page_title: USS Bunker Hill (CV-17)
section_title: 1945
hierarchical_section_title: USS Bunker Hill (CV-17) / Service history / World War II / 1945
caption_attribution_description: Kamikaze pilot Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa, who damaged the carrier USS Bunker Hill during Operation Kikusui No. 6 on May 11th, 1945. www.geocities.jp
context_page_description: USS Bunker Hill was one of 24 Essex-class aircraft carriers built during World War II for the United States Navy. The ship was named for the Battle of Bunker Hill in the American Revolutionary War. Commissioned in May 1943 and sent to the Pacific Theater of Operations, the ship participated in battles in the Southwest Pacific, Central Pacific and the drive toward Japan through Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and air raids on the Japanese homeland.
  While covering the invasion of Okinawa, Bunker Hill was struck by two kamikazes in quick succession, setting the vessel on fire. Casualties exceeded 600, including 352 confirmed dead and an additional 41 missing; 264 wounded the second heaviest personnel losses suffered by any carrier to survive the war after Franklin. After the attack, Bunker Hill returned to the U.S. mainland and was still under repair when hostilities ended.
  After the war, Bunker Hill was employed as a troop transport bringing American service members back from the Pacific, and decommissioned in 1947.
context_section_description: In 1945, Bunker Hill was the flagship of Task Force 58, commanded by Vice-Admiral Marc A. Mitscher.  Commodore Arleigh Burke was his Chief of Staff, and the admiral's staff all were accommodated aboard the carrier.
  In the task force's final drive across the central Pacific, Bunker Hill operated with the other fast carriers and their screening gunships in the Battle of Iwo Jima, the 5th Fleet raids against Honshū and the Nansei Shoto (15 February – 4 March), and the 5th Fleet's support of the Battle of Okinawa. On 7 April 1945, Bunker Hill's planes took part in an attack by the Fast Carrier Task Force of the Pacific Fleet on Imperial Japanese Navy forces in the East China Sea. The carrier's aircraft had located the Japanese battleship Yamato, the largest in the world, which had not been seen since the Battle of Leyte Gulf the previous year.  In Operation Ten-Go the battleship, screened by one light cruiser and eight destroyers, steamed toward Okinawa to interfere with the Allied invasion of that island. The aircraft of the task force attacked and sank Yamato, the cruiser, and four of the destroyers.
  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. A Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter plane piloted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Seizō Yasunori emerged from low cloud cover, dove toward the flight deck and dropped a 550-pound (250 kilogram) bomb that penetrated the flight deck and exited from the side of the ship at gallery deck level before exploding in the ocean. The Zero then crashed onto the carrier's flight deck, destroying parked warplanes full of aviation fuel and ammunition, causing a large fire. The remains of the Zero went over the deck and dropped into the sea. Then 30 seconds later, a second Zero, piloted by Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa, plunged into its suicide dive. The Zero went through the antiaircraft fire, dropped a 550-pound bomb, and then crashed into the flight deck near the carrier's "island", as kamikazes were trained to aim for the island superstructure. The bomb penetrated the flight deck and exploded in the pilot's ready room. Gasoline fires flamed up and several explosions took place.
  Bunker Hill lost a total of 393 sailors and airmen killed, including 41 missing (never found), and 264 wounded. Among the casualties were three officers and nine enlisted men from Mitscher's staff.  The admiral relinquished command by visual signal; he and his remaining staff were transferred by breeches buoy to destroyer English and then to Enterprise, which became the flagship.  The bomb carried by the second kamikaze penetrated to the pilots' ready room, and 22 members of VF-84 lost their lives in the attack.
  Bunker Hill was heavily damaged but was able to steam at 20 knots to Ulithi, where the Marine pilots of VMF-221, who had been aloft during the kamikaze attack and were diverted to other carriers, rejoined their ship.  The carrier returned home by way of Pearl Harbor, and was sent to the Bremerton Naval Shipyard for repairs. She was still in the shipyard when the war ended in mid-August 1945.
caption: Ens. Kiyoshi Ogawa, pilot of the second kamikaze
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