Wreck of USS St. Lo (CVE-63)

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

Laid down in January 1943 at the Kaiser Vancouver Shipyard as the 9th Casablanca Class Escort Carrier built for the US Navy, the St. Lo commissioned into service as the USS Midway in October 1943, her name commemorating American victory in the June 1942 Battle of Midway.

Beginning her role in the Second World War as an aircraft transport, the Midway and her crew made two round trips to Pearl Harbor and one to Australia fully laden with replacement aircraft before finally receiving her first combat assignment in the waters off the Marianas in June 1944. Joining Carrier Support Group 1 and taking aboard the aircraft of Composite Squadron 65 (VC-65), Midway and her crew began offensive air operations off Saipan and Tinian on July 1st and would remain so engaged for the remainder of the month. Steaming for the Admiralty Islands after wrapping up her duties in the Marianas, the Midway joined Task Force 77 and participated with the Invasion of Morotai for much of the month of September, after which she returned to Seeadler Harbor, Manaus in early October to reprovision and prepare for their next assignment. While at Manaus, orders arrived first instructing Midway to join Task Unit 77.4.3 under the command of Rear Admiral Sprague for the upcoming invasion of the Philippine Islands and second that the ships name was being changed to commemorate the Allied victory at Saint-Lô, Normandy the previous July in the European Theatre. Standing out of Manaus on the 12th of October in the vanguard of the massive invasion convoy bound for Leyte Gulf with the paint still wet on her new moniker, the St. Lo arrived off the landing beaches on October 18th and with her fellow Escort Carriers of TG 77.4.3 or "Taffy 3" began offensive airstrikes in advance of amphibious forces. Remaining heavily occupied with close air support as American forces landed and pushed into Japanese-held territory on Leyte, St. Lo and the rest of the ships of "Taffy 3" were relocated Northeast of the landing beaches as a sizeable beachhead was established.

Though sparse in the initial stages of the Leyte landings, Japanese resistance steadily began to mount and by the 24th of October Japanese airstrikes were coming at regular intervals with mounting organization and ferocity. With naval actions against sizeable portions of the Imperial Japanese Navy on the 23rd and 24th seeming to rebuke Japanese attempts to disrupt the American landings, crew aboard St. Lo and the rest of the ships of "Taffy 3" prepared for another day of routine flight operations on October 25th, with St. Lo sending up a flight of four recon aircraft at 0530hrs to hunt for enemy Submarines. Slightly over an hour later, one of St. Lo's aircraft piloted by ENS Bill Woods spotted 4 Battleships, 6 Heavy Cruisers, 2 Light Cruisers and 11 Destroyers of the Imperial Japanese Navy rounding the Northern coast of Samar and making for "Taffy 3" and the Leyte beachhead beyond at high speed. Sighted by onboard lookouts moments later, the sudden appearance of such large numbers of Japanese warships prompted the entire of "Taffy 3" into a full course reversal Southward, with St. Lo being no exception. Screened by their own escort force of Destroyers and Destroyer Escorts, St. Lo and the rest of the Escort Carriers of "Taffy 3" made their 17 knot top speed away from the onrushing Japanese, making chemical smoke to shield themselves from the heavy caliber shells already landing around them until they reached the relative safety of a heavy rain squall.

Concealed from the sight-directed guns aboard the Japanese ships, St. Lo's crew worked through a driving rain to send her entire operational airwing aloft at 0718hrs with whatever armament could be strapped to them in a desperate attempt to damage or otherwise disrupt the Japanese advance. With the escorts of “Taffy 3” and the combined airwing of the six Carriers fearlessly and savagely attacking the far superior Japanese Fleet from point-blank ranges for the next three hours in an attempt to protect St. Lo and her fellow Carriers, the flattops continued to belch out thick smoke and maneuver radically while under heavy fire before the battered remnants of the Japanese force began to retire. Securing from General Quarters at 1010hrs as she and her fellow Carriers turned back Northward to recover aircraft and assist in the recovery of their decimated escort force, sailors aboard St. Lo were given only a brief respite before lookouts sighted a large force of enemy aircraft closing on their position at 1040hrs. Taking the Japanese aircraft under fire at 1051hrs as a formation passed along her Starboard side, gunners in St. Lo’s 20mm galleries poured fire into a single aircraft which broke formation and made a sudden looping turn towards their ship, but the pall of AA fire was powerless to stop the determined pilot from slamming into St. Lo’s flight deck at her #5 wire, just to Port of the centerline at 1052hrs. Though the aircraft itself struck a glancing blow and disintegrated into a ball of fire as it skipped off the Carrier’s wooden deck, the two bombs it carried punched through St. Lo’s flight and hangar decks before detonating deep within the ship, causing several fires among recently recovered aircraft and ready ammunition.

As her damage control teams ran out hoses and began to fight the flames a heavy explosion shook the St. Lo, likely from an unexploded Japanese bomb or ready ammunition, which was followed seconds later by a far heavier detonation of part or all of her after magazines that blew a large portion of St. Lo’s flight deck off the ship and prompted her Captain to order the engines secured and the ship abandoned. Rocked by several more heavy detonations as her crew mustered forward and loaded dozens of wounded shipmates into liferafts, St. Lo began to settle by the Stern, allowing the large fires to advance forward where they caused several more detonations. With her Captain stepping off the rapidly sinking ship at 1115hrs, St. Lo continued to burn until 1125hrs, when a final heavy detonation tore through the ship shortly before she sank Stern-first at this location on October 25th, 1944, taking 126 of her crew with her to the bottom. The loss of the USS St. Lo would go into the history books as the first US Navy vessel to be destroyed by a Japanese Kamikaze attack.

For her actions during their final battle, USS St. Lo and her crew earned the Presidential Unit Citation and her fourth and final Battle Star for World War Two service.


www.navsource.org/archives/03/063.htm
www.dondennisfamily.com/USS_St_Lo/index.html