4 kamikazes slammed into Sara..along with 3 bombs.
radar tracked 6 attackers..2 were shot down,2 skipped on the surface into Saras side..I went thru the flight deck.
Sara lost 123 brave men.
Posted on 12/18/2002 5:39:20 AM PST by SAMWolf
My dad served as a Lieutenant on USS Saratoga (CV-3), but I didn't get the first-hand descriptions from him.
My older brother after graduating from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy delivered ordnance to Vietnam, standing off-shore to be off-loaded rather than risking port. His accounts were rather reserved, stating only that the Pacific was anything but.
The early film of greatest impact to me was The Fighting Sullivans, a tale of combat rather than extremes of the sea, but indicative of the tremendous heroism of our Navy.
The new designs might afford some protection from those storms, as they seem to be virtually sealed vestigial superstructures, almost surfaced subs, rather than a profusion of hatches, portholes, vents.
As for snow....the forecast says that we will be getting some, perhaps beginning tomorrow. But it doesn't sound like it is going to amount to much. I would like to have a white Christmas now that I am here! I wish I could convince the kids to come here too. Although Minneapolis is the most socialist place! I hate that, but California isn't much better. In fact, its a sad reality that I probably have lived in the most socialist places in the country! I understand that St. Paul isn´t nearly as bad. If that´s true, I sure would like to move there! We are here to help my uncle and it blows us away how much the Minneapolis govt takes away from one´s property rights! I have some major complaints in that regard. I expect to be here for at least another year, it looks like. I am sure that I will be going nose to nose with the powers that be at least a few more times. They already know who I am.
My two older brothers were privy to stories I was not.
Somewhere here in the years of Proceedings is "Whatever Happened to Sara?" with underwater photo reconnaissance after sinking in the atomic tests.
Here is one account:
USS Saratoga, the largest Dive Wreck of the World
© Michael McFadyen - Devilfish Diving Services
It was 8.35 am on 25 July 1946 and the beginning of the end of the USS Saratoga came very dramatically. The explosion was centred 27 metres below the water and 300 metres or so away from the Saratoga. Less than a sixth of a second after the explosion, a pressure wave of 5,900 psi hit the hull of the ship.
Eleven seconds after the bomb exploded, a wave estimated at 94 feet high crashed into the starboard bow corner of the 888 feet long aircraft carrier. So powerful was the wave, it lifted a large stockless Navy anchor 54 metres from the seabed and another 16 metres out of the sea so that it crashed down onto the ship causing damage to the flight deck. The same wave lifted the bow of the 43,500 ton vessel 42 feet into the air. Water poured over the aircraft carrier’s deck, washing away five aircraft, a number of vehicles (including two tanks) and some other equipment. The wave from the explosion also caused the ship’s funnel and foremast to collapse while the pressure wave made a huge 15 cm indentation in the starboard side of the hull (for almost half its length) as well as cracking the hull in the same area. The flight deck collapsed from the stern more than 60 metres towards the bow under the weight of water that had flowed across the ship.
The combined effort of these two waves and another two tsunami sized waves pushed the Saratoga 500 metres away from the origin of the explosion before the wind blew it back 300 metres. The Saratoga started to sink, water entering its 1000 airtight compartments via the large crack on its starboard side and hundreds of other smaller pressure fissures. By 3.45 pm the sea was lapping at the stern flight deck. At about 4.30 pm, eight hours after the explosion, the Saratoga sank stern first, its bow slowly disappearing from view. The Saratoga was sitting upright on the coral/sandy bottom, 54 metres below the now calm waters of the lagoon.
This was not, of course, a normal type of bomb that exploded that beautiful summer’s day in the North Pacific Ocean. This was Baker, nicknamed “Helen of Bikini”, the world’s fifth atomic bomb (the first was on 16 July 1945 at Alamagordo in the New Mexico desert, the second was over Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, the third was over Nagasaki on 9 August 1945 and the fourth was at Bikini Atoll on 1 July 1946). This latest explosion was also at Bikini Atoll Lagoon. The bomb was of the same type as that dropped on Nagasaki. Its yield was later estimated as being 20.3 kilotons and it lifted 2,000,000 tons of water (as water and steam) and 2,000,000 tons of lagoon bottom into the classic mushroom column. It also dug a hole eight metres deep in the lagoon under the bomb’s detonation point.
Now that enemy is our ally countering the threats of China and North Korea.
In the midst of change, the constant remains courage.
As displayed in your awesome photo at 142.
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