"Click" on designated images for a larger version of the photo.

 

(Official U.S. Navy Photo courtesy of Curtis Grant and Allyn "Flash" Gordon)

Wasp is the carrier in the near foreground. Shipmate Curtis Grant served aboard Wasp in WW II and he's helped make these pages a little better for all of us. Curtis spotted this photo of Wasp at one of the Wasp Association's annual reunions. Curtis did a little checking and found that it belonged to Allyn "Flash" Gordon, one his WW II shipmates. Flash is a character that everyone in the association knows, likely because he is as friendly as they come and he was the real pusher to get the association started. Flash lent Curtis his photo and Curtis had it copied so that I could scan it and include it here in the Wasp pages.

 

Click! (courtesy of Pete Sneed) "Our Victory Battle-Flag"

Pete Sneed glued this photo to heavy construction paper and long ago wrote on the corner: "By Navy Custom, An Over Size Flag Is Flown After A Victorious Naval Engagement. Date: August 14, 1945"

Click! (courtesy of Chuck Brown)

"The Third Fleet maneuvers off the coast of Japan - 17 August 1945."

(Courtesy of Cliff Bowling)

(Courtesy of Cliff Bowling)

Wasp's flight deck and island. These 5 inch guns (aft of the island) were removed in Boston after the war to convert Wasp into a troop transport. This is a rare personal photo apparently taken shortly after the war.

 

(Courtesy of Cliff Bowling)

A shipmate poses under Wasp's fine collection of "KILL" symbols, one rising sun for each aircraft shot down.

 

Click!  (courtesy of Pete Sneed)

"Her flight deck badly damaged, the Wasp is warped into berth at Pier 12, Staten Island."

A small article accompanied this photo:

The 27,000-ton aircraft carrier Wasp, eight-battle heroine of the Pacific war, arrived here yesterday from Southampton, England, with her flight deck splintered and crumpled at the bow by a North Atlantic Storm.

The carrier docked at noon at Pier 12, Staten Island, with 5,685 troops, most of them high point men attached to the 80th and 89th divisions. She left Southampton Dec. 27.

'The major part of the damage was caused when she was a day out of port and off the coast of Eire," said Capt. Wendell G. Switzer, of Alexandria, Va., her skipper.

"One swell did most of the damage," he narrated. "This was a hard-luck trip. I've run into worse weather in the Pacific, but the Atlantic is treacherous. You never can tell when or how it's going to hit you."

It was recalled that the Wasp took refuge in Plymouth Harbor, England, Dec. 19, with her plates dented. "On the trip back," the skipper said, "she also suffered some damage to her hull."

A bright spot at her docking came when a soldier aboard shouted "Eleanor! Eleanor!" Pretty soon the whole ship took up the shout "Eleanor!"

And there on the pier she was - Eleanor Willshaw, 22 a Red Cross worker of 16 James Place, Fort Wadsworth, S.I., who has been meeting transports for six months in the hope that her fiance would be aboard.

Her fiance who shouted the first "Eleanor" from the ship was Sergt. Arthur Van Pelt, 26, of 444 Delafield Ave. West Brighton, S.I., of the 353rd Engineer Corps, 80th Division.

 

(courtesy of Pete Sneed) Click! 

Battle Scoreboard (Mirror Photo)

The caption read: "BATTLE SCOREBOARD OF THE CARRIER WASP is admired by some of 5,630 troops the veteran warship landed at Staten Island yesterday after stormy crossing from Europe. The tally reads: 230 aircraft shot down; 36 islands attacked; 114 ships sunk, 234 damaged; and 7 major cities attacked."

 

 

(Courtesy of Cliff Bowling) A war-painted Wasp pushes away from the pier at San Francisco after repair and heads back to the War zone. Repairs were necessary from a hit that killed 163 crewmembers. Shipmate Bowling was among the replacements who came aboard in San Francisco.	(Courtesy of Cliff Bowling) Click!  Wasp is about to depart Boston for SouthHampton, England, and "Magic Carpet" to bring U.S. soldiers home after the War. She was converted into a troop carrier for the task with 5,000 bunks on the hanger deck.
(Courtesy of Cliff Bowling) Shipmates posing on Wasp's flight deck in their work uniforms (dungarees). Is that a battleship in the background?	(Courtesy of Cliff Bowling) Click!  A great shot of Wasp in full dress at sea.
(Courtesy of Cliff Bowling) Wasp approaches the pier at the Boston Navy Yard after the War for conversion to a troop ship.	(Courtesy of Cliff Bowling) Click!  Wasp took the day off once in New Jersey after it drifted onto a sandbar.
(Courtesy of Cliff Bowling)  One of Cliff's shipmates, Ed Snodgrass, in his salty dungarees on Wasp's flight deck. Those are one-man life rafts stacked on the deck behind him.	(Courtesy of Cliff Bowling) Click!   Tugboats tend Mother Wasp in Boston Harbor. Cliff says the ship broke loose from where it was tied up and then drifted onto a sandbar at about a 45 degree angle. I was on liberty that night with the rest of the starboard side and when we returned, the ship was gone. We had no idea where it was and we thought Wasp may have left us. Then, one of the SP's (Shore Patrol) asked if we could see the lights out there in the Bay. We said, "yes." They said that was our ship, and "boated" us out to our wayward home.