Daughters of Infamy : The Stories of the Ships That Survived Pearl Harbor

by Kilmer, David

• ISBN13: 9781462062515
• ISBN10: 1462062512
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-11-18
• Publisher: Textstream

Excerpts

USS Hull FARRAGUT CLASS DESTROYER DD-350 LAUNCHED: 1934 DECEMBER 7, 1941 It was not unusual in the Navy of the 1940s to have brothers serving side by side on the same ship. For example, there were 37 sets of brothers on USS Arizona, BB-39. HULL had its own set of brothers, the Goens boys, Robert and David. Robert was a cook and that morning was in the galley serving a breakfast of bacon and eggs to his crewmates. When the raid began, Robert and David reported to and manned a .50 caliber machine gun and together took on the enemy side by side. The Goens brothers, however, were not the first to fire on the Japanese planes from HULL. The sailor standing the gangway watch spotted the aircraft as the attack began. As two of the planes flew past the destroyer's bow, at a distance of only 50 yards, he drew his .45 caliber pistol and fired at them. No official records mark weather he hit them or not. By 0812 all main batteries and machine guns onboard HULL were firing including three Browning Automatic Rifles. HULL was nested alongside other destroyers being overhauled by the tender DOBBIN, AD-3. As was standard, DOBBIN was supplying all power to the destroyers but at the outset of the attack she cut power. HULL and the other ships had to pass ammunition, load and aim their main 5-inch guns by hand. Despite this hindrance, the men on HULL managed to fire 200 5-inch rounds at the attacking planes. HULL claimed to have seriously damaged or shot down at least four enemy planes while suffering no damage or casualties herself. In his after action report, Lieutenant Commander Richard Stout, captain of HULL, pointed out that "Any vessel or any nest of vessels that could maintain a volume of fire suffered little or no damage. Time and again attacks...directed at this nest of ships...were successfully driven off." His was not the only report that described attacking Japanese planes veering off or totally avoiding any ship or nest of ships that put up even a moderate defense. THE WAR The first major action in the war for HULL was the invasion of Guadalcanal on August 7, 1942. The following day she helped repulse aerial counterattacks by the Japanese, splashing three enemy planes in the process. In the first months of 1943 she went in for overhaul at Mare Island Navy Yard near San Francisco. There, 20-year-old Pat Douhan a native Californian, fresh out of boot camp and eight weeks of sonar school in San Diego joined her. After provisioning she sailed for the Aleutians in April. Shortly after arriving, HULL was assigned anti-submarine screening to USS NEVADA, BB-36, one of her Pearl Harbor sisters. As they prepared for the invasion of Attu, NEVADA had a man overboard. HULL, trailing behind the battleship, attempted to pluck the bluejacket from the icy waters, but the sailor missed the lifeline thrown to him. By the time the destroyer came round for a second attempt the frigid waters had done their worst and the only thing recovered from the sea was a frozen body. HULL remained in Alaskan waters only a short time. She stayed only long enough to supply shore bombardment prior to the landings on Kiska. She then sailed for Pearl Harbor. After a short stay at Pearl she participated in raids on Japanese-held Wake Island. In November 1943, she was part of a battle group that included the escort carrier USS LISCOME BAY, CVE-56. On the 24th, while operating near Makin Island in the Gilberts, LISCOME BAY was torpedoed by the Japanese submarine I-175. The carrier exploded in a brilliant pyrotechnic exhibition and sank, taking 644 of her crew down with her. Among those lost was Doris Miller, the black cook who received the Navy Cross for his bravery on board the battleship USS WEST VIGINIA, BB-48, at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. HULL picked up some of the 272 survivors of the disaster. To deny the enemy the benefit of cover prior to an invasion HULL would lay off an island and bombard it. The destroyer would pull in to less than a thousand yards from the beach, open fire with her five-inch guns and then run parallel to the island, shelling, until not a tree was left standing. For the next year HULL plied the waters of the Pacific shelling islands and providing protection for the fleet at places like Kwajalein, Eniwetok, Majuro, Saipan and Guam. In August 1944 she returned to the United States for overhaul. Three months later, in November she once again set sail for the West Pacific to participate in the liberation of the Philippines. FATE December 18, 1944 HULL was part of Task Force 38 operating off the Philippine island of Luzon. Notice had been received that a typhoon was coming. The previous day the seas had become noticeably rough, halting all operations. Task Force 38 soon found itself in the center of the storm, designated Typhoon Cobra. What occurred on the bridge of HULL during the morning of December 18th is the stuff that books and movies are made of. The captain, Lieutenant Commander James A. Marks, had significant differences with his officers and crew as to how the ship should be handled in the tempest. Marks gave few, if any, orders and those that he did give, seemed to put the ship in even more peril. The ship was doing so badly under the command of Marks that several of the crew even spoke to the Executive Officer about relieving the captain in order to save the ship. Pat Douhan, the young sonarman, was on the bridge most of the night. The sight of the captain cowering in a corner of the bridge did not inspire any confidence in him. Even though things looked grim, Douhan thought they'd make it through. Throughout the morning the unstable ship continuously rolled heavily. She inclined up to sixty and seventy degrees. Her bow would plow headlong into waves as much as eighty feet tall and her stern would lift totally out of the water exposing screws and a rudder trying to grip into nothing but thin air. Around 0800 Douhan was relieved from his watch. The design of the FARRAGUT class destroyers was such that there was no way to get from the forward part of the ship to the aft with out going out on deck. Douhan headed for the aft deckhouse and would have been washed overboard had he not grabbed onto the torpedo tubes amidships. At about 1000 a lookout on the bridge wing was washed overboard. A short while later a Chief Boatswain's Mate recommended to Marks that the ship's whaleboat be cut away, lest it break loose and cause damage or even death. Marks forcefully denied the request. In fulfillment of the Chief's prophecy, the boat eventually did break free from its davits and careened wildly down the deck striking at least a dozen sailors killing some of them outright and knocking others overboard. Just around noon, Marks gave what many on the bridge believed to be an ill-advised order to turn the ship in a way that brought HULL into the trough of a wave. From that moment on HULL was doomed. The ship rolled so heavily to starboard that seawater poured directly down her stack. There was soon hip-deep water in the engineering spaces. Every time she rolled, more water stowed away on board to the tune of almost one ton per cubic yard. Finally the sea rolled her. The dial of the ship's inclinometer stopped at seventy-two degrees because that was the angle at which, theoretically, the ship could not recover. When the hand on the meter hit that mark the ship continued to roll until she lay on her side at ninety degrees. After that the over 100 miles per hour wind kept her down. Seeing the end was at hand, many crewmen who had not already been washed into the angry green sea, jumped in. The conditions were such that the waves pounded against the ship like a hammer against an anvil. Many of those in the water were caught in between and were literally beaten to death against the hull of their ship. Those men on the bridge made it out onto the port wing and later recalled that they suddenly found themselves adrift in the water when the ship just dropped from beneath the