On November 30, 1942, a Japanese Type 93 torpedo hit the USS New Orleans, ripping off 150 feet of its hull. That’s roughly a third of the ship. Turret No. 1, the forward fire room, crew quarters, storage compartments, and the chain locker were all gone. The blast killed 182 men. The severed bow didn’t sink immediately, instead swinging alongside the ship and punching holes in the port side as the ship kept moving. The forward bulkhead was the only thing keeping the ocean out of the rest of the hull. The USS New Orleans limped across the sound to Tulagi harbor and anchored in a concealed cove to hide from Japanese aircraft. For 11 days, the crew worked to make the ship seaworthy. They had no dry dock, no shipyard, no steel — what they did have were coconut trees. Sailors went ashore with axes and felled coconut palms, dragging the logs back to the ship. They used the logs to build a temporary bulkhead across the open bow, making it a makeshift plug. They welded steel plates where they could and sealed everything they could reach. It was ugly, but it needed to hold together for 1,800 miles. On December 12, the USS New Orleans left Tulagi, stern first. Think about that. A 9,950-ton heavy cruiser, 588 feet long, designed to make 32 knots, crawling backwards across the Coral Sea at 5 knots, the helmsman steering by looking over his shoulder. The ship arrived in Sydney on Christmas Eve, with Australians staring at the ship that was sailing the wrong way with a flat wooden wall where her bow should have been. In Sydney, workers installed a temporary steel stub bow, enough to get her across the Pacific to a real shipyard. She sailed to Puget Sound Navy Yard in Bremerton, Washington, where a proper bow was finally built and fitted. The USS New Orleans returned to service in October 1943 and fought in every major Pacific campaign from the Gilbert Islands to Okinawa.
