EASTERN SEA FRONTIER	WAR DIARY	MARCH 1942
	CHAPTER III
	U.S.S. DICKERSON
	On the night of March 18th the American freighter LIBERATOR bound for New York from Galveston was just a few miles off Cape Lookout. Her crew had spent a nervous day on constant alert for the submarines they knew were operating in Hatteras waters. In the early evening they had looked out over the stern and watched two vessels go to the bottom after enemy attack. Night fell soon afterwards over a moderate sea as the LIBERATOR proceeded northward. A little after midnight the watch saw a strange vessel that looked like a submarine about two miles off on the starboard beam. Word was passed to the gun crew who opened fire upon the target.
	The target was the U.S.S. DICKERSON on patrol off Cape Lookout. At 0205 March 19th the destroyer had picked up a contact sharp on the starboard bow, distance about 3500 yards. The Commanding Officer, then on the bridge, identified the ship a moment later as a large tanker proceeding northwest up the coast at approximately ten knots. Shortly afterward the DICKERSON, then at the southern end of her patrol area, turned back and began to zigzag on her base course of 047. At 0220 the sound operator picked up the echo of the merchantman from a distance of approximately 1500 yards. The destroyer then turned to 012 on her zigzag. She was hardly away on her new course before the unidentified ship opened fire. The first shell hit the DICKERSON.
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	It is extraordinary what a single four inch shell can do to a destroyer if it lands in a vulnerable place. This projectile passed through the spray shield on the starboard side and entered the chart house where it detonated. As it exploded it killed a seaman outright and inflicted mortal wounds upon the Commanding OFficer, the sound operator and the Radar operator, all of whom were in the chart house. Two other officers were knocked unconscious. Fragments from the shell dug deep holes in the bridge deck, the radio room bulkheads and the bridge structure. They burst open the flag bags, scattering bright colors around the bridge. Other fragments carried away the torpedo director on the port side; snapped off all electrical circuits from the bridge control to the torpedo tubes, knocked the TBL to pieces. The Radar transmitter was shattered and the QCJ transmitter severly damaged. The smoke indicator, general alarm system, "E" call bells, and general light circuits were all put out of order. The stadimeter, one pair of binoculars, four portfolios of charts and the chart desk were totally destroyed.
	The Executive Officer was, at the time of the accident, asleep in his berth. He went to the bridge immediately and set Condition One. A lieutenant who had been knocked unconscious on the bridge, recovered and informed the Executive OFficer that the attacker was an unidentified tanker. The DICKERSON steadied on 047 at twenty knots. Fifteen minutes later it was discovered that the repeater had been knocked out of step with the master gyro and that the course was actually 132. The Executive Officer put the ship on 047 magnetic and, in accordance with orders from the Captain,
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	who was still conscious, proceeded for Norfolk at 27 knots.
	Attempts to communicate with the land failed. The radio had been put out of order by the shell and auxiliary spark transmitter did not work. In the morning the DICKERSON made Norfolk a few minutes after her Captain died. Only a few hours before the S.S. LIBERATOR had been sunk by an enemy submarine three miles west of Diamond Shoals.
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