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Show us horneTreturns TO THE UNITED STATES r Y nas Hd Many Thrillina In 14 months of action she cut of Zf1'- 15.000-mile swath cffic UCtl-n through the Pa- ?na'j:eaa!Sdll410rU,ned HORNFTare t,h?s? wh0 say the HORNET would have continued hammering the Japanese till the Ln; d f t'le war if it hadn't been tor the typhoon of June 5. She had been through one typhoon down in the Philippines, but it aidnt campore to this one. Catching the HORNET 150 miles east of Okinawa at 2 A. M , the gale bounced the 27,000-ton ship about like a chip. Suddenly her bow rose atop a tremendous wave and crashed downward with such force that the forward corners of the flight deck folded down along her sides. After that the engines were stopped and the ship drifted before the wind like a sailboat. - The next morning the HORNET, HOR-NET, unable to launch her planes in the normal manner, backed into the wind in order to get search planes off the deck. They aided in reassembling the task force, returned to their ship and, at last, the HORNET retired from battle area. The HORNET had worked hard. As part of famed TASK FORCE 58 and flagship of Rear Admiral J. J. Clark, U.S.N. known affectionately af-fectionately throughout the Fleet as "Jocko" she hammered the Japs in every major action from the March, 1944 strikes on the Palau Islands through the Okinawa Oki-nawa operations. She's had three skippers, . mothered three air groups and helpea sing a battleship. battle-ship. But it took a 120-knot gale and a mountainous wave to send her back to the states. Here are some of the highlights of her 18-month career: She struck the first blow for the liberation of the Philippines. She was the first to hit Tokyo in a full-scale carrier-air attack. She was the first to hit the RAMATO, 45,000-ton pride of the Jap Fleet which now rests on the bottom of the East China Sea. She weathered two typhoons. She attacked the Jap fleet anchored an-chored in its homeland base. She set what is believed to be a record ' for airborne enemy planes by a carrier in a 30-day period: 255 between March 18 and April 16. She accounted for 67 Jap planes in a single day's operation. She spent a total of 52 days under Jap air attack being hit by as much as a machine gun bullet. In the roster of the Hornet we find the names of Utah men which includes the name of David D. Donaldson, Coxswain, USNR, 30, whose mother is Mrs. Leonard Robinson of Spring City, Utah. |
