The Dancing Mouse: USS Edsall Wreck Rediscovered After 80 Years
It is March, 1942, and the US is reeling from the Japanese surprise attack on her surface fleet at Pearl Harbor three months before. A lone, Clemson-class destroyer, the USS Edsall, crosses the Indian Ocean headed for Tjilatjap, the only deep-water port on the island of Java.
The Edsall is far from cutting edge. Launched more than twenty years earlier in 1920, she belongs to an earlier generation, and besides she has been damaged by her own depth charge while attacking a submarine in January.
Aboard are more than 150 sailors, as well as some 31 pilots and ground crew travelling as passengers. Another US ship, the USS Pecos, has been attacked in the area and the Edsall was likely trying to reach her last position to search for survivors. She would never make it.
The Japanese task force which sank the Pecos is still in the area, and at 3.30pm on 1st March they radio that they have spotted a light cruiser in the area. They close to attack, and less than an hour later the Edsall comes under fire from two Japanese battleships and two heavy cruisers. She is hopelessly outmatched.
Edsall did not go down without a fight, however. Her skilful evasion of the Japanese shelling earned her the nickname “The Dancing Mouse” but she could only dodge the barrage for so long. After more than 1,300 shells were fired and almost entirely missed her, dive bombers eventually damaged her enough for the Japanese task force to find their mark and sink her.
Now, 80 years later and on Remembrance Day, the Australian government have announced they have found her wreck, reports The Washington Post.
The wreck was first discovered by an Australian navy ship named the Stoker in 2023. The announcement was delayed however due to operational concerns, and because the USS Pillsbury, another Clemson-class destroyer, was also known to have sunk in the area.
Once the wreck had been carefully surveyed with underwater robots and sonar it was confirmed as the Edsall. The ship remains largely intact, a testament to how well she evaded the Japanese attack.
The final bomb hit which doomed the Dancing Mouse can even be seen, near the stern. Japanese witnesses to the attack described her as rolling belly up before sinking, but as the wreck showed she righted herself as she sank, before crashing into the bottom with some force where she remains to this day.
The wreck will now be designated a war grave.
Header Image: The end of the Dancing Mouse: The USS Edsall sinks, as captured by the attacking Japanese task force. Source: US Naval History and Heritage Command / Public Domain.
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