Halsey's Typhoon

[BOSSHOG]

Its great to see the occasional military book listed in this forum. Halsey's Typhoon is a new book this year and recounts the battle Admiral Halsey had with the weather in the Pacific towards the end of WWII. Quite intense and its all real. The book features the heroism of a young LT Gerald R. Ford.

[LibertyLover]

1. Shortly before he died, I found out that one of my mom's brothers

had been on an LST with the 3rd fleet during the typhoons. Back in 1968 a book came out entitled Halsey's Typhoons by Hans Adamson. It was reviewed in the NY Times Book Review one Sunday close to Christmas and I read the review. I was a freshman in HS at the time and even then a history nut with (for a girl) a really weird interest in WW2. I begged my mom to get me the book and sure enough, it was under the tree that Christmas. I really enjoyed it. Then we went to a family reunion and I got talking to my uncle. I mentioned reading the book and he got this really weird look in his eyes and told me about being below decks on the LST and how terrified he had been. When I saw the new book on the typhoons, I picked it up, but haven't had a chance to read it yet. I'm glad to know that it's a good read. Thanks.

[BOSSHOG]

2. That must have been a really trying experience

Its incredible what we put ourselves through with war and other such nonsense. We must be about the same age. I graduated HS in 72. I keep a running list of the books I want and my wife knows they'll always work just fine for Christmas and birthday presents.

[LibertyLover]

10. Yep, '71 for me

My uncle said that they could hear the men who had gone overboard. He said that they just hunkered down and played acey-deucy.

[Captain Hilts]

5. On LSTs you could see the frame of the ship twist in moderate seas. Scary. nt

[Parche]

3. Hey Boss

They blamed VADM John McCain for the 2nd one in Summer of 1945, he was at the surrender
signing on the USS Missouri 2Sep 1945, went home to San Diego, and died of a heart attack
a few days later......He was peaved at the Navy, Halsey tried to rationalize with him, but
McCain was TOO agitated.....

The first typhoon that Halsey was in, December 1944, he was trying to get the 3rd Fleet to
the Phillipines to launch airstrikes to support MacArthur.
In all of my studies of the 2 typhoons, I know Halsey was the commander, and in Navy terms is
responsible for his ships, but they weather 'people' that he had did give him wrong information
both times.
Admiral King wanted to remove Halsey from command, but Nimitz talked him out of it, after all
Halsey was right about the Palau invasion, that it didnt need to happen.
:hi: :hi:

[BOSSHOG]

4. ADM Nimitz

baled Bull's Ass out of the fire on more then one occasion. Thank God we had men like Halsey carousing around in Japan's China Closet back then. Nimitz and Halsey, what an awesome duo.

[Captain Hilts]

6. By the end of the war Halsey was mustered out. By King? Who?

I think Nimitz had gotten tired of pulling his butt out of the fire.

But the sailors loved him. He was the Patton of the Pacific. Just a bit crazed...

[Parche]

9. Halsey

He wasnt pulled out, just standard rotation
He recieved his 5th star in Decembra 1945.......:hi:

[Captain Hilts]

11. Yeah, but the troops thought...

it stank that Halsey wasn't there for the big return to the States at the end of the war, though it is just as well he didn't ride the emperor's horse in Tokyo as he had promised. The saddle never got used and is in the Naval Academy museum.

[Parche]

7. Hey Boss part 2

He remembered when Halsey took the Task Force in early 1942 to attack the Marshalls and the Gilbert Islands, when no one else wanted to.
Halsey was spectacular during Guadalcanal.
I know he got a lot of flak for leaving San Bernardino Strait 24Oct 1944 in the Battle of Leyte
Gulf, to go after the 'Northern' Force.
I differ in my opinon.
The USS Princeton was just hit by planes that were shuttling back and forth from the Northern
Force to landing in the Phillipines, (They had to scuttle the Princeton)
And there was now a 'Kamikaze' threat, so the real threat was still the Northern Force of Japanese
carriers.
The Center force was attacked not only by 2 submarines (Darter and Dace) which sunk 2 of their
Heavy Cruisers and damaged 2more, the giant super battleship Musashi was just sunk, and the
force was seen to turn away back towards their base at Tawi Tawi, so Halsey thought they were
not a threat anymore, the only thing, he should have had the newly formed Task Force of Battleships(Commanded by VADM Willis Lee)remain at the opening of the strait.
But to do that, Halsey would have had to stay put, as his flagship was the battleship USS New Jersey.
Your history lesson for today!!! :woohoo: :woohoo: :hi: :hi:

[BOSSHOG]

8. You are quite the instructor shipmate

the story is nicely laid out in the book "Nimitz" by E.R. Potter. I've broken out ADM Morrison's "Two Ocean War" if only for the nice old musty smell. I found it in an old bookstore about 20 years ago. A great account of the Navy's involvement in WWII.

[Captain Hilts]

17. Nimitz and Halsey were typical submariners/aviators in temperament, respectively.

They did compliment one another very well.

[Captain Hilts]

12. HOW COULD I FORGET!?! A friend of mine's dad was on the bridge of Pittsburgh...

when it snapped in half! He said it made quite a noise, but casualties were light as they were rigged for heavy seas and compartments held.

My uncle, in the radio room of Iowa remembers getting a message "just sighted suburb of Pittsburgh."

[Parche]

13. Thats a classic

Just like when a sub commander got mad at a US plane that attacked them after they signaled the plane.

From Base Commander to Sub Captain.

"Pilot error, he thought it was a Japanese sub, pilot is very sorry for this unfortunate incident, and says it wont happen again, pilot no longer pilot" :rofl: :rofl: :hi:

[RamboLiberal]

15. They actually called the bow USS McKeesport which is my hometown

which was a big steel making suburb of Pittsburgh.


The cruiser's detached and capsized bow under tow toward Guam in June 1945. It had broken loose in a typhoon on 5 June. While under salvage, Pittsburgh's bow was humorously called "USS McKeesport" and "suburb of Pittsburgh".


http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-p/ca72-l.htm

[Captain Hilts]

16. Damn! I've never seen that photo and can't get it to open! nt

[RamboLiberal]

20. Just google USS Pittsburgh typhoon mckeesport

That will bring up the link.

[RamboLiberal]

14. Other Books that include the storm

This one is new:

Down to the Sea: An Epic Story of Naval Disaster and Heroism in World War II by Bruce Henderson

This epic story opens at the hour the Greatest Generation went to war on December 7, 1941, and follows four U.S. Navy ships and their crews in the Pacific until their day of reckoning three years later with a far different enemy: a deadly typhoon. In December 1944, while supporting General MacArthur's invasion of the Philippines, Admiral William "Bull" Halsey neglected the Law of Storms—the unofficial bible of all seamen since the days of sail—placing the mighty U.S. Third Fleet in harm's way. One of the most powerful fighting fleets ever assembled under any flag, the Third Fleet sailed directly into the largest storm the U.S. Navy had ever encountered—a maelstrom of 90-foot seas and 160-mph winds. More men were lost and ships sunk and damaged than in most combat engagements in the Pacific. The final toll: 3 ships sunk, 28 ships damaged, 146 aircraft destroyed, and 756 men lost at sea.

In all, 92 survivors from the three sunken ships (each carrying a crew of about 300) were rescued, some after spending up to 80 hours in the water. Scores more had made it off their sinking ships only to perish in the monstrous seas; some from injuries and exhaustion, others snatched away by circling sharks before their horrified shipmates. In the far-flung rescue operations Bruce Henderson finds some of the story's truest heroes, exhibiting selflessness, courage, and even defiance. One badly damaged ship, whose Naval Reserve skipper disobeyed an admiral's orders to abandon the search, single-handedly saved 55 lives.

Drawing on extensive interviews with nearly every living survivor and rescuer, many families of lost sailors, transcripts and other records from two naval courts of inquiry, ships' logs and action reports, personal letters, and diaries, Bruce Henderson offers the most thorough and riveting account to date of one of the greatest naval dramas of World War II.

Sea Cobra: Admiral Halsey's Task Force and the Great Pacific Typhoon by Buckner F. Melton, Jr.

From Publishers Weekly
The ripple of interest in the typhoon that struck the U.S. Third Fleet in December 1944, sinking three destroyers and drowning 800 sailors, swells onward in this absorbing naval adventure saga. Historian Melton (Aaron Burr) paints a wider canvas than do Bob Drury and Tom Clavin in Halsey's Typhoon (reviewed Oct. 9). Like them, he regales readers with firsthand recollections of the shrieking winds and titanic waves that battered ships to pieces, the ordeal of survivors besieged by thirst and sharks, and the heroism of sailors who rescued them in mountainous seas. He recounts at length the subsequent navy inquiry into the performance of meteorologists, Adm. William Halsey and Cmdr. James Marks of the sunken destroyer Hull, who are pilloried by Drury and Clavin but largely exonerated here. Melton pads out the story with a blow-by-blow of the preceding Battle of Leyte Gulf, an account of another typhoon Halsey sailed the Third Fleet into in 1945, and a chapter on Japanese kamikazes. Melton's prose can be purplish—"The beast was still growing in the heart of the sea... feeding on the heat of the water as if it were mother's milk"—but when the storm breaks, he settles down to a straightforward, gripping narrative. Photos. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
The author of A Hanging Offense (2003), on the 1842 Somers mutiny, takes to sea again in fine style in this powerful account of the great typhoon off the Philippines in the autumn of 1944, which inflicted major damage on Admiral "Bull" Halsey's U.S. Third Fleet. This book ranges more broadly than Bob Drury and Tom Clavin's Halsey's Typhoon (2006), covering more kinds of ships (the light carriers really took a pounding) and the subsequent court of inquiry in greater detail. It adds an afterword on Typhoon Viper, which struck the Third Fleet off Okinawa in 1945, and at no point does it err on the side of charity to either Halsey or the U.S. Navy's weather forecasting. It does offer unstinted praise for the men of the Third Fleet, few of whom, except the Annapolis graduates, had seen saltwater before Pearl Harbor but who fought their ships through the worst weather disaster ever to strike the U.S. Navy. A solid shelf mate for Halsey's Typhoon and the burgeoning numbers of nautical-calamity tomes. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


I was always fascinated with the namesake of my home city - USS Pittsburgh - a cruiser who lost her bow in WWII to another typhoon.

In the evening of 4 June 1945 Admiral William F. Halsey's Third Fleet, which had taken a replenishment break after pounding the Japanese on Okinawa and Kyushu, encountered a small, violent typhoon southeast of the Ryukyu Islands. By early the next morning Rear Admiral Joseph J. Clark's Task Group 38.1, of which USS Pittsburgh was a member, was enveloped by the storm. Ships were rolling heavily in the high wind and waves and, despite changing course and reducing speed, most received damage. Just before 6AM on 5 June, the floatplane on Pittsburgh's port catapult was blown off. About a half-hour later the cruiser was hit by two very large waves and her bow broke away in front of her forward gun turret. Fortunately, as a precaution all watertight bulkheads had been closed and the crew sent to battle stations, so no lives were lost in the incident. Prompt work by damage control parties prevented any significant flooding and the ship was able to ride out the rest of the storm by keeping her stern into the wind.





Another naval story that always fascinated me since her story was featured in one of my grade school readers was the USS Franklin a WWII Carrier who fought back against a devastating fire caused by a kamikaze attack. Here's another book I'll have to put on my list. This one was published in September.

Inferno: The Epic Life and Death Struggle of the USS Franklin in World War II by Joesph A. Springer

Off Japan, on March 19th, 1945, a Japanese dive-bomber struck the USS Franklin. The aircraft carrier, on fire and listing to starboard, appeared to be mortally wounded. This book tells the heroic tale of the efforts that went into saving the Franklin. In the survivors words, the story of the ships arduous journey from Okinawa to the Brooklyn Navy Yard unfolds. It is a tremendous tale of endurance and seamanship, told in harrowing detail.

[BOSSHOG]

18. Thanks very much for that list Teammate

I seemingly cannot get enough of World War II books, especially the Navy in the Pacific.

[Captain Hilts]

19. Remember the film about the Franklin?

LOVED it!

The Franklin's pulling into NY Harbor under its own power was one of THE great moments in WWII.