THEODORE EDSON CHANDLER

Theodore Edson Chandler was born at Annapolis on 26 December 1894 into a distinguished Navy family.  His father, the future RADM Lloyd H. Chandler, attended the Naval Academy at the time.  Young Chandler followed in his father’s footsteps, entering the Naval Academy in 1911.  After a combat tour on the WWI destroyer CONNER (DD-72) he assumed the position of executive officer aboard the newly launched destroyer CHANDLER (DD-206).  That ship had been named in honor of Chandler’s late grandfather, William Eaton Chandler, President Chester Arthur’s Secretary of the Navy.  Theodore served between the Wars aboard several battleships and destroyers, even aspiring to a brief tour with the office of the Chief of Naval Operations.

In the months before the still neutral US entered WWII, (now) CAPT T.E. Chandler commanded OMAHA (CL-4) in the Atlantic Fleet’s Neutrality Patrol.  One task in this employ was to enforce international laws governing ships of combatant nations who might call on American ports.  In the wee hours of 6 November 1941 OMAHA came across a curiously darkened ship out of Philadelphia showing the name Willmoto.  A suspicious Chandler stopped the freighter, who proved in truth to be the German blockade runner Odenwald, illegally running rubber to the Weimar Republic.  “Willmoto” was taken into custody.  Soon-to-be-changed Navy regs required that Chandler supervise her sale at public auction, the last instance in our Navy’s history when a warship’s crew shared “prize money.”  Chandler was promoted to RADM in May of 1943 and transferred to the Pacific in October 1944.  He served under VADM Jesse B. Oldendorf as commander BatDiv 2 during the battle of Leyte Gulf and the liberation of the Philippines.

Then at 1730 on 6 January 1945 a Japanese kamikaze crashed the starboard bridge of USS LOUISVILLE (CA-28), flagship of Commander PacFlt Cruiser Division 4, RADM T.E. Chandler, operating in the Lingayen Gulf in support of the Allied invasion of Luzon.  Chandler was thrown to the deck and doused with flaming gasoline.  Heedless of his severe burns however, he pitched in with his enlisted rates, manhandling fire hoses and supervising damage control.  He patiently waited for medical aid, allowing those more seriously injured to be attended.  Only when he had been satisfied that the needs his sailors had been met did he allow himself to be treated.  But by then the effects of his pulmonary burns were too severe to reverse.  He died this following day.  For his gallant sacrifice he is a recipient of the Navy Cross.  The WWII Gearing-class destroyer THEODORE E. CHANDLER (DD-717) bore his name, as does our former Kidd-class guided missile destroyer DDG-996.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  11 JAN 26

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 7 “T-V”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1981, pp. 127-28.

 Morison, Samuel Eliot.  History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol 13  The Liberation of the Philippines: Luzon, Mindinao, the Visayas.  Boston, MA: Little Brown and Co., 1959, pp. xii, 109.

Theodore E. Chandler

The post Theodore Edson Chandler appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                    MONAGHAN vs. THE TEMPEST

The Pacific war was a long one for USS MONAGHAN (DD-354).  She was the ready destroyer at Pearl Harbor on the morning of 7 December 1941 and was just getting underway to investigate a report of a submarine off the entrance to the harbor when all hell broke loose.  She went on to fight at the Coral Sea, Midway, and in the Aleutians.  December 1944 found her screening carriers of the 3^rd Fleet for airstrikes against the Japanese in the Philippines.  December 17^th had been designated for refueling at sea, however rough seas postponed that evolution for a day.

But through the night the weather only worsened.  Water Tender 2^nd Class Joseph C. McCrane didn’t get much sleep and around 0630 the 18^th arose to find MONAGHAN in the throes of a severe typhoon.  She rode better than did her sisters with less fuel, MONAGHAN still had 76% of her capacity on board.  But by 0800 that mattered little–even the carriers had abandoned station-keeping and were fending for themselves.  The destroyer was rolling frighteningly, and McCrane and WT3c Les Bryan were sent to ballast the empty aft fuel tanks.  They struggled to keep their footing and labored even harder to accomplish their task.  Upon finishing, they took shelter with a growing group of shipmates in the aft 5″ gun turret.

But the rolls only got worse.  After seven or eight rolls onto her beam ends, MONAGHAN’s sailors in the gun turret recognized how untenable was their shelter!  They began to pile out onto the deck, Gunner’s Mate Joe Guio standing just outside the hatch in disregard of his own safety, to help his shipmates.  Loose gear crashed about, and cracks started to rip the overheads from the bulkheads below decks.  Electric power failed, then steerage.  And just at this moment the group of sailors was swept overboard.  Someone had the sense to throw a liferaft at the dozen or so flailing in the water.

The scene shifted to the liferaft, where nine made it aboard and clung for dear life.  Several hours later a half-naked, shivering Guio drifted by the raft and was pulled aboard.  McCrane cradled Guio to keep him warm through the night.  The next morning Guio awoke, thanked his shipmates for hauling him to safety, then curled up in the bottom of the raft.  Half an hour later he was dead.  Hypothermia claimed two more in the days that followed.  Another went mad, insisting he saw an island and disappearing overboard.  At one point an onion drifted by the famished sailors.  But an 8-foot shark circling nearby discouraged any recovery.  The only survivors from MONAGHAN were the six in this liferaft, rescued this day by BROWN (DD-546) (along with 13 from HULL (DD-350) who also foundered in this typhoon).  The exact time and details of MONAGHAN’s demise will never be known.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  27 DEC 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 4 “L-M”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1969, pp. 412-14.

Morison, Samuel Eliot.  History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol XIII  The Liberation of the Philippines: Luzon, Mindinao, the Visayas.  Little Brown and Co., Boston, MA, 1959, pp. 71-77.

Parkin, Robert Sinclair.  Blood on the Sea:  American Destroyers Lost in World War II.  New York, NY: Sarpedon, 1995, pp. 274-79.

Roscoe, Theodore.  United States Destroyer Operations in World War II.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1953, pp. 449-50.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  FADM Nimitz said this storm, “…represented a more crippling blow to the 3^rd Fleet than it might be expected to suffer in anything less than a major action.”

Turreted guns are not secured to the deck by anything other than their massive weight.  As such, should the destroyer capsize, the turrets would simply fall out of their cradles and sink like rocks, carrying anyone inside to Davy Jones.

MONAGHAN remembers ENS John R. Monaghan, a Spanish-American War veteran who was killed in a Samoan uprising in 1899 while trying to rescue his stricken Commanding Officer.  USS BROWN remembers George Brown, an Able Seaman who died aboard USS INTREPID during that ship’s daring raid in Tripoli Harbor in the Barbary Wars of 1804.  HULL, of course, remembers Commodore Isaac Hull, commander of USS CONSTITUTION during her engagement with HMS GUERRIER in 1812.

The post MONAGHAN vs. the Tempest appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                   WHERE WERE THE CARRIERS?

Most everyone will recall that one significant shortcoming of the Pearl Harbor raid from the Japanese perspective was its failure to destroy the American Navy’s aircraft carriers.  Yamamoto had targeted them in particular, appreciating as he did, the importance of naval air power.  It was with some disappointment that the airstrike launched knowing the carriers were not in port.  But just where were our carriers at 0755, 7 December 1941?

For the past year, US attentions had focused on the Atlantic where four of our seven carriers were based.  German U-boats had already attacked US warships escorting freighters on Roosevelt’s “Neutrality Patrol.”  In fact, REUBEN JAMES (DD-245) had been sunk in September 1941 on just such a mission.  Dawn on December 7^th found YORKTOWN (CV-5) in Norfolk and RANGER (CV-4) a day out, both having just finished Neutrality Patrols.  Brand new HORNET (CV-8), just 2 months in commission, was also readying herself in Norfolk.  WASP (CV-7) was serving as our training carrier and lay at anchor in Grassy Bay, Bermuda, observing the usual Sunday morning routine between Caribbean cruises.

In the Pacific, SARATOGA (CV-3) was fresh out of dry-dock in Bremerton.  The morning of December 7^th found her pulling into San Diego to embark Marine Corps aircraft intended for Wake.  After hearing the news from Hawaii, SARATOGA got underway immediately, hoping to reinforce the besieged garrison at Wake.  She reached Pearl Harbor on the 15^th, stopping only for fuel.  But the tiny island outpost at Wake fell before SARATOGA could arrive.

Two carriers were in the waters around Hawaii.  ENTERPRISE (CV-6) was returning from an aircraft ferrying assignment, having delivered VMF-211 to Wake Island.  She had planned to make Pearl that day, in fact, her scout planes arrived over the harbor in the midst of the Japanese attack and joined the defense.  She pulled in on this day, pausing briefly to refuel, then departed to hunt down the Japanese.  Though she did not locate the enemy strike force, her aircraft did sink the sub I-170 on the 10^th.  Our oldest flattop in service, LEXINGTON (CV-2), was returning from Midway, having likewise delivered a squadron of Marine fighters.  Upon learning of the Pearl Harbor attack she promptly launched search planes in an unsuccessful attempt to locate the Japanese fleet, then diverted south to rendezvous with ENTERPRISE and INDIANAPOLIS (CA-35).

After today’s disaster, YORKTOWN cast off for Hawaii on December 16^th.  HORNET was readied for Doolittle’s Tokyo raid, departing Norfolk on 4 March 1942.  WASP was pulled from training duties and eventually transferred to the Pacific after the loss of YORKTOWN at Midway in June 1942.  RANGER remained in the Atlantic.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  13 DEC 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 2 “C-F”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1977, p. 356.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 3 “G-K”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1977, pp. 368, 434.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 4 “L-M”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1969, pp. 47, 104.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 6 “R-S”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1976, pp. 31, 85, 340.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 8 “W-Z”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1981, pp. 144, 534.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  RANGER is perhaps the least well-remembered of our seven pre-WWII carriers.  She remained in the Atlantic and Mediterranean until August 1944, when she also transferred to the Pacific.  Here she was relegated to pilot training duties off the California coast.

Our first carrier, the former LANGLEY (CV-1), was still in service, but had been converted to a seaplane tender (AV-3) in the 1930s.  She was operating with the Asiatic Fleet at the war’s outbreak and was sunk by Japanese planes in late February 1942.

The post Where Were the Carriers? appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                              DETERMINATION vs. COMPLACENCY

Japan emerged from the First World War as a bona fide naval power, a rival to US primacy in the Pacific.  And as early as 1918, Imperial Defense Policy identified the United States as her foremost potential enemy.  The mandates of the 1922 Washington Disarmament Conference caused further dissention; Japan (correctly) perceiving that the US-backed formula for capital warship limitation was structured to insure American parity, if not dominance in the Pacific.  She reacted with a naval policy which acquiesced to US strength in numbers but emphasized ships of greater firepower.  Imperial naval cadets were indoctrinated with hostility toward America.  A decade later even the Japanese citizenry sensed the eventuality of war with the United States.  It was not a surprise then, when Japan vacated the continuing arms limitation talks in 1936.  The next year Japan began to solidify her western Pacific empire by inciting a war with China.

Meanwhile many US planners remained complacent, secure in a misplaced confidence in our strength and Japan’s weakness.  Unruffled US attitudes are reflected even days before the Pearl Harbor attack:

“Nobody now fears that a Japanese fleet could deal an unexpected blow on our Pacific possessions…Radio makes surprise impossible.”  Josephus Daniels, former Secretary of the Navy, 16 Oct 1922.

“War between Japan and the United States is not within the realm of reasonable possibility…A Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor is a strategic impossibility.”   MAJ George Fielding Eliot, USA, military scientist, Sep 1938.

“The Hawaiian Islands are over-protected; the entire Japanese fleet and air force could not seriously threaten Oahu.”   CAPT William T. Pulleston, Chief of Naval Intelligence, Aug 1941.

“No matter what happens, the U.S. Navy is not going to be caught napping.”   Frank Knox, Secretary of the Navy, 4 Dec 1941.

“Well, don’t worry about it…it’s nothing.”   LT Kermit Tyler, Ft. Shafter Duty Officer after being told the newly installed RADAR had picked up what appeared to be incoming aircraft, 7 Dec 1941.

Not until Japan invaded Indochina in July 1941 did we embargo oil and steel.  Historians credit that oil embargo as the final impetus inciting Japan to strike at the US Fleet.

Continued tomorrow…

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Cerf, Christopher and Victor Navasky.  The Experts Speak:  The Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation.  Pantheon Books, New York, NY, pp.115-16, 1984.

Fuchida, Mitsuo and Masatake Okumiya.  Midway: The Battle that Doomed Japan.  USNI Press, Annapolis, MD, pp. 25-32, 1955.

Prange, Gordon W.  At Dawn We Slept:  The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor.  Penguin Books, New York, NY, pp. 3-8, 1981.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  The anti-American sentiments in Japan in the decades before WWII are well described in Fuchida’s book above.  In fact, believing the United States to be her eventual enemy, Japan began in the 1920s to rotate the elite of her young naval officers through diplomatic or training duty in America.  By the late 1930s, the Imperial Navy had a core of senior officers familiar with American traditions, attitudes, and motivations.  Among these was Combined Fleet commander-in-chief ADM Isoroku Yamamoto, the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack.

Some historians have criticized the Pearl Harbor attack this day for failing to destroy the shore facilities and even for failing to invade the Hawaiian Islands.  But Japan’s intentions were to impede the United States’ ability to intervene in the western Pacific long enough for Japan to secure an empire.  They targeted what they perceived to be the center of gravity of our seapower, the ships of our US Fleet–not the Pearl Harbor base nor the Hawaiian Islands.  Ironically, in the minds of US planners of that day our bases were the potential targets.  The presence of a strong fleet in port, it was reasoned, would cause a would-be aggressor to think twice.  Thus, following scheduled exercises in the Fall of 1941, the US Fleet normally homeported at San Pedro was held in Hawaii as a deterrent.

It could be argued that the Japanese assessment that our fleet was our center of gravity was flawed.  The ships could be replaced, but the forward bases essential to their operation in the Philippines, Guam, Wake and Shanghai proved difficult and costly to recover.

The post Determination vs. Complacency appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                      LAST CALL FROM GRUNION

On 30 June 1942, LCDR Mannert L. Abele conned the new Gato-class submarine USS GRUNION (SS-216) out of Pearl Harbor on her first war patrol.  WWII was seven months old, and the first glimmers of success in the Pacific had been recorded weeks earlier at the battles of Coral Sea and Midway.  Efforts to reverse Japanese gains were beginning, in particular, their annoying presence on American soil in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska.  GRUNION was to patrol in that area, assigned to the sea lanes north of enemy-held Kiska Island.  Her first action came on 15 July when she fired three torpedoes unsuccessfully at a destroyer and was depth-charged for her efforts.  Later that same day Abele’s crew battled three sub chasers, this time sinking Ch. 25 and Ch. 27 and damaging the third.  She prowled the area for the next two weeks despite increasing Japanese wariness.  On this day, GRUNION reported heavy anti-submarine activity at the approaches to Kiska Harbor, receiving a recall to Dutch Harbor as well.  When nothing further was seen or heard from her thereafter, on 5 October GRUNION was officially listed as overdue and presumed lost.

Her demise remained a mystery, for Japanese records failed to report any sinking around the time of GRUNION’s disappearance.  Then in March 1963 a sailor claiming to have been the superintendent aboard the 8572-ton freighter Kano Maru came forward with the story that on 31 July 1942, the day after GRUNION’s last report, the freighter was steaming in heavy fog off Kiska.  Suddenly two torpedoes streaked toward her, one missing and the other penetrating without exploding aft of her starboard engine room.  Her machinery flooded and her generator and radio were knocked out.  Japanese merchant sailors sprang to their 8cm gun and began firing at a periscope wake to starboard.  Another torpedo passed harmlessly under the keel, followed by three more, two of which struck but again failed to detonate.  Kano Maru’s attacker then broke the surface to port in an apparent attempt to employ her deck gun.  A lucky shot from the Japanese gun riddled her conning tower just as her main deck went dry.  Then a tall spout of water erupted near the submarine, and she slipped beneath the waves.

If the above account truly describes GRUNION’s loss, modern navalists doubt that a single hit to her “sail” would have sunk the boat.  It is theorized that one of her own errant torpedoes may have circled back to strike GRUNION, a dangerous defect of early WWII torpedoes.  In any case, her 70 crewmen remain unaccounted for.  LCDR Abele was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross, and before the end of WWII he was further commemorated with the Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer USS MANNERT L. ABELE (DD-733). 

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  5 AUG 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, p. 170.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 4 “L-M”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1969, p. 222.

Holmes, Harry.  The Last Patrol.  Shrewsbury, England: Airlife Publishing, Ltd., 1994, pp. 24-25.

Morison, Samuel Eliot.  History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol VII  Aleutians, Gilberts and Marshalls.  Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co., 1951, pp. 7, 12.

“Search for the USS Grunion.”  AT: http://ussgrunion.com/blog/2006/ 09/22/whitefish-engineer-returns-from-stormy-bering-sea-with-tale-of-discovery/, 5 October 2006.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  As illustrated above, the Mark 41 torpedo that was in use early in WWII was notoriously defective.  It often deviated from its set depth, and the fusing mechanism failed when the torpedo made a directly perpendicular hit (the desired attack angle).  Modern torpedoes do not arm until they have traveled a prescribed distance to prevent disaster if a torpedo accidentally circles back to its launch point.

In the years since WWII, surviving relatives of LCDR Abele conducted an intensive search for GRUNION.  After months of privately funded, open-ocean searching with towed side-scanning sonar, in August 2006 they announced the discovery of a hard target appearing to be the wreckage of a WWII submarine 2700 feet down off Kiska, just north of McArthur Reef.  This location supports the story of the Japanese sailor from 1963.  The identity of GRUNION’s wreck was confirmed by the Navy in October 2008.  Her 70 crewmen remain aboard.

USS MANNERT L. ABELE was also lost in WWII, falling victim to kamikazes off Okinawa 12 April 1945.

The post Last Call from GRUNION appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                               “NERO” OF GUAM

On 21 July 1944 the USMC landed on the Marianas island of Guam–the second island in that archipelago to be retaken from the enemy.  Guam was defended by 19,000 Japanese under LGEN Takeshi Takashima, but by that July date only about 9,000 remained, fighting sporadically in the island’s interior.  Final securing of the island took until 10 August 1944.  American casualties totaled 1435 killed and 5648 wounded, almost all were US Marines.

Earlier, on 16 June 1944, a pre-invasion bombardment was conducted, concentrating on the Japanese airfield on the Orote Peninsula.  USS PENNSYLVANIA (BB-38), IDAHO (BB-42) and the cruiser HONOLULU (CL-48) launched this barrage, protected by a cluster of destroyers and destroyer escorts, including WESSON (DE-184).  Aboard this latter was Electrician’s Mate First Class Charlie Sullivan.  A plank owner, “Sully” served his entire WWII career aboard WESSON, by this date he had charge of the starboard motor room.  Here a powerful electric motor originally designed for train locomotives–powered by a diesel engine just forward the in the starboard engine room–turned the starboard shaft.  As WESSON patrolled for submarines around PENNSYLVANIA, at times less than a hundred yards distant, the cordite blasts that propelled 1600 projectiles shoreward battered the DE.  WESSON’s unarmored hull afforded little protection from the incessant concussions, even below decks.  Seeking refuge from the head-pounding, an off-duty Sully sheltered in the forward battery locker

Months earlier, Sullivan, whose upbringing in rural Pennsylvania included an introduction to music, had purchased a violin in Honolulu while on break from patrols.  He had spent $50 on the instrument–more than a month’s salary, and being one of the few sailors on board with a key to the battery locker, he stored his fiddle there.  With four other shipmates who played various instruments, “Sully” formed an impromptu band on the fantail on quiet days. 

In the battery locker, he picked up his fiddle.  To calm his nerves from the incessant bombardment, he began to play.  “Anchors Aweigh” emanated from the locker; his shipmates heartily appreciating his performance.  Then for months afterward, Sullivan’s nickname became “Nero” for fiddling while Guam was bombarded–a reference to the ancient Roman emperor who “fiddled” while Rome burned.

WESSON served throughout WWII in the Pacific, participating in the invasions of the Carolines, the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.  She earned a respectable seven Battle Stars.  She was transferred to the Italian Navy in 1951 and was eventually scrapped in 1972. 

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  22 JUN 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Morison, Samuel Eliot.  History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol VIII  New Guinea and the Marianas.  Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co., 1953, pp. 375-80.

Oral history of EM1c Charles Sullivan, taken at: PA military Museum, Boalsburg, PA, 8 March 2107.

Sweetman, Jack.  American Naval History:  An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3^rd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2002, p. 174.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  The Roman emperor Nero probably correctly played a lyre–while a portion of Rome burned (that he intentionally set ablaze to clear a location for his planned palatial estate).

          WESSON remembers LTJG Morgan Wesson who was killed in action while serving as communications officer aboard USS ATLANTA (CL-51) in the Battle of the Solomons, 13 November 1942.

The post “Nero” of Guam appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                               STATION “HYPO”

Next week will mark the 83rd anniversary of the Battle of Midway, one of the most significant events in our Navy’s history.  Many are aware that ADM Chester W. Nimitz was aided in this victory by fleet intelligence, who had broken the Japanese naval code, JN-25.  The man responsible was LCDR Joseph Rochefort of the Naval Intelligence facility at Pearl Harbor, codenamed “Station Hypo.”

In the months that followed the December 7^th attack, Rochefort and his cadre of industrious cryptographers poured over volumes of intercepted Japanese code.  To assist, they employed a new, top-secret high-speed data processing technology (primitive IBM punchcard computers).  By the first week in May Rochefort, who was himself fluent in Japanese, began to notice frequently recurring phrases such as, “expedite,” “fueling at sea,” and “current scheduled operation.”  He correctly reasoned these were pieces of battle orders initiating Yamamoto’s long expected “crushing blow” against the Americans.  But where would that blow fall?

It was known that JN-25 used two-letter designations for locations, and Rochefort noticed recurring references to location “AF.”  To the dismay of Naval Intelligence back in Washington, DC, he deduced that “AF” referred to Midway.  In a flurry of heated messages however, Washington failed to see why “AF” might not be Australia, the Panama Canal, or possibly Hawaii.  Nimitz found himself caught in the middle.  Rochefort then hatched an ingenious scheme to trick the enemy into revealing “AF.”  He asked the garrison on Midway to broadcast an uncoded radio message indicating that their freshwater evaporator was not operational.  As Rochefort suspected subsequent Japanese message traffic included a reference to “AF” being short on fresh water.  With additional work, by this date in late May Nimitz knew the complete Japanese Midway plan.

Even during the battle itself, Nimitz was kept informed by Station Hypo.  Rochefort intercepted and decoded messages from VADM Nagumo about the fatal bombing and fires on the carriers AKAGI, KAGA, and SORYU.  Nimitz knew when HIRYU was fatally hit the following day and later heard Yamamoto call off the attack.  Clearly the work of Rochefort and Station Hypo had been invaluable, and Nimitz recommended him for the Distinguished Service Medal.

But the outspoken LCDR Rochefort had by then made enemies in Washington.  Not only was his award disapproved, but Rochefort was transferred to sea duty in command of the floating drydock ABSD-2, where he remained for the duration of the war.  Fortunately, Rochefort’s monumental work has not gone permanently unrewarded.  In 1985, following his death, Rochefort was finally awarded his Distinguished Service Medal by President Reagan.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  2 JUN 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Blair, Clay, Jr.  Silent Victory:  The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan, Vol 1.  New York, NY: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1975, pp. 236-39.

Potter, Anthony R., (prod.).  “Station Hypo”.  Spies Video Series, Columbia House Company, 1992.

Prados, John.  Combined Fleet Decoded:  The Secret History of American Intelligence and the Japanese Navy in World War II.  New York, NY: Random House, 1995, pp. 314-35.

The post Station “Hypo” appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                 ADVENTURES OF A NAVY BLIMP

The years between the World Wars saw the development of lighter-than-air zeppelins and blimps, initially useful in the civilian common carrier industry by virtue of their sustained cruising capabilities.  These same cruising and loitering potentials made blimps ideal for anti-submarine patrols off our coasts during WWII, and our Navy employed several classes of blimps for that purpose.  But these blimps often found themselves handy for a variety of other tasks.

K-67 was one such blimp operating out of Moffett Field near San Francisco.  Japanese submarines rarely visited our west coast, and K-67’s patrols with Squadron ZP-31 were often boring.  Her crew welcomed the occasional odd mission, as happened after her arrival in July 1943.  A man suspected of dodging his draft board was thought to be working on a fishing boat, out of reach of shore authorities.  K-67 was sent to locate that fishing boat at sea, which she did.  Her crew dropped messages wrapped around oranges, and the gentleman in question was corralled!

Then on this date K-67 was tapped for a rescue mission.  A Navy F6F Hellcat had crashed at sea, and a PBY Catalina sent to rescue her pilot landed hard in the heavy swells and split her seams.  The PBY quickly flooded down enough to prevent her ever getting airborne again.  Working in concert with K-59, K-67 was sent to locate the downed flyers near San Nicholas Island off Southern California.  Once overhead the crew of the PBY could be seen clinging to their half-sunken Catalina, but the pilot of the F6F floated face-down in the waves, apparently swimming weakly.  K-67’s pilot, ENS John Hoag, vectored nearby ships to the scene, then dove dangerously low to only 20 feet off the waves.  He dropped an automatically inflating life raft that landed within 15 feet of the F6F pilot, who made no effort to gain the raft.  In a desperate attempt to save the drowning pilot, ARM1c J.A. Sosnowski suspended himself on a rope 10 feet below the blimp’s gondola.  He had nearly reached the victim when a large wave knocked him away.  Soaked, but still clinging to the line, Sosnowski was towed through the water by Hoag, who skillfully maneuvered the blimp to bring the First Class safely within reach of the PBY.  Before any further rescue attempts were made, the crew of the PBY determined the pilot had drowned.

USS McFARLAND (DD-237) arrived in the next 30 minutes.  She recovered all the personnel and sank the flooded PBY with gunfire.  McFARLAND, herself, had an interesting history.  Commissioned DD-237 after WWI, she was converted to seaplane tender AVD-14 in 1940.  She was re-converted to DD-237 on 1 December 1943 and operated out of San Diego in carrier pilot training duties.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  16 MAY 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 4 “L-M”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1969, pp. 299-300.

Shock, James R.  U.S. Navy Airships 1915-1962: A History by Individual Airship.  Edgewater, FL: Atlantis Pub., 2001, p. 119.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  McFARLAND remembers, Captain of the Forecastle John McFarland, a Union sailor in the Civil War.  McFarland was in sickbay on 5 August 1864 when his ship, USS HARTFORD, led RADM Farragut’s squadron into Mobile Bay.  McFarland left his sickbed to man the wheel of HARTFORD as Farragut “damned the torpedoes” and charged ahead.  McFarland was awarded the Medal of Honor.

The post Adventures of a Navy Blimp appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                                  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 1^st, 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 13^th 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.

The post USS HALLIGAN appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                           “DOWN THE THROAT”

USS WAHOO (SS-238) is one of best remembered submarines of WWII, and her third war patrol from 14 January to 7 February 1943, under CDR Dudley W. “Mush” Morton, is perhaps the most noteworthy of her career.  Assigned to reconnoiter the Japanese anchorage at Wewak, New Guinea, Morton’s transit from Brisbane was preceded by three days of anti-submarine exercises with the destroyer PATTERSON (DD-392).  On the afternoon of the last exercise day, PATTERSON spotted WAHOO’s periscope wake and charged.  Morton took advantage of the circumstance to drill his crew in the chancy maneuver of a bow-on attack.

On this day, WAHOO made New Guinea but was chased from Victoria Bay on Kairiru Island by two Chidori-class destroyers.  Morton moved nearby to a narrow strait between Kairiru and Mushu Islands, known to be a foul-weather anchorage for the Japanese.  Unable to see into this anchorage or maneuver to the other side of the island, Morton realized the only way to scout the refuge was to penetrate its shallow waters.  He sneaked nine miles up the narrow strait undetected, with only the tip of the periscope visible.  Here he lined up on a tender and fired three torpedoes.  They missed, and now a destroyer closing from 10^o to port turned to charge headforemost down the torpedo wakes.  Prudence dictated that Morton crash dive and shoot from sonar bearings.  Confined by the shallow water however, and fresh from his encounter with PATTERSON, Morton chose a more daring option.  He instantly recognized that if he fired at a range greater than 1200 yards the destroyer would have time to turn away.  Yet if he fired at less than 700 yards the torpedoes wouldn’t run long enough to arm.  And, the 30-knot destroyer would traverse the 500 yards of vulnerability in only 30 seconds!

Morton used the tick marks in the periscope’s crosshairs from the destroyer’s masthead and the waterline to gauge distance and estimated his shots.  At 1400 yards the first torpedo leapt free.  An interminable few seconds later the enemy reached 850 yards and the second “fish” gushed forth.  WAHOO dove, passing 80 feet by the time the first torpedo should have hit.  But the only sound was the now deafening screw noise of the onrushing destroyer!  His men braced for the inevitable depth charges; the first “crash” jarred the sub seconds later.  But this blast was quickly followed by the crackling sound of steam hitting cold water.  Everyone in the control room exclaimed almost in unison, “We hit the son of a bitch!”  WAHOO surfaced to see the destroyer cut in two just forward of her stack.  But now in great danger of discovery, WAHOO turned and slipped back to the open sea.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  31 JAN 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Blair, Clay, Jr.  Silent Victory:  The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan, Vol 1.  New York, NY: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1975, pp. 354-57.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 6 “R-S”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1976, pp. 52-53.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 8 “W-Z”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1981, p. 30.

O’Kane, Richard H.  WAHOO:  The Patrols of America’s Most Famous WWII Submarine.  Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1987, pp. 122-23, 135-40.

Sweetman, Jack.  American Naval History:  An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3^rd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2002, p. 158.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  This brazenly daring maneuver did not end the heroics of this cruise, for the following day WAHOO located a small convoy at sea.  She dodged escort attacks to sink three and damage a fourth ship, earning “Mush” Morton the Navy Cross and the Distinguished Service Medal, and the crew the Presidential Unit Citation, for this cruise. 

The episode above was in part the inspiration for Edward Beach’s novel and the 1958 Hollywood classic “Run Silent, Run Deep” starring Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster.  In that film Gable plays the skipper of a fictitious submarine “USS Nerka,” who drills and drills his crew, then successfully executes a bow-on shot at the climax of the film.  The exterior shots for this movie were filmed at the SubBase in San Diego, using USS REDFISH (SS-395).  The film debuted on 1 April 1958 with a special showing to an audience of US sailors aboard USS PERCH (SS-313).

The post “Down the Throat” appeared first on Today in Naval History.