ROLAND L. HAMBLIN

WW2 PILOT BASED OFF USS BLOCK ISLAND

THE ONLY CARRIER LOST IN THE EUROPEAN THEATER 

“I think the most scared I ever was, was one time we were way up in the North Atlantic and we were searching a 200-mile-strip for German submarines,” explained my uncle. Roland Hamblin was a pilot in World War II, based off the jeep carrier USS Block Island.  Used specifically against German subs, jeep carriers were about half the size of the big carriers in the Pacific.  They had a flight deck that was 550 feet long and about 60 feet side to side.  

“I was assigned to Squadron VC-55.  We flew bombers and fighters and flew both depending on what was needed.  We were assigned to anti-submarine warfare.  I was hoping for the South Pacific where all the action and glory was, but knowing the Navy, they sent us to the North Atlantic. There were hundreds of German submarines and they were all along the convoy routes destroying hundreds of ships.  They sent us out in the carrier with five destroyers in front of us to protect us from the submarines and a squadron aboard with about 100 aircraft, F4Fs and TBFs.  We had machine guns and rockets and acoustical torpedoes that would home in on the submarines and seek it out.  So we had everything we needed to fight the German submarines.

While searching for submarines, we stayed up about four hours. That meant we could fly about 100 miles, and then we would come back. I was way out as far as I could go and it was a very cold day.  All of a sudden my engine just cut out, and I didn’t know what was wrong. We fly about 3,000 feet so we could see 

the submarines and not be too high or too low. You just drop like a rock when your engine goes out. I gave a quick prayer, I said ‘Heavenly Father, help me.’ Two words came into my mind: ‘Carburetor Heat.’ On my dashboard there was a little pull out knob that was labeled Carburetor Heat. That turned the hot air from the cylinders right onto the carburetor. I turned the knob and just like that, the heat hit it, and my engine started right up. By that time my heart had leaped up into my throat.

Later on when we were off England, we spotted a German submarine and started chasing it. We chased it for nine days and nine nights. We attacked it and it submerged. The next day we made a search around the area where it had gone down. We marked the spot with green dye marker. He would have to come up in a hundred mile area. All day he would stay submerged, and then he would have to come up at night. This went on for nine days. He was going south, thank heavens, instead of north. I was out flying patrol that day and was coming in to land. I noticed that the carrier was going right through this green dye marker.

I came in and reported to the Captain, ‘You just went through the green dye marker.’

He didn’t say much, but just as I climbed into the shower, we got hit by two torpedoes. If you get hit by a torpedo on a ship, it is just like a rock rattling in a can. I hit the floor, then the ceiling, then bounced off the floor again. I jumped out of the shower and grabbed what I could and ran upstairs to the ready room and I reported. About then we got hit by another torpedo. We were told to abandon ship.

            In the Navy through report, the first thing you hear is the boatswain’s whistle. Then a voice comes over the air saying, ‘Now hear this, now hear this’ and then you would get your message. Everyone was listening closely and it said, ‘General Quarters, General Quarters.’ That meant for everyone to report to their battle station wherever it was. Our station was in the pilot’s ready room. We waited there until we got the call to abandon ship. I had my Mae West [life vest] on. I went to the side of the deck where I should have gotten off, but the wind was blowing that way. You couldn’t even get to the edge of the flight deck there were so many people. So I went around to the other side.

The only problem was that when we got off the ship, it was drifting our way. It was drifting about as fast as I could swim. The carrier was about 60 feet high and everything was floating around in the water, so you went down a rope into the water. Once again, I prayed and I got the impression, ‘Swim back, swim back.’ The ship drifted on past us, because we were right behind it then. About that time the stern went down. It just slid right under us. If we had been any closer, it would have sucked us under with it.

We thought we were safe, but then when it got down about 200 feet, all the depth charges that had been set for 200 feet started going off. There were explosions all around us. Big old geysers of water. Once again, I prayed and Heavenly Father helped me. I got the impression, ‘Get your feet up, get your feet up.’ I floated up above all that debris from the explosions. There were terrible sharp concussions and the water was covered with oil, so the sharks didn’t bother us.

This happened about 8 o’clock at night and we got picked up at midnight. Thank goodness we were in the South Atlantic where it wasn’t nearly as cold. We wouldn’t have lasted as long in the North Atlantic.

Besides hitting the carrier, the submarine torpedoed one of the destroyers. We saw the torpedo go by; it was an acoustical one and hit the destroyer right in the screws. One of the other destroyers went to take care of the ship that was hit and the other two destroyers went ahead and found that German submarine and sunk it. It had stayed down as long as it could and when the carrier passed over it, it gave up and came to the surface and fired everything it had. It couldn’t submerge any more, the batteries were run down and it was exhausted. So they finally sunk the sub. Then they pulled up in the area where we were.

I got over to one of them about 11:30 that night and wanted to get aboard and they said, ‘Sorry we can’t take you. We just can’t take any more survivors.’ Then they continued, ‘If you can get over there to the other one, they will probably pick you up.’ So we went over to the other destroyer and they said to come up. That was one of the hardest things I have ever done was to climb aboard that destroyer.

There was another person climbing up the same time as I did, and I thought he was Black.  When I got up and looked at myself, I realized I looked just like he did.  We were covered with oil. They gave us a shower. It was a salt water shower which was all they had. They gave me a t-shirt, and that was all I had to wear for four days until we got to Casablanca [Morocco].

We had six planes up at the time we were torpedoed. They sent them to the nearest land, which happened to be the Azores. There was no landing strip in the Azores at the time, so they all tried to land in the water and coast up to the beach. One of the pilots took his life jacket and little lifeboat, and he was picked up by a PBY the next day.  We thought he was the only one to survive.”

My uncle blamed the sinking of the ship on the Block Island’s captain for crossing into the green dye. Additional reports state: “With three kills credited to her squadron, she was an experienced anti-submarine unit, but she remained the only US carrier lost in the European theater.” Barrett Tillman, Wildcat: The F4F in World War II. The attached destroyer Ahrens, built and equipped to carry a crew of 200, picked up 674 survivors, nearly weighing its deck down to sea level.

“The 277 survivors left in the oily brine full of stinging Man of Wars had to swim for four hours to reach the Paine.  One reported that when the depth charges went off, it felt like getting an enema with a telephone pole.  Most were too exhausted to climb up the rope ladders and had to be pulled up by strong-armed crewmen.  Then they collapsed when they tried to stand on deck.  Any clothing, oily-soaked, left on them was cut off and thrown overboard.

Thirteen men from the Block Island were lost. Four of the six Wildcat pilots left in the air also died that night. The Block Island survivors arrived in Casablanca on June 1st and were issued marine khakis and kept in isolation to keep news of the ship’s loss from leaking out.” D-Day followed five days later, June 6, 1944.