Wreck of USS Vincennes (CA-44)

Solomon Islands / Central / Tulagi /
 Second World War 1939-1945, military, shipwreck, cruiser, United States Navy
Laid down at the Fore River Shipyard in January 1934 USS Vincennes was the final member of the New Orleans Class of Heavy Cruisers and commissioned into US Navy service in February 1937. Operating primarily with the US Atlantic Fleet for the next five years, Vincennes and her crew became heavily involved with American Neutrality patrols throughout the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea following the outbreak of war in Europe. While so engaged escorting a convoy of American Troopships laden with British forces to South Africa, Vincennes and her crew learned they were at war with Japan following the Surprise Attack on Pearl Harbor, and after seeing her convoy safely to Cape Town Vincennes returned to the United States and put into the Brooklyn Navy Yard to be outfitted for combat in the Pacific.

Attached to the brand-new Aircraft Carrier USS Hornet (CV-8) upon completion of her wartime overhaul, Vincennes departed Atlantic waters in March 1942 and steamed to San Francisco, where she joined Task Force 18 and stood by as a full deckload of B-25 Mitchells were loaded onto the deck of Hornet. Departing for Hawaiian waters in early April, Vincennes screened her carrier all the way across the Pacific Ocean to Japanese home waters, where Hornet and USS Enterprise (CV-6) launched the famous “Doolittle Raid” on mainland Japan on April 18th before steaming for Pearl Harbor. Remaining in Hawaiian waters through late May, Vincennes departed with the US Carrier forces to waters North of Midway Atoll and awaited the planned arrival of a Japanese invasion force. In the resulting Battle of Midway, Vincennes screened Hornet until the early afternoon when she was detached to cover the heavily damaged USS Yorktown as her crews fought to save her ship. Clashing for the first time with the Empire of Japan, Vincennes gunners downed three Japanese aircraft and successfully protected the Yorktown for the next two days until an attack by an undetected Submarine claimed the battered Carrier on June 7th. Returning to Pearl Harbor, Vincennes spent over a month being upgraded and repaired at the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard for further action before departing for the Solomon Islands on July 14th.

Arriving off the island of Guadalcanal on August 7th as the Flagship for Task Group 62.3, Vincennes and her crew provided fire support for invading forces as they made the first US amphibious landing of the Second World War, then retired offshore to await the inevitable Japanese response. Lending her AA firepower to repel air strikes on the 7th and 8th and claiming nine Japanese bombers in the two attacks, sundown on the 8th saw Vincennes withdrawing from the landing beaches and beginning a patrol loop guarding the Northern entrance to Ironbottom Sound along with her sisterships USS Quincy (CA-39) and USS Astoria (CA-34) . Alerted by coastwatchers that a large Japanese surface force made up of several Cruisers and Destroyers was steaming towards Guadalcanal from Rabaul, Vincennes’ Captain Frederick Riefkohl ordered extra watches posted and advised his crew to be ready for battle which he assumed would come at first light.

Steaming at the lead of the three-ship formation, the crew of Vincennes unknowingly watched the Japanese surface force inflicting a one-sided beating on the Cruisers HMAS Canberra and the USS Chicago (CA-39) to their South, assuming the flashes and flares of the battle were part of ground action on Guadalcanal. After inflicting fatal damage to the Canberra and knocking USS Chicago out of action in the brief but intense firefight, the Japanese force then split in two groups and steamed directly for the Vincennes and her sisters, who found themselves illuminated by Japanese searchlights at 0150hrs on August 9th. Aboard Vincennes, Captain Riefkohl was awakened in his sea cabin, immediately got to the bridge and ordered Vincennes nine 8-inch guns to open fire on the source of the searchlights.

Unfortunately for Vincennes the Japanese gunners, masters of night combat, had already fixed the range of the American ships and began firing before Vincennes could even train her guns on her attackers. The first Japanese salvo of the night found its mark, crossing Vincennes’ midship where it destroyed her secondary control post and most of her radio communication gear. A second salvo from the opposite direction struck the ship in her vulnerable hanger area, where stowed scout planes were blown to pieces and showered the entire area in an inferno of burning aviation gasoline, providing the enemy with a brightly lit target in the darkness. Still moving at her patrol speed of 19 knots, the slow-moving Vincennes was shot to pieces from multiple directions by shells of both Cruiser and Destroyer caliber and before her engine room crew could raise enough steam to increase her speed, Vincennes was struck amidships by two “Long Lance” torpedoes which blew an enormous hole in her #4 boiler room and doused her fires. Vincennes wallowed to a halt as her engine rooms and boiler rooms began to flood, robbing the ship of all power and leaving her totally defenseless. Kept under highly accurate fire as she went dead in the water, by 0210hrs, a mere 20 minutes into the battle, the Vincennes was out of action. Reduced to a flaming wreck, the Japanese ships shifted their attention from Vincennes to her sisterships and left Vincennes and her crew to their fate.

Struck by no fewer than 85 shells of 8-inch an 5-inch size, the battered Vincennes slowly began to list to Port as her onboard fires continued to rage out of control. With no power to operate her pumps and the ship at imminent risk of sinking, Captain Reifkohl ordered the ship abandoned at 0230hrs as her list began to increase with greater speed. As the last of the living crew entered the water, Reifkohl abandoned ship and later noted "The magnificent Vincennes, which we were all so proud of, and which I had the honor to command since 23 April 1941, rolled over and then sank at about 02:50, 9 August 1942, about 2½ miles east of Savo Island ... Solomons Group, in some 500 fathoms of water." 332 of Vincennes 952 crewmen are officially recorded as killed in action in the loss of the Vincennes.

For her actions on the date of her loss, USS Vincennes was awarded her second and final Battle Star for World War Two service.

www.navsource.org/archives/04/044/04044.htm
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Vincennes_(CA-44)
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   9°7'17"S   159°52'48"E

Comments

  • My father survived the sinking. He was Raymond E. Stenberg and he died in 1985.
  • Thanking him for his service.
  • My cousin, Seaman Leonard E. Moore died and went down with the Vincennes. I only discovered this after finding the date of his loss and finding out what happened on that date. Someone with a crew list confirmed that he was on the Vincennes.
  • My father Louis F. Ard Jr. was a survivor of the Vincennes. He eventually retired from the Air Force. Died in 2015
This article was last modified 14 years ago