NAMES REVEALED

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 133, 2 December 1944, Page 7

NAMES REVEALED

HEROIC CARRIER FORCE

WASHINGTON, December 1

The Navy Department stated that the four escort carriers that were damaged during the second Battle of the Philippines Sea were the Calinin Bay, Fanshaw Bay, White Plains, and Kitkun Bay. Eight hundred men were saved when the escort carrier St. Lo went down di«ring the battle, while 600 men from the sunken carrier Gambier Bay were picked up.

- The navy released a statement by Rear-Admiral Sprague, who commanded the" task force which included the vessels named. The task force comprised, only six escort carriers, three destroyers, and four destroyer escorts, but it turned back a major portion of the Japanese fleet north of Leyte on October 24..

Rear-Admiral Sprague said: "We discovered a Japanese force of four battleships, seven heavy and light cruisers, and about nine destroyers at 5 a.m. We figured we -would be blown out of the water, but we might as. well do some damage .since it seemed certain we were in for it. So we ordered the escorts to launch a torpedo attack.

"We scored one direct hit on a Japanese battleship. * The enemy fired about 300 salvos in the next 150 minutes and scored one vital hit— a 16ir shell on the Gambier Bay.

"Meanwhile planes from another task force were working over the Japanese ships doing considerable damage. The Japanese finally turned for home at 9.35 a.m. Everyone of their ships had been sunk or damaged."