Bunker Hill (CV 17) - Naval Cruise Book

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No air opposition was met, not even by the fighter sweep that ranged over Tokuuna Shima where they burned a score of tW1n- engine bombers hidden on a small field. En route to Formosa the following day the CAP tallied a pair of snoopers and when a mid- night G.Q. was sounded it looked as though a fight might be developing. It failed YO materialize, however, and the Formosa Hight schedule opened up as advertised. Well, maybe not as advertised. We didn't know we were going to be kept teetering between General Quarters and a razor-edge Condition One Easy for quite so long, for instance. The day began peaceably enough with the launching of a fighter sweep and a strike. Reports from the target were scanty but there were indications that one hell of a fight was going on over there. Air department crews munched doughnuts and drank flagons of coH'ee in considerable suspense, relieved only when they counted the sweep planes return- ing to the ship. Everyone was home. Each pilot hit the deck and taxied forward with the world's widest grin, and all but two held up lingers indicating the number of their kills. Commander Collins had bagged five, Red Rosen three and a probable, Whitey Feight- ner the same, Bill Lamoreaux, two and a prob- able, McCuskey, three downed and two dam- aged, Al Gocio, one and one, Ernie Beau- champ, three confirmed and four probables, Vanderlinden, three, Dan Rehm, a pair, Jun- gle Jim Hodek, one and a probable, Georgie Groves, his first definite kill and two prob- ables-and so darned excited he could hardly talk,Don Cronin, three and a probable, and T. I. Brown, the Lubbock, Tex., fullback, two damaged. Thirteen pilots had knocked down thirty- two Nip planes in a wild melee over Taien, and had seen sixteen others sufficiently dam- aged to be listed as probables-and most of them would have been definite kills if there had been time to sit around and watch them plow the dirt. In the meantime, the strike hitting Qhika airfield was grounding Jap air :mme over there, smashing a pair of hangars, mme Shop installations and other buildings with combat-keen precision. The bombers' Grum- man grenadiers, doing escort duty, were en- jgying play day too. Battle Boss Shifley added another confirmed kill to his string over near Matsuyama, as did Dick Degolia, Stan Czekala and Rog I-Iannenkratt. Intense AA fire hit Lieutenant C j gj Prentiss Newmarfs plane, which was seen to crash with neither Newman nor his radioman, W. W. Carr get. ting free. The day continued with good hunting as I-Ieildivers and Avengers beat up ground in- stallations, sank an AK, a sampan, a couple of luggers, demolished a radio station and fuel dump at Matsuyama in addition to cratering its runway out of commission. Ray Baldwin and his division leader, Rudy Gmitro teamed up to knock down a I-Iamp, and Okey Boydstun got another as the day's score rolled up. As the day wore by and the sweeps and strikes continued to bring back their scores, it became apparent that the Jap was taking a hell of a beating. Aground and aloft, at Chinchika, Matsuyama, Taien -every- where the Jap was getting badly licked- Charlie Phillips, gunner in Lieutenant Cjgl Andrews' Avenger, ripped off a ribbon Of shells to shoot down a Zeke in the general free-for-all that saw the second strike-sweep flight recording high totals. Lieutenant Cjgl Johnnie Galvin led off with three confirmed kills and two damaged, Big Gus Gustafson knocked down a pair and smoked two otherS, Petey Boyles racked up two and a probable, Marv High got two, Splash Gibbs, Paul Zerendow and T. I. Brown scored one aplece' and Cris Allen and Jerry Rian had probablCS' When the day's score was tallied, Fishfmg Eight had totted up fifty-one kills. Apparently well aroused, the Jap attempted to retaliate in the evening and the ship Went- to General Quarters at 1845 when Sight CHCIUY SH00pers sought us out. TheY found us--and went to Haming death as shiP gun' , , -A .,. - . ,Q ' Q' ii? -HW' ' . 5-gg' -E

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sinking condition. The heavy weather con The boys had just been flexing their muscles in the Luzon operation, it seemed for on even further stymied when Admiral Bogan We rode out C15 a typhoon and C22 the tinued and we retired for a fueling rendezvous. shifted his flag to another carrier. J , i September 23, flying ranging strikes over the Central Philippines, they really scored in high figures. Commander Shifley led a search- strike over to Coron Bay, on the western edge of the Visayan Sea and flushed twelve ships, the Helldivers leaving every one of them either sunk or heavily damaged, including a 10,000-ton oiler and a 5,000-ton transport. A companion strike over Ormoc Bay at Leyte also had good hunting, Skipper Arbes getting a direct hit on a 9,000-ton AK which was left sinking, and other hits going to Lieutenants Hardy, Conklin and Pete Sachon. On the last hop of the day the bombers sank two more AKS and marked another as a prob- able, while the torpedo squadron rammed home block-busters on another pair of large cargo ships. People were getting tired, though, and a look at the record showed that in the nine- teen-day period the Bunker Hill and Air Group Eight had been in action against the enemy on twelve of the days, flown 1,389 sorties and dropped more than 500 tons of explosives exclusive of the torpedoes thrown at Manila Bay. Photographic evidence showed that in that period the Bunker Hill's Air Group had sunk or damaged the staggering total of 108,850 tons of Jap shipping, thirteen ships amounting to 44,600 tons totted up as definitely sunk, 40,150 tons represented by ten ships probably sunk and the remaining eleven ships, estimated at 24,100 tons, heavily damaged. Oh yes, what was the name of that carrier that was coming out to relieve us? We're going back, eh? Straight dope? From where we stood we saw seven ammunition lighters waiting to come alongside as soon as we Cl1'0pped the hook in Saipan Roads Septem- ber 28. That doesn't spell relief for us or the Air Group, Mac! The cynics were abashed temporarily when We dragged the anchor to another port and storm of scuttlebutt in the next few days, finally taking aboard replacement aircraft and deciding that there'd be just one more op- eration. Down in the torpedo ready room some artist reflected the weary pilots' reaction with a blackboard drawing of a crying infant, captioned: My Daddy flies for Halsey. The staunch supporters of the St. Louis Cards picked up their thoughtfully placed bets, arguments opened up on the merits of the Navy football club, a few more letters were mailed to Sally and Sue, and October 7 we hit the road again. It was evident enough as to the necessity for the Bunker Hill to be included again in the lineup when we heard that the invasion of the Philippines had been stepped up, with General MacArthur sched- uled to return via Leyte. The belly butterflies did wingovers, though, when we learned that we were to hit Okinawa Jima, in the Nansei Shoto group. That was the Jap Empire, Bud! October 10 . . . A Hghter sweep and three strikes on shipping and shore installations, with a feature performance by Ensign Ray Baldwin of the fighters, who sank a pair of Jap submarines anchored side by side. Lieu- tenant Boydston sank another while Lieuten- ant Cjgl Al Prejean picked out a small AK and sent it to the bottom with a direct hit. The old masters of ship sinking, the bombers and torpedo pilots, weren't idle, either. Skip- per Arbes and Lieutenant Jim Keefe teamed up to punch a 6,000-ton transport to the bottom as Lieutenant Spanky Spohn severely damaged a smaller one, later polished off by another group. Greatest attention was given the airfields and installations that might be used in staging Jap aircraft to the Leyte area during the invasion, however, and the Air Group went over the target area with a heavy hand. Two of the fighters, Lieutenants Beauchamp and F eightner, recorded precision jobs on a pair of small transports, sinking them both.

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tire from the screen shot them down. Eight minutes later our own guns opened fire to port and from then on it was touch and go as we fought off repeated attacks and repelled planes nightlong. A total of fifteen enemy planes were destroyed by night fighters and gunfire from our own task group in a night laced with the crescent, red tracers that etched the sky. Twin high spots of the evening were these: At 2030, an enemy bomber almost blundered into the ship, avoiding the island structure by a matter of a few feet, his engine roaring off into the night and the plane silhouetted in gunfire. Shortly before midnight, guns again answered to attack, this time seeking planes that streamed the awful light of parachute fiares. The attack was accurate, the light brilliant and nauseating. Sparks and burning fragments threatened the deck and the ship lay bathed in the eerie illumination. Wle waited, a perfect target for a sneak attack. Gunners trained their eyes into the blackness. On the bridge, Lieutenant Cjgj Ralph Burgin stood at the ship's amplifying system, his voice crackling with cool conhdence as he described the scene to men below decks. The fiares fell closer and closer aboard and as their trailing lacework of sparks seemed certain to hit us, the twenty-millimeter bat- tery on the port side opened up to shoot the guts out of the parachutes and render them harmless as they fell with a hiss into the sea. The following day, after a midnight-to- dawn Condition One Easy, the strikes went over as scheduled but found little of the op- position met the day before. Ernie Beau- champ found a Dinah to swell his total, George Kirk got a Zeke, and a Topsy was the victim of Avenger pilots Robinson and Pittman, assisted by D. R. Smith, Pittman's gunner, and a 'helpful Hellcat. At evening the ,laps came again but were unable to penetrate the defense. The day saw the loss of Lieu- tenant CjgD Pete Evanoff and his Helldiver radioman, J. F. Jenkins, who bailed out over the target. The two-day toll of men lost was high: Lieutenant Cjgj Norman Red Imel, Fighting Eight's Character, was forced to bail out over the target after his plane was set afire by AA, and Lieutenant Cjgb Hank Sharp and his radioman, J. R. Langioff, made a water landing in their Helldiver in a spot believed inaccessible to rescue efforts. Formosa was again boresighted October 14, as a strike of twenty-three fighters and 10 bombers fought through opposition that spelled death to a dozen enemy planes airborne over Taien, and smashed twen ty-six planes aground, leveled several buildings, a radio station and gun emplacements. During the day, thirty- one enemy planes were shot down over the force, with our CAP and ASP accounting for six of them. One was shot down by ship's guns during one of the afternoon attacks in which the Jap sought futilely to tally on us under the protection of stormy skies. Dive- bombing Judys were splashed by Czekala and T. I. Brown, a Dinah by Gociog a Betty by Mendoza, a Nick by Rehm and a Kate by Vanderlinden. The attacks on the ship and the force reached full-dress stature in mid- afternoon, as we cut through squalls and storm, when Chaplain Dreith, making the play-by-play report over the announcing sys- tem, passed the word: Stand by for a straf- ing attack. All hands not actively engaged in the defense of the ship take cover. His words needed no repeating. The Jap strafers apparently lost us as a target, however, as the attack failed to materialize. An exhausted crew secured from General Quarters about 1930, and tension began to ease off. The next day information was re- ceived that the Jap fleet was again at sea, north of our force, postponing for the time the future schedules for attacks against the Philippines. Searches were launched October 16, while we heard Radio Tokyo boast how its fieet was engaged in cleaning up rem- nants of the great American fleet. Bogeys careened blazing into the sea a half-dozen times during the day, shot down near the force by our own Combat Air Patrol, or en- countered by the Hghters escorting the search planes. The first search fCominued an page 1543