For the hundreds of shipwrecked crewmen on board the seven destroyers, the immediate situation ranged from uncomfortable to nearly catastrophic. Nobody knew where they were, the best estimate being San Miguel island, on the other side of the Santa Barbara Channel entrance, and everyone was stunned by the suddenness of the calamity. Off-duty Sailors came topsides ill-dressed for what awaited them: chilly air, damp fog and drenching waves breaking over the ships. Oil, released from punctured fuel tanks, added to the misery, and to the danger. Most ships' boiler and machinery spaces were flooded, extinguishing all electrical power. Darkness thus dominated nearly the entire area. Fortunately, disciplined crews were able to release steam before they abandoned their posts, preventing boiler explosions from compounding the tragedy.
On board Young, many men were swept away as the ship rolled over. Some were rescued or landed alive further down the coast, but twenty died in the water. With only inches of freeboard, waves easily swept over the wreck, threatening the rest of her crew as they clung to the now-horizontal port side, holding on to portholes broken open for the purpose or lashed to deck edge fittings. A particular terror was the sight of the oncoming Chauncey, seemingly bound for a collision. However, she went aground nearby, put her crew ashore with relative ease and soon became a route to safety for Young's survivors. In a heroic swim, Chief Boatswain's Mate Arthur Peterson carried a line from Young to Chauncey's stern. One of the latter's life rafts was then pulled back to the capsized destroyer, and some two-and-a-half hours after she was wrecked, all the men on Young had been brought over.
Woodbury, the only ship that retained power for more than a brief time, was firmly stuck near a little offshore islet. As a precaution, few men and a line were sent there while the ship tried to back free. Following over an hour of fruitless effort, her Captain decided to abandon ship, and the remainder of his crew hauled themselves along the line to the uncomfortable security of the islet, which was soon rechristened "Woodbury Rock".
Settling fast on that rock's outskirts, Fuller tried to send a whaleboat, and later a rubber raft, to rig a line between her bow and Woodbury, but this proved impossibile. Swimmers finally established a connection to the as yet unchristened Woodbury Rock, to be followed by the rest of those on board Fuller. There they joined the Woodbury Sailors in trying to keep warm. All were rescued the next morning, most by the Santa Barbara fishing boat Bueno Amor de Roma.
This page features all the surface views we have of wrecked destroyers on the southern side of Honda Point, California, soon after they went aground on 8 September 1923.
For more images related to the September 1923 Honda Point
Disaster, see:
If you want higher resolution reproductions than the Online Library's digital images, see: How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions. |
Click on the small photograph to prompt a larger view of the same image.
For more images related to the September 1923 Honda Point
Disaster, see:
If you want higher resolution reproductions than the Online Library's digital images, see: How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions. |
Page made 14 July 2002
Text added 27 July 2002