USS MEREDITH, DD-434
15-18 OCTOBER 1942
USS MEREDITH, DD-434
The Gleaves-class destroyer USS MEREDITH (DD-434) was no stranger to the young War. After a brief stint in the Atlantic, MEREDITH transferred to the Pacific, where in April 1942 she screened HORNET (CV-8) on the secret Doolittle raid against Tokyo. She moved to the south Pacific, where the US forces were still reeling from the advance of the Japanese juggernaut. This morning found her underway in company with NICHOLAS (DD-449) out of Espiritu Santo escorting a “convoy” of two stores ships, USS ALCHIBA (AK-23) and BELLATRIX (AK-20), the ex-gunboat USS JAMESTOWN (PG-55) and the fleet tug VIREO (AT-144). Bound for American forces on Guadalcanal, the latter two were towing barges filled with 500# bombs and aviation gasoline. As the little convoy passed San Cristobal Island, a lone Japanese scout plane was spotted circling high above, obviously radioing their position.
The Japanese carrier ZUIKAKU and her surface force were known to be in the area. With an enemy strike a certainty, CDR Harry E. Hubbard prudently sent his convoy back home and braced for the inevitable onslaught. Only VIREO and MEREDITH plodded on, barely making 15 knots. At 1050, two enemy fighters strafed the pair but were turned away by MEREDITH’s gunners. Word now reached Hubbard that two enemy warships lay just over the horizon. Gravely threatened, Hubbard elected to scuttle the tug and dash the last 75 miles to Guadalcanal in the destroyer. He transferred VIREO’s crew and was preparing to torpedo the tug when the skies were darkened by 27 enemy planes.
At once the destroyer’s decks were ravaged by a hail of bombs and machine gun bullets. A torpedo slammed into her side; explosions racked the No. 2 gun mount and the fantail. In rapid succession a bomb destroyed the carpenter shop while a fourth struck just forward of the No. 1 stack. In one blast LT Charles J. Bates was blown skyward from the weather deck, and, suffering little more than a ruffled uniform, landed gently on the flying bridge. He picked up a sub-machine gun and began pinging at six torpedo planes approaching from starboard. Two of these were splashed by BM2c W.R. Singletary, who had run to one of the starboard 20-mm guns after his primary gun station had disintegrated beneath him. Another torpedo struck the stern, and depth charges on the fantail began detonating. CDR Hubbard had been blinded in an explosion that badly burned his face and hands and left him disoriented. He turned to Bates for assistance and with the attack only two minutes old and the bow already awash, called “Abandon Ship!” FN1c Joseph Hoban, who swore he would not leave his station until shooting down an enemy plane, was last seen strapped into his gun, still firing as the decks went under. MEREDITH sank quickly, and after strafing the survivors briefly, the enemy planes retired.
Continued tomorrow…
Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 4 “L-M”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1969, pp. 332-33.
Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 7 “T-V”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1981, p. 538.
Morison, Samuel Eliot. History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol 5 The Struggle for Guadalcanal. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co., 1948, pp. 179-80.
Parkin, Robert Sinclair. Blood on the Sea: American Destroyers Lost in World War II. New York, NY: Sarpedon, 1995, pp. 88-92.
