The Loss of SHELTON (DE-407)
3 OCTOBER 1944
THE LOSS OF SHELTON (DE-407)
On this day, Task Unit 77.4.3, affectionately known as “Taffy 3,” centered around the escort carriers FANSHAW BAY (CVE-70) and MIDWAY (CVE-63), was operating north of Morotai. The island had been taken quietly from the enemy three weeks earlier to serve as a staging base for the planned assault on the Philippines. Unbeknownst to “Taffy 3” the Japanese had sent five fleet submarines into this area to harass the Allies. One of these, RO-41, stumbled undetected upon the Task Unit.
About 0810 a wary lookout on board USS SHELTON (DE-407) spotted the incoming torpedo wake. But in the lurching maneuver to dodge this missile, a second unseen torpedo struck SHELTON on the starboard screw. The explosion lifted her stern, killing 13 officers and men working in spaces adjacent to the fantail. SHELTON went dead in the water and began to settle by the stern. Her sister escort, RICHARD M. ROWELL (DE-403), answered her calls for assistance, standing by, circling, as damage control parties secured the stricken DE. The rest of the escort carrier unit responded quickly to exact vengeance on SHELTON’s assailant.
SHELTON lay helpless for several hours. The explosion had destroyed one prop and bent the shaft of the other. Flooding in adjacent spaces had given her a list, but salvage teams remained hopeful that the escort could be saved. Morale was bolstered around noon when one of MIDWAY’s TBM “Avenger’s” sighted a sub cruising on the surface about 18 miles over the northern horizon. Her pilot dropped two bombs that missed and a dye marker. ROWELL raced to the spot and there, about 1310, made sonar contact with a submarine. Confident that this was SHELTON’s attacker, LCDR Harry A. Barnard made a depth charge run then circled to listen. The sonarmen picked up faint, wavering acoustic signals that sounded to be Morse Code, which Barnard interpreted as Japanese attempts to jam ROWELL’s sonar. A series of “hedgehog” runs were then made–on the sixth run a large air bubble littered with debris rose to the surface. ROWELL’s crew thought they saw pieces of a periscope among the debris.
Back aboard SHELTON things were not going well. Her flooding had not been as easy to control as initially guessed. The remaining crew, including the 22 sailors wounded in the initial explosion, were taken aboard ROWELL. Lang (DD-399) arrived to tow the stricken SHELTON to temporary shelter at Morotai. Screened by STEVENS (DD-479), LANG passed a towline and secured her charge. But the attempt to save the stricken escort failed. SHELTON capsized while under tow and had to be destroyed by shelling to avoid falling into enemy hands.
Over the following weeks the Japanese submarines detailed to the Morotai area began to trickle back into home waters. Among the arrivals was RO-41.
Continued tomorrow…..
Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 6 “R-S”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1976, p. 479.
Morison, Samuel Eliot. History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol 12 Leyte. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co., 1958, pp. 27-28.
Roscoe, Theodore. United States Destroyer Operations in World War II. Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1953, pp. 413-14.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: USS MIDWAY above should not be confused with the fleet carrier currently docked in San Diego as a museum ship. CVE-63 was commissioned in August 1943 and served in the Pacific for a year. Her name was changed to ST. LO (after a battle at the French village in Normandy) in July 1944 to free-up the Midway name for the new fleet carrier then completing construction, MIDWAY (CVB-41)
