Tag Archives: battleship Nagato

Sea Dragon and Black Dragon

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Some 80 years ago today.

Post-war view of Yokosuka, while anchored in Tokyo Bay.

The surrendered 33,000-ton 16-inch gunned Japanese super-dreadnought Nagato can be seen in the right background in this image, 30 December 1945, with the more advanced Iowa-class fast battleship USS New Jersey (BB-62) in the foreground, which carried an extra 16-inch gun when compared to Nagato and hit the scales at a massive 57,540 tons at the time due to her immense AAA battery and huge crew.

USN photograph courtesy of David Buell, via Navsource.

New Jersey, launched 7 December 1942 by the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, was commissioned 23 May 1943, making her just over two years in the fleet at the time, and had earned nine battle stars for her World War II service in the Pacific. She would go on to serve in Korea (four more battle stars plus a Presidential Unit Citation), Vietnam (three more plus a Navy Unit Commendation), Lebanon, and the Persian Gulf and would only decommission for her final time on 8 February 1991.

She, of course, is a museum ship with at least another 20 years of service ahead of her following her latest dry docking.

Nagato, commissioned on 25 November 1920, had served just over 25 years with the Imperial Fleet but spent the majority of the war in home waters, one of the primary reasons she was still afloat in 1945, albeit a little battered. That would soon change, as she was sunk just seven months after this image was taken, sent to the bottom as a target in the Atomic tests at Bikini Atoll, Operation Crossroads, 29/30 July 1946.

Her decaying wreck will continue to rest on the ocean floor in Bikini Lagoon, some 170 feet down, for decades to come.

Warship Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024: Oft Overlooked Essex

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Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

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Warship Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024: Oft Overlooked Essex

U.S. Navy photo 80-G-282724 in the National Archives, Identifier: 276538368

Above we see the brand new Essex-class fleet carrier USS Bennington (CV-20), decked out in Measure 32, Design 17A camouflage, photographed in the busy shipping lanes off New York on 25 September 1944 by Navy Blimp ZP-12 with the troopship SS Nievw Amsterdam in the foreground. She would go on to become one of the last of her class in Navy custody but first had to earn battle stars off Japan and Vietnam as well as pluck a space capsule from the sea.

Meet Bennington

One of eighteen Essex-class carriers completed during World War II, CV-20 was the second U.S. Navy warship named after the little-known 1777 New York battle during the Saratoga campaign that occurred near the Vermont city of Bennington.

The first USS Bennington (Gunboat No. 4) was a hardy little vessel probably best known to history for taking formal possession of Wake Island for the United States in 1899.

(Gunboat # 4) Dressed with flags in a harbor, probably while serving with the Squadron of Evolution, circa 1891-1892. Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1969. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 67551

Ordered a week after Pearl Harbor on 15 December 1941, our second USS Bennington was the first of her class built in the Empire State (which makes her name choice logical) and was laid down on 15 December 1942 at the New York (Brooklyn) Navy Yard.

Bennington was also the first American fleet carrier constructed wholly in a dry dock, rather than on a builder’s ways, and at her launching on 26 February 1944, the dock gates were opened to allow the Hudson to flow in. She was sponsored by the wife of eight-time U.S. Rep. Melvin Maas (R-Minn) who, a Great War Marine aviator, was back in uniform as a colonel on MacArthur’s staff.

Bennington being prepared for launching in a building dock at the New York Navy Yard, 23 February 1944. She was christened three days later. Courtesy of Mr. James Russell, Philadelphia Pennsylvania, 1972. NH 75631

USS Bennington (CV-20) being floated out of drydock at the New York Navy Yard, on 26 February 1944, following her christening. NH 75632

The same yard was soon turning the lessons learned in constructing CV-20 to good use and would build three sisters (Bon Homme Richard, Kearsarge, and Oriskany) while a fourth, USS Reprisal (CV 35) was canceled just after launch.

Bennington was one of the last of the “short bow” designed Essex class carriers completed, with later vessels having a longer clipper bow. Remember this in a minute.

Starting in May 1944, her crew gathered at Naval Training Station Newport and Brooklyn Navy Yard for pre-commissioning training while her inaugural carrier group, the brand new CVG 82, was likewise coming together at the fields around Norfolk.

She was commissioned on 6 August 1944– 80 years ago this week– and her plankowners and baby Airedales boarded her for the first time in front of a crowd of 8,000 people. Her first skipper, T/Capt. James Bennett Sykes (USNA 1919), came from the captain’s cabin of the very successful U-boat-busing USS Card (CVE-11) whose embarked VC-9 squadron bagged an incredible eight boats between August and October 1943.

Her wardroom also included 32-year-old LT John Aloysius “Buddy” Hassett, formerly a first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Boston Bees/Braves, and New York Yankees. He naturally pulled down the collateral duty of Bennington’s athletic and recreation director and coach of the carrier’s baseball team and would remain with the vessel until the end of the war.

Hassett would leave the Navy in November 1945 as an LCDR.

CVG-82 was made up of the “Fighting Fools” of VF-82 (36 F6F-5 Hellcats), VB-82 (15 SB2C-4E Helldivers) and VT-82 (15 TBM-3 Avengers). This would be beefed up by two Marine Corsair squadrons, VMF-112 and VMF-223, with a total of 36 F4U-1Ds and 54 flying leatherneck pilots. Likewise, a night fighter det of six radar-equipped F6F-5N, six pilots, two ground officers, and seven enlisted ground crew joined VF-82 at the same time, landing six of the more standard Hellcats to make room.

Thus equipped, CVG-82 sailed for the Pacific in January 1945 with a very fighter-heavy 73 F models, 15 dive bombers, and 15 torpedo bombers, as opposed to the more traditional “Sunday Punch” of 36-36-36 of each type. This was to counter the onset of the kamikaze waves, which started in October 1944, and the general decline of floating and ashore targets on which to expend torpedoes and bombs.

By this point in the Pacific campaign, close-in air support had largely been passed from fast carriers to the Navy’s growing force of CVEs and CVLs, with the CVs tasked instead with providing a robust fighter umbrella over the fleet.

USS Bennington (CV-20) photographed from a plane that has just taken off from her flight deck, during the ship’s shakedown period, 20 October 1944. 80-G-289645

USS Bennington (CV-20) at anchor in Gravesend Bay, New York, 13 Dec 1944

USS Bennington (CV-20) ferries aircraft to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii while on her maiden voyage to fight in World War II in January 1945

War!

Steaming through the Panama Canal and calling at San Diego and Pearl Harbor on her way to Ulithi Atoll Fleet Anchorage by 7 February 1945, CVG-82 managed to chalk up 3,000 landings along the way, although crack ups were to be expected.

Firefighters battle flames engulfing a Marine F4U Corsair after a crash on the flight deck of the carrier Bennington (CV 20) on 14 February 1945. According to Bennington’s War Diary, the plane was of Marine 38, which crashed into the island and “created a stubborn gasoline fire” until it was jettisoned over the side. Its pilot, 2LT W.M. Browning, USMCR, escaped with “minor lacerations.” NNAM photo.

Underway as part of TG 58.1, Bennington/CVG-82’s baptism of fire came on 16 February when she took part in the first large-scale Navy air raids of the Japanese home islands, sending 130 combat sorties in “two deck load strikes” into the area around Tokyo Bay, flying missions against installations at Mitsune and Mikatagahara Airfields on Hachijo Jima, Nanpo Shoto. During the raid, she was the Westernmost carrier– the one closest to Japan.

At the end of the day, 10 aircrew were listed missing. They would not be the last.

From her War Diary for 16 Feb 1945:

She then pivoted south to support the Iwo Jima landings, plastering Chichi Jima on 18 February (D-1). Then came a four-month cycle that saw Bennington pivoting back and forth between supporting landings and operations on/over Iwo and Okinawa and Home Island raids.

This would include joining in, with air groups from 14 other carriers, on the 7 April hammering of the world’s largest battleship, Yamato (with Admiral Seiichi Itō on board), the light cruiser Yahagi, and four of the Emperor’s destroyers into the East China Sea.

Note Bennington’s hits

U.S. Navy deck crewmen aboard USS Bennington (CV-20) maneuver a Curtiss SB2C-4 Helldiver of bombing squadron VB-82 into position on the carrier’s flight deck. VB-82 operated from Bennington during the period February to June 1945. Note Bennington’s arrowhead geometric air group identification symbol on the SB2C’s wings and tail. U.S. Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation photo No. 1996.253.357

Bennington launching TBM Avengers from VT-1 during operations in early 1945. USS Harrison (DD-573), a Fletcher-class destroyer that received 11 battle stars for World War II service, steams past in the background. She would later serve in the Mexican Navy as Cuauhtemoc (E-01) until 1982. 80-G-K-5103

Japanese plane being shot down by gunfire on 14 May 1945 while approaching USS Bennington (CV 20). Image taken from USS Hornet (CV 12). The ships were serving as part of Task Force 38 off the Kyushu, Japan area. Sky is decorated with anti-aircraft fire. 80-G-331622

USS Bennington (CV-20) Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat fighters of VF-82 prepare for takeoff, circa May 1945. 80-G-K-4946

This high tempo continued until 5 June 1945 when Connie, a “small and tight typhoon overtook TG 38.1, which passed through the eye of the storm at 0700 that morning,” hitting the group with winds clocked at over 100 knots and seas of up to 50 feet. The storm damaged almost every ship in the TG and wrecked or washed away 76 aircraft from the group’s three assembled carriers.

Bennington got some of the worst of it, having her forecastle deck flooded, leaving living spaces a “shambles,” buckling a 25-foot section of her flight deck, and putting both catapults out of commission. Hornet, operating in TG.38.1 along with Bennington, suffered almost the exact same damage.

Nonetheless, she was still capable of putting up strikes– sending 26 Hellcats and 11 Corsairs to bomb and strafe Japanese airfields on Southern Kyushu on 8 June– and mount a CAP over her task group.

Bennington was forced to retire to Leyte Gulf off Tacloban Field where she underwent 20 days of emergency repairs courtesy of the forward-deployed repair ship USS Ajax (AR-6), which cut away her collapsed flight deck.

Workers from the floating workshop USS Ajax, (AR-6) repaired the bow of the carrier USS Bennington, (CV-20) off Leyte Island in June 1945. Virgil Cowart Collection. UA 539.11

CVG-82 made their 10,744th and final landing on Bennington on 10 June. In their four months in combat on CV-20, they had an impressive tally that included helping to break the back of the Imperial Air Force– claiming 386 Japanese aircraft destroyed in the air or on the ground– as well as contributing to ending the last surface threat of the Imperial Navy.

In return, CVG-82 lost an incredible 127 aircraft (remember that they sailed from California in January 1945 with 103!) along with 53 aviators and aircrew, a quarter of their complement, across 7,304 combat sorties.

Bled white in terms of both men and material, CVG-82 was pulled off Bennington on 17 June and sent back to the states on the homeward-bound jeep carrier USS White Plains (CVE-66). They would not be ready to deploy again until October 1946, when they shipped out on a Med cruise aboard Bennington’s sister, USS Randolph (CV-15).

CVG-82s scorecard from their 1945 cruise with Bennington:

Likewise leaving Bennington at this time was Capt. Sykes who was sent to take command of the Naval Ordnance Test Station (later NAWS China Lake) at Inyokern, California. His place was taken by Capt. Boynton Lewis Braun (USNA 1921B), a career naval aviator who earned his wings on the old USS Lexington and had formerly commanded the escort carrier USS Manila Bay (CVE-61).

With CVG-82 gone, Bennington soon picked up the recently reorganized Carrier Air Group One (CVG-1) which, formed in 1938 as the “Ranger Air Group” had a lineage that dated back to the Navy’s first purpose-built flattop. Consisting of VF-1 (Hellcats including photo and night fighter variants), VBF-1 (Corsairs) VB-1 (Helldivers), and VT-1 (Avengers), they arrived in the Philippines in mid-June 1945 on White Plains, the same jeep carrier which would tote CVG-82 home.

CVG-1 stood some 163 pilots and 98 aircraft strong.

Starting flight operations on 1 July, they would soon get a bite at the decaying Japanese apple, striking Tokyo just 10 days later. CVG-1 would spend the next five weeks hammering industrial, military, and naval targets across Honshu in what could really be looked at as mopping up operations.

Nonetheless, this allowed the group, and by extension Bennington, to put the final nails in the Imperial Navy’s coffin, logging hits on the 22,000-ton Unryū-class fleet carriers Amagi and Katsuragi; the hybrid carrier-battleships Hyuga and Ise, and the cherished battlewagon Nagato, among others taking refuge in the mine-blocked Inland Sea.

Salvaging parts of a damaged VBF-1 Corsair Aboard the USS Bennington (CV-20), 4 July 1945. 80-GK-6176

Raids on Japan, 1945. Japanese carrier Amagi under attack at Kure, on 24 July 1945. Photo by USS Bennington (CV-20). 80-G-490165

Raids on Japanese Home Islands, July 30, 1945. Japanese carriers of the Amagi-Katsuragi class hit by bombers at Kure Bay, Japan. Radio photograph. 80-G-490169

One of CVG-1’s most hard-felt losses was that of VB-1’s squadron commander, LCDR Andrew B Hamm (USNA ’39) when his SB2C-4E Helldiver was shot down by anti-aircraft fire over Kure on 28 July. Hamm’s folks in Alabama were given his posthumous Navy Cross, earned on a previous raid when he landed a 1,000-pound armor-piercing bomb on the carrier Amagi. He was one of 26 pilots and aircrewmen listed killed or missing from the group in their short time on Bennington— almost one per day.

A CVG-1 Corsair launches from the deck of the carrier USS Bennington CV-20 on 14 August 1945. Note the battleship on the horizon

When the Emperor threw in the towel on 14 August, Bennington and her air group spent the next two weeks jogging up and down the coast from Northern Honshu to Southern Hokkaido and back, cataloging 11 Allied POW camps around the region, many of which were not previously known.

Captured by one of CVG-1’s F6F-5P recon birds

They dropped 5.5 tons of supplies from TBMs using canopies repurposed from parachute flares with “more than one pilot expressing his deep satisfaction in making a perfect drop to starving prisoners who by their enthusiastic gestures indicated how welcome their packages were to them.”

CVG-1 was able to clean up its planes and put 83 aviators in the air in everything that could get off the deck to spearhead the “show of force” overflight of USS Missouri during the surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay on 2 September although the carrier was still 100 miles offshore.

Bennington carried on with her role of patrol and mounting photo recon missions along the Japanese Home Islands until 10 September, when she finally steamed into Tokyo Bay and berthed for a weeklong rest.

There, on 13 September 1945, her crew celebrated the ship’s first birthday complete with entertainment and a “grand dinner.” As noted in her War History, “The birthday actually occurred a little more than a month previous of course (6 August but the celebration was necessarily delayed due to combat operations.”

Big Benn remained in the Far East until mid-October and then went back stateside for the first time since January, dropping off her low-mileage air group at Saipan. CVG-1 would later return to be disestablished at Alameda NAS via the east-bound jeep carrier USS Kwajalein (CVE-98). They had been on Bennington for 30,381 steaming miles in just over three months and made 3,323 landings on her decks.

CVG-1s scorecard for July-August 1945:

Entering San Francisco Bay on 7 November sans aircraft, Bennington remained there over the holidays until January 1946 when she set out for Pearl Harbor with a load of planes and a draft of men headed West for occupation duty.

USS Bennington (CV 20) – Pearl Harbor, Hawaii – January 1946

Remaining in the Hawaiian Islands for training for a few months, the carrier was given orders for Norfolk, via the Panama Canal, and arrived there on 22 April.

On 8 November 1946, she was decommissioned and berthed with the Atlantic Reserve Fleet along the James River.

Bennington earned three battle stars for World War II service: 1) Iwo Jima operation, 15 Feb – 4 Mar 1945, 2) Okinawa Gunto Operation, 17 Mar – 11 Jun 1945, 3) Third Fleet operations against Japan 10 Jul – 15 Aug 1945.

Another, Colder, War

Bennington’s mothball slumber lasts just under four years.

Reawakened in October 1950 due to the war in Korea, she was towed to her birthplace at New York Naval Shipyard for an extensive SCB-27A conversion to allow her to handle jets including a pair of new hydraulic Type H Mark 8 (H8) catapults. This upgrade took two grueling years and, once it was finished, she recommissioned on 13 November 1952.

In this, she had been reclassified as an “Attack Aircraft Carrier” to differentiate her from her unconverted sisters and redesignated CVA-20.

Her first jet-and helicopter-equipped air group, CVG-7, composed of VF-71 (F2H Banshee) and VF-72 (F9F Panthers), VF-74 (Corsairs), and VA-75 (AD-4 Skyraiders), along with a det of HUP-2 whirlybirds, arrived on board in February 1953 for Bennington’s Caribbean shakedown cruise and subsequent September 1953- February 1954 Med deployment for NATO exercises.

A F9F-4 Panther from NATC at NAS Patuxent on USS Bennington (CVA 20) 19 April 1954.

It was during this period that she suffered an explosion in her No. 1 fireroom on 27 April 1953 that claimed the lives of 11 men and put her in the yard for two weeks of repair.

She would soon suffer far worse.

Just after returning from the Med, while conducting flight operations off Narragansett Bay with Air Group 181 on 26 May 1954, a series of explosions rocked the carrier after her port catapult accumulator burst and filled the air with vaporized lubricating oil which detonated, immolating the wardroom and crew’s mess which were in the compartments directly above. The fire killed 91 men outright while another 12 succumbed to wounds. Over 200 were injured. twelve would die later from their injuries.

Had it not been for the fact that helicopters and small boats were able to rapidly medevac 82 critically injured sailors ashore to the nearby Naval Hospital in Newport, surely more would have perished.

Sailors injured in the below-deck explosions and fires on board the USS Bennington are carried by elevator to the flight deck for transport to Newport Naval Hospital, 26 May 1954.

The Bennington explosion, almost totally forgotten by the public today, was the second worst U.S. Navy accident during peacetime in terms of lives lost, only surpassed by the 1952 collision between USS Hobson (DD 464) and USS Wasp (CV 18) that left the destroyer cut in half and with 176 men killed or missing.

Her deck bulged in numerous places and with most of the front third of the ship with twisted I beams and blackened compartments, Bennington returned once more to New York Naval Shipyard under her own power on 12 June 1954, where she completed a longer SCB-125 conversion that added an enclosed hurricane bow– to lessen the potential for damage in heavy weather– and of an angled flight deck to improve the efficiency of air operations.

She looked very different upon completion of this, her second major overhaul and conversion in five years. 

USS Bennington (CV-20) off Point Loma near the entrance to San Diego Bay in the late 1950s

Bennington emerged from NYNSY on 19 March 1955 and would embark a new air wing, Air Task Group (ATG) 201, that September for an eight-month “around the Horn” West Pac cruise.

Bennington with ATG-201 embarked, in 1956, seen simultaneously landing an AD Skyraider and catapulting an FH Phantom. Note that she has an enclosed bow now but no bridle catchers handing over. 

Bennington, as modernized. NH 67558

Then, in rapid succession, came another new group ATG-181 for a 1956-57 West Pac cruise.

F9F-8 Cougar of Fighter Squadron (VF) 174 launches from Bennington (CVA 20) as another squadron aircraft prepares to maneuver onto the catapult during flight operations in 1956. NNAM collection.

A U.S. Navy North American AJ-2 Savage of heavy attack squadron VAH-6 Det. N Fleurs landing on the aircraft carrier USS Bennington (CVA-20). VAH-6 Det. N was assigned to Air Task Group 181 (ATG-181) for a deployment to the Western Pacific from 15 October 1956 to 22 May 1957. U.S. Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation photo No. 1996.253.3301

F2H-3 Banshee of Marine Fighter Squadron (VMF) 214 pictured while making touch-and-go approaches on board the carrier Bennington (CVA 20) on 2 November 1956. NNAM collection.

Talk about the recruiting poster! Stern of USS Bennington (CVA-20) at Hong Kong, showing her 3″/50 Mk 33 AAA twin mounts. Bennington, with assigned Air Task Group 181 (ATG-181), was deployed to the Western Pacific from 15 October 1956 to 22 May 1957.

San Francisco Naval Shipyard with USS Hancock (CVA-19), the USS Oriskany (CVA-34), and the USS Bennington (CVA-20), 3 October 1957. K-23227

A U.S. Navy North American FJ-4B Fury (BuNo 143574) from Attack Squadron VA-146 Blacktails after landing aboard the aircraft carrier USS Bennington (CVA-20) during carrier qualifications off Southern California (USA) in April 1958. VA-146 was assigned a the time to Carrier Air Group 14 (CVG-14) aboard the much larger supercarrier USS Ranger (CVA-61). NNAM No. 1996.253.7230.017

Fly Navy! FJ3 Fury of VF-173 on board of USS Bennington during the middle of the 50s. (US Navy)

Official U.S. Navy Photograph. Catalog #: USN 1036055

The angled deck USS Bennington (CVA-20) passes the wreck of USS Arizona (BB-39) in Pearl Harbor on Memorial Day, 31 May 1958. Bennington’s crew is in formation on the flight deck, spelling out a tribute to Arizona’s crewmen who were lost in the 7 December 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. USN 1036055

Her final West Pac cruise as a CVA (August 1958 through January 1959) came with ATG-4 embarked.

USS_Bennington_(CVA-20)_underway_c 1958 with ATG 4

Air Task Group 1 (ATG-1) embarked on USS Bennington (CVA 20) in 1958 off Hawaii. Note how big those Savages look!

On 30 June 1959, Bennington was reclassified as an “Antisubmarine Warfare Support Aircraft Carrier” (CVS), a designation that eight of her sisters (Essex, Yorktown, Hornet, Randolph, Wasp, Intrepid, Kearsarge, and Lake Champlain) would share.

The big change that this meant, besides switching to an air group made up of S-2 Trackers and SH-3 Sea Kings with a few AD-5W (EA-1E) Skyraiders for airborne early warning, was having a bow-mounted SQS-23 sonar installed in a SCB-144 conversion.

Five Essex-class flattops at Long Beach Navy Yard. USS Bennington, Yorktown, and Hornet (angled flight decks; no bridle catchers) are configured as ASW carriers; USS Bon Homme Richard (angled deck; with bridle catchers) is an attack carrier; USS Valley Forge (straight axial flight deck with heli zones marked) is serving as LPH-8

Her go-to anti-submarine air group (CVSG) during the 1960s, with which she made six West Coast deployment cruises, was CVSG-59. It was made up, in general, of the “World Famous and Internationally Traveled Screwbirds” of VS-33 and the “Red Griffins” of VS-38 (Trackers), the “Eightballers” of HS-8 (H-34/HSS-1 Seabat/SH-34G then later Sea Kings), and a det from the “Early Elevens” of VAW-11 (Skyraiders, later replaced with E-1B Tracers after 1965).

Note her red and blue H-34/HSS-1 Seabat/SH-34Gs of HS-8, which deployed on Bennington between October 1960 and August 1963 when the squadron switched to Sea Kings

USS Bennington (CVS-20) and USS Braine (DD-630) during an underway replenishment in the Pacific Ocean, circa in 1960. Note her wing of helos and Trackers

Bennington (CV-20), Benner (DD-807), USS Eversole (DD-789), Alfred A. Cunningham (DD-752), and O’Brien (DD-725), on 25 November 1963 honoring the passing of JFK.

Sent to Vietnam on four of her CVS West Pac cruises (Feb-Sept 1964, March-Oct 1965, Nov. 1966-May 1967, and May-December 1968) Bennington also carried a few A-4 Skyhawks for muscle.

Flight deck personnel stand by to prepare for the next launch as an A-4C Skyhawk of Antisubmarine Fighter (VSF) 1 roars down the catapult during carrier qualification aboard the antisubmarine warfare Bennington (CVS 20) 18 November 1967. NNAM photo.

USS Bennington (CVS-20) underway off the coast of California, 25 November 1967. Photographed by Dolenga. NH 97582

Bennington (CVS-20) in Pearl Harbor 17 May 1968

USS Bennington (CVS-20) at Pearl Harbor, in May 1968 while outbound on her last Vietnam cruise. She has CVSG-59 aboard. USN KN-1702

USS Mauna Kea (AE-22) high lines ammunition to the USS Bennington (CVS-20) in the Gulf of Tonkin, the 10 September 1968. Our carrier has nine S-2E Trackers, two E-1B Tracer “Stoof with a Roof” models, and at least four SH-3A Sea Kings on deck. This would be Bennington’s final deployment and would end on 9 November. USN 1137061

A visiting USAF HH-3 Jolly Green Giant tagged on Bennington’s decks, likely off SE Asia

In between West Pac cruises, Bennington also clocked in in the 1960s for runs along the California coast in which she served as a training carrier for qualifications and handled experimental aircraft.

She served as the floating testbed for the big Ling-Temco-Vought XC-124A, a wild tri-service tilt-wing cargo aircraft that predated the CV-22 by decades.

Able to carry 32 equipped troops or 4 tons of cargo with a 470nm combat range, it had a max T/O weight of 45,000 pounds (about twice that of the C-1 Trader carrier delivery aircraft) and a 67-foot wingspan. While this sounds crazy, the C-2 Greyhound went to 50K pounds and had an 80-foot span, but then again nobody wanted to land a C-2 on an Essex-class carrier anyway.

It was thought that as many as 25 folding-wing navalized XC-124s could be carried on the deck of an 18,000-ton Iwo Jima-class LPH (or on an old Essex class CVA/CVS in a pinch), capable of lifting an 800-man Marine battalion landing team ashore in one go– again, predating the LHD/MV-22 concept by a good bit.

Bennington would host the No. 5 XC-124A airframe for 44 STOL take-offs and landings and 6 full VTOL cycles in wind conditions ranging to 30 knots.

An XC-124A after landing aboard the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Bennington (CVS-20) off San Diego, California (USA), on 18 May 1966. Note the Sikorsky SH-3A Sea King in the background.

She also pitched in with the Apollo program, picking up the first module launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

USS Bennington (CVS 20) Apollo 4 spacecraft November 9th, 1967

The Apollo Four Command Module is hoisted onboard USS Bennington (CVS-20) following splashdown at 3:37 pm., 934 nautical miles northwest of Honolulu. Damage to the heat shield from the extreme heat of reentry is evident. Photograph released November 9, 1967. 428-GX-K-45494

With the Navy looking to pare down its WWII-era carriers, then rapidly pushing through their 20s, in favor of a new (Nimitz) class of CVNs, Bennington was decommissioned on 15 January 1970 and placed in mothballs at Bremerton in Puget Sound.

She had spent 18 years with the fleet and earned three battle stars in WWII and five during Vietnam. 

Kept on the bench

The Navy retained four Essex class carriers in reserve on the Naval List through the 1980s: Bennington, Bon Homme Richard, Hornet, and Oriskany.

It was thought, semi-realistically for a while, that they could be a mobilization asset to run S-3 Vikings (if the catapults worked), SH-3/SH-60s, and Marine AV-8 Harriers from them as a “sea control ship” on convoy support in the event of a WWIII Red Storm Rising type of event– given enough lead time.

Plans were even floated in 1981 by SECNAV Lehman to bring back Oriskany to active duty as a “strike carrier” in peacetime, equipped with a wing made up totally of Marine A-4M Skyhawks (2 squadrons= 48 aircraft) and 4-6 SH-3 helicopters, as well as possibly Harriers, ideally to support Marine operations ashore.

The GAO kind of filled that concept full of holes: 

With it thought that Oriskany had 10-15 years left in her, the fact that Skyhawks were on their way out (only 118 were on hand in 1981 and the last active Marine A-4 squadron shuttered in 1990), and the 24-month/1.1 million man-hour reactivation overhaul was estimated to cost $500 million in 1981 dollars, the Navy pulled the plug on that concept.

Still, Big Benn and her four sisters languished in the ordinary for two decades. 

As Bennington and Hornet were SCB.27A ships, with hydraulic instead of steam catapults, they likely would have been reactivated without their cats, leaving them restricted to Harriers and SH-3/SH-60s, but that still could satisfy as an ASW carrier.

Hornet and Bennington in the 1973 Janes.

She even looked good, despite the fact she was on red lead row.

Four decommissioned aircraft carriers, Naval Inactive Ships Maintenance Facility, Bremerton, Wash. ex-USS Hornet (CVS-12), ex-USS Oriskany (CV-34), ex-USS Bennington (CVS-20), and ex-USS Bon Homme Richard (CVA-31)

Pacific Reserve Fleet, Bremerton, Washington, July 1974. The major units here are USS Missouri (BB-63), New Jersey (BB-62), Hornet (CVS-12 and Bennington (CVS-20).

Bremerton Washington Mothball Fleet, 1989: USS Hornet, USS Chicago, USS Oriskany, USS Bennington, USS Bon Homme Richard and USS Nimitz in the distance, 

USS Bennington (CVS 20) laid up at the Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility Jan 25 1990 DN-SC-90-03981

1992: USS Hornet, USS New Jersey, USS Oriskany, USS Bennington, USS Midway. Mothball Fleet, PSNS Bremerton, plus minesweepers and destroyers

However, nothing lasts forever and, with the end of the Cold War, the Navy moved to divest itself of the last of its lingering steam-powered warships from battleships through frigates.

Bennington was stricken on 20 September 1989, just days before the Berlin Wall came down, and sold for scrap in January 1994 to a breaker in India.

Her island and masts were shorn, and armament and sensors removed, then towed to Alang in March 1995 for scrapping by hand.

Bennington became only the second fleet carrier to be sold for scrap outside the United States, following sister USS Shangri-La (CV-38) which had been sent to a yard in Taiwan in 1988. Subsequent flattops disposed of by dismantling including the Forrestal and Kitty Hawk-class supercarriers recycled in the past 20 years have all gone to Texas for breaking.

When Bennington was gone, the Navy only had two other Essex class carriers still in mothballs and one of those, USS Hornet (CV-12) went on to become a museum shortly after while Oriskany (CV-34) was sunk as a reef off Pensacola in 2006. Other sisters preserved include Lexington, Intrepid, and Yorktown— all of which had the same 1950s SCB-125 conversion and subsequent 1960s CVS service as Bennington, so they are all great representations of what the old girl looked like.

Epilogue

Bennington’s WWII War Diaries are in the National Archives as is her War History and those of CVG-82 and CVG-1.

There has not been another naval vessel named Bennington.

Big Ben is remembered fondly by the Bennington Reunion Group, which has a superb online presence that dates back to 1999. Sadly, they do not seem to have held a reunion since 2017, as their members are no doubt dwindling. Keep in mind an 18-year-old bluejacket on her crew list when she was decommissioned for the last time is now pushing age 75.

On 26 May 2004, a bronze plaque was installed at Fort Adams State Park in Rhode Island, near the spot where Bennington had her terrible catapult explosion and fire, to memorialize the event and the crewmembers lost.

Likewise, the city of Bennington has had custody of her bell for the past several decades and includes it in a ceremonial parade and ringing on the town green every Independence Day. 

Of Bennington’s historic WWII air groups, CVG-82 was redesignated to CVAG-17 and later CVG-17 before being disestablished in 1968. CVG-1, which earned two Presidential Unit Citations during the war, has served aboard nine different carriers since then and today, as Carrier Air Wing One (CVW-1), is based at NAS Oceana and is assigned to USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75).

Her primary CVS air group, CVSG-59, after Bennington was mothballed, went on ship out with sisters Yorktown, Hornet, and Ticonderoga— and took part in the recovery of Apollos 8, 11, 12, 13, 16, and 17– before it was disestablished in June 1973.

Finally, her plankowner skipper, RADM James Bennett Skyes, who earned a Navy Cross while in command of the carrier in 1945, retired from the Navy in 1953. He passed at his Texas home in 1981, aged 86, and was survived by two daughters, four grandsons, and three great-grandsons.

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

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Warship Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2021: Tokyo Express

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Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2021: Tokyo Express

Naval History and Heritage Command Photo NH 82282

Here we see the modified Essex-class attack carrier USS Shangri-La (CVA-38) off Gibraltar, 13 October 1963– 58 years ago today and the traditional birthday of the U.S. Navy, as a matter of fact. Just as the fabled rock holds a key place in British history, “Shang” holds a singular role in American naval history and lore. 

The 12th aircraft carrier of the Essex class and the 20th fleet carrier to be commissioned into the U.S. Navy, Shangri-La as far as I can tell is the only American flattop ever named after an entirely fictional place. As something of wink-wink disinformation for the daring raid on military targets at Tokyo, Yokohoma, Osaka, and Kobe, by 16 stripped-down USAAF B-25B Mitchell bombers of Maj. Gen. James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle, flying from USS Hornet (CV-7) in April 1942, FDR chalked up that the bombers flew from “Shangri-La,” referring to the fictional Tibetan utopian of the 1933 James Hilton novel Lost Horizon.

The first true mass-market paperback, at 25-cents a pop, Lost Horizon was the best-selling novel of 1939 and Roosevelt was evidently a fan. For instance, the low-key (and top-secret) Presidential country retreat in Maryland’s Catoctin mountains established by FDR and filled with furnishings drawn from the White House’s attic was named Shangri-La.

The installation remained a closely guarded secret until late 1944.

Laid down at Norfolk Naval Shipyard exactly eight months after the Japanese strike at Pearl Harbor, our ship was technically a “Long Hull” Essex type, sometimes referred to as a Ticonderoga-class. In a salute to the Doolittle Raiders, her christening sponsor was “Mama Joe,” Mrs. James H. Doolittle (nee Josephine Elsie Daniels).

Her 15 September 1944 commissioning at Norfolk took place before a crowd of 100,000 people. She would spend the rest of the year in shakedowns off the Atlantic coast and in the warm waters of the Caribbean.

Aerial view of USS Shangri-La (CV-38) underway, painted in Measure 33, Design 10A camouflage. This photo was probably taken in the Gulf of Paria, Trinidad, B.W.I, during the ship’s shakedown cruise, September–December 1944. Note destroyer steaming astern of Shangri-La (top left corner of the photo). BuAer photo # 301910.

On 4 November, the 150 pilots of Carrier Air Group 85 reported for duty with an air group that included 51 fighters from the “Sky Pirates” VF/VBF-85 (flying rare F4U-1C Corsairs–with four 20mm cannons– along with more standard machine gun-armed F4U-1Ds and FG-1Ds, as well as a handful of black-painted F6F-5N/P Hellcat night fighters) 23 SB2C-4 Helldiver dive bombers of VB-85, and 18 TBM-3 Avenger torpedo bombers of VT-85, a total of 92 aircraft for starters.

While her aircraft complement would swell to as many as 104 assigned airframes and contract down into the low 80s, this Corsair-heavy load would remain the template over the next year. CVG-85, with its “Z” identifier, would go to war on Shang, bound, like the Doolittle Raiders, for Tokyo.

Aerial bow view of USS Shangri La (CV 38), taken by Navy Utility Squadron VJ-4 flying out of NAS Norfolk, 12 November 1944. 80-G-272499

“Shang” quickly made naval aviation history by hosting three “firsts.” This included launching and trapping the Project Seahorse P-51D-5-NA Mustang, #44-14017, redesignated EFT-51D; along with the initial carrier trials for the Grumman F7F Tigercat and a North American PBJ-1H Mitchell patrol bomber– the latter a B-25H medium bomber modified for flattop operations in the truest Doolittle fashion.

In January 1945, as part of a three-ship group including the battlecruiser large cruiser USS Guam (CB-2) and the destroyer USS Harry E. Hubbard (DD-748), she sailed from Hampton Roads to San Diego via the Ditch and, after picking up passengers and extra planes, arrived at Pearl Harbor in mid-February to begin qualifying her aviators.

On 10 April 1945, she weighed anchor for Ulithi Atoll, and soon joined Task Group (TG) 58.4, launching her first airstrikes against Japanese assets on Okino Daito Jima, southeast of Okinawa, on 25 April. While the war in Europe was only two weeks away from ending, the war in the Pacific was very much still ongoing.

HMAS Nizam (D15), an N-class destroyer of the Royal Australian Navy in the British Pacific Fleet, coming alongside Shangri-La during the Battle for Okinawa, late April 1945. The carrier has Vought F4U Corsairs lined up on the flight deck, with a comparably huge Avenger, top left, and a Hellcat, top right. Note the Sky Pirates’ lightning flash insignia on the planes. Photo from the Hobbs Collection, a British album presentation to the RAN Archives.

VADM John S. “Slim” McCain hoisted his flag in Shangri-La on 18 May, and she became the flagship of his famed TF 38, heading for strikes against the Japanese home islands in June. alternating between close air support duty over Okinawa.

After a period off the lines, Shangri-La embarked, along with the other fast carriers of TF 38, on a month-long series of strikes starting in July along the Japanese coast in which what was left of the Imperial Japanese Navy was destroyed.

Via DANFS:

Shangri-La’s planes ranged the length of the island chain during these raids. On the 10th. they attacked Tokyo, the first raid there since the strikes of the previous February. On 14 and 15 July 1945, they pounded Honshu and Hokkaido and, on the 18th, returned to Tokyo, also bombing battleship Nagato, moored close to shore at Yokosuka. From 20 to 22 July, Shangri-La joined the logistics group for fuel, replacement aircraft, and mail. By the 24th, her pilots were attacking shipping in the vicinity of Kure. They returned the next day for a repeat performance, before departing for a two-day replenishment period on the 26th and 27th. On the following day, Shangri-La’s aircraft damaged cruiser Oyodo, and battleship Haruna, the latter so badly that she beached and flooded. She later had to be abandoned. They pummeled Tokyo again on 30 July, then cleared the area to replenish on 31 July and 1 August.

Air Raids on Japan, 1945. Japanese cruiser Tone under air attack near Kure, 24 July 1945. Photograph by USS Shangri-La (CV 38) aircraft. Note the camouflage nets hanging over its sides. The heavy cruiser settled to the bottom of the bay that day. 80-G-490148

The same day, same target. Note anti-aircraft positions ashore. 80-G-490147

Colorized photo of the above by Atsushi Yamashita/Monochrome Specter http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/

Four days later…

Japanese battleship Hyuga sunk at Kure. Photographed by a USS Shangri-La (CV 38) aircraft on 28 July 1945. National Archives photograph: 80-G-490227.

Japanese light cruiser Ōyodo under air attack near Kure, 28 July 1945. Photo by USS Shangri La (CV 38), likely from one of her F6Fs. The cruiser capsized later that day, taking 300 men to the bottom with her. 80-G-490225

Shangri-La sent her CVB-85 planes to strike the airfields around Tokyo on the morning of 15 August 1945, but Japan’s capitulation was announced, and the fleet was ordered to cease hostilities.

The Final Touch: men add the last strikes to Shangri-La’s island scoreboard, August 1945. From the cover of The Horizon, the ship’s paper, Vol. 1. No. 14. The name of the paper, naturally, is drawn from the Lost Horizon novel. Via the NNAM.

CVG-85s record: 

Airborne aircraft destroyed 10; damaged 8.
Planes on ground destroyed 120; damaged 129
Ships destroyed 24, tonnage 43,900 tons; ships damaged 87, tonnage 194,900 tons.
Destroyed ships include BB Haruna. The squadron also participated in attacking BB Nagato, directing attacks against protecting AA batteries, thus contributing to the bombing attack of the ship by other squadrons (this Battleship not counted in totals listed).
Locomotives destroyed 21; damaged 4.
Miscellaneous destroyed buildings: Warehouses 2, Factories 1, Hangers 1; Miscellaneous damaged buildings: Warehouses 15, Power plants 2, Radio stations 2, Factories 4, Hangers 20, and R.R. tunnel 1.

All told, CVG-85 fired 620,176 rounds of machine gun ammo, dropped 731 bombs, loosed 2,333 5-inch HVAR aerial rockets, and heaved 21 napalm bombs against the Empire.

Shangri-La steamed around just offshore from 15 to 23 August, patrolling the Honshu area on the latter date.

Operation Snapshot: Task Force 38, of the U.S. Third Fleet, maneuvering off the coast of Japan, 17 August 1945, two days after Japan agreed to surrender. Taken by a USS Shangri-La (CV-38) photographer. The aircraft carrier in the lower right is USS Wasp (CV-18). Also present in the formation are five other Essex class carriers, four light carriers, at least three battleships, plus several cruisers and destroyers. 80-G-278815

The planes that likely took the above: F6F-5P Hellcats of Fighting Squadron (VF) 85 off the carrier Shangri-La (CV 38) pictured in flight near Japan 17 August 1945. Note the “Z” tail code. NNAM

Between 23 August and 16 September, her planes sortied on missions of mercy, air-dropping supplies to Allied prisoners of war in Japan while keeping up with patrols over the defeated Empire.

The badly damaged Japanese battleship Nagato off Yokosuka Naval Air Station, Japan, as seen from the plane of USS Shangri La (CV 38). Photographed by Photographer’s Mate Second Class J. Guttoach, 26 August 1945. 80-G-343774

Aerial view of Tokyo, Japan, 26 August 1945. An SB2C-4 Helldiver of Navy Dive Bombing Squadron 85 (VB-85), Air Group 85, flies in the foreground. Photographed by Lieutenant G. D. Rogers from an aircraft based on USS Shangri-La (CV 38). 80-G-339354

On 27 September, while Shangri-La was in Tokyo Bay, CVG-85 was disestablished.

In all, the fighters of VBF-85 alone flew 10,233 flight hours accomplishing 2,274 sorties, from Shangri-La in their 10 months together, broken down as follows:

Okinawa Campaign; 4,977 hours and 1,106 sorties
Operations against the Japanese Empire: 3,656 hours and 914 sorties.
Occupation of the Japanese Empire after the war before leaving 1,016 hours and 254 sorties.

CVG-8 would see nine fatalities during its relationship with Shangri-La, which, considering the tempo and heavy action, should be considered mercifully light.

Milo G. Parker, Ensign
Walter J. Barschat, Ensign
Charles W.S. Hullund, Lt. JG
William H. Marr, Lt. JG
John H. Schroff, Lt.
Sigurd Lovdal, Lt.
John S. Weeks, Lt. JG
Joseph G. Hjelstrom, Lt. JG
Richard T. Schaeffer, LCDR

Departing Japan on 2 October, Shangri-la sailed into San Pedro Bay on 27 October for three weeks of stateside R&R in the Long Beach area.

Navy Day, October 27, 1945. “Aloha” is spelled out by men onboard USS Shangri-La (CV 38) upon its arrival in Los Angeles, California, on October 21, 1945. Navy Museum Lot 10625-10.

After a maintenance period at Bremerton, she began peacetime operations out of San Diego, mainly carrier landing quals, then shipped out for Bikini Atoll and related Central Pacific venues to serve as a support ship for the Crossroads series of atomic tests.

USS Shangri-La (CV-38) underway in the Pacific during Crossroads, with her crew, paraded on the flight deck, 17 August 1946. Note the use of the letter Z on the flight deck instead of her hull number (38). 80-G-278827

USS Shangri-La (CVA-38) overhead note the Z for CVG-85 on her bow and 50 aircraft on her deck

Shangri-La was decommissioned and placed in the Reserve Fleet at San Francisco on 7 November 1947.

Her initial career lasted 1,148 days during which she earned two battlestars for her World War II service. For more details about the latter, her 238-page well-written War History is digitized and available online in the National Archives. 

The 1946-47 Jane’s entry for the 24 ships of the Essex class.

A second career

When the fireworks show kicked off in Korea, the Navy suddenly needed more carriers again. Shangri-La recommissioned on 10 May 1951 and was sent to the East Coast to serve primarily as a training carrier, conducting operations out of Boston. It was during this time that her designation changed to attack carrier (CVA) although she did very little attacking of anything during the Korean conflict.

Period press photo shows a near-empty Shangri-La conducting a washdown drill off Boston, 7 July 1952, an Atomic-era reality.

With the future of naval aviation based on jets rather than Corsairs, Helldivers, and Avengers, Shang decommissioned again on 14 November 1952, for a two-year $7 million SCB-125/SCB-27C modernization at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.

Her second period in commission only lasted 554 days.

Third time’s the charm

A rebuilt Shangri-La was recommissioned in January 1955.

“USS Shangri-La (CVA 38) was the first U.S. Navy attack carrier to embody all the latest improvements that are being made in the class carrier. These improvements include steam catapults, high capacity arresting gear, angled deck, enclosed bow, increased full capacity, and a tractor ramp around the outside of the “island” that will speed up aircraft spotting, April 27, 1955.” USN 663088.

USS Shangri-La (CVA-38) underway, May 9, 1955. 80-G-664937

This enabled her to carry and operate a new generation of combat aircraft that the designers of the Essex class could hardly envision in 1940.

An undated image of some of Shangri-La’s airwing by J R Eyerman in the LIFE archives. Note the early Vought F7U Cutlass, S-2 Tracker, F9F and HUP-2

I believe from the planes shown, the above is the cruise of Air Task Group 3 (ATG-3) aboard USS Shangri-La for a Western Pacific deployment from 5 January to 23 June 1956. Besides test frames from VX-4 (Cutlass, et,al) that cruise saw: 
 
Fighter Squadron 122 (VF-122) ‘Black Angels’ – Grumman F9F-8 Cougar
Fighter Squadron 92 (VF-92) ‘Silver Kings’ – Douglas AD-6 Skyraider
Fighter Squadron 53 (VF-53) ‘Blue Knights’ – Grumman F9F-8 Cougar
Fleet Composite Squadron 3 (VC-3) ‘Blue Nemesis’, detachment – McDonnell F2H-3 Banshee
Fleet Composite Squadron 6 (VC-6) ‘Fleurs’, detachment – North American AJ-2 Savage
Fleet Composite Squadron 61 (VC-61) ‘Eyes of the Fleet’, detachment – McDonnell F2H-2P Banshee
Fleet Composite Squadron 35 (VC-35) ‘Night Hecklers’, detachment – Douglas AD-5N Skyraider
Fleet Composite Squadron 11 (VC-11) ‘detachment – Douglas AD-5W Skyraider
Helicopter Utility Squadron 1 (HU-1) ‘Pacific Fleet Angels’, detachment – Piasecki HUP-2 Retriever

USS Shangri-La (CVA-38) at sea, launching F9F Cougar fighters of ATG-3, 10 January 1956. Note steam rising from her port catapult. Photographed by B.W. Kortge. NH 75661

A North American AJ-2 Savage of Heavy Attack Squadron (VAH) 6 launches off the newly installed angled deck of the carrier Shangri-La (CVA 38) on February 24, 1956. A 25-ton medium bomber powered by two-piston engines and a J33-A-10 turbojet in the rear, the Savage could make 400 knots and carry six tons of bombs– as much as six of Doolittle’s B-25s– or a 1 Mark 4 nuclear bomb. Note that it was far heavier than the 18-ton B-25s used by Doolittle’s Raiders and had a wingspan some eight feet longer. Via NNAM.

USS Shangri-La (CVA-38) conducts the first successful at-sea cat shot of the enormous A3D Skywarrior of Heavy Attack Squadron (VAH) 1 “Smoking Tigers” flown by Dick Davidson on 1 September 1956, off Baja. As with the Savage, the Skywarrior (or Whale in common parlance) was larger than the WWII-era B-25 with a 35-ton maximum cat weight, 74-foot length (vs. 52 on the B-25H), and 72-foot wingspan (67 on the B-25H). U.S. Navy Photo via Navsource

Overhead view of a pair of F4D-1 Skyrays of Fighter Squadron (VF) 13 off the carrier Shangri-La (CVA 38) in flight in 1961. The AK code would make them from Carrier Air Group Ten (CAG-10) .The Navy only operated the Skyray from 1956-1964. It was the first Navy fighter that could exceed Mach 1 in level flight. NNAM.

Overhead photograph showing A4D Skyhawks of Attack Squadron (VA) 106 in flight over the carrier Shangri-La (CVA 38) on May 25, 1961. Future Apollo 17 commander astronaut Capt. Eugene Cernan spent time flying A4D Skyhawks in Attack Squadron (VA) 113, the “Stingers,” from Shangri-La in 1958. He was the final human to stand on the lunar surface and set the unofficial lunar land speed record in the rover. Photo via NNAM.

F4D-1 Skyrays of Fighter Squadron (VF) 13 off the carrier Shangri-La (CVA 38) 1962

Her 1962 Med cruise, with CVG-10 embarked– VF-13 Night Cappers (F4D-1 Skyray), VMF-251 Thunderbolts (F8U-1E Crusader), VA-46 Clansmen and VA-106 Gladiators (A4D-2 Skyhawk), VA-176 Thunderbolts (AD-5 and AD-6 Skyraider), a det from VFP-62 Fighting Photos (F8U-1P Crusader), a det from VAW-12 Bats (WF-2 Tracer), and a det from HU-2 Fleet Angels (HUP-2 Retriever and Sikorsky HUS-1 Seahorse)– was the focus of a beautiful technicolor film entitled Flying Clipper, narrated by Burl Ives.

Based in San Diego from 1956 to 1960, she conducted regular WestPac cruises until her homeport shifted to Mayport, Florida, where she transitioned to NATO operations and deployments in the North Atlantic and Med under the Second and Sixth Fleet, respectively for the next decade.

USS Shangri-La (CVA-38), foreground, and USS Enterprise (CVAN-65) at Souda Bay, Crete, on 28 February 1964. In the right distance is an Albany class cruiser

Four F8U crusaders of VF-62 passing over USS Shangri-La (CVA-38) during Mediterranean cruise 1967-68. Note the AJ tail code of Carrier Air Wing 8. NH 71869

 

An F-8 Crusader of Fighter Squadron (VF) 13 with squadron XO Commander William Brandell, Jr., in the cockpit pictured before a catapult launch from the carrier Shangri-La (CVA 38) on May 1, 1967, forty-six years ago today. Aviation Boatswain’s Mate Second Class Gale “Abe” Abresch holds a sign he used to inform Brandell that he was about to make the 46,000th launch from the starboard catapult on board the ship. Petty Officers Third Class Glenn Sturtevant and Alkivivaeis Diakowmakis hook the airplane onto the cat. Via NNAM

Vought F-8C Crusader jet fighter (Bureau # 146956, possibly after conversion to an F-8K) In-flight over USS Shangri-La (CVA-38) in December 1968. Note the AJ of CVW-8. NH 71870

An RF-8G Crusader of Light Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron (VFP) 63 (BuNo. 146895) pictured in flight over the carrier Shangri-La (CVA 38) 28 July 1968. Note the AJ tail code of Carrier Air Wing 8 rather than VFP-63’s more common “PP” unit code.

USS Independence (CVA-62), a Forrestal-class supercarrier, along with the much smaller USS Shangri-La in 1968 celebrating 20 years of combat jets in naval aviation.

London Calling?

 
In 1965, the Royal Navy mulled over a possible transfer of Shangri-La and her sister USS Yorktown to replace the smaller (28,000-ton) Centaur-class carrier HMS Hermes (R12) rather than refit the British flattop to operate modified RN F-4K versions of the Phantom. They would have likely also replaced the aging 35,000-ton Illustrious-class aircraft carrier HMS Victorious (R38)/USS Robin— which had fought Bismarck— and steamed alongside the similar-sized (53,000-ton) Audiacious-class carriers HMS Ark Royal (R09) and HMS Eagle (R05), which likewise would have been converted to fly Phantoms along with their Buccaneers which had just entered service. This would have been the RN’s carrier force into the early 1980s.
 
The Royal Navy thought it better to build three new 63,000-ton large carriers of the planned CVA-01 class, which were never funded, leading to the early retirement of Victorious in 1968, followed by Eagle in 1972, conversion of Hermes to a rotary-wing-only “Commado Carrier” and disposal of Ark Royal in 1979, leaving the British without any flattops save for the LPH’d Hermes and the new “through deck destroyers” of the HMS Invincible class, which would go on to serve as Harrier carriers from the Falklands onwards. 

The endgame

With Shang still in U.S. service, on 30 June 1969, she was redesignated an antisubmarine warfare support aircraft carrier (CVS-38) a common and simple conversion that most of her remaining class underwent which shifted their air wings from high-performance fighters and strike aircraft like the F-8 and A-4 to more sedate ASW sub-busters like the turboprop S-2 Tracker and SH-3 Sea King helicopter.

Ironically, Shang never actually served as a proper CVS and was instead tasked as something of a “limited attack carrier” for a cruise off Vietnam the next year, her first combat since 1945.

With CVG-85 a memory some 25 years in the past, she went off to war carrying a mix of A-4C/E Skyhawks of VA-12, VA152, and VA-172; F-8H Crusaders of VF-111 and VF-162; a det of RF-8G Photo Crusaders from VFP-63, a det of UH-2C Sea Sprites from HC-2, and another det of E-1B Trackers (Stoof with a Roof) from VAW-121 as part of Carrier Air Wing Eight. CVW-8, with 169 officers and 873 enlisted, was assigned to Shang from 5 March to 17 December 1970 and would be her last embarked air wing.

USS Shangri-La (CVS-38) cruises toward Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico, on 11 February 1970 on the eve of her Vietnam deployment. Official U.S. Navy Photograph (# K-81800).

Leaving Mayport in March, she set out via the South Atlantic and Indian oceans for Southeast Asian waters. As her combat report for the cruise mentions, “On 11 March, hundreds of timorous polliwogs were vigorously initiated into the Royal Domain of King Neptune by the Shangri-La’s cadre of sadistic shellbacks.”

Arriving in April, she would alternate stints on Yankee Station with rotations off the line to give her crew downtime in Hong Kong and Subic Bay. Shangri-La was also the only large American carrier to enter port in South Vietnam– arriving at DaNang on the night of 21 June to pick up parts for a broken elevator and returning to Yankee Station the same day. She would also suffer a sheared shaft coupling on No. 1 screw, a ruptured fire main that damaged most of her refrigeration areas, a minor deck fire, and a small engineering fire while underway. Combat deployments for a 26-year-old ship can be tough.

She earned three battle stars for her service in the Vietnam War and would make 12,691 launches and 11,994 recoveries from her deck during the deployment with CVW-8 embarking on 900 strike missions.

Shangri-La suffered eight fatalities through a mixture of enemy action and accidents on her 1970 cruise.

Arriving back at Mayport on 16 December to “maximum liberty” via the East Pacific, she had crossed the International Date Line and rounded Cape Horn to circumnavigate the globe.

After pre-inactivation overhaul at the Boston Naval Shipyard South Annex, Shangri-La decommissioned on 30 July 1971. She was placed in the Atlantic Reserve Fleet and berthed at Philadelphia. Her third and final period in commission lasted just over 16 years.

Wasting away

Jane’s 1974-75 entry on the seven remaining Essex carriers (listed as Hancock-class at the time) considered either in reserve while in mothballs or on active duty (Lexington, AVT-17).

Shang was one of the last Essex-class carriers in mothballs and it was spitballed to recommission her (or one of her class) for a fourth time to assist in fleshing out the Reagan-Lehman “600 Ship Navy” to take on the Soviet Red Banner Fleet. However, all the laid-up WWII-period flattops were found to be in exceptionally poor shape although some had only been on red lead row for less than a decade. With grass growing on their decks, they were soon pulled out of floating storage and disposed of instead. As a result, she was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 15 July 1982.

ex-USS Shangri-la in Philadelphia, 1987. Note the bush growing on her sponson.

While various groups planned to obtain Shangri-La for use as a museum ship, they all fell through, and on 17 June 1988, ex-Shangri-La was sold to the Lung Ching Steel Enterprise, Ltd., of Taiwan where she was towed for breaking that was completed the following year. The recycled steel of the old girl has likely been coming back home in small bits and pieces via household goods imported from Asia for decades.

Across her almost 44 years afloat, she spent just over 21 of them on active duty with the fleet.

Epilogue

As always, a ton of information on Shang is at your fingertips online at the National Archives. 

There is a very active USS Shangri-La Reunion Association for Veterans of the carrier. 

She is also remembered in maritime art.

Lt Bob Elders carrier trap of P-51D Seahorse USS Intrepid by Craig Kodera

Coming Home to Roost by R.G. Smith, showing A-4Cs headed back to USS Shangri La while on Yankee Station

As well as in scale model format.

While the carrier was turned to razor blades long ago, there are elements and monuments to the vessel scattered about the country. For instance, there is a USS Shangri-La (CVA-38) Room aboard the USS Hornet Museum, her sistership, docked at the former NAS Alameda. One of her 25-ton props is in the parking lot of Meding & Son Seafood, a restaurant off Hwy 1 in Delaware.

Her bell, recovered from a Florida scrapyard and restored in 2017, was initially presented to the NROTC unit at Jacksonville University and is now enshrined at the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola next to a large scale model.

Also, NNAM has an RF-8G Photo Crusader (BuNo 14882) in their collection that flew with VFP-62 from the carrier and still carries her name.

NNAM’s Shangri-La Photo Crusader is on loan to the Frontiers of Flight Museum in Dallas. 

During the Centennial of Naval Aviation celebration in 2010, at least one aircraft carried a throwback scheme that saluted Shangri-La, an EA-18G Growler (Bu No. 166899) of VAQ-129 “Vikings,” based at NAS Whidbey Island, wearing the same three-color blue as carried by CVG-85 during WWII. Like the “Sky Pirates” of VBF-85, the aircraft wore lightning bolts.

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With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

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Warship Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2017: The Emperor’s last battlewagon

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Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2017: The Emperor’s last battlewagon

Catalog #: NH 2716

Here we see the lead ship of her class of fast super-dreadnoughts, the HIJMS Nagato photographed at the time of her completion. Ordered 100 years ago this August, she was Japan’s first battleship entirely planned and built domestically after generations of relying on British and American yards and firms. She would also be the Empire’s final battleship on active duty.

Designed in response to the British Queen Elizabeth class (35,000-tons, 24 kts, 8×15″/42 cal guns), Russian Gangut-class (28,000 tons, 24 kts, 12×12″/52 cal guns), and the U.S. New Mexico class battleships (32,000-tons, 21 kts, 12×14″/50 cal guns), the two ships of the Nagato-class (our subject and her sistership Mutsu) would be faster– capable of 26.5 knots on her Gihon geared steam turbines fed by 21 Kampon boilers– more heavily armed with eight 16.1″/45 cal 3-Shiki type guns, the first big ship guns designed wholly in Asia– and tip the scales at some 39,000-tons in her final configuration.

Laid down during WWI at Kure Naval Arsenal on 28 August 1917, Nagato is named for the historic castle-dotted province on the western end of Honshū. She was commissioned on 15 November 1920 while Mutsu, built at the same time in Yokosuka, joined the fleet the next year.

As detailed in the most excellent website Combined Fleets (go there NOW for a complete rundown of Nagato‘s movements as well as anything about the Imperial Japanese Navy you are curious about) during her speed trial at Sukumo Bight, Nagato beat the world record for a battleship and made first 26.443 and then 26.7 knots and when commissioned became a flagship– and the first battleship in the world in service with 16.1-inch guns.

Her peacetime service was relatively happy and she was visited and toured not only by the Emperor several times but also by King Edward VIII and German aircraft designer Ernst Heinkel, while Crown Prince Takamatsu Nobuhito served aboard her as a midshipman, as befitting her role as showboat vessel.

Dignitaries aboard battleship Nagato, date unknown

In August 1922, she helped cover the withdrawal of the Japanese interventionist forces at Siberia after the Russian Civil War and the next year helped provide relief for the Great Kanto Earthquake.

1924, Colorized photo by Atsushi Yamashita/Monochrome Specter http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/

NAGATO Starboard bow view leaving Hong Kong, 14 April 1928. Note the change in her funnel from the above 1924 image. Description: Catalog #: NH 90764

NAGATO Starboard quarter view taken between 1924 and 1934. Description: Catalog #: NH 90774

Japanese battleships Fuso (foreground), Nagato (center), and Mutsu (background) at Mitajiri, Japan, 1928

Between 1932-36, pushing about 15 years of service, she was modernized at Kure Naval Arsenal, her birthplace, where her bow was lengthened and modified, and she was given the more modern turrets from the unfinished battleships Kaga and Tosa— not completed due to the London and Washington Naval Treaties while a smaller battery of 76mm guns was replaced with 127mm rapid-fire models.

Her suite was replaced, and her topside arrangement changed significantly, losing a funnel and picking up a reshaped superstructure. At the same time, her electronics were revamped, and rangefinders updated. Her torpedo tubes, never really a serious weapon for a battleship, were removed but she picked up anti-torpedo bulges as well as a catapult and facilities for seaplanes, for which she would later carry a trio of Nakajima E8N1 Type 95 (“Dave”) floatplanes.

War was coming.

Battleship Nagato fires her main guns during an exercise in Sukumo Bay, Japan. 21 May 1936.

In 1937, she carried 1,700 Imperial troops to active combat in Manchuria.

In 1938, as tensions increased, both Nagato and Mutsu gained a battery of 40mm and 25mm AAA guns.

NAGATO. The view is taken in Tsingtao, China, in the late 1930s. See how different her profile is from 1928 and 1924. Description: Catalog #: NH 82477

As part of the Combined Fleet’s BatDiv 1, Nagato was the flagship of Adm. Yamamoto for Operation Z, the attack on Pearl Harbor, and, along with her sister and four other Japanese battleships, escorted the carriers to Hawaii for that day which will live in infamy, arriving back at Hashirajima on 13 December 1941.

Chief of Staff Matome Ugaki, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, liaison staff officer Shigeru Fujii, and administrative officer Yasuji Watanabe aboard battleship Nagato, the early 1940s

Nagato never made it closer than 350 miles from Hawaii’s coast, but her role as the command and control ship for the operation was pivotal.

For the next six months, while most Japanese battleships were engaged in the Philippines, Malaysia, and the Dutch East Indies, Nagato remained in the Home Islands and served as a host to Prince Takamatsu’s headquarters (who was at that point a Captain). She then sortied out for the first time since Pearl Harbor to cover Nagumo’s carriers at Midway in June 1942, ending that operation by housing survivors from the carrier Kaga— whose turrets she ironically carried.

Back to Japan for another year as the war went on without her, the eternal flagship was not ordered out of the Home Islands again until August 1943 when she carried men and supplies to the outpost at Truk, where she remained until February 1944.

Her luck endured, and she was able to escape interaction with the Allied forces in the Pacific until her assignment to Operation “A-GO” in June 1944, a debacle that turned into what is now known as the Battle of the Philippine Sea, escorting carriers Jun’yō, Hiyō and Ryūhō. She would later pick up survivors of the Hiyō, though she did go down in ordnance history as firing 16.1-inch Sankaidan shrapnel shells at incoming U.S. Navy bombers.

She withdrew to Borneo to await round II.

Japanese Battleships at Brunei, Borneo, October 1944 Description: Photographed just before the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Ships are, from left to right: Musashi, Yamato, a cruiser, and Nagato. Courtesy of Mr. Kazutoshi Hando, 1970. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 73090

Musashi, Yamato, a cruiser, and Nagato at Brunei, Borneo. Oct 1944. At this point in the war, this was arguably the last untouched reserve in the Imperial Japanese Navy

By October, as part of the Battle of the Leyte Gulf, Nagato and the battleships Yamato, Kongō, and Haruna along with eight cruisers, came across Task Unit 77.4.3 (“Taffy 3”), commanded by RADM Clifton “Ziggy” Sprague, off Samar Island. Taffy 3 had six small escort carriers screened by seven destroyers/destroyer escorts. With a lopsided surface action looming and the option to run and leave the beachhead undefended not an option, Sprague directed his carriers to turn to launch their aircraft and then withdraw towards the east while the tin cans took on the Japanese battleships.

While Nagato‘s gunnery was deemed by most accounts in the battle to be ineffective, at the end of the almost three-hour melee Sprague lost four ships—the destroyers Johnston and Hoel, the destroyer escort Samuel B. Roberts, and the escort carrier Gambier Bay— to naval gunfire while the Japanese traded severe damage to the battleship Haruna and four of their own cruisers but were forced to retire. Nagato came away from Leyte Gulf with five bomb hits and about 150 casualties.

Japanese battleship NAGATO firing 16.1-inch shrapnel “Sanshiki” beehive shells at attacking planes, during the battle of Sibuyan Sea, 24 October 1944. #: 80-G-272557

Battle off Samar, 25 October 1944 Description: Watercolor by Commander Dwight C. Shepler, USNR, depicting the counterattack by the escort carrier group’s screen. Ships present are (L-R): Japanese battleships Nagato, Haruna, and Yamato, with a salvo from Yamato landing in the left center; USS Heerman (DD-532), USS Hoel (DD-533) sinking; Japanese cruisers Tone and Chikuma. Note: the original watercolor was commissioned specifically for the dust jacket of Samuel Eliot Morison’s “History of U.S. Naval Operations in World War II,” Volume XII, and reprinted in Volume XV of the same work. The painting was missing in 1973, so this photograph was made from the reproduction in the latter volume. Accession #: NH Catalog #: NH 79033-KN

Nagato returned to Yokosuka in November and remained there, largely an inactive floating anti-aircraft battery on shore power, for the rest of the war as the *last Japanese battleship still afloat. Her sister Mutsu was lost to an internal explosion in 1943 while the other 10 battleships in the Combined Fleet all went to the bottom between November 1942 (Hiei) and November 1944 (Kongo). (*the three hybrid battleship/carrier conversions Haruna, Ise, and Hyuga, largely immobile, were still “afloat” as late as July 1945 when they were sunk or foundered at their moorings after U.S. air attacks, but almost totally inactive as was the converted target, the old battleship Settsu).

The scheme was used on the battleship NAGATO while moored at Yokosuka, from February 1945. Description: Catalog #: NH 82542

On August 30, 1945, as the official surrender loomed, Nagato was secured by the U.S. Navy under the guns of the USS Iowa with the ship’s XO, CPT. Cornelius Flynn, taking command of the prize crew.

USS New Jersey and IJN Nagato in the SAME photo 30 December 1945

Nagato, Nov. 1945 Colorized photo by Atsushi Yamashita/Monochrome Specter http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/

Her flags were captured, with several making their way to the U.S., including one that was at the National WWII Museum in New Orleans for a while.

31 August 1945, a boarding party from USS South Dakota (BB-57) took possession of the battleship Nagato and replaced the Japanese flag with a U.S. ensign.

The crew of USS South Dakota (BB-57) and President George HW Bush with the NAGATO flag at a 2004 reunion in New Orleans during a Saints game at the Superdome. Saints owner Tom Benson, to the President’s left, served on SoDak after WWII before she was decommissioned. NHHC Accession #: UA 474

Nagato was then given front row seats at the atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll the next summer. She was just under a mile from the Test Able blast and about 950-yards from the underwater 40kt Test Baker, sinking five days after riding the tsunami of the latter.

She is at the base of the mushroom

Note how wrecked she is

The battered superstructure of battleship Nagato after the Bikini Atoll atomic bomb test, 1946.

88-169-e Painting, Watercolor on Paper; by Arthur Beaumont; 1946; Unframed Dimensions 16H X 20W “Former Japanese battleship Nagato after Baker blast”

“The former Japanese cruiser Sakawa sank in frothy green waters the day after test ABLE. Damaged battleships USS Nevada (BB-36) and Nagato are in the background.”

Another Arthur Beaumont watercolor. “A panoramic view of the fleet after test ABLE sketched from the bridge of USS Arkansas (BB-33). The ship in the middle is the scorched USS Nevada (BB-36), with Nagato behind and Sakawa sinking in the foreground.”

“The 32,000 Ton Japanese Battleship Nagato, sinking” Painting, Watercolor on Illustration Board; by Grant Powers; 1946; Unframed Dimensions 14H X 19W Accession #: 88-181-M

She rests on the bottom near USS Saratoga (CV-3) and USS Arkansas (BB-33). Just 100~ feet down, her hull is a hot spot for scuba divers worldwide.

Since her loss, the Japanese have erected a shrine to her, and Yamato.

While one of her Kaigun ensigns is on display at the Yamato museum:

Another Imperial Japanese Navy flag recovered from Nagato by a Sailor assigned to high-speed transport USS Horace A. Bass (APD 124) in 1945 was donated to the National Park Service last year at the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center while a third, which had been on display at the USS Missouri at Pearl Harbor, was sent back to Nagaoka city, Japan last month in an emotional ceremony.

“It was extremely important for us to make a connection with Nagaoka city and to return the flag from the Missouri to its rightful home,” said Mike Carr, USS Missouri Memorial Association.

Specs:

NH 111614 Japanese battleship H.I.J.M.S. NAGATO plans. March 1943

Displacement: 32,720 metric tons (32,200 long tons) (standard), 39,000 full (1944)
Length: 708 ft. 0 in (lengthened to 738 by 1936)
Beam: 95 ft. 3 in (111 by 1936)
Draft: 29 ft. 9 in (32 by 1944)
Installed power:
80,000 shp
21 × water-tube boilers (replaced by 10 in 1934)
Propulsion:
4 shafts
4 × steam turbines
Speed: 26.5 knots when built, 24 by 1940, 10 by 1945
Range: 5,500 nmi at 16 knots
Complement: 1,333 (1,800 by 1944)
Sensors (1943)
1 × Type 21-go air search radar
2 × Type 13-go early warning radars
2 × Type 22-go surface search radars
Armor:
Waterline belt: 305–100 mm (12.0–3.9 in)
Deck: 69 mm (2.7 in) + 75 mm (3.0 in)
Gun turrets: 356–190 mm (14.0–7.5 in)
Barbettes: 305 mm (12.0 in)
Conning tower: 369 mm (14.5 in)
Armament:
(1920)
4 × twin 41 cm guns
20 × single 14 cm guns
4 × single 76 mm AA guns
8 × 533 mm (21.0 in) torpedo tubes
(1943)
4 × twin 41 cm guns
18 × single 14 cm guns
4 × twin 127 mm (5 in)/40 DP guns
98 × 25 mm (1 in) AA guns
Aircraft carried (after 1936) 3 floatplanes, 1 catapult

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find. http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.

With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.

I’m a member, so should you be!