Wednesday, November 24, 1943. The sinking of the Liscome Bay.

USS Liscome Bay.

The USS Liscome Bay was torpedoed at 05:10 by the Japanese submarine I-175.  644 men were killed in the initial explosion or the rapid 23 minute sinking.  The aircraft carrier had been supporting the landings on Makin Island in the Gilberts.  The losses due to the attack far outstripped the US losses in the ground operation.

Burial at sea for two of the Liscome Bay's crew, as surviving crewmates look on.

Most of the naval task force supporting the landing had withdrawn, as the operation had successfully completed, but the Liscome Bay had remained in support of ongoing operations. Japanese submarines had been rushed to the area, withdrawn from other areas of the Pacific, in a near panic by the Japanese Navy, which had been caught off guard by the landings.  Included amongst those losses were the commander of the ship and Navy Cross winner Doris Miller.  It was the deadliest attack on an aircraft carrier in the history of the U.S. Navy.

The Liscome Bay's use at Makin demonstrates something that was to become common in the Pacific, it was being used as an operational carrier.  Indeed, it was the flagship of the operation, with the other two carriers also being escort carriers.

The shock of Tarawa and Makin was in part because the US had simply chosen to leap up into the Central Pacific without completing operations in the Southern Pacific.  Indeed, operations on Bougainville, where the Japanese mounted a small counter-attack on this day, never concluded.

In San Francisco, Leopold Stokowski conducted an all-Russian concert with the San Francisco Symphony.