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Posted by Rick E on April 2, 2021, 21:23:19, in reply to "This means that the wreckage that the Petrel found..."
R/V PETREL found the debris from the stern section of the USS JOHNSTON (DD-557) that parted from the rest of the wreck. Speculation is that the aft 5-in magazine may have exploded or multiple depth charges from the K-Guns and stern drop tracks ignited. They also found a trough in the sea floor where the rest of the wreck slid down a cliff into much deeper waters. PETREL wasn't able to explore into deeper depths. Parts of that wreck were identified as being from USS JOHNSTON at that time. R/V CALADAN OCEANIC returned to the same location and followed the trough down to the forward 2/3 of the JOHNSTON wreck.
If you look at the images that the R/V CALADAN OCEANIC has released, you can see where the ship broken apart aft of the second stack. Looking at all the videos, you can tell that USS JOHNSTON took a beating and had several fires.
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...must have been the remains of the Hoel. Johnston looks reasonably intact but what the Petrel surveyed was a mess, the fragments of a ship put through a cheese grater. Given that petrel team seems to have found Hoel where they thought Johnston would be, I wonder if this will alter the interpretations of Hoel's and Johnston's ends, their respective movements, and of how the battle progressed...
Johnston: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-56608713
Probable Hoel:
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