The escort aircraft carrier, known in U.S. Navy circles as a “jeep carrier” or “baby flattop” was a relatively small and somewhat slow vessel employed by the British Royal Navy, the Imperial Japanese Navy and Army Air Force, and the U.S. Navy during the Second World War. Most examples were roughly half the length and a third the displacement of the larger fleet carriers of these services. Of 151 aircraft carriers built in the United States during the Second World War, 122 were escort carriers. Of these, by far the most numerous were the vessels of the Casablanca and Bogueclasses. Slower, with less armour and armament and a smaller complement of aircraft aboard, these ships were also much less expensive to manufacture and could be produced in far less time than the fleet carriers, filling a gap in the active inventory when fleet carriers were still scarce. Their minimal armour and armament, though, made them much more vulnerable to enemy attack and a number of them were sunk with heavy losses.
The limits imposed on the five major naval powers by the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 defined the maximum size and tonnage of aircraft carriers for their navies. The limits caused insufficient carrier construction in the years between the two world wars. Thus, the operational needs for aircraft carriers could not be met as the Second World War expanded from Europe. The relatively few available fleet aircraft carriers could not possibly cope with the requirements for transporting aircraft to distant bases, supporting amphibious invasions, providing carrier landing training for new pilots, antisubmarine patrols, and providing defensive air cover for deployed battleships and cruisers. Until the availability of more fleet carriers, the navies had to rely on the conversion of existing vessels, and hulls under construction for other purposes, until new purpose-built carriers came on stream.
What followed was the development of a need identified by the U.S. Navy for a type of light aircraft carrier, a CVL, from the conversion of passenger liners and cruisers, into vessels capable of operating at battle fleet speed—these in addition to a classification of warships referred to as escort carriers CVE, naval auxiliary vessels intended for pilot training and for the transport of aircraft to far off bases.
In the 1930s, the Royal Navy needed aircraft carriers to help defend the British trade routes, but little was done about meeting that need until HMS Audacity resulted from the conversion of a captured German motor vessel, the MV Hannover, which was commissioned in the summer of 1941. Until the later arrival of CVEs from America as part of the Lend-Lease arrangement, Britain had to make do for convoy protection from German aircraft, with fighter-equipped catapult ships and CAM ships equipped with a single, disposable fighter aircraft.
In 1940, the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations authorized the construction of naval auxiliary vessels for aircraft transport, ships that were referred to as auxiliary aircraft escort vessels (AVG), and later as auxiliary aircraft carriers (ACV). These warships first proved their worth in Operation Torch, North Africa, and in the anti-submarine warfare of the Battle of the Atlantic, operating at convoy speeds. By July 1943, these vessels had been upgraded by the U.S. Navy from auxiliary to combatant and had become known as jeep carriers or baby flattops. Their crews soon discovered that the CVEs had a better performance than the light carriers, pitching less in moderate to high seas on their more stable hulls. But their crews also had another reference to the CVEs: combustible, vulnerable, expendable—owing to their minimal magazine protection in comparison to that of the larger fleet carriers. In Japanese kamikaze suicide plane attacks late in the war, three escort carriers, the USS St. Lo, Ommaney Bay, and Bismarck Sea, were all destroyed in kamikaze attacks, the largest warships to be sunk in that way.
Survivors being rescued after the sinking of the U.S. Navy escort carrier Gambier Bay during the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944.
above: The USS Gambier Bay ferrying aircraft to a Pacific destination in the Second World War; below and bottom: Grumman Wildcats.
As the escort carriers were not fast enough to keep pace with task groups of battleships, fleet carriers and cruisers, they were mainly dedicated to the vital role of convoy escort in the Pacific and Atlantic theaters of the war, helping to protect them against the threat of enemy aircraft and submarines. There they also provided vital air support for ground forces during amphibious landing operations. A further important aspect of their participation in the war effort was serving as back-up aircraft transports for the fleet carriers and ferrying aircraft to American and British military units around the world. During the Battle of the Atlantic, the escort carriers were assigned convoy protection duties, dealing with enemy submarine and aircraft attacks initially, and later in the conflict, as part of aggressive hunter-killer groups in search of German U-boats, rather than being formally attached in a convoy escort role.
Out in the Pacific, the escort carriers, under a protective umbrella of the Fast Carrier Task Forces, provided considerable air support to U.S. ground troops in such actions as the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
Some called them “Woolworth Carriers”—the American-built Second World War Lend-Lease escort aircraft carriers of the Attacker class which included Battler, Chaser, Fencer, Hunter, Pursuer, Ravager, Searcher, Stalker, Striker, and Tracker—manufactured by the Ingalls Shipbuilding Corporation of Pascagoula, Mississippi and Western Pipe & Steel, Seattle, Washington, for the British Royal Navy. As part of their convoy escort duties, the small escort carriers provided air scouting, defence against long-range enemy scouting aircraft, and hunting for enemy submarines. These unlovely examples of the aircraft carrier art were certainly not cheap imitations of the real thing. Still, their hardy crews found it necessary to make some adjustments in how they did things aboard these new CVEs. Standard U.S. Navy methods and routine had been built into the design and construction philosophy of these ships in many areas including but not limited to the accommodation for the ship’s company, food preparation and service, and in the operational spaces. In comparison with the layouts of most conventional Royal Navy warships of the time, the work spaces were relatively roomy. The “open plan” hangar deck was comparatively spacious relative to that of British-designed fleet carriers which were not as open and airy, or user-friendly. And the hangar facility aboard the new CVEs carried a full-size projection screen that could be lowered to turn the large space into a cinema for the recreation of the crews. The hangar area could also be made cooler and more comfortable in hot weather by lowering the aircraft lift. The aircraft hangar of the CVE normally took up about a third of the length under the flight deck and housed between twenty-four and thirty fighter and bomber aircraft. The hangar space of the larger Essex class fleet carrier could house more than 100 fighter, bomber, and torpedo bomber aircraft. And in the construction of British warships of that period, accommodation was made for ratings to sleep in slung hammocks, while in the American-built CVEs, three-level bunks were arranged in units of six which were separated by narrow gangways and positioned in deck spaces well below the hangar deck. When they were not being used, the bunks could be folded up and secured to provide more space. Most CVE crew members, though, thought that the conditions in their living spaces were claustrophobic and unhealthy.
Carrying right on through the supercarriers of today, the bunking areas for the ratings included a small recreational space with chairs and tables for reading, letter writing and card games. Next up the status ladder were the Petty Officers, whose slightly better accommodation afforded them two-berth cabins. They were provided with a relatively spacious wardrobe, a desk, a personal safe and a two-bunk sleeping unit and in some cases, a small amount of additional storage space.
The departments aboard the CVEs included facilities for drying and packing parachutes, metal and wood shops, and a well-equipped sick bay. In the area of food preparation, most dishes were steam-cooked in the galley, unlike the traditional Royal Navy system in which the duty cooks brought foodstuffs from the galley, prepared them on wooden tables and brought them back to the galley for the cooking. On the CVEs, meals were served and eaten cafeteria-style in a central dining room. The ratings ate their meals from from sectioned metal trays, American style. The Petty Officers had their own mess; the officers dined in their own wardroom. Additionally, there was a NAAFI canteen and soda fountain for the men of the British CVEs. The CVEs also operated a laundry and a barber shop. Unlike the escort carriers built for the U.S. Navy, however, modifications made for those of the Royal Navy included a nod for the traditions of that old service. Ice cream making machines were removed; viewed as unnecessary luxuries on these warships which, after all, served grog and other alcoholic beverages. The American heavy duty washing machines of the laundry room were also removed, on the basis that “all a British sailor needs to keep clean is a bucket and a bar of soap.”
These Attacker class escort carrier CVEs were relatively simple and utilitarian warships made mainly of prefabricated, welded construction and powered by single-shaft geared turbines capable of driving them through the water at a maximum speed of seventeen knots. They were 492 feet long, with a beam of sixty-nine feet, only a bit more than half the length of the fleet carriers of the time and less than a third the weight. They were armed with four double 40mm and fifteen single 20mm anti-aircraft guns, as well as two four-inch anti-aircraft guns. The layout of the CVE included an “island” that was quite small and located well forward of the funnel, as opposed to that of the larger fleet carrier whose funnel was integrated into the island. The early examples of CVEs were equipped with a single aircraft elevator; later versions had an elevator fore and aft and a single aircraft catapult. They used the same system of landing aircraft with arresting cables and tailhooks as the big carriers and the same launch and recovery procedures.
Crew personnel aboard the CVE numbered about a third that of the larger fleet carrier. The CVE was furnished with a canteen or snack bar known as the “ge-dunk”, after the sound made by its vending machines when operated. The gedunk was open longer hours than the ship’s mess. There the sailors could buy ice cream, cigarettes and other consumable items.
At Ingalls yard in Mississippi, a CVE was being produced every month. Getting them delivered to the fleet of the Royal Navy was not quite as simple and direct, however. Delivery delays of up to six months were common in getting the CVEs from Mississippi to duty with the Royal Navy against the U-boats of Admiral Dönitz, with eight-month delays for the escort carriers then being built on the U.S. west coast. The CVEs had to undergo sea trials before being released for the long trip through the Panama Canal and up to the American east coast port of Norfolk, Virginia, where they were loaded to capacity with new fighter and other aircraft types being sent to U.S. units in Britain and North Africa. Often, they were delayed several weeks awaiting the assembly of a convoy in which to make the perilous Atlantic crossing. At times they had to stop at Casablanca to off-load aircraft before continuing on to England, which then added as much as three more weeks to the journey … which wasn’t over yet. Once they had arrived in England, they had to spend up to eight more weeks in a dockyard there for completion of modifications to make them fully ready for combat. The British required several significant alterations which included a lengthening of the flight deck to accommodate certain of their aircraft, such as the Fairey Swordfish which could not use the American catapult launch system and needed extra take-off distance.
As additional British modifications were added to the Lend-Lease CVEs, to enhance their capabilities beyond the anti-submarine role, all the various delays were brought to the attention of U.S. Navy Chief of Staff Admiral Ernest King who was told by the Allied Anti-Submarine Survey Board that he should retain five out of the next batch of seven Lend-Lease escort carriers, for use by the U.S. Navy. He then learned from the British Admiralty that the delays were being compounded by congestion in the UK dockyards as the work on the modifications to the CVEs was backing up, and becoming more and more backed up with the continuing arrival of new CVEs from the United States. They also told him that they were having problems manning all the new escort carriers. Knowing that his own U.S. Navy was probably even less able to man the CVEs in question at that point, King urged the British to urgently look for ways to reduce the delays at their end, which they did.
The uses of the escort carriers in the service of the United States Navy evolved through the war years into a greater range of roles than had originally been intended. In the bitter reaches of the North Atlantic, for example, their value increased dramatically when they began to supplement the activity of the escorting destroyers in providing vital air support for the anti-submarine warfare. In one historic incident, the escort carrier USS Guadalcanal played a major part in the capture of the German submarine U-505 off North Africa in 1944. The CVEs lacked sufficient speed to run with the fast carrier attack groups, and were frequently assigned to escort the troop carriers and landing ships in the intensive island-hopping campaign across the Pacific. In so doing they provided air cover for the troopships, flying the initial wave of beach attacks during the amphibious landing operations. At times they were called on to escort the large carriers, to act as emergency landing facilities when their big sisters were tied up refueling and rearming their own aircraft. They filled another vital role too in carrying aircraft and spare parts from various ports in the United States to remote island airstrips.
The Royal Navy’s American-built escort carrier HMS Pursuer.
But the peak of the action for the escort carriers in the Second World War may have been in the Battle off Samar in the Philippines on 25 October 1944. The action began when U.S. Navy Admiral William F. “Bull” Halsey, Jr. was lured by the Japanese Navy into chasing a decoy enemy fleet with his powerful American 3rd Fleet. His decision meant that the aircraft of his sixteen small, slow escort carriers—aircraft armed with bombs for ground support activity—were left with just a small force of destroyers and destroyer escorts to fight a huge main force of Japanese battleships, one of which was the giant Yamato, together with eight cruisers and eleven destroyers. Amazingly, though, thanks largely to the extraordinarily aggressive attacks of the American screening ships, the escort carriers were able to turn back the enemy attacking force. In the battle, the slow escort carriers were forced to launch their planes and then maneuver in the area for more than an hour, receiving many hits from the armour-piercing shells of the enemy cruisers. Most of those shells passed through the thin, unarmoured hulls without exploding. One major casualty of the decisive Battle of Leyte Gulf, however, was the escort carrier USS Gambier Bay, the only American carrier to be lost to gunfire in the war. The battle involved 321 warships and 1,996 aircraft, more ships and planes than in any other battle in naval history, and virtually eliminated the Japanese fleet as an effective offensive force in the war.
above: U.S. Navy Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, Chief of Naval Operations; below: Lt Commander Morris Montgomery, survivor of the Gambier Bay sinking, and his granddaughter, Naval Flight Officer Shannon Callahan.
By summer 1944, Japan had lost their offensive position in much of the Pacific. They knew that the Americans were getting ready to invade the Philippines and believed it essential that Japanese military forces keep possession and control of the island group. Without it, they would lose the oil and other supplies and raw materials coming from Sumatra, which would end their war effort and threaten their survival. They believed that the American invading force would come through the Leyte Gulf and they determined to fight what they foresaw as one of the greatest naval battles in history there.
The keel of the Gambier Bay had been laid at Kaiser Shipbuilding in Vancouver, Washington, on 10 July 1943. She had been named for a small bay on Admiralty Island, Alaska. Following her commissioning on 28 December at Astoria, Oregon, she was taken to San Diego on her shakedown cruise before sailing for Pearl Harbor and the Marshall Islands in February 1944, where she delivered eighty-four replacement aircraft for the fleet carrier Enterprise. She then returned to Pearl to pick up battle-damaged planes and bring them back to the U.S. for repairs. While in San Diego again, she was laid up in drydock to correct a major vibration problem she had developed crossing the Pacific. By March she was at sea again supporting U.S. Marine Corsair pilots in their carrier qualifications.
Gambier Bay sailed again for the Marshall Islands in early May, a part of Task Group 52.11 which was preparing for the American invasion of the Marianas Islands, where, from the U.S. B-29 bomber bases on Tinian, the Japanese home islands would receive the final bombs of the war. During the Marianas invasion, aircraft from Gambier Bay flew many close air support missions for the Marine landings, downing several enemy aircraft. Further such activity followed at Guam, Peleliu and Angaur, and after that the escort carrier escorted troop transports and amphibious landing craft to Leyte Gulf for the impending invasion of the Philippines. She was now part of Task Group 77, code-named Taffy 3, under the command of Admiral Thomas L. Sprague. In it she would be operating with other escort carriers including USS Kitkun Bay, USS Kalinin Bay, USS Fanshaw Bay, USS St. Lo, and the USS White Plains.
The American task group encountered that large Japanese warship force in the early morning of 25 October 1944. Captain Walter Vieweg, the skipper of Gambier Bay, was awakened at 2.30 a.m. by his communications watch officer, informing the captain that the Battle of Surigao Straits was under way, causing him to order that torpedoes be loaded on all his uncommitted Avenger aircraft. At 7 a.m. Captain Vieweg received a report from the task group anti-submarine patrol that a large force of Japanese warships—four battleships, eight cruisers and thirteen destroyers—was just twenty-five miles northwest of the American warship formation, which was then heading on a southerly course. Suddenly, several salvoes of large-calibre shells began falling into the centre of the American formation, which then quickly turned eastward into the wind in order to launch aircraft. Captain Vieweg ordered that all Gambier Bay’s planes be launched immediately to prevent their being lost should an enemy shell cause a fire on his flight deck. All seventeen of the aircraft took off safely. With their departure, he ordered the aircraft on the hangar deck brought up to the flight deck, but the task group was now turning on a more southerly heading, out of the wind, which would deny his heavily-loaded and fully fueled torpedo planes minimal conditions to launch. As they now could not be safely launched, some of his planes had to be jettisoned overboard for the safety of the ship, and the enemy salvoes were now falling much closer to the carrier. 7.30 a.m. The American destroyers were kept busy attacking the warships of the Japanese fleet, and all the American ships in the area were making smoke for their protection. A lashing rain squall had arisen as dozens of American planes, many of them without bombs and with inappropriate ordnance for the present need, continued making attacks on the enemy ships.
By 8.30 a.m. the rain had stopped. All of the American destroyers and destroyer escorts were now fully engaged in the battle and were laying smoke screens. Out on the windward edge of the escort carrier formation, both Gambier Bay and Kalinin Bay were being subjected to the heavy gunfire of the four nearest enemy cruisers. To this point, much of the enemy heavy gunfire had been somewhat in-naccurate, with salvoes widely spaced, the lag time allowing Gambier Bay to dodge many of them. But as the distance between the carrier and the Japanese cruisers continued to decrease, the accuracy and intensity of the enemy gunfire improved considerably. Then the shells began falling onto her flight deck and near her engine room. Her speed was reduced to eleven knots and she was no longer able to maintain her position in the formation. With the enemy cruisers less than 10,000 yards distant, they were scoring consistent hits and significant damage to the carrier. For more than an hour, at least half of the many shells the Japanese warships were lobbing at the carrier were scoring hits. Gambier Bay was experiencing considerable flooding and was essentially dead in the water, and she had no water pressure with which to fight the many fires. Captain Vieweg knew his ship could not be saved and he ordered her abandoned just before 9 a.m. as the Japanese ships continued to send shells into her. Gambier Bay rolled over and sank at 9.10 a.m. In addition to the carrier, her sister ship St. Lo, two American destroyers and a destroyer escort were also sunk in the action that morning. The other escort carriers involved were all damaged and the light carrier USS Princeton was sunk after being hit by two bombs from a Japanese Judy aircraft. The massive resulting fire led to the ship having to be scuttled. The losses of the Japanese were considerably heavier: four fleet aircraft carriers, three battleships, six heavy cruisers, four light cruisers, eleven destroyers, one destroyer transport, and four submarines. American losses amounted to one light aircraft carrier, two escort carriers, and three destroyers. 150 Japanese aircraft were lost, against 100 for the Americans. Personnel losses amounted to 10,000 Japanese, and 1,500 Americans.
Warships burning in the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944.
Lieutenant Commander Morris Montgomery, USN (Ret) had served as the leading Chief Petty Officer of Composite Squadron 10, embarked in the USS Gambier Bay during the battle off Samar on 25 October 1944. “On the night before the ship was lost, one of the two tractors on the flight deck somehow tumbled down the elevator opening and landed on a fighter on the hangar deck. The damage was such that the plane required an engine change and the maintenance crew worked all night changing it.
“Our chief ordnance man, Andy Andrews, who bunked near me, was awakened early in the morning and I knew something was up when I heard about loading torpedoes. Our planes had previously been loaded with general purpose bombs for a land-bombing mission the following day. To reload them with torpedoes meant bringing them below to the hangar deck and disarming and defueling them, a time-consuming operation. At about 6:30 a.m., Chief Horten, the aircraft maintenance chief, and I went to the flight deck to relieve the maintenance crew who were preparing to ground-run the new engine that had been installed in the fighter that had been damaged on the elevator. They went to breakfast, Chief Horten got into the cockpit, and I stood by with a CO2 fire bottle. The engine would not run on its engine-driven pump, which was used mainly for starting and then switched off. We decided to complete the ground-run using the booster pump and change the engine pump later during the post-engine-run inspection.
“At that moment the ship was surrounded by rain squalls, but was not actually in one. During the engine-run, I noticed one of our morning anti-submarine patrol planes approaching the ship and signalling with its wings. I then saw a big splash in the water about 100 yards to port. At first I thought that the aircraft was in trouble and had jettisoned its depth charges. Then I saw a Japanese battleship emerging from a rain squall on our port horizon and heard the roar of its guns. The sound of the enemy shells passing overhead reminded me of a train passing a crossing at great speed.
“Things began to happen. People were running around; ‘General Quarters’ was sounded and the ship began to make screening smoke and take evasive action. Pilots began scrambling for any available aircraft. One made for the fighter with the new engine, and we told him that the booster pump was all he would have. He acknowledged and was subsequently launched. New aircraft engines had to be operated at minimum power for at least ten hours, with no combat or military power settings. The pilot eventually experienced engine failure and had to ditch.
“I could see a formation of enemy ships to our port side, seemingly at point blank range. It was a mad scramble to get our planes launched. Some were not completely refueled after the switch of ordnance, and I know that some had no ordnance. At least one was catapulted without the crew, just to get it off the ship. Either it had been ‘down’ mechanically or had not been refueled. The fueling system was then secured, as was normally done at ‘General Quarters’. ‘Dead’ planes and aviation gas in the fuel risers are definitely a disadvantage in a situation such as the one we were experiencing.
“Each time the ship received a hit, footing became difficult to maintain and the generators were knocked off line, cutting the power and lights momentarily. One hit jammed our elevator, trapping those planes that were on the hangar deck.
“Once flight operations had ceased, my job on the flight deck was finished and I had no other assignments. I went to the ready room. There were several pilots there and I asked ‘What the hell was happening?’ One pilot said that the fleet must have all been sunk and that we were all that was left. He thought that we had not been truthfully informed as to how the war had really been going for us.
“I grabbed a Mae West life jacket and left to help out wherever I could. Men were fighting fires everywhere. I remembered that I had not put the flame cover over my bunk that morning, I went below to the CPO berthing space. The quarters contained an emergency first aid station which also served as our writing table, and it doubled as an operating table, having special lights mounted above it. When I entered, the quarters were ankle-deep in water, possibly from a broken main. A medical crew was working on an injured man, and the lights were periodically blinking off and on. They had battle lanterns in use and it was an eerie sight.
above: Construction in progress on the escort carrier USS Gambier Bay in the Second World War; below: The TBF Avenger torpedo bomber built by Grumman.
“I kept a picture of my wife in a pocket-sized copy of the New Testament under my pillow. I put the bible in my shirt pocket, spread the flame cover over my bunk and went back to the flight deck. I attempted to assist the damage control crew in ‘Officer Country’ below the flight deck up near the bow. They had all the help they needed, so three other men and I headed up the bow when the ship received another hit. The men ahead of me seemed to disintegrate, and I was knocked down. I got up and headed back towards the Officers’ quarters, where I met Lt. Bell. He was getting ready to abandon ship, and he ducked back into his room and offered me a drink from a bottle he had. We all started towards the port railing on the bow.
“The water was filled with men. I never did hear the word to abandon ship, but I knew that the end was near because the ship was dead in the water and beginning to list. I overheard the leader of one of the damage repair parties say that the magazines were being flooded. I went to the railing and then loosened the straps of my battle helmet. Training lectures had taught me to do this to avoid being injured upon entering the water. I now had a Mae West, a life belt, and a kapok life jacket which I had found on the bow. Shells were hitting, leaving various colours from their dye markers on top of the water. I went over the side.
“I hit the water and surfaced near one of our pilots. He had a mattress so I joined him. I never saw Lt. Bell again. I was glad I had gone over the port side as the tide was pushing against the starboard side. We were being carried away from the ship, unlike those men who had gone over the starboard side and were forced to follow along the ship’s hull and drift off the stern.
“As we drifted away, we were constantly splashed by water from nearby shell hits. A few yards off the stern were several men in one of the large donut-type floats which had water and rations stored in them. They were waving and yelling for people to come over to them as they had plenty of room. We began paddling in their direction. About then there was a terrific explosion, probably on the hangar deck, because the elevator (which had been jammed) came flying out of the ship and landed near us. I am certain that some men must have been struck by it when it hit the water. The float that we were heading for must have received a direct hit, for as we neared it there was a big splash, and then it wasn’t there anymore. We continued to drift away from the ship and shells continued to fall near us. We began to think that the enemy gunners were using our mattress as a marker. Of course they were not, but one’s reasoning in such situations is not always the best. So we abandoned the mattress and swam away from it. We soon came upon some men who were trying to spread out one of the ship’s large floating nets. Such nets are unwieldy, requiring men on all sides of it, but it makes a very effective piece of life-saving equipment. By keeping the net spread out, those in the middle of it could remain about waist deep in water and have their feet supported. We put the more seriously wounded in the net. We spotted a man floating near the net and swam over to him. He was dead. He could have been a mess cook or a striker, because he was young and was wearing whites and was non-rated. We took his I.D. tags and gave them to the senior officer in our group. The Gambier Bay rolled over bottoms-up revealing many holes in the bottom before it sank.
“We could see a Japanese cruiser which appeared to be dead in the water. Smoke was billowing from its after section, and a Japanese destroyer was trying to assist it. At about 1300 hours we saw many planes flying in the direction of the Japanese fleet. We identified them as ours. We all shouted and waved our arms, and several of us yelled ‘they went thataway’. We were in pretty good spirits at that time. Later we thought how fortunate we were that the Japanese force had gone before our planes arrived. Otherwise, we might have been hit during the bombing attack. I remember seeing the Japanese cruiser burning just before dark. It may have sunk during the night, as there were several underwater explosions.
“It was a very cold night, especially if any part of your body became exposed to the air. The water was a bit rough and we were constantly being drenched with salt water. We tied ourselves together with the attachment strings on our life jackets. That way, if you fell asleep or dozed off, you wouldn’t drift away. One of the wounded men had a large piece of metal stuck in his back, apparently wedged so tightly that he was only bleeding slightly. The doctor said not to pull it out or else he might bleed to death. We took turns holding his head up out of the water and trying to comfort him. On the second day, as I was holding him, he began to talk about things back in his childhood. As the day wore on he became incoherent. Finally, he went into a coma and died, possibly from shock and internal bleeding. We took his I.D. tags and gave him a burial prayer. We then allowed his body to drift away and sink.
“We had about ninety men in and around our net. Everyone was getting thirsty and hungry. At one point I heard two men talking. I don’t know if they were joking or temporarily out of their heads. One of them said that his father owned the bar around the corner and if the other one would go with him, he would set up the drinks. They both paddled around to the other side of the net and began to drink salt water. The men near them promptly stopped them from doing so. Those of us who were not severely wounded and had control of themselves would watch for men attempting to drink salt water and kept others from swimming away. During that time, one’s mind would play tricks and you would see objects like mirages, or imagine things. I saw a fleet of rescue ships, or so I thought, until someone shook me. In the night, as I was dozing, one of the men near me began pounding me on the head and screaming that I was trying to get ahead of him in the chow line. We prayed frequently for rescue, food, and water.
“Later, a few of us spotted something bobbing on the horizon. It turned out to be Chief McArdle towing two wounded men. One of them was Forest Khort and the other was Denard, both from our squadron. They had a small water breaker and part of a can of emergency rations. Malt tablets. We helped them to our net and rigged a drinking hose from one of our Mae West inflation hoses to a spigot on the water breaker. We all received a small sip of water and one malt tablet. A 2nd Class Storekeeper from our group took charge of the water and rations and did the rationing. We saw to the wounded men in the middle of the net first. I don’t claim to be any more religious than the next man, but it was at this point that my faith in God was most profound, and I then had faith that we would be rescued.
“We lost several men, mostly from just drifting away or taking off on their own. At first we would swim out and bring them back, but near the end of our time in the water, we didn’t have the strength to do this any more. We learned later that some of the men who had left our group had eventually floated into another group.
“Most of us were badly sunburned from the glare off the water. On the second day we found a floating drum of oil and we smeared some of the oil on all of us, but it was a little too late. My lips were raw and bleeding and felt like they stood out a foot in front of me. At that point my Mae West had lost most of its air and the inflation hose had clogged with congealed fuel oil. My kapok life jacket was partially water-logged. On the first day in the water I had given my life belt to someone who needed one. One of the ship’s warrant officers had found a wooden gangway post and, realizing the condition of my life-saving equipment, I joined him, each of us clinging to an end of the post. We had good manoeuvrability and were supported somewhat. To be able to support one’s dangling weight just a little bit was a tremendous relief. Our life jackets were becoming water-logged, causing us to sink further into the water. As the seas got heavier, the float net kept trying to roll up, and it was a real chore keeping it straightened and spread out. The sea state was becoming worse and ominous clouds were forming. It began to worry us. We stayed near the net, our legs quite numb from dangling in the water.
“On our second night in the water we spotted what we thought was Samar Island in the distance and had to decide whether to risk the possibility of drifting ashore there. We reasoned that it was enemy-held, but we decided that it was our best chance for survival and we thought that some of the wounded men would not survive another day in the water, so we began to try to control our drift towards the island.
“Just before daybreak we saw some short sweeps of searchlights, on and off. Someone thought that they might be Japanese torpedo boats. We finally agreed to try to indicate our position. We yelled and blew the whistles attached to our life jackets and we were suddenly engulfed in the beam of a searchlight and I could see an American sailor near the light source. It was the most welcome sight of my life. The men on board the craft began tossing out heaving lines and putting out litter-type stretchers wrapped with life jacktes for bouyancy for the wounded. I was hauled up on deck and my oil-soaked clothes were cut away. I said: ‘I’m OK. I can make it’, and when they released me my legs just folded up and down I went. They carried me below. Naked, oily men were stacked up like a fresh-caught load of fish. Apparently they had picked up other groups of survivors before us. Someone gave me a small sip of water and, a minute or so later, another one, and so on. My lips were so swollen and painful, and my tongue so raw and ulcerated from constantly spitting out the salt water, that I actually cried when the cup came close, but my desire for water was stronger than the ensuing pain. Other than a little soup, the first food we were given was pancakes, they looked and smelled delicious and I very much wanted to eat them. I became quite frustrated, but the pain was just too great and I had to forego the meal.
“Eventually we made it to Leyte Harbor, which was filled with troop transport and utility ships. I was transferred to an LST (Landing Ship Tank) that had been converted to an emergency hospital ship, and was examined, treated and released as an ambulatory patient. I was suffering from severe shortness of breath, diagnosed as resulting from concussion. I had various cuts and bruises, severe sunburn and other effects from exposure. I was one of the lucky ones.”
American Naval Flight Officers in training at NAS Pensacola, Florida, in a dunking device designed to replicate the experience of having to escape from a submerged aircraft