RESCUE 1400 MEN FROM LOST CARRIERS

From the personal collection of Gilbert J. Raynor and the U.S.S. KITKUN BAY Association

Newspaper clip from a Rushville, Indiana newspaper...1944

Washington, Nov. 30 (AP) - Fourteen hundred men were rescued from two escort carriers sunk in the battle of the Philippines, the navy reported tonight in releasing a detailed account of how six of the baby flat-tops fought a big Japanese task force.

The carriers sunk were the St. Lo and the Gambier Bay.

"The losses on the St. Lo were low - we picked up 800 men," Rear Admiral C.A.F. Sprague said in a first person report on the engagement. "Losses on the Gambier Bay were low too, considering that she dropped back into the middle of the Jap fleet. Approximately 600 of her crew were saved." The compliment of such ships has never been disclosed.

Sprague's report identified for the first time the other four carriers in his force of six which had an escort of three destroyers and four destroyer escorts when it tangled with a Japanese force of four battleships, seven cruisers and nine destroyers. The other carriers were the Kalinin Bay, the Fanshaw Bay, the White Plains and the Kitkun Bay. All were damaged.