audible from this ship, but they never found us. We were on our way back to port, having accomplished a big item listed among the mounting revenges for Pearl Harbor. At midnight the air was still, the sea was calmg the moon shown warmly on a slumbering, exhausted crew.