By Captain Lawrence B. Brennan, U.S. Navy (Ret.) - New Jersey ...

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Lawrence B. Brennan NJ-Built Aircraft Carriers Page 26 NJ-BUILT FAST AIR CRAFT CARRIERS – Part II ~ Lawrence Brennan Fig. 24: A rubber stamp (Locy Type 2(n)) postmark dated Navy Day, October 27, 1945 on a Number 6 cover franked with the one cent green Four Freedoms stamp and the two cent red FDR memorial stamp. Navy Day 1945 marked the first official use of ship's name cancels for non-registered mail since December 7, 1941 in the Pacific and earlier 1941 in the Atlantic. At this time Independence was at Portland, Oregon. The cover bears a rubber stamp cachet in blue ink on the left face and is addressed to a collector in Louisville. The postmark is rated "B" in the Postmark Catalog. The ship was completing its Operation Magic Carpet duties. Assigned as a target vessel for the Bikini atomic bomb tests, she was placed within one-half mile of ground zero for the July 1, 1946 above-surface detonation. The ship did not sink, however, and after taking part in another test on July 25, 1946 was taken to Kwajalein (Marshall Islands) and decommissioned on August 28, 1946. The radioactive hulk was later returned to Pearl Harbor and then San Francisco for further tests. Independence was finally sunk in weapons tests off the coast of California on January 29, 1951. Independence received eight battle stars for World War II service. Fig. 25: USS Independence, afire aft, soon after the "Able Day" atomic bomb air burst test at Bikini on 1 July 1946. The bomb had exploded off the ship's port quarter, causing massive blast damage in that area, and progressively less further forward. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. (Photo #: 80-G-627502) NJPH 218 Vol. 36/No. 4 November 2008 Whole No. 172 Published by the New Jersey Postal History Society Originally published in the pages of NJPH
Lawrence B. Brennan NJ-Built Aircraft Carriers Page 27 Lawrence Brennan ~ NJ-BUILT FAST AIR CRAFT CARRIERS – Part II Fig. 26: A rubber stamp (Locy Type 2(n)) postmark dated June 30, 1946 on a Number 6 cover franked with the three cent purple "Win the War" stamp. At this time Independence was at Bikini Atoll where, the next month, she would be one of the prime target ships in major above-ground nuclear tests. She was badly damaged by the July 1, 1946 air burst and further contaminated by radioactivity in the July 25 th underwater test. Formally decommissioned in August 1946, she was later used as a radiological research hulk. The cover bears a single straight line rubber stamp in black ink and is addressed to a well known collector who was serving on board an amphibious transport, USS Rockwall (APA-230), a support ship for Operation Crossroads, the nuclear tests. The postmark is rated "B" in the Postmark Catalog. Fig. 27: “The Independence in Tow” Watercolor, 1946 by Arthur Beaumont 17 A battered Independence, after the first a-bomb test being towed to shallower water in preparation for test Baker. She survived that second test, was eventually towed to California for study, and later scuttled in 1951. Vol. 36/No. 4 219 NJPH Whole No. 172 November 2008 Published by the New Jersey Postal History Society Originally published in the pages of NJPH
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By Captain Lawrence B. Brennan, U.S. Navy (Ret.) - New Jersey ...

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