[ USS CHENANGO ]  A Personal Account of WWII USS CHENANGO
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  History of USS Chenango (Aircraft Carrier CVE-28) ...

Source: Office of Naval Records and History
            Ships’ Histories Branch
            Navy Department

This is the story of a combat escort carrier, the only combat carrier to escape damage from the enemy for 38 straight months. It attempts to take you with CHENANGO and her pilots on eleven combat operations. It tries to show you how her crew, her planes, and ship herself contributed to the defeat of our enemies in both oceans. It tells you how she got those Jap flags on her bridge and leaves to your imagination the thousands of hours of routine, unexciting, backbreaking work necessary to sail her nearly nine times around the world----218,000 miles.

Her story begins two-and-a-half years before Pearl Harbor. CHENANGO was a pre-war vessel. She was launched on April Fool’s Day, 1939, as the Eastern States Standard Oil Tanker, ESSO NEW ORLEANS. Her keel had been laid nine months before from blueprints which had been

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Statistics ...

STANDARD DISPLACEMENT: 12,000 tons
LENGTH OVERALL: 553 feet
BEAM: 75 feet
SPEED: 18 knots
COMPLEMENT: 1000 plus
ARMAMENT: Two 5”/38 Cal. dual purpose guns--                          plus smaller anti-aircraft batteries
AIRCRAFT: 21 plus

Compiled: 15 October 1947
Restencilled: 26 June 1950




   

jointly approved by Standard Oil of New Jersey, the United States Maritime Commission, and United States Navy. ESSO NEW ORLEANS was designed to go to war as a Navy Fleet Oiler whenever she was needed.

On 20 April 1941 the Navy took NEW ORLEANS over and began to operate her in the Naval Transportation Service as USS CHENANGO (AO 31). CHENANGO was named after the Chenango River in New York State. Chenango is an Indian name meaning “Big Bull.”

For 2 July 1941 until 16 March 1942 CHENANGO steamed 47,000 miles through the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic Coast, Caribbean Sea and the Pacific as far as Honolulu before coming home by way of Aruba, Netherlands West Indies. It was at Aruba that the legend of her luck arose. Nazi torpedoes had already missed her twice. She’d had a close call when the tanker dead ahead of her in convoy suddenly exploded and sank flaming in the night. She reached Aruba low on fuel and wormed her way to shelter in a harbor jammed with defenseless shipping which Nazi torpedoes and shellfire soon began to smash and burn all around her. CHENANGO was untouched!

 
 

At the termination of this period, CHENANGO returned to the States (Staten Island, New York) where she was converted into an aircraft carrier, the second of four ships in her class. Commissioning were brightened by the presence of Madeline Carroll, the motion picture star, and Captain (now Commodore) Ben H. Wyatt, USN, accepted the ship in commission on 19 September 1942, at a time when our floating airfields were frighteningly low. Her first carrier job was to ferry 78 P-40 fighters over to North Africa through the sub-infested Atlantic. Reports of her luck on this operation were slightly exaggerated, although ships were sunk fore and aft of her and on either side--four in all.

She arrived and waited patiently off Port Lyautey for our forces to get an airfield so she could send her cargo flying ashore, delivered 77 P-40s (one plane was splashed before it reached shore) and then went into Casablanca Harbor. Here she sat while 21 destroyers drank half her three million gallons of fuel oil and Nazi air and underwater raiders swarmed the area.

Nightfall soon brought to a halt the major part of the aerial warfare, but the enemy subs continued their harassing of Allied Forces. A CHENANGO escort that had been detached to pick up survivors of a torpedoed tanker was itself torpedoed immediately after leaving the security of the submarine nets, which had been flung across the mouth of the Casablanca Harbor.

The next morning, CHENANGO set out for home. Three days out of Casablanca she ran into a hurricane. By the next morning her compartments amidships and forward were awash with six inches of sea water which poured through the ventilation system. By afternoon all hands had been ordered aft of the forward elevator. Several hours later, seas began breaking over the flight deck, and at midnight many of her life boats and the motor whaleboat were gone. It would be but a matter of moments and the catwalks, too, would be consigned to Davey Jones locker. But Captain Wyatt was concerned for his personnel and consequently ordered that none of them venture on the flight deck and later that all except those on watch remain below deck.

For five days the CHENANGO struggled for life, her top speed three knots--just barely enough to keep her from completely foundering. Finally, the storm subside and CHENANGO steamed onward. Upon her arrival at Portsmouth, Virginia, yard workmen could not believe that the carrier had not been damaged by the enemy. She had lost a 1.1 gun director and two 20MM mounts forward; the entire superstructure forward of the forward elevator was twisted and torn; and her flight deck was curled upward and aft, strongly resembling a half-opened can of sardines.

The combined efforts of the shipyard workmen and her crew got the CHENANGO ready for sea again by the middle of December and she headed south to the Canal Zone. Christmas Day, 1942, was spent transiting the Canal. At Balboa she took aboard a maximum fuel load and sortied with the cruisers COLUMBIA, CLEVELAND, and MONTPELIER for the South Seas. En route on a zig-zag course, she crossed and recrossed the Equator seven times in one night! CHENANGO was beginning a 27,000 mile cruise, her first as a combat carrier, to the hot spot of the South Pacific--Guadalcanal.

When CVE-28 steamed into the harbor at Noumea, New Caledonia, the Navy’s fast growing base, she became one of five carriers; all the United States had available to put against the Jap fleets, then converging on Guadalcanal. Three of these were converted oilers, CHENANGO and her sister ships, SANGAMON, and SUWANNEE. The other two, SARATOGA and ENTERPRISE, were the only big carriers then in operation.

CHENANGO’s Air Group 28, was dispatched the next day and flew into Henderson Field, Guadalcanal, as a part of the combined Carrier Division 22 Air Group which relieved the exhausted pilots of the ENTERPRISE. During their six-week stay ashore in April and May and the four-week period in late June and early July CHENANGO pilots fought off repeated Japanese attacks of Bettys, Zekes, Haps, and heckling float Zeros. The fighters bagged four Haps in one aerial skirmish; the dive bombers nailed a Jap destroyer and two AKs during a raid on Ballale; a rear-seat gunner polished off an attacking Zeke. After hundreds of hours of combat flying, the pilots returned to the ship, fourteen of them suffering from malaria, while the average weight loss was fifteen pounds per man!

While the escort carrier’s bigger brothers were daring the Japanese to “come out and do battle” the baby flattops themselves were providing constant air cover for the convoys pouring men and equipment into Guadalcanal. A collateral duty was that of sortieing from Espiritu Santo, New Hebrides, each carrier taking a turn at sitting 80 or 90 miles southeast of Guadalcanal for ten to twelve days, while her air group fought off the Japanese bombers which day and night attacked Henderson Field.

It was during this period that CHENANGO planes were detailed to provide air cover for the ill-fated cruiser CHICAGO. But unfortunately, that gallant vessel had sunk when the airmen arrived. After refueling, however, they formed themselves in an umbrella over the torpedoed cruisers ST. LOUIS and HONOLULU, escorting them to safety through enemy sub-waters.

After six months of the “sentry” duty off Guadalcanal without having been discovered by enemy planes or submarines or by prowling Japanese Fleet Units, CHENANGO was ordered back to Mare Island, California, for repairs and to operate briefly as a training carrier for new Air Groups forming on the west coast.

While in California, Captain (now Rear Admiral) Dixwell Ketcham came aboard to replace Skipper Wyatt, and in a short ceremony on the quarterdeck became the second commanding officer of the carrier CHENANGO.

Steaming down the western seaboard, the CVE-28 arrived in San Diego on 14 October 1943 where she took aboard Air Group 35--consisting of Fighting Squadron 35 and Torpedo Squadron 35. And when the squadron and ship sailed out of San Diego’s Harbor of the Sun they entered on a 13-month rampage which was destined to distress the Japanese greatly. Together, they were to steam 110,000 miles, destroy 93 enemy planes, 91 ships, fly 4,544 sorties in combat zones, and to strike, along with other U.S. forces, at the insular stepping stones to Japan, Tarawa, Kwajalein, Eniwetok, Aitape-Hollandia, Saipan, Guam, Morotai and the Philippines.

By the time CHENANGO was ready to begin her march into history, her combat role had been established. Her rugged pre-war construction, great fuel capacity and oversize (for a CVE) flight deck typed her as an ideal close-support carrier. That is, she could stay at sea for long periods, fuel her own escorts if need be, and, steaming close to enemy coasts, day after day, launch strikes in support of troops making island landings; her torpedo planes could carry out the antisubmarine patrols required in such landings and the fighters could provide a protective umbrella for the fleets of transportation, ammunition ships, tankers and landing ships supplying the troops and for the warships already engaged in close-up shelling of the beachheads. This, the carrier CHENANGO.

On the 19th of October 1943, CHENANGO set a southwesterly course for Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides, where the Tarawa invasion fleet was assembling. After a rehearsal at Efate in the Southern New Hebrides, CHENANGO set out on 13 November in company with two of her sister ships, the SUWANNEE and SANGAMON, and covered the advance of transports and warships toward Tarawa. CHENANGO planes bombed and strafed the beaches ahead of the troops, attacked the enemy beyond the beaches and protected the convoys off shore from 20 November until 8 December 1943.

Again the gods of war smiled on CHENANGO, and immediately after her job was finished in Tarawa, she received orders to report stateside. She arrived on the West Coast in time for Christmas. Operations were resumed on New Year’s Day, however, and a more intensive training program was set forth than the carrier had ever before undergone. Lessons learned in the Tarawa operations were studied and practiced diligently, for the coming Gilberts-Marshalls campaign was to be no push-over.

Returning to the Pacific battle areas, CHENANGO planes supported Allied landings on Roi-Namur in Kwajalein Atoll and also at Eniwetok. These operations called for close support and the CHENANGO steamed in so close that the crew could see their pilots bombing the beaches during the day. At night, while CHENANGO was outside the crowded harbor at Kwajalein, where the remainder of her sister ships were anchored, the Japs attempted a surprise reprisal raid. Suddenly the entire area was lighted brilliantly when one of the Japanese bombs struck a Japanese fuel dump on the beach. The enemy planes wheeled overhead and came at their targets, zooming over the CHENANGO at 1500 feet. But no bombs came crashing down on CHENANGO; she was a ship with her own private rabbit’s foot.

During the Palau strike, CHENANGO spent a monotonous two weeks flying combat air patrols to protect the fleet oilers and ammunition ships assembled to replenish the bigger carriers, even reverting to her original function as an oiler when she refueled the carriers LANGLEY and PRINCETON.

On the night of 15 April [1944] the South Pacific moon lit brilliantly the waters just off the coast of New Guinea. And blackly silhouetted against the almost iridescent ocean was the USS CHENANGO--dead in the water, and all alone. Somehow, water had gotten into the fuel and had doused the fires under her boilers. There was an unnatural calm and quiet as the crew gathered topside and gazed at the moonlit water--expecting to see a periscope break the surface, watching with silent expectancy, for the white bubbly wake which would announce a torpedo. The only noise that disturbed the deadly silence was below decks, where sweating engineers worked feverishly to get steam up before the boilers should cool and leave the carrier absolutely helpless. Now, was the time for the “luck of the CHENANGO”--now, if ever before she needed the smile of the gods. And she got it.

With a sudden smothered roar, the fires leapt up the boilers; in a very short time there was enough steam up to again get underway and the “Lucky Lady” was once more a threat to the Imperial Government of Japan.

Very little other opposition was encountered and after flying routine patrols, the CHENANGO returned to Espiritu Santo and set her Air Group ashore, where for ten days, they trained at Henderson Field, Guadalcanal. Both squadron and ship trained--trained for the forthcoming explosion of power and might--the Marianas.

On 2 June [1944], the carrier division joined the troop transports and support gunfire ships and set sail for Guam. The Japanese reacted violently, staging frequent and determined raids down from the Bonins to the north. On 22 June [1944], CHENANGO mounted a one-ship offensive of her own on Pagan Island which the Japanese were using to launch bitter attacks on the American ships.

Launching 32 planes in the attack on Pagan Island, CHENANGO absolutely crippled airfield installations there, and shot up gun positions and personnel. In addition, the strike sank four heavily loaded supply ships, damaged several others, and hammered the harbor facilities into a mass of rubble. Despite heavy and concentrated anti-aircraft fire, all CHENANGO planes returned intact. A Jap Betty which had followed two of the last planes home was shot down with the utmost dispatch.

During the last 15 days of July [1944] CHENANGO pilots flew 364 sorties against the enemy on Guam. Strafing, bombing and photographing kept every pilot, aircrewman, and crew member aboard the CHENANGO busy, and consequently earned them 32 medals and commendations. They dropped 74 tons of bombs, destroying many gun emplacements, troop concentrations, bridges, truck convoys and one desperately needed enemy ammunition dump which exploded with spectacular violence. Also, four ship’s photographers were commended for their excellent and speedy work in delivering to the flagship photographs which showed the beachheads to be too difficult for successful attack.

Just before the end of the Marianas campaign a singular honor came to the CHENANGO. At four in the afternoon of 30 July [1944], a CHENANGO pilot, LTJG. Terrar, was ordered to try landing at Orote Airfield on Guam. He completed his mission successfully and reported that the field was operational for all but heavily loaded planes. By this act he became the first American airman over to land and takeoff from the island of Guam, first United States soil in the Pacific to be recaptured.

After a month of rest, recreation and training at Seaadler Harbor (Manus), in the Admiralties, CHENANGO sortied with her division on 10 September [1944] and covered the capture of Morotai Island during the period from 15 to 24 September [1944]. Air action in this operation consisted principally of fighter sweeps to neutralize enemy airfields in the surrounding Halmaheras. Many parked aircraft, barracks and airfield facilities were completely destroyed.

It was during this engagement that CHENANGO planes participated in one of the thrilling rescues of World War II. A fighter pilot from a neighboring carrier had been shot down over Wasile Bay. He parachuted safely but was drifting dangerously close to the enemy-held coast. Although enemy anti-aircraft batteries held them under continuous fire, and had already downed two fighters from another ship, CHENANGO planes repeatedly strafed Jap boats attempting to capture the downed pilot. Because of this determined covering action, a PT boat was able to speed in and rescue the flyer from under the Japanese shore batteries.

By now a team of seasoned veterans, CHENANGO and Air Group 38 were “ready and willing” at the beginning of the Leyte campaign for the Philippines. Commanding this formidable outfit was Captain (now Commodore) George Van Duers, who had relieved Captain Dixwell Ketcham on 13 August 1944.

Approaching Leyte on 16 October [1944], the task force encountered an enemy as dangerous, if not more so, than the Japanese: a typhoon. Winds mounting to 86 knots quickly lashed waves up over CHENANGO’s flight deck, which was 60 feet above sea level. But the invasion went as scheduled. Planes were catapulted from the deck over waves which sprayed their landing gear.

CHENANGO planes began their operations at Leyte with a flourish by downing a twinengine bomber, and on the second day struck at harbors and airfields on the Negros and Cebu Islands, inflicting damage on shipping and parked planes. In the ensuing four days, thirteen of her outstanding fighter and torpedo pilots compiled the following enviable record: six enemy planes downed, thirty-three destroyed on the ground; two large transports sunk and one left burning; ten merchant ships, three sampans and a barge destroyed; two fuel dumps burned and an underground ammunition dump destroyed. The Japanese had felt the sting of CHENANGO--and they set out to rid themselves of this nemesis.

There are very few ships which have ever had the honor of being singled out by an enemy for an especial destruction. But the CHENANGO was awarded that distinction by His Imperial Japanese Majesty’s Air Force. On the 20th of October [1944], three fast Jap planes dived out of the afternoon sun, dropped bombs on a sister ship, the SANGAMON, and missing her retired to strike again. Fighters from the SANGAMON downed one of them, CHENANGO gunners splashed another, and a CHENANGO pilot chased the third for fifty miles before shooting him down. The enemy pilot, who was picked up and taken aboard the flagship, SANGAMON, for questioning, refused to speak except to the ship’s dentist, whose horrible implements evidently scared him as much as they do anyone. Even then he asked but one question--“Am I aboard the CHENANGO?” After further interrogation it developed that he had been assigned specifically to eradicate CHENANGO.

That night, Tokyo Rose, with charming naiveté, informed the listening world that, “. . .the last of the converted oiler class of aircraft carriers has been sunk as a result of air attacks by the glorious Japanese air forces. . .”

On the afternoon of the 24th [October 1944], Lady Luck smiled again on her favorite child when CHENANGO was sent to Morotai to load new aircraft. Returning four days later, she found every one of her sister ships seriously damaged and all of them more or less riddled from the point blank fire of a vast battleship force.

Just after CHENANGO had departed for Morotai, a huge Jap force of battleships, cruisers and destroyers had attempted to crush the allied landings on Leyte. All the other ships of the U.S. fleet were deployed to the north and south--fighting their own battles. Admiral Sprague’s little escort carriers were the sole deciding factor in the loss or gain of the strategic isle of Leyte, where the Army forces stood with one foot on the beach and the other in the sea.

In a two day running battle, the escort carriers (which were never designed to scrap with heavy ships) completely defeated the Japanese force of battleships and cruisers, sinking many of the cruisers and destroyers and severely damaging the battlewagons.

Thus it was, when CHENANGO returned from Morotai, she found her sorely wounded, but victorious, running mates in a state of devastation, and she, once again, unscathed. CHENANGO was not lucky enough to share the fame of this Second Battle of the Philippines, which so decisively demonstrated the overwhelming powers of naval aircraft, but it was quite in character that she should return to the scene with the badly-needed replacement aircraft, and with fuel for the destroyers and destroyer escorts which had been operating wide open for two long hullwrenching days.

After Leyte, the ship was due for a Navy Yard overhaul. Setting her course to the northeast, CHENANGO cut a 7,000 mile swath through the Pacific to Seattle, Washington. Lines had hardly been secured to the bollards when leave parties left the ship--for home.

And while her young men enjoyed leaves at home, and liberty in Seattle, CHENANGO sat lonely at her mooring in the yard and waited patiently while workmen clambered over the hull, riveting and hammering, painting and renovating, getting her in condition to take a trip halfway around the globe.

On the 9th of February 1945, CHENANGO upped anchor and steamed out into the Pacific on the first lap of a 43,000 mile journey. Her first stop was at Pearl Harbor, and then taking a southwesterly course from there, journeyed to Tulagi Island in the Solomons; up to Ulithi, thence to Kerama Retto and Okinawa, back down to Leyte, and terminating just 150 miles east of Sendai--an hour’s flight from Tokyo. The date: 15 August 1945.

To tell in words the story of those 82 days of combat operations which CHENANGO spent in the Okinawa campaign is not easy. It is the story of the triumph of a ship’s crew, of ship’s plane handlers, of ship’s pilots, over monotony, the strain of constant vigilance, the torture of too little sleep and too much work. This was the climax. . . .the job she’d stayed afloat through the long months to do ....

With Air Group 25 aboard, the ship and squadron rehearsed close support work at Cape Esperence in the Solomons during the first week of March [1945] and got underway on the 27th [March 1945] for the last and longest test of her legendary luck. On 1 April [1945], Easter Sunday, April Fool’s day, and her 6th birthday, CHENANGO covered the Marines who landed on the beaches along Hagushi Anchorage. The next afternoon, at 1617 a CHENANGO torpedo bomber piloted by Ensign J. W. Moody, and bearing his wounded aircrewman, made an emergency landing on Kadena airfield--less than 24 hours after it had been wrested from the Japanese. Here was another first for the CHENANGO. Here was the carrier plane to land on Japanese home soil.

Then, CHENANGO, with carriers of her division, took part in the fake landings along the southern coast of Okinawa. Her pilots bombed, strafed, rocketed and burned away enemy concentrations, supply dumps, airfields and cave entrances wherever they could find them on Okinawa Shima. Everyone wondered when the operations would develop; thus far, the initial landing and the first week of combat had been too easy.

The Japanese reaction to the first powerful blows of the fleet and air attacks came suddenly and with great determination. Waves of suicide planes came down from the Northern Ryukus and over from Formosa, pounding away at Allied shipping at Hagushi and Kerama Retto. CHENANGO’s carrier division was assigned the neutralization of six enemy airfields in Sakashima Gunto, three of them on each of the two islands of Miyako and Ishigaki. These airfields were the originating points for Kamikaze planes making dawn and dusk raids on U.S. supply ships at Okinawa. From Rear Admiral W. D. Sample’s flagship came the order: “Keep the airfields cratered so that planes can’t land or take off on them.” And for two months CHENANGO pilots did just that, using 884 tons of high explosives to accomplish their mission.

Strikes were make before dawn, during the day, and at dusk in a grueling, unrelenting attempt to crush the fanatical “Divine Wind.” CHENANGO’s only respite came when she refueled and British carriers took her place. In addition, her air group flew daily anti-submarine patrols, mounted offensive strikes in support of ground troops and did excellent photographic coverage of enemy positions from day to day.

On 9 April [1945], CHENANGO, the Lucky Lady, was in greater peril than at any other time in her entire combat career. She was operating under high pressure at the outset of the Okinawa campaign when a fighter, coming in for a landing, crashed through the barrier wires, starting a raging fire among the strike-loaded aircraft parked forward of the island. Burning gasoline ignited ammunition and rockets and threatened to detonate the heavy bombs among the burning aircraft. One bomb in particular was lying in the midst of the inferno and threatened at any moment to explode. A determined firefighter edged forward, advancing a long fog-nozzle ahead of him and cooling the hot metal bomb casing with heavy spray. Another hose weilder, mounted on the forward gun sponsons, cluttered as they were with a burning plane, methodically sprayed the first man to keep him from getting too well done.

This cool, daring and determination was exemplary of the heroism of all the crew as was evidenced by the large number of medals which were later awarded.

On 2 May [1945], Captain Harry D. Felt assumed command of the CHENANGO and skippered the ship throughout the remainder of the Okinawa operations. During this phase of the invasion, CHENANGO launched 2,659 sorties, her air group flew 129 different strikes totaling 8,822 hours against targets at Okinawa, Io Shima, Ishigaki, Miyako and Irimote Islands. Her pilots shot down three enemy planes, destroyed 20 on enemy airfields, sank 47 surface craft in the Sakashima Islands; destroyed or damaged 24 anti-aircraft positions, plus 20 barracks and buildings. Their planes zoomed off the flight deck with more than 4,000 bombs and 2,500 rockets and their guns spews more than 565,000 projectiles against the enemy.

Life wasn’t always completely grim for CHENANGO crewmen. Everyone got a weak smile out of Admiral Sample’s wry observation concerning the mines which were sighted almost daily floating alongside, “It’s a good thing there aren’t any mines out here after dark.”

On the evening of 11 June [1945], CHENANGO departed the Okinawa area, herding a group of tankers ahead of her. Stopping off at Macerata on Samar Island, everyone went ashore for one of the rarest of the few Pacific luxuries--a recreation period. While CVE-28 swung at her hook, scuttlebutt (naval parlance for rumour) ran hot and cold as everyone speculated as to the next operation.

On 9 July [1945], Air Group 25 started back to the States and night flying Air Group 33, formerly with SANGAMON, reported abroad and was immediately taken out for a training cruise. After a secondary cruise late in the month, CHENANGO started out on what was to be her V-J excursion. She was going north to furnish air protection for the fleet oilers, ammunition and supply ships which were supporting Admiral Halsey’s month-long offensive against Honshu, Hokkaido, and Shikoku. Her route took her within 30 miles of the enemy-held island of Yap and a short distance from where, twenty-four hours later, the cruiser INDIANAPOLIS was sunk.

On 15 August [1945] while she was steaming off Sendai, CHENANGO’S radioman reported hearing an Australian broadcast by BBC that the Japs, broken by the savage Russian offensive, the unrelenting fury of Admiral Halsey’s forces, and finally, the crushing blow of the atom bomb, were ready to surrender. Peace had come again to the major nations of the world.

The war phase of CHENANGO’S history ends at San Diego, California, two and onehalf months after V-J Day. During these seventy-five days the ship evacuated from the atomic bomb blasts city of Nagasaki, Kyushu, Japan, some 1,900 prisoners of war--Aussies, British, Netherlands East Indians and Dutch as well as Americans, plus some 1500 civilian workers who had been slave labor for their brutal Jap captors ever since Wake Island fell two days before Christmas 1941.

Having completed two of these evacuation trips, the CHENANGO ran at top speed for two thousand miles down Manila way while dodging two different typhoons and rode out another which blew at 87 miles an hour across her flight deck in sheltered Sasebo Harbor. Then followed days of standing by while occupation forces established themselves in Southern Kyushu, a hurry call to bomb some minefields outside Fukuoka, and a dash up to Tokyo for a last look around before she began her 23-day trip home. And even on this long awaited trip a freak threeday storm broke around CHENANGO, in an area of the Pacific where no storms had been known to blow in the past 50 years.

On 16 November 1945, thirty-eight months after her commissioning, the CHENANGO tied up at San Diego. Air Group 33 disembarked and the ship immediately began preparations for her next assignment--magic carpet duty. That same day she sailed for a two-week availability at San Pedro, California.

On 1 December [1945], CHENANGO put to sea again; orders were to Okinawa to transport 1,100 Army personnel to Seattle. It meant Christmas and New Year’s Day at sea again, but it also meant putting the finishing touches on the job to which she had already contributed so much. Arriving at Okinawa on 19 December [1945], the dischargees were embarked and on 28 December [1945] set out again for the States. The ship, with her veterans-to-be tied up at Seattle on 7 January [1946]. After refueling and reprovisioning she stood out to sea again, this time for Pearl Harbor.

By 1 February [1946], CHENANGO was back in the States, at San Pedro. After a fourday stay there, the carrier was again en route, this time to Boston, where she was scheduled to be put into the “zipper” fleet. Transiting the Panama Canal on 13-16 March [1946], CHENANGO sailed up the eastern seaboard and arrived at the Boston Navy Yard on 22 March 1946.

At the time of this writing, (10 October 1947) the USS CHENANGO (CVE 28) is out of commission in reserve in the Boston Group, Atlantic Reserve Fleet.

 
     

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