Clemson Class Destroyers under construction.
On 8 September 1923 the US Navy lost one and a half destroyer divisions – seven ships – in a mass grounding at Honda Point, California. This peacetime disaster had few equals at the time, and still remains one of the worst such disasters in US Navy history.
The ships turned east, supposedly into the Santa Barbara Channel, at 2100 hours. In reality the ships had were headed for the rocky shore due to navigational errors and unusual currents caused by the Tokyo earthquake of the previous week. The ships soon entered a thick fogbank, each vessel following the wake of the ship ahead. 5 minutes after the turn, Delphy ran ashore at 20 knots, quickly followed by other members of the squadron.
The ships were total losses. They were stricken from the Register, stripped of useable equipment and sold to a scrapper for $1,035. No salvage work was done, and the ships remain where they were wrecked.
USS BRECKINRIDGE (DD-148 / AG-112)
The ‘Town’ destroyer HMS Chelsea (ex-USS Crowninshield, DD-134) as she
follows her sisters into Plymouth Sound, 28 September, 1940 to commence
refit for British service; in the distance the French battleship Paris
lies at her moorings.
The destroyers Whipple and Smith Thompson in the Manila dock Dewey April 17, 1936
Three days earlier, first rammed the second.The first one was repaired,the second was not recovered and sunk in Subic Bay on 25 July of the same year
The destroyers Whipple and Smith Thompson in the Manila dock Dewey April 17, 1936
Three days earlier, first rammed the second.The first one was repaired,the second was not recovered and sunk in Subic Bay on 25 July of the same year