USS Bataan planned as USS Buffalo and classified as CV-29, was an 11,000 ton Independence-class light aircraft carrier, commissioned in the United States Navy during World War II on the 17th November 1943. Serving in the Pacific Theatre for the entire war, taking part in operations around New Guinea, the Invasion of the Mariana Islands, the Battle of the Philippine sea, the Battle of Okinawa, Attacks on the Japanese home islands. After World War II's end she was converted into an anti-submarine carrier and placed in reserve on 11 February 1947, she was reactivated on the 13th May 1950 at Philadelphia, with Captain Edgar T. Neale in command in order to participate in the Korean War. After the war she returned to Pearl Harbor, reported for a preinactivation overhaul on 26 August 1953. After moving to the San Francisco Naval Shipyard, Bataan was decommissioned on 9 April 1954 and assigned to the Pacific Reserve Fleet at San Francisco. Although she was reclassified an auxiliary aircraft transport and redesignated AVT-4 on 15 May 1959, her name was struck from the Navy List on 1 September 1959.

She was sold to Nicolai Joffe Corp. Beverly Hills, California, on 19 June 1961 for scrapping; the vessel that became the light aircraft carrier Bataan was planned as the Cleveland-class light cruiser Buffalo. Following the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the need for more carriers became urgent. In response, the Navy ordered the conversion of nine Cleveland-class light cruisers under construction to completion as light aircraft carriers; these became known as the Independence-class aircraft carriers. Thus, CL-99 was reclassified CV-29 and renamed Bataan on 2 June 1942, she was further reclassified as CVL-29 on 15 July 1943. Bataan 16,260 long tons at full load, she had an overall length of a waterline length of 600 feet. Her extreme beam was 109 feet 2 inches and her beam at the waterline was 71 feet 6 inches, her draft was 26 feet maximum. For armament she was equipped with 24 Bofors 40 mm gun and 22 Oerlikon 20 mm cannon for anti-aircraft protection, she carried 30 aircraft. Her armor consisted of 5 inches of belt armor, 2 inches on the decks, 1⁄2 inch on the conning tower.

She was powered by four Babcock & Wilcox steam boilers and General Electric geared turbines producing 100,000 shaft horsepower for her four screws. She had a range of 12,500 nautical miles at 15 knots, she carried a complement of 1569. The vessel was ordered 16 December 1940 as a light cruiser and reordered as a light aircraft carrier on 2 June 1942, she was laid down on 31 August 1942 and launched on 1 August 1943 at the New York Shipbuilding Corporation in Camden, New Jersey, sponsored by Mrs. Corinne DeForest Murray, wife of Rear Admiral George D. Murray, she was commissioned on 17 November 1943, with Captain V. H. Schaeffer in command. Bataan was named after Bataan Peninsula and the Battle of Bataan where American and Filipino troops were besieged by Japanese forces from 24 December 1941 until 9 April 1942 when the remaining 78,000 troops surrendered to avoid unnecessary slaughter. After fitting out at Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, Bataan conducted preliminary shakedown training in Chesapeake Bay before sailing to the West Indies on 11 January 1944.

Two days while en route to Trinidad, she suffered her first loss when a Grumman F6F Hellcat fighter crashed into her number 2 stack and burst into flames, killing three crewmen. Returning to Philadelphia on 14 February, she underwent post-shakedown repairs and inspections until 2 March when she got underway for the Pacific. Transiting the Panama Canal on 8 March, she arrived in San Diego on the 16th. Two days she sailed for Hawaii with her flight and hangar decks full with passengers and cargo. Arriving at Pearl Harbor on 22 March, the she conducted a week of pilot qualification drills in preparation for "forward area deployment"; the warship lost her second aircraft on 31 March when a "Hellcat" crashed the landing barrier and went over the side, although the pilot survived without injury. Bataan departed Pearl Harbor on 4 April accompanied by her escorting destroyers and steamed to the Marshall Islands, she arrived at Majuro Atoll on 9 April and reported for duty with the fast carriers of Task Force 58 that same day.

On 13 April, she sailed with the carriers Hornet, Belleau Wood and the rest of Task Group 58.1 for air operations against Hollandia, New Guinea. These raids were intended to support American amphibious operations in the Humboldt Bay-Tanahmerah Bay region of New Guinea. On 21 April, Bataan launched five fighter sweeps to attack Japanese aircraft and ground installations on New Guinea; the pilots claimed hits on numerous buildings, flak guns, coastal barges and three aircraft on the ground. Meanwhile, the carrier's Combat Air Patrol shot down a Mitsubishi G4M1 Betty bomber and a Mitsubishi Ki-21 Sally; the Task Group headed north and struck the Japanese base at Truk Lagoon on 29 April. Bataan launched a fighter sweep and three bombing raids, with the Grumman/General Motors TBM Avenger torpedo bombers dropping 13 short tons of bombs on the Japanese base. One TBM Avenger was shot down during the attack, but the crew was rescued by submarine Tang, engaged in lifeguard duty - patrolling for such survivors during the battle.

On 30 April, Bataan's task group turned toward Caroline Islands.

J. Douglas McCullough is an American lawyer and former judge of the North Carolina Court of Appeals. McCullough retired in 2017. After earning a history degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1967 and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of South Carolina in 1970, McCullough served in the United States Marine Corps, retiring as a colonel in the Marine Corps Reserves. McCullough worked as legislative counsel for New Mexico Senator Harrison Schmitt, as a counsel to the United States Senate, as an Assistant United States Attorney in the eastern district of North Carolina from 1981 through 1996, when he left to enter private practice. In November 2000, McCullough was elected to the North Carolina Court of Appeals with just over 50 percent of the vote, defeating incumbent Clarence Horton, he has two children. He resides in Atlantic Beach, NC. On October 7, 2006, McCullough was charged with drunk driving, he pleaded guilty to driving while impaired on April 3, 2007. McCullough is a registered Republican, but in his 2008 bid for re-election, he cited bipartisan support from notables such as former NC Supreme Court Chief Justices Burley Mitchell and I.

Beverly Lake Jr.. He enjoyed support from former North Carolina Court of Appeals Judges S. Gerald Arnold, Sidney S. Eagles, K. Edward Greene, Albert S. Thomas Jr. McCullough was criticized in 2007 for implying that he and other incumbent Republican incumbents should be re-elected because they would favor Republicans in an anticipated lawsuit over redistricting. An ethics complaint was filed against him as a result of his comments. In response to the complaint, the state Judicial Standards Commission said it would not punish McCullough, but it said that it had made "an effort to ensure such conduct is not repeated." McCullough was defeated in the November 2008 election by state District Court judge Cheri Beasley. In 2008, McCullough penned a self-published novel called "Sea of Greed" which details the events that led up to the U. S. invasion of Panama, McCullough's prosecution of dictator Manuel Noriega, one of the biggest drug busts in America's history. The book is now sold online and in local bookstores in the N.

C. area. McCullough won a new term on the Court of Appeals in 2010, when he came in second in the first round, but won the second round, of the first use of instant runoff voting for a statewide election in North Carolina, he narrowly defeated appointed incumbent judge Cressie Thigpen. Official biography Sea of Greed

Elliott Kastner was an American film producer, whose best known credits include Where Eagles Dare, The Long Goodbye, The Missouri Breaks and Angel Heart. Kastner was born to a Jewish family in New York City, his father died when he was young and he was raised by his mother in Harlem. He attended the University of Columbia University. During the 1950s he was stationed with U. S. Eucom, in Frankfurt and Paris, France. Kastner worked in the mail room at the William Morris Agency in New York, he became a talent agent at the Music Corporation of America. When that agency merged with Decca Records, which owned Universal Pictures, Lew Wasserman, the president of MCA, made Kastner vice president of production at Universal, he worked there for two years before becoming an independent producer. Kastner's first film as producer was Bus Riley's Back in Town based on a script by William Inge and starring Ann-Margret and Michael Parks. Inge was so unhappy with the final result he requested his name be taken off the credits and the film was not a commercial or critical success.

Kastner teamed up with producer Jerry Gershwin to form Winkast Film Productions, based at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire. They wound up making eleven movies together, the first of, the popular Harper from a novel by Ross Macdonald and directed by Jack Smight; the screenplay was written by William Goldman, talking to Kastner about a film of Goldman's novel Boys and Girls Together. Kastner got Goldman to write a sequel The Chill, but it was never made. Kastner's third film was Kaleidescope, made in England, directed by Smight with Warren Beatty and Susannah York. Kastner and Gershwin raised the finance independently, sold it to a studio, Warner Bros. "That was the beginning of producers taking control creatively by self financing,” said his stepson Cassian Elwes, who became a producer himself. Winkast made The Bobo, starring Peter Sellers and his then-wife Britt Ekland, Sweet November, with Sandy Duncan. Both were released through Warners, but Sol Madrid was released through MGM. Sol Madrid was directed by Brian G. Hutton who helmed Kastner and Gershwin's next film, Where Eagles Dare.

The producer had managed to persuade Alistair MacLean to write an original screenplay as a vehicle for Richard Burton. The movie was a big hit and led to Kastner adapting several other MacLean stories and working with Burton a number of other times. Less popular was The Night of the Following Day with Marlon Brando. Burton was meant to star in Laughter in the Dark but was fired during filming and replaced by Nicol Williamson. Other MacLean adaptations included When Eight Bells Toll, Fear is the Breakheart Pass, he would reteam with Burton on several occasions - as well as working with Burton's wife, Elizabeth Taylor. Kastner partnered up with noted producers Alan Ladd, Jr. and Jay Kanter and together they produced the films Villain, The Nightcomers, Zee and Co. and Fear Is the Key. Kastner is famous for his film adaptations of three Raymond Chandler's novels based on the exploits of one of Chandler's most famous creations, Philip Marlowe: The Long Goodbye, Farewell, My Lovely and The Big Sleep the latter two both starring Robert Mitchum as Marlowe.

In 1976 Kastner produced The Missouri Breaks starring Jack Nicholson. Kastner famously got each star to commit by lying and telling them the other one had signed. In a 1977 article Mario Puzo wrote about the Cannes Film Festival said that a group of producers regarded Kastner as "the greatest genius in the movie business... has put together big films, nearly all of which are flops. And yet he stars to produce any movie he decides to, he does it with a phone, irresistible charm, shameless chutzpah."Colleague Jay Kanter said Kastner's reputation in Hollywood was "Some good, some bad. He was relentless in pursuing. I mean dogged in his pursuit.” He added "If Elliott believed in some material, he'd never hesitate to put his own money into buying it and hiring writers to develop a screenplay. He was passionate about what he did, he was a terrific salesman as well."His obituary in the Guardian stated that "Kastner was relentless in his pursuit of getting what he wanted. He wanted to entice well-known playwrights and novelists to write screenplays, or gain the rights of those works whose authors were no longer around to cajole."

In the mid 1980s Kastner worked with his step son, Cassian Elwes. In the 1970s he had mentored Arnon Milchan. In 1987 Kastner and a partner bought 70% of Cinema Group Home video. In the late 1990s he bought Roger Corman's Concorde New Horizons for $100 million. Kastner's career was marked by a number of lawsuits, including with Mickey Rourke and David McClintick, over the film Frank and Jesse, he was divorced twice. He was the second husband of the interior designer Tessa Kennedy, with whom he had two children, a son, Dillon and a daughter, Milica, he had been introduced to Kennedy by Warren Beatty. "The marriage worked well," says Kennedy. "For eight years we'd only spend four days a month together. It wouldn't have lasted more than a year if we'd been together because we're different and volatile." Kennedy and Kastner separated in 1995. He was a stepfather to Kennedy's three sons from a previous marriage: film producer Cas