Some 80 years ago today: Poncho, the mascot of USS White Plains (CVE 66), 11 December 1943 as the ship conducts her shakedown cruise between Astoria and San Diego. In the background, note the jeep carrier’s sole 5″/38 open-mount gun.
NARA 80-G-384069
The Casablanca-class escort carrier was a “Kaiser Coffin” built in Vancouver in just 277 days from laydown (11 February 1943) to commissioning (15 November 1943).
Before the end of the year, she had wrapped up her shakedown and was back at sea, bound for Kiribati with 333 passengers from VC-66, Marine Air Warning Squadron (AWS) 1, and Marine Night Fighter Squadron (VMF (N) 531. She then picked up 39 aircraft of VMF-113 and VMF (N)-532, and 398 Marines bound for Tarawa, where she launched her first aircraft: Vought F4U-1 and F4U-2 Corsairs bound for shore.
USS White Plains (CVE-66) in San Diego harbor, California, circa April 1944. She is being assisted by the harbor tug Wenonah (YT-148). White Plains is painted in Camouflage Measure 33, Design 10A. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) collections, #80-G-302258.
It wasn’t until April that White Plains shipped to the war proper with an airwing of FM-2 Wildcats and TBM-1Cs to take part in Operation Forager– the landings in the Marianas Islands. She would continue her service in the Phippilipines– serving with Taffy 3’s CarDiv 25 at Samar, as well as Operation Iceberg—the invasion of Okinawa.
White Plains received five battle stars during World War II and the Presidential Unit Citation for her part in the Battle off Samar.
Postwar, White Plains was decommissioned on 10 July 1946 and, after a dozen years in the reserve fleet, was sold for scrapping.
No word on what became of Poncho the sea dog.