Today I find myself in Puerto Galera, some 15 miles south of Batangas in the Philippines. Here to dive for a couple of weeks, today we are on-shore as Typhoon Rubi slowly moves across the Philippines creating plenty of chaos and leaving a path of destruction in its wake.
As I gaze out into the bay, I am reminded of another time in December of 1944, when, not far from here out at sea, Admiral Chester Halsey’s Task Force 38 sailed directly into the path of another Typhoon known as Typhoon Cobra.
Task Force 38 consisted of 7 fleet carriers, 6 light carriers, 8 battleships, 15 cruisers and nearly 50 destroyers. These 86 ships were operating about 300 km east of Luzon fighting to knock out as many land-based Japanese fighters as possible. This was in support of the land invasions then were underway to clear the Japanese from the many Philippine Islands.
Without the benefit of modern weather radar, what Halsey and his meteorologists didn’t realize was that a major typhoon was building in the area. On December 17, the fleet sailed directly into its path. By the time it was over, just under 800 sailors had drowned, 3 ships were lost and 28 more were heavily damaged including the relatively new Battleship Iowa.
Of the 50 destroyers assigned to TF 38, 3 were lost during the storm, the Hull, the Spence, and the Monaghan. The design of the ships was partially to blame as during the course of the war, a never ending amount of new and heavy equipment was always being added near the top of the ship. This added weight acted to raise the center of gravity of each ship, making it easier for them to capsize. As the war went on, more and more anti-aircraft guns were added to counter the threat of Japanese Kamikaze attacks. The addition of radar masts further added weight as did more torpedo launchers, and more depth charges. Already top heavy with this new added equipment, the problem was further compounded as the destroyer fleet had been running hard and was low on fuel. To compensate for the use of the fuel which is stored low in the ship below the center of gravity, the ships would pump in sea water to create ballast to keep them from becoming too top heavy. But the need to refuel in the worsening sea conditions caused considerable chaos as orders were received, rescinded, and then reversed on whether or not to pump out the sea water ballast and take on more fuel.
With their fuel tanks dangerously low and without seawater as ballast the ships became top heavy which made them prone to roll in good weather. In bad weather, it proved deadly.
Of the 3 destroyers, the Monaghan was of special interest.. She had been at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and was on picket duty just as the attack started. A Japanese 2-man sub loosed a torpedo at her which missed by just 50 feet. The Monaghan counter attacked, ramming the midget sub and then dropping depth charges on it as it submerged. An oil slick soon appeared signifying that the sub had been destroyed. Thus the Monaghan became the first US ship to score a kill in the Pacific War.
On December 17, 1944, the Monaghan, the Hull, and the Spence, with some 900 men aboard would all capsize. Some of the men were able to get off the ship and into the water. Many more drowned as they were trapped below deck and unable to get out. For the survivors, being thrown into the ocean in a typhoon with hundred foot waves was not much better. Some of the men were able to grab onto life rings and other types of floating debris. Anything to hang on to was useful as they rolled down and then up and then down again on 100 foot swells.
At one point, the crew of a small Destoyer Escort, the Taberrer, designed for use in the North Atlantic for convoy duty spotted a few survivors of the Spence in the water. This was the first indication that a serious accident had occurred. Unfortunately, the Taberrer could not radio for help as her radio mast had been destroyed by the storm. The Taberrer herself was not in great shape. She was rolling nearly 90 degrees in one direction and then rolling nearly 90 degrees in the other direction. Her ability to withstand this sort of abuse was no accident. Her Canadian and British designers (she was actually designed as a North Atlantic Corvette) had designed her so that her center of gravity was only 18 inches above the keel. This made for a ship that would roll in high seas but would be very, very difficult indeed to capsize. Perfect for the stormy North Atlantic. The US had borrowed the design, renamed it a Destroyer Escort and built nearly a hundred of them.
Luckily for the survivors of the Hull, the Spence and the Monaghan, the quick eyes of someone on watch on the Taberrer spotted men in the water. The Captain of the Taberrer, Lt. Commander Henry Lee Plage, despite his own ship’s bad condition, began a recovery effort. The rough seas made rescuing men from the water extremely dangerous but Plage figured out that he could put the rolling ability of his ship to good use in helping to fish men out of the water. He began to time his approach to a man in the water with the roll of the Taberrer and to bring the ship alongside just as the Taberrer reached its highest roll. In this way, the crew of the Taberrer could pull a man onboard just by dragging them horizontally across the surface of the water until they landed on the deck of the Taberrer which was nearly perpendicular with the surface of the water. As the ship began to roll the other way, the man would find himself on board the Taberrer where just moments before they were floundering in the water. For more than 72 hours the Taberrer steamed back and forth in a box pattern searching for survivors. First finding survivors of the Spence, then men from the Hull, Plage had no idea how many ships had gone down and no idea how many men were still in the water. Eventually they happened across another US Warship and signaled her with their latern that at least 2 ships had gone down. With this, a fleet wide alert was issued and a much larger rescue attempt was underway. But when it was over, the Taberrer had rescued 14 men from Hull and 41 from Spence, just 56 saved from a crew of over 500. Another Destroyer Escort, USS Brown managed to find 6 men from the Monaghan as well as some others. 93 men were rescued in total, 56 by the crew of the Taberrer. More than 700 perished. For his actions during that 72 hour period, Plage would be awarded the Legion of Merit. Each and every crew member of the Taberrer was awarded the Navy Unit Commendation.
A further interesting event occurred onboard the USS Monterrey, one of the 6 light carriers assigned to TF 38. Onboard the Monterrey was a certain Lt. Gerald R. Ford. The Monterrey carried a full load of planes on its hanger deck and during the storm, one of the planes broke free from its chains. This set of a cascade of events that caused a giant fire aboard ship. The fire was so bad that the Captain was about to issue an abandon ship order when he sent a fire control team that included Ford to try one last time to put out the fires raging below deck. After about 2 hours the fire was finally brought under control at which point Ford was told to head to the conning tower to inform the Captain that the ship was saved. Communications had been cut due to the fire damage and someone needed to actually traverse the pitching flight deck to get to the conning tower. As Ford made his way across the deck, the ship rolled to more than 30 degrees causing Ford to begin sliding across the deck and right off the side of the ship. Surrounding the flight deck was a small raised metal edge that is there to prevent tools and bolts from sliding off the flight deck. As Ford slipped towards the edge of the deck he knew his only chance was to somehow grab onto this edge. If he missed it, he would go right off the side of the ship to be lost at sea. As he neared the edge, Ford jammed his foot hard onto the raised edge and desperately reached out to grab it with a hand. He contacted just enough of it so that he could contort his body 270 degrees and drop down onto a catwalk that was below the flight deck, thus saving his life.
When TF 38 returned to Ulithi Atoll, the large US anchorage in the Western Pacific that served as the US forward Naval Base during this part of the war, a Court of Inquiry was convened by Admiral Nimitz into Halsey’s handling of the events surrounding Typhoon Cobra. Although they cited errors in his judgment, Halsey was exonerated by the Court. But in June of 1945, Halsey once again sailed TF 38 into another typhoon. Although only 6 sailors lost their lives in this second typhoon, there was again considerable damage to ships and equipment. Halsey again had to face a Court of Inquiry. This time the Court was going to rule against Halsey but Nimitz stepped in and saved him from being relieved of command. There was no way that Nimitz was going to see his most successful fighting Admiral forced out of command by a typhoon.