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Bob Berg / Lake Superior Magazine
James Delgado
James Delgado, director of maritime heritage at NOAA's National Marine Sanctuaries, will speak at Gales of November in Duluth.
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John Rosborough
James Delgado
Jim Delgado rounding Cape Froward, the southernmost tip of continental South America, in the vessel Chonos in January 2005.
At Gales of November, James Delgado to pay tribute to Pearl Harbor
The annual Gales of November gathering in Duluth kicks off this afternoon and continues tomorrow with a full day of presentations by maritime historians and shipwreck experts. Saturday’s keynote luncheon speaker is Dr. James P. Delgado.
Speaking at Gales for the third time, James is the director of Maritime Heritage at NOAA’s National Marine Sanctuaries. He has explored the Titanic wreck site and surveyed the USS Arizona, sunk in the Pearl Harbor attack, 75 years ago in December. His new book is The Lost Submarines of Pearl Harbor. Our managing editor, Bob Berg, reviews it here and explores the Minnesota connection.
Alerted by a cargo ship of a possible submarine near Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the USS Ward raced to the area at around 6:30 a.m.
The Ward’s lookouts spotted a small Japanese two-man submarine near the channel entrance to Pearl Harbor, where the U.S. Pacific Fleet lay. A World War I-era destroyer, the Ward gave chase and fired its 4-inch, .50-caliber gun. It missed.
A quickly executed second shot punched through the sub’s conning tower, right at the waterline.
Ward’s commanding officer, William Outerbridge, ordered depth charges at 100 feet. Six were dropped, including two from a Catalina PBY seaplane, sinking the Japanese submarine. The Ward radioed the incident a few minutes after 7 a.m. to naval headquarters. This matched exactly what the strategists believed – that an attack, when it came, would arrive by submarine.
The Lost Submarines of Pearl Harbor
So even despite stopping this submarine, the devastating aerial attack on Pearl Harbor less than an hour later still came as a surprise.
The story of the USS Ward and its engagement with a midget submarine, the first U.S. engagement in the Pacific War, is part of a new book by marine archaeologist James P. Delgado and six co-authors. The Lost Submarines of Pearl Harbor: The Rediscovery and Archaeology of Japan’s Top-Secret Midget Submarines of World War II is published by Texas A&M University Press.
You you can hear about the Ward and its place in history at the Gales of November conference Saturday at the DECC in Duluth, when James is the keynote luncheon speaker. It’s the third Gales appearance for this shipwreck explorer and compelling speaker. This time he plans a tribute to the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.
The Ward, later modernized, served for two years in the Solomons, New Guinea and other locations in the South Pacific. But on Dec. 7, 1944, a plane crashed into the Ward in a kamikaze attack off Leyte before the invasion of the Philippines. All crew were evacuated and rescued. Then, because it was crippled, the Ward was sunk by the guns of a nearby destroyer (commanded by William Outerbridge, the Ward’s former commander).
The Ward and its role in the war has special significance for Minnesotans. During its service at Pearl Harbor, the crew was made up of naval reservists from St. Paul. During the ship’s makeover in 1942, the No. 3 gun that fired the first shot of the war with Japan had been removed and stored. After the war, the original crew, known as “First Shot Vets,” lobbied to have that forward gun (built in 1918) moved to Minnesota for display. They succeeded in 1958, and today it’s still a monument on the State Capitol Mall.
For history buffs, especially those interested in World War II, the new book The Lost Submarines of Pearl Harbor should prove fascinating. You learn about Japan’s development of the secret midget submarine program, about the plan to send five of the subs into Pearl Harbor on that Dec. 7 day of infamy to attack the U.S. fleet, delivering them to nearby waters using larger “mother” submarines, and about how a captured midget submarine was sent on a nationwide tour to promote the sale of war bonds.
It wasn’t until March 1942 that the Imperial Japanese Navy announced the loss of the midget subs and their two-man crews. All except the one submariner who was captured by U.S. forces at Pearl Harbor would be praised in that country as “hero gods.”
The finely researched book traces the use of the midget submarines elsewhere in the war, including Diego Suarez at Madagascar, Guadalcanal, the Aleutian Islands and the battle for the Philippines.
In the end, according to the book’s authors, the midget submarine program failed as a weapon, having sunk only two U.S. warships during the war.
For decades, the midget submarines remained largely undocumented and misunderstood, and questions remained. Did the Ward’s encounter with the midget submarine really happen? Where was the physical evidence? New technology like submersibles, and perseverance, made it possible to finally answer the questions. In 2002, after years of research and following up on side-scan sonar surveys, the Ward’s midget sub was found in 1,330 feet of water, in a crowded field of debris and accumulated artifacts at Pearl Harbor. It had a single shell hole at the base of the conning tower, just where the Ward’s crew said they had hit the vessel.
The Lost Submarines of Pearl Harbor explains what likely happened to all five of the midget submarines that were launched on Dec. 7, and how they were found (including recent underwater photos and historical images). It’s splendid detective work. But this book also does a nice job of telling some of the human stories from the perspectives of both sides in the war.
– Bob Berg
Lake level declines
The Duluth News Tribune reports on the latest Lake levels:
Lake Superior had one of its largest monthly declines in years in October, dropping 4 inches in a month the big lake usually drops only an inch.
The month was unusually warm and dry, the report says.
Flying high
The world’s first single-engine personal jet, made by Duluth-based Cirrus Aircraft, received FFA certification this week, opening the way for deliveries to customers this year. Cirrus announced the certification of its Cirrus Vision Jet on Monday.
“The art of innovation is achieving elegance and simplicity while changing people’s lives,” Patrick Waddick, president of Innovation and Operations, said in the press release. “Not only did our development team deliver on that target, we put an exclamation point on it by designing a highly reliable airplane and going a step further by incorporating the life-saving Cirrus Airframe Parachute System.”
The jet was on display Tuesday through Thursday this week at the NBAA Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition in Orlando, Florida.
History lesson: The Apostle Islands Historic Preservation Conservancy had some fun with the Chicago Cubs’ World Series victory. Find out what the Chequamegon area was like in 1908, when the Cubs had last won.
Tending the light: Molly and Rich Hoeg served as volunteer lightkeepers at Michigan’s Crisp Point last month. Read Molly’s posts about the experience.
Thunder Bay supports appeal of diversion decision: “Thunder Bay isn’t taking ‘yes’ for an answer when it comes to communities outside the Great Lakes Basin drawing millions of litres of fresh water per day,” reports Jon Thompson for TBNewsWatch.
Minnesota old-growth forest protected: Adventurer Will Steger sold 240 acres of virgin forest, near George H. Crosby Manitou State Park, to the Nature Conservancy, writes John Myers for the Duluth News Tribune. Some of the enormous trees may be 200 years old.
Note park closures during deer season: Some areas in our region’s state and provincial parks will be closed to non-hunters for a few weeks. In Minnesota, limited access starts tomorrow, the Wisconsin and Michigan seasons starts November 15, and Ontario’s season is already underway in some areas.
Cartoon Network in the U.P.: The network is coming to Marquette to film a holiday special, reports WLUC-TV.