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USS Commencement Bay

USS Commencement Bay (CVE-105) (ex-St. Joseph Bay), the lead ship of her class, was an escort carrier of the United States Navy. The Commencement Bay class were built during World War II, and were an improvement over the earlier Sangamon-class escort carrier, which were converted from oil tankers. They were capable of carrying an air group of 33 planes and were armed with an anti-aircraft battery of 5 in, 40 mm, and 20 mm guns. The ships were capable of a top speed of 19 kn, and due to their origin as tankers, had extensive fuel storage. Commencement Bay was employed as a training ship during the war, training new crews for the other members of her class as they were completed. She saw no active service after the war ended in 1945, instead being assigned to the Pacific Reserve Fleet, and was eventually sold for scrap in 1972.

Design

In 1941, as United States participation in World War II became increasingly likely, the US Navy embarked on a construction program for escort carriers, which were converted from transport ships of various types. Many of the escort carrier types were converted from C3-type transports, but the Sangamon-class escort carriers were instead rebuilt oil tankers. These proved to be very successful ships, and the Commencement Bay-class escort carrier, authorized for Fiscal Year 1944, were an improved version of the Sangamon design. The new ships were faster, had improved aviation facilities, and had better internal compartmentation. They proved to be the most successful of the escort carriers, and the only class to be retained in active service after the war, since they were large enough to operate newer aircraft.

Commencement Bay was 557 ft long overall, with a beam of 75 ft at the waterline, which extended to 105 ft at maximum. She displaced 21397 LT at full load, of which 12876 LT could be fuel oil (though some of her storage tanks were converted to permanently store seawater for ballast), and at full load she had a draft of 27 ft. The ship's superstructure consisted of a small island. She had a complement of 1,066 officers and enlisted men.

The ship was powered by two Allis-Chalmers geared steam turbines, each driving one screw propeller, using steam provided by four Combustion Engineering-manufactured water-tube boilers. The propulsion system was rated to produce a total of 16000 shp for a top speed of 19 kn. Given the very large storage capacity for oil, the ships of the Commencement Bay class could steam for some 23900 nmi at a speed of 15 kn.

Her defensive anti-aircraft armament consisted of two 5 in dual-purpose guns in single mounts, thirty-six 40 mm Bofors guns, and twenty 20 mm Oerlikon light AA cannons. The Bofors guns were placed in three quadruple and twelve twin mounts, while the Oerlikon guns were all mounted individually. She carried 33 planes, which could be launched from two aircraft catapults. Two elevators transferred aircraft from the hangar to the flight deck.

Service history
The first fifteen ships of the Commencement Bay class were ordered on 23 January 1943, allocated to Fiscal Year 1944. The first ship of the class was laid down on 23 September 1943 at the Todd Pacific Shipyards in Tacoma, Washington, originally under the name St. Joseph Bay. She was renamed Commencement Bay during construction, after the nearby Commencement Bay in Puget Sound. On 9 May 1944, the ship was launched, and after completing fitting out work, was commissioned into active service on 27 November.

On 1 February 1945, Commencement Bay moved to Seattle, Washington, where she began her active career as a training ship. She operated in this role in Puget Sound for the next nine months, during which time she trained some 545 officers and 5,053 enlisted men who went on to serve aboard Commencement Bay's sister ships as they were completed at the Todd Pacific facilities. She also qualified 249 pilots from eight air groups for carrier operations. On 21 October, she departed Bremerton, Washington, bound for Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, arriving there on 4 November. She spent the next three weeks participating in carrier qualification training, and on 27 November, departed to return to Seattle. She then moved on to Tacoma soon thereafter.

Over the course of the following months, Commencement Bay sailed south to visit Los Angeles and San Pedro, California, before returning to Tacoma on 28 January. She was decommissioned there on 30 November 1946 and allocated to the Pacific Reserve Fleet. Ten of the Commencement Bay-class ships saw significant service postwar as anti-submarine warfare carriers, but they were small and had difficulty operating the new Grumman AF Guardian patrol planes, so they were soon replaced by much larger Essex-class aircraft carriers. She saw no further service, but was reclassified as a helicopter carrier with the hull number CVHE-105 on 12 June 1955. On 7 May 1959, she was reclassified again, now as an aircraft ferry with the hull number AKV-37. She lingered on in the Navy's inventory until 1 April 1971, when she was struck from the Naval Vessel Register. She was eventually sold to ship breakers on 25 August 1972 and subsequently scrapped.

title: USS Commencement Bay


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Talk:Economic growth

Effects of income inequality in the US
You reverted my recent insertion pertaining to the effect of inequality on growth and recovery time in the US. Why do you believe it is WP:UNDUE? I note that you did not reply to my statement two weeks ago at Talk:Economics that I intended to add it here. Dan Ratan (talk) 12:19, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't (yet, if ever) have an opinion about the content, but I almost reverted it just because it was stuck randomly under a top subheading in a section with more than one sub-sub-subsection.  Besides content, if it comes back, please work to place it smoothly with the rest of the presentation. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:32, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

New weave of economic growth and welfare
History of economic thought 203.215.174.90 (talk) 19:11, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Economics
Production Possibility Curve(PPC) Production Possibility Curve or transformation Curve is the presentation in a graphical form of all possible combinations of two commodities which a society can produce by employing full and efficient resources at a given state of technology. 105.112.17.254 (talk) 22:01, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Economic growth


text:
USS Cape Gloucester

USS Cape Gloucester was a Commencement Bay-class escort carrier of the United States Navy, in service from 5 March 1945 to 5 November 1946. The Commencement Bay class were built during World War II, and were an improvement over the earlier Sangamon-class escort carrier, which were converted from oil tankers. They were capable of carrying an air group of 33 planes, and due to their origin as tankers and were armed with an anti-aircraft battery of 5 in, 40 mm, and 20 mm guns. The ships were capable of a top speed of 19 kn, had extensive fuel storage. After spending another 25 years in the reserve fleet, the ship was scrapped in 1971.

Design

In 1941, as United States participation in World War II became increasingly likely, the US Navy embarked on a construction program for escort carriers, which were converted from transport ships of various types. Many of the escort carrier types were converted from C3-type transports, but the Sangamon-class escort carriers were instead rebuilt oil tankers. These proved to be very successful ships, and the Commencement Bay-class escort carrier, authorized for Fiscal Year 1944, were an improved version of the Sangamon design. The new ships were faster, had improved aviation facilities, and had better internal compartmentation. They proved to be the most successful of the escort carriers, and the only class to be retained in active service after the war, since they were large enough to operate newer aircraft.

Cape Gloucester was 557 ft long overall, with a beam of 75 ft at the waterline, which extended to 105 ft at maximum. She displaced 21397 LT at full load, of which 12876 LT could be fuel oil (though some of her storage tanks were converted to permanently store seawater for ballast), and at full load she had a draft of 27 ft. The ship's superstructure consisted of a small island. She had a complement of 1,066 officers and enlisted men.

The ship was powered by two Allis-Chalmers geared steam turbines, each driving one screw propeller, using steam provided by four Combustion Engineering-manufactured water-tube boilers. The propulsion system was rated to produce a total of 16000 shp for a top speed of 19 kn. Given the very large storage capacity for oil, the ships of the Commencement Bay class could steam for some 23900 nmi at a speed of 15 kn.

Her defensive anti-aircraft armament consisted of two 5 in dual-purpose guns in single mounts, thirty-six 40 mm Bofors guns, and twenty 20 mm Oerlikon light AA cannons. The Bofors guns were placed in three quadruple and twelve twin mounts; four of the Oerlikon guns were mounted individually, while the remaining guns were in experimental Mark 31 quadruple mounts. She carried 33 planes, which could be launched from two aircraft catapults. Two elevators transferred aircraft from the hangar to the flight deck.

Service history

The first fifteen ships of the Commencement Bay class were ordered on 23 January 1943, allocated to Fiscal Year 1944. The ship was laid down under the name Willapa Bay on 10 January 1944 at the Todd-Pacific Shipyards in Tacoma, Washington. She was renamed Cape Gloucester after the Battle of Cape Gloucester on 26 April and was launched on 12 September. The ship was commissioned on 5 March 1945. After initial working up, she moved to Pearl Harbor for combat training in preparation for her deployment to the front lines.

Cape Gloucester then sailed west to the Philippines, arriving at Leyte on 29 June. There, she joined the Third Fleet, which was operating off Okinawa during the Japan campaign. She contributed her fighter aircraft to the combat air patrol defending minesweepers clearing Japanese defensive minefields in the area from 5 to 17 July. She also used her aircraft to carry out photo-reconnaissance missions over the coast of Japanese-occupied China from late July to 7 August. Her planes shot down several Japanese aircraft during this period and assisted in damaging a cargo ship.

The ship then returned to the coast of Japan to cover minesweepers operating there following the Japanese decision to surrender. Following the end of the conflict, she helped to liberate Allied prisoners of war who had been imprisoned on Kyushu. Over the following months, she made four Operation Magic Carpet voyages between Japan and Pearl Harbor, returning American soldiers, sailors, and marines home. She received a single battle star for her short period of service during the war.

With her role in the repatriation effort over, Cape Gloucester sailed to Tacoma on 22 May 1946, where she was decommissioned and reduced to reserve status on 5 November. Ten of the Commencement Bay-class ships saw significant service postwar as anti-submarine warfare carriers, but they were small and had difficulty operating the new Grumman AF Guardian patrol planes, so the rest of the class remained laid up, and they were soon replaced by much larger Essex-class aircraft carriers. As part of the Pacific Reserve Fleet for more than a decade and a half, she was reclassified as a helicopter carrier with the hull number CVHE-109 on 12 June 1955. She was reclassified again on 7 May 1959 as a cargo ship and aircraft transport with the hull number AKV-9. She was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 1 April 1971 and thereafter sold to be broken up for scrap.

title: USS Cape Gloucester


text:
USS Block Island (CVE-106)

USS Block Island was a Commencement Bay-class escort carrier of the United States Navy. The Commencement Bay class were built during World War II, and were an improvement over the earlier Sangamon-class escort carrier, which were converted from oil tankers. They were capable of carrying an air group of 33 planes and were armed with an anti-aircraft battery of 5 in, 40 mm, and 20 mm guns. The ships were capable of a top speed of 19 kn, and due to their origin as tankers, had extensive fuel storage.

She was launched on 10 June 1944 as Sunset Bay by Todd-Pacific Shipyards, Inc. Tacoma, Washington; sponsored by Mrs. E. J. (Grace) Hallenbeck (mother of Major Pappy Boyington, then a Prisoner of War of the Japanese), and commissioned as Block Island on 30 December 1944.

Design
In 1941, as United States participation in World War II became increasingly likely, the US Navy embarked on a construction program for escort carriers, which were converted from transport ships of various types. Many of the escort carrier types were converted from C3-type transports, but the Sangamon-class escort carriers were instead rebuilt oil tankers. These proved to be very successful ships, and the Commencement Bay-class escort carrier, authorized for Fiscal Year 1944, were an improved version of the Sangamon design. The new ships were faster, had improved aviation facilities, and had better internal compartmentation. They proved to be the most successful of the escort carriers, and the only class to be retained in active service after the war, since they were large enough to operate newer aircraft.

Block Island was 557 ft long overall, with a beam of 75 ft at the waterline, which extended to 105 ft at maximum. She displaced 21397 LT at full load, of which 12876 LT could be fuel oil (though some of her storage tanks were converted to permanently store seawater for ballast), and at full load she had a draft of 27 ft. The ship's superstructure consisted of a small island. She had a complement of 1,066 officers and enlisted men.

The ship was powered by two Allis-Chalmers geared steam turbines, each driving one screw propeller, using steam provided by four Combustion Engineering-manufactured water-tube boilers. The propulsion system was rated to produce a total of 16000 shp for a top speed of 19 kn. Given the very large storage capacity for oil, the ships of the Commencement Bay class could steam for some 23900 nmi at a speed of 15 kn.

Her defensive anti-aircraft armament consisted of two 5 in dual-purpose guns in single mounts, thirty-six 40 mm Bofors guns, and twenty 20 mm Oerlikon light AA cannons. The Bofors guns were placed in three quadruple and twelve twin mounts, while the Oerlikon guns were all mounted individually. She carried 33 planes, which could be launched from two aircraft catapults. Two elevators transferred aircraft from the hangar to the flight deck.

World War II

The first fifteen ships of the Commencement Bay class were ordered on 23 January 1943, allocated to Fiscal Year 1944. The ship was originally laid down as Sunset Bay at the Todd-Pacific Shipyards in Tacoma, Washington, on 25 October 1943. The ship was launched on 10 June 1944. While construction was still on-going on 5 July, she was renamed Block Island after the Block Island Sound, which lies between Block Island and the coast of Rhode Island. The ship was commissioned into active service on 30 December 1944. After completing final fitting out, the ship left Tacoma on 10 January for a short period of initial training in Puget Sound. She then stopped at the Puget Sound Navy Yard to take on ammunition and supplies, before departing for San Francisco, California, on 20 January. She arrived there two days later and loaded five picket boats and several damaged aircraft that were to be transported to San Diego, California. She left San Francisco on 24 January and arrived on the 26th, disembarked her cargo, and then began loading 5-inch High Velocity Aircraft Rockets.

Block Island's first aircraft came aboard on 3 February; these were eight Grumman F6F Hellcat fighters and eight Vought F4U Corsair fighters of squadron VMF-511, which formed part on Carrier Aircraft Service Division 1 (CASD). The next day, the ship went to sea to begin initial carrier operations training. The torpedo bomber squadron VMTB-233, which operated Grumman TBM Avengers, completed CASD 1 on 7 February. Three days later, the ship sailed in company with the destroyer USS Douglas H. Fox for what was to have been ten days of combat training off San Diego. These included live-fire training for the ship's aircraft. On 14 February, one of the ship's aircraft suffered a mechanical breakdown and crashed, though the pilot was recovered by the seaplane tender USS Childs. The weather worsened through the afternoon, and a flight of four fighters and six Avengers launched at 16:40 had to be recalled at 17:34 due to an approaching storm; only one Avenger was able to land on the carrier. The rest were redirected to the airfield on San Nicolas Island. But by the time they arrived there, the storm had reached the island. One Avenger crashed there, killing all three men aboard, as did a pair of Corairs, whose pilots also died. The flight leader attempted to land his Avenger first at San Nicolas, then at Santa Barbara, and ultimately at Bakersfield, but he also crashed before reaching the airfield, killing the three-man crew. Three other planes ditched at sea off San Nicholas, and three men were pulled from the water by Coast Guard rescue vessels. The remaining planes landed safely at San Nicolas. The incident forced the cancellation of training, as Block Island and Childs spent the next day searching for downed pilots before returning to San Diego.

Block Island thereafter resumed an intensive training schedule for the next month in preparation for deployment to the western Pacific to join the forces fighting Japan. She got underway on 20 March, bound for Pearl Harbor, carrying a load of 30 extra planes and 192 passengers in addition to her normal crew and complement of 36 planes. She arrived in Pearl Harbor on 26 March and disembarked the passengers and cargo; she then spent several weeks conducting combat training off Hawaii. Block Island departed Pearl Harbor on 17 April to join the fleet at its forward base at Ulithi in the Caroline Islands, in company with the destroyer USS Harry E. Hubbard. After passing through Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands on the way, the two ships arrived off Ulithi on 28 April. While approaching the atoll, they received reports of enemy aircraft approaching, and their crews observed American aircraft destroy a Nakajima B6N torpedo bomber. Block Island's anti-aircraft gunners accidentally opened fire on two American planes, but did not shoot them down before realizing they were friendly aircraft. The two ships anchored in Ulithi later that day and became part of Fifth Fleet, centered on the Fast Carrier Task Force.

Battle of Okinawa

On 30 April, Block Island sortied with the destroyer USS Helm (DD-388) and destroyer escort USS Samuel S. Miles, bound for Okinawa, where US forces were engaged in a battle to seize the island. Block Island joined Task Unit 52.1.1, commanded by Rear Admiral Calvin Durgin, on 3 May some 64 nmi southeast of Okinawa. The following day, she was transferred to Task Unit 52.1.3, commanded by Rear Admiral William Sample. There, she joined the escort carriers USS Suwannee (CVE-27), USS Santee (CVE-29), and USS Chenango (CVE-28). Over the course of the next week, Block Island contributed her aircraft to the combat air patrol to introduce them to combat operations.

The ship made her first aerial attack on Japanese positions on 10 May, first sending her TBMs to drop bombs and fire rockets at a Japanese strongpoint near the town of Naha. At around 12:00, several of her fighters were sent to strafe Japanese facilities on a nearby island. Later that afternoon, her planes were rearmed and refueled for a strike on airfields in the nearby Sakishima Islands. The strike force, which consisted of eight fighters and eight TBMs, struck airfields at Hirara and Nobara, damaging airfields and related infrastructure. Japanese defensive fire shot down two of the TBMs, though one of them managed to limp back to the carrier and ditch nearby, allowing its crew to be picked up by an escorting destroyer.

The following morning, the ship's pilots began further strikes on Japanese airfields in the Sakishima Islands, beginning with a fighter sweep over Ishigaki Island. A force of bombers and fighters then hit the airfield on Ishigaki, followed by another fighter sweep to attack any remaining opposition. Three of Block Island's planes were damaged by anti-aircraft fire, but they were able to return to the ship. A fourth plane was forced to land at Yontan on Okinawa due to damage to its hydraulic system, along with a bomb that had come loose from its hardpoint in the plane's bomb bay. Aircraft from the British Pacific Fleet then took over attacks on the Sakishima Islands on 11 May, allowing Block Island to return to direct operations on Okinawa itself.

Block Island remained in action off Okinawa for the next ten days as the fighting to secure the island persisted. On 22 May, the ship left for the nearby island of Kerama Retto to replenish ammunition and other supplies before returning to operations off Okinawa. These included strikes on 24 May on Shuri Castle, a major strong point of the Japanese defensive line in southern Okinawa. On the 27th, a sweep by four fighters over Ishigaki resulted in the death of VMF-511's commander after his aircraft failed to pull out of a dive during a rocket attack on the harbor facilities there. On 29 May, the ship's planes flew a total of 29 sorties against the airfields on Ishigaki and Miyako Island; during one raid on the former, one of the ship's TBMs was shot down by ground fire. The ship continued to operate off Okinawa for the next three weeks, and on 16 June, one of her Hellcats was shot down over Amami Ōshima. Later that day, Block Island transferred to Carrier Division 27, becoming the flagship of Rear Admiral Dixwell Ketcham. She then sailed south to the Philippines for operations elsewhere.

End of the war

On 19 June, Block Island arrived in Leyte Gulf in the northern Philippines for a brief period of rest before sortieing as part of the invasion fleet for what was to be the last major amphibious assault of the Pacific War. Block Island, her sister ship USS Gilbert Islands, and Suwannee departed with an escort of six destroyers, bound for Balikpapan on the island of Borneo. After arriving on 30 June, the carriers' planes began air strikes on Japanese positions there to cover the Australian assault on the town that began the following day. Block Island's pilots flew some 98 sorties over the following three days of combat operations. None of her aircraft were shot down during the fighting, and in the early hours of 3 July, one of her Hellcats shot down an Aichi E13A1 reconnaissance floatplane, which proved to be the only aerial victory claimed by the ship's fighters during the war. Following the end of Japanese resistance in the city, Block Island and the rest of the squadron returned north to the Philippines, though Block Island soon departed for Guam for repairs to her arresting gear.

The ship was still in Apra Harbor, Guam, during the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August, respectively. She soon departed with Santee and four destroyers, bound for Leyte. The ships were still en route when their crews learned on 14 August that Japan would announce its decision to surrender the following day. At 16:30, the ships received news that the ceasefire had gone into effect. Block Island lay at Leyte from 17 to 28 August, when she departed as part of Task Group 77.1, which also included Santee and four destroyer escorts. They were to cover the minesweepers of Task Group 71.2, which were to clear mines blocking the entrance to Incheon, Korea. The ships sailed on 29 August and encountered a typhoon on the way; the storm lasted from 1 to 3 September, but the task groups avoided damage by staying to the south, near Formosa. The Allied powers learned of significant prisoner of war camps on the island during this period, and Ketcham, aboard Block Island, was ordered to send an advance team to Keelung to begin the process of liberating the camps. Block Island sent a group of 33 marines and a medical team aboard the destroyer escorts USS Thomas J. Gary and USS Kretchmer (DE-329) to Keelung.

Before the marines arrived, Ketcham prepared leaflets announcing the American forces that would be landing at Keelung, along with instructions for the Japanese garrison to begin preparing to evacuate the POWs. Several Corsairs were sent to drop the leaflets in Keelung and the airfield at Matsuyama on the morning of 5 September. Later that morning, Ketcham sent a TBM Avenger from Block Island to land at Matsuyama and make direct contact with the local commander. Marine Major Peter Folger ordered the commander to take him to the local camps so he could evaluate the situation and coordinate the relief effort. Aircraft carrying medicine and food were soon sent to Matsuyama, with orders conveyed between Folger and Block Island by one of her Hellcats, which orbited over the camps to relay radio messages. The planes flew in some 9000 lb of supplies and the marine colonel who arrived with the landing party commandeered a train to carry the more than 1,000 POWs from the camps back to Keelung. There, they were taken aboard Thomas J. Gary and Kretchmer, which took the men back to the rest of the squadron. Space aboard Block Island was cleared for over 600 cots and fresh clothing and bedding was assembled. The ship's hangar deck was converted into a hospital for the former POWs who were in more serious condition. In total, more than 1,200 men were rescued from the camps; they were distributed between the ships of the group, and Block Island took 474 aboard. The ships sailed south on the morning of 6 September to take the men back to the Philippines. While en route, they met a British carrier task force that replaced them off Formosa to patrol over the camps, as there were still men who had to be left behind, as they were judged to be too sick for the voyage. Block Island arrived in Manila in the Philippines on 8 September and began transferring the men to shore.

Block Island left the Philippines on 17 September, bound for Okinawa, where she arrived three days later. She then joined a naval force sent to cover the landing of the Chinese Nationalist Army's 70th Army as they landed on the island at Keelung to retake control of Formosa from the defeated Japanese. These operations took place on 16 and 17 October. The ship then sailed for Saipan in the Mariana Islands, arriving there on 23 October. From there, she sailed to Guam, where she embarked passengers and aircraft that were no longer needed in the central Pacific, and departed for the United States. She stopped in Pearl Harbor on 2 December, before proceeding on to San Diego on 5 December. The ship reached her destination six days later, her role in the immediate postwar operations complete. For her service during the war, Block Island received two battle stars.

Post-War

On 5 January 1946, Block Island left San Diego for the last time, bound for the East Coast of the United States by way of the Panama Canal. She arrived in Norfolk, Virginia, on 20 January. For the next few months, she made cruises north to New York City and south to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after which she served as a training ship for naval recruits off the coast of Virginia. She was placed in reserve, but still in commission, on 28 May at Portsmouth, Virginia. She was soon moved to Norfolk, and then on 7 June sailed to Annapolis, Maryland. There, she resumed training duties, but for cadets at the United States Naval Academy.

Following the outbreak of the Korean War in mid-1950, the Navy badly needed operational warships, and so Block Island's career as a cadet training ship came to an end on 3 October 1950, when she was transferred to the Atlantic Reserve Fleet. She was placed out of commission to be overhauled at Norfolk in preparation for active service. On 25 October, she was moved to Philadelphia for further modifications. The work was completed by early 1951, and she was recommissioned on 28 April. The ship then underwent a lengthy fitting out period, and she finally went to sea on 5 January 1952 on a cruise to Guantanamo Bay. There, she took part in flight operations training that lasted until mid-March. Further training off the Virginia Capes followed, and in late April she took another cruise in the Caribbean that concluded on 27 April. She spent the rest of the year operating out of Norfolk.

On 5 January 1953, Block Island departed Hampton Roads, Virginia, bound for another training cruise to the West Indies that lasted more than a month. She then sailed north to the New York Naval Shipyard on 25 February for periodic maintenance. The ship then returned to Virginia for flight training exercises that lasted until mid-April. This was followed by a cruise to western Europe that began on 17 April. She visited several ports in the United Kingdom and then entered the Mediterranean Sea to visit Golfe-Juan, France, and Naples, Italy. She cruised in the Mediterranean before returning to Norfolk in late June. Later that year, Block Island embarked on another cruise in the Caribbean, Sikorsky HO4S helicopters assigned to the helicopter squadron HS-3. Following the cruise, the ship returned to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard on 15 January 1954, where she was decommissioned on 27 August. By this time, the Navy had begun replacing the Commencement Bay-class ships with much larger Essex-class aircraft carriers, since the former were too small to operate newer and more effective anti-submarine patrol planes. Proposals to radically rebuild the Commencement Bays either with an angled flight deck and various structural improvements or lengthen their hulls by 30 ft and replace their propulsion machinery to increase speed came to nothing, as they were deemed to be too expensive.

On 22 December 1957, she was redesignated as an amphibious assault ship with the hull number LPH-1, in anticipation of conversion under project SCB 159 to an amphibious assault ship. The program represented the culmination of Marine Corps tests through the late 1940s and 1950s using helicopters as a component of their "vertical assault" doctrine, which envisioned using helicopter-borne troops to seize strategic crossroads behind the lines while traditional amphibious forces went ashore. Work on Block Island began in January 1958, but by this time, the remaining Essex-class carriers that had not been converted to SCB-27 configuration had become available for use as amphibious assault ships. As a result, the project was cancelled before it was completed, and her designation reverted to CVE-106 in June. The ship was reclassified again on 7 May 1959, this time as a cargo ship and aircraft transport with the hull number AKV-38. She was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 1 July, an was sold soon thereafter to the Japanese firm Kowa Koeki, based in Tokyo. The ship was towed to Japan and broken up in mid-1960.

title: USS Block Island (CVE-106)


text:
Handley Page Type O

The Handley Page Type O was a biplane bomber used by Britain during the First World War. When built, the Type O was the largest aircraft that had been built in the UK and one of the largest in the world. There were two main variants, the Handley Page O/100 (H.P.11) and the Handley Page O/400 (H.P.12).

The aircraft were used in France for tactical night attacks on targets in German-occupied France and Belgium and for strategic bombing of industrial and transport targets in the Rhineland. Some aircraft were temporarily diverted to anti-submarine reconnaissance and bombing in the Tees estuary in 1917 and two aircraft operated in the eastern Mediterranean. The Type O made such an impression that for many years after the war any large aircraft in Britain was referred to as a "Handley Page", even getting a dictionary entry.

Design
Design work began shortly after the start of the First World War following meetings between Captain Murray Sueter, the director of the Air Department of the Royal Navy, and Frederick Handley Page. Sueter requested "a bloody paralyser of an aircraft" for long-range bombing. The phrase was originated by Commander Charles Rumney Samson, who had recently returned from the front. Coastal patrol adaptations of the abortive Handley Page L/200, M/200 and MS/200 designs were initially discussed but Sueter's technical advisor favoured a large seaplane for coastal patrol and dockyard defence that would also be capable of bombing the German High Seas Fleet at its base in Kiel. The AD Seaplane Type 1000 prototype had already been commissioned from J. Samuel White & Co. of Cowes.

Handley Page suggested a land-based aircraft of similar size, and a specification drawn up around his suggestions was formally issued on 28 December 1914 for four prototypes. It called for a large biplane powered by two 150 hp Sunbeam engines, which was required to fit in a 75 × hangar and would therefore have folding wings. It was to carry six 100 lb bombs and have armour to protect crew and engines. The crew of two were to be enclosed in a glazed cockpit and the only defensive armament planned was a rifle for the observer/engineer. The designation O/100 came from Handley Page's sequence of using letters for each of their designs, with 100 for the proposed wingspan of the aircraft. The design was approved on 4 February 1915, with 250 hp Rolls-Royce Eagle engines and on 9 February the contract was amended to include eight additional aircraft.

The O/100 was an unequal-span three-bay biplane, with the overhanging part of the upper wing braced by kingposts, a rectangular section fuselage and a biplane tail with twin balanced rudders, between the horizontal surfaces. Balanced ailerons were fitted to the upper wing only and extended beyond the wing trailing edge and wing tips. The engines drove four-bladed propellers, rotating in opposite directions to cancel the torque, and were enclosed in armoured nacelles mounted between the wings on tubular steel struts. The nacelles had a long tapered fairing to reduce drag. To clear the wing rigging wires when the wings were folded, the rear portions of the fairings were hinged to fold inward. The structure of the fuselage and flying surfaces was primarily spruce, with the spars routed into I-beams to reduce weight.

Development
The four prototypes and first production batch of six aircraft were built at Cricklewood, with the first aircraft delivered by road to Hendon on 9 December 1915. The first flight of the prototype, was made at Hendon on 17 December, when a short straight flight was made, the aircraft taking off without trouble at 50 mph. A second flight was made the following day, when it was found that the aircraft would not fly faster than about 55 mph. This was blamed on the drag caused by large honeycomb radiators, which were changed to tube radiators mounted on either side of the engine nacelles. A third flight on 31 December revealed a number of control problems, the ailerons and elevators were effective but heavy, partly due to excessive friction in the control circuit and the rudders were seriously overbalanced. After minor modifications, the aircraft was flown to RNAS Eastchurch, where full-speed trials were made. On reaching 70 mph, the tail unit began to vibrate and twist violently; the pilot immediately landed and an inspection showed severe damage to the rear fuselage structure. Reinforcement failed to cure the problem, meanwhile the enclosed cockpit and most of the armour plating were also removed. The second prototype was completed in April 1916 and had an open cockpit in a longer nose with room for a gunner. To save weight, most of the armour was deleted and was the arrangement for later production of the machine.

After a series of proving flights at Hendon, 1456 was accepted by the RNAS and was flown to Manston for further trials. These revealed that despite a reduced balance area on the elevators, there was still a tail oscillation problem. A lack of directional stability caused by the increased forward side area was partly cured by adding a fixed fin but to find the cause of the tail oscillation, the Admiralty called in Frederick Lanchester from the National Physics Laboratory. Lanchester agreed that simple structural weakness was not the root of the problem and that resonance of the fuselage was the probable cause. Static tests on the third prototype which had a redesigned, stiffer, fuselage structure showed nothing. Lanchester flew as an observer in an amidships crew position on 26 June. The tail oscillations started at 80 mph and Lanchester observed that the tail twisted by 15° to either side and that there was asymmetrical movement of the right and left halves of the elevators, which were connected by long control cables rather than being rigidly linked. He recommended that they be rigidly linked, that elevator balances be removed and additional bracing added between the lower longerons and the lower tailplane spar, measures which were successful in solving the problem.

The fourth prototype was completed with the same fuselage structure as the second prototype and had provision for armament, with a Scarff ring mounting in the nose, a pair of post mountings in the mid position and a gun mounting in the rear fuselage. This was also the first O/100 to be fitted with 320 hp Rolls-Royce Eagle engines. After completing acceptance trials, the second and third prototypes were retained at Manston to form a Handley Page training flight. The first prototype was rebuilt to production standard and the fourth prototype tested a new nacelle design, which was un-armoured, had an enlarged fuel tank and a shorter fairing obviating the need for the tail to fold. The new nacelle was used on all aircraft built after the initial batch of twelve. From 1461, an additional 130 impgal fuel tank was fitted in the fuselage above the bomb floor. A total of 46 O/100s were built before being superseded by the Type O/400.

The most significant difference between the two types was the use of 360 hp Eagle VIII engines. Unlike the earlier engines, this engine was not built in handed versions, because production of engines of both types for engine type approval had been difficult. Wind tunnel tests at the NPL established that the counter-rotating propellers causing directional instability with the O/100. Only one version was necessary, simplifying production and maintenance and the p-factor was overcome by slightly offsetting the fin. The O/400 had a strengthened fuselage, an increased bomb load, the nacelle tanks were removed and the fuel was carried in two 130 impgal fuselage tanks, supplying a pair of 15 impgal gravity tanks. The new nacelles were smaller and had simplified supporting struts; the reduction of drag improved maximum speed and ceiling. The revised nacelle was tested in 3188, which in 1917 was flown at Martlesham Heath with a variety of engine installations. An initial order for 100 of the revised design, with Sunbeam Maori or Eagle engines, was placed on 14 August but cancelled shortly afterwards. Twelve sets of Cricklewood-built components were transferred to the Royal Aircraft Factory, where they were assembled into the first production O/400s. More than 400 were supplied before the Armistice at a price of £6,000 each. Another 107 were licence-built in the US by the Standard Aircraft Corporation (out of 1,500 ordered by the air corps). Forty-six out of an order for fifty were built by Clayton & Shuttleworth in Lincoln.

Flanders
The first twenty O/100s deployed to France were received by 7 Squadron and 7A Squadron of the 5th Wing RNAS at Dunkirk in late 1916. At first the O/100s were used for daylight attacks over the North Sea, damaging a German destroyer on 23 April 1917, but the loss of an aircraft to fighter attack two days later resulted in a switch to night operations, usually by single aircraft, against German-occupied Belgian ports, railway targets and airfields. On the night of 16/17 August 14 O/100s dropped 9 LT of bombs on Torhout railway station. O/100s from Coudekerque carried out anti-U-boat patrols off the mouth of the River Tees in September 1917. Eleven U-boats were sighted and seven attacked with bombs, but none were sunk, although U-boat operations were drastically reduced in the area.

Dardanelles
As part of the Dardanelles campaign, an O/100 was flown 2000 mi from England to Mudros on the Greek island of Lemnos in the eastern Mediterranean by Lieutenant Ross Smith. It made night attacks against Ottoman Empire force, and supplied the small number of aircraft supporting the Arab insurgency being directed by T.E. Lawrence.

On the night of 3/4 July 1917, the Handley Page was used for an attack on Galata air base but the engines overheated and the crew turned back, jettisoning some bombs and dropping the others on an army camp near Bulair. On 8/9 July 1917, an attempt to bomb Constantinople had to be abandoned after $3 1/2$ hours of battling headwinds, instead targets of opportunity were bombed on the way back.

The next night, Constantinople was reached before midnight and they attacked the anchored battlecruiser SMS Goeben from 800 ft with eight 112 lb bombs, and sank an Ottoman S138-class torpedo boat OTTOMAN DESTROYER Yadigar-i Millet (Jadhigar-i-Millet). The crew then bombed the SS General, thought to be the German HQ, and dropped two bombs on the Ottoman War Office building before returning to Mudros at 3:40 a.m.

On 6 August the aircraft was used to bomb warehouses and ships in the harbour of Pandera on the south shore of the Marmara, and was then used on anti-submarine patrols until 2 September, when it was sent to bomb Adrianopolis. En route the crew dropped two bombs on a submarine as it dived, before dropping two more on Kuleli Burgas and then the rest on the Adrianopolis railway station buildings. On 30 September, (flown by John Alcock), it raided railway stations near Constantinople and Haidar Pasha but was forced to ditch in the Gulf of Xeros, after an engine failed. The crew floated with the aircraft for two hours and fired Very lights but were not seen by British destroyers. They then swam for an hour to reach the Gallipoli peninsula, where they were captured. Another Handley Page was flown from England to reinforce the Palestine Brigade and served with 1 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps. In September 1918, the bomber was used to supply Colonel T. E. Lawrence and the Arabs.

Independent Force
On the night of 16/17 March 1918, a Handley Page of the Luxeuil Wing bombed a railway junction at Moulins-lès-Metz and in April, individual aircraft bombed a railway junction at Armaville on 5/6 April and a steelworks at Hagendingen and the Chambley airfield on 14/15 April.

The Luxeuil Wing was disbanded in May to equip 10 Squadron RNAS for operations on the Western Front against the German spring offensive. In September 1918, the 41st Wing was formed at Manston with the Handley Pages of "A" Squadron RNAS, for night bombing, and flown to Ochey in October. ("A" Squadron was later 16 Squadron RNAS, then from 1 April 1918, 216 Squadron RAF.) On 9 August, 97 Squadron arrived in France and ten days later, 215 Squadron was transferred, then on 31 August 115 Squadron arrived and 100 Squadron was re-equipped with Handley Pages by September. Operations began with 97 Squadron on 19 August and 215 Squadron three nights later. Cologne railway station was bombed by two 216 Squadron aircraft on 21/22 August and six attacks were made on the German chemical industry, the raid on 25 August by two 215 Squadron aircraft on the works at Mannheim being particularly accurate. Five aircraft of 216 Squadron attacked on 2/3 September, one bomb causing M400,000 worth of damage and the first attack by 115 Squadron was made on 16/17 September, when seven Handley Pages were lost, variously to engine-trouble or anti-aircraft fire. The improved O/400 began entering service in April 1918, gradually allowing the re-equipment of more squadrons. The O/400s could carry the new 1650 lb bombs, which were aimed with the Drift Sight Mk 1A bombsight. Each raid was conducted by up to forty O/400s. On the night of 21/22 October, four Handley Pages attacked Kaiserslautern with heavy bombs and four dropped incendiaries. Three heavy bombers and two incendiary bombers caused M500,000 of damage and Kaiserslautern was bombed again on 23/24 October, along with Koblenz, Mannheim and Wiesbaden. The bombers were again diverted to army support during the month, and on the night of 9/10 October, 97, 215 and 216 Squadrons bombed Metz, one bomb hitting a powder store and rocked the town, the damage being estimated by the Germans at M1,000,000. Operations were reduced during the last days of the war by weather but several aerodromes were attacked, particularly that at Morhange.

Post-1918 history
After the war, O/400s remained in squadron service until replaced by the Vickers Vimy toward the end of 1919. War-surplus aircraft were converted for civilian use in the UK and nine were used by Handley Page Transport. Eight O/400s were fitted to carry passengers and operated by 86 (Communication) Wing from Hendon, to provide transport between London and Paris for the officials negotiating the Treaty of Versailles. Two were fitted as VIP transports and finished in silver dope, named Great Britain and Silver Star and the others, seating eight, retained their dark green finish.

Six aircraft were sold to the Republic of China as O/7 transports, and following delivery to China were re-assembled at Nanyuan, near Beijing. The aircraft flew their first airmail and passengers between Beijing and Tientsin on 7 May 1920. Civil war disrupted these services and they were taken over by various warlords.

Variants

Before 1924, Handley Page used an alphabetical system for aircraft designations and the Type O followed the Type M and Type N. Type Os are frequently misnamed with the numeral "0" instead of the letter "O". The company designations "H.P.11" and "H.P.12" were applied retrospectively after HP switched to type numbers in 1924.

 * O/100 :RNAS bomber. Two 260 hp Rolls-Royce Eagle II engines. Four prototypes and 42 production aircraft built.
 * O/400 :Improved bomber for RNAS/RAF. Two 360 hp Rolls-Royce Eagle VIII engines. 554 built.
 * O/7 :Export 14 passengers transport for China. Fuel tanks moved from fuselage into lengthened nacelles. 12 converted.
 * O/10 :12 passenger transport. 10 converted.
 * O/11 :Mixed passenger/cargo O/7 variant with two passengers up front and three in the tail, with freight in between. Three conversions.

Civil

 * The Government of China
 * The Government of China

 * 🇮🇳 India
 * Indo Burmese Transport

 * The Polish Government bought one aircraft in 1920.
 * The Polish Government bought one aircraft in 1920.

 * Handley Page Transport
 * Handley Page Transport

Military

 * Australian Flying Corps
 * No. 1 Squadron AFC in Palestine.
 * No. 1 Squadron AFC in Palestine.

 * Royal Air Force
 * No. 58 Squadron RAF (O/400)
 * No. 70 Squadron RAF (O/400)
 * No. 97 Squadron RAF (O/400)
 * No. 100 Squadron RAF (O/400)
 * No. 115 Squadron RAF (O/400)
 * No. 116 Squadron RAF (O/400)
 * No. 207 Squadron RAF (O/400)
 * No. 214 Squadron RAF (O/400)
 * No. 215 Squadron RAF (O/100 and O/400)
 * No. 216 Squadron RAF (O/400)
 * No. 216 Squadron RAF (O/400)
 * Royal Naval Air Service
 * No. 7 Squadron RNAS (O/100)
 * No. 7A Squadron RNAS (O/100)
 * No. 14 Squadron RNAS (O/100)
 * No. 15 Squadron RNAS (O/100)
 * No. 16 Squadron RNAS (O/100 and O/400)

 * United States Army Air Service
 * Handley Page Squadron (O/100 and O/400)
 * Handley Page Squadron (O/100 and O/400)

Captured aircraft
An early O/100, which had flown from Manston Airfield, developed engine trouble and landed behind German lines on 1 January 1917. The five crew members became prisoners of war and the aircraft was flown in German markings until it was wrecked.

Accidents and incidents

 * On 19 August 1918, RAF Type O/400 D4593 crashed at Maxstoke during a test flight from Castle Bromwich Aerodrome, killing all seven on board. Fabric from a wing tore off, causing a loss of control.
 * On 17 May 1919, a Type O/400 carrying T. E. Lawrence ('Lawrence of Arabia') to Egypt crashed at Roma-Centocelle airport. Pilot and co-pilot were killed while Lawrence survived the incident with a broken shoulder blade and two broken ribs.
 * On 14 December 1920, a Handley Page Transport O/400 (G-EAMA), operating from the company airfield at Cricklewood, crashed on take-off when it hit a tree at Golders Green, killing the two crew and two of the six passengers.
 * On 31 March 1922, all 14 persons aboard a Type O/7 operated by Beijing-Han Airlines were killed when the plane struck the tops of trees while making its approach to Nanyuan Airport in Peiping.

Surviving aircraft
No complete example of any Type O aircraft remains. The Royal Air Force Museum Cosford has several relics, including pieces of fabric from an O/100 and various small O/400 components and five O/400 wing sections which had been used as part of a shed roof in Flintshire until their recovery in late 2013. While there are no extant airframes, a detailed cockpit reproduction can be found at Stow Maries Great War Aerodrome, near Maldon in Essex.

title: Handley Page Type O


text:
USS Gilbert Islands

USS Gilbert Islands (ex-St. Andrews Bay) was a Commencement Bay-class escort carrier of the United States Navy. The Commencement Bay class were built during World War II, and were an improvement over the earlier Sangamon-class escort carrier, which were converted from oil tankers. They were capable of carrying an air group of 33 planes and were armed with an anti-aircraft battery of 5 in, 40 mm, and 20 mm guns. The ships were capable of a top speed of 19 kn, and due to their origin as tankers, had extensive fuel storage.

She was launched on 20 July 1944 by the Todd-Pacific Shipyards in Tacoma, Washington. She was sponsored by Mrs. Edwin D. McMorries, wife of Captain Edwin D. McMorries, Surgeon at the Naval Hospital at Puget Sound Naval Yard, and commissioned on 5 February 1945.

She was reclassified as AGMR-1 on 1 June 1963, renamed Annapolis on 22 June 1963 and finally recommissioned on 7 March 1964.

Design
In 1941, as United States participation in World War II became increasingly likely, the US Navy embarked on a construction program for escort carriers, which were converted from transport ships of various types. Many of the escort carrier types were converted from C3-type transports, but the Sangamon-class escort carriers were instead rebuilt oil tankers. These proved to be very successful ships, and the Commencement Bay-class escort carrier, authorized for Fiscal Year 1944, were an improved version of the Sangamon design. The new ships were faster, had improved aviation facilities, and had better internal compartmentation. They proved to be the most successful of the escort carriers, and the only class to be retained in active service after the war, since they were large enough to operate newer aircraft.

Gilbert Islands was 557 ft long overall, with a beam of 75 ft at the waterline, which extended to 105 ft at maximum. She displaced 21397 LT at full load, of which 12876 LT could be fuel oil (though some of her storage tanks were converted to permanently store seawater for ballast), and at full load she had a draft of 27 ft. The ship's superstructure consisted of a small island. She had a complement of 1,066 officers and enlisted men.

The ship was powered by two Allis-Chalmers geared steam turbines, each driving one screw propeller, using steam provided by four Combustion Engineering-manufactured water-tube boilers. The propulsion system was rated to produce a total of 16000 shp for a top speed of 19 kn. Given the very large storage capacity for oil, the ships of the Commencement Bay class could steam for some 23900 nmi at a speed of 15 kn.

Her defensive anti-aircraft armament consisted of two 5 in dual-purpose guns in single mounts, thirty-six 40 mm Bofors guns, and twenty 20 mm Oerlikon light AA cannons. The Bofors guns were placed in three quadruple and twelve twin mounts, while the Oerlikon guns were all mounted individually. She carried 33 planes, which could be launched from two aircraft catapults. Two elevators transferred aircraft from the hangar to the flight deck.

Construction and World War II
The first fifteen ships of the Commencement Bay class were ordered on 23 January 1943, allocated to Fiscal Year 1944. The ship was originally laid down under the name St. Andrews Bay at the Todd-Pacific Shipyards in Tacoma, Washington, on 29 November 1943. During construction, she was renamed Gilbert Islands after the Gilbert Islands campaign, which culminated in the bloody Battle of Tarawa the same month that work began on the ship. The ship was launched on 20 July 1944 and was commissioned on 5 February 1945. Final fitting out work was then completed, and on 20 February, she got underway for San Diego, California. While en route, a Navy blimp spotted a stray naval mine and requested that Gilbert Islands destroy it with her anti-aircraft guns; her inexperienced gunners expended nearly 850 rounds in total from her 20- and 40 mm guns before they destroyed the mine.

The ship then stopped in Alameda, California, to refuel before arriving in San Diego. There, she loaded ammunition and took on her complement of aviators from Marine Air Group 2, which comprised the fighter squadron VMF-512 and the torpedo squadron VMB-143. The former consisted of eighteen Vought F4U Corsairs and two Grumman F6F Hellcats, and the latter was equipped with twelve Grumman TBM Avengers. On 12 April, Gilbert Islands left San Diego, bound for Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, for a week of combat training exercises. On 2 May, she left Hawaii for the western Pacific, where she joined the main American fleet waging the war against Japanese forces. She arrived in Ulithi in the Caroline Islands on 14 May; her escorting destroyers—USS Caperton (DD-650), USS Cogswell (DD-651), and USS Ingersoll (DD-652)—repeatedly reported what proved to be likely false submarine contacts on the voyage.

Battle of Okinawa

On 17 May, the ship sortied for the Ryukyu Islands to join the fleet, then in the midst of the Battle of Okinawa. She arrived there and joined Task Unit 52.1.1. on 21 May. Gilbert Islands spent the following three days contributing her fighters to the combat air patrol, while her TBMs were employed on anti-submarine patrols. As the pilots got acclimated to combat missions, they began to be used to escort aerial attacks and performing strikes on Japanese positions on the island. Over the course of the rest of the month, her aircraft attacked numerous defensive positions, particularly around Shuri Castle in southern Okinawa, as the marines fought their way across the island. One of her aircraft shot down a Mitsubishi Ki-46 reconnaissance aircraft, which proved to be the only aerial victory any of the ship's pilots claimed during the war. During these operations, she lost only a single Corsair, which crashed after the pilot turned too low to the water.

On 1 June, Gilbert Islands was transferred to Task Unit 32.1.3, and she spent the next two weeks carrying out repeated, heavy strikes on the nearby Sakishima Islands—particularly Ishigaki Island, Irabu Island, and Miyako-jima—in an attempt to neutralize airfields there to prevent the Japanese from intervening in the fighting on Okinawa. In addition, the aviators attacked other critical infrastructure, such as radio and radar stations, harbor facilities, barracks, and villages. During these raids, two aircraft were shot down and a further two were badly damaged and forced to ditch at sea near Gilbert Islands. In total, five men were killed in the attacks.

Later operations
On 16 June, Gilbert Islands left the Okinawa area, bound for San Pedro Bay in the Philippines for a period of rest and replenishment. Over the course of the following five days, the ship's crew loaded fuel, munitions for her aircraft, other ammunition, and other supplies. They also made repairs to the ship's machinery, necessitated by heavy use in the fighting off Okinawa over the past month. On 26 June, she sortied in company with the escort carriers USS Suwanee (CVE-27) and USS Block Island (CVE-106) to raid Japanese positions in the occupied Dutch East Indies. Their attacks began on 30 June, and were coordinated to support the impending Australian invasion at Balikpapan. By 4 July, the Australians had secured the area, but in the course of the fighting, one of Gilbert Islands' Hellcats was shot down by Japanese anti-aircraft fire. The carriers then left for the Philippines, arriving back in San Pedro Bay on 6 July.

Gilbert Island remained in San Pedro Bay for almost the rest of the month to rest her crew. On 29 July, she got underway again to return to operations with the main fleet, which had shifted from Okinawa to the Japan campaign. Gilbert Island was assigned to cover the fleet's logistics train that kept the rest of Third Fleet in operations off the coast of Japan. From 10 to 12 August, she and several other vessels had to withdraw temporarily to avoid a typhoon that was passing through the area. On 15 August, she joined Task Group 30.8, and that morning Japan announced it would surrender, ending the fighting. The ship was detached from TG 30.8 on 2 September, the day Japan formally surrendered, and Gilbert Islands thereafter returned to Okinawa. She stayed there for about six weeks before departing for Formosa, where she covered elements of the Chinese Nationalist Army's 70th Army as they landed on the island at Keelung to retake control from the defeated Japanese. Gilbert Islands then sailed for Saipan in the Mariana Islands to embark passengers returning to the United States, before continuing on to Pearl Harbor and ultimately San Diego, arriving there on 4 December. In the course of her career during World War II, the ship received three battle stars.

Atlantic Fleet operations

On 21 January 1946, Gilbert Islands departed San Diego, having been ordered to move to the Atlantic Fleet. She arrived in her new home port, Norfolk, Virginia, on 7 February. She was decommissioned there on 21 May and allocated to the Atlantic Reserve Fleet. In November 1949, she was towed to the Inactive Ship Facility in Philadelphia. The ship remained out of service until the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 drastically increased the Navy's need for warships. Gilbert Islands was recommissioned on 7 September 1951, and moved to the Boston Naval Shipyard in November for an overhaul to prepare her for active service. On 1 August 1952, she was finally ready to join the Atlantic Fleet. Her first mission began eight days later, when she departed to ferry a group of jet aircraft to Yokohama, Japan; she arrived there on 18 September. She arrived in Quonset Point, Rhode Island, on 22 October; this was now her new home port.

On 5 January 1953, the ship sailed for a training cruise to the West Indies; she patrolled off the East Coast of the United States for much of the rest of the year. Late in 1953, she cruised in Canadian waters and visited Halifax, after which she returned to Boston for an overhaul. On 5 January 1954, she departed for a cruise across the Atlantic and into the Mediterranean Sea that lasted for two months. She arrived back in Quonset Point on 12 March, where she embarked on training exercises for reserve crews. On 9 June, she conducted the first experimental tests of operating jet aircraft, though these consisted of brief touch-and-go landings.

On 25 June, she sailed from Rhode Island, bound for Boston, where she was decommissioned again on 11 January 1955 and returned to the Atlantic Reserve Fleet. By this time, the Navy had begun replacing the Commencement Bay-class ships with much larger Essex-class aircraft carriers, since the former were too small to operate newer and more effective anti-submarine patrol planes. Proposals to radically rebuild the Commencement Bays either with an angled flight deck and various structural improvements or lengthen their hulls by 30 ft and replace their propulsion machinery to increase speed came to nothing, as they were deemed to be too expensive. On 7 May 1959, she was reclassified as an aircraft ferry with the hull number AKV-39. She remained in the Navy's inventory until 1 June 1961, when she was struck from the Naval Vessel Register.

As Annapolis

In November 1961, Gilbert Islands was instated to the Naval Vessel Register, but she remained out of service. On 1 June 1963, she was reclassified as a communications relay ship with the hull number AGMR-1. She was renamed Annapolis on 22 June and was recommissioned on 7 March 1964. The purpose of the ship was to serve as a mobile command and control station to coordinate with ground forces in regions where the Navy had no existing communications infrastructure. She was extensively reconstructed for this purpose, receiving thirty radio transmitters, five antenna towers, and teletype equipment. One of the main benefits Annapolis provided was significantly greater capacity to route radio frequencies during crises, since the volume of radio traffic frequently overwhelmed the radio frequencies that were available on normal ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore equipment. The ship underwent acceptance trials in 1964 that included trial of her new systems during Operation Steel Pike, which saw a combined Spanis and American fleet of some eighty ships operate in joint training maneuvers. She was pronounced ready for active service with the Atlantic Fleet on 16 December 1964.

Annapolis spent the first half of 1965 participating in routine training operations on the East Coast, operating out of Norfolk. On 28 June, she was transferred to the Pacific Fleet, based in Long Beach, California. By September, she was ready to deploy to Southeast Asia as part of Seventh Fleet to support the forces then fighting the Vietnam War. In addition to communications support, the ship also assisted with cryptographic work. The ship was awarded a Meritorious Unit Commendation for her service during the period from 9 January 1967 to 29 January 1968. She remained on station in the region for four years, during which time she made periodic visits to Hong Kong, Formosa, and the Philippines to provide periods of rest for her crew. She also underwent overhauls at Yokosuka. On 9 April 1969, she left East Asia to return to the United States. During her four years supporting forces in the Vietnam War, she was awarded eight battle stars.

Rather than cross the Pacific, Annapolis sailed west, passing through the Indian Ocean an stopping in Mauritius and Portuguese Angola in early May. She rounded the Cape of Good Hope and stopped in Dakar, Senegal, before crossing the equator on 19 May. She continued north to Lisbon, Portugal, and Rota, Spain, and then entered the Mediterranean to operate with Sixth Fleet for two months. She finally departed for the United States on 29 August, stopping first at Norfolk and then arriving in Philadelphia on 1 October. The ship was decommissioned there on 20 December and returned to the Atlantic Reserve Fleet. She was struck from the Naval Vessel Register a second time, on 15 October 1972, but lingered on until 19 December 1979, when she was sold to the Union Minerals & Alloys Corp. to be broken up.

title: USS Gilbert Islands


text:
USS Kula Gulf

USS Kula Gulf was a Commencement Bay-class escort carrier of the United States Navy. She was originally named Vermillion Bay, but was renamed during construction. The Commencement Bay class were built during World War II, and were an improvement over the earlier Sangamon-class escort carrier, which were converted from oil tankers. They were capable of carrying an air group of 33 planes and were armed with an anti-aircraft battery of 5 in, 40 mm, and 20 mm guns. The ships were capable of a top speed of 19 kn, and due to their origin as tankers, had extensive fuel storage.

Design

In 1941, as United States participation in World War II became increasingly likely, the US Navy embarked on a construction program for escort carriers, which were converted from transport ships of various types. Many of the escort carrier types were converted from C3-type transports, but the Sangamon-class escort carriers were instead rebuilt oil tankers. These proved to be very successful ships, and the Commencement Bay-class escort carrier, authorized for Fiscal Year 1944, were an improved version of the Sangamon design. The new ships were faster, had improved aviation facilities, and had better internal compartmentation. They proved to be the most successful of the escort carriers, and the only class to be retained in active service after the war, since they were large enough to operate newer aircraft.

Kula Gulf was 557 ft long overall, with a beam of 75 ft at the waterline, which extended to 105 ft at maximum. She displaced 21397 LT at full load, of which 12876 LT could be fuel oil (though some of her storage tanks were converted to permanently store seawater for ballast), and at full load she had a draft of 27 ft. The ship's superstructure consisted of a small island. She had a complement of 1,066 officers and enlisted men.

The ship was powered by two Allis-Chalmers geared steam turbines, each driving one screw propeller, using steam provided by four Combustion Engineering-manufactured water-tube boilers. The propulsion system was rated to produce a total of 16000 shp for a top speed of 19 kn. Given the very large storage capacity for oil, the ships of the Commencement Bay class could steam for some 23900 nmi at a speed of 15 kn.

Her defensive anti-aircraft armament consisted of two 5 in dual-purpose guns in single mounts, thirty-six 40 mm Bofors guns, and twenty 20 mm Oerlikon light AA cannons. The Bofors guns were placed in three quadruple and twelve twin mounts, while the Oerlikon guns were all mounted individually. She carried 33 planes, which could be launched from two aircraft catapults. Two elevators transferred aircraft from the hangar to the flight deck.

World War II
The first fifteen ships of the Commencement Bay class were ordered on 23 January 1943, allocated to Fiscal Year 1944. Originally named Vermillion Bay, the ship assigned hull number CVE-108 was renamed Kula Gulf after the Battle of Kula Gulf on 6 November 1943, before work at the Todd-Pacific Shipyards began. Her keel was laid down on 16 December, and she was launched on 15 August 1944. She was then moved to Portland, Oregon, where she was completed by the Williamette Iron & Steel Corporation. The ship was commissioned on 12 May 1945. She then went on a shakedown cruise and completed training exercises, including for night carrier operations, off the West Coast of the United States. She finally got underway to join the American fleet fighting in the western Pacific on 5 August.

Kula Gulf passed through Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and the Marshall Islands before arriving in Leyte Gulf in the Philippines on 14 September, nearly two weeks after Japan surrendered, formally ending World War II. The ship spent the next two months patrolling in the East China Sea, based in Okinawa. She also transported planes between Saipan and Guam in the Mariana Islands during this period. She thereafter joined Operation Magic Carpet, the effort to repatriate American service members after the war. She embarked some 600 men at Guam and left on 17 November, bound for San Francisco. She arrived there on 4 December and disembarked her passengers. She made a second cruise to East Asia on 10 December, arriving in China on 10 January 1946; she picked up some 1,520 men at Tientsin and Qingdao and brought them back to San Diego, California, arriving on 26 January.

Atlantic Fleet operations

On 26 February, Kula Gulf left San Francisco with orders to move to the East Coast of the United States. She transited the Panama Canal and sailed to Norfolk, Virginia, arriving on 16 March. There, she was decommissioned on 3 July and assigned to the Atlantic Reserve Fleet. She remained out of service for the next four five years. She was recommissioned on 15 February 1951 to serve as a training ship, as the outbreak of the Korean War had drastically increased the need for trained pilots. She conducted a shakedown cruise south to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, before sailing from Norfolk on 6 August with a load of aircraft to be transferred to Casablanca in French Morocco. She arrived back in Norfolk on 1 September, and she thereafter began her role as a training carrier. She served in this capacity for the following fifteen months, training pilots for fighters, anti-submarine patrol aircraft, and helicopters.

Kula Gulf took part in Marine Corps helicopter training exercises held at Vieques Island, Puerto Rico in May 1952. In October, she served as part of the anti-submarine screen for a group of troop ships sailing to Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada. After returning to the United States, she underwent a modernization that began in January 1953 and lasted until July. She thereafter returned to anti-submarine training exercises off the East Coast of the United States and in the Caribbean Sea. These maneuvers continued for the following two years, during which time Kula Gulf helped to develop anti-submarine tactics to counter the threat of Soviet submarines. She also participated in training exercises used to test helicopter assault tactics being developed by the Marine Corps. She took part in a major exercise to test the so-called "vertical assault" doctrine at Vieques Island that lasted from February to April 1955. The doctrine envisioned using escort carriers to launch helicopters carrying marines and heavy equipment to seize strategic crossroads inland from the invasion beach, while traditional amphibious forces went ashore.

On 26 April, Kula Gulf arrived back in Norfolk. She sailed north to the Boston Naval Shipyard on 13 May, and then moved to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard for a pre-inactivation overhaul on 19 August. She was decommissioned on 15 December at Philadelphia, and returned to the Atlantic Reserve Fleet. By this time, the Navy had begun replacing the Commencement Bay-class ships with much larger Essex-class aircraft carriers, since the former were too small to operate newer and more effective anti-submarine patrol planes. Proposals to radically rebuild the Commencement Bays either with an angled flight deck and various structural improvements or lengthen their hulls by 30 ft and replace their propulsion machinery to increase speed came to nothing, as they were deemed to be too expensive. While out of service, she was reclassified with the hull number AKV-8 on 7 May 1959.

Vietnam War
In the early 1960s, the United States began to be increasingly involved in South Vietnam, providing military assistance to defend it against attacks by communist North Vietnam as part of the US's broader policy of containment. Due to the increased logistical demands on the US Navy, Kula Gulf was transferred to the Military Sea Transportation Service on 30 June 1965 to be used as an aircraft transport. She assisted in the transport of the 1st Cavalry Division and its helicopters shortly thereafter, departing from the East Coast and taking them to South Vietnam. She thereafter transitioned to the West Coast of the United States, continuing to ferry men and equipment between the US and South Vietnam. She served in that role through 1969, and was eventually struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 15 September 1970. Kula Gulf was broken up the following year.

title: USS Kula Gulf


text:
USS Salerno Bay

USS Salerno Bay (ex-Winjah Bay) was a Commencement Bay-class escort carrier built by Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation for the United States Navy during World War II. The Commencement Bay class were built during World War II, and were an improvement over the earlier Sangamon-class escort carrier, which were converted from oil tankers. They were capable of carrying an air group of 33 planes and were armed with an anti-aircraft battery of 5 in, 40 mm, and 20 mm guns. The ships were capable of a top speed of 19 kn, and due to their origin as tankers, had extensive fuel storage.

Design
In 1941, as United States participation in World War II became increasingly likely, the US Navy embarked on a construction program for escort carriers, which were converted from transport ships of various types. Many of the escort carrier types were converted from C3-type transports, but the Sangamon-class escort carriers were instead rebuilt oil tankers. These proved to be very successful ships, and the Commencement Bay-class escort carrier, authorized for Fiscal Year 1944, were an improved version of the Sangamon design. The new ships were faster, had improved aviation facilities, and had better internal compartmentation. They proved to be the most successful of the escort carriers, and the only class to be retained in active service after the war, since they were large enough to operate newer aircraft.

Salerno Bay was 557 ft long overall, with a beam of 75 ft at the waterline, which extended to 105 ft at maximum. She displaced 21397 LT at full load, of which 12876 LT could be fuel oil (though some of her storage tanks were converted to permanently store seawater for ballast), and at full load she had a draft of 27 ft. The ship's superstructure consisted of a small island. She had a complement of 1,066 officers and enlisted men.

The ship was powered by two Allis-Chalmers geared steam turbines, each driving one screw propeller, using steam provided by four Combustion Engineering-manufactured water-tube boilers. The propulsion system was rated to produce a total of 16000 shp for a top speed of 19 kn. Given the very large storage capacity for oil, the ships of the Commencement Bay class could steam for some 23900 nmi at a speed of 15 kn.

Her defensive anti-aircraft armament consisted of two 5 in dual-purpose guns in single mounts, thirty-six 40 mm Bofors guns, and twenty 20 mm Oerlikon light AA cannons. The Bofors guns were placed in three quadruple and twelve twin mounts, while the Oerlikon guns were all mounted individually. She carried 33 planes, which could be launched from two aircraft catapults. Two elevators transferred aircraft from the hangar to the flight deck.

World War II

The first fifteen ships of the Commencement Bay class were ordered on 23 January 1943, allocated to Fiscal Year 1944. The ship, originally named Winjah Bay, was built at the Todd-Pacific Shipyards in Tacoma, Washington. She was laid down on 7 February 1944, and during construction, she was renamed Salerno Bay, after the invasion of Salerno in Sicily the previous year. Salerno Bay was launched on 26 September and three days later, was moved to the Commercial Iron Works of Portland, Oregon, to complete fitting out. The ship was commissioned into active service on 19 May 1945. Toward the end of June, Salerno Bay embarked Marine Carrier Group 5, which consisted of fighter squadron VMF-514 and torpedo bomber squadron VTMB-144. She then cruised off southern California for training exercises before deploying to combat theaters in the western Pacific.

On 17 August, two days after Japan announced it would surrender, Salerno Bay left California. Since the war was now over, she embarked the composite squadron VC-68 to transport it overseas. She stopped in Hawaii on the way, where she conducted training exercises for her marine aviators. She eventually arrived in Buckner Bay, Okinawa, on 21 September, and later moved to Hagushi. In early October, an approaching typhoon forced her to go to sea to avoid bring driven ashore by the strong winds. She arrived back in Hagushi on 12 October, but departed two days later as part of the fleet covering the Chinese Nationalist force that moved to Formosa to take control of the island from the defeated Japanese. Salerno Bay then departed the western Pacific, bound for Saipan in the Mariana Islands, where she stayed for three weeks. She then moved to nearby Guam and embarked American service members to take them back to the United States. She sailed back to San Diego, by way of Pearl Harbor, arriving in early December.

Atlantic Fleet service

In mid-December, Salerno Bay was assigned to the Atlantic Fleet; she departed for the East Coast of the United States soon thereafter, passed through the Panama Canal, and arrived in her new home port at Norfolk, Virginia, on 23 December. In her new assignment, she was tasked with training new carrier pilots and qualifying them for carrier operations. She spent 1946 and into 1947 cruising off the East Coast, as far south as the Caribbean Sea, performing her training duties. In early 1947, the Navy ordered Salerno Bay to be laid up in reserve; in June, she moved from Norfolk to Boston, where the work to preserve the ship for a lengthy period out of service was done. She was decommissioned on 4 October and allocated to the Atlantic Reserve Fleet, where she remained until 20 June 1951, when she was recommissioned.

After returning to active service, she conducted a shakedown cruise before joining Carrier Division 18 in October. She participated in training exercises with the rest of the division off the Virginia Capes and the Caribbean in November and December. She returned to Norfolk on 18 December for three weeks, before getting underway again on 7 January 1952 for another training period in the Caribbean. In early February, she returned to Norfolk, but her stay there was brief. By March, she had returned to the Caribbean and was patrolling off Puerto Rico. Another training period off the Virginia Capes followed from April to July. Salerno Bay departed the East Coast on 26 August for a voyage to Europe. She joined the ships of Task Force 173 on the way, and the squadron took part in joint training maneuvers off Norway with other vessels from NATO fleets in September. Salerno Bay sailed south to Gibraltar in early October and then cruised in the Mediterranean Sea with the Sixth Fleet for the next month. In late November, she passed back through the Strait of Gibraltar, arriving back in Norfolk on 7 December. She then resumed her normal routine of training exercises off the East Coast and in the Caribbean, which lasted into 1953.

In early 1953, the Navy decided to return Salerno Bay to the reserve fleet. She returned to Boston on 8 June to be prepared for inactivation. She was decommissioned there again on 16 February 1954. By this time, the Navy had begun replacing the Commencement Bay-class ships with much larger Essex-class aircraft carriers, since the former were too small to operate newer and more effective anti-submarine patrol planes. Proposals to radically rebuild the Commencement Bays either with an angled flight deck and various structural improvements or lengthen their hulls by 30 ft and replace their propulsion machinery to increase speed came to nothing, as they were deemed to be too expensive. In 1959, she was reclassified with the hull number AKV-10, but she remained out of service. She was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 1 June 1961 and sold to the ship breaking firm Revalorizacion de Materiales, S.A., and handed over to be scrapped on 14 December. Salerno Bay was broken up the following year in Bilbao, Spain.

title: USS Salerno Bay