Tragedy at Honda - $14.95
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The greatest peacetime tragedy of the U.S. Navy; the heroism of the crews, the inquiry and the Court Martial.

Written by Charles A. Lockwood, Vice Admiral USN, Ret. and Hans Christian Adamson, Colonel, USAF, Ret. with a foreword by Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, USN

Desolate and dangerous, the Graveyard of Ships runs for 25 miles down the California coast from Point Purisma to Point Conception. And in the middle of this deadly stretch of gales, fogs and ship-killing rocks, Point Honda rears its black, bleak, hostile head.

On September 8, 1923, Squadron 11, Destroyer Force, Battle Fleet, steamed down the coast toward its home port of San Diego, after Fleet Week in San Francisco Bay. Commanding the 14 four-stackers of DesRon 11 was Captain Edward H. Watson.

As the fog closed around them, they raced at a steady 20 knots after the flagship Delphy, according to the unwritten follow-the-leader tradition of Destroyer Doctrine.

At 2100, Captain Watson ordered a 55° course change to take the squadron down the Santa Barbara Channel. Instead, the Delphy led them straight into the arms of what the authors call the jinns of Honda, the spirits of the howling winds and wayward currents that wait for unwary ships.

Ten minutes later, nine of the sleek, battle-ready destroyers were impaled on the rocks of Honda, bereft of power and light, flooding and breaking up. In the enveloping, deadly fog, no one knew what had happened or even where they were. Of those nine ships, seven would never escape the jinns of Honda.

Tragedy at Honda is a dramatic, fascinating hour-by-hour recreation of the wrecking of Squadron 11, and a detailed study of its aftermath, the subsequent Court of Inquiry and General Court Martial, which was perhaps the greatest cause celebre of its kind between the Dreyfus case and the Pearl Harbor investigations.