Typhoon Cobra Strikes US Pacific Fleet

Typhoon Cobra, also known as the Typhoon of 1944 or Halsey's Typhoon (named after Admiral William 'Bull' Halsey), was the United States Navy designation for a tropical cyclone which struck the United States Pacific Fleet in December 1944 during World War II.

Despite some warning signs, on December 17, Admiral Halsey had unwittingly sailed Task Force 38 (TF 38), which was operating about 300 miles (480 km) east of Luzon in the Philippine Sea into the heart of the typhoon. The carriers had been conducting raids against Japanese airfields in the Philippines and ships were being refueled, especially many destroyers running low on fuel. However, due to worsening weather, attempts to refuel generally failed.

Because of 100-mile-an-hour winds, very high seas and torrential rain, three destroyers which had modifications making them more top-heavy than originally designed capsized and sank, and a total of 790 lives were lost. Nine other warships were damaged, and over one hundred aircraft were wrecked or washed overboard; the aircraft carrier Monterey was forced to battle a serious fire that was caused by a plane hitting a bulkhead.

The USS Tabberer (DE-418), a small John C. Butler-class destroyer escort lost her mast and radio antennas. Though damaged and unable to radio for help, she took the initiative to remain on the scene to recover 55 of the 93 total that were rescued. Captain Henry Lee Plage earned the Legion of Merit, while the entire crew earned the Navy's Unit Commendation Ribbon, presented by Halsey.

In the words of Admiral Chester Nimitz, the typhoon's impact "represented a more crippling blow to the 3rd Fleet than it might be expected to suffer in anything less than a major action". A Navy inquiry found Halsey responsible for the losses. It cited "errors of judgment committed under stress of war operations." Just six months later, he still failed to steer his fleet clear of another typhoon on June 5. After the second incident, an official court o...

Thirty years before fighting political fires in the wake of Watergate, President Gerald R. Ford battled blazes in World War II.

U.S. Naval Historical Society documents and a newly released book, “Halsey’s Typhoon,” by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin, capture the story of a young Navy Lt. Ford who saved lives by helping to put out a fire on the USS Monterey.

In December 1944, Ford, then a Navy lieutenant, was a gunnery officer on the light aircraft carrier, which was providing air cover for the second wave of the Philippines invasion as part of Adm. William Halsey’s Third Fleet.

Serving as deck officer during the ship’s midnight to 4 a.m. watch, Ford saw 40- to 70-foot waves swelling around his ship as it headed into the path of a howling typhoon.

Typhoon Cobra, as the storm was later called, rolled the Monterey 25 degrees, causing Ford to lose his footing and slide toward the edge of the deck, the sources reveal.

The two-inch steel ridge around the edge of the carrier slowed him enough so he could roll and twist into the catwalk below the deck. As he later stated, "I was lucky; I could have easily gone overboard."

At the height of the storm, 100-knot winds and towering waves rocked the Monterey and several fighter planes tore loose from their cables and collided into one another.

The collisions ignited aircraft gas tanks, and soon the hangar deck was ablaze. Because of a quirk in the Monterey’s construction, flames were sucked into the air intakes leading to the lower decks, spreading the fire inside the ship.

In a Dec. 28 New York Times commentary, Drury and Clavin remembered Ford’s actions.

Halsey had ordered Monterey’s skipper, Capt. Stuart H. Ingersoll, to abandon ship as the Monterey blazed from stem to stern, they wrote.

Ford stood near the helm, awaiting his orders.

“We can fix this,” Drury and Clavin quoted Ingersoll as saying. With a nod from his skipper, Ford donned a gas mask and led a fire brigade below. All the while, they ...