Posted on 03/13/2019 8:31:12 AM PDT by Coronal
On July 1, 1942, the U.S.S. Wasp, an aircraft carrier holding 71 planes, 2,247 sailors and a journalist, sailed from San Diego to the western Pacific to join the battle against the Japanese. On board was a naval officer named Lt. Cmdr. John Joseph Shea. Two days before he left San Diego, Shea wrote his 5-year-old son a letter.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I knew an old guy who had survived the destruction of The Wasp. He was aflame and had jumped overboard. He claimed that the doctors told him that he should have died from lung collapse but that he was screaming so hard that his lungs stayed inflated.
Would have loved to have read the article. However, I’ll NEVAH touch the NYT.
Let’s get the article on a real news source.
They found it at 4200 meters below the surface. That’s 2.6 miles down! Amazing!
As I recall, the Indianapolis was even deeper.
It was better when we named Carriers historical names, usually connected to the revolutionary war, instead of naming them after mere politicians.
The Japanese made the most of their torpedoes. They had one called the “Long Lance”. They could stand off up to 24 miles and let them loose. We never really had an answer for them.
We lost a dozen ships at Iron Bottom Sound off Guadalcanal to these Long Lance torpedoes.
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/japans-super-torpedo-was-the-hypersonic-missile-wwii-15541
“But the Japanese opted for a pure oxygen-based system (inspired by an earlier British design) that could send the Long Lance out to twelve miles at a speed of 48 knots, or an incredible 24 miles—about the same range as a battleship’s gun—at a speed of 36 knots. The Long Lance also didn’t leave telltale bubbles on the surface to warn enemy ships a torpedo was approaching.”
Some really amazing men that fought in that generations war!
Makes you wonder how they lost so bad at Leyte Gulf with a weapon like that Long Lance
...Wreckage from USS Wasp (CV 7) was discovered January 14, 2019 by the expedition crew aboard the late Paul G. Allen’s Research Vessel (R/V) Petrel.
Wasp was sunk on Sept. 15, 1942 by four Japanese torpedoes from the Japanese submarine I-19 while escorting transports carrying the Seventh Marine Regiment to Guadalcanal as reinforcements.
Of the 2,162 on board, 193 were killed as a result of the attack.
The sunken aircraft carrier was found in the Coral Sea, 4,200 meters (nearly 14,000 feet) below the surface...
In the end the Long Lance was as destructive to their ships as to ours. They lost five or six cruisers from onboard torpedo detonations, including two at Leyte.
I’m with ya!
I think we weren’t nearly as complacent about the Long Lance at that point, plus, I am not sure that engagement was as well suited to a torpedo attack by the Japanese as say, the engagement at Savo Island.
At Savo Island, we knew about the Long Lance, but still thought the IJN was inferior in a head to head engagement. We were wrong, and arrogantly wrong. They cleaned our clock, but good.
It took longer for us to learn, but we did.
WASP: White Anglo Saxon Protestants
For the most part Jap weapons sucked but when they did it right they had a winner. The knee mortar for one, it was devastating. Nip 18 inch naval guns were shockingly powerful.
The first target hit in Southern Japan by the b-29s was the long lance torpedo factory. They USAAF did it as a favor to the Navy.
Those powerful guns were undone by poor gunnery control. Ziggy Sprague commented during the battle on how poor the Japanese gunnery was at Samar.
Indeed - we're fortunate that their naval doctrine regarding use of submarines was a bit on the timid side. They could've hurt us much worse if that doctrine had continued to evolve and become more aggressive.
IIRC, the Long Lance was harder to spot in the water, too, because it left a less visible wake than most other torpedoes of the era.
The Long Lance was surface launched, the subs had a different torpedo but it was damn good too.
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