... And a bit more bits of interest ...
Actor Paul Newman's connection to the USS Bunker Hill.
"He had been nominated six times for best-actor Oscars (Cat on a Hot Tine Roof 1958; The Hustler, 1961; Hud, 1963; Cool Hand Luke, 1967; Absence of Malice, 1981; and The Verdict, 1982), and he won the actor-of-the-year award at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival for The Long Hot Summer, with Joanne Woodward. This down-to-earth, Budweiser-drinking (counteracted by daily workouts), regular-guy superstar has made a career of turning in memorable performances. Delighting his audiences time after time in films including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), The Sting, (1973), and The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), Paul Newman was finally recognized with an Academy Award for his portrayal of The Hustler's Fast Eddie Felson, now middle-aged, in The Color of Money (1986)."
What's not so well known about Paul Newman the actor was Paul Newman the WWII service member.
Paul Leonard Newman enlisted in the U.S. Navy on 22 January 1943. Newman was sent to the Navy V-12 program at Yale, with hopes of being accepted for pilot training. But this plan was foiled when a flight physical revealed him to be color-blind. So he was sent instead to boot camp and then on to further training as a radioman and gunner. Qualifying as a rear-seat radioman and gunner in torpedo bombers, in 1944 Aviation Radioman Third Class Newman was sent to Barber's Point, Hawaii, and subsequently assigned to Pacific-based replacement torpedo squadrons (VT-98, VT-99, and VT-100). These torpedo squadrons were responsible primarily for training replacement pilots and combat aircrewmen, placing particular importance on carrier landings. During his two years in the Pacific the Newman luck held, especially on one occasion when his pilot fell ill and their aircraft was grounded. The rest of the squadron was transferred to an aircraft carrier operating off the coast of Japan, where a kamikaze hit the carrier, inflicting heavy casualties on the men and aircraft of Newman's squadron.
While he was with VT-99, training personnel in TBM-1Cs, TBM-3s, and TBF-1cs, the squadron moved to Eniwetok, then to Guam, and in January 1945 on to Saipan. This remained its base of operations until its decommissioning nine months later. The squadron would ferry replacement pilots and aircraft to carriers around the fleet. Though Newman did see scattered combat, his closest brush with death came in May 1945. Operating from Saipan, Newman and a number of other aircrews from his squadron had been ordered with their TBM Avenger aircraft to be replacements onboard the Essex-class aircraft carrier
USS Bunker Hill (CV-17) operating off Okinawa. But Newman’s pilot got sick, grounding the aircraft and crew until he could recover. Just days later, on May 11, two Japanese kamikaze aircraft hit the ship within 30 seconds and in the resulting fires and explosions 346 sailors were killed — among them, the entire contingent from Newman’s squadron.
A VT-99 contingent including Newman was aboard the aircraft carrier Hollandia (CVE-97), which was operating about five hundred miles off Japan when the Enola Gay dropped its atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Finally, Paul Newman served with Carrier Aircraft Service Unit 7, one of many shore-based carrier air-group support units. CASUs operated the facilities, serviced and rearmed, made repairs, and handled routine upkeep and administrative duties. Newman's CASU was based in Seattle, conveniently located for his discharge at Bremerton, Washington State, on 21 January 1946. He was decorated with the American Area Campaign Medal, the Good Conduct Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal.
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