Wreck of USS Wasp (CV-7)

 Second World War 1939-1945, military, shipwreck, aircraft carrier, United States Navy

USS Wasp was a United States Navy Aircraft Carrier commissioned in April 1940 as the sole member of her class, built smaller and lighter than most of her contemporary Carriers to fill out the tonnage allotment dictated by the Washington Naval Treaty.

Serving with the US Atlantic Fleet for the first two years of her life, the Wasp conducted Neutrality Patrols in the prewar years and following the American involvement in World War Two the Wasp, one of two US Carriers in the Atlantic, was called upon to augment the British Royal Navy's effort to save the island of Malta in the Mediterranean Sea. Working as part of a combined US & British task force, the Wasp made two separate deployments into the dangerous waters of the Mediterranean Sea with her decks loaded with vitally needed Spitfire Fighters. After successfully launching these fighters once in range of Malta, Wasp returned stateside for immediate deployment to the Pacific Theatre where the US had just lost USS Lexington (CV-2)in the Battle of the Coral Sea and the USS Yorktown (CV-5) at the Battle of Midway.

Arriving in theatre in July 1942, the Wasp proceeded directly to the Solomon Islands where the US was making its first offensive against the Japanese at Guadalcanal. Spending the next month engaged in CAP missions over the landings at Guadalcanal and other islands, the Wasp retired for reprovisioning in late August. During her time off the front line the Battle of the Eastern Solomons raged, resulting in the USS Enterprise (CV-6) knocked out of action by a Japanese bomb and a week later the USS Saratoga (CV-3) being torpedoed, leaving Wasp and Hornet (CV-8) the sole Carriers in the Southern Pacific.

Returning to the front lines on Tuesday September 15th, 1942 the Wasp, USS Hornet (CV-8) and the Battleship USS North Carolina (BB-55) along with 10 other warships were escorting amphibious transports carrying the 7th Marine Regiment to Guadalcanal as reinforcements. Wasp had drawn the job of ready-duty carrier and was operating some 150 miles Southeast of San Cristobal Island, her planes being refueled and rearmed for antisubmarine patrol missions.

At 1420hrs the Carrier turned into the wind to launch eight fighters and eighteen SBD-3s and to recover eight F4F-3s and three SBDs that had been airborne since the morning. The ship rapidly completed the recovery of the eleven planes and then turned easily to starboard to rejoin her formation, the ship heeling slightly as the course change was made. As the aircraft slated for the afternoon mission were spotted and being refueled, lookouts sighted three inbound torpedoes closing on the Carrier's Starboard Bow at 1444hrs.

As the spread of six torpedoes fired from the tubes of the B1 Type Japanese submarine I-19 churned inexorably closer, Wasp turned hard to Starboard to comb torpedoes but the evasive action was too little, too late. Three of the six torpedoes smashed home in quick succession in the vicinity of Wasp's forward aviation gasoline tanks and magazines, with one torpedo actually broaching the surface and impacting the ship above the waterline. Several large detonations immediately blasted through the ship, one with enough force that aircraft on the flight and hangar decks were thrown about and dropped on the deck with such force that their landing gear struts snapped. Several planes suspended from the ceiling in the hangar fell and landed upon those on the deck, sparking large gasoline fires in the hangar. As crews raced to contain the spread of the fire, the intense heat began detonating the ready ammunition beneath the forward antiaircraft guns on the starboard side. One large explosion showered the forward part of the ship with shrapnel and blew the #2 mount overboard, with the body of one of its crew thrown over 30ft in the air landing on the Nav Bridge next to Capt. Sherman.

The force of the explosions forward had severed the ships fire mains, frustrating any efforts by the crew to contain the massive fires consuming the entire forward section of the ship. Sherman maneuvered the Wasp so the winds blew astern in an effort to keep the flames forward, but the intensity of the gasoline fires soon severed the communication lines and the heat and smoke forced the island to be abandoned. With no water readily available to fight the fires and ammunition cooking off below decks, Capt. Sherman consulted with the ships XO and Rear Admiral Noyes about the possibility of abandoning the Wasp. While they conferred another three major gas vapor detonations ripped through the ship, one of which blew out a hole in her fuel oil bunkers, leaking burning oil onto the sea surface around the ship. Wasp began to list with greater speed and as she passed 15 degrees to Starboard Sherman ordered the ship abandoned at 1520hrs.

Despite the obvious dangers of the fire on the water, the unlocated Japanese submarine and the detonating ammunition aboard the Carrier, the Destroyers USS Laffey (DD-459), USS Lansdowne (DD-486) and Cruisers USS Helena (CL-50) and USS Salt Lake City (CA-25) soon had 1,946 members of Wasp's crew safely onboard and began to withdraw. USS Lansdowne (DD-486) withdrew to 1,000 yards and sent 5 torpedoes into the Wasp's hull, which slowly sank by the bow wreathed in a pool of burning fuel oils at this location 2100hrs on September 15th, 1942.

USS Wasp earned her second and final Battle Star for World War Two service for her final actions, and lost 193 members of her crew in the attack that sank her.

www.navsource.org/archives/02/07.htm