“I had to see. I walked alongside the silent turret two and was stopped by a lifeline stretched from the outboard port lifeline to the side of the turret. Thank God it was there, for one more step and I would have pitched head first into the dark water thirty feet below. The bow was gone. One hundred and twenty five feet of ship and number one main battery turret with three 8 inch guns were gone. Eighteen hundred tons of ship were gone. Oh my God, all those guys I went through boot camp with – all gone”
Seaman Herbert Brown
One hundred and eighty three of the crew were lost in that torpedo attack. The New Orleans was repaired and returned to the fight, earning 17 battle stars by the end of the War.
Meanwhile, the USS Connecticut SSN-22, which lost her bow in the South China Sea in 2021, will not be back in service until at least 2026.