laststandonzombieisland

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week.

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday December 25th The Christmas Ship of the Fleet

Commissioned 12 March 1943, the USS Cascade was an unsung hero of the fleet. With the destroyers of the time very minimally equipped, they needed a floating hotel/storeship/repair shop to tie up to from time to time and give the crew some rest, some better food, restock the groceries on the destroyer, and fix what was broken. With just this task in mind, the Cascade was dubbed Destroyer Tender Number 16 (AD-16).

She followed the fleet from Kwajalein, to Eniwetok, to Ulithi. Holding true to her motto ‘We Serve’ USS Cascade in her three years of war serviced more than a thousand ships.  Most of these, as the ship’s name would imply, were destroyers, patrol frigates, and destroyer escorts which often saw the Cascade 4-5 times in that three-year period. In addition, the ship tended “175 landing craft (LST, LCI, LCM, LSD, and LCS), almost 100 sub-chasers, 60 transports, 32 cargo ships, 56 tankers, 37 mine sweepers, 10 cruisers, 7 aircraft carriers, and a miscellaneous group of other types neighboring around one hundred in number.”

“Due to the long supply line which commenced to make itself felt in November 1943, the USS Cascade was dovetailed into another assignment in addition to her original assignment. While machine shops hummed the new job added to the increasing tempo of the ship’s activity. During the two years of this duty, ten thousand tons of fresh and dry provisions were received and issued. Five hundred and fifty-one tons of clothing were issued and an equal number of tons of ship’s store stock was sold by the ship. The combined value of these issues amounted to more than five million 1944 dollars. ”

When you were close to the Cascade, everyday was Christmas. While at Ulithi she stored a library of nearly a thousand movies that were passed around the fleet at anchorage. It also didn’t hurt that the ice-cream barge capable of making thousands of gallons of sweet geedunk a day was nearby. She was effectively the Blockbuster of the atoll. It was the service and support of the unseen tenders like Cascade that helped keep the fleet forward deployed and not tied to logistics harbors and shipyards in California. Had there been no Cascades, there could have been no victory in the naval war in the far-flung Pacific. The base was far from the ‘rear’ though as one of her anchorage mates, the fleet oiler Mississinewa (AO-59), while at anchor in the harbor next to Cascade, was struck and sunk by Japanese torpedoes in 1944.

While at Ulithi the next month, Cascade served as a floating courtroom for the inquiry into Halsey’s Typhoon (Typhoon Cobra) with no less than Admiral Nimitz himself in attendance. In the audience was one LT(JG) Herman Wouk, who was at the time a junior officer of the old Clemson-class four piper minesweeper destroyer USS Zane (DD-337/DMS-14/AG-109). The Zane was one of Cascades baby ducklings and Wouk, as you may know, went on to write The Caine Mutiny which has a strong element of UCMJ/Naval CIS to its tale. As far as the inquiry on the Cascade went, the inquiry found that though Halsey had committed an error of judgement in sailing the Third Fleet into the heart of the typhoon that cost the lives of 790 men and three ship, it stopped short of unambiguously recommending sanction.

Cascade saw active combat in 1945, moving to a small cove of Kerama Retto on Okinawa where she repaired and patched up beaten ships that had survived kamikaze attacks just miles from her. While there, her crew endured their own share of plane and suicide boat attacks without damage.

The Christmas of 1945

Just a few months after the end of the War, the Cascade came to rest in Wakeyama, Japan, where she served as the floating storehouse for the fleet in the Japanese home waters. There her Christmas was special.

The following brief history of the USS Cascade from her commissioning until the end of the war was included in the Christmas 1945 menu. At the time the Commanding officer was Captain Louis T. Young, USN and the Executive Officer was Comdr. T.W. Hardisty, USN. Captain Young’s Christmas message was as follows:

“To all Officers and the Crew: It is my pleasure and privilege to wish you all, individually and collectively, the best of Merry Christmas and the happiest of New Years. May the following ones be even better.”

Lt-Comdr. Hardisty’s Christmas message was as follows: “The Christmas season is one when our thoughts are drawn to happy memories of the past and of happier things to come. It is my sincere wish for you all that this Christmas season be a very happy one and that the New Year will be filled with many blessings.”

The Christmas menu included: Cream of Tomato Soup, Ripe Olives, Sweet Pickles, Roast Tom Turkey, Giblet Gravy, Sage Dressing, Cranberry Sauce, Mashed Potatoes, Buttered Peas, Parker House Rolls, Fruit Cake, Mince Pie, Ice Cream, Cigars, Cigarettes, Coffee.

The Cascade still had a lot of life left in her. Spending 1947-51 in the Reserve fleet at Philadelphia, she was recommissioned and spent twenty years forward deployed across the Atlantic and Med as a tender and flagship. She was decommissioned on 22 November 1974, stricken, and sold for her value as scrap metal the next fall. Her role in the fleet was assumed by the much larger (20263 tons) destroyer tender USS Yellowstone which was laid down the following year.

Specs
Displacement: 9,250 long tons (9,398 t)
Length:     492 ft (150 m)
Beam:     69 ft 9 in (21.26 m)
Draft:     27 ft 6 in (8.38 m)
Fuel Capacity
NSFO 17,360 Bbls
Propulsion
one General Electric turbine
two Foster & Wheeler D-type boilers 460psi, 765°
double Westinghouse Main Reduction Gear
three 100Kw 450V. A. C. Ship’s Service Generators
single propeller, 8,500shp
Speed:     18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph)
Complement:  600 original, over 1200 by 1944
Armament:     • 2 × 5″/38 caliber guns (reduced to single mount 1951)
4 × quad 1.1″/75 caliber guns (removed 1944)
three twin 40mm AA gun mounts (1944-47)
two quad 20mm AA gun mounts (1944-47)
12 × single 20 mm AA guns (removed 1951)
4x 12.7mm M2 guns (mounted 1950s)

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