Chenango (CVE 28) - Naval Cruise Book

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THE WAllTlNlE HISTORY of u.s.s,i CHE.NANGO,iC.V.E. 23 qcummuedp touched their upward-licking tops. But the invasion went on as scheduled. And CH!-ZNANGO pilots began the campaign with a flourish by' shooting' down a-lap twin-engine bomber the first day. The 'next day her fighters worked over harbors and airfields on Negros and Cebu Islands inflicting damage on shipping and parked planes. ln the ensuing four davs thirteen of her outstandin fighter and torpedo pilots 3061. piled the following enviable record: shot down 6 enemy planes, tincluding a Val which was attacking one of our destroyersl , destroyed 33 on the groundg sank 2 large trans. ports and left one burning: destroyed or' damaged 10 mgp. chant ships, 3 sampans and a bargeg burned two large fuel dumps and a nine-truck convoy and blew up an under- ground ammunition dump. CHENANGO had made the laps feel her sting in retaliation for an incident which happened on the 20th . . . an incident which showed plainly that the laps knew she was there and were out to get her! Three fast .lap planes dived out of the afternoon sun, dropped bombs on a sister ship, the SANGAMON. They missed, and retired low and fast, only to turn and come in again. Fighters from a sister carrier got oneg gunfire from CHEN- ANCO brought down another: and a .CHENANCO pilot chased the third lap for fifty miles to shoot him down. The enemy pilot, splashed between CHENANGO and sister ship, was taken aboard the flagship SANGAMON for questionin . The dentist who worked on the lap's teeth, which had been smashed bv his water crash, got the most information out of him. The Japanese pilot kept asking if he was aboard the CHEN- ANGO. lt developed that he had been assigned specifically to bomb her!!! His friends had her sister ships present for their targets! Tokvo' Rose, with naive faith in the Emperor's pilots, reported, The last of the ,converted oiler class of aircraft carriers has been sunk as a result of air attacks by His imperial Majesty's Forces. Again her loss was an exaggeration . . . especially in view of the damage she did during the next four days! 1 ' On the afternoon of the 24-th., Lady Luck smiled on the Lucky Lady once more. She was sent to Morotai to pick up fresh aircraft to replace those lost by the CV E's. When she returned on 28 October she found every one of her sister ships seriously crippled, two other CVE's sunk and Inost of the rest of them more or less riddled by point blank shell- fire from the .lapanese battleships and cruisers with which thcv had fought a runningebattle during the 25th and 26th of October. The CVE's had run away from vastly superior forces for two desperate days . . . and, while running, had soundly defeated thelenemy, sinking several of his battle- ships, many of his cruisers and.destroyers. CHENANCO was not luckv enough to share the fame of this SECOND ABATTLE or 'me 'PHILIPPINES which so decisively demonstrated the overwhelming power of naval aircraft. But it was quite in character for her to return to the scene with replacement aircraft to make good some-of the one-hundred or more planes which the jeeps had lost in battle, and with fuel for the destroyers and destroyer escorts which had been operat- ing wide open for two long hull-wrenching days. Q ' After LEYTE the' ship was due for a navy yard overhaul. This meant Seattle and leaves for the crew. and drydopk with hundreds of civilian workmen swarming o.ver the ship. The days were hideous with the chatter of riveting hammer! and the nights were brilliant with the blue-whtte ares of the welding torches. And the nights ashore were gay with dates and dances and laughter. Sailors had fought -hard? 'hcl' were playing harder because the big test was coming up. To help reach those island bases just twelve hundred miles closer to Tokyo CHENANGO was preparing to 'oumey almost twice around the world. Beginning on the 9tl1 of February- l9-15, shefollowed a tortuous track, 43,000 miles long, from Seattle to Pearl, down to Tulagi in the Solomons, up to lflithi, thence to Kerama Retto and OKINAWA, back' down to Leyte, ending up the day the laps cried Uncle just 150 miles east of Sendai . . .an hour's flight from Tokyo! . To tell in a few words the story of the 79 days of com- bat operations which CHENANGO spent in the Okinawa Cam- paign is not 'easy. lt is the story of the triumph of a ship'a crew, a ship's planeihandlers, a ship's pilots, over monotony, the strain of constant vigilance, the torture of too little sleep and too much work. This was the climax . . . the job she'd stayed Qafloat through the long months to do . . . the lap noaieutxo was 'under attack at last! ' - With Air Group TWEN11'-I-'IVE aboard and rehearsed in close support work at,CAPE ESPERANCE in the Solomons dur- ing the first week of March, she got underway from Ulithi on 27 March for the last and longest test of her legendary luck. On 1 April, Easter Sunday, .All Fools' Day, and her 6th birthday, CHENASGO pilots covered the Marines who landed standing up at the beaches along Hagushi Anchorage! On the aftemoon of 2 April at 1617 a CHENANGO torpedo bomber piloted by Ensign J. W. Moody, and bearing his wounded aircrewman, made an emergency landing on Kadenag airfield . less than 24 hours after it had been wrested' from the laps. Another first for CHENANGO. Hen was the first carrier aircraft to land on lapanesehome soil! Then CIIENANGO 'with carriers of her division took part in the fake landings along the southern coast of Okinawa. Her 'pilots bombed, strafed, rocketed, and burned with napalm, enemy troop concentrations, suppl' dumps, air- fields and cave entrances wherever they could End them on Okinawa Shima. ' - Everyone wondered when the opposition would develop. The initial landing and the first week of operations -were too easy. The lap reaction from the first powerful blows of our fleet and air attacks 'came suddenly and with great determination. Waves of suiciders came down from the Northern Ryukus and over from Formosa. Beginning about the -second week of the campaign, enemy' planes, first in big raids. then in small, pounded away at our shipping in Hagushi and Kerama Rctto. CHENANGO Carrier Division commanded by Rear Admiral W. D. Sample was assigned the job of neutralization of six enemy airfields in Sakashima Cunto, three of them on each of the two islands of Miyako and lshigaki. Sui-ciders were flying from Formosa eastward to those fields, fueling and from there making dawn and dusk raids ongour supply ships at Okinawa. So for two solid months- CIIENANGO pilots flew three or four strikes a day on these islands. There orders were: KEEP THE Alltl-'IELDS clurrsnsn so TIIAT l'l.ANF.S cAN r LAND on THEM on TAKE OFF I-'Rosa THEM. To accomplish the job they hauled about 884 tons of high explosives to Sakashima. . , Thev expended thousands of liig 5 inch rockets, hundreds of thoiisands of 50 caliber bullets. The big aircraft engines,- ,each developing one-fourth the power of a railroad loco- motive. burned 550,000 gallons of aviation gasoline. ,Q For two long. drearv. dangerous months. CUEM500 P309 took off at dawn,'strtiek Miyako or lshigaki and were fol- lowed bv other CIIENANGO pilots who struck them again until sunset. and sometimes after sunset, when the last of them got safely aboard. lt was actually arelief on refueling lConrinueJ on page 331 l 1 Polo 90

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