USS Block Island (CVE-21)
_leaving_Norfolk,_October_15,_1943.jpg) The block Iceland in October 1,943th
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
The USS Block Island was an escort aircraft carrier in the United States Navy and belonged to the Bogue class . The ship was laid down at the Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation shipyard in Seattle ( Washington State ) on behalf of the United States Maritime Commission on January 19, 1942. The carrier was named after the island of Block Island in Block Island Sund of the same name off the coast of the US state of Rhode Island . Originally it was planned to take the ship into service only as an auxiliary aircraft carrier with the identification ACV-21. After being launched on June 6, 1942, Block Island was put into service on March 8, 1943 as a full escort aircraft carrier and therefore received the ultimately valid ID CVE-21 on July 15, 1943.
Technical details and armament
The block Iceland , like all other units of the Bogue class from a former civilian cargo ship hull ( C3-ship came) out; the C3 ships were built from 1939. This explains why the ship only had one shaft and one screw and one rudder. Two 285- PSi - Foster Wheeler -boiler enabled via a steam turbine, a maximum engine output of 8,500 WPS. With this, the ship reached a maximum speed of around 16.5 kn (31 km / h) in service, although during test drives up to 18 kn were said to have been achieved at times (which, however, was not achieved later during the war). Like all ships of this class, the Block Island was not armored.
From August 1942, about half a year before commissioning, there were on board two older 127 mm L / 51 Mark 9 guns from 1910, which were defeated in March 1943 against two more modern 127 mm L / 38 guns Mark 12 from 1934/35 have been exchanged. In addition, a total of 16 40 mm Bofors flak in eight twin mounts and 27 individually set up 20 mm flak came on board by July 1943 . The air force on board comprised nine (later twelve) Grumman F4F Wildcat fighter-bombers and twelve Grumman TBF torpedo bombers , which instead of conventional torpedoes carried depth charges and acoustic Fido air torpedoes . These 21 (later 24) machines were combined to form the on-board VC-1 ( composite squadron ). From the summer of 1943 onwards, a so-called Huff-Duff radio direction finding system was installed on board to locate the radio traffic from submarines .
War missions 1943 to 1944
After its commissioning and after the completion of the test drives, the Block Island ran in October 1943, provided with a war-style camouflage paintwork Ms-22 and under the command of Captain Logan C. Ramsey, from Norfolk ( Virginia ) and joined the American Atlantic Fleet on. After the ship had made two transport trips to Great Britain and transported 60 hunting machines there, the carrier formed the Hunter / Killer Group Task Group (TG) 21.11 from autumn 1943, together with five destroyer escorts, and subsequently operated in the Central Atlantic against German U. Boat pack .
On October 28, 1943 , aircraft from Block Island succeeded in sinking the German submarine U 220 (First Lieutenant z. S. Bruno Barber), whereby the entire crew of 56 men went down with the boat, and on March 17, 1944, the destruction of the submarine U 801 ( Kapitänleutnant Hans-Joachim Brans) southwest of Cape Verde . The boat was initially incapacitated for diving by the carrier's Avenger aircraft with a Fido air torpedo and then sunk by gunfire by the two destroyer escorts Corry and Bronstein of the Task Group, killing ten German sailors. 47 men of the crew of U 801 were fished out of the water by Corry and Bronstein and brought aboard Block Island as prisoners of war .
Two days later, on March 19, 1944, a Wildcat fighter-bomber sank the German submarine U 1059 (First Lieutenant z. S. Günter Leupold) with two bombs in almost the same area of the sea, about 110 nautical miles west of Cape Verde . However, an aircraft from Block Island was also lost during this operation : A TBF Avenger (Lieutenant Norman G. Dowty) was hit by the anti-aircraft gun of the submarine during one of the last attempted attacks on U 1059 and fell into the sea, with two crew members drown. The destroyers escort of TG 21.11 were later able to rescue eight men of the submarine's crew, including the commander, and one survivor of the three-man Avenger crew; 47 German submarine drivers were killed in the sinking of U 1059 .
On May 6, 1944, Block Island also participated in the sinking of the German submarine U 66 (first lieutenant for example Gerhard Seehausen), which was captured and sunk by the destroyer escort Buckley belonging to TG 21.11 after an air attack by the carrier . 24 German seamen died and 36 were rescued.
Downfall
In the evening hours of May 29, 1944, around 7.45 p.m., the marching German submarine U 549 (Kapitänleutnant Detlev Krankenhagen ), which was on its way towards the Brazilian coast at that time , broke through the destroyer protection of the block Iceland , which at that time was about 100 nautical miles southwest of the Canary Islands , and fired a fan of four torpedoes at the ship at around 8:10 p.m. At 20:13, two torpedoes hit the carrier amidships and caused severe water ingress. Another torpedo from U 549 tore the stern of the destroyer escort Barr - which, however, could be brought in later.
Although the leak protection was initially able to keep the carrier afloat, a third torpedo hit at 8:25 p.m., this torpedo presumably came from the tail boom of U 549 , sealed the fate of Block Island . The order to abandon the ship was given at around 20:33. Since there was no subsequent explosion of the ammunition and the fuel, the carrier could be evacuated in a relatively orderly manner and the crew could be taken up almost entirely by the security destroyers. A total of ten of 957 crew members on Block Island were killed (six crew members and four Grumman F4F pilots who failed to make it to the Canary Islands and fell into the sea). At 21:55, almost 100 minutes after the first attack, the Block Island capsized and sank.
While Block Island went under, two destroyers escorted by the fighter group were able to locate the running submarine U 549 and sink it with depth charges. The entire crew of 57 sailors went down with the boat.
particularities
The Block Island was the only American aircraft carrier that was lost in the Atlantic during World War II. It was also the only carrier in the United States Navy to be attacked by a German submarine. The ship received several awards for missions, including two Battle Stars as part of the allied North Africa and Europe campaign.
Twelve days after the sinking, a new ship was named Block Island in honor of its sunken predecessor . It was a Commencement Bay- class escort carrier that was assigned CVE-106.
literature
- Paul Kemp: U-boats destroyed. German submarine losses in the world wars. Arms & Armor, London 1997, ISBN 1-85409-321-5 .
- German: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars. Urbes-Verlag, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-924896-43-7 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.uboat.net/boats/u220.htm
- ^ Paul Kemp: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars. P. 186f.
- ↑ U-801 Block Island Report POWs, March 31, 1944, uboatarchive.net ( Memento of November 30, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Paul Kemp: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars. P. 187.
- ↑ http://www.uboat.net/boats/u1059.htm
- ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/44-05.htm
- ^ U-549. Attack on Block Island aircraft carrier. La Palma y El Mar, naufragios.
