Bunker Hill (CV 17) - Naval Cruise Book

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GILBERTS id-November in a Southwest Paciflii Navy base was sultry, lifeless. Blistered palm trees resembled the inervated natives in that both drooped under the oppressive weight of noonday suns, and steaming showers. Small boats shuttled to and fro through the rippleless channel, hauling ammunition and supplies to the battle force that anchored there to prepare for another phase of the Pacific drama. We were there actually a matter of hours, and then the Word seeped out. The Gilbert Islands . . . Tarawa . . . amphibious assaults . . . Mightiest Naval force in all history to take part . . . Tarawa, objective of our Gilbert Islands invasion forces, is as equatorial as the Bel- gian Congo. In its entirety--at that time- it consisted of a lifeless-looking, palm-covered, coral atoll, anchored south of the Marshalls and northeast of Nauru. We read that its natives were descendents of other natives, and that they had been administered to from time to time by missionaries. Plans of attack was formulated so that the Japanese Fleet might have a chance to come out of hiding at Trukg a carrier force was to strike on D Minus Two Day, one day ahead of the main force. That carrier group included the Bunker Hill, which Was, later in this same operation, to become the flagship of Admiral Frederick C. Sherman. r We took our station a hundred miles off Tarawa on November 18. At dawn we struck, destroying what little airpower there was present before it could get off the ground. All day long our bombers, torpedo planes and fighters paid visit after visit to the chalky atoll, pasting it from one end to the other, burning its scant buildings, laying savage Waste to its apparent installations. The air- strip on Betio was wrecked, antiaircraft gun- ners were literally driven from their doughnut revetments. The next day more carriers joined in the savage raids over Tarawa. ,Cruisers moved in and shelled its beaches. At one point in , mafia

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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.

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A iodkouf qc. Jams of chicago, Fifth Divi- gignj picked them up in his binoculars. Bettys! he yelled to the officer on watch. The word sped to the bridge, and the weirdly haunting notes of the Torpedo Defense sent all hands to gunnery battle stations. Then came General Quarters, and even while the clanging noise still iilled our ears, our guns were spitting hot steel and blinding flashes into the calm air. Sixteen strong, these twin- engined Japanese torpedo planes ran hell- bent toward our formation. They reached the raging inferno in twos and threes, only to settle into the ocean, exploding and burn- ing liercely. Our own guns sent six of the Jap prides to their ancestors, our Combat Air Patrol splashed four more, and a screening destroyer was seen to drop another, for a total of eleven kills that were observed from this ship. It is doubtful if any of the Son of Heaven's valiant returned to their Marshall Island bases that night. God, guns, Grum- man and Captain Ballentine's seamanship saved us from a collision course with any of the Nippon's deadly fish. For days following the invasion, time moved slowly, we patrolled with devoted vigilance, and Tarawa-having fallen-was rapidly be- ing converted into an American instrument. Betio's airstrip was reconverted, larger and better, for land-based fighters. Time rolled on, and with the advent of December our crew jokingly referred to the Bunker Hill Island of the Gilbertsf' Several days later we started on a southerly journey, leaving our other forces farther north, where they carried out a devastating attack against the Mar- shalls . . . a piece of work that cost the American Navy one of its truly great air heroes Lieutenant Commander Butch O'Hare. While these forces blasted the japs on the North, our smaller force, comprised of the Bunker Hill, some new battleships and our future right arm , a sister Hattop, delivered pre-Christmas surprise packages to Tojo's boys on Nauru. Gur gifts included a thirty- minute workout with sixteen-inch shells from our battlewagons, we might add, .mm gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Our base never looked lovelier. Green hills, jungled valleys, palm-beached inlets and pot- bellied natives who welcomed our return with salutes from their outrigger canoes. The 0 -. f ' . ' Cliff Ko' 1 1 . . 3-R . ,. ,,,, ,,,.- - , ...., . j... -,Mp H . he . as - so 1 Y - 'A , 'rT! :L Y l gym? sal' ' V L X ik fi A?-' J i ' 4 ' .5 ii' ,,.-.f'.ii-i.'-' ..., -Q ,, ' 4 J - Q ff 4 V s f '- . , 1 ' -'.-- 'J' hp 1- Wi, .ff H ,D an-. - .A-F. i -1 , f 11 . X. at V I , Ili! . 'N ix Q.. 1' I R, 3 ' i ' f' . . ' we 2 I, .x i , , 1 .Y Q E. . if -fsfffliil sa i X ir, J X jf., , 'ff' , 'i .T 5 ' ' 1 1- '-r t,gfJ!tL'kv 1:25 20 I, I , K - I ' in Ti liifiiliid X , J . I . ' ' Captain issued greetings and well done to his crew, adding that he hoped they would get ashore on recreation parties, they de- served the finest of rests available, he said. The Air Group went ashore for rest and flying exercises, the gunners reloaded our vast magazines with new, shiny parcels of bomb-shaped TNT, oliicers and crew so- journed ashore for beer and baseball, and it rained to beat hell every day. December's 'teens were waning, and the mailman sweated and swore and delivered to the Bunker Hill enough mail to match a Christmas rush season in a medium-sized city. It was great to be alive once more, for Sally and Sue crashed through with lovely, lovely memoirs de Amer- ique, the least of which were not proxied kisses .from junior, mamma, or somebody else's twenty-year-old daughter. 125