Wreck of World War II Ship Known as the 'Dancing Mouse' Discovered at the Bottom of the Indian Ocean
link: MSNOn March 1, 1942, three months after the attacks on Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces sank an American warship called the USS Edsall.
The 314-foot-long destroyer didn’t go down without a fight. The Edsall’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Joshua Nix, executed evasive maneuvers for more than an hour that led Japanese observers to describe the vessel as a “dancing mouse.” Once it became clear he could not save the ship, Nix, 33, pointed the bow of the Edsall at Japanese ships in his “last act of defiance,” writes Samuel J. Cox, the director of Naval History and Heritage Command, in a history of the ship.
Now, more than 80 years later, the Edsall has been found at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. The Royal Australian Navy discovered the vessel on the seafloor roughly 200 miles east of Christmas Island, according to NBC News’ Patrick Smith.
“The commanding officer of Edsall lived up to the U.S. Navy tenet, ‘Don’t give up the ship,’ even when faced with overwhelming odds,” says Admiral Lisa Franchetti, chief of United States naval operations, in a statement. “The wreck of this ship is a hallowed site, serving as a marker for the 185 U.S. Navy personnel and 31 U.S. Army Air Force pilots aboard at the time, almost all of whom were lost when Edsall succumbed to her battle damage.”
The ship was initially located in 2023, but researchers didn’t confirm its identity as the Edsall until recently. The discovery was announced on Monday, which was Veterans Day in America and Remembrance Day in Australia and Britain.
