Seventy Years Ago: Wasp Sunk; North Carolina Torpedoed

The afternoon of September 15, 1942,  Wasp (CV-7), Hornet (CV-8), North Carolina (BB-55) and 10 other warships were escorting a convoy carrying the 7th Marine Regiment from Espiritu Santo to Guadalcanal as reinforcements. As duty carrier, Wasp had been launching and recovering aircraft to support the operation.  At about 2:45 in the afternoon, while she was rearming and refueling aircraft with gasoline and munitions exposed, a destroyer spotted three torpedoes headed right for the carrier. Japanese submarine I-19 had fired a spread of six 21-inch type 93 torpedoes at Wasp. At least two hit their target. Of the torpedoes that missed Wasp, one hit North Carolina and one hit the destroyer O'Brien. 

The Japanese submarine torpedo had a range of 5 miles at a speed of 50 knots or 6 1/2  miles at 46 knots. It was the best World War II torpedo of any navy.

Two torpedoes struck Wasp's starboard side almost simultaneously, one near the gasoline storage tanks and the other near the forward bomb magazine. About twenty seconds later, another explosion occurred. Gasoline fires broke out near the athwartships gasoline main on the second deck and low in the ship near ruptured gasoline tanks. Another major fire started forward in the hangar. Gasoline poured freely from ruptured tanks onto the surface of the water. When that gasoline ignited, the forward part of the ship was engulfed in flames. One 5"/38 ready ammunition locker ignited followed by internal explosions. 

 The Captain maneuvered the ship to keep the wind on her starboard quarter to blow the fire away from the undamaged portion of the ship. The Captain attempted to back the ship into the wind for to escape the gasoline fire on the water's surface, but this proved unsuccessful, as gasoline kept pouring from the tanks. 

After a series of heavy explosions of gasoline vapor, loss of fire main pressure and failure of every attempt to bring the fire under control, the Captain ordered "abandon ship" at 3:20 p.m. Abandon ship was completed by 4:00 p.m., by which time Wasp was completely enveloped in flame. 

193 sailors died and 366 were wounded in the attack. 45 planes went down with the ship.

Wasp stubbornly continued to float and was sunk by her escorts that night.
North Carolina returned to Pearl Harbor for repair of a 20 foot hole and was out of action for the rest of the year. O'Brien was temporarily repaired, but her damaged seams opened up a month later and she sank while returning to San Francisco for permanent repair.

With Enterprise (CV-6) damaged by bombs at Eastern Solomons, Saratoga damaged by a torpedo, and Wasp sunk, Hornet was the only carrier left in the South Pacific for six weeks.  Hornet, too, was to be lost in the Battle of Santa Cruz Island on 26 Oct 1942 from air attack. Enterprise was damaged, again, and there were no active fleet carriers in the Pacific until Enterprise returned 12 Nov for the Naval Battles of Guadalcanal with repair parties still aboard and one elevator out of service.

Meanwhile, back on Guadalcanal, Japanese Major General Kawaguchi launched an attack with 3,000 soldiers of his brigade against Marine Lieutenant  Colonel Edson's Ranger force of 850 marines. Kawaguchi lost 850 killed and the marines lost 104.

On September 15, Imperial General Headquarters in Japan  learned of Kawaguchi's defeat and convened an emergency session. The top Japanese army and navy command staffs concluded that, "Guadalcanal might develop into the decisive battle of the war." The results to date began to have a strategic impact on Japanese operations in other areas of the Pacific. Army commanders realized that in order to send sufficient troops and materiel to defeat the Allied forces on Guadalcanal, they could not at the same time support the major ongoing Japanese offensive on the Kokoda Track in New Guinea. General Hyakutake, with the concurrence of General Headquarters, ordered his troops on New Guinea, who were within 30 miles of their objective of Port Moresby, to withdraw until the "Guadalcanal matter" was resolved. He prepared to send more troops to Guadalcanal for another attempt to recapture Henderson Field.