Captain Marks, on the other hand, had decided that ballasting Hull was inadvisable. The other TF-38 ships damaged in the typhoon included the battleships Missouri, Massachusetts, Indiana, and Alabama; the escort carriers Windham Bay, Salamaua, Bougainville, and Attu; the cruisers Baltimore, Quincy, Detroit, San Juan, Duluth, and Atlanta; 11 destroyers; three destroyer escorts; two oilers, and an ammunition ship. Light carrier, It wasn’t until 10 a.m. that Kosco finally concluded that the fleet was about to encounter a typhoon. A few clung to life rafts. Then fitting out at a Houston, Texas, shipyard, the ship was a John C. Butler-class destroyer escort, 306 feet long, with a crew of 215. “Nothing is more dangerous than for a seaman to be grudging in taking precautions lest they turn out to have been unnecessary. The mighty New Jersey hung in the troughs and then slowly righted herself, lurching and laboring to the tops of swells. No one needed a break more than Admiral William F. “Bull” Halsey, the feisty, hard-drinking commander of the U.S. Third Fleet, who had come under fire for leaving San Bernardino Strait unguarded during the great Battle of Leyte Gulf on October 23-26, 1944. All his ships—from battleships and carriers to stubby ocean-going tugs—had a voracious thirst for fuel, and so a train of two dozen fleet oilers followed in the task force’s wake. The armada comprised Task Group 38.1 commanded by Rear Admiral Alfred E. Montgomery, Task Group 38.2 led by Rear Admiral Gerald F. “Jerry” Bogan, and Task Group 38.3 commanded by Rear Admiral Forrest C. Sherman. King, chief of naval operations, had told Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander of the Pacific Fleet, that Halsey should be given a “rest.” General Douglas A. MacArthur, supreme commander of the Southwest Pacific Area, called for Halsey’s relief. Marshall, and Arthur Franz. At this time, radar operators aboard the Ancon sighted the typhoon, but the ship’s report did not reach Halsey until 1 the next morning. Chief meteorologist George Kosco was called before the board twice to explain his forecasting blunders. The Third Fleet was made up of eight battleships, six light carriers, fifteen cruisers, seven fleet carriers and approximately fifty destroyers. ✯. Halsey had unknowingly sailed his armada into the maw of a deadly category-four typhoon the navy later named “Cobra.”. Water Tender Second Class Joseph C. McCrane was one of only six survivors of the USS Monaghan, which had rammed and sunk a Japanese midget submarine at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and fought in the Aleutians. (Naval History and Heritage Command). “She was riding up ahead,” reported Halsey later, “and she’d drop well astern and charge ahead and drop astern…. “In endeavoring to alleviate the heavy rolling of the ship, I tried every possible combination of rudder and engine, with little avail. They included the carriers Cowpens, Monterey, San Jacinto, Kwajalein, Cabot, Altamaha, Nehenta Bay, and Cape Esperance; the light cruiser Miami; the destroyers Dewey, Aylwin, Buchanan, Dyson, Hickox, Maddox, and Benham; the destroyer escorts Tabberer, Melvin R. Nawman, and Waterman; the oiler Nantahala, and the fleet tug Jicarilla. The weather continued to worsen as Halsey and his aides pored tensely over their maps, struggling to make a course toward calmer water. People on board USS MONAGHAN 123. We started to roll, heaving to the starboard, and everyone was holding on to something and praying as hard as he could. “We didn’t think that we were dealing with a storm as severe as a typhoon until we were within 100 miles of it,” said Commander Kosco. It threw me around like a ball in a court,” recalled Schultz. Many men weren’t so fortunate: nearly 800 died in the storm. Some of these ships experienced sharp rolls of over 70 degrees in the winds that reached 100mph; the Fleet suffered severe damage. The sea heaved, foam sloshed across decks, and vessels canted sickeningly, wallowing under tons of water. Was the navy’s weather service adequate? Over on the New Jersey, Bull Halsey and George Kosco still didn’t know for sure where the storm was or if it was more than just a tropical disturbance. But conditions grew even worse the next morning. An estimated 790 officers and men were lost or killed, and scores of others injured. “A big wave just beats the tar out of you. Ninety ships set sail, including 13 carriers, eight battleships, three heavy cruisers, seven light cruisers, three antiaircraft cruisers, and 56 destroyers. But this came too late for the battle-scarred USS Monaghan, which had rammed and sunk a Japanese mini-submarine during the attack at … But conditions grew even worse the next morning. By then it was too late. Nine ships in the fleet suffered damage so severe they had to be sent away to be repaired. He had majored in industrial management at Georgia Tech, where he was a championship swimmer and a star cadet in the Navy Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, excelling in seamanship. McCain, however, received no such consideration. Plage used the 10-week cruise to mold his crew. He and two escort carrier skippers agreed that the fueling rendezvous set for 6 am on December 18 would be directly in the storm’s path. Third Fleet commander Admiral “Bull” Halsey, here aboard flagship USS New Jersey, wasn’t about to let bad weather get in his way. “It’s so big out there, and it’s so scary,” said sonarman Pat Douhan, “I was by myself in the middle of the South Pacific wondering what’s going to happen next. A second Navy court of inquest was called for, and in this inquiry, a suggestion was made to reassign Halsey, however, Nimitz voiced a recommendation to not go ahead with that action due to the prior outstanding service that Halsey had provided the Navy. Before the week was out, these two 29-year-old officers would be subjected to an ordeal that would have tested the mettle of even the most seasoned, battle-hardened captains in the U.S. Navy. Nimitz, meanwhile, had appointed a court of inquiry to investigate the loss of the Hull, Spence, and Monaghan, and to find out why Halsey’s fleet had been caught by the typhoon. The typhoon was to provide the climactic sequence in Herman Wouk’s blockbuster 1951 novel, The Caine Mutiny, and the 1954 film masterpiece directed by Edward Dmytryk and starring Humphrey Bogart, Fred MacMurray, Van Johnson, Robert Francis, Jose Ferrer, E.G. When Halsey and his staff sat for lunch in the flag mess, they were alarmed to see the Spence rolling excessively on the starboard side, and it seemed that she might be slammed against the flagship. We must have taken about seven or eight rolls to the starboard before she went over on her side.”. There was widespread confusion among the task force’s commanding officers about the nature of the weather they were sailing into. Based on scanty data, Kosco said the map indicated a “tropical disturbance” 600 miles to the east and “moving north-northwest at 12 to 18 miles per hour” away from the Third Fleet. Nineteen floatplanes were blown off the battleships and cruisers, and a total of 146 aircraft were lost during the storm. To him it was just “water over the dam.”, Hewing to his motto, “Hit hard, hit fast, hit often,” Halsey led his mighty Third Fleet in harm’s way during the first half of 1945 as Allied naval, ground, and air forces relentlessly pushed the Japanese back toward their home islands. Aboard the Hull, Lieutenant Greil Gerstley cautioned the captain in vain against an ill-timed course change—only to perish along with the ship. Slowly the vessels would right themselves, only to be jolted in the opposite direction by the next wave. When the flattops withdrew on December 16, their fighters and dive bombers had destroyed 269 Japanese aircraft, sunk merchant ships, and blasted airfields and railroads. Captain Marks got off safely. The center is a lasting legacy of Bull Halsey’s deadly encounters with Cobra and Viper. After hoisting his flag in the 45,000-ton battleship USS Missouri at Guam on May 18, Halsey headed for Okinawa to relieve Admiral Raymond A. Spruance’s Fifth Fleet. “The consideration then was the fastest way to get out of the dangerous semicircle and to get to a position where our destroyers could be fueled.” He sent a warning to all ships and weather stations at 9:14 am. This time losses were not nearly as great—no ships were sunk and only six sailors died—but it appeared that the admiral had failed to heed Nimitz’s cautionary warnings. She sank with 201 officers and ratings. The operation had depleted many of the ships’ fuel supplies, especially among the dozens of escort vessels. Clark’s group passed through the eye half an hour after Beary’s, and almost all of his 33 ships suffered some damage. Nimitz had long doubted his competence, and it was decided that it was time for him to go. Every man who could jumped or dove into the water. 73 men were rescued by numerous US Navy ships and likely taken to the US. By the time Tabby reached Hawaii, Plage had drummed the basics of sailing a ship into their heads. Halsey, meanwhile, sailed back to America and was greeted in San Francisco and Los Angeles by blaring bands, sirens, whistles, and cheering thousands. Just after noon on December 18, USS Hull keeled over one degree too far, and instead of righting itself, stayed on its side in the convulsing sea and slowly began to sink. Some destroyers heeled over on their beam ends with their funnels almost horizontal. But prevailing conditions made the operation impossible. The ever-aggressive Halsey had a tight schedule of strikes to meet and he was loath to let a little storm slow him down. When Tabby finally turned toward Ulithi, it was carrying 55 lucky and grateful men. Tabberer and Hull had drawn the unglamorous task of protecting the 24 oil tankers that were part of the 170-some vessels composing Admiral William F. “Bull” Halsey’s Third Fleet during its air support operations on December 14 off the coast of the Philippines. They were returning from the Philippines to refuel their ships; however, this had to be called off when the storm hit them. Tabberer, or “Tabby,” was commissioned on May 23. HULL (DD-350) MONAGHAN(DD-354) SPENCE(DD-512) United … By the time the tropical cyclone passed, three U.S. destroyers had been sunk, Spence (DD-512), Hull (DD-350) and Monaghan (DD-354) with 775 of their crewmen lost and only 91 rescued. Flagship New Jersey, destroyer Dewey, and Tabberer all narrowly avoided collisions with ships that loomed suddenly out of the mists. King decided to take no action, and Forrestal agreed. History of the USS Oakland during her 6 years of commissioned naval service. Task Force 38 embarked from Ulithi on December 11, 1944. AS COBRA COILED AROUND THE FLEET, Jim Marks on Hull grew cautious, then obstinate, then paralyzed. In January 1941, sensing war might be on the horizon, Plage asked the navy to activate him. Caught in the brewing storm was Tabberer’s captain, Lieutenant Commander Henry L. Plage. Then in June 1945 Halsey sailed the Third Fleet into Typhoon Viper. It was apparent that no matter what was done, the ship was being blown bodily before the wind and sea.” He told the board that the high winds “laid the ship steadily over on her starboard side and held her down in the water.” After completing his statement, the court asked Marks if he had any complaints to make about the conduct of his crew.
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