Hancock (CV 19) - Naval Cruise Book

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M ass Burial Service January 23, 1945 I The Hannah's planes joined other units from the carrier force in mass flights over Japan to give the Japanese people an idea of Allied Air Power. On Sep- tember 2, l945, the formal surrender of the Japanese Imperial Government was signed aboard the .Missouri under the watchful wings of the maximum launch from three task forces steaming off Japan's shores. The Hancock received anew skipper when Catpain Daniel V. Gallery re- lieved Captain Hickey on September 7th as the Hannah readied herself for 'her entry into Tokyo Bay. Captain Gallery came to the Hancock after a bril- liant career in the Navy climaxed by a tour of duty as commanding -officer of the escort carrier Guadalcanal. He graduated from the Naval Academy with the Class of l92l and spent the next six years on battleships and destroyers. ln l927 he was ordered to Pensacola for flight training, the beginning of l8 years of Navy flying service. World War ll found him as Commanding Officer of the Fleet Air Base, Reykjavik, Iceland. Ordered to the new escort carrier, Guadalcanal, he became the first man to take-off and land from her decks and under his command the carrier was credited with eleven German submarines sunk during the Battle of the Atlantic. One submarine was actually captured by a boarding party from his carrier

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Flight Deck Tragedy

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Y Iwo Jima, With Famed Mt. Sfaribaohii to Left Carrier-Based Aircraft Hit J ap Installations on I wo Jima- F ebmiary 1 9, 1 945