朱諾號巡洋艦的沉沒與故事 - 可怕的損失與破碎的墳墓

USS Juno, the second of the Atlanta-class cruisers, would prove to be an unfortunate ship. Sunk in the same battle as her elder sister, but with only ten survivors. The battle that took place only nine months after she entered service. Her life was a short one, filled with heavy combat when she saw it, that ended explosively. Her legacy lies not in her service, but in how that service concluded. Not least in how the loss of five specific crewmen changed the military's approach to siblings serving together. This video is another combination of old and new material. With Helena last weekend, it seemed like a good idea to cover Juno again next. For, well, obvious reasons relating to her unfortunate end. Now, when her life began, such a fate must have seemed a distant and unlikely possibility. Laid down on May 27th, 1940, and launched on October 25th, 1941, Juno only really stood out by virtue of her class. The Atlantas were, after all, a strange mix of compromises and differing design ideals that really deserve a longer form video to dig into. For the moment, Juno, as the second of the type, was about as baseline as they came. Equipped with sixteen 5-inch guns and eight twin mounts for the main battery, she carried the same weaponry, if in much larger number, as the destroyers she served alongside. Albeit, the wing mounts were mostly used for starships. That said, since the ship lacked a true secondary battery, the remainder of her weaponry consisted of sixteen 1.1-inch cannon and four quad mounts alongside eight 20mm cannons, fairly typical early war American aircraft guns. However, and somewhat at odds with American cruiser practice by this point, she also carried eight 21-inch torpedo tubes along with depth charges and assorted launching equipment. If you view the Atlantas as really big destroyer leaders, that does admittedly track. Either way, all of that equipment added up to a displacement of around 6,800 tons standard, and 8,400 tons when fully loaded, on a hull of 541 feet 6 inches in length and 53 feet on the beam, 165 meters long and 16 meters on the beam, not particularly large by contemporary American cruiser standards, especially in regard to displacement, and they were suspiciously slow for an overfed destroyer at 32.5 knots on 75,000 shaft horsepower through two shafts. In any case, that out of the way, Juna was commissioned on February 14th, 1942. As you could expect with the sudden outbreak of war a couple months before, Juna would have an abbreviated and rushed shakedown period. Setting out on her training and shakedown cruise on March 22nd, 1942, she would only get a few days of practice before getting thrown right into actual service. Namely, on March 28th, there was reports of a potential submarine patrolling about nearby. On March 29th, Juna set about looking for that submarine. This involved steaming into fairly rough weather and heavy seas, being forced to use her still new radar to try and spot the submarine. Early that morning, she would make a contact on the radar about 800 yards away. I suppose it's telling how bad the weather really was that they had to use radar for something that, in nautical terms, is basically point-blank range. Unfortunately for Juna, if there actually was anything out in that storm, she proceeded to probably miss, or at the least, there was no discernible result to speak of. With how new and untested the ship and her equipment was, however, I definitely cut her some slack. There might not even have been a target to attack in the first place, as glitches in radar were hardly uncommon at the time, or even today if we're being realistic. At any rate, when she used depth charges, the concussion of those succeeded in opening circuit breakers aboard the cruiser, which resulted in her losing steering control. I suppose that's a good thing to figure out in home waters, right? Still, with that excitement out of the way, she returned to her shakedown and trim. A couple incidents here and there would add to the excitement and cut out some of the monotony of gunnery drills and the like, such as steaming to answer a distress call from a merchantman or picking up the crew of an overturned plane. Such things weren't out of the ordinary, either in peacetime or wartime. Steaming along on April 25th, the ship got another bout of excitement that was definitely beyond the norm. That being two apparent underwater explosions shaking the ship and the sound of gunfire to the northeast. Poor visibility once more struck, so Juna couldn't identify what was going on. The fact she picked up a German radio signal, presumably a U-boat from 15 miles away, probably gives a clue. Regardless, with her shakedown mostly done by this point, the cruiser would be sent off to San Juan, arriving in early May. In this, she was joining efforts to keep an eye on Vichy French assets in the Caribbean, which included such things as France's only aircraft carrier and a couple light cruisers. While Juna would spend the first two weeks of May on this duty, it would ultimately turn out that the French would make no attempt to escape. Juna was, thus, released from this work on May 14th of 1942. She would arrive back in New York for an overhaul on May 21st. For those wondering, this was the formal end of the shakedown cruise. For that entire thing I just went over, Juna was technically still on shakedown. After she came out of that overhaul, the cruiser would spend June through the start of August on various patrol and escort duties in the Atlantic. There was the odd moment of excitement in relation to U-boats, but Juna would both avoid damage and avoid dealing any in turn. Considering her ultimate fate, it's not a great sign that she struggled with actually sinking a submarine when she did engage contacts. Regardless, this period saw little in the way of action, so we'll move on to her very short Pacific service. Arriving in the South Pacific at the end of August, Juna joined up with other American ships, including South Dakota, for service. She would be performing her escort role when, well, her bad luck with submarines reared its ugly head once more. For on September 15th, 1942, we get to the sinking of USS Wasp. Juna was escorting Wasp from about 2,500 yards away when the torpedoes from I-19 slammed into the carrier. I have a video on Wasp already, so I'll just say this. The ship got hit in the worst possible place and promptly burst into uncontrollable flames. Juna would immediately be sent after the submarine, but in spite of laying some depth charges, she would make no hits. Instead, the cruiser would stick close to the carrier as she was abandoned and her survivors were plucked from the water. When Wasp was ultimately scuttled, Juna would help pick up any other survivors before booking it back to safe harbor. She arrived at such on September 16th, dropping off the wounded and other survivors she had picked up. Promptly ordered back to sea, Juna would leave the following day, setting out to join the screen of USS Hornet, where she would have two further failed attempts at attacking supposed submarines over the next few days. The next month or so would actually be fairly uneventful for the ship. She escorted Hornet on various missions, but enemy contacts were few and far between. It wouldn't be until the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands that Juna would see combat once more. That was on October 26th. Juna would still be escorting Hornet during the upcoming battle, which would see another carrier shot out from under her guard. Not for lack of trying. Juna and her fellow escorts shot down up to 20 enemy aircraft. Unfortunately, that was not enough to prevent damage to Hornet. Crippled, the carrier would be tied up to USS Northampton, while Juna and the others kept up their flak screening. Alas, Juna would be ordered to join up with Enterprise's escort. She would, as such, not be present when further attacks damaged Hornet even more, to the point of being abandoned and left adrift. During the course of this battle, Juna fired off some 665 rounds of 5-inch ammunition. You can't say her crew weren't doing the best they could to protect Hornet. Still, with the Japanese pushed back, if only for a moment, Juna would join a convoy of reinforcements for the men ashore on Guadalcanal. Leaving for this on November 8th, she would help fend off further Japanese air attacks, with Juna claiming six torpedo bombers alone, which isn't a small feat at this point of the war. While most of the American warships left the area at this point, Juna was one of 13 to remain. It would be the ships, including both Atlanta and Juna, that engaged the Japanese overnight on November 13th. This battle would quickly devolve into a free-for-all melee of an encounter. The Japanese ships, including the battleships, or battle cruisers, depending, Hiei and Kirishima, came out of a rain squall basically right on top of the American formation. While the Americans had the advantage of radar, and at least knowing that something was coming, the Japanese were caught by complete surprise. Their fleet was a mess, expecting to do shore bombardment, not engage an enemy formation, at point-blank range. Still, with both sides flailing about in confusion, you get one of the more messy battles at sea in history. Leaving aside a mess of near collisions, the two sides would soon be hopelessly mixed together. Every ship had to fend for herself. Atlanta, in particular, would suffer the misfortune of being fired on by both sides, suffering friendly fire from USS San Francisco. Juna, well, Juna would be hit early on by a torpedo from a Japanese destroyer. Sources conflict on if this was a Matsukaze or Murasame. I suppose it doesn't matter much which particular ship landed the blow. The torpedo would cripple Juna. It blew depth charges overboard and wrecked her steering, such that she almost collided with USS Helena. By some minor miracle or another, that was avoided, and the crippled cruiser limped out of the battle. While that continued behind her, repairs were done to try and keep Juna afloat and somewhat functional. She would not be present for the remainder of the action, nor the efforts to rescue survivors from the war. Her captain had set a course for a nearby island in hopes of more substantial repairs. She was, after all, steaming on just one screw by this point, before then making a dash for safe harbor. By the time the sun rose, Juna would join up with fellow survivors, San Francisco, Helena, and a couple destroyers. She struggled along in formation with the other ships, listing and down by a dozen feet on the bow. Some of her medical detachment were transferred over to San Francisco, which, considering events to come, well, they got lucky. Because the submarine I-26, which had previously torpedoed Saratoga, had crept up on the formation of cripples. She fired three torpedoes at San Francisco, the largest target. Two missed entirely, the one narrowly slid by Juna's stern. The third missed the intended target as well, but this one did hit Juna, very close to where she had been hit the previous night at that. The light cruiser, built lightly even by the standards of her type, was already struggling to stay afloat. The sudden impact of another torpedo, so close to the first, doomed the ship. A massive explosion engulfed USS Juna. So massive and powerful was this blast that the ship sank in less than a minute. Aboard the other ships, the general opinion was that no one could possibly have survived such destructive force. They left the area swiftly as a result, as well as because of the fact that of the ships, only USS Fletcher had the ability to engage the submarine nearby. This isn't even touching on the risk of air attack or lurking surface forces. That decision has long been a controversial one, even now. It's also where we'll wrap things up for the moment, even though that might seem odd. Because from here, we'll move into my video dedicated to the loss of Juna and the aftermath of that tragedy. First, it is important to understand that USS Juna was already a crippled ship. During the chaotic naval battle of Guadalcanal, in the early morning hours of November 13th, 1942, Juna was hit with a Japanese torpedo. The deadly Long Lance did its job, blowing a massive hole in her side. This buckled her deck, might well have broken her keel, and left her limping along on one screw. Juna was slow and could barely turn. Her weapons were largely out of action, and she had no way to defend herself from underwater attack. For all of that, however, by the time the sun rose, the cruiser was still afloat. Crippled, yes, but still moving under her own power. As a result, Juna was able to join up with other ships. The badly damaged San Francisco, a handful of destroyers, and the nearly undamaged USS Helena. It was difficult for Juna to keep pace with them, although her crew managed. While the cruiser sailed along with the other American ships, the men aboard her did their best to patch up the damage. There were limits to what they could do, naturally, but the ship wasn't at real risk of sinking. Not even when she was down a dozen feet on her bow. By the time Juna was hit a second time, these efforts had actually succeeded in pumping out most of the water. Neptune's Inferno claims that Juna was only four feet down on the bow, not a dozen feet, and that she was capable of a sprightly 17 knots. It was during this process that some of her medical detachment were transferred to help on San Francisco. These men, Lt. Roger O'Neill in particular, were unhappy about being pulled off their own ship. Considering what was about to happen, one can say they were fortunate, even lucky to have been pulled off their ship. As the American formation struggled to safer waters, they were being stalked from beneath the waves. As the sun climbed towards noon, a Japanese submarine set up an attack run. This was the I-26, a submarine that had already torpedoed USS Saratoga. Here, the Japanese submarine fired a spread of torpedoes at USS San Francisco, the largest ship in the formation, and one that was facing her own troubles with battle damage. This was the logical target in all regards. The biggest, the most valuable, and the one having the most difficulty. Though there are some disputing sources on exactly how many torpedoes were fired. Some sources will say two, some will say three, well a lookout on San Francisco apparently spotted four weeks. Regardless of how many were launched, all