11 January 1944 A.D. Aircraft from USS BLOCK ISLAND (CVE-21)
Attacks U-Boat (U-758)
1820 - The schooner Lynx,
commanded by Lt. J. R. Madison, departs St. Marys, Ga., bound for Kingston,
Jamaica, to continue her service suppressing pirates. She is never heard from
again and no trace of her or her 50-man crew is ever found.
1863 - Iron side-wheel gunboat Hatteras gets duped by Confederate cruiser
Alabama, masquerading as a British warship, and is sunk off the Galveston,
Texas, coast.
1900 - During the Philippine Insurrection, the gunboat Princeton, commanded by
H. Knox, takes possession of the Bataan Island group in the Philippines.
1905 - The gunboat Petrel (PG 2) becomes the first U.S. Navy ship to enter
Pearl Harbor, then Territory of Hawaii, by way of a newly-dredged channel.
1944 - Torpedo bombing
aircraft from USS Block Island (CVE 21) make first aircraft rocket attack on
German submarine, U-758.
1944 – Aircraft
from Escort Carrier USS Block Island make first aircraft rocket attack on
German submarine. Departing San Diego in May 1943 Block Island steamed to
Norfolk, Va., to join the Atlantic Fleet. After two trips from New York to
Belfast, Ireland, during the summer of 1943 with cargoes of Army fighters, she
operated as part of a hunter-killer team. During her four anti-submarine
cruises Block Island’s planes sank two submarines. At 2013, 29 May 1944, Block
Island was torpedoed by U-549 which had slipped undetected through her screen.
The German submarine put one and perhaps two more torpedoes into the stricken
carrier before being sunk herself by the avenging Eugene E. Gilmore (DE-686)
and Ahrens (DE-575). Block Island (CVE-21) received two battle stars for her
service.
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