Word: escorter
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Allied air superiority in the South Pacific had shifted from potential to actual. A few months ago the largest number of Allied planes ever to raid Rabaul was 37. In the last fortnight nights of as many as 150 bombers plus fighter escort have been over Munda and Bairoko regularly; on one day 250 sorties were made against Munda...
Down the launching ways at the big Bethlehem Fore River shipyard at Quincy, Mass, slid the destroyer escort Harmon, first U.S. warship named for a Negro. Navy Secretary Frank Knox had assigned the name in honor of Roy Harmon, Navy messman, who gave his life aboard the cruiser San Francisco in the Battle of Guadalcanal last November...
...Deeds. "Escort Carrier B," in four sustained engagements, attacked eleven U-boats, scored two sure kills, four "very probables" and four "probables." Her planes allowed no enemy submarine to get closer than 18 miles to the convoy. Her casualties: one TBF damaged by 20-mm. ack-ack from a U-boat, its radio operator wounded...
...went down at once, then popped up, hopelessly out of control. Once more it sank at a steep angle, then resurfaced. The crew poured out of the crippled vessel; 24 were taken prisoner. The next engagement of the carrier lasted 14 hours, from dusk to daylight. Twice again the escort carrier's planes struck. In the last attack four TBFs and two Wildcat fighters swooped in on the U-boat. The last of their depth bombs were direct hits on the deck; only 17 crew members survived...
They Tip the Scales. The great value of the escort carriers lies in their ability to break up wolf pack attacks before the U-boats get within firing range. Hitting swiftly, the TBFs and fighters can disrupt the careful coordination, the intricate patterns of attack on which the success of the submarines depends. Small though they are, the escorts are tipping the scales in the fight to get the convoys through...