The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour by James D. Hornfischer

Author:James D. Hornfischer [Hornfischer, James D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: History.war
ISBN: 9780553381481
Google: DOpEvRQUv4oC
Amazon: 0553381482
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 2005-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Thirty

For Captain Hathaway, conning the Heermann through the cantering herd of CVEs amid heavy smoke, spray, and fog en route to joining the torpedo run had been no minor adventure. The Heermann had nearly collided with the Roberts and the Hoel on the way to attack. Now that his destroyer was clear of the carriers, navigation was the least of his troubles. The sea all around the ship boiled with enemy salvos.

When the nearest Japanese ship, a Tone-class heavy cruiser, was just nine thousand yards away, Hathaway ordered a half salvo of five torpedoes fired at her. With the tubes trained per executive officer Lt. Bill Carver’s coordinates, chief torpedoman Arthur Owens ordered mount number one to fire her five fish. But when the command went out—“Fire one … Fire two”— the tube trainer on the second torpedo mount got excited and fired two of the five torpedoes he was supposed to be reserving for a second attack. Before the mount captain could stop him, they jumped out and ran parallel to their counterparts, leaving only three torpedoes for the second launch. The Heermann’s seven torpedoes left the ship cleanly, hot, straight, and normal.

Though Bill Carver reported over the sound-powered phones four large contacts, giving their range off the port bow, Harold Whitney, the Heermann’s chief yeoman, couldn’t see them. No one could as yet: “It was an odd day—one moment the sun was shining and the sky seemed clear as a bell, and the next moment you were in a rain-squall and it was dark as night. The rain blotted out our radar, and we had no way of knowing how close we were to the battleships.” Suddenly the Heermann emerged from a squall, and all too clearly, dead ahead, lay the four largest ships Kurita had. Lt. Bill Meadors, the gunnery officer, could see two Kongo-class battleships advancing in column. Beyond them, looming in the haze, were two ships that looked even bigger. Whitney figured the Heermann would be sunk on the spot. The bigger ships, however, seemed to be having trouble targeting the small destroyer at close range.

Lieutenant Meadors had the Haruna square in the sights of his director scope. He could see the battleship’s four double-barrel fourteen-inch main turrets, housing rifles fifty-four feet long, turned out to starboard in a frightening array. Flashes and smoke seemed to swallow the ship each time it fired. First the front and back turrets fired, and four shells screamed overhead at mast level, hitting the ocean a thousand yards beyond the destroyer. Then the two high-mounted turrets let go. The Heermann madly returned fire all along. Lieutenant Meadors had the firing key closed, which caused the guns to discharge as soon as their projectile trays were rammed into the breech. Another roar came from the Haruna, a full broadside, and the battleship’s four turrets, flashing as one, “illuminated the entire ocean on our starboard hand,” Meadors wrote. The eight heavy rounds screamed overhead and missed.

Salvos from the Haruna and three other battleships raised walls of water all around the ship.

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