Bunker Hill (CV 17) - Naval Cruise Book

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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.

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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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With them went two Helldivers, pil0tCd bY Lieutenant Commander Jimmy Arbes and Lieutenant Red Carmody, armed with.l1fe rafts to be dropped to any downed p11Of- The fighters carried depth charges to buSt up whatever they could find. It must have been a hell of a shock in the Saipan Jap 'O' Club that Sunday afternOOI1 as the Americans Hellcatted around and about the lush, green island. A few saki-drinkers did get to their planes and that was just what Fighting Eight and their playmates wanted. Skipper Collins bore-sighted three and his wingman, Lieutenant Cjgj Red Rosen, totted up two more in a few minutes of scrap- ping. The Skipper, however, took something of a beating from shrapnel whichichewed up his plane badly and peppered his face with superficial wounds, despite which he brought his plane back aboard safely. The sweep destroyed more than 200 Jap planes that afternoon, in the air and on the ground, and the depth charges made the run- ways sufficiently unserviceable as to guarantee a comparatively peaceful evening as we steamed in for the heavy punching. The CAP over the force also tallied as Lieutenant Cjgj Walt Longino splashed a Jill and Lieu- tenant Cjgj 'fRed Imel knocked down a Tony. Elation over the results was dampened by the loss of Lieutenant Don Carney, one of Fighting Eight's most popular members. His plane was seen to flame over the target and he was listed as missing in action. The three-day pre-invasion plastering of Saipan, Tinian and Guam went off with little opposition Snoopers sought us the first night dropping flares approximately ten miles starboard to our course but the effort was futile and D 3 Day saw ug 1-011 off six lethal strikes which beat down anti aircraft fire from heavy to medium to ex tremely llght as the sun set Two Avenger crews flew out their lives Lieutenant George Wildhack, his radioman and gunner Jlmmy Stone and P Witzke and Lieutenant Qgj F R Swede Swenson with Gunner R A Van Riper and Radioman D. G. McLean, failed to return from missions. The next day the battleships and cruisers moved in for more body blows and the Task Force carriers took a rest, excepting one task group that flushed a convoy of seven trans. ports, an oiler, a destroyer and five destroyer escorts. Methodically they were bombed to the bottom, sending an estimated 10,000 Jap replacement troops to death for their Emperor, We had a ringside seat as the big boys rolled up their sleeves and worked over the Saipan-Tinian twins. It was a picture many men hope to see but fail: the battlewagons maneuvering into lines, the flash of flame and smoke from muzzles and then the hit on the island, marked by a heavy, angry column of smoke. Men lined the decks, crowded the island perches to watch the great ships throw more steel in thirty minutes than our Air Group could carry in half as many days. Time and again spotter planes from the cruisers would hover over a spot, drift away from it only long enough to relay target in- formation and stay clear of the pin-point shelling that followed. Mid-morning we sailed through the flotsam of a smaller Jap convoy that had been blown out of the Pacific, wet, bedraggled ,laps cling- ing to planks and pieces of wreckage, huddled together in awe as they drifted through the world's greatest naval armada. Destroyers raced about picking them up and, later, de- livering them to various fiagships for ques- tioning. D-Day came, the transports and landing craft nudged closer and disgorged their loadS of ground forces As closely as possible WC followed their progress we heard that theY were four hours ahead of schedule-six hourS We flew strikes and photo missions over Guam, and wondered how they were doing on the beach It was hard to tell Like rawa, there was no way for us to lCI10 at the fight was bloodier and tougher the anything the Yanks had attempted to date e in the afternoon the Japs brought 0 opposition to the landing operation 8 4 .n . ' . , . ' ' 5 C , . . J .- . l O I' W . . . i th ' 'fl . . J i - J' ' 9 Lat ' ut cz n - . J ' ' J . . 311' i i U i nd 138 igiir '