The USS Fitzgerald's recent collision with the container ship ACX Crystal and the extraordinary seamanship of her crew to keep their ship afloat recalls another disaster at sea off the coast of Japan that unfolded 72 years ago this month.
In June 1945, Allied Forces were preparing for an invasion of the Japanese mainland to bring World War II to a close. Already the Japanese islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa had been secured by Allied forces. But the forces of nature would prove to be an even more formidable opponent than the Japanese. That month a typhoon struck the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet about 350 miles southeast of Okinawa. No ship had a greater battle against the typhoon than the heavy cruiser USS Pittsburgh (CA72).
My father, shipfitter third class Russell W. Barr, was aboard the ship when the typhoon struck. No doubt he and his shipmates faced the storm with apprehension. Just six months earlier a different typhoon had struck the fleet. In that storm, three destroyers (like the Fitzgerald) capsized and sank. More than 800 sailors were lost.
Through the night of June 4-5, the seas grew heavier and the winds intensified. At 0625 (6:25 a.m.) on June 5, Capt. John E. Gingrich ordered the ship to Condition Zebra — the highest level of preparation for danger. Gingrich kept Pittsburgh's bow pointed into the waves. If a wave caught the ship broadside, she could capsize.
Think of a ship as a long series of rooms connected by steel doors (hatches) in the walls (bulkheads) that spanned the ribs (frames) of the ship. Condition Zebra called for each hatch to be sealed to help make the ship watertight. My father was in one of several three-man crews sent to the lower decks to close hatches beginning at the bow and working toward the stern. At frame 26, my father and another crew member had just stepped through the hatch when the ship began to crack on the bow side of the frame. They yanked the third man through the hatch, sealed it and continued their way toward the stern.
Behind them, 104 feet of ship — 15 percent of the Pittsburgh's length — separated completely from the rest of ship and floated free. Had my father and his shipmates been seconds later, they would have been swept out to sea.
For the next seven hours, the Pittsburgh battled the storm. At the storm's peak, the waves measured 100 feet high and the winds exceeded 100 knots (115 miles per hour). In the most dangerous of conditions, the crew worked to shore up the bulkhead at frame 26 with wooden timbers. If the bulkhead buckled, the sea would flood the ship and she would sink.
At the helm, Capt. Gingrich faced four dangers that also could doom the ship. He had to keep the exposed bow pointed away from the towering waves. At the same time he had to protect the stern from breaking off from the ship, while simultaneously keeping the Pittsburgh from being struck broadside by a wave that could capsize her. Finally, he had to avoid a collision with the ship's bow, which had not sunk because it, too, was watertight.
