Intense photos show the USS Enterprise, the decorated WWII aircraft carrier that the Japanese just couldn't sink
Advertisement
Sep 25, 2018, 03:38 IST
The Enterprise in 1939, before it went through the World War II wringer.
Advertisement
Japanese bombs exploding off the Enterprise's port side during the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands in October 1942.
Advertisement
An F4F-4 Wildcat crash lands on the Big E's flight deck while the carrier was under aerial attack during the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands.
A Japanese Aichi D3A2 bomber barely misses the Big E during the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands in October 1942.
Advertisement
A bomb dropped by a Japanese dive bomber explodes on the Enterprise's flight deck during the Battle of the Eastern Solomon Islands in 1942. The ship took three direct hits during the battle.
Watch the actual footage of the strike below:
Advertisement
Lt. Walter L. Chewning Jr. climbs up a F6F Hellcat to help pilot Ensign Byron M. Johnson, who crash-landed on the Enterprise's flight deck on November 10, 1943.
The Enterprise is hit by a Kamikaze pilot on May, 14, 1945, blowing its forward elevator about 400 feet into the air.
Advertisement
That strike killed 14 and wounded 34 more.
It was the last time the Big E was hit during the war.
Advertisement
The Enterprise returned to the New York Naval Shipyard in January 1946, where it was decommissioned in February 1947.