USS Eagle 56

From Wikipedia.

The USS Eagle 56 (PE-56) was a U.S. Navy World War I-era patrol boat that remained in service through World War II.  On 23 April 1945, while towing targets for U.S. Navy bomber exercises off the coast of Maine, it was sunk by German U-boat U-853.

Only 13 of the 62 crew survived

The loss was classified as a boiler explosion until 2001, when historical evidence convinced the Navy to reclassify the sinking as a combat loss due to enemy action.  The Eagle was the second to last Navy warship to be sunk by German during the war.

It was one of 60-Eagle Class patrol craft built by Henry Ford late in World War I as submarine chasers, none of which saw action.  Unpopular due to their poor sea handling, only eight remained in service by the time WW II began for the United States.

It was the second to last U.S. warship to be sunk by Germany during WW II.

--GreGen

Naval Ceremony for the USS Eagle-- Part 2

This was held this past Tuesday.

The sinking occurred during the waning days of World War II, with the Germans surrendering just two weeks later, on May 7, 1945.  Japan surrendered on September 2, 1945, ending the war.

*  The vessel was one of a class built by Henry Ford at the end of World War I.

**  The U-583 didn't survive the Eagle by long.  The submarine was discovered in 18 fathoms (108 feet) and depth charges and hedgehogs were dropped during a 16-hour attack.  At first, it tried to hide by lying still.  Both times it was found by sonar.

On the morning of 6 May 1945 two K-Class blimps from Lakehurst, New Jersey, the K-16 and K-58 joined the attack, locating oil slicks and marking suspected locations with smoke and dye markers.  The K-16 also attacked with 7.2-inch rocket bombs.

Numerous depth charge and hedgehog attacks from the USS Atheron and USS Moberly resulted in planking, life rafts, a chart tabletop, clothing and an officer's cap floating to the surface.

The U-853 was one of the last U-boats sunk during World War Ii and the last to be sunk in U.S. waters.

--GreGen

Naval Ceremony for USS Eagle This Tuesday

From the April 20, 2024, Portland (Maine) Press Herald "Navy vessel sunk off Maine coast during World War II to be remembered at ceremony" by Joel Lawlor.

The ceremony will be held at 11 am Tuesday, 79 years to the day since the USS Eagle 56 was sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of Cape Elizabeth.

The U.S. Navy will host a wreath-laying ceremony Tuesday, April23, to commemorate the sinking of the USS Eagle 56, a Navy patrol vessel that was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat in the waning days of the war with Germany.

It is believed that the German submarine U-853 sank the Eagle.

Forty-nine sailors died in the sinking off the coast of Cape Elizabeth (Maine) on April 23, 1945-- exactly 70 years ago Tuesday.  Just 13 were rescued.

The ceremony is set to begin at11 a.m. at Fort Williams Park, will be at the plaque memorializing the USS Eagle, which is located on the south side of the Portland Head Light driveway.

--GreGen

Search for Richard Bong's Plane-- Part 4: His Death

Richard Bong married Marge Battendahl in 1945 and was assigned duty as a test pilot in Burbank, California, after his three combat tours in the South Pacific.

He was killed on August 6, 1945, when the P-80 jet fighter he was testing crashed. That was the same day that the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

Vattendahl was 21 when he died and went on to become a model and magazine  publisher in Los Angeles.  She died in September 2003 in Superior.

The search for Bong's plane comes just weeks after a deep sea exploration team searching for the wreckage of Amelia Earhart's lost plane in the South Pacific said it captured sonar image that "appears to be Earhart's Lockheed 10-E Electra aircraft.

--GreGen

Search for Richard Bong's Plane-- Part 3

Richard Bong's Medal of Honor reads: "For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty in action in the Southwest Pacific area from October 10 to November 15, 1944.

"Though assigned to duty as gunnery instructor and neither required nor expected to perform combat duty, Major Bong voluntarily and at his own urgent request engaged in repeated combat missions, including unusually hazardous sorties over Balikpapan, Borneo, and the Leyte area of the Philippines.

"His aggressiveness and daring resulted in his shooting down enemy airplanes totaling eight during this period."

Bong also earned the Distinguished Service Cross, two Silver Stars, seven Distinguished Flying Crosses and 15 Air Medals.

--GreGen

Searching for Bong's Plane-- Part 2: A Good Chance the Wreckage Will Be Found

Another pilot, Thomas Malone, was flying the plane in March 1944 over what is now known as Papua New Guinea when engine failure sent it into a spin.  Malone bailed out before the plane crashed into the jungle.

Pacific Wrecks founder Justin Taylan will lead the search for the plane and plans to leave for Papua New Guinea in May.  He believes the search could take almost a month and cost $63,000 generated through generations.

Furthermore, he is confident that he will be successful since historical records provide an approximate location of the crash site.  But, he is not sure that there is enough left to positively identify the plane as the Marge.

Bong shot down more planes than any other American pilot, earning him celebrity status.  General Douglas MacArthur awarded him the Medal of Honor, the highest U.S. military decoration in 1944.

--GreGen

That Land and Those Waters Are Still Dangerous-- Part 2

Continued from April 13.

In the water surrounding the islands, hundreds of corroding shipwrecks from the war still contain trapped oil supplies that some describe as a ticking time bomb.  A major oil spill from one of these rusting wrecks could be a massive disaster.

Indeed, Savo Sound by Guadalcanal was renamed Iron Bottom Sound because of all of the ships sunk in it.

The Solomon Islanders believe those who fought the war on their land should be doing more to clean up the mess they left behind.

In the words of one local:  "When the war ended US, Japanese and allied forces went home in peace. We still do not have peace, until we are safe in the Solomon Islands."

--GreGen

Searching for Bong's Plane

From the March 26, 2024, CBS News "WW II ace pilot Richard Bong's plane crashed in 1944.  A team has launched a search for its wreckage in the South Pacific."

The Richard I. Bong Veterans Historical Center in Superior, Wisconsin, (far northern part of the state) and the nonprofit World War II historical group Pacific Wrecks announced a search for the plane's remains on Friday according to Minnesota Public Radio.  

Bong grew up in Poplar, Wisconsin and is credited with shooting down 40 Japanese aircraft during World War II-- the most ever, according to the Air Force.

He flew a Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter plane nicknamed "Marge" in honor of his girlfriend, Marjorie Vattendahl.  He plastered a blowup picture of her on the nose of his plane (known as nose art).  At the time, Bong said that Vattendahl "looks swell, and a hell of a lot better than these naked women painted on most airplanes."

Bong was not in the plane when it crashed.

--GreGen

That Land and Those Waters Are Still Pretty Dangerous

From the April 11, 2024, ABC News "Video: How World War II is still wreaking havoc in the Pacific" by Stephanie March.

More than eight decades ago in the 1940s, WW II rages across the Pacific as ferocious battles between the Allies and Japanese took place.

One of the most significant ones was at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands where the Japanese advance across the ocean was finally stopped and where 30,000 lives were lost.

Now, over eight decades later, the deadly legacy of the battle continues.

On land, the islands are littered with unexploded devices-- almost 50,000 have been discovered since 2011.

Accidental detonations of the bombs and other munitions have caused deaths and injuries and survivors are left to struggle for themselves with very little support.

--GreGen

Lou Conter, Last Surviving Crew Member of USS Arizona Dies at Age 102

From April 1, 2024, KRA 3 NBC, Sacramento, Ca., News.

Lou Conter, the last living surviving member on board the USS Arizona during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, has died.  He was 102.

He had been in hospice the last four weeks and was surrounded by family in Grass Valley, California.

To me it is another in the passing of the Greatest Generation.  Not too long ago, we lost the last surviving member of Doolittle's Raid.

I knew this was coming, but it sure doesn't make it any easier.

--GreGen