CORRY CONTROVERSY

The morning of 18 December 1941 dawned at the Charleston Navy Yard with palpable anticipation.  Our citizenry was united against the Pearl Harbor attack only 11 days earlier, and this morning our Navy was set to commission the next destroyer in that brand new war, the Gleaves-class USS CORRY (DD-463).  She joined the Atlantic Fleet and shortly earned three Battle Stars for operations off North Africa, Norway, and against U-801, respectively.  Spring of 1944 found her in England, preparing for the cross-channel invasion of Europe.  At 1815, June 4^th (H-Hour minus 36 hours and 15 minutes), CORRY and FITCH (DD-462) led the five LSTs of Convoy U-2B out of Dartmouth harbor.  U-2B comprised the first sortie to cross the English Channel toward Normandy.

As shell splashes enveloped the landing craft headed for Utah Beach at H-Hour, CORRY’s skipper, LCDR George D. Hoffman, recognized how severely German shore fire was smashing the invasion.  He maneuvered as closely to the breakers as the destroyer’s draft would allow–a mere 1000 yards off the beach–to lay down supporting fire.  But as American 5-inchers fired, German gunners ashore in the Saint-Marcouf battery stared in amazement.  CORRY was steaming at point-blank range from their triple mounted 210-mm guns!  At 0633, three 300 lb. shells screamed into CORRY, striking her amidship and detonating in her engine room.  The blast broke the destroyer’s keel and raised her stem and stern skyward.  Sailors on deck were thrown toward a 4-foot crack across her beam ends.  Nearby FITCH watched the destroyer blown sideways to seaward with her superstructure recoiling toward shore.  Minutes later she went under.  CORRY’s mainmast and ensign remained visible as she settled in only 30 feet of water.  FITCH, HOBSON (DD-464), BUTLER (DD-636), and PT-199 rescued 252 CORRY survivors, including LCDR Hoffman.  Twenty-four were lost.

Hoffman’s ship loss report described the shelling–at least until Hoffman met the skipper of MEREDITH (DD-726) in a survivor’s camp in Scotland.  MEREDITH had been sunken by an aerial bomb while close inshore–at least according to her skipper’s initial report.  But after their meeting, both skippers redrafted their reports to claim their ships had succumbed to mines.  Hoffman’s amendment asserted that CORRY struck a mine at nearly the same moment the shore fire hit, and that the gunfire caused only incidental damage.

There is little support today for Hoffman’s rewritten report.  It has been suggested that both skippers feared censorship for hazarding their ships too closely inshore, and both perceived mines to be a hazard of lesser negligence.  To the contrary, close-in destroyer support saved countless lives among the D-Day invasion force.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  10 JUN 23

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, pp. 190-91.

Morison, Samuel Eliot.  History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol X  The Atlantic Battle Won.  Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co., 1956, pp. 279-80.

Morison, Samuel Eliot.  History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol XI  The Invasion of France and Germany.  Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co., 1957, pp. 88, 96, 106-08.

Roscoe, Theodore.  United States Destroyer Operations in World War II.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1953, pp. 349-50.

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. 171.

USS CORRY website.  AT: https://www.uss-CORRY-dd463.com, retrieved 18 December 2022.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Our Navy accepted Hoffman’s revised report and still lists her loss officially as due to striking a mine.  However, neither German action reports nor the reports of witnesses aboard CORRY and FITCH support the mine theory.  Indeed, a mine explosion under her keel might well have broken CORRY, but such would likely have raised her amidships, contrary to eye-witness reports.

CORRY was the second warship to remember LCDR William M. Corry, Jr., a naval aviator and Navy Cross recipient from WWI and a Medal of Honoree from the interwar period.

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                   SAMPSON-SCHLEY CONTROVERSY

The naval battle of Santiago on 3 July 1898 had been a pivotal victory in the Spanish-American war, despite some initial miscues.  The overall commander, Acting RADM William T. Sampson, had gone ashore hours before the battle to confer with Army commanders.  On-scene command fell to CAPT Winfield S. Schley in the cruiser BROOKLYN (ACR-3), who, when he observed the lead Spanish warship emerging from the harbor, ordered an inscrutable turn to port, away from the enemy cruiser.  BROOKLYN completed a 270^o loop to finally reach the proper heading, and in doing so crossed the path of the battleship TEXAS, who was forced to back all her engines.  Sampson heard the gunfire from ashore and returned in the cruiser NEW YORK (ACR-2) only to find he had missed most of the action.

Newspaper columns of the day sang the praises of CAPT Schley, to whom the lion’s share of the credit for the victory was given.  Out of respect for his commanding officer, Schley prepared a telegram laying credit for the victory at the feet of Sampson.  Sampson happily forwarded Schley’s telegram to SECNAV but appended it with a secret letter criticizing Schley’s dilatory conduct a month earlier in establishing the initial blockade of Santiago.  This secret letter came to light a few months later as Congress was considering the promotions of Schley, Sampson, and George Dewey to the permanent grade of RADM.  Schley was outraged, and his strong letter of protest sidelined plans to advance Sampson several slots above Schley on the seniority list.

The issue rested for two years until the respected historian Edgar Maclay published volume III of A History of the United States Navy, a text then in use at the Naval Academy.  In it, Maclay roundly criticized Schley’s actions before and during the battle, hinting even at Schley’s cowardice.  Again, Schley was outraged and requested a special Board of Inquiry into his conduct at the battle.  Secretary of the Navy John D. Long reluctantly convened the Board, which deliberated over 40 days.  Their majority opinion, released this day, sided with Sampson (though Board president RADM George Dewey authored the minority opinion supporting Schley).  This only incensed Schley the further, who appealed directly to President Theodore Roosevelt.

By now, the squabbling between otherwise respected naval officers had embarrassed the Navy substantially.  And after reviewing the entire case, Roosevelt approved the findings of the majority.  Schley continued his protestations until a frustrated Roosevelt arbitrarily declared the case closed.  The controversy split the senior Navy leadership between pro- and anti-Schley factions, a rift that remained until WWI intervened.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  20 DEC 22

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Beach, Edward L.  The United States Navy:  200 Years.  New York, NY: Henry Holt Co., 1986, pp. 362-65.

Langley, Harold D.  “Winfield S. Schley and Santiago:  A New Look at an Old Controversy.”  IN: James C. Bradford.  Crucible of Empire:  The Spanish American War & its Aftermath.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1993, pp. 69-98.

Maclay, Edgar Stanton.  A History of the United States Navy:  From 1775 to 1901, Vol III.  New York, NY: D. Appleton and Co., 1901, pp. 363-66.

Potter, E.B.  Sea Power: A Naval History, 2^nd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1981, p. 185.

Sweetman, Jack.  American Naval History: An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 2^nd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1991, p. 116.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  The Sampson-Schley controversy ranks with Tailhook as one of the greatest public image debacles in our Navy’s history.  The squabbling over an essentially vainglorious issue–who deserved credit for the one-sided victory at Santiago–tarnished the image of the Naval officer in favor of that of the Army officer.  The pro-Schley lobby was led by the respected George Dewey with the anti-Schley side voiced by War College pillars Alfred T. Mahan and Stephen B. Luce.  Ironically, Edward Beach points out that in truth, neither Sampson nor Schley had planned for the unexpected daylight breakout of the Spanish.  Neither was Schley “in command” of the fleet that morning.  The record shows he gave commands only to his flagship BROOKLYN.  In reality, every ship captain present had acted on his own in tackling the obvious situation that presented.

As a result of the controversy, Maclay’s test was withdrawn from the curriculum at the Naval Academy.  Few copies of volume III were printed and even fewer survive today.

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