USS Bunker Hill (CV-17)

USS Bunker Hill (CV-17)

History
United States
Namesake:	Battle of Bunker Hill
Builder:	Fore River Shipyard
Laid down:	15 September 1941
Launched:	7 December 1942
Commissioned:	25 May 1943
Decommissioned:	9 January 1947
Reclassified:	CV to CVA 1 October 1952 CVA to CVS 8 August 1953 CVS to AVT May 1959
Struck:	1 November 1966
Nickname(s):	Holiday Express
Honors and awards:	Presidential Unit Citation American Campaign Medal Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal (11 stars) World War II Victory Medal Philippine Presidential Unit Citation Philippine Liberation Medal
Fate:	Sold for scrap in 1973
General characteristics
Class and type:	Essex-class aircraft carrier
Displacement:	27,100 tons standard 36,380 tons full load
Length:	820' (250m) waterline 147'6" (45m) overall
Beam:	93' (28m) waterline 147'5"(45m) flight deck
Draft:	28'5" (8.66m)light 34'2" (10.41m) full load
Propulsion:	8 boilers 565 psi (3,900 kPa) 850 °F (450 °C) 4 Westinghouse geared steam turbines 4 shafts 150,000 shp (110 MW)
Speed:	33 knots (61 km/h)
Range:	20,000 nautical miles (37,000 km) at 15 knots (28 km/h)
Complement:	2,600
Armament:	4 × twin 5 inch (127 mm) 38 caliber guns 4 × single 5 inch (127 mm) 38 caliber guns 8 × quadruple 40 mm 56 caliber guns 46 × single 20 mm 78 caliber guns
Armor:	2.5 to 4 inch (60 to 100 mm) belt 1.5 inch (40 mm) hangar and protectice decks 4 inch (100 mm) bulkheads 1.5 inch (40 mm) STS top and sides of pilot house 2.5 inch (60 mm) atop steering gear
Aircraft carried:	90–100

USS Bunker Hill (CV/CVA/CVS-17, AVT-9) was one of 24 Essex-class aircraft carriers built during World War II for the United States Navy. The ship was named for the Battle of Bunker Hill in the American Revolutionary War. Commissioned in May 1943 and sent to the Pacific Theater of Operations, the ship participated in battles in the Southwest Pacific, Central Pacific and the drive toward Japan through Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and air raids on the Japanese homeland.

While covering the invasion of Okinawa, Bunker Hill was struck by two kamikazes in quick succession, setting the vessel on fire. Casualties exceeded 600, including 346 confirmed dead and an additional 43 missing, the second heaviest personnel losses suffered by any carrier to survive the war after Franklin. After the attack, Bunker Hill returned to the U.S. mainland and was still under repair when hostilities ended.

After the war, Bunker Hill was employed as a troop transport bringing American service members back from the Pacific. The carrier decommissioned in 1947. While in reserve the vessel was reclassified as an attack carrier (CVA), then an antisubmarine carrier (CVS) and finally an Auxiliary Aircraft Landing Training Ship (AVT), but was never modernized and never saw active service again. Bunker Hill and Franklin were the only Essex-class ships never recommissioned after World War II.

Stricken from the Naval Vessel Register in 1966, Bunker Hill served as an electronics test platform for many years in San Diego Bay, and was sold for scrap in 1973. An effort to save her as a museum ship in 1972 was unsuccessful.

Bunker Hill was laid down on 15 September 1941 as hull number 1509 at the Bethlehem Steel Company, Quincy, Massachusetts` and launched on 7 December 1942, sponsored by Mrs. Donald Boynton. The carrier was commissioned on 25 May 1943, with Captain J. J. Ballentine in command. The carrier took aboard her air group at Norfolk, Virginia at the end of June, and on 15 July sailed south to Trinidad on her shakedown cruise. Three weeks later the ship returned to Norfolk, and on 4 September sailed south to the Panama Canal on the way to San Diego, Pearl Harbor, and the Pacific Theater of Operations.

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Wikipedia