Honda Point disaster

Honda Point disaster
	Aerial view of the seven destroyers lost to the disaster: Nicholas and S. P. Lee at top left; Delphy, capsized and broken in the small cove at left; Young, capsized at top center; Chauncey, upright ahead of Young; Woodbury on the rocks at right center; and Fuller on the rocks at lower right.
Date	September 8, 1923
Time	21:05 local
Location	Honda (Pedernales) Point, near Lompoc, California, U.S.
Coordinates	34°36′11″N 120°38′43″W / 34.60306°N 120.64528°W
Casualties
	23 dead
	100+ injured

The Honda Point disaster was the largest peacetime loss of U.S. Navy ships in history. On the foggy night of September 8, 1923, seven destroyers traveling at 20 knots (37 km/h) ran aground and wrecked at California's Honda Point (also known as Point Pedernales, with offshore outcroppings known as Devil's Jaw). The location was several miles north of the Santa Barbara Channel, the ships' intended route. Two other destroyers grounded, but were able to maneuver free off the rocks. Twenty-three sailors died; 745 were rescued.

Navigational errors, compounded by unusual ocean currents attributed to Japan's Great Kantō earthquake, were the likely cause. A court-martial board convicted the squadron's commander Edward H. Watson and the acting navigator Donald T. Hunter, and stripped them of seniority for any future promotions.