My 3 Navy buddies and I cannot seem to find the source of a quote we all remember learning during our R.O.T.C. training. From our collective memories we are pretty sure it was from an early naval battle of World War 2 in the Pacific in which a ship in very rough shape is taken control of by some low level officer (an ensign?). He supposedly sends a transmission to his commanders along the lines of "This is the U.S.S. XXX several weapon systems are down, all the officers above me are dead, I apologize for any mistakes I am about to make." Obviously that is me heavily paraphrasing. As far as we remember the ship never made it out.
Ring any bells to anyone? Were we lied to by some speaker and this never happened? Is this a Berenstain Bears effect and we all have a false memory? None of us can seem to find anything on Google. Much thanks to anyone who can lead us to it, it's driving us crazy.
Hmm this is an interesting one. There are certainly a few occasions where command fell to the most junior of the JO's aboard, and certainly in the first year of the war there were several occasions of USN ships going down fighting or facing dreadful odds and with dead captains. But the exact circumstances is a little suspect.
We can also note the most famous instances of when Ensigns had to take over, that being the destroyers Alywin and Blue at Pearl Harbor. Each had just a small gaggle of Ensigns aboard that morning and within 30 minutes had been ordered to get underway along with all the other destroyers in the harbor and as many of the cruisers and battleships as could. While Nevada is justifiably famous as the only battleship to raise steam and get moving, 3 cruisers, and about a dozen destroyers were able to sortie joining the ships like Ward who were already at sea on duty guarding the entrance to the harbor. They spent the next 48 hours screening the entrance from potential subs, and chasing false alarm siting reports. But both Aylwin and Blue were just as effective as the rest, who themselves sortied with crews short of key men or hastily assembled from several ships.
However they were not seriously damaged during the attack or after, and soon were reunited with the rest of their crews.
And while actions like the Java Sea, Savo Island, and First and Second Guadalcanal saw several dead captains among the combatants, to my knowledge none saw anyone below a LCDR or LT in charge.