Out of the Depths, page 25
Night had fallen, but the carrier sent up aircraft to search for the enemy submarines. One plane got a radar contact and dropped flares, revealing a submarine, I-52, making a crash dive. Two depth charges were dropped on the submarine as it disappeared below the waves. The American plane then dropped a sonobuoy, which could pick up underwater sounds and transmit them to the aircraft. Propeller noises were heard, so the plane dropped an acoustic torpedo, which would be drawn to those sounds. This torpedo probably sank the I-52, but when another plane patrolled the area and claimed to hear more propeller noises, another acoustic torpedo was dropped.
I-52 was largely forgotten for the next half century, but by the 1990s underwater search technology had advanced so much that finding the submarine wreck, and its cargo of gold, became a realistic proposition. In late 1994 two rival salvage expeditions were being prepared, one British and one American, although both would use Russian survey ships and submersibles. The British expedition began to search in early 1995. By March the British had found nothing, and the American team, led by Paul Tidwell, moved in. At first their efforts were equally unsuccessful, but after they revised their search methodology they eventually found the wreck of the I-52 some 17,000 feet (5,200 m) deep, deeper than the wreck of the Titanic. The wreck was miles away from the U.S. Navy’s 1944 plot of the sinking position. The wreck lies upright on the seabed, with its conning tower intact and hull number still visible. The bow section is broken, probably from hitting the bottom, while a large hole aft of the conning tower was probably caused by one of the acoustic torpedoes. There is also a large debris field.
Tidwell and his associates hoped to raise the submarine and get the gold, now said to be worth $100 million. However, the Japanese government stepped in, claiming ownership of the submarine as a state warship and also a war grave. Negotiations with the Japanese government gave hope that they might allow some salvage work on the wreck. In 1998 Tidwell revisited the sunken submarine and some items (later passed to Japan) were raised from the debris field, but it is likely that the gold is still inside the main hull. In 2020 Tidwell was still hoping that an expedition could be mounted to retrieve the gold, but he estimated it would cost $8–10 million to carry out such an operation.
The last great effort of the Japanese navy in October 1944 led to the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle in history. Over three days about four hundred ships and more than 1,800 aircraft clashed in four separate engagements linked to a Japanese attempt to destroy the U.S. forces landing at the island of Leyte in the Philippines. The Americans lost three aircraft carriers and three destroyers, two hundred planes and 3,000 men. The Japanese lost 28 ships – including four aircraft carriers, three battleships, ten cruisers and eleven destroyers – 300 aircraft and more than 12,000 men. This defeat ended all major operations by the Japanese navy.
One engagement in the Battle of Leyte Gulf took place in the Sibuyan Sea in the central Philippines. A Japanese force including the two biggest battleships in the world, the Yamato and the Musashi, was attacked by hundreds of U.S. carrier aircraft. The Musashi became a particular target. Struck by an estimated nineteen torpedoes and seventeen bombs, the mighty ship eventually sank, but 1,376 of the 2,399 men on board were saved. The wreck of the Musashi was found by Paul Allen in 2015, lying 3,000 feet (910 m) underwater.
The Sibuyan Sea force eventually came through the San Bernardino Strait and seemed in a good position to head south and destroy the U.S. invasion fleet off Leyte. Only a group of American escort carriers and destroyers were left to oppose the Japanese off the island of Samar. Aircraft attacked the superior Japanese force, while destroyers carried out torpedo attacks and laid smokescreens. One of the attacking destroyers was USS Johnston, commanded by Lt Commander Ernest E. Evans. The captain was one of the few U.S. naval officers of Native American ancestry (half Cherokee and one-quarter Creek) and his crew called him ‘The Chief’. Evans did not hesitate to attack the enemy, despite giant 18-inch shells from the battleship Yamato falling around his small ship. However, the end was inevitable. The Johnston was badly damaged and sank, with only 141 men saved out of a crew of 327. Evans was not among the survivors, but he was awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor, the only Native American and the only destroyer captain in the U.S. Navy to receive America’s highest award for valour during the Second World War.
In recent years there has been a search for the U.S. ships lost in the Battle off Samar. In 2019 it was announced that the remains of a ship had been found at a depth of 20,406 feet (6,220 m) off the Philippines, the deepest shipwreck ever located. The remains included two 5-inch gun turrets, two funnels and a propeller shaft and propeller. Marks in the bottom mud indicated that the main part of the lost ship had probably gone deeper after striking the seabed. In March 2021 it was announced that the hull of the wreck had been found at 21,180 feet (6,460 m) below the surface. The ship’s number was still visible on the hull and this confirmed it was USS Johnston.
The battleship Yamato survived the Battle of Leyte Gulf, but in April 1945 it was sent on a virtual suicide mission to attack the U.S. invasion fleet at Okinawa. The ship never reached the island, being sunk by massive attacks from U.S. carrier aircraft. Almost 2,500 men perished. What was thought to be the wreck of the Yamato was found in 1982, but it was not confirmed as that ship until 1984. It lies 180 miles (290 km) southwest of the Japanese island of Kyushu in 1,120 feet (340 m) of water. There were originally supposed to be three Yamato-class battleships (Yamato, Musashi and Shinano), but it was decided in 1942 to complete the third battleship, Shinano, as an aircraft carrier since the Japanese navy was forced to accept that the age of the battleship was over. The Shinano was commissioned in November 1944, and at 65,000 tons it was the largest aircraft carrier ever built up to that time. The ship was to go from Yokosuka to Kure in Japan to complete its fitting out, but on the way it was hit by four torpedoes from the American submarine USS Archerfish. For eight hours the commander of the Shinano tried to keep his ship afloat, but it eventually sank. Almost 1,500 men, including the captain, perished. The Shinano remains the largest warship ever sunk by a submarine. Although a position is known for the sinking, it is not known whether the wreck has been found.
It might seem that the enemy was the only threat to warships in the Second World War, but in the second half of 1944 the U.S. Navy learned that nature could still be a formidable adversary. In September 1944 a powerful hurricane swept north along the east coast of the USA. The destroyer USS Warrington was sunk by this storm 450 miles (720 km) east of Vero Beach, Florida, with the loss of 248 men. There were only 73 survivors. A small minesweeper, USS YMS-409, was also caught in the hurricane and sank with the loss of all 33 men on board.
Shocking as these losses were, they were surpassed by the impact of a typhoon in the western Pacific that struck Admiral Halsey’s fleet in December 1944. After operations against Japanese bases in the Philippines, Halsey had taken his fleet into the Philippine Sea to carry out refuelling, but this was interrupted by the arrival of a powerful typhoon. Halsey misjudged its course and took his fleet into it rather than away from it. Three destroyers, USS Hull, USS Monaghan and USS Spence, capsized and sank, while many other ships were damaged. Some 790 sailors died in the sunken ships, with only ninety survivors. Survivors from the Hull claimed that at one point its officers were considering taking over command from the captain because they did not like his handling of the ship during the hurricane. They did not do so, and the captain survived the loss of his ship, but the incident served as inspiration for a similar incident in Herman Wouk’s 1951 novel The Caine Mutiny. Admiral Nimitz, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, correctly noted that the number of men lost in the three sunken destroyers was equivalent to the sort of fatalities incurred in a major naval battle with the Japanese fleet.
The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 would finally force Japan to surrender, but those bombs would have a link to the U.S. Navy’s last great ship loss of the Second World War. In July 1945 the cruiser USS Indianapolis had taken atomic bomb components for ‘Little Boy’, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, to an air base on the island of Tinian. Later the ship left Guam bound for Leyte in the Philippines. There were few active Japanese warships left, least of all submarines, so Captain Charles B. McVay had discretion about whether to follow a zigzag course or not. Having received no warning of Japanese submarines in the area his ship was to cross, he decided not to do so.
Early on the morning of 30 July 1945 the Indianapolis was spotted by I-58, one of the few Japanese submarines still on patrol, and torpedoed. The ship sank in only 12 minutes, but out of 1,195 crew, only about three hundred went down with the ship. The other 890 men went into the sea with few lifeboats or rafts and little food or water. Due to administrative confusion between naval commands, the non-arrival of the Indianapolis at Leyte was not noticed and no search was made for the ship. Only four days after the sinking did an aircraft on a routine patrol report a group of survivors in the ocean. Rescue vessels were sent, but only 316 of the survivors were still alive. All the rest had died of exposure, dehydration and shark attacks.
With a total of nearly nine hundred men lost in the sinking of the Indianapolis, this was the greatest loss of life at sea from a single ship in the history of the U.S. Navy. (More men died in the sinking of the battleship USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, but that ship was in port.) Captain McVay survived the loss of his ship and was scapegoated at the subsequent court martial. However, Admiral Nimitz ignored the verdict and restored McVay to active service, although he would never command a ship again. Failed attempts were made to find the wreck of the Indianapolis in 2001 and 2005, but research in 2016 indicated that the ship might have been moving faster than previously thought, putting it further to the west of its presumed sinking site. Working on this calculation, a new search began in 2017 and on 19 August the wreck was found some miles west of the sinking position reported in 1945. The Indianapolis lies at a depth of 18,044 ft (5,400 m) in the Philippine Sea.
As after the First World War, the majority of Germany’s surrendered U-boats ended up in Britain, but while the U-boats surrendered in 1918 were mostly scrapped, a different fate awaited those handed over in 1945. The Royal Navy decided to sink 116 of the 156 surrendered U-boats in three areas 100 miles (160 km) northwest of Ireland. This was Operation Deadlight, which took place between November 1945 and February 1946. Unfortunately, because of their poor condition 56 of the submarines foundered before they even reached the scuttling areas. Those that made it were sunk by gunfire and torpedoes rather than scuttling charges. Between 2001 and 2003 the nautical archaeologist Innes McCartney discovered and surveyed fourteen of the U-boat wrecks. U-778 was found to be suitable for salvage. It was intact, having sunk on the way to the scuttling areas, and was at a comparatively shallow depth of around 230 feet (70 m), 18 miles (30 km) northeast of Malin Head, Ireland. Plans were made to raise the submarine, but rising costs and the death of a diver on the wreck led to the cancellation of the project.
Unlike after the First World War, the defeated states had few large surface warships to hand over to the victors. Most of the German and Japanese capital ships had already been sunk. Nevertheless, three ships, the Japanese battleship Nagato and cruiser Sakawa and the German cruiser Prinz Eugen, were available for post-war use by the victors. Taken under U.S. Navy control, they were sent to Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean to be target ships in the atom bomb tests known as Operation Crossroads in July 1946. Test Able, when the atom bomb was exploded in the air, sank the Sakawa and a few other vessels, but Test Baker, exploding an atomic bomb underwater, had a greater impact on the target ships. The Nagato sank, as did a number of obsolete U.S. naval vessels, including the battleship USS Arkansas and the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga. The Prinz Eugen survived both tests with only a little damage. However, after being towed to Kwajalein Atoll in September, the condition of the cruiser steadily deteriorated and it capsized in December 1946. The upturned wreck is still there, with part of the stern showing above the water. In 2018 environmental concerns led to most of the remaining fuel oil being removed from its wreck.
At the end of the 1980s reduced radiation levels in the Bikini Atoll allowed a survey of the ships sunk in the atom bomb tests. Both the Japanese battleship Nagato and the American battleship Arkansas were found lying upside down, but the aircraft carrier Saratoga was found upright and with comparatively little damage to its hull. The top of the Saratoga wreck is only 50 feet (15 m) below the surface. At various times in recent years sports divers have been allowed to visit the Bikini Atoll wrecks. The Saratoga is one of only three aircraft carrier wrecks accessible to scuba divers. The others are the former USS Oriskany, sunk as an artificial reef in the Gulf of Mexico in 2006, and the wreck of the British aircraft carrier HMS Hermes, sunk by Japanese aircraft in 1942, which lies in the Indian Ocean off Batticaloa, Sri Lanka.
The only significant naval war since 1945 was the short conflict over the Falkland Islands in 1982. The main Argentine loss was the cruiser General Belgrano (ex-uss Phoenix), which was torpedoed by the British nuclear-powered attack submarine HMS Conqueror. Although the British task force recaptured the islands, it was not without loss. Unable to establish full control of the air around the islands, the British lost two destroyers (HMS Sheffield and HMS Coventry), two frigates (HMS Ardent and HMS Antelope), one landing ship (Sir Galahad) and one transport (Atlantic Conveyor) to Argentine air attacks with bombs and missiles.
Collisions still posed a threat to warships, and the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne had the unhappy distinction of sinking two destroyers from two different navies in collisions. During an exercise off Jervis Bay, Australia, on 10 February 1964 the Melbourne collided with the Australian destroyer HMAS Voyager, which sank with the loss of 82 lives. On 3 June 1969, while taking part in a multinational exercise in the South China Sea, the Melbourne collided with the American destroyer USS Frank E. Evans, which sank with the loss of 74 lives.
The biggest warship sunk since 1945, and in fact the biggest warship ever sunk, was the American aircraft carrier USS America (80,800 tons full displacement). It was the first large carrier sunk since the Saratoga in Operation Crossroads in 1946. The America had been decommissioned in 1996 and in 2005 the U.S. Navy decided to use the old carrier in weapons tests and then scuttle it. After two weeks of tests the America was scuttled on 14 May 2005 some 250 miles (400 km) southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. The ship lies upright, in one piece, at 16,860 feet (5,140 m) below the surface of the North Atlantic Ocean.
One of the most important technological advances since 1945 has been the installation of nuclear reactors in submarines, which allow the craft to stay on patrol for an almost indefinite period. Nuclear power is used for both ballistic missile submarines and attack submarines, and the U.S. Navy was to suffer two tragic losses of the latter during the 1960s.
In April 1963 the nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Thresher left the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard at Kittery, Maine, where it had just completed a refit, and headed out into the North Atlantic to carry out test dives. The presence of dockyard personnel had boosted the number of people in Lt Commander John W. Harvey’s submarine to 129 men. During the dives the Thresher had a communication link with an accompanying surface vessel, but on 10 April the latter heard garbled messages that seemed to indicate the submarine was in trouble. Then came sounds that were interpreted as meaning that the Thresher’s hull had imploded. After a long search, the remains of the submarine were found at a depth of 8,523 feet (2,598 m). There were no survivors, and this remains the worst submarine disaster for fatalities. Although some wreckage was recovered, the cause of the sinking has never been clearly established. The U.S. Navy speculated that a brazed seam on a saltwater pipe had failed, filling the engine room with high-pressure salt spray, which then shorted out the electrical systems. Attempts to rise to the surface by dumping ballast were thought to have been thwarted by ice in the ballast pipes. With no electrical power, the engine stopped and the submarine sank, with its hull imploding once it passed its crush depth.
After the loss of the Thresher, the U.S. Navy made greater efforts to ensure the safety of its submarines, but another craft was to be lost in 1968. The nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Scorpion was on its way from Rota, Spain, to its home base at Norfolk, Virginia, in May 1968 when it was diverted to monitor a Soviet naval exercise near the Canary Islands. After this was done, the submarine continued on its homeward journey, but near the Azores on 22 May something went wrong. The submarine sank, killing Commander Francis Slattery and the rest of his 98-strong crew. The U.S. Navy began a search for the Scorpion, but it was not until October 1968 that the wreck was found in 11,500 feet (3,505 m) of water 276 miles (444 km) southwest of the Azores near the mid-Atlantic ridge.
Various theories were put forward to explain the loss of the Scorpion, and some people suggested that the submarine already had mechanical problems before it set out on its last voyage. The U.S. Navy took the view that the submarine was lost due to a catastrophic event, specifically an explosion in the bow area, which may have been caused by problems with torpedoes. Others have suggested an explosion of hydrogen during battery charging. Conspiracy theorists believe the Scorpion was the victim of an attack by a Soviet submarine. The remains of both the Thresher and the Scorpion have been visited a number of times over the years by expeditions organized by the U.S. Navy. The main reason is said to be to see if radiation is leaking from the nuclear reactors, but in both cases the reactors seem to be secure in their containment vessels. The Thresher carried no nuclear weapons, but on the Scorpion two of its torpedoes had nuclear warheads, which are said to be still intact. Robert Ballard carried out a survey of the wreck sites in 1985, and it was at the end of this expedition that he was allowed to undertake the search that led to the discovery of the wreck of the Titanic.
