Honda Point disaster: Nine US Navy destroyers run aground off the California coast. Seven are lost, and twenty-three sailors killed.
The Honda Point disaster was the largest peacetime loss of U.S. Navy ships. On the evening of September 8, 1923, seven destroyers, while traveling at 20 knots (37 km/h), ran aground at Honda Point (also known as Point Pedernales; the cliffs just off-shore called Devil's Jaw), a few miles from the northern side of the Santa Barbara Channel off Point Arguello on the Gaviota Coast in Santa Barbara County, California. Two other ships grounded, but were able to maneuver free off the rocks. Twenty-three sailors died in the disaster.