Randolph (CVS 15) - Naval Cruise Book

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S -AW Mrs. lvy M. Gillette, wife of Nebraska's Senior Senator, prepares to commission CV-15, USS RANDOLPH, at launching from the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company in Newport News, Virginia, on June 28,1944. Another blow for democracy is struck -as the war-hardened 1944 shipyard employees guide the mighty carrier into her first taste of salt water

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J My ,,',,,,,..,,,,.,..t,.,,,w-,- W, -4, .-,..-.---.- - HISTORY OF THE USS RANDOLPH CVS-15 The shining anti-submarine warfare aircraft carrier Randolph is a far cry from the first Randolph, a thirty- two gun frigate. They look different, but their tradi- tions are the same. Peyton Randolph was born in 1721 in Williamsburg, Virginia, the son of Sir John Randolph C1693-1737l, the King's Attorney for Virginia. After graduating from col- lege of William and lVlary, young Randolph stood for his law degree at the Inner Temple, London, and in 1748 was appointed King's Attorney for Virginia. Al- though a conservative during the pre-revolutionary years, and opposed to many of the radical resolu- tions proposed by men like Patrick Henry, he wrote the Address of Remonstrance to the King in 1764 in behalf of the Burgesses protesting the stamp duties sug- gested bythe British Parliament. He ultimately broke with the Royalists by resigning his position, and was succeeded by his brother, John f1727-17841 as King's Attorney. ln 1769 Peyton Randolph acted as moderator of the privately convened Virginia Assembly, and in Nlay 1773, he became chairman of the first Virginia lnter-colonial Committee of Correspondence. Randolph entered into the pre-revolutionary movement more and more, he presided over the Provincial Convention in August 1774, and was a member of the First Continental Congress, of which he was president from September 5 to Octo- ber 22, 1774. Re-elected to Congress in lVlarch 1774, Randolph never lived to fulfill his term. He died of apoplexy on 22 October, 1775. Peyton Randolph was close friend of George Wash- ington and one of the moderate and conservative leaders who framed the Constitution of our nation. He strove to keep peace in the colonies and when this became impossible, he realized that Freedom was the most important goal. And for him was named the first USS RANDOLPH. The first Randolph was a thirty-two gun frigate which carried a crew of 350. She was one of thirteen of her class built for the Continental Navy near Philadelphia, along the Delaware River in 1776. Her first Captain was a Philadelphian, Nicholas Biddle, and in 1777 she sailed from Philadelphia into the Atlantic and Caribbean in search of enemy British Blockaders. Among the prizes which she captured was the twenty-gun warship, Briton. ln IVlarch 1778, she encountered the British ship-of- the-line, Yarmouth, a sixty-four gun frigate. Although fighting a ship with twice her armament, she managed to smash the topmast and bowsprit of her opponent before a direct hit in the magazines sank the Ran- dolph. Captain Biddle, wounded early in the fight, refused to go below, and requested that a chair be brought to the bridge, from which he commanded his ship until the end. In the fleet only a bit more than a year, the Randolph earned its E quickly, it remained for President Franklin D. Roosevelt to bring the Randolph back into being in the twentieth century. Prior to the Second World War, the American Navy began its needed buildup. Roosevelt was a student of history - especially Naval History. During the fall of 1940 he asked for a list of names for the ships of his potential Navy, and on December 28, he sent a memo to the Secretary of the Navy asking that CV-15 be named Randolph And so it was, the present'Ran- dolph was commissioned on 9 October, 1944. Remem- bering well the history of the first Randolph, President Roosevelt gave back to the Navy a ship and a Can do tradition that was begun in 1777. The keel was laid on lVlay 10, 1943, at the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, in Newport News, Virginia. War workers toiled night and day to turn out this Essex-class, 42,000 ton ship, and she was launched on June 28, 1944, only thirteen months later. The men and Officers were aware of only one thing: the Randolph was needed in combat, and the sooner the better. October 9, 1944, Captain Felix Baker, USN, accepted the ship for the Navy, and the Randolph was once again officially in commission. The sooner the better? Four months and ten days later the ship's air group took off on their first strike - an engine plant west of Tokyo. This is the first time a ship went from Commission- ing into combat without re-fitting and post-shakedown availability at the shipyard. Her crew expected to re- turn to the yards, on December 17, 1944, orders were opened in the Atlantic - destination: the Panama Canal. After loading stores and supplies, in San Fran- cisco, the Randolph went to sea on January 20 - destination, Pearl Harbor. And after leaving Hawaii, secret orders were once again opened - destination: Tokyo.

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. :sL,f...-1 ' - Sw ' ..'.'.1..Q..I, . . .I .- '..t . V-,.....,g...Q'5 i ': Ij I I ' I N A 1 I Q ' 4 A ' a n '. - Ill -' I I I-'I-lm I 'I I- 'I l I- ' Il I I Q me ..i.,..- .ie ,.w,.,,,.,g TSG- Poised and ever-alert, RANDOLPH waits in the clouded Pacific with other units of VADM Mitscher's Task Force 58 . . . Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. Again a Randoo Candoof' The second Randolph, a part of Task Force 58, launched raids on Chichi Jima, and lwo Jima, and returned to Ulithi for replenishment. At the same anchorage was the carrier Bunker Hill. . . . The first thing we saw was a pillar of smoke, white in the glare of a searchlight, pouring from an Essex- class carrier nearby. Fire was eating at the base of the pillar, and every few seconds the whole stern of the ship shuddered under an explosion, and the fire leaped, and the smoke boiled. 'There she goesl' Someone kept yelling. 'There she goesl' No one knew which carrier she was, or what had happened to her. Rumors were flitting around like chimney swifts: the victim was the Hancock, and a torpedo warhead had exploded, she was the Essex, and a kamikaze had hit her, she was the Randolph. . . . By the time the fire was under control . . . the facts began to filter through, the ship was the Ran- dolph, a kamikaze had plunged through the after end of her flight deck. There were two, both of them twin- engine bombers with crews of three . . . lt's not certain where they came from, but the logical presumption is that they refueled at Yap. One pilot evidently mistook the lights on an island for a ship, because that's where he crashed, injuring fourteen men. The one that hit the Randolph killed twenty-six and injured one-hundred five more. Even so, she was lucky, if the attack had come a little earlier or a little later, or if the plane had crashed a little further forward, casualties would have been much, much higher. . . This account was published in Aircraft Carrier, by LCDR Joseph Bryan, USNR, aboard the Bunker Hill at the time of the attack. The men of the Randolph saw this: . . . There was a movie on the hangar deck called 'A Song to Remem- ber.' We may have forgotten the song, but we'll always remember the night- IVlarch 11, 1945. At seven min- utes past eight a twin engine Japanese bomber slipped past the radar net and interceptor patrols, roared out i8 An F6F leaves the starboard catapult bound for the Japanese mainland. of the night, and crash landed with bombs at the edge of the flight deck, starboard side, aft. At this moment one showing of the movie was just over and the other was about to begin. lVlen were getting up from their seats and others were moving in. The explosion was terrific. A great hole was torn in the flight deck, a col- umn of flame shot into the night air. Hot ammunition began to detonate, planes were burning like torches. We had never faced an emergency like this, but some- how we were equal to it. This incident was the first close contact with the realities of death and destroyers that the new carrier had felt. The men were equal to the task, and after repairs were made, the Randolph rejoined the fleet. On lVlarch 25, 1945, she became flagship for Admiral G. F. Bogan and joined in operations against Okinawa, Napo, Shoto, continuing to restrain enemy aircraft movements on the Japanese mainland. ln lVlay, the Randolph became flagship for Admiral lVlitscher. Relieved of further support requirements she sailed for Guam, then proceeded to Leyte Gulf, Philip- pine lslands. A month later while replenishing depleted bomb supplies a U.S. Army P38 crashed into the for- ward part of the carrier's flight deck. Resulting explo- sions caused considerable damage, killing 14 crew members and injuring 11 more. After completing repairs, the Randolph got underway for her third war cruise as a unit of Admiral Bull Halsey's Third Fleet. This was the beginning of an extended battle and the final campaign against the Japanese. Many targets were brought under attack by planes from the Randolph during this campaign, in- cluding the battleship Nagato and the carrier Hyuga. The latter was completely destroyed. During the Randolph's wartime activities its air groups accounted for 143 Japanese planes in the air, 160 on the ground, and 87,000 tons of shipping. Thankfully - and inevitably - the war came to a close, and the Randolph was pressed into clean-up operations. Her planes dropped supplies and medicine