The Wreck of the USS Laffey

The USS Laffey (DD-459) was a Benson class destroyer in the US Navy. She was laid down on January 13th, 1941, launched on October 30th, 1941, and commissioned into the USN on March 31st, 1942. Laffey would only serve for eight months before being sunk in the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal on November 13th, 1942. In the battle, Laffey was second in the American line behind the USS Cushing and ended up taking a course through the center of the Japanese formation. At one point the destroyer came within 20 feet of colliding with the Japanese flagship Hiei, a Kongou class battleship armed with eight 14''/45 caliber guns and a fearsome battery of secondary 6'' guns. The two ships were so close that Hiei's guns could not depress enough to fire at Laffey, and the destroyer pummeled the Hiei's superstructure with 5'' shells and machine gun fire. Some accounts even say that the bridge crew were on the wings firing their pistols at the battleship. This withering fire wounded the Japanese commander, Vice Admiral Hiroaki Abe, and killed his chief of staff, Commander Suzuki Masakane*. But Laffey did not escape the deadly fire that came from the collision of the American and Japanese formations and took hits from three or four destroyers as well as the two battleships in the Japanese force once she moved off. The weight of shellfire was too much for the destroyer, and a torpedo hit on her stern sealed the fate of the ship.  

The battle is a difficult one to reconstruct as accounts have changed as more information is released or discovered from new sources **.  

With the ship now mortally crippled, the order to abandon ship was given. This went very smoothly, but before all officers and men could get off, her after magazines detonated and Laffey sank almost immediately. Fifty-nine of her crew went with her, including her commanding officer Lieutenant Commander William Edwin Hank. 

There aren't many photos of Laffey and the ones that do exist seem to be of miserable quality. Many of the detail photos that will be seen to point out features will be from ships of the same class.

While Robert Ballard found the Laffey in 1992 during his expedition to Ironbottom Sound, as shown in his book on the ships he found there, these photographs are from the R/V Petrel's survey of the wreck from late December 2018 or early 2019. More documentation is always welcome, so I have endeavored to go through the short video that was posted to the Peterel's Facebook page and explain what was actually seen. 

This will go from bow to stern.  

This is the prow, with the flag pole still standing despite the years and growth that now covers the ship. Laffey is resting upright on the seabed.

These are the 20 mm cannons mounted just ahead of the bridge, with one of the 5''/38 caliber mounts visible on the right side of the frame. An open hatch can just be seen leading into the superstructure, and what appears to be a spent 5'' shell casing is resting on the deck between the 20 mm cannons. Note that the 5'' mount is still pointing back astern and to port, from the somewhat confused accounts available, Hiei came from port and passed astern of Laffey when they nearly collided.

This photo of the USS Parker (DD-604) in August 1942 shows the same area on an intact ship from the port side. The two 5''/38 mounts can be seen, as well as the splinter shields for the 20 mm guns.

Slightly farther astern and a level higher up, the cannons and 5'' mount can still be seen on the right side. Despite what looks like battle damage, all the windows are still intact, if somewhat overgrown.

A closeup from the same photo of USS Parker shows what the intact structure would have looked like. This includes the protective shielding around the sides of the bridge and the GFCS up top which I suspect to be a Mk 37 system at this point in the war.

There is not much to tell what direction the GFCS is pointed, but I think that the faint object on the right side is the broken-off mast. This would mean that that the director is pointed to port, which follows with how the 5'' guns are aimed.

The torpedo tubes, mostly intact, and appears to be still in their regular position pointed along the centerline. Though is there is not really a way to tell where they are actually pointing.

This is another 20 mm cannon on a platform which has collapsed. Unfortunately, it's exact location isn't entirely clear. Now we come into the issue of documentation of in-theater modifications, or to put it more simply, what small guns were bolted onto the ship when? Laffey had four or five 20 mm cannons, two of them are on the bow and are known to still be there. Another two were located on each side of the aft funnel so this could be one of those. There was also another cannon mounted even farther back on the port side, directly across from a 1.1'' gun.

This is an actual photo of Laffey, where the number 3 5'' mount can be seen on the far right, the 1.1'' mount just to the left of it, and the fifth 20 mm cannon. The odd angle of it makes me want to say it is on the starboard side, but without more information, I don't want to say for sure.

This is another 20 mm cannon, with what looks like the rest of the mast having fallen down near it. I suspect this is one of the two that was around the aft funnel since something that looks like the coil of rope can be seen in a handful of photos of Benson class destroyers.

Right over on the extreme left is what looks to be a protective cover for some sort of coiled rope, probably mooring lines. In the second photo which includes the gun, there are some things that can be faintly seen in the background, but the details can't really be made out. I suspect the object on the left is the searchlight base, which would mean that the object in the background center is probably part of the funnel.
Assuming that this is looking from the starboard side to port.

The last part of the Laffey, the damage from the exploding magazines is shockingly apparent with part of the deck and hull peeled back and folded over.

Last of all is the builder's plate on the amidships superstructure, surrounded by marine growth and battle damage, but still somewhat legible.

What looks like a hit from a 14'' shell can be seen on the right side, the plate itself is in the center of the frame.

From what I can make out, the plate reads:

'USS LAFFEY'

'BUILT [BY]'

'BETHLEHEM STEEL COMPANY'  

'[SHIPBUILDING DIVISION [?]]' 

'[Illegible]'

Brackets indicate what is mostly illegible and is inferred by context. 

Laffey is upright, both her bow guns are trained to port, and around the back third of the ship is missing which includes the other two 5'' mounts. Hopefully, more photos or video will be released in the near future for a better understanding of the condition of the wreck.

Notes and Sources:
http://www.navsource.org/archives/05/459.htm
http://destroyerhistory.org/benson-gleavesclass/usslaffey/
https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/l/laffey-i.html
http://destroyerhistory.org/assets/pdf/wilde/459laffey_wilde.pdf
http://www.combinedfleet.com/ijnnames.htm

*The Japanese tradition was to promote officers posthumously, so Suzuki Masakane was promoted to the rank of captain after his death.
**Hiyei is the old way to convert the Japanese name '比叡' ['The Cold' - the name of a mountain northeast of Kyoto and a monastery there] to English, it is not in use in modern works

This will probably be expanded on and revised in the near future.

Roll of Honor:
http://www.maritimequest.com/warship_directory/us_navy_pages/destroyers/pages/alpha_pages/l/laffey_dd459_roll_of_honor.htm