# Racing into the Devil’s Jaw: The Honda Point Disaster of 1923

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-naval-aviation-ready-room-podcast-with-legends-and-leaders-7414536/racing-into-the-devil-s-jaw-the-honda-point-disaster-of-1923
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-naval-aviation-ready-room-podcast-with-legends-and-leaders-7414536/racing-into-the-devil-s-jaw-the-honda-point-disaster-of-1923.md
Podcast: [The Naval Aviation Ready Room Podcast with Legends and Leaders](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-naval-aviation-ready-room-podcast-with-legends-and-leaders-7414536)
Published: 2026-05-22T04:17:45+00:00
Episode link: https://rss.com/podcasts/the-naval-aviation-podcast/2848192
Audio file: https://content.rss.com/episodes/387278/2848192/the-naval-aviation-podcast/2026_05_22_04_14_55_e78b8b32-ebe4-48a4-96b1-1f14e64345d5.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-naval-aviation-ready-room-podcast-with-legends-and-leaders-7414536/episodes/racing-into-the-devil-s-jaw-the-honda-point-disaster-of-1923
Duration seconds: 2261

## Resource

On the night of September 8, 1923, 14 of the U.S. Navy's sleekest Clemson-class destroyers, affectionately known as the Greyhounds, were charging south from San Francisco to San Diego at a blistering 20 knots. Eager to prove his squadron's flawless competence following a prior minor mishap, Captain Edward H. Watson enforced a strict wartime doctrine: centralized navigation, radio silence, and a ban on independent positional checks or depth soundings. Unbeknownst to the crew, the catastrophic Great Kanto Earthquake in Japan just a week prior had sent unpredictable submarine currents surging across the Pacific, quietly throwing off their calculations. Blindly trusting dead reckoning over a newfangled technology called Radio Direction Finding (RDF), the flagship USS Delphi ordered a fatal turn east into what they believed was the Santa Barbara Channel. Instead, they plowed headfirst into the jagged cliffs of Point Pedernales. Within five chaotic minutes, seven destroyers lay broken in the surf, claiming the lives of 23 sailors. This episode deepens into the harrowing survival stories, the extraordinary rescue efforts by local ranchers, and the historic court-martial where Captain Watson did the unthinkable: he stood up and took total responsibility. What You’ll Learn The Architecture of Certainty: How exceptional, decorated competence rather than incompetence hardened into an institutional hubris that silenced dissent and caused a disaster. The Ghost Currents of Kanto: How a massive earthquake 5,000 miles away in Japan altered California's coastal currents and doomed the squadron’s mathematical plots. The Five-Minute Chaos: The terrifying sequence of events as seven low-slung destroyers crumpled broadside or rolled over in total darkness. Quiet Disobedience: The story of…

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