USS BENNINGTON - CV-20!

Welcome To My Page In Honor of the Aircraft Carrier
That My Dad Sailed On In WWII...!

Hello, My name is Pam Hill Costa. When I was growing up as a young girl,
I remember hearing people talk about World War II.
It seemed so far away to a young girl of the 50s;
but now I look back and see how really close in time it was.

As a newly married couple, my Parents, Peg and Dick Hill, lived in Washington DC,
and Dad was an officer in the Radio Room in Washington,D.C. when
the message came in about the Attack on Pearl Harbor.
Eventually, he was sent to be one of the first crew ("plank owners")
on the USS Bennington Aircraft Carrier, CV-20.

When I was a young girl, I asked him about the war...
and he would never talk about it.
As I grew older, he would finally share some of his stories,
And now that he has had his "very special" 80th Birthday party,
The whole family knows a great deal about the Bennington.
I will explain about that later in the story of "THE QUEST"!

I would like to share a few of those stories here,
and then some web sites I have found about that great ship!

THE BOTTLE OF SCOTCH

When I celebrated my 21st Birthday, my Dad gave me a very special gift.
It was a bottle of Scotch, and here is the story that went with that bottle:

As with many of the young couples who were thrown into WWII,
My parents were separated at a time when my mother, Peggy Hill, was expecting me.
My Dad was "somewhere" in the Pacific when I was born,
and my Mom couldn't contact him to let him know about his new daughter.
She did get word to the Red Cross and they in turn sent a message on the Red Cross Net.
One of the radio officers, on the battleship USS Arkansas, in the Leyte Gulf,
Lt. Sidney Hatch, (from Michigan, now deceased), picked up the message,
and relayed it via signal light, to the Bennington, congratulating
my dad on becoming a new father!!! What a message to receive in the middle of a war,
in the middle of Leyte Gulf!!!
(It was relayed by signal light because that was the way messages were passed
between ships in the Leyte Gulf so that the Japanese would not overhear the local "traffic".)

But even more important, he sent over a bottle of Scotch, as a present for the new father!
that Bottle of Scotch was taken care of throughout the whole war,
and safely brought home to be saved for just the right occasion.

I thanked my Dad for the very special gift, and asked him if it would be okay
(since I was not a scotch drinker), to keep it until I got married.
When I got engaged, sure enough, my fiance did like scotch,
so things looked hopeful for a very special toast at the wedding!

Well, a few weeks before the wedding date, my parent's house was broken into...
And you guessed it, along with other things, that very same bottle of scotch was stolen!

Imagine, it had survived World War II,
but couldn't survive two PUNKS looking for drug money!!
What a sad thing!! *SIGH*

THE QUEST

READ ABOUT THE STORY OF THE SEARCH FOR THE PERFECT GIFT
FOR MY DAD'S 80TH BIRTHDAY PARTY!

SOME WEBSITES OF INTEREST:

USS BENNINGTON HOMEPAGE:
(Info,History,Crew,Reunions,Stories!)

USS Bennington at Pearl Harbor

BENNINGTON HISTORY:

US Navy Aircraft Carriers - Brief History

CV-20 USS Bennington II - Brief History and Stats

CARRIER INFO:

CV-9 Essex Class Carriers

Essex Class - CV-20