Men against the Wind

It was something formidable and swift, like the sudden smashing of a vial of wrath. It seemed to explode all round the ship with an overpowering concussion and a rush of great waters. . . .

--Typhoon, by Joseph Conrad.

One typhoon had blown itself out off Okinawa, but a secondary storm of much greater violence was born from the original disturbance. It swung rapidly northeast toward the cruising U.S. Third Fleet. It was early June, only six months after Admiral William F. Halsey had lost three destroyers in a typhoon off the Philippines (TIME, Jan. 22).

This time, the twister set a collision course for the task group commanded by Rear Admiral Joseph ("Jocko") Clark, and the Cherokee Admiral got it head on. Proud ships like the Hornet and Bennington (27,000-ton carriers) had as much as 25 feet of their steel-braced flight decks peeled back by the waves; parked planes were picked up and tossed aside in a jumble of wreckage; exposed gun mounts, built out from the ships' sides, were crushed.

Worst sufferer was the heavy cruiser Pittsburgh, a 13,000-ton yearling. Her bow began to quiver under the buffeting of mountainous seas; the forward compartments were cleared of men, and just in time. A huge wave threw her 10DEG to 15DEG off her course; the next tore off 104 feet of her bow.

Not a man aboard was lost; the forward bulkheads, bare to the buffeting seas, were shored up; the Pittsburgh fell behind the fleet.

Most of the 21 damaged ships, repaired at sea, were soon back in action. As the crippled Pittsburgh limped toward port, the radio brought a message from one of the ships: "Have sighted a suburb of Pittsburgh and have taken it in tow." The Pittsburgh's bow went home, too.

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