Fate
On 9 July 1945, Callaghan took station on the embattled radar picket line, where on 28 July she drove off a wooden-and-fabric biplane intent on suicide with well-directed fire, but the plane, skimming low and undetected, returned to strike Callaghan on the starboard side. It exploded and one of the plane's bombs penetrated the after engine room. The aircraft survived the first approach because the proximity fuses were ineffective against its wooden fuselage. The destroyer flooded, and the fires which ignited antiaircraft ammunition prevented nearby ships from rendering aid. Callaghan sank at 02:35, 28 July 1945, with the loss of 47 members of her crew. She was the last Allied ship sunk by a kamikaze during the war.
Read more about this topic: USS Callaghan (DD-792)
Famous quotes containing the word fate:
“This, indeed, has always been the fate of the few that have professed scepticism, that, when they have done what they can to discredit their senses, they find themselves, after all, under a necessity of trusting to them. Mr. Hume has been so candid as to acknowledge this; and it is no less true of those who have shewn the same candour; for I never heard that any sceptic runs his head against a post, or stepped into a kennel, because he did not believe his eyes.”
—Thomas Reid (1710–1796)
“‘Tis weak and vicious people who cast the blame on Fate. The right use of Fate is to bring up our conduct to the loftiness of nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“In separation, deadly as poison,
in union, brimming with nectar.
What, did fate make my love
out of both equally?”
—Hla Stavhana (c. 50 A.D.)