Comments by "Sar Jim" (@sarjim4381) on "Battle of Cape Matapan: Just Four Minutes to Cripple a Fleet" video.

  1.  @bobsemple3268  Yes, it was the single 5"/38 gun mounted on the stern sponson of USS White Plains . . It was meant to discourage a pursing destroyer during a stern chase, not for a long range gunnery duel. The gunnery officer had been drilling the 5"/38 crew for weeks, using radar data passed from the bridge by sound telephone. White Plains was nearly disabled by a near miss that exploded under her hull, knocking out the starboard engine and cutting all electrical power. The plume of black smoke coming from the sudden influx of air into the disabled boilers convinced the Japanese they had scored a direct hit. They shifted fire to other American ships, and this gave the damage control teams time to restore electrical power and once again get the radar operating. Again manually adjusting range using the radar data, the 5"/38 gun crew poured out a furious stream of fire, estimated at 20 rounds per minute for about six minutes. This would be a near record for a pedestal mounted gun without an integral ammo hoist. The gun crew claims they scored six hits on the Japanese cruiser Chōkai , and they continued fire based on the fires and explosions observed on Chōkai as her deck mounted torpedoes continued to explode. Postwar Japanese records claim it was a bomb from an aircraft that set off the torpedoes. Chōkai was only about 6,000 yards from White Plains_, and given the training and use of radar data by the gun crew, it's plausible they did in fact score the hits they claim. _Chōkai sank in 17,000 feet of water, right at the edge of the Philippine Trench. The wreck was discovered in 2019, and an ROV dived it in May, 2019. They are scheduled to dive it again in 2020, and pictures brought back may enable the experts to decide if it was White Plains or an aircraft that caused the fatal damage. Regardless of how that works out, it's a great war story.
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