Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships
CL-50 HELENA
The second HELENA (CL-50), was launched 27 August 1939
by the New York Navy Yard; sponsored by Miss Elinor Carlyle
Gudger, granddaughter of Senator Thomas J. Welch of Montana;
and commissioned 18 September 1939, Captain Max B. Demott in
command.
HELENA, assigned to the Pacific Fleet, was at Pearl
Harbor on 7 December 1941, when the Japanese attacked. She
was moored at 1010 Dock Navy Yard on the east side of the
harbor, outboard was minesweeper OGLALA (CM-4). By chance,
HELENA was in the berth normally assigned to PENNSYLVANIA
(BB-38) and thus became a prime target for the Japanese
planes.
Within 3 minutes of the time the first bomb of the
attack fell on Ford Island, a lone torpedo plane launched a
torpedo that passed under OGLALA and hit HELENA on the
starboard side almost amidships, just as the crew raced to
battle stations. One engine room and one boiler room were
flooded. Wiring to the main and 5-inch batteries was
severed, but prompt action brought the forward diesel
generator up within 2 minutes, making power available to all
mounts. Immediately, they sent up a heavy fire that keep
her free of further damage. Outstanding damage control
work, and the fact that watertight integrity was promptly
insured by the closing of the doors and hatches throughout
the ship, kept HELENA afloat. Many times later she gave the
Japanese occasion to regret their failure to sink her that
first day of the war.
After preliminary overhaul at Pearl Harbor, HELENA
steamed to Mare Island Navy Yard for permanent repairs. In
1942, she sailed to enter action, escorting a detachment of
SeaBees and an aircraft carrier rushing planes to the South
Pacific. She made two quick dashes from Espiritu Santo to
Guadalcanal, where the long and bloody battle for the island
was then beginning, and having completed these missions,
joined the Task Force formed around WASP (CV-7).
This Task Force steamed in distant support of six
transports carrying Marine reinforcements to Guadalcanal.
On 15 September 1942, in mid-afternoon, WASP was suddenly
hit by three Japanese torpedoes. Almost at once, she became
an inferno. HELENA, her guns blazing, stood by to rescue
nearly 400 of WASP's officers and men, whom she took to
Espiritu Santo.
HELENA's next action was near Rennell Island, again in
support of a movement of transports into Guadalcanal. Air
attacks from Henderson Field had slowed down the Tokyo
Express for several days, so on 11 October 1942 the Japanese
poured everything they could deliver against the airstrip,
hoping to neutralize air operations long enough to bring
heavy troop reinforcements during the night. The Japanese
fleet closed and by 1810 was less than 100 miles from Savo
Island.
HELENA, equipped with superior radar, was first to
contact the enemy and first to open fire at 2346. When
firing had ceased in this Battle of Cape Esperance in Iron
Bottom Sound, HELENA had sunk cruiser FURUTAKA and destroyer
FUBUKI.
HELENA was next under attack on the night of 20
October, while patrolling between Espiritu Santo and San
Cristobal. Several torpedoes exploded near her but she was
not hit.
HELENA saw the climatic Naval Battle of Guadalcanal
from its beginning when she was assigned the job of
escorting a supply echelon from Espiritu Santo to
Guadalcanal. The ship made rendezvous with the convoy of
transports off San Cristobal 11 November and brought it
safely into Guadalcanal. During the afternoon of 12
November, word came from a coast watcher "enemy aircraft
approaching." Immediately suspending unloading operation,
all ships stood out to form an antiaircraft disposition.
When the attack came, superb maneuvering of the force, and
its own antiaircraft fire, broke up the first attack but the
second damaged two ships. HELENA came through without a
scratch, and the task group brought down eight enemy planes
in the 8-minute action.
As unloading resumed, an increasing stream of reports
flowed in from patrolling aircraft. Ominously, the Japanese
forces sighted contained no transports, and their intention
was thus read as one of being pure offense. HELENA, still
steaming with Rear Admiral Daniel Callaghan's Support Group,
aided in shepherding the transports away from Guadalcanal,
then reversed course to fateful "Ironbottom Sound." The
night of Friday, 13 November, HELENA's radar first located
the enemy. In the action that followed, the tropical night
was lit again and again by the flashes of her big guns. She
received only minor damage to her superstructure during the
action. Daylight found a tragic scene in the grisly slot.
The weaker American fleet had achieved the goal at heavy
cost. Great valor had turned back the enemy and prevented
the heavy attack that would have been disastrous to the
Marine troops ashore.
HELENA found a measure of revenge when she was assigned
to the several bombardments of Japanese positions on New
Georgia during January 1943. Her guns rocked the enemy at
Munda and Vila Stanmore, leveling vital supply
concentrations and gun emplacements. Continuing on patrol
and escort in support of the bitter Guadalcanal operation
through February, one of her float planes shared in the
sinking of Japanese submarine RO-102, 11 February 1943.
After overhaul in Sydney, Australia, she was back at
Espiritu Santo in March to participate in bombardments of
New Georgia, soon to be invaded. The first goal on New
Georgia proper, was Rice Anchorage. In the force escorting
the transports carrying the initial landing parties, HELENA
moved into Kula Gulf just before midnight 4 July, and
shortly after midnight on the 5th, her big guns opened up in
her last shore bombardment.
The landing of troops was completed successfully by
dawn, but in the afternoon of 5 July, word came that the
Tokyo Express was ready to roar down once more and the
escort group turned north to meet it. By midnight 5 July,
HELENA's group was off the northwest corner of New Georgia,
three cruisers and four destroyers composing the group.
Racing down to face them were three groups of Japanese
destroyers, a total of ten enemy ships. Four of them peeled
off to accomplish their mission of landing troops. By 0157,
HELENA began blasting away with a fire so rapid and intense
that the Japanese later announced in all solemnity that she
must have been armed with 6-inch machine guns. Ironically,
HELENA made a perfect target when lit by the flashes of her
own guns. Seven minutes after she opened fire, she was hit
by a torpedo; within the next 3 minutes, she was struck by
two more. Almost at once, she began to jackknife. Below,
she was flooding rapidly even before she broke up. In a
well-drilled manner, HELENA's men went over the side.
HELENA's history closes with the almost incredible
story of what happened to her men in the hours and days that
followed. When her bow rose into the air after the sinking,
many of them clustered around it, only to be fired on there.
About a half hour after she sank, two American destroyers
came to the rescue.
At daylight, the enemy was in range once more, and
again the destroyers NICHOLAS (DD-449) and RADFORD (DD-446),
broke off their rescue operations to pursue. Anticipating
an air attack, the destroyers withdrew for Tulagi, carrying
with them all but about 275 of the survivors. To those who
remained they left four boats, manned by volunteers from the
destroyers' crews. Captain C. P. Cecil, HELENA's commanding
officer, organized a small flotilla of three motor
whaleboats, each towing a liferaft, carrying 88 men to a
small island about 7 miles from Rice Anchorage after a
laborious all-day passage. This group was rescued the next
morning by GWIN (DD-433) and WOODWORTH (DD-460).
For the second group of nearly 200, the bow of HELENA
was their liferaft, but it was slowly sinking. Disaster was
staved off by a Navy Liberator that dropped lifejackets and
four rubber lifeboats. The wounded were placed aboard the
lifeboats, while the able-bodied surround the boats and did
their best to propel themselves toward nearby Kolombaranga.
But wind and current carried them ever further into enemy
waters. Through the torturous day that followed, many of
the wounded died. American search planes missed the tragic
little fleet, and Kolombaranga gradually faded away to
leeward. Another night passed, and in the morning the
island of Vella Lavella loomed ahead. It seemed the last
chance for HELENA's men and so they headed for it. By dawn,
survivors in all three remaining boats observed land a mile
distant and all who were left were safely landed. Two
coastwatchers and loyal natives cared for the survivors as
best they could, and radioed news of them to Guadalcanal.
The 166 sailors then took to the jungle to evade Japanese
patrols.
Surface vessels were chosen for the final rescue,
NICHOLAS and RADFORD, augmented by JENKINS (DD-447) and
O'BANNON (DD-450) set off 15 July 1943 to sail further up
the Slot than ever before, screening the movement of two
destroyer-transports and four other destroyers. During the
night of 16 July, the rescue force brought out the 165
HELENA men, along with 16 Chinese who had been in hiding on
the island. Of HELENA's nearly 900 men, 168 had perished.
HELENA was the first ship to receive the Navy Unit
Commendation. Her actions in the Battles of Cape Esperance,
Guadalcanal, and Kula Gulf were named in the citation.
HELENA also earned the Asiatic-Pacific Area Campaign medal
with seven stars.