By John Kleespies
On the afternoon of March 15, 1952, a small battery of North Korean 152mm howitzer sat atop a hill outside the city of Songjin. Strategically placed to overlook and protect the city’s bay, the battery’s cannons were dug a few feet into the ground and tucked under a canopy of Korean Red Pine, totally hiding the emplacement … as long as it didn’t make any noise.
However, the battery now found itself with a perfect view of two American warships that had just taken a broadside position in Kimchaek Bay, a mere thousand yards offshore.
The smaller of the couple sat subserviently in reserve.
The larger of the two, though, began to ripple fire its deck cannons with chest thumping percussions, sending a steady beat of whistling ordinance over the howitzer, followed by distant thumps to the rear: several miles inland, a railroad tunnel had collapsed, presenting a line of stalled trains to the Americans as easy targets.
This battery had one job to do.
Poking the Bear
Hence, the first howitzer fired its shot at the Yankee Imperialists, but its shell geysered into the bay, well short of the two ships.
Within a few seconds, a hastily adjusted second shot splashed alongside the larger of the vessels, and a third landed just beyond.
The battery’s fourth shot was, admittedly, beautiful.
The 95-pound high explosive shell arced through the air and erupted upon the blast shield of a 40mm antiaircraft gun mounted to the superstructure of the USS Wisconsin, an Iowa-class battleship.
Wisconsin paused her bombardment.
Three sailors were assisted to the sick bay with minor injuries, and then the big ship sat silently … brooding …
In unison, Wisconsin’s three turrets whirred a few degrees to the side, and her nine 16-inch cannon adjusted their elevation to nearly parallel with the water.
The ship lingered as it awaited the midpoint of a rolling swell …
Temper, Temper
Echoing a 195-decibel thunder, all nine cannon unleashed fireballs that converged into a 565,000 square foot wall of flame, blasting forward an overpressure wave that stripped the leaves off branches, onshore.
Some 24,300 pounds of metal and explosives slammed the hillside at the same moment, flailing trees and dirt upwards, until the rising black column widened into a mushroom cloud which collapsed upon itself in a deluge of debris.
From a hundred yards off Wisconsin’s bow, the destroyer USS Duncan had been prudently watching this scene play out.
Tentatively, a single bright light blinked from the Duncan’s bridge.
After a pregnant pause, Wisconsin’s signal lamp snapped an acknowledgement to continue.
In measured morse code, Duncan spelled out, “Temper, temper.”
The dust had by now settled to reveal a crater where a hill once existed.
Slowly, Wisconsin’s three turrets reset to their former positions, and the battleship resumed its shelling of the North Korean railway, thus drawing to a close the first and last time that the Wisconsin ever took a direct hit in battle.
