The WWII vets of the Taylor at the reunion in Branson, MO, last October. Four of these superheros were at Pearl Harbor.
Posted on 11/10/2004 11:25:12 PM PST by snippy_about_it
Thanks Grzegorz 246. :-)
HEY! Tell your son Happy Birthday from America!
LOL!
Thanks to you also, PE.
Morning w_over_w.
The picture goes great with your tribute.
I learned something!!
Thanks Coleus.
Hope your day was a good one.
Morning Victoria.
Thanks, Hug any Veterans?
The defeat of John Effing Kerry finally vindicates the vets who he smeared as war criminals thirty years ago.
AMEN!! Do you remember when Veterans Day was called Armistice Day?
Great pictures Matt, Thanks for posting them.
The fifth Saratoga (CV 3) was laid down on 25 September 1920 as Battle Cruiser #3 by the New York Shipbuilding Co., Camden, N.J.; ordered converted to an aircraft carrier and reclassified CV-3 on 1 July 1922 in accordance with the Washington Treaty limiting naval armaments. The ship was launched on 7 April 1925, sponsored by Mrs. Curtis D. Wilbur, wife of the Secretary of the Navy; and commissioned on 16 November 1927, Capt. Harry E. Yarnell in command.
Saratoga, the first fast carrier in the United States Navy, quickly proved the value of her type.
After the Japanese surrender, she sailed from Hawaii on 9 September transporting 3,712 returning naval veterans home to the United States under Operation Magic Carpet. By the end of her Magic Carpet service, Saratoga had brought home 29,204 Pacific war veterans, more than any other individual ship. At the time, she also held the record for the greatest number of aircraft landed on a carrier, with a lifetime total of 98,549 landings in 17 years.
The first destroyer to anchor in Japanese coastal waters at the end of World War II was one that, wrote Admiral Halsey, “admirably performed every mission assigned to her.” A lucky ship, USS Taylor, DD (later DDE) 468 earned 15 battle stars through three years of hazardous service in every major southwest Pacific campaign from Guadalcanal to Tokyo Bay, from which she emerged without casualties and nearly without a scratch.
Taylor, named for a Civil War-era naval officer, was built at Maine’s Bath Iron Works alongside DeHaven and commissioned in Boston 28 August 1942, the ninth ship of
the 175-ship Fletcher class. After short service with DesRon 20 in the Atlantic, she was transferred to the Pacific and assigned to Destroyer Squadron 21, with which she served with distinction in the Solomon Islands, for which she was later presented with a Navy Unit Commendation. With the squadron’s Destroyer Division 41, she continued her career in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands operations, off the Bismarcks and New Guinea, in the Philippines and off Borneo, sinking three submarines and rescuing twenty-one airmen.
In August 1945, Admiral Halsey selected the ships of DesRon 21 present in Japanese waters—Taylor with Nicholas and O’Bannon—to escort his flagship Missouri into Tokyo Bay for the Japanese surrender. There, Taylor also transported correspondents to and from Missouri for the surrender ceremony, 2 September.
Mothballed when World War II ended, Taylor resumed her career for the Korean War and continued serving off Vietnam before being sold to the Italian Navy as Lanciere on 2 July 1969. She was used primarily as a source of spare parts before being stricken in 1971.
Morning Colonel.
Thanks for falling in.
Welcome to the Foxhole and Free Republic soldierette.
If you have an interest in American Military history, you found the right place.
The WWII vets of the Taylor at the reunion in Branson, MO, last October. Four of these superheros were at Pearl Harbor.
Cool! Thanks for dropping by.
Morning katiedidit1.
I always get upset when the local paper here barely mentions Pearl Harbor Day but puts Hiroshima on the front page every year.
August
So that's where you went yesterday! ;-)
"War means fighting, and fighting means killing."
Something today's PC crowd refuses to realize.
After seeing how the french treated that murdering terrorist Arafat "Old Europe" can kiss my....
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