Typhoon Cobra

[dieseltaylor]

Really good site here:

http://ww2db.com/ship_spec.php?ship_id=367

I was just browing the photos and found this scary:

Hull arrived at Pearl Harbor on 23 Oct, joined the fast carrier striking force in the Philippine Sea in Nov 1944. On 17 and 18 Dec 1944, she was engulfed by Typhoon Cobra, experiencing extremely heavy rolls. At about 1100 on 18 Dec, the ship listed to an 80-degree angle, allowing water to flow in at a dangerous rate. The ship soon rolled over completely and sank. Destroyer escort Tabberer and other ships saved 62 men from Hull over the course of the next few days.

One does wonder why they were not going bow on to the waves. Possibly the big ships had to get somewhere and the course did not allow for little ships [1325ton]. But Wikipedia gives the details:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w...Typhoon_Cobra_%281944%29

3rd Fleet damages

* USS Hull (DD-350) - with 70 percent fuel aboard, capsized and sunk with 202 men drowned (62 survivors)[3]

* USS Monaghan (DD-354) - capsized and sunk with 256 men drowned (6 survivors)[3]

* USS Spence (DD-512) - rudder jammed hard to starboard, capsized and sunk with 317 men drowned (23 survivors) after hoses parted attempting to refuel from New Jersey[3]

* USS Cowpens (CVL-25) - hanger door torn open and RADAR, 20mm gun sponson, whaleboat, jeeps, tractors, kerry crane, and 8 aircraft lost overboard[3]

* USS Monterey (CVL-26) - hangar deck fire killed 3 men and caused evacuation of boiler rooms requiring repairs at Bremerton Navy yard[3]

* USS Langley (CVL-27) - damaged[3]

* USS Cabot (CVL-28) - damaged[4]

* USS San Jacinto (CVL-30) - hangar deck planes broke loose and destroyed air intakes, vent ducts and sprinkling system causing widespread flooding.[3] Damage repaired by USS Hector (AR-7)[5]

* USS Altamaha (CVE-18) - hanger deck crane and aircraft broke loose and broke fire mains[3]

* USS Anzio (CVE-57) - required major repair[3]

* USS Nehenta Bay (CVE-74) - damaged[4]

* USS Cape Esperance (CVE-88) - flight deck fire required major repair[3]

* USS Kwajalein (CVE-98) - lost steering control[3]

* USS Baltimore (CA-68) - required major repair[3]

* USS Miami (CL-89) - required major repair[3]

* USS Dewey (DD-349) - lost steering control, RADAR, the forward stack, and all power when salt water shorted main electrical switchboard[3]

* USS Aylwin (DD-355) - required major repair[3]

* USS Buchanan (DD-484) - required major repair[3]

* USS Dyson (DD-572) - required major repair[3]

* USS Hickox (DD-673) - required major repair[3]

* USS Maddox (DD-731) - damaged[4]

* USS Benham (DD-796) - required major repair[3]

* USS Donaldson (DE-44) - required major repair[3]

* USS Melvin R. Nawman (DE-416) - required major repair[3]

* USS Tabberer (DE-418) - lost foremast[6]

* USS Waterman (DE-740) - damaged[4]

* USS Nantahala (AO-60) - damaged[4]

* USS Jicarilla (ATF-104) - damaged[4]

On board the Cowpens

""We were rolling to such an extent that on each roll to starboard the flight deck edge would hit green water on the starboard side," continued Admiral DeBaun. "The rolls to port were almost as bad but always about five degrees less due to our built-in starboard list. On the big rolls one could reach down from the starboard wing of the bridge and touch green water as we rolled to starboard."

http://www.usshancockcv19...istory/typhoon_cobra.htm

[McAuliffe]

If I recall correctly, the event was also subject of the climax in Herman Wouk's book: "The Caine Mutiny". Although not specifically mentioned being Typhoon Cobra.

Not bad movie either with Humphrey Bogart acting as the paranoid Captain.

[dieseltaylor]

It is a really greaT SITE :

"All right, they're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us... they can't get away this time."

Lt. Gen. Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, at Guadalcanal

The World War II Database is founded and managed by C. Peter Chen as an extension of his personal history notebook. This goal of the site is to offer interesting and useful information about World War II.

More About WW2DB

[YankeeDog]

My Grandfather (USNA '44) was a young gunnery officer aboard the Baltimore at the time. He used to tell stories about the typhoon -- he said sailing through that typhoon was far more frightening than any of the combat engagements he participated in.

[Michael Emrys]

It is a really greaT SITE :

"All right, they're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us... they can't get away this time."

Lt. Gen. Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, at Guadalcanal

They may have gotten that one wrong. I believe he said that in Korea early 1951 during the retreat from the Chosin Reservoir.

Michael

[dieseltaylor]

Yoe tell em ME!!

YD - ic an really believe it. I have been on most of the worlds oceans and a big storm can be seriously interesting ... let alone a frickin typhoon and 80 degree lists. Halsey was a complete tit.

[Lt Belenko]

It is a really greaT SITE :

"All right, they're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us... they can't get away this time."

Lt. Gen. Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, at Guadalcanal

The World War II Database is founded and managed by C. Peter Chen as an extension of his personal history notebook. This goal of the site is to offer interesting and useful information about World War II.

More About WW2DB

They may have gotten that one wrong. I believe he said that in Korea early 1951 during the retreat from the Chosin Reservoir.

Michael

Also, I don't think he was a General until after WWII.

[Michael Emrys]

Also, I don't think he was a General until after WWII.

I believe you're right. Unless I am mistaken, the largest command he held during WW II was a regiment. Even five years later in Korea, he was just commanding a division (and even then, only officially the assistant division commander). I don't know for sure, but I'd guess that he was bumped up to Lt. General just before retirement so he'd get a bigger pension.

Michael

[gunnergoz]

Chesty made too many enemies among what would later be called "the perfumed princes" (upper command echelons) to ever make general rank during his actual career. No one could top his courage and inspiration on the battlefield, but behind the scenes he probably had more enemies behind him in the command ranks than before him on the battlefield. A political man he was not.

[dieseltaylor]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesty_Puller

Very interesting.

[Affentitten]

God imagine being deep inside a ship with an 80 degree roll and just waiting every time to see if it wouldn't come up. And knowing that you had **** all chance of getting out if it went under.

My brother-in-law hit a big storm in the Antarctic Ocean when he was aboard one of the RAN frigates. The got hit by a wave bow on that submerged the entire deck and pretty much came up the the bridge windows. For a long slow few seconds there was the fear that she wouldn't come up again. The keel of the ship was bent by nearly a metre along its length when they returned to port.

[Blackcat]

Yoe tell em ME!!

YD - ic an really believe it. I have been on most of the worlds oceans and a big storm can be seriously interesting ... let alone a frickin typhoon and 80 degree lists. Halsey was a complete tit.

Excuse my ignorance, but what was it that Halsey did that caused the Hull to be lost?

[Sgt Joch]

Halsey was in command of the Fleet and sailed it through the Typhoon, although I seem to dimly recall part of the problem was that the fleet meteorologist came up with a wrong prediction for the path of the storm.

[dieseltaylor]

Blackcat - have you read the Wikipedia link in full?

One typhoon unlucky, two equals a tit. And bear in mind that he ordered ships back to port without allowing for rescue operations. Double tit.

After the storm passed, the fleet was scattered. One ship, the destroyer escort Tabberer, ran across a survivor from the Hull while itself desperately fighting the typhoon. This was the first survivor from any of the capsized destroyers to be picked up. Shortly thereafter many more survivors were picked up, in groups or in isolation. The Tabberer's skipper, Lieutenant Commander Henry Lee Plage, directed that the ship, despite its own dire condition, begin boxed searches to look for more survivors. Eventually, the Tabberer rescued 55 survivors in a 51-hour search, despite repeated orders from Admiral Halsey to return all ships to port in Ulithi. She picked up 41 men from the Hull and 14 from the Spence before finally returning to Ulithi after being directly relieved from the search by two destroyer escorts.

After the fleet had regrouped (without the Tabberer), ships and aircraft conducted search and rescue missions. The destroyer Brown rescued the only survivors from the Monaghan, seven in total. She additionally rescued 13 sailors from the Hull. Eighteen other survivors from the Hull and the Spence were rescued over the three days following Typhoon Cobra by other ships of the Third Fleet. In all, 93 men were rescued of the over 800 men presumed missing in the three ships, and one other who had been swept overboard from the escort carrier Anzio and had by good fortune floated upon another group of survivors.

Despite disobeying fleet orders, Plage was awarded the Legion of Merit by Admiral Halsey, and the Tabberer's crew each were awarded Navy Unit Commendation ribbons (the first ever awarded).

His Navy Board also seems unimpressed - twice. One thing I have not looked into is the detail - but ships heading dead into a sea tend to be safer so the rolling makes me wonder if he was requiring his fleet to do something stupid by sailing across the rolling seas.

More from his Wikipedia entry

As a result, when Kurita's powerful Center Force emerged from San Bernardino on the morning of October 25, they found not one Allied ship to oppose them. Advancing down the coast of the island of Samar towards their objective—the invasion shipping in Leyte Gulf—they took Seventh Fleet's escort carriers and their screening ships entirely by surprise. In the desperate and unequal Battle off Samar which followed, Kurita's ships destroyed one of the small escort carriers and three ships of the carriers' screen, and damaged many USN ships, but the heroic resistance of the escort carrier groups took a heavy toll on Kurita's ships, and his nerves. He decided to withdraw towards San Bernardino Strait and the west without achieving anything further.

When the Seventh Fleet's escort carriers found themselves under attack from the Center Force, Halsey began to receive a succession of desperate calls from Kinkaid asking for immediate assistance off Samar. For over two hours Halsey turned a deaf ear to these calls. Then, shortly after 10:00 hours,[7] an anxious message was received—"Turkey trots to water. Where is repeat where is Task Force 34? The world wonders"—from Admiral Chester Nimitz, the CINCPAC, Halsey's immediate superior, referring to the battleship–cruiser force thought to have been covering San Bernardino Strait, and thus the Seventh Fleet's northern flank. The tail end of this message was intended as padding designed to confuse enemy decoders, but was mistakenly left in the message when it was handed to Halsey. The vaguely insulting tone of the message threw Halsey into a screaming fit.[7]

Halsey turned the battleships and their escorts southwards at 11:15, more than an hour after he received the signal from Nimitz. This cost Task Force 34 more than two hours to make it back to the position it had been when Nimitz's signal was received.[7] As the battle force came south it slowed to 12 knots so the battleships could top up the destroyers with fuel, incurring another two and a half hour delay.[7] By then, it was too late for Task Force 34 either to assist the Seventh Fleet's escort carrier groups or to prevent Kurita's force from making its escape.

This succession of actions on Halsey's part during 24 and October 25 was thought by some observers to have damaged his reputation. Professor Samuel Morison of Harvard University, cited as the country's most prolific naval historian[8], called the Third Fleet run to the north "Halsey's Blunder".[8] Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy remarked afterwards "We didn't lose the war for that but I don't know why we didn't".[9] The operation has derisively been called "The Battle of Bull's Run".[10]

[edit] Typhoon

After the Leyte Gulf engagement, Third Fleet was confronted with another powerful enemy in mid-December—Typhoon Cobra (also known as "Halsey's Typhoon"). While conducting operations off the Philippines, the force remained on station rather than avoiding a major storm, which sank three destroyers and inflicted damage on many other ships. Some 800 men were lost, in addition to 146 aircraft. A Navy court of inquiry found that while Halsey had committed an error of judgement in sailing into the typhoon, it stopped short of unambiguously recommending sanction.[11]

In January 1945, Halsey passed command of his fleet to Admiral Spruance (whereupon its designation changed to 'Fifth Fleet'). Halsey resumed command of Third Fleet in late-May 1945 and retained it until the end of the war. In early June 1945 Halsey again sailed the fleet into the path of a typhoon, and while ships sustained crippling damage, none were lost. Six lives were lost and 75 planes were lost or destroyed, with almost 70 badly damaged. Again a Navy court of inquiry was convened, and it suggested that Halsey be reassigned, but Admiral Nimitz recommended otherwise due to Halsey's prior service.[11]

As for seamanship skills he went from torpedo boats, a spell on destroyers and then the Saratoga. Wahat with shore appointments and being a naval attache in Berlin it is quite likely he did not have great experience of dire weather. Also that he did not recognise the compromised nature of later destroyers with added top-hamper.

[Tony M]

Hello all. Where can I find a list if the men who died on the USS Spence? My uncle was one of those men. Thank you.

Tony