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Tommy Burgdorf (Birddog), FC2
to remember
Chaffee, Davis Elliott, ENS.
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Casualty Info
Home Town Heartland Township, OH
Last Address 915 2nd St Sandusky, OH (father-Wallace E Chaffee)
Casualty Date May 07, 1942
Cause MIA-Finding of Death
Reason Air Loss, Crash - Sea
Location Pacific Ocean
Conflict World War II
Location of Interment Manila American Cemetery - Taguig City, Philippines
Wall/Plot Coordinates Tablets of the Missing (Cenotaph)
Description The plan of the Pacific subseries was determined by the geography, strategy, and the military organization of a theater largely oceanic. Two independent, coordinate commands, one in the Southwest Pacific under General of the Army Douglas MacArthur and the other in the Central, South, and North Pacific (Pacific Ocean Areas) under Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, were created early in the war. Except in the South and Southwest Pacific, each conducted its own operations with its own ground, air, and naval forces in widely separated areas. These operations required at first only a relatively small number of troops whose efforts often yielded strategic gains which cannot be measured by the size of the forces involved. Indeed, the nature of the objectivesùsmall islands, coral atolls, and jungle-bound harbors and airstrips, made the employment of large ground forces impossible and highlighted the importance of air and naval operations. Thus, until 1945, the war in the Pacific progressed by a double series of amphibious operations each of which fitted into a strategic pattern developed in Washington.
My Participation in This Battle or Operation
From Month/Year
January / 1942
To Month/Year
December / 1942
Last Updated: Mar 16, 2020
Personal Memories
Memories Yorktown departed Norfolk on 16 December 1941 and sailed for the Pacific, her secondary gun galleries studded with new 20-millimeter Oerlikon machine guns. She reached San Diego, Calif., on 30 December 1941 and soon became flagship for Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher's newly formed Task Force (TF) 17.
The carrier's first mission in her new theater was to escort a convoy carrying Marine reinforcements to American Samoa. Departing San Diego on 6 January 1942, Yorktown and her consorts covered the movement of marines to Tutuila and Pago Pago to augment the garrison already there.
Having safely covered that troop movement, Yorktown, in company with sistership Enterprise, departed Samoan waters on 25 January. Six days later, TF 8 built around Enterprise, and TF 17, built around Yorktown, parted company. The former headed for the [535] Marshall Islands, the latter for the Gilberts-each bound to take part in the first American offensive of the war, the Marshalls-Gilberts raids.
The attack by TF 17 on the Gilberts had apparently been a complete surprise since the American force encountered no enemy surface ships. A single, four-engined, Kawanishi E7K "Mavis," patrol-bomber seaplane attempted to attack American destroyers that had been sent astern in hope of recovering planes over-due from the Jaluit mission. Antiaircraft fire from the destroyers drove off the intruder before he could cause any damage.
Later, another "Mavis"-or possibly the same one that had attacked the destroyers-came out of low clouds 15,000 yards from Yorktown. The carrier with- held her antiaircraft fire in order not to interfere with the combat air patrol (CAP) fighters. Presently, the "Mavis," pursued by two Wildcats, disappeared behind a cloud. Within five minutes, the enemy patrol plane fell out of the clouds and crashed in the water.
Although TF 17 was slated to make a second attack on Jaluit, it was canceled because of heavy rainstorms and the approach of darkness. Therefore, the Yorktown force retired from the area.
Admiral Chester W. Nimitz later called the Marshalls-Gilberts raids "well conceived, well planned, and brilliantly executed." The results obtained by TF's 8 and 17 were noteworthy Nimitz continued in his subsequent report, because the task forces had been obliged to make their attacks somewhat blindly, due to lack of hard intelligence data on the Japanese-mandated islands.
Yorktown subsequently returned to Pearl Harbor and replenished there before she put to sea on 14 February, bound for the Coral Sea. On 6 March, she rendezvoused with TF 11-formed around Lexington and under the command of Rear Admiral Wilson Brown-and headed towards Rabaul and Gasmata to attack Japanese shipping there in an effort to check the Japanese advance and to cover the landing of Allied troops at Noumea, New Caledonia. However, as the two flattops-screened by a powerful force of eight heavy cruisers (including the Australian HMAS Australia) and 14 destroyers-steamed toward New Guinea, the Japanese continued their advance toward Australia with a landing on 7 March at the Huon Gulf, in the Salamana-Lae area on the eastern end of New Guinea.
Word of the Japanese operation prompted Admiral Brown to change the objective of TF 11's strike from Rabaul to the Salamana-Lae sector. On the morning of 10 March 1942, American carriers launched aircraft from the Gulf of Papua. Lexington flew off her air group commencing at 0749 and, 21 minutes later, Yorktown followed suit. While the choice of the gulf as the launch point for the strike meant that the planes would have to fly some 125 miles across the Owen Stanley mountains-a range not known for the best flying conditions-that approach provided security for the task force and ensured surprise.
In the attacks that followed, Lexington's SBD's from Scouting Squadron (VS) 2 commenced dive-bombing Japanese ships at Lae at 0922. The carrier's Torpedo Squadron (VT) 2 and Bombing Squadron (VB) 2 attacked shipping at Salamaua at 0938. Her fighters from Fighter Squadron (VF) 2 split up into four-plane attack groups: one strafed Lae and the other, Salamaua. Yorktown's planes followed on the heels of those from "Lady Lex." VB-5 and VT-5 attacked Japanese ships in the Salamaua area at 0950, while VS-5 went after auxiliaries moored close in shore at Lae. The fighters of VF-42 flew over Salamana on CAP until they determined that there was no air opposition and then strafed surface objectives and small boats in the harbor.
After carrying out their missions, the American planes returned to their carriers, and 103 planes of the 104 launched were back safely on board by noon. One SB3-2 of VS-2 had been downed by Japanese antiaircraft fire. The raid on Salamana and Lae was the first attack by many pilots of both carriers; and, while the resultant torpedo and bombing accuracy was inferior to that achieved in later actions, the operation gave the fliers invaluable experience which enabled them to do so well in the Battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway.