USS Hornet CV-12 - real life tour

[Chainsaw_Ecosse]

 

So as threatened in my North Carolina real life tour, I got to see this old girl a couple of weeks ago now, the USS Hornet CV-12.  The 8th of her name, the previous Hornet, CV-8 sank in the Battle of Santa Cruz in 1942.  CV-8 was a Yorktown class and just as famous if not a little more so.  Her biggest claim to fame was that after Pearl Harbour the US were looking for some retaliation and put 16 B25 medium bombers on CV-8 and set sail for Japan, target, Tokyo!  

 

 

The Doolitle raid named after the commander, Lieutenant Colonel James "Jimmy" Doolittle was a great propaganda success raising morale in the US and bringing the war to the japanese mainland and letting them know they were not immune from attack.  The B25s were unable to land back on the carriers so kept heading west into China and Russia with most of the crews being recovered back to the US.  I was on her 73 years and one day after the raid which this plaque commemorates.

 

 

The end of CV-8 Hornet came during the Battle of Santa Cruz, some 20 TBDs and about 16 DBs made it past the largely ineffective US CAP to press home their attack.  She took 3 DB bomb hits and then a damaged DB hit her flight deck covering the deck in burning aviation fuel.  The 20 TBDs meanwhile had started their runs and hit with 2 torps knocking out her engines...  Luckily the aircraft then departed to rearm.  Attempts to tow her out or restore some power failed and it was decided to scuttle her before the japanese fleet arrived.  After hundreds of shells and a good few torps she obstinately remained afloat as japanese warships approached and the US destroyers retired.  The Japanese thought about capturing her but decided that the burning hulk was too badly damaged.  The destroyers Makigumo and Akigumo then finished her off with four torps.

You can see CV8 and the 3 incarnations of CV12 in this poster

 

 

CV-12 had a pretty distinguished career, being involved in the battles for New Guinea, Iwo Jima, The Battle of the Philippine Sea and the infamous Marianus turkey shoot, the Battle for Leyte Gulf and was part of the attacks which eventually sank the Yamato.  She was on the front line for a solid 16 months and came under air attack around 60 times, but was never hit. Her aircraft destroyed about 1,400 Japanese aircraft with only the Essex beating this record. 10 of her pilots attained "Ace in a Day" status, 5 kills in a day. Some of her exploits are shown here;

 

 

Obviously we are looking at the latest incarnation, with the angled flight deck mod and most of the AA guns removed as the carrier doctrine had changed by her last, post war, refit.

 

 

 

There are only 3 decks available to meander round, the flight deck, the hanger and deck 2, just below the hanger deck,  There are tours to the engineering spaces and the island.

 

Starting in the hanger deck, as you can imagine, quite spacious but not when you fill it full of aircraft,

 

 

Avenger TBD, not much height here at all!

 

 

 

[Chainsaw_Ecosse]

 

Some more Avenger shots, with payload

 

 

 

 

Over and above the usual bow catapults for launching of aircraft, they had a hanger deck catapult, launching aircraft out the side of the ship.  Apparently filed under 'not good ideas!'

 

 

The bow lift, one of 3 lifts (bow, midships opposite island and stern)  

 

 

I was lucky enough to ride this the last time I was on and it's surprisingly quick I suppose to minimise the chances of anything sneaking in during a battle.  (apologies for the crappy quality)

 

 

One of 2 internal blast doors to separate the hanger in case of fire

 

 

The other thing the Hornet is famous for is that it recovered the Apollo 11 mission when it splashed down after putting the first men on the moon.  The helo picked them up, they were brought down the lift, still in the helo and then transferred to this quarantine caravan in case of 'moon germs'   President Nixon met them here.

 

 

[Chainsaw_Ecosse]

 

I then headed up to the flight deck to catch an island tour... yes they put in an escalator (for tourist purposes...)

 

 

On the flight deck things are a little different from the WW2 config.  Less arrestor cables, the refit left only 4 cables whereas the WW2 config had something like 8 or so although the barricade used to catch the aircraft if they didn't hook on remains pretty much the same.  You can see one of the cable pulleys here and also the arm for the barricade

 

 

The island, with the bow to the left.  Rear radome and behind that the Primary Flight control which looked after the aircraft landing from the rear.

 

 

one of the remaining and modernized 5in gun mounts

 

 

Flight deck looking aft towards San Francisco

 

 

one of the portside 5in mounts

 

 

In the island we had a tour of the main areas, this is the flight boss' position in 'PriFly' aka Primary Flight control.

 

 

and his view

 

 

you can see the 4 pair of arrestor cable pulleys and the barricade hydraulic arm (only 1 is raised)

 

[Chainsaw_Ecosse]

 

Heading below decks we went into the forecastle where the anchor and associated machinery was.  Interesting to see how this all worked, lots of noise and if you got in the way of this thing when it was paying out, there would not have been much left of you.

 

 

There was a display in this space showing some damage she took.  She was caught in a typhoon and the force was such that it damaged the flight deck force the aircraft to launch off the back as she steamed backwards into the wind

 

 

There were a few interesting areas below decks including the marine detachment, the various medical facilities and the torpedo maintenance and arming area.

This was set up similarly to a battleship turret with the bits that go bang stowed below and only brought up when required.

This was looking down under the floor of the torp room, the floor hatch opened up and the torps were winched up to be worked on.

 

 

The torp room looked like this, not much room to work.  Note the black and yellow 'I' beams which carried the winch and allowed you to move the torps around and the hatches, one open and one closed to access below.

 

 

You can see the I beams going through into the crew bunkspace.  The bunks were cleared away and they used this space for storing torps as they got them ready prior to a battle.

 

 

They were then taken up in this lift, through the 'citadel' wall into the hanger deck

 

 

Well that's about all the interesting bits, never got to see the engine room but hopefully this gives you an idea of how some of the stuff really worked when you are playing WoWS.

 

Cheers,

Alan

 

[Kevbar]

Fantastic dit, thanks for taking the time to share this.