Word: bunker
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Grew. Since then the Navy has admitted that 19 ships have been hit by suicide planes, including the carriers Bunker Hill and Saratoga, and one unidentified carrier to which Admiral Mitscher transferred his flag after the Bunker Hill was hit. The destroyer Mohan was announced sunk, the cruiser Nashville and two more destroyers damaged in December. Two ships were admittedly hit in March, seven in April, four in May, one in June. Presumably others among the 80-odd ships hit during the Okinawa battle were victims of suicide pilots. Radio Tokyo says all Jap pilots now are suicidal...
Less than two months after the aircraft carrier Franklin had been hit off Kyushu by two Japanese bombs and turned into a floating inferno (TIME, May 28), the same fate befell her elder, more experienced sister, the Bunker Hill. The circumstances were astonishingly similar: the ship was at flight quarters (launching planes). The enemy aircraft dived through the Bunker Hill's own combat air patrol so suddenly that they could not be splashed by U.S. fighters...
...Zeke (old-type Zero) dropped a delayed-action bomb which penetrated the Bunker Hill's flight deck, went out through the ship's side and burst over the water. But the Zeke itself crashed on the after half of the carrier's deck, crowded with 34 loaded planes, ready to go. That kindled a raging fire. Then a Judy (dive bomber) dropped a 500-pounder through the flight deck, and crashed into the base of the island structure. The Bunker Hill's fight for life...
Carrier's Escape. The Bunker Hill's fight for survival lasted through many agonizing hours. A huge pillar of smoke billowed from the after half of the ship, where blazing gasoline and oil sloshed around. Crewmen manned hoses in the face of flames which scorched them to the limit of endurance. Part of the Marine detachment stayed in an ovenlike compartment, throwing bombs and rockets overboard. Tons of water, covered with burning gas and oil, were spilled off over the side in a sharp, skillful turn worked out by the navigator, Commander Charles J. Odend...
...Bunker Hill had won her Navy nickname of "Holiday Inn" because her career started with holiday strikes (Armistice Day, Christmas and New Year's) against New Britain and New Ireland, a year and a half ago. Last week Holiday Inn, closed for alterations at Puget Sound Navy Yard, ranked next to the Franklin as the most cruelly ravaged U.S. ship ever to reach port under her own power...