Bunker Hill (CV 17) - Naval Cruise Book

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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

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Tarawa and subsequent invasions in the Cen- tral Pacific have borne out, is simply that no amount of bombing will root the en- trenched enemy out of his foxholes and pill- boxes. Bombing will knock out some gun emplacements, destroy installations, disrupt effective communications, wipe out external supply lines and even tend to keep the enemy under cover during the day time, but the final battle must be won by the foot soldier. Tarawa clarified this issue. In reduced terms, the function of the aircraft carrier in the naval-amphibious team is to get air superi- ority over the target as quickly as possible and hold it until landing fields can be pro- vided for self-protection. Shortly before D Day we arrived offTarawa. Enemy air strength was quickly crushed and from then until the Marines broke the back of Jap resistance we subjected the tiny island to a fearful rain of bombs. Our job was far from completed. For several weeks we patrolledthe waters off Tarawa and Makin whilefthe Seabees rushed construction of air bases. The enemy's repeated threats of fieet engagements, which we so wholeheartedly welcomed, never materialized. The Japs in- stead relied on a new mode of warfare to break up our naval concentration, the night air attack. With frightening regularity the big twin-engine torpedo planes appeared on the horizon shortly after dusk and com- menced their attack. For the most part these planes came from Kwajalein, Mille and jaluit after being staged in from Truk. This form of attack was used very extensively during the year-long campaigns in the Central Pacific. When the final figures are added up, it will be shown that the enemy losses in planes and flying personnel as a result of these at- tacks far exceeded the damage infiicted on our naval units. When the finishing touches had been put on the occupation of the Gilberts we retired to await further orders. The first link in the long chain from Pearl Harbor to the China Coast had been forged. judged from an overall standard our losses were not heavy even though it was generally regarded as the bloodiest page in Marine history. It was an indication, if indeed we needed one, that the ground battle to come would be severe. In some respects, it was a little depressing to review the operation in its entirety and realize that despite this great concentration of Naval might it had taken us close to a month to reconquer a small chain of islands so many thousands of miles from Japan. In the oper. ation to follow our naval-amphibious tech- nique improved so that our air power was correspondingly more effective and with our ever growing strength the tempo of our drive across the Pacific stepped up so that we were able to maintain a comparable time schedule in the face of greatly increased enemy resistance. For our next operation we 'were once again assigned to Admiral I-Ialsey's SoPac Forces. Since our strike at Rabaul, the Army and the Marines had secured a firm foothold on Bougainville and from airfields there the harbor at Rabaul had been pounded to the extent of denying it to the enemy as a focal point for shipping. The main port of entry had shifted to Kavieng on the Northeast coast of New Ireland. So effective was our mastery of the skies in the New Britain- Bougainville area that, in conjunction with our light surface forces, we were able to cut off the chain of supply to the South of New Britain and New Ireland. Increased activity in and out of Truk, the hub of Jap defenses in the Carolines and South Pacific, led Ad- miral Halsey to believe that the enemy was planning a major evacuation of Bougainville. A few days before Christmas, long range Army reconnaissance spotted a force iof Jap cruisers and destroyers leaving Truk for Kavieng, so the Bunker Hill was ordered t0 intercept. Whatever the material accomplishments of our three successive strikes on December 25, January 1, and January 4, may have been, the vast majority of our ship's plank owners will attest that it was the most nerve-racking experience to date. In fact it is generalb'