My father took these pictures of his WWII and postwar Navy ships. First the tiny ‘Kaiser Coffin’ Escort carrier USS Corregidor CVE-58: and then the smaller still ‘tin can’ Destroyer USS Ingraham DD-694, after the war.

Some say the tiny Casablanca class class carriers had trouble landing and taking off hot planes like the Corsair, Hellcat and the big TBM. But not according to my dad and these pictures.

I count 12 Hellcats on the flight deck, the class was designed to hold only 27 aircraft of various types. Speed was only19 knots (22 mph). Fast enough to escort merchant ships and hunt subs and provide close air support but not fast enough for the fleet. The ships were not armored, they had one 5 inch AA gun.

Very difficult for the average pilot to fly, the F4U Corsair once mastered, made up for it in speed, range and power. The even harder to fly big engine ground support version continued production after the war and served on through the Korean Conflict.

Tiny but mighty, the Casablanca class escort carrier.

The huge ‘turkey’, Grumman’s deadly attack/torpedo carrier plane, the TBF/TBM Avenger.

Port unknown.

Looks like a triumphant flyover.

More stressful than combat.

Unknown jolly tars.

Ship’s dog but he doesn’t say which ship.

Possibly one of his ship’s boats but maybe not the ‘captain’s gig’ he talked about.

This unknown late 40s beauty must have scored a point, gloated, and is ready to serve again. Rumor was she was the old man’s girlfriend, he kept the picture 70 years anyway. And those cheap tract houses sure do look like the ‘projects’ his family lived in back then- hard times. But she looks like fun.

The USS Ingraham, the Destroyer my dad transferred to postwar. He sailed with her through the Bikini bomb test where she sailed into radioactivity. She was Allen N Sumner class, fast and deadly, with beefed up AA artillary to take on suicide attacks but it almost wasn’t enough off Okinawa.

The Ingraham used these dual purpose 5 inch guns to sink a Japanese cargo ship off the Philippines in December, 1944.

Crowded, maybe Ulithi?

Rafting up appears to have been common.

Depth charge attack on a Japanese sub. Or a whale or else valuable training.

Not a lucky ship in the Pacific war, on radar picket duty she took 50 casualties in a fanatical kamikaze air attack, 15 of them fatal. She shot down 3 planes but was hit so hard she was sent stateside for repairs just as the war ended.

The ship had a very long service life, providing accurate fire support for US ground forces through the Vietnam era, and continuing to serve the Greek navy until 1992. She was finally sunk by the Greeks in a wargame exercise, a fitting end for such a warrior. More dignified than the scrap yard.

Unless noted, all text and images by todgermanica.com.