I'm going back and reading the entire thread (to make sure I don't post anything TOO stupid that most folks already know), but I can't resist this: seventy years ago today, USS
Essex, CV-9 departed San Francisco after her only wartime refit. (I'm sure everyone here probably already knows this, so feel free to delete this if that's what the the admins want!)
It was during this refit she lost her forward 40mm quad mount on the island and received her enlarged flag bridge. However, she received four additional quad 40mm mounts: two port forward, and two starboard aft side, which were not extend outboard, like many of her sisters, leaving her with less than desirable firing arcs. However, I guess it didn't matter too much to her gun crews, as she claimed the destruction of 33 (!, one less than Cdr. David McCampbell did in the air) Japanese aircraft by her anti-aircraft batteries. To put that in perspective, that is 13 more than the next closest
Essex:
Bunker Hill with 20. Many of her gun crews came from USS
Wasp (CV-7), which never had an opportunity fire her guns in anger in 1941-2.
She also received an update to her radar suite/rig, and I'm 99% sure she received flight deck strengthening.
Most noticeably, she got a new camouflage scheme: Measure 32/6-10D. It would be the only two-tone dazzle pattern of the war for fleet carriers, as well as the only destroyer scheme applied. She would carry it through the Battle of the Philippine Sea, strikes on Formosa and the Philippines, the Battle of Leyte Gulf, Third Fleets foray through the South China Sea, the strikes on Tokyo, supporting the invasion of Iwo Jima, and preparatory strikes on Okinawa.
The two air groups assigned to her while in these markings were CVG-15 (the so-called "McCampbell's Heroes"), and CVG-4 (which is still around [sort of] as CVW-1 today). CVG-15 would start off in tri-colored F6F-3s, SB2C-1C's, and TBF/TBM-1Cs. Starting in the summer of '44, navy blue F6F-5s would start replacing the F6F-3s. All this while, her planes would bear a white horizontal bar on their tail. VF-15 would finish its cruise with 310 claimed victories, BY FAR the highest one tour claim total of any squadron in the navy. Only
Hornet's CVG-17 would come close, with 286 claims in 1945.
CVG-4 would take over CVG-15's planes in November 1944, and maintain their markings (however, CVG-4 would go to a three-digit modex by at least January 1945). In December 1944, VB-4 would be detached (the only remaining wartime squadron from Essex still around today: VFA-14), and would be replaced with Marine F4U-1D Corsairs (the first fast carrier to take DAYTIME Corsairs into combat). While on CV-9, CAG-4 (Commander Otto Klinsmann), would be lost of the Pescadores in January 1945, and his replacement was Lt. Col. William A. Millington, USMC. It was the only occasion in WW II in which a marine commanded a navy carrier air group. A more senior navy commnader (Cdr. F. K. Upham, formerly CO of VF-81 on
Wasp) replaced Millington as CAG in February 1945 (by the time of the Tokyo strikes). (As an aside, Millington flew with Pappy Boyington, Bob Galer, John F. Dobbin, Donald Yost, and Hank Elrod off of
Yorktown (CV-5) in VMF-2 pre-war.)
Right around the time of Tokyo strikes (16-17 February 1945),
Essex planes "traded" their tail stripe for the "double diamond" G-symbols, which she would carry through July 1945.
Essex's Measure 32/6-10D would be replaced with Measure 21 in March 1945, which she would wear through the end of the war, with CVG-83 on board. However, her most arduous combat operations were in her "boring" Measure 21 off the Home Islands in 1945: at sea (most of the time in combat) for 79 consecutive days (14 March to 1 June 1945)!!!
So, here's the Mighty E in all of her glory this day in history (being used as a high speed armored ferry!):
(I love her hull number "9" at her bows and stern.)
Please forgive me!
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