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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40 years ago this month, we see the beautiful clean lines of the Leahy class guided missile cruiser USS Reeves (CG-24) underway on 15 October 1984, likely somewhere in the Western Pacific as she was forward deployed to Yokosuka from 1980 to 1989.
USN Photo 330-CFD-DN-ST-85-05479 via NARA 6396505
Named for Admiral Joseph Mason “Bull” Reeves, known as the “Father of Carrier Aviation,” the above was laid down as a destroyer leader (DLG-24) in July 1960 at Puget Sound NSY, sponsored at her launch two years later by the late Admiral’s daughter-in-law, and commissioned 15 May 1964.
Designed for AAW– with her pair of twin Mk 10 SAM launchers and magazine for up to 88 Terrier ER missiles, she was soon fulfilling the role of an AAW picket and floating CSAR asset on Yankee Station off Vietnam for a rotating series of flattops, spending much of her time over the next four years underway in the Gulf of Tonkin, earning three battle stars for her service in South East Asia.
After an overhaul and re-rating along with the rest of her class as an 8,200-ton “cruiser” continued to be a staple in the West Pac for the remainder of her career– except for two deployments ( 24-Jul-1987 to 26-Sep-1987 and 15-Sep-1989 to 24-Oct-1989) to the Persian Gulf to take part in Operation Earnest Will tanker reflagging escorts.
She is seen above in her roughly final configuration, including not only her Terriers but also a Mk 16 ASROC matchbox launcher between the forward Terrier and the bridge; a pair of Mk 15 Vulcan Phalanx CIWS; eight Harpoon cans, and two triple Mk 32 12.75-inch triple tube launchers.
Part of the “Great Cruiser Slaughter” by the Clinton Administration following the end of the Cold War, Reeves was decommissioned on 12 November 1993, stricken the same day, and sunk as a target in 2,541 Fathoms on 31 May 2001
A vintage deck gun system that was once a staple of the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard has quietly fired its final shots.
Designed by the famed munitions firm of OTO Melara of La Spezia, Italy, and marketed from 1963 onward as the 76/62C Compact, the remote-controlled 76mm (3-inch) gun with its characteristic bubble dome was an immediate hit with NATO and Western fleets, eventually seeing service with 60 nations.
West German Type 148 missile boats show their 76mm OTO guns during a visit to the UK, in 1977
The reason it was so popular was that using aluminum alloys, a water-cooled gun barrel, and an automatic loader with an 80-round magazine, it delivered much better performance than any manned 3-inch gun mount in service at the time while weighing much less. Guided by the ship’s onboard radar and fire control system, it could engage air targets as high as 13,000 feet and surface targets out to 20,000 yards.
The 76/62 designation comes from the bore (76mm) and barrel length (62 caliber), the latter figure denoting a 4,724mm long barrel, which translates to 15.5 feet.
The 76/62C Compact, seen in its components from a 1980 U.S. Navy training publication:
Note the gun control panel which was mounted in the ammunition handling room below deck under the mount. The mount captain fired the gun from the panel while two ammunition loaders stood by to reload the magazine.
A look under the hood so to speak, showing off the details of the gun itself and its magazine.
The mag used two concentric rings of shells, each holding 35 rounds, with a hydraulic motor rotating the screw feeder– which held another six rounds not unlike that of a common “six-shooter” revolver. Together with the four rounds held in the loader drum, the gun held 80 shells, which could be expended in just under one minute.
A view of the magazine rings of the MK-75 gun aboard USCGC Mohawk (WMEC 913) while underway in the Atlantic Ocean, Sept. 1, 2022. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Jessica Fontenette)
The types of “war shot” rounds in U.S. service included High Explosive Point Detonating (HE-PD), High Explosive Infrared (HE-IR), Variable Time Non-fragmenting (VT-NF), High Explosive Variable Time (HE-VT), and High Explosive Radio Frequency proximity (HE-RF).
Exercise and training shells included the Blind-Loaded and Plugged (BL&P) round with a live round that had an inert projectile while wholly inert rammable and non-rammable dummy and gauging rounds were also available.
Crew load 76mm rounds into the magazine of the MK-75 gun aboard USCGC Mohawk (WMEC 913) while underway in the Atlantic Ocean, Sept. 1, 2022. HE-PD rounds can be seen in the outer ring and blue-colored BLP target rounds are peeking out of the inner ring. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Jessica Fontenette)
The gun control panel below-deck under the mount, complete with its view of the magazine rings. Seen on the USCGC Midgett (WHEC 721) in June 1999. USCG photo by PA2 Alice Sennott
Shells were brought on and off the packed in grey shipping containers, loaded old-school via chain gangs.
Sailors aboard the Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided-missile frigate USS Rodney M. Davis (FFG 60) move 76mm rounds during an ammunition onload. Rodney M. Davis, based out of Everett, Wash., is on patrol in the 7th Fleet area of responsibility supporting security and stability in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Derek A. Harkins/Released)
For a great look at the inner guts of the 76/62C Compact, check out this short video from the German Navy, which has used the gun since 1965. Don’t worry if your German is rusty, the video speaks for itself.
With the U.S. Navy opting to mount a smaller 3-inch gun on its planned Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates in the 1970s– a big change from the manned 5-inch guns mounted on the Knox-class frigates that preceded them– the Pentagon went with the Italian “robot gun” design.
A destroyer escort, USS Talbot (DEG-4), in late 1974 had an Italian-produced 76/62C Compact installed on her bow forward of the superstructure in place of the ship’s original 5-inch manned mount which used a design that dated to World War II.
USS Talbot seen circa 1974-75 with an OTO Melara 76/62C Compact installed. (Photos: U.S. Navy History and Heritage Command)
The Naval Systems Division of the FMC Corporation in 1975 won the U.S. contract to build the 76/62C Compact in Pennsylvania under license from OTO Melara and delivered the first American-built model in August 1978. The Navy, which designated the gun the MK 75, went on to install them in 51 Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates built between 1975 and 1989, along with six Pegasus-class hydrofoil fast attack craft and on the Coast Guard’s 13 new Bear-class cutters that were constructed in the same era.
Likewise, when the Coast Guard’s 12 Vietnam-era Hamilton-class cutters were modernized starting in 1987, they received the MK 75 to replace their outdated 5-inch mounts. The guns were also installed on a series of warships built in the U.S. for overseas customers (Israel, Egypt, Australia, et.al).
The frigates carried the MK 75 atop their superstructure as the bow, the traditional location, was occupied by a missile launcher and its below-deck magazine.
October 2002. USS Sides (FFG 14) fires her 76mm dual-purpose gun at ex-USS Towers (DDG 9) during a SINKEX near San Diego. (Photo: U.S. Navy)
May 2011. The Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided-missile frigate USS Thach (FFG 43) fires its MK-75 76mm mounted gun while underway off the coast of Brazil. (Photo: U.S. Navy)
August 2014. The Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided-missile frigate USS Rodney M. Davis (FFG 60) conducts a live-fire exercise of its MK 75 76mm/62 caliber gun. (Photo: U.S. Navy)
One of the frigates, USS Simpson (FFG-56), part of Surface Action Group Charlie, had the first combat use of the MK 75 in U.S. service when, in April 1988, used the gun to destroy Iranian naval and intelligence facilities on the Sirri oil platform during Operation Praying Mantis.
Another frigate, USS Nicholas (FFG-47)used her MK 75 during Desert Storm in January 1991 to clear Iraqi troops placed on nine oil platforms in the northern Persian Gulf off of occupied Kuwait. As reported at the time, the frigate “fired three shots at each platform to set the range, followed by about 20 rounds of high-explosive shells, ‘for effect.’ The effect was to demolish quickly all the remaining bunkers.”
The speedy hydrofoils, meanwhile, wore their MK 75 as a hood ornament.
As did the Coast Guard cutters.
Coast Guard Cutter Harriet Lane firing a commemorative shot on 30 May 2019 to honor the 158th anniversary of its namesake’s action near Fort Sumter, South Carolina. (Photo: USCG)
The water-cooled barrel, using salt water during the firing process and a freshwater flush from the ship’s onboard supply after the firing ceased, led to often extreme muzzle shots with the intersection of steam and propellant.
The crew of Coast Guard Cutter Northland conducts a live firing of the MK 75 76mm weapons system while underway, on September 20, 2020, in the Atlantic Ocean. (Photo: USCG)
March 2000. The Coast Guard Cutter Tampa’s 76mm gun blasts a projectile at a moving target during live-fire exercises. Participants took turns firing at “robo-ski,” a small, remote-controlled jet ski. Tampa gunners hit the target every time. USCG Photo by ET3 Shane Taylor.
The gun uses a saltwater cooling system and a freshwater cleaning run after firing concludes, seen here on USCGC Escanaba in 2028.
All things come to an end
However, there has been a slow-motion end to this story that started with the retirement of the hydrofoils in 1993, and the frigates losing their MK 75s by 2015 in a series of refits. This left the Navy, who “owns” the installed weapons on Coast Guard cutters, still on the hook for logistics contracts with BAE systems and OTO Melara (now Leonardo) for parts and support.
Those days are gone as the 76/62C is out of production both in the U.S. and Italy, with Leonardo replacing the system in its catalog with the faster-firing (though still with only an 80-round ready magazine) and more stealthy 76/62 Super Rapid (SR) Gun Mount.
Eventually, the Ordnance Shop at the Coast Guard yard took ownership of the MK 75 program and was even tapped to support the guns on frigates and cutters transferred overseas.
Since then, the Hamilton class has all retired and has been transferred overseas and now the Bear class cutters are in the process of being stripped of their MK 75s during refits, and replaced by smaller (albeit currently produced) MK 38 25mm guns. Overseas allies are similarly phasing out the gun.
This brings us to the coda of the Bear-class USCGC Mohawk (WMEC 913) firing her MK 75 for the last time this summer, an event that was held during a gunnery exercise in the Florida Straits. The service said in a press release this week that it was a “significant historical event” as Mohawk was “the last in its class to fire the onboard Mk 75 gun weapon system.”
Coast Guard Cutter Mohawk’s (WMEC 613) Mk 75 weapon system fires, Aug. 16, 2024, during a gunnery exercise in the Florida Straits. Mohawk was the last Famous-class medium endurance cutter to fire the onboard Mk 75 mm gun weapon system as large caliber weapon systems onboard these cutters are being modernized for the service life extension program. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Ensign Brian Morel)
Perhaps once the mount is phased out for good, the USS Aries Museum, the only preserved U.S. Navy hydrofoil, can pick up one of the old MK 75s to help complete her Cold War profile.
As a follow-up to our Warship Wednesday this week (“A Tough Little Wolf”) which focused on the three Danish torpedo boats between 1881 and 1990 that carried the name Søulven (Sea Wolf), a little more in-depth on the last of that trio’s class.
The Danish Søløven(Sea Lion) class, was a Vosper design based on the company’s late 1950s Brave class– HMS Brave Borderer (P1011) and HMS Brave Swordsman (P1012)— fast patrol boat’s hull form blended with its Ferocity style construction, which was a bit cheaper than going all-metal.
HMS Brave Borderer (P1011) a fast patrol boat, during trials in the Solent, January 1960. IWM (A 34261)
HMS Ferocity, budget version of the fast Brave Class gas turbine MTB
Ranger magazine page Ferocity, a cheaper version of the Brave-class MTBs
While the steel-hulled 98-foot/114-ton Braves could make a blistering 52 knots on a suite of three Bristol Proteus gas turbines and were armed with a 40mm Bofors, four 21-inch tubes, and two depth charges, the Danish variants used a wooden hull with an aluminum superstructure and a CODOG suite of 3 Proteus gas turbines on three shafts and 2 General Motors 6V71 diesels on outer shafts.
Running 99 feet oal and with a displacement of 120 tons, the Danish boats could “only” make 50 knots and, besides their suite of twin Bofors and four torpedo tubes, were rigged to drop mines.
Manned by 27 men: 5 officers/petty officers and 22 sailors, the six boats of the class all repeated previous Danish Navy names with an S (Søløven, Søridderen, Søbjørnen, Søhesten, Søhunden, and Søulven) hull numbers P510-P515. The design and first hull were paid for by the U.S. under FMS funds under NATO aid, with the first two hulls built at Vosper’s yard in Portchester while the last four were constructed under license by the Royal Danish SY (Orlogsværftets) at Copenhagen.
Søridderen P5111 on right Gribben P508 left
Søridderen P5111 on left Gribben P508 right
Søhesten Orlogsværftets 31. marts 1963. KD Ebbe Wolfhagen i samtale med underdirektor Carl Sorensen, SMI UPI og uident KD. Bag de tre ses direktor Schou-Pedersen, Orlogsværftets Til hojre genkendes i midten (bagerst) viceadmiral Svend Pontoppidan, chef for Sovornet og til hojre med solbriller kommandor Henning Prause, chef for Televosenet. Til venstre i samme gruppe underdirektor Stundsig Larsen, Orlogsværftets Til venstre for Søløven ses motortorpedobat
Interiørfoto fra en gasturbinebåd af SØLØVEN-klassen. Her motiv fra åben bro.
Interiørfoto fra en gasturbinebåd af SØLØVEN-klassen. Her motiv fra maskinkontrolpositionen i O-rummet.
Interiørfoto fra en gasturbinebåd af SØLØVEN-klassen. Her motiv fra mandskabsbanjen i forskibet.
Interiørfoto fra en gasturbinebåd af SØLØVEN-klassen. Her kabyssen.
The Søløvens were so well-liked that Vosper continued marketing the variant and contracts were secured by the King of Libya for three boats (dubbed the Susa class) and Malaysia (four Perkasa-class) which substituted eight SS-12 missiles for torpedoes.
Soulven dropping mines
Motortorpedobåden P511 SØRIDDEREN af SØLØVEN-klassen. Sort / hvidt fotografi. Uden tid eller sted.
P515 SØULVEN og P510 SØLØVEN af SØLØVEN-klassen
Uidentificerbar enhed af SØLØVEN-klassen.
SØLØVEN-klassen. Opvarmning af gasturbiner. Flådestation Frederikshavn, 1976. I baggrunden den udfasede korvet F345 DIANA af TRITON-klassen.
Danish tactics for these PT/MTBs were simple, lay up camouflaged during the day in any number of off-the-beaten-path Scandinavian inlets (they often went to Norway for exercises) then attack targets at night. They were originally tended by the mothership Hjaelperen, later replaced by Moba.
En enhed af SØLØVEN-klassen kamoufleret i Norge.
The Søløven-class was placed into reserve in 1988 and disposed of when the Flyvefisken-class Stanflex 300 patrol vessels entered service, with disposal complete by 1992.
One (Søbjørnen, P512) is on display as a museum ship at the Aalborg Maritime and Marine Museum (Springeren – Maritimt Oplevelsescenter) while at least two others are still in Western Europe as private yachts, running on diesels only.
The museum also markets a beer under the vessel’s name, with proceeds to help preserve historic Danish naval vessels.
