USS Independence CVL-22

Product Description

USS INDEPENDENCE CVL-22, A War Diary of the Nation’s First Dedicated Night Carrier  (“Enhanced Edition II”)

This is a comprehensive history of a fast WWII aircraft carrier, and her air groups. The book details the ship from concept through construction, launching, outfitting, shakedown and entry into the great Pacific war, where the CVL-22 would earn Eight Battle Stars. CVL-22 participated in strikes against Japanese held Marcus and Wake Islands, then Rabaul on its way to the Gilbert Islands.

After healing from extensive torpedo damage off Tarawa, USS Independence reemerged as our nation’s first dedicated night carrier. Follow the story of the ship and her aviators in action against the Japanese Empire in the Philippines, Okinawa, Indochina, and onward to the waters off Japan.

Squadrons that flew off the USS Independence included:
VF-6,
VF-21,
VT-21,
VC-22,
VF-22,
VT-22,
VF-27,
VT-27,
VFN-41,
VTN-41,
VF-46,
VT-46 (and
VF-33 for one day at Rabaul).

First released at the ship’s reunion in September 2011 the book has been extremely well received by the crew members and their families. This is a revised “Enhanced Edition II” with 89 additional pages (from the First Edition). The glossy hardcover 8.5″ X 11″ book has roughly 350 photos, and 40 maps, charts and diagrams and an extensive index.

 “excellent and heavily researched book” – CDR Doug Siegfried, USRN (Ret), as reviewed in the Spring 2012 edition of “THE HOOK”, the quarterly magazine of the “Tailhook Association”. Doug’s review closed with
“I highly recommend this book. It brings to light what war was like on a carrier in the Pacific on a daily basis and how much we owe to those who fought in WW II”.
“Your Independence book is a great one.” – Captain A.W. “Willie” Callan USN (Ret) (Hellcat pilot in “Butch” O’Hare’s VF-6 division aboard the USS Independence in 1943).
“I am OVERWHELMED By your BOOK”  Harvey Nye (A former CVLGN-41 aircrew member who flew as a gunner in an Avenger off the USS Independence).
 ” The book is well written and is difficult to put down.” Charles R. Goemmer – (Brother of Independence crew member Jean Richard Goemmer).
” John Lambert has made a significant contribution to U.S. Naval history.” Michael H. Lee – (Son of a USS Independence VFN-41 Hellcat pilot, I.H. “Hebe” Lee).

“It is a good read, with 784* pages of highly detailed, well ordered facts, and laid out to make it easy to nail down historical content for anyone doing research.” Ronald G. Davis – President of the USS Cabot (CVL-28) Reunion Group. (* Now 870 pages.)

Contact the author at
[email protected]

From the Author

With her hull breached once again, unwelcome salt water rushed within. As she succumbed to her fate the Mighty-I rolled on her side. Gravity pulled her toward the bottom, her island structure, having been decorated with eight battle stars and 124 Japanese flags, slipped beneath the surface. Stern first, she submerged on a one way descent into the cold dark depths.  Permanently obscured from view, settled on the bottom in her unmarked watery grave, her headstone was to be the vast Pacific.

Her remaining crew members, having survived the war, ravages of disease, and the undefeated hunter Father Time, will one day also slip away as surely as the ship with which they once proudly served their nation in a time of dire need.

Rust is consuming  the Mighty-I’s hull, and the passage of time eroding memories of the ship and her crew.

History of the USS INDEPENDENCE and her fine crew is becoming relegated to the dark confines of various file cabinets and boxes of documents in places such as the National Archives, or other historical centers, that few eyes will ever see.

I was asked by the historian of the ships reunion group, Al Hiegel, to write a book detailing the time when her decks were dry, and aircraft were launching. Attending a  reunion in 2007, the surviving crew members felt historically underrepresented. In research