Thanks artichokegrower. The ship had its ass blown off in the Bering Sea, but survived to fight again? That doesn't sound like hard luck to me, that sounds like hard to stop. :^)
Posted on 08/16/2018 4:09:04 PM PDT by artichokegrower
For almost 75 years, the stern of the destroyer USS Abner Read lay somewhere below the dark of the Bering Sea off the Aleutian island of Kiska, where it sank after being torn off by an explosion while conducting an anti-submarine patrol.
(Excerpt) Read more at gcaptain.com ...
Hard luck ship
For those interested..., seek out the “Thousand Mile War” detailing Alaska’s prevails in WWII.
Destroyers were expendable. They were used as picket ships to alert capital ships of enemy activity, particularly in the infancy of RADAR.
The Slot at Guadalcanal is full of them. Many were sunk off of Leyte and Okinawa too at the height of the kamikaze attacks.
A Tin can.
This ship actually survived this incident, was repaired and put back into service, and was later sunk by a kamikaze at Leyte.
I hope they haven’t been spending government money searching for the last 75 years.
“Okinawa “
The battle that convinced Truman to drop the bombs.
I think the search for the remains of 71 war hero’s is a worthwhile project
My father served on the destroyer, USS Perkins, during WWII and was at the battles of Leyte Gulf, Coral Sea and Tassafaronga. He was later transfered to the cruiser, USS Oakland, and shortly thereafter the Perkins was accidentally cut in two by an Australian ship with the loss of several (9 I believe) sailors. Wish there were underwater pictures of the sunken Perkins but I have never been able to find them on the internet (if any even exist). He passed away in 1984. He was very interested in naval history. I wonder often what he would have thought about the internet and some of the WWII naval simulator games.
77 destroyers. 12 destroyer escorts.
52 submarines - I think that’s a higher percentage, but I can’t locate precise numbers at the moment.
Back in the '50s we were shown the sonar room of a destroyer (sonar school project). The Chief said "Put you ear to that bulkhead and tell me what you hear." DOH! I said "The ocean". (We were underway at the time.) He slapped the bulkhead and said "There's 3/8" steel between you and the Atlantic, you're three decks and five hatched between you and topside and you're located at "Torpedo Junction" (under the bridge). Kiss your ass goodbye if you're ever hit."
I told him I was in the submarines. He said "You're crazy."
So the ship is cut in two, with one half sinking beneath the waves, and they recreate half the ship and send it off to war? This is truly remarkable.
Howard’s End?
Thanks for the info, I just ordered the book through Amazon. When I was in the 7th Infantry Division 86-90 one of our unit citations was from the Attu Island campaign part of the Aleutian chain of islands, loo forward to reading it.
Kinda cool it the Time Bandit could cruise over to the site and fire off some of their fireworks.
lol
The discussion of internment of Japanese-Americans can’t take place without including the fact that Japanese troops held Alaskan islands for more than a year. Like slavery, the topic has morphed from fact to myth; primarily West Coast Japanese were interned (since the fleet to protect the West Coast was in shambles at Pearl Harbor), and some Italian- and German-Americans were interned as well (despite insistence that Japanese were singled out).
I use the slavery reference because contrary to blacktivists’ complaints about “400 years of slavery”, the United States had legal slavery for less than 100 years. The American Revolution ended in 1783, and slavery ended in 1865 - a total of 82 years.
My leftie buddy in college noted that the WWII-era internments resulted in no significant sabotage on US soil, and intelligence gathering was basically impossible for the Japanese.
Thanks artichokegrower. The ship had its ass blown off in the Bering Sea, but survived to fight again? That doesn't sound like hard luck to me, that sounds like hard to stop. :^)
It’s amazing that the kamikaze, which dropped its bomb down the ship’s stack, and did a lot of damage to the ship, resulting in the ship’s sinking, only claimed 22 lives. The explosion that took off the stern killed many more than that.
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