The Gun Club: U.S.S. Duncan at Cape Esperance by Robert Fowler

Author:Robert Fowler [Fowler, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780999075319
Publisher: Winthrop & Fish
Published: 2017-10-01T04:00:00+00:00

Southwest of Savo Island, Duncan was circling out of control and losing power. The bridge had lost power almost completely. Steering, engine order telegraph, recognition lights—all were out. Most battle circuits were dead. Chief Chamberlain had repeatedly called the after steering engineroom to have them straighten out the rudder, but he never heard a reply. LCdr. Taylor, unable to issue orders or receive reports from beyond the walls of flame, was effectively relieved of command.

Bridge messengers were sent forward and aft, and both returned. One was blocked by the fire in #2 handling room and the other by the fire in #1 fireroom. When Bryan returned, the fight went out of out of Taylor, and he said to Bryan quietly, “Abandon ship.” It was twenty minutes since they had started on the torpedo run.

“We’ve been hit! The bridge is on fire!” Chief Chamberlain shouted into the phones. “Abandon ship!”

Some stations heard him. The steering engineroom, the station furthest away that he had been trying to reach so urgently, heard him clearly and replied, but Chamberlain did not hear them.

On the roof of the bridge, Lt.(jg) Rhodes was dead at the 20mm director. Lt.(jg) Fowler lay motionless on the deck beside the torpedo director. Papacoda and Edwards checked him out and decided he was dead. The surviving men on the bridge roof were recovering from the shock of the blast, wandering around, disoriented. None of them heard an order to abandon. There was a lot of shouting down on the bridgewing. Papacoda went and looked down. He saw men below cutting down halyards in preparation for lowering wounded over the side.

Chief Paige, climbing down from the main battery director, stopped on the roof of the bridge when he heard someone moaning in the dark. He found Lt.(jg) Fowler laying on the deck asking for help. Sobelman came over to see where Paige went. When he saw Fowler, he grabbed two morphine syrettes from the cabinet on the director barbette, and he gave Fowler a shot in each leg. Then he took a compress from his belt and tied it around Fowler’s neck to try to staunch the bleeding. Fire Controlmen James Bilbro and James Queen joined them, and Paige told them to cut down halyards.

On the main deck, men were abandoning while men below were still manning their stations or struggling to escape them.

In the dark I.C., the men could feel the water was rising around their feet. Christensen’s body was starting to float. “If we weren’t steaming in circles, that hole would be below the waterline,” Ham remembered. They tried to cut through the bulkhead into the exec’s office, but the bulkhead was red-hot from the fire on the other side. At that point, some of them gave up. Others went to work on the hatch. They were all gasping in the smoky airlessness. Lt.(jg) Wharton became unhinged. He kept saying that nobody knew they were there and that it was hopeless and they were all going to drown like rats.

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