Topic: The loss of the USS Wasp, CV-7

[IndyShark]

I have always been interested in WWII carriers and the loss of the Wasp was very painful for the US Navy. The Lexington and Yorktown were sunk and the Enterprise and Saratoga were damaged. This only left the Wasp and the Hornet. The Wasp was hit by two torpedoes and she has the worst torpedo protection of any USN carrier. The hit wrecked her firefighting equipment and the fires got out of control.

I have an interesting question. If the torpedoes had hit a Yorktown or Lexington class carrier, would they have survived? The Yorktowns were tough ships and the Saratoga got torpedoed several times during the war. I'd think The Hornet would have survived with heavy damage. What do you think?

[Electric Eye]

Lady Lex lies at the bottom, questioned answered?

[Electric Eye]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Lexington_(CV-2)

The Longe Lance torpedo spoke.

I too am a big fan of WW2 Navy stuff (I was a navy brat), but one of my heroes was Admiral Isokuru Yamamoto, who was politely killed during the "regime change."

http://home.earthlink.net/~divideandconquer/Battles/coral_sea/coral_sea.htm

I beg to differ with the author on the Shokaku being absent at Midway as a factor, the mistake at Midway was the Japanese fascination with "Little fleets." Had the force been combined as one, they would have won the day, 3 American CVs or not.

[IndyShark]

The Lex didn't succumb to torpedoes, she went down as a result of fires and explosions. Plus the Saratoga took a lot of torpedo hits and survived. The Wasp was a product of the Washington Naval treaty and much smaller than the Yorktowns. To get the displacement down, she had weak torpedo defenses. Ironically, she would need them the most.

The Shokaku and Zuikaku couldn't help at Midway. The Shokaku was badly damaged at Coral Sea and almost sank. The Zuikaku lost most of her planes. She needed to go back to Japan to replace her losses. No one thought the Japanese would lose all four of their fleet carriers at Midway and they wanted the Zuikaku ready for the next battle.

[Just plain old Punisher]

As with anything, it always depends on where the hits are =)

[Electric Eye]

As with anything, it always depends on where the hits are =)

Agreed Pun, when a ship gets hit in the gasoline and magazine areas, well, it means trouble. As for the Wasp being weak, I beg to differ, she took quite a number of torps from the Japanese and the Americans and still was afloat.

http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/ships/carriers/histories/cv07-wasp/cv07-wasp.html

I think any CV would be lucky to survive 5 torp hits, especially with 2 being critical hits.

[IndyShark]

She didn't take 5 hits, she took two.

[Electric Eye]

3 launched from American destroyer makes 5. 

She got hit by the first two where it counted, maybe luck, maybe not, go ask the Brits about the Hood. 

BTW Ark Royal got sunk with one single torpedo. Talk about luck. She was a monster CV for her time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Ark_Royal_(91)

4.5" belt armor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Wasp_%28CV-7%29

3.5" belt armor

So... I don't get it, Ark Royal went down on one torp, yet Wasp took 5? Sounds like a quality ship to me.

[Electric Eye]

Hmmmm, I stand corrected, 6 torps, not 5!

About 14:20, the carrier turned into the wind to launch eight fighters and 18 SBD-3s and to recover eight F4F-3s and three SBDs that had been airborne since before noon. The ship rapidly completed the recovery of the 11 planes, she then turned easily to starboard, the ship heeling slightly as the course change was made. The air department at flight quarters, as they had done in earlier operations, worked coolly at refueling and respotting the ship's planes for the afternoon mission. Suddenly, at 14:44, a lookout called out, "three torpedoes ... three points forward of the starboard beam!"

A spread of six torpedoes, fired from the tubes of the B1 Type Japanese submarine I-19, churned inexorably closer. Wasp put over her rudder hard-a-starboard, but it was too late. Three torpedoes smashed home in quick succession. In an odd occurrence, one torpedo actually broached, left the water, and struck the ship slightly above the waterline. All hit in the vicinity of gasoline tanks and magazines. The rest of the spread of torpedoes passed ahead.

 
The USS Wasp on fire shortly after being torpedoedIn quick succession, fiery blasts ripped through the forward part of the ship. Aircraft on the flight and hangar decks were thrown about and dropped on the deck with such force that landing gears snapped. Planes triced up in the hangar overheads fell and landed upon those on the hangar deck; fires broke out almost simultaneously in the hangar and below decks. Soon, the heat of the intense gasoline fires detonated the ready ammunition at the forward antiaircraft guns on the starboard side, and fragments showered the forward part of the ship. The number two 1.1 inch mount was blown overboard and the corpse of the gun captain was thrown onto the bridge where it landed next to Capt. Sherman.

Water mains in the forward part of the ship proved useless, since they had been broken by the force of the explosions. There was no water available to fight the conflagration forward; and the fires continued to set off ammunition, bombs, and gasoline. As the ship listed to starboard between 10 and 15 degrees, oil and gasoline, released from the tanks by the torpedo hit, caught fire on the water.

Don't forget Indy, Wasp was readying and launching planes when she got hit, the Japanese at Midway learned that is not the best time to have planes and fuel and unstored ordinance laying around umprotected on a ship. 

I can see Scotty telling the Wasp's C.O. "Main energizers out captain, and damage control is screwed."

[Capt_Bearslayer_XC]

I too am a big fan of WW2 Navy stuff (I was a navy brat), but one of my heroes was Admiral Isokuru Yamamoto, who was politely killed during the "regime change."

Um... 'regime change'?

I thought he went down in a hail of .50 cal rounds from P-38's....

[The Postman]

I too am a big fan of WW2 Navy stuff (I was a navy brat), but one of my heroes was Admiral Isokuru Yamamoto, who was politely killed during the "regime change."

Um... 'regime change'?

I thought he went down in a hail of .50 cal rounds from P-38's....

That was  my thought as well........

[Hexx]

Well... one supposes he didn't say who engineered the regime change..

[IndyShark]

EE, that's a good point on the Wasp launching planes. The timing could not have been worse. I am sure that contributed to her loss, but I am not sure if it mattered.  Those torpedoes badly damaged the North Carolina which had "good" underwater protection.

The American torpedoes expedited the process. Look at the Hornet. She took an incredible amount of damage from both sides and still took her time going down.

The Ark Royal had a major design defect that lead to her loss. When she started to list, she lost power due to a ventilatin duct allowing water into her engineering spaces. She "should" not hve sunk with one torpedoe, but that's theory and reality. Look at the IJN Kongo. Who would have thought one torp would sink her? (I have seen references to multiple hits, so it's hard to say for sure.)

[Panzergranate]

One thing about the Pacific war that interests me is that if the biggest carrier ever bult at the time, the Japanese super carrier Shiano hadn't been accidentally encountered and sunk months before commisioning by the US submarine USS Archerfish, how would have the Naval campaign have changed??

The Shiano could land and launch twin engined medium bombers and the Japanese were experimenting with this whilst the Shiano was bien moved away from Tokyo to safer waters for pre-commisioning shake down. This is when the Archerfish accidentally came across it. Despite 6 torpedo hits the Shinao still took a day to sink and was still able to launch aircraft to search for its attacker.

The Shiano was the size of a modern US carrier. Up until then the Allies had no idea it even existed.

 

[Brush Wolf]

One thing about the Pacific war that interests me is that if the biggest carrier ever bult at the time, the Japanese super carrier Shiano hadn't been accidentally encountered and sunk months before commisioning by the US submarine USS Archerfish, how would have the Naval campaign have changed??

The Shiano could land and launch twin engined medium bombers and the Japanese were experimenting with this whilst the Shiano was bien moved away from Tokyo to safer waters for pre-commisioning shake down. This is when the Archerfish accidentally came across it. Despite 6 torpedo hits the Shinao still took a day to sink and was still able to launch aircraft to search for its attacker.

The Shiano was the size of a modern US carrier. Up until then the Allies had no idea it even existed.

 

I don't think the Shinano would have had much real effect on the war. By the time of her launching the Japanese had lost almost all of the highly trained pre-war pilots, the most precious resource that they had, and the replacements were generally easy meat to the American pilots.

[IndyShark]

I agree. She would have been unstoppable in 1942, but in 1945 she was a very nice target. She probably would have gone to Bikini Atoll for a "test".

[Hexx]

The fact is The Shinano or any otehr ship wouldn't have had any real effect.

America was going to steamroll Japan pretty much no matter what.

In order for Japan to force the US to the bargaining table, let alone win there would have had to be a huge number of changes in Japanese policy and administration /industril production right from the start of the war.

[Electric Eye]

Agreed Hexx, by the time the Shinano would have been combat ready the U.S. already had her outmatched with the construction of the Essex carrier class and many were fully operational.

That is why I admire Yamamoto (Besides being of a genuine Samurai family), he warned against the Manchurian invasion, and against the Chinese campaign, and against war with the U.S., he also knew that the CV would decide the battles of yet to come. He was also against the Yamato and Musashi being built, because they were a real waste of needed resources (Like having more CVs?).


This also leads to the battle of Coral Sea, many historians say that was pivotal as the Shokaku and Zuikaku would be sorely missed for Midway, maybe, but IMHO when you are launching full strikes and then change ordinance cause you spotted American CVs, the result would have been the same for them, IMHO. Ordinary bomb hits turned the 4 CVs into blazing infernos. Normally they would have shrugged it off and been fully operational.

[Just plain old Punisher]

The Shiano was the size of a modern US carrier. Up until then the Allies had no idea it even existed.

And she was sunk with a single torpedo if I'm not mistaken.

[IndyShark]

The Shiano was the size of a modern US carrier. Up until then the Allies had no idea it even existed.

And she was sunk with a single torpedo if I'm not mistaken.

No she was hit by at least four and perhaps five torpedos.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_Shinano