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Writing as an Avocation
Allan N. Glennon, Lieutenant Commander, U. S. Navy.-——The professional man who never has any thoughts on the state of his profession, or any ideas to contribute to his fellow professionals is rare. We have all listened in on too many wardroom discussions of what “they” are doing wrong, or what “they” ought to do, to believe that naval officers as a rule don’t care about the broader aspects of their profession. The various Bureau journals and other official publications give evidence in each issue that many officers are doing more than just thinking, and are assuredly not keeping their good ideas to themselves.
The Proceedings itself does this, in a sense. It is open to anyone with an idea worthy of consideration, and is the logical forum for many ideas that do not lend themselves to publication in an official periodical, or to direct correspondence with the Navy Department. Surprisingly few of the members seem to avail themselves of this outlet, however, despite its prestige and its wide circulation within the Navy. For example, a typical issue of the Proceedings contains eight long articles and five or six shorter ones, so that about 160 articles are published each year. In 1960, seven contributors published two or more articles, accounting for 20 of the year’s articles. In 1961,13 individuals had two or more articles appear, for a total of 36 articles.
In almost every issue, there is at least one article by someone who has previously contributed.
There is nothing basically wrong with such a distribution. An argument can be made with some logic, on either side, of its significance. On one side, it could be said that if more members tried more often, there would be more repeaters than there were in 1961. On the other side, it could be argued that more members submitting articles for consideration would lead to fewer repeaters. The one factor on which both sides would agree is that more members should submit articles more often.
This is also a frequent remark in the Secretary’s Notes.
Repeaters in the Proceedings have no special “in” with the Board of Control. They get article after article accepted for publication because they keep writing, and because they have something to say to members of the Naval Institute. What the statistics on “repeats” point out is that there seem to be relatively few who are interested enough to try to put their ideas before the membership.
Considering the number of naval officers who have become known to the general public through their writings, the number who have enhanced their service reputation through their articles in the Proceedings, and the number who, while frequently publishing articles and stories, have not become widely known, the Navy must include a sizeable writer’s colony. Even so, the number of officers who write outside working hours is small. It is entirely too small, in view of the contributions many of our silent colleagues could make to the profession by speaking out.
Anyone can find all the reasons he wants for not writing. It takes a lot of motivation to do some writing that is not required by duty and may well go unrewarded.
The strongest motivation is probably the feeling that something is not right, and the issue should be aired. For those who do not have a burning issue to discuss, there is the informative article to consider. Many of us have made special studies of particular aspects of our profession: its techniques, its history, or its heroes. We all benefit if the results of these studies are made available to us in the Pro-
ENTER THE FORUM
Regular and Associate Members are invited to write brief comments on material published in the Proceedings and also to write brief discussions on any topic of naval interest for possible publication on these pages. A primary purpose of the Proceedings is to provide a place where ideas of importance to the Navy can be exchanged.
‘‘We may continue to plan °n a nuclear strategy to deter war but we cannot conceive of it as a strategy to fight a war.”
Carl H. Amme Captain, USN (Retired)
First Prize $1,500.00, Gold Medal and Life Membership
“Seniors invented a ploy . . . known as 'shotgunning• telling two or three persons to do the same thing, hoping that one would carry out the order."
Stephen De La Mater Commander, USN
First Honorable Mention $1,000.00 and Silver Medal
Harvey O. Webster Commander, USN
Second Honorable Mention $500.00
and Bronze Medal
• • . what they had to say won them honors in the U. S. Naval Institute's 1963 General Prize Essay Contest. More important, their messages reached over 60,000 readers. If you nave something to say to a professional Navy audience, write to the Secretary-Treasurer. You will receive complete information on the 1964 Prize Essay Contest by return mail.
ceedings. Aside from the desire to communicate, there are many satisfactions in having work published. There is the recognition that one has been able to produce a finished piece of work, suitable for publication in a journal having high standards. This alone makes the effort worthwhile. There is the fact that acceptance for publication is usually accompanied by a check. This aspect of commercialism actually is mutually beneficial. By offering money, editors insure that there will be many competitors for their attention. Thus, they are able to select from among a greater number of submissions, and provide the reader with a better magazine. To the writer, of course, the check has more immediate implication. The monetary stimulus, however, is only one of a complex mixture of reasons for writing. It is a catalytic incentive, one of a number of satisfactions that come from a successful manuscript.
As in any worthwhile occupation, there are drawbacks in writing. It is an inherently lonely occupation. For a writer at work, there is only his mind and his typewriter—anything else is a distraction. You cannot write at a party; you cannot write while watching TV; you cannot write and discuss the day’s events with your wife. You may be able to think about writing during all these activities, but there will be nothing showing on paper, where it counts.
There are frustrations in writing. An interruption which makes you forget the perfect sentence you were about to use, for example, or the inability to write anything that will please an editor. Some pieces simply refuse to come out coherently when you try to put them on paper. Yet, if you stick with it long enough, these frustrations become nothing.
The mechanics of writing can be found in any of several books and manuals which are easily obtained. Such things as the outline, the first draft, revision, and manuscript format are covered in these books. All the writer needs is the idea and the motivation.
The Post Office Department, too, has come to the aid of the writer. Manuscripts marked “Educational Material” on the envelope are carried through the mail at nine cents for the first pound and five cents for each additional pound. If a letter is included with a manuscript, another five cents is required, along with a simple notation that first class material is included.
If you want the manuscript back in case it is rejected, a return envelope and return postage should be enclosed.
For a naval officer just beginning as a writer, there are many magazines which offer a good chance for publication. The Proceedings, naturally, is one. Articles must be accepted by the Board of Control, but factual articles which have been thoroughly researched and conscientiously revised stand a very good chance of being accepted.
Before submitting any article to an editor, check the Navy Public Information Manual, Navy Regulations, and the latest Navy Department and Department of Defense Instructions for information on review and clearance of articles.
Most of us have said, “I’d like to write” at one time or another, and then dismissed the idea as an idle thought. Thinking about it, or reading about it, will not make anyone a writer, however. There’s only a minor difference between the would-be writer and the practicing writer—one of them sat down and started to write.
The Submarine, Weapon of the Future
Presentation by Admiral Cabanier, Chief of Staff, Marine Franqaise. (Reprinted with permission from La Revue Maritime, No. 181, October 1961, pages 1185-1186.)
Of all the combat vessels, the submarine is the one which in the course of recent years has benefited from the most spectacular advances. Nuclear propulsion, the capability of launching ballistic missiles against land targets, and employment of inertial navigation systems confer upon the submarine the degree of supremacy which becomes all the more incontestable. The detection means and the weapons of the destroyer and the airplane which have kept it in check in the past have scarcely improved, and the depth of the sea remains a practically inviolate domain which will provide it with nearly total concealment and safety for a long time to come.
This supremacy it owes first of all to nuclear propulsion, from which it was the first and the main one to benefit. It supplies the propulsive power which the submarine had lacked up until then. Thanks to nuclear propulsion, besides a considerably extended radius of action, the submarine acquires the capability of remaining submerged for long periods of time and another equally valuable capability of moving about while submerged, without any limitation as to time, and at high speeds comparable to those of surface vessels.
When we think of the gigantic amounts of equipment that the Allies had deployed during the second World War to win the battle of the Atlantic against the conventional submarine, whose radius of action while submerged was mediocre and which the requirements imposed by the need to recharge batteries made particularly vulnerable, just think of the danger imposed on the freedom of the seas by a submarine. Not having to reveal herself at the surface, she can track and hunt down the fastest naval forces and destroy them with a torpedo and doubtless in the near future (this is a very plausible expectation) with ballistic missiles launched from submerged positions. Once the attack is completed, she can slip away in the depths at speeds greater than those at which destroyers can employ their sonars.
More formidable still is the strategic submarine equipped with nuclear ballistic mis- stles. Invisible, off the enemy coasts, concealed, if necessary, under the ice cap of the Pole, she is assured of surviving any surprise °r preventive attack. An ideal instrument of the striking force, she keeps under constant threat the vital centers of the adversary, capable at any moment of hurling from the depths of the ocean, with inexorable precision, owing to her inertial navigation system, misses which become all the more deadly when there is no weapon at present to counter them.
How can we combat the nuclear submarine? The airplane, which detects the surface operations of the submarine, is no cause f°r concern. Detection means which attain considerable ranges in the atmosphere have Undergone scarcely any improvement under Water. The most effective method is still hydrophone listening, when it has the advantage of favorable density layers. In order to utilize that system, the destroyer must reduce lts speed, thus becoming easy prey to its adversary and, withal, generally obtaining mediocre results. The antisubmarine heli- c°pter, which is more favored owing to its dip sonar, obtains better results. However, its operation requires extensive logistic support which can scarcely be envisaged except for close protection, near land or mobile bases. In contrast, the submarine is a remarkable platform for microphone listening devices, from which, in fact, it is the only type of ship to get a good performance. And besides, since it has the necessary radius of action to remain on continuous patrol and it has weapons capable of destroying ship targets, it is truly the only adversary capable of opposing the submarines that it can keep under watch for days and months on end and finally close on and attack in its own element.
The submarine is the weapon of the future. The two largest naval powers have no doubts about that. They are devoting the major part of their efforts to building their fleets of tomorrow around it. Only the submarine can deliver the mastery of the sea, that sea from where today the most terrible threat can arise uncontested against land targets, which, until today, had little to fear from the ocean depths, which cover four-fifths of the globe.
The Navy of the Future
(See January 1963, Proceedings)
G. R. Bryan, Captain, U. S. Navy.—Your January “Navy-of-the-Future” edition was excellent and indicates that this so-called era of technological revolution is not an era at all, but a continuing building block process, yet in its infancy and gaining momentum daily.
The distinguished crystal-bailers were in my mind quite conservative—and of course based much of their predictions on today’s facts, the building blocks now on hand.
I was particularly provoked by Admiral Thach’s prognosis for the destroyer force. After a wistful wish for a return to the “good old days” of destroyer-size tin cans, he makes a more candid and realistic assumption that the USS Bainbridge is the forerunner (building block) for the 1975 destroyer, which will be “ten times as effective as the non-nuclear destroyers now in the fleet.”
Well, it had better be—and then some—because the nuclear deep-diving submarine has already made a 100-fold quantum jump in effectiveness over her World War II predecessors, and the submarine force is assuredly not sitting back on its building blocks.
The Navy’s mission, and the size and number of the oceans will remain essentially unchanged. We desperately need nuclear- powered ASW destroyers, and we need them in quantity, for the threat and the facts of geography are inexorable. The facts of budget are likewise inexorable; when we accept Bainbridge-size cruisers as the norm for destroyers, we also accept a destroyer force much reduced in numbers. Moreover the blocks are getting larger and larger; the trend is toward bigger and better all-purpose cruiser-destroyers.
Accordingly, may I add a footnote to the Navy-of-the-future articles by visualizing the following press release, vintage ’75:
“Boston, Massachusetts, 2 May 1975
The Navy’s newest warship, USS-------------
(DDGBN-7) was commissioned yesterday at Hyannisport.
“She is named for--------------- -, a World
War II naval hero and native of Massachusetts. She is the second destroyer to proudly bear the name, the first having been a tiny,
pnujH*s at
--
By Chaplain Joseph F. Parker,
U.S. Navy
No naval officer should be without this book. Written primarily for use aboard ships of the U. S. Navy, Coast Guard, and Merchant Marine, the prayers are non-denominational in nature. Especially useful to lay leaders are calls to worship, invocations, and prayers for all occasions. Special morning prayers for each Sunday of the year. Pocket-size. 287 pages. List Price S3.50 ($2.63 to Naval Institute Members)
Please use book order form on page 137
Book Department,"
U. S. Naval Institute
Annapolis, Maryland
2,200-ton greyhound which last saw service back in the Sixties.
“She is the seventh and last of the superdestroyers of the Louis Johnson-class, and epitomizes the Navy’s progressive multipurpose ship concept.
“Built at Bath Shipbuilding for less than half a billion dollars, she is 720 feet long, and displaces 15,000 tons. She will be manned by 140 officers and 1,200 men in each of her two crews—the lavender and the puce crews. She is, of course, designed to carry Polaris and Talos missiles, as well as a formidable assortment of guns and ASW weapons.
“She will be commanded alternately by Rear Admiral G. F. Dooey and Rear Admiral A. Arundel, and is scheduled to replace Destroyer Squadron 12 in the Indian Ocean next September. At that time ships of the Louis Johnson-class will be stationed one to an ocean—and will have replaced 60 of the old, little destroyers.”
"A Course for Destroyers”
(See pages 26-39, November 1962, Proceedings)
Richard G. Alexander, Commander, U. S. Navy.—If the taking of a broad view is a necessary prerequisite to the tackling of a specific problem, Captain Zumwalt has complied handsomely in his article on the future of destroyers. After considerable discussion of geography and political alignments, he concludes that the use of the seas will be an important, if not a key factor in international relations. I certainly agree. But I regret to report that I did not agree with very many of his conclusions.
Captain Zumwalt has projected today into the far tomorrow, virtually unchanged. Naval developments will be dominated by superstrike forces of great complexity and expense, capable not only of two ocean deployment, but of deployment to “several” oceans simultaneously. (I cannot fathom how an increase in numbers of major ships can be avoided, as he suggests.) With whatever resources are left over, and he suggests these will be limited, (I would agree) other naval tasks will be undertaken. Is this not our position today?
Not quite. In Captain Zumwalt’s future, the creation of the forces for those other tasks would be dependent upon things not yet extant: the sea community, offshore procurement, specialization of ship construction on a national basis, and even allied manning. (Does he mean crews of mixed nationalities?) And he further suggests that the construction of forces for the other tasks might well require realization, at long last, of that vision of all naval constructors: a simple, cheap ship, “small, efficient, simplified, easily maintained vessels requiring minimum personnel.” In other words, as the United States concentrates its naval efforts on striking forces, those other necessary naval forces, which we can barely afford today, will finally have to come from our friends, if they are clever enough to build them.
These are, of course, enticing aims, more or less. It would be nice if other nations would share more of the burden of our security. But naval officers are required to deal with and plan upon facts rather than dreams. One pertinent, present day fact that can be projected with certainty into the future, is that the U. S. Navy will be required by the Congress to provide for all the naval needs of the United States. One assumption, which it is wise to project, is that the United States must be capable of providing for its own security without outside assistance. It would seem to me extremely imprudent that a naval officer should predicate naval developments on any premises which are at variance with these two important considerations.
Captain Zumwalt’s projection of future naval forces against a most imaginative but wholly wishful international scene adds to the skepticism arising from the virtual absence of military considerations in his thinking. To Proceed further and to delineate individual ship types upon such a canvas is most unconvincing, to say the least. Rather than project future naval requirements on the basis of the Political aspects of a nebulous world of tomorrow, would it not be more prudent to take a shorter view and to project our requirements °n the obvious military trends of the present? None of us should need to be reminded that great changes in the “diffusion of power” in this world have been brought about, almost exclusively, by the exercise of force. It seems sensible to me to consider the naval requirements related to those actions that might well usher in the future, before we consider those requirements which will confront us once the future is achieved. To determine the former, only logical thought is needed; the latter depends upon clairvoyance.
The military facts of life, simply stated, are that one side or the other must secure the resources of two areas: Western Europe and Japan. Beyond these two areas, and beyond North America and the U.S.S.R., the world is devoid of significant centers of power. Until the resources of the existing power centers can be released from the armament burden which all now bear, and can be applied to world development, it is idle to speculate on the future of the rest of the world. In the sense that other areas can achieve significance by their own efforts, the remainder of the world has no future. Its development is in fact in retrogression pending resolution of the principal contest. Therefore, let us keep our eyes fixed on the military requirements of keeping Western Europe and Japan secure, rather than on the more speculative, far-distant future.
The United States is dependent upon ocean communications to Europe and Japan. Upon these communications hangs our physical authority in these regions. Let these communications be rendered insufficient by naval or military action, and our authority will be removed. All thinking on questions of U. S. naval strategy must, in my opinion, hinge on this significant criterion.
A naval force is, or should be, the means for implementing a strategy. What forces are required for our primary responsibility, the security of sea communications? Certainly not the ones Captain Zumwalt sees us building, not those “general purpose fast carrier striking forces capable of deploying simultaneously to several oceans,” the majority of which “are likely to be nuclear powered.” He clearly and accurately distinguishes between these forces and those that are required for the security of sea communications. After all, he places them in separate mainstreams of development.
If the naval component (including maritime aircraft) of an enemy’s effort is directed toward breaking our sea communications, what useful role would Captain Zumwalt s nuclear-powered striking forces play?
Let us assume a European war. After all, Europe is the foremost military objective in the world today. All of the world’s modern armies are concentrated there. Explosive political problems are present. In short, a European war, one might say, with or without nuclear weapons, is not entirely unlikely. In this situation naval striking forces would by no means be impotent, but they would in no way be decisive. Yet forces suitable and sufficient for preserving adequate ocean communications would be decisive in avoiding defeat at sea, and hence defeat on land as well.
If U. S. naval developments are to proceed along the course Captain Zumwalt has charted, I cannot share his effusive view of the future in store for today’s young destroyer man, a future full of promise for adventure and accomplishment in a peaceful world. Instead, I would expect a day of reckoning notable for its blood, disappointment, hardship, and possible defeat.
I am reminded of a sentence of Winston Churchill: “However absorbed a commander may be in the elaboration of his own thoughts, it is sometimes necessary to take the enemy into consideration.”
Herbert Fox Rommel, Captain, U. S. Navy.-—The problem of specialization plagues ship designers just as it plagues personnel planners. Captain Zumwalt’s article should help clarify thinking. Today’s mix of destroyers is a hodge-podge which reflects the post-war emphasis on specialization.
Captain Zumwalt proposes a continuation of four sizes of destroyers. At the peak of his pyramid he places what might more accurately be called cruisers. He says that the “ • • • combatant roles of both cruisers and destroyers are blending into a single surface ship destroyer combatant category ...” (emphasis supplied). He also identifies himself with the destroyers when he later says “we destroyermen, as a corporate group, must insist ...” I do not think we should have a corporate group of destroyermen. We are all Navy men. Our thinking should not be fractionalized. The Navy has been fortunate that naval aviators have been first of all naval officers and then pilots, otherwise the history of World \\ ar II (and of service unification) would have been different. Should not the DLGN and DLG be reclassified CLGN and CLG, respectively, on the basis not only of their size, but also because of their specialized
mission with the fast carriers?
The author would then divide primary AAW and ASW ships into two classes, successors to the present DDG and DD. I would suggest, as a requirement for the 1970s, a single class of general purpose destroyer which would be effective in both missions.
Finally—horrors—we are to set the clock back and have a DE in mass production with a top speed of 23 knots! We can do better than this in the next ten years, and we must. Captain Zumwalt gives us a sound objective of small, efficient, simplified, easily-maintained vessels requiring minimum crew. But the speed of the hunter should exceed the speed of the hunted.
"Solomons Battle Log”
(See pages 81—91, August 1962 (Proceedings))
Bruce McCandless, Rear Admiral, U. S. Navy (Retired).—No description of the Battle of Cape Esperance would be complete without at least a few words about Rear Admiral Norman Scott, U. S. Navy, the man who planned it, trained for it, sought it and fought it to a victorious conclusion. With a force and staff whose composition was in a constant state of flux (he called it his “Sears, Roebuck staff” because it was being sent to him by mail order), with meager resources and our unreadiness to fight at night, Scott forged the weapon that gave us our first victory in the night battles of the Solomons.
At Cape Esperance, in the San Francisco, Scott was Commander, Night Screening and Attack Force. In the second action, in the Atlanta, he was second in command of Rear Admiral Callaghan’s Support Group. In the first, the Japanese commander, Rear Admiral Aritomo Goto, Imperial Japanese Navy, was killed; in the second, both American flag officers lost their lives.
It seems worth adding that Admiral Scott was posthumously awarded a Medal of Honor for his distinguished role in both battles, both his flagships received Presidential Unit Citations, and the destroyer Norman Scott (DD-690) was named for him. The U. S. Naval Academy, from which he graduated in 1911, has named its natatorium for him, has placed a memorial plaque outside the room in which he lived during his last year as a midshipman and has named it the “Scott Room.”
The Cape Esperance action, seen so vividly from the McCalla, our rearmost ship, by Ensign Weems, appeared every bit as spectacular from the other end of the formation, where I was stationed as the flagship San Francisco’s Officer of the Deck. The lack of return fire and ships “with their guns still trained fore and aft!” noted by Ensign Weems fray be attributed to the fact that Admiral Goto incredibly had not yet sent his ships to battle stations. We had been fully manned, ‘buttoned up,” and instantly ready for five and a half hours, thanks to Admiral Scott. ^ e could quickly exploit any encounter.
Also, before venturing into disputed waters, We knew that any ships our force encountered Would be hostile; hence, we would “shoot first and investigate later.” The Japanese, on the other hand, had two separate groups operating in the same area that night. Goto’s com- bardment group at first thought that it was being fired upon by the supply group, which it was supposed to be covering, held whatever fire it could deliver, and reversed course; some, perhaps all, of the Japanese ships even turned on their navigational lights.
The San Francisco’s topside personnel had an unforgettable experience when a Japanese destroyer suddenly showed up, made a right turn, and steamed along parallel to her only about 900 yards away, fitting in perfectly as the rear ship of our van destroyers. When fired upon by our secondary battery (the main battery being engaged), the destroyer displayed a white light on her foremast over a red one (port side light?), while, lower still, someone made rapid and unreadable letters on a blinker pointed at the water. This was not our emergency identification signal, but because this just might be our Lajjey, a check fire was ordered. Control illuminated her with a 36- inch searchlight, revealing two white bands around her forward stack. They were her death warrant.
Firing was resumed immediately, this time with everything, main as well as secondary battery. Our first 8-inch salvo straddled her but apparently did not hit. With this renewal of hostilities, the destroyer turned away and increased speed. Our second salvo tore up the water along her port side but apparently missed also. She was really hightailing it out of there now. Salvo three caused an explosion at the base of her after stack, and she began to lose speed. Our fourth salvo really connected: her forward magazines blew up, the bow section vanished, and the stern section stood on end with propellers and rudder visible and dropped astern collecting a few more hits before it slid under. That was the Fubuki. She had stalked the Houston and HMAS Perth on their ill-fated ride into Banten Bay (Java), made the first torpedo hit on the Houston, and contributed materially to the destruction of both vessels. We thanked God that she did not launch a salvo of torpedoes at us; at that distance she hardly could have missed.
Several of our ships reported maneuvering to avoid torpedoes or seeing their wakes, but none was hit. Counteraction, when it came, was chiefly from the Kinugasa, last in the
Japanese cruiser column. Thanks to a wrong turn and the smoke of battle, she was able to size up the situation unmolested and, like Gridley, “fire when ready.” Her first salvo (six tightly grouped 8-inch), fired from about 7,000 yards, barely missed the San Francisco’s stern. The second landed halfway between the San Francisco and the ship astern, the Boise. Salvos three and four registered hits on the Boise, abreast of her forward turret group, which started a bad powder fire that put three turrets out of action, cost 107 lives, and sent flames torching nearly masthead high for more than a minute. While she sheered out to fight fires and flooding—her after turrets still firing rapidly—the other three cruisers shifted fire to the previously unnoticed Kinugasa. The flashless powder she was using made her a difficult target; most of our firing had to be done in radar control. With the water around her being torn up by a veritable hail of projectiles, the Kinugasa hastily withdrew—taking three hits in the process. The Salt Lake City, moving up to shield the Boise and close the gap, was hit several times but suffered only minor damage.
While the shift of fire saved the Boise from further punishment and probable destruction, it enabled the leading Japanese cruiser, the flagship Aoba, to make good her escape, which was remarkable in view of her having been hit some 40 times. She was sufficiently battered, however, to require several months’ repair. The second cruiser, the Furutaka, hit by gunfire and torpedoed by the Duncan, soon went under. But the Kinugasa’s damage was minor, and she was operational again within a few days. These three cruisers, as part of CruDiv 6 of the Japanese Navy, had taken part in the capture of Guam and Wake, had been in the Coral Sea campaign, and had helped inflict the Savo Island disaster.
As for the destroyers, the end of the Fubuki has been described. Captain K. Kijima, Imperial Japanese Navy, Chief of Staff to Admiral Goto, had this to say when interrogated after the war: “The Fubuki sank before it completed the turn, although it only received four hits. Due to the smoke from the Aoba, the Murakumo was not hit.” The San Francisco had a brush with a “mystery” destroyer which I believe was the Murakumo who, after getting away, returned to the scene of battle “to look for survivors.” With the battle nearly over, I spotted an unidentified destroyer making a high speed crossing from starboard to port, and pointed her out to Captain McMorris. He put the main battery on her. We got off a six-gun salvo from the two forward turrets which straddled her beautifully, but didn’t hit (good challenge!). She kept coming and made no identification. Our second salvo, fired with zero degrees train and zero degrees elevation, also straddled but didn’t hit. It did elicit a rapidly —perhaps frantically—sent blinker message which the signal bridge reported as “the Laffey calling the Farenholt.” Whatever the truth of this—I have a most unflattering opinion of it—Captain McMorris ordered “Cease firing!” Salvo three never went out.
I continued to watch her as the captain went out on the starboard wing of the bridge. When the unknown destroyer bore about 45 degrees on the port (disengaged) bow, I saw several small flashes amidships which I took to be from torpedo impulse charges. Ordering “Left full rudder!” I attempted to turn short of any torpedoes and ram her (it would have been like a truck running over a motorcycle), and yelled for the captain. He came. Taking one horrified look at the imminent collision, Captain McMorris bellowed “Right full rudder!” and the two ships passed on opposite courses close aboard (it seemed like only 100 yards) at a combined speed of over 50 knots. That was the Murakumo—I hope. At a postbattle conference, none of our destroyer captains knew anything of the incident, and it does not appear in any action report.
At any rate, the Murakumo did not last much longer: shortly after daybreak she was sunk by dive bombers from Guadalcanal. The JVatsugumo, going to her assistance, suffered a similar fate. So, indirectly, Cape Esperance cost the Japanese two destroyers over and above the destroyer and cruiser sunk in the battle. Our side’s sole loss was the destroyer Duncan, whose ordeal was described in the Weems-Andrews article.
The Farenholt suffered major damage and one of the strangest accidents of the war. A projectile from the San Francisco directed over her at the Aoba early in the action took the radar antenna off the Farenholt’s foremast, exploding spectacularly as it did so. A fragment pierced Number 2 barrel of the quintuple torpedo mount and the air flask of its torpedo. Compressed air leaked (via the guide slot) in behind the “fish,” and built up enough force to eject it partially. The mount still being trained centerline, the warhead went into the metal apron around the base of her forward stack, where it was held. The torpedo went far enough forward to let the starting lever trip, thereupon making a “hot” (although not “straight and normal”) run in the barrel in close proximity to four other torpedos until it burned up. All this occurred at midnight, in battle, between the opposing battle lines! Unfortunately, the Farenholt was unable to get off a single torpedo; she was lucky to have survived.
We had one final bit of excitement up our way. After the battle ended, Admiral Scott attempted to re-form our somewhat scattered force, and via TBS ordered all ships to turn on their emergency identification lights for ten seconds. The proper green over green over green display appeared all around us. Just as we noticed that while the starboard array had come on, the one which shone to port had not, two starshells burst to starboard. Hastily we fired three green stars by Very pistol, and the navigator pushed the buttons even harder; this time both sides lighted up. The Salt Lake City, 3,000 yards to port, not seeing any green lights on the dark shape that was the San Francisco, laid her main battery (ten 8-inch) on us and fired two starshells to “cast some light” on the matter. The director pointer had rung his two “stand by” buzzers, was ready to ring the third and close his firing key when our green stars were seen. Someone said, “Hold it! It’s the ‘Frisco!” and knocked the pointer out of his seat. For this we will eternally be grateful.
Aside from the tremendous psychological lift it gave the U. S. Navy, the Battle of Cape Esperance accomplished little: the Japanese supply group succeeded in landing its men and stores for General Kawaguchi, the “Tokyo Express” continued to run, and the Guadalcanal build-up continued on both sides. The Japanese bombardment group was prevented from carrying out its planned shelling of Henderson Field—which General Vandegrift and his troops no doubt appreciated—and was routed. Materially, we gained; more important, a troop convoy which our force was covering got in, unloaded, and got out again, without much time to spare. Cape Esperance was but the second of many night battles that would be fought before the Japanese were driven out of the Solomons. From a War College viewpoint it left much to be desired, but it was a beginning. That it was such and not another fiasco was due primarily to Rear Admiral Norman Scott, the man who got the show on the road.
Time to Switch to Filters
The chief engineer of our aircraft carrier had experienced a particularly exasperating day with his wayward boilers making very visible, dark, and voluminous stack exhaust. Hauling himself wearily up to the bridge from the main engine control for the fifth time to explain the situation, he found himself standing in helpless dejection before the skipper.
“Chief, can you give me any explanation of what has happened to your engineering skill?” icily queried the Captain.
In utter frustration, the chief engineer turned his eyes wistfully toward the open sea and muttered,
“Captain, the only question I can presently answer with confidence is, ‘Are you smoking more and enjoying it less?’ ”
-------------------------------------- Contributed by Commander W. V. Whidden, U. S. Navy
(The Naval Institute will pat $10.00 for each anecdote published in the Proceedings.)