USS Block Island was a of the United States Navy. The Commencement Bay class were built during World War II, and were an improvement over the earlier , which were converted from oil tankers. They were capable of carrying an air group of 33 planes and were armed with an anti-aircraft battery of , , and guns. The ships were capable of a top speed of , and due to their origin as tankers, had extensive fuel storage.
She was launched on 10 June 1944 as Sunset Bay by Todd-Pacific Shipyards, Inc. Tacoma, Washington; sponsored by Mrs. E. J. (Grace) Hallenbeck (mother of Major Pappy Boyington, then a Prisoner of War of the Japanese), and commissioned as Block Island on 30 December 1944.
Design
In 1941, as United States participation in World War II became increasingly likely, the US Navy embarked on a construction program for escort carriers, which were converted from transport ships of various types. Many of the escort carrier types were converted from C3-type transports, but the s were instead rebuilt oil tankers. These proved to be very successful ships, and the , authorized for Fiscal Year 1944, were an improved version of the Sangamon design. The new ships were faster, had improved aviation facilities, and had better internal compartmentation. They proved to be the most successful of the escort carriers, and the only class to be retained in active service after the war, since they were large enough to operate newer aircraft.
Block Island was long overall, with a beam of at the waterline, which extended to at maximum. She displaced at full load, of which could be fuel oil (though some of her storage tanks were converted to permanently store seawater for ballast), and at full load she had a draft of . The ship's superstructure consisted of a small island. She had a complement of 1,066 officers and enlisted men.
The ship was powered by two Allis-Chalmers geared steam turbines, each driving one screw propeller, using steam provided by four Combustion Engineering-manufactured water-tube boilers. The propulsion system was rated to produce a total of for a top speed of . Given the very large storage capacity for oil, the ships of the Commencement Bay class could steam for some at a speed of .
Her defensive anti-aircraft armament consisted of two dual-purpose guns in single mounts, thirty-six Bofors guns, and twenty Oerlikon light AA cannons. The Bofors guns were placed in three quadruple and twelve twin mounts, while the Oerlikon guns were all mounted individually. She carried 33 planes, which could be launched from two aircraft catapults. Two elevators transferred aircraft from the hangar to the flight deck.
Service history
World War II
The first fifteen ships of the Commencement Bay class were ordered on 23 January 1943, allocated to Fiscal Year 1944. The ship was originally laid down as Sunset Bay at the Todd-Pacific Shipyards in Tacoma, Washington, on 25 October 1943. The ship was launched on 10 June 1944. While construction was still on-going on 5 July, she was renamed Block Island after the Block Island Sound, which lies between Block Island and the coast of Rhode Island. The ship was commissioned into active service on 30 December 1944. After completing final fitting out, the ship left Tacoma on 10 January for a short period of initial training in Puget Sound. She then stopped at the Puget Sound Navy Yard to take on ammunition and supplies, before departing for San Francisco, California, on 20 January. She arrived there two days later and loaded five picket boats and several damaged aircraft that were to be transported to San Diego, California. She left San Francisco on 24 January and arrived on the 26th, disembarked her cargo, and then began loading 5-inch High Velocity Aircraft Rockets.
Block Islands first aircraft came aboard on 3 February; these were eight Grumman F6F Hellcat fighters and eight Vought F4U Corsair fighters of squadron VMF-511, which formed part on Carrier Aircraft Service Division 1 (CASD). The next day, the ship went to sea to begin initial carrier operations training. The torpedo bomber squadron VMTB-233, which operated Grumman TBM Avengers, completed CASD 1 on 7 February. Three days later, the ship sailed in company with the destroyer for what was to have been ten days of combat training off San Diego. These included live-fire training for the ship's aircraft. On 14 February, one of the ship's aircraft suffered a mechanical breakdown and crashed, though the pilot was recovered by the seaplane tender . The weather worsened through the afternoon, and a flight of four fighters and six Avengers launched at 16:40 had to be recalled at 17:34 due to an approaching storm; only one Avenger was able to land on the carrier. The rest were redirected to the airfield on San Nicolas Island. But by the time they arrived there, the storm had reached the island. One Avenger crashed there, killing all three men aboard, as did a pair of Corairs, whose pilots also died. The flight leader attempted to land his Avenger first at San Nicolas, then at Santa Barbara, and ultimately at Bakersfield, but he also crashed before reaching the airfield, killing the three-man crew. Three other planes ditched at sea off San Nicholas, and three men were pulled from the water by Coast Guard rescue vessels. The remaining planes landed safely at San Nicolas. The incident forced the cancellation of training, as Block Island and Childs spent the next day searching for downed pilots before returning to San Diego.
Block Island thereafter resumed an intensive training schedule for the next month in preparation for deployment to the western Pacific to join the forces fighting Japan. She got underway on 20 March, bound for Pearl Harbor, carrying a load of 30 extra planes and 192 passengers in addition to her normal crew and complement of 36 planes. She arrived in Pearl Harbor on 26 March and disembarked the passengers and cargo; she then spent several weeks conducting combat training off Hawaii. Block Island departed Pearl Harbor on 17 April to join the fleet at its forward base at Ulithi in the Caroline Islands, in company with the destroyer . After passing through Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands on the way, the two ships arrived off Ulithi on 28 April. While approaching the atoll, they received reports of enemy aircraft approaching, and their crews observed American aircraft destroy a Nakajima B6N torpedo bomber. Block Islands anti-aircraft gunners accidentally opened fire on two American planes, but did not shoot them down before realizing they were friendly aircraft. The two ships anchored in Ulithi later that day and became part of Fifth Fleet, centered on the Fast Carrier Task Force.
Battle of Okinawa
On 30 April, Block Island sortied with the destroyer and destroyer escort , bound for Okinawa, where US forces were engaged in a battle to seize the island. Block Island joined Task Unit 52.1.1, commanded by Rear Admiral Calvin Durgin, on 3 May some southeast of Okinawa. The following day, she was transferred to Task Unit 52.1.3, commanded by Rear Admiral William Sample. There, she joined the escort carriers , , and . Over the course of the next week, Block Island contributed her aircraft to the combat air patrol to introduce them to combat operations.
The ship made her first aerial attack on Japanese positions on 10 May, first sending her TBMs to drop bombs and fire rockets at a Japanese strongpoint near the town of Naha. At around 12:00, several of her fighters were sent to strafe Japanese facilities on a nearby island. Later that afternoon, her planes were rearmed and refueled for a strike on airfields in the nearby Sakishima Islands. The strike force, which consisted of eight fighters and eight TBMs, struck airfields at Hirara and Nobara, damaging airfields and related infrastructure. Japanese defensive fire shot down two of the TBMs, though one of them managed to limp back to the carrier and ditch nearby, allowing its crew to be picked up by an escorting destroyer.
The following morning, the ship's pilots began further strikes on Japanese airfields in the Sakishima Islands, beginning with a fighter sweep over Ishigaki Island. A force of bombers and fighters then hit the airfield on Ishigaki, followed by another fighter sweep to attack any remaining opposition. Three of Block Islands planes were damaged by anti-aircraft fire, but they were able to return to the ship. A fourth plane was forced to land at Yontan on Okinawa due to damage to its hydraulic system, along with a bomb that had come loose from its hardpoint in the plane's bomb bay. Aircraft from the British Pacific Fleet then took over attacks on the Sakishima Islands on 11 May, allowing Block Island to return to direct operations on Okinawa itself.
Block Island remained in action off Okinawa for the next ten days as the fighting to secure the island persisted. On 22 May, the ship left for the nearby island of Kerama Retto to replenish ammunition and other supplies before returning to operations off Okinawa. These included strikes on 24 May on Shuri Castle, a major strong point of the Japanese defensive line in southern Okinawa. On the 27th, a sweep by four fighters over Ishigaki resulted in the death of VMF-511's commander after his aircraft failed to pull out of a dive during a rocket attack on the harbor facilities there. On 29 May, the ship's planes flew a total of 29 sorties against the airfields on Ishigaki and Miyako Island; during one raid on the former, one of the ship's TBMs was shot down by ground fire. The ship continued to operate off Okinawa for the next three weeks, and on 16 June, one of her Hellcats was shot down over Amami Ōshima. Later that day, Block Island transferred to Carrier Division 27, becoming the flagship of Rear Admiral Dixwell Ketcham. She then sailed south to the Philippines for operations elsewhere.
End of the war
On 19 June, Block Island arrived in Leyte Gulf in the northern Philippines for a brief period of rest before sortieing as part of the invasion fleet for what was to be the last major amphibious assault of the Pacific War. Block Island, her sister ship , and Suwannee departed with an escort of six destroyers, bound for Balikpapan on the island of Borneo. After arriving on 30 June, the carriers' planes began air strikes on Japanese positions there to cover the Australian assault on the town that began the following day. Block Islands pilots flew some 98 sorties over the following three days of combat operations. None of her aircraft were shot down during the fighting, and in the early hours of 3 July, one of her Hellcats shot down an Aichi E13A1 reconnaissance floatplane, which proved to be the only aerial victory claimed by the ship's fighters during the war. Following the end of Japanese resistance in the city, Block Island and the rest of the squadron returned north to the Philippines, though Block Island soon departed for Guam for repairs to her arresting gear.