Battle of the Three Navies | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Part of the Great War | |||||||
|
|||||||
Belligerents | |||||||
![]() | ![]() |
||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
• USS Dakota and USS New York heavily damaged • USS Missoula sunk • unnamed U.S. cruiser heavily damaged or destroyed | • one British cruiser hit |
The Battle of the Three Navies was a notable naval battle which took place in the Pacific Ocean in 1916, during the Great War. The engagement was fought south and west of the Sandwich Islands, where the U.S. Pacific Fleet was first attacked by British warships and, immediately soon after, by Japanese warships.
The battle began when a scouting aeroplane, launched from the USS Dakota, sighted a force of six Royal Navy battleships and their escorting vessels which originated from their base in Singapore. During the ensuing battle, the rudder of the Dakota was disabled by a shot from a British warship, jamming it to port and causing her to break from the American battle line. The next ship in line, the USS Idaho, nearly collided with the stricken vessel. The resulting action would later be known as "the death ride of the Dakota", as the ship took heavy damage from both British and Imperial Japanese Navy fire.
The Dakota was the most heavily damaged American capital ship, with a reported 29 hits, followed by the battleship USS New York. The armored cruiser USS Missoula was sunk in a spectacular fireball after she took a direct hit that touched off her magazines, while another U.S. cruiser was set ablaze. Other than a couple of hits on a British cruiser made by the Dakota, it is not known whether any additional British or Japanese vessels were damaged or sunk.
After the battle, all surviving American vessels returned to the recently captured base at Pearl Harbor for repairs.