This Escort Destroyer Sunk 6 Imperial Japanese Submarines

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By Michael Peck,The National Interest

Destroyer escorts were the econo-warships of the U.S. Navy in World War II. Designed to be smaller and cheaper alternatives to Navy destroyers, destroyer escorts weren’t designed to slug it out in a fleet battle like their bigger brothers. Instead theirs was the dreary but vital duty of escorting convoys of slow merchant ships across the oceans.

Yet the world’s record for sinking submarines belongs not to a destroyer or an aircraft carrier, but a humble destroyer escort. The USSEnglandsank six Japanese submarines in just 12 days in May 1944.

At first glance, the England (named for John England, a sailor killed at Pearl Harbor) was not an impressive vessel. A Buckley-class destroyer escort, the England had a crew of 186 and weighed in at 1,400 tons, or about one-quarter less than a Fletcher-class destroyer. It only mustered three 3-inch guns rather than the 5-inchers of a destroyer, a dozen anti-aircraft guns instead of 20 or so on a Fletcher, and three torpedo tubes instead of 10. But as will be seen, the England bristled with anti-submarine weapons, including two depth charge racks that rolled depth charges off the stern of the ship, and eight K-guns that shot depth charges out to 150 yards. It also had a deadly British-designed 24-barrel Hedgehog anti-submarine mortar. The Hedgehog fired shells that looked like potato mashers; unlike depth charges, which exploded at a pre-set depth and disrupted sonar contact, Hedgehog grenades only exploded when they hit a hard surface such as a submarine hull.

The saga of the England began on May 18, 1944, when the England and two other destroyer escorts received orders to find a Japanese submarine reported heading toward the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific. On the afternoon of May 19, the England‘s sonar detected the submarine I-16.

What happened next is detailed in an account written by Captain John Williamson, who served as the England’s executive officer during that time. In a March 1980 article in Proceedings Magazine, Williamson and co-author William Lanier describe the destroyer escort’s baptism of fire. Four times the ship made attack runs over I-16 to launch Hedgehogs, which missed. The Japanese skipper cleverly tried to evade its pursuer by following the England’s course and wake.

On the fifth run, the sub’s luck ran out. Williamson recalls the crew cheering as they heard four to six Hedgehog hits. Then the England‘s “fantail was lifted a full 6 inches, then plopped heavily back into the water….We had, with cataclysmic certainty, heard the last of one Japanese submarine. Sobered, and more than taken aback by that final blast, we no longer felt like cheering. But we did stand a little straighter.”