Bunker Hill (CV 17) - Naval Cruise Book

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wpeled as one of the most daring and haz- carrier operations ever attempted. AS Smlll as our task group was at Rabaul, this we was smaller. Whereas at Rabaul we were within hailing distance of assistance gem friendly surface forces if needed, at Kavieng we were some two hundred miles north of the nearest assistance. The few Ships that composed our tiny force were the first ones to penetrate this area since the outbreak of the war. We were as exposed to a large scale air attack as we had been at Rabaul, for the airfields on New Ireland were still operational and it was only a matter of 3 few hours ferry hop from Truk, Eaeh time as the ship faded into the night after a tortuous fourteen hours of daylight the The Second Era A X -Cs.b-aff Juli sri! :i.45f.1...i-f 1.5 A .z'f.4,sff 11,52-1' Power Tactics Take Over As Fleet Strength Grows With the promotion of Captain J. J. Ball- entine to Rear Admiral and the assump- tion of his duties by Captain T. P. Jeter, the second era of Bunker Hill commenced. During the first era our efforts had been directed primarily to reducing enemy air and naval power in those areas that formerly belonged to the Allies. To most of us, and then only to the incurable optimists, it seemed hardly possible that in the short space of four months, after our departure from the States, we would be engaged in an operation designed to cap- ture pre-war Japanese territory. The Pacific War was beginning to open up with unfalter- mg rapidity, and our second era was to wit- ness the relentless march of the U. S. Navy t0 the Philippines. . Of all the amphibious operations conducted ln 1944 by the U. S., none proved more com- Plefely successful from every aspect than the S1gh.0f relief emitted from all hands caused Z T11101' Cyclone in the immediate areag then fny to be met with the announcement a ew days later that we would try it once more. After our first strike there when we found a CTUISCIB. an escort vessel, and a few AK's, all of which were heavily damaged or sunk, the laps kept the port clear for our returning planes. The mission to Kavieng ended our operations with the SoPac Forces and from then to this day we became an integral part of the Fast Carrier Task forces. It was only a few months before all enemy resistance col- lapsed in the South Pacific and Allied efforts were concentrated on the New Guinea and Central Pacific Areas. f iflfl-13.1. 45 Afie.. f ,fi if.4'.4...4f -Ln!-4...51-Q..6 invasion of the Marshalls. It had been generally conceded that the operation would be rough and that with twenty-live years to prepare defenses, the enemy would exact a heavy price in men and materials. In this campaign our strategy showed an ingenuity and flexibility, rooted in experience, that some of the others lacked. The enemy was waiting for us on the Eastern fringes of this great chain of islands, but we outfoxed him by plunging the dagger into his heart. We by- passed his outer string of fortresses and struck at Kwajalein, the strategic center of the Marshall Island group. The Bunker Hill was in the vanguard of the invasion. After launching the first strike at Kwajalein, we took up a position off the Jap staging base at Eniwetok, some six hundred miles from Truk, to act the role of interceptor to naval and air power that might be sent to reinforce the Marshalls. For several days the island was subjected to a merciless pounding that ren- dered it totally useless.

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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'

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As we returned to join the body of the fieet, we were delighted at the unexpected speed with which the conquest had been effected, and perplexed at what would now await us. Already in this campaign we had established some kind of a record by coming closer to Truk than any other surface ship had come in this war. It wasn't long before we were to discover what was next on the program. In typical Navy style, the scuttle- butt increased in tempo until it burst like a storm as the day of our departure grew near. Once again the scuttlebutt was right and the U. S. Fleet, under Vice-Admiral Raymond Spruance, was headed for the keystone of all enemy positions in the Central and South Pacific. While there was much that we did not know about the Marshalls before the invasion, there was little-and very little--that we knew about Truk. Over a period of years this heart that supplied the main arteries of Jap conquests to the South, East and West had taken on the significance of a Gibraltar and Pearl Harbor in the newly acquired Japanese empire. Lack of reconnaissance, and the fact that it was a staging base, made any estimate of its air power only a rough approximation. There was no doubt, how- ever, that this was the strongest enemy posi- tion that our fieet had approached up to that time. In essence, it was to be the great test of whether a powerful island fortress with an unknown but large concentration of air strength could be attacked successfully by carrier-based planes. After fortuitously eluding Jap search planes, the fleet steamed into position for an early dawn strike. The fighters swept the airfields and shot down or destroyed more than 200 aircraft. With the main defense arm of the enemy utterly crushed, he was helpless to ward off the dive bombers and torpedo planes that followed. For two days the several lagoons, packed with merchant shipping and a few combat ships, were just so many shoot- ing galleries for the naval aviators. It is interesting to note in connection with this raid that the battleships, for the first time since Savo Island, were able to bring their sixteen inch guns to bear on enemy naval units and they did not fail. By the afternoon of the second day, the planes were running out of targets, and the fleet's withdrawal was ordered. We had ob- viously stunned the enemy by this daring and thunderous stroke and, on the principle of crowding him and pursuing him before he could regain his bearings, the fleet was dis- patched to the Marianas. This time we were not as fortunate and the afternoon of the day before we were scheduled to launch our strike an enemy search plane picked us up. Shortly after twilight, the Japs launched a series of torpedo plane attacks that lasted until dawn, when our fighters shot down the remnants on the way into Saipan and Tinian. The immediate results of the attack on the Marianas were pretty much a repetition of what had happened at Truk. Wholesale quantities of aircraft and ship- ping were destroyed, but, perhaps, of greater significance was the proof that our fieet could withstand a land-based aerial onslaught from strong enemy insular possessions and fight its way on to complete its mission. The combined operations against Truk and the Marianas had a profound effect on the course of the war in the Pacific. Aside from the fact that enemy losses in shipping and planes were so severe as to force them to abandon whatever lingering hope they may have entertained to hang on in the South Pacific, it established that the waters of the Central Pacific were no longer an exclusive Jap lake. For a matter of more than tW0 years the enemy had shut off our access t0 the Central Pacific by its string of so-called Uunsinkable carriers -the islands-that dot the map in that area. American aircraft carriers with the superior Hellcat fighter, literally tore that string to shreads, and opened the locks of the gateway to the Orient. Simultaneously with the Navy's forages int0 the Central Pacific, General MacArthur cli- X 525 . ,, . ., ,L ,., bZ.' L .