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Posted on 09/11/2005 10:38:43 PM PDT by SAMWolf
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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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| Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel free to address their specific circumstances or whatever issues concern them in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, brotherhood and support. The FReeper Foxhole hopes to share with it's readers an open forum where we can learn about and discuss military history, military news and other topics of concern or interest to our readers be they Veteran's, Current Duty or anyone interested in what we have to offer. If the Foxhole makes someone appreciate, even a little, what others have sacrificed for us, then it has accomplished one of it's missions. We hope the Foxhole in some small way helps us to remember and honor those who came before us.
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As the escort carrier Liscome Bay turned to launch its aircraft off Makin Atoll on November 24, 1943, Lt. Cmdr. Sunao Tabata of I-175 found himself presented with a target that submariners dream of.  She began her life as Maritime Commission Hull No. 1137. And when work began on her in earnest as an auxiliary aircraft tender, her designation was changed to Kaiser Shipyards Hull No. 302. The name she would be given upon her completion, and when she was turned over to the British Royal Navy, would be HMS Ameer (ACV-56). By April 19, 1943, Ameer's Hull and part of her flight deck were finished. She was launched in a special ceremony at the Kaiser shipyards by her sponsor, Mrs. Clara Morrell. Mrs. Morrell was the wife of Rear Adm. Ben Morrell, founder of the U.S. Navy "Seabees." Also attending the ceremony was Mrs. Walter Krebs, matron of honor; Lt. Cmdr. H.C. Zitzewitz, liason officer at the Vancouver yards; and James MacDonald, the British consul in Portland, Ore., who spoke at the ceremony. After an invocation by Dr. Perry C. Hoffer of the Westminster Presbyterian Church, Mrs. Morrell stepped up to the platform built near the bow of the partially finished Hull and smashed the traditional bottle of champagne against the bow section, sending Ameer sliding down the ways into the Columbia River. On the same day, tugs took the powerless Hull and towed it downstream 100 miles from Vancouver to the Astoria (Oregon) Naval Station for final fitting out and delivery. By that time, 3 1/2 months later, in August 1943, the Ameer would have new owners and even a new name. On June 28, 1943, the vice chief of U.S. Naval Operations, Admiral J.H. Newton, endorsed a recommendation that 29 auxiliary aircraft carriers built for the British navy be assigned to the United States. He further recommended changing their British names and redesignating their class as CVE (aircraft carrier, escort) instead of ACV (auxiliary aircraft carrier).  Kaiser / Casablanca Class Escort Carriers And so HMS Ameer, formerly Hull No. 302, become USS Liscome Bay, named after a small bay on the south coast of Dall Island, which lies off the southern coast of Alaska. This followed the practice of naming escort carriers after bays, islands and sounds of the United States, or after major U.S. operations, battles and engagements. On July 15, 1943, Liscome Bay's redesignation from ACV-56 to CVE-56 was completed. The fitting out continued in Astoria. On August 7, 1943, Liscome Bay was delivered to the U.S. Navy. Her log records the event: "1105. Pursuant to orders.... Vessel commissioned U.S.S. Liscome Bay....Capt. I.D. Wiltse assumed command." Like all escort carriers, Liscome Bay was built mostly from a converted merchant-ship Hull. Her primary functions were to serve as a convoy escort, to provide aircraft for close air support during amphibious landing operations, and to ferry aircraft to naval bases and fleet carriers at sea. Accordingly, she was built no larger than her original Hull, given no more armament than was considered necessary for self-defense, and allowed no more speed than she needed to perform the tasks assigned her. She was 512 feet long, with a beam of 108 feet. She displaced 7,800 tons. Her flight deck was only 400 feet long and 80 feet wide. Two elevators had been installed, one forward, one aft, and a single catapult was located forward on the port side, over the bow. Her armament consisted of a single l5-inch, .38-caliber open gun mounted in a gun tub overhanging her square stern. Sixteen 40mm cannons in two mounts and twenty 20mm machine guns, scattered below the flight deck on both port and starboard sides, were her chief anti-aircraft armament. Liscome Bay's "black gang" worked with her two Skinner Uniflow reciprocating steam engines in twin, split-plan engine rooms, using superheated steam running at 4,500 ihp (indicated horsepower) and 161 rpm to turn the ship's twin propellers and produce her top speed of 16 knots.  USS Liscome Bay - Undated, underway, deck loaded with aircraft. Liscome Bay carried a crew of 960 men. Most were recent graduates from boot camp. Others, like the aerology crew, had served on board the aircraft carrier USS Wasp (CV-7) before she was sunk in the South Pacific by a Japanese submarine in September 1942. Others had served on the ill-fated heavy cruiser Quincy (CA-39), sunk in the Battle of Savo Island in August 1942. A few had been on the legendary carrier Enterprise (CV-6), and several of her crewmen had witnessed the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Veteran or recruit, old salt or recent landlubber, all had to consider that the most important member of the crew was their skipper, Captain Irving Day Wiltse, 56, Liscome Bay's first and last commanding officer. He had served as a navigator on the U.S. carrier Yorktown (CV-5) during the Battle of Midway and had commanded a seaplane tender, the Albemarle, before assuming command of Liscome Bay on the day of her commissioning. Wiltse was respected by his crew. A month after the commissioning, after all the initial trials and shakedown cruises around Astoria, Liscome Bay got underway under her own power for the first time. Arriving at Puget Sound on September 8, Liscome Bay proceeded to Bremerton Naval Station for degaussing and adjusting of her compasses and radio equipment. She spent four days undergoing further ship's trials before sailing for Seattle, Wash. There, her 20mm AA guns were test-fired. She docked until September 17, 1943, and then sailed for San Francisco. Liscome Bay docked at the Alameda Naval Air Station for refueling and to take on more personnel. The next stop would be San Diego, for an extensive series of shakedown drills and exercises off the southern California coast. On October 11, while the escort carrier was docked in San Diego for refueling, she received an addition to her complement in the form of Rear Adm. Henry Maston Mullinnix, who would be commanding a carrier division, with Liscome Bay as his flagship. Called by a former classmate "one of our outstanding young admirals," Henry Mullinnix had graduated first in his Navel Academy class of 1916, had served in World War I on a destroyer, had helped design the Navy's first diesel engine, had become a Navy pilot, and had commanded the carrier Saratoga (CV-3) before being appointed to the rank of admiral on August 28, 1943.  A sailor who served on his staff later said, "As a man, you couldn't find a person any better... " He was accompanied by his chief of staff, Captain John G. Crommelin. An outstanding pilot and officer, Crommelin had served aboard the Enterprise at the Battle of Santa Cruz in 1942, and was the oldest of five brothers, all Annapolis graduates, all naval officers who would serve in the war. "He was as fine a man as the admiral," one sailor said of Crommelin. "You could talk to him about any problem you had." Crommelin's job as chief of staff was to ensure the efficient operation of the staff for Carrier Division 24, Mullinnix's first flag command. At 1000 hours in October 11, Mullinnix, in the words of the log, "Hoisted his flag aboard Liscome Bay." More time was now spent in extensive drills and shakedown cruises. On October 14, the carrier received its aircraft, 12 FM-2 and F4F Wildcat fighters and 16 TBM-1C Avenger torpedo bombers as Composite Squadron No. 39. The commander of Composite Squadron 39 (known as VC-39 in Navy records), Lt. Cmdr. Marshall U. Beebe, became responsible for flight operations of the squadron and for the lives of its 36 officers and 41 enlisted men. After further drills, along with landing and takeoff practice by VC-39's planes, Liscome Bay set sail October 22 for Pearl Harbor -- and the new ship's first battle mission. The carrier reached Pearl Harbor on October 28 and moored at the Ford Island Naval Air Station. There were additional drills and exercises in Hawaiian waters, including rehearsals for the upcoming Gilbert Islands invasion, until on November 10, Liscome Bay, accompanied by her sister ships Coral Sea (CVE-57) and Corregidor (CVE-58), sortied from Pearl Harbor with the ships of Rear Adm. Richmond Kelly Turner's Northern Attack Force, Task Force 52. Included in the force were the battleships New Mexico, Mississippi, Idaho and Pennsylvania, four heavy cruisers and 14 screening destroyers, all escorting six transports carrying units of the 165th Regimental Combat Team of the 27th Infantry Division.
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She was the first of her flock to go, but before war's end in 1945, the ill-fated CVE-56 would be joined by five more American-built escort carriers (CVEs) sunk by enemy action. They were: Block Island (CVE-21), sunk by the German submarine U-549 in the Atlantic on May 29, 1944; Gambier Bay (CVE-73), sunk in the Battle of Samar by Japanese cruiser gunfire on October 25, 1944; St. Lo (CVE-63), sunk by a Japanese kamikaze plane attack on October 25, 1944; Ommaney Bay (CVE-79), scuttled after being struck by a kamikaze on January 4, 1945; and Bismarck Sea (CVE-95), sunk by a kamikaze off Iwo Jima on February 21, 1945.
Forces on land got most of the press in WW2. You sometimes get the impression from all the war films that soldiers and marines were the only ones who paid the ultimate price. Having your ship shot our from under you with the sea waiting on you wasn't a pleasant prospect.
70% of the crew of the Liscome Bay! Terrible tragedy. The brave sailors on these ships never get the recognition they deserve. Thanks for this thread.
Ping to this poem. I think you might like it.
WOW!
Thanks for the Kleenex warning.
This is wonderful.
If I ever become a motion picture producer/director...I will do my utmost to bring to the big-screen, in a very historically-accurate way, the Story of TAFFY 3 vs. Admiral Kurit'as Battleship & Cruiser Fleet.
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