California Coast Rocks

Here’s an explosion of color and ocean spray.  Sailing along the California coast can be incredibly dangerous.  Wouldn’t want to run aground on rocks like those, would you?  Well in 1923, the US suffered the largest lost of peacetime ships along the coast of Santa Barbara in the Honda Point Disaster.  It was like a pre-Pearl Harbor, and it was also the fault of the Japanese (I jest). 

A week before the disaster, the Great Kanto Earthquake ripped through Honshu killing about 150,000 people, generating a 40 foot tsunami in Japan, and absolutely devastating the countryside leaving millions homeless.  I can’t find any data on how much the ground moved, but suffice to say, it was probably a lot.  There were many many aftershocks, and this sent huge force waves rippling across the Pacific. 

7 days later, the waves began hitting California creating all kinds of problems for the squadron of destroyers who were heading from San Francisco down to San Diego.   14 brand new Clemson-class ships with a complement of 116 people each … and I have no reason to think they weren’t fully complemented as they were doing military exercises on the way… so well over a thousand US Navy guys. As the squadron approached the Santa Barbara Channel, in heavy fog, at 11:00 o’clock at night naturally, they were slammed into the coast partly because of 1. no one could see anything 2. the captain didn’t believe the measurements they were getting off their equipment and 3. crazy swells were pounding the coast.  Seven of the ships sank, two ran aground but managed to get off the rocks,  and the remaining five declined to participate in the mess.  

Nearby Lompoc’s ranchers swung swiftly into action.  It was by now the middle of the night, but all hands were on deck for the rescue.  They set up those cable and pulley things to swing people off the boats, got out the old climbing gear and started rappelling down the cliffs to save the stranded sailors who were trapped between the rocks, the ships and those pounding earthquake shock swells.  Several local fishermen set out in their boats and picked up the wrecked crew of two of the destroyers at great risk to their own vessels.  The remaining Destroyers could pick people out of the water, but couldn’t get too close to those rocks or risk getting sunk themselves.  All in all, of the thousand sailors, only 23 died. 

The US Navy courtmartialed the fleet commander, Edward Howe Watson, who argued successfully that the was solely to blame for the incident, and that it was all his navigational error, thus getting the court to acquit several other officers who had been courtmartialed over the incident.  He was commended by the Navy and his fellow officers for in a ‘we’ll strip you of your rank, and give you a medal at the same time, jolly good form,’ sort of thing.  The wrecks were so bad and in such a difficult area, that no salvage was made by the USGovt, who eventually sold all that iron, 13 million dollars worth of 1923 dollars, for a thousand bucks to salvagers (I can’t find which salvage company).  More info than you can shake a stick at here, including pics: web.archive.org/web/2016111123…

Xander is eaten by sharks here: