The Honda Point Disaster remains one of the most tragic peacetime accidents in U.S. Navy history. On the night of 8 September 1923, fourteen destroyers of Destroyer Squadron 11 were sailing from San Francisco to San Diego at about 20 knots in heavy fog. The lead ship, USS Delphy, made a wrong turn east, believing the squadron had reached the Santa Barbara Channel. In reality, they were several miles off-course. Within minutes, the lead ship struck the rocks at Honda Point (Point Pedernales), and six others followed her into the cliffs and reefs.
In total, seven destroyers were lost and 23 sailors killed. The primary cause was faulty navigation based on dead reckoning, compounded by the refusal to trust radio bearings. Ocean currents, altered by the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake in Japan, had shifted their actual position westward. Poor visibility, the high speed of the formation, and the dangerous coastline—known as the “Devil’s Jaw”—made escape impossible once the turn was made. A naval court of inquiry found squadron commander Commodore Edward H. Watson and navigator Lt Cmdr Donald T. Hunter guilty of negligence. The wrecks of ships such as USS Delphy, Young, Woodbury, and Chauncey still lie off the California coast near Point Pedernales, a somber memorial to the perils of overconfidence in navigation.
