West Loch, Pearl Harbor, is the narrow inlet where the Caine’s departure under Captain Queeg turned into a grounding. Its shallow margins and limited dredged channel made the ship’s position at the far corner consequential: in backing out, the Caine struck the Moulton and became stuck in mud, an incident that prompted an official account of the ship’s performance and training.

Setting and Position

The Caine and the Moulton were tied together in the far corner of West Loch, with the Moulton secured fore and aft to buoys. Muddy shallows lay ahead, astern, and to starboard; the Caine had only a few hundred yards of dredged channel in which to maneuver out. The inlet’s constrained geography made the departure a tight passage rather than an open-water maneuver.

The Grounding

As the Caine backed away, its decked anchor tore along the Moulton’s forecastle, bending several stanchions and ripping two out. It then gashed the Moulton’s bridge. At the same time, a gun on the Caine’s galley deckhouse battered the Moulton’s side, carrying away two ammunition boxes and an antenna. Amid shouted wheel and engine orders and smoke from the stacks, the Caine ended up stuck by the stern in mud on the opposite side of the loch, canted about ten degrees.

Captain Queeg sent Burt Gorton aft to investigate and signaled Captain Sammis to apologize. Gorton reported that the Caine’s hull showed no visible damage, but its propellers were buried in mud to their hubs. The scene’s contrast between Queeg’s brisk confidence at the start of the maneuver and the collision and grounding that followed makes West Loch the setting for a failed first demonstration of his ship handling.

Official Account and Consequences

A ComServPac dispatch requested a written explanation of the grounding and of the failure to report it by dispatch. The report dated the incident September 25, 1943, and recorded that the Caine ran slightly aground at 0932 and was floated off by YT 137 at 1005. It reported no casualties or damage, in contrast to the narrative’s explicit account of damage to the Moulton.

The report attributed the grounding to the engine room’s failure to respond in time to engine orders telegraphed from the bridge. It also noted that command had recently been relieved and that a drastic drilling program had been instituted because the crew’s training was believed inadequate. Thus West Loch is not only the place of the grounding but the point from which the Caine’s performance became a matter of formal scrutiny.