Hi all, first time posting here. I'm researching something for an upcoming project, revolving around a story my grandfather, a naval WWII veteran, used to tell me before he passed. He said after the war ended, on their ride home, his destroyer was instructed to weave in an out of the path of the aircraft carrier behind them, so that any remaining mines would, if missed by their shooters, sink their ship rather than the expensive aircraft carrier. Do any WWII historians know of similar stories to this? I've had trouble unearthing more info on this so far. Any leads would be hugely appreciated!
A quite situational and 'what if' scenario, but there's a couple of things that make this quite unlikely :
First, the nature of naval minefields in WW2 - Minefields were not randomly laid in the open ocean, except in well established merchant shipping routes in the Atlantic. They were mostly used en-masse, either as an offensive or a defensive weapon on critical chokepoints - straits, harbour entrances et cetera. Thus, the chances of a ship striking a naval mine on a post-war voyage home in the middle of the vastness of the ocean is practically impossible.
Given that USN in the WW2 had a number of dedicated DMS - Destroyer Minesweeper craft (around 40, if I recall correctly) made from repurposed Wickes, Clemson and Gleaves class destroyers that were able to escort Navy's most important assets - the 24 Essex class carriers, and besides that had an additional number of smaller minesweeping vessels, it's unlikely even if the possibility of striking a mine existed, that a ship unprepared for minesweeping (lacking paravans, a degaussed hull, etc ) would've taken the lead as a 'scapegoat' as it did in the story. Do you know what exact ship, or ship class has your grandfather served on? That would shine a lot of light on the overall situation.
However, after the end of the war, the larger threat was japanese long range submarines still out in the field - while recieving the news of Japanese surrender, no one could guarantee that they wouldn't continue fighting - most probably, the destroyer was assigned its standard ASW escort duty route, and someone made up the aforementioned story, that quickly spread through the crew's ranks given its 'self-sacrifice' appeal. To give a better answer, the name of your grandfather's destroyer, its class, or even the aircraft carrier it was escorting would've provided some more raw data - until then, we can only dabble in empty speculation.