Sunday in Hell, page 103
The destroyer Reid, which participated with the cruiser Detroit and destroyer Cummings in Task Force 15.2 in the first 46 hours of escorting the SS President Coolidge and USAT General Hugh L. Scott from Honolulu to San Francisco, 19-25 December, sank in approximately two minutes after being hit by two Kamikazes in Ormac Bay, Leyte, the Philippines, on 11 December 1944. One of the landing craft (LSM 42) accompanying the force of seven destroyers picked up over 100 of her crew members, many seriously wounded.40
The destroyer Preston, which participated with the cruiser St. Louis and the destroyer Smith in escorting the three Matson liners from San Francisco to Honolulu and back (Convoys 2005 and 4032) in December, was sunk by gunfire from the Japanese cruiser Nagara, off Guadalcanal the night of 14-15 November 1942, with the loss of 116 of her crew.41
Both the destroyers Cushing and Perkins, which participated with the cruiser Phoenix in escorting the six-ship Convoy 2004 from San Francisco to Honolulu and Pearl Harbor 17-24 December, were lost. Gunfire from Japanese warships sunk Cushing off Guadalcanal 13 November 1942, with the loss of 69 of her crew. The Perkins sank on 29 November 1943, with the loss of nine members of her crew, after colliding with the Australian troopship HMAS Duntroon off Cape Vogel, New Guinea.42
The destroyer Monaghan, which rammed, depth charged and sank the Japanese midget submarine in Pearl Harbor’s Midde Loch on 7 December, fought in the Battles of Coral Sea and Midway and earned a total of 12 battle stars as part of her distinguished record. One action she was involved in was chasing and driving a Japanese submarine up on rocks near the Island of Kiska in the Aleutians, where the sub’s crew abandoned her. The submarine was later identified as the I-7, which was another Pearl Harbor veteran. But Monaghan, en route to join escort for three oilers bound for a rendezvous with Admiral Halsey’s Task Force 38, came to a tragic end 17 December 1944. That day a giant typhoon claimed 790 lives in the 3rd Fleet, and sank two other destroyers, Spence (DD-512) and Hull (DD-350), the Hull another Pearl Harbor veteran. For three days the only six survivors of Monaghan’s crew, plus 18 from Hull, awaited rescue until the two groups of survivors were picked up by the destroyer Brown (DD-546). Mongahan’s survivors described how the ship had repeatedly righted herself from starboard rolls, before finally rolling over.43
The destroyer Tucker, another Pearl Harbor veteran that escorted the three battleships in Task Force 16 toward Puget Sound Navy Yard 20-27 December 1941 before leaving the formation for San Francisco with the battleship Pennsylvania, didn’t survive the war.
After escorting convoys between San Francisco and Hawaii the next five months, Tucker was ordered to the South Pacific and spent the next four months on escort duty to Fiji, Australia, and New Zealand. On orders to escort the freighter SS Nira Luckenbach from Suva in the Fiji Islands to Espiritu Santo, the two ships departed Suva on 1 August 1942. As a result of a tragic communication error, in which the ship never received a “Q message,” routinely sent to warn of a defensive minefield, Tucker struck a mine at 2145 hours on 3 August as she was about to swing north to enter the Segond Channel, Espiritu Santo.
The explosion tore into her amidships, broke her keel, instantly killed three men, promptly slowed her to a stop, and her hull began folding like a jackknife. She was abandoned, then drifted most of the next day without sinking, was later taken under tow and grounded in hopes of salvage, but eventually sank in ten fathoms of water about 2100 hours on 4 August. Three other men were later determined missing, never found, and were assumed to have been lost when the ship sank. She sank having been struck by a mine from one of three minelayers that were also Pearl Harbor veterans: Breese, Tracey, and Gamble. The three minelayers were anchored at Espiritu Santo when Tucker struck the mine, and the mines had been laid across the south entrance to Segond Channel the day Tucker’s skipper, Lieutenant Commander W.R. Terrell, unknowingly brought his ship and crew into dangerous waters.44
The USS Ward, the World War I-era destroyer which fired the first shot of the Pacific war at a Japanese midget submarine outside the entrance to Pearl Harbor, and in the same attack depth charged the intruder an hour before the 7 December air raid, didn’t survive the war. Sent to the West Coast for conversion to a high speed transport in 1942, she was re-designated APD-16. During the conversion her Number 3 gun, which had fired the first shot, was removed. In February 1943 Ward steamed to the Pacific to operate with U.S. forces in the Solomon Islands area, where she helped fight off a heavy Japanese air attack on Tulagi, 7 April 1943. After participating in several Southwest Pacific amphibious landings, she was sent to assist in recapturing the Philippines, and in early December 1944 transported Army troops during landings at Ormoc Bay.
The destroyer Ward (APD-16), converted to a fast transport, burning in Ormoc Bay, Leyte, Philippine Islands, after she was hit by a Kamikaze on 7 December 1944. The destroyer O'Brien (DD-725) is fighting fires from alongside, as landing craft circle to rescue survivors, and later sunk the Ward with gunfire. Photographed from the Crosby (APD-17). Ironically, the commanding officer of the O’Brien that day was William W. Outerbridge, who commanded the Ward three years to the day earlier, when her crew sunk the Japanese midget submarine outside the entrance to Pearl Harbor. NA
On 7 December 1944, three years to the day after Number 3 gun fired the opening shot of America’s involvement in the War, she was patrolling off the invasion area when she came under attack by three Japanese twin engine bombers, which broke away from the remnants of a larger formation of nine under attack by Army Air Force P-40s and P-38s and entered a 45-degree dive from approximately 5,000 feet altitude. As soon as the bombers broke away and turned for the destroyer, her gunners opened fire with 3-inch and 20-millimeter batteries, and the ship began a full left rudder turn to port. The lead plane was smoking, either hit by one of the American fighters, or firing its machine guns at Ward, while aiming for a Kamikaze attack. Moments before impact, the airplane leveled from its dive, crashing into her hull amidships about six inches above the water line on the port side, and within minutes bringing her to a stop. Debris, including one or both aircraft engines passed completely through the hull and tore large holes in the hull on the starboard side. Amidships the aircraft gasoline had started a huge, rapidly expanding fire. She took on a ten degree list to starboard, began losing steam because of repeated blow-back through the boilers, making it necessary to stop the engines, shut off valves to avoid an explosion - a complete loss of power. The resulting fires could not be effectively fought or controlled, and Ward’s crew was ordered to abandon ship. Still burning fiercely and obviously not salvageable, she was sunk by gunfire from the destroyer O’Brien (DD-725), whose commanding officer, William W. Outerbridge, had been in command of Ward during her action off Pearl Harbor three years before. There was no loss of life on the Ward, despite the successful Kamikaze attack.
In 1956, the 4-inch Number 3 gun was installed as a memorial at the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul, as the men who fired the gun that fateful morning of 7 December were members of the Minnesota Naval Reserve. The ship’s bell is now displayed in the St. Paul, Minnesota City Hall, on the 3rd floor between the council and mayoral offices.
There nearly always are uncertainties and doubts surrounding a claimed sinking of an enemy submarine, and for years a minority of academics doubted whether the Ward had really sunk a Japanese midget sub, since undersea searches off Pearl Harbor had previously failed to locate the midget submarine. On 28 August 2002, a team of scientists from the University of Hawaii discovered the submarine 1200 feet underneath the sea in American waters about 3-4 miles outside the harbor. The starboard side of the conning tower exhibited two shell holes - evidence of damage from a 4-inch shell from the Ward’s guns. While Ward’s depth charges were sufficient to fully lift the 46-ton, 78-foot midget out of the water, they did no apparent structural damage to the submarine, which sank due to water flooding into the vessel from two shell holes.45
There was more than a bit of irony associated with the first four convoys related to the December 1941 reinforcement of Hawaii and evacuations of wounded, tourists, non-essential government employees and their dependents, dependents of contractor personnel and military dependents from Oahu. Neither President Coolidge nor the General Hugh L. Scott, which comprised the first convoy to San Francisco, survived the war. The USAT Tasker H. Bliss, in Convoy 2004 with five other ships, the SS President Garfield, the USS Aldebaran, Harris, Platte, and Sabine, met her end at the hands of a German U-Boat in waters off North Africa during Operation Torch - as did the Hugh L. Scott.
The President Coolidge, sinking on 26 October 1942 after hitting two mines while traversing the Scorff Passage into Segond Channel, Espiritu Santo Island, New Hebrides. Troops of the 172nd Regimental Combat Team, the 43rd Division, climb down ropes and cargo nets to escape as the ship lists to port at a rate of about one degree per minute. Some are fortunate to be taken to shore by lifeboat or raft, others must swim. Two men lost their lives in the tragic accident, which could have been far worse were it not for the actions of Captain Henry Nelson, his crew and the disciplined response by the officers and men of the 172nd RCT. NA
The Tasker H. Bliss was transferred to the Navy on 19 August 1942, converted for use as a Navy transport by the Maryland Drydock Co., Baltimore, Maryland, commissioned on 15 September, and arrived in Norfolk, Virginia on 22 September to join Task Force 34. Similarly, the Hugh L. Scott was taken over by the Navy 14 August 1942 and converted to an attack transport in Hoboken, New Jersey, sailed to join the same task force. After loading troops and equipment for Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa, the task force sailed on 24 and 25 October for the coast of Morocco. Assigned to Task Group 34.9, Center Attack Group, Bliss and Scott arrived off Fedhala, Morocco on 8 November.
The evening of 12 November, they were riding at anchor in Fedhala Roads when the German submarine U-130 slipped in among the ships and fired five torpedoes at three transports. All torpedoes hit their targets, and they burst into flames. Bliss, Scott, and the Edward Rutledge (AP-52) were U-130’s victims. The crews abandoned all three and the Rutledge and Scott sank shortly. The Bliss burned until 0230 the next morning, and then sank. Casualties were eight officers and 51 men.46
On 26 October 1942, while the major naval battle of Santa Cruz was in progress three hundred miles north, another drama was taking place at Espiritu Santo. The former great American President’s Line cruise ship, President Coolidge, converted to a troop ship following the attack on Pearl Harbor, and with the Hugh L. Scott, the first to carry evacuees from Honolulu to San Francisco after the attack, was carrying 5,050 Army troops, 50 Navy Armed Guard and Signal personnel, plus 340 ship’s crew when she struck two mines in a defensive minefield and sank in ninety minutes. Bound for Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides Islands, from Noumea, New Caledonia, Captain Henry Nelson’s ship attempted to enter Segond Channel from the east, through Scorff Passage, rather than from the south between Acore Island and Tutuba Island. The tragic accident came thirteen weeks after the destroyer Tucker fell victim to another minefield at the south entrance to Segond Channel while turning north from Bruat Channel. The two mines which Coolidge struck were part of a barrier of mines intended to block enemy penetration of the anchorage and huge staging base through Scorff Passage.
Though the Coolidge was a great loss to the Allied cause, and the sinking was intensely controversial and later the subject of three courts of inquiry, Captain Nelson averted a major disaster by acting quickly after the two mines exploded, the first on the port side beneath the engine room at 0935 hours. The ship maintained forward momentum and 30 seconds later the second mine blasted the starboard bottom plates amidships, also near the engine room. After rapidly obtaining sketchy damage reports, he correctly concluded he was going to lose the ship, ordered all watertight doors closed, followed by “hard right rudder” to take advantage of the headway to turn the ship directly into shore, and beach her in shallow water. At 0938 the ship struck the coral ledge fifty meters from the shore, and Captain Nelson immediately called “Abandon Ship.”
Miraculously, in the next 90 minutes all but two men escaped the sinking Coolidge, which heeled to port, capsized as she was going down, and slid stern-first down a steep bank toward deeper water. The first was Fireman Robert Reid, who was working in the engine room and was killed by the initial mine blast. The second was Captain Elwood J. Euart, of the 103rd Field Artillery, attached to the 172nd Infantry Regiment aboard, who was the Troop Mess Officer on duty in the enlisted men’s mess hall, and personally checked the clearing of the area when the alarm sounded. On arriving at his abandon-ship station he learned of men trapped in the hold and went there. By lashing himself to the low end of a rope he was able to hold tight enough for men to climb up it to safety, even though the ship was listing badly. Finally, as he attempted to climb up, almost vertically by that moment, with the help of a few men at the other end of the line, the ship sank very quickly. “For his unselfish, heroic action and with utter disregard for his own safety, Captain Euart conducted himself far above and beyond the call of duty, saved countless lives and gave his life that others might live.” So stated the citation accompanying the posthumous award of the Distinguished Service Cross.47
The Matson Line’s Lurline, Matsonia and Monterey, which carried the first full load of evacuees home from Hawaii in December 1941, all survived the war with distinguished records of service - along with Matson’s fourth great passenger liner of that era, SS Mariposa, the sister-ship of Lurline and Monterey not mentioned in this work.
The following tells of the liners’ magnificent wartime contributions to the nation and its armed forces:
Vessel
Number of Voyages
Miles Steamed
Total Passengers Carried
Total Meals Served
Lurline
31
388,847
199,860
9,322,706
Average/Voyage
12,544
6,447
300,732
Matsonia
33
328,301
163,732
6,526,524
Average/Voyage
9,949
4,962
197,773
Monterey
26
328,490
170,240
8,663,471
Average/Voyage
12,634
6,547
333,210
Mariposa
29
414,589
202,689
10,571,670
Average/Voyage
14,296
6,989
364,540
Grand Total
119
1,460,227
736,521
35,084,371
Average/Voyage
12,271
6,189
294,82748
Japanese submarine attacks off the West Coast diminished somewhat after 25 December 1941; however, they remained a threat to be reckoned with into the fall of 1942, requiring the continued escort of convoys and aggressive anti-submarine warfare. On 25 February 1942, Japanese submarine I-17 shelled the Ellwood oil production facilities at Goleta, California, near Santa Barbara. It was the first enemy shelling of a U.S. mainland military installation since the War of 1812. The notorious I-26 shelled and sank the 3,268-ton American freighter, Coast Trader, 35 miles southwest of Cape Flattery near the Straits of Juan de Fuca, on Sunday, 7 June 1942. After sunset on 20 June, I-26 surfaced and shelled the Estevan Lighthouse and radio station on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. It was the first attack on Canadian soil since 1812.49
On 21 June, I-25 fired 17 rounds at coastal defenses at Ft. Stevens at the mouth of the Columbia River, on the Oregon side. On 9 September I-25 again appeared in coastal waters and catapulted a Watanabe Tekkosho E14Y-1 “Glen,” piloted by Warrant Officer Nobuo Fujita and carrying two incendiary bombs intended to cause a large forest fire and force repositioning of the Pacific Fleet to the West Coast. Warrant Officer Fujita dropped them near Mount Emmily, but rain had saturated the woods, making the attempt unsuccessful. It was the first time in history the mainland had been bombed by an enemy aircraft. The next day an Army Air Force Lockheed
A-29 Hudson on patrol from the 42nd Bomb Group spotted the surfaced I-25 when some of her crew were on deck. Commander Neiji Tagami ordered a crash dive and the submarine was at 230 feet depth when the A-29 dropped three depth charges. One exploded at 80 feet, the others at 100 feet, damaging an antenna lead and causing a leak in the radio room. While Tagami tried to escape seaward, the plane dropped seven more depth charges, but inflicted no damage.
On Tuesday night, 29 September, I-25 surfaced again 50 miles west of Cape Blanco, and at 2107 hours catapulted Fujita’s aircraft in another attempt to start a forest fire, this time starting one fire that went out before the Forest Service arrived to suppress it. On Sunday, 4 October I-25 sank the American freighter Camden off the south coast of Oregon, with one crewman killed. The following Tuesday I-25 sank the tanker Larry Doheny off Cape Sebastian, with the loss of two crewmen and four U.S. Navy armed guards.50
There were additional reports of submarines present in Hawaiian waters during January 1942, but attacks tapered off after the I-71, captained by Commander Rokuro Kawasaki, attacked a small three-ship convoy and sank the Army Transport Royal T. Frank in the channel between Maui and Hawaii on 28 January with the loss of 24 island men. A survivor reported, “The ship did not seem to blow up or sink, she just disintegrated and disappeared in 30 or 40 seconds.” The motorship Kalae rescued 36 men from the oily waters and rushed them to Hana, Maui, where the 13 seriously injured were treated at the Hana Hospital. Seventeen of the missing were Island-born soldiers en route to the Big Island to serve as garrison troops. The others were crew members.51
