Tin Can Titans Read online

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2017 by John Wukovits

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address Da Capo Press, 53 State Street, Ninth Floor, Boston, MA 02109.

  Designed by Trish Wilkinson

  Set in 11-point Adobe Garamond Pro by Perseus Books

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Wukovits, John F., 1944–author.

  Tin can titans : the heroic men and ships of World War II’s most decorated Navy destroyer squadron / John F. Wukovits.

  Other titles: Heroic men and ships of World War II’s most decorated Navy destroyer squadron

  Description: Boston : Da Capo Press, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016042188 | ISBN 9780306824302 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780306824319 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: United States. Navy. Destroyer Squadron 21—History. | Fletcher Class (Destroyers)—History—20th century. | World War, 1939–1945—Naval operations, American. | World War, 1939–1945—Pacific Area.

  Classification: LCC D769.52.D38 W85 2016 | DDC 940.54/5973—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016042188

  Published by Da Capo Press, an imprint of Perseus Books, LLC, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  www.dacapopress.com

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  E3-20170213-JV-PC

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map 1: Desron 21 in the Solomons

  Map 2: Desron 21 in the Pacific

  Preface

  PART I: ORIGINS OF A SQUADRON Prologue

  CHAPTER 1The Destroyers Go to War

  CHAPTER 2Initiation at Guadalcanal

  CHAPTER 3Naval Slugfest off Guadalcanal

  PART II: DESRON 21 HOLDS THE LINE IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC CHAPTER 4Blunting the Tokyo Express

  CHAPTER 5Birth of a Squadron

  CHAPTER 6Struggle for the Slot

  CHAPTER 7Kula Gulf Confrontations

  PART III: DESRON 21 SWEEPS TO VICTORY CHAPTER 8Climbing the New Guinea Ladder

  CHAPTER 9The Philippine Whirlwind

  CHAPTER 10Kamikaze Carnage

  CHAPTER 11Eyewitness to Victory

  Epilogue

  Photos

  Chronology

  Appendix I: Battle Stars Awarded

  Appendix II: Location of Ships at War’s End

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Index

  To my granddaughter, Katie Lastra,

  whose quick wit and bright smiles never fail to amaze me

  PREFACE

  The idea for this book occurred when I was researching material for my previous book, Hell from the Heavens, the story of the destroyer USS Laffey (DD-724). That ship, which battled twenty-two kamikazes off Okinawa in April 1945, often operated in conjunction with other destroyers, and I wondered if there might be a squadron whose exploits offered an equally compelling tale. When my agent, Jim Hornfischer, mentioned the O’Bannon, I examined the squadron of which she was a part and found that Destroyer Squadron 21 more than fit the bill. Not only was the unit the most decorated destroyer squadron of the war, but the ships’ feats from 1942 to war’s end, where they were involved in the Solomon Islands, the Gilberts and Marshalls, New Guinea, the Philippines, Iwo Jima, Borneo, Okinawa, and the Japanese Home Islands, presented a panorama of naval conflict in the Pacific. As I dug deeper into the unit’s accomplishments, I discovered dramatic surface engagements, encounters with aircraft and submarines, shore bombardments, convoy escorting, and antisubmarine patrols.

  Mostly I unearthed examples of individuals reacting under the crucible of war, for the book is the story of people rather than of a unit. Inspiring leaders guided crews and ships through treacherous combat, daring sea rescues, and antiaircraft duels with kamikazes. Young sailors shook off the civilian world and blended into top-notch crews, seamen and machinist’s mates ignored their anxieties to perform under fire, and a gridiron hero offered a modern version of Robinson Crusoe in battling the Japanese while stranded on an island. Men managed fears and missed loved ones. They performed their duties during moments of mind-numbing boredom and of intense action, during those dangerous nights rushing up the Slot to meet the Tokyo Express and while operating off Okinawa and its kamikaze-filled skies. They exhibited every emotion, from joy and laughter to terror and fear. And the squadron officers and crews repeatedly demonstrated heroism under fire, whether the opposition came from a Japanese warship, artillery battery, aircraft, or submarine. In telling the story of Destroyer Squadron 21, I am presenting the naval side of the Pacific war.

  I have many people to thank. I received superb help from Destroyer Squadron 21 survivors—Russell Bramble, Warren Gabelman, Donald Holmes, John O’Neill, Willy Rhyne, James Setter, Douglas Starr, and Robert Whisler—who during interviews and other correspondence helped me to better understand what war on the waters was like. Dow Ransom Jr. graciously allowed me to digitize the fascinating diary kept by his father, a ship’s physician aboard one of the destroyers. Thomas Chesnutt opened up the diary he kept aboard another destroyer and was most willing to answer the many queries I sent his way. Martin Johnson’s interviews, combined with the compelling wartime letters he made available, proved invaluable. Fortunately, I was able to explore the vast amount of material gathered by the late Dave McComb of the Destroyer History Foundation and presented on his website, which his widow, Meredith, gave me permission to use.

  With his editorial comments, Bob Pigeon at Da Capo Press expertly shepherded the manuscript into final form, and he and his team, including publicist Lissa Warren and others, developed the book’s jacket and touted the book’s attractions. Jeffrey Ward’s skilled maps complemented the text. My writing mentor, naval biographer Thomas Buell, and my history adviser at the University of Notre Dame, Dr. Bernard Norling, profoundly influenced me with their advice. Although neither is now with us, their kind words and wise counsel remain with me each day. The support and advice of my extraordinary agent, Jim Hornfischer, helped me attain a dream that otherwise might not have been realized.

  I have been blessed with the support of a nurturing family. My older brother, Tom, who served so nobly as a naval aviator during the Vietnam conflict, offers encouragement and exhibits pride in what I do. The memories of my parents, Tom and Grace, and of my younger brother, Fred, prod me to give my utmost. My daughters, Amy, Julie, and Karen, put a smile on my face with their unquestioned love and support for what I do, and make me proud of the people they have become. My four grandchildren, Matthew, Megan, Emma, and Kaitlyn, keep me young at heart with their vibrant personalities and amazing stream of achievements, and help me to remember that my main duty as an author is to make certain that the deeds of a past generation are not forgotten by those that follow. My invaluable companion of more than two decades, Terri Faitel, a marvelous mathematics teacher, scrutinized my manuscript to dig out errors and to make certain the text made sense. I rely on her more than she may realize.

  John F. Wukovits

  Trenton, Michigan

  June 30, 2016

  PART I

  ORIGINS OF A SQUADRON


  PROLOGUE

  Admiral William F. Halsey had not been this satisfied since before the war. As he looked across the waters of Tokyo Bay on August 29, 1945, from the bridge of his flagship, USS Missouri—the battleship nicknamed the “Mighty Mo”—a conglomeration of battleships and cruisers steamed behind in a long line stretching to the horizon. Those ships, and others like them, had outslugged the Japanese in surface actions and pounded their installations in landings from the Solomon Islands to Okinawa. Farther out at sea, the formidable fast carrier task forces and their swarms of aircraft that dominated the naval war in the western Pacific in 1944–1945 guarded against surprise kamikaze attacks. The United States had won a long, grueling war, largely due to those ships and other weapons sent to the front lines through an uninterrupted pipeline connecting the American military to home-front factories and shipyards.

  As one of the two top naval commanders in the Pacific, Halsey played a prominent part in the victory, gaining accolades and winning battles from the first day of war to the last. He became the nation’s darling for his audacious actions, and for four years he looked forward to the moment he would enter the bay, promising along the way to ride Emperor Hirohito’s famous white horse through the streets of Tokyo. Halsey described the entry into Tokyo Bay as “the supreme moment of my career,” and said, “Every man jack among us was looking toward one moment, the moment we would anchor in Tokyo Bay.”1

  Halsey might justifiably have placed his Missouri in the first spot, giving the battleship the honor of taking the victorious United States Fleet into Tokyo Bay as conquering heroes come to lay claim on a defeated foe. He instead handed that recognition to a trio of destroyers, O’Bannon (DD-450), Nicholas (DD-449), and Taylor (DD-468), smaller vessels dwarfed in size by “Mighty Mo,” which followed them in line. Halsey’s love of destroyers, the dashing ships whose speed and offensive punch matched his aggressive personality, had started early in his career. He considered himself a destroyerman even when he rose to higher command, for those ships that sliced low through the water, with the wind slapping his face and the sea salt coating his lips, were in his DNA. The crews of 330 officers and enlisted forged a tight unit, something that the Missouri and her crew of 2,700 could not hope to achieve. They were men who leaned on one another when the guns boomed and drank together when the fighting ended. They were his type of men.

  Halsey did not choose the three destroyers based upon sentiment, however. He selected them because of the record they had amassed over the previous three years, and because in the bleak months of late 1942, when he most needed a weapon with which to stymie the Japanese in the Solomons, he turned to his destroyers.

  O’Bannon, Nicholas, and Taylor were part of Destroyer Squadron 21 (Desron 21), the most acclaimed destroyer squadron of the war. Similar to an Army or Marine company, the squadron operated as a unit, in some ways a seagoing band of brothers. At times all of the squadron’s destroyers barreled into action together, while on other occasions individual ships received separate missions, much as an infantry company dispatches smaller platoons on different assignments.

  Desron 21 destroyers could be found with American forces as they steadily advanced up the Solomon Island chain, during the assaults against the Gilbert and Marshall Islands, along New Guinea’s coast, into the Philippines, and north to Iwo Jima and Okinawa before participating in air and naval bombardments of the Japanese Home Islands. The squadron fought in major surface clashes and minor actions, conducted hundreds of patrols, escorted giant battleships and diminutive landing craft, scoured the ocean depths for enemy submarines, and scrutinized the skies for kamikazes. Foes charged the ships on, above, and below the surface. By appearing in almost every major assault of the Pacific war from 1942 to 1945, the squadron’s exploits reflected the history of the Pacific clash itself.

  Admiral Halsey wished to recognize those accomplishments by asking the three remaining operational ships of Desron 21 to lead the armada into Tokyo Bay. They had served under his command at Guadalcanal, and to the man the press called the “Bull” it seemed only fitting that they would accompany him at war’s end.

  “At daylight, there was my old ship, the Nicholas, getting under way,” recalled Ensign Jack Fitch, subsequently on the Desron 21 staff, “honored to lead the entire armada, which stretched single file over the horizon into Tokyo Bay. It was and is the most spectacular sight I ever saw.”2

  In its three years of existence, Desron 21 earned three Presidential Unit Citations, one Navy Unit Commendation, and 118 battle stars—forty-eight by the trio that now steamed at Halsey’s van, in front of the Missouri. The squadron had sunk or helped sink ten submarines and numerous surface vessels, shot down dozens of aircraft, and rescued more than eighteen hundred sailors and downed airmen, but it came with a high cost, as attested to in that only three of the twelve destroyers (counting replacements) remained to operate with Halsey and the three hundred Allied warships at war’s end. Desron 21 ships were torpedoed three times, mined four times, and hit four times by shore batteries, suffering a total of 372 crewmembers killed and many more wounded.

  While Desron 21’s achievements were impressive, it was not a squadron of ships that registered an inspiring resume, but the people serving aboard those destroyers. Just as soldiers in an Army battalion seize a hill and Marines in a platoon storm a beach, the officers and sailors of Desron 21 issued the orders and manned the guns. They dropped depth charges and delivered shells to five-inch guns, downed enemy aircraft and rescued military brethren. They put their lives on the line not once or twice but day after day, and emerged victorious despite the worst that the Japanese could hurl at them. The united effort of career Navy officers and civilian enlisted, ship’s doctors and gridiron heroes, swept the once victorious Japanese from their island bastions and rolled them back toward Tokyo. People, not metallic superstructures and hulls, won the battles.

  Halsey selected the final three destroyers of Desron 21 because he knew that their endeavors epitomized all that was noble in the conflict. “The history of the Pacific war can never be written without telling the story of the U.S.S. O’Bannon [a key member of Desron 21],” wrote Admiral Halsey in the foreword to a book about the ship and unit. “Time after time the O’Bannon and her gallant little sisters were called upon to turn back the enemy. They never disappointed me. Out-numbered, out-gunned, during the dark days of ’42 and ’43 they stood toe-to-toe with the best the Japanese Fleet could offer—and never failed to send them scurrying home with their tails between their legs.

  “No odds were ever too great for them to face,” added Halsey. He said that their actions “derailed the Tokio Express so often that the Japanese admirals ran out of excuses. No medals, however high, can reward the gallant men of the tin-can fleet for their brave deeds. In her [the nation’s] darkest hour their country called. They answered with flaming guns and high courage.”3

  So, too, did Donald MacDonald answer his nation’s call.

  CHAPTER 1

  THE DESTROYERS GO TO WAR

  Like most young boys, Donald John MacDonald gave little thought to the military when he was growing up in DuBois, Pennsylvania. Born on July 25, 1908, MacDonald reaped the benefits of a well-to-do family. His father was a business executive who owned a lucrative list of properties, including coal mines and a hotel. His grandfather on the paternal side came to the United States from Inverness, Scotland, and his Scots-Irish maternal grandparents arrived in the heated years leading to the American Revolution. As a representative from New Hampshire, his great-great-uncle Josiah Bartlett signed his name to the Declaration of Independence, three names to the right of John Hancock and three names above John Adams.

  At DuBois High School, MacDonald proved his prowess both on the athletic field and in the classroom, where he earned valedictorian honors as well as the distinction of being named class president. Since females found the combination of good looks, brains, and athletic acumen irresistible, the outgoing MacDonald never lacked for girl
friends.

  In MacDonald’s senior year, his father contacted a congressman and obtained an appointment for his son to the United States Naval Academy. Being more interested in sports and girls, and never having given the military serious thought, MacDonald took the exams without studying and failed the English portion. When the congressman promised to hold an appointment for him a year from then, MacDonald cracked the books.

  He attended the Werntz Naval Academy Preparatory School in Annapolis, a highly regarded preparatory school for the Naval Academy operated by Bobby Werntz, a stern taskmaster. The discipline produced quick results, with MacDonald passing the next year’s exams. He earned the congressman’s appointment and, in 1927, entered the Naval Academy as a plebe.

  Once accepted at Annapolis, the athletic MacDonald focused more on extracurricular activities than on classroom work. “I guess I never spent enough time reading books and so forth,” he said. “I was always sort of out playing golf, tennis, and anything else.”1 He lettered in soccer, but had enough natural intelligence to graduate eighty-fifth out of 441 graduates of the Class of 1931. Commissioned an ensign, MacDonald was assigned to destroyers, but he planned to remain in the Navy only until the economy, ravaged by the onset of the Great Depression, improved and allowed him to depart for a promising business opportunity.

  After one month’s leave, MacDonald joined his first ship, the USS Hulbert (DD-342), in San Diego. In no time the flustered young officer found himself in authority when the skipper, Lieutenant Commander Frederick D. “Pinky” Powers, handed MacDonald the first watch. “You know,” barked Powers, “I don’t want anyone on this ship who doesn’t carry his own weight, so you’re going to start standing watches right away.”

  Although MacDonald at times felt overwhelmed, he claimed that he benefited from Powers, whom he called “a pretty tough hombre.” Powers put him in charge at a time when many of MacDonald’s classmates wallowed at the bottom of the command chain. Instead, he began learning how to supervise men from his first hour aboard the destroyer. “This did really help me and gave me a great boost in connection with confidence.”2