Robert Kelly Smith (March 31, 1923 – January 8, 1974)
All of us kids who spent time at grandma’s little house by the railroad tracks in Pearl, MS during the early 1970s remember our granduncle as “Hotrod” Kelly. He always made a grand entrance every time he came to visit. He would pull up in the driveway and rev his engine until it sounded like it was about to blow.
He would often sit us all down and tell us stories because he always had one to tell. In one of his stories, he told us about his time in the Navy during WWII. He described how the Japanese torpedoed his ship, forcing everyone on board to abandon it. He pulled up his shirt and showed us a very deep scar under his ribcage. I’ve never forgotten that story and his scar.
I thought of Uncle Kelly recently and the WWII story he shared with us and decided to do some research. Wow, I found lots of information about him and his time aboard the USS Wasp aircraft carrier as well as actual pictures of his ship at war. As a tribute to Uncle Kelly, I would like to share my findings with you all.
This clipping was pulled from Page 11 of the Clarion-Ledger Jackson, Mississippi
There was also an interesting news article in this paper about dynamite being detonated near fire stations. The whole area would go dark immediately after these controlled explosions. As the army put it, these exercises were to better prepare the public in case of an actual bombing. After Pearl Harbor was bombed, I’m sure everyone was on edge wondering what would happen next.
During the time of this news article, the USS Wasp was in the Atlantic supporting the Allies by ferrying British fighter aircraft to Malta. Afterward, Wasp was sent to the Pacific in June 1942 to replace losses in the Coral Sea and Midway battles. During the invasion of Guadalcanal, Wasp got hit by three of four torpedoes fired from the Japanese submarine I-19.
Below is an excerpt of a story from the official US Military website Naval History and Heritage Command.
Wasp was ordered south by Vice Adm. Fletcher to refuel and thus did not participate in the Battle of Eastern Solomons on 24 August 1942. That engagement cost the U.S. force the use of Enterprise. Saratoga was torpedoed a week later and departed the South Pacific war zone for repairs as well. That left only two carriers in the southwest Pacific: Hornet, which had been in commission for only a year, and Wasp.
On Tuesday, 15 September 1942, those two carriers and North Carolina, with ten other warships, were escorting the transports carrying the Seventh Marine Regiment to Guadalcanal as reinforcements. Wasp had drawn the job of ready-duty carrier and was operating some 150 miles southeast of San Cristobal Island. Her gasoline system was in use, as planes were being refueled and rearmed for antisubmarine patrol missions; and Wasp had been at general quarters from an hour before sunrise until the time when the morning search returned to the ship at 1000. Thereafter, the ship was in condition 2, with the air department at flight quarters. There was no contact with the enemy during the day, with the exception of a Japanese four-engined flying boat downed by a Wasp Wildcat at 1215.
About 1420, the carrier turned into the wind to launch eight fighters and 18 SBD-3s and to recover eight F4F-3s and three SBDs that had been airborne since before noon. The ship rapidly completed the recovery of the 11 planes; she then turned easily to starboard, the ship heeling slightly as the course change was made. The air department at flight quarters, as they had done in earlier operations, worked coolly at refueling and respotting the ship’s planes for the afternoon mission. Suddenly, at 1444, a lookout called out, “three torpedoes . . . three points forward of the starboard beam!”
A spread of four torpedoes, fired from the tubes of the Japanese submarine I-19, churned inexorably closer. Wasp put over her rudder hard-a-starboard, but it was too late. Two torpedoes smashed home in quick succession while a fourth passed ahead. Both hit in the vicinity of gasoline tanks and magazines.
In quick succession, fiery blasts ripped through the forward part of the ship. Aircraft on the flight and hangar decks were thrown about as if they were toys and dropped on the deck with such force that landing gears snapped. Planes triced up in the hangar overheads fell and landed upon those on the hangar deck; fires broke out almost simultaneously in the hangar and below decks. Soon, the heat of the intense gasoline fires detonated the ready ammunition at the forward antiaircraft guns on the starboard side; and fragments showered the forward part of the ship. The number two 1.1-inch mount was blown overboard and the corpse of the gun captain was thrown onto the bridge where it landed next to Capt. Sherman.
Water mains in the forward part of the ship proved useless, since they had been broken by the force of the explosions. There was no water available to fight the conflagration forward; and the fires continued to set off ammunition, bombs, and gasoline. As the ship listed to starboard between 10 and 15 degrees, oil and gasoline, released from the tanks by the torpedo hit, caught fire on the water.
Once the fires overcame the ship, the captain gave the order to abandon the ship. Uncle Kelly was one of the injured as he was struck with a piece of burning steel from the explosions. After all the men were pulled from the water, the USS Lansdowne fired torpedoes into Wasp, sinking it due to all the ammunition starting to explode.
A total of 25 officers and 150 men were killed in the attack. Destroyers Laffey, Duncan, Lansdowne, Lardner, and Farenholt rescued over 2,000 survivors. Most of them were taken to Noumea aboard Laffey.
Below are actual pictures of the Wasp, O’Brien, and Japanese sub at the Battle of Guadalcanal. War correspondents would travel with military units and vessels in order to document the war.
In 2019, the USS Wasp wreckage was found off the coast of Australia in the Coral Sea.
Here is the WWII draft card that Uncle Kelly completed in 1944. This was after his time aboard Wasp. Seems strange that he was required to complete the draft form when he was already enlisted in the Navy. However, the military follows strict protocols. I noticed that they misspelled his mother’s name. It should have been Lela Smith.
Uncle Kelly’s obituary. He was only 50 years old. He was such a character and I know that none of us nieces and nephews will ever forget him.
References
- Cressman , R. J. (2021, August 3). Wasp VIII (CV-7). Wasp (CV-7) 1940-1942. https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/w/wasp-viii.html
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(1942, May 7). Clarion-Ledger, pp. 11–11.
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Blakemore, E. (2019, March 14). WWII wreck found of USS Wasp, where 176 died after torpedo attack. History.com. https://www.history.com/news/wwii-shipwreck-uss-wasp-discovery
