Dead Reckoning, Live Radio, and Blind Men: Navigating Tragedy at Honda Point

By Nick Wieman
HRNM Educator

The prelude to the worst peacetime loss of ships in U.S. naval history began on a sunny summer day in San Francisco, California. Fresh from participating in that summer’s Pacific Battle Fleet exercises in Puget Sound, Destroyer Squadron 11 (DesRon11) departed the bay on the morning of September 8, 1923, bound for homeport in San Diego. With wartime restrictions on fuel rations relaxed, squadron commander Captain Edward H. Watson was given permission to use the cruise to San Diego as an opportunity to test the ships’ cruising turbines at around 20 knots rather than the standard 15, simulating wartime cruising speeds, and he fully intended to make the most of this opportunity.

Captain Edward H. Watson, commander of Destroyer Squadron 11 (CAWreckDivers.org)

Aboard Watson’s flagship USS Delphy, Watson tasked Lieutenant Commander Donald Hunter with navigating for the whole squadron, ordering all other ships in the column to defer to Delphy for direction, while Watson retired to his quarters to converse with a civilian guest aboard the ship. Watson left DesRon11 in the hands of an experienced navigator and fine officer who, unfortunately for the squadron, had such confidence in his navigational skills that he would stubbornly refuse to consult with the more precise instrumentation available to the post-war Navy. Rather than taking a steady voyage down the coast, taking their time to ensure their navigation was sound, DesRon11 would proceed at a swift 20 knots guided by Commander Hunter’s dead reckoning.

USS Delphy, one of several Clemson-class destroyers involved in the incident. (NHHC)

Dead reckoning is one of the oldest forms of marine navigation. Relative geographic position of a vessel is determined first by taking note of an initial position or landmark and mathematically plotting out their estimated course, factoring in time and velocity traveled. Dead reckoning does not consider other factors like wind direction or strength of the currents, but in most circumstances, it is reliable for general navigation.

Example of dead reckoning, showing measurement of velocity (top) and plotting of course (bottom). (Timeandnavigation.si.edu)

Contrasting with this most ancient of navigation techniques was the then-revolutionary technology of radio-direction finding, or RDF. At its most basic, RDF determines a vessel’s position by triangulating between two or more separate bearings. The ship's radio would transmit signals to an RDF-equipped lighthouse or station, requesting a bearing. The station would rotate a loop antenna until the ship's signal was loudest, which corresponded to a pair of compass bearings at the base of the antenna, 180 degrees apart. While more accurate than dead reckoning, the technology as it existed in 1923 was limited by its relative scarcity. There were few RDF-equipped stations down the California coastline, and the ones that were operational were bombarded with all naval traffic, not just military, especially during periods of poor visibility.

Point Arguello Radio Room, showing an example of direction-finding equipment. (NHHC)

At 11:30, Delphy saw and passed Pigeon Point Lighthouse one mile to port, 50 miles south of San Francisco, unknowingly providing the last solid fix for Delphy’s dead reckoning. The increasingly dense fog that met DesRon11 as the ships bore south would have necessitated moving further to shore to establish a better visual, but Commander Hunter was confident in his navigation and unwilling to reduce speed. When he called for a bearing from the Point Arguello RDF, he received what he believed to be an incorrect reading. It had placed him south of Point Arguello station, when he knew that he was still approaching from the north. The reciprocal reading (i.e., the other set of coordinates) placed him correctly approaching from the northwest, but when Delphy’s usual navigator requested that they move closer to shore to confirm their bearings, Hunter rebuffed him. To Hunter, the first reading was just another example of the RDF system’s unreliability. Confident in his knowledge of the California coastline and his own calculations, Hunter would guide the squadron on dead reckoning for the rest of the voyage.

At 9pm, Delphy made the fatal eastward turn into what Hunter thought was the entrance to the Santa Barbara Channel but was actually the treacherous Honda Point: a 60-foot-steep bluff, with thundering breaking waves concealing all but the tallest boulders, jagged outcroppings, and intermittent pinnacle reefs, all concealed by thick fog.

Map of Honda Point, showing DesRon 11's calculated vs. actual heading. (Destroyers on the Rocks)

The first casualty was USS Young at 9:04, when the ship was ripped open on the starboard side by a submerged pinnacle reef and capsized, followed by Delphy itself when the ship crashed head-on into a boulder. S.P Lee turned hard to port to avoid its fate, only to run aground on the rocky beach. Watson’s emergency broadcast to bear 90 degrees to port and head west came too late. Behind them came Woodbury and Nicholas, who also ran aground in the immediate pileup. USS Farragut managed to escape a fatal collision by going emergency full astern, but this resulted in sideswiping USS Fuller and sending it careening into the rocks; Farragut was damaged but managed to limp out to sea and survived the night. Finally, USS Chauncey became ensnared in a strong undertow that pulled it right into Young’s propeller blades, ripping open the engine room. Four ships: USS Kennedy, Paul Hamilton, Stoddert, and Thompson stopped in time, barely escaping the disaster unfolding ahead of them.

Destroyers run aground at Honda Point (Santamariasun.com)

The Sailors aboard Young—those not trapped belowdecks or swept out into the treacherous sea—clung to life on the port side, many holding on only by smashing out porthole windows. Some heroic Sailors stitched together lines and tied them all together. Their salvation came in the form of Chauncey, which had come to rest some 25 yards away, run aground on a spit of land but otherwise not in immediate danger. Chief Boatswains Mate Arthur Peterson of the Young braved the ferocious surf to organize an ad hoc ferry with Chauncey, bringing back a length of rope and a lifeboat to transfer Young’s Sailors over to the relative safety of Chauncey.

Arthur Peterson (CAWreckDivers.org)

A work crew from the Southern Pacific Railroad, quartered in a mesa house nearby, was the first to respond to the disaster, having heard the tremendous commotion and seen the distress flares through the fog. They arrived at the edge of the Honda Point cliff to find throngs of Sailors drenched and shivering, many cut up and bloody from the sharp, rocky coastline, stranded on the beach below. The work crew helped to bring up the Sailors to the safety of their base camp with breeches buoys. Lifeboats from the undamaged destroyers, working alongside passing fishermen, rescued those Sailors who had not made it to (relative) safety. Ultimately, 23 sailors would perish that night, 20 from the capsized Young and three from Delphy.

Destroyers run aground at Honda Point (Santamariasun.com)

The subsequent courts martial of eleven officers from DesRon11, to find culpability for the largest peacetime loss of Navy vessels in history, was itself the largest single group of officers in US navy history to be tried at once. The unusually tumultuous currents off Honda Point, reverberations from the Great Kanto Earthquake, were acknowledged as minor mitigating factors; ultimate responsibility lay with Captain Watson. Ultimately, only Captain Watson and LCDR Hunter faced any substantial punishment, being convicted of “culpable inefficiency and negligence.” Both men would finish their naval careers in minor postings.

Editor's note: Tune in next week for a second blog, focused on the efforts of the community to save the Sailors in the Honda Point disaster.



Sources/Further Reading
Duckworth, Spencer. Destroyers on the Rocks: Seven Ships Lost. Cypress House Press. Fort Bragg, CA. 2005.
Lockwood, Charles A. and Hans Christian Adamson. Tragedy at Honda. Naval Institute Press. Annapolis, MD. 1960
“Report of Grounding of Destroyers by Captain Nutting” https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/h/honda-pedernales-point-california-disaster-8-september-1923/captain-nutting-report.html
Trudeau, Noah (February 2010). “A Naval Tragedy’s Chain of Errors” Naval History Magazine. Vol. 24, no. 1. U.S. Naval Institute. Retrieved 2 July 2019. https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2010/february/naval-tragedys-chain-errors