Dan Heller 
Hello All,
It was in World War II that naval aviators and the mighty aircraft carriers they flew from found eternal fame, fighting the Imperial Japanese in a bitter and bloody war that spanned thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean. The immense debt of gratitude we owe these men as a nation continues to be paid.
Each and every item in the display case has been selected and placed with meticulous care. Flight logs detail the relentless campaign across the Pacific by Task Force 58, famously known as “the fleet that came to stay.” Hand-made dioramas of the Curtis SB-2C Helldiver and Grumman TBM-3 Avenger show amazing detail, right down to the red hats of the ordinance handlers. An oil picture captures the moment when Helldivers descended on the infamous Japanese-held island of Chichi Jima in the final months of the war in the Pacific. The dress uniform jacket of a Navy Lieutenant Commander, adorned with aviator’s wings, battle ribbons and campaign stars quietly exudes the courage and honor of the man who wore it.
Lyon Air Museum Docent Steve Andreason designed and cares for this beautiful display, which explains the painstaking attention to detail. It is a dedication to his late father, Navy Lieutenant Commander Raymond Andreason, who fought in some of the most intense and crucial battles of the Pacific Campaign. “My dad was a proud American” Steve explains. “He was the youngest of 12 children. His father passed away when he was only a year old. It must have been difficult to grow up without a father, but my dad never complained.”
Raymond Andreason grew up in Long Beach, California and graduated from Poly High School in 1940. Like many other Americans of the time, he felt that American entry into the wars raging in the Pacific and Europe was inevitable. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor solidified these feelings and ignited a wave of patriotism that enveloped the entire country. After a brief summer adventure of mining for gold in Idaho, Raymond returned to Long Beach and began college in order to earn enough credits to become a Naval Aviator. He received orders for flight school in September of 1942, less than a year after Pearl Harbor and only three months after the crucial American victory at the Battle of Midway. Initial flight training was at the University of Colorado, followed by stints in Corpus Christi, Texas and DeLand, Florida. He studied and practiced in areas of aerial navigation, combat gunnery, glide bombing, dive bombing skip bombing, rocket and gun firing, intelligence and enemy recognition, formation flying, as well as day and night carrier take-offs and landings. After fifteen months of training he earned his commission and wings at NAS (Naval Air Station) Lake Superior, and was qualified as a carrier dive bomber pilot flying the Curtis SB-2C.
The Curtis SB-2C was designed as a replacement for the Douglas SBD Dauntless. It was bigger and faster than the Dauntless, and had better range. The SB2C also carried an internal bomb bay, whereas the SBD carried all weapons externally. Common nicknames for the SB-2C among sailors was “The Big-Tailed Beast” and “Son of a Bitch Second Class”. It had a reputation as a difficult aircraft to handle, especially at low speeds. In spite of this, the Helldiver was responsible for the destruction of more Japanese targets that any other Allied aircraft. “My dad trained quite a bit before he went into combat. In fact, by the time he arrived on the USS Randolph in January of 1945, he already had over 650 hours of flight time. All that flight time probably saved his life more than once. But even with all that flight time, nothing could have prepared him for what he was about to face.”
Raymond arrived on the aircraft carrier USS Randolph (CV-15) in early January of 1945, while she was being readied for deployment at NAS Alameda near San Francisco. Randolph was the newest Essex-class carrier in the US carrier fleet. She had been launched just three months before, having been built at Newport News Shipyards in only 13 months. “Usually, after a ship is commissioned they embark on a shake-down cruise. This is to detect and fix any issues with the ship before being deployed for duty” Steve remembers. “Well, so great was the need for Randolph that that they did not return to port after the shake-down cruise to fix problems. They fixed them while they were underway to pick up their air wing in San Francisco, on their way to combat in the Pacific.”
Ensign Andreason was attached to CAG (Carrier Air Group) 12, also known as “Crommelin’s Thunderbirds,” part of Admiral Marc Mitscher’s Task Force 58 (at that time the largest naval force in the history of the world). Within a few short weeks of getting underway from Alameda, Randolph was leading the final push against the Japanese Empire. In February, Raymond and the planes of CAG 12 flew hundreds of sorties against airfields and factories on the Japanese home islands, including strikes on Tokyo. They also flew missions against the crucially important islands of Iwo Jima, Chichi Jima, Haha Jima, and Hachijo Jima. These islands were Japan’s last natural barrier of protection against Allied forces. However, even though the Japanese were clearly on the defensive, they still posed a very dangerous threat. The Japanese sent over 5,300 kamikazes against Task Force 58. The Navy lost 5,000 sailors in these devastating attacks. Admiral Mitscher had to change flagships several times; eventually transferring to Randolph after the Bunker Hill was hit by two kamikaze attacks.
It was a few minutes after eight in the evening on March 11. Randolph was anchored at Ulithi Atoll, a small group of islets 1,300 miles south of Tokyo. The atoll had become an important forward base of operation for the Navy, capable of hosting over 700 ships at a time, including carriers and destroyers. One of the islets, Mogmog, had become a favorite R&R (Rest & Relaxation) destination for war-weary sailors and soldiers on liberty. On that particular night, a movie was playing in the hanger deck. The first showing of A Song to Remember had just concluded, and sailors coming off duty were streaming in for the second showing as others headed for their bunks or duty stations.
There was a bright flash, and the ship shuddered as a massive explosion ripped through the starboard aft, just below the flight deck. A kamikaze crew of three flying an explosive-laden Yokosuka P1-Y1 “Frances” bomber had scored a direct hit. The explosion and ensuing fires took the lives of 27 Randolph crewmen, and injured another 105. Over a dozen planes were lost. “My dad was fortunate to have been one of the men watching the movie in the hanger deck, well forward of the impact point” Steve recalls. Randolph was taken out of service for emergency repairs. While work was being done to ready her for combat duty again, the air wing flew sorties from Mogmog airstrip against enemy positions on Yap Island. On April 7, less than a month after the kamikaze attack, Randolph joined the Okinawa Task Force, which was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific Theatre during World War II. Steve adds “his air group flew continuous sorties, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for 51 straight days. By April 21, over 6,000 planes had been launched from Randolph’s flight deck. Can you imagine how difficult that must have been on those men?”
Although Raymond was never seriously injured, he did have his share of close calls. Steve points out two particular incidents in his dad’s logbook. On April 21, while taking off from Randolph for strikes against enemy positions in Okinawa, his plane that was fully loaded with fuel and weapons lost power on takeoff and had to ditch directly in front of the carrier. Years later Raymond recalled how lucky they were the carrier did not hit them, and how lonely he felt as he watched Randolph continue on course as he and his gunner bobbed up and down in the water. The carrier could not stop to pick them up due to the vulnerability of being a stationary target for Japanese submarines. They were picked up about 30 minutes later by a destroyer.
Nine days later, Raymond’s plane was hit by AAA (Anti-Aircraft Artillery) and he had to make a forced landing on Yontan Airfield in Okinawa. “The Marines had captured the airfield just two days before my dad had to make that emergency landing” Steve remarks. “Well, my dad was stuck there in a slit trench for three days because the Japanese were continuously bombing and shelling the airfield. When he and his aircraft finally landed back on Randolph, they were deloused, with my dad and his gunner still sitting in the plane!” The battle for Okinawa continued for nearly two more months, not ending until June 22. The United States suffered over 62,000 casualties, including 12,500 killed or missing.
On May 29 Randolph and men of CAG 12 sailed to the Philippines. They were to be relieved and returned home for reassignment and regrouping, in preparation for the invasion of Japan. Unfortunately, the much-needed respite from combat was short-lived in an unexpected way. On 7 June, while anchored off Leyte, Randolph was struck by an aircraft on her flight deck, instantly killing several sailors and the pilot of the aircraft. However, the aircraft was not Japanese. It was one of two US P-38s that had been attempting to buzz Randolph at low altitude. A crew member on Randolph recalled the event many years later. “Two P-38s made a mock strafing run on us, and one of the planes whipped stalled and came back and struck airplanes sitting on the flight deck. The impact knocked a couple of planes into the water and killed several men. The second P-38 came around for another run to see what happened, and our guns started firing warning shots around him. He got the message, because he turned and flew away. We referred to the event as the day the Army declared war on the Navy.” In all, 12 men were killed in the accident and over a dozen aircraft were lost. “The pilot that was killed was scheduled to rotate out the next day” Steve recalls. “It was his last day of duty before returning stateside.”
Japan surrendered on August 15, while Raymond was assigned to Dive Bomber Squadron VB-151 at NAS Corvallis in Oregon. He was there training new pilots for the invasion of Japan, which thankfully never occurred. After the war, he continued his career as a Naval Aviator. He was married in 1948, and soon after the Andreason family gained two new additions; a daughter, and son Steve. After several stateside assignments, he received orders to the Fleet Weather Center in Guam as a meteorologist, arriving in 1953. Although Raymond’s initial assignment in Guam was analyzing weather maps and generating forecasts, he soon found himself flying again, but not fighters or dive bombers. He was flying PB-1W and PB-4Y aircraft, the Navy versions of the B-17 and B-24. Shortly after the invasion of Okinawa, Admiral Halsey’s Third Fleet got caught in a typhoon. They lost 4 destroyers and 800 men in the storm. Since that incident, the Navy had been working on a way to gauge the strength and direction of these vicious storms. They had no weather radar or satellite imagery at that time, so they eventually concluded that the best way was to fly a plane directly into the storm and take readings. Raymond and other brave men were tasked with this dangerous endeavor.
He was not happy with his assignment; he felt it too risky and unnecessarily dangerous. In December of 1953, the squadron commander flew his plane into a typhoon registering winds of over 150 knots. No trace of the plane or crew was ever found. Newly married with a growing family, he sent a letter up the chain of command requesting a transfer. The reply, signed by the squadron commanding officer and found by his son Steve after his passing, denied his request. Despite his very real concerns, he continued flying the missions for nearly two more years. Steve recalls asking his dad if he was ever scared during the war. His answer was “in combat I was too busy doing my duties to be scared – keeping my dive angle at 70°, firing and dropping my weapons. When I came aboard the carrier I was always nervous. If it was a night landing I was afraid, but flying into hurricanes and typhoons was horrific.”
At the conclusion of his time in Guam, Raymond spent time flying the P2V “Neptune” patrol aircraft, which gave him the opportunity to fly turbines. Transferring to rotary aircraft in 1958, he trained in San Diego and qualified as a HTK-1/H22 helicopter pilot, flying anti-submarine sonar buoys off the carrier Hornet. Concluding his service with two carrier tours as a meteorological officer, Raymond Andreason retired from the Navy in 1964 as a Lieutenant Commander, having spent 22 years in the service of his country. After his time in the Navy he went to work for the California Department of Motor Vehicles at their Long Beach office, administering driver’s license tests. Steve remembers one particular day when his father arrived home from work with a big smile on his face. When he inquired as to why his dad had such a wide grin, his father replied “I failed an admiral today, and boy was he mad!”
Like so many others of the Greatest Generation who served and fought, Raymond was quiet and modest when it came to talking about his experiences in the war. He did not consider himself a hero – in his view those who left and never came home were the real heroes. Steve recalls that as a young boy he had to ask his dad about his war experiences numerous times before he would get an answer, and even then it was bits and pieces. At his funeral in 2002, Steve chronicled his father’s Navy experiences in a eulogy. Afterwards, one of his siblings told him they never even knew their dad flew in the war. Such was the hallmark of the remarkable men and women who selflessly gave so much for the freedom and liberty of our country, and the world. In their humble opinions, they were just “doing their job.”
Copyright 2023 Dan Heller
