Fate
When Australian troops established a beachhead at Finschafen, New Guinea, 21 September 1943, Henley formed a part of their protective screen. Attacked by 10 Japanese torpedo bombers, she claimed to have shot down 3 and assisted in downing 3 others in a fierce half hour engagement. However, the valiant ship's wartime career, begun in the chaos at Pearl Harbor, was drawing to a close. On 3 October 1943 Henley was steaming with Reid and Smith on an offensive sweep off Finschafen when her skipper sighted two torpedoes fired by the submarine Ro-108 heading for her. Split-second maneuvering permitted Henley to evade those two torpedoes; but a third was immediately sighted, closing too fast and too near to be avoided. Henley was struck on the port side, with the torpedo exploding in the number 1 fire-room, destroying her boilers, breaking her keel, and displacing her bow about 30 degrees from the longitudinal axis of the ship.
At 18:29, with all her crew having abandoned ship, Henley went down, stern first. Her companion DD's searched for the sub, then returned to rescue Henley's survivors, who had lashed their life-rafts together and were using flashlights as signals. Eighteen officers and 225 men were rescued, with 1 officer and 14 men missing.
Read more about this topic: USS Henley (DD-391)
Famous quotes containing the word fate:
“So the old flute was doomed and its fate was pathetic,
‘Twas fastened and burned at the stake as heretic,
While the flames roared around it they heard a strange
noise—
‘Twas the old flute still whistling ‘The Protestant Boys’.”
—Unknown. The Old Orange Flute (l. 37–40)
“Ev’n thou who mourn’st the Daisy’s fate,
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—Robert Burns (1759–1796)
““... The state’s one function is to give.
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Unless ‘twould rather wilt than fade.””
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)