USS Bunker Hill (CV-17)

SS Bunker Hill (CV-17) https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/b/bunker-hill-i.html https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/browse-by-topic/wars-conflicts-and-operations/world-war-ii/1945/battle-of-okinawa/ceremony-for-fallen.html http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/17.htm Bunker Hill I (CV-17) 1943–1966 The first and second U.S. Navy ships named Bunker Hill honored the Revolutionary War battle fought primarily on adjacent Breed’s Hill at Charlestown, Mass., on 17 June 1775. The battle occurred in the midst of the larger siege of the city of Boston, when the Americans learned that the British intended to deploy troops to some of the heights surrounding the city in order to command its vital harbor. Nearly 1,200 patriots marched stealthily onto the peninsula on the night of the 16th and 17th and dug defensive positions. Despite the colonists’ secrecy, the British detected the move and their ships and batteries opened fire on the positions while they landed troops to carry the newly established works. American reinforcements during the battle raised their strength to about 2,400 men, and the British to more than 3,000, though not all the men on either side took a direct part in the fighting. American snipers in Charlestown harassed the British until their ships fired incendiary shot that set much of the town ablaze. In the meanwhile, the British resolutely assaulted the colonist’s positions twice, and both times the patriots, with equal resolution, fired into the regulars and Royal Marines and scythed them down. The British regrouped and attacked a third time as the patriots began to run out of ammunition, and finally drove the Americans back at the point of the bayonet. The Americans inflicted twice the number of casualties on their assailants—an estimated 450 patriots fell as opposed to 1,054 regulars and Royal Marines. The colonist’s valiant defiance imbued them with confidence that they could stand up to the British, while the crown’s losses shook their officers and they often maneuvered prudently to avoid direct assaults against entrenched patriots in subsequent battles. I (CV-17; displacement 27,100; length 872'; beam 147'; extreme width 249'6"; draft 28'7"; speed 33 knots; complement 3,448; armament [on 23 December 1943] 12 5-inch, 44 40-millimeter, 55 20-millimeter; aircraft 103; class Essex) The first Bunker Hill (CV-17) was authorized under a Maritime Commission contract (M.C. Hull 1509) on 19 July 1940; laid down on 15 September 1941, at Quincy, Mass., by the Fore River Shipyard of Bethlehem Steel Co.; launched on 7 December 1942, exactly one year to the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, T.H.; sponsored by Mrs. Lilly W. Boynton, née Case, artist, musician, and leader in Chicago civic affairs, wife of industrialist Donald S. Boynton, and friend of Secretary of the Navy William F. [Frank] Knox; and commissioned on 25 May 1943, Capt. John J. Ballentine in command. The newly commissioned carrier underwent additional work in Dry Dock No.3, naval dry dock facility, South Boston, Mass. (25 May–5 June). The ship then moved across the harbor to complete fitting-out on the 16th, and five days later on the 21st stood out to train in Massachusetts Bay. Bunker Hill reported to Rear Adm. Patrick N.L. Bellinger, Commander, Air Force, Atlantic Fleet, on 25 June while she headed southward. As the ship approached Hampton Roads, Va., on the 27th the operational planes of Carrier Air Group (CVG) 17 flew out from Naval Air Station (NAS) Norfolk, Va., and introduced themselves to their new home by making a simulated attack against Bunker Hill. The fighters swarmed the ship, followed by the dive bombers and torpedo planes of the group’s other two squadrons. When the group boarded Bunker Hill the following day the ship loaded 36 Vought F4U-1 Corsairs of Fighting Squadron (VF) 17, Lt. Cmdr. John T. Blackburn in command, 16 Curtiss SB2C-1 Helldivers each of Bombing Squadrons (VBs) 7 and 17, 18 Grumman TBF-1 Avengers of Torpedo Squadron (VT) 17, a single Grumman F4F-4 Wildcat, and one Grumman J2F-2A Duck. The ship marked her first aircraft landings and launchings while she worked up with the embarked air group in Chesapeake Bay (28 June–1 July). Additional training followed, as did refueling, provisioning, and loading ammunition while alternatively at Hampton Roads on the 1st, the next day at Naval Operating Base (NOB) Norfolk, then Chesapeake Bay and the York River on the 5th, and on the 11th back to Hampton Roads. The Navy also established new designations for carriers on 15 July, and the directive limited the previous broadly applied CV symbol to Enterprise (CV-6), Saratoga (CV-3), Ranger (CV-4), and to Essex (CV-9) class aircraft carriers. Bunker Hill and CVG-17 turned southward for the ship’s shakedown in the Caribbean on that date (15 July–10 August 1943). The carrier anchored at Port of Spain, Trinidad, on the 20th, and took part in exercises in the Gulf of Paria (21 July–6 August), before she swung around for home. The training included shipboard gunnery exercises and carrier qualifications for the pilots. The handling crews on the flight deck and hangar deck honed their skills, and the jeep and tractor drivers discovered new ways of pulling planes under and around the other planes. When Bunker Hill returned to NOB Norfolk she disembarked the air group and that the pilots and the aircrew spent a further three weeks training and perfecting their tactics. The ship stood out of Norfolk for New England waters, her flight deck conspicuously empty and quiet after the flight operations of the shakedown (11–22 August 1943), and moored at South Boston for a final post-repair overhaul and last-minute additions. Workers and sailors inspected equipment, calibrated the radar, bore-sighted the guns, and greased the flight deck arresting-gear, while working parties brought on board supplies for the long voyage to the Pacific. She then (4–6 September) cleared Boston and steamed for Virginian waters, mooring at Lambert’s Point, Va., on the 5th before mooring at NOB Norfolk. Bunker Hill embarked CVG-17, comprising 36 F4U-1s of VF-17, 36 SB2C-1s of VB-17, 18 TBF-1s of VT-17, and a lone TBF-1 assigned to the ship, and set out for the Pacific Fleet to fight the Japanese on 8 September 1943. The ship passed down the east coast, crossed the Caribbean, and moored at Cristóbal in the Panama Canal Zone on 16 September. The crew enjoyed a couple of final nights ashore in the Canal Zone, the first with some liberty in Cristóbal. The following day the carrier passed through the canal and entered the Pacific, where the liberty party stormed ashore for a second night when she moored at Balboa. Bunker Hill resumed the voyage on the 18th, and steamed up the western Mexican and Californian coastlines. The vast majority of the crew sailed unaware of their ultimate destination, but Capt. Ballentine announced on the 20th that they were off on their “Glorious Adventure,” but had to make one last stop, and she moored at NAS San Diego on North Island, Calif., on the 26th. While the ship lay at North Island VF-17 temporarily detached and journeyed to serve with Aircraft, Solomons, in Espíritu Santo in the New Hebrides [Vanuatu]. The Americans were just introducing Corsairs operationally, and Navy logisticians determined that getting aircraft parts to an island might prove comparatively easier than attempting to keep pace with the ship’s movements. Bunker Hill used the intervening time to ferry 960 men, which brought the grand total of sailors and marines on board to 2,593 officers and men, along with their 36 Grumman F6F-3 Hellcats of VF-18, 21 F4U-1 and two Eastern FG-1 Corsairs of Marine Fighting Squadron (VMF) 113, 21 F4U-1s, a trio of FG-1s, and a single Eastern FM-1 Wildcat of VMF-422, along with the Seabees of Naval Construction Battalion 92, to Pearl Harbor in the Territory of Hawaii (28 September–2 October). Including the remaining planes of the group from VB-17 and VT-17, aircraft packed the flight deck and the hangar deck. The crowded conditions compelled the ship to curtail operations en route, except for the general quarters alarm which sounded each and every morning an hour before sunrise to keep the crew sharp and alert. The aircraft from the other three ferried squadrons went ashore at various stations, while those of the air group went to NAS Kaneohe Bay. Bunker Hill joined Task Groups (TGs) 59.13 and 19.15 for exercises (6–9 and 17–19 October, respectively) to further prepare for war.