The Extraordinary Voyage of the USS Marblehead

[Music] when the japanese bombed pearl harbor on december 7th 1941 the ships of the u.s asiatic fleet were integrated into a unified allied command called the american british dutch australia command or abda calm and tasked with trying to slow the advance of the powerful imperial japanese navy by may of 1942 nearly half the ships of the u.s asiatic fleet would be sunk including the largest ship of the fleet the heavy cruiser uss houston but the improbable survival of one of the ships of that fleet is the stuff of legend the amazing voyage of uss marblehead is history that deserves to be remembered the ships of the omaha class were the result of a 1915 determination that the us lacked a fast scout cruiser these light cruisers were intended to scout for fleets of battleships and armed enough to counter any destroyers and to counter them but the first ship of the class uss omaha was not laid down until 1918 and none were commissioned until 1923 556 feet six inches long and displacing 7050 long tons by the time the omaha class light cruisers were commissioned naval aircraft had already taken over the tactical scouting role and they were never used for the purpose for which they were designed instead they were used as screening ships carrying a substantial armament of 12 six-inch guns that could provide an impressive volume of fire by the outset of the second world war the ships of the class were the oldest u.s cruisers still in service while they'd gone through significant changes between the wars improving their anti-aircraft armament and losing their mine racks and lower torpedo tube mounts to improve speed their age was showing the omaha class cruisers were mostly relegated to secondary roles serving where the chances of a large surface engagement were unlikely the ships of the class were however in the war from the very beginning as the detroit and raleigh were both at pearl harbor on december 7th raleigh took a torpedo port side of mid chips but remained afloat and was back in service by february detroit was one of only three large surface vessels to successfully get out of the harbor during the attack but one of their sister ships was also thrown almost immediately into the midst of war nearly 6 000 miles away uss marblehead was the second to last of the omaha class-like cruisers to enter service commissioned in september 1924 named after the city of marblehead massachusetts in the interwar period she served in both the atlantic and pacific fleets and even did a trip up china's yangtze river in 1938 he was assigned to the asiatic fleet with a home port in cavite philippines in late 1941 the u.s asiatic fleet was not large with its best offensive and defensive capability being its 29 submarines its surface fleet elements included just two cruisers the heavy cruiser uss houston and the marblehead and 13 of the older clemson class four stacker destroyers the fleet contained a number of other vessels including the minesweeper uss tannager and the submarine tender uss pigeon both subjects of previous the history guy episodes the commander-in-chief of the fleet admiral thomas hart was given the authority to move the fleet to the indian ocean in the event of war with japan the war diary of the marblehead noted that hart used that discretion about or on november 24th and sent the marblehead to borneo to await further instructions on december 8th since she was across the dateline it was december 7th in hawaii she received a message japan started hostilities govern yourselves accordingly the outbreak of war hastily brought the allies together and u.s president franklin delano roosevelt british prime minister winston churchill met in washington dc on december 22nd among the many decisions made at that conference was a decision to create a supreme allied command for all allied forces in southeast asia called the american british dutch australia command which was officially created on january 1st 1942 the purpose of the joint land air and sea command was to hold the japanese at the malay peninsula the so-called malay barrier the overall command was given to british general sir archibald wavel and admiral hart was made commander of naval forces the command was thenly stretched and heavily outnumbered most especially in air and sea forces while the naval forces included british dutch and australian cruisers the largest ship of the american contingent was the houston the abda command was largely a disaster on all fronts in fact the two largest allied ships in southeast asia the british battleship prince of wales and battle cruiser repulse were sunk by japanese aircraft just three days after pearl harbor hopelessly outnumbered the best the force could hope was to slow the japanese advance that was the goal in the january 23rd battle of balikpapan where five u.s destroyers attacked a japanese invasion force while they faced difficulties with their torpedoes the force four transports was a rare success in which marvel had had a small role screening the destroyer's retreat eleven days later the allies were looking to repeat that success by attacking a japanese convoy at a place called the macassar strait the attack force included two cruisers of the royal netherlands navy seven destroyers uss houston and uss marblehead but before they could arrive the allied force was sighted by japanese bomber aircraft the marblehead's battle report says that at 9 49 the ship went to air defense stations set condition zed lighted fires under all six remaining boilers mandal damage control repair and boiler control systems a group of bombers the planes were mitsubishi g4 m1 model 2 baddies and mitsubishi g3 m2 nails was cited making an approach at 953 the ship went to flank speed and left full rudder as two groups of planes one flight of nine and another eight passed over at 1005 eight more planes men had an approach on the port bow to that point quick maneuvering and anti-aircraft fire had protected the ship at 1008 one of the planes was observed to be smoking the ship was maneuvering quickly the captain arthur granville robinson a 1913 graduate of the us naval academy ordered all speed possible in full right rudder at 10 17 nine more planes attacked across a starboard bow dropping seven bombs and landed close aboard on the port one of the planes was seen losing altitude and the ship concentrated its fire on that plane which crashed about a thousand yards off the port bow but the ship's luck ran out and yet another attack at 1047. seven planes passed overhead and scored two direct bomb hits another near miss lifted the ship bodily upward into starboard and did unknown underwater damage the damage was extensive fires were observed of midships and aft internal communications were lost the gyro was out and the aft turret disabled she was listing starboard and was settling towards the bow perhaps most concerning the rudder was stuck full left and the ship had lost steering control fifteen men were killed or mortally wounded and 85 more were wounded among them the ship's executive officer commander william goggins who suffered severe burns in a head wound having steering stuck during an air attack is a bad thing by using the engines cutting the starboard engine and putting the port on maximum the ship was still going in circles but larger circles as the damage control officer went to try to free the rudder the japanese continued to attack managing a few more near-misses as well striking other ships in the group houston was also hit disabling her number three turret and killing 45 of her crew the group was too damaged to proceed and was called back marble head was severely damaged the hit under the bow had blown a three foot wide and nine foot long hole in the ship flooding the forward magazine which might actually have been a stroke of luck as the wetted powder was less likely to explode the second bomb had destroyed the ward room sick bay and officer quarters and caused severe fires but also included some luck as they've been slight farther aft it could have struck the fuel oil tank and caused an explosion and possibly the loss of the ship the hit aft had smashed the steering motors there was an immediate threat as several cans of powder had been moved to the mass room to support the aft turret and the mesh room was now ablaze members of the damage control crew risked their lives removing the powder before it could explode in all 26 compartments were flooded and eight others were leaking while steering could not be immediately restored the engineers were able to reduce the rudder to nine degrees enough that the ship could steer using its engines without enough fuel to make it to an australian port captain robinson decided escorted by two u.s destroyers to make for the port of chile chop on the south coast of java where the ship could make repairs and get care for its wounded the passage was difficult with the ship riding low at speed the water was being forced in through the hole in the bow and a pump that had been manhandled into position was barely keeping pace the ship also had to be navigated by sight as the gyro compass was destroyed a morning japanese air attack under the destroyer uss paul jones was likely meant for the marblehead as the omaha class-like cruisers had a similar profile to the four stacker destroyers of the clemson class but the destroyer was able to maneuver and avoid damage marblehead reached chillitop the morning of february 6th the wounded were evacuated placed along with the wounded from uss houston in the care of a navy physician named dr corydon m wassel but the port's only dry dock was a small floating dry dock too small for the marblehead careful work allowed the dock to lift the ship's bow admiral heart arrived and upon inspecting the ship and realizing the effort required to have kept her afloat said simply of the crew i am proud to be in the same navy with you the repairs had to be hurried as the japanese were progressing on land and sea captain robinson reported that men were getting three hours of sleep out of every 24 and that the food situation was chaotic because the labels been washed out and the menu for any meal was more or less unknown until the cans were open the dock was able to patch the hole in the bow but there were no facilities that could repair the wrecked steering gear by february 12th robinson decided the ship had to get underway to avoid the japanese the repairs had done the best they could the captain wrote in his diary we're as ready as can be but that isn't saying much this place is getting hot the port finally fell to the japanese march 7th effectively ending allied resistance on java marblehead had no choice but to seek an allied port where she could get full repairs she set sail for the british crown colony of ceylon which robinson described as some 4 000 hostile miles away with nothing between us and the japanese navy except the hope of not getting caught the journey began on friday february 13th 1942 the start was not auspicious the line broke on the tug taking them out of the harbor when the tug tried to move to reattach the line the two collided and the tug tore a hole that flooded the only compartment in the bow that wasn't already flooded the marblehead was not out of danger if a japanese destroyer found her with her stern disabled she would be an easy target and owing to her damage there was a very real chance that she could break in two even a mild typhoon could easily sink the ship at times the captain wrote the crew was sustained only by the power and quality of the profanity of chief bozon anderson the marblehead reached ceylon on february 21st only to find that two japanese carriers were threatening the area they could not stop for repairs the marblehead will now have to cross the indian ocean making for south africa at sea they managed to rig a system that gave them limited control of the rudder saving strain on the turbine engines that were stressed being used to steer the battered ship made durbin south africa march 13th in addition to warnings about security in an order that behavior of all liberty parties be of high order the crew was given notice by local authorities that south african whiskey is double the strength of english whiskey the local bootleg liquor is about as near to poison as you can get but the local beer is excellent durbin however also did not have an adequate dry dock for shipped the size of the marble head she had to make a further voyage around to simon's town just around the southern tip of south africa on the western cape along the way the ship that had endured so much loss lost two more crewmen overcome by toxic gas in the bilge when they arrived the crew had managed to nurse the badly damaged ship some 8 000 nautical miles much of it in enemy waters while in simon's town the ship was visited by a celebrity the port's famous mascot abel seaman just nuisance after 23 days in dry dock the marblehead was repaired and setting sail across the atlantic for home when uss marblehead arrived in new york on may 4th it had completed a journey of more than 16 000 miles an extraordinary feat for a ship that had been so damaged and had to go unescorted through so many miles of enemy water among the many awards that were given to the crew the ship's damage control officer lieutenant commander martin drury was awarded the navy cross for his extraordinary efforts in arresting and repairing damage to the vessel a second extraordinary story was with the wounded when left in java the navy had been able to evacuate the walking wounded but those two wounded to walk were to be left behind unwilling to allow the twelve gravely wounded men simply to become prisoners of the japanese dr wassel a former missionary who had enlisted when the war started chose to stay with the men and managed to find them transport with a british anti-aircraft unit to the coast where he found them passage on a dutch ship to australia president roosevelt told wassel's extraordinary story to one of his fireside chats on april 28th inspiring a book and then a hollywood movie starring gary cooper wassel was awarded the navy cross in a strange irony the damage to the marblehead may well have saved the ship the war did not go well for the abda command and nearly half of the u.s asiatic fleet was lost by may houston was last in the battle of the java sea on february 28th while marblehead was on its way to south africa the fate of the houston was not discovered until nine months later in the full story not until after the war after reaching new york and undergoing further repairs the marble hud served in the south atlantic and participated in the invasion of southern france in august 1944. she was decommissioned and struck from the naval rolls in 1946 i hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy short snippets of forgotten history between 10 and 15 minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that thumbs up button if you have any questions or comments or suggestions for future episodes please write those in the comment section i will be happy to personally respond be sure to follow the history guy on facebook instagram twitter and check out our merchandise on teespring.com and if you'd like more episodes on forgotten history all you need to do is subscribe [Music]

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 402,303

Rating: 4.9763303 out of 5

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy, US History, US Navy, WWII, USS Marblehead, world war ii, pacific campaign

Id: Tb9h5bU8Dwk

Length: 14min 36sec (876 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 06 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/maximus459]

Just watched it, that's some story..

[u/BoringCabinet]

That is quite the story, that can literally be turned into a movie.