On the Sinking of the USS Corry (DD-463)

BELOW: Commentary on how the official loss of ship report for the USS Corry implies that a salvo of heavy artillery shells would not cause a strong concussion effect throughout the ship. The photo below shows what the explosions from a salvo of heavy artillery shells looks like.

Above photo shows what explosions from 7.6-inch guns look like.

ABOVE: A two-gun salvo of 194-mm shells (7.6-inch) from the El-Hank shore battery near misses the destroyer USS Mayrant (DD-402) during the Invasion of North Africa -- 8 November 1942.  Noting the immense size of the explosions, if this two-gun salvo had hit the Mayrant amidships in the same manner the Corry was hit below the water level in the engineering spaces, easily the Mayrant would have been mortally hit, and the entire ship would have felt a massive concussion effect.

The USS Mayrant was only a few feet shorter than the Corry. Like the Corry, it had four 5-inch guns, and was similar tonnage. Its only main difference was that it had three boilers and one big smokestack, whereas the Corry had four boilers and two smokestacks.  Essentially, the Mayrant and the Corry were the same size destroyer.

NOTE: The two or three heavy shells that hit the Corry on D-Day were 210-mm (8.25-inch) in diameter. They were even bigger (more than 6/10 of an inch) than those fired at the Mayrant. So noting the immense damage the El Hank battery's two 194-mm guns would have done to the Mayrant  in the above photo, the Saint Marcouf battery's 210-mm guns would have done even worse to the Corry on D-Day when at least two 210-mm shells hit the Corry -- one shell hit the forward fire room and one shell hit the forward engine room, as reported in initial action reports. Yet the final official report for the Corry states that the shelling received simultaneously (with a proposed mine) resulted in "merely incidental damage" to the Corry.

 

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