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Home >> Hull-Spence-Monaghan

Hull-Spence-Monaghan

Ship Designation: 
-
Date Lost: 
Monday, December 18, 1944
Lost in Typhoon
At 1149 December 18 Admiral Halsey directed Commander Task Force 38 to take most comfortable courses with wind on port quarter. Seven minutes later Admiral McCain directed TF 38 to steer course 120. ... Both were sound decisions; the storm center was then about 37 miles due north, and this southeasterly course took the Fleet away from it. But by that time the ships were strung out over some 2500 square miles of ocean and it was too late for some to escape. ... The typhoon reached its greatest violence between 1100 and 1400 December 18, depending on the position of the vessel concerned. At 1345 Admiral Halsey issued a typhoon warning, to alert Fleet Weather Central to what was going on. This was the first reference to the storm as a typhoon in any official message. ...Unknown to Commander Third Fleet, three of his destroyers, USS Hull (DD-350), USS Spence (DD-512) and USS Monaghan (DD-354) had already gone down.

Lost At Sea Log

Number of sailors in this log: 718

Name Service Branchsort descending
Sea 1c Ralph Swerzbin USN
SC 3c Harold Orasi USN
Sea 2c Elmer Schubert USN
SOM 2c Houston Mills USN
Sea 2c Jefferson Lowe USN
Sea 1c Aldo Pera USN
MM 1c Theodore Sarenski USN
SM 3c Edward Farrell USN
Sea 2c Kenneth Mayer USN
QM 3c Peter Manghisi USN
StM 2c Joseph Byrd USN
Lt(jg) Paul Harnish USN
Sea 2c Doyle Ricker USN
Sea 1c Christopher Cahill USN
Sea 2c Earl Burleson USN
RM 3c William Coleman USN
TM 2c Forest Karns USN
WT 3c Cecil Miller USN
SOM 2c Charles Reams USN
SOM 3c Paul Martin USN

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