_at_sea_in_1945_(NH_42373).jpg) USSBunker Hill at sea in 1945 | |
| History | |
|---|---|
 United States | |
| Name | Bunker Hill |
| Namesake | Battle of Bunker Hill |
| Builder | Fore River Shipyard |
| Laid down | 15 September 1941 |
| Launched | 7 December 1942 |
| Commissioned | 25 May 1943 |
| Decommissioned | 9 January 1947 |
| Reclassified |
|
| Stricken | 2 November 1966 |
| Fate | Scrapped, 1973 |
| Badge | _insignia%2c_1944.png) |
| General characteristics | |
| Class & type | Essex-classaircraft carrier |
| Displacement | |
| Length | |
| Beam | 93 ft (28.3 m) |
| Draft | 34 ft 2 in (10.41 m) |
| Installed power |
|
| Propulsion |
|
| Speed | 33knots (61 km/h; 38 mph) |
| Range | 14,100 nmi (26,100 km; 16,200 mi) at 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph) |
| Complement | 2,600 officers and enlisted men |
| Armament |
|
| Armor |
|
| Aircraft carried |
|
USSBunker Hill (CV/CVA/CVS-17, AVT-9) was one of 24Essex-classaircraft carriers built duringWorld War II for theUnited States Navy. Commissioned in May 1943,Bunker Hill was the first U.S. Navy ship to have been named for the 1775Battle of Bunker Hill, and received the Presidential Unit Citation in recognition of her distinguished service throughout thePacific Theater.
From late 1943 through 1945,Bunker Hill took part in major operations including theGilbert and Marshall Islands campaigns, theraid on Truk, the capture of theMariana and Palau Islands, theBattle of the Philippine Sea, the air raids onFormosa andJapanese home islands, and the battles ofIwo Jima andOkinawa during the final drive toward the Japanese mainland.
On 11 May 1945, while conducting operations in support of the Okinawa campaign,Bunker Hill was struck by twokamikazes in quick succession setting the vessel on fire. Casualties exceeded 600, including 396 killed or missing, with 264 wounded.[1][2] These were the second heaviest personnel losses suffered by any carrier to survive the war, afterFranklin. After the attack,Bunker Hill returned to the U.S. mainland and was under repair when hostilities ended.
After the war,Bunker Hill was employed as a troop transport bringing American service members back from the Pacific, and was decommissioned in 1947. While in reserve the vessel was reclassified as an attack carrier (CVA), then an antisubmarine carrier (CVS), and finally an Auxiliary Aircraft Landing Training Ship (AVT), but was never modernized and never saw active service again.Bunker Hill andFranklin were the onlyEssex-class ships never recommissioned after World War II.[3]
Stricken from theNaval Vessel Register in 1966,Bunker Hill served as an electronics test platform for many years inSan Diego Bay. An effort to save her as a museum ship in 1972 was unsuccessful and she was sold for scrap in 1973.
Bunker Hill was laid down on 15 September 1941, as hull number 1509 at theBethlehem Steel Company'sFore River Shipyard,Quincy, Massachusetts, and launched on 7 December 1942, sponsored by Mrs. Donald Boynton. The carrier wascommissioned on 25 May 1943, withCaptainJ. J. Ballentine in command.[4] The carrier took aboard her air group at Norfolk, Virginia, at the end of June, and on 15 July sailed south to Trinidad on her shakedown cruise. Three weeks later the ship returned to Norfolk, and on 4 September sailed south to the Panama Canal on the way to San Diego,Pearl Harbor, and the Pacific Theater.[5]
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Bunker Hill had worked up withVF-17, a new fighter squadron flyingF4U Corsairs. The Corsair, a new airplane, had some difficulties in its development, and the Navy gave consideration to replacing VF-17's Corsairs withGrumman F6F Hellcats. The squadron successfully argued for retention of its Corsairs, as they felt they were better combat aircraft.[6] Hence,Bunker Hill had departed for the combat theater with VF-17 and its Corsairs aboard. While en route from San Diego to Pearl Harbor, the pilots found that the Navy had decided not to use Corsairs aboard carriers, to avoid carrying parts and supplies for two fighters (the Corsair and the Hellcat) and with the challenges the U.S. Navy was having in getting Corsairs approved for carrier use at that time. (The BritishRoyal Navy'sFleet Air Arm developed an appropriate landing technique for its shipboard Corsairs by very early 1944, using a curving approach that kept the LSO (landing signal officer) in view while coming aboard, and this was adopted by the U.S. Navy by late 1944.[7]) VF-17 was ordered to the Southwest Pacific, where it was land-based.[8] It was replaced aboardBunker Hill byVF-18, whose men and Hellcats had also been ferried aboard the carrier from San Diego to Pearl Harbor.[9]
Bunker Hill departed Pearl Harbor on 19 October en route to the Southwest Pacific. The carrier's air group participated in theair raid on the majorImperial Japanese Navy base atRabaul,[10] along withUSS Essex andUSS Independence on 11 November 1943. During the mission the carriers' fighters (VF-18) escorted bombers to Rabaul, and CV-17 was reunited with VF-17, then land-based atOndonga Airfield in theSolomon Islands. The tailhooks were reinstalled on the squadron's Corsairs, enabling them to land and refuel on their former ship while providing air cover to the task force as its own planes were escorting the raid on Rabaul.[11] On 14 November the carrier set a course for theGilbert Islands to cover the invasion and occupation ofTarawa.[12]
Bunker Hill went on to air raids onKavieng in support of theamphibious landings in theBismarck Archipelago (25 December 1943, 1 January, and 4 January 1944); air raids in theMarshall Islands (29 January – 8 February); the large-scale carrierair raids onTruk Atoll (17–18 February), during which eight Japanesewarships were sunk; and air raids on theMarianas Islands (Guam,Saipan, andTinian) (23 February).Bunker Hill returned to Hawaii (28 February – 4 March 1944), and completed voyage repairs and upkeep while in dry dock at Pearl Harbor Navy Yard (6–9 March). At this time, CAG-17 detached from the carrier, which subsequently took on the newly formed CVG-8, along with four night fighting Hellcats of VF(N)-76. During 15–20 March,Bunker Hill steamed forMajuro, Marshall Islands. At this point, CVG-8 reported 41 F6F-3s of VF-8, 32 SB2C-1Cs of VB-8, 22 TBF-1Cs of VT-8, and a flag F6F-3 on board, along with the four F6F-3Ns.
Subsequent combat operations included air raids onPalau,Yap,Ulithi, andWoleai in thePalau Islands (30 March – 1 April);raids in support of theU.S. Army landings aroundHollandia (21–28 April); air raids on Truk,Satawan, andPonape in theCaroline Islands (29 April – 1 May), and combat operations in theMarianas in support of the amphibious landings on Saipan and Guam (12 June – 10 August), including the titanicBattle of the Philippine Sea, just west of the Marianas. On 19 June 1944, during the opening phases of the landings in the Marianas,Bunker Hill was damaged when the explosion of a Japaneseaerial bomb scattered shrapnel fragments across the decks and the sides of theaircraft carrier. Two sailors were killed, and about 80 more were wounded.Bunker Hill continued to fight, with herantiaircraft fire shooting down a few IJN warplanes. During the Battle of the Philippine Sea, about 476 Japanese warplanes were destroyed, nearly all of them shot down by Navy F6F Hellcats, such as those carried byBunker Hill. During September,Bunker Hill carried out air raids in the western Caroline Islands, and then she and hertask force steamed north to launch air raids onLuzon,Formosa, andOkinawa, through early November.
On 6 November 1944,Bunker Hill steamed eastward from the forward area, and went to theBremerton Naval Shipyard, for major overhaul/upkeep work and weaponry upgrades. The carrier departed from the Port of Bremerton on 24 January 1945 and returned to the combat area in theWestern Pacific. Stopping at Pearl Harbor on the way, the carrier took aboard Carrier Air Group 84, which includedVF-84, a new squadron built around a nucleus of veterans of VF-17, the carrier's original squadron.
In 1945,Bunker Hill was the flagship of Task Force 58, commanded by Vice-AdmiralMarc A. Mitscher. CommodoreArleigh Burke was his chief of staff, and the admiral's staff all were accommodated aboard the carrier. In the task force's final drive across the central Pacific,Bunker Hill operated with the other fast carriers and their screening gunships in theBattle of Iwo Jima, the5th Fleet raids againstHonshū and theNansei Shoto (15 February – 4 March), and the 5th Fleet's support of theBattle of Okinawa. On 7 April 1945,Bunker Hill's planes took part in an attack by theFast Carrier Task Force of the Pacific Fleet on Imperial Japanese Navy forces in theEast China Sea. The carrier's aircraft had located theJapanese battleshipYamato, the largest battleship in the world. InOperation Ten-Go the battleship, screened by onelight cruiser and eightdestroyers, steamed toward Okinawa to interfere with the Allied invasion of that island. The aircraft of the task force attacked and sankYamato, the cruiser, and four of the destroyers.
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On the morning of 11 May 1945, while supporting the invasion of Okinawa,Bunker Hill was struck and severely damaged by two Japanesekamikaze planes. AMitsubishi A6M Zero fighter plane piloted byLieutenant Junior GradeSeizō Yasunori emerged from low cloud cover, dove toward the flight deck on the starboard quarter and dropped a 550-pound (250 kilogram) bomb that penetrated the flight deck and exited from the side of the ship at gallery deck level before exploding in the ocean.[13] The Zero then crashed onto the carrier's flight deck, destroying parked warplanes full of aviation fuel and ammunition, causing a large fire. The remains of the Zero went over the deck and dropped into the sea. Then 30 seconds later, a second Zero, piloted byEnsignKiyoshi Ogawa, plunged into its suicide dive despite facing antiaircraft fire, dropped a 550-pound bomb, and then crashed into the flight deck near the carrier's "island", askamikazes were trained to aim for the island superstructure. The bomb carried by the second kamikaze penetrated to the pilots' ready room, where 22 members of VF-84 lost their lives.[14] Gasoline fires flamed up and several explosions took place. The two kamikaze strikes killed 396 sailors and airmen, including 43 missing and never found, and wounded 264. Among the casualties were three officers and eleven enlisted men from Mitscher's staff.[1] Mitscher's flag cabin was also destroyed, along with all of his uniforms, personal papers, and possessions.[15] The admiral relinquished command by visual signal; he and his remaining staff were transferred bybreeches buoy to destroyerEnglish and then to the aircraft carrierEnterprise, which became the flagship.[16] Despite the heavy damage,Bunker Hill was able to steam at 20 knots to Ulithi, where the Marine pilots ofVMF-221, who had been aloft during the kamikaze attack and were diverted to other carriers, rejoined their ship.[17] The carrier returned home by way of Pearl Harbor, and was sent to the Bremerton Naval Shipyard for repairs. She was still in the shipyard when the war ended in mid-August 1945.[18]
On 27 September 1945,Bunker Hill sailed from Bremerton to report for duty with theOperation Magic Carpet fleet, returning veterans from the Pacific as a unit of TG 16.12. The vessel made return trips to the west coast from Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, and Guam and Saipan. The ship was opened for visitors on Navy Day 27 October 1945 while in port at Seattle, WA. In January 1946 the ship was ordered to Bremerton for deactivation, and was decommissioned into reserve on 9 January 1947.
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While in reserveBunker Hill was reclassified three times, becoming CVA-17 in October 1951, CVS-17 in August 1953, and AVT-9 in May 1959, with the latter designation indicating that any future commissioned operations would be as an "Auxiliary Aircraft Transport Carrier". As allEssex-class carriers survived the war,Bunker Hill was surplus to the needs of the navy. She andFranklin, which also had sustained severe damage from an aerial attack, were the only aircraft carriers in theEssex-class that did not have any active service after the end of World War II. Although their wartime damage had been successfully repaired, it was their resultant like-new condition which kept them out of commission, as the Navy for many years envisioned an "ultimate reconfiguration" forBunker Hill andFranklin which never took place.[19]
Stricken from theNaval Vessel Register in November 1966,Bunker Hill was used as a stationary electronics test platform at theNaval Air Station North Island,San Diego, during the 1960s and early 1970s. On 2 July 1973 the vessel was sold for scrap to Zidell Explorations, Inc. of Oregon. An effort to save her as a museum ship in 1972 was unsuccessful.
Some relics survive. Six hundred tons of steel armor plate, manufactured before the atomic age, are used byFermilab aslow-background steel to shield experiments from interference by ambient or background subatomic particles.[20][21] Dome-shaped protective shrouds from the carrier's mothballing were incorporated in a residence in West Linn, Oregon.[22] Theship's bell was purchased from the scrapper, displayed for a while at theSan Diego Air and Space Museum, and in 1986 was provided to theguided missile cruiser which bears the nameUSSBunker Hill.[23]
Bunker Hill received thePresidential Unit Citation for the 18 months between 11 November 1943 and 11 May 1945, from the first combat in the Solomon Islands to the day the ship was knocked out of the war by kamikazes. In addition, she received 11battle stars for service in the following battles:[24]
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This article incorporates text from thepublic domainDictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be foundhere.
