#clemson class destroyer

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Officers and crews of 22nd Destroyer Division,

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Honda Point disaster 100 years ago today. A lean budget and distrust of new technology combined to help precipitate a naval tragedy at Honda Point, California. On an early fall night in 1923, the U.S. Navy lost more warships in ten minutes than it did to enemy action in World War I.

Captain Watson, who flew his flag aboard the USS Delphy (DD-261), had DesRon 11 form a column on the Delphy to decrease the risk of any mishaps. Using dead reckoning, the navigator aboard the flagship determined that the squadron was ready to turn east into the entrance of the Santa Barbara Channel at 21:00. The radio navigation aids aboard the Delphy indicated that they were off course by several miles northeast, but the squadron’s navigator believed the reports to be erroneous and chose to ignore them in favor of his own calculations.Captain Watson had DesRon 11 simulating wartime conditions as an exercise and did not want his ships to reduce their speeds. Captain Watson ordered the ships to travel in close formation and barreled into what he believed to be the Santa Barbara Channel at a speed of 20 knots. Heavy fog blanketed the area and concealed the perils of what was actually Honda Point from their sights.

Unfortunately, the men of DesRon 11 would not realize their mistake until it was too late. A mere 5 minutes after turning east, the Delphy plowed ashore at 20 knots. Sailors aboard the Delphy scrambled to sound the ship’s siren, but the wheels of disaster were already well in motion. The USS S.P. Lee (DD-310) saw the Delphy come to a sudden stop a few hundred yards ahead and quickly turned to port to avoid the flagship but swung herself broadside into the nearby bluffs instead. The USS Young (DD-312) made no move to change her course and sailed directly over a series of sharp, submerged rocks which tore a gaping hole in her hull. As the Young capsized onto her starboard side, rushing water trapped much of her fire and engine crew in the lower compartments of the ship.  The USS Woodbury (DD-309), USS Nicholas (DD-311), and the USS Fuller (DD-297) all struck rocks and ran aground in shallow waters. Stunned by the unfolding chaos, men aboard the USS Chauncey (DD-296) decided to make way to the capsizing Young to save her crew, instead crashing ashore nearby. 

Like many calamities, a clear chain of events can be followed that lead unerringly to the final act on 8 September 1923. No single link was necessarily fatal. Modify or change any one of them and the tragedy disappears. Change none and, on this occasion, 23 lives were lost and $13 million worth of first-line Navy combat warships was destroyed.

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British sailors watch the passing Clemson class destroyer USS Dallas as she steams into port, 1942

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USS Melville (AD-2) aerial, port bow, with destroyers alongside, USS MacLeish (DD-220) on the outside, Nov 10, 1932

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USS Preble (DM-20) standing by the stricken USS Perry (DMS-17) off Angaur, September 13, 1944

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USS Noa (DD-343) was a Clemson class destroyer that was converted into a high speed transport and took part in a series of amphibious landings in the South Pacific, before being rammed and sunk by another US warship on her way to the Palau Islands.

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USS STEWART (DD-224) was stationed in Manilla as part of the US Navy’s Asiatic Fleet. The Stewart was damaged in combat in February 1942, and was trapped in a repair drydock on Java. The crew abandoned the ship as Japanese forces prepared to seize the island.Scuttled at Surabaya, Java, 2 March 1942; later raised and commissioned into Imperial Japanese Navy, after the war returned to the us navy then sunk as a target off San Francisco.

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USS Altair (AD-11) at Port of Spain, Trinidad, 01-Oct-1942; from right to left, USS Spry (PG-64), USS Upshur (DD-144), USS Goff (DD-247), and Dutch escort HNLMS Jan Van Brakel