USS HALLIGAN
26 MARCH 1945
USS HALLIGAN
The bloody and bitter fight for Iwo Jima had barely begun to quiet before the next target on the relentless march toward Japan was determined–Okinawa. Here the Marines expected yet another tenacious fight to the death by entrenched defenders loyal to their Emperor. D-Day was set for April 1st, and the last weeks of March saw the pre-invasion bombardment of the Okinawa landing zones. Accompanying this “softening-up” force was the Fletcher-class destroyer HALLIGAN (DD-584). A veteran of the campaigns for the Marshalls, Saipan, the Philippines, and Iwo Jima, her skipper, LCDR Edward T. Grace, had been allowed only a few days to refit in Ulithi before getting underway for Okinawa. This morning found HALLIGAN patrolling between Okinawa and Kerama Retto, protecting minesweepers who were preparing an area known to be heavily mined.
Around 1830 this day, FN1c Eddie S. Strine stood in the chow line aboard the destroyer-minesweeper AARON WARD (DM-34) steaming a couple miles starboard of HALLIGAN. Out the port passageway hatch he watched the strong silhouette of the destroyer calmly coursing in shoal water three miles southeast of Maye Shima. Then suddenly a silent flash enveloped the destroyer, and a massive column of black smoke mushroomed from HALLIGAN. Seconds later the concussion struck WARD and sent her sailors to General Quarters.
HALLIGAN was wrenched in two in the explosion, only a handful of sailors forward of the bridge escaped in the seconds it took for the bow section to flood and sink. LCDR Grace and all but two of the wardroom officers were killed instantly. ENS R.L. Gardner, who happened to be in the after 5″ gun mount, leapt back to his feet uninjured, and quickly ran forward. Recognizing himself to be the only officer left aboard, he began organizing fire-fighting, damage control, and rescue operations. The explosion had detonated the forward magazines and nothing forward of the No. 1 stack remained. PC-1128 and LSM-194 pulled alongside to assist, but it soon became apparent that there was little left to save. Gardner ordered the remaining crew to abandon ship and made one last sweep through the spaces. Luckily one sailor was found still alive below decks, pinned under wreckage. A handy torch quickly freed the man. In all, 153 sailors perished with HALLIGAN, most instantly when the Japanese mine detonated beneath the destroyer’skeel. She was the first US warship lost in the Okinawa campaign, without having fired a shot in her own defense.
HALLIGAN’s after section drifted 12 miles before running aground on the Okinawan shore. Her rusting hulk remained aground until 1958, when it was donated to the Okinawans for scrap.
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 31 MAR 25
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 3 “G-K”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1977, pp. 216-17.
Lott, Arnold S. Brave Ship Brave Men. Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1964, p. 139.
Morison, Samuel Eliot. History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol XIV Victory in the Pacific. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co., 1960, pp. 115-16.
Parkin, Robert Sinclair. Blood on the Sea: American Destroyers Lost in World War II. New York, NY: Sarpedon, 1995, pp. 285-87.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: HALLIGAN was named for RADM John HALLIGAN, a veteran of the Spanish-American War and WWI, who later served as Chief of the Bureau of Engineering, Assistant CNO, and Commander of the 13th Naval District.
Sailors feared mines as much as any other casualty, as ships striking mines were often doomed. Sailors tread lightly on the decks in mine-infested waters, as a detonation would throw the decks up so violently that one would often suffer the fracture of both legs and be thrown overboard.
LCDR Edward Thomas Grace was awarded the Sliver Star for his actions this day.
