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USS Windham Bay (CVE-92)
Encyclopedia
USS Windham Bay (CVE-92) was an Casablanca class
escort carrier of the United States Navy
. She was laid down under a Maritime Commission contract (MC hull 1129) on 5 January 1944 at Vancouver, Washington
, by the Kaiser Shipbuilding Co.; launched on 29 March 1944; sponsored by Mrs. Henry M. Cooper; and commissioned on 3 May 1944, Captain
Charles W. Oexle in command.
-bound aircraft and passengers. She departed San Diego on 12 June and arrived in Pearl Harbor on the 19th. Trading her cargo of aircraft and passengers for a similar one bound for the Marshall Islands
, Windham Bay stood out of the harbor on 25 June and arrived at Majuro on 2 July. After unloading her aircraft, she moved on to Kwajalein where she loaded planes and men of Marine Night Fighter Squadron 532 (VMF(N)-532) and headed for the Marianas
. The Marines flew off near Saipan
, and Windham Bay put into Garapan anchorage to unload the squadron's gear.
Afterward, the escort carrier took on a load of captured Japanese aircraft and other material for transportation back to Hawaii. She arrived in Pearl Harbor on 10 July and remained there for 15 days, getting underway for the west coast on 25 July. The warship arrived in San Diego on 31 July and soon began overhaul at San Pedro.
Repairs took the entire month of August, but she was back at sea on 1 September with a load of aircraft bound for Emirau and Manus
. She arrived at Emirau at mid-month and at Manus on the 18th. From there, she voyaged to Espiritu Santo
on a passenger run, returning to Manus on 5 October with a load of planes. After a brief visit to Guadalcanal during the second week in October, she got underway for the United States. Windham Bay steamed via Espiritu Santo and arrived in San Diego on 20 October. In November, she made another voyage from the west coast to the South Pacific, carrying aircraft to Manus and picking up about 350 casualties from the Palau campaign at Guadalcanal
on 24 November for the return voyage to San Diego.
The escort carrier remained at San Diego from 10 December until the 27th when she resumed aircraft ferrying operations. She arrived in Pearl Harbor on 2 January 1945, unloaded one cargo of aircraft there and took on another made up of F4U Corsair
s. She departed Pearl Harbor on 5 January and arrived at Midway Island on the 9th to unload the Corsairs. Departing Midway the next day, Windham Bay returned to Oahu
on the 13th. On 1 February, the ship stood out of Pearl Harbor on her way to the Central Pacific. Carrying replacement aircraft for the fleet carriers of Task Force 58, she made a stop at Eniwetok on her way to the staging base at Ulithi
Atoll in the Western Carolines.
From there, she operated with the 5th Fleet Logistics Group, Task Group 50.8, in support of the fast carrier strikes conducted during the Iwo Jima
and Okinawa operations. During the next four months, she visited Guam
and the Ryukyu Islands
. On 4 June to 5 June, while steaming with the logistics group in support of TF 58 and the strikes on Okinawa, the carrier steamed right through the famous typhoon of 1945, suffering lost and damaged planes as well as damage to her flight and hangar decks. On 16 June, she cleared the Marianas en route to Oahu. The warship arrived in Pearl Harbor on the 25th but departed again two days later. She entered port at San Diego on 11 July, and immediately began repairs to correct the typhoon damage she had suffered earlier in the month. Those repairs lasted through late August, so that she missed the final weeks of the war.
On 26 August, she departed San Diego on her way back to the Central Pacific carrying Marine Fighter Squadron 312 (VMF-312) to Guam. She stopped briefly at Pearl Harbor and arrived in Apra Harbor
on 15 September. After unloading passengers and cargo at Guam, Windham Bay headed for Samar in the Philippines
where she arrived on 19 September. There, she loaded passengers, planes, and equipment for transportation back to Hawaii. She got underway from Leyte on 24 September, made a stop at Guam on the 27th, and arrived back at Oahu on 7 October. On the 8th, she continued eastward toward the west coast and arrived at San Diego on the 14th.
Five days later, the ship headed back to Pearl Harbor on her way to participate in Operation "Magic Carpet", the return of American servicemen to the United States. After a round-trip voyage to San Pedro, California, and back to Pearl Harbor, she set out for the western Pacific once more on 13 November. Arriving at Samar in the Philippines on the 26th, she loaded passengers and then headed east again on the 28th. She stopped at Oahu along the way and arrived in Port Hueneme, California, on 17 December. She moved to San Pedro on the 18th and remained there through the New Year.
On 8 January 1946, Windham Bay departed San Pedro, headed for Hawaii, and arrived in Pearl Harbor on 14 January. She departed Oahu again on the 15th and arrived in San Pedro on the 21st. Within days, however, she moved north to Tacoma, Washington, where she reported for duty with the Pacific Reserve Fleet on 25 January 1946. She remained there—in commission, in reserve—until 23 August 1946 when she was placed out of commission.
during the summer of 1950. On 28 October 1950, she was recommissioned at Bremerton, Washington, Capt. Charles E. Brunton in command. On 20 November, she steamed south to California
, visiting San Francisco on the way to San Diego where she arrived on 2 December. After 11 days, the escort carrier returned to San Francisco whence she embarked upon a voyage to Pearl Harbor on the 19th. Returning to the west coast at Alameda
on 2 January 1951, the warship headed west again five days later. She arrived in Yokohama, Japan, on the 24th and unloaded a cargo of aircraft for use in the Korean War
which the United States had entered under the auspices of the United Nations. Departing Japan two days later, she visited Saigon in French Indochina
and Manila
in the Philippines before shaping a course back to the United States. Windham Bay reentered San Francisco Bay
on 24 February.
At this juncture, the escort carrier settled into a routine of transpacific resupply voyages between the United States and Japan. Over the next 20 months, she made nine round-trip voyages, beginning each at either San Francisco or San Diego, stopping always at Yokosuka, and returning always to San Francisco. She broke that nine-voyage routine in October and November 1952 when she visited Takao
, Japan, and Bangkok
, Thailand
, before returning via Japan to the west coast at Alameda on 9 December.
Windham Bay continued her aircraft ferrying voyages between the United States and Japan during 1953. The war in Korea, however, began to subside in intensity at about the same time, and her passages began to take on more of a peacetime character. She began making more stops and side trips in addition to Yokosuka—notably to Hawaii, the Philippines, and at other Japanese ports. French Indochina also returned to her itinerary in May 1954 and again in February and March 1955 when she made visits to Saigon, capital of the newly constituted Republic of Vietnam. On 12 June 1955, she was redesignated CVU-92. In May 1957, she added Naha, Okinawa
, to her list of ports of call; and, in December, she made one more stop at Saigon. Otherwise, the remainder of her career consisted of the normal west coast-to-Japan aircraft resupply voyages in support of the fast carriers assigned to the western Pacific.
Her career lasted until the end of 1958. In January 1959, she was decommissioned and was berthed with the San Francisco Group, Pacific Reserve Fleet. Her name was struck from the Navy List on 1 February 1959, and she was subsequently sold to the Hugo Neu Steel Products Corp., of New York City. The ship was scrapped in Japan in February 1961.
Casablanca class escort carrier
The Casablanca class escort aircraft carriers were the greatest number of not only escort carriers, but also any size aircraft carrier ever built to a like-design by any nation at any time. Fifty were laid down, launched and commissioned within the space of less than two years - 3 November 1942...
escort carrier of the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
. She was laid down under a Maritime Commission contract (MC hull 1129) on 5 January 1944 at Vancouver, Washington
Vancouver, Washington
Vancouver is a city on the north bank of the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington. Incorporated in 1857, it is the fourth largest city in the state with a 2010 census population of 161,791 as of April 1, 2010...
, by the Kaiser Shipbuilding Co.; launched on 29 March 1944; sponsored by Mrs. Henry M. Cooper; and commissioned on 3 May 1944, Captain
Captain (naval)
Captain is the name most often given in English-speaking navies to the rank corresponding to command of the largest ships. The NATO rank code is OF-5, equivalent to an army full colonel....
Charles W. Oexle in command.
World War II
Following commissioning, Windham Bay conducted shakedown training in Puget Sound and then headed for San Diego on 6 June. There, she conducted air qualifications and catapult trials before taking on a load of HawaiiHawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
-bound aircraft and passengers. She departed San Diego on 12 June and arrived in Pearl Harbor on the 19th. Trading her cargo of aircraft and passengers for a similar one bound for the Marshall Islands
Marshall Islands
The Republic of the Marshall Islands , , is a Micronesian nation of atolls and islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, just west of the International Date Line and just north of the Equator. As of July 2011 the population was 67,182...
, Windham Bay stood out of the harbor on 25 June and arrived at Majuro on 2 July. After unloading her aircraft, she moved on to Kwajalein where she loaded planes and men of Marine Night Fighter Squadron 532 (VMF(N)-532) and headed for the Marianas
Mariana Islands
The Mariana Islands are an arc-shaped archipelago made up by the summits of 15 volcanic mountains in the north-western Pacific Ocean between the 12th and 21st parallels north and along the 145th meridian east...
. The Marines flew off near Saipan
Saipan
Saipan is the largest island of the United States Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands , a chain of 15 tropical islands belonging to the Marianas archipelago in the western Pacific Ocean with a total area of . The 2000 census population was 62,392...
, and Windham Bay put into Garapan anchorage to unload the squadron's gear.
Afterward, the escort carrier took on a load of captured Japanese aircraft and other material for transportation back to Hawaii. She arrived in Pearl Harbor on 10 July and remained there for 15 days, getting underway for the west coast on 25 July. The warship arrived in San Diego on 31 July and soon began overhaul at San Pedro.
Repairs took the entire month of August, but she was back at sea on 1 September with a load of aircraft bound for Emirau and Manus
Manus Island
Manus Island is part of Manus Province in northern Papua New Guinea and is the largest island of the Admiralty Islands. It is the fifth largest island in Papua New Guinea with an area of 2,100 km², measuring around 100 km × 30 km. According to the 2000 census, Manus Island had a...
. She arrived at Emirau at mid-month and at Manus on the 18th. From there, she voyaged to Espiritu Santo
Espiritu Santo
Espiritu Santo is the largest island in the nation of Vanuatu, with an area of . It belongs to the archipelago of the New Hebrides in the Pacific region of Melanesia. It is in the Sanma Province of Vanuatu....
on a passenger run, returning to Manus on 5 October with a load of planes. After a brief visit to Guadalcanal during the second week in October, she got underway for the United States. Windham Bay steamed via Espiritu Santo and arrived in San Diego on 20 October. In November, she made another voyage from the west coast to the South Pacific, carrying aircraft to Manus and picking up about 350 casualties from the Palau campaign at Guadalcanal
Guadalcanal
Guadalcanal is a tropical island in the South-Western Pacific. The largest island in the Solomons, it was discovered by the Spanish expedition of Alvaro de Mendaña in 1568...
on 24 November for the return voyage to San Diego.
The escort carrier remained at San Diego from 10 December until the 27th when she resumed aircraft ferrying operations. She arrived in Pearl Harbor on 2 January 1945, unloaded one cargo of aircraft there and took on another made up of F4U Corsair
F4U Corsair
The Vought F4U Corsair was a carrier-capable fighter aircraft that saw service primarily in World War II and the Korean War. Demand for the aircraft soon overwhelmed Vought's manufacturing capability, resulting in production by Goodyear and Brewster: Goodyear-built Corsairs were designated FG and...
s. She departed Pearl Harbor on 5 January and arrived at Midway Island on the 9th to unload the Corsairs. Departing Midway the next day, Windham Bay returned to Oahu
Oahu
Oahu or Oahu , known as "The Gathering Place", is the third largest of the Hawaiian Islands and most populous of the islands in the U.S. state of Hawaii. The state capital Honolulu is located on the southeast coast...
on the 13th. On 1 February, the ship stood out of Pearl Harbor on her way to the Central Pacific. Carrying replacement aircraft for the fleet carriers of Task Force 58, she made a stop at Eniwetok on her way to the staging base at Ulithi
Ulithi
Ulithi is an atoll in the Caroline Islands of the western Pacific Ocean, about 191 km east of Yap. It consists of 40 islets totalling , surrounding a lagoon about long and up to wide—at one of the largest in the world. It is administered by the state of Yap in the Federated States of...
Atoll in the Western Carolines.
From there, she operated with the 5th Fleet Logistics Group, Task Group 50.8, in support of the fast carrier strikes conducted during the Iwo Jima
Iwo Jima
Iwo Jima, officially , is an island of the Japanese Volcano Islands chain, which lie south of the Ogasawara Islands and together with them form the Ogasawara Archipelago. The island is located south of mainland Tokyo and administered as part of Ogasawara, one of eight villages of Tokyo...
and Okinawa operations. During the next four months, she visited Guam
Guam
Guam is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States located in the western Pacific Ocean. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. Guam is listed as one of 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories by the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United...
and the Ryukyu Islands
Ryukyu Islands
The , also known as the , is a chain of islands in the western Pacific, on the eastern limit of the East China Sea and to the southwest of the island of Kyushu in Japan. From about 1829 until the mid 20th century, they were alternately called Luchu, Loochoo, or Lewchew, akin to the Mandarin...
. On 4 June to 5 June, while steaming with the logistics group in support of TF 58 and the strikes on Okinawa, the carrier steamed right through the famous typhoon of 1945, suffering lost and damaged planes as well as damage to her flight and hangar decks. On 16 June, she cleared the Marianas en route to Oahu. The warship arrived in Pearl Harbor on the 25th but departed again two days later. She entered port at San Diego on 11 July, and immediately began repairs to correct the typhoon damage she had suffered earlier in the month. Those repairs lasted through late August, so that she missed the final weeks of the war.
On 26 August, she departed San Diego on her way back to the Central Pacific carrying Marine Fighter Squadron 312 (VMF-312) to Guam. She stopped briefly at Pearl Harbor and arrived in Apra Harbor
Apra Harbor
Apra Harbor is a deep-water port on the western side of Guam in the Mariana Islands. The harbor is formed by Orote Peninsula in the south and Cabras Island in the north. To the south, the harbor narrows and then widens again to form an inner harbor. The southern end of the harbor is the location...
on 15 September. After unloading passengers and cargo at Guam, Windham Bay headed for Samar in the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
where she arrived on 19 September. There, she loaded passengers, planes, and equipment for transportation back to Hawaii. She got underway from Leyte on 24 September, made a stop at Guam on the 27th, and arrived back at Oahu on 7 October. On the 8th, she continued eastward toward the west coast and arrived at San Diego on the 14th.
Five days later, the ship headed back to Pearl Harbor on her way to participate in Operation "Magic Carpet", the return of American servicemen to the United States. After a round-trip voyage to San Pedro, California, and back to Pearl Harbor, she set out for the western Pacific once more on 13 November. Arriving at Samar in the Philippines on the 26th, she loaded passengers and then headed east again on the 28th. She stopped at Oahu along the way and arrived in Port Hueneme, California, on 17 December. She moved to San Pedro on the 18th and remained there through the New Year.
On 8 January 1946, Windham Bay departed San Pedro, headed for Hawaii, and arrived in Pearl Harbor on 14 January. She departed Oahu again on the 15th and arrived in San Pedro on the 21st. Within days, however, she moved north to Tacoma, Washington, where she reported for duty with the Pacific Reserve Fleet on 25 January 1946. She remained there—in commission, in reserve—until 23 August 1946 when she was placed out of commission.
Korean War
The escort carrier stayed with the Reserve Fleet until hostilities erupted in KoreaKorea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
during the summer of 1950. On 28 October 1950, she was recommissioned at Bremerton, Washington, Capt. Charles E. Brunton in command. On 20 November, she steamed south to California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, visiting San Francisco on the way to San Diego where she arrived on 2 December. After 11 days, the escort carrier returned to San Francisco whence she embarked upon a voyage to Pearl Harbor on the 19th. Returning to the west coast at Alameda
Alameda, California
Alameda is a city in Alameda County, California, United States. It is located on Alameda Island and Bay Farm Island, and is adjacent to Oakland in the San Francisco Bay. The Bay Farm Island portion of the city is adjacent to the Oakland International Airport. At the 2010 census, the city had a...
on 2 January 1951, the warship headed west again five days later. She arrived in Yokohama, Japan, on the 24th and unloaded a cargo of aircraft for use in the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
which the United States had entered under the auspices of the United Nations. Departing Japan two days later, she visited Saigon in French Indochina
French Indochina
French Indochina was part of the French colonial empire in southeast Asia. A federation of the three Vietnamese regions, Tonkin , Annam , and Cochinchina , as well as Cambodia, was formed in 1887....
and Manila
Manila
Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...
in the Philippines before shaping a course back to the United States. Windham Bay reentered San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...
on 24 February.
At this juncture, the escort carrier settled into a routine of transpacific resupply voyages between the United States and Japan. Over the next 20 months, she made nine round-trip voyages, beginning each at either San Francisco or San Diego, stopping always at Yokosuka, and returning always to San Francisco. She broke that nine-voyage routine in October and November 1952 when she visited Takao
Takao
Takao may refer to:* Mount Takao in Tokyo, Japan* Kaohsiung, Taiwan: The Taiwanese and Japanese name before administration of Taiwan was handed to the Republic of China...
, Japan, and Bangkok
Bangkok
Bangkok is the capital and largest urban area city in Thailand. It is known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon or simply Krung Thep , meaning "city of angels." The full name of Bangkok is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom...
, Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, before returning via Japan to the west coast at Alameda on 9 December.
Windham Bay continued her aircraft ferrying voyages between the United States and Japan during 1953. The war in Korea, however, began to subside in intensity at about the same time, and her passages began to take on more of a peacetime character. She began making more stops and side trips in addition to Yokosuka—notably to Hawaii, the Philippines, and at other Japanese ports. French Indochina also returned to her itinerary in May 1954 and again in February and March 1955 when she made visits to Saigon, capital of the newly constituted Republic of Vietnam. On 12 June 1955, she was redesignated CVU-92. In May 1957, she added Naha, Okinawa
Naha, Okinawa
is the capital city of the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa.Naha is a coastal city located on the East China Sea coast of the southern part of Okinawa Island, the largest of the Ryukyu Islands...
, to her list of ports of call; and, in December, she made one more stop at Saigon. Otherwise, the remainder of her career consisted of the normal west coast-to-Japan aircraft resupply voyages in support of the fast carriers assigned to the western Pacific.
Her career lasted until the end of 1958. In January 1959, she was decommissioned and was berthed with the San Francisco Group, Pacific Reserve Fleet. Her name was struck from the Navy List on 1 February 1959, and she was subsequently sold to the Hugo Neu Steel Products Corp., of New York City. The ship was scrapped in Japan in February 1961.