Japanese forces sank the USS Edsall on March 1, 1942, in the Indian Ocean.
Naval History and Heritage Command
On March 1, 1942, three months after the attacks on Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces sank an American warship called the USS Edsall.
The 314-foot-long destroyer didn’t go down without a fight. The Edsall’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Joshua Nix, executed evasive maneuvers for more than an hour that led Japanese observers to describe the vessel as a “dancing mouse.” Once it became clear he could not save the ship, Nix, 33, pointed the bow of the Edsall at Japanese ships in his “last act of defiance,” writes Samuel J. Cox, the director of Naval History and Heritage Command, in a history of the ship.
Now, more than 80 years later, the Edsall has been found at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. The Royal Australian Navy discovered the vessel on the seafloor roughly 200 miles east of Christmas Island, according to NBC News’ Patrick Smith.
“The commanding officer of Edsall lived up to the U.S. Navy tenet, ‘Don’t give up the ship,’ even when faced with overwhelming odds,” says Admiral Lisa Franchetti, chief of United States naval operations, in a statement. “The wreck of this ship is a hallowed site, serving as a marker for the 185 U.S. Navy personnel and 31 U.S. Army Air Force pilots aboard at the time, almost all of whom were lost when Edsall succumbed to her battle damage.”
The ship was initially located in 2023, but researchers didn’t confirm its identity as the Edsall until recently. The discovery was announced on Monday, which was Veterans Day in America and Remembrance Day in Australia and Britain.
The Royal Australian Navy found the Edsall by accident while completing an unrelated mission aboard the M.V. Stoker, an Australian naval support ship. Crewmembers used “advanced robotic and autonomous systems normally used for hydrographic survey capabilities” to locate the Edsall on the seafloor, according to a statement from Vice Admiral Mark Hammond, who leads the Royal Australian Navy.
“The USS Edsall served valiantly during World War II, most notably in the early Pacific campaigns,” he says. “She operated alongside Australian warships protecting our shores, and played a role in sinking the Japanese submarine I-124 off Darwin.”
Edsall was about 225 miles south-southeast of Christmas Island when Japanese forces spotted it and began firing. Nix ordered his crew to fire back, but Edsall was outnumbered. Nix tried other tactics to evade the attack, including changing speed and direction and creating a wall of smoke to hide behind.
Those efforts worked for a while, but Japanese dive bombers ultimately defeated the vessel. Nix ordered his men to abandon ship, then pointed the bow toward the enemy—a maneuver that was the “maritime version of flipping the bird,” Cox tells the Washington Post’s Michael E. Ruane.
“Captain Joshua Nix and his crew fought valiantly, evading 1,400 shells from Japanese battleships and cruisers, before being attacked by 26 carrier dive bombers, taking only one fatal hit,” says Caroline Kennedy, the U.S. ambassador to Australia, in a statement.
It’s not clear how many American troops aboard Edsall died in the attack. Some survivors were left in the water, while others were captured by Japanese forces. After the war, none of the Edsall’s crew members were found in Japanese prisoner-of-war camps. The U.S. Navy declared all of them “presumed dead” in November 1945.
“Edsall was awarded two battle stars for her wartime service,” Cox writes. “However, because there were no living U.S. witnesses to Edsall’s last fight, there are no Medals of Honor, Navy Crosses or Presidential Unit Citations for what was one of the most gallant and valorous actions in the history of the U.S. Navy. Nevertheless, we have a duty to remember their courage in the face of overwhelming odds.”
