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The Tragic Sinking of the USS Juneau
One of WWII’s fastest and saddest losses
At the start of World War II, many military planners believed that 1930s and early 1940s cruisers and battleships were nigh unsinkable. These massive metal behemoths looked fearsome and had layer after layer of steel armor and plating. They were designed to be floating fortresses armed with the largest guns of the era. However, as the war ramped up to full force it quickly became clear that these ships were not only vulnerable, but in the right circumstances they were floating powder kegs.
To paraphrase the great Dan Carlin, World War II-era surface ships were fabulously flammable.
Beneath the metal skins of these monster ships lay tons and tons of explosives and accelerants. Bombs. Torpedoes. Bullets. Gallons upon gallons of different types of fuel, oil, and gasoline. As planes and torpedoes flexed their muscle on the battlefield these ships went from unsinkable to ticking time bombs.
No other ship since the Arizona embodied this fact more than the USS Juneau. Juneau was a light cruiser armed with 5-inch guns. She was over 500 feet long and had a complement of over 600 officers and crew. Despite all of that, the ship took less than a minute to vanish forever.
