USS Enterprise CV-6

USS Enterprise CV-6

The Most Decorated Ship of the Second World War

"... And then there was one patched-up carrier."
Rear Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid

For Enterprise, 1942 began much as 1941 had ended, as she patrolled the western approaches to the Hawaiian islands and periodically returned to Pearl Harbor for supplies, frustrating both brown shoes and bluejackets alike.

By the close of 1942, however, Enterprise was battered and barely seaworthy, her men exhausted and their nerves raw. What they had accomplished, though, was nothing short of remarkable.

After a series of raids during the spring, Enterprise, Yorktown CV-5 and Hornet CV-8 brought Yamamoto's "year to run wild" to an abrupt halt off Midway Island. During the late summer, Enterprise covered the Allied landings on Guadalcanal, then guarded reinforcement efforts. Heavily engaged and damaged in the Battle of the Eastern Solomons in August, and the Battle of Santa Cruz in October, she was ordered once more in November to block yet another major Japanese effort to retake Guadalcanal. The result, known now as the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, 12-15 November 1942, was the decisive action in the long struggle for the jungle island. In five days of heavy combat, the Japanese landing forces were virtually destroyed, and their supporting battle groups, damaged or destroyed, were pushed away from the island, signaling the end of Japan's southern expansion.

In this first year of war, Enterprise and the other ships of the Pacific Fleet faced nearly overwhelming odds regularly. At Midway, Enterprise and her sister ships Hornet - which had never directly engaged the enemy before - and Yorktown - hastily patched up after being struck by an enemy bomb in the Coral Sea battle - squared off against four battle-hardened Japanese carriers ... and won. At Santa Cruz, Hornet and Enterprise - just two carriers now - again engaged four of the enemy's and inflicted such devastating losses on Japan's naval aviators that over a year would pass before Japan's carriers could once again challenge the American fleet.

Over the course of the year, the Big E was struck six times by Japanese bombs, and more than 300 of her men were killed or wounded as a result. Enterprise Air Group and Air Group Ten, flying from Enterprise's deck the first eighteen months of the war, suffered heavy losses as they faced the best of Japan's fighting forces. One by one, the other prewar carriers of the Pacific fleet were lost in battle, or damaged and forced to withdraw for repair. Lexington CV-2 was lost in May, and Yorktown less than a month later. On the last day of August, Saratoga CV-3 absorbed her second torpedo of the year and was forced to retire to Pearl Harbor. Wasp CV-7, struck by three torpedoes on September 16, was not so lucky.

Finally, on the morning of October 26, as Hornet burned just over the horizon, Enterprise became the last operational US carrier in the Pacific. A bold sign appeared in the hangar deck - "Enterprise vs. Japan" - reflecting both the desperate nature of the situation, and the resolve of Enterprise's men. Not until December 5, when the repaired Saratoga arrived at Noumea, would the men in Enterprise see another friendly flattop.

After December 1942, however, Enterprise never fought alone again. Japan's navy, though still formidable, had been greatly weakened by the battles of 1942, battles in which the Big E had often played a pivotal role. And Japan's naval air arm, decimated at Midway, the Eastern Solomons, and Santa Cruz, would never make good its losses. By the end of 1942, Japan had been fought to a stand-still.

Fighting on Guadalcanal continued until February 9, when Army General Alexander Patch announced "Organized resistance on Guadalcanal has ceased." With this, General MacArthur moved forward with Operation Cartwheel.

In late January, Enterprise was sent into the Coral Sea, to cover the landings of four transports full of men and supplies on Guadalcanal, part of the final push to drive the Japanese from the island. In her final engagement in the seas around Guadalcanal, she provided air cover for the heavy cruiser Chicago, torpedoed by land-based Japanese planes the evening of January 29. Late the next afternoon, the another enemy strike materialized. In the attack, known as the Battle of Rennell Island, Enterprise's fighters downed 11 of the 12 enemy planes, unfortunately not before four more torpedoes had slammed into Chicago's hull, fatally wounding her.

By the end of April, the situation in the South Pacific was such that Enterprise could finally be spared for a much needed overhaul. Departing Espiritu Santo May 1, she arrived in Pearl Harbor May 8. Hopes that she'd promptly be sailing for the States were crushed as the harbor entrance came into view, literally: a signal light flickered the message that she'd be training a new air group for the next six weeks. The six weeks eventually stretched into ten, though the strain of waiting to sail home was briefly relieved on May 27, when Enterprise received the first Presidential Unit Citation ever awarded to a carrier.

Finally, on Bastille Day, 1943, Enterprise sailed for home, slipping into a berth in Bremerton, Washington, as dusk settled on July 20. In moments that each of the hundreds of men had anticipated for months, three large groups of men and officers were given 30 days leave, departing the ship about a month apart. Meanwhile the engineers, welders, steamfitters, metalworkers and machinists of Bremerton Navy Yard swarmed over the ship, properly repairing her many wounds, and refitting her to reflect the new realities of war. When she departed Bremerton on 1 November 1943, a new torpedo blister extended three quarters the length of her hull. Her flanks bristled with 50 20mm guns, and 40 40mm Bofors barrels: 36 more anti-aircraft guns than she had in July. Her 40mm and 5-inch guns were now coupled to radar-controlled gunfire directors, and her damage control systems were completely overhauled. The flight deck had been lengthened eighteen feet and widened by five. Below decks, more berths had been packed in for her growing crew, and her bridge had been modernized.

Her appearance in Pearl Harbor on November 6 reportedly caused one Admiral to declare "If Enterprise is ready to fight, so am I."

On the evening of 22 January 1944, under the watchful eyes of Undersecretary of the Navy James Forrestal and Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, an enormous striking force, designated Task Force 58, slowly filed out of Pearl Harbor and set course southwest for the Marshall Islands. Divided into four task groups - any one of which could have crushed the Japanese forces at the Eastern Solomons or Santa Cruz - the "big blue fleet" would not return to Pearl Harbor until the war's end.

The American War Plan Orange, which called for fleet to battle its way across the Pacific to relieve the Philippines in the event of a Japanese attack, became reality in 1944. But the plan had a new twist. Instead of single drive through the central Pacific, 1944 witnessed two simultaneous offensives: one commanded by General Douglas MacArthur from the south, the other led by Admirals Spruance and Mitscher through the Marshall and Marianas islands. Both drives converged on the Philippines in October.

Enterprise was tirelessly in action for the entire year 1944. In January she raided Taroa, in the Marshall islands, and then sailed north to pound Kwajalein atoll in preparation for its occupation. In February, she launched raid after raid against Truk, Japan's feared mid-Pacific fortress, breaking her own record for the tonnage of bombs dropped in a single day, and launching the first night bombing attack in the history of naval warfare.

early June, Enterprise and the other fast carriers hammered on Japanese planes and air fields in the Marianas, and then on the landing beaches themselves, in preparation for invasion launched on June 15.

A few days later, in the last great carrier battle of the war - likely the last in history - Mitscher and Spruance faced off against Japanese Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, and destroyed Japan's naval air power for good. Prowling off the Marianas until July 5, Enterprise turned east for Pearl Harbor for repair, and to bring aboard a new air group: Air Group 20.

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Enterprise returned to Pearl Harbor in September 1945, then sailed on September 25 with her new Night Air Group 55, bound for New York via the Panama Canal. This was the first of four "Magic Carpet" voyages she'd complete that fall and winter. From Pearl, she carried 1141 passengers, including hospital patients and repatriated prisoners of war.

She rejoined the fleet in New York Harbor October 17, for the Navy Day celebration on October 27. By this time, her story, and the crucial role she'd played again and again in the Pacific war, were public knowledge and for two weeks the Big E was the center of the city's attention. Her name was emblazoned across newspaper headlines - "The Big E, Fightin'est Carrier, In!" Moored to Pier 26 on the Hudson River, she welcomed over a quarter million visitors, and rendered "passing honors" to President Truman when he inspected the ships at anchor on the 27th. That afternoon, Enterprise's Navy Band #51 led the World War II Victory Parade - and thousands of United States sailors, soldiers and Marines - down New York City's Avenue of the Americas. After nightfall, Night Air Group 55 flew in formation, fully alight, to salute the fleet and the Big E herself.

Recognition of her greatness did not end there. Tying up briefly in Southampton, England, on her November Magic Carpet voyage, Enterprise became the first - and to date only - ship outside the Royal Navy ever awarded that Navy's highest honor: the Admiralty Pennant. On that voyage, she carried 4668 servicemen home from Europe; on her next voyage, she carried another 4413 military passengers from Southampton, arriving in New York on Christmas Eve 1945. Her last Magic Carpet voyage took her to the Azores, where she picked up 3557 passengers, including 212 WACS, returning to New York January 17, 1946. The next day she moored at Bayonne, New Jersey: a proud ship, but never to sail under her own power again.

http://www.cv6.org/1941/1941.htm

[ 21. February 2003, 12:03 PM: Message edited by: Kai-Petri ]

 

Great post Kai, she is one Grand Lady!

 

USS Enterprise at the Battle of Santa Cruz
October 26th,1942





http://www.hazegray.org/features/enterprise/

 

I've got some documents posted that help with the story as well:

Interviews:
Lieutenant H. Harden - Air Operations Officer, 1942-43
Lt. Cdr J. R. Lee (CO of VS-10) & Lt. Cdr. L. J. Kirn (CO of VS-3) - 1943 post Santa Cruz

Damage Report:
August 24, 1942 (note that a bomb detonated next to the ready storage for torpedoes but did not penetrate the armor!)

 

CV6.org was a great website for reference!

My painting was based off this photo of Enterprise in Pearl Harbor here back in the 30's I believe. The Tripod mast, and parts of the Island were changed, and they put quite a few more guns on her.

 

No, the photo is from early-mid 1942. Note the cage mast of a battleship and the giant crane behind the USS Enterprise. That is the USS California being salvaged, she entered drydock on April 9, 1941, so it is some time before that.

Also, note the many 20mm AA guns fitted at the ship's bow, behind the forward 5-inch guns and those alongside the island(where the ship's boats had been kept). As well as the CXAM radar mast.

Definitely an early war photo.

 

Great ship.

For a while, she and a couple of other carriers were the only thing standing between Hawaii and Japan.

My wife's uncle was an AMM2 on the Hornet (CV-8) when she was sunk at Santa Cruz. He survived.

 

Great thread-great ship.

Enterprise is IMO the greatest warship of all time. The history of the Big E is the history of the entire Pacific war, from operations conducted immediately after Pearl Harbor to night operations against Kyushu in May of 1945.

If you haven't done so, I highly recommend that you get a copy of The Big E by Commander Ed Stafford.

Her last days in the war were much like all her operations, she was right in the thick of it. On May 6th after undergoing repairs after a kamikaze crashed into her side off Okinawa, she was assigned to TF 58.3 along with Essex, Bunker Hill (Mitscher's flag, and my old ship) and Randolph for ops off Kyushu. Enterprise was specializing in night air ops, relatively new-but pioneered by Enterprise aviators. On the 11th of May Bunker Hill was hit by two Kamikazes and nearly sunk, Mitscher transferred his flag to Enterprise. He was never a big fan of night ops, but observing first hand he was quickly won over. On the morning of the 14th the Japanese were sending a lot of Kamakazes out towards the task force, by 0650 the CAP had splashed all the attackers before they could get within 20 miles.

Even though this took her out of the war, she was lucky as the bomb exploded in a storeroom full of bundled rags and bed linens. She suffered relatively light casualties for such a heavily damaged ship-13 dead and 48 wounded.

At the bottom of the wreckage in the elevator shaft the body of Chief Pilot Tomi Zai was found. As Stafford says, he had accomplished what the Imperial Japanese Navy had failed to do in 3 1/2 years of concentrated effort. He had knocked the Big E out of the war.