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Here can be a column for your story.  Send it to me and I’ll find room for it.

 

 

et’s put your story here,  We would like to know what our shipmates have done; will do; want to do.  -  I’ll bet many of you have had interesting lives and have contributed a lot to your job and/or your community.  How about family members that you are proud of. 

 There’s always a story to be told so why not tell it here.  Include pictures and whatever you want.  I’ll be glad to include it

 USS BUNKER HILL
(CV 17)
"The Holiday Express"

The first ship to bear the name USS BUNKER HILL (CV 17) was one of the ESSEX Class Fast Carriers. Commissioned May 20, 1943, she quickly earned the nickname "HOLIDAY EXPRESS" because many of her slashing attacks were made during the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.

A significant improvement of the ESSEX Class ships over the other US carriers at the time, in addition to more guns and armament, was that they were equipped with a more heavily armored deck, plus a second armored deck on the hangar level designed to detonate armor-piercing shells and bombs before they reached the vital machinery and electronic spaces below.

BUNKER HILL was one of the few carriers to survive all the way through the Pacific Island Hopping Campaign to engage the largest battleship ever built - the YAMATO. In the attack on the Japanese super battleship, the YAMATO was hit by several bombs and almost a dozen torpedo strikes in the hull before she finally blew up and sank. Five of her escorts were sunk with her.

But the victories of the HOLIDAY EXPRESS and her deadly airwing were soon to come to an end. On May 11, 1945 off the coast of Okinawa, two Japanese aircraft swept down on the BUNKER HILL so Bunker Hill so quickly that her exhausted gunners barely had time to respond. The first aircraft released its 500 pound bomb which smashed through the flight deck and out the side, exploding just above the water. The aircraft crashed into the flight deck and skidded over the side, destroying nearly all the ready-deck aircraft. The second aircraft dove at the carrier at nearly a vertical dive, dropping its 500 pound bomb just before it hit the deck. The bomb smashed through the flight deck, but did not make it through the hangar deck where it exploded. The thickened armor protecting the machinery spaces below had proved effective.

After several hours of fighting fires BUNKER HILL was able to sail under her own power to dock for repairs. A total of 346 men lost their lives, 43 were counted missing and 264 had been wounded, many with severe burns. Many of the ship’s pilots died either in their planes or inside the skin of the ship when the second bomb exploded.

BUNKER HILL was repaired just as the war had ended. Her final act of WWII was to bring thousands of servicemen home from the Pacific Theater. In 1947 she was decommissioned.

In the years following her decommissioning BUNKER HILL (CV 17) served as an Anti-submarine Warfare Support Carrier (CVS 17), an Aviation transport, and electronics test ship before being sold to Zidell Explorations, Inc, in 1973.

During the few short years she was activated in WWII, BUNKER HILL earned eleven battle stars and, in 1946, the President’s Citation.

 

 

USS Bunker Hill Association