Some months later, the VAFB scuba diving club, of which I was president at the time, located and raised an anchor, because of its location presumed to be from the Chauncey. The anchor was placed on an existing concrete foundation as a memorial to the men and their ships lost here. Today, Vandenberg AFB is a busy space and missile launch center. VAFB beaches are strictly Off-limits to diving, snorkeling, swimming and wading. It is an extremely dangerous stretch of ocean where rip tides are as common as the constant fog.
Heavy surf pounds the beach almost constantly.
Access to the memorial is always limited and sometimes forbidden. But if you ride Amtrak between Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo, you will pass within a few hundred yards of the worst peacetime naval disaster in U. S. history. If you are on the seaward side of the train and the fog isn't too thick, maybe you will glimpse Woodbury Rock and the ghosts of sea farers lost there. Zero Nine Five by Lt. Commander Richard B. Hadaway, U. S. Naval Reserve. Tragedy at Honda by Charles A Lockwood, Vice Admiral, USN, Retired and Hans Christian Adamson, Colonel, USAF, Retired.