Randolph (CVS 15) - Naval Cruise Book

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Rigorous training operations over the nextfour weeks quickly rounded ship's company and Air Group 87 into an effective unit. Whatliberty was granted in the Caribbean was enjoyed, and in spite of the preparations aboard for future com- bat duty, the war seemed very far away. Representatives of COMFAIR, Norfolk ar- rived for another inspection in mid-December, and it proved quite a shock on the 17th, upon getting underway, to learn the vessel was head- ing toward the Panama Canal instead of home to Norfolk for Christmas, as everyone land their familiesj had anticipated. The latest in- spection had been passed, Randolph had been declared ready for duty in the Pacific, and utime was a-wasting. And so, without benefit of a post-shakedown overhaul, CV-15 steamed towards the Canal, passed through the locks luanother coat of paint and we couldn 't have made itwj on Decem- ber 21, and docked at Balboa for some brief Randolph sfeanzs in Chesapeake Bay on fhe nzorning ofJV'ovenzher 51 1944 dzning her z'nz'z'z'al day of Shakedown !raz'nz'ng. A week later her Air Ofcer landed lhehrsl aircrah aboard. Follow- ing maneuvers off the Wrginia Capes and a rzgorous inspection by the Com- manden Fl66lAl'7Q fVorfolk, the new flat- lop commenced her regular Shakedown cruise lVozfe1nl2er 22. 15

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The keel of CV-15 was laid on May 10, 1943, at the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, Newport News, Virginia. Shipyard workers during that period in American history were justly proud of their work on the home front, laboring rapidly and efficiently, day and night, to produce the warships for the expanding fleet. The 42,000 ton Randolph was launched june 28, 1944, just a little over thirteen months after work on the Essex-class flattop had commenced. ' Commissioned October 9, 1944, she was heading for the combat zone less than ten weeks later. Her aircraft were launching strikes against the enemy homeland by February 16 of the next year. USS Rana'o4bh QCV-15j thus set a record for a U. S. aircraft carrier in completing her training phase and confronting the opposition. In fact, never before had such a warship com- pletely omitted her important re-fitting and post- shakedown shipyard availability in a rush to get into action I Built during the frantically-paced construction period mid-way through the Second World War, the carrier had been assigned a name even be- fore the United States entered combat - in De- cember 1940. A pre-war build-up of our naval forces was being pushed by President Roosevelt during this period, and his memorandum to the Secretary of the Navy dated December 28 of that year asked that CV-15 be named Randolph. That summer the first officers and men reported aboard to assist civilian technicians in fitting her out. Other future members of ship's company spent the months at the Naval Training Station, Newport, Rhode Island, as a precommissioning detail, their thoughts, it was related, were not so much on fighting the japanese as Hhating to get up for Happy Hour, the dust on the drill field, and the beer and the babes in Newport. This contingent took a train from Newport to Newport News -.right into the shipbuilding yards - ar- riving October 8. They got their first look at Randofblz the same day as they embarked. The following morning shipyard personnel, assisted by the new officers and crew, took the carrier across to Norfolk Naval Shipyard,Ports- 14 ' M ::fn :.L.z.-f-11--,... r 1- : mouth, where that afternoon commissioning cere- monies were held, with Captain Felix Baker ac- cepting CV-15 for the Navy. On that occasion, with his new Qand in some cases inexperiencedj contingent of officers and enlisted men, the Com- manding Officer said he hoped to get his ship into combat as quickly as possible. The remainder of the month all hands were busily engaged in loading stores, taking on fuel, testing the equipment on board and familiarizing themselves with their new home and all it con- tained. There immediately developed a high de- gree of cooperation between all Departments, as an example, ordnance personnel from the Air Department joined with the Gunnery Department in loading the magazines with bombs and shells in the record time of two days. This resulted in the ship 's being able to depart ahead of schedule. The Gcmgzuay, a book C published by the men on boardj which relates the events ofRana'o4blz is first year of service, describes the tempo of the time: There was an urgency, a feeling of hurry- hurry in the air. The knowledge thata great sea battle was being fought in the Philippines, in which we lost a carrier, made us realize that the stakes in this race were high. CV-15 was moved to the Deperming Station at Lambert Point, Virginia, on October 30, and then the following day to Pier Five at Norfolk's Naval Operating Base. The Chesapeake Bay part of shakedown operations began November 5, and exactly a week later the ship's Air Officer landed the first aircraft aboard. The Chesapeake Bay Op Area cramped the style of the flattop, so she quickly dispensed with that phase of her shakedown, and moved off the Virginia Capes for more extensive maneu- vers. Her arrival there was greeted by a severe storm which gave veterans and boots alike a taste of old-fashioned seasickness. The training continued as much as possible, however, and on November 19 the carrier was back in Norfolk where a rigid inspection by Commander Fleet Air, Norfolk, and his staff was conducted two days later. That hurdle successfully out of the Way, Randolph got underway for her shake- down cruise in the West Indies November 22. -if nun 5' -svwnwvnsva-,naw

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1 . ' . . 1 liberty before steaming north again for S811 Francisco. Realizing the time was fast-approach- ing when they would be playing for keeps, the men attacked the intensive drills and long periods of flight operations with a new vigor. The ship arrived in the Golden Gate City on New Yearls Eve, and Spent the next seventeen days at the Naval Drydocks, Hunter's Point. Leave was taken by those who could, and every- one appreciated the liberty time, but of course this was not the reason for the stop. During this hectic period Randoloh had starboard 40mm gun mounts installed, while those ,20mm's and 40mm's on the port side were being rearranged. The carrier moved to Pier One as NAS Ala- meda on january 18, and received Air Group 12, replacing CVG-87. Stores and ammunition were loaded aboard frantically in the hours that fol- lowed, and on january 20 the ship passed under the Golden Gate Bridge, heading out to sea and the war in the Pacific. january 26-29 was spent at Pearl Harbor, where additional supplies were taken aboard - plus twenty mail bags of war plans and intelli- gence material. Steaming in company with Saratoga, Randolph crossed the International Date Line February 1, and continued toward the western Pacific. Training and drills - gunnery, damage control, air operations, et al - reached an even higher pitch than the rugged schedule the men had been enduring previouslyg attitudes became more serious with each mile steamed towards the combat area. A Still, life was different aboard the aircraft car- rier than on other ships in, or heading into, combat. As LCDR Bryan, III said in his book Aircrak Carner: . . .when youire in a carrier, you're in the fighting Navy. Your ship is being run by and for abunch of barn-storm- ing youngsters who donit tie their shoes at all, if they don't feel like it, and who would just as soon address Admiral King as 'Ernief unless it meant he'd ground them and keep them out of the next scrapf' The next port was Ulithi, a favorite Navy war- time stopover in the Western Caroline Islands, Described as 'inothing but a ring of flat little coral islands, covered with palmsf' it was, when Randolph arrived, a vast fleet anchorage. De- stroyers, cruisers, new battleships, service vessels ftankers, freighters, repair shipsj, countless land- ing craft and at least eight Essex-class carriers were on hand - ready for something ! February 10, only four months and one day after commissioning fa record Q, CV-15 departed Ulithi' and headed into combat. Steaming with USS Yorktown as a part of Task Group 58.4 under Rear Admiral Radford, Randonbh was a part of Vice Admiral Mitscher's famed Task Force 58. Admiral Spruance was Fifth Fleet Commander, having relieved Admiral Halsey in Ulithi january 26. An interesting sidelight in the latter stages of the Pacific War was the changes in designation of the U. S. Pacific Fleet. When Spruance was in command, it wa-s the Fifth Fleet, under Halsey it was the Third Fleet. This reportedly confused the japanese, who thought the U. S. Navy had two complete fleets of equal strength, when in reality it was only one. The initial assignment of Randolph and her Air Group was scarcely a routine warm-upg it was a strike against the Tokyo area - the first carrier strike against japan proper since the famous Doolittle raid in 1942. As Navalhistori- an Samuel Eliot Morison described it in his Victory in the Paczfc, 1945, this strike . .was regarded with some apprehension by Task Force 58, as almost half the air groups would be on their first combat mission. To meet expected counterattacks, especially those from the Kami- kaze Corps, each air group on a big carrier now comprised at least 73 fighter planes QCorsa.irs and Hellcatsj, leaving only 30 units to bedivided between dive- and torpedo-bombersf, Actually, these Tokyo raids were undertaken for two reasons: one, as a shield for the Iwo Jima operations, and second, to destroy enemy planes and airfields on the home islands. The carriers of TF-58 made a high speed run towards japan during the night of Februarv 15. arriving at the launching point undetected early the next morning - 125 miles southeast ofTokyo