Bunker Hill (CV 17) - Naval Cruise Book

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TORPEDO EIGHT Shortly after noon on Friday, May 13, 1943, a rough-dried Ensign appeared in the oHice of Commander, Air Force Atlantic Fleet, NAS, Norfolk, and a yeoman told him that he had been assigned to Squadron VT-8. Do you mean Torpedo Squadron Eight? the Ensign, fresh from the laundries of Corpus Christi and Opa Locka, asked in bleak amaze- ment. Yes, said the yeoman politely, and the Ensign departed, ready for the laundry again. Seventeen days later, on June 1, Air Group Eight, was oH'icially commissioned. Lieu- tenant Commander William M. Collins of Fighting Eight, acting as Air Group Com- mander, designated Ensign Warren E. Lunde acting squadron commander of VT8. With Lunde at the commissioning were five other ensigns assigned to the squadron. During the brief, informal ceremony, as they looked in- quiringly at each other, all of them must have felt strange. None of them had ever flown a TBF-the Grumman Avenger. On hand, too, were thirty-five enlisted men, being carefully shepherded about by CASU 21, and on June 3, arrangements were made for them to be transported to NAAS, Chin- coteague, seventy miles north of Norfolk, where the squadron was to train. Skipper Lunde flew to Chincoteague in an SNJ to make arrangements for the growing outHt's arrival. The next day at 1600, five Avengers took oHf from East Field, Norfolk, and forty minutes later on the Hat, green coast of Vir- ginia, Torpedo Squadron Eight, boasting eight oHicers, all ensigns, began its long, sure flight toward become a reality. Torpedo Seventeen, temporarily operating at Quonset Point, R. I., when Eight first arrived at Chinco, returned on June 6 and some of embryo Eight received their cockpit checkouts from those officers, who were looked upon as veterans. In those days, almost every new ofiicer reporting for duty was of a higher rank than the acting Squadron Commander. Skippers changed so often that not even the oflicefs knew from breakfast 'til lunch at whom to smile. Lieutenant Cjgl Melville LeCompte took command on June 11 and reigned with such paternal, not to say stern, decorum that he was soon addressed by his awed but eager underlings as Father. 1 I The Father had scarcely unpacked his baggage before great changes were made in the squadron program, as it were. Fifteen crewmen were packed off to gunnery school at Dam Neck, Va., and little niceties such as morning musters, duty sections and flight schedules began to be included in the hap- hazard daily routine. New pilots and crew members reported aboard almost every day, by the 26th of June, at 1100, when Lieutenant Commander Andrew McB. Jackson, Air Group Commander, arrived to check squadron prog- ress and announce the coming of Torpedo Eight's commander, a fairly well-coordinated outfit had been achieved. But in the minds of every oflicer and man was the question: What sort of person will Skipper Musick be? The answer came from its logical sources, on July 1 the following entry appeared in the squadron log: H1345- Lieutenant Commander K. F. Musick reports aboard to assume command of Torpedo Squadron Eight. An SNJ had been sent to Norfolk to pick up the real skipper and his gear. Lieutenant Cjgl Ed Franze piloted the plane and had not even completed the dis- crepancy sheet, after landing at Chincoteague, before the stocky fellow in the second cock- pit was introducing himself to the men on the line. - A few minutes later Know wearing blouse and cap? he had relieved Father LeCompte of his temporary duties, shaken hands with the goggling junior officers andhastened t0 a muster of the enlisted men, where he spoke a word of greeting. Then the work began. Lieutenant fjgl Bob Oscar, formerly aboard the EnterpriSC, reported for duty on July 3rd, the sole mem- ber of the squadron with previous combat experience from which to teach the tough and . q . ggi . ,qs . Q,

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they struck the fear of God into the hearts of stranded Japanese at Hollandia, they flew peacefully, almost monotonously, over the once-vaunted bastion of Truk, they opened the battle for the Marianas andipaced a leg of the greatest carrier-borne fighter sweep in the history of warfare. That calm morning of-I Guam in June, Fighting Eight took to the air and participated in routing the Jap Naval air arm, they patrolled Guam fields as if they had been born there, and when the sun set on fleeing Japanese fleet units that day, more than 400 Emperial supermen had been burnt from the sky and their blood had splotched with crimson the unbelievable vastness of a perennially blue Pacific. They struck Manila, too, and Mindanao, they bombed ships and strafed sampans after Nip- pon pilots quit the air, and they fulfilled a part of an American pilot's dream when they flew in attack formation down the Philippine capital's Dewey Boulevard. Every fighter pilot visualizes a dream day, when the Hellcats are freed to tangle with other fighters AND they run INTO Jap fighters. Fighting Eight watched, with rueful eyes but little bitterness, as other fighting squadrons amassed higher totals of planes shot down, even watched when other fighting squadrons of the same task force, but with different target assignments, were able to find Nip interceptors to shoot down. Fighting Eight's day came at Formosa. The sweep and escort hit the jackpot and their story unraveled as they landed back aboard. Lieutenant Commander lVlcCuskey rolled up the deck smiling, and holding up three fingers, Beard held up a pair of fingers, Skipper Collins held up his hand-five! The sixteen fighters of the sweep found the brawl they'd sought and in a racing, dancing, action- Packed few minutes sent thirty-one planCS burning down out of the skies. The escort returned, with similar reports. Over the par- tially cloud-covered target the warriors shot ra total of fifty-one Japs out of the homeland air, tO a loss of one fighter for the squadron- Returning observers reported that the Naval aviators were without equal that day, and that Fighting Eight was golden boy of the premature Fourth of July celebration. In addition to an outright challenge of Japan's most celebrated airmen, the fighters flew a cordon of airtight protection over the bombers and torpedo planes, whose pre-Christmas sur- prise packages rocked the island from sunrise to sunset, echoed across the 100-mile wide channel to China, reverberated on the streets of.Tokyo and rattled the scared Emperor's spine. With what was becoming milk runs over the Philippines, Fighting Eight closed its Pacific chapter with this impressive paragraph: Planes destroyed in actual combat: 153 shot down out of the air, eighteen probably destroyed, forty-eight damaged, 277 planes destroyed or badly damaged on the ground, a total of 2107 actual combat sorties were flown by the squadron personnel in 192 strikes against the enemy, and this does not include any part of the 986 combat air patrols and anti-submarine patrols flown. One of the unique features of Fighting Eight's record is that the squadron turned in an enviable bombing record on the side: 43,450 tons of enemy shipping, exclusive of small craft, sent to the bottom, 31,700 tons heavily damaged, probably sunk, and 60,200 tons damaged by fire, explosion and strafmg. A total of fifteen fuel dumps were destroyed by the fighters in attacks against enemy-held ground installa- tions, which included violent and effective airfield bombings. Pace-setter for the fighters in planes shot down was Lieutenant Commander McCuskey, with fourteen. Commander Collins and Lieu- tenant Feightner and Lieutenant Cjgj Dan Rehm came second with nine Japs each, other aces include Lieutenants William A. McCor- mick, George N. Kirk, and John R. Galvin, with seven planes each, Lieutenants Harlan Gustavson, Donald F. Cronin, and Lieuten- ant Qjgj Ralph Rosen, six, Lieutenant Com- mander Hoel, Lieutenant Cjgb John W. Top- liff, Lieutenant Cjgj Peter J. VanDerlinden, with five each.

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timeless lessons of war. As Flight Ofiicer he worked ceaselessly to give everybody the word. On July 8, when Lieutenant Lewis M, Ford reported aboard as Executive Officer, the squadron had reached its complement, Soon the roar of torpedo bombers had risen above the constant hum of Chinco's terrible mosquitoes, the owners of nearby poultry farms lamented the fact that their hens no longer got enough rest to lay eggs. Day and night the squadron worked. Those fellows who were fortunate enough to have their wives with them-Wildhack, Folkedahl, Gag- non and the rest-rode to and from the air station in jeeps and carryalls at all hours of the night and day-to Pokomoke City, to the Channel Bass Hotel on Chincoteague Island, to apartments and small houses all over the countryside. Unmarried officers and men slept in unpfartitioned, barn-like struc- tures which afforded no individual privacy nor collective security against roving hounds, bugs or thunder showers. There were many of each, but the fellows seemed to like it. By the end of summer, after days of solo familiarization, section, division, squadron and air group formation flying in theTBF, after weeks of glide bombing attacks along Virginia beaches, torpedo runs against rocks in the Chesapeake Bay, group attacks against visiting British warships, after numerous emergency landings, tail chases, 20-minute mail runs to Norfolk, sun baths on the parking strips, minor accidents and hair raising es- capes, after countless trips in a deathless carryall to pick up the laundry in Pokomoke city, after night flying above fog moving in from the sea, the breathless weekends at Ocean City, Washington, New York, after hand-to-hand combat drills and endless volley- ball games Conce the Skipper ripped the seat right out of his pantsj, and watermelon parties in the pines, after Ensign B0bbY Pittman had eaten more oysters than any man alive, after mistakes and lessons that Were hard to learn, misgivings, adjustments, triumphs, after a ten-day Quonset Point work- Out-Torpedo Squadron Eight came K0 feel the urge to get one with it, to go aboard a carrier, to test itself and prove itself, to do better. On August 16, three days after returning from Quonset Point, the squadron attended commissioning of the U.S.S. Intrepid in Portsmouth Navy Yard. On September 30, at 1300, jam packed into large Navy buses, the squadron shoved off from Chincoteague in a torrential rain and soon found itself in the Atlantic, bound south to Trinidad. The shakedown cruise was successful. Only one torpedo plane was lost during the month's fast-paced operations. No personnel was lost. But the most memorable phase of the cruise was not the flying the boys did, but the carni- val spirit of their liberties. The night at the Macqueripe Club, at Port of Spain, when Dave Carter wrested control of a bull fiddle in the orchestra and Meathead Phillips went swimming in the gold-fish pond, it was clear that this outfit was not so wrapped up in itself it couldn't have fun in a big way. It was evident, beyond the surface lunacy, beneath the double-talk of poker games, be- hind the spontaneous gaiety of the ready- room or the bemused calm of the more sober members, that these fellows had learned to live together, just as they had learned to fly together, and that one day, when aloft to fight together, they would again succeed. The carnival spirit never left them, never let them down. On December 10, 1943, having been stranded by an accident of fate on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal, they lost no time in setting up shop in downtown Panama City, with Fishcake Sewell prais- ing the Lord and Buck Buxton passing the ammunition. In San Francisco, temporarily stationed at NAS, Alameda, the squadron perfected an- other skillful blend of steady flying and high- powered schmaltz. Then, a few days after New Year's, 1944, the squadron moved west across the Pacific to NAS, Puunere, on the island of Maui, T.H. For the first time since it had been commis- sioned, the entire Air Group found itself