AFTER NORTHFIELD

9/21/1876 - Still trying to flee the confines of the North Star State two weeks after their failed raid on the First National Bank of Northfield (a seven minute raid at 2:00 in the afternoon in which 25-year-old outlaw Clell Miller and 23-year-old bandit Bill Chadwell are killed, 39-year-old assistant bank cashier Joseph Lee Heywood is shot in the head, 30-year-old Swedish immigrant Nicolaus Gustafson is mortally wounded, bank teller Alonzo Bunker is wounded in the right shoulder, desperado Cole Younger is wounded in his left hip, outlaw brother Bob Younger has his right elbow shattered, bank robber  Jim Younger is shot in the jaw, the James Boys, Frank and Jesse, are wounded in the right leg and thigh respectively, and Charlie Pitts is hit in the right leg ... blood letting that allows six of the eight raiders to ride out of town with the reward of their lawless labors, a whopping $26.60!), Charlie Pitts and the three Younger Brothers (upset that the elbow wound of Bob Younger is slowing the group, the two James brothers break off from the main band of raiders and make their way south on their own) are discovered hiding in the wilds of Hanska Slough outside the town of Madelia by a posse led by local sheriff James Gilspin.  The inevitable gun battle of course takes place when Gilspin asks for volunteers to enter the thicket and arrest the outlaws and six men from the posse agree to help the sheriff.

Inside The Bank

Miller & Chadwell

Heywood

Six outlaws on five horses (Bob is being carried by Cole), the hellish fourteen day, four-hundred mile ordeal of the outlaw survivors begins with the gang's galloping ride out of Northfield.  Escape planned to take place over the town's bridge over the Cannon River, the gang changes its escape route when they are cut off from the structure by the gunfire of Northfield's citizens (which has killed the gang's guide, Minnesotan Bill Chadwell) and instead head south out of town, crossing the river three miles further downstream at the eight-hundred person town of Dundas.  Word of the robbery soon sent around the state, hundreds of Minnesota citizens grab their guns (two rival posses almost come to blows with each other, one a group out of Minneapolis led by 39-year-old detective Mike Hoy, and the other a collection of St. Paul manhunters commanded by 38-year-old detective John B. Bresette) and begin one of the biggest manhunts in the history of both the state (often hunting down another party seeking the outlaws and becoming outlaws themselves as when a young man is pulled off the ground with a rope around his neck to get answers as to the location of the "bad guys"), and the nation (and there is a payday to be had ... Governor John S. Pillsbury will offer a $1,000 reward for each of the raiders, and the First National Bank puts up $3,000 in reward money for the robbers arrest).

The Eight Before Northfield - True West Magazine

A mount procured for Bob on the other side of Dundas by way of a pointed revolver and a gunbutt crack to the skull of the ride's former owner, the gang rides further west and is in the town of Millersburg by 4:30 in the afternoon.  Ninety minutes later they stop at the town of Shieldsville, where they water their horses and disarm a five-man posse that has stopped at the locale to quench their thirst for beer.  Outside of town, rearmed and fortified by another group of upset Minnesota citizens, the posse will cause Bob to lose his horse again and ride with Cole.  Masquerading as a posse seeking the raiders themselves, the bandit gang takes local farmer Levi Sager hostage so he can guide the group out of the area, and for the use by Bob of Sager's horse (which can't handle being guided by cowboy spurs), then on the road to Waterville, spend the night hiding in the farmhouse of Lord Brown.  Making for extremely miserable conditions for both the outlaws and the authorities, that Thursday night a chill rain starts pouring down on southern Minnesota.

Six Heading South

Discarded Bandit Duster

Retreat From Northfield - True West Magazine

Seemingly constantly on the move, the outlaws escape a shotgun blasting by a farmer named George James, 16-year-old Wilhelm Rosnau is taken hostage to guide the outlaws through a wild section of Minnesota known as the "Big Woods."  Food consists of green corn, wild plums, raw potatoes, and anything else the men can scavenge as they move southwest through Minnesota.  Walking instead of riding now (their horses are totally played out by this point), the outlaws spend three nights out of the rain in an abandoned house they discover near the town of Mankato, on the northern edge of Eagle Lake.  There, they take another man hostage for guiding purposes, Thomas Jefferson Dunning, eventually releasing him after debating taking his life to prevent the man from alerting the authorities ... which Dunning of course does, setting off a new flood of manhunters into the area.(by the end of the day over a thousand men will be scouring the area for the bandits),  At Mankato, the gang decides to enter the town of 6,000 in the late evening and follow the railroad tracks of the St. Paul & Sioux City Railroad out of the region (at one point they are only four blocks away from where Brevet Brigadier General Edmund Mann Pope is trying to coordinate the manhunt from the town's Clifton House hotel).  Spotted, there is a chance to catch the outlaws as they cross a wagon bridge over the Blue Earth River, but two of the structure's watchers run off in terror without firing a shot.  On the other side of the river, the outlaws decimate a watermelon patch and then make a feast for themselves on the slopes of a location called Pigeon Hill with three pilfered hens and a small turkey, but their meal is interrupted when Hoy's posse shows up on the scene.  Warned by all the noise the trackers make, the outlaws escape again by wading streams, stepping from rock to rock for long distances, walking in each other's footsteps, and on only their heels, walking on only their toes, and doubling back on their previous tracks, then doubling back on even that.  But the toll of the failed robbery, the cold wet weather, the constant vigilance for bounty hunters, and the volume of near escapes finally wears away at the bandits and in a major argument about shooting hostages and being slowed up by the Younger injuries, the James Brothers decide to continue on with Charlie Pitts and the Youngers (but only after giving the James boys messages to pass on to family if they succeed in getting back to Missouri, along with a parcel of personal booty in the form of gold watches, rings, and cash, and a location where the outlaws can meet up again). 

Jesse And Frank James

Pope

By  the Thursday evening of September 14, 1876, the search for the outlaws centers on the region of Lake Crystal, a small railroad town fourteen miles to the southwest of Mankato where a picket line of hundreds of men stretches in a twelve-mile semicircle around the area.  Luck still holding, the James boys manage to get new mounts and ride over a bridge that ten men were left to guard, but go to sleep instead, all but 32-year-old Richard Roberts, who signals the next sighting of the outlaws.  But flooding the area with manhunters fails to locate the outlaws again, and by Monday morning, most of the hunters have once more returned to their homes in St. Paul and Minneapolis.even though their prey is close by,  Traveling only by night, hiding in stands of timber during the day, Pitts and the Youngers head for the town of Madelia (a burg of eight hundred people twenty-five miles to the southwest of Mankato) to try and steal a new set of horses.  Alerted by a trio of Madelia men guarding a bridge over the outlet of water between Armstrong and Storm Lakes that outlaws might be in the area, on Thursday morning, 17-year-old Oscar Sorbel abandons his chores (milking the cows on his father's farm) and quietly tracks two strangers into the nearby woods that stop to talk to his father,  Then, after arguing with his father that the men are the Northfield raiders, young Sorbel grabs a horse and rides into Madelia to send up an alarm (on the way in, the tired horse stumbles and sends Oscar face first into a pool of mud).  Convincing the citizens of Madelia after his hour long ride that he has seen the outlaws, a blast of excitement sweeps through the town and within five minutes of Sorbel's arrival, armed volunteers are streaming out of town, heading for the Sorbel Farm.

Sorbel

Last Stand Mural

After leaving the Sorbel Farm, the bandits walk around the north end of Lake Lindens and at about 11:00 in the late morning, they approach a marshy outlet of Lake Hanska and are spotted by Sheriff Filspin's posse.  Lead between the two groups is exchanged for the first time, the bandits disappear into a group of plum thickets on the bank of the Watonwan River.  More bullets are exchanged as they make their way across the 30-yard wide wet and on to the farm of Andrew Anderson.  Thwarted attempting to steal a fresh set of mounts, the outlaws hunker down in the Watonwan's thickets and decide to make a last stand as Cole Younger tells Charlie Pitts, "Sam, if you want to go out and surrender, go on.  This is where Cole Younger dies."  Bravado matched by bravado, Pitts replies, "All right, Captain.  I can die just as game as you can.  Let's get it done!"  The outlaw's last words, he stands up and sets off a gun battle between the outlaws and seven men that have followed the raiders into the thickets ... immortalized by newspapermen in the days to come as "The Magnificent Seven," the lawmen are Sheriff Glispin, 39-year-old Civil War veteren, Captain William W. Murphy, local hotel owner and 43-year-old Civil War veteren, Colonel Thomas L. Vought, G. A. Bradford, B. M. Rice, C. A. Pomeroy, and S. J. Severson (afterwards, each man will receive $246 in reward money).  Targeted by Pitts, Sheriff Glispin fires a split second quicker than the outlaw, and with a bullet in his chest, the bandit pitches forward onto his face, rolls over, and gives a dead eye stare to the sky.  Rounds flying everywhere, Captain Murphy is struck in the chest, but survives when the large briarwood smoking pipe in his vest pocket absorbs the brunt of the hit.  Not so lucky are the three surviving Younger brothers ... already wounded in the face during the Northfield robbery, Jim has a bullet tear into the left side of his jaw and lodge in the roof of his mouth near the back of his throat and is also struck by a slug in his right thigh, Cole has his head and back peppered by buckshot and is knocked unconscious by a bullet that comes to rest behind the outlaw's right eye (the outlaw will somehow survive ... during the Northfield Raid he is wounded eleven times, and at his death, he is found to have fourteen bullets still in his body), and Bob is hit in the right lung emptying his revolver at the posse.  The only outlaw conscious, Bob surrenders to posse ... and is almost shot when he can't raise both arms over his head, and is shot (the bullet grazes his cheek ... and the manhunters are told in no uncertain terms by Sheriff Glispin that he will shoot the next man that fires a shot without his authorization) by an over-anxious manhunter firing at the outlaws from across the river (but maybe justified, when Cole wakes up and finds himself a captive, though he doesn't have the strength to stand up, he challenges Sheriff Gilspin and his men to a fist fight!).

The Seven From L To R - Gilspin, Murphy, Bradford, Rice, Vought, Pomeroy, And Severson,

The Seven Move Forward - True West Magazine

Pitts Begins The End - True West Magazine

Dead Charlie

Cole, Jim, And Bob At Their Capture

 

Placed in the Rice County Jail in the town of Fairbault, a grand jury issues four indictments against each of the brothers, one for the murder of Heywood, one for the killing of Gustafson, one for bank robbery, and one for assault with a deadly weapon for the wounding of Bunker.  Saving the court the cost of a slam-dunk trial, and dealing to save their own necks, Cole, Jim, and Bob plea guilty to all the charges on November 20, 1876, and each man receives a life sentence to be spent behind bars at the state's penitentiary in the town of Stillwater.  The boys behind bars (successfully making it back to Missouri, Frank and Jesse James go into hiding for the next three years, before getting back into business on October 8, 1879 with the robbery of the Chicago and Alton Railroad near Glendale, Missouri), the first Younger to leave prison is Bob ... at Stillwater he contracts tuberculosis and dies in the prison hospital at the age of 35 in 1889.  Coaxed out of the ranching life he was enjoying in California to support his brothers' Minnesota raid, Jim is paroled in 1901, but life on the outside is too much for the former outlaw, and unable to marry his fiance, Alix Mueller, due to the conditions of his parole, the depressed man commits suicide in St. Paul, Minnesota on October 19, 1902 at the age of 54.  Also out in 1901 is Cole Younger.  Paroled like his brother, Jim, oldest brother Cole enjoys quite a successful life after being released from prison ... he writes his memoirs, travels across the country talking about his outlaw days with former pal and fellow outlaw, Frank James, sets up and becomes part owner of The Cole Younger and Frank James Wild West Company in 1903, and in 1912, he repents his many crimes and becomes a Christian.  He passes in his hometown of Lee's Summit, Missouri on March 21, 1916, and is buried in the Lee's Summit Historical Cemetery.

Cole Younger

Business

Historical Markers

DALLAS GOES TO BOOT HILL

9/18/1882 - No wheezy slow conclusion in a bed for the 36-year-old gunfighter from Alabama, boots on, the life of Dallas Stoudenmire comes to a sudden end in an El Paso, Texas saloon, with the lawman unsuccessfully taking on two enemies too many, the brothers Doc and James of the notorious Manning Family.

 

Stoudenmire

            

 Born to Lewis and Elizabeth Stoudenmire in Aberfoil, Alabama, in 1845, Dallas is one of nine children in the family. Shortly after the Civil War begins the six-foot-tall youth enlists in the Confederate Army despite being only 15-years-old.  Discovered, he is sent home twice, but comes back and is eventually allowed to serve as a private in Company F, 45th Alabama Infantry Regiment.  Now a 6' 4" brute, Dallas participates in many battles with the regiment and is wounded numerous times, carrying two souvenirs of the conflict in his body for the rest of his life.  War over, he drifts south and for three years serves as a Texas Ranger (in Company B of the organization) and is soon well known as a man who can shoot equally well with both hands (he carries two pistols in the leather-lined hip pockets of his pants, and carries a snub-nose revolver as a third, just-in-case weapon), likes to dress up in fine clothing and flirt with the ladies, and who when in his cups (and as an alcoholic, he is in his cups a lot!), possesses a swift and savage temper   For a time he lives in Mexico and before he turns to being a full-time lawman, he learns to speak Spanish fairly well and puts food on his table and money in his pockets as a sheep farmer, wheelwright, proprietor, merchandiser, and carpenter (he is said to have made his first gunfight kill in 1876).  In 1878, Stoudenmire finds his calling and becomes the town marshal of Socorro, New Mexico.  Surviving the job (there are shooting scraps in the area for Dallas in 1877 and 1878), Stoudenmire's brother-in-law, Stanley "Doc" Cummings (and El Paso resident), convinces the lawman to take the boomtown job of bringing peace to El Paso and the man's quick-draw adventures begin.  He will be the sixth town marshal the town has had in eight months ... and there are troubles from the very start

Stoudenmire

Told to take possession of the town's jail keys on his first day, Dallas shows off his temper when the town drunk, and the city's deputy marshal, Bill Johnson, can't find the right keys on his key ring and says he'll go home to figure it out and have the jail keys in the morning for the new marshal ... a response that causes Dallas to turn Johnson upside down, shake the keys out of his pocket, and then throw the lawman out of the jail.  Then, only three days into his new job, Stoudenmire becomes involved in a feud between Mexican cowboys (searching for the men that killed two herders seeking rustled cattle) and local ranchers.  Known as the infamous "Four Dead In Five Seconds" gunfight, eating a late lunch at the Globe Restaurant, Stoudenmire responds to shots in the street by stepping outside and blazing away at anything that appears to be a threat to public safety ... a Mexican bystander dies from a shot in the back as he runs from the street, a trouble maker named John Hale (the man who starts the tragedy rolling by firing on Town Constable Gus Krempkau and mortally wounding the lawman) is plugged in the head as he looks around an adobe pillar, and Hale's drunken friend, George Campbell, takes a fatal round to his stomach.

El Paso

Three days later, encouraged by Jim Manning (a friend of both Campbell and Hale), hating the way he was treated during the "keys" incident, Bill Johnson attempts to assassinate cummings and Stoudenmire.  A bad decision, the two friends prove to be much better gunfighters than Johnson, who goes to Boot Hill wearing his boots and with eight slugs in his body, missing his testicles.  Now Stoudenmire is in a blood feud with the Mannings.  Bringing the town's crime rapidly under control, the marshal will kill six more men while making arrests over the course of the next year.  The feud rears its ugly head again and increases in intensity when a drunken argument at the Coliseum Variety Theater between Cummings and Jim Manning escalates into a gunfight in which Cummings is killed (at trial, the killing will be deemed a "justifiable" homicide for both Manning, and bartender David Kling, who also fires a bullet into Cumming's body).  Happy with the drop in crime, but not the number of corpses that seem to be piling up out on the streets of El Paso or with the lawman screaming at people that testified against Cummings (most of the jury are Manning Friends and Stoudenmire is also not amused by the editorials of El Paso Times writer, George Washington Carrico, berating the lawman for his incessant drinking), the town council fires Stoudenmire on  May 27, 1882 (they are also not amused with Stoudenmire using the St. Clement's Church bell for target practice) ... a decision Dallas reacts to by showing up at the council hall drunk, pulling his pistols, and threatening to plug each member of the town's governing panel, which the council responds to by claiming it was all a big mistake and the lawman can keep his job.  Disgusted and sober, two days later Stoudenmire resigns as the town's marshal.  But he doesn't leave El Paso and spends his time running down lawbreakers as a newly appointed Deputy U.S. Marshal for western Texas and the New Mexico Territory (working for U.S. Marshal Harrington Lee "Hal" Gosling), managing his brother-in-law's business, the town's Globe Restaurant, and hurling insults at the Manning Brothers (mostly while not sober), who make sure to never be alone with the pistolero.

El Paso

A wise decision, the feud finally boils over on the evening of September 18, 1882 when friends bring the men together to arrange a truce between the combatants ... at a local saloon.  Things begin amicably, with Jim and Frank leaving once they think the differences of the men have been sorted out, but sure enough, a few more drinks downed, and Doc Manning and Stoudenmire begin arguing about whom has lied to who.  At the words "damn lie" from Stoudenmire, J. W. Jones, a co-owner of the saloon, steps between the two enemies and pushes the men apart just as both pull their revolvers, with Manning firing first over the peacemaker's shoulder.  The slug tears through Stoudenmire's left arm, causing him to drop his pistol, and a second bullet hits Dallas in the chest, knocking him down but doing little harm to the gunman because it hits a bunch of papers in the gunman's shirt pocket.  Charging his opponent, the two men grapple outside as Stoudenmire produces another weapon and puts a slug into Doc Manning's arm.  Fighting and cursing each other as they wrestle along the boardwalk, Stoudenmire is just about the line up Manning for a kill shot when Jim Manning arrives on the scene with a .45 in his hand.  Protecting his brother, from behind, he fires two bullets at Stoudenmire.  One thuds harmlessly into a nearby barber's pole, while the other becomes a man killer ... hitting Stoudenmire in the head behind his left ear, the lawman groans and then collapses in death.  Not good enough though when hatred is involved, Doc Manning disarms the corpse he was just fighting with, and using Stoudenmire's own weapon, wildly pistol-whips the lawman's body until he is pulled off by local lawman, Jim Gillett.  In the aftermath of the affair, both Manning boys are acquitted of murder, and after funeral ceremony for Dallas held at the El Paso Lodge #130 A.F. & A.M, Stoudenmire's wife has his body shipped to Columbus, Texas, where at the expense of the local Masonic Lodge, the lawman is buried in the Alleyton Cemetery of Colorado County, Texas. 

One Of Stoudenmire's Weapons

Stoudenmire At Center

 

HONDA POINT HELL

 9/8/1923 - In a time before all naval ships are equipped with radar, night, fog, wind, currents muddled by an earthquake off of Japan days before (known as both "The Great Kanto" and "The Tokyo-Yokohama" earthquake, the 7.9-magnitude shaking of between four and ten minutes long creates a tsunami 39.5 feet in height, destroys over 570,000 homes, and kills over 105,000 individuals) navigation by dead reckoning, a follow-the-leader mind set, and an extremely treacherous area of central California coastline north of the town of Santa Barbara that had earned the nickname of The Devil's Jaw, all combine to produce what is still the largest peacetime loss of U.S. Navy shipping ... a tragedy that will come to be known as the Honda Point Disaster.

 Headlines

The sea always his destiny (relatives fight in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and on both sides of the Civil War and his great grandfather was a United States senator and the governor of Kentucky)  Edward Howe Watson is born into the Frankfurt, Kentucky family of U.S. Navy Commander and future Rear Admiral, John Crittendon Watson, on February 28, 1874 (at a four acre portion of town called The Corner for its location at a place where the Kentucky River takes a right-angle turn, a wealthy and powerful section of town that thus far has also produced three other naval officers of flag rank, major generals on both sides of the Civil War, a U.S. attorney general, a secretary of the treasury, an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, four governors, and eight United States senators).  Granted entrance to Annapolis based on his father's sterling record of leadership in the U.S. Navy (an 1860 graduate of Annapolis, J.C. Watson has a naval career in which he helps save 500 members of the crew of the foundering government transport, Governor, serves as flag lieutenant to Rear Admiral David Farragut at the Battle of Mobile Bay, is wounded by a Confederate shell fragment at Warrington, Florida, serves as executive officer aboard the steam sloop Alaska, has the post of inspector of ordinance at the Mare Island Naval Yard in Vallejo, California, commands the warship Wyoming during that vessel's crossing of the Atlantic with the American exhibits that will be shown during the Paris Exposition of 1878, commands the U.S. Navy's Eastern Fleet during the Battle of Santiago in which the Spanish squadron of Admiral Pascual Cervera is destroyed, serves as Commander-in-Chief of America's Asiatic Fleet, serves as President of the Naval Examining Board, and represents the United States at the coronation of King Edward VII of England in 1902), Edward H. Watson graduates as an ensign from the United States Naval Academy in June of 1895.   Beginning his slow climb up the chain of command in the United States Navy, the junior Watson serves aboard a host of different ships and stations ... during the Spanish-American War he is aboard the battle cruiser USS Detroit, from 1912 to 1913 he is in command of the storeship USS Celtic, attends the Naval War College, sees duty as the executive officer of the battleship USS Utah, and serves as the commanding officer of the gunboat USS Wheeling.  When the United States enters WWI, Watson first commands the transport Madawaska, then takes over  the battleship USS Alabama, aboard which he will receive the Navy Cross for "exceptionally meritorious service."  After the war is over, Watson is appointed the U.S. Naval Attache in Japan, and then in 1923, promoted to commodore, takes command of Destroyer Squadron Eleven based in San Diego, California. 

 Father

 Son

Composed of nineteen relatively new Clemson-class destroyers built between 1919 and 1922, the destroyers of Destroyer Squadron Eleven have a fully loaded displacement of 1,308 tons, a length of 314 feet and 4.5 inches, a beam of 30 feet and 11.5 inches, a draft of 9 feet and 4 inches, are driven by the power of 4 boilers (their funnels will earn the ships the nicknames "flush-deckers, four-stackers, and four-pipers) and 2 geared steam turbines turning two propeller shafts that can reach a speed of 35.5 knots, have a range of 4,900 miles, are armed with 4-inch guns, torpedo tubes, and depth charges, and are individually crewed by 8 officers, 8 chief petty officers, and 106 enlisted sailors.  Successfully participating in Pacific Battle Fleet maneuvers in the Puget Sound area of the Washington coastline (though not a total success, one destroyer is in a collision during the maneuvers), Watson receives orders to take his squadron back to its home base in San Diego, California, with a scheduled stop in San Francisco.  Peace time budget constraints gone for the moment, Watson wishes to make the run in record time and his destroyers, treating the trip as a simulated war run, are allowed to crank their turbines up to a speed of 20 knots.     Led by the USS Delphy, where Watson flies his squadron flag, fifteen destroyers (one vessel is in dry dock, two ships leave the previous evening with the squadron tender because they have engine problems and can not meet the cruising speed of 20 knots, and another destroyer testing its smoke prevention system proceeds independently for San Diego) divided into three divisions, leave San Francisco's Pier 15 at 0700, form into columns and head south for home.  

 USS Delphy

Navigation for the unit is handled by the USS Delphy's captain, Lt. Commander Donald T. Hunter (who taught navigation at Annapolis for two years).  But there is a problem, Hunter is not an advocate of the new radio navigation (RDF) aid the U.S. Navy has recently begun using ... instead, the sail down the coast will be made by dead reckoning, estimating the squadron's position by course and speed as measured by propeller rotations per minute with fixed positions checkpoints at five lighthouses between San Francisco and San Diego ... Pigeon Point, Point Sur, Point Pedro Blancas, Point Arguello, and Point Concepcion.  At 1130, Pigeon Point is spotted one mile to port ... the last solid position fix the squadron is able to take.  When Hunter receives RDF information from Point Arguello at 1415, the position information is not believed, and as the information is checked, the squadron goes by Point Sur and Point Pedro Blancas without fixing its position (despite the efforts of the Delphy's assigned navigator, Lieutenant J.G. Lawrence Blodgett, who also advocates taking depth soundings but is told no, because it will slow the exercise), while Watson spends most of the time in his cabin, discussing the Japanese Navy with a civilian guest passenger, career diplomat Eugene Dooman, content that Hunter will guide them through the Santa Barbara Channel without incident, unaware that when he orders Squadron Cruising Formation #18 at 1627, putting his destroyers in a single, line ahead column, his ships are not at the entrance of the channel, but are three miles north of Point Arguello and only a mile and a half off the coast (Hunter's miscalculation of where the squadron is caused by no account be given to the current changes caused by the "Great Kanto" earthquake days before in Japan, a heavy following sea in which the propellers broach, preventing an accurate accounting of the Delphy's prop revolutions and hence the ship's speed, using estimates of the ship's speed at 21 knots, when it is actually closer to 19 knots, and the presence of a brisk wind blowing west-southwest.  Fate sealed, at 2100, Watson and Hunter have the squadron turn east, sending 14 destroyers directly at the ship hungry cliffs and rocks of Point Pedernales (experiencing boiler problems, the USS John Francis Burnes drops out of formation before the turn).

Pigeon Point Lighthouse - Last Fixed Position

 Oooops!

A menace to navigation from the time 16th Century conquistadors and Franciscan missionaries begin exploring the California coast, the shipping eating portion of cape that Watson and his destroyers are headed for acquires many names over the years ... Point Pedernales (from a Spanish description of the area being as tough as flint), Honda Point (part of a lariat, the catch is seagoing vessels though), "The Graveyard of the Pacific" (again a reference to the many vessels that make the area their final resting place), and "The Devil's Jaw" (ready to bite into any ships foolhardy enough to enter the area).  All effectively describe the danger waiting for the unwary ... hard igneous rock in the form of steep, 60-foot cliffs with almost no beaches, and in the water, a satanic collection of huge boulders, submerged pinnacles, and intermittent reefs all swept by winds, constant wave action, and sometimes huge breakers.  On 9/8/1923 the area is most infamously known as the place where the gold bullion carrying ($150,000, now worth over $4,285,000), 275-foot steam-powered paddleboat, SS Yankee Blade goes down in September of 1854, killing 40 of its 1,000 passengers (all because of a foolish speed bet the captain has made).  Before the next day dawns, the wreck wreck will have company, and two more names will be added to the lexicon of the area ... the aptly named Destroyer Rock and the Woodbury Rocks for where the USS Woodbury goes under.

 SS Yankee Blade

 Earthquake Devastation

The dark and fog hiding the coast from view, the USS Delphy turns and is soon lost to sight of the rest of the squadron.  Following orders and the leader, three hundred yards behind, the USS S.P. Lee makes her turn, and in turn, is followed by the USS Young, and four minutes later, at 2104, the tragedies begin.  Although third in line, the first casualty is the USS Young ... she hits a submerged pinnacle of rock that tears her starboard side open and in a matter of minutes she capsizes into the cold waters of the Pacific.  The next casualty is the USS Delphy ... suddenly aware of her danger, she crashes bow first into the rocks of the Devil's Jaw as her sirens begin alerting the squadron of its danger and Watson sends out two radio warnings to his destroyers, one to keep clear to the westward, and the other to make a "nine turn" 90-degree course change to port.  Behind her, the USS S.P. Lee sees the lead destroyer come to a sudden stop and she sheers to port (left) to avoid a collision and comes to a stop herself, running aground on the coast.  Warnings received too late, the USS Woodbury and the USS Nicolas slam into Honda rocks.

 USS Young

 USS Delphy

 USS S.P. Lee     .  

 USS Woodbury

 USS Nicholas

Next in line is the USS Farragut.  Suddenly coming upon the chaos in front of him, the destroyer's captain slows, stops, and then orders emergency full astern ... which causes a sideswipe collision with the following USS Fuller, which slams into several rocks and loses all power, while the USS Farragut manages to find its way to deeper waters.  Coming up behind, the captains of the USS Percival and the USS Somers take quick action and manage to escape the rocky trap, although the USS Somers suffers serious damages steering out of the area.  The USS Chauncey will not be as lucky.  Alerted of the danger, before the destroyer can maneuver out of the area, she is caught by the powerful outgoing undertow of the area that sends her into the wreckage of the overturned USS Young and one of its exposed propellers, a collision that tears open the destroyer's engine room and immediately causes the vessel to lose all power.  Carnage complete, the last vessels of the squadron, the USS Kennedy, the USS Paul Hamilton, the USS Stoddert, and the USS Thompson all manage to avoid entering the area.

 USS Fuller

 USS Chauncey

Calm to crisis in seconds, the destroyer sailors move from their normal duties in a standard cruising formation to fighting for their lives and the lives of their crewmates instantly ... a tribute to the training, discipline and courage of the men of the United States Navy.  Pinned against rocks on her starboard side, stern first to shore, the captain of the USS Nicholas decides to keep his crew aboard their stricken destroyer until daylight.  The crews of the USS Woodbury and the USS Fuller, aground the farthest from shore, find temporary refuge on a large chunk of lava, while the men of the USS Delphy and the USS Chauncey are able to shelter on a narrow ledge below a 60-foot cliff ... a 60-foot cliff which a handful of intrepid sailors somehow climb, and then throwing ropes down, begin rescuing other sailors.  Most torn apart in the disaster, the surviving members of the capsized USS Young cling to their ship's slippery port side, many by holding on to porthole windows they have to smash open.  When the powerless USS Chauncey is swept by the wreck of the USS Young, the men are able to abandon their ship, and using a lifeline (set up when Chief Boatswain's Mate, Arthur Peterson, who swims from the USS Young to the USS Chauncey with a line ... an act of courage that will allow 70 men in 11 trips to move to safety), pull themselves on to the crippled destroyer before moving to the solid ground of shore.  Coming to the aid of the survivors, the undamaged destroyers, men from a local railroad work crew, and fisherman from the nearby town of Lompoc participate in the rescue efforts.  A miracle of luck, courage, and determination, although almost every one of the 800 sailors of Destroyer Squadron Eleven suffer from shock and cuts and bruises caused by the rocks, only 23 perish ... three from the crew of the USS Delphy, and 20 from the USS Young.

 Tragedy Mapped

 Arthur Peterson

 Northernmost - The USS Nicholas (L) & USS S.P. Lee   

 USS Delphy Foreground, Capsized USS Young Behind, Listing USS Woodbury, And Funnels Behind Of USS Fuller

 USS Chauncey

Not amused at the worst peacetime naval disaster in its history and the loss of seven destroyers, a seven-officer Navy court-martial board, under the direction of Vice Admiral Henry A. Wiley (commander of the battleship divisions of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Battle Fleet) convenes in early November and brings charges of negligence and culpable inefficiency to perform one's duty against eleven officers, the largest court martial in the U.S. Navy's history (before the court-martial, the Navy gathers 19 days of evidence and praises 23 officers and men for their heroism during the incident).  The court-martial eventually finds the disaster to be due to "bad errors and faulty judgments" on the part of Watson (he is defended at the proceedings by Admiral Thomas Tingey Craven), and he, Hunter, and Lt. Commander H.O. Roesch (commander of the USS Nicholas) are found guilty, but politics involved, Rear Admiral S.S. Robison sets aside Roesch's conviction.  Watson and Hunter are not so lucky and they are stripped of their seniority and lose all possibilities of future promotions with Watson ending his naval career in 1929 as Assistant Commander of the Fourteenth Naval District in Hawaii (he dies in 1942).  Trapped in a minor posting, Hunter also retires from the U.S. Navy in 1929.  The other eight officers are all acquitted (two will go on to command battleships), and the court-martial board additionally recommends Commander Walter G. Roper be given a letter of commendation for keeping his division of the destroyer squadron out of the Devil's Jaw debacle. 

 Wiley   

 Craven  .         

 Watson

Putting the disaster behind itself, the U.S. Navy strips the wrecks of records, equipment, and records, removes the destroyers from its list of active ships, and sells the remains to a local salvage company for $1,035 (at the time, the value of the seven lost destroyers was $13,000,000).  They remain at Honda Point to this day, now sunken monuments to a disastrous naval blunder that can be visited with permission (the site is now part of Vandenburg Air Force Base) and good dive equipment.  Remembering the event, on a bluff overlooking the site there is a plaque and memorial, with the memorial including the ship's bell from the USS Chauncey.  Nearby, outside the Veterans' Memorial Building in Lompoc, a propeller and propeller shaft from the USS Delphy are on display.

 Memorial

 Prop

9/8/1923 ... in a horribly fatal mistake, Destroyer Squadron Eleven forgets a basic caution that a naval officer reviewing the case will sum up simply, "The price of good navigation is constant vigilance."  Indeed and amen! 

Seven Dead Destroyers