USS Porter, the unluckiest ship in the Pacific...

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USS Porter, the unluckiest ship in the Pacific...

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USS Porter, the unluckiest ship in the Pacific... - 2/5/2019 10:41:03 AM

xj900uk

Posts: 1340
Joined: 3/22/2007
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Just been reading up a v ery interesting account about this most unfortunate DD 356...

leaving aside the FDR incident which happened to its replacement & name-sake DD-579 (which can be found in this article here) :

https://taskandpurpose.com/wwii-naval-ship-unlucky-almost-killed-fdr

It was torpedoed and abandoned (later scuttled0 at the Battle of Santa Cruz on 26th October 1942
At the time it was thought it had been torpedoed by an IJN sub whilst it was picking up a downed USN flight crew from a ditched plane...
However, subsequent evidence has come to light that it was probably hit by a fish jettisoned by a passing TBF that was circling waiting to land on either the HOrnet or Enterprise...
If so, this would be the only aerial torpedo dropped by the USN in this battle that actually exploded when it hit something.
The fish was spotted behaving eratically and moving in a strange curving arc by a passing F4F, whose pilot then dived upon it and tried to machine gun it when realising that it was heading in a circular direction towards the stopped DD.
He ended up being shot up by the crew of the Porter for his pains and barely made it back to the carrier...
Richard B Frank has done some excellent work researching this, and concludes that the was almost certainly a fish dropped by the Avenger rather than IJN sub I-21, which at the time was credited with the kill
(Disputed by the IJN, they have always mainted their sub was no where near the action and further south, there is no record of any of their subs attacking/sinking a US DD that day)

< Message edited by xj900uk -- 2/5/2019 10:48:34 AM >