Sunk By A Japanese Bomb
On 9 April 1942, while moored at the eastern point of Corregidor, Finch was damaged by the near miss of a Japanese bomb, her seams opening and fragments of the bomb piercing her hull. The entire crew landed safely, and Finch was abandoned to sink the next day, 10 April 1942.
Many of the Finch's crew served during the siege of Corregidor, though her captain was evacuated to Australia via submarine. The survivors of Corregidor were the first prisoners to arrive at Cabanatuan prison camp. Many were later removed to camps in Japan or Taiwan. Yeoman Pratt, held in three camps in Taiwan, was evacuated aboard the destroyer escort USS Finch (DE-328), and was startled at seeing the name, thinking it had been named for his old vessel, but that ship was named in honor of Lt.(j.g.) Joseph W. Finch, who died aboard the USS Laffey (DD-459) during the battle of Guadalcanal.
According to Japanese records the "Finch" was salvaged and designated IJN Patrol Boat 103 in April 1943. The PB 103 served as a convoy escort in the Philippines and Indochina and was sunk by United States carrier based aircraft on 12 January 1945.
Read more about this topic: USS Finch (AM-9)
Famous quotes containing the words sunk, japanese and/or bomb:
“Remember all those renowned generations,
Remember all that have sunk in their blood,
Remember all that have died on the scaffold,
Remember all that have fled, that have stood,
Stood, took death like a tune
On an old tambourine.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“A pragmatic race, the Japanese appear to have decided long ago that the only reason for drinking alcohol is to become intoxicated and therefore drink only when they wish to be drunk.
So I went out into the night and the neon and let the crowd pull me along, walking blind, willing myself to be just a segment of that mass organism, just one more drifting chip of consciousness under the geodesics.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)
“One of the laudable by-products of the Freudian quackery is the discovery that lying, in most cases, is involuntary and inevitable—that the liar can no more avoid it than he can avoid blinking his eyes when a light flashes or jumping when a bomb goes off behind him.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)