USS Guadalcanal (CVE-60)
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History | |
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Name | USS Guadalcanal |
Ordered | 1942 |
Builder | Kaiser Shipyards |
Laid down | 5 January 1943 |
Launched | 5 June 1943 |
Commissioned | 25 September 1943 |
Decommissioned | 15 July 1946 |
Stricken | 27 May 1958 |
Motto | Can do |
Fate | Sold for scrap on 30 April 1959 |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | Casablanca-class escort carrier |
Displacement | 7,800 tons |
Length | 512 ft (156 m) overall |
Beam | 65 ft (20 m) |
Draft | 22 ft 6 in (6.86 m) |
Propulsion |
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Speed | 19 knots (35 km/h) |
Range | 10,240 nmi (18,960 km) @ 15 kn (28 km/h) |
Complement |
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Armament | 1 × Bofors 40 mm guns (8×2), 20 × Oerlikon 20 mm cannons (20×1) |
Aircraft carried | 27 |
Service record | |
Part of: |
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Commanders: | Daniel V. Gallery |
Operations: | Battle of the Atlantic |
Victories: | U-544, U-515, U-68, U-505 (1944) |
Awards: |
Battle stars |
USS Guadalcanal (CVE-60) was a
Construction and commissioning
Guadalcanal was built using a converted
First "Hunter-killer" cruise
World War II submarines had to run surfaced most of the time, and could not stay submerged for more than about 72 hours before having to surface to recharge batteries. But by 1944, U-boats dared not surface in daylight, because they would be spotted by patrolling aircraft. Patrols from escort carriers covered even the middle of the Atlantic. Surfacing at night was safer, because night flight operations from escort carriers were considered too dangerous. The best the escort carriers could do was substitute extra fuel tanks for depth charges on a Grumman TBF Avenger, so the plane could take off at sunset, fly around all night, and land at dawn. The U-boats would not know the plane was unarmed, and would not risk staying surfaced.[1]
Gallery decided that Guadalcanal would try night operations. When Ultra intelligence revealed a planned U-boat refueling rendezvous 500 miles west of the Azores just before sunset on 16 January 1944, Guadalcanal stayed clear of the area until launching eight Avengers just before sunset to comb the rendezvous area. The Avengers found two U-boats engaged in refueling with another standing by, and dived out of the clouds to drop depth charges. All three submarines disappeared; but 32 survivors of U-544 were floating in a pool of oil. In their excitement to see the effects of their first successful attack, the Avenger pilots stayed aloft so long they returned to the carrier after sunset.[2]
Aircraft recoveries were slow because of bad approaches in the gathering dusk. After four landed successfully, the fifth Avenger landed too far right and put both wheels into the gallery walkway with its tail fouling the flight deck. The flight deck crew was unable to move the Avenger; and the three remaining planes were running out of fuel in total darkness. Guadalcanal turned on the lights and urged the pilots to try landing on the left side of the flight deck. The nervous pilots came in too high, too fast, and too far to port until one of them desperately cut power, bounced, and landed inverted in the water off the port side. The plane guard destroyer rescued the three crewmen from the unsuccessful landing and the crewmen from the two remaining planes which were instructed to ditch.[2]
No more night flying was attempted, and no more U-boats were discovered during daylight patrols. Gallery kept his flight deck crew busy training with the wrecked Avenger between flight operations. The Avenger was cabled to the ship so it wouldn't be lost; and the crew was timed with a stopwatch to see how long it took them to push it over the side. The plane would then be winched back aboard for another drill. After they could reliably clear the flight deck within four minutes, they were finally allowed to push the battered Avenger overboard with no cable attached.[1] After replenishing at Casablanca, the Task Group headed back to Norfolk and repairs, arriving on 16 February.
Second "Hunter-killer" cruise
Departing again with her escorts on 7 March, Guadalcanal sailed with newly assigned air group VC-58 to Casablanca and got underway from that port on 30 March with a convoy bound for the United States. After three weeks of daylight flights finding no U-boats, Guadalcanal attempted night flight operations under the full moon of 8 April 1944. Four fully armed Avengers were launched just before sunset with recovery scheduled for 22:30. One of the Avengers found
Guadalcanal Avengers had detected a second U-boat about sixty miles away while holding down U-515; so they maintained patrols through the night of 9 April. U-68 was discovered at daybreak on 10 April recharging batteries on the surface 300 miles south of the Azores. Three Avengers attacked out of the dark western sky with depth charges and rocket fire. U-68 sank, leaving three lookouts swimming in the wreckage, but only Hans Kastrup survived to be rescued when destroyers arrived an hour later.[2]
With the confidence gained through sinking two U-boats in the first two nights of flight operations, Guadalcanal continued night flight operations as the moon waned, and aircrew were well trained when the task group arrived safely at Norfolk on 26 April 1944. Guadalcanal's success encouraged other carriers to practice night operations.[2]
Capture of U-505
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9c/A_U.S._Navy_boarding_party_working_to_secure_a_tow_line_to_the_bow_of_the_captured_German_submarine_U-505%2C_4_June_1944_%2880-G-49172%29.jpg/220px-A_U.S._Navy_boarding_party_working_to_secure_a_tow_line_to_the_bow_of_the_captured_German_submarine_U-505%2C_4_June_1944_%2880-G-49172%29.jpg)
After voyage repairs at Norfolk, Guadalcanal and her escorts departed Hampton Roads for sea again on 15 May 1944. Two weeks of cruising brought no contacts, and Gallery decided to head the Task Group for the coast of Africa to refuel. However, on 4 June 1944, ten minutes after reversing course 150 miles West of Cape Blanco in French West Africa, Chatelain detected U-505 as it was returning to its base after an 80-day patrol in the Gulf of Guinea. The destroyer loosed one depth charge attack; then made a second, more accurate drop, guided in by circling aircraft from Guadalcanal. This pattern blew relief valves all over the U-boat, cracked pipes in her engine room, and rolled her on her beam ends. Shouts of panic from the engine room led Oberleutnant Harald Lange, making his first patrol as her captain, to believe his boat was mortally wounded. To save his crew, he blew his tanks and surfaced, coming up barely 700 yards from Chatelain. The destroyer fired a torpedo, which missed, and the surfaced submarine then came under the combined fire of the escorts and aircraft as her crew abandoned ship.
Captain Gallery had been waiting and planning for such an opportunity, and had trained and equipped boarding parties. He ordered Pillsbury to send a boat with a boarding party to the U-boat. Under the command of
U-505 was the first enemy warship captured on the high seas by the U.S. Navy since 1815. For their daring and skillful teamwork in this remarkable capture, Guadalcanal and her escorts shared in a
Arriving in Norfolk on 22 June 1944, Guadalcanal spent only a short time in port before setting out again on patrol. She departed Norfolk on 15 July and from then until 1 December, she made three anti-submarine cruises in the Western Atlantic. She sailed on 1 December for a training period in waters off Bermuda and
Guadalcanal entered the Atlantic Reserve Fleet at Norfolk and was redesignated CVU-60 on 15 July 1955, while still in reserve. She was finally stricken from the
Awards
Guadalcanal was awarded three
References
- ^ a b Gallery 1969, pp. 85–90.
- ^ a b c d e Gallery 1969.
- ^ Gallery 1965, p. 195.
- ^ Gallery 1965, p. 209.
Bibliography
- OL 5946337M.
- Gallery, Daniel V. (1969). "...Nor Dark of Night". Proceedings. Vol. 95, no. 4. United States Naval Institute. pp. 85–90.
This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entries can be found here and here.
Further reading
- Gallery, Daniel V. (1951). Clear the Decks. New York: Morrow. OL 6095614M.
- Gallery, Daniel V. (1956). Twenty Million Tons Under the Sea. Chicago: H. Regnery Co. OL 6202174M.
External links
- Away Boarders. United States Navy Department. 1953. Retrieved 18 September 2020.
- The War in the Atlantic and the U-505. Pritzker Military Museum & Library. Citizen Soldier. 4 February 2013. Retrieved 18 September 2020.
- The U-505 Submarine Story. Pritzker Military Museum & Library. Front and Center. 28 April 2004. Retrieved 18 September 2020.
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