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Warship Wednesday (on a Thursday) 19 February 2026: Plywood Warrior

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Here at LSOZI, we take a break every Wednesday to explore the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period, profiling a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

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Warship Wednesday (on a Thursday) 19 February 2026: Plywood Warrior

Photo by Camera Operator JO1 Joe Gawlowicz, National Archives Identifier 6465113, Agency-Assigned Identifier DNSC9108119, Local Identifier, 330-CFD-DN-SC-91-08119

Above we see the plucky Korean War-era 173-foot Acme-class ocean-going minesweeper leader USS Adroit (MSO-509) underway during mine-clearing operations in the Gulf during Operation Desert Storm in February 1991, flag flying, with Zodiacs, Otters, and paravanes ready, as Bluejackets man the .50s.

Some 35 years ago this week, the little 34-year-old Adroit would come to the urgent assistance of the top-of-the-line Aeigis cruiser USS Princeton (CG-59), which found herself in the midst of an Iraqi minefield in the worst way imaginable.

Adroit came to work– as she always had.

The Agiles & Acmes

With the Navy’s hard-earned lessons in mine warfare in WWII (more than 70 USN ships sunk by mines) and Korea (five sunk: USS Magpie, Pirate, Pledge, Sarsi and Partridge), the brass in the early 1950s decided to design and build a new class of advanced ocean-going but shallow draft minesweepers to augment and eventually replace the flotillas of 1940s-built steel-hulled 221-foot Auk-class and 184-foot Admirable class minebusters.

The new design, a handy 850-tonner, was shorter than either previous classes, running just 172 feet overall. Beamy at 35 feet, they could operate in as little as 10 feet of seawater.

Their shallow draft (10 feet in seawater) made them ideal for getting around littorals as well as going to some out-of-the-way locales that rarely see Naval vessels. USS Leader (MSO-490) and Excel (MSO 439) became the first U.S. warships ever to visit the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh when they completed the 180-mile transit up the Mekong River on 27 August 1961, a feat not repeated until 2007. USS Vital (MSO-474) ascended the Mississippi River in May 1967 to participate in the Cotton Carnival at Memphis, Tennessee.

Whereas the Auks and Admiralbles were outfitted as PCs or DEs, complete with 3″/50s, a decent AAA battery, and lots of depth charges and even Hedgehog ASW devices, the Agiles and Acmes were almost unarmed. Their design allowed for a single 40mm L60 Bofors forward and four .50 cals with a small arms locker accessible via the captain’s stateroom. Less steel and all that. Plus, it was thought that the Navy had enough DEs and DDs to not need minesweepers to clock in to bust subs, escort convoys, and shoot down planes.

A very clean Luders-built USS Agile (MSO-421) likely soon after her 1956 commissioning. Note the black canvas-topped flying bridge, which gave it a greenhouse effect, and was soon changed to white/tan. L45-02.05.02

A close-up of the above, showing her original 40mm. Most of the MSOs landed these by the 1970s.

Plans for the USS Lucid (MSO-458), Agile class, post 1969 moderization, with a piggyback .50 cal/81mm mortar replacing the 40mm mount due to the larger size of the SQQ-14 sonar, which we’ll get into later.

As one would expect, due to their role, these new minesweepers, the Agiles, were to be wooden-hulled (not steel like Auk and Admirable), with even non-ferrous steel used in their four (often cranky) Packard 760shp V-16 ID1700 diesel engines– a type also used in the new coastal sweepers (MSCs). Some of the class were later given nonmagnetic General Motors engines to replace especially troublesome Packards. Electrical power for the ship came from a Packard V-8 240kw ship’s service generator, while the mine hammers and winches used two GM 6-71s (one 100kw, the other 60kw).

To differentiate them from the AM-hull numbered Auks and Admirable, the new class was reclassified to the new MSO (Minesweeper, Ocean, Non-Magnetic) in 1955. Bronze and stainless (non-magnetic) steel fittings, with automatic degaussing, were fitted, as well as electrical insulators in internal piping, lifelines, and stays.

Their construction at the time was novel, with 90 percent of the completed ship– including the keel, frame, decking, and rudder– being made from laminated oak and fir “sandwiches” with the biggest piece of continuous wood being 16-foot long 7/8-inch thick oak planks.

The future U.S. Navy minesweeper Agile (MSO-421) under construction at Luders Marine Construction Co., Stamford, Connecticut, on 13 September 1954. National Archives Identifier: 6932482.

From a July 1953 Popular Mechanics article on the subject:

They were very maneuverable, due to controllable pitch propellers– one of the earliest CRP installations in the Navy– and the class leader would be appropriately named USS Agile.

They were made to carry the new AN/UQS-1 mine-locating sonar, developed and evaluated in the early 1950s by the Navy’s Mine Defense Laboratory in Panama City. This 100 kHz short-range high-definition mine location sonar featured a 1.0 ms pulse and 2.0º horizontal resolution, allowing it to detect bottom mines (most of the time) at ranges up to a few hundred yards during tests. While that sounds primitive now, it was cutting-edge for the time and would be the primary sonar of these boats throughout the 1950s and well into the 1960s (some for longer than that). A SPS-53 surface search radar was on her mast.

UQS-1 mine-locating sonar panel is currently at the Museum of Man in the Sea in Panama City. Designed to locate mines, the type showed “poor resolution and could not classify mines in most waters.” Photo by Chris Eger

Thus equipped, they could mechanically sweep moored mines with Oropesa (“O” Type) gear, magnetic mines with a magnetic “Tail” supplied by three 2500 ampere mine sweeping generators, and acoustic mines by using Mk4 (V) and Mk 5 magnetic as well as Mk6 (B) acoustic hammers. Two giant new XMAP pressure sweeping caissons could be towed, a funky array that was only in use for eight years.

The 53 Agiles, at $3.5 million a pop, were built out rapidly by 1958 at 14 yards around the country (Luders, Bellingham, Boward, Burger, Martinac, Higgins, Hiltebrant, etc.) that specialized in wooden vessels– although two were built at Newport Naval Shipyard. In addition to this, 15 were built for France, four for Portugal, six for Belgium, two for Norway, one for Uruguay, four for Italy, and six for the Netherlands. The design was truly an international best-seller, and in some cases, the last hurrah for several of these small wooden boat yards.

In 1954, the U.S. still had 57 Admirables and 59 Auks on the Navy List– even after giving away dozens to allies and reclassing others to roles such as survey and torpedo research. This soon changed as the Agiles entered the fleet. By 1967, only 28 Auks and 11 Admirable remained– and they were all in the Reserve Fleet.

But what of the Acme class?

The secret to these four follow-on vessels (Acme, Adroit, Advance, and Affray) was that they were very close copies of the Agiles, listed officially as being a foot longer and 30 tons heavier. They were also fitted with (austere) flagship facilities to operate as minesweeper flotilla leaders with a commodore aboard if needed, controlling a four-ship Mine Division of 300~ men. They also had slightly longer legs, capable of carrying 50 tons of fuel rather than the 46 on the Agiles, which gave them a nominal range of 3,000nm rather than 2,400 in the earlier ships.

The four-pack was built side-by-side at Boothbay Harbor, Maine, by Frank L. Sample, Jr., Inc., between November 1954 and December 1958.

USS Affray, being built at Boothbay by Frank L. Sample, Jr., Inc. Ship was launched in 1956

The Sample yard had previously built a dozen 278-ton YMS coastal minesweepers for the Navy during WWII, as well as three 390-ton MSCs for the French in 1953, so at least they had experience.

Acme class, 1967 Janes

Furthering the wooden-hulled MSO flotilla leader concept, after the Acmes, the Navy also ordered three larger (191-foot, 963-ton) Ability class sweepers from Petersen in Wisconsin as part of the 1955 Program.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Meet Adroit

Our subject is at least the third such warship in U.S. Navy service, with the first being a 147-foot steam yacht taken up from service in 1917. Added to the Naval List as USS Adroit (SP-248), but never seeing active service as she was “found to be highly unseaworthy and of extremely short cruising range,” she was returned to her owner with a “thanks, anyway” in April 1918.

The second Adroit, and first commissioned by the Navy, was the class leader of a group of 18 173-foot PC-461-class submarine chasers that were completed, with minor modifications, as minesweepers. As such, USS Adroit (AM-82) entered service in 1942 and began operations late that year with Destroyer Squadron 12 on antisubmarine patrols off Noumea.

USS Adroit (AM-82), August 1942, at builder’s yard: Commercial Iron Works, Portland, Oregon. 19-N-36133

This WWII-era Adroit escorted convoys to Guadalcanal, Espiritu Santo and Efate, New Hebrides; Noumea, New Caledonia; Auckland, New Zealand; Tarawa, Gilbert Islands; and Manus, Admiralty Islands before her name was canceled and she was designated a sub-chaser proper, dubbed simply, PC-1586. She earned a single battle star, was decommissioned three months after VJ-Day, and was sold for scrap in 1948.

Our subject, the third USS Adroit, was laid down at Frank Sample’s on 18 November 1954, launched 20 August 1955, and commissioned 4 March 1957, one of the last of the Navy’s “plywood warriors.”

Her first skipper was LCDR Joseph G. Nemetz, USN, a WWII veteran and career officer.

18 June 1961. USS Adroit (MSO-509) underway during task force exercises. You wouldn’t know to look at her that she could only make 14 knots in a calm sea with all four diesels wide open and a clean hull! USN 1056262

Cold War service

Post shakedown and availibilty, Adroit spent nearly two decades in the active Atlantic Fleet Mine Force (MINELANT), operating in a series of excercises and training evolutions based out of Charleston while also spending stints at the disposal of the Naval School of Mine Warfare (co-located in Charleston) and the Mine Lab in Pensacola to both train eager new officers and ratings and test experimental new gear.

She likewise frequently served as the flagship for MineDiv 44 (and, after 1971, MineDiv 121) with an embarked commodore aboard.

On the small MSOs, life was different, as noted in ‘Damn the Torpedoes, Naval Mine Countermeasures, 1777-1991.”

For young officers and enlisted men in the late 1950s and early 1960s, assignment to the new MCM force provided an unusual experience in both seamanship and leadership. Command came early, and the career advancement possible with MCM ship command enticed some of the most promising graduates of the destroyer force schools into the new mine force for at least one command tour. Young lieutenants obtained command of MSCs; lieutenants and lieutenant commanders captained MSOs; ensigns served early tours as department heads; and lieutenants (junior grade) served as executive officers. Senior enlisted men who commanded MSBs and smaller vessels often advanced into the MCM officer community through such experience.

Because the establishment of minesweeping divisions, squadrons, and flotillas provided MCM billets for commanders and captains, and because of the variety of MCM vessels, shore station assignments, and missions, it was actually possible for a brief time for an officer or an enlisted man to rise within the mine force to the rank of captain.

Everything that had to be done on a big ship also had to be done on a small one, and the expanded MCM force became a hands-on training school for a whole generation of naval officers who exercised command at an early age. Officers assigned to the MSCs and MSOs from the active duty destroyer force sometimes arrived with little or no training in mine warfare and began operating immediately. Junior officers, many of them ensigns right out of school, often had good technical training from the mine warfare school but lacked basic shipboard experience. Well-trained enlisted men, both active duty and reserves, made up the core of the MCM force and usually taught their officers the essentials of minesweeping and hunting on the spot.

There were, of course, lots of exceptions to Adroit’s peacetime minework.

She made a trio of tense Sixth Fleet deployments to the Mediterranean: May-October 1958, 27 September 1961–March 1962, and 15 June–8 November 1965, often calling at some out-of-the-way ports due to her small size.

Adroit loaded ammo and helped guard ports in the Norfolk and Hampton Roads area during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

She clocked in to support the space program in 1963 (Mercury-Atlas 9 “Faith 7”) and 1972 (Apollo 17 “America/Challenger”).

Adroit’s advanced sonar proved key while searching for “lost USAF equipment” off the Bahamas in 1963, a missing general aviation aircraft off the Florida Keys in 1969, a lost LCU near Onslow Beach in 1970, a USN Kaman S2F Seasprite (BuNo. 149745) with lost aircrew aboard off Norfolk in 1975, worked with Naval Underwater Systems Command to locate and retrieve a valuable piece of underwater equipment” off the East Coast in 1976; recovered from 110 feet, a brand-new USN F-14A Tomcat (BuNo 160674) ditched off Shinnecock, New York in 1981 (without loss) and discovered thouroughly wrecked by Adroit in 160 feet, and an uncessceful search for a lost Marine CH-46 Sea Knight in the vicinity of Chesapeake Light in 1983. She made up for the latter by finding downed aircraft off the North Carolina coast in 1985. Hey, 4:5 on missing aircraft isn’t bad.

She was also involved in attempts to rescue those at peril on the sea, including roaming the Florida Strait after the mysterious disappearance of the tanker SS Marine Sulphur Queen, lost between  Beaumont, Texas, and Norfolk in 1963. That ship and the 39 souls aboard are still unaccounted for. She made a similarly fruitless search for the six men aboard the motor towing vessel Marjorie McCallister, which was lost battling heavy seas approximately off Cape Lookout in 1969.

A modernization overhaul at Detyens (14 March–26 August 1969) saw her first-generation mine sonar swapped out for the new AN/SQQ-14 variable depth sonar on a hull-retractable rod. As additional space on the foc’sle was needed for installation of the SQQ-14 cabling and the sonar lift, the WWII-era 40mm Bofors bow gun was landed for good, although a gun tub was installed, allowing a M68 20mm cannon if needed, but usually just used for an extra .50 cal.

Adroit transitioned from active duty to working naval reserve training duty in 1973, shifting homeport from Charleston to the NETC in Newport, Rhode Island, and downgrading to a half (active) crew. This brought a transfer to MineRon 121, and a five-month refit at Munro in Chelsea that added a new aqueous foam (light water) firefighting system, replaced both shafts, remodeled the mess decks, and recaulked the decks. After that, she got busy running reservists to sea for their annual active duty training and other ancillary duties alternating with assorted mine countermeasures exercises with divers and EOD dets.

Sister Affray pulled a similar downshift to become an NRF minesweeper based in Portland, Maine, at the time, leaving just Acme and Advance from the class on active duty in the Pacific.

The active ships are slightly undermanned by crews of 72 to 76 officers and enlisted men, whereas the NRF reserve training ships generally had a crew of 3 officers and 36 enlisted active Navy personnel, plus 2 officers and 29 enlisted reservists. Wartime mobilisation complement was 6 officers and 80 enlisted men for the modernized MSOs.

Acme class, 1974 Janes

Meanwhile, in the Western Pacific, 10 MSOs were part of the Seventh Fleet’s Mine Countermeasures Force (Task Force 78), led by RADM Brian McCauley, during Operation End Sweep– removing mines and airdropped Mark 36 Destructors laid by the U.S. in Haiphong Harbor in North Vietnam and other waterways in the first part of 1973. Speaking of Vietnam, Adroit’s sister Acme made three tours off Southeast Asia during the conflict, earning two battle stars while Advance earned five stars.

By 1974, as the U.S. pulled back from Vietnam, the Navy had the four Acmes (two in NRF duty), had disposed of the larger Ability class MCM flotilla leaders as well as the older Admirables and Auks (the final 29 stricken in 1972 and quickly given away), and was down to just 40 Agiles, which were approaching mid-life. Of the surviving Agiles, 10 were in active commission (MSO 433, 437, 442, 443, 445, 446, 448, 449, 456, and 490), 14 were NRF’d  (MSO 427-431, 438-441, 455, 464, 488, 489, 492), and 16 were decommissioned to the reserve fleet. For those keeping count, that is just 12 MSOs left active, 16 NRF’d, and 16 mothballed– 44 in all. The count continued to be whittled down, with Acme and Advance disposed of in 1977.

The only other seagoing MCM assets owned by the Navy at the time were 13 138-foot wooden-hulled Bluebird-class MSCs in the NRF program, the 5,800-ton mine launch-carrying USS Ozark (MCS-2), which had been laid up in 1970, the 15,000-ton Styrofoam-filled converted Liberty ship MSS-1 (“minesweeper, special”), which was also laid up, and two Cove-class 105-foot inshore minsweepers used for research. Five WWII landing ships, the USS Osage (LSV-3),  Saugus (LSV-4), Monitor (LSV-5), Orleans Parish (LST-1069), and Epping Forest (LSD-4), which were given similar conversions as Ozark to mine countermeasures support ships and designated MCS-3 through MCS-7, respectively, were all stricken and disposed of by 1974. Plans for an improved, wooden hull MSO-523-class were shelved. MCM in the Navy once again became a backwater.

Anywho, back to our ship:

In 1980, she had a great 360-degree photoshoot, likely via helicopter off Virginia while on a summer reservist cruise.

“Atlantic Ocean…An aerial port bow quarter view of the ocean nonmagnetic minesweeper USS Adroit, MSO-509.” Note her extensive use of canvas and flash white. Photographer: PH1 T.L. Alexander, USNR-TAR. 428-GX-156-KN-29890

What a great profile! “Atlantic Ocean…A starboard side view of the ocean nonmagnetic minesweeper USS Adroit, MSO-509.” Photographer: PH1 T.L. Alexander, USNR-TAR. 428-GX-156-KN-29892

“Atlantic Ocean…A starboard stern quarter view of the ocean nonmagnetic minesweeper USS Adroit, MSO-509.” 1980. Note at least three white paravanes on her stern. Photographer: PH1 T.L. Alexander, USNR-TAR. 428-GX-156-KN-29893

21 July 1983 A port beam view of the ocean minesweeper USS Adroit (MSO 509) underway in the Anacostia River after a port visit to Washington Navy Yard. Note she has what looks like a deck gun on her fore, but it is actually the SQQ-14 sonar hoist. Don S. Montgomery, USN. DN-SC-83-11900

From the same port visit to the Washington Navy Yard, moored at Pier #3 next to the fleet tug USNS Mohawk (T-ATF-170)– just a great picture for the cars alone! Don S. Montgomery, USN (Ret.). DN-ST-83-11255

During a year-long $5.5 million overhaul at Brambleton Shipyard (21 September 1987–29 August 1988), the old Packard engines were removed and replaced with new aluminum block Waukesha diesels. New sweep gear to include a pair of PAP-104 cable-guided undersea tools was added, as was accommodation for clearance divers and two Zodiac inflatables powered by 40hp outboards. She also lost her 20mm gun tub installation. She also received a Precise Integrated Shipboard System (PINS) nav system, early GPS, and began using early remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), notably Super Sea Rover.

23 July 1988. A starboard bow view of the ocean minesweeper USS Adroit (MSO 509) undergoing overhaul at the Norfolk Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Corporation’s Brambleton branch. Don S. Montgomery, USN (Ret.) DN-ST-88-08273

By this time, the Lehman/Reagan 600 Ship Navy ™ had included two new classes of mine warfare ships, the 14 224-foot fiberglass-encased wood-laminate Avenger-class MCMs featuring the advanced third-gen AN/SQQ-32 mine sonar (tied to AN/UYK-44 computers to classify and detect mines), augmented by a dozen all-fiberglass 188-foot Osprey-class coastal mine hunters (MHCs). However, the Navy had to make do with the old MSOs for a bit longer until the new ships arrived in force.

By this time, the entire Navy MCM force only had 20 modernized Korean War-era MSOs (18 Agiles, 2 Acmes) spread across both the active and the reserve fleet, 21 RH-53D helicopters, and 7 57-foot MSBs.

The first MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopters began arriving in late 1986, and USS Avenger— the first new oceangoing American minesweeper since 1958– was commissioned in 1987. Helicopter Mine Countermeasures Squadron 14 (HM-14), founded in 1978, only received its first MH-53 Sea Dragon E-model on 9 April 1989.

We finally got real mines to sweep (kinda)

The Gulf Tanker War between Saddam’s Iraq and fundamentalist Iran led to Operation Earnest Will, the first overseas deployment of U.S. mine countermeasures forces since the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

Shipping out for the Persian Gulf MCMGRUCO between November 1987 and March 1989 were six Agiles: USS Conquest (MSO-488), Enhance (MSO-437), Esteem (MSO-438), Fearless (MSO-442), Inflict (MSO-456), and Illusive (MSO-448).

While Adroit remained stateside– still in her modernization and post-delivery workup period– she was used to train Silver and Gold Crews replacement crews for duty in the Persian Gulf. While a caretaker crew remained on board, the Silver crew departed in February 1988 to take over the forward-deployed near-sister Fortify (MSO-446), while that ship’s Blue Crew returned from their deployment on board Inflict (MSO-456). 

Within the first 18 months of Persian Gulf minesweeping operations, the MSOs accounted for over 50 Iranian-laid Great War-designed Russian M08 moored mines, cleared three major minefields, and checked swept convoy racks throughout the Gulf. Iranian minelaying was also given a setback in the adjacent and very kinetic Operation Praying Mantis in April 1988 after the mining of the frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts, paving the way for the MSOs to head back home.

War, for real

When Saddam ran over the Kuwaiti border and claimed the country as a lost province in August 1990, the resulting Desert Shield operation kicked off in overdrive, and the Navy knew it would need some serious MCM muscle.

While the Iranians had used elderly Russian contact mines during the Tanker War which were easily tracked and defeated, the Iraqis had some very modern mines including the potbellied LUGM-145 contact mine, the new Soviet-designed UDM magnetic influence mine, the Sigeel-400, the Korean War-era Soviet KMD500 magnetic influence bottom mine with its keel-breaking 700-pound warhead, and the sneaky little Italian Manta MN-103 acoustic bottom mine.

Whereas the Earnest Will MSOs had taken months to get to the theatre back in 1987-88 (three MSOs were towed 10,000 miles by the salvage ship USS Grapple for eight weeks!), the newly commissoned USS Avenger (MCM-1) and three MSOs, our Adroit along with Agile half-sisters Impervious (MSO-449), and Leader (MSO-490), were immediately sealifted to the Persian Gulf aboad the Dutch heavy lift ship SS Super Servant III.

More than 20 Navy EOD teams were also deployed along with the MH-53E Sea Dragons of HM-14, forming USMCMG, joining Allied minesweepers from Saudi Arabia, Great Britain, and Kuwait.

14 August 1990. “A tug positions the ocean minesweeper USS Adroit (MSO-509) over the submerged deck of the Dutch heavy lift ship SS Super Servant III. The SS Super Servant III will transport Adroit and other minesweepers to the Persian Gulf in response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.” JO2 Oscar Sosa. DN-ST-90-11501

5 October 1990. Baharain. “The mine countermeasures ship USS Avenger (MCM-1), the ocean minesweeper USS Adroit (MSO-509), and other vessels are positioned on the partially submerged deck of the Dutch heavy lift ship SS Super Servant III before offloading in support of Operation Desert Shield.” Photo by CDR  John Charles Roach. DN-SC-91-02584

“Inflation of Zodiac. USS Adroit and USS Avenger wait on the deck of the Dutch ship Superservant to be floated off and begin minesweeping operations. The crew in the lightweight zodiac will knock out bilge blocks and props supporting the minesweepers as they are refloated.” Painting, Watercolor on Paper; by CDR John Charles Roach; 1991; Framed Dimensions 30H X 39W. NHHC Accession #: 91-049-O.

December 1990. Deployed to the Gulf. Note her Zodiac and blacked out hull numbers. “A starboard beam view of the ocean minesweeper USS Adroit (MSO-509) underway. The Adroit and three other U.S. Navy minesweepers have been deployed to the Gulf in support of Operation Desert Shield.” PH2 Burge. DN-ST-91-03129

In January 1991, Adroit’s initial Blue crew was rotated stateside, replaced by a Silver crew from the Exploit, led by LCDR William Flemming Barns (NROTC ’75).

Beginning its task of sweeping five lines of mines east of the Kuwaiti coastline– containing some 1,270 of the devices– when Desert Storm kicked off, it was slow going for all involved. Some 35 years ago this week, the USMCMG flag, the old USS Tripoli (LPH-10), struck a LUGM, blowing a 16-by-25-foot hole in her hull and losing a third of her fuel in the process. Just three hours later, the cruiser Princeton hit another mine, this time a dreaded Manta, which almost ripped her fantail from her hull.

Impervious, Leader, and Avenger searched for additional mines in the area while Adroit carefully led the salvage tug USS Beaufort (ATS-2) through the uncharted mines toward Princeton, which took her in tow, Adroit steaming at the “Point” marking mines with flares in the dark.

As detailed by Captain E. B. Hontz, Princeton’s skipper, in a July 1991 Proceedings piece:

As the day wore on, I was concerned about drifting around in the minefield. So I made the decision to have Beaufort take us in tow since our maneuverability with one shaft at three, four, five, or even six knots was not good. Once underway, we moved slowly west with Adroit leading, searching for mines.”

The crew remained at general quarters as a precaution should we take another mine strike. [The] Beaufort continued to twist and turn, pulling us around the mines located by the Naval Re­serve ship Adroit and marked by flares. Throughout the night, Adroit continued to lay flares. Near early morning, having run out of flares, she began marking the mines with chem-lights tied together. The teamwork of the Adroit and Beaufort was superb.

I felt the life of my ship and my men were in the hands of this small minesweeper’s commanding officer and his crew. I di­rected the Adroit to stay with us. I trusted him, and I didn’t want to let him go until I was clear of the danger area. [The] Princeton was … out of the war.

“Adroit Marks the Way for Princeton,” With the use of hand flares, USS Adroit (MSO-509) marks possible mines in an effort to extract the already damaged USS Princeton (GG-59) from a minefield.  USS Beaufort (ATS-2) stands by to assist. Painting, Oil on Canvas Board; by CDR John Charles Roach; 1991; Framed Dimensions 26H X 34W NHHC Accession #: 92-007-X

“The Little Heroes. The mine sweepers Impervious (MSO-449) and Adroit (MSO-509) make all preparations for getting underway.  Shortly, these little ships will play a very important role in the northern Gulf by leading out Princeton (CG-59) and Tripoli (LPH-10), badly damaged by exploding mines.” Painting, Watercolor on Paper; by CDR John Charles Roach; 1991; Framed Dimensions 30H X 39W. NHHC Accession #: 92-007-S.

1 April 1991. Crewmen on the deck of the ocean minesweeper USS Adroit (MSO-509) stand by during mine-clearing operations following the cease-fire that ended Operation Desert Storm. Note the extensive mine stencils around her pilot house. and .50 cals at the ready. PH2 Rudy D. Pahoyo. DN-SN-93-01468

1 April 1991. A port view of the ocean minesweeper USS Adroit (MSO-509) conducting mine-clearing operations following the cease-fire that ended Operation Desert Storm. The USS Leader (MSO-490) and an MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopter are in the background. PH2 Rudy D. Pahoyo. DN-SN-93-01466

The Americans, joined by allies from around the world, continued to sweep mines and UXO across the Gulf and five Kuwaiti ports through the end of May 1991.

Their mission accomplished, Adroit, Impervious, and Leader returned on board SS Super Servant IV to Norfolk on 14 November 1991.

14 November 1991. Norfolk. The ocean minesweepers USS Impervious (MSO-449), foreground, and USS Adroit (MSO-509) and USS Leader (MSO-490), right, sit aboard the Dutch heavy lift ship SS Super Servant IV as its deck is submerged to permit minesweepers to be unloaded. The minesweepers have returned to Norfolk after being deployed for 14 months in the Persian Gulf region in support of Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm. PHAN Christopher L. Ryan. DN-ST-92-04869

14 November 1991. Norfolk. The ocean minesweeper USS Adroit (MSO-509) ties up at the pier after being unloaded from the Dutch heavy lift Super Servant 4, which carried the Adroit and two other ocean minesweepers, the USS Impervious (MSO-449) and USS Leader (MSO-490), to Norfolk from the Persian Gulf region, where the minesweepers were deployed for 14 months in support of Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm. Note the more than 50 mine stencils on her wheelhouse, a Manta ray mine stencil further aft, and at least three visible machine gun mounts and shields (sans guns). PHAN Christopher L. Ryan. DN-ST-92-04871

Decommissioned 12 December 1991– just months after guiding Princeton— Adroit was laid up at Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility, Portsmouth, and struck from the Navy Register on 8 May 1992. Affray held on for another year. The last four Agiles in U.S. service were decommissioned three years later.

Sold for scrap on 15 August 1994 by DRMO to Wilmington Resources, Inc. of Wilmington, North Carolina, for $44,950, she was removed from the Reserve Fleet three days later, and her scrapping was completed by the following May. By 2000, her last remaining sister, Affray, had been scrapped as well.

Adroit had an amazing 26 skippers during her storied 34 years on active duty.

Epilogue

Adroit’s deck logs from the 1950s-70s are largely digitized and available online via the NARA. 

The Navy MSO Association (“Wooden Ships, Iron Men”) was once very vibrant, but it seems their website went offline circa 2020. The Association of Minemen (AOM) is likewise dormant. The Mine Warfare Association (MINWARA), formed in 1995, continues its legacy. albeit with fewer and fewer MSO-era mine warriors these days.

The only MSO preserved in the U.S., the Agile-class USS Lucid (MSO-458) at the Stockton Maritime Museum, also has parts salvaged from ex-USS Implicit, and ex-Pluck (MSO-464). Please visit her if you get the chance.

Lucid today

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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Warship Wednesday 4 February 2026: Big Guns, Shallow Waters

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Here at LSOZI, we take a break every Wednesday to explore the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period, profiling a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi As Henk says: “Warship Coffee – no sugar, just a pinch of salt!”

Warship Wednesday 4 February 2026: Big Guns, Shallow Waters

Above, we see the immaculate 15-inch gunned Erebus-class monitor HMS Terror (I03) leaving Malta’s Grand Harbor in October 1933 on her way to serve as the station ship in Singapore for the rest of the decade. Note the Revenge-class battlewagon HMS Resolution (09) in the background.

A Great War vet with the battle honors to prove it, Terror would return to the Med and fight her last battle some 85 years ago this month.

A 101 on British Great War monitors

A relic of the mid-19th Century, the shallow draft monitor unexpectedly popped back into service with the Royal Navy in 1914 when the Admiralty acquired a trio of 1,500-ton Brazilian ships (the future HMS Humber, Mersey and Severn) being built at Vickers which carried 6- and 4.7-inch guns while being able to float in just six feet of water, having been designed for use on the Amazon. The idea was these would be crackers for use off the coast of France and Belgium, as well as against Johnny Turk in the Dardanelles, and in steaming up African rivers to sink hiding German cruisers– all missions the Humbers accomplished.

A similar class of monitors taken up from Armstrong, intended for the Norwegians (the future HMS Gorgon and Glatton), were a bit larger, at 5,700 tons, and carried a mix of 9.2-inch and 6-inch guns while having a 16-foot draft.

Then came a flurry of new construction monitors after it was seen how useful the Humbers and Gorgons were, and the RN ordered, under the Emergency War Programme:

  • Fourteen M15 class (540 ton, armed with a single surplus 9.2 inch gun)
  • Eight Lord Clive-class (6,100 tons, armed with a twin 12-inch turret taken from decommissioned Majestic-class battleships).
  • Four Abercrombie class (6,300 tons, armed with embargoed Bethlehem-made 14″/45s)
  • Five M29 class (540 tons, armed with two 6″/45s taken from the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships’ nearly unusable rear casemate mounts)
  • Two Marshal Ney class (6,900 tons, 2 x modern 15″/42s, which were surplus from lightening up the new battlecruisers Renown and Repulse).

All of which began arriving in the fleet in mid-1915. In all, some 38 new monitors of all types entered RN service between August 1914 and the end of 1915. Talk about meeting a demand!

Royal Navy monitor HMS Marshal Ney underway during trials, 28 August 1915, contrasted with a scale model of her sister, HMS Marshal Soult. They carried a twin 15″/42s turret left over from lightening up the new battlecruisers Renown and Repulse.

With this scratch monitor building initiative in the rear view, the Admiralty ordered what would be the pinnacle of their Great War monitors, the twin ships of the Erebus class.

Ordered from Harland & Wolff, the renowned ocean liner builder, with one built in Govan and the other in Belfast, Erebrus and Terror were similar to the Palmers-built Marshal Ney class but larger (at 8,500 tons and 405-feet loa vs 6,900 tons, 355-feet) with better protection and speed.

What was amazing was the size of their beam, some 88 feet across, giving them a very tubby length-to-beam ratio of 5:1. Still, these cruiser-sized vessels could float in just 11 feet of water, their massive pancake anti-torpedo bulge, some 15 feet deep, subdivided into 50 watertight compartments.

Powered by four Babcock boilers, which drove two 4-cyl VTE engines on two screws, they had a 6,000shp powerplant capable of pushing them to 12 knots or greater, roughly twice the speed of the smaller Marshals, which only carried a 1,500 shp plant. On speed trials, Erebus was able to generate 7,244 hp and hit 14.1 knots, while Terror was able to generate 6,235 knots to hit a still respectable 13.1 knots. Jane’s noted later that “Their speed, considering their great beam, is remarkable.”

Like the Marshals, they were designed to carry guns large enough to outrange the 11- 12- and even 15-inchers inchers mounted by the Germans on the Belgian coast.

During the Great War, the Germans established extensive coastal artillery, managed by the Marinekorps Flandern under Admiral Ludwig von Schröder, to defend occupied Belgium and its submarine bases at Zeebrugge and Ostend. These defenses included massive 15 inch SK L/45 “Lang Max” (the most powerful German naval gun of World War I) and 12 inch SK L/50 guns, such as the Batterie Pommern and Kaiser Wilhelm II, respectively, capable of firing 37 km out to sea, with many positions (e.g., Battery Aachen) built in concrete. The Germans constructed no less than 34 batteries along the coast in the 20 miles between Knokke-Heist and Middelkerke alone.

A German 15-inch SK L/45 “Lang Max” as Coastal Artillery. The Pommern battery, located at Leugenboom in Belgium, is perhaps best known for firing about 500 rounds between June 1917 and October 1918 at ranges of up to about 48,000 yards, including many at Allied positions in and around Dunkirk (Dunkerque).  IWM photograph Q 23973.

Their main armament for Erebus and Terror was a pair of Heavy BL 15-inch/42 cal Mark Is, a gun described by Tony DiGiulian over at Navweaps as “quite possibly the best large-caliber naval gun ever developed by Britain, and it was certainly one of the longest-lived of any nation, with the first shipboard firing taking place in 1915 and the last in 1954.” Capable of firing a 1,900-pound HE or Shrapnel shell to 40,000 yards at maximum charge and elevation (as contended by Jane’s), the monitors carried 100 rounds per gun.

A tall five-level conning tower was sandwiched just behind the casemate of the main guns, topped by a large range finder, while a tripod mast and pagoda with a 360-degree view towered above both gunhouse and CT.

Modified Mark I* Turret on HMS Terror in 1915. Note the armor plates covering the gunports under the barrels and the armor cowls under the bloomers above the barrels. These were the result of changing the range of elevation from -5 / +20 degrees to +2 / +30 degrees. Also note the smoke generator apparatus on the direct control spotting tower, useful in “shooting and scooting” in the Belgian littoral against German coastal artillery. IWM photograph SP 1612.

The Guns, “HMS ‘Terror’ by John Lavery, H 61.2 x W 63.8 cm, circa 1918, Imperial War Museums art collection IWM ART 1379. Note: This artwork was relocated in August 1939 to a less vulnerable site outside London when the museum activated its evacuation plan.

There were 184 such 15-inch guns manufactured by six different works across England, and they equipped the Queen Elizabeth and Royal Sovereign battleship classes, the Glorious, Repulse, and Hood (“Admiral”) battlecruiser classes, and the monitors of not only the Erebus but also the preceding Marshal Ney class, and later WWII-era Roberts class. The Brits even used them ashore, fitted as giant coastal artillery pieces at Dover and Singapore. These superb guns allowed one of the longest hits ever scored by a naval gun on an enemy ship when, in July 1940, HMS Warspite struck the Italian battleship Guilio Cesare at approximately 26,000 yards.

HMS Erebus and HMS Repulse, both mounting 15-inch guns, at John Brown shipyard at Clydebank.

To keep in the fight against German coastal batteries, the Erebus class was extensively armored with up to 13 inches of plate over the main gun house, 8 inches on the barbette, 6 inches on the large conning tower, 4-inch bulkheads, a 4-inch box citadel over the magazines, and an armored deck sloping from 4 to 1.25 inches. Due to the design and low freeboard transitioning into the huge anti-torpedo blisters, there was no traditional side belt as known by period battleships and cruisers.

A varied secondary armament repurposed from old cruisers was arrayed around the main deck, including two (later four) 6″/40 QF Mark IIs, two 3″/50 12pdr 18cwt QF Mk Is, a 3″/45 20cwt QF Mk I anti-balloon gun, and four Vickers machine guns. This was later expanded to eight 4-inch/44 BL Mk IXs in place of the four 6″/40s, 2 12 pounders, two 3-inch AAA, and two 40mm 2-pounder pom-pom AAAs by the end of the war.

Erebus and Terror surely lived up to British Admiral George Alexander Ballard’s notions of monitors as being like “full-armored knights riding on donkeys, easy to avoid but bad to close with.”

Meet Terror

Our subject is the ninth such warship to carry the name in Royal Navy service, going back to a 4-gun bomb vessel launched in 1696. Most famously, a past HMS Terror, a 102-foot Vesuvius-class bomb vessel, had bombarded Fort McHenry in 1814, which resulted in the Star Spangled Banner, and then was lost with the bomb vessel HMS Erebus on Sir John Franklin’s doomed Arctic expedition in 1848.

Sir John Franklin’s men dying by their boat during the North-West Passage expedition: H.M.S. Erebus and Terror, 1849–1850: Illustrated London News. July 25, 1896 ,by W. Thomas Smith.

Terror was laid down as Yard No. 493 at Harland and Wolff’s Belfast site (the same yard that had just three years before completed RMS Titanic) on 12 October 1915 and launched on 18 May 1916.

Terror immediately after her launch on 18 May 1916, with Workman, Clark’s North Yard in the background. The 12-sided barbette armor and the armored conning tower have already been fitted.

She completed fitting out and entered service on 6 August 1916.

Captain (later Admiral Sir) Hugh Justin Tweedie, RN, was her first of 15 skippers. A 39-year-old regular, Tweedie had joined the Navy as a 13-year-old cadet, commanded the armored cruiser HMS Essex before the war, and the monitor Marshal Ney during the war. Nonetheless, he soon passed command to Capt. (later RADM) Charles William Bruton, late of the first-class protected cruiser HMS Edgar. Bruton would command Terror through 31 January, 1919.

Honors attached to the seven previous Terrors allowed her to commission with the two past honors, “Velez Malaga 1704” and “Copenhagen 1801”, carried forward.

War!

Joining the Dover Patrol, after a short shakedown, Erebus and Terror were soon engaged in bombarding German positions, batteries, and harbors along the Belgian coast, alternating with guard ship roles in The Downs.

Erebus class monitor HMS Terror as photographed by E. Hopkins, Southsea photographer. IWM Q 75504

Some of the more interesting sorties across the channel were a May 1917 attempt to knock out the lock gates of the Bruges Canal at Zeebrugge while acting as flag of the Dover Patrol under VADM Reginald Hugh Spencer Bacon, famous for being the first skipper of HMS Dreadnought, and two bombardments of Ostend in June and September, respectively.

British monitor HMS Terror off Belgium, 1917-1918

Incredibly, Terror and her sister showed their construction made them almost impervious to attempts to sink them.

On 19 October 1917, Terror shrugged off three direct torpedo hits from German CTBs A59, A60, and A61,  off Dunkirk, which blew off and caved in large chunks of her anti-torpedo bulge. Bruton brought his ship into shallow water and beached her with “commendable promptness under the difficult circumstances.” She suffered no casualties and, after a yard period, was back in action by January 1918.

Sister Erebus was, on 28 October 1917, hit by German distance-controlled explosive boat FL12. which carried a massive 1,500-pound charge that, while blowing a 50-foot hole in the torpedo bulge, did very little damage to the hull itself. The monitor was back in service by 21 November of the same year.

Not all RN monitors were that lucky. The Abercrombie-class monitor HMS Raglan was sunk during the Battle of Imbros in January 1918 by the Ottoman battlecruiser Yavuz Sultan Selim (ex-SMS Goeben). The Gorgon-class monitor HMS Glatton was wrecked by an internal explosion in September 1918. Three of the M15-class coastal monitors were lost: one to a mine, one to a U-boat, and one to Yavuz at Imbros. The M29-class coastal monitor HMS M30 was sunk by an Austrian howitzer battery in the Gulf of Smyrna in May 1916.

Back in service in early 1918, Terror helped spoil a German destroyer raid on Dunkirk in March, riddled German-occupied Ostend (where said destroyers sortied from) in retribution, and provided long-range bombardment support for the April 1918 Zeebrugge raid.

Her 15-inchers were replaced in September after 340 rounds. Terror and Erebus plastered German positions around Zeebrugge and Ostend to divert Jerry’s to other fronts during the Fifth Battle of Ypres, a five-day offensive that let the British take possession of a decent chunk of liberated Belgium, at least by Western Front standards.

And with that, the war to end all wars came to an end just weeks later.

Terror’s Great War service brought her two honors of her own: “Belgian Coast 1916-18,” and “Zeebrugge 1918,” upping her tally to four.

Interbellum

Terror, June 1919

While some coastal monitors saw extended post-1918 service aboard, such as on the Dvina Flotilla in Northern Russia fighting the Reds, Terror and Erebus were given more auxiliary tasks in home waters.

It was during this period that Erebus was fitted out as a cadet’s training ship, and a large extra cabin accommodation was erected on her upper deck, the roof coming just under the 15 inch guns.

Comparison of profiles for Erebus and Terror, 1929 Jane’s.

Between January 1919 and the end of 1933, Terror was assigned to the RN gunnery school at Portsmouth (aka the “stone frigate” HMS Excellent), tasked with armor-piercing shell trials against the retired Jutland veteran Bellerophon-class dreadnought HMS Superb, and the trophy German Bayern-class dreadnought SMS Baden, which had been saved from scuttling at Scapa Flow.

On 2 February 1921, the ex-SMS Baden was sunk in shallow water by 17 hits from the monitor Terror at point-blank (500-yard) range, but again refloated and, on 10 August, badly damaged by 14 hits from the monitor Erebus off the Isle of Wight. She was then towed away and scuttled in deep water off the Casquet Rocks in the Channel Islands on 16 August 1921. Painting by William Lionel Wyllie, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Caird Collection. PW1872

Terror also tested new guns, and served as a general Director & Fire Control, and Turret drill ship (keep in mind that her 15″/42s were in use across the fleet) during her gunnery school days.

HMS Terror, Sept 1930

HMS Terror

Terror, Navy Week, 1929. Note the numerous small gun houses for her eight 4-inch/44 BL Mk IXs

Jane’s 1929 listing of Erebus and Terror. Note Erebus’s large deck house

In early 1933, with Japan’s walkout from the League of Nations and war drums in the Pacific, Terror was made ready for war, to a degree, and sent to Singapore to add her big guns to the defense of that strategic colonial outpost and just generally serve as a station ship.

It was a slow three-month slog via the Suez and Aden, but she made it before Christmas.

HMS Terror underway in Plymouth Sound, October 1933, IWM (FL 3724)

Terror, leaving Malta for Singapore, Oct 1933

Terror in Singapore dry dock, 1937

In October 1938, CDR Henry John Haynes, DSC, RN, became Terror’s final skipper, a distinction that he, of course, was not aware of at the time.

A career officer, he signed up as an 11-year-old Boy in 1906 and, picking up his first stripe in 1914, earned his DSC in March 1918 during the Great War “for services in Destroyer and Torpedo Boat Flotillas.” A regular salt, he achieved his first command in 1924, the destroyer HMS Sylph, then would inhabit a series of seven further captain’s cabins prior to moving into Terror’s, most recently the minelaying destroyer HMS Walker.

War (Again)

When Hitler sent his legions into Poland in September 1939, and the world again devolved into a global war, Terror was still at rest in Singapore.

Word came to make her ready for European service and she put into dry dock for a fresh coat of paint and an update in her armament, landing her secondary battery for six 4″/45 QF Mk Vs (with a 15 rounds per minute rate of fire and 50-degree elevation allowing an AA ceiling of 21,000 feet), and two quad Vickers .50 cal mounts.

She said goodbye to Singapore in December 1939, her home for six years, and headed for the Mediterranean via the Suez, arriving at Malta on 4 April 1940 to strengthen the defences against a foreseen Italian entry into the war.

On 10 June 1940, her gunners fired at the first (of many) Axis air raid over Malta.

Terror, in the distance, under air attack, 1940 AWM 306675

She spent the next several months on the periphery of several operations in the Mediterranean, including the Operation MB 8 convoy, Operation Coat (transferring of reinforcements from Gibraltar to the Eastern Mediterranean), Operation Crack (escorting carriers for an air attack on Cagliari, Sardinia), and Operation Judgment (the carrier raid on Taranto). Then, after serving in Suda Bay as a guardship, rode slow shotgun on Convoy ME-3 from Malta to Alexandria, then remained in Egypt for local defense.

Then came a very active six-week period supporting the operations of the British 8th Army across Egypt into Libya, starting with a bombardment of Italian-held Bardia on 14 December 1940, a port she would repeatedly haunt.

It was off Bardia during Operation MC 5 that, on 2 January 1940, Terror, operating in conjunction with several small Insect-class river gunboats as part of the Inshore Squadron, was attacked by Italian torpedo bombers around 1820 hours, but no damage was done to her. Another four air raids the next day were also shrugged off.

British monitor Terror under Italian air attack, 2 January 1941, off Bardia AWM 12793

17 January to 22 January saw Terror on Operation IS 1, the nightly bombardment of Italian positions around Tobruk to support the 8th Army’s efforts to capture the port.

On 12 February, she was attached to Operation Shelford, the clearance of Benghazi harbor, arriving at the Libyan port on Valentine’s Day.

She was still there through an increasingly stout series of Axis air raids, which concluded as far as Terror is concerned, at 0630 on 22 February, when a trio of Junkers Ju-88 bombers of the III/LG.1 from Catania, along with a trio of He.111 torpedo bombers of 6/KG.26 flying out of Comiso, made runs on the harbor with our monitor sustaining flooding from three near-misses. In rough shape, she was ordered to sail for Tobruk, where the anti-aircraft defense was better, but hit two German magnetic mines on the way out of the harbor, flooding her engineering spaces.

Persevering on her way to Tobruk, Terror eventually began settling in 120 feet of water about 15 nautical miles north-west of Derna, and, abandoned at 2200 on the 22nd with the intention of scuttling, sank at 0415 on 23 February 1941, capping a career of just under 25 years.

True to form, she suffered no casualties, and her 300-strong crew was taken off in toto by the escorting minesweeper HMS Fareham and corvette HMS Salvia.

She earned two further RN honors, “Libya 1941” and “Mediterranean 1941.”

She also picked up the dubious distinction of being the largest warship, by displacement, sunk in the Med by Ju-88s during the war.

Photograph of painting titled, “Terror’s last fight,” depicting the aerial bombardment of HMS Terror by German bombers in February 1941, shortly before her sinking. Pictures For Illustrating Ritchie II Book. November and December 1942, Alexandria, Pictures of Paintings by Lieutenant Commander R Langmaid, Rn, Official Fleet Artist. These Pictures Are For Illustrating a Naval War Book by Paymaster Captain L. A. Da C Ritchie, RN, IWM A 13648.

As for Erebus, she finished the war, receiving damage in covering the Husky Landings in Sicily and only narrowly avoiding being sunk by the Japanese at Trincomalee in 1942. She later clocked in as a gunfire support ship off Utah Beach for U.S. troops during the Neptune/Overlord operations on D-Day with Bombardment Force A, lending her 15-inchers to the cacophony raised by the “puny” 14-inchers on the old battlewagon USS Nevada (BB-36), and the 8-,7.25-, 6-, and 5.25-inchers of USS Tuscaloosa and Quincy, and HM’s cruisers Hawkins, Enterprise, and Black Prince.

British monitor HMS Erebus at a buoy in Plymouth Sound. IWM

HMS Erebus, camo

HMS Erebus monitor at a buoy in Plymouth Bay, 4 February 1944, IWM (FL 693)

Erebus then roamed up the French coast and, with HMS Warspite, dueled with German coastal artillery in the Le Havre area and Seine Bay in August and September 1944, supporting the British Army as it moved into the Lowlands. In November 1944, she supported Operation Infatuate, the amphibious assault on Walcheren, Netherlands.

HMS Erebus in Action off Walcheren by Stephen Bone, Nov 2nd 1944 IWM ART LD 4706

Erebus was scrapped in 1946, but it is believed that one of her 15-inch guns was, along with surplus guns from a half-dozen battleships and battlecruisers, used to equip HMS Vanguard, the Royal Navy’s final dreadnought.

Epilogue

Terror’s final skipper, CDR Haynes, added a DSO to his DSC “For courage, skill and devotion to duty in operations off the Libyan Coast,” and went on to command, in turn, the cruisers HMS Caledon and Argonaut, then the escort carriers HMS Asbury and Khedive, then the RN Air Station Wingfield near Capetown before moving to the Retired List. Capt. Haynes passed away in 1973, aged 80.

In recognition of her role in Singapore’s pre-WWII history, the new accommodation barracks adjacent to the base became known as HMS Terror from 1945 to 1971, and today the Terror Club remains in Singapore as part of the U.S. Navy’s MWR system.

The military of Singapore borrowed the name and legacy for “Terror Camp,” a training center in the Sembawang area of the old base in the 1970s and 1980s, and today the Republic of Singapore Navy’s elite Naval Diving Unit (NDU) frogman school has graced its four-story high Hull Mock-up System dive chamber as HMS Terror.

Combrig, among others, has offered detailed scale models of the Erebus class.

As for monitors, the RN kept the WWII-era HMS Roberts around as an accommodation ship at Devonport until 1965, and one of her 15″/42 guns (formerly in HMS Resolution) is mounted outside the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth, South London, together with one from the battleship Ramillies.

HMS Roberts/Resolution’s 15″/42 guns on permanent display at the Imperial War Museum, London, preserved alongside one from her sistership HMS Ramillies (07).

The 1915 Programme M29-class coastal monitor HMS M33, converted to a fueling hulk and boom defense workshop in 1939, is one of only three surviving First World War Royal Navy warships and the sole survivor of the Gallipoli Campaign. Now located at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, close to HMS Victory, she opened to the public in 2015, preserving the memory of the RN’s World War monitor era.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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Some 70 years ago this week, a great recruiting poster-worthy image from the port of Oran, French Algeria, showing bluejackets at leisure across from the Dutch cruiser Hr.Ms. De Zeven Provinciën (C 802), while this week’s Warship Wednesday subject, the torpedobootjager Hr.Ms. Evertsen (D 802) takes up the rear, late January 1956, while Dutch Oefensmaldeel (Training Squadron) 5 was on its Med cruise.

Centrum voor Audiovisuele Dienstverlening Koninklijke Marine. NIMH Objectnummer 2009-002-063_003

DZP, a 12,000-ton light cruiser, was laid down before WWII, but, with her construction on hold during German occupation, only commissioned in 1953.

Dutch cruisers HNLMS De Ruyter and HNLMS De Zeven Provinciën, leading a Dutch squadron of frigates and submarines

They were later converted to a CLG equipped with Terrier missiles that replaced her rear 6″/53 Bofors turrets.

Capping 23 years with the Royal Netherlands Navy, she was sold to Peru, where she served as Aguirre until 1999, one of the last large-gunned cruisers in commission.

Her parts were used to keep her only sister, Hr.Ms. De Ruyter (C801)/Almirante Grau in Peruvian service until 2017.

Not a bad run.

Warship Wednesday 28 January 2026: Juliana’s Enforcer

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Here at LSOZI, we take a break every Wednesday to explore the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period, profiling a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi As Henk says: “Warship Coffee – no sugar, just a pinch of salt!”

Warship Wednesday 28 January 2026: Juliana’s Enforcer

U.S. Navy photo 80-G-708163

Above we see the Dutch S (Saumarez/Savage)-class destroyer Hr.Ms. Evertsen (D 802) at Yokosuka some 75 years ago this month, in January 1951, while deployed with the UN Blockading and Escort Force off Korea.

She had been ordered under a different name by the British some 10 years prior, in January 1941, for a very different war, and gave good account not only in the Atlantic against the Germans but would also draw blood in a third conflict in 1962– oddly enough against a German-built warship.

The S-class

The 16 wartime British “S” & “T” class destroyers were long ships (363 feet) but thin (just 35 feet), giving them a 10:1 length-to-beam ratio, making them a knife on the water.

Tipping the scales at just 2,500~ tons, they were slender stilettos made for stabbing through the waves at nearly 36 knots on a pair of Parsons geared turbines generating 40,000 shp. Armed with a quartet of shielded 4.7-inch QF Mk IX guns for surface actions, U-boat busting depth charges, and two four-packs of anti-ship torpedo tubes along with a mixed battery of AAA guns, they were ready for a fight.

Class leader HMS Saumarez (G12) was completed in July 1943, right in time for the crucial part of the Battle of the Atlantic, and the 15 ships that followed her were made ready to go into harm’s way as soon as they could leave the builders’ yards. The class proved so successful that the design was essentially reused for the only incrementally improved “U” & “V” and “W” & “Z” destroyer classes, a further 32 greyhounds.

Saumarez would cover herself in glory, being instrumental in the sinking of both the German battleship Scharnhorst and the Japanese cruiser Haguro.

Beam view, HMS Saumarez (G12). IWM A 18404

Another S-class, HMS Success, was transferred on completion to the Free Norwegian forces on 26 August 1943 as KNM Stord (G26), and soon got to chasing the Germans, helping scrap with Scharnhorst just four months after transfer. A third, HMS Shark, while serving as KNM Svenner, was lost on D-Day off Sword Beach by torpedoes from a German S-boat. A fourth, HMS Swift (G46), was sunk by a mine off Sword on 24 June 1944.

But we are getting slightly ahead of ourselves.

Meet Scourge

Our subject was ordered from Cammell Laird, Birkenhead, on 9 January 1941 as Yard No 1095, the future HMS Scourge (G01). Laid down on 26 June 1941– the same week the Axis invaded the Soviet Union– she would be constructed at the yard alongside wartime sisters HMS Scorpion, Teazer, and Tenacious, as well as near-sisters Ulysses and Undaunted.

Christened 8 December 1942, she was the 10th (and, sadly, the last) to carry the splendid name of Scourge in the Royal Navy, going back to a 14-gun brig-sloop launched in 1779. Notably, the eighth Scourge, a Beagle-class destroyer, landed ANZACs at Gallipoli. This allowed our final Scourge to begin life carrying the past battle honors Crimea 1855, and Dardanelles 1914-15.

Adopted by the civil community of Bexhill, East Sussex, who held a “warship week” to raise money for her completion, HMS Scourge was commissioned on 14 July 1943, LCDR George Ian Mackintosh Balfour, RN, in command. A regular who earned his sub-lieutenant stripe in 1932, Mackintosh Balfour had seen much of the war already, having commanded the destroyers HMS Decoy (H 75) and HMS Tuscan (R 56).

As completed, beside her main and torpedo batteries, she carried a twin 40/56 Bofors Mk VIII and four twin 20/70 Oerlikon Mk IIs for AAA defense, as well as four depth charge throwers and two racks with room for as many as 130 “ash cans” for ASW. Her sensor suite included Type 271, 285, and 291 radars, as well as Type 144 sonar.

HMS Scourge (G01) S-class destroyer 12 October 1943. Note the great layout view of her twin quad torpedo turnstiles and four 4.7/45 guns. IWM A 19638

HMS Scourge (G01) S-class destroyer 12 October 1943. IWM A 19639

A very clean HMS Scourge (G01) S-class destroyer, undated, likely soon after delivery. Photo by Stewart Bale Ltd, Liverpool IWM FL 18828.

Getting into the war!

Her construction was drawn out nearly three years due to the late delivery of armament and fire-control equipment.

Scourge began her shakedown with the 23rd Destroyer Flotilla just in time to take part in Convoy TA 58 (Operation Quadrant), whose primary mission was to zip HMT Queen Mary, with Churchill aboard, to the Quebec Conference in August 1943.

By 20 October 1943, she took part in Operation FR, the movement of 10 wooden-hulled American Admirable-class minesweepers and SC-class submarine chasers for Lend Lease to the Soviet Navy from Iceland to the windswept Kola Peninsula in Northern Russia.

Scourge then picked up Convoy RA 054A, her first of a dozen such runs between Archangel/Murmansk and Britain and back. Often traveling in conjunction with her sisters, she braved the harsh Barents Sea weather, U-boat attacks, a near brush with Scharnhorst, and long-ranging German Condor aircraft.

Taking a break from her convoy work after her initial five runs (besides RA 054A, she was on JW 054B, JW 055B, JW 056B, and RA 056), Scourge was nominated to join the great Neptune flotillas for the Overlord (D-Day) landings in Normandy.

On hand with the Sword Bombardment Group, she fell in with the battleships HMS Ramillies and Warspite, the heavy cruiser Frobisher, the light cruisers Arethusa, Danae, Mauritius, and Dragon (Polish), and 13 destroyers, including sisters Saumarez, Scorpion, Serapis, Stord, Svenner, and Swift. Scourge lent her guns to the cacophony on 6 June 1944 and continued to defend the beachhead as the fight moved inshore.

Just days later, Scourge joined with near-sister HMS Urania and the K-class destroyer HMS Kelvin to escort first Churchill and later King George VI himself, then aboard Arethusa, to Sword. Keep in mind that the control of the Channel was still very much in question at the time, with German U-boats below and S-boats above frequently encountered along with mines, midget submarines, and the occasional Luftwaffe aircraft.

The Navy lands supplies in Normandy, 13 June 1944, on board HMS Kelvin during Mr. Churchill’s crossing to France. At 30 knots in the Channel, HMS Scourge is seen from the destroyer HMS Kelvin. Photo by LT CH Parnall, RN, IWM A 24090.

The Navy lands supplies in Normandy, 13 June 1944, on board HMS Kelvin during Mr. Churchill’s crossing to France. At 30 knots in the Channel, HMS Scourge is seen from the destroyer HMS Kelvin. Photo by LT CH Parnall, RN, IWM A 24089.

The King goes to France. 16 June 1944, on board the cruiser HMS Arethusa and at the beachhead in Normandy. The S-class destroyer HMS Scourge, seen from the Arethusa during the crossing. Photo by LT CH Parnall, RN, IWM A 24198.

On 25 June, she escorted vital Convoy FTM 017 from the Thames estuary to the Normandy landing beaches, backfilling equipment and supplies for the push inland.

In addition to seven further Russian runs (JW 061A, RA 061A, JW 063, RA 063, RA 064, JW 065, and RA 065) between November 1944 and March 1945, Scourge clocked in as a carrier escort on Operation Mascot (the July 1944 attempt to cripple the German battleship Tirpitz in the Kaa Fiord), Operation Turbine (August 1944 anti-shipping sweep of the Norwegian coast), Operation Offspring (mining the Norwegian coast), Operation Victual (a distant covering operation for Russian-bound convoy JW59, spoiling to fight Tirpitz), Operations Handfast and Provident (two further Norwegian mining sorties in November 1944), Operation Selenium (more Norwegian mining in February 1945), Operation Newmarket (to raid German U-boat tenders in Kilbotn, Norway in April 1945) and Operation Invective, the latter a destroyer-only anti-shipping run that saw the tin cans shell German searchlight positions on the Norwegian coast.

In early May, she went on one further combat operation in Norwegian waters, as part of the Operation Judgement escort for three jeep carriers bound for another bite at the U-boats of Kilbotn.

It was the Royal Navy’s last offensive operation against the Germans.

Operation Judgement, May 4, 1945, was an attack on the U-boat base at Kilbotn, near Harstad, Norway. This proved to be the last offensive operation by the Home Fleet, as the war in Europe ended just a few days later. The main targets of the attack are, in fact, hidden behind water columns and smoke in the center of the photo. They were the depot ship Black Watch and the Type VIIC submarine U-711 — they were both sunk. The ship visible in the center of the pic is, in all probability, the motor vessel Senja, also sunk in this attack but raised and repaired after the war. U-711 was the last U-boat sunk by the Fleet Air Arm in WW2. The attack was carried out by Avenger torpedo-bombers and Wildcat fighters from Squadrons 846 (HMS Trumpeter, Capt. K. S. Colquhoun), 853 (HMS Queen, Capt. K. J. D’Arcy), and 882 (HMS Searcher, Capt. J. W. Grant).

Wrapping up her RN service in WWII, Scourge sailed as part of VADM McGrigor’s Force 6 into the Skagerrak and Kattegat from 7 to 12 May 1945, marking VE-Day at sea.

For her WWII service, Scourge was granted the battle honors Arctic 1943-45 and Normandy 1944.

Post VJ Day, she was laid up and quietly placed out of service.

At least for a few months.

Dutch Days

Ex-Scourge was sold to the Royal Netherlands Navy on 1 February 1946 after a short spell in ordinary.

At the time, she had her original four 4.7/45s, depth charge armament, Type 144 sonar, and eight torpedo tubes, but had been fitted with two 40mm Bofors Mk IV Hazemeyer mounts, four twin 20mm Oerlikons, and carried upgraded Type 276, 285, and 291 radars.

She joined sisters ex-Scorpion and ex-Serapis, which had been transferred in October 1945 and renamed Hr.Ms. Kortenaer (D 804) and Hr.Ms. Piet Hein (D 805), respectively, in Dutch service. Following the trend of her now-Dutch sisters being named after famous admirals, Scourge became at least the sixth RNN warship named for the storied Evertsen family of naval heroes with pennant D 802. Taking the naming convention forward, all three names had been carried previously by Dutch destroyers (torpedobootjager) lost against the Japanese in 1942.

Evertsen (D 802), ex-HMS Scourge, between 1946 and 1957. NIMH 2158_002503

Almost as soon as their crews got acquainted with their new ships, they were off to the Dutch East Indies, which was fighting mad in the process of becoming Indonesia.

Hr.Ms. Evertsen (ex. HMS Scourge), D 802, and Hr.Ms. Kortenaer (ex. HMS Scorpion), D 804, at Soerabaja, Dutch East Indies, April 1950, clad in flags and tropical canvas. NIMH 2158_028763

The sisters in Jane’s circa 1954, referred to as the Evertsen class in Dutch service.

Aerial photograph of the Hr.Ms Evertsen or the Hr.Ms Kortenaer in the Strait of Madura, 1949. Note her extensive use of canvas awnings. Marine Luchtvaart Dienst Indië KITLV MLD392 30D

Aerial photograph of laying a smoke screen near Gili Pandan Island in the Madura Strait by Hr.Ms Evertsen, Marine Luchtvaart Dienst Indië KITLV MLD390 013

Aerial photograph of gunnery exercises by the Hr.Ms Evertsen or the Hr.Ms Kortenaer in the Strait of Madura, Marine Luchtvaart Dienst Indië KITLV MLD392 017

Korea

Still in the waters off Java when the North Koreans crossed the 38th Parallel in June 1950, Evertsen was dispatched to the Yellow Sea to join the UN forces off the embattled South Korean coast, arriving on 19 July.

She ultimately joined Task Force 96 in the U.S. Seventh Fleet, and saw service during the Battle of Pusan Perimeter and then covered the amphibious squadron at Inchon’s outer port.

Hr. Ms. Evertsen in action at Wonsan, letting her 4.7s ring, 26 April 1951. Nationaal Archief 904-5397

The Dutch naval service off Korea led to the country further sending a battalion of 646 men (the NDVN), which served as part of the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division, ultimately being rotated out several times.

Speaking of being rotated out, Evertsen was relieved in place by the Dutch destroyer Van Galen at the end of April 1951 and was soon pointed back to Holland, having served 10 months of the “Forgotten War.”

Evertsen on her way home from Korea to the Netherlands, 8 May 1951. In “Sunday uniform” (“Zondags tenue”), most of the officers and men pose on the forecastle. Nationaal Archief 35017_002

Return of destroyer Hr.Ms. Evertsen from Korea, 1951. 2158_028806

As for the Dutch effort in Korea, Van Galen was rotated out in early 1952, replaced by Evertsen’s sister Piet Hein, who in turn was tapped out by the frigate Johan Maurits van Naasau in early 1953. A fifth destroyer, Hr. Ms. Dubois, arrived in November 1953 to enforce the peace, followed by Hr. Ms. Van Zijll in September 1954.

As noted by the Dutch Defense Ministry:

On average, each Dutch ship carried out 10 patrols, mainly along the west coast of Korea. The ships were also given the task of escorting a U.S. or British aircraft carrier on a regular basis. The Dutch ships were also given the task of protecting the lines of communication and bombarding enemy troop concentrations, reinforcements and infrastructure.

The Netherlands sent 5,322 soldiers to Korea, with 2,980 men seeing combat, of which 120 of them were killed and 645 wounded. They fought in battles at Hoengsong, Wonju, Soyang River, and the Iron Triangle, among others. After the armistice, the ground forces withdrew from Korea in December 1954 and the Navy in January 1955.

Some 1,360 Dutch naval personnel served in the Korean War, with the first four warships active in the fighting– Evertsen included– earning the South Korean Distinguished Unit Citation. Only one Dutch sailor, a signalman on Johan Maurits van Nassau, was killed during the conflict.

A peaceful respite

With that, Evertsen would remain in European waters for a few years at least. It was while on this domestic service that she came to the rescue of the distressed Danish schooner Svaerdfisken during a storm in the North Sea in 1954. After towing the Dane to Stavanger, the Danish ambassador to the Netherlands later presented the ship and crew with a commemorative cup in Rotterdam as an official thanks.

A great profile shot of Evertsen working in the North Sea, showing her twin torpedo turnstiles, circa 1953. NIMH 2009-001-018_008

Kortenaer (D 804) with Evertsen (D 802) behind her, dressed for ceremonies. Circa 1953-1955. NIMH 2158_007043

Presto-changeo, you are now a frigate

All of the S-class destroyers in Dutch service were converted at Rijkswerf Willemsoord between 1957 and 1958 to fast frigates (FF) with new sensors, the “X” 4/7″/45 mount removed, a shorter mainmast installed, and a helicopter platform fitted aft for Bell 47s. This saw the class switch from “D” pennants to “F” with Evertsen carrying F 803 afterward.

Meanwhile, the British did a similar Type 15/16 ASW frigate conversion to three dozen remaining T, U, V, W, and Z-class near-sisters during the same period, removing most of the gun armament and fitting new sensors and either a Squid or Limbo A/S mortar.

Jane’s on the class, 1960.

Frigate HNLMS Evertsen (F 803) in the harbor of Ponta Delgada, Azores, 15 December 1957. NIMH 2158_028782

Targeting exercises with a late model 40mm gun aboard the frigate Hr.Ms. Evertsen, 1957. Aiming is at a Grumman TBM-3W2 Avenger, a type that flew with the Dutch fleet between 1953 and 1961. NIMH 2009-003-111_008

Evertsen as a frigate, 1961 2158_107708

Post-conversion, the Evertsens were dispatched once again to the Pacific, this time to keep watch over the last Dutch colony in the Far East, 10 December 1957.

Departure of Hr Ms Evertsen to New Guinea, Nationaal Archief 909-1735

Splash one Jaguar

Queen Juliana, who took over the throne from her ailing mother, the indefatigable Queen Wilhelmina, in 1948, saw a reign that included the decolonization and independence of the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) and Suriname, although not without a stout fight for the former.

This became particularly sticky when it came to the remnant colony of Dutch New Guinea, which escalated from a tense Confrontation (Konfrontasi) dispute in 1959 into direct low-level military conflict between the Netherlands and Soviet-backed Indonesia in 1962.

With the stage thus set, the Evertsen class was on hand in New Guinea for this endgame.

Evertsen underway as seen from a maritime patrol aircraft off the Nederlands Nieuw-Guinea in the South Pacific, note her frigate conversion. NIMH 2158_028792

Evertsen in the Konijnenburg shipyard slipway Manokwari, Netherlands New Guinea. Note her helicopter platform. NIMH 2158_028817

This conflict came to a head in what is known as the Battle of Vlakke Hoek or the Battle of Arafura Sea in the early morning of 15 January 1962. In the engagement, a trio of brand new West German-built Type 140 Jaguar-class torpedo boats– essentially Lürssen-built updated S-boats– operated by the Indonesian navy, attempted to land 150 infiltrators into Kaimana in Dutch New Guinea as part of Operation Trikora.

The boats, Matjan Tutul, Matjan Kumbang, and Harimau, were blisteringly fast, capable of hitting 42 knots in bursts, and well-armed, bristling with torpedo tubes and 40mm guns.

A 139-foot Lurssen-built Jaguar class, constructed to the Schnellboot 55 design.

However, the little Indonesian flotilla was spotted by an alert Dutch Navy P-2 Neptune patrol plane, and Evertsen, nearby, was diverted to the scene to intercept. Sister Kortenaer and a third Dutch destroyer, the newly commissioned Hr.Ms. Utrecht trailed behind.

By the time the smoke cleared, Evertsen sank the flagship MTB, RI Matjan Tutul (650). The two other Jaguars were damaged but made their escape more or less intact. Among the 23 missing considered dead was the flotilla commander, Commodore Yosaphat “Yos” Sudarso.

The Battle of Vlakke Hoek (Dutch New Guinea). Empty shells after the action aboard a fast frigate of the Evertsen class. NIMH 2158_035634

A short color film in the NIMH archives contains footage from Evertsen’s radar during the night battle near Vlakke Hoek with the Indonesian motor torpedo boat Matjan Tutul, including the captured survivors on the quarterdeck of the frigate the next morning.

The three Evertsens remained in Dutch service through the UN-brokered agreement to the transfer of Dutch New Guinea from Dutch to Indonesian control in October 1962.

An Evertsen-class destroyer (with tropical canvas) photographed from the air at Mios Woendi, Papua, between May and July 1962. NIMH 2007-11-27

Sent back to Europe, the class, obsolete for NATO use, was retired and scrapped in 1963.

Epilogue

The Dutch ships were the final S-class destroyers, the type having left British service in 1960. The last of their (near) sisters, the V-class destroyer HMS Grenville (R97/F197), remained in RN service until 1974 as a trials ship and was only broken up in 1983.

The British have not reused the awe-inspiring sea dog-appropriate name HMS Scourge, but the Dutch have recycled Evertsen for a Van Speijk-class frigate (F815), active from 1967 to 1989, and a De Zeven Provincien-class frigate (F805), commissioned in 2005.

HNLMS Evertsen conducts a high-speed turn in the Gulf of Aden while on JTF duties

As for Indonesia, a replica of Matjan Tutul has been created.

Matjan Tutul (replica), at the Satriamandala Museum in Indonesia. Wikimedia Commons image

The Troika commodore who was killed in the operation, Yos Sudarso, was promoted to vice admiral posthumously and has had two frigates named after him since then. Ironically, the current one to bear the name is a former Dutch Van Speijk-class frigate that has remained in Indonesian service since 1985. 

KRI Yos Sudarso (353) Indonesian Navy, Ex HNLMS F 803 van Galen

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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Living up to her potential

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Some 75 years ago this week.

The “long-hull” Essex-class fleet carrier USS Leyte (CV-32) is seen loading aircraft at Yokosuka, Japan, for transportation to the U.S. at the end of her Korean War combat tour. The photograph is dated 24 January 1951. Several decommissioned Tacoma-class frigates (PF), late of the Soviet Red Banner fleet, are moored in groups across the harbor background while a snow-capped Mount Fuji is just visible in the distance.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. NH 97295

Commissioned 11 April 1946, Leyte (laid down as USS Crown Point) came too late for WWII but got her licks in off Korea from 9 October 1950 through 19 January 1951, where the ship and her airwing of Air Group Three spent 92 days at sea and flew 3,933 sorties against North Korean and Chinese forces.

Her pilots accumulated nearly 11,000 hours in the air while inflicting massive damage upon enemy positions, supplies, transportation, and communications.

She earned two battle stars for the cruise.

Among the squadrons based on Leyte were the “Swordsmen” of VF-32 flying the F4U-4 Corsair, a squadron that included Ensign Jesse Brown and LT Thomas J. Hudner Jr.

Other outfits included another Corsair squadron, VF-33, a F9F-2 Panther unit (VF-31), an AD-3/4 Skyraider squadron (VA-35), and smaller dets from VC-4 (F4U-5N night fighters), VC-62 (F4U-5P photo birds), VC-12 (AD-4W), VC-33 (AD-3N), and a couple of well-used whirly birds from HU-2 who were famed for their C-SAR use.

USS Leyte (CV-32). Moored off Naval Operating Base, Yokosuka, Japan, during a break from Korean War operations, 1 December 1950. 80-G-424599

Mascot “Beno” sits in a Grumman F9F-2 Panther of Fighter Squadron Three One (VF-31) “Tomcatters” aboard USS Leyte (CV-32) as she pulled into San Diego, California, at the end of her Korean deployment. 3 February 1951.

Never modernized from her 1946 arrangement, Leyte was reclassified as CVA-32 in October 1952 and as an anti-submarine carrier, CVS-32, the following August, operating in the Med and Caribbean for the rest of the decade.

Reclassified as a training carrier, AVT-10, in May 1959, she decommissioned the same day and was sold for scrap in 1970 after her parts were raided to keep her sisters in service; her usefulness to the Navy was at an end.

Sea Legs

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The mighty 21,000-ton dreadnought, USS Florida (Battleship No. 30), gives Naval Academy Midshipmen a taste of salt water on their annual cruise during the early 1920s. She is followed by USS Delaware (BB-28) and USS North Dakota (BB-29).

NARA photo 19-N-12607. National Archives Identifier 496081005

According to DANFS, Florida was familiar to the Mids, having often carried them as part of the Practice Squadron to sea during her career. This included a tour of European ports of call, including Copenhagen, Denmark; Greenock, Scotland; Lisbon, Portugal; and Gibraltar in 1923; as well as regular summer cruises in both 1912 and 1913 then 1927 through 1930, ranging from Nova Scotia to the Panama Canal. She also conducted coastal cruises for Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC) students from Harvard, Yale, and Georgia Tech.

Her summer trip to Europe, her decks teeming with Mids, would be her last.

USS Florida (BB-30) at Kiel, Germany, 7 July 1930, during a Midshipman’s training cruise. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-1025114

Decommissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 16 February 1931, Florida was authorized on 1 April to be placed on the list of Navy vessels to be disposed of by salvage in accordance with the London Naval Treaty of 1930. Consequently, Florida was stricken from the Navy Register on 6 April 1931, and her final scrapping, including all shipments of materials sold or reserved, was completed on 30 September 1932.

Whimbrel, is that you?

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Some 75 years ago this week.

Official period caption: “Egyptian sub-chaser anchored in Grand Harbor, Valetta, Malta. 24 January 1951.”

Photographed by U.S. Navy PH2 W.S. McGill, 80-G-426951

I’m fairly sure that the warship above, with very British lines, is the Egyptian Navy frigate El Malek al Farouq (Farouk). A former Yarrow-built Black Swan-class sloop, HMS Whimbrel (U 29), she entered service in January 1943, making her just eight years old in the above photo.

She replaced a Hawthorne-built sloop of the same name, which was sunk in a scrap with the Israelis in 1948. As such, she was the best ship in the Egyptian fleet until a pair of ex-British Z-class destroyers (HMS Myngs and Zenith) were transferred in 1955.

Transferred in November 1949 to the nascent Egyptian force, she was named after Farouk I, the King of Egypt and the Sudan from 1936 through 1952, including the period during which she was captured above.

After King Farouk was overthrown in a military coup, the sloop/frigate was renamed a third time to Tariq (Tarik) in 1954.

Tariq, ex-Farouk, ex-Whimbrel, in the 1960 Janes.

Where the ship really stands out is, as Whimbrel, rode on more than two dozen Atlantic convoys and picked up battle honors for Sicily, 1943; Atlantic, 1943–44; Normandy, 1944; English Channel, 1944; Arctic, 1944; and Okinawa, 1945, and has been reported as the only member remaining of the 16 Royal Navy warships to have been present at the Surrender of Japan on VJ Day in Tokyo Bay.

Wait, what?

Yeah, the Egyptians apparently kept Tariq in somewhat limited service as a pier-side trainer until at least 2016 and held on to her for a while after that.

Assorted museums in the UK have shown an interest in housing ex-Whimbrel and as a museum ship, but I am not sure that is still a thing.

She has likely been scrapped since then.

I would love to be wrong about that.

Building 9, at rest

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Deactivating warships tied up at Pier 91, Seattle, Washington, in a photo dated April 1946. On the near side of the pier are the carriers Essex (CV-9), Bon Homme Richard (CV-31), and Bunker Hill (CV-17), closer to the camera. On the far side of the pier is the carrier Ticonderoga (CV-14) and the battleships Indiana (BB-58) and Alabama (BB-60). NARA 80-G-373247.

Some 80 years ago, in January 1946, USS Essex (CV-9) rested at Puget Sound Navy Shipyard’s Pier 91 in Bremerton, having arrived there in mid-September 1945 just after her last of four wartime air groups, CVG-83, flew off.

Defueled and with her ammunition offloaded, her engines were cold, she was taking shore power, while at the same time her crew was thinning out due to transfers and discharges with few replacements. The word had passed that the carrier, rushed to completion and urgently needed when she was commissioned in December 1942, was destined for mothballs after just three years of service.

She was hard-used, having steamed 233,419.75 nautical miles since commissioning, fired 333,377 rounds of ammunition (all 20mm and higher), and logged 22,260 combat sorties during the war.

When commissioned, five of the eight pre-WWII U.S. carriers had been lost in combat, and the other three were either too small to fight in the Pacific (Ranger) or suffering from damage (Saratoga and Enterprise), making Essex worth her weight in gold.

Her first air group, CVG-9, came aboard in August 1943 and would remain until replaced by CVG-15 in May 1944. CVG-4 tapped in on 22 November 1944 and was removed a few days later after Essex suffered a kamikaze hit that left her extensively damaged. Her last group, CVG-83 (augmented by two Marine Corsair units, VMF-124 and VMF-213), shipped out with her at the end of 1944 after she was repaired and resumed operations.

Check out how these groups changed, as noted in her 106-page WWII History.

Essex, the first of her legendary class of modern fast fleet carriers, earned the Presidential Unit Citation and 13 battle stars for World War II service. When it comes to WWII carriers, only the Enterprise had more stars (20).

Some statistics from her WWII service:

Slowly made ready to deactivate throughout 1946, Essex decommissioned on 9 January 1947.

By that time, the Navy hardly missed her as they would do the same thing with 13 of her newer sisters by February 1948 (USS Yorktown, Intrepid, Franklin, Ticonderoga, Randolph, Lexington, Bunker Hill, Wasp, Hancock, Bennington, Bon Homme Richard, Shangri-La, and Lake Champlain) and canceled two others, the planned Reprisal and Iwo Jima. Even with this, the Navy still had nine pristine long-hulled improved Essex-class flattops– five of them commissioned after WWII– and three brand-new 60,000-ton Midway-class super carriers on active service.

The only time in history that a fleet had over a dozen modern fleet carriers laid up.

Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, probably on 23 April 1948. Bremerton Group, Pacific Reserve Fleet. The six “mothballed” carriers are, front to back: Essex (CV-9), Ticonderoga (CV-14), Yorktown (CV-10), Lexington (CV‑16), Bunker Hill (CV-17), and Bon Homme Richard (CV-31, in the background). At left and in the distance are battleships and cruisers. Note the “igloo” domes over the 40mm and 5-inch singles. NARA 80-G-428458

Essex would, however, rejoin the fleet, completing a SCB-27A conversion to operate jets, and was recommissioned in January 1951– just in time to see extensive combat in Korea. Essex was the first carrier to launch F2H Banshee twin-jet fighters on combat missions on 23 August 1951.

She saw a more exaggerated SCB-125 angled deck/hurricane bow conversion in 1955-56 and spent her last 13 years in Cold War service in the Atlantic, including some shenanigans during the Bay of Pigs invasion, tense times in the Cuban Missile Crisis, and being the primary recovery ship for Apollo 7.

The last three remaining American pre-WWII flattops, the famed USS Saratoga (CV-3), Ranger (CV-4), and Enterprise (CV-6), were decommissioned shortly after VJ-Day. With the Prohibition-era “Sister Sara” sunk in A Bomb tests in ’46, Ranger scrapped in 1947, and “The Big E” stricken in 1956, Essex became the oldest American WWII-veteran carrier. She held that title for 17 years until 1973, when she was stricken and sold for scrap.

“Lady” Lexington (CVT/AVT-16), commissioned six weeks after Essex, would pick up that torch and carry it to November 1991.

Heavy Hitter at rest

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Some 75 years ago this month.

You could almost mistake her for a slimmed-down Iowa-class battleship at first. That was easy to do with a ship that had a full-load displacement of some 17,000 tons, ran nearly 700 feet long, had a very similar 3+3+3 main gun layout, two funnels, and up to eight inches of armor.

“Aerial of the Baltimore-class heavy cruiser USS Columbus (CA 74) moored to Berth 8, Grand Harbor, Valeta, Malta, altitude 100 feet, S.E. direction.”

Photograph released January 1951. U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-426894

The above was during Columbus’s 12 June 1950 to 5 October 1951 stint as flagship for Commander-in-Chief, Naval Forces Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean (CINCNELM), ADM Robert B. Carney (USNA 1916).

Too late to see combat in WWII, Columbus was still a “war baby,” commissioned 8 June 1945.

Joining the Pacific Fleet five months after VJ Day, she reached the old German China colony of Tsingtao on 13 January 1946 for occupation duty, serving off and on as the cruiser flagship in Chinese waters through June 1947.

Transferring to the Atlantic Fleet in 1948, she often served as a flagship for the 6th Fleet, as seen above. I mean, why wouldn’t she? She was a beautiful ship worthy of an admiral’s flag.

USS Columbus (CA 74) 3 November 1952 Mediterranean Sea USN 482321

After another spin in the Pacific from 1955-1959, she began a three-year reconstruction conversion from an all-gun cruiser to a huge guided missile cruiser, recommissioning as CG-12 in December 1962 to serve for another 14 years as a Cold War sentinel in the Atlantic and Med.

She decommissioned on 31 January 1975, capping just a few months under 30 years of faithful service, but never fired a shot in anger other than her work during the Road’s End scuttling of 24 captured ex-IJN submarines on April Fool’s Day 1946 off Goto-Retto.

Sometimes all you have to do is look mean to get the word across.

Warship Wednesday 14 January 2026: ‘A Complete Shambles’

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Here at LSOZI, we take a break every Wednesday to explore the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period, profiling a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi As Henk says: “Warship Coffee – no sugar, just a pinch of salt!”

Warship Wednesday 14 January 2026: ‘A Complete Shambles’

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #  80-G-K—11242 (Color).

Above we see a great period Kodachrome showing the flight deck of the Commencement Bay-class “deluxe” jeep carrier USS Palau (CVE 122), looking forward past her tiny island, while operating in rough seas off the Florida Coast, 27 February 1950. The jumble of aircraft includes (left to right): a TBM-3S Avenger, an HO3S-1 helicopter (probably Bu #122528), and an “Able Dog” AD-3W radar picket Skyraider conversion.

While Palau was a war baby, commissioned some 80 years ago this week, she didn’t have a chance to earn any battle stars.

Nonetheless, this unsung little “jeep carrier” played an important role in naval, Marine, and aviation history and deserves more than a footnote– which is why we are here today.

The C-Bays

Of the 130 U.S./RN escort carriers– merchant ships hulls given a hangar, magazine, and flight deck– built during WWII, the late-war Commencement Bay class was by far the Cadillac of the design slope. Using lessons learned from the earlier Long Island, Avenger, Sangamon, Bogue, and Casablanca-class ships.

Like the hard-hitting Sangamon class, they were based on Maritime Commission T3 class tanker hulls (which they shared with the roomy replenishment oilers of the Chiwawa, Cimarron, and Ashtabula classes). From the keel up, these were made into flattops.

Pushing some 25,000 tons at full load, they could make 19 knots, which was faster than a lot of submarines looking to plug them. A decent suite of about 60 AAA guns spread across 5-inch, 40mm, and 20mm fittings could put as much flying lead in the air as a light cruiser of the day when enemy aircraft came calling.

Finally, they could carry a 30-40 aircraft airwing of single-engine fighter bombers and torpedo planes ready for a fight, or about twice that many planes if being used as a delivery ship.

Sounds good, right?

Of course, had the war run into 1946-47, the 33 planned vessels of the Commencement Bay class would have no doubt fought kamikazes, midget subs, and suicide boats tooth and nail just off the coast of the Japanese Home Islands.

However, the war ended in Sept. 1945 with only nine of the class barely in commission– most of those still on shake-down cruises. Just two, Block Island and Gilbert Islands, saw significant combat at Okinawa and Balikpapan, winning two and three battle stars, respectively. Kula Gulf and Cape Gloucester picked up a single battle star.

With the war over, some of the class, such as USS Rabaul and USS Tinian, though complete, were never commissioned and simply laid up in mothballs, never being brought to life. Four other ships were canceled before launching, just after the bomb on Nagasaki was dropped. In all, just 19 of the planned 33 were commissioned.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Meet Palau

Our subject was the first (and only as of 2026) U.S. Navy warship named for the island group in the Carolines, some 850 miles east of Mindanao, which was the focus of the Operation Stalemate II landings in September 1944. The ensuing nine-week campaign for the islands was an Allied victory, but at a hard cost of over 10,000 casualties. Palau today is part of the Federated States of Micronesia, linked to the U.S. since 1986 via the Compact of Free Association.

Invasion of Angaur, Palau Islands, September 1944. Two amphibious tanks with gunners race toward the flaming shore of Anguar during the invasion of this island in the Palaus by the 81st Army Division. U.S. Coast Guard Photograph. NHHC Photograph Collection, L-File, Wars & Events.

Laid down on 9 February 1945 at Todd Pacific Shipyards, Tacoma, as Yard No. 78, Palau was built alongside sisters USS Rabaul (Yard No. 77, CVE-121) and Tinian (Yard No. 78, CVE-123), which likewise broke the class’s “Bay” naming convention and were instead named for Pacific Island battles.

The future USS Palau slid down the ways– just a week before the Japanese signaled they would quit the war– after being launched on 6 August 1945, sponsored by Mrs. J. P. Whitney, the wife of Capt. John Perry Whitney (USNA 1922). Of note, Whitney earned a Navy Cross as skipper of the escort carrier USS Kitkun Bay (CVE-71) of Taffy 3 fame during the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944.

Launching of the USS Palau (CVE122) at the Tacoma Pacific Shipyards, Tacoma, Wash. L-R: Mrs. Charlotte Bridget Matron of honor; Capt. John P. Whitney, USN, and Mrs. John P. Whitney sponsor. 80-G-326722

80-G-326720

USS Palau (CVE-122) Going Down the Ways After Launching at Todd Pacific Shipyards Inc., Tacoma, Washington. August 6, 1945. 80-G-326721

With the pressure off Todd to rush Palau to completion post VJ-Day, she only commissioned on 15 January 1946.

Starboard broadside of the USS Palau (CVE-122), likely shortly after she commissioned. 19-N-91598

CVE-122 at sea, likely on trials. 19-N-91599.

Palau’s first skipper was Capt. Willis Everett Cleaves (USNA 1924), who retired six months after she was commissioned and moved to the Retired List as a rear admiral, capping 22 years in service, his last task was to complete the new carrier’s shakedown cruise off California with the Corsairs of VMF-461 aboard, and deployment to the Atlantic Fleet via the Panama Canal. Cleaves had previously earned a Silver Star during the Aleutians campaign as commander of the seaplane tender USS Casco.

USS Palau, CVE-122, shake down cruise

Following post-shakedown shipyard availability, Palau was laid up, still in commission but with just a skeleton crew, at Norfolk in March 1946.

West Africa

Reactivated on 22 May 1947, Palau was deployed for carrier landing quals in the Gulf and Caribbean, then picked for a special assignment.

Our little carrier represented the U.S. at the Liberian Centennial Ceremonies at Monrovia, Liberia, in the last week of July 1947, sailing to West Africa via Recife. This included a visit by Liberian dignitaries and civilians, and attending events ashore. She steamed into Monrovia with a big Liberian flag on her mast and her band playing the Liberian national anthem.

USS Palau (CVE 122) at Monrovia, Liberia. Photograph released July 25, 1947, with the one-star red-white-and-blue Liberian flag atop her mast. Although Palau was inactive from June 1946 to May 1947, she still wears her wartime Camouflage Measure 21.80-G-399807

The band learned the anthem by ear in an unusual way– hearing U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Benjamin O. Davis Sr. sang it to them as they crossed the Atlantic. Davis had previously served as military attaché in Liberia from 1909 to 1911, taking a break from his company in the 9th Cavalry, and was requested by the Liberian government to represent the U.S. in the ceremony. At the time, Davis was in his 49th year in uniform, having volunteered to fight Spain in 1898.

USS Palau (CVE-122) at anchor, with F4U Corsair fighters parked on her flight deck. The original photograph is dated July 1947. NH 106720

USS Palau (CVE 122) with American Minister Lanier onboard at Monrovia, Liberia. Photograph released July 25, 1947. 80-G-399800/ President William V.S. Tubman delivers an address at Civic Center. Photograph released July 26, 1947 80-G-399830

Palau returned to the east coast on 16 August and, after another yard availability at Boston, was again laid up at Norfolk through March 1948.

Reactivated for a second time, she was prepped for a 3 June to 7 August 1948 deployment to the Mediterranean, schlepping a load of aircraft (surplus ex-USAF Beechcraft AT-11 Kansan trainers) to Turkey as deck cargo.

Operation Homecoming

In November 1948, Palau was instrumental in returning the Wright Brothers’ famous “Kitty Hawk” flyer to the U.S.

The first successful heavier-than-air powered vehicle, which took off briefly in 1903, had been in England since 1928, and was at the time on exhibit at the Kingston Science Museum in London, where an estimated 10 million visitors had filed past it. Its place in London was filled by a 1:1 replica; the original was shipped back across the Atlantic, carefully disassembled and stored in three crates for permanent exhibition in the U.S. National Museum (the Smithsonian)

Handed over to the custody of Livingston Lord Satterthwait, the American Civil Air Attaché in London, on 18 October 1948, the crates made it to Halifax aboard the liner Mauretania, riding in style. The director of the Smithsonian’s National Air Museum, Paul E. Garber, met the aircraft in Nova Scotia and oversaw its transfer to the bluejackets aboard Palau on 16 November in what became a Navy operation.

Palau had been part of a two-week amphibious assault exercise in the North Atlantic with the destroyer USS Hobson (DMS-26), and ‘phibs USS Colonial (LSD-18) and Donner (LSD-20). After being open to the public for tours, she received the Wright Flyer with orders to repatriate the aircraft to the U.S., arriving two days later at New York NSY in Bayonne.

While aboard the carrier, the crates were guarded by two armed Marines the entire time, and during the transfer ceremony at Bayonne, an honor guard of six Sailors, six Marines, and an officer of each service was in attendance.

19 November 1948 The original Wright Brothers’ aeroplane, the 1903 “Kitty Hawk”, 1 of 3 crates being unloaded from the USS Palau (CVE-122) at the New York Naval Shipyard annex in Bayonne, NJ on November 19, 1948 on Operation Homecoming, enroute from London, England to Washington DC, for permanent exhibition in the US National Museum (the Smithsonian). Two of the 3 crates were reported to have been originally built by Orville Wright himself.

Trucked to DC from Bayonne, the guard was more than just ceremonial; they remained with the aircraft until it arrived at the Smithsonian on 22 November, under the command of LT (j.g.) Arthur E. Grabill, USN.

The reassembled Wright Flyer has been on display since December 1948.

Marine One

On 1 December 1947, the first experimental Marine Corps helicopter squadron, HMX-1, was activated at Quantico. The Nighthawks started small, with only 7 officers and 3 enlisted men, then quickly grew to 18 pilots and 81 enlisted. In the spring of 1948, the squadron received its first helicopters, five Sikorsky HO3S-1s– aircraft able to carry just a pilot and three Marine passengers– then commenced pilot training and qualifications.

MCB Quantico, VA – Inventor Igor Sikorsky, the father of American helicopters, visits HMX-1 at Marine Corps Air Station Quantico, Virginia. In the background is an HO3S-1 helicopter, one of the first two “Whirlybirds” assigned to the U. S. Marine Corps. Photo By: National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A322389

As detailed in the squadron history, the first Marine helicopter operational deployment occurred in May 1948 when five HMX-1 “pinwheels” flying off Palau conducted 35 flights to land 66 men and several hundred pounds of communications equipment at Camp Lejeune during Packard II, an amphibious command post exercise.

One of five Sikorsky HO3S-1s from HMX-l prepares to land on USS Palau (CVE 122) during Operation Packard II in May 1948. USMC Photo

The squadron’s commanding officer, Colonel Edward C. Dyer, described the initial 18 May fly-on as “a complete shambles. There were sailors running all over the place in mortal danger of walking into tail rotors, and the Marines were totally disorganized as well. It was complete bedlam; there was no organization and no real system developed.”

Dyer and his pilots, working with Navy LSOs and Palau’s crew, hammered out procedures to be able to safely conduct simultaneous rotor-wing operations from the baby flattop, and five days later made history.

On 23 May 1948, the first airborne ship-to-shore movement began at Onslow Beach, Camp Lejeune, N.C. The first wave of the assault commenced with all five HO3S-1s taking off from Palau and arriving 30 minutes later in the landing zone. HMX-1 pilots made continuous flights, putting 66 Marines in the right place at the right time.

Fast forward a year later, and HMX-1, working again with Palau, had its act together with Packard III.

In May 1949, HMX-1 participated in another exercise, deploying eight Piasecki HRPs, three Sikorsky HO3Ss, and a single Bell HTL-2. The squadron and aircraft performed beyond expectations. Flying over choppy seas that swamped several landing craft, the HRPs—known as “Flying Bananas”—quickly put 230 troops and 14,000 pounds of cargo in the designated landing zone.

USS Palau (CVE-122) with Piasecki HRP-1 helicopters on deck.

It was thought that Packard III vetted the concept of 184 HRPs, operating from six CVEs, could lift a complete Marine regimental combat team ashore. Of course, only 28 HRPs existed, so there was that.

This would be repeated in Packard IV in May 1950, which led to the largest single helicopter formation to that time, taking place when six HRPs, six HO3Ss, and one HTL flew by a reviewing stand at Quantico.

An HRP “Flying Banana” troop-carrying helicopter takes off from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Palau (CVE 122), during exercise Packard IV conducted in the Potomac River near Quantico, Virginia, on 8 May 1950. An HO3S-1 observation helicopter hovers in the background.

This paid off in the real world in very short order.

On 13 September 1951, HMR-161, using more advanced Sikorsky HRS-1s carried to Korea aboard the escort carrier USS Sitkoh Bay, conducted operation Windmill I, history’s first mass helicopter resupply mission, lifting an 18,848 pounds of combat gear seven miles to a Marine battalion on the front lines, then evacuating 74 casualties to the rear. They followed that up with Operation Bumblebee in October when a dozen HRS-1s flew 958 Marines of the 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, in 156 sorties over 15 miles from their base to the crest of a mountain on the front lines to relieve another battalion in a little more than six hours.

“Operation Bumblebee marked an important point in the development of Marine Corps aviation, showing that helicopters could carry enough troops in the first wave of an amphibious operation to achieve mass on an objective in a relatively brief period of time.”

But back to our girl…

Other than Marine missions

Grumman TBM-3W Avenger early warning aircraft of Composite Squadron VC-12 on the deck of the escort carrier USS Palau (CV-122), off New York, between September 1948 and July 1950. Note the “potbelly” AN/APS-20 S-band search radar. NNAM 1996.253.1211

Project Skyhook involved the use of polyethylene balloons carrying instrument packages to altitudes in excess of 100,000 feet (30,480+ meters); these balloons provided a stable vehicle for long-duration observations and offered the opportunity of collecting highly specialized information and photographs.

Palau made a dozen Skyhook balloon launches in mid-November 1949 to study cosmic rays and take neutron measurements.

November 1949 Project Skyhook balloon being prepared for launch aboard USS Palau (CVE-122). Corsairs parked aft belong to Marine Fighter Squadron 212 (VMF-212).

On 8 March 1950, Operation Portrex began on Vieques Island, Puerto Rico. The exercise was the first use of airborne troops in support of an amphibious landing. The two-week-long exercise evaluates joint service doctrine for the combined operation. Among the brass in attendance were SECNAV Francis P. Matthews, SECDEF Louis Johnson, and Admiral Forrest P. Sherman, Chief of Naval Operations.

Palau was front and center, hosting the brass and the umpire group.

USS Palau (CVE 122) operating in rough seas off the Florida coast on her way to participate in Operation Portrex, 27 February 1950. Planes parked aft include AD-3W and TBM-3S types. National Archives photograph, 80-G-K-11249 (Color).

Douglas AD-3W Skyraider Radar Picket Aircraft ready for catapulting on USS Palau (CVE 122) during Operation Portrex, March 1950. National Archives photograph, 80-G-K-11718 (Color).

Douglas AD-3W Radar Picket Aircraft on the flight deck of USS Palau (CVE 122) during Operation Portrex, March 1950. National Archives photograph, 80-G-K-11721 (Color).

Grumman TBM-3S Avenger ready for catapulting on USS Palau (CVE 122) during Operation Portrex, March 1950. National Archives photograph, 80-G-K-11699 (Color).

Sikorski HO3S-1 Helicopter (probably Bu #122528) after landing on board USS Palau (CVE 122) during Operation Portrex, March 1950. National Archives photograph, 80-G-K-11715 (Color).

USS Palau (CVE 122) ZP2K Navy blimp takes off from the after flight deck, past TBM-3S airplanes, during Operation Portrex, March 1950. National Archives photograph, 80-G-K-11706 (Color).

USS Palau (CVE-122) underway, 10 May 1950. Note the anti-submarine Grumman TBM-3E Avengers on deck.  Photo # CVE-122-554-(L)-5-10-50.

It was in June 1950 that a young BM3 shipped aboard Palau, serving as a Motor Whaleboat Coxswain in the carrier’s Deck Division until the next November, when he left for USS Tripoli (CVE-64) and dive school. That young coxswain was the future BMCM(MDV) Carl Maxie Brashear, USN. 

She also made four short deployments as an active ASW carrier out of Norfolk during 1951-52, backfilling larger fleet carriers that were parked off Korea, providing close support to troops fighting the Chinese. During these cruises, she carried a sub-busting squadron of Avengers or Guardians, augmented with an HO3S-1 helicopter det from HU-2.

One of the largest single-engine aircraft in Naval service, the AF-2W Guardian usually flew as part of a two-plane “hunter-killer” team, its role being the search for submarines (note the large radome) while the depth charge/rocket-carrying AF-2S Guardian attacked. With an 11-ton max takeoff weight, they had a 60-foot wingspan and 43-foot length. They were replaced by the “all-in-one” S-2 Tracker in 1955.

These deployments included a January- June 1951 cruise to the North Atlantic under 2nd Fleet orders with VS-32 aboard, and a follow-on deployment with VS-24.

A TBM-3W Avenger (BuNo 69476) from Anti-Submarine Squadron 32 (VS-32) “Norsemen” aboard the escort carrier USS Palau (CVE-122) in June 1951.

Palau in 1952 saw two short cruises to the Mediterranean to operate with the 6th Fleet: 19 April to 28 June with VS-31, and August to September with VS-27.

USS Palau (CVE-122) at anchor in Augusta Bay, Sicily (Italy), between 14 and 19 May 1952. The submarines USS Chivo (SS-341) and USS Burrfish (SSR-312) are visible alongside. Palau, with assigned AF-2W/AF-2S Guardians of Air Anti-Submarine Squadron 31 (VS-31) “Topcats” was deployed to the Mediterranean from 19 April to 28 June 1952.

Palau, designated for inactivation in early 1953, was retained in commission to perform one final ferry assignment, carrying planes to Yokosuka, Japan (8 August – 22 October). On her return, she entered the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, decommissioningon 15 June 1954.

The rest of her class soon joined her on red lead row.

The Commencement Bay class listing in Janes, 1954

The Commencement Bay class listing in Janes, 1960, by which time they had been redesignated AKVs

Berthed with the Philadelphia Group, Atlantic Reserve Fleet, Palau remained a unit of that fleet until struck from the Navy List 1 April 1960 and sold, 13 July 1960, to Jacques Pierot, Jr. and Sons, New York for breaking.

The last of her sisters in active duty, USS Gilbert Islands (CVE-107), was converted to a Major Communications Relay Ship (AGMR) in 1963 and renamed Annapolis. This allowed her another decade of life in service that saw her transmit the first documented ship-to-shore satellite radio message, and she was decommissioned in 1969.

Epilogue

Of note, all eight of Palau’s skippers were pre-WWII Annapolis ring knockers who all retired as one-stars.

Some parts were salvaged from Palau at the scrapyard in Sestao, primarily the preservation igloos over her stern 40m mounts used while in mothballs, and were installed in Spain’s Picos de Europa as a mountaineers’ hut, the  Cabana Veronica.

As for Marine Helicopter Squadron One (HMX-1), they are still very much around and have been in the business of ferrying Presidents since 1957.

And they still make carrier landings, as required.

251002-N-SK738-1122 ATLANTIC OCEAN (Oct. 2, 2025) A VH-60N Whitehawk attached to the “Nighthawks” of Marine Helicopter Squadron One (HMX-1) prepares to land aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) in preparation for the Titans of the Sea Presidential Review.  (U.S Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Pierce Luck)

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

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