Some History on our TBM

We are in the process of digging into the actual WWII service of this airplane, but we know that the paint scheme is from the fighting squadrons on the original aircraft carrier USS Bunker Hill, which was an Essex Class carrier (the biggest) designated as CV-17, participating in the efforts against the Japanese Empire, and primarily attacking the Imperial Japanese Navy, in the pacific theatre of World War II.

Here is some information and short stories from the history we have outlined on the ship, the squadron and some of the crew. They are in the format of the posters which we plan to have on display at airshows that we will attend.

The USS Bunker Hill Overview:

 

Kamikaze Attack:

 

On the morning of 11 May 1945, while supporting the invasion of Okinawa, Bunker Hill was struck and severely damaged by two Japanese kamikaze planes.


Left -  The pilot of the second Zero, Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa and relics recovered at the scene by US Navy diver Robert Schock, who was riding aboard Bunker Hill.  Schock found Ogawa dead in the cockpit, and removed Ogawa's name tag from his flight suit, along with a letter Ogawa carried with him on his last mission, some photographs, a belt from Ogawa's parachute harness, and a large smashed aviator watch of the type that Japanese pilots wore around their necks. Evident also in the far upper picture, on March 27, 2001, Ogawa's grandniece, her mother, and an old college friend of Kiyoshi Ogawa, received these personal effects in San Francisco, nearly 56 years after Operation Kikusui No. 6.

 

Right - * The engine of Kiyoshi's plane lying on the flight deck of the USS Bunker Hill.  Close examination confirms definitively that Kiyoshi flew a Zero fighter.     *from "Danger's Hour by Maxwell Taylor Kennedy

 

The USS Bunker Hill's TBM Avengers, the Enemy,

and some of those brave men: