LOSS OF USS ST LO-CVE 63

[aurora]

Newly renamed SAINT LO departed Seeadler Harbor on October 12 to participate in the liberation of the Philippines, where she arrived on October 17th. After furnishing air support during landings by Ranger units on Dinagat and Homonhon Islands in the eastern approached to Leyte Gulf, she launched air strikes in support of invasion operations at Tacloban on the northeast coast of Leyte. Operating with RADM C.A.F. "Ziggy" Sprague's escort carrier unit "Taffy 3", which consisted of six escort carriers and a screen of three destroyers and four destroyer escorts, SAINT LO steamed off the east coast of Leyte and Samar as her planes sortied from October 18 to 24, destroying enemy installations and airfields on Leyte, Samar, Cebu, Negros, and Panoy Islands.

Steaming about 60 miles east of Samar before dawn on October 25, Taffy 3 had launched the day's initial air strikes by 0530. At 0637 RADM sprague, aboard flagship FANSHAW BAY, received word that a large Japanese fleet was approaching from the northwest. Comprised of four battleships, eight cruisers, and eleven destroyers, Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita's IJN Centre Force steadily closed theunsuspecting Americans and at 0658 opened fire on the ships of Taffy 3.
With the main surface action complete, the task unit continued southward, placing as much distance between themselves and the Japanese as possible.

Loss of SAINT LO (CVE 63)
At 1010, about forty minutes after the surface action had concluded, the ship secured from General Quarters. Ten minutes later condition watches were set and personnel were allowed to get coffee and a chance to relax. Relatively undamaged from the surface action, SAINT LO took aboard several aircraft from the other CVEs. All planes were struck below to clear the flight deck for further landings and also to expedite refueling and rearming three of the torpedo bombers with torpedoes.
At about 1051 AA fire was seen and heard forward and General Quarters was sounded. Almost immediately thereafter, number planes, believed to include both friendly and enemy, were seen at 1000 to 3000 feet ahead and on the starboard bow. These planes moved aft to starboard and one of them, when about abeam to starboard, went into a right turn toward the SAINT LO. The after starboard guns opened on him, but with no apparent effect. A "Zeke 52" with a bomb under each wing continued its right turn on its suicide run against the SAINT LO.
Approaching the ramp at very high speed, the "Zeke 52" crossed over the aft end of the ship at less than fifty feet. He appeared to push over sufficiently to hit the deck at about the "number 5 wire", fifteen feet to the port side of the center line. A tremendous crash followed quickly followed by an explosion as one or both of the enemy s bombs exploded. The aircraft continued up the deck leaving fragments strewed about and its remanents went over the bow.
The Captains first impression was that no serious damage had been suffered. There was a hole in the flight deck with smoldering edges which sprang into flame. Hoses were immediately run out from both sides of the flight deck and water started on the fire....smoke soon appeared on both sides of the ship, evidently coming from the hangar. Within one to one and one-half minutes an explosion occurred on the hangar deck, which puffed smoke and flame through the hole in the deck and bulged the flight deck near and aft of the hole. This was followed in a matter of seconds by a much more violent explosion, which rolled back a part of the flight deck bursting through aft of the original hole. The next heavy explosion tore out more of the flight deck and also blew the forward elevator out of its shaft. Shortly before 1100, the Captain decided that the ship could not be saved.

SAINT LO, with a very heavy list to port, sank at about 1125. The remaining screening ships of Taffy 3 were dispatched and rescued all of the survivors.

USS SAINT LO (CVE 63) received the Presidential Unit Citation for the heroism of her crew in the Battle Off Samar and four Battle Stars for her service in World War II.

Source: Dictionary of American Fighting Ships, Vol. III, 1968, Navy Department, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Naval History Division, Washington, D.C.; USS SAINT LO (CVE) Surface Action Report, 25 October 1944, F. J. McKenna, CAPT, USN, Commanding; Narrative Concerning the Loss of USS SAINT LO (CVE 63), F. J. McKenna, CAPT, USN, Commanding; and The Battle Off Samar - The Tragedy of Taffy III, by Robert Jon Cox, 1996

aurora

[aurora]

A Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero—perhaps flown by Lieutenant Yukio Seki—crashed into the flight deck of St. Lo at 10:51. Its bomb penetrated the flight deck and exploded on the port side of the hangar deck, where aircraft were in the process of being refuelled and rearmed. A gasoline fire erupted, followed by six secondary explosions, including detonations of the ship's torpedo and bomb magazine. St. Lo was engulfed in flame and sank 34 minutes later.Of the 889 men aboard, 113 were killed or missing and approximately 30 others died of their wounds. The survivors were rescued from the water by Heermann, John C. Butler, Raymond, and Dennis (which picked up 434 survivors)

[paulcadogan]

This event was captured on film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTCxd-24gtM

Can't really make out the debris going over the bow though....

And of course there's this photo:

[aurora]

Thank you for the great imaging Paul to enhance the text- one can plainly see that providing illustration- is but one of your strengths.

[paulcadogan]

It's always good to see what happened!

In looking at the video again I can't see how remnants of the aircraft went forward over the bow. The plane looks to have come in from the port quarter so momentum should have taken if over the starboard side.

Strange too that damage control info took so long to come from the hangar, for the captain not to have realized the danger from below.

[aurora]

I guess this would be down to trauma with resultant confusion and the need to control the situation at the time.It all happened so quickly and whether the Captain could have
prevented the final explosion;but that gaping hole spoke volumes-particularly with the flames belching out