Read Online Down to the Sea by Bruce Henderson - Free Book Online

gathered his skippers and issued a standing order: once they were detached from the task force, their destroyers were “to attack upon enemy contact” without awaiting further orders. Burke wanted his destroyer commanders to know they had freedom of action at such times. He did not want them steaming around aimlessly awaiting orders. If they erred on the side of being overly aggressive, he would stand by them. Burke made it clear he would brook no excuses for inaction by anyone in his command.
    As more images came into focus on the radar screens, Burke, flying his command flag aboard Charles Ausburne, realized they were about to face down three enemy columns. He picked the nearest one, consisting of three ships—he did not yet know their type—and ordered his destroyers to prepare to fire half their torpedoes. Minutes later, when the three enemy ships came within torpedo range at about 4,000 yards off the port bow, some two dozen 25-foot-long torpedoes—each packed with 500 pounds of explosives—jumped from their port launch tubes amid hisses of highly compressed air and dove into the sea with their foot-long propellers whirring. When an enemy ship fired star shells skyward, the U.S. destroyers and the telltale torpedo wakes were illuminated in bursts of white light. The Japanese column wheeled to a new course, causing the torpedoes to miss.
    Opening up with 5-inch guns, Spence was “the first to put a Japanese cruiser on fire.” The cruiser Sendai also came under devastatingly accurate fire from other U.S. ships, including the cruisers. Still in midturn, Sendai was “wracked by a murderous salvo…that virtually disemboweled her.” As other Japanese ships maneuvered desperately to avoid the same fate, the destroyers Samidare and Shiratsuyu collided with each other. At almost the same instant, the heavy cruiser Myoko rammed her escorting destroyer, Hatsukaze, slicing off her bow.
    Although ablaze and turning in circles with a jammed rudder, Sendai was still dangerous. The enemy cruiser released a spread of deadly 30-foot-long Model 93 “Long Lance” torpedoes—the most advanced torpedo in the world—each packing more than 1,000 pounds of explosives, double the charge of U.S. torpedoes, and with nearly quadruple the range (11 miles at 49 knots for the Model 93 compared with 3 miles at 46 knots for U.S. torpedoes). One Long Lance hit home, blowing the stern off Foote, killing nineteen, wounding seventeen, and leaving the destroyer with no power or steering and her main deck awash aft. With Foote out of action, her crew would have a long struggle on their hands to keep her afloat until she could be taken under tow later. *
    At 3:10 A.M. , Burke radioed his destroyers to execute a turn to starboard on his count. Upon Burke’s command—“Execute turn!”—Armstrong ordered “right standard rudder,” then checked to make sure that the rudder-angle indicator confirmed the rudder had gone over to the desired position. Spence began a smooth swing to starboard, which, if the other destroyers made the same maneuver simultaneously, would keep adequate spacing between them.
    Lieutenant Jared W. Mills, standing at the open port hatch of the bridge, suddenly cried out: “Ship approaching sharply on port side, close aboard!”
    â€œFull right rudder!” Armstrong yelled.
    As added rudder was applied, Spence ’s turn tightened. But it was too late— Spence and the destroyer Thatcher were on “roughly parallel courses headed in opposite directions” in frightful bow-on positions. The two ships struck bow to bow, and “sparks flew wildly into the night” as they raked each other’s hull from stem to stern at a combined speed of 60 knots.
    The impact sent men and loose gear flying, and for some terrible moments there was the screeching sound of steel against steel. Spence carried a “handsome silver St.