Wreck of USS Blue (DD-387)

 Second World War 1939-1945, military, shipwreck, destroyer (ship), United States Navy

USS Blue was the second member of the Bagley Class of Destroyers built for the US Navy, laid down in September 1935 and commissioning into service with the US Pacific Fleet in August 1937. Moored at Pearl Harbor during the Japanese attack on December 7th, 1941, the Blue managed to escape the harbor with only four crew aboard ship operating her and subsequently began her war escorting US Carrier forces and supply convoys as the United States and her allies moved onto the offensive in the South Pacific.

Joining the combined US/Australian Cruiser Task Group 62.2 at Wellington, New Zealand in July 1942, the Blue arrived off Guadalcanal with her Task Force on August 7, 1942 and took up duty acting as a screen ship for the five Cruisers as they supported Allied ground forces fighting ashore. Two days after her arrival in the body of water soon to be known as 'Ironbottom Sound', elements of Blue’s Task Force clashed with a powerful Japanese Cruiser and Destroyer force on the night of August 9th, resulting in the worst blue-water defeats to the US Navy in its entire history in the Battle of Savo Island. Taking no direct part in the battle due to her remote patrol looping, the Blue arrived shortly after sunrise on the 10th to assist in picking survivors out of the water from the three sunken American Heavy Cruisers and also pulled survivors off the mortally damaged Australian Heavy Cruiser Canberra. Retiring from Ironbottom Sound following the battle, Blue joined US forces as they withdrew to regroup, temporarily ceding control of the waters around Guadalcanal to the Japanese Navy.

Returning to Ironbottom Sound on August 21st as part of a thin line of American Destroyers tasked with securing and defending the waters off Guadalcanal, Blue resumed her patrols and was steaming along the Southern coast of Tulagi in the early morning hours of August 22nd when she was sighted by the patrolling Japanese Destroyer HIJMS Kawakaze. Far superior in night combat tactics, the crew aboard the Kawakaze were able to clandestinely shadow the lone American Destroyer until they reached a favorable firing position and promptly launched a spread of 'Long Lance' torpedoes directly into the path of the Blue before hastily withdrawing from the area.

Lookouts and crew aboard the Blue were unaware that they were being attacked or in any undue danger until the first and only torpedo fired by HIJMS Kawakaze to hit the ship did so at 0359hrs and detonated in her aft engine room. The massive explosion which resulted knocked out Blue’s main and auxiliary engines and had enough concussive force to warp her prop shafts and flood her steering gear room, rendering the Blue totally powerless and unable to steer. Racing to their damage control stations, Blue’s crew began anti-flooding efforts to check the massive amounts of water pouring into the ship from the huge hole in her Starboard hull as her radioman used the ships dwindling power supply to put out a distress call to any friendly vessels in the area. Fighting through the night and into the following morning to save their ship, damage control teams and crew aboard Blue eventually corrected the ships list but could only maintain neutral headway against the inrushing sea as dawn broke on the 22nd, when several other vessels arrived to assist in the salvage effort and place the stricken Destroyer under tow to Tulagi harbor. Bad weather, threat of air and Submarine attacks and the massive amount of water carried in the Blue’s hull made her tow extremely difficult, and over the next day she parted towline after towline and gradually settled deeper into the water as slow flooding below her decks overwhelmed the pumps her crew were operating by hand. The flooding eventually broke through a damaged engine room bulkhead on the evening of August 23rd, exposing the Blue to catastrophic flooding of her largest internal spaces, prompting her Captain to order the ship abandoned as the ship quickly began to swamp by the Stern. After the last of her surviving crew had disembarked onto waiting ships, scuttling charges went off on Blue’s sea chests, sinking her in this general area at 2221hrs August 23rd, 1942. Musters would later reveal that Blue lost nine of her crew in the attack that sank her.

USS Blue earned five Battle Stars for her service in World War Two.

www.navsource.org/archives/05/387.htm
www.destroyerhistory.org/goldplater/ussblue.html