Edward H. Watson

Template:Short description Template:Template otherTemplate:Main other Edward Howe Watson (February 28, 1874 – January 7, 1942) was a career United States Navy officer, who led a squadron of destroyers aground off Point Honda on the California coast in 1923.

Early life and marriage

Watson was born in Frankfort, Kentucky, a son of U.S. Navy Commander John Crittenden Watson. He married Hermine Cary Gratz, whose half-sister, Helen Gratz, married Godfrey S. Rockefeller of Greenwich, Connecticut.

Navy career

Academy and early career

Watson graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in June 1895 and served on several ships during the rest of the decade, including Spanish–American War service on board the cruiser Template:USS. He attended the Naval War College in 1908. Watson commanded the storeship Template:USS in 1912–13, then returned to the Naval War College to attend the long course, graduating in 1914. He also saw duty as executive officer of the battleship Template:USS and as Commanding Officer of the gunboat Template:USS.

World War I

File:CaptainEdwardHWatson1922.jpg

Captain Edward H Watson 1922

During World War I, he commanded the troop transport USS Madawaska from August 1917 to January 1918. CAPT Watson was then in command of the battleship Template:USS, receiving the Navy Cross "for exceptionally meritorious service in a duty of great responsibility as Commanding Officer of the U.S.S. Alabama in the Atlantic Fleet". In March 1919, he became U.S. Naval Attaché in Japan, remaining in that post until May 1922. In July of that year, he took command of Destroyer Squadron 11, based on the West Coast.

Honda Point disaster

On September 8, 1923, dead reckoning navigation errors on Watson's flagship led seven of his squadron's destroyers to ground on the rocky coast at Honda Point, California, a loss that came to be known as the Honda Point Disaster. Watson was court martialed for his role.

Not all observers agreed with the Navy's decision to punish Watson. In 1960, the authors of Tragedy at Honda argued that the causes of the tragedy lay in the failure of new technology from a navigational radio station to supply necessary data to ships operating in dense fog, but that Watson displayed outstanding honor and leadership by taking full responsibility, quoting at length the editors of the Army and Navy Journal, who wrote at the time of the court martial:Template:Quote

Post-Honda Point career and retirement

After the Honda Point disaster, Captain Watson served as Assistant Commandant of the Fourteenth Naval District in Hawaii until he left active duty in November 1929.

He retired to New York City, where he was in the New York Social Register. He and his family spent their summers on Walcott Avenue in Jamestown, Rhode Island, where he was a member of the Conanicut Yacht Club.

Death

Watson died in 1942 at the Brooklyn Naval Hospital in Brooklyn, New York. He was interred at Arlington National Cemetery.

References

• Department of the Navy – Naval History and Heritage Command Template:Webarchive This work is in the public domain.