Thread by @ajcdeane

#Deanehistory 153. Hat tip: @HCH_Hill. "The Unluckiest Ship in History..?" or... "Don't shoot! We're Republicans!"

The USS William D. Porter was named after US Civil War Commodore William Porter, who had nothing to deserve this association being inflicted upon his memory.

Her launch in 1943 was just about the only thing that went right for the Willie Dee, as her crew called her; she was perhaps the unluckiest ship in history, for the following reasons.

Her first task was to serve in a support group for the USS Iowa, which had President Roosevelt aboard as he headed to Cairo for a conference with Winston Churchill and Chiang Kai-shek. As she left dock at Norfolk, her anchor was not retracted properly and tore railings,

lifeboat mountings, a lifeboat and other bits and pieces one would rather have intact from the ship berthed next to her.

She’d been at sea for one day when her next accident occurred.

A depth charge – which should not have been armed, but was – rolled across and then fell off her deck, exploding in the water and causing the entire task force in which she was sailing to commence evasive manoeuvres as they thought they were under attack by German U-boats.

Nope, it’s not that, lads – it’s just the Porter playing up as usual – and believe me, you’ll get used to it.

The false alarm that was wholly the fault of the Porter coming to a close, she went through a big wave, lost a sailor overboard and her boiler promptly packed in.

She had had her “shakedown” voyage & was supposed to be match fit & ready for anything. But this is the Porter we’re talking about. She limped behind the task force for a while as repairs were effected & had to break radio silence to let the fleet know why she was so far behind.

Finally she rendezvoused with the Iowa, & took part in a live fire drill. Hey, Porter, pretend to fire a torpedo at the Iowa. Isn’t this a fun simulation? Oh. Wait. Wait… oh, God. You’ve actually fired a live torpedo at the Iowa. Which, quick reminder, has the President aboard.

In a fantastic demonstration of misplaced priorities, having learned the wrong lessons previously the crew of the Porter was now absurdly scrupulous about observing radio silence in this entirely self-created crisis, refusing to radio to say… “hey over there guys, no biggie -

but whoopsie, we fired a torpedo at you.” Instead they signalled using a lamp.

Which isn’t an ideal method of communicating an emergency, especially when the message you’re sending isn’t “beware our stupidly fired real and actual torpedo in the water and heading your way” –

the Porter was instead signalling the unhelpfully nonsensical and bizarrely self-centric “the Porter is backing up.”

In desperation they finally broke radio silence and fessed up to the torpedo. Ooh, sounds exciting! Said Roosevelt and had himself taken out on deck

and pushed up to the ship’s railing in his wheelchair so he could have a closer look.

The Iowa got the message, made haste to move out of the torpedo’s path, and the President and her crew had a fine view of a torpedo exploding in her wake a short distance behind her.

The guns of the mighty Iowa swivelled to be fixed upon the Porter, as fears of an attempted Presidential assassination grew. But no, it’s not that, fellahs. It’s just the Porter being the Porter.

From henceforth, the Porter received a new greeting from other American ships: “Don’t Shoot! We’re Republicans!”

Right, you ship full of klutzes, we’re pulling you out of the line. Make haste to Bermuda for an inquiry, and try not to break anything or fire on your own side on your way. This, at least, the Porter managed, and the Chief Torpedoman was sentenced to hard labour –

albeit rather sportingly his erstwhile target President Roosevelt intervened on his behalf.

For the next few months the Porter successfully did nothing, which was a major improvement for her in the scheme of things.

Then she went to the North Pacific, and whilst bad weather mostly prevented her from doing much she even fired her guns at unseen enemies a few times so some scores were finally being chalked up.

From there she was sent to the Philippines, arriving too late for much action which was probably for the best. Thereafter she spent months acting as an escort ship, once being attacked from the air but not being harmed so things were seriously looking up.

Finally, her big moment. The Porter sank an abandoned enemy barge. What a day that must have been. Thrilled not to use up all her success at once, the Porter went on to bombard the shoreline a bit and even shot down some enemy planes. She had arrived.

Whoops, no she hadn’t. Steaming in to support the assault on Okinawa, the Porter got stuck in properly – take THAT – only to realise that the ship she was raking with gunfire during the battle was not in fact a ship of the Imperial Japanese Navy, but rather

the friendly destroyer USS Luce; ceasing fire upon her comrades at last, the Porter was targeted by a kamikaze pilot in an antiquated Aichi bomber – who completely missed her in his death dive. The Porter then sailed over the spot in which the Japanese plane had gone down,

the plane blew up beneath her, walloping the destroyer clear out of the water with a massive, destructive punch, and that was the end of the Porter.

The gods like to laugh, but it seems that they also have a certain sense of fair play.

If they’re going to sink your ship in quite such a ridiculous way, there’s a quid pro quo karmic outcome.

Unbelievably, the Porter suffered zero casualties as she was sunk.

Up she went into the air, down she went into the deep, and in between all hands safely made it off the famously unlucky ship whose shining moment was firing a treasonous torpedo at her own side.