The FReeper Foxhole Revisits Typhoon Cobra ~ Disaster at Sea (18 December 1944) - Dec. 27th, 2003

http://www.history.navy.mil ^

[snippy_about_it]

Lord,

Keep our Troops forever in Your care

Give them victory over the enemy...

Grant them a safe and swift return...

Bless those who mourn the lost.
.

FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer
for all those serving their country at this time.


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The FReeper Foxhole Revisits

Typhoon Cobra~Disaster at Sea

18 December 1944

Thanks to Freeper Comwatch for sharing this story of his father.

In Memory of my Dad and his shipmates
USS HULL, USS MONAGHAN and USS SPENCE


As father and son go, we've known each other only in our hearts. You were all of 19 when the Lord called you into another service. Dad, thank you for giving me life and a proud lifetime memory. I love you.

On 17 December, 1944, my father's ship, DD-354 .U.S.S. Monaghan was steering toward Leyte Bay on a rendezvous course with the Pacific Task Forces 38 and 58. The Third Fleet was engaged in naval air strikes against Japanese forces in the Philippines. While the planes had been attacking central Luzon in support of the Mindoro invasion, the carriers and their destroyer protectors were in desperate need of fuel. Dad's ship was assigned to escort duty for the fuel ships of the fleet, an attractive enemy target. She ran at flank speed during the operations and was riding high in the seas from lack of fuel. Then she ran into Typhoon Cobra, described below as "more powerful than any western Pacific encounter with the Japanese."

"In December 1944 as Admiral William Halsey's Third Fleet was operating in support of General MacArthur's invasion of the Philippines, the Third Fleet encountered a tropical cyclone more powerful than any western Pacific encounter with the Japanese. The result was three destroyers (the USS HULL, USS MONAGHAN and USS SPENCE) sunk with 800 men lost, 26 other vessels seriously damaged, and 146 aircraft destroyed (16). The Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet Admiral Nimitz said, "It was the greatest loss that we have taken in the Pacific without compensatory return since the First Battle of Savo." Halsey himself described it best. "No one who has not been through a typhoon can conceive its fury," he wrote in his autobiography. "The 70 foot seas smash you. The rain blinds you. The battleship NEW JERSEY once was hit by a 5-inch shell and I did not even feel the impact. The MISSOURI had kamikaze crash on her main deck and repaired the only damage with a paint brush. But the typhoon tossed our enormous ship the MISSOURI as if she were only a canoe."



One eyewitness account speaks to the conditions my dad found himself and his shipmates facing.

"These destroyers were escorting the carriers, and they came out. We're trying to fuel them, and the seas are choppy; I mean, when I say choppy, they're twenty, twenty-five feet waves... They were going to move to another location and commence fueling in the morning again. Well, instead of taking us out of the typhoon they took us back into it. I'm talking about waves that were fifty and sixty feet high. Sometimes you'd see a destroyer, he'd be sitting up on top of a wave and the next time he would be down so low that you couldn't even see the mast. That's how deep the troughs were. There's no way those destroyers could fuel from the tankers."

Former President Gerald R. Ford in May 1943 served as a pre-commissioning detachment for a new light aircraft carrier, USS Monterey (CVL-26). This was one of the ships in may dad's group. The following is an official record of an account by Lt. Ford who served as the assistant navigator, Athletic Officer, and antiaircraft battery officer on board Monterey.

"Monterey was damaged by a fire which was started by several of the ship's aircraft tearing loose from their cables and colliding during the storm. During the storm, Ford narrowly missed being a casualty himself. After Ford left his battle station on the bridge of the ship in the early morning of 18 December, the ship rolled twenty-five degrees which caused Ford to lose his footing and slide toward the edge of the deck. The two inch steel ridge around the edge of the carrier slowed him enough so he could roll and twisted into the catwalk below the deck. As he later stated, 'I was lucky; I could have easily gone overboard.' "

The fueling day was the first of Typhoon Cobra that claimed 790 lives in the 3d Fleet, and sank Spence (DD-512), Hull (DD-350), and Monaghan. The six survivors, rescued by USS Brown after drifting on a raft 3 days, reported that Monaghan took roll after roll to starboard, finally going over. Of the 6 hands that survived the sinking, 3 perished after rescue.

From accounts passed on by one of his shipmates, my dad and other Monaghan crew members remained in the water because some of the men were injured and bleeding. Their being in the life raft was their only hope and the area was known to be shark invested. Quietly, on the night of the second day, without notice in the darkness and the rough seas, Dad joined the watery grave of the Spence, Hull and Monaghan.

Of the tragedy, Admiral Nimitz said, "represented a more crippling blow to the 3d Fleet than it might be expected to suffer in anything less than a major action." Veteran of so many actions against a human enemy, Monaghan fell victim to the sailor's oldest enemy, the perils of the sea.

Monaghan received 12 battle stars for World War II service.


Survivors from the Spence and the Hull

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FReeper Foxhole Armed Services Links

[Light Speed]

Good Morning : )

From research journeys with navy vets..mostly DD types...learned that they were very aware of what had happened to other ships in the fleet as the war progressed.

Most DD's were crewed by kids with a sprinkling of salty vets from the 30's....often this balance was critical to see a ships harmony endure under the strain.

Off Okinawa...many Destroyers could see their sister ships fight for their lives..yet they had to stay their station..witness their Bluejackets ship come apart in violent detonations as superstructure went up in the sky hundreds of feet.
knowing that this fate could be theirs too in moments.

2 cans would sail out from the American anchorage at Keramma Retto just west of Okinawa....wave at each other as they parted for station keeping.
Hours later...wether witnessed visually..or learned by com traffic..their freinds were in peril..or lost.

Coping with the Kamikaze off Okinawa saw Bluejackets demonstrate a range of behaviours.
Some grew marrose and withdrew.....some would no longer sleep inside the ships spaces,
choseing to curl up somewhere topside..cut deals with officers who wished they would overcome their fears and hit their bunks below.

As mentioned..the sprinkling of Older salts did matter on these ships...a 17 yr old needed the comfort and presence to cope.

On deck....busy about the ships needs....a sunny day....then a hulk is towed by...the mind starts wandering.

[bandleader]

I believe that The US Navy lost a number of ships in this Typhoon.One cruiser had it's bow-section ripped off but survived anyway.

[snippy_about_it]

P.S. Nice pics from WASHINGTON.

Our "scrounger extraordinaire" alias SAMWolf found those pictures for me.

Good night Gator Navy. Sleep tight.

[snippy_about_it]

Thank you bandleader.

[SAMWolf]

The DD's took a real beating at Okinawa and later. Being the Fleets pickets a lot of kamikazes chose them as targets, either through inexperience at recognizing ships or just because it was the first target they saw.

[snippy_about_it]

Off Okinawa...many Destroyers could see their sister ships fight for their lives..yet they had to stay their station..witness their Bluejackets ship come apart in violent detonations as superstructure went up in the sky hundreds of feet...knowing that this fate could be theirs too in moments.

This had to be tough. Thanks Light Speed for the post.

[Light Speed]

Thanks for the post and article link.

What was Halsey thinking?....he knew the cans were in jeopardy...

Ballast the ship by seawater in the fuel tanks....do so in severe running conditions....calculating how long the can could run ....the awarness of the storms strength and the time interval to clear..with the minute by minute request for remaining fuel count.

The series **Victory at Sea has some film stock of the Typhoon...its remarkable to see the cans ride completely out of the water with their props spinning free 20 ft in the air.
The ships would shudder violently when this occured...locked inside..the crew could only live out the noises happening around them and cope with the fear.

USS Pittsburghs damage from a Typhoon incident in June 1945

[Light Speed]

Hi Sam.

Night time was a spectacle for those on duty station off Okinawa.

Alot of cans rotated duty from outer Radar picket..to inner transport screen or *Ping Line which saw them doing circuits in outer lanes listening for subs .

in the late afternoon..the transports off Okinawa would form up...by 6 PM their screen of DD's would set out to sea for the night..[Night retirement] as deck logs go.
So too for the TF task groups of crusiers and BB's .

Japanese Betty's and other planes would hunt for them in the dark...their glowing green canopies seen at times...flares dropped for illumination.
Commands for evasive turns as torpedo's and mines hit the water ahead.

Flashes from radar controlled gunfire....Laconic voice comment over TBS....."Bogey destroyed"

In the morning,ships parting to different station keeping,
a burned hulk of a DD towed by.

another day's start off Okinawa.

[quietolong]

Hi Sam, snippy


Thought I would flag a good book for you and everyone else.

It’s
Corregidor
Oasis of Hope

By Asbury Nix 1991
ISBN 0-942495-19-5

Mr. Nix was a Pfc statined in the Philippines in 1939 and in Jan of 1942 Fort Mills Corregidor. And was one of the very lucky ones.
After his capture was assigned to clean up and salvage of Corregidor. And afterwards shipped to Japan to work in a Copper mine. And because of this had relatively good living conditions and treatment as compared to many others.

A Stevens Point, Wis., resident, served with the 34th Light Maintenance Company on Bataan. He recounts the experiences of his unit during the campaign at Corregidor and goes on to relate his prisoner of war experience, work details and the Noto Maru prison ship. Also included are complete rosters for those held at POW Camp Number 9, names and statistics about the Japanese "Hell Ships," rosters of those on work details and a roster of people aboard the Noto Maru.

Shows another side to the war and POW. It a very good read! Being a local book I hope you can find it.

[SAMWolf]

The last place I'd want to be is at sea in a DD during a typhoon.

[SAMWolf]

Thanks for the lead on the book quiettolong.

[snippy_about_it]

Thanks so much quietolong!

[Light Speed]

Came accross this site while searching on Guderian and Rommel.

Third Reich Forum

[SAMWolf]

WOW! They really cover the topics. Thanks I have it bookmarked.

[Darksheare]

WOW.
That's luck, and the internet.

[WaterDragon]

It is humbling to read about what these sailors lived through, and that killed so many of them. My dad was aboard an oiler in the Western Pacific that December. Didn't encounter that storm, though.

[Victoria Delsoul]

Hello friends. Good job, Snippy, thanks.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend.

[snippy_about_it]

Good afternoon Victoria.

[SAMWolf]

Afternoon WaterDragon.

Stories like this make me want to stay a landlubber. thi

[SAMWolf]

Afternoon Victoria.