USS ASTORIA

By Judge James Morgan

    Although De Leon had many sons in harm’s way at the beginning of World War II and many others who soon joined up, it was not until eight months after the country entered the war that De Leon lost her first son in combat, Jack Morton Morgan.  While he wasn’t in Pearl Harbor, he was in the Navy and on his ship, the USS Astoria, some 700 miles west of Hawaii when the war began, and he and his shipmates were directly involved in helping thwart the next two Japanese offensives, the Battle of the Coral Sea in early May and the Battle of Midway in early June.  But it was their involvement at the beginning of the six month long Battle of Guadalcanal that cost him his life and put the Astoria forever in Iron Bottom Sound.

    Jack and his twin brother, Charles, were the first born of George and Viean Morton Morgan on February 28, 1917.  Jack went to school at the Pounds school until high school when he transferred to Beattie in 1930.  Although he never graduated high school, he did graduate Texas Barber College in 1938.  While he barbered at several places, the war in Europe was escalating and like many young men he enlisted, joining the Navy on March 25, 1940.  After enlisting he came home on his only significant leave for a visit in early summer 1941.  On his return to Long Beach, California he was assigned to the Astoria, a New Orleans class heavy cruiser.  Jack’s primary job on the ship was to serve as barber, but like all the rest he had a battle station and that was in the ammunition room sending shells up to the guns on deck.

   The Astoria left stateside for Hawaii on July 24, 1941.  Upon arrival at Pearl Harbor, the Astoria operated between Oahu and Midway until early September, when they went on an escort mission to Guam and the Philippines before retuning to Pearl Harbor in late October.  From that time they were occupied with local patrols and training, alternating with upkeep in port, until the Astoria was assigned to a task force built around the carrier USS Lexington to ferry Marine fighter planes to Midway and Wake Island.  The Astoria put to sea on December 6 as part of that task force and she was steaming toward Midway when the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred.

   The ferry mission was cancelled because of the attack and the Astoria returned to Pearl Harbor on December 13.  Here she spent the next few months in various defensive and offensive missions around Hawaii and the southwest Pacific around a carrier group headed by the Lexington.  On February 1, 1942 the Astoria put to sea with Task Force 17 built around the USS Yorktown on an extended Southwest Pacific cruise that took them to the Solomon Islands and on to New Guinea where they conducted air and sea raids in March on the Japanese there, inflicting heavy damage to their amphibious forces.

   But it wasn’t unit early May of 1942 that their first really significant naval battle occurred, known as the Battle of the Coral Sea.  That battle started on May 3 with the Astoria screening for the Yorktown as they launched raids on the Japanese fleet, but the most significant Japanese fighting with Allied forces didn’t occur until May 7-8.  The Astoria provided significant antiaircraft gunnery in support of both carriers, the Yorktown and the Lexington.  The next day Task Force 17 began a slow retreat from the Coral Sea, having suffered heavy losses but also having inflicted a decisive defeat on the Japanese.

   After refueling and resupplying at Pearl Harbor the Astoria put back out to sea on May 30 to meet another major thrust by the Japanese--this one at Midway.  Once again this mission was with the Yorktown as the primary carrier of their group.  And on June 4 the battle began with the launch of the Yorktown’s aircraft in the morning hours.  But upon their victorious return they were joined by Japanese dive bombers who scored several direct hits upon the Yorktown and Admiral Fletcher who was in charge of the operation shifted his flag to the Astoria.  The Yorktown was ultimately abandoned and the Astoria carried many of her survivors back to Pearl Harbor but the Battle of MIdway came to be called the “turning point of the war in the Pacific.”

   The Astoria was then reassigned to yet another task force, this time in support of the first major offensive launched by the allies against Japan after Pearl Harbor.  This was what would become known as the Battle of Guadalcanal, which was fought on the land, at sea and in the air.  The Astoria’s job was to help cover the Guadalcanal landing and invasion.  Early on the morning of August 7 the Astoria entered the waters offshore Guadalcanal to support the Marines as they landed.  The Allied landing took the Japanese by surprise and was very successful.  The Japanese air forces counterattacked but were repulsed.  By the evening of August 8, with the battle going in our favor, the admiral in charge of the naval task force withdrew his carriers to refuel and resupply out of concern over further Japanese air attacks.

   The Japanese, who were unprepared for the Guadalcanal invasion assembled a task force of their warships on August 7 and sent them toward the Solomons.  The Japanese Navy had trained extensively in night fighting tactics before the war and they did not travel during the early day of August 8 to avoid Allied detection.  But, later on the 8th they began their approach through the dangerous channel known as “The Slot”, hoping to avoid detection.  But they were detected and a radio transmission reported their approach.  Unfortunately, this report was not relayed to the fleet off Guadalcanal until much later, around 9:45 p.m.

   The Allied sailors, who had been at high alert and on active duty since early morning on the 7th in support of the invasion or offloading supplies for the invasion force, were extremely tired by that point and several of the commanders were reported as asleep.  The weather was reported as extremely hot and humid, inducing further fatigue.  After almost 48 hours of duty,  on the night of August 8 most ships went to “Condition II” which meant that half the crew was on active duty while the other half slept or rested.

   This was the situation in which the Battle of Savo Island took place.  Savo Island is located just north of Guadalcanal in the eastern Solomon Islands.  While the Allies refer to this battle as Savo Island it is know to the the Japanese as the first battle of the Solomon Islands, and it was the first significant naval battle in the grander Battle of Guadalcanal.

    At 1:30 a.m. on August 9, the Japanese attacked Allied forces on the south side of Savo Island and inflicted considerable damage to Australian and American ships.  Meanwhile the three American cruisers, including the Astoria, that were located north of Savo either saw the flares, heard gunfire from the battle or else received a radio warning of an impending attack.  Yet, it took some time for the crews to go from Condition II to full alert.  By 1:45 a.m. the Japanese had moved their forces around the eastern end of Savo to the north side of the island and split their forces into two columns, encircling the Allied cruisers.  After an opening salvo of torpedoes, the Japanese aimed their powerful searchlights at the northern cruisers and opened fire.  The allies returned fire but the Japanese had the advantage and by 2:15 a.m. the Astoria was engulfed in flames, her engines were destroyed and she was dead in the water.  Her deck got so hot it began to burn the crew.

   Jack Morgan’s battle station was deep in the ship, loading ammunition onto an elevator to the deck guns.  He survived the initial attack and reached the deck.  But to show what kind of man he was, he kept going below deck, time and again, brining out the wounded who were unable to make it on their own.  While he suffered burns, they were not serious.  However, because the Astoria was sinking, he and all the crew were evacuated to other ships.  Lynn Hager, Jack’s friend and fellow barber, found Jack on August 9 on another ship and Jack told him “Well, I’ve been wounded.  Tell mother and dad I’ll be coming home.”  However, the intense heat of the burning ship encountered while retuning below deck had seared his lungs and he died later that day.   He was buried at sea and received a Purple Heart, posthumously.

   News of Jack’s death didn’t reach De Leon until September 3, 1942.  And in one of the ironies of life, that was the day Jack’s twin brother, Charles and his wife Mae’s first son was born.  I’ve heard Uncle Charles say, when he was told about Jack’s death by Mrs. Myra Schuman at the hospital in Gorman just after his son’s birth, “that day went from being one of the happiest of my life, to one of the saddest.”  Charles and Mae named their son Charles Jackie Morgan, and he was known his entire life as Jackie Morgan.

    I‘ve heard my dad and many of Uncle Jack’s cousins, who also knew him well, tell many, funny and adventurous stories of Jack and Charles’s boyhood exploits.  It’s obvious from those stories that Uncle Jack was fearless, fun loving, gregarious and that he would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it.  I wish I could have know him.

Additional notes:  268 members of the Astoria’s crew died in the Battle of Savo Island.  The ship sank around noon into what would come to be called “Iron Bottom Sound” after all the ships that now lie there at the bottom of the sea.  Another cruiser lost in the same battle was the USS Quincy.  This was the predecessor to the ship of the same name on which Wayne Chambers would serve later in the war.

Credits:

“Jack Morton Morgan” by Joe Morgan in The Morgan Family by Wanda Basset Carter.

“Savo Island” by Phil Tate in The Messenger, September-October 1995

“USS Astoria 9CA-34), http://en.wikipedia.org

“Battle of Savo Island”, http://en.wikipedia.org

USS Astoria at the Battle of Midway

USS Astoria supporting the Guadalcanal-Tulagi invasion about August 6, 1942.

Close-up of USS Astoria

prior to the war.

Location of the sunken USS Quincy

The Astoria and Quincy were in this approximate location at the start of the battle.  The exact location of the sunken Astoria has apparently not been found.