80 years ago today, off Pearl Harbor: the Mahan-class destroyer USS Dunlap (DD-384), seen just moments before she collided with the light carrier USS Belleau Wood (CVL-24), 7 January 1944
The source is National Archives II, CINCPAC: Secret and Top Secret General Administration Files, 1941–44, via Navsource.
Both ships survived the crack-up but carried the wounds from the encounter.
The more verbose recounting of the incident from the carrier’s deck log:
And Dunlap’s shorter entry:
Both ships would go on to bring more damage to the Japanese than they did to each other and survived the war.
Dunlap received six battle stars for World War II service and was retired at the end of 1945, sold for scrap two years later.
As for Belleau Wood— a former Warship Wednesday alumni– she received 12 battle stars for her World War II service then spent seven years serving in the French Navy as Bois Belleau, flying Corsairs off Indochina and Algeria, before she was disposed of in 1960.