The deep-lying wreck of a US Navy destroyer sunk following a valiant last stand against the odds during World War Two has been discovered in the north-eastern Indian Ocean, according to US Naval History & Heritage Command (NHHC).
The destroyer USS Edsall (DD-219) had survived unscathed for more than an hour while confronting a powerful Japanese naval force before finally being hit and sunk under air attack.
The US Navy and Royal Australian Navy, which had come across the wreck while scanning the seabed during an unrelated mission, waited until the recent Remembrance Day (Veterans Day in the USA) on 11 November to announce the discovery.
The 94m Edsall was built in 1920, one of the Clemson-class “flush deck” destroyers designed in 1917 as battle-fleet escorts to counter WW1 German torpedo-boats.
She carried four 4in guns, one 3in anti-aircraft gun, four triple-tube 21in torpedo mounts with 12 torpedoes, two depth-charge tracks at the stern and a forward depth-charge projector, a set-up that had changed little apart from some additional machine-guns by the time WW2 was underway.
After the Pearl Harbor attack in November 1941 Edsall was assigned to convoy escort duties in the western Pacific. In late February of 1942 the destroyer, commanded by Lt Joshua James Nix, left Tjilatjap on Java with sister-ship USS Whipple to pick up survivors from the seaplane tender USS Langley, which had been badly damaged in a Japanese air attack while carrying fighters and aircrew.
Edsall took on all the survivors and three days later transferred most of them to the tanker USS Pecos near Christmas Island before starting back north towards Java.
Soon afterwards Japanese aircraft spotted and sank Pecos. Japanese fleet accounts suggest that Edsall might have tried to respond to distress calls from the tanker but on 1 March the destroyer encountered four larger Japanese warships: the battleships Hiei and Kirishima and heavy cruisers Tone and Chikuma.
These vessels are said to have fired 1,300 shells at Edsall without landing a hit. A Japanese observer likened her performance to that of a “Japanese dancing mouse” on account of her unpredictable speed and course changes.
It took a strike force of dive-bombers to finally disable and sink the destroyer. A small number of survivors were picked up by Chikuma but they would later be executed.
Extreme depth
In the summer of 2023 the Royal Australian Navy submarine rescue ship Stoker detected the wreck-site on its sonar and follow-up ROV dives were carried out to an extreme depth of around 5.5km. The RAN informed NHHC, which was eventually able to confirm the identity of the wreck as that of USS Edsall.
The destroyer had originally been reported sunk some 320km east of Christmas Island, an Australian territory south of Java.
“Finding the Edsall further cements the strong alliance that has existed between the United States and Australia since WW2 – further reinforced by the current Australia, United Kingdom, United States (AUKUS) trilateral security partnership,” commented US Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro.
“A key component of AUKUS is the development of the most cutting-edge underwater technologies of the type that enabled the discovery of Edsall in the vastness of the Indian Ocean – something not possible just a few years ago.”
“Edsall was awarded two battle stars for her wartime service,” NHHC director Samuel Cole has written. “However, because there were no living US witnesses to Edsall’s last fight, there are no Medals of Honour, Navy Crosses or Presidential Unit Citations for what was one of the most gallant and valorous actions in the history of the US Navy.
“Nevertheless, we have a duty to remember their courage in the face of overwhelming odds.”
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