NEOSHO USS AO-23

[D. v. Nieuwenhuijzen]

Built by Federal Shipbuilding & Drydock Company, Kearny, New Jersey.
Laid down:22 June 1938, launched:29 April 1939, commissioned:7 August 1939.
Fate: Sunk during the Battle of the Coral Sea, 11 May 1942.
‘Cimarron’ class fleet oiler, Displacement:7,470 long tons (7,590 t) (standard), 24,830 long tons (25,230 t) (full load)
Length:553’ (168,55 m.) Beam:75’ (22,86 m.) Draft:32’4” (9.85 m.) 2 geared steam turbines:30,400 shp. (22,700 kW.)2 shafts, 18 kn.
Armament:4 × 5” (130 mm.)/38 cal dual purpose guns (4x1)
4 × 20 mm. (0.79”) Oerlikon anti-aircraft cannons (4x1)

Conversion at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard was completed on 7 July 1941, NEOSHO immediately began the vital task of ferrying aviation fuel from west coast ports to Pearl Harbor. On such a mission she arrived in Pearl Harbor on 6 December, discharged a full cargo to Naval Air Station Ford Island, and prepared for the return passage.
Next morning, the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor found NEOSHO alert to danger; her captain, Commander John S. Phillips, got her underway and maneuvered safely through the Japanese fire, concentrated on the battleships moored at Ford Island, to a safer area of the harbor. Her guns fired throughout the attack, splashing one enemy plane and driving off others. Three of her men were wounded by a strafing attacker.

For the next five months, NEOSHO sailed with the aircraft carriers or independently, since escort ships, now few and far between, could not always be spared to guard even so precious a ship and cargo. Late in April, as the Japanese threatened a southward move against Australia and New Zealand by attempting to advance their bases in the Southwest Pacific, NEOSHO joined Task Force 17 (TF 17). At all costs, the sealanes to the dominions had to be kept open, and they had to be protected against attack and possible invasion.

As the American and Japanese fleets sought each other out in the opening maneuvers of the climactic Battle of the Coral Sea on 6 May 1942, NEOSHO refueled the carrier YORKTOWN and heavy cruiser ASTORIA, then retired from the carrier force with a lone escort, the destroyer SIMS.

NEOSHO burning, 7 May 1942.
Next day at 10:00, Japanese aircraft spotted the two ships, and believing them to be a carrier and her escort, launched the first of two attacks which sank USS SIMS and left NEOSHO, victim of seven direct hits and a suicide dive by one of the bombers, ablaze aft and in danger of breaking in two. She had shot down at least three of the attackers. One of her crewmen, Oscar V. Peterson, was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his efforts to save the ship in spite of his severe injuries suffered in the attack.

Superb seamanship and skilled damage control work kept NEOSHO afloat for the next four days. The sorely stricken ship was first located by a RAAF aircraft, then an American PBY Catalina flying boat. At 13:00 on 11 May, the destroyer USS HENLEY arrived, rescued the 123 survivors and sunk by gunfire the ship they had so valiantly kept afloat against impossible odds. With HENLEY came word that the American fleet had succeeded in turning the Japanese back, marking the end of their southward expansion in World War II.
(Japan 1942 5 s.+ 2 s. StG401) ship on the right
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