Wreck of USS Ommaney Bay (CVE-79)

 Second World War 1939-1945, aircraft, shipwreck, aircraft carrier, United States Navy

Laid down in October 1943 and commissioned into US Navy service in February 1944, the USS Ommaney Bay was a Casablanca Class Escort Carrier which served in the US Pacific Fleet during the Second World War. Sailing for conflict in March 1944, the Ommaney Bay delivered a load of aircraft and supplies to Australia before she took on her own aircraft and aircrews and shaped a course for the Palau Islands.

Launching her aircraft on war sorties for the first time on September 11th, 1944, the Ommaney Bay flew nonstop combat sorties for over a week before withdrawing from frontline service to replenish and refuel at Manaus. There she joined with the massive US Surface Force bound for the Philippine Islands, where she took part in the Invasion of Leyte and the subsequent Battle of Samar in October 1944. She and her aircraft were part of the grossly outgunned force of Escort Carriers and Destroyers which repulsed the much larger Japanese Northern Force, though her sister Carriers in 'Taffy 3' bore the brunt of the Japanese attack. Nonetheless, at the conclusion of the battle, the aircrews of the Ommaney Bay notched their first confirmed kill on a Japanese Cruiser.

The Ommaney Bay continued to fly sorties in support of ground forces in the Philippines through early December, when she dropped anchor in the Kossol Roads to join forces with the Amphibious Invasion Force bound for Luzon. Departing in convoy on January 1st, 1945, the Ommaney Bay sailed through the Surigao Strait and shaped a course for the Sulu Sea, where she and the other ships would turn North for Luzon. Crews aboard ship kept a wary eye towards the sky for Japanese planes, which had turned from dangerous attackers with bombs and torpedoes to fanatical suicide-bent marauders.

As the convoy steamed through the Sulu Sea on January 3rd, the Ommaney Bay and her crew were going through the motions of regular flight operations when radar screens across the group began to pick up inbound aircraft. All crews raced to their battle stations and planes were made ready to be launched to defend the convoy as the first Japanese planes appeared overhead. Dozens of Japanese pilots began raining down bombs and their aircraft onto the ships and the orderly pace of the mornings operations gave way to a frenzied melee of evasive maneuvers, explosions and gunfire. Crews aboard tried to get fully fueled aircraft off the deck of the Ommaney Bay, but the carriers near-constant course changes made launching her planes all but impossible.

Shortly after 1600hrs Ommaney Bay was targeted by a Japanese Nakajima J1N, a twin-engine long range fighter/bomber, which made a horizontal dive at the Carrier. Despite her crew firing hundreds of rounds of AA fire at the approaching aircraft, it managed to get through the defense and slammed into the forward deck of the Ommaney Bay, where it's fuselage cut through the deck and its bombload detonated. Fully fueled planes in the Ommaney Bay's hangar deck were shredded by shrapnel and began dumping out their highly flammable gasoline, which provided ample fuel for the massive flames which were soon consuming much of the forward section of the ship.

Damage control teams raced to combat the fires aboard but were hampered a severed fire main which cut the water supply forward. Damage to the ships conning tower as a result of it being struck by the planes wing made communications difficult, and as the fires spread the intense heat and smoke soon cut all communications. Firefighting crews in the hanger deck were met by exploding ammunition and bullets from the burning planes, and within an hour they were forced to abandon their efforts to fight the fires below deck. While AA crews did their best to keep up their defense of the vessel, fire hoses were directed onto the flames from the flight deck through the holes created by the plane but by 1750hrs several large detonations combined with the heat and smoke had caused the engine room to be abandoned, leaving the ship adrift and without power. Fearing a large order detonation of the ships torpedo magazines, the Captain of the Ommaney Bay ordered the ship abandoned. Crews slipped over the sides and were immediately picked up by awaiting escort ships as the Carrier continued to burn fiercely, and after the last man was plucked from the water most of the ships withdrew to a safe distance. The Ommaney Bay continued to burn and suffer small and large detonations, but remained stubbornly afloat and threatening to explode. The USS Burns (DD-588) then fired a single torpedo into her Starboard Side, which sent the Veteran Carrier to the bottom at this location at 1945hrs on January 4th, 1945. 95 members of her crew were killed in the attack, along with two men from another ship who were killed by shrapnel while assisting with the rescue effort.

For her actions on the date of her loss, the Ommaney Bay received her Second and final Battle Star for World War Two service.

www.navsource.org/archives/03/079.htm