26 October 2026: OK. Stop this rocket ship calendar! A wise man (might have been some ancient world philosopher) said "the days are long but the years are short!" Sounds right to me! Only a relative few days left in 2026! Damn!
Back in the day, your scribe was stationed aboard the U.S. destroyer USS Cony (DD 508) homeported in Norfolk VA. We were in Destroyer Squadron 28 and spent most of 1967 in the South China Sea supporting U.S. land forces with shore bombardment (among other things). USS Eaton DD510 was our squadron mate and for obvious reasons we all referred to her as the "Fighting Five And Dime." Here's a story of part of her life prior to that from the web site 1945.
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On May 6, 1956, off the Virginia Capes, the destroyer USS Eaton, radar dead for four days, turned hard at 27 knots toward a man-overboard call that turned out to be a floating white hat, straight into the path of the 57,500-ton battleship USS Wisconsin.
On Sunday, May 6, 1956, the Fletcher-class Destroyer Escort USS Eaton (DDE-510) sailed in heavy fog with a small task force. At the center of the task force was the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea (CVA-134), accompanied by the battleship Wisconsin (BB-63), the heavy cruiser Des Moines (CA-134), and three more destroyer escorts of Destroyer Division 22. The Eaton served as the division’s flagship, with the Commodore aboard. Cruising off the Virginia Capes in the fog, the task force was not looking for the Soviet Navy that day. It was just out for the weekend to entertain politicians with a demonstration of the Navy’s power and capabilities at sea. That morning’s fog reduced visibility so much that the politicians aboard saw little of the other ships in the formation.
Aboard the Eaton, the fog was especially troublesome. Her radar had been out of service for the last 4 days. She navigated within the formation, keeping her position by watching the other ships fade in and out of the fog.
They could catch glimpses of the Coral Sea 5,400 yards to their right, but somewhere out there in the fog were a battleship and a heavy cruiser they couldn’t see, and without radar to mark their locations, that was cause for worry. As long as they held their position off the Coral Sea, they should be all right.
At 3:10 PM, as sailors aboard the Eaton were preparing for a live-fire demonstration of their 5” guns, a report reached the bridge that a lookout on the Coral Sea had seen a sailor in the water.
The little destroyer escort’s position may not have been ideal for recovering the lost sailor, but the Commodore aboard was in charge of the escorts. He ordered the Eaton to make a hard turn to starboard and increase speed to 27 knots. The crew, already at battle stations for the gunnery exercise, prepared a boat to be lowered as all available hands scanned the waters for the missing man.
The Eaton was picking up speed rapidly, the fog rolling by like low clouds. To the right, the fog suddenly darkened to reveal a nightmare: the towering bow of the 57,500-ton battleship Wisconsin emerged from the mist and bore down on the tiny destroyer.
The Wisconsin was the last of four Iowa-class battleships to be built. The Navy planned to build six of these battleships, but by the end of WWII, it had completed only four. Experienced workers built Wisconsin, believed to be the best of the four in build quality, and launched it on December 7, 1943. Wisconsin holds the distinction of being the last battleship the United States ever built.
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| USS Wisconsin |
The Iowa class was also incredibly fast for a battleship. In 1968, battleship New Jersey established the world speed record for a battleship at 35.2 knots during sea trials.
Incredibly, New Jersey set this record with 22-year-old steam turbines. Wisconsin could easily make 33 knots at flank speed. The secret to this speed was a long, tapered bow that sliced through the water like a knife, cleaving away the ocean along the 887-foot length of her hull. The bow section was purposely unarmored, as nothing vital to the ship’s survival in battle lay that far forward. Other battleships at flank speed tended to “bury their nose” in the ocean, limiting their speed, but the long, light bow of Wisconsin and other Iowa-class battleships added lift at speed.
The Wisconsin struck the right side of the Eaton at the forward 5” inch gun mount at a speed of 17 mph, destroying it. Below deck, the bow punched through the Chief’s Mess, the crew’s galley, the forward fireroom, and severed her keel, the backbone that holds a ship together. The impact severed steam release pipes in the mast, sounding like rapid gunfire as white clouds sputtered and billowed out.
Miraculously, only two people were injured. Her interior compartments were mostly empty, and the crew on deck looked for a man in the water who wasn’t there. A lookout on the Coral Sea spotted a Navy white hat in the fog, triggering a false alarm. Eaton would survive just barely. With her keel broken, the ship’s bow flopped up and down with the swells. Damage control parties rigged her anchor chains as suspended braces to keep the ship together as the Eaton staggered back to port.
Damage to Wisconsin’s light bow structure was considerable after hitting a 2,000-ton object at 17 mph. The front of her bow twisted to the right like a boxer’s nose broken in a prize fight, and she took a nasty 68-foot cut in her hull that ended at the heavier framing aft.
The light construction of Wisconsin’s bow might have saved the Eaton from being cut in half like a hoagie sandwich in a deli.
The bow steel was only about 1.5 inches thick, and the first 80 feet of the bow acted like a “Crumple zone” in a modern car, deforming and absorbing impact forces. Aside from a mangled bow, the Wisconsin was undamaged and not in danger of sinking.
So, what do you do with a battleship missing 70 feet of bow?
In 1956, plenty of parts were on hand for Fletcher-class destroyers like the USS Eaton; the Navy had built 175 of them during WWII, and many experienced shipyard workers still knew how to work on them. Wisconsin presented a few more problems. Of the six Iowa’s originally planned, only four were built, and Wisconsin was the last, completed in 1943.
After WWII, the unfinished battleships Illinois and Kentucky slowly rusted away in shipyards.
The Illinois was only 22% complete and was mostly an empty shell.
The Kentucky was 77% complete, and the Navy occasionally took pieces from her to repair the four Iowa-class battleships still in service. Kentucky did have a complete bow section, however, and the Navy decided to cut it free and fit it to Wisconsin. This was easier because the bow of Iowa-class battleships was welded, not riveted.
Workers cut away a 68-foot, 150-ton section of Kentucky’s bow and barged it from Hampton Roads to the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, where Wisconsin waited. In today’s world, where repairs to Navy ships can take years, something miraculous happened.
They replaced Wisconsin’s bow in just 16 days.
Along with her new bow, USS Wisconsin got a new callsign.
Her crew previously called her “The Big Wisky”; now, with a new bow from the Kentucky, she became “WisKY” in memory of her unfinished sister ship.
Wisconsin returned to duty, taking a piece of the Kentucky with her on every cruise, and remained in service off and on until she was finally decommissioned in 1991, when she returned to Norfolk as a museum ship.
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We had an expression in those days (probably still appropriate today) the said "a collision at sea can spoil your whole day!" In fact there was a nicely inscribed sign to that effect on the bridge of two on the ships I served on. Apparently there were no punishments mentioned in this case.
PS: MM is closing in on the one million reader mark - we're at 868,000 as of this week!
Until next time, stay safe!
Fair winds.
Old Salt
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