"Click" a photo to see a larger version of these images.

 

The Mighty Stinger's worst day.

On 19 March, 1945, Wasp took a direct hit from a Japanese bomber. The shell tore through the flight and hanger decks before exploding near the galley where some of the crew was trying to have a meal.

Shipmate Charles Russell was there and kept a "cruise book" from that era. His son, Rusty, sent these photo-scans to share with you.

 

"Click"   (courtesy of Charles Russell) "Looking Forward"

"Click"   (courtesy of Charles Russell) "Shell hole in Hanger Deck"

Rusty said the damage shown in these two photos was described in the cruise book as follows:

" ... the morning of the 19th (March 1945) when USS Franklin was badly hit and 2 minutes later a lone Jap plane darted out of the clouds dead ahead of the Wasp dropping a 540 pound semi-armor piercing bomb that exploded in the galley on the third deck just about aft of midships. Excellent work by the fire fighting parties quickly controlled the fires and Wasp, never out of formation, was ready for flight operations in an hour. Casualties were 122 dead or missing and over 200 wounded.

One hour after the bomb explosion gutted the after messing compartment, a deadly, green, two-engined "Jill" chose the wounded Wasp for a Kamikaze dive. Wasp's large, medium and small batteries crescendoed and killed the pilot or jarred his aim enough to cause him to crash into the water missing the deck edge elevator by 30 feet."

 

(courtesy of R. Russell)

Lt. Charles E. Russell served aboard Wasp as a pilot in VF-14. This photo was in the cruise book to show that he accomplished the 1,000th landing on Wasp. There were many thousands of landings to come.

 

Click! (courtesy of Joe Beck)

A plane captain uses a stencil to chalk up another kill for a Wasp pilot.

 

 

(Courtesy of Chuck Brown) Click!

"Strike on Tokyo - 52 carrier-based planes pass Mt. Fujiyama, February 1945," some may have been from Wasp.

 

(Courtesy of Shipmate Cliff Bowling)

 Wasp War News!

(courtesy of John Stevens)

Click!

For those who do not know, this photo is the superstructure that sprouts up from flight deck on the starboard side and includes the bridge and other key components to running the ship's operations. It is commonly referred to as "the island." The caption for this photo in John Steven's cruise book was: "Island Scoreboard. Up to 4 April 1945, WASP'S score included 222 aircraft shot down, 28 islands attacked, 114 ships sunk (total tonnage 228,735) , 335 ships damaged." Notice the fat stripe painted diagonally across the island; it is a closeup of the fancy camouflage paint job seen in the shot in the 1940's museum page.

Click! (courtesy of Joe Beck)

Some of Wasp's crew poses on the flight deck near the end of WW II.

This 1945 photo depicts a Japanese prison of war camp on Corregidor where our boys write their thanks to the Wasp aviators who dropped supplies for them near or at the end of the war. You can see many of the P.O.W.'s in the forground. The Wasp Association sent this scan to me through Bill Metcalf at the USS Hornet Museum.

 

Shipmate Cliff Bowlings says that four days after the War ended, Wasp was attacked by three kamakazies. One knocked off the antennae on the starboard side, but we shot all three down. They didn't know the War was over. Wasp was heading for the signing of the peace treaty when she was hit by a typhoon off Japan. They turned us back to Pearl Harbor and from there to Boston to have the ship repaired (due to damages during that typhoon) and converted into a temporary troop ship.

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