Today, June 4, 2017, is the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Midway. One of the ships there was the USS Hornet, but eight US warships have carried that name.
In the Revolutionary War, an improvised US Navy challenged the most world’s most powerful naval superpower. The first Hornet, a sloop, was built as a merchant ship but chartered by the newly born navy in 1775. It joined a fleet of eight small ships commanded by Esek Hopkins to clear British trade and naval operations from the Chesapeake Bay and coastal Carolinas—an ambitious mission. (Instead, Hopkins attacked Nassau, gaining much needed munitions, but also gaining a censure from Congress for disobeying orders.) Hornet I patrolled the Delaware Bay for about a year, then convoyed merchants through the English blockade of Charleston, SC. She was captured by the British there in the summer of 1777.
During the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, state-sponsored pirates on the Barbary Coast (now called Libya), captured ships, seized their cargoes, and ransomed their crews. Much larger European powers were content to view this as a cost of business. The US, however, demanded that the pasha of Tripoli cease the practice, and when he refused, placed a naval blockade around Tripoli. Hornet II was a merchant ship purchased in Malta and converted to a sloop-of-war to join the blockade. Her bombardment of Derna supported a land expedition that threatened Tripoli and forced the pasha to agree to terms. She continued patrolling until being decommissioned in September 1806.
At roughly the same time, Hornet III, was purpose-built in Baltimore as a sloop-of-war, but eventually modified as a brig. At the outbreak of the War of 1812, Hornet III conveyed the diplomatic message from the British that the American demand to halt the impressment of American seaman was rejected, thus triggering hostilities. On July 9, she captured the privateer Dolphin—the first prize ship taken by a naval vessel in the war. A brilliant career followed, ended when she foundered in a storm in 1829.
Hornet IV was a purchased schooner, serving as a dispatch ship from 1814 to 1820.
Number V began life as a Confederate blockade runner, but was damaged, captured, rebuilt and renamed Hornet by the Federal Navy in 1865. She missed action in the Civil War and was decommissioned a few months later. Later, under private ownership, she supported US aid to rebels in Spanish Cuba until 1871.
Hornet VI was a private steam-yacht, purchased and rebuilt as a gunboat in 1898. Six days after commissioning, she joined the blockade of Spanish Cuba. Notable action included 100 minutes of battle on July 11 when Hornet and two other ships sank nine Spanish ships and four armed pontoons, while enduring heavy fire from shore batteries. When decommissioned at the end of the war, she was assigned to the North Carolina sea militia where she served until 1910.
As war engulfed Europe and Imperial Japan’s power grew in the Pacific, Hornet VII, a Yorktown-class aircraft carrier, was commissioned just two months before Pearl Harbor. In April 1942, she sailed dangerously close to Japan to launch the famous “30 seconds over Tokyo” Doolittle raid. The raid shook Imperial leadership and contributed to their decision to seize Midway Island. American intelligence, however, had broken the Japanese code and, knowing that some attack was imminent, manipulated the Imperial Navy into revealing the coded location. When the Japanese fleet arrived on June 4, the Hornet and two other carriers were waiting. Surprised and in an ambiguous tactical situation, Admiral Nagumo dithered between pressing the bombing campaign against the US airbase on Midway, launching an attack on the American ships, or launching air cover for his fleet. The armaments for all of these possible missions as well as aircraft petrol were scattered over the decks of the Imperial carriers when the US dive bombers arrived. Within minutes, three of the four Imperial carriers were disabled and eventually sunk. A fourth carrier was sunk later in the day. In an Imperial counter-attack, the US lost the Yorktown. The battle was the turning point of the war in the Pacific; in addition to thwarting Imperial dominance of the Pacific, the loss of four carriers was a deficit that the Empire could never recoup. Two months later, the Hornet steamed to the Solomons to provide air cover for the landing on Guadalcanal. On October 27, the Hornet was sunk in the Battle of the Santa Cruz islands—the last large American carrier ever sunk by enemy fire. Within a year, though, the name was revived . . .
The keel of number VIII was laid as the USS Kearsarge but renamed Hornet in honor of its predecessor. On 14 February 1944, she left Norfolk to join a naval task force in the Marshall Islands, beginning 16 months of continuous action in the Pacific, sometimes coming with 40 miles of Japan itself. Although attacked by air 59 times, she was never hit, even in the infamous kamikaze attacks of Okinawa. Her air wings destroyed 1410 enemy aircraft and ten of her aviators became “aces” in a single day. She was knocked out of action only because a July 1945 typhoon crumpled her flight deck. Twenty-four years later, the US President was aboard the Hornet to recover the astronauts of Apollo 11 upon their return from the moon. She was decommissioned in 1970 and is now a museum in Alameda, California.
John W Moore, Jr. (1927-1981) was a fireman aboard Hornet VIII during its 16 month campaign.