USS Ommaney Bay (CVE-79)

USS Ommaney Bay (CVE-79) off Hawaii, 1944
Overview
Order	1942
Keel laying	October 6, 1943
Launch	December 29, 1943
1. Period of service
Commissioning	February 11, 1944
Whereabouts	Sank on January 4, 1945 after being hit by Kamika
Technical specifications
displacement	7800  ts (standard) 10,400 ts (application)
length	156.2 m
width	32.9 m
height	34.5 m (mast)
Draft	6.9 m
crew	860
drive	4 piston steam engines, 9000 HP on two propellers
speed	19 kn
Range	10,200 nm at 15 kn
Armament	1 × 127 mm gun 8 × 40mm twins 20 × 20 mm MK
Planes	28

The USS Ommaney Bay (CVE-79) was a Casablanca-class escort aircraft carrier of the United States Navy , named after Ommaney Bay in Alaska .

history

The keel of the USS Ommaney Bay was laid on October 6, 1943 at Kaiser Company , Inc., Vancouver , Washington , and the ship was christened on December 29, 1943 by Mrs. P. K. Robottom. On February 11, 1944, it entered service under Captain Howard L. Young.

On March 19, Ommaney Bay in Oakland took aircraft for Brisbane , Australia on board and returned to San Diego on April 27 after the voyage . From there she ran after exercises and repairs on June 10, 1944 via Pearl Harbor to Tulagi in preparation for the landing on Palau . From September 11th to the beginning of October she was off Peleliu and Anguar and supported the landings on these two islands.

The Ommaney Bay then drove to the island of Manus to replenish its supplies and then to support the landing on Leyte under Rear Admiral Felix B. Stump . At the beginning of the Battle of Samar on October 25th, she and the other escorts sent their planes against the enemy fleet. Their planes sank a Japanese cruiser and damaged another warship in six waves of attack.

Subsequently, after provisioning, the ship operated off Mindanao and in the Sulu Sea to support the landings on Mindoro .

loss

The Ommaney Bay left the area on New Year 1945. On January 4, 1945 in the Sulu Sea, plunged a twin-engine Japanese kamikaze bomber that was noticed too late to the ship. It grazed the island and then hit the starboard side. A bomb hit the flight deck and exploded in the hangar deck below. This triggered subsequent explosions with refueled aircraft in the hangar and another bomb destroyed the ship's extinguishing equipment in the explosion. Since the on-board ammunition of the own aircraft exploded at the same time, deletion was impossible. Accordingly, orders were given at 5:50 p.m. to leave the ship and shortly before 8 a.m. the ship was sunk by a torpedo from the destroyer USS Burns . 93 men of the crew and two on an escort destroyer lost their lives.

Web links

Commons : USS Ommaney Bay (CVE-79)  - Collection of pictures, videos, and audio files

• History of Ommaney Bay in the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (English)
• Pictures of Ommaney Bay at navsource.org