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Contact Info
Home Town Not Specified
Last Address Gainesville
Date of Passing Dec 08, 2007
Location of Interment Not Specified
Wall/Plot Coordinates Not Specified
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Additional Information
Last Known Activity
Commander Carrier Air Group Two
USS Hornet (CVA-12)
1944-1945
WASHINGTON, July 1, 1946 - Thirteen aircraft carriers which bore the brunt of the Pacific air-sea offensive were singled out for special honors today. Eight of them were awarded the presidential unit citation. The other five received the Navy unit commendation.
The carriers receiving the Presidential unit citation were the ESSEX, HORNET, LEXINGTON, BUNKER HILL, YORKTOWN, SAN JACINTO, CABOT and BELLEAU WOOD. Those awarded Navy unit commendations were the ENTERPRISE, HANCOCK, WASP, COWPENS and LANGLEY.
Other Comments:
Attack on Pearl Harbor
During the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December1941, then-Lieutenant Arnold made his way to Pearl Harbor under fire. After quite a bit of trouble convincing the crew of a whaleboat to take him to Ford Island, his normal duty station, he finally got to the island. There, during the middle of the first wave’s attack, he fired up the only flyable Wildcat fighter on the island. A ground crew member crawled up on the wing telling him, “You can’t take this airplane!” “The heck I can’t, get off my wing!” Arnold replied. “But it doesn’t have any ammunition!” came the response.
Arnold jumped out of the airplane near the base of the airfield control tower and picked up a Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) from a Marine who did not need it anymore. A member of the All Navy Pistol Team and a longtime pistol and bird shooter, Arnold was an excellent marksman, and shot down a torpedo plane coming in to strafe the new control tower next to which he was standing. The plane crashed on the field. Between the two waves, Jack and a couple of sailors went over to look at the wreckage. Discovering it belonged to the first wave’s Torpedo Squadron Commander, they drank the downed pilot's sake and returned to the battle. That kill from the ground was later to make Jack the only known pilot who shot down five aircraft (one with a BAR, two with an Avenger torpedo bomber, and two with a Hellcat fighter) who was not an ace.
During the lull between attacks he commandeered a motor whaleboat and began picking up survivors from Arizona and other ships in the harbor. The first person his boat pulled from the water was the Petty Officer in Charge of the Number Four turret on Arizona. Jack did not recognize him as he looked like a seal, black with oil head to toe.
Before leaving Pearl Harbor, he married Muriel McChesney on 16 January1942.
The Job of Air Group Commander (CAG)
At the Battle of the Philippine Sea, he was handed a contact report that indicated the possible presence of the enemy fleet at a point too far west for a round-trip flight. Eager for battle, he declared that regardless of how far west the enemy was found, he would lead an attack, regroup as many planes as possible, and fly eastward until fuel ran out. He felt that a mass ditching would allow the downed aircrews to support each other until the arrival of the task force, which would be summoned to their location with Morse code messages prior to ditching.[3] During the actual attack, he personally scored a damaging near miss on the aircraft carrier Zuikaku, then led his flight back to base and assisted several in his group in landing in darkness under extremely difficult conditions before boarding the carrier himself, a feat for which he was awarded the Navy Cross.
Receiving promotion to vice admiral from Admiral Ignatius J. Galantin (right), 1969.
After another staff tour, Arnold attended Harvard University, where he got his Masters in Business Administration in 1952.[3] Subsequent assignments in the various Bureaus of Aeronautics, Weapons and Materiel, culminating in an assignment as the Force Material Officer on the staff of Commander Naval Air Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet in 1963,[1] gave Arnold a well-rounded background which made him the logical choice to succeed Admiral Ignatius J. Galantin as the final Chief of the Bureau of Naval Materiel and the first Commander of the newly formed Naval Material Command. The fact that he kept current as a Naval Aviator made him a standout choice for promotion.
He became Deputy Chief of Naval Material for Logistic Support in 1966, Vice Chief of Naval Material in 1967,[1] and Chief of Naval Material in June 1970.[5] He was advanced to the rank of full admiral on October 14, 1970,[6] the first restricted line officer to attain that rank.
He retired from the Navy on November 30, 1971,[6] and was replaced at Naval Material Command by a longtime friend and shipmate, Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, Jr..
Fifteen 6in/47 guns (five triple turrets)
Eight 5in/25 guns (/38 on St Louis, Helena) (eight single positions)
Eight 0.5in guns
Four aircraft
Crew complement
868
Laid down
31 May 1934
Launched
8 May 1937
Completed
10 March 1938
Stricken
1 March 1959
The Savannah was laid down in May 1934, launched in May 1937 and commissioned on 10 March 1938. After her shakedown cruiser she visited Britain as part of American preparations for a possible outbreak of war in 1938. After returning to the US she was allocated to the Pacific Fleet. She was based in California from June 1939 to May 1940, then at Pearl Harbor from May 1940 until June 1941 when she was allocated to the Neutrality Patrol in the Atlantic.
Arriving on 12 January 1942 off of  Recife, in Brazil, the Savannah was with the USS Ranger watching the Vichy French warships that were trapped at Martinique and Guadaloupe.
The Savannah was part of the fleet that supported Operation Torch, the invasion of French North Africa. She formed part of the Northern Attack Group (Rear Admiral Monroe Kelly), which had the task of landing 9,099 men under General Truscott at Mehedia in Morocco. On 8 November she fired on French guns that were shelling the invasion fleet. On 9 November she performed a most unusual role, sending her spotting planes to attack a tank column with modified depth charges! This was repeated on 10 November, before on 11 November the fighting at Mehedia ended. The Savannahremained off North Africa for another four days, then returned home.
January 1943 she joined the South Atlantic Patrol, based at Recife, Brazil, and given the task of stopping German blockade runners. On her second patrol she was one of two American warships to intercept the German blockade runner Karin. The Germans destroyed their own ship before she could be boarded, killing eleven of an American boarding party in the process. The Savannah took on seventy two German prisoners.
In May the Savannah left Norfolk with a troop convoy heading for the Mediterranean to take part in the invasion of Sicily. On 10 July she provided fire support for the 1st Infantry 'Rangers' as they landed at Gela. For the first time she came up against determined Luftwaffe opposition and three of her four spotter planes were shot down on the first day of the invasion.  Through out July, she provided fire support to various allied forces. Â
On 8 September the Savannah was the first American warship to open fire on the German shore defences at Salerno. Over the next few days she carried out shore bombardment duties to assist the badly pressed troops fighting at Salerno.
On 11 September she suffered the blow that effectively ended her active career. The Germans had developed a number of remote controlled anti-shipping weapons. On the morning of 11 September a glide bomb narrowly missed the Philadelphia. A few minutes later a FX1400 radio controlled bomb launched from a Dornier Do-217 hit the armoured roof of Number 3 Turret. The bomb went straight through the turret and exploded in the lower handling room, part of the magazine. A large hole was blown out of the bottom of the ship, and water reached 152ft along the ship. Secondary explosions followed for the next 30 minutes, but the rapid flooding helped prevent a disastrous magazine explosion.
Although the Savannah was very badly damaged, her crews managed to seal off the affected areas, and by 17.57 she was able to set off under her own steam. She lost 197 men in the attack, with fifteen seriously wounded. Four men were trapped in a watertight compartment and could only be rescued after she reached Malta.
The Savannah wasn't able to depart from Malta until 7 December, nearly three months after the attack. She reached Philadelphia on 23 December. It took eight months to carry out full repairs, and the chance was taken to improve both her secondary armament and her anti-aircraft firepower.
The repairs were completed by September 1944. She was allocated to Fleet Operational Training Command, then in October rejoined Cruiser Division 8. In January 1945 she escorted the Quincy (CL-71) as it carried President Roosevelt across the Atlantic on his way to the Yalta summit. She remained in the Mediterranean until the President returned from Yalta then escorted his convoy back across the Atlantic. From March to May 1945 she was used as a training ship for the crews of new ships that hadn't been commissioned. She then became the flagship of a Midshipman Training Squadron.
Her last active role was to carry out two 'Magic Carpet' missions across the Atlantic. The first saw her bring 1,370 men and 67 officers back to New York from Le Havre. The second ended on 17 December, and two days later she began to prepare to be inactivated. She was placed in the reserve on 22 April 1946 and decommissioned on 3 February 1959. She was finally struck off the Navy List on 1 March 1959 and sold for scrap in 1966.
YN Pierson, Al (USview, NTWS Chief Admin), YN2 
3779 
