Bunker Hill (CV 17) - Naval Cruise Book

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if li ,Q Q il ' 1 , 12, 1' li si fr 2. 5 ' ? 1: ,gl , 152 . 3 ,i X, I 1 ai ,E 1 ,. , f , 1 '.,: rf Il ld 'l gl S A ,i 'Q .1 lf: f .iz ry 'jf- rg ,L .xr 5 1 'a 'w .i if , ,, ll ,, N xg in ,li I-- lla T' 1 '1' l , , 1 F ri 31 l lm 1 1.1 .V if if .1 5, l . 1 . 4. 0 ai lv 'F li i 1. lf' ,. l 4 1 it li 1. l if . xi , 5 , V fl ll sl . 1 i ,N 1 1: '1 1 al , '11 l 5, l W I I 1 is Q , 2 I l l l 1 s , 1 1,32 'li' , eil! ' ' 1,112 find his shoes, and one sock seems to have gotten off by itself. Moreover, he is now convinced that the owl was moulting. Over- coming a paralyzing inertia, he manages to sit up in a crouch, banging his defenseless head on the bunk above. He is just about to attempt a landing on the deck when the occupant of the upper bunk hurtles down, stubbing a great toe upon landing. This oc- casions a nice display of four letter Anglo- Saxon words questioning the antecedents, legitimacy, perversions and general appear- ance of the person who maliciously left those shoes on deck. If morning is the lowest point, the hour or so of coolness just before dark is the highest. Everyone has showered, donned clean clothing, and climbed to the ,flight deck and exposed platforms, watching the sunset and cooling off. At this time of the day, the flight deck seems strangely removed from the Pacific, and an atmosphere of a street in a residential section of a town en- We Went Through x M - 1. 1 1 i ' ri- r, N '-1 Q. Q, 1 ,fs 4-t 'll 1' 4:-, ' 'wf,'Ja,1..dl,iE1i'fQYf.3.-51.-i.:.-.tf,mf.,u.,if,,lQ'2p.fjg..f'L:.-.cfL.ff,E..gQ,.v.,L.,, A Summary of the Bunker Hill's Role in The Pacific Conquest of 1944 hen the Bunker Hill entered the Pacific in September, 1943, the complexion of the war was vastly different from its appear- ance some fourteen months later. While our forces were on the offensive in the South and Southwest Pacific, it was many months before the enemy strongholds on the New Britain and New Ireland were reduced to a state of impotency as we were to find out in a very convincing fashion. In the central Pacific the Navy's activities had been confined to carrier strikes against the Marshall and Gilberts, Wake, and Mar- cus. In this great central expanse of the velops the usually grim and active flight deck, It is the sort of atmosphere that exists after supper, when people sit out on front porches and visit. Small groups gather and wander up and down the flight deck, getting a little exercise. They discuss the coming operation, or the last one, or the chances of going back, all of the current batch of rumors, interspersed with an occasional fact. The war seems years away and has no significance. The sun drops, touching the huge clouds with vivid oranges and reds, against a background of delicate blues and greens. Somehow, the sunsets seem to make up for a lot of things. Gradually the blues and greens merge, darken, and the stars begin to gleam. The groups gradually break up and drift below, to bed, to a few card games, to read a bit, to get off a letter. A few souls stretch out, soaking up wind, and stare straight up into nothing, wondering if the sky back home looks like this. Pacific we had not captured one inch of territory since the outbreak of the war, and from this area the Japs were continuously scouting and dispatching submarines to dis- rupt our supply lines to New Hebrides, New Caledonia, Australia and New Guinea. The strategic islands of the Marshall and Gilbert chain were a thorn in the side of our route to the South Pacific, causing our ships t0 travel several thousand additional miles. Some of the bases that we used in our early days in the Pacific were right up 011 the firing line. Funafuti, where we were to anchor shortly before the invasion of the Marshalls, was still very much of an ad- vanced base. In fact as late as November 1, 1943, the Japs were still bombing it from the Gilberts and Nauru. Espiritu Santo and .15 f 246 g ,,.' -

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to discourage some Japs at Rabool, or Ra- bowel, take her cherce. We sent in our gtrike and got back the biggest damn air attagk probably ever seen in those parts. TWO hours of sheer hell, but we shot Japs down like clay pigeons. Fighters got some too . . . Biggest damn . . . Yeah, there were a couple of other carriers I guess, but the at- tack, two hours of sheer hell . . . At Rabaul, someone neglected to read the script. More than one plane dove at a time and this is strictly against all rules. It was impossible to see everything at once. They order these things better in Hollywood, where the planes dive in a nice orderly sequence, which permits greater ease in observing, and makes the shooting simpler. One of the rare sights of this war that will always stay with me is that of the crew as it presented itself for GQ that day at Rabaul. All hands were equipped to abandon several ships simultaneously. Each man bristled with knives, Hashlights, coils of line, Water canteens, packages of chocolate, life belts, tin hats, sun glasses, gas masks, and of course, the invaluable rubber packets in which we waterproofed our watches, wallets, playing cards and other necessities of life. We all settled down as comfortably as pos- sible amidst all the necessary equipment, expecting at least three days of GQ. I think that some of the boys were a bit disappointed when the bogies all retired and we secured. After' Rabaul we did more or less settle down to a routine. The Betty attacks even became a matter of routine, if a bit exacting. V After a while we got used to the slightly terrifying chattering roar of a plane during the short instant prior to its run down the deck, got used to apprehensively watching the bomb-heavy planes take off and lose al- titude until they left a sort of wake on the surface of the water from their wash. You also got used to, but always wondered at, the way the Hight deck crews handled the heavy planes in 30 knots of wind, with huge Props spinning murderously all about them- 1... ,..- , You Watched them crouch down and grab deck cleats to avoid being blown away as the Hrst planes took off. You marvelled at the timing, at the teamwork, and wondered how so much could go on over such a large deck, involving so many people with so few acci- dents. i Not as colorful or exciting as the flight deck is the small, completely artilicial city beneath the hangar deck, where the common denominator of all activities is the soggy, penetrating heat. Nowhere so much as below decks is one impressed by the fact that this is a war of machines. Wandering about, in- vestigating the innumerable hatches and trunks, one realizes how completely depend- ent the carrier was for all of the necessary power, propulsion, refrigeration, fresh water, air, etc., upon the technical skill and atten- tion of a large section of the crew that has to work, eat and sleep in the constant heat below decks. Even tho he has stood no watches the previous night, the coming of morning below decks is a time to try a man's soul. He awakes to find his pillow and mattress sod- den, his head foggy, his mouth tasting as though an owl had spent the evening therein. Here then, we have man at a low ebb. The sudden white light hurts his eyes, he can't

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Efate, islands in the New Hebrides, and anchorages for units of the SoPac fleet, were as exposed to the dangers of enemy air at- tacks as Eniwetok, Saipan or Ulithi were some fourteen months later. For our first combat mission we were as- signed to the southern interceptor group for the invasion of the Gilberts. It was our role in company with a sister carrier, to strike at Tarawa in advance of D Day, and then take up a position to stop reinforcements from coming through from the west, and to meet the threatened promise of a fleet en- gagement. This was planned as the first step in a vast series to clear the enemy strong- holds in the Central Pacific and blast a route to the Philippines. Une of our many claims to fame rests in the fact that the Bunker Hill is the only carrier, in fact the only ship we know of, that participated in every phase of this vast undertaking up to and including the invasion of the Philippines themselves. Accordingly, we departed Pearl Harbor, the middle of October, and proceeded south- ward. A few days before we dropped the hook, the Saratoga had made a very daring and successful carrier strike at Rabaul. The harbor was flush with enemy warships gath- ered for the critical battle of Bougainville. So fruitful was this mission that Admiral Halsey elected to use the Bunker Hill and her sister carrier for a repeat performance. The battle of the Southwest was entering its decisive stage. Uur landings at Bougainville were meeting fierce resistance, the ,laps were pouring aircraft into Rabaul and New Ire- land to stave off our growing strength, and the fate of the southwest was now hanging in the balance. The morning of November 10 we weighed anchor and headed for Rabaul. Of far more lasting importance than the enemy shipping destroyed or damaged in Rabaul Harbor was the character of the air attacks launched against our small task group in the afternoon and the manner in Whifrh if was repelled at such a high cost to the laps. It was the first major naval-air engagement in which aircraft carriers were involved in Over a Year. Up to that time the Iaps had had fine success against our carriers with the use of a relatively small number of planes which lent a good deal of credence to the theory that the aircraft carrier was far too vulnerable. On this occasion the enemy came out en masse. It was estimated that three carrier air groups, consisting of about 150 dive bombers, torpedo planes, and fighters, took off from Rabaul airfields. For one solid hour we underwent the most sustained and concentrated air attack of this type of war- fare to date. The enemy learned a very expensive lesson that day, namely that the era of successful daytime air attacks against our first line car- riers were fast coming to an end, and that damage to our forces might now prove out of proportion to the expenditure of planes involved. The new Gruman Fighter, the F6F, met its first real test against landbased planes and far exceeded the fondest expecta- tions. After as full a day as any Task Group ever had, our forces retired to base where a few days were spent in refueling and reprovision- ing. A short while later we took up our assigned task for the invasion of the Gilberts. Volumes have been written on the battle of Tarawa. It is not our intent to go into any detail on the landing operations, but rather to sketch the broader aspects of the invasion in so far as they affected the carrier and formed the pattern of future operations in the Pacific. It is essential, then, to point out that this was the second time CGuadal- canal was the firstj in the war where, be- cause of tremendous distances involved, land based aircraft could not furnish the indis- pensable air coverage. Thus a new and vital function was assigned the aircraft carrier, which she so ably carried out up through the invasion of the Philippines, of supplying of- fensive and defensive air power for the am- phibious forces. Whatever the foremost ex- ponents of airpower may have claimed for offensive bombing, the fact of the matter, as