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that fed the boiler. Supervising the fire room operation was Chief Water Tender Martin Busch, an old sea dog who mesmerized young sailors with his story of escaping from the battleship Oklahoma , which in the first twenty minutes at Pearl Harbor was hit by three torpedoes and rolled over until her masts touched bottom, taking more than 400 sailors to their deaths.
    â€œCut ’em in!” Busch yelled to Candelaria, who opened more burners to spray oil into the fire so added steam could be generated and superheated to 850 degrees Fahrenheit before being directed into the geared turbines.
    Word passed among Monaghan ’s crew that the task force was closing on some enemy freighters and an attack was imminent. From the sound of it, Candelaria thought the action would “all be over in a few minutes. Duck soup.”
    As the range between the two forces decreased, new reports reachedMcMorris. Any hope of pouncing on an overmatched enemy soon vanished as one Japanese heavy cruiser was sighted, then a second—followed by two additional light cruisers. When the enemy ships were all accounted for, the U.S. ships were outnumbered two to one. At that point, the Japanese warships turned to engage, while their two transports headed in another direction.
    At 8:40 A.M. , enemy cruisers opened fire from 12 miles away, straddling Richmond with salvos that caused 60-foot-high waterspouts.
    Realizing there was now slim hope of catching the freighters, and fearing unacceptable losses if he engaged the superior enemy force, McMorris ordered his ships to retire at high speed. With the Japanese in pursuit of the fleeing U.S. ships, the two forces continued to slug it out through several course changes, which found the Americans heading away from their nearest Aleutians base at Adak (600 miles away), from which they could have expected air support by land-based aircraft, and toward a Japanese base at Paramushiro at the southern tip of Kamchatka (400 miles away). If that wasn’t bad enough, the Japanese were making a couple of knots more speed than the U.S. ships and were gaining.
    At 9:10 A.M. , an enemy shell landed on Salt Lake City amidships, followed ten minutes later by another hit on her quarterdeck. It was clear the Japanese were aiming to take out the largest U.S. ship. The cruiser fought on valiantly with some fancy shooting, landing 8-inch shells squarely on the decks of two Japanese warships.
    At 10:02 A.M. , Salt Lake City ’s steering gear failed, restricting course changes to only 10 degrees and limiting her ability to zigzag to thwart enemy gunners. During the next forty minutes, the cruiser took two more direct hits, which left her after engine room flooded. As engineers counterflooded to correct the ship’s list, they accidentally let water into the fuel oil, which extinguished the burners and stopped the production of steam. A few minutes before noontime, Salt Lake City went dead in the water, leaving the cruiser with her crew of 612 men a “sitting duck” with “little chance” against the closing enemy. A smoke screen was ordered, and the destroyers released from their stacks thick columns ofblack smoke to obscure the big warship—now a stationary target—from enemy gunners.
    To buy his fire room crews time to restart the burners, Salt Lake City ’s commanding officer, Captain Bertram J. Rodgers, asked McMorris to order the destroyers to unleash a torpedo attack on the advancing enemy, and the admiral complied. Any admiral would trade a destroyer for a cruiser, which came as no secret to fleet destroyermen, who knew their smallish ships were “expendable” in such situations. The destroyers Monaghan , Bailey, and Coghlan —after hours of steaming with their sterns to the enemy force—now reversed course. In a “magnificent and inspiring spectacle,” they charged at flank speed toward two Japanese heavy cruisers 17,000 yards distant.
    Monaghan had come