Oct. 25th, 1944. My dad at the Battle off Samar

I double-checked the photo referred to in my notes, and it isn't the one posted above. Rather it shows White Plains under fire. However, I remain skeptical about the above photo as the "Chikuma" is so close and doesn't appear to be firing.

 

As Slip said, a cruiser was quite close as the Gambier Bay was getting hammered. Perhaps the ship in the photo doesn't appear to be firing at that moment, but had just fired the salvo near the GB. I look into my sources and see if I can't get some other info.

tom

 

At that minimal distance, time of flight would be just a few seconds. I don't see any smoke. Maybe it is a Japanese ship, but I can't help being skeptical.

 

Thought experiment. Ship is 10,000 yards away. Average projectile speed 2,500 fps. Time of travel 12 seconds. Maybe enough time for the smoke to clear away from firing ship enough to be undetectable in said photo?

tom

 

Ah! The second photo is the one that I was referring to, though I have a different caption. Note the significant passage of time between that photo (carrier has a full deck of planes, background carrier not emitting smoke) and the ones captioned to show Gambier Bay in distress.
At least we know that Morison was wrong in saying only one daylight photo shows IJN and USN in the same view.

 

I tend to agree with Tiornu on this one, but for different reasons. The Japanese were stuck for the most part in a stern chase. If the ship in the picture was indeed Japanese, wouldn't she be traveling in the opposite direction? As Tone and Chikuma closed in on the CVE's, several ships charged in to aid the Gambier Bay. Wouldn't the position, and direction of the ship in question indicate the ship is charging in to draw fire?

 

On page 182d of "The Men of the Gambier Bay, there is a map (with times) showing the Jap cruisers overtaking the southward sailing Taffy 3 carriers and attacking from the east and southeast. Depending on what ship the pictures were taken from, it's not inconceivable that the GB would be taking fire from seemingly conflicting directions. Also, those present on the ships AT THE TIME, along with those taking the pictures, would have known who was doing the shelling. This book and others are remarkably well-detailed as to the hits the ships took, when, and many times, what caliber and who shot them. I also have a rare USN book that shows an escort carrier receiving fire from a distant Jap cruiser. The caption identifies the cruiser as a "Tone" class (probably the Chikuma). The Tone class (Tone and Chikuma) were easily identified because all four 8" twin turrets were ahead of the bridge. Other cruisers shelling Taffy 3 had similar outlines to the Sammy B., so that may be a source of confusion in identifying who was who. But the Sammy B. wasn't firing 6" or 8" shells at the carriers..........

BTW, the Fanshaw Bay was one of the few USN ships that garnered TWO Presidential Unit Citations (three if you count the one from the Philippine president).

tom

 

I fully agree with you on this, but are these same people snapping the pictures the one writing the descriptions for the Navy? Many pictures I've seen from the battle have been labeled with tags such as "photo taken from unidentified escort carrier." I highly doubt that the person taking the photo didn't know what ship he was on.

 

Tom, You now have me curious. Can you list the title? I'm always looking for more books on the battle to add to my library. Anything you can add to this list?
mikebatzel's books | LibraryThing

 

Mike, the name of the book is "The Escort Carriers In Action", subtitled "The story-in pictures-of the Escort Carrier Force U.S. Pacific Fleet.

It was compiled in 1945 from official U.S Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard photographs.

Title page says: "Published for the 30,000 officers and men of the Escort Carrier Force and sent to them with the compliments and best wishes of Lieutenant Commander Richard J. Reynolds, USNR, of Winston-Salem N.C. Navigator of the Flagship USS Makin Island.

Lt. Commander Reynolds personally paid for the cost of the publication and distribution of the book. Copies were sent to all men whose names and addresses were submitted by their ships through official channels. I have no idea of how many of these books were actually distributed, by I have never seen or heard reference to any one but the one my dad left me. I also have an original "Straddled, a short history of the U.S.S Fanshaw Bay" This book has no publishing date or any other pertinent information. It does have about 75 pages and many photos of life aboard ship including aircraft operations, crew pictures, equator-crossing ceremonies, etc. I also have a copy of this book that was distributed on DVD from cve70.com, but the site is no longer up.

tom

 

Both of those would be darned interesting to see. Apparently "The Escort Carriers In Action" is on Questia, though the way they put things up there is a pain in the but. (Not a fun way to read a book.) The other is at least in one small research library, but indeed, that seems to be two gems.

 

I finally got one of those kits. REALLY nice. I also ordered the Mr. Color paints for it. I just have to figure out how to do a nice job of changing the deck numbers from "73" to "70"

tom

 

I ran across this information about the book:

A Damn Fine Gesture

Nice.

tom