On February 4, 1942, USS Marblehead (CL-12) was part of a striking force attempting to intercept a Japanese invasion convoy in the Flores Sea. Japanese bombers hit her twice and near-missed a third time, disabling her steering and flooding her engine room. Fifteen men were killed and thirty-four wounded. Despite her wrecked stern and jammed rudder, her crew kept her afloat and nursed her at reduced speed to Tjilatjap, Java. From there she made her way to Ceylon, Cape Town, New York, and finally to the Boston Navy Yard for full repairs — a voyage of more than twelve thousand miles under her own power while damaged beyond what any peacetime standard would have permitted at sea. The June 1942 Bureau of Naval Personnel Information Bulletin published five pages on her ordeal and her crew's determination to bring her home.
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