The 600-foot light carrier USS Princeton (CVL23) was commissioned in the Philadelphia Navy Yard on February 25, 1943, and was sunk 20 months later, on October 24, 1944, in Leyte Gulf during heroic efforts to retake the Philippines from the Japanese. One of two light carriers in Task Group 38.3, Princeton carried 23 fighters and 10 torpedo bombers. I am probably one of only two living eyewitnesses to a tragic event. Except for a buddy and me, everyone who had been in a position to see the start of the explosion that eventually sank Princeton was killed outright that day. Official tallies on casualties from the death of Princeton were 347 killed, 552 wounded and 4 mising.

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The majority of those casualties were not aboard Princeton, however, but were, as was I, aboard USS Birmingham, a light cruiser that was also part of the task group. Birmingham had drawn alongside to assist Princeton after the light carrier was crippled by a successful bombing run by a lone enemy plane. Aboard Birmingham, the tally was 230 dead, 408 wounded, and 4 missing.

I am convinced that it would have been impossible to improve upon what a single Japanese pilot, flying a Yokosuka D4Y ‘Judy’ dive bomber with two 550-pound bombs, achieved that day, had the bombing been the result of a meticulous plan rather than a chance encounter. In the explosion that occurred hours after the Judy’s bombing run, my right leg was blown off at the knee and buried at sea. So, in effect, I already have one foot in the grave.

Birmingham had been at sea for eight months. It had become part of Task Group 38.3 in August 1944. For eight weeks, the fast carrier forces ranged throughout the Palau and Philippine islands, inflicting serious damage and destruction on the enemy. From the 18th through the 23rd of October, in fair and calm weather, Task Force 38 launched extensive airstrikes covering the length and breadth of Luzon, as part of the drive to retake the Philippines.

October 24 dawned with broken clouds and occasional squalls, but there was good visibility, allowing continuing airstrikes in support of land operations on the island of Leyte. The day began before sunrise, with general quarters sounded for all the ships in Task Force 38.

To start the day, Princeton contributed 20 fighter planes to the air battle over Leyte Gulf. The first wave of 40 to 50 Japanese planes was intercepted and their attack broken up with many enemy losses. A second group of about 30 enemy aircraft quickly took to the air. Out of the two waves, Princeton’s planes alone shot down 34 enemy aircraft with a loss of only one. Pilots became aces in a matter of minutes. The planes returned to the carrier for refueling and arming in preparation for an airstrike against a Japanese force of four battleships, eight cruisers and 13 destroyers southeast of the island of Mindoro.

At 9:12 a.m., USS Essex reported a possible bandit plus a friendly aircraft about six miles away. No other unidentifieds were within a radius of 25 miles. At 9:38 a.m., a single Judy was sighted by Princeton’s lookouts, diving on their vessel from out of the low cloud cover ahead of the ship. The plane immediately came under fire from the forward 20mm and 40mm batteries, and the helm was put over to port in an evasion attempt. The Judy dropped two bombs. One missed Princeton and fell harmlessly into the sea. The other 550-pound bomb fell almost in the center of Princeton’s deck, causing jarring on the bridge and a dull thud in central station. Black smoke issued from the hole in the flight deck, the forward elevator and every access trunk to the hangar aft of the island. Ed Butler, a radarman, said, ‘I saw him [the Japanese pilot] high-tailing it away from our stern, trailing smoke.’

Pete Callan, one of the crew who had refueled and armed the torpedo planes, says he heard machine-gun fire at a more rapid rate than any of the guns aboard Princeton were capable of. He heard bullets striking the wooden planking of the flight deck. Fifty years later, Pete told me, ‘The Japanese pilot utilized the striking bullets to guide his aim by stitching the deck and the surrounding water, then making the appropriate corrections to his bombing run.’ The bomb passed through the flight deck, leaving a small jagged hole about 15 inches in diameter, continuing downward and severing the main gasoline line used to fuel the planes. The bomb then passed through an auxiliary drop tank under one wing of Lieutenant Tom Mooney’s torpedo plane parked in the hangar. The bomb continued on its path, piercing the hangar deck and detonating in the crew’s galley on the second deck. The bomb blew a hole through the second deck into the third, above the after engine room.

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