The History Channel from the US is coming here next week to film the wreck of the USS Emmons and to tell her story. In preperation for this I was invited by Captain Chuck De Cesari of North of Nago Charters who is running the boat operations and Kurt Reese to head out early to perform some work as needed to set safe and non destructive mooring lines for the film crews. My dive partner was Takeshi Sugiura (one of the earliest known divers on the Emmons if not the first) of O2 Dive, a local dive shop located in Okinawa.
The USS Emmons fought throughout the entire war from 1941 where she was in every operation from North Africa to Normandy and even participated in the Norweigan Seas. She was one of the 6 destroyers (3 US, 3 British) that escorted President Roosevelt across the ocean for his famed meeting with other Allied powers as well. Late in the war she was refitted as a high speed mine detecting vessel and was sent to the Pacific to assist in the Battle of Okinawa. While on patrol a sister ship was under aircraft fire and wounded badly and the USS Emmons circled the crippled ship to provide anti-aircraft support. The reports are that within minutes there were upwards of 75 Japanese aircraft in the skies which descended on the haplas Emmons and her fellow ship. A number of other Allied ships steamed into the area to support the ship to air battle as well as a flotilla of aircraft launched from an American carrier nearby. Almost all the Japanese craft were shot down but toward the end, 5 Kamikaze planes struck the USS Emmons with several minutes apart. The Emmons, on fire and perhaps not under power could only drift while her surviving crew tried to do damage control.
In the photos, the forward gun is said to still be trained on the incoming airplane that penetrated her waterline which will also be visible in some of the photos as a great tear in her armored side.
Eventually, the remaining crew were lifted to another vessel and the USS Ellyson used her 5" (127mm) guns to sink the USS Emmons. The Emmons was drifting dangerously close to the Kouri Island and the Japanese would have to be denied the ship to prevent further catastrophe. Supplies, communication gear, documents and the remaining 5" guns on the deck of the Emmons could have been used by the Japanese on Okiniwa if the Emmons had come to rest in the shallower waters of the Island.
The Emmons today lies a mere 2000 meters off the north side of Kouri and rests on the bottom at 147 feet. The top railing is about 115 feet. The rear section of the ship, maybe 25%, fell off as she sand and rests behind the main wreckage. Several years ago the superstructure fell off and lies along the bottom midships. There area number of visible helmets, boots, supplies and even munitions including depth charges visible along the wreck. The US Navy has not stricken the USS Emmons from its roster and is considered a war grave with 60 US Navy sailers and 5 Japanese pilots entombed there.
All the photos were taken from 130 to 140 feet in ambient light.
