Tag Archives: USS Bon Homme Richard (CV-31)

Bonnie Dick Hits the Water

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Some 80 years ago today, we see this great original Kodachrome of the last of the original “short bow” (just 872 feet long versus her later 888 foot sisters) type Essex-class fast fleet carriers, USS Bon Homme Richard (CV-31) sliding down the building ways, as she is launched at the New York Navy Yard, Brooklyn, New York, on 29 April 1944.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives, 80-G-K-3888(Color).

Commissioned on 26 November 1944, “Bonnie Dick” was the first ship in the modern Navy to commemorate the name of John Paul Jones’s famous Revolutionary War frigate– and she got in enough licks in during WWII to earn one Battlestar.

Of note, she was a night fighter carrier, equipped with F6F-5Ns of VF-(N)-91 and TBM-3Ds of VT-N-91 for her 8 June-15 August 1945 war cruise.

One of her “Nightcats,” Ensign Phillip T. McDonald, while flying a dusk CAP- one of the last in the war– over one of the task Force “watchdog” radar pickets, west of Mito, on 13 August 1945 shot down two Ki-45 (Nick) and two P1Y (Frances) as well as two more probable, just missing out on earning the double coveted ace-in-a-day and night-fighter-ace monikers (all though he is listed as one of the Top F6F Night Fighters in terms of score). The final score for all of VF(N)-91 was 9-2-0, all occurring between 1820 and 1915 hours.

Her WWII cruise

Bonnie Dick was much more active in Korea, carrying the F9F Panthers and AD-4 Skyraiders of first Carrier Air Group 102 (CVG-102) then CVG-7.

Stretched and given the SCB-125 overhaul in the mid-1950s, BHR was in the thick of the air war off Vietnam from 1964 onward, completing six deployments.

USS Bon Homme Richard (CVA-31) with her crew spelling out Hello San Diego, while en route to San Diego on 9 February 1963. She returned to San Diego, her home port, on 11 February, following a Western Pacific cruise that had begun seven months earlier, on 12 July 1962. Aircraft on her flight deck include three E-1, 11 F-8, six F-3, 13 A-4, and nine A-1 types. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 97343

Two U.S. Navy CVG-21 airwing pilots on the flight deck escalator aboard the aircraft carrier USS Bon Homme Richard (CVA-31). Escalators were added to Essex class carriers during their 1950s modernizations as ready rooms were moved below the hanger deck level for more protection– a lesson from the kamikaze era when hits caused high mortality rates in pilots waiting in ready rooms. Also, pilots had more gear in the jet age than back in the F6F era. U.S. Navy photo from the Bon Homme Richard (CVA-31) 1956-57 cruise book

Completing her last deployment to Yankee Station on 12 November 1970 she was decommissioned the next year and, after spending 21 years on red lead row as a source for potential spare parts for the similarly laid-up but slightly younger USS Oriskany (which the Navy saw as a mobilization asset through the Reagan years), she was scrapped in 1992.

Jeep Carrier Pop Gun

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80 years ago today: Testing the 5-inch/38-caliber dual-purpose gun on the newly-commissioned Casablanca-class escort carrier, USS Manila Bay (CVE 61), 3 November 1943. Note fuzed ready shells in the open box and the “Gilligan” style dixie cup on the gun later.

National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), photo # 80-G-372778.

Built on freighter hulls, the Casablancas in addition to a AAA battery of 8 Bofors, and 12 Orlekons, these little 7,800-ton ships carried a single Mark 30 Mod 80 open-based ring mount  5″/38 DP gun without a shield, as seen above.

It ran on three motors: a single 10 hp motor to work both elevation and train, a 7.5 hp motor for the shell hoists, and a 5 hp motor for ramming, allowing a decent rate of fire with a trained crew of some 12-15 round per minute.

Capable of throwing a 55-pound shell to a theoretical maximum range of 18,000 yards (or to an altitude of 37,220 ft), it used the same core gun as on the rest of the American carriers (Yorktown and Essex class CVs and Independence-class CVLs) but in single mount.

USS Hornet (CV-12) fires her after 5″ / 38 guns during practice in the Western Pacific, circa June 1945. Hornet’s 5-inch guns fired no less than 7,275 shells in anger during WWII (a figure that was small compared to the 115,179 rounds of 40 mm and 409,580 rounds of 20 mm ammo). 80-G-K-5701 (color)

USS Hornet (CV-12) firing her starboard 5″ / 38 gun battery in a Western Pacific practice exercise, circa June 1945. The next ship astern, also firing, is USS Bon Homme Richard (CV-31). During their SCB-27C/SCB-125 modernizations in the 1950s, these big twin mounts were removed to free up deck space but the Essexes still carried seven Mk.24 5″/38 DP singles on sponsons for another couple of decades and Hornet still has hers with her as a museum ship.80-G-K-5704 (color)

As far as effectiveness? In addition to “kills” against aircraft, at least three of the Casablanca class used their single 5-inch popgun in the one-sided action against more superior Japanese surface ships, the cruiser-destroyer force of Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita during the Sacrifice of Taffy 3 in October 1944: this included USS St. Lo (ex-Midway ex-Chapin Bay) (CVE-63) recording a hit on a destroyer, USS Kalinin Bay (CVE-68) landing two hits on a Myōkō-class cruiser, and USS White Plains (CVE-66) claiming to hit the Takao-class heavy cruiser Chōkai with six shells.

American carriers would continue to carry at least a few 5-inch guns in open mounts well into the Cold War with the Essex and Midway class still keeping some of their teeth into the 1970s (and the Forrestal class supercarriers being commissioned with an eight-pack of more modern 5″/54 Mark 42 guns mounted on sponsons jutting out from the sides of the ship so they did not interfere with the flight deck.

Aerial starboard bow view of the training aircraft carrier USS Lexington (CVT-16) underway. Although the photo is dated 1985, it must have been taken before 1970, as the ship is still fitted with sponson-mounted Mk.24 Mod. 11 5-inch 38-cal open gun mounts. DN-ST-86-02002.

Essex-class USS Intrepid (CVA-11), left, with her 5-inch twins deleted from her flight deck but still carrying single mounts on sponsons, and the newForrestal-class supercarrier USS Independence (CVA-62) alongside Pier 12 now Pier 14 Norfolk March 1961, note the 5-inch Mk. 42 guns– the same as on Knox class frigates and Forest Sherman class tin cans–on Indy. These would be deleted in the 1970s

The first batch of Tarawa-class LHAs even carried two 5″/54 Mark 45 guns that edged out the front of the flight deck into the 1980s. 

USS Tarawa with bow 5-inch MK45 guns. These were later removed. 

It wasn’t until 1961 that the first American flattop, USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) arrived in the fleet without at least a 5-inch gun aboard.