Hancock (CV 19) - Naval Cruise Book

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Ready to Recwm Returning Strikes I I Y u 1 r 4 e e 1 . I F e e

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Av Q My-as 7

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the Hannah to retire to Ulithi for rearming and refueling. Her crew took time off to chalk up an additional sixty-three planes destroyed plus fifty- seven probables. OPERATION THREE November l4, l9-44, found the Hannah, as a unit of Task Force 38.2, steam- ing through the narrow opening created as the gate vessels swung a. portion of the anti-torpedo net aside. Outside the nets, destroyers nosing here and there screened the heavy units from submarine attack as the formation of Essex-class carriers picked up speed to form up with the New Jersey and Iowa. To the idlers on the fantail, the low atolls surrounding the immense lagoon were soon lost to sight but the tall, straight masts of ships left behind pre- sented a strange contrast to the broad expanse of sea on either hand- like a fantastic pattern of telephone poles on a flooded, barren and treeless Nebraska or Kansas plain. , The offensive against the Philippines had caught the Japanese High Com- mand completely off guard for it came at the beginning of the typhoon seas-on. Landing craft, a necessity in any successful invasion of such magni- tude, are particularly poor sea vessels and have little opportunity of survival in a storm approaching typhoon intensity. Lacking the stabilizing influence of a keel, the cellular construction and the hardiness of deep-draft ships, the LST's, LSM's, LCl's and their sisters were dependent on favorable weather for efficient operation. Since the ground troops were dependent entirely upon the Navy for air- support in the initial phases, the weather factor played a vital part' in the success or failure of the Philippine liberation. Typhoons, or baguios in the Philippines, are preceded by rising seas which hamper carrier operation and provide land-based planes freedom of action. Consequently enemy planes were afforded two opportunities to blast our new installations without fear of fighter interference-immediately before and immediately after the storm, when high seas, often breaking over the flight decks of the rolling, pitching carriers, prohibited air strikes. Task Group 38's surprise raid on the Ryukus and Formosa had done much to eliminate reinforcements from those areas but the typhoon had given the Japanese a breather and opportunity to reinforce their battered airfields on Luzon, Mindanao and Masbate. Tension mounted as the Hannah, rolling easily on the subsiding seas, con- tinued hour by hour to eat up the distance from Ulithi to Manila. Even she seemed to sense the impending battle, for one day out of Ulithi the evening watch was treated to a rare electrical phenomena known as Saint Elmo's fire. Dancing brightly along the various antennae of the Hannah, the flamelike light of the sailor's patron saint was still in evidence to men of the mid-watch. The Hancock became the flagship of Task Force 30 when Vice Admiral John S. McCain, U.S.N., Commander Second Carrier Task Force, and his staff boarded from the tanker Pecos on the morning of November l7th. Vice Admiral G. F. Bagan, U.S.N., Commander Task Force 38.2, boarded the Hannah from a destroyer during the afternoon. The presence of these Admirals served notice of the coming action. A fighter sweep was launched on the afternoon of the l8th against shipping in Manila Harbor as well as Nielson, Nichols and nearby airfields. Tragedy