Fate
In the hope of turning back the American invasion, the Japanese struck back fiercely with sea and air power. On 1 November 1944, the Japanese launched kamikaze attacks on members of TG 77.1, which was patrolling lower Leyte Gulf to protect a beachhead. At approximately 1341, an Aichi D3A "Val" burst into flames and crashed toward Abner Read. A bomb from the raider dropped down one of the destroyer's stacks and exploded in her after engine room. The plane, in the meantime, came down diagonally across the main deck, setting fire to the entire after section. The ship lost water pressure and this made firefighting efforts impossible. At 1352, a tremendous internal explosion occurred, causing her to list about 10 degrees to starboard and to sink by the stern. At 1415, Abner Read rolled over on her starboard side and sank stern first. Destroyers quickly came to the aid of survivors and rescued all but 22 members of Abner Read's crew.
Read more about this topic: USS Abner Read (DD-526)
Famous quotes containing the word fate:
“But every jet of chaos which threatens to exterminate us is convertible by intellect into wholesome force. Fate is unpenetrated causes.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I am no Poet here; my pen ‘s the spout,
Where the rain water of my eyes run out,
In pity of that name, whose fate wee see
Thus copied out in griefs Hydrography:
The Muses are not Mer-maids, though upon
His death the Ocean might turn Helicon”
—John Cleveland (1613–1658)
“We are hedged about, we think, by accident and circumstance; now we creep as in a dream, and now again we run, as if there were a fate in it, and all things thwarted or assisted.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)