Typhoon Cobra, December 1944

December 1944 saw some of the bitterest fighting of the Second World War on December 14th the German army launched a surprise offensive in the Ardennes Forest by the 18th troops of 101st and 82nd airborne were surrounded in the belgian crossroads town of Bastogne on the eastern front the soviets were engaged in one of the most complex offensives of the war the Budapest campaign a campaign that would eventually take more than a hundred days and cost the Soviets some 320,000 casualties and in the Pacific task force 38 part of the u.s. Third Fleet was caught in a surprise action so violent that 31 ships were damaged including major damage to five US aircraft carriers and three US destroyers were sunk costing the lives of nearly 800 sailors and Marines killed not by the Japanese but by a violent tropical storm because Mother Nature does not take a break for Wars typhoon Cobra is often kind of lost in the noise of the the war news of the day yet it is a story of human drama with some outstanding acts of bravery its history that deserves to be remembered on December 13th is part of the preparation for the Battle of Luzon part of the campaign to retake the Philippine Islands 10,000 troops of the US Army supported by Philippine guerrillas invaded the island of Mindoro the purpose of the landing was to secure an establish airfields that would be within fighter range of planned landing areas on the island of Luzon the Japanese forces on the island were small and overwhelmed the battle only lasted three days task force 38 consisted of seven fleet aircraft carriers six light aircraft carriers eight battleships 15 cruisers and about 50 destroyers called fast carrier task force task force 38 was the main striking force of the United States Navy in the Pacific War from January 1944 through the end of the war the group had been conducting air operations against Japanese bases during the invasion of Mindoro attempting to suppress Japanese defense of the island for three days the group's fighters and dive bombers attacked destroyed 269 Japanese aircraft sinking merchant ships and blasting airfields and railroad the attacks had the desired effect as the Japanese Navy and Air Force put up no organized attacks of the Mindoro invasion fleet although kamikaze attacks did some damage as a result of the fast pace of operations the group is low on fuel especially its destroyers which had smaller tanks it was considered imperative that all Task Force units be expeditiously refueled in order to facilitate more air strikes planned for December 19th the task force was given a rendezvous point some 300 miles east of Luzon far enough away that the ships would be safe from the kamikaze attacks to engage in refueling operations with 12 Fleet Oilers as the day went along the seas grew rougher and a twenty to thirty knot wind made the fuelling operation difficult but the fleet was not aware of the danger ahead of them their task group who lied on analysis from fleet weather central at Pearl Harbor today weather forecasters have satellite images and data that's all collected by computer but in 1944 fleet weather central was trying to predict the weather across the vast Pacific Ocean with very few weather stations and only a few sporadic reports from ships and islands that December weather data was lacking information on an area 240 to 300 miles in diameter and fleet weather center did not know and could not warn task force 38 that a massive storm was centered in that blind spot the fleet e'er ologist was informed only of a tropical storm very weak but the difficulty with fueling on the Grove worse as swells increased multiple reports came in of hoses rupturing a ship's pitched and rolled in the heavy seas by 1250 in the afternoon the fleet commander Admiral William F Halsey ordered a halt to the refueling operations despite the rough seas concerns were still low Palsy noted that the fleet had still received no outside warning of a typhoon but the storm was only 120 miles away from his group while Halsey called a conference aboard his flagship the fast battleship USS New Jersey when Ava's commanders were noting increased evidence of the storm to come the situation was tense as the fleet needed to refuel it was to meet its commitments to conduct air attacks in the 19th but the path and size of the storm was still unknown when fleet weather central predicted the storm would turn north Halsey ordered the fleet to turn south thing that would take them to calmer waters in fact the erratic storm was following a different path and what usually been seen in December Pacific storms on wittingly Halsey had sent it directly into the path of the storm and many of the destroyers had not been refueled yet making them top-heavy and low on ballast increasing the danger in the swells the fleet attempted refuelling operations again the early morning of the 18th but again the swells made the operation almost impossible and the Halsey had to call a halt he contacted General Douglas MacArthur and informed him that the fleet would not be able to conduct the planned air attacks on December 19th but the situation was worse than that the storm was far larger than I had realized and command had not grasped the severity of the situation until they're within a hundred miles of a massive typhoon by then it was too late to escape the situation was exacerbated because the ships were still trying to maintain formation still under orders to engage in refueling only at 11:45 did Halsey give the command to take most comfortable courses meaning forget formations and save your ships as the barometer plummeted the swells increased over 70 feet New Jersey was tossed about so badly that his captain was concerned it may not survive the storm visibility dropped to near zero at broad noon Halsey later said I couldn't see the bow of my ship 350 feet from the bridge but he had an even graver concern if New Jersey was struggling then what did that mean for the much smaller destroyers USS Monahan was the last of the eight Farragut class destroyers built commissioned in January 1935 she had been on station at Pearl Harbor December 7th 1941 though she had rammed and sank one of five [ __ ] submarines that had been sent to attack ships in the harbor she had screened the carrier enterprise in the battle Midway and later was part of the destroyer group that badly damaged the Japanese submarine I 68 after it fired a torpedo that eventually caused the sinking of the carrier Yorktown the veteran ship served throughout the Pacific from the Aleutians to the Battle of the Philippine Sea that December she been assigned as an escort for three of the fleet oiler serving Task Force 38 Monahan was low on fuel when the storm struck and had likely released ballast that she was planning to fuel the storm struck so quickly that she was not trimmed to write it out she would have been very high in the water the winds are so strong the ships were heeled over by the force the wind alone leaving little margin if they were thrown by a swell water was being taken in quantity through ventilators blower intakes in every topside opening the ones were tearing off masts and equipment on top but we're so powerful that men could not go outside to jettison top side weights that were making ships even more top-heavy Monahan was still trying to maintain her station not yet given the order to break formation when she lost power Josef's mccrane a water tender second-class recalled we started to roll heaving to the starboard and everyone was holding on to something and praying as hard as he could we knew that we had lost her power we were dead in the water we must have taken about seven or eight rolls in the starboard when she went over on her side Monaghan went down at 11:45 she was the first ship lost to the storm her crew was mostly trapped but crane was one of only six men of a crew of some 260 to survive next to go was USS Spence a more modern fletcher-class destroyers that had been commissioned in January of 1943 Spence was extremely low on fuel and a jettison ballast during an attempt to refuel she tried to take seawater ador tanks for ballast but the sea was too rough as she was tossed in the fifty to sixty foot swells and 110 gale sea water into the fire room and shorted out the electrical system u.s. Naval Reserve lieutenant junior grade Alfonzo coronis described the ship's last moments she took a 70 degree roll recovered but the next huge wage brawled her on her side where she hit with a terrific crash men were trapped in their compartments where they had sought shelter from the heavy seas while she over the entire deck only handful were able to make it free of the ship clinging to whatever debris floated with a crew of 341 only 24 survived USS whole another Farragut class destroyer went next the ship became impossible to steer being as her commanding officer Lieutenant Commander James a Marx described blown bodily by wind and sea Marc went on I had served in destroyers and some of the worst wind and seas in the North Atlantic and believe that no wind could be worse than what I had just witnessed the force the wind laid the ship steadily on her starboard side and held her in the water until the Seas came flowing into the pilothouse itself Marx was one of 72 survivors 202 of hulls crew were lost whole story was said to inspired portions of the novel and later film and play the Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk the John C Butler class destroyer escort USS Tamara managed to stay afloat by shifting fuel to the pork tanks to compensate for the starboard list when it became apparent that the ship would have to ride out the storm with women see on the port beam but as the ship rolled as much as 72 degrees the stays holding the main mast started breaking by 6:30 the ship had lost her masts and thus her radio the storm died down by evening and crewmen were trying to rig an emergency intended to restore communications one of the crewmen heard a shout it was a survivor from USS whole despite the damage with swells high temper began a box grid search for survivors by noon the next day Tabler saved 41 survivors from Ulysses hull and 14 from USS Spence the crews on the light aircraft carriers were struggling with another problem in the swells aircraft were being torn loose no matter how carefully tied down and the storm a deck work trying to secure planes nearly impossible planes were torn off the deck and lost or worse thrown around crushing other planes and in some cases starting fires in all 146 planes were lost or damaged beyond repair aboard the independence class like carrier USS Monterey five aircraft have blown off the deck already when at 9:08 a.m. the hangar deck reported the plane was adrift followed two minutes later by an explosion the plane on the hangar deck that had gone adrift had broken from its moorings and crashed into another plane function both planes gas tanks caused an explosion and fire the fire spread throughout the deck and smog from vents filled the engine rooms the captain had to halt the ship to keep enough steam pressure to keep the fire pumps working several more fires were spread throughout the ship through the open ventilation system Halsey ordered the captain Stuart Ingersoll to abandon ship but Ingersoll was determined to save the ship careful damage control slowly brought the fires into control Monterey lost 18 aircraft in the storm and fires and two-thirds of the hangar deck was gutted one of the officers young lieutenant junior grade who served as general quarters officer of the deck was nearly swept overboard by a 70 foot wave he managed to grab a catwalk his way pulled him over and make it up to the bridge the captain ordered him to check on the fire report he managed to make it down through the pitching vessel and provide the captain with a report and then continued his duties he was one of the officers whose calm service saved the ship the event received only a brief mention in the autobiography that the former University of Michigan football star wrote 35 years later with relatively more time dedicated to his later service as 38th President of the United States in addition to the loss of the three destroyers the storm which was unofficially called typhoon Cobra or sometimes palsies typhoon two damaged 231 other ships including significant damage to five US aircraft carriers in all 790 sailors and Marines who are lost in the storm with another 80 injured some of the survivors of the sunken destroyers were adrift for 52 hours before being rescued and had drifted as far away as 75 miles Admiral Chester Nimitz commander-in-chief's the Pacific Ocean areas said of the storm it represented a more crippling blow to the third fleet that might be expected to suffer and anything less than a major action George Dyer captain of the carrier Astoria said the storm had dealt us a blow which the enemy would have liked very much to deliver himself the Third Fleet was damaged by another typhoon in June killing six men and damaging 31 ships although no ships were lost the two storms led to the creation of a more robust infrastructure for tracking Pacific storms that eventually became the Joint Typhoon Warning Center which is today responsible for seeing tropical cyclone warnings for the US military in the Pacific and Indian Oceans a court of inquiry faulted Halsey and said that he had made errors of judgment but stopped short of recommending any sanctions and while Nimitz wrote a letter to the fleet that among other things faulted commanders for relying too much on outside information about storms instead of using age-old practices of self-reliance and caution you I hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy short snippets a 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 guide 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: 277,258

Keywords: history, the history guy, history guy, US Navy, us history, wwii, world war ii, typhoon cobra, halsey's typhoon

Id: dGC5TLPkL2s

Length: 13min 57sec (837 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 04 2019