Wreckage of long-lost WWII ship identified
Near the end, the battered American destroyer USS Johnston was surrounded by Japanese warships closing in to finish it off. The Johnston was ablaze. Scores of sailors lay dead. And after three hours of heroic battle, only one of its guns could return fire.
At 9:45 a.m. on Oct. 25, 1944, the wounded skipper, Cmdr. Ernest Evans, gave the order to abandon ship, and 25 minutes later the Johnston sank off the Philippine island of Samar.
Evans and 185 members of the crew were lost, and he would become the first Native American in the Navy to receive the Medal of Honor.
On Thursday, the Navy and a team of undersea explorers announced that the wreck of the Johnston had been positively identified in 21,180 feet of water. Scattered wreckage had been found at the site in 2019 but could not be positively identified.
But late last month, a crewed submersible operated by Caladan Oceanic, a Dallas undersea exploration company, located the front two-thirds of the ship, sitting upright, along with the bridge, midsection and the identifying hull number, 557.
The submersible, piloted by former Navy Cmdr. Victor Vescovo, also saw two large gun turrets, twin torpedo racks and multiple gun mounts.
“No human remains or clothing were seen at any point during the dives and nothing was taken from the wreck,” Caladan said in its announcement.
“The wreck of Johnston is a hallowed site,” said retired Rear Adm. Sam Cox, head of the Naval History and Heritage Command in Washington.
“It ... serves as a sobering reminder for today’s Sailors: after all that’s asked of them in day-today service, they ... may one day be asked for far more,” he said in the Navy’s announcement.
Of the Johnston’s crew of 327, only 141 survived, the Naval history command says on its website. About 50 “were killed by enemy action, 45 died on rafts from battle injuries and 92, including Evans, were alive in the water after Johnston sank but were never heard from again.”
The suspected wreck site, the deepest shipwreck ever located, was first discovered in 2019 by the late Paul Allen’s vessel R/V Petrel, Caladan said in its statement. But most of the ship was deeper than the Petrel’s submersible could go.
The Caladan submersible has no depth limitation, the company said.
As the expedition ended, the project’s research vessel came to a stop, sounded its whistle, and a memorial wreath was placed on the ocean, the company said.