Beyond the Breakers

Episode 125 - The West Loch Disaster

Taylor and Tanner Season 4 Episode 2

In May 1944,  during the buildup to Operation Forager, another shocking disaster rocked Pearl Harbor.

Sources:

Barger, Mel. "LST Memories: The Second Pearl Harbor Disaster." LST Scuttlebutt: The Official Website of the United States LST Association. https://www.uslst.org/memories/27-articles/17-lst-memories-the-second-pearl-harbor-disaster

Oral history of the experience of Paul E. Cooper, “Farm Boy from Oklahoma,” in Saipan: Oral Histories of the Pacific War, compiled and edited by Bruce M. Petty (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2002), 105.

"Pearl Harbor Ablaze Again: The West Loch Disaster, 21 May 1944." Naval History and Heritage Command. https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/wars-conflicts-and-operations/world-war-ii/1944/west-loch.html

Samuel Eliot Morison, History of the United States Naval Operations in World War II, vol. 8: New Guinea and the Marianas, March 1944 to August 1944 (Boston: Little, Brown (1953), 171.

Footage of the West Loch Disaster

Support the show

People on this episode