137
GALLANT MEN
USS GAMBIER BAY (CVE-73)
KILLED IN ACTION
JUNE & JULY 1944
DURING THE
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U.S. Navy Photograph
| On the morning of October 25, 1944, USS Gambier Bay (CVE 73) was steaming off the island of Samar with her task unit "Taffy 3". At 0647 she received word that a sizeable Japanese fleet was approaching from the northwest. Comprised of 4 battleships, 8 cruisers, and eleven destroyers, Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita's Japanese Centre Force steadily closed and at 0658 opened fire on "Taffy 3." Gambier Bay launched the aircraft of Composite Squadron VC-10 from within the safety of a driving rain squall. Unable to top 18 knots, she was easy game for the much faster Japanese warships. This mis-match in speed soon became evident when the task unit exited the rain squall at about 0730. By 0820 she was within range of accurate 8-inch heavy cruiser gunfire, was hit repeatedly and was soon dead in the water. She capsized and sank at 0907 as the only U.S. carrier sunk by gunfire in World War 2.. |
Click onto my web site, www.USSGambierBay-VC10.com/kia.htm to learn about my Killed in Action Shipmates and view their youthful faces, ages, rates/rank, and their home towns. We have not forgotten them. May they all rest in Peace with the Lord, until such time as the sea gives up its dead, and we are all together again.
Tony Potochniak USS Gambier Bay - VC10 Web Site Historian
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| ouroldnavy@aol.com last revised July 15, 2007 Copyright © 2004 Our Old Navy All rights reserved. Void where prohibited. |
