Bunker Hill (CV 17) - Naval Cruise Book

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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

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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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attention on her flight deck and heard Boats- wain J. M. Curley pipe the first watch. Shadows of South Boston gave rise to fam- iliar musings . . . days at Boys Club, when the crew sat restlessly through lectures telling of what going to sea on a giant carrier would be like . . . They wanted to see for them- selves. They had seen now, and perhaps most fitting of all kind words that came back over f a commissioning reverie was the speech made by a little kid who wore tennis shoes and newly-pressed knickers at the ceremonies. A representative from the Boys Club, Bobby Cameron-in the presence of admirals, the Undersecretary of Navy, a state governor and Boston's Mayor-stood up and tiptoed to reach the mike: I present you with this battle ensign, he said, oratorically enough, holding up a folded American flag. I want you to Hy it during your Hrst battle, and when that day comes, remember that God is with you . . . the enemy before you . . . and we're behind you. His audience, five thou- sand strong, remained suspended in silence a brief moment, and then its applause echoed and re-echoed over the rattling Navy Yard noises, out over the red-roofed hillsides of South Boston, all the way to his own Boys Club neighborhood. MARIAN AS The Task Force took a breather during May. A couple of new carriers and one that had received some States-side rehabilita- tion came out to join us and promptly were sent north for a shakedown strike while we rested. Meanwhile, we hear rumors of the next operation-an invasion of the Marianas- and decided it was no secret when we heard Toyko Rose predict it in her evening broad- casts. It didn't much matter to us if the .laps knew it or not. YVe felt we had reached the point where we could call our shots, and still do the job. Sole point of argument was whether the large-scale amphibious operation would bait out the Jap fleet. Many were inclined to scoff at the prospect of Tojo risking his men-of-war in a slugging bee. Fourteen op- erations ago, it was argued, we began chasing that fieet and it still had stayed in hiding. On June 6, Spruance, Mitscher 8z Co. put the show on the road, their sea-going jugger- naut preceding the transports, tankers, supply ships and escort carriers that were to carry out the landing operations. It was hot, made even hotter by a course that kept the trade winds on our stern. Second day out the news of the Allied invasion of Europe was fiashed to us. A worn atlas was the key to popularity, as we listened to accounts of American soldiers hitting the cool beaches of Normandy, and with sweaty fingers we traced the location of Caen, Farfleur, Bayeus-strange names to men of the Pacific. We heard a rebroadcast of the President's prayer' '... With Thy blessing, we shall prevail . . and added solemn, silent amens to it. A few days later the high command made a change in schedule that proved to be a strategic classic. Instead of making the first strike on June 12, D Minus Three Day, it was decided to send a jumbo-size fighter sweep in a day earlier. So on a cloudless, lazy Sunday afternoon the fighters finished their navigation problems and manned their planes, eleven of them buzzing busily to work.