Fate
Cushing screened transports safely into Guadalcanal 12 November 1942, and was in the van of the force that moved out to intercept the Japanese fleet in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal on the night of 13 November 1942. As the range closed, she suddenly sighted three enemy destroyers at 3,000 yards. In the bitter gunfire which followed Cushing received several hits amidships, resulting in a gradual power loss, but she determinedly continued to fire her guns at the enemy, launching her torpedoes by local direction at an enemy battleship. Fires, exploding ammunition, and her inability to shoot any longer made the "abandon ship" order unavoidable at 0230. Her burning hulk was last seen from Guadalcanal at 1700 when she sank about 3,500 yards southeast of Savo Island. Cushing lost about 70 men killed or missing, some of them later rescued from the water, and many wounded, but with the task force she had aided in saving Henderson Field from a bombardment by a Japanese force. Her hulk currently rests at the bottom of the waters around Savo Island, in an area around Guadalcanal known as "Ironbottom Sound."
Read more about this topic: USS Cushing (DD-376)
Famous quotes containing the word fate:
“My fate cries out,
And makes each petty artery in this body
As hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“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.)
“The anvil of justice is planted firm, and fate who makes the sword does the forging in advance.”
—Aeschylus (525–456 B.C.)