A Strange Whim of the Sea: The Wreck of the USS Macaw

"The USS Macaw was one of the few Chanticleer-class submarine rescue vessels active in World War II, and she was the only one that met a harrowing end not at the hands of any human enemy, but from the sea itself. On January 16, 1944, the Macaw was doing her job in the Midway atoll attempting to rescue the USS Flier when, like the Flier, she ran aground on a reef, much to the surprise and horror of her crew. Almost immediately, other rescue vessels rushed to the scene to help, but after nearly an entire month of salvage attempts, the Macaw remained stranded. On February 11, 1944, surrounded by rough seas and freakishly high winds, she slipped off the reef and succumbed to the ocean. Five men (including the ship's commander) died as they abandoned ship. After the commander's death, it was the ship's executive officer-Tim Loughman's father-who took charge. Lieutenant Loughman's impromptu command ensured that 115 men would survive the wreck, but he never shared the full story of his bravery with his children. After his death, they discovered their father's archive of handwritten eyewitness accounts and personal photographs, and Tim set out to interview the Macaw's surviving crew and other individuals involved in the attempted rescue. He tracked down men like Bob Jacobsen and Edward Anthony Pitta, seamen who proved to be complex real-life characters whose stories deserve to be told. He uncovered the story of Paul Burton, a US Naval Academy graduate struggling to redeem his career after getting blackballed out of submarine duty. Loughman came to see that Burton's story and that of the ship were part of parcel of each other as Burton's struggle for redemption evolved into one for survival-of his career, his ship, twenty of his enlisted men, his executive officer and himself. In The Wreck of the Macaw, Loughman paints a picture of a vessel that was vivid with hope and simmering with tension in its final tumultuous days. His narrative brings World War II naval history to life and sheds new light on the role of auxiliary vehicles and Liberty ships in the Pacific war as well as the on the Battle of Midway. But his primary focus is on the personal-on life aboard ship and ashore, on the trauma of running aground, on the struggle of the twenty-two men trapped aboard during the harrowing final hours, and on the four men from Naval Operating Base Midway who braved the tremendous surf battering the ship in an unauthorized rescue attempt that cost three of them their lives. Loughman reveals the complex web of relationships aboard ship, detailing a community in which crewman were often at war with themselves, with each other, and with the elements"--