Sunday in Hell, page 102
The capsized older battleship-turned-target ship, Utah, remains where she sank that terrible morning. Of Utah’s complement, 30 officers and 431 enlisted men survived the ship’s loss. Six officers and 52 men died. Four of the latter were recovered and interred ashore, as are seven Unknowns from Utah. One of those known interred ashore and was a survivor of the sinking in the harbor, was Seaman Pallas F. Brown, who was tragically killed on board the repair ship Argonne by a stray bullet the night of 7 December when gunners on the ships and in nearby ground antiaircraft positions opened fire on the F4F’s attempting to land at Ford Island. In 1972, a memorial in honor of Utah’s crew was dedicated on the northwest shore of Ford Island, adjacent to the ship’s wreck.33
When the West Virginia was pumped out and re-floated on 17 May 1942, then went into Dry Dock Number One on 9 June, it was discovered she had taken seven torpedo hits, not five. During ensuing repairs, workers located the remains of 70 West Virginia sailors who had been trapped below deck. In one compartment, a calendar was found, the last scratch-off date being 23 December 1941.
West Virginia and all battleships in Pearl Harbor on 7 December that eventually returned to the fight, accumulated distinguished war records, survived the war, and their surviving crew members would proudly remember the great ships’ service the rest of their lives. The battleships’ returns to war generally coincided with the United States’ mounting of its strategic offensive aimed at the unconditional surrender of Japan. The enemy felt the presence and sting of one or more in the invasions to recapture the Philippines, Attu and Kiska in Alaska’s Aleutian Island chain, the Battles of Leyte Gulf, Lingayen Gulf, and the Surigao Strait; the campaigns in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands, the Palaus, Tarawa, Kwajalein, Eniwetok, Guam, Saipan, Tinian, Iwo Jima, Okinawa - and some carried occupation forces to Japan and brought other men home from the mid-Pacific after the war.
The Nevada participated in gunfire support for the invasion of Normandy and landing operations in Southern France before returning to the Pacific for more campaigns against the Japanese toward the end of the war.
Early the morning of 19 October 1944, the once-badly-damaged West Virginia returned to war and provided gunfire support for the invasion of the Philippines. In the period 23-26 October, while operating in support of the Philippines campaign, she participated in the last major naval battle of World War II, the Battle of Leyte Gulf - another disastrous defeat for the Japanese. One of several Leyte Gulf engagements was the 25 October Battle for Surigao Strait, in which the West Virginia and five other battleships - four of them also ghosts of Pearl Harbor: Tennessee, Maryland, California and Pennsylvania, reappeared to help administer the defeat. At the Surigao Strait, with the sixth battleship, Mississippi (BB-41), the five ghosts of Pearl Harbor were taking part in the final line battle to date in naval history, and the last battle in World War II in which battleships engaged battleships. The “crossing of the Japanese T,” firing broadsides at a column of Japanese combatants that included two battleships proceeding through the Strait toward Pearl Harbor’s ghosts and American forces landed further north, resulted in a resounding Allied victory and the mastery of a tactical situation of which every surface admiral dreams.34
The Philippines in October 1944 also saw the beginning of the “suiciders’ war,” the Kamikaze’s - Japanese translation, “The Divine Wind,” aircraft flown on suicide missions and deliberately crashed into their targets. On 21 October a Kamikaze hit the Australian heavy cruiser HMAS Australia, and the organized suicide attacks by the “Special Attack Force” began on 25 October. The Kamikaze attacks began slowly, and at first increased slowly, as the Allies advanced toward the Japanese homeland. Several of Pearl Harbor’s ghosts were hit by Kamikazes. Years later historians glorified the heroics of “The Divine Wind,” which was neither divine nor a wind, took thousands of lives on both sides, and in the end was disastrous for the Japanese.35
In the Allies’ five-month Okinawa campaign beginning in April 1945, the Japanese launched operation Ten-Go on 6 April, ten mass suicide attacks by aircraft, which included hundreds of fighters, bombers and torpedo planes escorting the Kamikazes; a total of 48 MXY-7 Ohka (“cherry blossom”) suicide rocket-powered, flying bombs designated by the Allies as Baka (“idiot” in Japanese), intended to be air launched against Allied ships by G4M2e “Betty” Bombers; and finally a one-way suicide attack by a naval force that included the largest surviving Japanese battleship, Yamato - which was sunk within two hours after she was first sighted. Fewer than 300 of her crew survived and nearly 2,500 were lost. One hundred ninety ships in the Okinawa invasion force suffered casualties. Thirty-four were sunk. Casualties suffered at sea were 5,400 hundred killed and 6,700 wounded.36 The enemy’s increasing suicide attacks in the air, on the sea, and in ground campaigns on the islands, strongly influenced the decision to use atomic weapons to attempt to end the war before having to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of lives, perhaps millions on both sides, in an invasion of the Japanese homeland. A massive shift in Allied forces, by sealift from the ETO into the Pacific theater after Germany surrendered, was already in progress when the atomic bombs were dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Among the cruisers in Pearl Harbor the morning of 7 December, or escorted convoys to or from Pearl Harbor in the month of December 1941, the St. Louis, Raleigh, Detroit, New Orleans, Phoenix, San Francisco, and Honolulu all survived the war with distinguished records of service.
The cruiser San Francisco was the intended victim of Japanese submarine I-26 the morning of 13 November 1942, but survived while still struggling to recover from heavy damage she received early that morning in the fierce first engagement of the “Battle of Guadalcanal.” San Francisco had taken 45 hits during the engagement with Japanese forces that included two battleships, one cruiser and 25 destroyers - and her crew fought 22 fires on board in the hours during and following the battle. Two of those 45 rounds struck the Flag and Navigation Bridges, killing or wounding all the officers present, including the task group commander, Rear Admiral Daniel J. Callaghan, who, as a captain, had commanded the San Francisco at Pearl Harbor. Admiral Callaghan was on the Flag Bridge, and in a particularly tragic irony, Captain Cassin Young, the San Francisco’s skipper, received fatal wounds. He had received the Medal of Honor for his actions at Pearl Harbor. As Commander Cassin Young on 7 December 1941, he was the feisty, hard-fighting captain of the repair ship Vestal, which was alongside the Arizona.
The courageous fight Admiral Callaghan’s task group and San Francisco gave, and the battering she and her crew took the early morning hours of 13 November resulted in four Medals of Honor, three for crew members who fought heroically to save and keep fighting their heavily damaged ship. Lieutenant Commander Bruce McCandless, the Communications Officer, and Lieutenant Commander Herbert E. Schonland, the Damage Control Officer, were two of the crewmembers. Boatswain’s Mate First Class Reinhardt J. Kepler, from Washington State, was the third, and with Admiral Callaghan, received the award posthumously.
In another terrible bit of irony, the I-26, which sank the SS Cynthia Olson 1,000 miles northeast of Oahu as Pearl Harbor was being attacked, and was to become one of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s most notorious submarines, had struck again with devastating effects. The morning of the 13th, while engaged in one of several patrols following the sinking of the Cynthia Olson, I-26 raised her periscope to see San Francisco crossing her path in torpedo range. Commander Minoru Yokota “snap-shot” three torpedoes that missed his intended target, the heavily-damaged San Francisco. The American task force of three cruisers and three destroyers was zigzagging, headed for repairs at the Island of Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides. The second cruiser was the Helena, like San Francisco also a Pearl Harbor veteran, was also heavily damaged as a result of the battle during the hours after midnight.
Also in the formation was the light cruiser Juneau (CL-52), on San Francisco’s starboard quarter. The Juneau had been heavily damaged by a torpedo which exploded in her port side during the battle. The explosion was believed to have broken her keel and killed 17 crewmembers. She was 12 feet down by the bow, listing slightly to port and struggling to maintain 18 knots. Nevertheless, casualties on board San Francisco had been so heavy - 77 dead and 105 wounded - that Juneau’s senior medical officer, Lieutenant Commander James G. Neff, who had himself been injured in the previous night’s torpedo attack and was undoubtedly acting on San Francisco’s request, asked his junior medical officer, Lieutenant Roger W. O’Neill, if he wanted to go aboard San Francisco to assist her medics. A short time later the destroyer O’Bannion sent a boat to take O’Neill and three of Juneau’s medical corpsmen to San Francisco.
One of the torpedoes fired by I-26 continued past the San Francisco, and at 1101 struck the Juneau amidships, between frames 42 and 45, close to the same area she had been struck by the torpedo early in the morning. At that moment, Lieutenant O’Neill was in the Admiral’s cabin on San Francisco, donning his surgeon’s mask prior to assisting Lieutenant Commander Lowe in operating on the fatally wounded, but still-living Captain Young. About one minute later, Juneau’s main magazine violently exploded, which broke her in half, killed most of her crew, and she sank in about 20 seconds. Among her crew were the five Sullivan brothers from Waterloo, Iowa, two of whom survived the explosion and sinking and were in the water among a total of approximately 115 men.
San Francisco immediately swung to starboard, and within 30 seconds Lieutenant O’Neill saw the spot where Juneau had been. The spot was 2,000 to 3,000 yards distant and he could see nothing but “tremendous clouds of grey and black smoke.” Uncertain as to enemy ships and submarines in the area, the task group commander, aboard a damaged Helena, made a decision not to stop and pick up survivors, but continue toward Espiritu Santo. A message from Helena to a nearby B-17 search plane gave the location of Juneau’s loss. Unfortunately, Helena’s message didn’t reach Noumea, and owing to continued uncertainty about the number of Japanese ships in the area, rescue efforts didn’t begin for several days. Tragically, exposure, exhaustion and shark attacks whittled down the survivors, and only ten men were rescued from the water eight days later. None of the Sullivan brothers survived.36
The cruiser New Orleans survived the war, but not without a near disastrous close call. With four other cruisers and six destroyers in Task Force 67, commanded by Rear Admiral Carlton H. Wright, she fought in the Battle of Tassafaronga on the night of 30 November 1942, engaging a Japanese destroyer-transport force, which included eight destroyers, six acting as transports. It was a night when “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition” would have a special significance to Chaplain Howell Forgy and the entire surviving ship’s company. Unknown to them, the battle occurred about the time songwriter Frank Loessor was completing and copywriting the song that brought the Chaplain’s Pearl Harbor legend to life, and in early 1943 would begin sweeping the nation as one of America’s great wartime anthems.
When the TF 67 flagship Minneapolis (CA-36) was struck by two torpedoes, New Orleans, next astern, was forced to sheer away to avoid collision, and ran into the track of a torpedo which exploded, triggering a secondary explosion of a bomb and ammunition magazine. The combined explosions ripped off her bow. Bumping down the ship’s port side, the severed bow punched several holes in New Orleans’ hull. A fifth of her length gone, slowed to 2 knots, and blazing forward, the ship’s crew fought for survival. Individual acts of heroism and self-sacrifice along with skillful seamanship kept her afloat, and under her own power she entered Tulagi Harbor near daybreak 1 December. On board were numerous wounded and more than 70 dead, with more lost when the number one turret and bow were ripped from the hull and sank. Among the dead on board was the ship’s senior medical officer, Lieutenant Commander Edward Evans, who had been Chaplain Howell M. Forgy’s close friend.
Camouflaging their ship from air attack, the crew jury-rigged a bow of coconut logs, and 11 days later, New Orleans sailed to replace a damaged propeller and make other repairs in Sydney, Australia, arriving 24 December. On 7 March 1943, she was underway for Puget Sound Navy Yard, where a new bow was fitted and all battle damage repaired. That fall, on 5-6 October she returned to the fight as part of a cruiser-destroyer force that bombarded Japanese-held Wake Island and repulsed a Japanese torpedo-plane attack during the sortie.
The cruiser New Orleans (CA-32) Camouflaged at Tulagi, Solomon Islands, some days after she was torpedoed during the Battle of Tassafaronga on 30 November 1942. Note that her stern is riding high, and that her forward end is low in the water. The torpedo and subsequent explosion had severed her bow between # 1 and # 2 eight-inch gun turrets. NA
In yet another cruel twist of fate, similar to that of Captain Cassin Young on San Francisco, Officer’s Cook Third Class Doris Miller, the African-American sailor who had been awarded the Navy Cross by Admiral Nimitz for “Dorie’s” actions in repeatedly carrying wounded sailors to safety on the burning, sinking battleship West Virginia - lost his life to another Japanese veteran of Pearl Harbor, submarine I-75.
Reporting to Puget Sound Navy Yard on 1 June 1943, he was assigned to the new carrier, Liscome Bay (CVE-56), which was commissioned 7 August. That fall the escort carrier participated in her first and last battle, the Battle of Tarawa, which began on 20 November. On 24 November, at 0505 hours, while the three escort carriers and the battleship New Mexico (BB-40) were steaming at 15 knots, Liscome Bay sounded routine general quarters preparatory to launching aircraft at dawn.
Then, at 0510, with no warning of submarines present, a lookout shouted, “…here comes a torpedo!” One of four torpedoes fired by I-75 hit the carrier on the starboard side, aft of the engine room with a shattering roar. The aircraft bomb magazine detonated a few moments later, disintegrating the ship’s stern, and the entire interior burst into flames. The New Mexico, a mile away was showered with metal fragments and body parts. At 0533, Liscome Bay listed to starboard and sank, carrying Rear Admiral Henry M. Mullinix, Captain Irving D. Wiltsie, 53 other officers, and 591 enlisted men down with her. There were 242 survivors rescued. The rest of the crew was listed as missing and presumed dead. On 7 December 1943, Mr. and Mrs. Connery Miller were notified their son was “Missing in Action.”37
The Helena, which was moored inside the minelayer Oglala at Dock 1010 the morning of 7 December 1941, and was struck by a torpedo that passed beneath Oglala, also accumulated a distinguished record of service, but didn’t survive the war. On leaving Solomon Island waters after the Battle of Iron Bottom Sound, she underwent overhaul in Sydney, Australia, and was back to Espiritu Santo in March 1943 to participate in the bombardments of New Georgia Island, soon to be invaded. In the force escorting the transports carrying the initial landing parties, Helena moved into Kula Gulf just before midnight 4 July, and shortly after midnight on the 5th, her big guns opened up in her last shore bombardment.
The troops were landed successfully by dawn, but on the afternoon of 5 July, intelligence indicated The Tokyo Express was ready to roar down once more, and the escort group, composed of three cruisers and four destroyers turned north to meet it - three groups of destroyers totaling ten enemy ships. The battle began at 0157, and unfortunately the flashes of her rapidly firing guns lit her well. Hit by three torpedoes which broke her back, the cruiser jackknifed, broke into three parts and sank - except for the bow section which stayed afloat until the next day, with approximately 200 men clinging to it like a life raft. An inspiring series of events that day resulted in saving all but 168 of her nearly 900-man crew.38
The relatively new destroyer, Monssen, didn’t survive the war. Not a Pearl Harbor veteran, her skipper was Lieutenant Commander Roland N. Smoot when the 1,630-ton ship was commissioned at Puget Sound Navy Yard 14 March 1941, a ceremony attended by his wife Sally and Joey Border, whom Sally gave away at the Border’s wedding. After returning from five months of duty in the Atlantic, overhaul in the Boston Navy Yard, and sailing with Admiral Halsey’s Task Force 16 on the Doolittle Raid, she was in Task Force 17 at the Battle of Midway and supported various operations in the Solomon Islands, beginning with the first of the Navy’s giant amphibious landings 7-8 August. Lieutenant Commander Smoot had given up his command before Monssen fought her last battle. She, too, was at Iron Bottom Sound early the morning of 13 November 1942, as part Admiral Callaghan’s Task Group 67.4 - the same group the cruisers San Francisco, Helena and Juneau were in that morning.
The task group had escorted transports with reinforcements for Marines already ashore on the 12th, and after the transports were 90% un-laden of their cargo, were subjected to torpedo plane attacks, one of which cost use of Monssen’s fire control radar. Shortly after 0140 on the 13th, the task group sighted the enemy fleet, which they had learned was inbound. The enemy was headed toward Henderson Field to bombard it and sneak in 11 of their transports, then en route to relieve their beleaguered comrades fighting on Guadalcanal. Ten minutes later the battle began.
At about 0220 hours Monssen, forced to rely on radio information and optics, was spot-lighted in a battle fought often at point blank range, hit by some 37 shells from Japanese destroyers, and reduced to a burning hulk. Twenty minutes later, completely immobilized in all departments, the ship was ordered abandoned. After daybreak, Monssen was still a floating incinerator when three crew members climbed aboard and rescued eight men still on the ship - five of whom lived after they were taken ashore. At about 0800 that morning the survivors were picked up and taken to Guadalcanal. The ship continued to blaze until early afternoon, when the waters of Iron Bottom Sound closed over her. The fierce battle took the lives of approximately 60 percent of her crew, a loss of 130 men.39
