USS Edsall DD 219 wreck located

USS Edsall lost in combat on March 1, 1942, against the might of the Imperial Japanese Navy has been located some 200 miles east of Christmas Island. The discovery came last year with a survey carried out by the Royal Australian Navy but was only confirmed on Nov 11 this year.

First blood for US destroyers against the submarines of Japan would fall to USS Edsall and several Australian corvettes off the port of Darwin on January 20, 1942. The submarine in question was the I-124 and a Japanese flag was painted on the ship's scoreboard. But the ship's date with destiny was still in the future. Last friendly contact with Lt. J.J. Nix and his destroyer was on March 1, 1942, as the ship parted company with the destroyer Whipple and oiler Pecos to vanish until after the war, it seemed the whole ship and crew had been swallowed up. Through interrogations it was revealed USS Edsall ran into two battleships and two cruisers of Nagumo's fleet. Nix skillfully steered his ship avoiding destruction until, according to Theodore Roscoe in Tin Cans, Vals from Soryu disabled the nimble destroyer whereupon the ships that had missed the destroyer for hours finally sent her and her valiant crew to the bottom. From the cruiser Ashigara comes the only known film of this lop-sided combat along with the clue that lead to an obscure cemetery where the beheaded bodies of five men were discovered, the last survivors of Edsall.