| Original caption: “This official United States Navy picture reveals the dramatic end of USS Wasp, a fourteen thousand, seven hundred-ton aircraft carrier, sunk in the South Pacific, September 15, while escorting ships and supplies for the Guadalcanal garrison. Turned into a blazing inferno by ammunition and gasoline explosions after three Japanese torpedoes ripped into her vitals, USS Wasp lists to starboard while vast clouds of smoke billow across the ocean. The white streak in the foreground is the wake of the United States warship from which the picture was taken.” The spread of 6 Type 95 torpedoes from the Imperial Japanese Navy submarine I-19 has been called the best undersea naval assault in history. At least 2, possibly 3, torpedoes hit USS Wasp (CV-7). Destroyer USS O’Brien (DD-415) was hit by 1 torpedo, and a month later, her hull split open, and she sank on October 19, 1942. A 4th hit battleship USS North Carolina (BB-55). 5 men were killed on North Carolina in the attack, but the torpedo inflicted minor severe damage, apart from the shock of the blast that disabled the forward turret. Flooding occurred, and North Carolina took on a list of 5 1/2 degrees to port, but this was quickly corrected with counter-flooding, and she remained on station with carrier USS Saratoga (CV-3), cruising at 25 knots (46 kilometers an hour; 29 miles per hour). The loss of USS Wasp, coming on the news of the losses of the Battle of Savo Island in August 1942, plunged the United States Navy and the American public into a profound depression that wasn’t lifted until the naval battles of Guadalcanal in November. Saratoga had been torpedoed on August 31, wounding United States Navy Admiral Frank J. Fletcher (April 29, 1885 – April 25, 1973). Understated in the reports was the fact that the convoys resupplying the 1st Marine Division had gotten through – a reinforced regiment aboard, and so much food, ammunition, gasoline, and mechanical weapons that our people on the island never again seriously lacked for these things. There was an immense amount of hard fighting still to be done; there were many casualties to be suffered, and there were many times when the fate of Guadalcanal would hang in the balance. But nearly everyone on the island now agrees that the crucial land action of the campaign was the Battle of Lunga Ridge, September 13-15, and that when the reinforcements the Wasp was covering reached the contested island, the crisis was passed. Despite the damage they caused, the Japanese had not eliminated American carrier forces from the campaign. Their operation was an immensely clever sneak attack, well planned and well executed, but as Pearl Harbor also demonstrated, such an attack must achieve complete success, or it is a waste of resources that achieves no strategic success at all. Had the same concentration of submarines been worked up at the approaches to Guadalcanal, had the 6 torpedo hits distributed among the North Carolina, O’Brien, Saratoga, and Wasp, taken place instead on the vessels of the troop convoy, the results might not have looked quite so spectacular; but they would have had far more effect on the course of the campaign and the war. | |
| Image Filename | wwii1560.jpg |
| Image Size | 1.51 MB |
| Image Dimensions | 3899 x 3146 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | Office of War Information |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | September 15, 1942 |
| Location | |
| City | |
| State or Province | |
| Country | Solomons |
| Archive | Library of Congress |
| Record Number | LC-USW33-017656-ZC |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
Author of the World War II Multimedia Database