Bunker Hill (CV 17) - Naval Cruise Book

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The Task Force had started home after its second day at Palau, when it happened to remember that the following day was a holi- day, April Fool's Day, and that it couldn't let the Bunker Hill spoil a straight slate. Ac- cordingly plans Were issued and Woleai was pasted from hell to breakfast in a withering attack that found no airborne opposition and little air power on the ground. Fighter Pilot Johnny Galvin, hit by an enemy burst, was forced to bail out a few miles from the target. A rescue ship put over a rubber boat, while the ship guns fought off Jap attempts to capture the helpless pilot. johnny returned to the ship, after taking a midnight sun trip through the South Sea Isles. Also included on the day's activity sheet was a two-Jap transport sinking, accomplished by two of our destroyers. . Our force retired eastward again, and the sun worshippers came topside to drink in the equatorial qualities of our daylight hours. The band offered concerts, noontime and evening, too, and crowds of off-watch seamen flocked to the flight deck to hear their fav- orite club stars. April was an easy, graceful month of cruising. v . , 1 UW: HOLLANDIA Later that month we began another little jaunt. It seems that General Douglas MacArthur, devotee of the old game of leap- frog, was planning a wholesale jump up the coast of New Guinea. Carriers and other war- ships of Task Force Fifty-Eight moved into the area to give the air and bombardment support that such an operation would call for. Center of the concentrated dose of amphib- ious landings was to be Hollandia, capture of which would cut off the enemy forces to the south and east, and establish air fields from which strikes could be launched against the Jap's westward holdings. Our particular mission was to provide air striking groups to neutralize the airfields in the Hollandia and Wakde area, and to pro- vide support for the landings on Hollandia, while furnishing combat air patrols in the same area. Any sailor of fortune looking for a knock- down drag-out air and sea action would have been disappointed at New Guinea those days. The Japs chose not to fight in the air and on the sea, and our boys went on to fly 409 sorties, drop 155 tons of bombs and sink an AK while doing support work. Shore batteries offered stubborn resistance at the outset, but the Hellcats and bombers drove them from their lairs. MacArthur's troops stormed ashore in gratifying fashion, showing every trick of the trade they had learned in becoming un- surpassed jungle-and-beach warriors. Air op- position to the surface forces was noticeably absent. The glassy, indigo waters off New Guinea might well have been Lake Michigan in July-those of us suffering from acute hallucinations could even make out the misty form of the Furniture Mart in the distance. SECOND TRUK Being dressed up with little else to do for the moment, we made a costly inspection of Truk on our retiring run from Hollandia. Jap scouts, having spotted us well before our arrival in the Truk area, sent out a sizeable

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to be launched. Commander Andrew Jack' son, Air Group Eight battle-boss, and Com- manders Ken Musick, Bill Collins and Ralph Shifley, skippers of the torpedo, fighting anfl bombing squadrons, respectively, briefed thell' boys on this target area. Rear Admiral Al- fred Montgomery, with flag aboard the Bun- ker Hill, commanded our particular task group. On hand for close-ups of the latest Navy daredevil scheme were newsmcn Dan McGuire, of United Press, and Elmont Waite of Associated Press. Increasing operations varied in method of attack and disposal of forces, but for the Bunker Hill it seemed that each succeeding strike was characterized by this news line: This ship made its deepest penetration into Japanese-held territory to- day, striking-- The eve of attack day, March 29, Japanese air units came out to heckle our might. Three or four enemy planes went down in flames on attempted torpedo runs, and the others de- cided that flying against the American Navy wasn't a sure way to grow old. High flying shadow planes Christmased the ocean with flare patterns, but the gray steeQ giantesses rolled on toward their objective. Long before midnight the attackers-those of them still claiming pay allowances-folded up their wings and stole ofl: into the night. A Jap defender on the Palau Islands, if he had been writing a letter home at dawn the next day, might have begun thus: Dear Mom: These Americans don't know when to quit. We keeled them at Rabaul, at Kavieng, at Tarawa, at Arawe, at Eniwetok, at Kwaj- elein, at-what else did we use to have, Mom? Every time we look up, the eyes of Texas, New Mexico, Idaho or Pennsylvania are upon us. Why can't these unhonorable enemies Cis that spelled right, Mom?D go back to wearing zoot zoots and eating goldfish? fLater he continuedzj Today they send in six strikes from carriers that we sunk long, long ago, long ago. fThat reminds me of a song, Mawj They sinked our ships in our h. harbor. They rifle our gun posts with god-awful rifling. Mom, I don't aim to take much more of this. I aim to . . . A dull thud probably stopped his letter. Only loss of the day for Air Group Eight was Ensign R. J. Hanzal, who was shot down over the target and listed as missing in action. It was a big day, with 209 sorties leaving our flight deck, to establish a new record in launchings and landings. The night riders came back at sunset. But they had little heart for a Hght. Red tennis balls from a neighboring task unit sent the bravest of them down for an eternal count, while others met similar fates at the hands f X4 of our fighters, earlier in the evening. Bogeys faded in and out of our area for several hours, while gun crews waited and flight deck per- sonnel readied their charges for the next day. It wasn't long before the formation was at peace again, lying fathoms deep in solitude and hundreds of miles inside the Nip's cele- brated impenetrable perimeter. Second day flights followed much the pat- tern of the first. Profitable targets diminished with each succeeding strike, and in the end it was revealed that nine Zekes, two BettYS were destroyed in the air, many more planes wrecked on the ground, six AKs, totalling 14,000 tons were definitely sunk, with 311- other one probably sunk, eight other shiPS bad1Y damaged, and other vessels defaced be' yond recognition-all accomplished by Air Group Eight.

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force of torpedo planes, dive bombers and es- cort Hghters to greet us' at dawn. Our fighters contacted the Zekes some twenty-five miles from the formation and routed them com- pletely. The bombers and torpedo planes scattered for low-hanging cloud cover, where some of them managed to dodge our Hellcats. A half dozen of the planes, now low flying due to the clouds, burst out just to the starboard of our formation, from where they com- menced runs on the carriers. Screening vessels opened fire, followed by our own guns, and the N ips were wiped out-save one Kate that passed close aboard our bow, she circled back to fly between the screening ships when a vigilant 'Hellcat barrelled down on the hope- less Jap, and sent the enemy careening into the sea, burning furiously. . For two days our planes hauled destruction into the once vaunted Truk camp. First day's schedule called for particular attention to be paid to aircraft and servicing installations, as the shipping in the lagoon was negligible. Our boys did get two probables on AKs, with an- other one heavily damaged. Returning pilots reported fierce AA fire over the target, a factor that cost us several shipmates. Lieutenant Cjgj A. A. Foote, with his radioman, E. Cp Browder, was last seen entering his dive over the target. W. J. Scheutz, AMM 2c, gunner in Ensign L. G. Mason's TBF, and C. V. Heighton, ARM 3c, SBZC radioman, both mu ,. if 1 'af-. in v , p Y . th V m.,Mg is -wt 'muh My Qnikrpm--wlWW.'rA4,gff, .sf I L-ii A. ,, f . ,,. it V.. - ' 4 , p' . ' 'fm-L...g .b - .- 'J' P11 ' higfml 1 0---1 -. ff . .f . in - 9 -'P received fatal wounds on flights over that day. Four strikes were launched the next day, No personnel was lost, and the Nips did not try striking back. Activities during the latter part of April and the first of May, being closely knit to. gether, marked the end of the Bunker Hill's first year of commissioned duty. What had left the ways as a grotesque form of Bethle- hem Steel on December 7, 1942, had grown into full flower and was aiding no little in giving back to the treacherous Jap measures of the horrors of war that he had brought to us out of a clear December sky over Pearl Harbor back in 1941. We had come farg and we had only begun to fight. A 1 Returning to port we thought of the year's program, thinking idly that we could cook up something of an anniversary show for the sailors who had saw her through a plank ownership's period. We wished, rather nostag- ically, that we could go back to our May 25, 1943, site for a big show, back to the trap- pings and martial music that pervaded the warm New England morning in the South Boston Navy Yard. That day the Bunker Hill won its wings. She was draped in ribbons, and she was honored by state and nati0I1a1 leaders, she was the recipient of prophets' praise, and she was the new mother of the 3,000 starchily uniformed men who stood if .-.......,..,,, l ...-L -..ss , . ' ' ' l