have to. thousands gave their lives to save millions of others. theirs is a war story that deserves to be hold. i'm oliver north for "war stories." good night. . tonight on "war stories." >> how thick is the army on a destroyer. >> there is no armor on a destroyer. >> lack of protection di >> lack of protection didn't stop them. >> i guess we didn't know any bett better. we were 20, we were 20, 18, 19 years old. >> from a fierce enemy to mother nature. >> >> incoming wind, it would take the skin right off of you. >> the tin can sailors of world war ii faced it all. that's next on "war stories." ♪

>> wel >> welcome to "war stories." i'm oliver north coming to you from patriots point. this is the world war ii destroyer, a fighting ship with a remarkable history. at normandy, her guns fired to protect american soldiers landing on the beach. in the space of 09 minu90 minut planes attacked her. the heroic efforts saved the ship and she made her way back to the u.s. and saw action again in the korean war. the brave soldiers who served aboard these vessels called them tin cans. they shot down enemy aircraft, hunted and sank submarines, screened for larger ships,

provided naval gunfire support for troops on shore. and delivered the mail. their jack of all trades capabilities put them in harm's way against far superior foes. despite their valiant service, they're less well known than the capitol ships they protected. they might be better celebrated, but they didn't go anywhere without their destroyer escorts. tonight on "war stories," the tin can sailors of world war ii. ♪ >> more >> more than 300,000 served aboard the tin cans during world war ii. they put their lives on the line with nothing more than three-eighths of an eninch to protect them. >> it was paper thin. the thickness of their little finger. >> to talk about the origin of

destroyers, you really have to go back to the origin of torpedos. >> the >> the torpedo was an out growth of the floating mine, as we would call it today. they called them the torpedo during the civil war. a british civil engineer called robert whitehead decided he could make that move and made small boats that could carry store paid dou torpedos and launch them. they were called torpedo boats. >> in order to combat this new vessel, there had to be something to fight them. and they called it a torpedo boat destroyer. >> the banbridge was only 250

feet long and displaced only 420 tons. with only with only five six-pound guns she may have been light on fire power, but she can the tin can navy. during during world war i she sailed the atlantic battling german u-boats. >> these were the four stackers that are seen and so famous, the four pipers some people called them. >> you arrive in manila harbor, the philippines, places you had never thought of before. >> no, i didn't. >> john grew up in the steel mill town of pennsylvania. part of the fleet the uss pope

was launched in 1920. but 1940 her power plant was burning oil instead of coal. >> i don't know what made me go into the black gang. >> ships like the uss pope were fitted with just one anti-aircraft gun. surface ships feared mines, other ships and sur marinbmarin. >> destroyers were improved by advances in radar, sonar and anti-aircraft guns. all of these changes gave them a better chance in the fight. but as you'll see later, these modifications came at a price. >> i thought we should be in the war. and i thought that we were going to be in a war. >> in the summer of 1940, 22-year-old new jersey native david bait put his money where

his mouth was. >> he found himself on the way to cuba. >> it was fun. i enjoyed it, because you didn't have an awful lot of responsibility. >> my dad >> my dad died in '34 and i wound up the oldest of five kids. so i so i started working in a coal mine when i was 15. >> like many who fought!zv world war ii, steve started basic training in newport, rhode island. >> it wasn't too hard for me. evidence i was a pretty tough kid. >> great britain stood alone and that island nation desperately needed help. >> america's land lease program provided them with bullets to bombers to old tin cans.

>> only five weeks before pearl harbor the uss rubin james was sunk by a german u-boats torpedo. >> 150 of >> 150 of her crew went down with her. five weeks later on that fateful morning of december 7th, the u s -- uss dewey is tied up in pearl harbor. >> they were about 30 feet longer, almost twice the weight. they had much greater range, nearly twice the number of crew members aboard. they could go to the fight rather than wait for the fight to come to him. >> it seemed just like a few minutes. and next thing he's screaming, stooe

steve, the steve, the japas are bombing th air station. >> we had to look on a map to see where pearl harbor was. >> william herman initially tried to join the marines, but his vision kept him out. >> what made you decide to go in the navy. >> my dad was in world war i and he said it was pretty rough in the army. so he said i'd suggest that you go in the navy. at least you have a place to sleep and three meals a day. >> everyone else was going. i figured i ought to. it was just the way we felt. >> evan grew up on a 40-acre farm in arizona. joining the navy gave him a chance to see the ocean for the first time. >> i got a little queasy at first.

>> i gre >> i grew up in philadelphia in a tough neighborhood. and i was a little kid. so i had lots of trouble when i first went to school. >> he graduated from the naval academy in 1938 at the age of 23. >> >> were you aware of what an enormous navy the japanese had. >> no. we were very badly informed about them. we thought they were all short-sighted vision wise. you know, they couldn't see. and naturally they wouldn't have ships as good as ours, right? turned out to be real bad news. >> the bad news would be faced by five young americans in their tin cans. charles calhoun, steve, william herman and john would become warriors. >> the japanese surface navy is blowing allied ships out of the water every day. what was the morale like? >> it was good. i guess we didn't know my

better. we were we were 20, 19, 18 years old. >> two months after pearl harbor

. . in january of '42 america faced a war on two fronts. convoys were streams across the atlantic. and char and charles calhoun was tapped to escort the goods safely across the pond. >> we joined the british home fleet like we had a voice call assigned to us by the british. it was hms stead fast. i said, boy, i hope we can live up to that. >> that's the north atlantic

crossing in the middle of winter. what was that like? >> miserable. very difficult because the north atlantic, as you know, never smooth. >> on the other side of the world the uss pope was facing off against the japanese. after abandoning manila they joined forces in the south pacific. >> i thought we were going to hit the oil fields in borneo. >> the oil in borneo was vital. the japanese needed it to fuel their war machine. by january of '42 they were already ashore but they sea born supply lines for vulnerable. >> the plan was for two uscruiss and eight destroyers to face these transports and their accompanying cruisers and destroyers. unfortunately unfortunately two of the the cruiser had to turn back. two more of the destroyers were

in for repair. only four american destroyers to face four japanese cruisers and eight destroyers. >> there was the pope, the ford, and the paul jones, all to force back destroyers, 1917 and 1918 with 48 torpedos all together. the thing was to empty all the torpedos and then four inch. >> these obsolete four stackers faced a superior force lead by japanese admiral. still, they pressed on into the night. a a little before 3:00 on 14 january, 1942 they spotted the japanese just 9,000 yards away. >> because this was a night battle, the japanese didn't know the american ships were there. >> down in the engine room, i

know there's a lot of noise down there, but could you hear the torpedos being launched. >> you could hear the ship lurch and this and that. >> the ship's general quarters is down there in that whole. you're below the water line? >> right. >> is your heart racing. >> yeah, yeah, yeah. >> american gunnery was better than japanese gunnery. our ships managed to move in and around all of the japanese ships and actually hit the targets that we went in to hit. >> we expended all our four-inch everything. we we left. all this all this took place in an hour an 15 minutes. we went in about 10 to 3:00 and at 4:00 we were out of there. >> did they chase you. >> no. i think they were too busy picking everybody up. >> a small victory, it didn't delay for a single day the imperial army's invasion of

borneo. four four japanese ships were sunk. the american's only casual ttic, four four wounded aboard. >> it was the first surface action and it was the first time we attacked the japs after person harbor. >> john and the crew of the uss >> john and the crew of the uss popeyou do all this research on a perfect car, then smash it into a tree. your insurance company raises your rates... maybe you should've done more research on them. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise your rates due to your first accident. liberty mutual insurance.

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t >> one of the best things about the fletcher class was the five-inch guns. you could protect that ship in five different directions at one time. the the fletcher class bristled with guns. >> she was just 70 feet longer than the old clemson class, but she traveled with a crew of over 300, almost double the number of men with the pope. one of the great tin can traditions was limited space. and all the advances on the fletcher didn't change that. >> never had any trouble with anybody. >> and the ship itself is just another member of the family. there's a relationship between a sailor and his ship on any ship, but especially among the smaller ones. >> no air conditioning among these ships. and of course even in december it's pretty dog gone hot. >> i was the third bunk up.

it was pretty hot in there. had a little patch on the vent there. i i moved that back and forth, get a little air blowing on me. >> the living compartments were crowded. i got permission from the first lieutenant to rig myself a bunk on the overhang where i was out in the open. >> what was the hardest part about being a destroyer man. >> the food. i kept telling me wife i really don't remember what the food was like. i said, it must not have been very good. >> fest yirst you run out of fr food, vegetables, eggs, him imi. eventually you have nothing but peanut butter sandwiches. >> following the battle, the uss pope continued to face off against the japanese second fleet. but the numbers weren't in their favor. the orders came down. get to india as fast as

possible. >> pope found herself operating with two british ships, the cruiser hms exiter. and the british destroyer hms encounter. >> we had confidence >> we had confidence we were going to go to india. and we're talking about the cheap diamonds rubies and all that. >> the chiefs are talking about what a great deal this is. >> yeah. the guys have been there, they told us all about it. >> they were suddenly cut off and surrounded by four heavy cruisers and eight destroyers of the imperial japanese navy. having no place to go, there was a three-hour running gun battle that saw many of the japanese ships damaged before first one and then the other of the two british hiships were hit and su.

>> we had maybe 20 shells left. so we started to get away. and they started dive bombing us. we we finally got a near miss and blew the side of the port side of the ship. >> this is an enemy photograph of the uss pope's last moments. below decks in the uss popes engine room, the crew mates lost all mun cacommunications with t bridge. though they didn't though they didn't know what was happening above, they knew it wasn't good. >> i went up and i saw that they were abandoning ship. i went through the hatch again and i told them we were abandoning ship. >> amazingly, john and all but one of the pope's crew escaped into the sea, but they were far from safe. as they were hitting the ship,

you're in the water? >> right. >> and you're watching the ship go down. >> right. >> what was going through your mind. >> my home was >> my home was going down. >> the survivors of the pope were adrift on the java sea. three days after the singing, an enemy destroyer appeared on the horizon. >> a brand new big destroyer. >> was there any word out about the fact that the japanese were machine gunning people in the water? >> yeah. and this guy believe it or not got a mega phone and he was talking japanese to us in the water. a a lieutenant answers him back, what do you want? he said we want to take the officers. that's it. he said you take everybody or nobody, now in japanese, hi class japanese. so he says, okay, come on.

>> they wound up serving the war's japanese prison noers at camp. >> horrible, horrible. they would beat you on the slightest thing and you were half ditzed from not eating. 27 died. average weight was about 100 pounds when we were liberated. i was 95 pounds. >> ray calhoun, evan, dave and steve face off against two vicious enemies, the wednesday and the sea in a ferocious pacific typhoon. the fate of their tin cans was break. a story of

. . august august of 1942, marines hit

the beach as the leather necks battled ashore, the tin can sailors faced the enemy on the high seas. their only protection, the ship's three-eighths inch thick steel. >> they called it the iron bottom sound because there were so many ships at the bottom. >> yeah. >> did you see any of those engagements? >> >> yeah. yeah, we w yeah, we were in one, a big one. november 13th, 1942, when the so-called tokyo express came down to do their nightly shore bombardment. >> the tokyo express was the nickname given by u.s. sailors to the japanese naval surface force that is forces that relentlessly tried

to crush the invasion. >> they turned us around to intercept the jap force, which we knew consisted usually with two battleships, one or two cruisers and a dozen or so destroyers. so we so we had a good idea we were going to encounter battleships. >> and the force that turner is send back against them consists of what? >> a total of 13 ships, but the heaviest ship was the san francisco and portland. >> seven enemy ships were sighted 27,000 yards away. the night sky was alive with muzzle flashes and shells illuminating their targets. closing in, calhoun spotted a japanese battleship 2,000 yards away on his port bow. continually blasting at the

ship's bridge with his puny five-inch shells. >> we were probably about a thousand yards away from her when we sighted japanese class destroyer. we fired one in their bridge. they all exploded. the next followed five seconds later. the secondar the secondary explosion was huge. it it appeared to us as cherry red and hissed as it sunk into the water. the battleships now, noticing this con fla immigratithat we st us, the number three gun and started all kinds of fires. so we had real problems. >> that night the u.s. navy absorbed the might of the tokyo

express, sparing the boys on the beach. but su but success came at a terrible price. during during the fight, they lost four men overboard. and the next day 28 more lay dead on her decks. >> the 1943 landings put 10,000 more marines and soldiers ashore. the pressure was increasing on the japanese. four heavy enemy cruisers and six destroyers arrived to crush the landing force. rear hadmiral -- the battle of m press augusta bay was on. >> things that no one knew a destroyer was even capable of they were called onto do.d ofcos to follow the larger ships

arnol around, destroyers were used on ar their own. >> the japanese lost a cruiser and a destroyer. >> attack, attack, attack was the tin can's now motto. at the battle of cape saint george he put this tactic to work. >> burke divided his ships into two groups and attacked the enemies from two sides. these were things destroyers had never done before. >> they sank fothree enemy ship and heavily damaged a fourth. >> this was the battle that got arley burke the title of 31-knot work. >> aggressive tactics helped the uss england in may of 1944. she sank six japanese subs in just 12 days. in seas spanning the globe, the

tin cans and her sailors brought victory ever closer. at normandy -- >> the general said if it wasn't for the destroyers, i wouldn't have had an artillery. >> all he was facing was two destroyers and a destroyer escort. >> whe >> when i took them in, she was in the shipyard at puget sound. >> steve had been aboard since pearl harbor, he was now the destroyer's masser ship fitter. >> his basic job was damage control. >> calhoun was quick to find problems. >> we concluded among ourselves that they had probably added too much topside weight with the

added machine guns. >> 40 millimeter cannons. >> yeah. she heeled the right way, but she didn't return to vertical. >> the design of ships had to be sacrificed to the need for the current duty. the class already a top heavy class of ship, had much more weight added to its top. >> pretty soon after i arrived, we knew there was a storm in the area and that it was a possibility that we'd get involved in it. >> dave reported aboard the ship in the philippines sea. >> all together there were about 130 ships. >> who's commanding. >> admiral hallsey. >> evan was aboard the uss

monohan. like like the dewey she was t top-heavy. one way one way a ship maintains is by keeping its oil tanks full, called ballast. it helps maintain stability in heavy seas. >> as you get ready to refuel, you drain the sea water out, which raises the ship up out of the ocean, making it a very top heavy. >> the >> the 17th we tried to take on the oil from this aircraft carrier. i don't remember the name of it. kept breaking the lines. that's when we cancelled it. >> the monohan and several over destroyers were dangerously low on fuel and therefore top heavy. the order was given to try and refuel again on the 18th. but no one knew then they would find themselves in a pacific o

typhoon. >> we were hanging on for >> we were hanging on for dear life. life. >> you'd go over so much and come back. seemed like it went over more every time it rolled. every time it rolled. >> the uss monohan capsizes and now that fedex has helped us simplify our e-commerce, we could focus on bigger issues, like our passive aggressive environment. we're not passive aggressive. hey, hey, hey, there are no bad suggestions here... no matter how lame they are. well said, ann. i've always admired how you just say what's in your head, without thinking. very brave. good point ted. you're living proof that looks aren't everything. thank you. welcome. so, fedex helped simplify our e-commerce business and this is not a passive aggressive environment. i just wanted to say, you guys are doing a great job. what's that supposed to mean? fedex. helping small business simplify e-commerce.

on on the morning of 18 december 1944 the battle of the bulge raged. 6,500 miles away in the philippine sea, they faced another enemy, a typhoon was pounding the ships of the u.s. navy, the seas nearing 30 feet and winds at 120 knots, no ships had a worse time than the tin cans. aboard the aboard the uss monaghan evan

fenn finished his watch. >> i got to where i could watch and timed it. and finally i got back to my compartment. >> even this dead full storm couldn't stop evan fenn from keeping himself shipshape. >> i went down and got my razor and just proceeded to shave. and i'd hang on with one hand and my feet would fly out from under me hanging on. i finally got shaved. >> the seasprays were so strong that if you turned your face toward the incoming wind, it would take the skin right off of you. >> >> at 0950 that morning the aircraft carrier monoray appeared suddenly out of the fog. >> >> i went close under his stern, close enough to read the name.

then i ordered the helmsmen to come back to the base course. and a few minutes later he said, captain, it's not answering the helm. they'r they're still in the trough of the sea. >> if you wanted to come right or come to starboard, you could not do it. if you wanted to go to port, you could not do it. >> being caught lake that, things that the ship is unable to take the waves head on. taking them from the side or from the beam means the ship is going to take heavy rolls. >> 60 years later, calhoun remembers the typhoon as though it were yesterday. >> so that's the bridge wing right up there. >> yes, sir. >> i was wedged between the engine order telegraph and the -- two gadgets that tuck up about that high. and by putting myself in between them, i couldn't fall either

way. >> it went >> it went 75 degrees. >> yeah. >> that's as far over as it goes and it was pegged? >> yeah. >> captain calhoun was saying there were several occasions that it went over that far. he had that sensation that if he dropped something, it would not hit the deck. it would hit the ocean. >> you're walking on the wall there . >> 3,000 yards away the monaghan was also an irons. rolls in excess of 75 degrees turned the decks into bulk head and bulk heads into decks. >> i said i better be getting out of here. i got up where the door was and it was laying plumb over on its side then, the ship was. >> after reaching the deck, fenn was swept overboard, but found a life raft. shortly after noon, the monaghan went down. >> you couldn't hardly recognize when it went across the raft.

that was just like you and i, you know, blowing so hard. >> a throfloat on a raging sea, float originally held 13 surv e survivo survivors. fenn was all that was left survivors. fenn was all that was left of the monaghan's crew. >> i worked hard all my life and just hung in there. >> the spence, the monaghan and the hull were all lost. >> all three of them were destroyers, two of them farragut class. almost 150 p almost 150 planes were swept overboard or destroyed and nine other ships were severely damaged. >> >> in april of 1945, the navy had leap frogged its way through the islands of the pacific and found itself at the southern-most of the japanese

islands. >> with troops ashore, the tin cans were positioned around the island. william william herman was aboard the u uss pringle. >> to defeat this the japanese began using ce ining divine wed they called it. >> we heard this tremendous explosion. >> >> was there any command to abandon ship. >> i haven't heard it yet. believe it or not. >> william herman was in a cramped gun mount like this one when a recently, a 1954 mercedes-benz grand prix race car made history when it sold for a record price of just under $30 million.

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mid mid april 1945, the fletcher class class destroyer pringle is firing firing in support of the soldiers a soldiers and marines battling for the island. on t on the 15th, she was transferred from f from fire support duty and placed at placed at radar picket station 14. will william herman was on the ship. >> our ship was the closest one to to japan. >> >> if you found yourself in one of the n of the northern picket stations, you were more likely to be attacked. attacked. and that's where pringle was. >> was >> was everybody at general quarters when it happened? >> the >> they picked a tall man to man the the five-inch guns because they could lift

could lift and protect us up out of the hoist. so so they put me back on the number number three five-inch loader. >> >> it's not just that the loaders loaders are big guys or tall. they're strong. >> >> yeah, because each one of their their projectors ways 56 pounds. >> the radar operator picked up an an inbound raid. do you r do you remember them firing at these gu these guys before they hit you? >> oh >> oh yeah. >> it's >> it's pretty clear at this point, they're after the picket ships. ships. >> i guess some of the pilots thought we thought we were pretty good targets. targets. >> that morning the pringle's guns took down a kamikaze. suddenly, one of the zekes turned toward the crew of the pingle pingle. >> the kamikaze hit about this part right part right near the bridge. and and it penetrated and exploded,

had had 1,000 pound bomb attached to it. it. >> how do you know the ship was going going down? >> you >> you h tremendous explos explosion and the gun captain ju just opened the hatch and he -- last we he last we heard was, everybody out. out. so we got out. we cou we could see everything was gone from the from the number three gun mount on way on way up to the bridge. this was this was just completely blown apart. >> do you remember which side you we you went over? >> on t >> on the starboard side. i came i came down and went down on this this part of the deck, stepped into into the water and held onto a life life raft. >> >> you had been wounded by that point point aga >> i >> i got hit in the thigh and the the shoulder. just a just a small one in the shoulder and shrapnel in the thigh. >> when th >> when the interior of the ship is opened to the sea, all watertig watertight integrity is lost. the the ship will sink quickly.

in the case of the pringle the surviv survivors watched her go down in six six minutes. >> how man >> how many went down with her? >> 62 >> 62 went down with the ship and eight of them went down late their their day. so we so we lost 70. >> how >> how long were you in the water? water? >> about three hours, hanging onto life onto life rafts. >> >> her man aman and 250 others rescued. rescued. more than 1,000 american soldiers w soldiers were killed and 13 tin cans sent to cans sent to the bottom. >> you remember the good parts. you you remember the bad parts. of c of course, no one knows what war is l is like unless you go through

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invasion of okinawokinawa, worl ii finally ended. five months after that 8.5 million men and women were mustered out of the armed forces. evan evan fenn got out and went home to arizona. >> i've never been back to the ocean since. have never desired to. >> william herman fell in love, got married and went to work on the railroad. dave bates set up his law practice in new jersey. steve and charles calhoun made careers of the navy and retired in 1960 and '67 respectively. >> we loved our country. we loved the navy. and we were determined that we were going do our best. >> like those who served aboard them, many of the wars tin cans were no longer needed.

some were sold for scrap. others were moth balled. and some were even used for target practice. after three and a half years as a pow the end of the war brought john home. but 60 years haven't weakened his feelings for those with whom he served or for those with whom he was imprisoned on by the japanese. >> we were pretty close, like brothers. >> on 24 november 1943 admiral send a message to the captain burke ordering him to block a japanese movement. the cable read 20thwart the evacuation line. you know what to do. that message sums up the tin can sailors and the sailors who served. the tin can sailors of world war

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