The Navy's Old Lady

No. 1 U.S. ship of the war is a slugging, hardbitten, 20,000-ton aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Enterprise.

Navy men call her "The Old Lady," although her age in service is barely five years. She has fought more major engagements, done more damage and raised more general hell than any other ship in the Pacific. Precisely because she has been so deadly successful, her country knows almost nothing about her. Less fortunate ships struck their blows gallantly, paid with their lives and eventually had their hour of fame when their stories were told.

But Enterprise fought, walked away upright and fought again. Until this week everything she did was a military secret. When she was damaged she covered up, backed off, got herself repaired and went looking for more trouble. She still is.

Last week the secrecy lifted slightly with a Navy announcement that Enterprise and her crew had been cited by President Roosevelt "for outstanding performance in action." This week the Navy followed through with an account of the carrier's exploits.

One Failure. On Pearl Harbor day she was the only U.S. carrier to get into action. She was headed home from a task-force mission when the stunning word came, and promptly launched planes to intercept the enemy raiders. She was not successful that time. But better luck was ahead, and Enterprise was seldom in port from then until after the victorious Solomons campaign.

Until this week few knew that Enterprise played an important part in the Doolittle raid on Tokyo. She met the carrier Hornet in the Western Pacific, and provided air cover for the task force's final approach to the Japanese mainland. Hornet had her flight deck cluttered with Doolittle's big B-25 bombers, and would have been unable to get her fighter planes up to fend off a sudden enemy air attack.

Enterprise's record shows clearly that she has been a tough ship, a lucky ship, a superbly handled ship, fortunate in her various commanders and in the high degree of teamwork achieved by her crew. One of her former captains is grey, smallish, soft-spoken Rear Admiral George D. Murray (now commandant at Pensacola), rated by officers who served with him as the ablest of carrier skippers.

Summing up, the Navy said Enterprise was notable because she:

> Was the first carrier to strike offensively at the enemy.

> Has wreaked damage on the enemy estimated at eight to ten times her original cost.*

> Has absorbed terrific punishment, thus refuting the notion that flat tops are hopelessly vulnerable.

Two Successes. During the fierce battle of the Santa Cruz Islands last October Enterprise was blasted by enemy bombs and menaced by torpedoes, but fought right through and destroyed at least 63 Jap aircraft -- 30 winged by her AA guns and 33 shot down by her planes. Her flyers also laid two 500-lb. bombs on a Jap carrier of the Syokaku class and 2,000 lb. of bombs on a battleship of the Kongo class. That was only one of her busy days.

Listing the carrier's "minimum" accomplishments, the Navy said she had:

> Hit enemy ships and shore establishments with at least 84,100 lb. of bombs.

> Scored eleven sure torpedo hits, plus one probable.

> Destroyed at least 140 Jap warplanes in air battle, plus an undetermined number on the ground.

> Sunk three subs, a patrol boat and (with planes from another carrier) sunk four aircraft carriers and three destroyers.

Her record also lists another battleship and a heavy cruiser "probably sunk," and two more battleships, a carrier, four cruisers and miscellaneous naval small fry damaged by direct hits. During all these operations Enterprise lost 85 planes but rescued many of the crews.

Less than two months after Pearl Harbor, Enterprise spearheaded the task force under Admiral William F. ("Bull") Halsey which smashed Jap bases in the Marshall and Gilbert Islands -- thus carrying out the first U.S. offensive thrust. Within 34 days she followed up with raids on Wake and Marcus Islands.

Three Victims. One of her biggest successes came in the desperate Battle of Midway when her dive-bombers, torpedo planes and fighters roared in with four separate attacks on the big Jap invasion fleet. Eight bombs smashed into the enemy carrier Kaga, three more on the Akagi; additional hits in a later attack, sent both to the bottom. On the same day 17 dive-bombers helped spike the carrier Soryu with six hits and plumped two more on a battleship; the Soryu burned cheerily and slipped beneath the surface with the polite hissing noise characteristic of Japanese etiquette.

Another Enterprise "first" was her participation in the original attack on Guadalcanal, providing air cover for the first Marine landing parties. Seventeen days later she was back again to help when the Japs made their supreme bid to regain the island, sending a big task force with three or four carriers. Enterprise, another carrier and land-based Army and Marine bombers combined to turn the enemy back; aircraft from Enterprise shot down 30 Jap planes and sank a sub.

Next big action was at Santa Cruz, where Enterprise was badly damaged and withdrew for repairs. But Bill Halsey had to order her out to meet an enemy thrust before she was entirely restored; Navy "Seabees" rode along from the base and were still hard at work patching when she started sending her planes into action. In the final round of the Solomons battle last November, the torpedo bombers caught a Kongo-class battleship, slapped it with six tin fish and left it dead in the water.

What Enterprise has been up to this spring is still a secret. But as one of her former flyers explained: "You can certainly say this for the Old Lady, whenever anything's happening in this war she's there and in the thick of it."

* $19,000,000-- part of a $238,000,000 grant of PWA funds which Franklin Roosevelt wangled to strengthen the Navy back in 1933.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.