Throwback some 35 years to November 1989 when the “Fleet’s Finest Carrier,”USS Midway (CV 41) pulled alongside F Berth, Victoria Quay, Freemantle, on a historic visit as the first U.S. Navy carrier to pull pier side in the Western Australian port.
Photo via Fremantle Ports.
Her 5 August to 11 December 1989 West Pacific cruise—her amazing 53rd deployment to the region, which included six combat tours off Vietnam—saw her carry her familiar Carrier Air Wing Five (CVW-5) again, a wing she had deployed with since 1965.
Photo via Fremantle Ports.
This group at the time included three F-18A squadrons (VFA-151, VFA-192, and VFA-195) due to the fact her class was deemed too small for extended F-14 operations, as well as two A-6E/KA-6D Intruder squadrons (VA-115 and VA-185), some EA-6B Prowlers from VAQ-136, a Hawkeye det from VAW-115, and some SH-3H Sea Kings from HS-12.
Photo via Fremantle Ports.
Photo via Fremantle Ports.
Photo via Fremantle Ports.
Midway still had a few tricks left, including Desert Shield/Storm 1990 in the Persian Gulf following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, and the evacuation of Clark AFBase in the Philippines following the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. In that final mission, she brought off 1,823 personnel and dependents, along with a menagerie of 23 cats, 68 dogs, and one lizard.
Decommissioned in San Diego in April 1992 after a 47-year career that included over 325,000 landings, she languished mothballs at Bremerton until 2003, when she was entrusted to the San Diego Aircraft Carrier Museum.
Opened to the public in June 2004, she has proven extremely popular, clearing over 5 million visitors in her first six years in operation alone.
With JFK consigned to the scrappers, and future CVNs off limits due to their recycling processes, Midway will likely be the largest warship ever preserved (at 64,000 tons and 1,001 feet oal compared to the four preserved 57,000-ton/887-foot Iowas and four preserved Essexes at 40,000-tons/888 feet).
Some 57 years ago this week. 21 November 1967, near Cat Lai, Republic of Vietnam. Official caption: PFC Fred L. Greenleaf, Company C, 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, 199th Light Infantry Brigade (The Redcatchers), crosses a deep irrigation canal along with other members of the company. After making a helicopter assault, the company moved towards a Viet Cong-controlled village. This was a search-and-destroy mission within Operation Rang Dong.
VIRIN: 671121-O-ZZ999-101Y, via National Archives Identifier 100310302 111-CCV-603A-CC44815
Note the pack of camels in PFC Greenleaf’s helmet cover ban as well as the thin antenna and ruck straps of the Prick 10 (AN/PRC-10) vacuum-tube radio set he is carrying, meaning he is likely a platoon or company-level RTO.
Also, he curiously has a camera guy following along behind.
This guy:
On 21 November 1967, PFC Daniel R. Bauer (Los Angeles, CA) crosses a deep irrigation canal. PFC Bauer is a cinematographer with the Department of the Army Special Photo Office (DASPO). PFC Bauer was photographing members of Co “C”, 3rd Bn, 7th Inf, 199th Light Inf Bde,. 111-CCV-478-CC44816
The 3-7th had been lifted into the area by Hueys earlier that day from their base in nearby Ben Chon to take place in the yearlong pacification effort in the Gia Dinh Province in conjunction with the 5th ARVN Ranger Group.
Operation “Rang Dong.” A column of UH-1D helicopters leave Ben Chon, the 3rd Bn’s rear area base camp, and fly to Co “C”‘s position to pick them up and carry them on a combat assault. 111-CCV-97-CC44801
Operation “Rang Dong.” A column of UH-1D helicopters prepare to disembark members of Co “C”, 3rd Bn’s, 7th Inf, 199th Light Inf Bde, for a combat assault. 111-CCV-97-CC44803
Operation “Rang Dong.” Members of Co “C”, 3rd Bn, 7th Inf, 199th Light Inf Bde, move in a skirmish line through rice paddies en route to their first objective, a Viet Cong-controlled village. 111-CCV-603a-44809
Across its four years of combat in Southeast Asia, the 199th brigade took part in 11 campaigns and received five unit decorations: Valorous Unit Award, Meritorious Unit Commendation, two Republic of Vietnam (RVN) Crosses of Gallantry with Palm, and an RVN Civil Action Honor Medal First Class. One company (D, 4-12 Infantry) received a Presidential Unit Citation. Four soldiers earned the Medal of Honor and 15 received the Distinguished Service Cross.
Overall casualties for the Redcatchers in Vietnam were 755 killed, 4,679 wounded, and nine missing, or roughly 95 percent of its TOE-authorized strength.
The idea of hermaphrodite flattop-equipped hybrid carrier battleships was revisited often over the years. In the Great War, the British converted the battlecruiser HMS Furious to have a 160-foot flight deck and hangar for 10 aircraft forward while keeping a BL 18-inch (not a misprint) Mk I gun aft.
During WWII, you saw the Japanese convert the old dreadnoughts Ise and her sister ship Hyūga to allow them to carry a mix of 22 Yokosuka D4Y Suisei (Judy) dive bombers and Aichi E16A (Paul) reconnaissance aircraft.
Of course, the IJN never had enough aircraft and pilots late in the war to use them realistically as such, but hey…
Japanese battleship Ise or Hyuga firing on attacking planes during the battle off Cape Engaño, 25 October 1944. Note gunfire by the main battery and her empty rear flight deck. NHHC 80-G-288104
Iowa-class carrier conversions
Along similar lines, the U.S. Navy spitballed similar conversions of the Iowa class during the Cold War, but it never got past spitballing.
With that being said…
The Battleship New Jersey Museum & Memorial has just lucked into a set of CV-BB feasibility conversion drawings from 1981 and they are super cool.
The plans included removing all of the 5″/38 dual mounts and replacing them with VLS cells using the handling rooms to accommodate them– allowing for 160 TLAM/TASMs– which also allowed the ships to delete their planned Tomahawk armored box launchers and Harpoon cans as well.
It also shows the removal of the rear turret and the building of a flying deck over a hangar capable of holding a mix of 36~ AV-8 Harriers and Grumman G-698 V/STOL sub-busters.
The good news is that they intend to digitize the plans and make them available.
The Associated Press continues to put up archived footage from yesteryear online and some of it is striking. These recently caught my eye.
An 11-minute German training video from 1940 showing V1 and V2 rockets at Peenemunde.
A 20-minute 1976 report from Angola including some interesting footage of both CIA/South African-backed UNITA rebels and Cuban-backed MPLA in training– with lots of sweet FALs, HKG3s, and brand-new AKMs with bright orange Bakelite mags.
A 20-minute, sadly silent but in color, reel of AC-47D gunships out of Bien Thuy AB during the Vietnam War, October 1966.
A 16-minute, again silent but in color, reel of the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger being rolled out.
A captured 1944 German small arms instruction training film— in color– showing the basic use of everything from an MP40 to a Luger and MG 42.
A highly entertaining 16-minute color 1952 film on the failed Lockheed XFV-1, an early VTOL fighter envisioned for WWIII convoy defense that never quite got the bugs worked out.
And a 52-second newsreel of Billy Mitchell’s Martin MB-2s flying out of Langley Field in the 1920s to drop bombs on the captured German battlewagon SMS Ost Friesland, complete with foley sounds added in the 1970s.
While visiting Walther’s state-of-the-art factory in Ulm, Germany earlier this year, I came across my favorite pistol that carries the company’s iconic banner.
Walther has been around in one form or another, and one location or another, to the 1880s. Whenever you say the company’s name in a conversation, the immediate Pavlovian response is typically PPK, PDP, P99, or P-38.
However, my favorite Walther is the seldom-seen, and almost unheard-of, P4 (also seen as “P38 IV”).
A factory cutaway of the P-4 in Walther’s Museum in Ulm, Germany. (All photos: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
A shortened version of the P1– which itself was an updated P-38– the P4 was adopted by the West German Border Protection (Bundesgrenzschutz) and Customs (Zoll) agencies during the chilliest days of the Cold War.
Capping a selection process that had been started in 1974 for a new Short-Range Recovery (SRR) Aircraft to replace the aging HH-52 Sea Guard, the Coast Guard accepted the first of 96 HH-65 Dolpins for service on 14 November 1984.
They entered service in the branch’s then-standard red-white and blue full-color livery, complete with racing stripe.
Official caption: November 1984. HH-65 “successor” replacing the venerable HH-52A, a USCG workhorse for decades. USCG Historian’s Office Photo.
The first Dolphin det was CGAS New Orleans, which stood up in 1985. USCG Historian’s Office Photo.
In this work from the U.S. Coast Guard Art Program 2014 Collection, “Search Light” ID# 201414, An Air Station Miami MH-65 Dolphin flies low over a small boat station crew in turbulent waters of Biscayne Bay to conduct search and rescue training exercises. In order to be prepared for emergencies occurring at any time, crew members routinely complicate training exercises by performing them at night. (U.S. Coast Guard Art Program work by Karen Loew)
In those past 40 years, the Dolphin has flown 1,828,835 hours combined in USCG service, saving 13,828 lives, assisting another 13,974 in danger, and conducted 445,304 hoists.
Not too shabby.
Still “flying yesterday’s helicopter tomorrow,” the Reagan-era HH-65s were given a service life extension and became the Multi-Mission Cutter Helicopter (MCH), now in its MH-65E Echo upgrade variant which is anticipated to be in operation well through 2027.
Norfolk Naval Shipyard on Wednesday announced they have successfully completed the inactivation of the Moored Training Ship Sam Rayburn (MTS 635), an evolution that included prepping the boat for towing to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility in spring 2025.
What is a MTS?
Long the last remaining boat of her class still afloat, the MTS 635 was originally commissioned 2 December 1964 as SSBN-635, part of the James Madison-class of Cold War-era fleet ballistic missile (FBM) submarines.
USS Sam Rayburn (SSBN-635) c. 1964, with her missile hatches showing their “billiard ball” livery
A member of the famed “41 for Freedom” boats rushed into service to be the big stick of mutually assured destruction against the Soviets, Rayburn was named for the quiet but determined WWII/Korea War speaker of the House, Samuel Taliaferro Rayburn.
After carrying Polaris SLBMs on a rotating series of deterrent patrols from the East Coast and Rota, Spain, Rayburn had her missile compartment removed in 1985 as part of the SALT II treaty and decommissioned, transitioning to her role as an MTS.In the meantime, all of her sisters were disposed of through recycling by 2000, leaving Rayburn to linger on in her training role. Similarly, MTS Daniel Webster (MTS-626), originally a Lafayette-class FBM decommissioned in 1990, has been in the same tasking.
However, all things eventually end. As the MTS role has now transitioned to a pair of recently sidelined 1970s-construction Los Angeles-class attack boats– La Jolla (SSN/MTS 701) and San Francisco (SSN/MTS 711)— Webster and Rayburn are ready for razor blades.
Today, she looks pretty rough, as one would imagine.
Norfolk Naval Shipyard (NNSY) successfully completed the inactivation of the Moored Training Ship Sam Rayburn (MTS 635) Nov. 6, marking the Navy’s first inactivation of a Moored Training Ship. Sam Rayburn served at Nuclear Power Training Unit (NPTU)—Charleston for more than 30 years as a Moored Training Ship training Sailors in the operation, maintenance and supervision of nuclear propulsion systems.
And NNSY had to do lots of work to get her to look that good!
Ensuring the 60-year-old ship was ready for the voyage and storage required installing more than 250 lap plates on the non-pressure hull given several areas had experienced corrosion. Extensive welding was performed to ensure the integrity of the hull and piping systems during storage. The project team also installed and tested all required tow equipment.
Following a decision to pencil whip the service lives of 12 early Flight I Arleigh Burke-class (DDG 51) destroyers, pushing each beyond its 35-year expected service life to gain another 48 “ship years” in total from the high-mileage Cold Warriors, SECNAV made a similar announcement that will slow roll the retirement of a trio of Ticonderoga class cruisers.
We’ve been chronicling the snuff film that is the Ticos’ departure at the same confusing time that several class members have just completed very lengthy (up to 8 years per hull) and very expensive (you don’t want to know the cost) modernizations.
That odd duality caught up to the SECNAV at just the right time when the Navy’s frigate replacement class had lapsed years behind schedule.
The Department of the Navy plans to operate three Ticonderoga-class (CG 47) cruisers beyond their expected service life: USS Gettysburg (CG 64), USS Chosin (CG 65), and USS Cape St. George (CG 71). This decision adds 10 years of cumulative ship service life from fiscal year 2026 to 2029.
All three cruisers received extensive hull, mechanical, and engineering, as well as combat system upgrades as part of an extended modernization program. USS Gettysburg (CG 64) and USS Chosin (CG 65) completed modernization in fiscal year 2023 and fiscal year 2024, respectively. USS Cape St. George (CG 71) is on schedule to complete modernization this fiscal year.
Further, the Navy pointed out that Chosin recently broke new ground in the respect that she pulled off a successful VLS re-arm at sea demonstration last month. The Transferrable Reload At-sea Mechanism (TRAM) demonstration was the first time the Navy transferred missile canisters from a replenishment ship to a warship while at sea.
The Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Chosin (CG 65) steams alongside the Lewis and Clark-class dry cargo ship USNS Washington Chambers (T-AKE 11) during an at-sea demonstration of the Transferrable Reload At-sea Method (TRAM) while underway in the Pacific Ocean Oct. 11, 2024. Sailors aboard Chosin used the hydraulically- powered TRAM device to load an empty missile canister into the ship’s MK 41 Vertical Launching System (VLS) while off the coast of San Diego. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Charlotte Dudenhoeffer)
Some 57 years ago this month. Aden Emergency. The flight deck of the 54,000-ton Audacious-class aircraft carrier HMS Eagle (R 05) was photographed as part of Task Force 945 in the Gulf of Aden during the British withdrawal from the Aden colony in November 1967.
IWM (HU 106844)
Eagle’s deck is crowded with De Haviland Sea Vixen FAW.2s of 899 Naval Air Squadron and Blackburn Buccaneer S.1 and S.2s of 800 Naval Air Squadron. Meanwhile, following behind are the Centaur-class commando carrier HMS Albion (R 07), HMS Fearless (L10) of later Falklands fame, and the WWII-era Amphion-class submarine HMS Auriga (S69).
From the same period, drink in this beautiful shot of a Zuni rocket-armed Bucc from Eagle putting its watchful eye over the colony.
A Blackburn Buccaneer aircraft of 800 Naval Air Squadron from HMS Eagle on patrol over Aden and Khormaksar airfield, during the withdrawal of British troops on 29 November 1967. IWM A 35119
The Harland and Wolff-built Eagle, one of Britain’s two proper big deck carriers during the Cold War, was decommissioned in 1972 after just 21 years with the fleet while her sister, HMS Ark Royal, would endure until 1979. Both would have been welcome in the Falklands.
Photograph by Walter E. Frost, City of Vancouver Archives, CVA 447-8946.1
Above we see the Buckley-class destroyer escort USS Whitehurst (DE-634) of ResDesDiv 273 as she makes a port call in Vancouver on 31 July 1965.
At just over 300 feet long, she doesn’t look like much, but by this time in her career, she had already fought in WWII– sinking a Japanese submarine some 80 years ago this week– earned battle stars during Korea, cruised off Vietnam, and would go on to live forever on the silver screen.
The Buckleys
With some 154 hulls ordered, the Buckleys were intended to be cranked out in bulk to counter the swarms of Axis submarines prowling the seas.
Just 306 feet overall, they were about the size of a medium-ish Coast Guard cutter today but packed a lot more armament, namely three 3″/50 DP guns in open mounts, a secondary battery of 1.1-inch (or 40mm), and 20mm AAA guns, and three 21-inch torpedo tubes in a triple mount for taking out enemy surface ships.
Buckley-class-destroyer-escort-1944 USS England by Dr. Dan Saranga via Blueprints
Then there was the formidable ASW suite to include stern depth charge racks, eight depth charge throwers, and a Hedgehog system.
Powered by responsive electric motors fed by steam turbines, they could make 24 knots and were extremely maneuverable.
Class-leader, USS Buckley (DE-51), cutting a 20-knot, 1,000-foot circle on trials off Rockland Maine, 3 July 1943, 80-G-269442
Meet Whitehurst
Our subject carries the name of Ensign Henry Purefoy Whitehurst, Jr. who, originally scheduled to graduate in February 1942, was matriculated early from Annapolis with the rest of his class 12 days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, becoming the second Class of 1941.
Rushed to the Pacific, Henry was lost along with 233 shipmates aboard the heavy cruiser USS Astoria (CA 34)when “Nasty Asty” was sunk early in the morning of 9 August 1942 by Japanese surface forces at the Battle of Savo Island. The young officer was 22.
Ensign Henry Purefoy Whitehurst, Jr. 16 Feb 1920-9 Aug 1942. He is remembered on the Tablets of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial.
Laid down on 21 March 1943 at San Francisco by the Bethlehem Steel Co and launched on 5 September 1943, USS Whitehurst (DE-634) was sponsored by Ensign Whitehurst’s grieving mother, Mrs. Robie S. Whitehurst, and commissioned on 19 November 1943.
Her plankowner skipper was T/LCDR James Robert Gray, USN, 78836, (USNA ‘37). As a young LT(jg), he was the officer of the deck on duty aboard the high-speed minesweeper USS Wasmuth (DD-338/DMS-15) at Pearl Harbor and got the ship underway and fighting, claiming one plane downed. He then served as Damage Control Officer on the heavy cruiser USS New Orleans (CA-32) at Coral Sea and Midway. Whitehurst was his first command.
Headed to War!
Following sea trials, calibration tests, and shakedown off the West Coast, Whitehurst arrived at Pearl Harbor on 4 February 1944 and then got underway for the Solomons three days later as part of a small convoy.
Such work, riding shotgun for troop transports, LCIs, and LSTs on slow and steady (8-9 knot) runs, would be her bread and butter.
She took part in the Palau, Yap, Ulithi, Woleai raid (30 Mar 44 – 1 Apr 44), and, from 26 April through 7 June, she was upfront for the Hollandia operations followed closely by Toem-Wakde-Sarmi and Biak landings, including a very close brush with Japanese shore batteries off the latter.
From her War Diary:
She then joined in the operations to clear out the Northern Solomons from 22 June into early October, which for our tin can meant escorting the PT-boat mothership USS Mobjack (AGP-7) as she shifted ports, patrolling for Japanese submarines and surface contacts, conducting exercises and drills as part of Escort Division 40.
By this stage of the war, the Solomons had become a backwater.
It was there, at Blanche Harbor on Treasury Island on 1 September, that LCDR Grey was relieved by LT Jack Carter Horton, DE-V(G), USNR, 96845. Grey was being sent on to command USS Lawrence C. Taylor (DE 415). Horton, who had gone through the wartime midshipman school with 738 fellow “90-day wonders” at Northwestern University in Chicago, knew Whitehurst well– he had been her XO since commissioning.
The death of I-45
On 12 October, Whitehurst got underway from Humboldt Bay with orders to escort Task Unit 77.7.1, the fueling force for the 7th Fleet for the upcoming invasion of the Philippines. This included four oilers (Ashtabula, Saranac, Salamonie, and Chepachet), the civilian tanker Pueblo, and three fellow Buckleys: the sequential sisters USS Witter (DE-636), Bowers (DE-637), and Willmarth (DE-638).
Nearing the Philippines, Japanese activity increased and folks got jumpy. Just after 0200 on 17 October, a sharp echo underwater led to a radical course change, and a pattern of 13 depth charges dropped over the side as a precaution. Whitehurst’s War Diary notes, “The contact was evaluated as a large fish due to its erratic movements and narrow width.”
Creeping through the Ngaruangl Passage on 20 October, three days later they steamed through the Surigao Straits into the Leyte Gulf, anchoring off Homonhon Island, with her log taking care to note, “This part of the island in Japanese hands.”
Starting the next morning, at 0826 on 24 October, Whitehurst’s tanker group began a four-day running fight with Japanese ground-based aircraft, fending off a series of air attacks by Betty twin-engine and Val single-engine bombers as they repeatedly shifted positions. This included making emergency turns, burning both chemical and oil smoke, and filling the air with 3″/50 and 20mm shells whenever planes came within range. All the while the force managed to conduct underway refueling and escape the battleships and cruisers of Nishimura’s “Southern Force,” although they observed the flashes in the distance of the Battle of Surigao Strait over the night of 24/25 October.
Just when things started quieting down, at 0325 on 29 October Whitehurst observed a strong underwater explosion “some distance away” and received word via TBS that the Butler-class destroyer escort USS Eversole (DE-404) had been torpedoed and sunk by the Japanese Type B2 submarine I-45, taking 80 of her crew to the bottom.
Japanese submarine I-45 (B-class new type-1), on speed trial run off Sasebo, 1943
Whitehurst was detached from her task unit to screen the sistership USS Bull (DE-402) which was picking up what would be 136 survivors from the lost greyhound.
Picking up a sonar contact as she closed with the scene, Whitehurst delivered a series of four barrages of 7.2-inch Mk.10 Hedgehog charges and was rewarded with a series of secondary underwater explosions.
Just after dawn, a large (500-yard by 2,000-yard) oil slick was observed, filled with debris.
From her War Diary:
Japanese Sixth Fleet HQ had no further contact with I-45 and she is presumed lost with LCDR (promoted CDR posthumously) Kawashima Mamoru and his 103-member crew, removed from the Imperial Navy List on 10 March 1945.
Back to work
Continuing her involvement in the Philippines through the end of the month, a role that included blowing up random floating mines with rifle fire, on 2 November Whitehurst was dispatched to escort the damaged oiler Ashtabula to Hollandia for repairs. There, she witnessed the horrific disintegration of the USS Mount Hood (AE-11), packed with 4,500 tons of high explosives, in Seeadler Harbor.
Ordered to leave the harbor with a force of small LSMs and LCTs for Humboldt Bay the same day, by 12 November Whitehurst headed back to the Philippines as escort for Echelon L-13, a mix of 23 LSTs in four columns and 11 merchants in another four columns.
Entering the Surigao Strait by the 19th, enemy planes were sighted off and on over the next few days, cumulating with an attack on the 21st by two Kawasaki Ki-48 “Lily,” with one of the twin-engine light bombers shot down in flames. Whitehurst’s gunners contributed 382 rounds to the effort.
Sent back to Manus in December, she remained in the Admiralty Islands on interisland convoy runs and training duties, drydocking in January 1945, and then escorting the destroyer tender USS Sierra (AD-18) and repair ship USS Briareus (AR-12) to Purvis Bay in the Solomons in February.
Then came a well-earned 10-day R&R period in Australia, reporting to Ulithi afterward for the next big show.
Okinawa
Assigned to TF-51 along with two destroyers, USS McDermut (DD-667) and Leutz (DD-481), and the escort USS England (DE-635),Whitehurst and company formed the anti-submarine screen around the light cruisers USS Mobile and Miami for the assault and occupation of Okinawa Gunto, leaving Ulithi at the end of March.
By 6 April, the first Japanese aircraft out of Okinawa were engaged by Whitehurst, whose gunners fired 263 rounds that day.
Three Japanese Vals closed with the destroyer escort and two were shot down by the ship’s gunners. The third, in a steep 40-degree angle dive, smoking from 20mm hits, crashed into the ship’s bridge at 1502.
The entire bridge structure was enveloped in flames– with all the pilothouse and CIC personnel killed outright– and all control and communications lost. By 1507, with secondary control restored, with gun control conducted by voice, the ship’s force was fighting the fires that were under control by 1515.
The minesweeper USS Vigilance (AM-324) and assault transport USS Crosley (APD-87) came alongside the smoking warship to render medical assistance and rescue.
All of the men in the ship’s radio room as well as those in the forward gun crews had been either killed or seriously wounded by bomb fragments. In all, Whitehurst suffered 31 deaths and 37 wounded while six men were missing in action, presumed blown overboard. Overall, the casualties amounted to a third of the crew.
With Vigilance leading the way and a signalman from the minesweeper on Whitehurst’s deck passing commands back and forth via semaphore flag and handheld blinker lamp, the damaged escort made the protection of the Kerama Retto anchorage by 1830.
Four days later, patched up enough to make for the sea once again, Whitehurst joined a slow convoy bound for recently occupied Saipan and arrived there on the 20th. On the 22nd, she received a dispatch ordering her back to Pearl Harbor for battle damage repairs and alterations. Arriving in Hawaii via Eniwetok on 10 May, where she unloaded munitions and entered the Naval Yard two days later.
P.I. Powerhouse
The brutal month-long campaign to Liberate Japanese-occupied Manila, once considered one of the most beautiful of cities in the Far East, had left the Philippines’s capital a pile of rubble amid destruction perhaps only surpassed by Warsaw.
Manila, Philippine Islands, Feb. 1945. (U.S. Air Force Number 59680AC)
According to post-combat accounting, the fighting destroyed 11,000 of the city’s buildings, leaving 200,000 Filipinos homeless in addition to the 100,000 killed when the smoke cleared in early February 1945. Survivors had no running water, sewage treatment, or electricity.
That’s where Whitehurst and her sisters came in.
Gen. Kruger’s Sixth Army engineer train, tasked with helping to stand Manila back up in addition to pursuing the Japanese into northern Luzon, was soon operating two floating diesel powerplants to provide the city with a trickle of power.
Responding to the call, USS Wiseman (DE-667), one of Whitehurst’s sisters, was given a set of ship-to-shore power reels and transformers, allowing her to send juice into the Manila Electric Service by using the destroyer escort’s main propulsion plant.
Two large cable reels and a transformer were added between the X-position director and the smokestack. The transformers installed as part of the conversion provided electricity in six different voltages ranging from 2,400 and 37,500 volts using the ship’s GE generators
Photo of a power cable reels on the USS Wiseman (DE-667) from the open bridge. The Wiseman helped provide power to Manila for a time in 1945. U.S. Navy Memorial Foundation Collection: Frank M. Frazitta Papers. 0677-048-b1-fi-i6. East Carolina University Digital Collections. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/24920. Accessed 29 Oct. 2024
As detailed by DANFS on Wiseman’s mission:
Arriving at Manila on [March] 23d, she commenced furnishing power to that nearly demolished city on 13 April and, over the next five and one-half months, provided some 5,806,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity. In addition, Wiseman’s evaporators furnished 150,000 gallons of drinking water to Army facilities in the harbor area and to many small craft. Her radios were also utilized to a great extent. Placed at the disposal of the Navy’s port director, the ship’s communication outfit was used to handle harbor radio traffic until the director’s equipment arrived and was installed ashore.
As part of her yard period in Pearl Harbor following her kamikaze strike, Whitehurst received a similar set of ship-to-shore transmission reels, which she tested on 1 July 1945 by illuminating a test grid ashore at the Navy Yard.
3 July 1945: Whitehurst at Pearl Harbor, undergoing Inclining tests, note her TEG conversion reels are visible behind her stack. (U.S. Navy photo, National Archives #19LCM-DE634-3)
Receiving munitions, provisions, and new crew members (including a new skipper), she spent three weeks on a series of speed and maneuvering trials, augmented by gunnery and ASW exercises then shoved off on 25 July bound for the Philippines.
On 14 August 1945, Whitehurst, which had just escorted the jeep carrier USS Core (CVE-13) from Ulithi to Leyte, arrived at Manila’s inner harbor and tied up, reporting to Sixth Army to relive Wiseman.
She soon after started lighting up the P.I. at a regular 13,200 volts (5.8746E-25 MWh), 24×7.
She would continue this unsung yet vital post-war recovery service for more than two months until relieved on 26 October.
Her services were needed in Guam, and Whitehurst steamed there in early November where she tied up and supplied electrical power to the dredge YM-25, in support of the 301st Naval Construction Bn, into 1946.
No less than six other destroyer escorts– all Buckley class ships– were at some point converted into floating Turbo-Electric Generators (TEG) in such a manner: USS Donnell (DE-56), Foss (DE-59), Marsh (DE-699), Maloy (DE-791), HMS Spragge (K-572, ex-DE-563) and HMS Hotham (K-583 ex-DE-574). Notably, Donnell, which had been extensively damaged by a torpedo from U-473 in May 1944, was reclassified IX-182 and used to supply shore power off Omaha immediately after D-Day.
This allowed them to operate in important expeditionary and humanitarian roles if and when needed, a trick some of them would be called to do in later conflicts. For example, Foss and Maloy went to the aid of blacked-out Portland Maine in 1947 while Wiseman and Marsh powered the respective Korean ports of Masan and Pusan in 1950 during the Korean War.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
Korea
Finally returning to CONUS in April 1946 after more than nine months of service as a floating generator, Whitehurst was decommissioned six months later and placed in the Atlantic Reserve Fleet at Green Cove Springs, Florida. She earned six battle stars for her World War II service.
Not all of her sisters were as lucky. Four had been lost during the war: USS Fechteler, sunk by U-967 northwest of Oran, Algeria 5 May 1944; Rich; lost to mines off Utah Beach 8 June 1944 just months after joining the fleet; Bates, sunk by kamikazes off Okinawa 25 May 1945; and Underhill, sunk by a Japanese Kaiten human torpedo northeast of Luzon 24 July 1945. Meanwhile, England, like Whitehurst, was damaged by suicide planes off Okinawa, but unlike our subject was not repaired following the war.
The truth was that the peacetime Navy had little use for slow DEs with their open gun mounts when so many modern, fast, and well-armed new destroyers were just leaving the shipyards.
Port broadside aerial view of destroyer escort USS Whitehurst (DE-634) November 30 1949 USN 200669
When the Norks crossed the 38th Parallel during the summer of 1950 into South Korea, Whitehurst was dusted off and recommissioned on 1 September 1950. Sent to the Far East as part of Escort Squadron 11 (CortDiv 112), she earned three battle stars (First UN Counter Offensive, Communist China Spring Offensive, and UN Summer-Fall Offensive) for her activities during the Korean War in the seven months between 25 February and 19 September 1951.
Remaining in the Westpac until 1955, she transferred to Pearl Harbor for another year of service that included poking around the remote islands and atolls of the U.S. Trust Territories for the Pacific, winning hearts and minds by providing aid and medical care for the locals while enforcing fishing regulations and low-key looking for Japanese hold outs.
With an 11-foot draft and the ability to easily launch rubber rafts due to her low freeboard, littoral surveillance came easy.
For instance, take this deck log note from March 1957 into account:
By June 1957, she was one of the last destroyer escorts remaining on active duty in her WWII configuration (if you disregard her TEG equipment).
This led to the ship and her crew being placed at the disposal of 20th Century Fox for six weeks for Dick Powell to film The Enemy Below.
Dubbed the fictional USS Haynes in the film, Whitehurst appears in several significant passages, all filmed in amazing DeLuxe Color.
Reserve Days, and her final mission
Once filming wrapped, Whitehurst was sent to the 13th Naval District at Seattle, Washington in October 1957 to serve with Reserve Escort Squadron 1 (ResCortDiv 112) as a Naval Reserve Training ship, used for weekend cruises one weekend per month and a two-week summer cruise per year.
Decommissioned a second time on 6 December 1958, Whitehurst remained “in service” as a training asset, keeping up her regular drill work.
USS Whitehurst (DE634), note the post-war hull numbers
This continued until October 1961 when she was recommissioned a second time during the Berlin Wall crisis, manned by activated reservists, and sent to Pearl Harbor to join Escort Squadron 7 for 10 months.
Buckley class USS Whitehurst (DE-634)
It was during this time that she was sent to Vietnam in March 1962 along with Escort Division 71. Operating in the South China Sea and the Gulf of Siam, she conducted training of South Vietnamese naval officers out of Danang.
Postwar view of Whitehurst, with her distinctive cable reels on the 01 level amidships
Decommissioned a third time on 1 August 1962, she returned to her weekend warrior NRT job in Seattle as part of Destroyer Squadron 27 (ResDesDiv 273) where, during a 1963 refit, she landed much of her WWII armament and her TEG reels.
Her summer cruises, longer two-week affairs, often ranged as far as Canada and Mexico.
Whitehurst, City of Vancouver Archives. 31 July 1965.
This quiet reserve life continued into October 1968 when she was shifted to Swan Island outside of Portland, Oregon, becoming an NRT vessel there.
On 12 July 1969, Whitehurst was struck from the Navy List as the likelihood of her offering anything as a training asset was slim. By that time, she was one of the final members of her “disposable” class still in the Navy’s hands, a record only surpassed by a handful of fellow NRT ships which lingered into the early 1970s.
Stripped, she was towed to sea by USS Tawasa (ATF-92) and sunk as a target by the submarine USS Trigger (SS-564) on 28 April 1971 in deep water off Vancouver Island, during the development of the MK 48 torpedo– its first live warshot test.
28 April 1971 ex-Whitehurst quickly slides beneath the waves. This photo was taken by the Trigger’s Periscope Photographer, Tom Boyer.
In her ending, she served the Navy one last time by helping to test new weapons and train new bluejackets in their use.
Likewise, 11 of her class were disposed of in similar SINKEXs between 1967 and 1973: ex-USS Lovelace, ex-James E. Craig, ex-Otter, ex-Darby, ex-J. Douglas Blackwood, ex-Alexander J. Luke, ex-Vammen, ex-Loeser, ex-Currier, ex-Cronin, and ex-Gunason.
She has a memorial at the Museum of the Pacific War in Texas.
A website DE634.org, endures to keep her memory alive. Their last reunion listed, combined with veterans of USS Silverstein, Walton, and Foss, was in 2020.
As for her first skipper, James Grey, went on to command two other destroyer escorts and a troopship, including sea time during Korea, then served in several high-level shore assignments until he retired in 1960, capping 23 years with the Navy. He passed in Sunnyvale, California in 2002, aged 87.
Her first XO and second skipper, 90-day wonder Jack Horton, who commanded the ship during the battle against I-45 and somehow survived the kamikaze his ship took to the bridge six months later, mustered out in December 1945 and, settling in Houston, passed in a sailing accident on the Gulf of Mexico in 1970. Life is funny like that.
The Navy has not seen fit to commission a second USS Whitehurst.
However, The Enemy Below endures, and she is still beautiful in rich DeLuxe Color.
Ships are more than steel and wood And heart of burning coal, For those who sail upon them know That some ships have a soul.
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