Two Carriers in Harm’s Way
21 FEBRUARY 1945
TWO CARRIERS IN HARM’S WAY
As the third day of the battle for Iwo Jima began, the ships of Task Force 58 kept up their shore bombardment and their efforts against Japanese sea and air defenses. Indeed, on this morning, USS SARATOGA (CV-3) and three destroyers were detached from Task Group 58.5 to provide combat air patrol over the amphibious landing zones from a position 35 miles to the northwest of the island. But just as SARATOGA arrived on station at 1628, an inbound flight of aircraft was seen on radar. Initially identified as “friendlies,” it was not for 20 minutes that the inbounds were revealed to be 25 enemy kamikazes. In only ten more minutes the planes were upon SARATOGA! The first two fell ablaze from anti-aircraft fire, but bounced into the carrier at the waterline, releasing bombs that penetrated and exploded. Another crashed the anchor windlass on the bow, taking out of action most of the forward flight deck and a plane about to launch. All within a span of three minutes, yet another kamikaze struck the port catapult, and a fifth took out the starboard crane and gun gallery. The carrier got up headway and turned away from the wind while damage control parties fought the fires. The situation gradually improved, but at 1846 a final suicide plane slammed unseen out of the darkness onto the flight deck. The bomb it dropped blew a 25-foot hole in the deck and started new fires. Despite losing 36 planes to fires and water landings, 123 sailors killed, and 192 injured, SARATOGA was not crippled. She ultimately steamed under her own power to Eniwetok for repairs.
But at that same 1845 moment, 45 miles east of Iwo Jima, the escort carrier BISMARCK SEA (CVE-95) was approached on her port bow. All eyes turned in that direction as anti-aircraft guns blasted the onrushing manned missile. Quietly from the opposite side a G4M3 “Betty” bomber glided in low. She wasn’t spotted until only 1000 yards out. The guns couldn’t be depressed sufficiently, and she struck the after aircraft elevator. Debris and flaming gasoline shotgunned through the hangar, and the elevator platform crashed to the deck, cutting the fire mains. Fully gassed planes and bomb and torpedo lockers were engulfed. That same moment from above, another kamikaze carrying two bombs struck vertically at the same spot on the flight deck. Exploding aircraft and ordnance spread uncontrollable fires throughout the ship. Moments after CAPT J.L. Pratt called “Abandon Ship!” and stepped off, a tremendous explosion blew off most of the carrier’s stern. BISMARCK SEA burned for three hours, rolled, then sank. Some 218 sailors went down with the carrier. Six destroyers crisscrossing the area through the night rescued the rest of her 943 crewmen.
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 28 FEB 22
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 1 “A-B”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1959, p. 126.
Morison, Samuel Eliot. History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol XIV Victory in the Pacific. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co., 1960, pp. 52-55.
Poolman, Kenneth. Allied Escort Carriers of World War Two in Action. Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1988, pp. 239-40.
Sweetman, Jack. American Naval History: An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3rd ed. Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2002, p. 185.
Wheeler, Richard. Iwo. Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1980, p. 145.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: As above, by the Iwo Jima campaign the kamikaze was proving to be Japan’s most effective weapon against our Navy. During the course of WWII more sailors and ships were lost to kamikazes than to Japanese submarines, surface actions, conventional air attacks, mines, or manned torpedoes.