A Tin Can Sailors Destroyer History
USS DREXLER DD-741
The Tin Can Sailor, July 2005
The USS DREXLER (DD-741 ), an ALLEN M. SUMNER-class destroyer, was launched on 3 September 1944, at the Bath Iron Work in Bath, Maine. The ship’s sponsor was the mother of Ensign Henry C. Drexler, who died in a desperate attempt to save the lives of twenty shipmates in a gun turret accident on the cruiser TRENTON (CL-11). The DREXLER was commissioned on 14 November 1944, with Commander Ronald L. Wilson at the helm. She and the SHURBRICK (DD-639) sailed from Norfolk on 23 January 1945 to escort the BON HOMME RICHARD (CV-31) to Trinidad and, from there, to proceed to San Diego. On 13 February, she got underway for Pearl Harbor and soon after her arrival was engaged in antiaircraft and shore bombardment exercises with the MORRISON (DD-560) and MASSEY (DD-778). Ten days later, she and the MASSEY sailed with the escort carriers SUWANEE (CVE-27) and CHENANGO (CVE-28) to Ulithi, the staging area for the upcoming Okinawa invasion.
The DREXLER left Ulithi on 27 March, bound for Okinawa with Support Carrier Unit 3 to cover the landings. On Easter Sunday, 1 April 1945, she participated in the initial bombardment and, then, went to work clearing mines with fire from her automatic weapons. Also during the battle for Okinawa, she rescued ten aviators who had been shot down. On 2 May the DREXLER became a part of Task Group 51.5 as a picket support ship . With her was the WADSWORTH (DD-516), which served as radar picket ship. From the battle’s beginning, destroyers on picket stations and combat air patrol fighters covering them from above were a critical early-warning system around the island. They took the brunt of concentrated kamikaze attacks that accounted for most of the thirteen destroyers lost off Okinawa.
At 0831 on 4 May, an enemy plane attacked the WADSWORTH and between AA gunners of the two ships they brought the plane down. This was the DREXLER’s first kill. She left the picket line briefly for duty as chief bombardment ship for the invasion of Tori Shima. She returned to radar picket station 15 where she was picket support ship for the GAINARD (DD-706). Three nights in a row, the Japanese attacked non-stop for four hours at a time. The DREXLER shot down one twin-engine bomber and assisted in splashing two other planes. She later served as support ship with the radar picket AMMEN (DD-527) and shot down two suicide planes and possibly one or more during night attacks and assisted in destroying three others. Over the fifteen days she served as a radar picket ship she had to retire twice before the usual five days on station were up because she was running out of ammunition. On 27 May she was on duty as an antiaircraft screen fighting in the transport area in Okinawa. The Japanese maintained continuous attacks, which hit destroyers and small craft on radar picket station 5 and two APDs in the transport screen. Finally, at 0130 on 28 May 1945, she was ordered back to picket station 15 where she faced her final battle.
With the LOWRY (DD-770), which was radar picket, she arrived on station at 0400 to relieve the BOYD (DD-544) and AMMEN. The two destroyers, then, began steaming in a column at 15 knots. With them were two support craft, the “small boys” LCS (L) 55 and LCS (L) 56. At 0643 the DREXLER’s SC radar picked up a bogey at 28 miles, and the crew went to general quarters. The LOWRY sent her combat air patrol (CAP) to investigate, and they shot the plane down before it reached the ships.
At 0700 Lt. Cdr. Wilson, the DREXLER’s captain, sighted a second enemy plane, “sharp on the starboard bow,” elevation about 2,000 feet, range about seven miles. The twin-engine “Nick” was a type of bomber known for the speed of its dives and the punishment it could absorb. “He was already in his low, shallow glide, circling toward the head of our column,” recalled the late Commander Wilson. The DREXLER came left and with the LOWRY opened fire. The diving bomber appeared to be aiming at the LOWRY but, instead, the pilot pulled his plane up, passed over the destroyer, and continued on as if to splash between the two ships. Instead, he attempted to recover and, at 0702, plowed into the DREXLER “between the main deck and the waterline,” Wilson reported, “just a little forward of the starboard quadruple 40-mm mount at frame 114. This plane sprayed us with gasoline as he hit, which started fires, and it broke steam lines in the after fire room and in both engine rooms. The after engineering plant was put out of commission entirely,” and “all electrical power aft was lost.” The exploding plane also damaged the plot room, the lower handling rooms, the magazines, and mount 3.
With one exception, none of the men at these stations escaped. The exception was the mount captain who was blown out of the hatch atop mount 3 and somehow ended up in the water where he was rescued. Damage control parties quickly extinguished the gasoline fires. Because of the rapid loss of steam, Wilson ordered the DREXLER to be slowed from 25 knots to two-thirds speed to conserve what steam remained, but she couldn’t even maintain that and quickly came to a halt.
Thirty seconds after the first plane hit, a second bomber dove on the LOWRY, which was off the DREXLER’s starboard beam. The DREXLER’s guns hit the incoming plane repeatedly causing it to crash astern of the LOWRY. At this point, the ship lost all power in her forward section, just as another bomber appeared some 10,000 yards off the DREXLER’s starboard bow, circling to come in from dead ahead. Two F4U Corsairs of the combat air patrol followed close behind, ignoring the deadly hail of the DREXLER’s antiaircraft fire, which hit one of the American fighters. He didn’t crash but had to give up the chase and was seen trailing smoke as he peeled away. The Japanese pilot seemed to be aiming for the bridge, but was thrown off course by the heavy fire from the remaining Corsair and the destroyer’s 40- and 20-mm guns that riddled his plane. As a result, he ran down the port bow, passing directly over the ship just aft of the No. 2 stack, and it looked certain his smoking plane would crash. But it didn’t. The pilot was able to level off and circle around, diving on the ship again from ahead and again with the Corsair close behind. Again, the kamikaze missed the DREXLER’s bridge, but at 0704 he clipped the signal halyards and mast and crashed into the superstructure deck at the amidships passageway.
The bomber’s load, an estimated 2,000 pounds, caused a tremendous explosion that rocked the ship and knocked people off their feet. The blast “threw parts of the ship hundreds of feet in all directions,” Wilson recalled, “and started a large oil fire that shot several hundred feet up into the air.” The DREXLER, which was already listing from the previous hit, rolled rapidly onto her starboard side in a sea of burning oil and sank stern first. She was gone in just 49 seconds after the plane struck. Because of the damage from explosion and fires and the speed with which she sank, many men were trapped below and casualties were heavy; 150 enlisted men and eight officers were killed or missing and fifty-four were wounded. The DREXLER’s skipper was among the wounded. The LCS 114 was closest when the destroyer went down and picked up 120 survivors, making her way through fiery, debris-strewn waters to rescue the men of the DREXLER. Among them was Lt. Cdr. R.G. Bidwell, the DREXLER’s executive officer, who remembered that the men she picked up “were given old clothes and shoes and a bit of alcoholic beverages to warm them up.” The rest of the 199 survivors were rescued by LCS 55 and LCS 56.
The landing craft transferred the survivors to the PAVLIC (APD-70), which carried them to the anchorage at Hagushi to be put aboard the CRESCENT CITY (APA-21) an attack transport that had been converted to a temporary hospital evacuation ship for the Okinawa operation. In most cases the wounded were, then, transferred to the hospital ship HOPE (AH-7) or other vessels for evacuation. Those who were not wounded were put aboard the LAUDERDALE (APA-179), the receiving ship for uninjured survivors of ships that were sunk for processing.
