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USS St. Lo

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USS St. Lo Cve63.jpg
USS St. Lo (CVE-63)
History
United States
Name
  • Chapin Bay (1942–1943)
  • Midway (1943–1944)
  • St. Lo (1944)
Namesake
Orderedas a Type S4-S2-BB3 hull, MCE hull 1100[1]
Awarded18 June 1942
BuilderKaiser Shipbuilding Company, Vancouver, Washington
Cost$6,033,429.05[2]
Yard number309[1]
Way number3[2]
Laid down23 January 1943
Launched17 August 1943
Sponsored byMrs. Howard Nixon Coulter
Commissioned23 October 1943
Renamed
  • Midway, 3 April 1943
  • St. Lo, 10 October 1944
Stricken27 November 1944
Identification
FateSunk by kamikaze aircraft, 25 October 1944
General characteristics [3]
Class and type Casablanca-class escort carrier
Displacement
Length
  • 512 ft 3 in (156.13 m) (oa)
  • 490 ft (150 m) (wl)
Beam
Draft20 ft 9 in (6.32 m) (max)
Installed power
Propulsion
Speed19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph)
Range10,240 nmi (18,960 km; 11,780 mi) at 15 kn (28 km/h; 17 mph)
Complement
  • Total:910–916 officers and men
    • Embarked Squadron:50–56
    • Ship's Crew:860
Armament
Aircraft carried27 aircraft
Service record
Part of: United States Pacific Fleet
Operations: Battle of Saipan, Battle of Tinian, Battle of Morotai, Battle off Samar, Battle of Leyte Gulf
Awards: Presidential Unit Citation, 4 Battle stars
For other ships with the same name, see USS Midway.

USS St. Lo (AVG/ACV/CVE–63) was a Casablanca-class escort carrier of the United States Navy during World War II. On 25 October 1944, St. Lo became the first major warship to sink as the result of a kamikaze attack. The attack occurred during the Battle off Samar, part of the larger Battle of Leyte Gulf.

Discover more about USS St. Lo related topics

Casablanca-class escort carrier

Casablanca-class escort carrier

The Casablanca-class escort carrier were a series of escort carriers constructed for the United States Navy during World War II. They are the most numerous class of aircraft carriers ever built. Fifty were laid down, launched and commissioned within the space of less than two years – 3 November 1942 through to 8 July 1944. These were nearly one third of the 143 aircraft carriers built in the United States during the war. Despite their numbers, and the preservation of more famous and larger carriers as museums, none of these modest ships survive today. Five were lost to enemy action during World War II and the remainder were scrapped.

Escort carrier

Escort carrier

The escort carrier or escort aircraft carrier, also called a "jeep carrier" or "baby flattop" in the United States Navy (USN) or "Woolworth Carrier" by the Royal Navy, was a small and slow type of aircraft carrier used by the Royal Navy, the United States Navy, the Imperial Japanese Navy and Imperial Japanese Army Air Force in World War II. They were typically half the length and a third the displacement of larger fleet carriers, slower, more-lightly armed and armored, and carried fewer planes. Escort carriers were most often built upon a commercial ship hull, so they were cheaper and could be built quickly. This was their principal advantage as they could be completed in greater numbers as a stop-gap when fleet carriers were scarce. However, the lack of protection made escort carriers particularly vulnerable, and several were sunk with great loss of life. The light carrier was a similar concept to the escort carrier in most respects, but was fast enough to operate alongside fleet carriers.

United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of its active battle fleet alone exceeding the next 13 navies combined, including 11 allies or partner nations of the United States as of 2015. It has the highest combined battle fleet tonnage and the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, with eleven in service, two new carriers under construction, and five other carriers planned. With 336,978 personnel on active duty and 101,583 in the Ready Reserve, the United States Navy is the third largest of the United States military service branches in terms of personnel. It has 290 deployable combat vessels and more than 2,623 operational aircraft as of June 2019.

World War II

World War II

World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a global conflict that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries, including all of the great powers, fought as part of two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. Many participants threw their economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind this total war, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and the delivery of the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war.

Kamikaze

Kamikaze

Kamikaze , officially Shinpū Tokubetsu Kōgekitai , were a part of the Japanese Special Attack Units of military aviators who flew suicide attacks for the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, intending to destroy warships more effectively than with conventional air attacks. About 3,800 kamikaze pilots died during the war, and more than 7,000 naval personnel were killed by kamikaze attacks.

Battle off Samar

Battle off Samar

The Battle off Samar was the centermost action of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, one of the largest naval battles in history, which took place in the Philippine Sea off Samar Island, in Philippines on October 25, 1944. It was the only major action in the larger battle in which the Americans were largely unprepared. Ultimately, the Imperial Japanese Navy's First Mobile Striking Force under the command of Takeo Kurita disengaged and headed northwards, and most of the American carriers escaped with the help of rain squalls, smoke screens and intense air attack.

Battle of Leyte Gulf

Battle of Leyte Gulf

The Battle of Leyte Gulf was the largest naval battle of World War II and by some criteria the largest naval battle in history, with over 200,000 naval personnel involved. It was fought in waters near the Philippine islands of Leyte, Samar, and Luzon from 23 to 26 October 1944 between combined American and Australian forces and the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), as part of the invasion of Leyte, which aimed to isolate Japan from the colonies that it had occupied in Southeast Asia, a vital source of industrial and oil supplies.

Construction

St. Lo was laid down as Chapin Bay on 23 January 1943,[4] under a Maritime Commission (MARCOM) contract, MC hull 1100;[2] renamed Midway on 3 April 1943; launched on 17 August 1943; sponsored by Mrs Howard Nixon Coulter, commissioned on 23 October 1943 with Captain Francis J. McKenna in command.[4]

Service history

Midway left Astoria, Oregon on 13 November 1943. She went dry docking on 10 April 1944. After shakedown on the west coast and two voyages to Pearl Harbor and one to Australia, carrying replacement aircraft, Midway, with Composite Squadron 65 (VC-65) embarked, joined Rear Admiral Gerald F. Bogan's Carrier Support Group 1 in June, for the Mariana Islands. She provided air cover for the transports and participated in airstrikes on Saipan[4] VC-65's FM-2 Wildcats claimed to have shot down four and damaged one other Japanese aircraft during combat air patrol operations there.

On 13 July, she sailed for Eniwetok, for replenishment before joining the attack on Tinian, on 23 July. Furnishing air support for ground forces on the island and maintaining an anti-submarine patrol, Midway operated off Tinian, until she again headed out for supplies on 28 July.[4]

Midway remained at anchor in Eniwetok Atoll, until she got under way on 9 August, for Seeadler Harbor, at Manus, Admiralty Islands, arriving on 13 August.[4]

On 13 September, she sortied with Task Force 77 (TF 77) for the invasion of Morotai. Launching her first aircraft to support the landings on 15 September. She continued to assist allied troops ashore and provide cover for the transports through 22 September.[4]

After a refueling period, Midway resumed air operations in the Palaus until returning to Seeadler Harbor on 3 October. There, word arrived that the escort carrier had been renamed St. Lo, 10 October, to free the name Midway for a new attack carrier and to commemorate the Battle of Saint-Lô, on 18 July 1944.[4]

Battle off Samar

Main article: Battle off Samar

St. Lo departed Seeadler Harbor on 12 October, to participate in the liberation of Leyte. Ordered to provide air coverage and close air support during the bombardment and amphibious landings, she arrived off Leyte on 18 October. She launched airstrikes in support of invasion operations at Tacloban, on the northeast coast of Leyte. Operating with Rear Admiral Clifton Sprague's escort carrier unit, "Taffy 3" (TU 77.4.3), which consisted of six escort carriers and a screen of three destroyers and four destroyer escorts, St. Lo steamed off the east coasts of Leyte and Samar and her aircraft sortied from 18 to 24 October, attacking enemy installations and airfields on Leyte and Samar islands.[4]

Steaming about 60 mi (52 nmi; 97 km) east of Samar, before dawn of 25 October, St. Lo launched a four-aircraft anti-submarine patrol while the remaining carriers of Taffy 3 prepared for the day's initial airstrikes against the landing beaches. The Battle off Samar began at 06:47, when Ensign Bill Brooks—piloting one of the TBF Avengers from St. Lo—reported sighting a large Japanese force comprising four battleships, eight cruisers and twelve destroyers approaching from the west-northwest, only 17 mi (15 nmi; 27 km) away. At the same time, lookouts on St. Lo spotted the characteristic pagoda-like superstructures of Japanese battleships on the horizon. Rear Admiral Sprague ordered Taffy 3 to turn south at flank speed. Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita's force closed and by about 06:58 opened fire on the slow, outnumbered and outgunned ships of Taffy 3.[4]

St. Lo and the other five escort carriers dodged in and out of rain squalls and managed to launch all available fighter and torpedo aircraft with whatever armament they had available. Pilots were ordered, "to attack the Japanese task force and proceed to Tacloban airstrip, Leyte, to rearm and refuel" as the carriers managed to dodge salvos from enemy cruisers and battleships.[4]

By 08:00, the enemy cruisers, approaching from St. Lo's port quarter, had closed to within 14,000 yd (13,000 m). St. Lo responded with fire from her single 5 in (127 mm) gun,[4] claiming three hits on a Tone-class cruiser.

For the next 90 minutes, Admiral Kurita's ships closed in on Taffy 3, with his nearest destroyers and cruisers firing from as close as 10,000 yd (9,100 m) on the port and starboard quarters of St. Lo. Many salvos straddled the ship, landed close aboard, or passed directly overhead.[4] Throughout the battle, the carriers and their escorts used smoke screens that Admiral Sprague credited with degrading Japanese gun accuracy. More effective were the attacks by the destroyers and destroyer escorts against the Japanese ships. All the while, Kurita's force was under attack by Taffy 3 aircraft and aircraft from the two other U.S. carrier units to the south.

Under attack from the air and fire from American destroyers and destroyer escorts, the enemy cruisers broke off the action and turned north at 09:20. At 09:15, the enemy destroyers which had been kept at bay by the exploits of USS Johnston, USS Hoel and USS Samuel B. Roberts as well as the other units of Taffy 3—launched a premature torpedo attack from 10,500 yd (9,600 m).[4] The torpedoes had nearly run out of fuel when they finally approached the escort carriers, broaching the surface. A St. Lo Avenger, piloted by Lieutenant, junior grade Tex Waldrop, strafed two torpedoes in the wake of USS Kalinin Bay.

Kamikaze

A kamikaze strikes St. Lo
A kamikaze strikes St. Lo

At 10:50, the task unit came under a concentrated air attack by the Shikishima Special Attack Unit. During the forty-minute engagement with enemy kamikazes, all the escort carriers except USS Fanshaw Bay were damaged.[4] One Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero—perhaps flown by Lieutenant Yukio Seki—crashed into the flight deck of St. Lo at 10:51. Seki was originally aiming to strike the carrier White Plains but damage from anti-aircraft fire made him change course to the St. Lo. Its bomb penetrated the flight deck and exploded on the port side of the hangar deck, where aircraft were in the process of being refueled and rearmed. A gasoline fire erupted, followed by secondary explosions, including detonations of the ship's torpedo and bomb magazine. St. Lo was engulfed in flame and sank 30 minutes later.[5]

Of the 889 men aboard, 113 were killed or missing and approximately 30 others died of their wounds. The survivors were rescued from the water by USS Heermann, USS John C. Butler, USS Raymond and USS Dennis (which picked up 434 survivors).[5]

The wreck is located near 11°01′N 126°02′E / 11.02°N 126.04°E / 11.02; 126.04Coordinates: 11°01′N 126°02′E / 11.02°N 126.04°E / 11.02; 126.04.[6]

Discover more about Service history related topics

Astoria, Oregon

Astoria, Oregon

Astoria is a port city and the seat of Clatsop County, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1811, Astoria is the oldest city in the state and was the first permanent American settlement west of the Rocky Mountains. The county is the northwest corner of Oregon, and Astoria is located on the south shore of the Columbia River, where the river flows into the Pacific Ocean. The city is named for John Jacob Astor, an investor and entrepreneur from New York City, whose American Fur Company founded Fort Astoria at the site and established a monopoly in the fur trade in the early 19th century. Astoria was incorporated by the Oregon Legislative Assembly on October 20, 1856.

Gerald F. Bogan

Gerald F. Bogan

Gerald Francis Bogan was a United States Navy aviator and vice admiral who served in World War I and II.

Mariana Islands

Mariana Islands

The Mariana Islands are a crescent-shaped archipelago comprising the summits of fifteen longitudinally oriented, mostly dormant volcanic mountains in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, between the 12th and 21st parallels north and along the 145th meridian east. They lie south-southeast of Japan, west-southwest of Hawaii, north of New Guinea and east of the Philippines, demarcating the Philippine Sea's eastern limit. They are found in the northern part of the western Oceanic sub-region of Micronesia, and are politically divided into two jurisdictions of the United States: the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and, at the southern end of the chain, the territory of Guam. The islands were named after the influential Spanish queen Mariana of Austria following their colonization in the 17th century.

Battle of Saipan

Battle of Saipan

The Battle of Saipan was a battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II, fought on the island of Saipan in the Mariana Islands from 15 June to 9 July 1944 as part of Operation Forager. It has been referred to as the "Pacific D-Day" with the invasion fleet departing Pearl Harbor on 5 June 1944, the day before Operation Overlord in Europe was launched, and launching nine days after. The U.S. 2nd Marine Division, 4th Marine Division, and the Army's 27th Infantry Division, commanded by Lieutenant General Holland Smith, defeated the 43rd Infantry Division of the Imperial Japanese Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Yoshitsugu Saitō. The loss of Saipan, with the deaths of at least 29,000 troops and heavy civilian casualties, precipitated the resignation of Prime Minister of Japan Hideki Tōjō and left the Japanese archipelago within the range of United States Army Air Forces B-29 bombers.

Battle of Tinian

Battle of Tinian

The Battle of Tinian was a battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II, fought on the island of Tinian in the Mariana Islands from 24 July until 1 August 1944. The 8,000-man Japanese garrison was eliminated, and the island joined Saipan and Guam as a base for the Twentieth Air Force.

Manus Island

Manus Island

Manus Island is part of Manus Province in northern Papua New Guinea and is the largest of the Admiralty Islands. It is the fifth-largest island in Papua New Guinea, with an area of 2,100 km2 (810 sq mi), measuring around 100 km × 30 km. Manus Island is covered in rugged jungles which can be broadly described as lowland tropical rain forest. The highest point on Manus Island is Mt. Dremsel, 718 metres (2,356 ft) above sea level at the centre of the south coast. Manus Island is volcanic in origin and probably broke through the ocean's surface in the late Miocene, 8 to 10 million years ago. The substrate of the island is either directly volcanic or from uplifted coral limestone.

Admiralty Islands

Admiralty Islands

The Admiralty Islands are an archipelago group of 18 islands in the Bismarck Archipelago, to the north of New Guinea in the South Pacific Ocean. These are also sometimes called the Manus Islands, after the largest island.

Battle of Morotai

Battle of Morotai

The Battle of Morotai, part of the Pacific War, began on 15 September 1944, and continued until the end of the war in August 1945. The fighting started when United States and Australian forces landed on the southwest corner of Morotai, a small island in the Netherlands East Indies (NEI), which the Allies needed as a base to support the liberation of the Philippines later that year. The invading forces greatly outnumbered the island's Japanese defenders and secured their objectives in two weeks. Japanese reinforcements landed on the island between September and November, but lacked the supplies needed to effectively attack the Allied defensive perimeter. Intermittent fighting continued until the end of the war, with the Japanese troops suffering heavy loss of life from disease and starvation.

Palau

Palau

Palau, officially the Republic of Palau and historically Belau, Palaos or Pelew, is an island country and microstate in the western Pacific. The nation has approximately 340 islands and connects the western chain of the Caroline Islands with parts of the Federated States of Micronesia. It has a total area of 466 square kilometers (180 sq mi). The most populous island is Koror, home to the country's most populous city of the same name. The capital Ngerulmud is located on the nearby island of Babeldaob, in Melekeok State. Palau shares maritime boundaries with international waters to the north, the Federated States of Micronesia to the east, Indonesia to the south, and the Philippines to the northwest.

Battle of Saint-Lô

Battle of Saint-Lô

The Battle of Saint-Lô is one of the three conflicts in the battle of the hedgerows, which took place between July 7 and 19, 1944, just before Operation Cobra. Saint-Lô had fallen to Germany in 1940, and, after the Invasion of Normandy, the Americans targeted the city, as it served as a strategic crossroads. American bombardments caused heavy damage and a high number of casualties, which resulted in the martyr city being called "The Capital of Ruins", popularized in a report by Samuel Beckett.

Battle off Samar

Battle off Samar

The Battle off Samar was the centermost action of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, one of the largest naval battles in history, which took place in the Philippine Sea off Samar Island, in Philippines on October 25, 1944. It was the only major action in the larger battle in which the Americans were largely unprepared. Ultimately, the Imperial Japanese Navy's First Mobile Striking Force under the command of Takeo Kurita disengaged and headed northwards, and most of the American carriers escaped with the help of rain squalls, smoke screens and intense air attack.

Battle of Leyte

Battle of Leyte

The Battle of Leyte in the Pacific campaign of World War II was the amphibious invasion of the island of Leyte in the Philippines by American forces and Filipino guerrillas under the overall command of General Douglas MacArthur, who fought against the Imperial Japanese Army in the Philippines led by General Tomoyuki Yamashita. The operation, codenamed King Two, launched the Philippines campaign of 1944–45 for the recapture and liberation of the entire Philippine Archipelago and to end almost three years of Japanese occupation.

Awards

Discover more about Awards related topics

Presidential Unit Citation (United States)

Presidential Unit Citation (United States)

The Presidential Unit Citation (PUC), originally called the Distinguished Unit Citation, is awarded to units of the uniformed services of the United States, and those of allied countries, for extraordinary heroism in action against an armed enemy on or after 7 December 1941. The unit must display such gallantry, determination, and esprit de corps in accomplishing its mission under extremely difficult and hazardous conditions so as to set it apart from and above other units participating in the same campaign.

American Campaign Medal

American Campaign Medal

The American Campaign Medal is a military award of the United States Armed Forces which was first created on November 6, 1942, by Executive Order 9265 issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The medal was intended to recognize those military members who had performed military service in the American Theater of Operations during World War II. A similar medal, known as the American Defense Service Medal was awarded for active duty service before the United States' entry into World War II.

Asiatic–Pacific Campaign Medal

Asiatic–Pacific Campaign Medal

The Asiatic–Pacific Campaign Medal is a United States military award of the Second World War, which was awarded to any member of the United States Armed Forces who served in the Asiatic-Pacific Theater from 1941 to 1945. The medal was created on November 6, 1942, by Executive Order 9265 issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The medal was designed by Thomas Hudson Jones; the reverse side was designed by Adolph Alexander Weinman which is the same design as used on the reverse of the American Campaign Medal and European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal.

World War II Victory Medal

World War II Victory Medal

The World War II Victory Medal is a service medal of the United States military which was established by an Act of Congress on 6 July 1945 and promulgated by Section V, War Department Bulletin 12, 1945.

Philippine Liberation Medal

Philippine Liberation Medal

The Philippine Liberation Medal is a military award of the Republic of the Philippines which was created by an order of Commonwealth Army of the Philippines Headquarters on December 20, 1944, and was issued as the Philippine Liberation Ribbon. The decoration was presented to any service member, of both Philippine Commonwealth and allied militaries, who participated in the liberation of the Philippine Islands between the dates of October 17, 1944, and September 2, 1945. A full-sized medal was authorized and added on July 22, 1945.

Wreck

The wreck of St. Lo was found by RV Petrel on 14 May 2019 and surveyed on 25 May 2019. The main wreck sits upright in 4,736 meters (15,538 feet) of water, on the edge of the Philippine Trench.[7]

Source: "USS St. Lo", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2021, December 6th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_St._Lo.

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Further Reading

Battle of Leyte Gulf

Casablanca-class escort carrier

Clifton Sprague

USS Suwannee (CVE-27)

Battle off Samar

USS Gambier Bay

USS White Plains (CVE-66)

USS Kalinin Bay

USS Manila Bay

USS Ommaney Bay

USS Petrof Bay

USS Natoma Bay

USS Heermann

USS Hoel (DD-533)

USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413)

USS John C. Butler

Takeo Kurita

USS Richard W. Suesens
See also
References

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.

  1. ^ a b Kaiser Vancouver 2010.
  2. ^ a b c MARCOM.
  3. ^ Navsource 2019.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n DANFS 2020.
  5. ^ a b Smith 2014, pp. 14–15.
  6. ^ Wreck.
  7. ^ US aircraft carrier St. Lo images from RV Petrel at YouTube
Bibliography
  • Cressman, Robert J. (19 February 2020). "Midway II (CVE-63)". Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Naval History and Heritage Command. Retrieved 11 November 2020.
  • "Kaiser Vancouver, Vancouver WA". ShipbuildingHistory.com. 27 November 2010. Retrieved 21 October 2018.
  • "USS Midway (CVE-63), later USS St. Lo (CVE-63)". NavSource Naval History. 10 December 2019. Retrieved 11 November 2020.
  • Gerhardt, Frank A. "Midway". U.S. Maritime Commission Database. Retrieved 11 November 2020.
  • "USS St. Lo (CVE-63) (+1944)". Wreck Site. Retrieved 11 November 2020.
  • Smith, Peter C (2014). Kamikaze: To Die for the Emperor. Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword Books. ISBN 9781781593134.
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