Pacific ships

Photos and the story

Ralph Talbot

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ClassBagley class
TypeDestroyer (DD)
HullDD-390
FateAfloat. Badly damaged at Savo Island on 9 August 1942. Repaired, and she survived the war.
Armament (class)Four 5-inch guns, one funnel, and sixteen torpedo tubes.
Command

Laid down, displacement, length, beam, draft, speed, and complement are not stored for each hull, so this table leaves them out.

The armament line is the class drawing, not a measurement of this hull.

Ralph Talbot
Australian armed forces. USS Ralph Talbot (DD-390) underway in 1943.JPG. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

USS Ralph Talbot (DD-390) was a Bagley-class destroyer of the United States Navy. H. R. Thurber became her captain on 14 October 1937. On 7 December 1941 she was in Pearl Harbor during the attack. She was not sunk.

At the Battle of Savo Island on 9 August 1942 she was the radar picket north of Savo Island. The Japanese column got past her.

On the way out, Furutaka, Tenryu, and Yubari hit her with gunfire. The blows left her badly damaged. She escaped into a rain squall, and the damage is not credited to any one of those three ships.

She was repaired after Savo Island. On 6 October 1943 she reached the Battle of Vella Lavella after the gunfight and helped with the rescue. Ralph Talbot survived the war.

The pictures on this page are the originals.