WWII USS HOGGATT BAY CVE-75 VC-14 SQUADRON PATCH

WWII US Navy Named and Patched Aviator Kit Bag from a Veteran who served on the USS Hoggatt Bay CVE-75 and was a backseat gunner on a Grumman TBF Avenger. The bag shows signs of use but the leather tag and canvas squadron patch are in excellent condition. The gunner was C.O. Emery USNR. The squadron patch is VC-14 and measures 6 1/2 inches wide and made of canvas. Service history After intensive training off the California coast, Hoggatt Bay transported aircraft and crews to Pearl Harbor from 10–25 March 1944. Upon her return and further training in antisubmarine work, she sailed on 1 May for Pearl Harbor and Majuro. The combination of escort carriers and destroyers had proven itself effective against submarines in the Battle of the Atlantic, and was now to be used in the Pacific against the Japanese. Hoggatt Bay and a group of destroyers and destroyer escorts patrolled in the southwest Pacific from 26 May-19 June with notable success. England scored a kill on Ro-105 on 31 May and Taylor sank Ro-111 with depth charges and gunfire 11 June. These operations and those of other groups did much to reduce Japanese submarine interference with the invasion of the Marianas. Returning to the patrol area after a brief stay at Eniwetok, Hoggatt Bay's group provided air support and cover for the Marianas operation from 5 July–9 August, after which the ships returned to Manus Island. Next on the timetable of Pacific conquest was Peleliu, a valuable air base for further advances, and Hoggatt Bay sortied 1 September to furnish antisubmarine protection and search planes for the invasion. For nearly two months the escort carrier cruised these seas south and west of the Marianas in support of American operations. Samuel S. Miles, a member of her group, sank I-177 on 3 October, and later in the month planes from Hoggatt Bay helped provide air cover for Houston as she struggled toward Ulithi. The ship arrived at Ulithi on 28 October, and sailed on 10 November to provide air support for the developing campaign in the Philippines. This was followed by amphibious exercises in Huon Gulf, New Guinea, in preparation for the Lingayen unit operations. Arriving at Manus on 20 December 1944, Hoggatt Bay joined the great task force which departed from that and other staging bases in late December for Lingayen Gulf. The voyage through the Philippines was a perilous one, as the Japanese attacked with their last desperate weapon, the suicide plane. Crewmen on Hoggatt Bay and the other ships fought continuously after 3 January, downing many of the attackers, but Ommaney Bay was lost and other ships damaged. Arriving Lingayen Gulf on 6 January, Hoggatt Bay sent her carrier planes in to support the landings and destroy strong points despite suicide attacks; this vital work continued until 17 January, when the ship set course for Ulithi, and then San Diego. Temporary repairs at Ulithi and more extensively at San Diego were necessitated by an accidental explosion of bombs as aircraft landed onboard on 15 January off Luzon, Philippine Islands. The veteran escort carrier returned to San Diego 15 February 1945, and after much-needed repairs sailed 6 April to join the vast fleet arrayed off Okinawa in support of the invasion. She arrived Okinawa 8 May via Pearl Harbor and Ulithi and immediately took station south of the island to lend her aircraft to the carrier air forces engaged in the operation. Her planes flew direct support missions, photographic flights, and supply drops during the period from 8 May-24 June. Hoggatt Bay arrived at Leyte Gulf on 27 June, and after a month of training sailed on 28 July for Adak, Alaska. The surrender came while the carrier was en route, however, and the planned operation was replaced by occupation plans. After her arrival on 18 August, Hoggatt Bay sailed for Ominato. She arrived September and supported the occupation of Hokkaido and northern Honshu. During this period aircraft from the ship discovered many Japanese prison camps, and the ship had the pleasure of evacuating Lieutenant Colonel James Devereux, Marine Commander at Wake Island when captured by the Japanese. Hoggatt Bay also participated in the occupation of Aomori before anchoring in Tokyo Bay on 27 September. The escort carrier departed Tokyo on 30 September and, after a brief service with the "Magic Carpet" fleet, returned to Boston and was decommissioned on 20 July 1946. Operational history U.S. Navy On the afternoon of 7 December 1941, Grumman held a ceremony to open a new manufacturing plant and display the new TBF to the public. Coincidentally, on that day, the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor, as Grumman soon found out. After the ceremony was over, the plant was quickly sealed off to guard against possible sabotage. By early June 1942, a shipment of more than 100 aircraft was sent to the Navy, arriving only a few hours after the three carriers quickly departed from Pearl Harbor, so most of them were too late to participate in the pivotal Battle of Midway. Six TBF-1s were present on Midway Island – as part of VT-8 (Torpedo Squadron 8) – while the rest of the squadron flew Devastators from the aircraft carrier Hornet. Both types of torpedo bombers suffered heavy casualties. Out of the six Avengers, five were shot down and the other returned heavily damaged with one of its gunners killed, and the other gunner and the pilot injured. Nonetheless, the US torpedo bombers were credited with drawing away the Japanese combat air patrols so the American dive bombers could successfully hit the Japanese carriers. Author Gordon Prange posited in Miracle at Midway that the outdated Devastators (and lack of new aircraft) contributed somewhat to the lack of a complete victory at Midway (the four Japanese fleet carriers were sunk directly by dive bombers instead). Others pointed out that the inexperienced American pilots and lack of fighter cover were responsible for poor showing of US torpedo bombers, regardless of type. Later in the war, with growing American air superiority, better attack coordination and more veteran pilots, Avengers were able to play vital roles in the subsequent battles against Japanese surface forces. On 24 August 1942, the next major naval aircraft carrier battle occurred at the Eastern Solomons. Based on the carriers Saratoga and Enterprise, the 24 TBFs present were able to sink the Japanese light carrier Ryujo and claim one dive bomber, at the cost of seven aircraft. The first major "prize" for the TBFs (which had been assigned the name "Avenger" in October 1941, before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor) was at the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal in November 1942, when Marine Corps and Navy Avengers helped sink the Japanese battleship Hiei, which had already been crippled the night before. After hundreds of the original TBF-1 models were built, the TBF-1C began production. The allotment of space for specialized internal and wing-mounted fuel tanks doubled the Avenger's range. By 1943, Grumman began to slowly phase out production of the Avenger to produce F6F Hellcat fighters, and the Eastern Aircraft Division of General Motors took over production, with these aircraft being designated TBM. The Eastern Aircraft plant was located in Ewing, New Jersey. Grumman delivered a TBF-1, held together with sheet metal screws, so that the automotive engineers could disassemble it, a part at a time, and redesign the aircraft for automotive style production. This aircraft was known as the "P-K Avenger" ("P-K" being an abbreviation for Parker-Kalon, manufacturer of sheet metal screws). Starting in mid-1944, the TBM-3 began production (with a more powerful powerplant and wing hardpoints for drop tanks and rockets). The dash-3 was the most numerous of the Avengers (with about 4,600 produced). However, most of the Avengers in service were dash-1s until near the end of the war in 1945. Besides the traditional surface role (torpedoing surface ships), Avengers claimed about 30 submarine kills, including the cargo submarine I-52. They were one of the most effective sub-killers in the Pacific theater, as well as in the Atlantic, when escort carriers were finally available to escort Allied convoys. There, the Avengers contributed to the warding off of German U-boats while providing air cover for the convoys. After the "Marianas Turkey Shoot", in which more than 250 Japanese aircraft were downed, Admiral Marc Mitscher ordered a 220-aircraft mission to find the Japanese task force. Fighting 300 nmi (560 km) away from the fleet at the extreme end of their range, the group of Hellcats, TBF/TBMs, and dive bombers took many casualties. However, Avengers from the Independence-class aircraft carrier USS Belleau Wood sank the light carrier Hiyo as their only major prize. Mitscher's gamble did not pay off as well as he had hoped. In June 1943, shortly before his 19th birthday, future-President George H. W. Bush was commissioned as the youngest naval aviator at the time. Later, while flying a TBM with VT-51 (from USS San Jacinto), his Avenger was shot down on 2 September 1944 over the Pacific island of Chichi Jima. However, he released his payload and hit the radio tower target before being forced to bail out over water. Both of his crewmates died. He was rescued at sea by the American submarine USS Finback. He later received the Distinguished Flying Cross. Another famous Avenger aviator was Paul Newman, who flew as a rear gunner. He had hoped to be accepted for pilot training, but did not qualify because he was color blind. Newman was on board the escort carrier USS Hollandia roughly 500 mi (800 km) from Japan when the Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The Avenger was the type of torpedo bomber used during the sinking of the two Japanese "super battleships", with the US Navy having complete air superiority in both engagements: Musashi and Yamato. The postwar disappearance on 5 December 1945 of a flight of five American Avengers, known as...