USS Liscome Bay

USS Liscome Bay (ACV/CVE-56) was the second of fifty s built to serve the United States Navy during World War II. Launched in April 1943 and commissioned the following August, she was named for Liscome Bay in Dall Island in the Alexander Archipelago of Alaska. On 24 November 1943, her munitions were catastrophically detonated by a torpedo attack by the while she was acting as the flagship of Carrier Division 24, which was supporting operations on Makin. She quickly sank with the loss of 702 officers and sailors, including Doris Miller, the first black recipient of the Navy Cross and the namesake of the . Her loss is the deadliest sinking of a carrier in the history of the United States Navy.

Design and description

thumb|alt=A blueprint showing the side profile of an aircraft carrier.|left|A side profile of the design of .|page=3

Liscome Bay was a Casablanca-class escort carrier, the most numerous type of aircraft carriers ever built. Built to stem heavy losses during the Battle of the Atlantic, they came into service in late 1943, by which time the U-boat threat was already in retreat. Although some did see service in the Atlantic, the majority were utilized in the Pacific, ferrying aircraft, providing logistics support, and conducting close air support for the island-hopping campaigns. The Casablanca-class carriers were built on the standardized Type S4-S2-BB3 hull, a lengthened variant of the hull, and specifically designed to be mass-produced using welded prefabricated sections. This allowed them to be produced at unprecedented speeds: the final ship of her class, , was delivered to the Navy just 101 days after the laying of her keel.

Liscome Bay was long overall ( at the waterline), had a beam of , and a draft of . She displaced standard, which increased to with a full load. To carry out flight operations, the ship had a hangar deck and a flight deck. Her compact size necessitated the installation of an aircraft catapult at her bow, and there were two aircraft elevators to facilitate movement of aircraft between the flight and hangar deck: one each fore and aft.

She was powered by four Babcock & Wilcox Express D boilers that raised of steam at . The steam generated by these boilers fed two Skinner Unaflow reciprocating steam engines, delivering to two propeller shafts. This allowed her to reach speeds of , with a cruising range of at . For armament, one /38 caliber dual-purpose gun was mounted on the stern. Additional anti-aircraft defense was provided by eight Bofors anti-aircraft guns in single mounts and twelve Oerlikon cannons mounted around the perimeter of the deck. Sensors onboard consisted of a SG surface-search radar and a SK air-search radar.

Although Casablanca-class escort carriers were intended to function with a crew of 860 and an embarked squadron of 50 to 56, the exigencies of wartime often necessitated the inflation of the crew count. They were designed to operate with 27 aircraft, but the hangar deck could accommodate much more during transport or training missions. During her only combat deployment, Operation Kourbash, she carried 11 FM-1 and five F4F-4 fighters, as well as nine TBM-1 and three TBM-1C torpedo bombers, for a total of 28 aircraft. and was commissioned on 7 August 1943. Captain Irving D. Wiltsie was the ship's first commander, and her crew was derived from the Bogue-class escort carrier USS Glacier, which had been ordered in July 1942, but was sent to the Royal Navy as part of the Lend-Lease program.

Service history

After being commissioned, Liscome Bay proceeded southwards towards San Diego, California, picking up and ferrying 60 aircraft from San Francisco on the way, arriving on 22 September 1943. For the next month, she engaged in training operations off the Southern California coast. On 11 October, she was designated as the flagship of Carrier Division 24, under the command of Rear Admiral Henry M. Mullinnix. On 14 October, she received her aircraft contingent, and on 21 October, she departed for Pearl Harbor, arriving a week later, on 27 October. She then conducted additional drills and training exercises off of Hawaii until early November, when she was assigned to the invasion fleet assembling for Operation Kourbash. As a member of Carrier Division 24, she departed from Pearl Harbor on 10 November as part of Task Force 52 commanded by Rear Admiral Richmond K. Turner, bound for the invasion of the Gilbert Islands. It was to be her first and last mission.

Liscome Bay was assigned to the naval forces supporting the invasion of Makin. The invasion bombardment announcing the first major U.S. naval thrust into the central Pacific began on 20 November at 05:00. Just 76 hours later, Tarawa and Makin Islands were both captured. Liscome Bays aircraft had played a vital role in the capture of Makin, providing close air support and bombing Japanese positions. In total, 2,278 sorties were conducted by the carrier task group in support of Operation Galvanic, which neutralized enemy airbases, supported U.S. Army landings and ground operations with bombing and strafing missions, and intercepted enemy aircraft. With the islands secured, U.S. naval forces began retiring. However, Liscome Bay stayed with the rest of her task force as the 27th Infantry Division mopped up resistance on Makin.

Sinking

The invasion of the Gilbert Islands had caught the Japanese command by surprise. Admiral Mineichi Koga, in desperation, issued orders to recall four Japanese submarines southwest of Hawaii and five submarines near Truk and Rabaul to converge on the Gilberts. Of the nine Japanese submarines sent to sortie against the U.S. forces in the Gilberts, six were lost.

On 23 November, however, the submarine , commanded by Lieutenant Commander Sunao Tabata, arrived off Makin. The U.S. task group, built around Rear Admiral Henry M. Mullinnix's three escort carriers, was steaming southwest of Butaritari Island at 15 knots. The task group was traveling in a circular formation, with seven destroyers, cruiser , battleships , , and , and Liscome Bays two sister ships, and , surrounding her. Liscome Bay, as the guide for the group, was located dead center between the other ships. As collisions were deemed to be a greater risk to the ships than a potential submarine attack, the ships were not zig-zagging.

At 04:30 on 24 November, reveille was sounded in Liscome Bay. At 04:34, the destroyer left to investigate a signal beacon, likely dropped from a Japanese plane. This resulted in a gap within Liscome Bays screen. At 04:36, the radar operators on New Mexico spotted a short-lived blip, which may have represented I-175 diving into position.

Around 05:10, a lookout on the starboard (right) side of Liscome Bay reported seeing a torpedo headed for the ship. The torpedo struck behind the aft engine room, as Liscome Bay was conducting its turn, and detonated the bomb magazine, causing a devastating explosion that engulfed the ship and sent shrapnel flying as far as away. Considerable debris fell on the battleship New Mexico about off, while a sailor on board the escort carrier Coral Sea was reportedly hit by a fire extinguisher from Liscome Bay. The entire task force was rocked by the explosion, but no other ships were significantly damaged. A mushroom cloud erupted, rising thousands of feet above the wreck of Liscome Bay.

The detonation sheared off nearly the entire stern of the carrier, killing everyone behind the forward bulkhead of the aft engine room. Seawater quickly rushed into the gap, mixing with oil released from the hull. Both the hangar and flight decks were heavily damaged. Parts of the superstructure, including the radar antenna, collapsed onto the deck. The forward part of the hangar was immediately engulfed in flames, igniting the few remaining planes on the flight deck. Planes fell off the carrier's deck. Steam, compressed air, and fire-main pressure were lost throughout the ship. Fires on the flight deck caused ammunition within the burning aircraft and antiaircraft guns to detonate, further complicating matters. The gasoline coated water surrounding Liscome Bay caught fire, hampering efforts by survivors to escape.

At 05:33, only 23 minutes after the explosion, Liscome Bay listed to starboard and sank; 12 Grumman TBM Avenger torpedo bombers, seven Grumman FM-1 Wildcat fighters, and four Grumman F4F Wildcat fighters went down with Liscome Bay.

Rescue

When Liscome Bay detonated, the rest of the task group immediately conducted evasive maneuvers, scattering from her wreck. At 05:40, destroyers , , and arrived at the oil slick to rescue survivors, but many of the sailors hauled up were dead or dying. At 06:10, destroyer spotted two torpedo wakes, one just from the destroyer's hull. A radar operator on New Mexico detected an echo, and Hull was recalled to join in dropping depth charges. took Hulls place in picking up survivors. At 08:00, the search operation was concluded. Of the 916 crewmen aboard Liscome Bay, 644 went down with the ship, while 272 survived. Many of the survivors died of wounds soon afterwards, resulting in a final total of 702 fatalities from Liscome Bay. Including those lost on Liscome Bay, U.S. casualties in the assault on Makin Island exceeded the strength of the entire Japanese garrison.

Aftermath

thumb|Burial at sea aboard troopship of two Liscome Bay sailors, victims of the submarine attack by : In the foreground facing the ceremony are survivors of Liscome Bay.

The survivors were transferred at Makin Lagoon from the destroyers onto the attack transports and . On Thanksgiving night, two of the survivors died, and were buried at sea. On 2 December, the navy announced that Liscome Bay had been sunk off Makin Island.

Over two months later, on 4 February 1944, I-175 was detected and sunk by the destroyer and the destroyer escort , using their Hedgehog antisubmarine mortar.

Notable crew

John G. Crommelin: Chief of Staff of Carrier Division 24, politician
†William H. Hollister & Richard J. Hollister: two of the three brothers who served in the U.S. Navy and who all died in 1943; namesake of destroyer USS Hollister (DD-788)
Robert Keeton: Future legal scholar, United States District Judge
†Doris Miller: First African-American to receive the Navy Cross, namesake of frigate USS Miller (FF-1091), and of USS Doris Miller (CVN-81), a Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier scheduled to be laid down in 2026 and launched in 2029.
†Henry M. Mullinnix: Admiral of Carrier Division 24, namesake of destroyer USS Mullinnix (DD-944)
William J. Woodward Jr., banker and Thoroughbred horse-breeder

USS Liscome Bay

Design and description

Service history

Sinking

Rescue

Aftermath

Notable crew

See also

Notes

Citations

General sources

Online sources

Bibliography

Further reading

External links