Presentation Rolex Wrist Watch To Commander J.C. Shaw- USS Bunker Hill – CV-17. SOLD

Description

Presentation Rolex Wrist Watch To Commander J.C. Shaw- USS Bunker Hill – CV-17.

Commander James Clair Shaw, from St. Paul, MN, graduated from the USNA, Class of 1936.  He served on the USS Atlantic CL -17, and saw action at the Battle of Midway, landings in the Solomon Islands, Battle of Guadalcanal, where his ship went down and he was wounded. He was awarded the Silver Star, and Purple Heart for that action.

After recuperation, he was assigned to the USS Bunker Hill, CV-17 as gunnery officer in March of 1943, and returned to the Pacific Theater where the ship participated in the attack on Rabaul, the Bougainville landings, the invasion of the Gilberts and Marshalls, raids on Truk, Palau, the Marianas, Leyte and Luzon, the landings on Hollandia, the battle of the Philippine Sea, and raids in the Bonins, Saipan, Guam, Palau Islands, Japan, Iwo Jima, andOkinawa. He was awarded the Bronze Star, the Gold Star and the Presidential unit citation for these actions.  He was “Plank Holder” (original crew member), and remainder with the “Holiday Inn” (Bunker Hill) until she managed to limp back to Puget Sound in 1945, suffering greatly from repeated Kamikaze attacks.

Written in the History of the Bunker Hill comes this excerpt:

“Boss of the Gunnery Department was Commander James C. Shaw, class of ’36, USNA, whose experiences in war and peace constitute an odyssey within themselves.  He succeeded Commander W.R.D. Nickelson, USN, last spring: both of these officers had gone through the epic battles of the USS Atlantic together, from her commissioning to her death off Savo Island in November, 1942…All during the pre-commissioning days, he (Nickelson) assisted by Commander Shaw, spent hours of unrecorded worry and planning; theirs was the task of shaping a new sea giantess for the fights that lay ahead. Commander Nickelson left the ship to become executive officer of a new cruiser. Prior to his wartime duties, the present Gun Boss spent a tour of duty in the Asiatic destroyer fleet, where he came to know first hand the temperament and methods of his present enemy. Manila, Mindanao, Shanghai, Hong-Kong, and even Yokohama were a few of the Far Eastern points he became familiar with. During a stay in Manila, he was confronted with his first spur-of-the-moment command, when he took a destroyer to se for four days during a typhoon……”  

Being with the Bunker Hill her whole time in the Pacific, his guns shot down 470 enemy planes.  The Bunker Hill participated in every major invasion in the Pacific war from the Marshall and Gilbert Islands to Okinawa.  The carrier was never out of operation due to mechanical failure or enemy action until hit by two Japanese suicide planes on 11 May, 1945.  In that Kamikaze attack,  393 sailors and airmen killed, including 41 missing and never found, and 264 wounded. The badly damaged carrier began the slow voyage home, via Pearl Harbor, and on to Bremerton Navy Shipyard, Washingon State, off Puget Sound.

It was here were the watch was purchased. An expensive watch, that do doubt sat in a jewelers store until purchased by the gunnery officers of the Bunker Hill.  The Presentation reads, “TO / COMDR. J.C. SHAW / FROM GUNNERY OFFICERS / USS.BUNKER HILL / MAY 1943 – JUNE 1945.”

After the war he mad many assignments, one that must have been an exciting departure from is normal duties was the six months in Hollywood as technical advisor for the movie The Caine Mutiny.  Shaw later became a Rear Admiral, and retired in 1958.

 

The Rolex 14KT Gold Art Deco wrist watch, was made 1939-40.  Marked back of inside case: ROLEX S.A. 31 VICTOIRES / HAUTE PRECISION, GENEVE-SUISSE / “R.W.C. Ltd” / 115 / 14KT / 0.5885 weight / 55950 3255 (model number).

Marked on the inside back of the workings: 17 JEWEL ROLEX GENEVA / “ROLEX ULTRA PRIMA” / SWISS / SN #97378 (1939-49) / CHRONOMETER.”

The alligator wrist band is the original ( one retaining pin replaced).   A range of values found for this type and era of watch range from $6100.00 to $15,000.00, not including the historic presentation.  We have provided downloaded copies of information on this watch from Rolex online sources.

A very nice ROLEX, with a super WWII history.