I'm looking for some info on a Naval accident that occured in the late 1800's-early 1900's. It involved a squadron of U.S. Navy destroyers who were, in the practice of that period, "following the leader". That is, before the advent of radar, ships navigated by recieving a radio signal of some sort, then the 'reciprocal' of that signal, to find where they were in relation to a certain point. Since not all ships had the equipment to do this, one was chosen, usually the one with the sqdrn commander aboard, and everyone else would follow him. This destroyer squadron was practicing a high speed run at night. The wreck happened at night, off the coast of Calif, near the town of Hondo, or Honda. The lead ship missed it's radio signal somehow and crashed straight into the rocky coast at full speed. Since all other ships were following, they too crashed into the same rocks, some into the lead ships. I read a book about it yrs ago, & I thought the name of it was Hondo, or Honda, but can't find any reference to it, or this event. Anybody provide any links to this event? I'd appreciate it.

Here's a link... http://www.users.qwest.net/~sgolowski/

And here's a book...

Lockwood, Charles A., Vice Admiral and Adamson, Hans Christian, Colonel

Tradegy at Honda, 1978
The story of the greatest peacetime tragedy of the U.S. Navy. In 1923, Destroyer Squadron 11, while on a high speed training mission off the fog bound coast of California, suffered a position miscalculation which put the lead ship on the rocks at Pt. Arguello. The rest of the squadron, racing single file at 20 kts, began piling onto the rocks, one by one. Before it was over, 9 ships were on the rocks, 7 never to return to sea again.

[This message has been edited by Cheever3000 (edited 03-22-2002).]

Wow, never heard of it. How many died?

quote Originally posted by frontal lobe: Wow, never heard of it. How many died?

23 died...