德拉克講海軍歷史 美國海軍埃塞克斯級航空母艦 邦克山號 - 戰艦指南 265

U.S.S. Bunker Hill was one of the famous Essex class of aircraft carriers. But what's perhaps not often appreciated about the ship or the class as a whole is that they were not built because of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The U.S. Navy had started a major expansion program prior to the actual war starting. Bunker Hill had been ordered more than a year before in September 1940 and laid down three months before the attack in September 1941. One of five Essex class to already be under construction when the bombs started falling on Battleship Row. She would be launched exactly one year after the attack on December 7, 1942 and commissioned into the fleet at the end of May 1943. However, this did not mean she was ready to head into combat immediately. The ship needed to take on her air group and conduct a shakedown cruise. This took most of the summer and it was only in September that Bunker Hill was able to set out for the Pacific. Arriving on station in November after a brief stop at Pearl Harbor. She also had to swap out fighter squadrons on the way having initially deployed with F4U Corsairs but having them pulled by the U.S. Navy who at this point hadn't fully approved their use on carriers due to issues with landing approaches and were also seeking to standardize parts and equipment across the fleet. And so she would go to war with F6F Hellcats instead. Although her former F4U squadron, VF-17 would reappear at various points to work with their old ship as they were now operating from land-based airfields in the region and indeed a corps of VF-17 pilots would much later in the war deploy aboard the ship once more as part of a new squadron. From that point on, she'd be almost continuously in service with brief pit stops in Pearl Harbor seeing action in attacks on Rabaul, Tarawa, Palau, Truk and Okinawa to name only a few of her actions as well as taking part in the Battle of the Philippine Sea also known as the Great Mariana's Turkey Chute. After about a year of constant combat operations she headed back to the continental United States for an overhaul and refit returning to action off Iwo Jima in February 1945 where she supported the invasion of that island and subsequently the invasion of Okinawa. Then she got to send aircraft in as part of the mass swarm that would sink the battleship Yamato in April but she is perhaps best known for what happened on the 11th of May 1945 Mass kamikaze attacks had been escalating since the Battle of Leyte Gulf but mass U.S. Navy combat air patrols and anti-aircraft gun cover had dealt crippling losses to many of those assaults The Japanese pilots had thus become more cunning and individual sorties were now being launched These were much harder to detect and exploited newly developed Japanese electronic warfare capabilities that allowed them to piggyback to a certain extent on the U.S. Navy's IFF systems and guide solo pilots on paths through areas of interference generated by American radar and radio systems as well as avoiding the worst of the combat air patrols These solo attackers could be devastating That particular morning Bunker Hill had flown off some of its aircraft but had a large number fuelled up and ready to go when just after 10 o'clock in the morning a single Zero emerged from the clouds and dived in releasing a 550-pound bomb on its way down The bomb itself went right through the flight deck and out the ship's side before exploding in the sea which was annoying but not particularly awful But the Zero followed up and smashed into the aircraft parked on the flight deck which set off a chain reaction of fuel explosions even as another solo Zero arrived overhead dropping its 550-pounder through the flight deck and into the hangar deck setting off whatever was left in there and also wiping out a good portion of the ship's pilots as they waited in the ready rooms which took the brunt of the blast and most of the survivors found themselves rapidly running out of oxygen The Zero then dove for the ship's island the now alerted ship's anti-aircraft gun crews doing just enough to stop the aircraft from wiping out Admiral Mitchell and Captain Arleigh Burke although the oncoming wreck killed 14 of the Admiral's staff as its remains sailed past the two officers missing them by a matter of feet One final kamikaze appeared but the anti-aircraft gunners who weren't choking on the smoke from the explosions and fires aft were able to shoot it down The forward AA gun crews would then spend most of the rest of the day at their stations as, now alerted they had to fight off a number of additional attackers any one of which could have doomed the ship by plowing through the congregated damage control parties Even so, further fires and explosions made the ship's survival somewhat doubtful for most of the day as following destroyers had to try and recover a chain of men who'd been blown over the side of the ship as they struggled to get either to safety or to suppress the flames by various explosions However, by the end of the day the flames were finally under control and the battered ship limped to safety staging gradually home for repairs which was still underway when the war ended The repairs were complete enough to allow her to sail safely by the end of September which allowed her to take part in Operation Magic Carpet but after that she was rapidly placed in reserve once the repairs had been fully complete entering the reserve fleet at the start of 1946 Along with the USS Franklin the ship was kept in reserve as the repairs had restored her to a basically as new condition and the US Navy wanted to give both ships an ultimate makeover once its various experiments with modifications to the other S-6 class had been completed But as the years went on and newer, larger carriers entered service the need for the S-6 class in the fleet lessened and the ultimate refit never left the drawing board Instead used as an electronics test bed Bunker Hill would actually never be recommissioned but eventually be scrapped in 1973 That's it for this video Thanks for watching If you have a comment or suggestion for a ship to review let us know in the comments below Don't forget to comment on the pinned post for dry dock questions