USS Wasp aircraft carrier

No, no, not you Annie, the original writer. Just seemed odd, that's all. I wonder if there's any account of the eventual sinking?

 

Found this .... with pictures

Destroyer Photo Index DD-415 USS O'BRIEN

 

Looks like she broke in half.

Great find, Annie, many thanks.

 

This is odd, isn't it? Here's a DANFS quote: "The explosion did little local damage, but set up severe structural stresses through the ship." I'm not even sure what that means. Here's the DANFS page for everyone to look at:
DD-415 DANFS
I'll see if I have any additional materials on this.

 

Here I just found something. I haven't even read it yet, but I'm guessing it'll be the best info available. It's from a document called "Structural Repairs in Forward Areas during World War II," published in 1949. It's in pdf form but it's gone through an OCR program so you can't see the actual document pages, just the text as the OCR program rendered it. I hope I can attach it....

 

Looks like it's working fine. Have a peak and see what you can sea.

 

That's a pretty comprehensive review ... don't you think ?

Looks like they thought the repairs were inadequate .... but she still went 2800 miles after she'd been torpedoed and repaired !!

 

My Dad said that there was a scout sea-plane earlier, which was shot down.

His name was Glen Ellis, from Monticello, GA, USA. A farm boy on a wonderfully big ship. He stayed in service, and we never heard him wonder what he would be doing next year. It was always Navy.

He was one of the guys who went down the 100 foot rope, and "kicked sharks for 9 hours". He and five other guys shared a deck plank, "holding on by two fingers" only. Dad never wanted to talk about it much. He did say that when the shark fin hit his feet, it felt "like a hammer". He said the fuel-water mix was about five feet thick, and that kept the sharks down lower.

:gathering: This may be all there is in life that means anything.
Just the gathering of like minded souls.

...
Glen Ellis, index

 

A hell of a survival, mate. Your father was a brave man indeed.