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"Captain Joshua Nix and his crew fought valiantly, evading 1,400 shells from Japanese battleships and cruisers before being attacked by 26 carrier dive bombers, taking only one fatal hit," said Caroline Kennedy, the US ambassador to Australia. On the day it was sunk, the USS Edsall was shelled by Japanese warships but managed to evade them using extreme manoeuvres and smokescreens - which led one Japanese combatant to describe the Edsall as a "Dancing Mouse".
The Australian navy made the surprise discovery as it was conducting an unrelated and unspecified mission in the area.
Its staff used "advanced robotic and autonomous systems normally used for hydrographic survey capabilities to locate the USS Edsall on the seabed," Australia's navy chief, Vice Admiral Mark Hammond, said.
He paid tribute to the US ship, saying it "holds a special place in our naval history".
"The USS Edsall served valiantly during World War II, most notably in the early Pacific campaigns. She operated alongside Australian war ships protecting our shores, and played a role in sinking the Japanese submarine I124 off Darwin."
news.sky.com...
originally posted by: gortex
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This image of the USS Edsall was released by the Australian Navy a few days ago showing the ship in its final resting place.
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originally posted by: KnowItAllKnowNothin
originally posted by: gortex
...
This image of the USS Edsall was released by the Australian Navy a few days ago showing the ship in its final resting place.
...
That pic just ain't right.
The light-source, the angle of the shadow compared to the camera, the weird sandy background, that MH370 that isn't there, ...
Wonder what they aren't telling us about it...
TextThe fate of Edsall's survivors
Japanese Imperial Navy officers aboard the cruiser Chikuma several years later reported that a number of men may have survived the sinking of Edsall as they were found in the water on liferafts, cutters or clinging to debris. However, due to a submarine alert, the Japanese only stopped long enough to rescue a handful before they received orders to retire, leaving the others to perish in the Indian Ocean.
Onboard Chikuma, the survivors were interrogated by their captors; the name of their ship was recorded as "the old destroyer E-do-soo-ru". After a few days, the details of these interrogations were provided to the other ships of Nagumo's Kido Butai during their return journey. There is some suggestion that the cruiser Tone may have picked up a survivor or two as well, but there is no confirming evidence of this. The Americans were held on Chikuma for the next ten days before returning to the Japanese force's advance base on 11 March 1942.
Mass grave
On 21 September 1946, several mass graves were opened in a remote locale in the East Indies, over 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from where Edsall had disappeared. Two graves contained 34 decapitated bodies, among which were the remains of six Edsall crewmen and what are thought to be five USAAF personnel from Langley, along with Javanese, Chinese, and Dutch merchant sailors from the Dutch merchant-ship Modjokerto, sunk on the same day and in the same general area as Edsall. The American bodies were reinterred in U.S. cemeteries between December 1949 and March 1950. War crimes trials conducted in 1946–1948 concerning other murders that occurred in or near Kendari by IJN personnel recorded fragmentary information about the killings of Edsall survivors, but were not recognized as such by Allied investigators, and were not pursued.