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Warship Wednesday, September 3, 2025: The Three-flagged Frigate

Posted on September 3, 2025 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile 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, September 3, 2025: The Three-flagged Frigate

National Archives photo 19-N-66007

Above we see the fine new Tacoma-class patrol frigate USS Bisbee (PF-46) during her shakedowns off San Pedro, California, on 23 May 1944, wearing camouflage pattern Measure 32 Design 16D. At the time under the command of a USCG O-5, she had an all Coastie crew, including several well-trained Texas horsemen, which she would go on to carry throughout most of WWII.

Then things got a little weird.

The Tacomas

One of the most generic convoy escorts ever designed was the River-class frigates of the Royal Navy and its sister Australian and Canadian services. Sturdy 301-foot/1,800-ton vessels, some 151 were built between May 1941 and April 1945.

Canadian River-class frigate HMCS Waskesiu (K330) with a bone in her mouth, 1944. Kodachrome via LAC

River Class – Booklet of General Plans, 1941, profile

Carrying a few QF 4″/40s, a suite of light AAA guns, and a huge array of ASW weapons with as many as 150 depth charges, they could make 20 knots and had extremely long range, pushing 7,000nm at a 15-knot cruising speed.

In a sort of reverse Lend-Lease, two Canadian Vickers-built Rivers were transferred to the U.S. Navy, the planned HMS Adur (K296) and HMS Annan, in 1942, becoming the patrol gunboats– later patrol frigates– USS Asheville (PG-101/PF-1) and USS Natchez (PG-102/PF-2). Built at Montreal, Asheville and Natchez were completed with standard U.S. armament and sensors, including three 3″/50s, two 40mm mounts, Oerlikons, and SC-5 and SG radar. Everything else, including the power plant, was British.

USS Asheville (PF-1) plans

With that, the New York naval architecture firm of Gibbs & Cox took the River class frigate plans and tweaked them gently to become the Tacoma-class frigates. Some 2,200 tons at full load, these 303-foot ships used two small tube express boilers and two J. Hendy Iron Works VTE engines on twin screws to cough up 5,500shp, good for just over 20 knots with a 9,500nm range at 12 knots. Standard armament was a carbon copy of Asheville/Natchez: three 3″/50s, two twin 40mm mounts, nine Oerlikons, two stern depth charge racks, eight Y-gun depth charge throwers, a 24-cell Hedgehog Mk 10 ASWRL, and 100 ash cans. Radar was upgraded to the SA and SL series, while the hull-mounted sonar was a QGA set.

USS Albuquerque 1943 (PF-7), Tacoma class patrol frigate 200414-G-G0000-0003

These could be built at non-traditional commercial yards under Maritime Commission (MC Type T. S2-S2-AQ1) contracts, using an all-welded hull rather than the riveted hull of the British/Canadian Rivers. Many of these would be constructed on the Great Lakes, including by ASBC in Ohio (13 ships), Froemming (4), Walter Butler (12), Globe (8), and Leathem Smith (8) in Wisconsin. On the East Coast, Walsh-Kaiser in Rhode Island made 21, while on the West Coast, Kaiser Cargo and Consolidated Steel in California produced a combined 30 ships.

Using compartmentalized construction, they went together fast. No less than nine Tacomas were built in less than five months, 16 were built in less than six months, and 11 others were built in less than seven months. These times stack up well to the original River class built in British yards, where the best time recorded was 7.5 months. In Canada, the fastest time was just over 5 months.

The Tacomas cost about $2.3 million apiece, compared to $3.5 million for a Cannon-class destroyer escort, or $6 million for a Fletcher-class destroyer, in 1944 dollars.

Meet Bisbee

Consolidated Steel Company’s Los Angeles yard, built on 95 acres in Wilmington, was an emergency operation that was only started in 1941. In 1944, they were booming with 12,000 workers on eight shipways working rotating 10.5-hour shifts. Amazingly, the yard delivered 126 C1 Liberty ships, 10 big C2s, 32 Gilliam-class attack transports (APAs), and 18 Tacoma-class PFs.

Consolidated Steel’s Wilmington yard was in full tilt in 1944, with eight shipways to the right, eight floating Liberty ships in the center fitting out, and six APAs and six PFs fitting out to the left.

The 18 Tacomas built at Consolidated were in a block, PF-34 through PF-51, Yard Nos. 519 through 536. Sandwiched in these was our subject, named for the mining town of Bisbee, Arizona. Originally authorized as Patrol Gunboat, PG-154, she was reclassified as PF-46 before construction began. Laid down on 7 August 1943, she launched one month later on 7 September and commissioned at Terminal Island on 15 February 1944, her construction spanning 6 months, 8 days.

Launching of future USS Bisbee (PF-46), 7 September 1943, Consolidated Steel Co., Ltd., Los Angeles. NHHC UA 462.27 Mary Murphy Collection.

She spent the next 10 weeks on trials, workups, and yard availability.

Bow-on view USS Bisbee (PF-46) off San Pedro, California, on 23 May 1944. 19-N-66005

Port view USS Bisbee (PF-46) off San Pedro, California, on 23 May 1944. 19-N-66004

Stern view of USS Bisbee (PF-46) off San Pedro, California, on 23 May 1944. Note her depth charge racks and throwers. 19-N-66008

Same as above, 19-N-66006.

Starboard view USS Bisbee (PF-46) off San Pedro, California, on 23 May 1944. 19-N-66003

Semper Paratus!

Of the 100 Tacomas issued hull numbers (PF-3 through PF-102), only four, PF-95 through PF-98, were canceled on the ways (all under contract to American SB in Ohio). Twenty-one others, PF-72 through PF-92, all built by Walsh-Kaiser in Rhode Island, were turned over to the Royal Navy, which renamed them after colonies.

That leaves 75 hulls that were put into Navy service. As the Navy, which operated PF-1 and PF-2, knew the poor handling and habitability of the River design, especially in hot climes, they decided all 75 would be manned by the Coast Guard instead.

Bisbee’s plankowner skipper was a regular, T/CDR John Peter German (USNA 1932), with a wardroom of seven junior officers, many on their first sea-going billet.

Before arriving aboard Bisbee at Terminal Island, many of her officers and crew had sailed on class leader Tacoma off San Pedro for three weeks to get a feel for their new home.

The crew, mostly USCGR ratings enlisted for the duration, included 30 “horse coxswains,” Texas cowboys who had originally signed up in 1942 for the mounted Beach Patrol along the sand dunes of the Gulf Coast. However, by late 1943, the Beach Patrol was being whittled down, and its members were given sea duty. Whomp whomp.

Just 25 of the crew, skipper included, were regulars, making up about an eighth of the complement.

Her crew, in USCG tradition, included a U.S. Public Health Service Medical Officer, Brooklyn native Domenic C. Calamia, PAS, rather than a Navy doctor. Medical Officers of the Public Health Service have been assigned to Coast Guard vessels since 1879, a tradition that endures today. The Commissioned Corps of the USPHS grew from 500 men and women to over 16,000 during WWII, including 660 of whom deployed with the USCG and on CG-manned vessels in every theatre, with three KIA.

At 1700 on 31 May 1944, Bisbee weighed anchor at San Pedro and sailed West to join the Fleet. On 11 June, she passed the equator, and 205 fresh Pollywogs became Shellbacks. Four days later, they crossed into the Domain of the Golden Dragon and on the 21st made their first foreign port, Noumena, in French New Caledonia.

She became the flagship of CortDiv43 (Capt. William J. Austerman, USCG), joining sisters USS Gallup (PF-47), Rockford (PF-48), Muskogee (PF-49), Carson City (PF-50), and Burlington (PF-51). Austerman was joined aboard by a flag staff of two officers (j.g.s) as staff Communications and Recognition officers, and four enlisted (a CY, a CRM, and two sailors).

Moving forward to Papua by way of Cairns, Australia, Bisbee, in the train of the 7th Fleet Amphibious Division, had her baptism of fire in the Biak campaign, bombarding enemy-held villages in the Wardo area for 28 minutes on 7 August, expending 119 rounds of 3-inch, 230 of 40mm, and 982 of 20mm. Her motor launch, with Army observers aboard, contacted local patrols ashore and took into custody seven Japanese prisoners of war for transport back to HQ.

On the 17th, steaming with sister Gallup off Mokmur, Biak, Bisbee supported dawn landings there and plastered the beach with 152 rounds of 3-inch, 820 of 40mm, and 2,460 of 20mm.

With Maj. Gen. Jens Anderson Doe, commander of the 41st Infantry Division (“Jungleers”), aboard Bisbee closed to the North Coast of Biak on 25 August 1944 and bombarded Japanese-held Cape Oboebari at the mouth of the Wardo River with over 4,800 assorted rounds in just 20 minutes while only 1,100 yards offshore. Then came a landing by a company of the 41st on Blue Beach to prevent an enemy escape.

While on ASW patrol in the waters of Geelvink Bay off the Western end of Noemfoor Island, New Guinea, on 1 September, Bisbee spotted Flight Sgt. John C. Keene, RAAF, bobbing around the Coral Sea in a rubber life raft. Keene had been afloat for a day; his bomber had been lost on 31 August. Delivering the waterlogged sergeant to shore, Bisbee caught orders to head for Seadler Harbor in the Admiralty Islands.

Then came the Philippines

On 18 October 1944, Bisbee, accompanied by the destroyers USS Lang (DD-399) and Ross (DD-563), along with the old “Green Dragon” USS Herbert (APD-22), escorted an element (Capt. Bull Simmons’ B company) of the Sixth Ranger Battalion with supplies and equipment to Homonhon Island’s Black Beach Two so that the LCVP-borne Rangers could destroy Japanese installations there which guarded Leyte Gulf and set up nav beacons. Importantly, this was the first island in the Philippines chain to be liberated.

Similar landings were made on Suluan (D company) and Dinagat Islands (A, C, E, and F companies), paving the way for the main invasion on 20 October. The operation was under TG 78.5, with the group commander, Capt. F.W. Benson, USN, using Bisbee as his flag.

Bisbee herself fired 99 rounds of 3-inch ashore that morning from 4,000 yards.

Early morning bombardment of Homonhon Island, Philippines, 18 October 1944, likely from USS Bisbee. US Army SC 260632

A patrol of Company F, 6th Rangers, investigates a native village on Dinagat Island during Phase One of the invasion of Leyte Gulf, Philippines.

The next morning, on 19 October, Bisbee assumed the role of Harbor Entrance Control Post, guiding hundreds of ships of Admiral Kinkaid’s landing force safely into Leyte Gulf through the mined waters of Surigao Strait. Later that day, she fended off the first of what would be several enemy aircraft over the next week, resulting in some close calls, including a torpedo from a Japanese Betty bomber passing just under the frigate’s stern.

Six days later, while still in her “box,” Bisbee’s crew watched the veteran battlewagons of RADM Jesse “Oley” Oldendorf’s TG.77.2 demolish VADM Shoji Nishimura’s force, with the battleships Fuso and Yamashiro sunk.

Her Philippines duty continued for 34 days until Bisbee caught orders back to Pearl Harbor for a refit, arriving there on 15 December, just in time for an “Aloha Christmas.”

On 6 January 1945, she was ordered north to the Aleutians for duty with the reassigned CortDiv43 in those frozen waters along the Bering Sea. For the next six months, they escorted Army transports and merchant vessels shuttling between Dutch Harbor, Adak, Amchitka, and Attu while doubling as an air-sea rescue guardship for Alaska-based Fleet Air Wing 4.

As the war wound down, she was given another short refit in Seattle and decommissioned on 26 August 1945 at Cold Bay, Alaska.

“All Hands” party program cover cartoon map, July 1945, by QMSC William R. Finlay, USCGR

Bisbee earned two battle stars for her WWII service, for the Cape Sansapor operation in Biak (12 Aug 44 – 19 Aug 44, and 22 Aug 44 – 31 Aug 44) as well as the Leyte landings (12 Oct 44 – 22 Nov 44).

Caviar Dreams and Bolshevik Screams

The day after she decommissioned in Alaska, Bisbee was handed over to Soviet custody as part of the 149 vessels transferred, on loan, under Project Hula, an initiative that was designed to equip the Red Banner Pacific Fleet for planned Soviet invasions of southern Sakhalin and the Japanese Kurile Islands.

Her name changed to the unromantic EK-17; she was commissioned into Soviet service some 80 years ago this week, on 5 September 1945, and would remain in their custody for the rest of the decade.

American and Soviet commanding officers of the first ten frigates transferred at Cold Bay, July 1945. Commander John J. Hutson, Jr., USCG, the senior training officer, is seated, second from the left. Lieutenant E. H. Burt, USCGR, commanding Coronado (PF 38), is seated, second from the right.

The 28 Tacoma-class patrol frigates, unwanted by Big Navy, were still the largest, most heavily armed, and most expensive ships transferred during Hula. Even at that, they had been carefully sanitized to remove any equipment that was considered sensitive before transfer.

At least eight Tacomas saw combat with the Red Navy’s 10th Frigate Division in August, invading the Kuriles and Korea, with one even earning a “Guards” title.

A quick rundown:

EK-1 (Charlottesville, PF-25). Transferred to the USSR on 07/13/1945 and on 07/23/1945 became part of the Pacific Fleet. Participated in the landing at Seishin on 15 August 1945. Returned to the USA on 17 October 1949.

EK-2 (Long Beach, PF-34) Transferred to the USSR on 12 July 1945 and joined the Pacific Fleet on 23 July 1945. Participated in the landing of troops in Seishin on 14.08.1945 and Maoku on 20.08.1945. On 26.08.1945, he was awarded the “Guards” title. On 17.02.1950, he was returned to the USA.

EK-3 (Belfast, PF-35) Transferred to the USSR on 12.07.1945 and joined the Pacific Fleet on 23.07.1945. Participated in the landing of troops in Seishin on 15.08.1945 and Genzan (Wonsan) on 21.08.1945. Wrecked in 1948, used as a floating training hulk until 1960.

EK-4 (Machias, PF-53) Transferred to the USSR on 13.07.1945 and on 23.07.1945 entered the Pacific Fleet. Participated in the Kuril landing operation from August 18 to September 1, 1945. Returned to the United States in October 1949.

EK-5 (San Pedro, PF-37) Transferred to the USSR on July 12, 1945, and joined the Pacific Fleet on July 23, 1945. Participated in the landing at Racine (Najin) on 12.08.1945. Returned to the USA on 17.10.1949.

EK-6 (Glendale, PF-36) Transferred to the USSR on 13.07.1945 and on 23.07.1945 entered into the Pacific Fleet. Returned to the USA on 16.11.1949.

EK-7 (Sandusky, PF-54) Transferred to the USSR on July 13, 1945, and entered service with the Pacific Fleet on July 23, 1945. Participated in the landing of troops at Yuki (Ungi) on August 12, 1945. Returned to the USA on November 15, 1949.

EK-8 (Coronado, PF-38) Transferred to USSR on 13.07.1945 and joined the Pacific Fleet on 23.23.07.1945. Participated in the landing at Seishin (Chongjin) on 15.08.1945. Returned to USA on 16.10.1949.

EK-9 (Allentown, PF-52) Transferred to USSR on 13.07.1945 and joined the Pacific Fleet on 23.07.1945. Participated in the landing of troops at Yuki (Ungi) on 12.08.1945 and Seishin (Chongjin) on 15.08.1945. Returned to the USA on 15.10.1949.

EK-10 (Ogden, PF-39) Transferred to the USSR on 13.07.1945 and on 23.07.1945 entered into the Pacific Fleet. Returned to the USA on November 15, 1949.

EK-11 (Tacoma, PF-3) Transferred to the USSR on August 16, 1945, and joined the Pacific Fleet on August 26, 1945. Did not participate in combat. Returned to the USA on 16 October 1949.

EK-12 (Pasco, PF-6) Transferred to the USSR on 16 August 1945 and joined the Pacific Fleet on 26 August 1945. Did not participate in combat. Returned to the USA on 16 October 1949.

EK-13 (Hawkeye, PF-5) Transferred to the USSR on 16 August 1945 and joined the Pacific Fleet on 26 August 1945. Did not participate in combat. Returned to the USA on November 1, 1949.

EK-14 (Albuquerque, PF-7) Transferred to the USSR on August 17, 1945, and entered service with the Pacific Fleet on August 26, 1945. Did not participate in combat. Returned to the USA on November 15, 1949.

EK-15 (Everett, PF-8) Transferred to USSR on 17.08.1945 and joined the Pacific Fleet on 26.08.1945. Did not participate in combat. Returned to USA on 15.11.1949.

EK-16 (Sasalito, PF-4) Transferred to USSR in August 1945 and joined the Pacific Fleet on 26.08.1945. Did not participate in combat. Returned to the USA on 11/01/1949

EK-17 (Bisbee, PF-46) Transferred to USSR 27.08.1945 and joined Pacific Fleet 5.09.1945. Did not participate in combat. Returned to USA 1.11.1949

EK-18 (Rockford, PF-48) Transferred to USSR 27.08.1945 and joined Pacific Fleet 5.09.1945. Did not participate in combat. Returned to the USA on November 1, 1949.

EK-19 (Muskogee, PF-49) Transferred to the USSR on August 27, 1945, and on September 5, 1945, entered service with the Pacific Fleet. Did not participate in combat operations. Returned to the USA on November 1, 1949.

EK-20 (Carson City, PF-50) Transferred to the USSR on August 30, 1945, and entered service with the Pacific Fleet on September 5, 1945. Did not participate in combat. Returned to the USA on October 31, 1949.

EK-21 (Burlington, PF-51) Transferred to the USSR on 27.08.1945 and on 05.09.1945 entered into the Pacific Fleet. Did not participate in combat. Returned to the USA on 14.11.1949.

EK-22 (Gallup, PF-47) Transferred to the USSR in August 1945 and on 05.09.1945 entered into the Pacific Fleet. Did not participate in combat. Returned to the USA on November 14, 1949.

EK-25 (Bayonne, PF-21) Transferred to the USSR in September 1945 and entered service with the Pacific Fleet on September 9, 1945. Did not participate in combat. Returned to the USA on November 14, 1949.

EK-26 (Gloucester, PF-22) Transferred to the USSR on 4.09.1945 and joined the Pacific Fleet on 25.09.1945. Did not participate in combat. Returned to the USA on 31.10.1949.

EK-27 (Poughkeepsie, PF-26) Transferred to the USSR on 2.10.1945. Did not participate in combat. Returned to the USA on 31 October 1949.

EK-28 (Newport, PF-27) Transferred to the USSR on 10 September 1945 and joined the Pacific Fleet on 25 September 1945. Did not participate in combat. Returned to the USA on 11/14/1949.

EK-29 (Bath, PF-55) Transferred to the USSR on 13 July 1945 and joined the Pacific Fleet on 25 September 1945. Did not participate in combat operations. Returned to the USA on 15 November 1949.

EK-30 (Evansville, PF-70) Transferred to the USSR on 4.09.1945 and on 25.09.1945 entered into the Pacific Fleet. Did not participate in combat. Returned to the USA on 17.02.1950.

The 27 Tacomas still operational five years later were finally retrograded back to U.S. Navy custody in late 1949-early 1950 and were promptly laid up in Yokosuka.

Dozens of ex-Soviet Tacoma-class PFs were laid up at Yokosuka in January 1951. NH 97295

During the same immediate post-WWII period, the Navy had transferred more than two dozen other decommissioned Tacomas in its custody all over the world, with hulls going to Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Mexico, the Netherlands, and Peru.

While the Navy didn’t really want them back, they damned sure didn’t want the Russkis to have them.

Jane’s 1946 listing for the class, noting 41 hulls with many, marked by an asterisk, being in Soviet hands, with “no word on their return.” The rest had already been handed out to overseas allies.

In the Navy!

Ironically, when the North Koreans jumped over the 38th Parallel to attack their brothers to the South in June 1950, the 27 laid up ex-USCG, ex-Red Navy Tacomas in Yokosuka suddenly became valuable. After all, they were simple ships by design, were low mileage (the Soviets apparently didn’t leave port much in the late 1940s), and, most importantly, were forward deployed.

In all, 15 Tacomas were recommissioned for Korean War duty, 13 of which were drawn from the rusty and beat-up rat-infested ex-Soviet boats in caretaker status at Yokosuka.

Refurbished at Yokosuka in August and September, Bisbee was recommissioned on 18 October 1950 and served the next five months continuously, arriving off Wonsan on 26 November to join TG 95.2 and only tapping out on April Fool’s Day 1951 for a refit. Much of this was on the gun line.

Back on the line on 8 July 1951, she would serve through 25 September of that year and then fill a third stint off Korea from 29 October 1951 over the holidays until 23 January 1952.

By that time, the use of PFs off the Korean coast was curtailed as the ships were backfilled by more capable destroyers and DEs.

While in action in Korea, Bisbee earned five battle stars.

K-2 Communist China Aggression (3-24 Dec 50, 28 Dec 50-4 Jan 51)
K-4 First U. N. Counter Offensive (24 Feb-6 Mar 51, 24-29 Mar 51)
K-5 Communist China Spring Offensive (22 Jul-3 Aug 51)
K-6 U. N. Summer-Fall Offensive (19 Jul 51, 15-16 Aug 51, 23-25 Aug 51, 13-17 Sep 51, 21-23 Sep 51)
K-8 Korean Defensive 1952 (13-19 Jan 52)

South America Bound

On 12 February 1952 at Sasebo, Bisbee was decommissioned for a second time.

While 18 of her sisters in Japan went on to the newly established Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force, five went to the South Korean Navy.

JMSDF Kusu (Tree)-class frigates, former Tacoma-class patrol frigates, complete with rebooted IJN Rising Sun Flag. These ships were in extremely poor condition when transferred, having been Lend-Leased to the Soviets late in WWII and only returned in 1949, then placed in storage at Yokosuka. Notably, footage of them in JMSDF service appeared in 1954’s original Godzilla. While loaned to the Japanese military for initially five years, they were all eventually transferred outright and continued to serve into the 1970s.

Two (Glendale and Gallup) went south to Thailand while the final pair, Bisbee and Burlington, the latter also a fellow member of CortDiv43 during WWII, were sent around the world to join the Colombian Navy under the Mutual Defense Assistance Program.

Bisbee became ARC Capitan Tono (F 06, later F-12) while Burlington became ARC Almirante Brión (F-14).

ARC Capitan Tono (F 06), dressed on arrival in Colombian waters, 1952

They would serve with their former USCG-manned classmates ex-USS Groton, which had transferred in 1947.

Secretary of the Navy Dan A. Kimball (left) signs the Memorandum of Understanding transferring USS Bisbee (PF-46) to the Colombian Government, in his Pentagon office, 16 November 1951. In the center is Colombian Ambassador Don Dipriano Restrepo-Jaramillo. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Thomas G. Mann is at right. Bisbee served in the Colombian Navy as Capitan Tono. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-708424

Colombia Almirante Padilla class PFs: Bisbee, Groton, Burlington, 1960 Janes

Captain Tono (Columbian frigate, ex-USS Bisbee, PF -46) off Coco Solo, Canal Zone, 6 July 1955. NH 50604

Same as above, NH 81516

Bow on, NH 81515

She continued to serve until 1963, when she was scrapped.

Epilogue

Today, little remains of Bisbee that I can find other than the images in this post and her records in the National Archives.

She has a wall plaque at the National Museum of the Pacific War in Texas.

In Bisbee, Arizona, a large, scale model was in City Hall until it was destroyed in a fire in 2017. The Copper Queen Mine Museum outside of town maintains a similar model of our frigate, along with other relics.

One of her WWII USCG crew, LT (j.g.) John Bagdley, penned a sketch book on his service aboard, 2007’s “Frigate Men: Life on Coast Guard Frigate.”

Her plankowner skipper, CDR German, who guided his frigate through New Guinea and the Philippines, remained in USCG service after the war and in 1959 was the captain of the famed icebreaker USCGC Mackinaw. He passed in 1963, aged just 55, and is buried at Arlington.

As for the Tacomas, class leader PF-3, on whose deck Bisbee’s crew trained before taking to their own ship, is preserved in South Korea, having served in that country’s navy until 1973. Meanwhile, both the old Glendale and Gallup, both of which served with Bisbee in the Pacific and under the Red Star, are preserved in Thailand.

HTMS Prasae (PF-2), ex-USS Gallup (PF-47).

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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Siriuspatruljen at 75

Posted on August 26, 2025 by laststandonzombieisland 2 comments

Danish polar explorer Ejnar Mikkelsen is perhaps most famous to the internet for this image, snapped in 1912 after he and a partner survived two winters marooned and trapped in a cottage in northernmost Greenland:

To be fair to Mikkelsen, an explorer, author (eight books, numerous studies and reports), and administrator (he spent two decades as the Royal Inspector of East Greenland), was a pretty together guy who deserves his monuments and accolades.

Mikkelsen when not looking so haggard.

Well, he has returned to the frozen island in a sense in the form of the 1,750-ton Knud Rasmussen-class patrol vessel HDMS Ejnar Mikkelsen (P571), which is scouting the famed explorer’s old stomping grounds, which has since 1974 been known as the Northeast Greenland National Park. Covering about a fourth of the island, the park is some 375,000 sq. mi. in size, making it larger than 166 countries.

An interesting thing about Mikkelsen’s patrol of the NGNP is that it is carrying members of the Navy’s Sled Patrol Sirius (Slædepatruljen Sirius), aiding the elite unit in its summer sovereignty patrols and sending them ashore via small boat.

Mikkelsen, the explorer, had a role in the creation of Sirius, which was a carryover from a WWII sled patrol set up by the Greenland government while he was trapped back in occupied Denmark. The explorer was still Royal Inspector when the current patrol was rebooted 75 years ago this month.

The patrol and surveillance service was originally established to prevent unwanted activity during wartime and to fulfill Denmark’s sovereignty obligations through the surveillance service in peacetime. The patrol carries out its tasks year-round, using dog sleds in the winter months and patrol vessels in the summer.

Their traditional armament consists of the M1917 Enfield bolt-action rifle in .30-06 (typed as the Gevær M/53-17) and the Glock Gen 3 G20 in 10mm Auto. However, they have also been seen recently practicing with suppressor-equipped Gevær M/10 and Denmark’s Colt Canada-made C8/M4s.

Since its first sortie from Ella Ø Station on 18 August 1950, Sirius has mushed 773,108 miles in the northeastern part of Greenland. This is equivalent to 31 times around the world– and all of it with dog sleds in a high Arctic climate.

They use about 95 locally procured Greenlandic sled dogs (grønlandske slædehund) with new fur-clad talent scouted every year from around the island by a Navy veterinarian to keep the pack at its fittest.

Sirius consists of six sled teams (plans are to beef this up to eight teams in the next year), each consisting of two men and 11 to 15 dogs. These dozen men are supported by another dozen station personnel (stationsspecialister) at the four remote bases who handle support/meteorological/radio duties, giving the whole operation a force of 24. When traveling, each sled team carries approximately 770 to 1,100 pounds of gear, depending on the distance to the next depot.

Running 26-month tours, each sled team contains a senior member, the patrol leader (patruljefører), who has already “walked the beat” for 13 months and has mastered glaciers, frostbite, and polar bears, teamed with a junior member fresh out of training assigned to learn the ropes.

Speaking of training, before a new patrol member sets foot in Greenland, they have to pass a grueling 10-month Sirius Forskole course run by the Jaegerkorpset commando corps in North Jutland which typically starts with 48 carefully prescreened (marching and orientation tests, swim tests, rigorous health and psychological screening) volunteers and is whittled down to the best six over the evolution.

Sirius has its headquarters at Daneborg (over winter contingent 12, originally established in 1943 by the USCGC Storis with an Army weather detachment as Station OYK), and maintains personnel at Station Nord, Grønnedal, and Mestersvig, each with a 3-to-5 member overwinter team.

The only population in the region, other than the Sirius teams, their support personnel, and the ~400 inhabitants of the hunting village of Ittoqqortoormiit at the base of the park, are at three government-owned research stations at Brønlundhus (run by the University of Copenhagen), the Danmarkshavn weather station, and Zackenberg (run by Aarhus University). The research stations may sport as many as a few hundred transient expedition members in the summer, dropping down to a skeleton crew over winter.

Station Nord/Villum Research Station is the furthest north manned Sirius station, at some 700 miles overland from Thule (Pituffik Space Base, the DoD’s northernmost installation). It is also celebrating its 50th anniversary this month, established in 1975, and has been permanently manned since then.

Station Nord today.

Station personnel at the four Sirius bases, usually assorted Navy mechanics and maintenance rates, have to undergo a similar screening process and a shorter seven-month training school as well as make the same 26-month tour of duty, teaming up senior stationsspecialister with junior ones on a rotating basis.

Sirius also utilizes more than 50 unmanned depot huts scattered across the patrolled area. The nominally polar bear-proof caches are resupplied by small boats in the southern area, and by aircraft in the northern part.

‘Investigate probable spacecraft radar contact bearing 160, distance 25 miles’

Posted on August 21, 2025 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

It happened 60 years ago today.

21 August 1965: Recovery of part of the first stage of NASA’s Gemini V first stage Titan II booster, the first to ever be retrieved from space, was made by the Forrest Sherman-class destroyer USS Dupont (DD-941).

NASA photo

The booster was used to launch the third crewed Gemini flight from Cape Kennedy, Florida, and re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere 450 miles Northeast of the launch site. Spotted by a passing aircraft, Dupont was bird-dogged to the floating fragment.

The ship’s crew managed to lug the partially flattened 27-foot 15,000-pound booster section aboard, complete with its (empty) nitrogen tetroxide tank, and return it to shore a week later, where it was later returned to Martin’s plant in Baltimore and found to be in “remarkable condition.”

As noted by her deck log:

While the manned capsule, with Air Force Col. Gordon Cooper and Navy LCDR Charles Conrad aboard, was “officially” recovered by the aircraft carrier USS Lake Champlain (CV-39), Dupont, as part of the 19-ship recovery task force, remained busy during Gemini V’s weeklong trip– at the time the longest crewed space mission.

After recovering the booster, Dupont spent the next day drilling with an unoccupied Gemini boilerplate capsule she had aboard, then steamed to NAVSTA Bermuda for a short port call before heading towards Norfolk, stopping on the way on the 29th to “investigate probable spacecraft radar contact bearing 160, distance 25 miles.”

Cooper and Conrad had returned, and Dupont was the closest vessel to splashdown.

“Escorting Gemini V to USS Lake Champlain.” USS Dupont was the closest ship for the recovery of Gemini 5. Navy divers from the destroyer recovered the astronauts and transferred them via helicopter to USS Lake Champlain. Painting, Watercolor on Paper; by Luis Llorente; 1965; Unframed Dimensions 30H X 22W Accession #: 88-162-CO

88-162-CT These sketches show the sequence of retrieving the command module – recovery by the UDT team Gemini 5

Dupont made Norfolk’s Pier 20 on the morning of the 31st, wrapping her month.

Just a normal week in the life of a 1960s tin can.

Commissioned in 1957, she was the third (and last) destroyer named for Mexican War hero RADM Samuel Francis Du Pont. Besides the Cuban Missile Crisis quarantine and her work for NASA, she served three stints on the gunline off Vietnam, firing over 50,000 rounds of 5-inch shells in NGFS.

USS Du Pont (DD-941) underway in 1967

Given an SCB 251 update with ASROC and improved sensors, she continued to serve and clocked in again for NGFS off Lebanon in 1982.

Aerial starboard bow view of the destroyer USS Du Pont (DD-941) off the coast of Lebanon, during a multinational peacekeeping operation. The ship was deployed here after a confrontation took place between Israeli forces and the Palestine Liberation Organization. PH3 R.P. Fitzgerald, DN-ST-83-02991 / National Archive# NN33300514 2005-06-30

DuPont was decommissioned on 4 March 1983 and, after a decade in mothballs, was sold for scrap.

Speaking of scrap, the Gemini V booster section, the only recovered non-spacecraft launch item in the U.S. collection until the Shuttle program’s boosters in 1981, is preserved at the Space Force Museum in Florida after being at Redstone Arsenal since the 1970s.

Warship Wednesday, August 20, 2025: Sortie Queen

Posted on August 20, 2025 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Warship Wednesday, August 20, 2025: Sortie Queen

Photo believed to have been taken by a Sgt. Nutter, 4 August 1950. 111-SC-345275.

Above we see a Grumman F9F-2B Panther from Fighter Squadron 112 (VF-112), “Fighting One Twelve,” on the flight deck of the Essex-class fleet carrier USS Philippine Sea (CV-47), during operations off Korea, circa August 1950.

Some 75 years ago this month, this oft-forgotten flattop proved herself to the men holding the embattled Pusan Perimeter in America’s most forgotten war.

And she was just getting started.

Meet the Philippine Sea

Originally to be dubbed USS Wright after the aviation pioneer, our ship was instead the first named for the epic “Marianas Turkey Shoot” battle that sprawled across the Philippine Sea in June 1944.

The future CV-47 was laid down by Bethlehem Steel in Quincy, Massachusetts, on 19 August 1944, just two months after the sea clash. She was launched three days after the Japanese surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay, sponsored by the wife of Kentucky Democratic Senator Albert Benjamin “Happy” Chandler, a man who only narrowly missed becoming FDR’s running mate to some fellow from Missouri earlier that summer.

Launching an Essex-class carrier, the future USS Philippine Sea (CV-47), Bethlehem Steel Co., Quincy, Massachusetts, Wednesday, 5 September 1945. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Record Group 181, National Archives Identifier 38330011.

Incomplete and with no need for more hulls to push on Japan, she could have easily been written off and canceled along with other Essex class sisters such as the would-be USS Reprisal (CV-35) and Iwo Jima (CV-46), which had been laid down before and after Philippine Sea but never launched. The fact that CV-47 was afloat and not still on the builder’s ways at the end of the war probably saved her from an early scrapping. FDR had already canceled CV-50 through CV-55 in March 1945, before they were formally ordered.

USS Philippine Sea nonetheless continued her fitting out process, effectively a replacement for the soon-to-be decommissioned USS Saratoga (CV-3), which was consigned to the Atomic tests at Bikini Atoll and stricken in August 1946.

Philippine Sea commissioned 11 May 1946, Capt. (later RADM) Delbert Strother Cornwell (USNA 1922), in command. Cornwell knew flattops, had earned his wings in 1925, and commanded the jeep carriers USS Nassau (CVE-16) and Suwanee (CVE-27) during the war, earning a Legion of Merit to go along with the latter’s Presidential Unit Citation for operations off Okinawa.

USS Philippine Sea (CV-47) anchored at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, during her 1946 shakedown cruise. National Naval Aviation Museum photo, 1996.488.114.055.

After a month-long shakedown in the Caribbean with the Bearcats, Helldivers, and Avengers of CVG-20 in October 1946, she returned to Boston to join Task Force 68 and prepare the Navy’s big Antarctic Expedition, Operation Highjump.

She would operate aircraft that the designers of CV-9 could never have anticipated.

Amazing High Jump Antics

Cruise Chart used during Operation High Jump, which was the U.S. Navy’s Expedition to the Antarctic during 1946-1947 and was headed by Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd, USN. Collection of Mr. Gerald E. Foreman

For her part of Highjump– which included Byrd’s command ship USS Mount Olympus (AGC-8), two PBM Mariner carrying seaplane tenders, two destroyers, a submarine, two helicopter-carrying icebreakers, two oilers and two cargo ships– rather than a traditional airwing, Philippine Sea carried six huge Douglas R4D-5L Skytrain (Douglas DC-3/C-47) transports on deck along with 57 tons of construction material that was to be used to improve Byrd’s “Little America” base.

The idea was to launch these 29,000-pound 27-passenger aircraft, with their 63-foot wingspan, ashore to help conquer Antarctica. Keep in mind that Doolittle’s B-25Bs were only marginally bigger (67-foot span, 33,000-pound TO weight).

Equipped with skis for operating from the ice cap and assisted by two JATO bottles, CDR William Hawkes (with Rear Admiral Richard Byrd aboard) flew the first of the R4Ds off the deck on 29 January– first carrier take-off for the R4D. Two aircraft made it to Little America that day, while the other four followed on the 30th.

“On 29 January 1947, while still 660 miles off the Antarctic continent, our carrier launched the first of six R4D Skytrain transport aircraft to Little America. CDR William M. Hawkes piloted the first plane, which carried RADM Richard E. Byrd Jr. as a passenger. The aircraft used JATO to take off, and skis attached to their landing gear facilitated ice cap operations. The event marked the first carrier launches for Skytrains.”

All six made it ashore, and these planes, operated along with the six water-borne PBM flying boats for 24 days, logged 650 hours of flight time on photographic mapping flights covering 1,500,000 sq. mi of the interior and 5,500 miles of coastline of the continent of Antarctica, much of it had never before been photographed. Over 70,000 images were captured.

As for the 57 tons of construction material, the carrier cross-decked it over to the icebreaker USCGC Northwind for delivery ashore.

Original caption: Cargo being transferred from the USS Philippine Sea to the Coast Guard Ice-Breaking Cutter Northwind, on Operation Highjump, the Navy’s venture of exploration to the Antarctic. The Coast Guard Ice-Breaker has the task of opening lanes through heavy ice when other vessels with thinner plating cannot force their way through. NARA 26-G-5062

At least a dozen Skytrains, most WWII vets, went on to serve in Antarctica with the “Puckered Penguins” of VX-6 well into the 1960s. One, BuNo12418 (MSN 9358) ex-USAAF 42-23496, “Que Sera Sera,” on Halloween 1956 during Deep Freeze II, brought the first humans to the South Pole since Capt. Robert F. Scott of the Royal Navy reached it in 1912. Its co-pilot for that record-setting mission was the same Bill Hawkes who first flew a Skytrain off the Philippine Sea in 1947.

The U.S. Navy Douglas R4D-5L Que Sera Sera (BuNo 12418, c/n 9358, ex USAAF 42-23496) landing at the South Pole as seen from a U.S. Air Force Douglas C-124 Globemaster. This aircraft was the first aircraft to land on the South Pole on 31 October 1956. Crew: pilot LCdr. Conrad S. Shinn, copilot Capt. William. M. Hawkes; navigator, Lt. John Swadener; crew chief, AD2 John P. Strider; radioman AT2 William Cumbie; Rear Adm. George J. Dufek, Commander Task Force 43 and Commander Naval Support Forces, Antarctica; and Capt. Douglas L. L. Cordiner, Commanding Officer of Antarctic Development Squadron 6 (VX-6). These were the first people to stand at the South Pole since January 1912. The aircraft is today on display at the National Museum of Naval Aviation at Pensacola.

Back to our carrier, in warmer climes

Post-Highjump, the Philippine Sea was soon to carry a series of airwings that could have come right out of the last days of WWII– with the addition of helicopters. She did this while supporting early jets off and on as well.

Returning stateside, she began a relationship with CVAG-9, whose wing included Bearcats, Helldivers, photo/night Hellcats, Avengers, and HO3S-1 whirlybirds. She carried the wing for a short March-May 1947 Caribbean cruise, followed by a February-June 1948 Mediterranean deployment. She made a second Med cruise with the similarly equipped fighter-heavy CVG-7 in January-May 1949, which traded Helldivers for Corsairs.

USS Philippine Sea (CV-47) exercising at sea with another carrier and a heavy cruiser, circa 1948. Note: “E” painted on her stack, location of hull number below the after end of her island; and HO3S helicopter on her flight deck. 80-G-706709

FH-1 Phantom of Fighter Squadron (VF) 171 pictured on approach for recovery on board USS Philippine Sea (CV 47), 24 August 1948. Only 62 of these early jet fighters were produced by McDonnell in the late 1940s and would lead to the development of the much more prolific F2H Banshee. NNAM

Accustomed to the roar of aircraft, crew members work on an anti-aircraft gun aboard USS Philippine Sea (CV-47) as an SB2C-5 Helldiver of Bombing Squadron 9A (VA-9A) roars overhead after launch from the carrier in 1948. This was one of the last carrier deployments with the Helldiver, as it was retired in favor of the Skyraider in June 1949.

USS Philippine Sea (CV-47) looking forward over Mt. 52 (her second 5″/38 twin mount) at embarked CVG-7 aircraft, while the ship lies off Sicily on 29 January 1949. Grumman F8F-1 “Bearcat” fighters are spotted forward. Note Mt. Aetna in the background, also other ships. Identifiable: USS Ellyson (DMS-19) (L) Italian battleship; either Andrea Doria or Caio Duilio. 80-G-402219

USS Philippine Sea (CV 47), moored in Naples, Italy. Photograph released February 6, 1949. 80-G-399785

Then came one more Caribbean cruise in September-November 1949, with CVG-1 embarked.

F8F Bearcat USS Philippine Sea (CV 47) 28 Feb 1950, NNAM

Then came…

Korea

On 24 May 1950, Philippine Sea shifted homeports from the East Coast to the West, arriving at San Diego to join the Pacific Fleet. A month and a day later, North Korean forces swept over the 38th Parallel into neighboring South Korea.

Just ten days into this new war, Philippine Sea left San Diego on 5 July with 95 aircraft of CVG-2 aboard: 32 F9F Panthers, 28 F4U-4B Corsairs, 16 AD-4 Skyraiders. Smaller dets included radar-equipped night fighters (four F4U-5Ns and four AD-4Ns), two F4U-4P photo birds, four AD-3Ws Skyraider early-warning radar pickets, four AD-4Q Skyraider electronic countermeasures aircraft, and a HO3S whirlybird.

The ship’s Disbursing officer drew $1 million in U.S. currency, enough to cover four months’ pay allowances. The ship’s intel shop ordered 150 each blood hits, cloth survival charts, and “pointee-talkies” in both Korean and Chinese for aircrews.

Speeding across the Pacific and stopping in Hawaii for eight rushed days of carrier quals, she arrived off Korea with her sister, USS Valley Forge, as flagship of Task Force 77, on 5 August. Offensive air operations commenced at 1212K, with the launching of a strike group winch had as its mission, the destruction of a railway bridge and two highway bridges near the town of Iri (Iksan), South Korea, in an attempt to halt the oncoming enemy forces.

Between 4 August and 6 September 1950, the Philippine Sea lost four Corsairs and three Panthers in high-tempo ops, with four aviators killed. Running as many as 140 sorties a day, they fired over 351,690 machine gun rounds in strafing runs, along with 4,284 3.5- and 5-inch rockets.

They dropped no less than 3,094 bombs:

Back on the line from 12-21 September 1950 after a short stint in Sasebo, her airwing pulled 868 sorties in those eight days, firing 112,350 rounds in strafing runs along with 2,133 rockets and 748 bombs. They also dropped their first napalm, around the Pusan Perimeter, some 5,780 pounds of jellied gasoline made with Navy Type I powder used in Mk12 (150-gallon) and Mk5 drop (300-gallon) tanks repurposed for the task. Later, thousands of Japanese-made drop tanks were sourced specifically for this purpose.

And so it went, day after day.

F9F Panther of VF-111 in flight over Korea, from USS Philippine Sea

USS Philippine Sea (CV-47). A Grumman F9F-2 Panther of Fighter Squadron 111 (VF-111) being moved by a flight deck tractor, during operations off Korea, circa 19 October 1950. Other planes parked nearby are Vought F4U-4B Corsairs. 80-G-420925

USS Philippine Sea (CV-47). Grumman F9F-2 Panther from Fighter Squadron 112 (VF-112) on the flight deck, during operations off Korea, circa 19 October 1950. Note spectators on “Vultures Row,” the island walkways. 80-G-420946

Besides the Panthers, these bad early days in Korea saw the old “gull-winged angel of death,” the F4U-4B Corsair clock in and perform brilliantly.

John D. Robinson, AO2, USN, of Imperial Beach, CA, pushes a bomb dolly loaded with 100-pound anti-personnel bombs past a partially loaded VF-113 F4U-4B on the flight deck of the USS Philippine Sea (CV-47) as aircraft are made ready for a strike on Korea. NNAM

Vought F4U-4B Corsair Fighters, of VF-113 (300 numbers) and VF-114 “Executioners,” (400 numbers) prepare for launching aboard USS Philippine Sea (CV-47), during strikes on North Korean targets, circa 19 October 1950. Note small bombs, with fuse extensions, on the planes’ wings. 80-G-420926

USS Philippine Sea (CV-47). Ordnance men loading bombs on a Vought F4U-4B Corsair of Fighter Squadron 114 (VF-114), during operations off Korea, circa 19 October 1950. This aircraft is Bureau No. 63034. F4U-4 in the right background has tail code “PP”, indicating that it belongs to squadron VC-61. 80-G-420921

USS Philippine Sea (CV-47). Vought F4U-4B “Corsair” of Fighter Squadron 114 (VF-114) taking off for a mission over Korea, circa 19 October 1950. Other F4Us are following. 80-G-420967.

Vought F4U-4B Corsair, of Fighter Squadron 114 (VF-114). Returns to USS Philippine Sea (CV-47) following a strike on North Korean targets, circa 19 October 1950. 80-G-420942.

Carrier Philippine Sea (CV 47), ordancemen load a 500-lb. bomb on a F4U-4 Corsair, Korea, September 5, 1950 NNAM

One of the Philippine Sea’s F4U-4B Corsairs from VF-113 (Stingers) over Inchon, 15 Sept 1950, with the battlewagon USS Missouri below. NH 97076

And of course, the mother beautiful AD Skyraider, which was capable of carrying much more ordnance than the Corsair.

USS Philippine Sea (CV-47). Ordnancemen hauling bombs on the carrier’s flight deck, preparing planes for attacks on enemy targets in Korea, circa 19 October 1950. A Douglas AD-4 Skyraider of Attack Squadron 115 (VA-115) is behind them, with small bombs on its wing racks. 80-G-420919.

USS Philippine Sea (CV-47). Douglas AD Skyraider of Attack Squadron 115 (VF-115) ready for launching on a strike mission against Korean targets, circa 19 October 1950. 80-G-420934.

As well as some of the first helicopter-borne sea-based CSAR operations in military history by the Sikorski HO3S-1s of Helicopter Utility Squadron One (HU-1).

HO3S-1s of HU-1 on board USS Philippine Sea (CV-47) during operations off Korea, circa 19 October 1950. Crewman is backing off the vacuum before starting the helicopter’s engine. Note the aircraft carrier in the distance, likely Valley Forge. 80-G-420949

Sikorski HO3S-1 helicopter, of Helicopter Utility Squadron One (HU-1). Hovers near USS Philippine Sea (CV-47), awaiting the return of aircraft from missions over Korea, circa 19 October 1950. Crewmen foreground are standing by their stations on one of the ship’s 40mm gun mounts. Note the screening destroyer in the middle distance. 80-G-420950.

During strikes on bridges over the Yalu River, on 9 November 1950, LCDR William T. Amen, the skipper of VF-111 off USS Philippine Sea (CV 47), scored the Navy’s first MiG-15 in a jet vs. jet engagement in Naval Aviation history. Ironically, he did it in a borrowed Panther from rival VF-112.

The high tempo of the ops required a huge logistical support with regular unreps. The war of shifting avgas and ordnance from deck to deck to keep the sorties rolling.

USS Philippine Sea (CV-47) receives bombs from USS Mount Katmai (AE-16) during underway replenishment off Korea, 29 November 1950. Note crewmen standing in the carrier’s forward hangar bay, and Grumman F9F-2 Panther fighters and a LeTourneau crane parked on her flight deck. Crewmen on Mount Katmai are wearing cold-weather clothing. A few days after this photo was taken, Philippine Sea commenced a period of close-support operations in the vicinity of the Chosin Reservoir. 80-G-439879

USS Philippine Sea (CV-47), 250-pound bombs being loaded under the wings of a Douglas AD Skyraider of Attack Squadron 65, during operations off the Korean coast. A cart of 5-inch rockets and a second cart of 250-pound bombs are also present. 80-G-439902

USS Philippine Sea (CV-47) members of the carrier’s Ordnance Department pose with decorated 2000-pound bombs, during Korean War operations, 9 March 1951. Messages painted on the bombs are: Greetings from PhilCee; Happy Easter; and Listen! To This One it will Kill you. Among the planes parked in the background are F4U-4Bs of Fighter Squadron 113 (VF-113). 80-G-439895

The weather in Korea in winter can be unforgiving, as the deck crews on CV-47 found out.

The use of rockets in extreme freezing weather was curtailed as the motors failed to ignite. It was found that napalm wouldn’t gel at the known rates at temperatures below 60 degrees F, and the ship’s ordnance men and officers with a chemistry background had to improvise a system onboard using low-pressure steam, heated gasoline (!), and flexible steel and copper tubing looped inside 55-gallon drums to get it to mix. The 20mm cannons of the Corsairs and Panthers had heaters, but it was found out that their lifespan was only about 30 hours. Even then, the freezing of condensed water on the gun parts and the ammunition trays and cans caused repeated jams. Crews liberally took to using muzzle tape. The hydraulic system on the F9Fs became sluggish with congealed hydrolube at low temperatures to the point that the landing gear took 85 seconds to lower and lock into place.

Still, across 1 November-31 December 1950, her group dropped 4,547 bombs of all types, mainly 100-pound GPs in close air support roles over the push into North Korea and the fight for the Chosin.

As detailed by ADM David L. McDonald in 1964, the four carrier airwings available to the U.S. X Corps (1st MarDiv, 3rd U.S. Inf Div, 7th U.S. InfDiv) at Chosin was key to preserving the force:

For 16 successive days, the surrounded Tenth Corps received on the order of 220 close support sorties a day with a record peak of 315 on one day at the height of the breakout. Each carrier-based sortie remained on station from one to 1.5 hours and made between five and nine attack passes. Over three-quarters of these sorties were provided by carriers, and it is unlikely that the Tenth Corps would have broken out to the coast without them. As a result of the severe losses inflicted on the Chinese by the Tenth Corps and tactical air, the subsequent evacuation of over 100,000 troops and their full equipment was accomplished with negligible loss.

USS Philippine Sea (CV-47) Grumman F9F-2 Panther fighters of VF-111 & VF-112 parked on the flight deck, forward, during a snowstorm off the Korean coast, 15 November 1950. 80-G-439871

USS Philippine Sea (CV-47). Flight deck scene, looking aft from the island, as the carrier is enveloped in a snowstorm off the Korean coast, 15 November 1950. Planes on deck include Vought F4U-4B Corsair fighters and Douglas AD Skyraider strike planes. Note men on deck, apparently tossing snowballs, and what may be a toppled snowman just in front of the midships elevator. 80-G-439869

USS Philippine Sea (CV-47). Crewmen Gerald F. Quay (AMM3c) and Warren E. McKee (PH2c) check braces on a napalm tank during a snowstorm off North Korea, 17 November 1950. The weapon is mounted on the port wing of a Douglas AD Skyraider of VA-115 parked on the carrier’s flight deck. 80-G-422341

AD-4 Skyraider assigned to VA-15, its wing racks loaded with bombs, launches from USS Philippine Sea (CV 47) for a combat mission over Korea, 23 November 1950. NNAM

Vought F4U-4B Corsair BuNo # 62924 landing on USS Philippine Sea (CV-47) after attacking targets in Korea, circa 7 December 1950. This plane belongs to Fighter Squadron 113 (VF-113). 80-G-423961.

USS Philippine Sea CV-47 launching Grumman F9F Panthers off of Korea – Dec 1950 LIFE John Domins

And into January..

Crew members of USS Philippine Sea (CV 47) clear snow from the deck of the carrier so that another strike could be launched against enemy forces in Korea. It was the second time that morning that heavy snow was cleaned off the deck. Photograph released February 23, 1951. 80-G-426797

By late March, with the aircraft and crews of CVG-11 worn out after eight months of round-the-clock operations, Philippine Sea put into Yokosuka and welcomed aboard CVG-2. With the problems with the Panther apparent in cold weather, the new air wing was light on jets but heavy on props, with three full squadrons of Corsairs (VF-64, VF-63, and VA-24) and one of Skyraiders (VA-65).

F4U-4 Corsair VF 63 USS Philippine Sea (CV 47) Korea 1951 NNAM

Leaving Japan on April Fool’s Day 1951, the carrier and her fresh air wing were diverted to Formosa (Taiwan), where her wing carried out a series of “air parades” along the east coast of Communist China for three days to make sure Mao knew where the U.S. stood concerning the semi-independence of the island.

USS Philippine Sea (CV-47) underway at sea, 9 April 1951, while en route to operating areas off Formosa. 80-G-439899

A film shot on 21 April 1951 shows her 5-inch battery at work in a live fire shoot-ex, perhaps one of the last such videos from an Essex-class carrier, along with footage of her escort, the light cruiser USS Juneau (CL-119), and NP-marked F4U-4 Corsairs and AD Skyraiders conducting fight ops.

She then shifted back to Korea, where she was once again in the thick of close air support. Over the next two months, CVG-2 suffered 13 aircraft lost and 139 damaged (some repeatedly) with an average of 103 sorties scheduled per day.

Check out these figures for those two months, including 2 million rounds of ammunition and more than 15,000 bombs– not including 1,973 napalm tanks:

Bomb-loaded F4U-4 Corsairs of VF-24 from Carrier Air Group (CVG) 2, on the flight deck of USS Philippine Sea (CV-47), April–June 1951. Robert L. Lawson Photo Collection UA 410.05

By the time Philippine Sea made it back to the West Coast on 9 June, she had spent 264 days underway and only 76 in port, steaming 108,000 miles. Her airwings had logged more than 12,000 combat sorties, dropping more than 7,000 tons of aviation ordnance.

She set a record of sorts from Yokohama to San Francisco, steaming the distance in 7 days, 13 hours, averaging 25.2 knots.

USS Philippine Sea (CV-47). Passes under the Oakland Bay Bridge as she arrives at San Francisco, California, upon her return from the Korean War zone, circa 9 June 1951. Crewmen on the flight deck are spelling out “CVG 2” in honor of her air group. NH 97322.

Following six months of much-needed rest and refit, Philippine Sea was headed back to Korea with CVG-11 once again, pulling stumps on New Year’s Eve 1951 for a seven-month, one-week cruise.

This cruise saw the arrival of the new and much more advanced Panther photo reconnaissance planes, which replaced the venerable F4U-4P photo Corsairs. Its K438 camera loaded with K17 aerial film in A-8 magazines, they captured miles of prints with one batch of 39 sorties generating 28,745 10x10s, keeping the ship’s photo lab guys busy. For BDA during strikes, WWII-era K-25 camera pods carrying 55-exposure reels were loaded on the occasional Corsair and Skyraider.

USS Philippine Sea (CV-47), LT Zack Taylor of VC-61 Det. M gets ready for a reconnaissance flight over enemy territory while the carrier was operating off Korea in April 1952. His plane is a Grumman F9F-2P photo version of the Panther jet fighter. Note the camera window in the plane’s nose, and Lt. Taylor’s rare, ridged Type H-4 helmet. The F9F-2P removed the four 20mm cannons of the standard F9F-2 and replaced them with photographic equipment. Only 36 F9F-2Ps were made. NH 97114

CVG-11’s second war cruise on the Philippine Sea was more of the same, a daily slog at low level. A war of 100-pound GP bombs and 20mm/.50 cals targeting trucks and railcars from 500 feet.

Korea F9F-2 Panthers of VF-191 “Satans Kittens” return to carrier USS Princeton (CV-37) background is USS Philippine Sea (CV-47)

A sample of one week:

Philippine Sea returned to San Diego on 8 August 1952.

While stateside, our carrier was redesignated an attack carrier, CVA-47, on 1 October 1952, along with most of her class.

Headed back to Korea on 15 December 1952, she carried CVG-9 once again, her original airwing from her 1947 Caribbean and first (1948) Med cruise. By that time, CVG-9 had traded in its Bearcats, Avengers, and Helldivers for two squadrons of Panthers, one of Corsairs, and one of Skyraiders.

This cruise saw the use of unmanned platforms, specifically UF-tail coded F6F-5K Hellcat drones of VU-3K, used in attacks against enemy targets. These typically carried a 2,000-pound bomb centerline and a TV pod slung under their wings, allowing an AD-2Q Skyraider to fly these early cruise missiles into their targets.

Drone F6F-5KD Hellcats assigned to VU-3K launch from USS Philippine Sea (CVA 47) 17 June 1953. These aircraft had bright yellow wings with red bands. NNAM

An F6F-5K Hellcat drone assigned to VU-3K is pictured on the flight deck of USS Philippine Sea (CVA 47), 18 June 1953. NNAM

She kept fighting right up to the ceasefire.

In the three days (24-26 July) before the ceasefire, the three TF77 carriers maxed out on sorties, running an amazing 72-hour total of 1,839 aimed at damming up the Chinese/Nork forces, then on the offensive. USS Princeton’s air group flew 159/142/164 sorties in those three days, and USS Lake Champlain flew 150/148/166. However, Philippine Sea bested them both by hitting 167/166/161, her highest three-day run, and perhaps the highest of any Essex-class carrier in any campaign as far as I can tell.

In the 12 days between 15-27 July 1953, CVG-9 logged 1,098 sorties, with its two Panther squadrons, VF-91 and VF-93, running 283 each, compared to the Corsair unit (VF-94)’s 196 and the AD unit (VA-95)’s 203, showing that the once very finicky F9F had hit its stride. By the time combat operations ended, CVG-9 had chalked up 7,243 combat sorties in its seven months off Korea, with over half, 3,754, attributed to its Panthers. Individual pilots logged 16,841 hours on the cruise, averaging almost 150 per aviator.

CVG-9’s tally sheet for the January-July 1953 cruise:

The close air support was a meat grinder, with 24 aircraft lost (including 21 ditchings and crash water landings) and 38 damaged beyond shipboard repair.

USS Philippine Sea (CVA-47), Lt(JG) Hugh N. Batten lands his damaged Grumman F9F-2 Panther after it was hit by enemy anti-aircraft fire. The photo is dated 12 July 1953– just 15 days from the Armistice Agreement. This plane’s nose covering has been entirely torn away. 80-G-484863

RADM Apollo Soucek, ComCarDivThree flashed, “The hard pushes delivered by Philippine Sea and her air group will long be remembered as a splendid example of fighting Teamwork under difficult conditions. My congratulations on your performance and best wishes for continued success.”

By 30 July 1953, Philippine Sea had logged her 59,553th arrested landing since her commissioning in 1946.

She arrived back on the West Coast on 14 August 1953.

Too late for WWII, the Philippine Sea received nine battle stars for Korean service.

Continued service

Philippine Sea made two further “non-shooting” deployments to the uneasy Western Pacific with a mix of Panthers and Skyraiders of CVG-5 (12 March-19 November 1954) and one with the F9F-6 Cougars and Skyraiders of the short-lived ATG-2 (1 April-23 November 1955).

The 1954 cruise saw her air wing participate in what was later dubbed the “Hainan Incident.” While responding to the downing of a British Cathay Pacific Airways civilian DC-4 en route from Bangkok to Hong Kong by Chinese Lavochkin La-11 fighter aircraft, two PLAAF La-7 fighters unsuccessfully tried to jump the U.S. Navy aircraft and were in turn splashed by Philippine Sea Skyraiders from VF-54.

As noted by Time, “Radio Beijing announced that two American fighters had made piratical attacks on two Polish merchant ships and one Chinese escort vessel, but failed to mention the LA-7s.”

(Kodachrome) USS Philippine Sea (CVA-47) makes a sharp turn to starboard, while steaming in the Western Pacific with the Seventh Fleet, 9 July 1955, with ATG-2 embarked. Photographed by PH1 D.L. Lash. 80-G-K-18429

(Kodachrome) USS Philippine Sea (CVA-47) view looking aft from the carrier’s island, showing AD Skyraiders and F9F Cougars of ATG-2 parked on the flight deck. Photographed on 19 July 1955, while operating with the Seventh Fleet. Photographed by PH1 J.E. Cook. 80-G-K-18466

(Kodachrome) USS Philippine Sea (CVA-47) refueling from USS Platte (AO-24), while operating with the Seventh Fleet, 19 July 1955. USS Watts (DD-567) is also taking on fuel from Platte. Other ships present include two aircraft carriers, a cruiser, and several destroyers and replenishment ships. 80-G-K-18468

(Kodachrome) USS Philippine Sea (CVA-47) operating in the Western Pacific with the Seventh Fleet, 19 July 1955. 80-G-K-18427

Post-Korea, the Philippine Sea remained a “straight deck” Essex and did not undergo the dramatic SCB-125 angled flight deck reconstruction and modernization that 14 of her sisters did.

This left her in the club that included USS Franklin (CV-13) and Bunker Hill (CV-17) which never recommissioned after their 1947 mothballs, and fellow Korean War vets Boxer (CV-21), Leyte (CV-32), Princeton (CV-37), Lake Champlain (CV-39), Tarawa (CV-40), and Valley Forge (CV-45). The latter six axial deck carriers, along with Antietam (CV-36) which had an early angled deck fit in 1952 but no major modernizations, and Philippine Sea, were all rerated as anti-submarine carriers (CVS) in the mid-1950s, intended to operate a mixed wing of two squadrons of S2F Trackers and one of Sikorsky HSS-1 (SH-34) Seabats.

USS Philippine Sea (CVS-47) underway at sea, with eleven S2F aircraft of Anti-Submarine Squadron 37 (VS-37) flying overhead, July 1958. Six of these aircraft are still painted in the older blue color scheme. Photographed by Everett. NH 97323

USS Philippine Sea (CVS-47), August 1956. View showing the ship’s antenna after recent overhauling. Please refer to the chart that shows the name of the antenna with the use of a numerical system. 1. AN/URN3; 2. AN/CPH6; 3. AN/SRO7; 4. AN/SLR-2 DF; 5. UHF; 6. An/URO-4; 7. VHF; 8. An/SPS-6B; 9. An/SLR-2; 10. SG-6B; 11. AN/UPV-1A; 12. AP/SLR-2 DF; 13. AN/SLR-2 DF; 14. SC-5; 15. YE-3; 16. AN/SPN-8A; 17. AN/SPN-12; 18. Receiving Antennas; 19. AN/UPX-1A; 20. AN/SLR-2; 21. AN/SRK-4; 22. AN/SPS-8A; 23. AN/FMQ-2; 24. Receiving Antennas; 25. AN/URD-2; 26. AN/UPN-7; 27. LF-MF Transmitter Whip antennas Aft. Std.; 28. LF-MF Transmitter Whip, antennas Fwd. Stbd. 80-G-696528

Philippine Sea only made two West Pac cruises as a CVS, 5 January- 6 August 1957 and 13 January-15 July 1958, with the latter as part of Operation Oceanlink, which saw her cross-deck aircraft with the Australian carrier, HMAS Melbourne (R21).

USS Philippine Sea (CVS-47) refuels destroyer USS Orleck (DD-886) in May 1957 while on a West Pac cruise. Photo courtesy of the National Naval Aviation Museum, 1996.488.114.056.

As the mammoth Forrestal-class supercarriers entered the fleet in the late 1950s, eight high-mileage SCB 27A/125 Essex-class angled deck conversions were redesignated as CVS to replace the original unconverted axial deck ships. This also allowed these new CVS models to carry A-4 Skyhawks and F-8 Crusaders in a pinch, such as on USS Intrepid (CVS-11)’s three Vietnam cruises in 1966-68, where she carried three squadrons of A-4s and one of Skyraiders augmented by a few F-8/RF-8s for good measure.

This move proved the final nail in the coffin for the Philippine Sea. While a few unconverted sisters, such as Boxer, Princeton, and Valley Forge, caught amphibious helicopter ship (LPH) conversions and lingered on into the 1960s, that was generally a wrap for these old warriors.

Decommissioned 28 December 1958, marking a busy 12-year career, Philippine Sea was berthed with the Reserve Fleet at Long Beach. She was administratively redesignated a training carrier (AVT-11) on 15 May 1959 and struck from the Navy List on 1 December 1969.

Jane’s 1960 Essex class listing the 17 “non-improved” members, PS included

Sold to Zidell Explorations, Inc. of Portland, Oregon, on 23 March 1971, about 600 tons of her armor plate were put to use at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory for use in proton accelerator experiments. Plates from four other Korean War CVS sisters (Antietam, Bunker Hill, Lake Champlain, and Princeton) are also in use there.

Epilogue

Today, little of our carrier remains outside of Fermi Labs.

The NHHC has her Korean War action reports digitized online. Meanwhile, NARA has several videos and images.

At least two of her Korean War skippers, Ira Earl Hobbs (USNA 1925) and Paul Hubert Ramsey (USNA 1927), later rose to the rank of Vice Admiral. Both had started their careers as battleship men, then were minted as aviators and were highly decorated in WWII.

Hobbs and “Sheik” Ramsey. From battlewagons to WWII aviators against the Rising Sun, they went on to command the Philippine Sea during Korea, then retire as vice admirals.

The Navy recycled the name of our carrier for a Flight II Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser, CG-58, commissioned in 1989. She has carried a few relics of her namesake with her all this time.

USS Philippine Sea (CG 58) departed Naval Station Norfolk for her final scheduled deployment, a quiet cruise to the U.S. 4th Fleet area of operations, on 20 January 2025. She is slated to decommission later this year, wrapping over 35 years of service, a stint some three times as long as her flat-topped predecessor. She slung TLAMs in numerous wars, scattered the cremated remains of Korean War pilot Neil Armstrong at sea, and recently battled the Houthis.

Norfolk, Va. (January 20, 2025) The Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea (CG 58), departs from Naval Station Norfolk to deploy to the U.S. Southern Command Area of Responsibility (USSOUTHCOM AOR) to support maritime operations with partners in the region, conduct Theater Security Cooperation (TSC) port visits, and support Joint Interagency Task Force South (JIATF-South) to deter illicit activity along Caribbean and Central American shipping routes. (U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Evan Thompson/Released)

Perhaps a new LHA could carry the name forward.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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WWII echoes

Posted on August 19, 2025 by laststandonzombieisland 2 comments

I love passing by the Trent Lott Gulfport Combat Readiness Center, which houses various Guard and Air Guard units, just outside the municipal airport from which I often fly out.

It is a historic base, with the Guard’s AVCRAD unit having a great display of an AH-1S Cobra, OH-58A, and OH-58D Kiowa Warrior on pedestals. That part of the base, besides lots of use in the recent sandbox wars, was a training area for the helicopter crews of Eagle Claw back in 1979.

Moving past the Guard area to the Air Guard portion, the old 200×80-foot circa 1942 Army Air Corps hangar, which has recently been restored, features an early WWII U.S. “meatball” roundel.

Back during WWII, Gulfport Army Airfield trained ground crews on B-17s, B-24s, B-26s, and B-29s.

It became a primer of sorts for units headed to the South Pacific. If they could endure the 95-degree/95-percent humidity/95-percent chance of rain/Hurricane inbound days that is the Mississippi Gulf South summer, odds were they would do Okay in New Guinea or the Solomon Islands.

It lived on into the Cold War as the Gulfport Air Force Base until 1957, continuing as a Guard base.

And, true to form, the hangar had a group of visiting F-35s aboard, likely from Eglin.

Tigershark on the move!

Posted on August 7, 2025 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Here we see a great image of the Dutch Zwaardvisch class submarine Hr.Ms. Tijgerhaai (S 812) in West Indies waters, 1957, with the good Prof. Vening Meinesz and his team on board, conducting gravity research using special equipment during the voyage.

Audiovisuele Dienst Koninklijke Marine (AVDKM), NIMH 2009-003-012_010

Laid down at Vickers in 1943 as the future Third Group T-class submarine HMS Tarn (P326), she was instead transferred before commissioning and entered Dutch service on 28 March 1945.

After working up out of Holy Loch with several of her British sisters, Tijgerhaai left Scotland some 80 years ago this week, on 5 August 1945, bound for Fremantle, Australia under the command of LTZS1c (LCDR) Arie van Altena, RNN(R), to get into the Pacific War.

NL-HaNA_2.24.10.02_0_137-0326_1

Of course, the war would end while Tijgerhaai was en route to fight the Japanese, and she would, instead, clock in for the next five years off the coast of the Dutch East Indies to combat weapon smugglers and insurgents during the Politionele Acties in the colony that led to Indonesian independence.

She retired from Dutch service in 1964 following a nearly 20-year career and was sold for scrap.

The Big E Takes Napoli

Posted on August 5, 2025 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

Some 70 years ago today.

The hulking 46,000-ton Audacious-class aircraft carrier HMS Eagle (R05) and her escort, the aging County-class heavy cruiser HMS Cumberland (57) of Graf Spee near-miss fame, visit Naples, 5 August 1955. The warships called at the Italian port city for a week’s operational visit in line with NATO.

HMS Eagle, seen from her helicopter, shows the ship’s company fallen in on her flight deck as she steams into Naples Bay. Her wing shows 12 Seahawks of No. 804 squadron, the Wyverns likely of No. 830 Squadron, a few AEW Skyraiders of 849 Squadron, and at least one Westland WS-51 Dragonfly. She carries a recently-modified 5.5-degree angled flight deck, later changed to 8.5 degrees in 1964. Also note the 8×2 QF 4.5-inch Mk III guns in BD ‘RP10’ Mk II mounts. IWM (A 33319A)

“Twelve Sea Hawks of 804 Squadron form an avenue demonstrating British Naval Air Power in the Mediterranean.” IWM (A 33321)

HMS Eagle, HMS Cumberland in Naples, August 1955. One of the last three-funneled heavy cruisers, Cumberland would pay off just three years after this photo. IWM A 33318A

A period Kodachrome of Eagle’s airwing circa 1955, including Skyraiders, Seahawks, and Wyverns.

Laid down in 1942, Eagle only entered service in March 1952 (the 15th Royal Navy ship to carry the name) and was primarily known for her service in the Suez Crisis four years later and later the Aden Emergency.

HMS Eagle at Fremantle, Western Australi,a around 1968, with her late 8.5-degree deck and Buccaneers

She was paid off in 1972 to allow her hulk to be stripped of parts to keep her sister, HMS Ark Royal, in service for a few more years.

The “Big E” was scrapped in 1978.

Hanging with the Crayfish

Posted on August 4, 2025 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

During the Warsaw Pact era, the Poles broke from the nominally allied Soviets a bit when it came to small arms. Instead of the straight AKM, they used the Kbkg wz. 1960/72. Whereas the Russkies went to the AK-74 in 5.45, the Poles came up with the wzór 1988 Tantal and the Onyks carbine. Rather than the Makrov PM, the Poles had the FB P-64 in the same caliber, later supplemented by the .380 ACP P-83 Wanad.

Whereas the Soviets generally replaced subguns with folding-stocked short-barreled AK variants, the Poles kept on chugging with the FB PM-84 Glauberyt (Pistolet maszynowy wz. 1984) and the smaller PM-63 RAK, both in 9×18 Makarov.

While the PM-84 was no beefcake, hitting the scales at just over 4 pounds unloaded and sporting a 5.5-inch barrel, the PM-63 was downright portable, running just 13 inches long with the stock collapsed and weighing in at 3.5 pounds.

Polish paratrooper armed with a PM-63 submachine gun RAK, with its stock and foregrip folded

Polish marine with a FB PM-63 RAK submachine gun, its stock and foregrip deployed. Note the scooped barrel, which serves as a sort of compensator. Coincidentally, RAK means “crayfish” in Polish

Polish tankers with RAKs in drop leg holsters. The PM-63 RAK, with its stock collapsed, was a true PDW and is akin to the Flux Raider of today.

The PM63 continues to see use

Further, while the PM-63 still floats around in combat use in Ukraine and elsewhere, parts kits complete with 9mm Mak barrels are here in the states for cheap.

Bowman and others have been selling beautiful RAK kits for like $269

While traveling in Minnesota recently to film a bunch of podcasts for Guns.com, I stopped in to see friends at 2 if By Sea Tactical in New Prague, a Class 7 FFL, and put a few boxes downrange with a post-86 reweld “crawfish” they have in the shop.

At 650 rpms, you drained a mag quick.

It uses 15-round flush and 25-round extended magazines, giving you either 1.5 or 2.5 seconds of zpppppp.

With the stock extended, the length is 23 inches, which gives the user a very compact little PDW.

The Poles may have been on the right track with this interesting little guy.

Warship Wednesday, July 30, 2025: Ocean Station Savior

Posted on July 30, 2025 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Warship Wednesday, July 30, 2025: Ocean Station Savior

Above we see the 255-foot Owasco-class gunboat, U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Pontchartrain (WPG-70) during rough weather while slogging along in the Pacific, 8 January 1950.

Commissioned during the last days of WWII, some 80 years ago this week, “Ponch” had a lengthy career that included lots of dreary service on Ocean Stations (13 of those shifts during Korea), a Vietnam Market Time deployment, and numerous rescues at sea– including one that was spectacular.

The 255s

The Coast Guard got seriously ripped off by the White House in early 1941 when 10 of its best (and newest) blue water cutters, the entire 250-foot Lake (Chelan) class, were transferred to the Royal Navy as part of FDR’s “Bases for Destroyers” deal. These hardy 2,000-ton turbine-powered low-mileage cutters became Banff-class sloops in RN service and saw lots of service, with three lost during the war and a fourth damaged so badly she was scrapped in the Philippines.

A splendid example of the 250-foot Lake class cutters, USCGC Pontchartrain (WPG-46) and USCGC Chelan (WPG-45), seen on 30 September 1937. Under the canvas awnings are a 5″/51 forward, a 3″/50 aft, and two 6-pounders.

By 1942, with it apparent that the old Lakes would likely never return from overseas (at least not for years) and the U.S. firmly in the war, the USCG moved to build a replacement class of ten ships. To this number was added another three hulls, to finally replace the ancient cutters Ossipee (165 ft, circa 1915), Tallapoosa (165 ft, circa 1915), and Unalaga (190 ft, circa 1912).

Originally a 312-foot design that was a simplified follow-on to the service’s seven well-liked turbine-powered 327-foot Treasury (Campbell) class cutters, which had a provision to carry a JF-2/SOC-4 floatplane as well as two 5″/51s and ASW gear, this soon morphed into a much more compact 255-foot hull with an even heavier armament. The 255-foot oal guideline (245 at the waterline) conceivably allowed them to pass through the then 251-foot third lock of the Welland Canal in Ontario if needed, so they could operate on the Great Lakes at some future date.

The 1945 outfit for the class was twin 5″/38 DP mounts fore and aft, backed up by two quad 40mm Bofors, a Hedgehog ASWRL, two depth charge racks, and six K-guns. Overloaded already in such an arrangement, there was never a floatplane fitted, although the superstructure was divided into two islands to allow a midship location on deck for such a contraption.

While most carried SR and SU radar sets, Mendota and Pontchartrain carried more updated SC-4 and SF-1 radar sets. They all carried a QJA sonar set and Mk 26 FCS.

255 class leader CGC Owasco (WPG-39) off San Pedro, California. 18 July 1945. Note the short hull, packed with twin 5″/38s fore and aft as well as ASW gear and Bofors mounts.

Powered by twin Foster-Wheeler 2 drum top-fired Express boilers and a 3,200 kVa Westinghouse electric motor driven by a turbine, these cutters were good for 19 knots but could sail 10,000nm at 10 knots economically on 141,755 gallons of fuel oil, giving them extremely long legs. Able to navigate in three fathoms of sea water, they could get into tight spaces.

As detailed by the USCG Historian’s Office:

The 255-foot class was an ice-going design. Ice operations had been assigned to the Coast Guard early in the war, and almost all new construction was either ice-going or icebreaking.

The hull was designed with constant flare at the waterline for ice-going. The structure was longitudinally framed with heavy web frames and an ice belt of heavy plating, and it had extra transverse framing above and below the design water line. Enormous amounts of weight were removed using electric welding. The 250-foot cutters’ weights were used for estimating purposes. Tapered bulkhead stiffeners cut from 12” I-beams went from the main deck (4’ depth of web) to the bottom (8” depth of web). As weight was cut out of the hull structure, electronics and ordnance were increased, but at much greater heights. This top weight required ballasting the fuel tanks with seawater to maintain stability both for wind and damaged conditions.

Eleven of the class were to be built on the West Coast at the Western Pipe and Steel Company in San Pedro, California, with the first, Sebago, laid down on 7 June 1943.

Cost per hull was $4,239,702 in 1945 dollars.

Meet “Raunchy Paunchy”

Our subject is the second USCGC Pontchartrain, following in the footsteps of a circa 1928 Lake-class cutter which, transferred to Royal Navy 30 April 1941 as part of the Bases for Destroyers deal, entered service as HMS Hartland (Y00) and, 17 convoys later, was sunk by the French during Operation Reservist, the effort to seize the port of Oran as part of the Torch landings 19 months later.

While there was one CSS Pontchartrain on the Mississippi (for obvious reasons) during the Civil War, the U.S. Navy has never used the name.

One of only two 255s built on the East Coast at the USCG Yard in Curtis Bay, Maryland (alongside sister USCGC Mendota, WPG-69), WPG-70 was the final Owasco-class cutter laid down by hull number, but far from the last completed. They were part of the initial six ships laid down in 1943, while the other eight all had their keels laid down in 1944. Both WPG-69 and WPG-70 were laid down on 5 July 1943.

Launched as Okeechobee on 29 February 1944, our subject was commissioned as USCGC Pontchartrain on 28 July 1945. Had the war not ended six weeks later, she surely would have made for the Panama Canal by Halloween and seen service in the Pacific with her sisters.

Eight of her 12 sisters were completed after VJ Day.

USCGC Pontchartrain (WHEC-70) Aug 1945

USCGC Pontchartrain (WHEC-70) Sep 1945. Note the split superstructure

Not destined to join Halsey for the push on Tokyo, Pontchartrain instead clocked in on a series of more than a dozen Ocean Stations, mid-way navigation, weather, and SAR points set up post-war to help trans-oceanic flights stay on path. Usually a three-week deployment, it was thankless and, on the very beamy 255s, sometimes one heck of a ride punctuated by regular twice-daily weather balloon launches, 450-foot bathythermograph drops every four hours, and an unceasing radio check.

The cutters steamed an average of 4,000 miles per patrol, and, with transit time included, staffed the station for an average of 700 non-stop hours.

One crew member noted: “After twenty-one days of being slammed around by rough, cold sea swells 20 to 50 feet high, and wild winds hitting gale force at times, within an ocean grid the size of a postage stamp, you can stand any kind of duty.”

Pontchartrain sister, the 255-ft. U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Escanaba, based in New Bedford, Massachusetts, takes a salty shower bath in rough North Atlantic weather on ocean station ‘Delta’, 650 miles southeast of Newfoundland and east of Nova Scotia

For the record, as noted by Scheina, Pontchartrain stood the lonely guard on 61 occasions:

Atlantic, while stationed at Boston and Norfolk:

20 Oct-10 Nov 46 served on OS C
6-11 Nov 48 served on OS Easy
23 Jan-12 Feb 49 served on OS B
18 Mar-8 Apr 49 served on OS Fox
17 May-7 Jun 49 served on OS Easy
17 Jul-6 Aug 49 served on OS Dog

Pacific, while stationed at Long Beach:

*During the Korean War:

Feb-13 Mar 50 served on OS Oboe
14 May-5 Jun 50 served on OS Peter
4-27 Aug 50 served on OS Nan*
6-26 Mar 51 served on OS Sugar*
13 Apr-5 May 51 served on OS Nan*
8-29 Jul 51 served on OS Nan*
21-29 Oct 51 served on OS Nan*
Nov-2 Dec 51 served on OS Nan*
23 Dec 51-13 Jan 52 served on OS Uncle*
23 Feb-16 Mar 52 served on OS Sugar*
5-25 Apr 52 served on OS Sugar*
29 Jun-20 Jul 52 served on OS Nan*
22 Sep-12 Oct 52 served on OS Nan*
28 Jan-18 Feb 53 served on OS Victor*
30 Mar-20 Apr 53 served on OS Sugar*
2-23 Jul 53 served on OS Uncle*
25 Oct-15 Nov 53 served on OS Uncle
28 Feb-10 Mar 54 served on OS Nan
25 Jul-15 Aug 54 served on OS Nan
17 Oct-7 Nov 54 served on OS Nan
19 Dec 54-10 Jan 55 served on OS Nan
15 May-5 Jun 55 served on OS Nan
18 Sep-8 Oct 55 served on OS Nan
12 Feb-4 Mar 5 served on OS November
8-28 Jul 56 served on OS November
30 Sep-16 Oct 56 served on OS November
21 Dec 56-13 Jan 57 served on OS November
13 May-9 Jun 57 served on OS November
22 Sep-13 Oct 57 served on OS November
17 Feb-8 Mar 58 served on OS November
13 Jul-3 Aug 58 served on OS November
14 Oct-4 Nov 58 served on OS Romeo
7-28 Dec 58 served on OS November
18 Jan-7 Feb 59 served on OS November
27 Sep-17 Oct 59 served on OS November
20 Feb-12 Mar 60 served on OS November
1 16 Jul-6 Aug 60 served on OS November
11-31 Dec 60 served on OS November
7-27 May 61 served on OS November
10-31 Mar 68 served on OS November
12 May-2 Jun 68 served on OS November
14 Jul-4 Aug 68 served on OS November
25 Aug-15 Sep 68 served on OS November
19 Jan-9 Feb 69 served on OS Victor
2-23 Mar 69 served on OS Victor
25 May-14 Jun 69 served on OS November
17 Aug-7 Sep 69 served on OS November
30 Nov- 18 Dec 69 served on OS November
22 Aug-12 Sep 71 served on OS Victor
3-24 Oct 71 served on OS Victor
8-28 Jun 72 served on OS Charlie
15 Aug-8 Sep 72 served on OS Delta
29 Jan-23 Feb 73 served on OS Echo
24 Apr-17 May 73 served on OS Delta
6-26 Sep 73 served on OS Charlie

During this service, her appearance changed significantly.

Laid up from 17 October 1947 to 5 September 1948 as the service ran into post-war budget cuts, she emerged from Curtis Bay with most of her armament removed. Gone were the twin 5-inchers, replaced by a single mount forward. Also deleted were her aft Bofors and all her ASW weapons save for Hedgehog. This nearly halved her complement from over 250 to 130.

USCGC Pontchartrain circa 1958. Note her single 5″/38 DP, with her open Hedgehog and last 40mm Bofors quad mount behind

Pan American Flight 6

It was while on Ocean Station November that our cutter, on 16 October 1956, stood by Pan American World Airways’ Flight 6, Boeing 377 Stratocruiser N90943, the “Sovereign of the Skies,” as she pulled off a water landing while en route from Honolulu to San Francisco.

The clipper, under the command of Pan Am Capt. Richard N. Ogg, with 31 souls aboard, was quickly running out of fuel with a windmilling No. 1 prop and a shutdown No. 4 engine, while still some 250nm out from the California coast.

Nearing OS November, Ogg radioed Pontchartrain, under CDR William K. Earle (USCGA 1940), who provided sea state and weather data to bring the clipper down easily.

The cutter then made ready for SAR and laid a trail of foam to mark the best course, a wet “runway” on the Pacific.

Coast Guard sailors aboard the United States Coast Guard Cutter (USCGC) Pontchartrain use foam from firehoses to lay down a “runway” for Flight 6

The clipper ditched less than 2,000 yards away, just after sunrise.

As noted by This Day in Aviation:

At 6:15 a.m., at approximately 90 knots air speed, the Boeing 377 landed on the water. A wing hit a swell, spinning the airplane to the left. The tail broke off, and the airplane began to settle.

Injuries were minor, and all passengers and crew evacuated the airliner. They were immediately picked up by Pontchartrain.

Captain Ogg and Purser Reynolds were the last to leave the airplane.

Twenty minutes after touching down, at 6:35 a.m., Sovereign of the Skies sank beneath the ocean’s surface.

A USCG film about the incident, including original footage.

Besides Pan Am Flight 6, Pontchartrain escorted the disabled American M/V John C (1950), assisted the disabled F/V Nina Ann (1955), assisted USS LSM-455 aground on San Clemente Island, the disabled yacht Gosling, and the disabled F/V Modeoday (1957), aided the disabled yacht Intrepid (1958), the F/V Carolyn Dee (1959), went to the assistance of M/V Mamie and rescued three from the ketch Alpha (1960), medevaced a patient from USNS Richfield (1961), and assisted the disabled F/V Gaga (1963).

She was a lifesaver.

She was also a fighter.

War!

A quarter-century after joining the fleet, Pontchartrain was finally sent to combat.

USCGC Pontchartrain (WHEC-70) Jan 1970. Note she has her “racing stripe.”

She was assigned to Coast Guard Squadron Three, working in the Vietnam littoral, from 31 March to 31 July 1970. While her 13 stints on wartime Ocean Stations during the Korean War allowed her crew to earn Korean Service Medals, Vietnam was going to be a deployment of naval gunfire support in the littoral, rather than one of quiet radio and weather watches.

USCGC Wachusett (WHEC-44), a 255-foot Owasco-class cutter, providing some blistering NGFS off Vietnam

By this time, the 255s sported SPS-29 and SPS-51 radars, and some had provision for ASW torpedo tubes abeam of the superstructures, the latter aided by SQS-1 sonars. As such, they had been changed from gunboats to the more friendly “high endurance cutters,” or WHECs.

Jane’s 1965 entry for the 255s

Joining CGRON3’s fifth deployment to Southeast Asia, Pontchartrain was the “old man” teamed up with four brand-new 378-foot gas turbine-powered cutters, USCGC Hamilton, Chase, Dallas, and Mellon. Whereas nine of her sisters had been sent to Vietnam previously, Pontchartrain was the last Owasco to pull the duty.

Pontchartrain NGFS Vietnam 1970 Photo by LeRoy Reinburg

While the individual figures for Pontchartrain aren’t available, the large cutters of CGRON3 conducted no less than 1,368 combined NGFS missions during Vietnam, firing a staggering 77,036 5-inch shells ashore. Keep in mind that most of these cutters only carried about 300 rounds in their magazines, so you can look at that amount of ordnance expended as being something like 250 shiploads.

Check out this deck log for one day in July 1970, with Pontchartrain firing 175 rounds by early afternoon against a mix of targets.

Powder and shell consumption was so high that some cutters would have to underway replenish or VERTREP 2-3 times a week while doing gun ops.

Pontchartrain receiving 5-inch powder cases UNREP Vietnam 1970 Photo by LeRoy Reinburg

At sea off Vietnam. Australian destroyer HMAS Hobart approaching a Mispillion class replenishment oiler USS Passumpsic (AO-107) as it is tanking a Coast Guard 311-foot HEC, likely CGC Pontchartrain. AWM Photo P01904.005 by Peter Michael Oleson.

Returning to Long Beach, Pontchartrain settled back into her normal routine and continued Ocean Station, LE, and SAR work, along with the occasional reservist cruise.

In April 1973, the Coast Guard announced that, in conjunction with the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam and the increased use of satellites, the OS program would be discontinued and 10 aging cutters retired– nine of them 255s. Sisters Sebago and Iroquois had already been put out to pasture.

Pontchartrain decommissioned on 19 October 1973, and by the following May, all her sisters had joined her. They would be sold for scrap before the end of 1974.

Epilogue

Some of Pontchartrain’s logs are digitized in the National Archives.

As for her skipper during the Pan Am Flight 6 rescue, CDR William K. Earle would go on to command the tall ship Eagle during Operation Sail—staged in concert with the 1964 World’s Fair—when 23 such ships assembled in New York Harbor. Retiring as a captain, he penned several articles for Proceedings, was executive director of the USGCA Alumni Association, and editor of the group’s journal. The Association maintains the annual Captain Bill Earle Creative Writing Contest in his honor. Captain Earle passed away in March of 2006.

Sadly, there has not been a third USCGC Pontchartrain.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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Warship Wednesday, July 23, 2025: The Phoenix of Heigun

Posted on July 23, 2025 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Warship Wednesday, July 23, 2025: The Phoenix of Heigun

U.S. Navy photo via Japanese Ministry of Defense

Above we see the Tachibana (improved Matsu) class destroyer Nashi (pennant 4810) sinking in the shallow waters off the coast of Heigun Island (Heigunjima) after a strike by carrier aircraft of the U.S. Navy’s TF 38, some 80 years ago this month, on 28 July 1945.

Never fear, for she would rise again.

The Matsu/Tachibana-class

In 1942, the Japanese admiralty sought to replenish their rapidly depleting ranks of Long Lance-wielding fast destroyers with a simplified “war finish” model, designated as the Type D.

Rather than the downright elegant pre-war-designed Type-B/Akizuki class (2,700 tons, 440 feet oal, 8×3.9″ guns, 4x25mm AAA, 4x610mm TT, 56 dc, 33 knots) the Type Ds sacrificed size, speed, and armament in the interest of getting as many “good enough” hulls in the water as possible.

The Imperial Japanese Navy destroyer Akizuki (Type-B/Akizuki-gata) on a trial run off Miyazu Bay. They had a 52,000 shp, three-boiler/two-turbine plant. Beautiful Long Lancers, only a dozen were completed.

As such, the Type Ds were much smaller, just 1,500 tons and 328 feet overall, but on a 2 boiler/2 turbine 19,000shp plant, could still make (almost) 28 knots. Further, while their gun armament was much reduced (three 5″/40 Type 89s in a 1×2 and 1×1 format) they carried many more AAA guns (two dozen 25mm Type 96s) than early war Japanese destroyers and still had room for 32 depth charges and a four-tube Long Lance battery, which gave them a big bite. The big size difference often leaves these ships rated today as destroyer escorts rather than destroyers.

IJN First-class destroyer Momi (Matsu-class) after turning over from the yard in 1944. Note the knuckle bow.

IJN First-class destroyer Momo (Matsu-class) June 3, 1944, on Miyazu Bay trials.

An even more simplified version of the Type D, known in the West as the Tachibana class after the first hull so modified, began to arrive in early 1945. While there were corners cut, such as the use of lower-grade steel, a simpler hull form, more basic engineering, and the omission of a high-angle fire control director, they did have a fit for Type 13 early-warning and Type 22 surface-search radars

IJN First-class destroyer Hatsuzakura (Tachibana-class), August 27, 1945, photo taken by a photo Hellcat from the USS Shangri-La during the ceasefire before VJ Day while the ship was in Sagami Bay. Note the straighter bow rather than the knuckle (chine) bow in the standard Matsu type. These ships ran a pair of Kanmoto Type 3 Hei steam turbines, and their sensors included 2-shiki 2-go and 3-shiki 1-go radars, as well as a 93-shiki sonar.

Tachibana-class destroyer underway off Yokosuka, Japan, post-war on 7 September 1945. Note her fully-depressed 5″ guns. NH 96189

While 154 Matsu-class tin cans were planned, the strangulation of Japan’s war industry at all levels ensured that never happened. As it was, the first, Matsu herself, was only completed in late April 1944, at a point where the endgame was already well on its way.

In the end, just 34 Matsus (including 14 Tachibana subvariants) were completed. Ten of those were lost during the war, and six were too severely damaged to be repaired.

The damaged IJN Tachibana-class destroyer Nire on October 16, 1945. She has been marked with her name in English by the Allied occupation commission. She was only active for about five months and was severely damaged at Kure on 22 June 1945 by USAAF B-29s. Never repaired, she was scrapped in 1948. 80-G-351884

Anywhoo…

Meet Nashi

Laid down on 1 September 1944 (Showa 19) at the Kawasaki Heavy Industries Kobe Shipbuilding Works, Nashi (Pear tree) was the second destroyer to serve under that name with the Imperial Japanese Navy. The first was a Momi-class destroyer completed in 1919 and, small (just 1,000 tons) and armed with older 21-inch torpedo tubes, was obsolete and scrapped in 1940.

One of her first officers assigned was Lt. Sakon Naotoshi, age 19. The second son of VADM Sakon Masayoshi, he joined the Navy as an ensign candidate in September 1943 and, after a quick class on the battleship Ise, shipped out on the Mogami-class heavy cruiser Kumano that November, joining his older brother Masaaki, who was already an ensign. When Kumano was sent to the bottom off Luzon on 25 November 1944, Naotoshi survived and made it back to Japan, made Nashi’s navigator in February 1945 while the destroyer was fitting out.

Nashi, post-delivery in early 1945.

War!

Delivered 15 March 1945, Nashi was assigned to the 11th Torpedo Squadron of RADM Takama Kan and sent to train in the relative safety of the Seto Inland Sea. However, due to scarce fuel supplies, most of this training was at anchor, and she only managed to get underway on a couple of short day trips. Originally tapped to participate in the Valkyrie ride that was Operation Ten-go, the final major Japanese naval operation of the war off Okinawa in April, there was not enough fuel to go around for Nashi and her utterly green crew, and she was left behind.

As described by navigator Sakon:

Nashi continued mainly anchorage training while at anchor. Many of the crew were older so-called national soldiers, but their skill level improved little by little through repeated training. Many of them could not swim, so I took them to a nearby beach and taught them how to swim. The first time was on Tencho-sai, April 29th, but the water was quite cold. I gathered the lookouts, anti-aircraft gunners, and machine gunners and taught them how to identify them, showing them pictures of Japanese and American aircraft. Since there were few opportunities to sail, the navigator had a lot of free time!

In May, she was assigned to the 11th TS’s 52nd Destroyer Division along with her sisters Sugi, Kashi, Kaede, Nire, and Hagi, and, shrugging off a B-29 attack, by early July was being refitted to operate a single Kaiten human torpedo over her stern.

By early July, Nashi and were placed under RADM Takeshi Matsumoto’s 31st Squadron, the Special Naval Corps that was being primed to resist the invasion of the Japanese Home Islands. However, the squadron only had an allotment of 850 tons of fuel oil for its 15 destroyers. As the Matsu-class each carried 370 tons of fuel, this was just a little over two ships’ worth. For this reason, only two ships, Nashi and sister Hagi, were to be in operation, and the rest were to be camouflaged near the coast, with the crews taking turns aboard Nashi and Hagi for training.

Speaking of training, Nashi served off Hikari as the target boat for Kaiten launched by the submarine I-157, then moved to Hirao, where she drilled in receiving and launching a Kaiten of her own (which she did four times in training). Then it was back to Hikari to serve as a target boat for I-36’s Kaiten.

On the 24th/25th July, while off the coast of Ushijima, Nashi was strafed by F6F Hellcats and, according to navigator Sakon, her crew downed two of them with the crew later picked up by a Navy PBY, which they saw from a distance but could not engage. This tracks with the large 1,700-plane strikes on Kure and the Seto Inland Sea done by Third Fleet’s (British) TF 37 and American TF 38 that occurred over 24-28 July and lost a combined 133 carrier aircraft but sank or damaged most of what was left of the Emperor’s Combined Fleet.

As detailed by NHHC:

In the four-day operation, TF-38 flew 3,620 offensive sorties (plus 672 British sorties from TF-37). U.S. aircraft dropped 1,389 tons of bombs, fired 4,827 rockets, and claimed 52 Japanese aircraft shot down and another 216 on ground. There were 170 Navy Crosses awarded, five of them posthumously. The cost was high: 101 U.S. Navy aircraft were downed and 88 men killed.

Speaking of which…

Caught while anchored off the north coast of Heigun Island on 28 July, Nashi was rocketed and strafed in attacks by 10 American carrier-born F6F Hellcats through the morning (NHHC credits her destruction to a bomb hit and a near miss). Her stern AAA magazine on fire and depth charges blowing purple flames, the ship’s captain, LCDR Toshio Takada (who previously had the light cruiser Noshiro as well as the destroyers Hatsuyuki and Kagero shot out from under him), ordered flooding which soon grew out of control and she capsized, taking 60 of her crew with her by 1400. Some 155 survivors were pulled from the water by local fishermen and transferred to her sister Hagi.

Even though the war only had a couple more weeks in it, LCDR Takada was quickly reassigned to command the 42nd Special Attack Squadron while his young navigator, Sakon, became navigator of the destroyer Hatsusakura.

Nashi was removed from the IJN’s List on 15 September 1945.

Of the 18 Matsu/Tachibanas still afloat and relatively intact on VJ Day, some were disarmed and used by their former crews to shuttle Japanese troops back home from their remaining garrisons overseas.

The disarmed former IJN First-class destroyer Tsuta (Tachibana-class), departing for Sasebo Shanghai as a reparation ship, July 26, 1947. Note the Tachibana class’s transom stern, which is different from the more destroyer-like stern on the standard Matsu class. Tsuta was later handed over to the Republic of China on 31 July 1947 in Shanghai, and, rearmed, served for another decade as ROCN Hua Yang,

The “magic carpet” service finished, the Allies divided up the remaining vessels. The Americans sank or scrapped five in 1947-48. The Brits did the same for the five they inherited at Hong Kong and Singapore. The Soviets put four into service and kept them in operation into the late 1950s. Meanwhile, Chiang Kai-shek’s KMT fleet was given four hulls and kept them around until as late as 1961.

The Pacific Red Banner Fleet’s TsL-24. The former Japanese Navy Matsu class destroyer Shii, she was captured in Japan post-war and handed over to the Soviets in 1947 at Nakhodka. She continued to fly a red flag until 1960.

Slow rebirth of the Japanese Navy

Post-war, even though the Japanese naval ministry was being dismantled, a “Sea Sweeping Department” staffed with former naval personnel began operations under the blessing of the U.S. Navy as early as 6 October 1945 to clear more than 55,000 Japanese defensive and 11,000 American offensive mines off the country’s coast. It was a vital mission, with more than 90 ships hitting mines off Japan in the decade after the war, resulting in over 2,700 casualties. Among those needless losses was the USS Minivet (AM-371), sunk four days after Christmas 1945, taking 31 bluejackets with her.

USS Minivet (AM-371) sinking after hitting a mine off Tsushima Island, Japan, during mine clearance operations on 29 December 1945. At right is a Japanese mine-destructor trawler moving in to rescue survivors. Photographed from USS Redstart (AM-378). 80-G-607204

Shuffled from the Demobilization Ministry to the Ministry of Transport, Japan’s Minesweeping Bureau eventually grew to some 300 vessels, mainly small converted trawlers and small left-over air-sea rescue boats, 85-foot Type 1 wooden-hulled subchasers (23 Chiozuru-class), and 108-foot Type 1 wooden-hulled picket boats (10 Ukishima class) armed with a single 13.2mm HMG ala the fictional Shinsei Maru and Kaishin Maru of “Godzilla Minus One” fame, crewed by 10,000 former IJN sailors and officers.

The fictional Shinsei Maru and Kaishin Maru of “Godzilla Minus One” were not too far off from reality.

By 1948, it became the civilian Maritime Safety Agency, a force that is today’s Japan Coast Guard, with the minesweepers part of the Sea Route Clearance Headquarters.

A group of Japan Maritime Safety Agency Ukishima-class minesweeping vessels leaving Kobe Port to take part in the agency’s first boat parade in October 1948. The three vessels from the front are the former Type 1 Patrol boats No. 84, No. 134, and No. 136. Note the agency’s blue and white compass flag flying from each, rather than a Hinomaru or Rising Sun Flag.

By October 1950, 20 MSA minesweepers were sent to assist the UN forces in the Korean War as part of the “Japanese Special Minesweeping Force (Nihon tokubetsu sōkaitai).” Growing to 43 vessels operating in five divisions and in tandem with RN and USN forces, for two months, they actively swept mines in Wonsan, Incheon, Haeju, Gunsan, Jinnampo, and other areas. One of these Japanese MSA sweepers, MS-14, hit an enemy mine during clearing operations at Wonsan and sank, with one fatality and 18 injuries.

By August 1952, the uniformed National Safety Agency Guard (Kei Bitai) was formed– later becoming the Safety Security Force and the Maritime Self-Defense Force, today’s Japanese navy– inheriting the mine mission. Organized at the time around 10 small minesweepers, the U.S. Navy quickly transferred eight 136-foot YMS-1-class minesweepers and four 138-foot Bluebird-class minesweepers to the force after the U.S. and Japan Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement was signed in March 1954, while the Japanese government began production of 30 assorted Atado, Yashiro, and Kasado-class minesweepers domestically.

However, the JMSDF needed some actual warships, rather than just a few squadrons of very lightly armed mine craft.

The U.S. Navy soon began loaning 18 beat-up WWII veteran Tacoma-class patrol frigates mothballed in Yokosuka to the budding JMSDF starting in 1953.

Dozens of ex-Soviet used Tacoma-class PFs were laid up at Yokosuka in January 1951. NH 97295

The first of these was ex-USS Ogden (PF-39) on 14 January 1953, which became JDS Kusu (PF-1), and so forth. In Japanese service, these became known as the “Tree” class due to their traditional arboreal names.

On 19 October 1954, the two well-worn Gleaves-class destroyer-minesweepers, ex-USS Ellyson (DMS-19) and Macomb (DMS-23), were transferred to Japan and became JDS Asakaze (DD-181) and Hatakaze (DD-182), respectively. They were followed the next June by two retired Bostwick destroyer escorts, ex-USS Amick (DE 168) and Atherton (DE-169), which entered service as Asahi and Hatsuhi.

ex-USS Ellyson Macomb as Asakaze (DD-181) and Hatakaze (DD-182)

Domestic Japanese warship production resumed in 1954 as well, with the twin 2,340-ton Harukaze-class destroyers, completed with U.S. weapons and sensors, laid down at Mitsubishi’s Nagasaki SY, followed by three small 1,000-ton Type B Akebono/Ikazuchi class destroyer escorts.

JDS Yukikaze (DD-102), one of two new Harukaze-class destroyers, is Japan’s first post-WWII domestically built warship. Commissioned in July 1956, she looks very American with her SPS-6 radar and Mk 12 5″/38 DP mounts, and radar-directed Bofors.

And then the JMSDF remembered the poor old Nashi.

Meet Wakaba

The local fishermen’s association in Heguinjima purchased the wreckage of the broken and long-submerged Nashi from the government in the early 1950s for its value in scrap (1.6 million yen) and to raise the hulk and move it offshore, where it would serve better use as a reef. With the blessing of the regional finance ministry, they hired the Hokusei Senpaku Kogyo Co., Ltd. to patch and lift the wreck intact.

ex-Nashi broke the surface on 21 September 1954.

Note the lifting pontoons

As, on inspection, she was found to be in particularly good condition, it was decided to offer the wreck back to the government. The patriotic fishermen’s association waived its ownership and absorbed the financial loss, while the JMSDF agreed to reimburse Hokusei Senpaku’s expenses and purchased ex-Nashi on 12 May 1955.

Towed to Zosen’s Kure shipyard on 10 September, the ex-Nashi was in very rough shape indeed and spent the next nine months in a 900-million-yen restoration and reconstruction.

Her boilers and turbines were restored, and it was found that, besides being incredibly noisy (a decade in saltwater does that), they could still generate about 14,000shp, good enough for 24 knots.

Her superstructure was rebuilt, adding a western-style mainmast. Her wartime Japanese ordnance and sensors were removed. She received a forward twin Mk 33 3″/50 DP mount, a 24-spigot Hedgehog Mk 10 ASWRL, two depth charge racks, and two K-guns, along with SO-series radar. This configuration was similar to that of the Type B destroyer escorts that had been ordered at around the same time, but with a much better gun (the Type Bs had older 3″/50 DP singles).

Thus rebuilt, the JMSDF renamed the finished product Wakaba (“young leaf’), following in line with a circa 1905 Kamikaze-class destroyer scrapped in 1929 and a 1934 Hatsuharu-class destroyer that was sunk in Leyte Gulf in October 1944.

Wakaba, Japanese destroyer, circa 1934, ONI files. The Hatsuharu-class destroyer that was sunk in Leyte Gulf in October 1944. NH 73051

Our ex-Nashi/new-Wakaba recommissioned on 31 May 1956 and was assigned to the Yokosuka-based 11th Escort Division. Her pennant/hull number, issued the following September, was DE-216.

While it is often said in Western circles that Nashi/Wakaba was the only ship of the Imperial Japanese Navy that became a part of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force, that is not the case, as shown above with the small subchasers and picket boats turned minesweepers. However, Nashi/Wakaba was the largest former IJN vessel, and, from what I can tell, the only steel-hulled warship of the old fleet to rejoin the new one.

In September 1957, Wakaba entered Uraga Dock in Yokosuka to be refitted as a radar picket, basically a DER, and was given a fit of SPS-5 and SPS-12 radars when she emerged on 26 March 1958.

Additional sensor fits followed, and, during annual yard periods, she later picked up an SQS-11A sonar in February 1959 and an SPS-8B high-angle radar in December 1960, with a second mast installed aft.

JDS Wakaba, 1960 Janes

As a radar picket. JMSDF Wakaba class escort (DE261) Wakaba (ex IJN Matsu Tachibana class destroyer Nashi) at Uraga ship yard,1 Apr. 1962

In August 1962, Wakaba was used to evacuate children from Miyakojima during a volcanic eruption on the island.

Increasingly, she was used as a trials ship. In July 1962, she had the domestic NEC/Hitachi Type 3 sonar prototype installed for two years of testing. The set later evolved into the Type 66 OQS-3, which was the JMSDF’s go-to destroyer-mounted sonar during the late 1960s-early 1980s and was installed on the Cold War Minegumo, Takatsuki, Haruna, Yamagumo, and Chikugo classes.

The next year saw an experimental twin 21-inch torpedo tube installation on Wakaba. By 1963, she was withdrawn from further use as an escort and became a dedicated radar trials ship, her crew reduced from 206 to 170. She was listed as such in Jane’s.

JDS Wakaba, 1965 Janes

JDS Wakaba June 11, 1965 Tokyo Bay by Koji Ishiwata

On 24 July 1970, Wakaba was damaged in a collision with the tanker Daisan Chowa Maru in the Uraga Strait. A follow-on inspection in dry dock found that the tin can, built in a rush under less-than-ideal conditions in 1944-45, then sunk for a decade and patched back up, wasn’t worth continued investment. She was disarmed that fall at Sumitomo’s yard in Uraga and decommissioned and stricken in March 1971, and was disposed of via sale to the Furusawa Steel Works at Etajima.

Her SPS-12 air search radar was installed on the 4,100-ton training ship Katori (TV-3501) and remained in use until 1998.

Epilogue

By twist of fate, Nashi’s Imperial Japanese Navy weapons were a historic time capsule. The vast majority of WWII ordnance left in the country post-war was immediately demilitarized and scrapped. When the JMSDF reformed in 1954, as shown above, it did so with surplus USN hardware. Nashi’s decade underwater got her a pass, and once raised and taken to Kure, was carefully removed for display ashore.

Today, her forward 5″/40 Type 99 mount and Type 92 quad Long Lance torpedo tubes are on display at the JMSDF’s First Technical School in Etajima.

As for Nashi’s wartime navigator, Naotoshi Sakon, who lost both his brother (killed on the destroyer Shimakaze in 1944) and father (hung by the British at Hong Kong’s Stanley Prison in 1948 over the Bihar Incident), he was involved in demilitarization work after the war before joining the MSA in 1952 and the JMSDF in 1954. Promoted to captain, he was skipper of the destroyer Hatushi, then military attaché at the Embassy of Japan in Indonesia, commander of the 4th Escort Group, commander of the Training Squadron, director of the Training Department at the National Defense Academy of Japan, secretary-general of the Joint Staff Council, and director of the Joint Staff College, before retiring as a rear admiral in November 1979, capping a 36 year career. Staying active post-retirement, he worked for the Institute for Peace and Security Studies until his death at age 88 in 2013.

Sadly, the JMSDF has reused neither the names Nashi nor Wakaba.

There are a number of Tachibana-class destroyer model kits out there, complete with Kaiten, such as this 1/700 scale example from Pit-Road.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find. http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO, has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

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Warship Wednesday, July 23, 2025: The Phoenix of Heigun

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