One of 50 ships designed by the U.S. Maritime Commission as a “small airplane transport with flight deck,” the USS St. Lo (CVE-63) bore her name for just 15 days before she met a fiery end. But there is much more to the ship’s story.
The St. Lo belonged to a large group of warships collectively known as escort carriers that originated before the United States entered World War II. Initially viewed as auxiliaries—and designated APV (special escort ship or transport, aviation), AVG (aircraft tender, general purpose), and ACV (auxiliary aircraft carrier)—they did not receive combat status as CVEs (aircraft carriers [escort]) until mid-July 1943.
The first 50 such ships consisted of a hodgepodge of individuals and classes, all basically created to get more seaborne aircraft into the fight as soon as possible. The initial designs were based on existing completed ships and hulls then on the ways. These were followed by 45 Bogue-class CVEs, 33 of which were transferred to the Royal Navy. The Bogues were modifications of the Maritime Commission’s C3-S-A1 cargo-ship hulls. It was not until the Casablanca (CVE-55) and her sisters, including the St. Lo, that the Navy received purpose-designed and -built escort carriers.
The St. Lo’s origins began on 8 June 1942. During a White House meeting that included Vice Admiral Emory S. Land of the Maritime Commission and Rear Admiral H. S. Howard of the Bureau of Ships, President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced that more escort carriers should be built. Fifty ships (ACV-55–104) to be based on a design by the famed naval architects of Gibbs & Cox were ordered.
Despite being austere and valued for their speed of production, the St. Lo and her sisters surpassed their forebears in many ways. Most important over the Bogues, the Casablancas had flat hangar decks. Those of the earlier ships followed the vessels’ sheer and camber and presented significant plane-handling issues, especially at sea. The Casablancas’ 10,200-ton fully loaded displacement was 4,000 tons less than the Bogues’ and up to 14,000 tons less than the earlier conversions, yet they had larger flight decks, longer hangar decks, and retained virtually the same aviation capability.
The Casablanca ships’ machinery spaces were well dispersed for survivability, whereas the C-3s’ and other conversions’ were centralized. And again, despite being fitted with reciprocating steam engines to drive their twin screws because of the lack of steam turbines and even diesels, the later ships were faster and more maneuverable. Perhaps their greatest weakness lay in armor protection. There simply was no space for it. Some adjustments were made in service such as moving bomb stowage to a centerline compartment and converting outboard compartments into oil/fuel storage for protection. As the war progressed with higher-density weapons, magazine spaces were reduced in size, and armor added to their transverse—but not longitudinal—bulkheads.
ACV-63 was laid down on 23 January 1943 as the Chapin Bay at Kaiser Shipyard, Vancouver, Washington. Barely more than two months later, on 3 April, she was renamed the Midway. She was launched as CVE-63 on 17 August and, exactly nine months after being laid down, was commissioned 23 October.
Through the remainder of 1943 until mid-1944, she saw service as her class was originally intended—moving aircraft. She made two transport missions to Pearl Harbor and one to Australia. Then the Midway went to war. In quick succession from June to September 1944, she and her crew earned three battle stars with action at Saipan, Tinian, Morotai, and the Palaus. While at Seeadler Harbor, Manus Island, the Midway’s commanding officer, Captain F. J. McKenna, received notice that his ship had been renamed the St. Lo on 10 October. This was to free up her previous name for use by the lead ship of a new class of large battle aircraft carriers (CVBs).
A week later, the CVE set sail for her fourth battle star as an element of Rear Admiral Clifton Sprague’s Task Unit 77.4.3, soon to be well known as “Taffy 3.” With five other CVEs, three destroyers, and four destroyer escorts, she launched attacks from 18 to 24 October against targets on Leyte, Samar, Cebu, Negros, and Pansy islands.
Seaman First Class Leo Carl “Dusty” Goheen was attached to the ship’s composite squadron VC-65 and on crash duty as “Asbestos Joe”—wearing the silver-colored asbestos garb and slated to wade into any fire to rescue personnel. He recalled that 25 October “started out as a fine day. The sun was bright on the horizon as the morning flight of the Wildcat fighters and Grumman torpedo bombers left the flight deck [at 0530] on the first air patrol of the day.”
It was a St. Lo pilot, Ensign William C. Brooks Jr., flying a TBM-1C Avenger on antisubmarine patrol who at 0647 reported the fateful surprising discovery to the task unit: A Japanese battle force—Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita’s Center Force—consisting of 4 battleships, 8 cruisers, and 12 destroyers was barely 20 miles from Taffy 3. Almost immediately the task unit made visual contact. Brooks, unprotected by fighter cover, was the first to attack the force, using the depth charges his plane was carrying. He claimed hits on a heavy cruiser.
The biggest “guns” on board Taffy 3 were its aircraft. All it had for a straight shooting fight were 5-inch guns and 40-mm and 20-mm cannon. The St. Lo’s action report notes the first enemy shell splashes at 0658. The cat-and-mouse gun battle raged for nearly three full hours, with Taffy 3’s CVEs almost in constant course change to evade the cascading shells, before the St. Lo reported at 0924 that the enemy had ceased firing and was retiring. Despite being straddled numerous times, the CVE had taken no hits. The destroyers and destroyer escorts had fought valiantly to protect their charges, but the Johnston (DD-557), Hoel (DD-533), and Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413) had been sunk with great loss of life. Five CVEs survived, but the Gambier Bay (CVE-73) succumbed to the gunfire.
At 1010 the St. Lo secured from general quarters, but 41 minutes later it sounded again; this time for an air attack. Members of the Japanese 201st Air Group in the Philippines had been selected to mount the first special-attack—kamikaze—operation against the Americans. At 1053 an A6M5 Model 52 “Zeke” with a bomb under each wing crossed the St. Lo’s ramp at less than 50 feet and “appeared to push [over] sufficiently to hit the deck at about number 5 wire, 15 feet to the port side of the center line.”
Within two minutes, two significant explosions peeled back huge sections of the flight deck. Goheen recalled, “I never heard the explosion that took place at that very moment. . . . The only thing I was aware of is that I knew I was flying through the air. I felt as though I was just floating very peacefully through the air.”
A third eruption blew the forward elevator out of its shaft. By now, still shortly before 1100, the captain had decided the ship could not be saved. With all communications out except sound-powered telephones, word to “stand by to abandon ship” was passed partly by word of mouth. Once the engines had stopped and the CVE sufficiently dead in the water, he ordered “abandon ship.” The captain numbered the explosions at eight, with four being very heavy, before the ship, engulfed in flames, sank at 1125. She was the first major U.S. combatant lost in a kamikaze attack.
More than 140 of her 889-man crew died as a result of the battle, and the ship received a Presidential Unit Citation for the crew’s heroism. The escort carrier that served barely two weeks in her guise as the St. Lo rests at the bottom of the Philippine Sea, where perhaps the name still welded on her stern is Midway.
USS St. Lo, Casablanca-class Aircraft Carrier, Escort
Displacement: 7,800 tons
Length: 512 feet, 3 inches
Beam: 65 feet
Extreme Width (flight deck): 108 feet, 1 inch
Draft: 22 feet, 6 inches
Speed: 19 knots
Armament:
1 5-inch/38-caliber gun
16 40-mm cannon
Complement: 860 officers and enlisted men