Salt Lake City (CA 25) - Naval Cruise Book

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charging in. At l000, they were straddling the Salt Lake City with their shells. At 1002, the Salt Lake City's own gun blasts carried away her rudder stops. Steering control was lost until it was shifted to steering aft. Even then, the rudder was limited to ten degrees each way for fear of jamming. Another hit was suffered, a lap shell hit at frame seven, which went completely through the ship without exploding. The Salt Lake City, the Bailey and the Coghlan made smoke to hide the stricken heavy. There ensued a grim game of hide and seek, the lap heavies firing whenever they could see through the smoke shroud, a lap light edging around it for a clear view. The Salt Lake City was on a new course, where only her after battery could bear against the enemy, five eight inch guns to their twenty. But the radical maneuvering of the battle had accomplished one result. The laps no longer were between the Americans and their base. The way to escape was open. The respite was short-lived. At 1059 a lap eight inch shell hit the Salt Lake City's starboard catapult. Four minutes later another hit the weakened spot near frame 102. lets of water spurted into the ship. The anti-aircraft switchboard was aban- doned. The switchboard room, the after five inch handling room, the after five inch ammunition room and shaft alleys three and four were flooded. Water poured into the after en- gine room. The writergof the Saturday Evening Post article described the scene: From the scores of leaks where pipes and steam lines passed through the wrenched bulkhead, the mixture of water and fuel oil from the flooded compartments gushed in. lt gathered and rose, water whose temperature was the deadly thirty-two degrees of the Bering Sea in winter, oil which coagulated to hang like black glue. Pumps labored to suck away the flood. Damage control parties attacked the leaking bulkhead. The men stood thigh deep in the freezing water while they pounded calking into the leaks. Any kind of calking, rags, wiping waste, their shirts, their jackets. Still, the level inched higher, to their waists, tO their chests, to their shoulders. 16

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passed powder bags from hand to hand, For a few minutes, turret three had to fire liigli capacity ammunition. The difference in the shell splashes befuddled the laps, who thought they were being bombed and they fired round after round of anti-aircraft ammunition into the harmless overcast. Then apparent disaster again. Sea water had seeped through shell-ruptured bulkheads into the after fuel tanks, con- taminating the oil. A hiss of white steam came from the Salt Lake City. At ll47 her engines stopped. Captain Bertram l. Badgers, USN., whose expert conning had saved the cruiser time and again, turned her broadside to the enemy, so all her guns could bear in her final moments. Then he ran up the signal of tragedy, My Speed Zero . The smoke veil had hidden from the enemy the desperate- ness of the Salt Lake City's plight. Destroyers were ordered to make a torpedo run to gain a few moments for the big ship. Three raced forward, an attack of Davids against Goliath. Their men expected to die. At first, their high speed saved them. They closed until their five inch guns could range and their fifty-five pound shells thrummed against lapanese hulls. Then, as it had to eventually, the picture changed. The laps made eight inch hits on the Bailey and she began to go through a Gehenna of her own, comparable to that on the Salt Lake City. In the expectation that she would be blown out of the water in another minute, the skipper of the Bailey ordered her torpedoes fired. From a distance of 9,500 yards, their bubbling wakes streaked toward the lap heavies. Aboard the Salt Lake City, hard pressed men had managed meanwhile to shift the fuel supply and new uncontaminated oil was fed into the cruiser's power plant. Her engines took on lite and she edged forward again, while her sailors laughed weakly and slapped each other's backs in the welter ot emo- tions of men back from the thin edge of death At 1200 the cruiser was making 15 knots Then miracle piled on miracle One of the Baileys tor podoes tired in desperation is believed to have found its mark The others threw the laps into a consternation apparently out