USS Edsall (DD-219)

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USS Edsall (DD-219)
Edsall in the 1920s
Edsall in the 1920s
Ship data
flag United StatesUnited States (national flag) United States
Ship type destroyer
class Clemson class
Shipyard William Cramp & Sons , Philadelphia
Build number 485
Keel laying September 15, 1919
Launch July 29, 1920
Commissioning November 26, 1920
Whereabouts Sunk March 1, 1942
Ship dimensions and crew
length
95.83 m ( Lüa )
94.5 m ( Lpp )
width 9.65 m
Draft Max. 2.84 m
displacement 1190  ts standard
 
crew 101–153 men
Machine system
machine 4 White-Forster boilers
2 Parsons - geared turbines
Machine
performance 		26,500 hp (19,491 kW)
Top
speed 		35 kn (65 km / h)
propeller 2
Armament

The USS Edsall (ID DD-219) was a destroyer in the United States Navy . She belonged to the 156-unit Clemson class and was named after Norman Eckley Edsall (1873-1899). When it was launched at the William Cramp and Sons shipyard , it was christened by Bessie Edsall Bracey, the sister of the namesake.

For the merits during the Second World War, the were Edsall two battle stars awarded.
Eight months after the sinking, Mrs. Edsall Bracey named another ship with the same name. The destroyer escort USS `` Edsall '' (DE-129) became the lead ship of the Edsall- class with 85 units.

History of the US Navy's first USS Edsall (DD-219)

In the autumn of 1917 the over 150 Clemson-class destroyers finally ordered from various shipyards. The order for the 25 destroyers with the numbers 206 to 230 went to the shipyard of William Cramp & Sons in Philadelphia . The 14th ship on the contract began on September 15, 1919 and launched on July 29, 1920. The destroyer was named Edsall after the sailor Norman Eckley Edsall (1873-1899), who was killed on April 1, 1899 near Apia while trying to get his wounded commander back on board . The ship was christened by the sister of the fallen, Mrs. Bessie Edsall Bracey. The new destroyer was put into service on November 26, 1920. As early as December 6, 1920, the test drive of the new ship to San Diego began , where the destroyer remained on January 11, 1921 and then on the US west coast until December, and its training with others Units of the fleet completed. Then the destroyer ran back to the Atlantic coast and arrived on December 28 in Charleston (South Carolina) .
The Edsall was then to be deployed in the Mediterranean and left the United States on May 26, 1922. The destroyer arrived in Constantinople on June 28 and joined the US units deployed there to protect Americans and American interests. The civil war in Russia and the Greco-Turkish war created an extremely unsafe situation. It was to fight hunger, refugees were evacuated and there were many tasks for the American units.
When the Great Fire broke out in Smyrna , the Edsall was one of the American destroyers in port. On September 14, 1922, the destroyer took over 607 refugees from the Litchfield (DD-336) in Smyrna and brought them to Salonika . The destroyer immediately returned to Smyrna (Izmir) and served there for a time as the flagship of the US Navy. In October, the Edsall again transported refugees from the city to Mytilene on Lesvosis . After the situation had calmed down, the destroyer made visits to a large number of ports in Turkey , Bulgaria , Russia , Greece , Egypt , Palestine , Syria , Tunisia , Dalmatia and Italy . In addition, exercises with the sister ships took place in order to maintain the ships' fighting abilities. On July 26, 1924, the destroyer returned to Boston for a routine overhaul.

On January 3, 1925, the Edsall left for the Asiatic station . On the march, the destroyer took part in exercises and maneuvers of the US fleet in Guantanamo Bay , San Diego and Pearl Harbor and then reached Shanghai on June 22, 1925 . From then until the beginning of the war with Japan in December 1941, the destroyer stayed with the American Asian fleet and was in service between the Chinese coast, the American Philippines and Japan. Their main task was to safeguard American interests in this area. The ship observed the Chinese Civil War, the development of relations between China and Japan and the developing Sino-Japanese War from 1937. In addition to the usual military exercises, the destroyer also carried out diplomatic tasks. Frequently visited ports were Shanghai, Chefoo , Hankow , Hong Kong , Nanking , Kobe , Bangkok and Manila , the base of the destroyer and the American Asian fleet.

In the fall of 1941, the US Asiatic Fleet had thirteen destroyers, organized in Destroyer Squadron 29 . The lead ship was the destroyer Paul Jones (DD-230) ; in addition came the

All thirteen destroyers belonged to the Clemson class and had been built by Cramp. The squadron also had the destroyer tender Black Hawk (AD-9) .

Second World War

When the Japanese carrier fleet attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 , the Edsall with Destroyer Division 57 was in the port of Balikpapan in south-eastern Borneo . As agreed with the Royal Navy, the destroyer immediately moved to Singapore to reinforce the protection of the British battleships HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse . She reached Singapore too late and could only take part in the search for survivors of castaways from British battleships. She brought up the Japanese fishing cutter Kofuku Maru , with four boats in tow, and escorted it to Singapore before handing it over to the Bathurst class corvette HMAS Goulburn .

She then provided escort along with the heavy cruiser USS Houston and other ships. She sank the Japanese submarine I-124 with the Australian corvettes HMAS Deloraine , Lithgow and Katoomba of the Bathhurst class on January 20, 1942 off Darwin , the first success of an American ship against a naval submarine.

On February 3, she moved to Tjilatjap , Java, from where she and Division Leader Whipple (DD-217) were assigned to transport aircraft to Indonesia on the seaplane carrier USS Langley (AV-3) , originally the first American aircraft carrier . The Langley was shortly afterwards victim of an air raid and Edsall took 177 castaways and Whipple 308 castaways. On February 28, the destroyers were supposed to bunker fuel from the USS Pecos in front of Flying Fish Cove on Christmas Island and hand over the castaways. Because of Japanese air raids, this did not work out completely. Shortly afterwards, the Pecos was sunk by Japanese planes. Whipple was able to save 232 men from the Pecos . How many Edsall took on board or was unable to hand over is unclear.

The sinking of the USS Edsall

On March 1, 1942, the Edsall was captured by a Japanese combat group 430 nautical miles south of the island of Java. The battleship Hiei , her sister ship Kirishima and several heavy cruisers opened fire at a distance of 27,000 meters, but could not hit the fast-maneuvering destroyer decisively. Only after an air raid of 17 supported dive-bombers of the type Aichi D3A had been damaged and slowed the pursuers who shot Edsall together until they finally went down at 17:31.

At least five crew members survived; they were found beheaded in mass graves in Indonesia in 1946. They are believed to have been victims of war crimes committed by the Imperial Japanese Navy .

See also

Web links

Commons : USS Edsall (DD-219)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

literature

  • Donald M. Kehn: A Blue Sea of ​​Blood: Deciphering the Mysterious Fate of the USS Edsall Zenith, 2009.
  • Dwight R.Messimer: Pawns of War: the Loss of the USS Langley and the USS Pecos , Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 1983.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ a b c d USS Edsall I (DD-219)
  2. ↑ Destroyer Squadron 29, November 24, 1941
  3. ^ Peter C. Smith: Fist from the Sky. Japan's Dive-Bomber Ace of World War II. Stackpole, ISBN 0-8117-3330-0 , pp. 186 and following.
  4. ↑ Vincent P. O'Hara: The US Navy against the Axis. surface combat 1941-1945. US Naval Institutes Press, 2007, ISBN 1-59114-650-X , p. 63.