Sound (Airplane flyover)
CVE-106 Did It First
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CVE 106 was the first U.S. Naval Aircraft Carrier to have an all Marine Air Group.
During the entire "Battle of the Pacific" it was very evident that there was a great "split" of the Military Services with regards to air support for the many island landings. While the Navy had the carriers with their own planes, pilots and maintenance and support personnel, and could move freely throughout the oceans to where ever the were needed, except for the Navy Sea Bees, there was no Navy landing forces. The Army and the Marine Corps needed "landing fields" first and foremost in order to provide air coverage for their individual landing forces. At that time the Army Air Force was a part of the US Army and in the European War as such provided their only air coverage and support. The Pacific War presented problems that did not exist with the Atlantic operations. With both the Army and the Marine Corps being involved in the landings on the Pacific Islands they both wanted their landing personnel protected by their own planes and pilots. Without landing fields this presented many problems as the entire concept of "battle tactics, training and even military philosophies" were many miles apart. With the Marines normally making the earlier island landings that service (along with many members of Congress) fought for Aircraft Carriers, fully manned by the Navy but with complete Marine Air Groups flying from the decks of the carriers. The Block Island CVE 106 was to become a part of Naval History so the decision was made to let the Marine Corps be a part of that History to be the first Aircraft Carrier to be assigned a complete Marine Air Group.
Not only did the Atlantic and Pacific operations present "two Worlds" for the Block Island Crews, both the Army and the Marine Corps became a part of these same "two worlds".
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CVE 106 was the first U.S. Naval ship to sail through the Straits of Makassar (between Borneo and Celebes) (See following note) Vice Admiral Barbey, Acting Commander Seventh Fleet, delayed the Balikpapan campaign until CVE 106 became available from its task force duties. CVE 106 was the first CVE with an experienced and skilled Marine “night fighter” air group who were well experienced in Ground Troop Support.. This campaign required 24 hour per day air coverage and with the F6F 5N (radar equipped) aircraft this was possible.
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Note: When the Captain went on the microphone to tell the crew that CVE 106 was about to take on the above "first" he made the comment "our ship is about to take this historical action" some one on the flight deck yelled "then lets go home and tell everyone about it"!
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CVE 106 was the first aircraft carrier to be used in the training of naval recruits. Some 7,500 “boots” had their first experience aboard a naval vessel in this ship.
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CVE-106 was the first aircraft carrier and combatant ship of a world war to be anchored and used as a training ship at the United States Naval Academy.
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CVE-106 was the first aircraft carrier to be converted from use of regular aircraft to full helicopter service during the Korean campaign.
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LPH-1 ( as Taken from Naval Records) USS Block Island (formerly CVE 106) was the first ship designated as a helicopter-assault ship, or LPH. Conversion work began in January 1958, but was cancelled six months later and such funds were designated to construct the first of a total new class of US Navy Carriers.
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Taken from official Marine Corps records:
In September '44 VMF-512 and MAG-51 group headquarters moved to Mojave California which became the Marines center for F4U carrier training. The squadron designations were modified to VMTB(CVS) and VMF(CVS) to indicate they were specially trained for carrier duty and close air support. The designation was changed back to just VMF-512 on May 26, 1945. By the end of the war 4 carriers were so manned: USS Block Island CVE-106, USS Gilbert Islands CVE-107, USS Cape Gloucester CVE-109 and USS Vella Gulf CVE-111. All 4 of their fighter squadrons came from MAG-51.
Anyone can recognize and quickly understand the text of this communicate, however, it will take a Radioman to recognize that the form that is used is an original document as it was used by the Navy in WWII
(click on communicate and it will show enlarged view)
Today the Military has the sophisticated modern unmanned drones that search the skies as spy planes. CVE 106, way back in 1944, had their own radio controlled aircraft that were used for gunnery practice. They were able to be launched by catapult just like the big aircraft.
SUMMARY
WHY OKINAWA
While the United States would not enter WW2 until after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Congress by the majority felt the same way that over 85% of the general public indicated and that was "not our war" and in fact displayed an isolationist attitude. The United States had just came out of the "big depression" and the entire work force was busy in the process of supplying Great Britain and Russia with much needed war materials. The attack on Pearl Harbor changed the entire World and the United States declared War on the Japanese and very soon thereafter Germany and Italy.
The "battle plan" that was devised was to defend the United States and their Allies from the offensive actions of Japan but to undertake an immediate offensive action against the Axis Powers. However, this did not stop the United States from recognizing that eventually the Japanese would have to be reckoned with on a full offensive measure.
The War with Germany was of great land masses where the War in the Pacific would be one of "island hopping" from Australia up to the Japanese homeland. The Japanese were extending their supply lines hundreds of miles from their resources and the strategy was undertaken to at first let the Navy attack their merchant shipping to curtail this supply and to let the Marines, and later the Army to undertake the recovery of many of the islands that Japan had occupied along with much of China.
While the Allied Military was making great progress with their offensive measures in Europe several large naval battles were taking place in the Pacific with the Allied Navies taking toll, not only on the Japanese shipping, but also the destruction of many of their Carriers and their Battleships and Cruisers. All this time the Army and the Marines were retaking many of the islands that Japan had overran.
The Pacific War soon became a total offensive undertaking and it was apparent that even many of the islands could be bypassed and a General Plan was set up to actually only undertake the recovery of some major islands that were closer to the Japanese homeland in order to concentrate the US airpower on that homeland. Thus came Guam which would give the Army Air Force an adequate base to launch their B-29 Bombers toward Japan and Iwo Jima for a place where the damaged, and those with mechanical problems, could land and not have to ditch in the ocean.
All this time the United States was in the process of Developing the A-Bomb but it was evident that the eventual occupation of the Japanese Mainland would have to be undertaken by the Army and the Marines. The Island of Okinawa lies about 350 Miles south of the Japanese homeland and was the major training grounds for the Imperial Japanese Army. The island is the largest island that is close to Japan. Guam by comparison where the B-29s flew from was 750 miles south east of Tokyo and one half the size of Okinawa.
To mass a force large enough to maintain an invasion of Japan, that would be within a distance that the invasion ships could travel, dictated that Okinawa be taken for that single purpose. That fact was known for several years because, even with the fact that all the many islands that the Japanese had occupied had to be retaken, there still needed to be a closer land mass that could maintain an invasion force. Okinawa was that piece of real estate that was needed. It was estimated that an invasion force of over 750 thousand would be needed along with all the ships, planes, tanks, trucks and supply facilities to maintain that force.
With the invasion of Kyushu , the most southern island of the Japanese homeland, scheduled for November 1, 1945, time became a big factor. Between January and June 1945 the Navy was called on to support the invasion of Luzon in the Philippines, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Between the three Islands the distance to be covered was over 23,000 square miles that was subject to many obstacles much less the seasonal weather and the Pacific Typhoons. The Naval activities in taking Okinawa lasted for over 98 days. Thousands of supply ships, troop ships, tankers, landing craft, repair ships, and fighting ships of all nature presented the largest logistic consideration of the entire war. The Okinawa Naval operations were the largest and longest undertaken since the United States were created. These small carriers, the CVEs, of which the USS Block Island was the Flag Ship of a 7 carrier Task Force, provided the ground support and the air coverage for the troops as well as making their scheduled attacks on the land mass itself.
The crews of these ships in many cases stood "general quarters duty" for days at a time. With so many ships being involved the Japanese Kamikaze pilots had many targets. In one day alone 23 ships were hit by the Kamikaze attacks. These were the airplanes that had gotten through the task forces of the larger carriers that were operating between Japan and Okinawa.
With the battle damage that was caused on the fleet, and the loss of life of the Soldiers and Marines in taking Okinawa, an island that far away from the Japanese mainland played a big part in the United States decision to drop the A-Bomb. Multiply the US losses of the Marines, the Soldiers, the Navy personnel and the Pilots by the thousands of Americans that would be lost and you can understand why the decision was made before the invasion of the Japanese mainland was to take place.
Island of Ishigaki just south of Okinawa
Elsewhere on the Website there is several stories that relate to the then Lt. Roy Swift, Intelligence Officer aboard both CVE 21 and CVE 106, who was also the Editor of the shipboard paper "Chips". While the vision of an Intelligence Officer is normally seen as "a hard nosed down to the facts type of individual" Lt. Swift was at times that person. However, Lt. Swift, before the war, was the Editor of a newspaper in large city in Texas and there were times that Texas sense of humor came to the fore front. On June 9, 1945, while the carrier was undergoing fairly heavy operations, due to the delay of the offensive actions for several days during one of the "typhoon encounters", the hard nose down to the facts" Intelligence Officers and that "Texas sense of humor" met as he prepared his story for the "Chips" of the days combat information report.
First of all the action involved the fact that the Island of Ishigaki is south of Okinawa and was occupied by some 30,000 troops with four airfields. The island by this time was being used mainly as a haven for the Japanese Kamikaze Corps of suicide fanatical pilots with there outdated patched up airplanes. If they came down from Japan and got through the screen of the big carriers and then were not able to attack the fleet there at Okinawa there was no way they could make it back to the Japanese homeland. Thus the reason for maintaining such a large force on Ishigaki where the four air fields were.
History shows that the Japanese secrete code had been broken by this time and it was learned that from time to time the Japanese "Big Brass" made trips down to Ishigaki just to observe the operations and to inspect the facilities.
The story relates to all of the US and Japanese concerns for this Island. The US in trying to curtail the activities undertaken on the island and the Japanese trying to maintain the "haven" for the very active Kamikaze Corps. The story goes like this:
You have seen a fellow with a mean line of talk and a few well-aimed pop bottles heckle an unpopular ump at a baseball game until the guy blew up. Well that’s just exactly what they mean when they call the "night missions our hellcats flew yesterday morning a heckling mission". The old adage of never the twain shall meet came together yesterday morning where the "plan of the day" for the US was "heckle the hell out of them" and "the plan of the day" for the Japs was "inspect the facilities and observe the operations".
It was two lone planes going down in the soupy darkness against a large military concentration and a lot of anti-aircraft installations. One little incident at the wrong time of night shows how the uncertain drone of motors overhead, at the wrong time of night, caused some little Jap, who had got nervous in the service, to blow up. Captain Troyer and his wing man Lt. Jones came in over the island at about 0445. It is easy to re-construct the situation.
A big working party of scared Okinawans, with a blustering Jap as overseer, had worked ever since dusk to mend all the holes in the airfields that had been blasted the day before by those barbarian Yankies with the big white block with an I in the middle on their rudders. About 0300 they got through their work and crept wearily to their shacks. The Nipponese O.D. at control center, irritated and dopey with lack of sleep, decided to catch forty winks, or something, before time for those Americans to show up at about their usual 0600. Now "hear this" he told his non-com sternly. "It is possible that Col. Stakamanure comes through tonight on his way from Formosa to report to Their Lordship at Tokyo. If his plane shows up, make all the preparations and call me in my room".
A non-com, just as fazzled out and dopey as his lieutenant, smiled and hissed through his teeth, then hissed without smiling at his chief’s back. Soon a radarman called in to report that it had been impossible to repair the radar gear up on the ridge since yesterdays attack. The non-com hissed back at him over the phone and hung up. An hour dragged by and he dozed.
A private on guard outside came running "planes approaching" he hollered. I hear the motors. The Sergeant, broken rudely from his sleep and dreams of Geisha girls, jumped to his feet, roaring orders. His befogged mind recalled what his lieutenant had said "Col. Stackamanure" make all the preparations and call me! He bellered out "light the runways for the Colonel"
Thus it was Captain Troyer, coming in for a run on Ishigaki, saw all the lights on the airfield flash on. "Ah, ha he says, nice of the boys" He and Lt. Jones came right on down across the lighted runways, thumped their quarter ton bombs on the landing surface, blasted out the search lights and went back over the ocean only to return and find the radar station that they had been searching for all week all lit up. With all the light it was easy for their rocket attack and down went the radar station. Needless to say that when Col. Stackamanure got there with a very bumpy landing all hell broke loose in the Japanese quarters. Not only was the runways all torn up there was no radar station left to track their very unskilled young pilots that made it down from Okinawa. With so many Okinawan labors available the runways could be fixed in a few days but without the Radar and their unskilled pilots there was a big problem with their plans. This meant that those surviving Kamikaze pilots would have to try to make it all the way to Formosa if they were going to be saved. With the loss of those junk planes and the young pilots we will be able to concentrate more of our air power on Okinawa for the next few days.
We kept our 0600 run on Ishigaki and the gun camera films show that indeed the radar station was gone gone and that the two main runways were unusable. However the films were not able to find the Stackamanure that started all this confusion. The 0600 flight did find a bunch of Japs shaking their fist in the air as our planes flew over the island. That’s 20 for today!
Time and circumstances change people. This is a story written by a man who
later became a Commissioner of the Social Security agency and who won awards for
his services to our elderly senior citizens. Like President Roosevelt said
" our service men will do what they have to do to win this war" and as
Tom Brokaw has written "these men did what they had to do".