Sunday, March 4, 2001

By Carlos Bongioanni
Okinawa bureau

John Chandler / Special to Stars and Stripes A diver glides past the port side 40 mm AA guns on what is believed to be the USS Emmons.

The discovery of a sunken warship off the northwest coast of Okinawa last month has local divers here excited.

It’s the biggest news since scuba diving came to Okinawa, said Rich Ruth, a local diving instructor who led the search for the ship.

On Feb. 19, Ruth and a team of divers found what they believe is the wreck of the USS Emmons. Japanese kamikaze pilots sank the destroyer minesweeper April 6, 1945.

The wreck is resting about 140 feet below the ocean’s surface just north of Okinawa’s Motobu Peninsula.

The Japanese Coast Guard began searching last summer for an underwater wreck that Okinawan fisherman suspected was leaking oil. Using a remote camera, they found something but were unable to identify it, Ruth said.

Ruth and other local divers spent months searching for clues on the Internet and in history books. After consulting with survivors via e-mail and phone, they concluded the wreck was probably the USS Emmons, which sank in the vicinity where the Coast Guard did its underwater scan.

Ed Hoffman, 75, is thrilled about the find. He survived the attack and is now a correspondent for the USS Emmons Association. The group includes 90 former crew members, many of whom were aboard during the sinking.

"He described the boat and location to a T," Ruth said of Hoffman’s depiction of the ship and the damage it sustained, which matches up with what they have found underwater. "We are certain it (is) the Emmons."

John Chandler / Special to Stars and Stripes Anti-mine warfare equipment is still in the ready racks on the port side aft of the ship's deck.

During the kamikaze attack, three planes smashed into the deck, destroying the fantail on the stern of the ship. Two other planes inflicted insurmountable damage when they dived into the ship’s bridge, where Hoffman, then a 19-year-old quartermaster 3rd class, was standing duty.

An officer had to assist Hoffman, who suffered severe burns, a broken leg and smashed ankles, off the demolished superstructure.

More than 60 sailors, roughly a quarter of the Emmons’ crew, died that day.

"I was … luckily … one of the survivors," Hoffman wrote in an e-mail.

Bob Charoux, president of the Emmons Association, was attached to the Emmons when it fought in the Atlantic earlier in the war. He left the ship before its sinking to become a Navy diver.

In the summer of 1945, Charoux was sent on a dive to blow up sensitive communications equipment on a wreck off Okinawa. He didn’t know he was diving onto his old ship until he saw a brass plaque with the Emmons’ name inscribed on it.

"I tried taking the plaque but couldn’t get it off the bulkhead," Charoux said in a telephone interview Friday from his home in Atkinson, N.H. "I was a plank owner of that ship. I joined the crew when the ship was first commissioned. By Jesus, my heart was in my mouth, when I saw it was the Emmons."

Speaking of the current discovery, Charoux said, "They may have found it. But if they did, it’s a hell of a miracle. … If they found that ship in that shallow of water (140 feet), I don’t know how it got there. It’s been moved."

John Chandler / Special to Stars and Stripes The ship's forward main gun.

When Charoux dived onto the ship 56 years ago, it was in 264 feet of water. He said he recalls the underwater currents being strong, and said the powerful typhoons that regularly hit Okinawa may have moved the sunken destroyer closer to shore.

If the wreck is the Emmons, Charoux said that the divers will find an 8-inch by 11-inch name plate on a wall of the ship’s rear deckhouse. They’ll find another 12-inch by 15-inch plaque with the ship’s name in the forward deckhouse.

Ruth said no divers have entered the hull of the ship. He said Okinawan maritime officials initially warned the divers not to dive on the ship because they might find unexploded ordnance.

"But we told them that is the excitement of the dive, so they said ‘go ahead,’ " Ruth said.

Another diver, John Chandler, said, "When you dive down there, you see what the last moments of the ship were like just before it went down.

"This isn’t just a playground for divers, it’s hallowed ground for Japanese and Americans who fought here."

Chandler, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel and part-time dive instructor on Okinawa, said the discovery of the ship will be great for Okinawan dive tours.

"When you see a wreck, you’re diving into history," he said.

Divers on Okinawa have never really had a good wreck to explore, Chandler said, because most ships sunk during the Battle of Okinawa are in water too deep for recreational diving.

"Every diver on Okinawa will go absolutely crazy for the chance to dive" on the Emmons, Ruth said.

However, two Japanese divers didn’t like it. They "both got very spooked and said they felt ghosts. … One got physically ill and threw up from his feelings," Ruth said.

More information on the wreck can be found at www.fathoms.net/emmons/emmons.htm. Ed Hoffman’s account of the battle is on a Web site (http://members.ols.net/~ernieh/) that chronicles famous World War II combat stories.

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