Hellfish
11-06-2006, 12:31 PM
From http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15561420/site/newsweek/
Best war story I've read in a while. Those squids had some balls.
By Evan Thomas
Newsweek
Nov. 13, 2006 issue - During the Second World War, it was very unusual to be standing on the deck of an American warship and actually see a Japanese vessel. Most sea battles in the Pacific War were fought at night or from great distances—by carrier-based planes flying many miles from their ships. But shortly after dawn on the morning of October 25, 1944, the men of the USS Johnston, a destroyer patrolling near Leyte Gulf in the Philippine Islands, saw something the survivors would never forget.
(http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15561420/site/newsweek/#storyContinued)
There, rising over the horizon out of the morning mist, were the distinctive pagoda-shaped superstructures of a dozen battleships and cruisers of Emperor Hirohito's Imperial Japanese Navy. The men on the Johnston could see the great guns of the Japanese warships flashing in the distance, and see and hear the giant shells tumbling towards them. The shells made a sound, some recalled, like a passing freight train. On the bridge of the Johnston, one sailor ducked. "Don't duck, son," said the destroyer's captain, Cmdr. Ernest Evans. "The ones you hear have already missed you."
The Americans had been caught by surprise. In a last-gasp effort to stop the U.S. invasion of the Philippines, the Japanese Navy had devised an elaborate ruse, using a decoy to draw away the mighty American carrier task force that was guarding the invasion fleet. Adm. William F. ("Bull") Halsey fell for the trick and went steaming north with his fast, heavy carriers, leaving Gen. Douglas MacArthur's support ships undefended. The way was open for Japanese battleships and cruisers to fall upon much weaker prey, the lightly armored American destroyers and slow, small auxiliary or "jeep" carriers supporting the invasion. What happened over the next two-and-a-half hours, in the last great sea battle ever fought, is an inspiring, appalling story of courage and blunder.
Commander Evans, the captain of the Johnston, was an unusual officer in the still segregated Navy of his day, a Cherokee Indian who had come out of the enlisted ranks to graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy. Evans knew that his ship was doomed. But he was determined not to go down until he had fired off his torpedoes. He did not charge straight ahead, but zig-zagged, steering toward the splashes of falling shells, knowing that the Japanese gunners would constantly shift their aim. For ten long minutes the Johnston fish-tailed until Evans finally ordered, "Fire torpedoes." The Johnston unloaded all ten of its "fish" and turned and ran for it. One of the torpedoes blew off the bow of an enemy cruiser, the Kumano.
http://msnbcmedia3.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/Newsweek/Components/Photos/Mag/061113_Issue/061104_EvanBook_vm.small.jpg
Damien Donck for Newsweek
Then the first enemy barrages found the Johnston. Three 14-inch shells, probably from the battleship Kongo, slammed into the aft engine room and fire room. The jolt was like a "puppy smacked by a truck," recalled the gunnery officer, Lt. (j.g.) Robert Hagen. Stumbling out of the engine room came three men, their skin already turning a ghastly white and peeling off in sheets. Steam boiled, they lay down on the deck and died. Within ten seconds, three more shells, six-inchers from a light cruiser, ripped into the superstructure behind the Johnston's bridge. The pilothouse was so riddled with shrapnel it looked like "a kid's BB target," recalled Hagen.
Lt. (j.g.) Ellsworth Welch came in from the bridge wing to find Lt. (j.g.) Jack Bechdel, the torpedo officer, propped in the corner. Just a few minutes earlier Bechdel had been exulting over his torpedoes running "hot, straight, and normal." Now he was complaining about his right shoulder. He did not seem to notice that one of his legs had been blown off below the knee. The ship's doctor had given Welch some syrettes of morphine and Welch wordlessly plunged one into Bechdel's wrist. Welch began collecting body parts and pitching them over the side, "to maintain morale," he later recalled.
Rest of the story in the link...
http://www.ussjohnston.org/images/dd557.jpg
Best war story I've read in a while. Those squids had some balls.
By Evan Thomas
Newsweek
Nov. 13, 2006 issue - During the Second World War, it was very unusual to be standing on the deck of an American warship and actually see a Japanese vessel. Most sea battles in the Pacific War were fought at night or from great distances—by carrier-based planes flying many miles from their ships. But shortly after dawn on the morning of October 25, 1944, the men of the USS Johnston, a destroyer patrolling near Leyte Gulf in the Philippine Islands, saw something the survivors would never forget.
(http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15561420/site/newsweek/#storyContinued)
There, rising over the horizon out of the morning mist, were the distinctive pagoda-shaped superstructures of a dozen battleships and cruisers of Emperor Hirohito's Imperial Japanese Navy. The men on the Johnston could see the great guns of the Japanese warships flashing in the distance, and see and hear the giant shells tumbling towards them. The shells made a sound, some recalled, like a passing freight train. On the bridge of the Johnston, one sailor ducked. "Don't duck, son," said the destroyer's captain, Cmdr. Ernest Evans. "The ones you hear have already missed you."
The Americans had been caught by surprise. In a last-gasp effort to stop the U.S. invasion of the Philippines, the Japanese Navy had devised an elaborate ruse, using a decoy to draw away the mighty American carrier task force that was guarding the invasion fleet. Adm. William F. ("Bull") Halsey fell for the trick and went steaming north with his fast, heavy carriers, leaving Gen. Douglas MacArthur's support ships undefended. The way was open for Japanese battleships and cruisers to fall upon much weaker prey, the lightly armored American destroyers and slow, small auxiliary or "jeep" carriers supporting the invasion. What happened over the next two-and-a-half hours, in the last great sea battle ever fought, is an inspiring, appalling story of courage and blunder.
Commander Evans, the captain of the Johnston, was an unusual officer in the still segregated Navy of his day, a Cherokee Indian who had come out of the enlisted ranks to graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy. Evans knew that his ship was doomed. But he was determined not to go down until he had fired off his torpedoes. He did not charge straight ahead, but zig-zagged, steering toward the splashes of falling shells, knowing that the Japanese gunners would constantly shift their aim. For ten long minutes the Johnston fish-tailed until Evans finally ordered, "Fire torpedoes." The Johnston unloaded all ten of its "fish" and turned and ran for it. One of the torpedoes blew off the bow of an enemy cruiser, the Kumano.
http://msnbcmedia3.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/Newsweek/Components/Photos/Mag/061113_Issue/061104_EvanBook_vm.small.jpg
Damien Donck for Newsweek
Then the first enemy barrages found the Johnston. Three 14-inch shells, probably from the battleship Kongo, slammed into the aft engine room and fire room. The jolt was like a "puppy smacked by a truck," recalled the gunnery officer, Lt. (j.g.) Robert Hagen. Stumbling out of the engine room came three men, their skin already turning a ghastly white and peeling off in sheets. Steam boiled, they lay down on the deck and died. Within ten seconds, three more shells, six-inchers from a light cruiser, ripped into the superstructure behind the Johnston's bridge. The pilothouse was so riddled with shrapnel it looked like "a kid's BB target," recalled Hagen.
Lt. (j.g.) Ellsworth Welch came in from the bridge wing to find Lt. (j.g.) Jack Bechdel, the torpedo officer, propped in the corner. Just a few minutes earlier Bechdel had been exulting over his torpedoes running "hot, straight, and normal." Now he was complaining about his right shoulder. He did not seem to notice that one of his legs had been blown off below the knee. The ship's doctor had given Welch some syrettes of morphine and Welch wordlessly plunged one into Bechdel's wrist. Welch began collecting body parts and pitching them over the side, "to maintain morale," he later recalled.
Rest of the story in the link...
http://www.ussjohnston.org/images/dd557.jpg