Wreck of USS Lansdale (DD-426)

 Second World War 1939-1945, shipwreck

USS Lansdale was laid down in December 1938 as the fourth member of the Benson Class of Destroyers and commissioned into US Navy service in September 1940 as a member of the US Atlantic Fleet. Spending her first few months engaged in training and exercises, the Benson began operations in the North Atlantic as part of the US Neutrality Patrol as war in Europe spiraled out of control. Escorting merchant convoys between the US, Canada and Iceland, the Lansdale was at sea when the US officially entered the Second World War and after seeing her charges safely to Hvalfjörður she returned to the US to prepare for wartime operations.

Like many of her sisterships in the Benson Class, the Lansdale was pressed into intensive anti-submarine and convoy escort work in the Atlantic, making several cross-ocean voyages and operating extensively in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea screening vital merchant cargo and fuel transports as they supplied the Allied war effort. Continuing this work through 1942, 1943 and into 1944 the Lansdale's escort missions carried her into the Mediterranean Sea escorting several convoys on the UG route (US to Gibraltar), a route which brought of the men, material and ships supporting operations in North Africa and Italy into the theatre. Accordingly, ships of the UG convoys were heavily targeted by German forces, and in early 1944 the Luftwaffe and U-boat wolfpacks had stepped up their operations against the merchant lifeline.

Escorting a Westbound convoy from Oran on April 12th, 1944 the Lansdale joined with Eastbound convoy UGS 38 on April 18th to bolster the convoy's anti-aircraft defenses following a major Luftwaffe attack on the preceding convoy only days prior. Taking up the lead station and acting as a radar-jamming ship to interfere with any German guided bombs, the Lansdale and her convoy steamed East for Bizerte. Two nervous days later wary crews on the Lansdale prepared for another long night on April 20th as the sun set behind the ship when the Destroyer Escort USS Joseph E. Campbell (DE-70) made a panicked report that their ship, steaming as a picket to the Port side of the convoy reported several waves of low-flying German bombers inbound at 2100hrs. Crews aboard the Lansdale raced to General Quarters as the first of three waves of Junkers and Heinkel bombers began attacking the convoy.

Torpedo bombers had soon disabled two merchant ships and sunk two more, one of which was the Liberty ship SS Paul Hamilton which took a torpedo in her fore cargo holds and was totally obliterated when the munitions she carried detonated. Aboard Lansdale, her gunners took several inbound aircraft under heavy fire but with their ship silhouetted by the flaming wreckage of the Paul Hamilton, she made an easy target for the Luftwaffe pilots. A group of five Junkers Ju-88s closed in to attack but were repulsed after two were shot down by 40mm fire, however one managed to release its torpedo which hit the Lansdale on her Starboard side in her forward fireroom at 2106hrs. The torpedoes detonation blew out both sides of the Lansdale's hull and flooded her foreword fireroom and engine room, reduced her speed to 13 knots and jammed her rudders to Starboard and within minutes the Lansdale took a heavy list to Port. Still under attack, the Lansdale was forced to steam in circles while her gunners fought to drive off the marauding aircraft, claiming another Ju-88 before the planes departed the area.

Damage control teams on the Lansdale managed to free her rudders at 2120hrs which returned the battered ship to a straight heading, but her hull was still taking on significant amounts of water and her list was soon passing 45 degrees. Fearing the ship could break in two or roll at any moment, the Lansdale's Captain ordered her abandoned at 2125hrs. Her surviving crew went over the side as the ship continued to roll to Port, and by 2130hrs the ship was 80 degrees over and beginning to wrench herself apart, finally breaking in half and sinking at this location at 2135hrs on April 20th, 1944. Fellow convoy escorts rescued 234 of her crew from the water, but the Lansdale carried 47 men with her to the bottom.

For her actions on the date of her loss, USS Lansdale received her fourth and final Battle Star for World War Two service.


www.navsource.org/archives/05/426.htm