Top Photo: USS New Orleans (CA-32) steams through a tight turn in Elliot Bay, Washington, July 30, 1943, following battle damage repairs and overhaul at the Puget Sound Navy Yard. Official U.S. Navy photograph from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog#: NH 97847 

A team of researchers has discovered the lost bow of the USS New Orleans, a WWII heavy cruiser that was heroically salvaged by its crew after being damaged during fighting off Guadalcanal 83 years ago.

On November 30, 1942, the New Orleans was struck by a Japanese “long lance” torpedo during the Battle of Tassafaronga. The subsequent explosion detonated the ship’s forward magazines, killing 182 crewmembers and tearing off one-third of the ship, including its bow.

The New Orleans’s damage control officer, US Navy Lieutenant Commander Hubert M. Hayter, and two of his men, Lieutenant Richard A. Haines and Ensign Andrew L. Forman, remained at their posts even though the ship was flooding and filling up with toxic fumes. All three men died shortly later from asphyxiation while trying to save the ship and would receive posthumous Navy Crosses.

The ship’s chaplain, Howell M. Forgy, later wrote about Hayter: “I wondered what he thought about in those final moments, but I know one thing: he was not afraid.” 

Bow-less and flooding after the explosion, New Orleans was heroically saved by damage control crew members, who stayed at their posts and saved their ship but not themselves. The ship limped back to the nearby Tulagi harbor, where, using coconut logs, the crew was able to stabilize the ship well enough to sail backward to the United States for permanent repairs. US National Archives

“By all rights, this ship should have sunk, but due to the heroic damage control efforts of her crew, USS New Orleans became the most grievously damaged US cruiser in WWII to actually survive,” said Naval History and Heritage Command Director Samuel J. Cox, a retired Navy Rear Admiral.

The New Orleans limped back to Tulagi Harbor where crew used coconut logs to try to save the ship. After working furiously for 11 days, New Orleans was stabilized enough to sail for Australia for further repairs. However, because of the new coconut log bow, the ship had to sail backwards to prevent further flooding.

A piece of the ship’s coconut log bow was brought back to the United States by John Richey, who served as an electrician on the New Orleans throughout the war. The artifact was included in the special exhibit The Pelican State Goes to War: Louisiana in World War II at The National WWII Museum in New Orleans. 

More than 80 years after the Battle of Tassafaronga, a team of scientists and explorers aboard the Exploration Vessel Nautilus found and imaged the wrecked bow of the New Orleans at the bottom of Iron Bottom Sound. During seafloor mapping by the University of New Hampshire’s uncrewed surface vessel DriX and Ocean Exploration Trust's ROVs, the bow was found resting around 675 meters below the surface. 

The researchers spotted details in the ship’s structure, markings, and anchor to positively identify the wreckage as from New Orleans.

“The discovery highlights the power of having multiple scientists and technologies work together to achieve a common goal,” said Ocean Exploration Trust’s Chief Scientist Daniel Wagner. “The wreck was located during seafloor mapping operations by an uncrewed surface vehicle, then investigated shortly thereafter by a deep-diving remotely operated vehicle. This imagery was viewed in real-time by hundreds of experts around the world, who all worked together to make a positive identification of the finding.”

The USS New Orleans, a so-called “treaty cruiser,” was the first of seven New Orleans-class heavy cruisers built in the 1930s. The class was the last built by the Navy to the treaty limitations set by the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, which limited the number, size, and firepower of the world’s navies.

The New Orleans saw some of the heaviest fighting during the Pacific war, including on December 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor; at Coral Sea, Midway, and Guadalcanal; and in the Gilbert, Marshall, Marianas, Philippines, and Okinawa campaigns.  The New Orleans was awarded 17 battle stars for its service in the Pacific, tying for the third most in the theater.  

The Ocean Exploration Trust, led by famed explorer Robert Ballard, PhD, is exploring historically significant shipwrecks in the Iron Bottom Sound, the site of five major naval battles between August and December 1942 that resulted in the loss of over 20,000 lives, 111 naval vessels and 1,450 planes from the Allied forces and the Empire of Japan. To date, only 30 of the military ships lost there have been located.