By Nephew John “Jack” Scott Haack
(This is the Story of Replacement Pilot Ensign Jack Carl Fuller and his arrival on CV20 Bennington, on the front line with Task Force 58.1, in the Okinawa Campaign on the East China Sea, ending with his death 7 April 1945)
80 years ago – March-April 1945
It was a big day when Ensign Fuller arrived on the huge Essex Class aircraft carrier CV20 Bennington, to start flying combat missions against Okinawa. Up to this point, he had been on a small Casablanca Class CVE escort carrier, CVE100 Bougainville, delivering pilots, aircrew, and planes to the big carriers being depleted in their ongoing attacks against Japan during the Iwo Jima campaign, now ending. The war in Europe was winding down with the Germans on the run but all hell was breaking loose here in the Pacific. With the Okinawa campaign now starting, the Japanese were in a very intense struggle with the Americans, using kamikaze aircraft on suicide missions and manned flying guided missiles called Ohkas (Cherry Blossoms), all taking a terrible toll, in particular sinking protective task force destroyers on picket duty protecting our carriers, but also some CVE and CV carriers themselves, most notably the Franklin. It had been many months since the Battle of Midway which pretty much decimated the Japanese navy, but the world’s largest battleship was holed up in Japan waiting to come down to Okinawa on a suicide mission, beach itself, and aid the Japanese army defending this outpost on the southern tip of Japan. We’ll get to that later.