Day in History

[LaTashaS28]

This is very interesting to know about history

[pkrahmer]

very interesting info. thanks for sharing. i will have to check ou the link.

[king4cash]

Thanks for the history lesson, keep it coming...

[beatsdrop]

On this day, Aug. 1 …

1981: MTV makes its debut.

1907: The U.S. Army Signal Corps establishes an aeronautical division, the forerunner of the U.S. Air Force.

1936: The Olympics opens in Berlin with a ceremony presided over by Adolf Hitler.

1957: The United States and Canada announce they have agreed to create the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD).

1973: The movie "American Graffiti," directed by George Lucas, opens.

[calendria]

 


1620 – The Mayflower departs from Southampton, England, carrying would-be settlers, on its first attempt to reach North America; it is forced to dock in Dartmouth when its companion ship, the Speedwell, springs a leak.
(Scroll down for Two (2) pics and info on Speedwell's return to England after sailing)

1944 – World War II: The Nazis begin a week-long massacre of between 40,000 and 50,000 civilians and prisoners of war in Wola, Poland.

1949 – In Ecuador, an earthquake destroys 50 towns and kills more than 6,000.

1962 – American actress Marilyn Monroe is found dead at her home from a drug overdose.

[calendria]

 

1588
The English fleet won a decisive battle over the Spanish Armada off the coast of Gravelines in northern France.


1901
American physicist Ernest Orlando Lawrence—winner of the 1939 Nobel Prize for Physics for his invention of the cyclotron, the first particle accelerator to achieve high energies—was born in Canton, South Dakota.

1945
The United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France signed the London Agreement, which authorized the Nürnberg trials.

[madeara]

This is so good.

[dwggs]

Thanks for the link.  It is a very interesting site.  It's fun to research different dates and find out things that happened in the past.

[calendria]

 


September 8, 1923: The Honda Point Disaster

https://www.historyandheadlines.com/history-september-8-1923-9-us-navy-destroyers-run-aground-7-sink/

(Great film clip of the ships on this page)  I found some pics to show the "Lost Squadron" below (3 pics)

A Really good clip is here:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KesDm_AFLZc
A Brief History
On September 8, 1923, the biggest peacetime disaster in U.S. Navy history occurred when commodore Captain Edward Watson of Destroyer Squadron 11 (Desron 11) ignored his radio navigation device and led 9 of his 14 ships to run aground at Honda Point in the Santa Barbara Channel in California, with 7 of the Clemson-class destroyers sinking. 
Digging Deeper

Not only were 7 ships wrecked, the remaining 2 were left damaged, 23 men lost their lives, with many more injured. 

It seems the navigation had been conducted the old fashioned way, by “dead reckoning,” where the ship’s position would be ascertained using compass headings and revolutions of the propeller to estimate the theoretical speed of the ship.   Apparently, the old-school commodore did not trust the relatively new radio navigation equipment and ignored what turned out to be proper information about the ships’ location.
The heavy fog that day did not exactly help, and the refusal of the commodore to slow down enough to take depth soundings cost a chance to correct the error.  The close formation of the ships further aggravated the situation and made sharp turns difficult or impossible.  As it was, the 2 ships that did not sink had ignored the order to follow in close formation.
The main reason for the navigational blunder, however, were likely the altered ocean currents, the result of the Great Kanto Earthquake off the coast of Tokyo, Japan just a week prior.   It was these currents that took the lead ship, the USS Delphy several miles off course, causing her to lead 9 of the 14 ships to doom.
Capt. Watson accepted blame for the disaster and was punished with the removal of his seniority.   Another 3 officers were “admonished,” but the 11 officers who faced court martial were acquitted.
The Clemson-class destroyers had been developed after World War I and 156 of them were built in total.  They were 314 feet long, to be manned by a crew of 120 and capable of speeds up to 35.5 knots.  Their main armament were 4 x 4”  and 2 x 3” guns and a whopping 12 x 21” torpedo tubes.  These 4-stack destroyers served the U.S. until 1948, when many of them were turned over to allied navies, such as the UK and USSR.
Back on July 3, 2014, we published a list of “10 “Oops” Moments in Naval History.”  This disaster at Honda Point was not included on the list, but maybe should have been.