10-17-12
It just so happens that I’ve spent the last month or so working (on Vol 2), concentrating on the events of October, 1944, in the Philippine Sea north of Luzon and a little east of Formosa (Taiwan for you young’uns). To summarize very briefly, the Boston and her task group came under blistering acounterattack by Japanese planes off the coast of Formosa on Oct 13, and sister-ship Canberra took a torpedo under the waterline a little past the middle of the ship. Besides the dozens of men who were killed below decks, the cruiser was crippled and needed to be scuttled (or towed). Over the next several days, her replacement ship, the Houston, was also torpedoed (twice) in two separate attacks.
Six very long weeks later, the Boston was in drydock in Manus (near New Guinea) for several days. The next ship into drydock was the badly damaged Canberra, which had been towed to Ulthi, and then towed to Manus.
The mess you see is the hole below the waterline made by the torpedo. At the bottom of the picture is the crumpled keel atop blocks. Water runs out on the left. The center of the picture shows the outer skin of the ship gone, innards exposed.
She was patched up in Ulithi, and sailed under her own power back to Boston. It took nine months in the same shipyard (Fore River in Quincy MA that she and the Boston were built) to complete her overhaul.