Torpedoes Headed for Formation

During an attack on a task force escorting Marine reinforcements to Guadalcanal, BB55 was protecting the carrier Hornet while the Wasp task group operated about 7-10 miles away. The Japanese submarine I-19 fired six long-range torpedoes at Wasp; three struck and Wasp sank that night, while three more raced into the Hornet task group. Hornet turned sharply right and the other ships followed, but one torpedo struck the destroyer O'Brien and then hit BB55 at 1452 on September 15, 1942, apparently the same torpedo that had missed Wasp, Lansdowne, and Mustin. The blast tore a hole 18 feet high and 32 feet wide in the port side hull below the side armor of Turret I, and one thousand tons of seawater poured in, causing the ship to list 5-1/2 degrees before counterflooding corrected it within minutes. Although the torpedo hit a vulnerable part of the defense system where four compartments, not five, protected the ship, BB55 absorbed the damage without serious effect or marked loss of fighting efficiency, remained in formation for hours, and then proceeded to Tongatapu for temporary repairs and to bury her dead. Five men were killed in action that day: Albert Geary, Ingwald Nelson, Leonard Pone, William Skelton, and Oscar Stone.

North Carolina · United States