Word: wasps
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Navy had expected a carrier task force battle ever since the Solomons invasion began. Not until last week, almost seven weeks after the Wasp had been sunk by submarines, did it come. A great Jap naval force in two sections, including at least three aircraft carriers, bore down from the northeast. Vice Admiral William Frederick ("Bull") Halsey Jr., the South Pacific's new commander, had his carrier force ready to battle Jap carriers for the third time in six months. Once again the battle was chiefly between planes and ships; no major surface engagement was reported by the Navy...
...Cost. Such battles do not come cheaply. The destroyer Porter was lost, other ships damaged. But the real blow came when the Navy announced that another precious, unidentified U.S. aircraft carrier had followed the Lexington, Yorktown and Wasp to a deep grave in the Pacific. Whether she was the Enterprise, the Saratoga, the Ranger or the Hornet was not announced. When the Japs withdrew northward, either in outright retreat or to regroup for another action, Bull Halsey sent his ships to shell the enemy positions on Guadalcanal...
Some of the Wasp's planes were up on patrol, and their pilots, coming in, saw their floating landing field being consumed. One of them flew over the flagship at 3:36 and dropped this message: Wasp burning fiercely forward of island. 10° list to starboard (guess). 100 men or more aft on ft. deck. Destroyer close aboard. Eight Wasp planes due land 16:20. Wasp dead in water or just barely backing down. Ammunition on deck exploding...
...flagship they could see explosions on the Wasp's deck. A few minutes later came heavier explosions on the after part of the hangar deck as fire reached the planes parked there. They looked like red fists striking out over the water...
Conversation with Murphy. It was 8 o'clock when the destroyers put torpedoes into the Wasp to put her out of her misery. The flagship took aboard some of the Wasp's surviving pilots. Later, in the bedroom of one of the ship's officers, one of the older pilots stood in front of a grey locker and talked with an absolutely blank expression. He addressed one of his fellow pilots. "Well, Murphy," he said, "it's a little hard for us to realize yet. All those fellows over there. ... I came in from my search...