![]() For his conduct that night Barham received the Bronze Star and command of his own destroyer. Marines picked up the Sailors and took them ashore. He picked up several swimmers, put five life rafts under tow, and began pulling them toward Guadalcanal.Īs the raft chain drew near the island, Higgins boats full of U.S. As ranking officer, Barham took charge of the boat. A boat appeared and the Sailors on board fished him out of the water. He pulled his flashlight from his pocket and flashed it in the direction of the sound. Soon, he heard the chugging of a small motor. When he could hold his breath no longer, he returned to the surface and watched the Laffey’s bow rear up and plunge beneath the surface.īarham turned to look for the others in swimming party, but didn’t see anyone. With debris falling around him, Barham dove down under the water. They got only about 50 to 100 feet away when the destroyer exploded. The swimming party jumped into the oil-covered water and swam for their lives. Barham led the “swimming party” of 25 men, for whom there was no room on the boats and rafts. The men got the boats and rafts in the water, climbed on board when their turn came, and shoved off. The executive officer, who should have been performing this duty, had frozen. The captain argued, but then gave Barham permission to get the men organized. He told the skipper that they had to abandon ship. Two torpedomen worked frantically to free him before he was cooked, blown away by incoming shells, or drowned by rising water.īarham went to the bridge. Fires raged in the space below, heating the deck plates and scorching his flesh. One young Sailor, still conscious, lay on the deck, his broken legs pinned under twisted steel. The ship was strewn with dead and injured Sailors, some with their legs severed. Barham grabbed a flashlight and tried to return below to inspect the damage, but the engineering spaces were so hot that water pouring in began jumping up and down and boiling as soon as it hit the steel floor plates.īarham returned topside and made a quick survey. ![]() ![]() All the lights went out and the temperature suddenly shot up as steam poured in. In an instant the once taut ship became a blazing, sinking wreck.īarham was below at his post in the engineering spaces when the torpedo struck. A few minutes later, shells from three Japanese destroyers and the battleship Kirishima ripped into the Laffey while a torpedo blew off her stern. As the Laffey moved off she poured fire from every available gun into the Hiei’s tall, pagoda-like superstructure, which seemed to collapse like a house of cards. skipper likened to “a barroom brawl after the lights had been shot out.” The Laffey nearly got sliced in two by the Japanese battleship Hiei when she crossed the Hiei’s “T,” her stern clearing the battleship’s bow by less than 20 feet. On Friday 13 November 1942, the Laffey and seven other American destroyers and five cruisers fought 11 Japanese destroyers, one cruiser, and two battleships in a naval melee that one U.S. The Laffey spent the next 228 days in the Pacific, escorting aircraft carriers and trying to stop the Japanese “Tokyo Express” from delivering reinforcements down “the Slot” to Guadalcanal. ![]() “Slim” Barham had graduated from the Naval Academy in 1935 and had become engineer officer of the destroyer Laffey (DD-459) at her commissioning on 31 March 1942. Barham’s critical moment came during the Guadalcanal campaign. During combat, situations often arise that cause junior officers to step up to the plate, testing their mettle.Įugene A. ![]()
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