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Notes
Our data is
based in part on a set of reports entitled Summary of War Damage to U.S.
Battleships, Carriers, Cruisers, and Destroyers. These reports were
classified Confidential and contained the best information available at the
time. The information was wrong or incomplete in some cases. Examples include:
USS Pillsbury (DD-227) was probably sunk by 3
Japanese cruisers and 2 Japanese destroyers somewhere off the Java coast.
There were no survivors and Japanese records provided little information
after the war.
USS Pope (DD-225) was sunk by Japanese
cruisers and aircraft.
USS Edsall (DD-219) may have been damaged by
two Japanese battleships. It is reasonably certain that she was sunk south
of Christmas Island by a Japanese cruiser. It appears there were five
survivors, all of whom later died as prisoners of war, so little is known.
USS Stewart (DD-224) was abandoned in dry
dock after demolition charges had been exploded to render her useless to the
enemy. In fact, she was repaired and served as Japanese Patrol Vessel Number
102. She was recovered by the United States at the end of the war. The ship
was ultimately sunk as a target in May 1946.
The War Damage series treats Pearl Harbor damage
as a separate topic since the conditions there were unlikely to be repeated
elsewhere. The series does not categorize these ships as "lost" or
"damaged" since salvage efforts were planned for nearly all of them.
Three destroyers (Cassin, Downes, and Shaw) were damaged so severely while in
floating drydocks at Pearl Harbor that there can be little doubt that they would
have sunk otherwise. In two instances (Cassin and Downes) machinery was salvaged
and new hulls built.
Data for destroyers lost to causes other than
direct enemy action and data for Destroyer Minesweepers (DMS), Destroyer
Minelayers (DM), High Speed Transports (APD), and Seaplane Tenders - Destroyer (AVD)
were compiled from various sources.
Since we first published our listings several
years ago, we have received many reports of incidents from destroyer veterans.
Those events which could be verified have been added to the lists.
Dates of ship losses are not always easy to state
since some ships went down days or weeks after the damaged occurred. Some ships
damaged during the last months of the war were not repaired. If the damage was
severe and the ship not needed, the vessel was just scrapped.
Different sources sometimes use different names
for the same geographic location. For example, one source may say a ship was hit
at Ormoc Bay while another might refer it as the Comotes Sea. Yet another might
say Leyte and a fourth might say just say Philippines.
Copyright
1998-2001, Tin Can Sailors
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