USS ''Liscome Bay'' (ACV/CVE-56) was the second of fifty s built to serve the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

during

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. Launched in April 1943 and commissioned the following August, she was named for Liscome Bay in

Dall Island Dall Island is an island in the Alexander Archipelago off the southeast coast of Alaska, just west of Prince of Wales Island and north of Canadian waters. Its peak elevation is above sea level. Its land area is , making it the 28th largest isl ...

in the

Alexander Archipelago The Alexander Archipelago (russian: Архипелаг Александра) is a long archipelago (group of islands) in North America lying off the southeastern coast of Alaska. It contains about 1,100 islands, the tops of submerged coastal m ...

of Alaska. On 24 November 1943, her munitions were catastrophically detonated by a torpedo attack by the while she was acting as the flagship of Carrier Division 24, which was supporting operations on Makin. She quickly sank with the loss of 644 men. Her loss is the deadliest sinking of a carrier in the history of the United States Navy.

Design and description

''Liscome Bay'' was a ''Casablanca''-class escort carrier, the most numerous type of aircraft carriers ever built, and designed specifically to be mass-produced using prefabricated sections, in order to replace heavy early war losses. Standardized with her sister ships, she was

long overall __NOTOC__ Length overall (LOA, o/a, o.a. or oa) is the maximum length of a vessel's hull measured parallel to the waterline. This length is important while docking the ship. It is the most commonly used way of expressing the size of a ship, an ...

, had a

beam Beam may refer to: Streams of particles or energy *Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy **Laser beam *Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles **Charged particle beam, a spatially localized grou ...

of , and a

draft Draft, The Draft, or Draught may refer to: Watercraft dimensions * Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel * Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail * Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a vesse ...

of . She displaced

standard Standard may refer to: Symbols * Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs * Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification Norms, conventions or requirements * Standard (metrology), an object th ...

, with a

full load The displacement or displacement tonnage of a ship is its weight. As the term indicates, it is measured indirectly, using Archimedes' principle, by first calculating the volume of water displaced by the ship, then converting that value into wei ...

. She had a long

hangar deck A hangar is a building or structure designed to hold aircraft or spacecraft. Hangars are built of metal, wood, or concrete. The word ''hangar'' comes from Middle French ''hanghart'' ("enclosure near a house"), of Germanic origin, from Frankish ...

and a long

flight deck The flight deck of an aircraft carrier is the surface from which its aircraft take off and land, essentially a miniature airfield at sea. On smaller naval ships which do not have aviation as a primary mission, the landing area for helicopte ...

. She was powered by two Uniflow reciprocating steam engines which drove two shafts, providing and enabling her to make . The ship had a cruising range of at a speed of . Her compact size necessitated the installment of an

aircraft catapult An aircraft catapult is a device used to allow aircraft to take off from a very limited amount of space, such as the deck of a vessel, but can also be installed on land-based runways in rare cases. It is now most commonly used on aircraft carrier ...

at her bow, and there were two aircraft elevators to facilitate movement of aircraft between the flight and hangar deck: one each fore and aft. One /38 caliber

dual-purpose gun A dual-purpose gun is a naval artillery mounting designed to engage both surface and air targets. Description Second World War-era capital ships had four classes of artillery: the heavy main battery, intended to engage opposing battleships and ...

was mounted on the stern. Anti-aircraft defense was provided by eight Bofors anti-aircraft guns in single mounts, as well as 12 Oerlikon cannons, which were mounted around the perimeter of the deck. ''Casablanca''-class escort carriers were designed to carry 27 aircraft, but the hangar deck could accommodate more. For example, during her only combat deployment, Operation Kourbash, she carried 11 FM-1 and five F4F-4

fighters Fighter(s) or The Fighter(s) may refer to: Combat and warfare * Combatant, an individual legally entitled to engage in hostilities during an international armed conflict * Fighter aircraft, a warplane designed to destroy or damage enemy warplan ...

, as well as nine TBM-1 and three TBM-1C

torpedo bomber A torpedo bomber is a military aircraft designed primarily to attack ships with aerial torpedoes. Torpedo bombers came into existence just before the First World War almost as soon as aircraft were built that were capable of carrying the weight ...

s, for a total of 28 aircraft.

Construction

She was

laid down Laying the keel or laying down is the formal recognition of the start of a ship's construction. It is often marked with a ceremony attended by dignitaries from the shipbuilding company and the ultimate owners of the ship. Keel laying is one o ...

on 12 December 1942, under a

Maritime Commission The United States Maritime Commission (MARCOM) was an independent executive agency of the U.S. federal government that was created by the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, which was passed by Congress on June 29, 1936, and was abolished on May 24, 195 ...

contract, MCE hull 1137, by

Kaiser Shipbuilding Company The Kaiser Shipyards were seven major shipbuilding yards located on the United States west coast during World War II. Kaiser ranked 20th among U.S. corporations in the value of wartime production contracts. The shipyards were owned by the Kaiser ...

Vancouver, Washington Vancouver is a city on the north bank of the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington, located in Clark County. Incorporated in 1857, Vancouver has a population of 190,915 as of the 2020 census, making it the fourth-largest city in Was ...

. She was launched on 19 April 1943; sponsored by Mrs. Clara Klinksick, wife of Rear Admiral

Ben Moreell Admiral Ben Moreell (September 14, 1892 – July 30, 1978) was the chief of the U.S. Navy's Bureau of Yards and Docks and of the Civil Engineer Corps. Best known to the American public as the father of the Navy's Seabees, Moreell's life spanned ...

, the Chief of the Navy's

Bureau of Yards and Docks The Bureau of Yards and Docks (abbrev.: BuDocks) was the branch of the United States Navy responsible from 1842 to 1966 for building and maintaining navy yards, drydocks, and other facilities relating to ship construction, maintenance, and repair. ...

. Originally, she was intended to be sent to the British

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...

under the name HMS ''Ameer''. However, a change in plans resulted in the USS ''Baffins'' being redesignated as ''Ameer'' in ''Liscome Bay''s place. She was named ''Liscome Bay'' on 28 June 1943, as part of tradition which named escort carriers after bays or sounds in Alaska. The vessel was assigned the

hull classification symbol The United States Navy, United States Coast Guard, and United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) use a hull classification symbol (sometimes called hull code or hull number) to identify their ships by type and by ind ...

CVE-56 on 15 July 1943, and was commissioned on 7 August 1943. Captain Irving D. Wiltsie was the ship's first commander, and her crew was derived from the ''Bogue''-class escort carrier USS ''Glacier'', which had been ordered in July 1942 but was sent to the Royal Navy as part of the Lend-Lease program.

Service history

After being commissioned, ''Liscome Bay'' proceeded southwards towards

San Diego, California San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United Stat ...

, picking up and ferrying 60 aircraft from

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

on the way, arriving on 22 September 1943. For the next month, she engaged in training operations off the Southern California coast. On 11 October, she was designated as the flagship of Carrier Division 24, under the command of Rear Admiral Henry M. Mullinnix. On 14 October, she received her aircraft contingent, and on 21 October, she departed for

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the R ...

, arriving a week later, on 27 October. She then conducted additional drills and training exercises off of Hawaii until early November, when she was assigned to the invasion fleet assembling for Operation Kourbash. As a member of Carrier Division 24, she departed from Pearl Harbor on 10 November as part of Task Force 52 commanded by Rear Admiral

Richmond K. Turner Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner (May 27, 1885 – February 12, 1961), commonly known as Admiral Kelly Turner, served in the United States Navy during World War II, and is best known for commanding the Amphibious Force during the campaign across ...

, bound for the invasion of the Gilbert Islands. It was to be her first and last mission. ''Liscome Bay'' was assigned to the naval forces supporting the invasion of Makin. The invasion bombardment announcing the first major U.S. naval thrust into the central Pacific began on 20 November at 5 a.m. Just 76 hours later,

Tarawa Tarawa is an atoll and the capital of the Republic of Kiribati,Kiribati
''

close air support and bombing Japanese positions. In total, 2,278 sorties were conducted by the carrier task group in support of Operation Galvanic, which neutralized enemy airbases, supported

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

landings and ground operations with bombing and strafing missions, and intercepted enemy aircraft. With the islands secured, U.S. naval forces began retiring. However, ''Liscome Bay'' stayed with the rest of her task force as

Marines Marines, or naval infantry, are typically a military force trained to operate in littoral zones in support of naval operations. Historically, tasks undertaken by marines have included helping maintain discipline and order aboard the ship (refle ...

mopped up resistance on

Butaritari Island Butaritari is an atoll in the Pacific Ocean island nation of Kiribati. The atoll is roughly four-sided. The south and southeast portion of the atoll comprises a nearly continuous islet. The atoll reef is continuous but almost without islets al ...

Sinking

The invasion of the Gilbert Islands had caught the Japanese command by surprise. Admiral

Mineichi Koga was a Japanese Marshal Admiral and commander-in-chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy's Combined Fleet. Biography Early life and career Koga was born in the famous ceramics center of Arita in Nishimatsuura County of Saga Prefecture in 1885. H ...

, in desperation, issued orders to recall four Japanese submarines southwest of

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...

and five submarines near Truk and Rabaul to converge on the Gilberts. Of the nine Japanese submarines sent to sortie against the U.S. forces in the Gilberts, six were lost. On 23 November, however, the submarine , commanded by Lieutenant Commander Sunao Tabata, arrived off Makin. The U.S. task group, built around Rear Admiral Henry M. Mullinnix's three escort carriers, was steaming southwest of Butaritari Island at 15 knots. The task group was traveling in a circular formation, with seven destroyers, the cruiser , the battleships , , and , and ''Liscome Bay''s two sister ships, and , surrounding her. ''Liscome Bay'', as the guide for the group, was located dead center between the other ships. As collisions were deemed to be a greater risk to the ships than a potential submarine attack, the ships were not zig-zagging. At 04:30 on 24 November,

reveille "Reveille" ( , ), called in French "Le Réveil" is a bugle call, trumpet call, drum, fife-and-drum or pipes call most often associated with the military; it is chiefly used to wake military personnel at sunrise. The name comes from (or ), th ...

was sounded in ''Liscome Bay''. On 04:34, the destroyer left to investigate a signal beacon, likely dropped from a Japanese plane. This resulted in a gap within ''Liscome Bay''s screen. At 04:36, the radar operators on ''New Mexico'' spotted a short-lived blip, which may have represented ''I-175'' diving into position. Flight quarters was sounded at 04:50. The crew went to routine

general quarters General quarters, battle stations, or action stations is an announcement made aboard a naval warship A warship or combatant ship is a naval ship that is built and primarily intended for naval warfare. Usually they belong to the arme ...

at 05:05, when flight crews prepared their planes for dawn launching. Thirteen planes, including one forward on the catapult, had been readied on the flight deck. These had all been fueled and armed. There were an additional seven planes in the hangar that were not fueled or armed. She had a large amount of munitions on board, stored below-decks. Meanwhile, the task group executed a turn to the northeast, which brought ''Liscome Bay'' to a course presenting her side to ''I-175''. The Japanese submarine fired a spread of at least three Type 95 torpedoes towards the task force. At about 05:10, a lookout on the starboard (right) side of ''Liscome Bay'' reported seeing a

torpedo A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, and with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, s ...

headed for the ship. The torpedo struck behind the aft engine room, as ''Liscome Bay'' was conducting its turn, and detonated the bomb magazine, causing a devastating explosion that engulfed the ship and sent shrapnel flying as far as away. Considerable debris fell on the battleship ''New Mexico'' about off, while a sailor on board the escort carrier ''Coral Sea'' was reportedly hit by a fire extinguisher from ''Liscome Bay''. The entire task force was rocked by the explosion, but no other ships were significantly damaged. A

mushroom cloud A mushroom cloud is a distinctive mushroom-shaped flammagenitus cloud of debris, smoke and usually condensed water vapor resulting from a large explosion. The effect is most commonly associated with a nuclear explosion, but any sufficiently ener ...

erupted, rising thousands of feet above the wreck of ''Liscome Bay''. The detonation sheared off nearly the entire stern of the carrier, killing everyone behind the forward bulkhead of the aft engine room. Seawater quickly rushed into the gap, mixing with oil released from the hull. Both the hangar and flight decks were heavily damaged. Parts of the superstructure, including the

radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, we ...

antenna, collapsed onto the deck. The forward part of the hangar was immediately engulfed in flames, igniting the few remaining planes on the flight deck. Planes fell off the carrier's deck. Steam, compressed air, and fire-main pressure were lost throughout the ship. Fires on the flight deck caused ammunition within the burning aircraft and anti-aircraft guns to detonate, further complicating matters. The gasoline coated water surrounding ''Liscome Bay'' caught fire, hampering efforts by survivors to escape. At 05:33, only 23 minutes after the explosion, ''Liscome Bay'' listed to starboard and sank; 53 officers and 591 enlisted men were killed, including Captain Irving Wiltsie, Rear Admiral Henry M. Mullinnix and

Doris Miller Doris Miller (October 12, 1919November 24, 1943) was a United States Navy cook third class who was killed in action during World War II. He was the first Black American to be awarded the Navy Cross, the highest decoration for valor presented by ...

. 12 Grumman TBM Avenger torpedo bombers, 7 Grumman FM-1 Wildcat fighters, and 4 Grumman F4F Wildcat fighters went down with ''Liscome Bay''.

Rescue

When ''Liscome Bay'' detonated, the rest of the task group immediately conducted evasive maneuvers, scattering from her wreck. At 05:40, the destroyers , and arrived at the oil slick to rescue survivors, but many of the men hauled up were dead or dying. At 06:10, the destroyer spotted two torpedo wakes, one just from the destroyer's hull. A radar operator on ''New Mexico'' detected an echo, and ''Hull'' was recalled to join in dropping depth charges. took ''Hull''s place in picking up survivors. At 08:00, the search operation was concluded. Of the 916 crewmen aboard ''Liscome Bay'', 644, including Wiltsie, Mullinnix, and Miller (Cook 3rd Class

, see "Notable crew" below), went down with the ship, whilst 272 survived. Including those lost on ''Liscome Bay'', U.S. casualties in the assault on Makin Island exceeded the strength of the entire Japanese garrison.

Aftermath

The survivors were transferred at Makin Lagoon from the destroyers onto the attack transports and . On

Thanksgiving Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Philippines. It is also observed in the Netherlander town of Leiden ...

night, two of the survivors died, and were buried at sea. On 2 December, the navy announced that ''Liscome Bay'' had been sunk off Makin Island. Over two months later, on 4 February 1944, ''I-175'' was detected and sunk by the destroyer and the destroyer escort , using their

Hedgehog anti-submarine mortar A hedgehog is a spiny mammal of the subfamily Erinaceinae, in the eulipotyphlan family Erinaceidae. There are seventeen species of hedgehog in five genera found throughout parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and in New Zealand by introducti ...

Legacy

In the Chapel of St. Cornelius, located within

Valley Forge Military Academy and College Valley Forge Military Academy and College (VFMAC) is a private boarding school (grades 7–12) and military junior college in Wayne, Pennsylvania. It follows in the traditional military school format with army traditions. Though military in t ...

, two stained-glass windows, installed in 1965, act as a memorial to ''Liscome Bay''. On the museum ship , a memorial plaque was installed in 1990 to the ship.

Notable crew

* John G. Crommelin: Chief of Staff of Carrier Division 24, politician * † William H. Hollister & Richard J. Hollister: three brothers who served in the U.S. Navy who all died in 1943, two aboard ''Liscome Bay''; namesake of destroyer USS ''Hollister'' (DD-788) *

Robert Keeton Robert Ernest Keeton (December 16, 1919 – July 2, 2007) was an American lawyer, jurist, and legal scholar. As a law professor at Harvard Law School and a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Mas ...

: Future legal scholar, United States District Judge * †

: First African-American to receive the

Navy Cross The Navy Cross is the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps' second-highest military decoration awarded for sailors and marines who distinguish themselves for extraordinary heroism in combat with an armed enemy force. The medal is eq ...

, namesake of frigate USS ''Miller'' (FF-1091), and of USS ''Doris Miller'' (CVN-81), a ''Gerald R. Ford''-class aircraft carrier scheduled to be laid down in 2026 and launched in 2029. * † Henry M. Mullinnix: Admiral of Carrier Division 24, namesake of destroyer USS ''Mullinnix'' (DD-944) * † Irving D. Wiltsie: Captain of ''Liscome Bay'', namesake of destroyer USS ''Wiltsie'' (DD-716) * William J. Woodward Jr.: banker and thoroughbred horse-breeder

Notes

Citations

General sources

Online sources

* * * * * * *

Bibliography

* * * * *

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Liscome Bay (Cve-56) 1943 ships Casablanca-class escort carriers Maritime incidents in November 1943 Ships built in Vancouver, Washington Ships sunk by Japanese submarines World War II escort aircraft carriers of the United States World War II shipwrecks in the Pacific Ocean S4-S2-BB3 ships Naval magazine explosions