World's deepest shipwreck USS Johnston is
mapped for the first time as US explorers in
submarine reach remains of WWII destroyer
FOUR MILES below the surface
Daily Mail (UK),
by
Annabel Grossman
Original Article
Posted By: Imright,
4/3/2021 8:29:46 PM
The deepest ever shipwreck has now been fully mapped and filmed after a US crew was able to reach the site 21,180ft below the Philippine Sea. The WWII destroyer USS Johnston was destroyed 75 years ago in the Pacific during the largest naval battle in history, the Battle of Leyte Gulf.The ship sank four miles to the bottom of the ocean, with the loss of 186 of her crew. The wreck was discovered in 2019, but it was not until now that a team has been able to fully map the remains, which is more than 100 feet deeper than previously believed. A submersible piloted by Caladan Oceanic,
Reply 1 - Posted by:
Ida Lou Pino 4/3/2021 8:47:36 PM (No. 744042)
They should use that submarine to find John Durham.
We haven't seen much of Durham for quite a while.
39 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
DVC 4/3/2021 9:18:34 PM (No. 744063)
In this subportion of the Battle of Leyte, three American destroyers and four even smaller destroyer escorts had to defend their six tiny, slow escort carriers from attack by four Japanese battleships, eight cruisers and eleven destroyers.
These few small, unarmored ships fought so fiercely and with amazingly accurate gunnery that they managed to damage and even cripple six Japanese cruisers, crippling three of them so they couldn't escape, setting them up for sinking by carrier aircraft the next day.
The escort carriers contributed some fighting aircraft, but they had no torpedoes and only a few land attack bombs which could do only modest damage to the heavily armored Japanese battleships and cruisers.
Incredibly, the Japanese were convinced that they had engaged a force of cruisers and the big fast carriers due to the super accurate American gunnery and lots of mock attacks by brave, but usually unarmed American pilots.
Eventually, the Japanese had sunk two of the three American destroyers and one of the destroyer escorts, and one of the escort carriers yet they thought that they were losing and made a run for it.
The Captain of the Johnston was a 3/4 Indian who had graduated from the USNA. Capt Evans earned a posthumous Medal of Honor in this action. Heroics were common that day.
The book "The Last Stand of the Tin-Can Sailors" is worth reading to understand the amazing heroics of these many men so long ago.
55 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Omen55 4/3/2021 11:09:10 PM (No. 744127)
Well #1 you can't find what's not there.
6 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
Vaquero45 4/3/2021 11:49:50 PM (No. 744158)
Gutsy sailors - God bless ‘em all.
RIP, fellas - and thanks.
28 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
snakeoil 4/4/2021 12:09:15 AM (No. 744166)
One US ship when it sank the surviving sailors were in the water. May have been the Johnson. They were approached by a Imperial Japanese Naval warship moving at a high speed. They feared they were going to be run over or machine gunned in the water. Instead, the Japanese crew saluted them as warriors.
19 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Sully 4/4/2021 8:44:15 AM (No. 744343)
#2 Yes, "The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors" is a riveting account of the Battle off Samar. Lpeeps, get the book. You will not be able to put it down.
The article describes the battle well and the youtubes are also great. Many great vids. You have to understand that a Destroyer or a Destroyer Escort had 5 inch guns, and they were steaming toward cruisers and battleships (the largest in the world) w/16 inch guns which were raking the US ships for many miles until we were even in range.
Glad to see these brave men remembered again. May we never forget what they did.
16 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Bluefindad 4/4/2021 10:09:34 AM (No. 744440)
Great account #2! Such valor should never be forgotten. The Hoel, Johnston and DE Samuel B. Roberts were lost, but they successfully fended off an attack that would have devastated the Leyte invasion forces. Their's was a naval Charge of the Light Brigade!
7 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
Paperpuncher 4/4/2021 10:13:24 AM (No. 744444)
To poster #1: Using this article as a format to slam Durham is inappropriate. Many brave American sailors died that day sacrificing themselves in a desperate attack against overwhelming odds. They deserve more respect than that.
Thank you to poster #2 as you got it right. There were very few things in the article that may not be exact but, close enough. I am a bit of an amateur historian of The Pacific Theater as my father fought in the Upper Solomon’s and Luzon. He was discharged as a Corporal with two bronze stars.
God bless them all!
8 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
snowoutlaw 4/4/2021 11:42:12 AM (No. 744521)
One small detail left out was that “Bull” Halsey and his fast aircraft carriers was responsible for providing covering support to the Leyte landings but he left the area leaving the just the Johnston and a few other small ships to defend the landings. Halsey should have been court-martialed over it but wasn't.
2 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
DVC 4/4/2021 1:25:50 PM (No. 744605)
#9, Halsey decided that destroying the last remaining Japanese aircraft carriers was his most important task, and the information that he had from our scouting aircraft accurately reported that the Japanese force commanded by Adm Kurita, had turned around after submarine and aircraft attacks and headed away from Leyte. Halsey had engaged Kurita's surface force and sunk IJN superbattleship Musashi, and Adm Kurita had turned his force, heading away from Leyte. Halsey then went to engage the Japanese carriers, far to the north.
The Japanese carriers, unbeknownst to the US Navy, had only about 1/3 their normal compliment of aircraft due to the terrible losses we had inflicted on the Japanese naval air forces, and were being used mostly as bait to lure away our fast carriers so Kurita's surface force could attack our landing ships at Leyte. Halsey was convinced that the Japanese carriers were still the most powerful striking force of the Japanese Navy, which had been true for the whole war. Halsey was properly working to finally destroy the ability of the Japanese Navy to project air power, which was far more decisive than surface power. And Kurita's force had seemingly been beaten and was retreating out of range.
But, Adm Kurita turned his force around again, with the second super battleship Yamato and slipped through the San Bernardino Strait at night, heading back towards the vulnerable landing fleet at Leyte. This left only the six small, slow escort carriers, intended for air support for the landing forces, and their three destroyer and four DE defenders. These few ships were primarily there as anti-sub patrol for the small carriers, but now were the only forces standing between this huge Japanese surface force and the highly vulnerable landing ships and transports, hundreds of them jammed into a small area unloading troops and supplies.
IMO, with the incomplete, and belated information that was available to Halsey, he made the right choices. Judging a great admiral after the fact, using information that he did not have at the time, is unfair. Many battles are fought with incomplete, inacurate or out dated information. It was the normal thing in WW2.
And the men of Taffy 3 fought that day as heroically as any men ever fought on the ocean at any time, in any place. To engage battleships, and cripple cruisers with heavy armor and 8 inch and 11 inch guns with a destroyer with three five inch guns, and a DE with two five inch guns is truly beyond anything that any rational sea commander would expect from this class of ships.
The US commanding officers told their sailors before going into battle that they had no reasonable expectation of survival, but that they would fight as hard as they could, while they remained afloat. Most of the officers and men were civilians a year or so earlier, but many took their jobs very seriously, especially the gunnery officers and had their gun-aiming equipment exceptionally well adjusted, crews very well trained. Their super accurate and rapid 5 inch fire was able to literally shred the superstructures of the cruisers, and in several cases they killed or wounded the bridge crews of the Japanese cruisers, seriously degrading their ability to fight. You cannot sink a cruiser with 5 inch guns, but with massive, accurate 5 inch fire, you can shred the superstructure and seriously degrade their aiming, communications and battle management, making them 'combat ineffective'.
This was done, and these men deserve to be remembered for their heroic actions, as well as their tremendous combat effectiveness.
6 people like this.
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