A very well bundled General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, 71, is shown inspecting troops of the 24th Infantry on his arrival at the recently recaptured Kimpo airfield, Republic of Korea, for a tour of the battlefront. 21 February 1951.
NARA FILE #: 306-PS-51-10432
At the time, the world’s most famous corncob pipe enjoyer was the SCAP (Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers) in the Pacific, a post he had held since August 1945; Commander of the Far East Command (FECOM), a post he had held since January 1947; was Commander of the United Nations Command, Korea, a job he held since 7 July 1950; and was Governor of the Ryukyu Islands (USAR), an office he held since December 1950.
In early 1951, MacArthur was the senior soldier in the American army — “senior,” quipped one junior officer, “to everyone but God” — and the next president, Eisenhower, had served under “Mac” for seven years in the 1930s.
Old “Dugout Doug” was only about six weeks away from being replaced in all of those posts by Gen. Matthew Ridgway on orders of Harry Truman, capping MacArthur’s epic military career, one that unofficially started at his birth in 1880 at Little Rock Barracks in Arkansas, son of a regular Army captain.
The KMT’s second front(s) in the Korean War
It was as the unofficial Field Marshal of the Philippine Army in the mid-1930s that MacArthur became aware of Chiang Kai-shek, leader of KMT China. This acquaintance that became an active friendship once MacArthur was recalled to active service as U.S. Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) after Pearl Harbor.
The two men, the exiled 63-year-old generalissimo and the most powerful man in the hemisphere, only met once, at Taipei, Formosa (Taiwan), on 31 July 1950– just weeks after the North Koreans marched across the 38th Parallel and kicked off the biggest war of the decade.
Chiang offered MacArthur 73,000 troops —three full infantry divisions and support troops —for use in Korea, as well as 20 of the C-47s he had on Taiwan to help move them.
The White House immediately torpedoed the idea, but MacArthur continued to ask Truman to allow his use of KMT troops in South Korea until just a few weeks before he was sacked. Ridgeway did not entertain such a fantasy.
Chiang saw it as just an extension of the Civil War, which he had been fighting against the Chinese Reds since 1927.
Keep in mind that at the time he met with MacArthur, Chiang’s forces were still actively fighting an insurgency war under General Ma Hushan in mainland China’s northwest and Yunnan region that would last until 1958. Further, his exiled 93rd Nationalist Division was conducting a low-key border conflict under General Li Mi in Burma.
Chiang was also effectively tying down Chicom General Chen Yi’s 3rd Field Army and Piao’s 4th Army along the Fukien coast across from Taiwan, where the Reds were “massing 5,000 vessels for the invasion by commandeering freighters, motorized junks, and sampans and refloating ships that had been sunk in the Yangtze River during the fight for the mainland. Further, they gathered and trained over 30,000 fishermen and other sailors to man the flotilla.”
And the KMT, having lost the bulk of their heavy weaponry on the evacuation from mainland China to Taiwan, had in late 1949-early 1950 (before Korea kicked off) been greatly bolstered by surplus American hardware– signed off on by MacArthur– to allow them to keep holding. Most of it was unwanted and had been warehoused in the Western Pacific, destined for scrap, so it made sense.
KMT exile army Formosa Taiwan 1950 75mm pack howitzers
KMT exile army Formosa Taiwan 1950 M5A1 tank
KMT Chiayi air base, Taiwan Formosa, on January 13, 1950, P-51s and C-46s. LIFE Carl Mydans
KMT Chiayi air base, Taiwan Formosa, on January 13, 1950, P-51s and C-46s. LIFE Carl Mydans
KMT Chiayi air base, Taiwan Formosa, on January 13, 1950, P-51s and C-46s. LIFE Carl Mydans
February 1950 M5A1 tanks unloaded in Formosa, Taiwan, for the KMT Chinese LIFE Carl Maydans
February 1950 M5A1 tanks unloaded in Formosa, Taiwan, for the KMT Chinese LIFE Carl Maydans
February 1950 M5A1 tanks unloaded in Formosa, Taiwan, for the KMT Chinese LIFE Carl Maydans
Going past fighting off a planned Chicom invasion of Taiwan, Chiang was actively planning to invade the mainland, prepping a 270,000-man force.
Check out these images from the Taiwan-based KMT’s October 1950 Pingtung landing exercises:
The deployment of the U.S. Seventh Fleet in a series of “naval parades” in the Taiwan Straits during the Korean War effectively halted the KMT plans for a major, direct invasion from Taiwan, while likewise spoiling (but not releasing) the bulk of the 300,000 Chicom fighters assembled along the Fukien coast.
Meanwhile, General Ma’s forces in Burma (at least those that didn’t want to stay behind in the Golden Triangle and become warlords) would only be repatriated to Taiwan with U.S. assistance in November 1953, once the Korean war had ceased, while unreconstructed KMT holdouts there would keep fighting the Reds as late as 1961.
ROC KMT Chinese troops, Burma, 93rd Division of the 6th Army, going to their “new” home in November 1953.
Some 35 years ago this week. 18 February 1991 – Saudi Arabia, a French Gazelle SA 342 combat helicopter shoots a HOT missile in flight, over the desert. It is likely of the 4th Division Aéromobile or the 5th Régiment d’Hélicopteres Anti-char (RHC) with Task Force Alpha, attached to the French 6th Light Armored Division (6e DLB).
Ref. : DAY 91 02 2019, Michel Riehl/ECPAD/Defense
As part of Operation Daguet, the French end of Desert Shield/Storm, the country deployed some 132 helicopters for its divisional-sized force, including 60 HOT-armed Gazelles, most of which arrived in the Middle East during the Operation Salamandre build-up via the carrier Clemenceau.
Le porte-avions “Clemenceau” et le croiseur lance-missiles “Colbert” effectuent un ravitaillement en mer auprès du pétrolier ravitailleur “Var” lors de l’opération “Salamandre”.
Des hélicoptères du 5e RHC (Régiment d’Hélicoptères de Combat) appontent sur le porte-avions “Clemenceau” pour un exercice lors de l’opération “Salamandre”.
Photo: Marine Nationale
The French built up a 14,000 man ground force from the 6th French Light Armored Division–outfitted with a battalion of AMX-30s, three battalions of AMX-10RCs, and some 200 VABs, with units including the famed 1st Foreign Legion Cavalry (1er REC), the 3rd Marines (3e RIMa), and the 1er Regiment de spahis— augmented by the truck-borne 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment of the U.S. 82nd “All American” Airborne Division.
Un marsouin du 3e régiment d’infanterie de marine (RIMa) mans an observation point armed with an mm AA-F1N machine gun, itself an updated Cold War AA-52 in 7.62 NATO. Réf. : DIA 91 02 3722 Christian Fritsch/ECPAD/Défense
A soldier from the 11th Marine Artillery Regiment (RAMA) rides a motorcycle in the desert.
They crossed the line of contact on 24 February 1991 on the far left of the Allied effort, operating almost totally inside Iraq, a country French troops had last been in in a combat role in 1941.
Armored AMX-10 RC belonging to the 1st Foreign Cavalry Regiment (1st REC) and the 1st Spahis Regiment (1st RS) advance head-on in the desert. Ref. : DAY 28 04 20 03 Christian Fritsch/ECPAD/Defense
Within 48 hours, they met, closed with, and destroyed the Iraqi 45th Mechanized Infantry Division, bagging 3,000 POWs for two killed and 10 wounded.
During one initial clearing stage when Desert Shield turned into Desert Storm, 30 missile-armed Gazelles flew in an abreast line formation 500m apart to sanitize a 15 km wide, 20 km deep area for the following French and accompanying American ground forces to follow. French Gazelles fired 330 HOT missiles during the ‘Storm.
Born in Perpignan near the Mediterranean coast and the border with Spain in 1903, François Gabriel Pierre Jaubert entered the École navale in October 1922 and graduated as an ensign (2nd class) two years later, shipping out immediately for the cruiser Jules-Michelet, stationed overseas in the Far East naval division.
Soon, Jaubert was serving aboard the French river gunboat Doudart-de-Lagrée in the Yangtze River flotilla, then commanded a landing company from the cruiser Mulhouse ashore during China’s warlord period. Further service saw him as XO of the aviso Aldebaran, shipping along the extensive and often wild Indochinese littoral, a brown water warren filled with pirates and smugglers. He then commanded the marines aboard the cruiser Suffren.
His first assignment in Metropolitan France was as an instructor at the Naval Fusiliers School in Lorient, which he joined in 1934 after a decade overseas. Soon he was back in the colonies, skipper of the gunboat Balny on the Yangtze.
By the time war came with the Germans, he only made it back home in time to see France fall and was reduced to cooling his heels in the acoustics lab in Marseille during the Vichy era.
Surviving the German advance in November 1942 after the Torch Landings, Jaubert soon was serving with the Free French and, by late 1944, was made commander of the newly-formed Brigade marine d’Extrême-Orient (Far East Marine Brigade), a 1,000-man amphibious force meant to land in Indochina and start the work of kicking the Japanese out. Equipped with American-provided inshore landing craft (LCA, LCVP, LCM, LCI, and LCTs) by the time they made it to the Far East, they augmented this with locally acquired motorized junks and barges.
Pushing into the Mekong delta and the rest of Indochina’s river networks from their headquarters at the old Saigon Yacht club, starting in October 1945 to clear Japanese holdouts, they soon were fighting a new foe: the Viet Minh.
Indochina: French Dinassaut mobile riverine force, Mekong Delta, Vietnam, U.S. Navy Historical & Heritage Command photo NH79376
Jaubert laid out the plan that would later be used by the U.S. Navy in Operation Marketime, but he never lived to see it. He was seriously wounded in operations in Than Uyên province on 25 January 1946, then succumbed to his wounds several days later. Besides his WWII Croix de guerre (with palm), he earned a Légion d’honneur (posthumous). He was just shy of his 43rd birthday
Initially buried in Saigon, where he served most of his career, he was exhumed post-1954 and reinterred in the small Pyrenees mountain town of Ponteilla, from where his extended family hails.
The French Marines remembered him by renaming his Far East Brigade after him in 1948.
Today, the special operation-capable Commando Jaubert is one of the seven such named marine commando units of the French Navy. They have since seen action in Algeria, Somalia, the Comoros (against the old war dog Bob Denard), Afghanistan, and Mali. Their badge still retains a Chinese dragon to mark their origin.
The unit that bears his name just marked the 80th anniversary of his passing, visiting his grave on the occasion to pay Hommage.
We’ve been covering the Marines’ interest and initiative in fielding their own, more legitimate, take on the narco sub or LPSS for use in supplying isolated outposts and quiet Marine Littoral Regiment fires elements dotted around the less visited atolls and islands of the Western Pacific.
With that in mind, check out these recently cleared images of 1st Marine Logistics Group Marines testing an Autonomous Low-Profile Vessel, on or about 22 January 2026.
The ALPV is an autonomous logistics delivery system the Marine Corps is experimenting with to deliver supplies and equipment in a timely manner throughout the littorals.
U.S. Marine Corps photos by Sgt. Mary Torres.
U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Carlos Perez-armenta, a logistics specialist with 1st Distribution Battalion, Combat Logistics Regiment 1, 1st Marine Logistics Group, operates an Autonomous Low-Profile Vessel during testing on Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, Jan. 22, 2026. The ALPV is an autonomous logistics delivery system the Marine Corps is experimenting with to deliver supplies and equipment in a timely manner throughout the littorals. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Mary Torres)
U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Luna Eben, a logistics specialist with 1st Distribution Battalion, Combat Logistics Regiment 1, 1st Marine Logistics Group, conducts safety pre-checks before operating an Autonomous Low-Profile Vessel during testing on Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, Jan. 22, 2026. The ALPV is an autonomous logistics delivery system the Marine Corps is experimenting with to deliver supplies and equipment in a timely manner throughout the littorals. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Mary T
U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Carlos Perez-armenta, a logistics specialist with 1st Distribution Battalion, Combat Logistics Regiment 1, 1st Marine Logistics Group, conducts safety pre-checks before operating an Autonomous Low-Profile Vessel during testing on Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, Jan. 22, 2026. The ALPV is an autonomous logistics delivery system the Marine Corps is experimenting with to deliver supplies and equipment in a timely manner throughout the littorals. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by
U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Carlos Perez-armenta, a logistics specialist with 1st Distribution Battalion, Combat Logistics Regiment 1, 1st Marine Logistics Group, operates an Autonomous Low-Profile Vessel during testing on Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, Jan. 22, 2026. The ALPV is an autonomous logistics delivery system the Marine Corps is experimenting with to deliver supplies and equipment in a timely manner throughout the littorals. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Mary Torres)
And these earlier shots in early December 2025 of India Company, Battalion Landing Team 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, conducting an at-sea resupply drill with supplies from an autonomous low-profile vessel during unmanned surface vessel training operations as part of MEU Exercise at White Beach Naval Facility, Okinawa, Japan.
U.S. Marine Corps photos by Sgt. Alora Finigan.
U.S. Marines with India Company, Battalion Landing Team 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, conduct a simulated resupply with supplies from an autonomous low-profile vessel to during unmanned surface vessel training operations as part of MEU Exercise at White Beach Naval Facility, Okinawa, Japan on Dec. 2, 2025. The ALPV has the ability to deliver multiple variations of supplies and equipment through contested maritime terrain. The 31st MEU, the Marine Corps’ only continuou
U.S. Marines with India Company, Battalion Landing Team 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, conduct a simulated resupply with supplies from an autonomous low-profile vessel to during unmanned surface vessel training operations as part of MEU Exercise at White Beach Naval Facility, Okinawa, Japan on Dec. 2, 2025. The ALPV has the ability to deliver multiple variations of supplies and equipment through contested maritime terrain. The 31st MEU, the Marine Corps’ only continuou
U.S. Marines with India Company, Battalion Landing Team 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, conduct an at sea resupply drill with supplies from an autonomous low-profile vessel during unmanned surface vessel training operations as part of MEU Exercise at White Beach Naval Facility, Okinawa, Japan on Dec. 3, 2025. The ALPV has the ability to deliver multiple variations of supplies and equipment through contested maritime terrain. The 31st MEU, the Marine Corps’ only continuo
U.S. Marines with India Company, Battalion Landing Team 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, conduct an at sea resupply drill with supplies from an autonomous low-profile vessel during unmanned surface vessel training operations as part of MEU Exercise at White Beach Naval Facility, Okinawa, Japan on Dec. 3, 2025. The ALPV has the ability to deliver multiple variations of supplies and equipment through contested maritime terrain. The 31st MEU, the Marine Corps’ only continuo
In a somewhat cryptic announcement recently, Arizona-based Patriot Ordnance Factory revealed that its 8-inch Renegade AR-type platform in .300 Blackout won a contract as the Next Generation Rifle System for a yet-undisclosed user in Asia.
Details are scant. The awarded contract apparently came in partnership with SERT, an “international provider of acquisition and sustainment solutions to defense, security, and intelligence customers.”
However, it is not clear exactly how the two companies are working together.
We did a tour of Patriot Ordnance Factory back in 2023, and we got a sneak peek at this new gun. We were sworn to secrecy at the time, but the cat is out of the bag now. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
“We are proud to partner with SERT on this significant contract,” said Cody DeSomma, vice president of POF-USA, in a press release. “The Renegade platform represents the pinnacle of our direct-impingement technology, incorporating patented innovations developed specifically to meet real-world operational requirements. This award reinforces our commitment to delivering American-made firearms that meet the demands of professional end users worldwide.”
According to POF, the Renegade was selected for its compact design, reliability, and performance in modern operating environments. As a .300 Blackout platform, it is also a strong contender for suppressor use, and the Renegade’s ability to reliably use subsonic and supersonic ammo was a contributing factor in its selection.
Additionally, the Renegade came with ambidextrous controls for CQB work, and it is capable of hosting a wide range of accessories, ranging from optics to laser aiming devices.
POF also listed key patented technologies in the Renegade in its press release. These included the POF E² dual-extraction chamber, roller cam pin, and heat-sink barrel nut.
That leaves us with just three big questions. What “end user” in Asia is making moves to equip its forces with suppressor-ready ARs in .300 Blackout with lasers? How many did they order? And why is the buyer a secret?
The Dutch Marines (Korps Mariniers Koninklijke) were founded on 10 December 1665 and have seen over three centuries of hard service around the world– and remain ready for whatever is asked of them today.
Royal Netherlands Marine Corps recruitment poster (c.1902) Dutch via Nationaal Archief Den Haag
To celebrate their 360th, a group of six veteran Marines and nine recruits will begin a 166.5 km march on 9 December from Den Helder via Amsterdam to Rotterdam, with the aim to wrap it up in 36.0 hours by 9 pm on 10 December.
How about these images of a Royal Danish Air Force Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules of Flyvestation Aalborg-based Eskadrille 721 (“Zap”) conducting a resupply mission at the Joint Artisk Kommando Station Nord outpost in Greenland, home to the famed Sirius Dog Sled Patrol (Slædepatruljen Sirius). It is dark there from 15 October to 28 February, and in November the mean daily high temperature is -20°F.
The 6,200-foot landing strip at Station Nord was built in the 1950s in a joint Danish-U.S. effort, and the base has been wholly Danish since 1975. It is kept open for approximately 300 days a year and is maintained with two large snow blowers and two snow plows.
Station Nord is approximately 2,360 air miles from Copenhagen but only 574 miles from the geographic North Pole.
Station Nord when the sun is up.
By comparison, the furthest northern U.S. airstrip, Arctic Village Airport, Alaska, is about 1,200 miles from the Pole, and the “most northern airport in the world,” Longyearbyen in the Norwegian Svalbard chain, is 800 miles. The U.S. maintains Pituffik Space Base (formerly Thule Air Base), Greenland, which is located approximately 950 miles from the North Pole. Only Canadian Forces Station Alert on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, which is about 490 miles south of the Pole, is closer to the roof of the world.
Denmark has been a C-130 user since 1973 and has used them operationally in Bosnia and Afghanistan, replacing its trio of older C-130H birds with four long-fuselage C-130Js by 2007, the first Scandinavian country to bring the Super Hercules into service.
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Warship Wednesday 26 November 2025: A Sad Affray
Above we see HM Submarine Affray (P421).
One of a class of 16 British A (Amphion/Acheron) class boats designed for use in the Pacific against the Empire of Japan in the latter stages of WWII, she commissioned 80 years ago this week and, while she did not get to fire a torpedo in anger against the Imperial Japanese Navy, Affray did go on to leave a tragic mark on naval history.
The A-class boats
By 1943, the writing was on the wall at the Admiralty that the naval war would soon shift to the Pacific and would be very different than that in the European theatre. Whereas small subs were ideal for work in the cramped English Channel, North Sea, and Mediterranean, larger hulls, more akin to American “fleet boats,” would be needed for far-ranging Pacific service.
The answer was the A-class boats, Britain’s only full-sized subs designed during WWII, which offered faster surface speeds, improved habitability under tropical conditions (they were the first RN boats to have air conditioning), and a double-hull structure. They used all-welded pressure hulls and welded fuel tanks inside, with ballast tanks adapted for extra diesel storage. With their 280-foot length, they were only a little shorter than the typical 311-footers seen in U.S. service while still being much larger than the Royal Navy’s preceding 204-foot “Long hull” V-class submarines of the 1941–42 Programme. Even the RN’s vaunted T-class only ran 276 feet oal.
By comparison, the A boats could make 18.5 knots on the surface (with a 10,500nm range at 11) as compared to the 15.5 knots (8,000nm @ 10) of the T-class, and downright pokey 11.25 knots (3,000nm @ 9) of the V-class. The operating diving depth of the A-class was 350 feet (max 600), versus 300 on the riveted V and T classes.
The As were also heavily armed with 10 21-inch tubes: six at the bow (two external) and four (two external) at the stern. Besides the 10 loaded tubes, they could cram another 10 Mark VIII fish inside the pressure hull for reloads, although typically just six were carried. Instead of torpedoes, 18 1,700-pound Mark II/Type G ground mines could be carried and deployed. Deck guns included a QF 4″/40 Mk XXII in the sail, a 20mm Oerlikon, and up to three .303 Vickers guns. Sensors included a Type 267W air warning radar, which could function at periscope depth, as well as Types 138 and 152 sonars.
The 1943 Programme called for the construction of 46 Type A boats built across six yards: Vickers-Armstrong, Barrow-in-Furness; Cammell Laird, Birkenhead; Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Greenock; Chatham Dockyard, Plymouth Dockyard, and Vickers-Armstrongs, Walker-on-Tyne.
Only two of the 46, the Barrow-built HMS Amphion (P439) and HMS Astute (P447), were commissioned before the end of hostilities, in March and June 1945, respectively. Even at that, they never arrived in the Far East in time to conduct a war patrol, spending their wartime career in workup and tests.
The 14 sister boats– Acheron, Aeneas, Alaric, Alcide, Alderney, Alliance, Ambush, Anchorite, Andrew, Artemis, Artful, Auriga, Aurochs, and our Affray— were completed between late 1945 and April 1948.
HMS Alliance on sea trials, August 1946, off Barrow. Ref: CRTY 2017/139/776/1.
British Amphion-class submarine HMS Alcide (P415). Note her sail-mounted 4″/40 gun and original WWII profile. The photo was taken in 1947 at Plymouth Sound
Two more, the would-be Ace (P414) and Achates (P433), were not fitted out but, launched and afloat, were in turn converted into target boats.
The order for the remaining 28 units (Adept, Andromache, Answer, Antagonist, Antaeus, ANZAC, Aphrodite, Admirable, Approach, Arcadian, Ardent, Argosy, Atlantis, Agile, Asperity, Austere, Aggressor, Agate, Abelard, Acasta, Alcestis, Aladdin, Aztec, Adversary, Asgard, Awake, Astarte, and Assurance) was cancelled.
A-class submarines, 1946 Janes
Meet Affray
Our subject was laid down at the Cammell Laird yard in Birkenhead on 16 January 1944, launched on 12 April of that year.
The future HM Submarine Affray after launching at the Cammel Laird ship yard, Birkenhead, 1944 LT CH Parnall, photographer. IWM A28195
Affray commissioned on 25 November 1945, and her first skipper was LCDR Ernest John Donaldson Turner DSO, DSC, RN, a submarine service steely regular who had commanded HMS Sibyl (P 217) for 17 war patrols in 1943-44 and had earned his DSO earlier in the war as XO of HMS L 23 (N 23).
Only two of Affray’s Cammell-built sisters, Aeneas and Alaric, would be completed.
Cold War service
Designed for the Pacific, Affray soon left to join the 4th Submarine Flotilla in Hong Kong, centered around the tender HMS Adamant (A164), and with her four sisters, HMS Amphion, Astute, Auriga, and Aurochs, replacing eight T-class boats that Adamant had been supporting since 1945.
By 1949, Affray and, along with the rest of her class, had received a 60-foot “Snort” device, based on captured late-war German snorkel designs, during regular overhauls back home.
HM Submarine Affray (P421), after her 1949 refit. Note the 4″/40 on her fairwater had been deleted, and she has a forward torpedo tube open.
The device overall proved successful. On 9 October 1947, Alliance dived off the Canary Islands to commence a 30-day “snort cruise,” covering 3,193 miles to Freetown, all while submerged. Andrew later made a 2,500nm run from Bermuda to the English Channel in 15 days.
Previously, British submarines could only spend a maximum of 48 hours submerged, and that was largely stationary.
.A class submarine HMS Aeneas off Gosport, circa late 1940s/early 1950s, sans 4″/40 and with her “Snort” fitted
However, Affray’s Snort reportedly leaked “like a sieve” during dives in the Med, and by January 195,1 the hard-used boat had been placed in reserve at Portsmouth, with the globe-trotter having logged more than 51,000nm in just her first five years of service.
It would be a multi-day operation including “a war patrol, dummy attacks on shipping, combining with mock hostile aircraft attacks, Marine Commandos to be landed by cockle-type canoes for a simulated sabotage and enemy observation exercise, then re-embark.”
Instead of her regular crew, she had to land all but 24 experienced members while the boat was crowded with 24 ratings drawn from a new submarine class, a team of four Royal Marine Commando canoeists, and 22 members of a junior officer Executive and Engineering training class.
In all, 75 souls crammed into a boat built for 60~ with only about a third of them being “old salts.”
Affray had dived 30 miles South of the Isle of Wight, some 60 odd miles southwest of St Catherine’s Light, at 2115 on 16 April, and was due to transit to a position 20 miles southeast of Start Point. However, she failed to report her position on 17 April, and a SUBMISS/SUBSMASH alert stated search operations that eventually numbered over 50 ships, including 24 NATO warships.
These efforts continued fruitlessly until 19 April, with only an oil slick observed over Hurd’s Deep, by which point she was considered lost.
During the search, 161 sustained sonar contacts and as many as 70 uncharted wrecks, including another submarine, the 1944-lost U-269, were discovered, each requiring fruitlessly sending down a diver to verify if it was the lost Affray.
On 14 June, after two months, the frigate HMS Loch Fyne (K429) made the first contact with the wreck of Affray on her ASDIC equipment and sent the signal to the Admiralty in Whitehall.
The submarine rescue ship HMS Reclaim arrived on scene soon after and dropped a diver with a Siebe Gorman oxy-helium helmet to a depth of over 200 feet, who reported what could be a submarine below.
To confirm, Reclaim sent down her new underwater television apparatus on 16 June.
The camera container and lights in their frame, on board HMS Reclaim. IWM A 31970
When it neared the bottom at 260 feet, the first grainy image of the wreck, including the word “Affray” on a conning tower, appeared topside on Reclaim’s TV screen.
There is no shortage of educatedtheories as to what happened to the submarine, the last British boat lost at sea. What is known is that her Snort mast was broken, and all hatches and hull seemed otherwise intact.
Hopefully, it was over quickly.
As noted by Submarinefamily.uk:
Her loss is still a matter of controversy, and the exact reason for her loss may never be known, as she is now protected as a grave for those who died in her. The most likely cause is that her snort mast broke off while she was at periscope depth and that the induction hull valve had failed to operate satisfactorily, resulting in water entering the submarine through a 10-inch hole. With her buoyancy destroyed, she would have sunk very quickly.
Epilogue
The 75 men lost on Affray have their names recorded in the Submariners’ Book of Remembrance in the chapel at HMS Dolphin, Gosport. Their names are also listed at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, the Submarine Museum Memorial wall at Gosport, and Braye Harbour, Alderney, among others.
Of note, one of the divers from Reclaim working on Affray was LCDR Lionel “Buster” Crabb, OBE, GM, who later became famous when, in 1956, he disappeared in Portsmouth harbor during the visit of a Soviet cruiser with Khrushchev aboard.
The rest of Affray’s class had a happier and much longer service.
At least 10 of her sisters served at one time or another between 1954 and 1967 with the Royal Navy’s 6th Submarine Squadron out of HMC Dockyard, Halifax (stone frigate HMS Ambrose) as “clockwork mice” for ASW training with Canadian and NATO surface ships– with active service deployed North-East of the Grand Banks to warn if Soviet submarines were active during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Although not in RCN service, they typically had several “Canucks” as part of their crews, which helped the RCN’s transition to the trio of new Canadian Oberon-class submarines, which began entering service in 1965. The Submarine Room at the Naval Museum of Halifax contains many of their relics, including at least one ship’s bell from HMS Aurochs.
Fourteen received a further modernization akin to the American GUPPY conversions, which removed the old sail and replaced it with a more modern fairwater, as well as a streamlined hull profile. Although their four external tubes and the deck guns were removed, they could still carry 18 more modern Mark 8 Mod 4 torpedoes or 26 1,930-pound Mark V/type Q magnetic/acoustic mines. They also received new sonars (Types 186 long-range passive, 187 medium-range search/attack, and 197 intercept). The big Type 187 attack sonar required a large bulbous dome on the bow, giving the updated Amphions a similar profile to the 1960s Oberon class boats.
When they finished their refit, the GUPPY-fied Amphions received updated S-series hull numbers in place of their old P-series numbers.
HMS Alliance (S67), almost unrecognizable after her modernization.
HMS Artful, Amphion-class submarine, S96
Ironically, despite the original deck guns being removed during modernization in the late 1950s, a very non-streamlined replacement 4″/33 Mark XXIII S gun was installed starting in 1960 on several A boats to counter blockade-running junks during the Indonesian Confrontation with the Singapore-based 7th Submarine Squadron.
Modernized Amphion-class submarine HMS Andrew (S63) leaving Singapore at the end of her service with 7th Submarine Squadron (7SM), in 1968. The crew lining the deck wearing broad terandak hats while a sign hanging from the side reads “Mama Sam’s”. Within two hours of departure, the crew rescued two Malaysian fishermen whose boat had sunk and returned them to Singapore. Andrew was one of the many submarines to leave Singapore in the late 1960s when the decision was made to repatriate all British military “East of Suez”. 7SM closed in 1971. IWM HU 129718
HMS Alliance, in camouflage pattern off Malaysia, 1965. IWM HU 129708
Aerial starboard-bow view of modernized Amphion-class submarine HMS Alliance (S67) seen in 1965 during her service with 7th Submarine Squadron, note her deck gun. She is wearing a camouflage paint scheme appropriate for operations in the shallow waters around Malaysia during the Indonesian Confrontation. IWM HU 129708
Jane’s page on the class, 1960.
The class made appearances in several films, with Andrew filling in for a U.S. nuclear submarine in the 1959 post-apocalyptic film On the Beach.
Sistership Artemis appeared in an RN training film entitled Voyage North, from which stock submarine footage was lifted and reused in movies and TV shows for decades.
Aeneas, however, one-upped her sisters by appearing in the classic Bond film You Only Live Twice in 1967. She later went on to become an SSG, carrying an experimental mast-mounted SAM launcher.
The last of the class in service, HMS Andrew, paid off in May 1977 and was also the final British sub to carry a deck gun.
HMS Alliance, although decommissioned in 1973, would continue to serve as a static training boat until 1979, and survives today.
Alliance has been preserved since 1981 as a museum boat at the Royal Navy Submarine Museum in Gosport, Portsmouth.
HMS Alliance, Gosport
Among her relics is a replica wreath of daffodils, carnations, tulips, and lilies of the valley modeled after the one Alliance’s crew dropped over the resting place of Affray.
The Submarine HMS Alliance lays a wreath over the spot where submarine HMS Affray failed to surface during a training dive in 1951 (Manchester Mirror)
Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive
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Earlier this week, in the post commemorating the 75th anniversary of the combat jump by the 187th “Rakkasans” Regimental Combat Team near the North Korean town of Sukchon/Sunchon well behind enemy lines, in October 1950, I would be remiss to not expound on the mention of Korean War Ranger companies, as members of the 4th Ranger Company leapt with the 187th on its second combat jump during 1951’s Operation Tomahawk.
Here’s a quick rundown.
The first Korean War-era Ranger unit was the Eighth Army Ranger Company (8213 AU), created from whole cloth from among members of the in-theatre 25th Infantry Division in August 1950. It was an experimental “Marauder” company that stood up after the Army’s unwelcome experience fighting Nork stay-behinds and guerrillas after the breakout from Pusan/Inchon and the rapid advance to the Yalu.
Eighth Army Ranger Company, 8213th Army Unit, October 1950, Korea LIFE Hank Walker
By February 1951, 18 such companies were established (the original EARC, joined by 1st through 15th Companies, along with Able and Baker Companies). Of note, while many were quickly formed from volunteers of the “All Americans” of the stateside 82nd Airborne Division, others were drawn from “leg” units and would pick up their parachute wings along the way.
Men of the “Cold Steel” 3rd Ranger Company adjust their gear before undertaking a dawn patrol across the Imjin River, Korea. Note the 3rd Infantry Division patch.
A provisional Table of Organization and Equipment (TO&E) was soon developed. TO&E 7-87 (16 Oct 1950) set the Ranger Company manning at 5 officers and 107 enlisted, with an allowable 10% combat overage, bringing the company strength to 122. A standard infantry rifle company of the time had a TO&E strength of 211.
The six-week training program included a “cycle curriculum consisted of seventeen different topics that included training with foreign weapons, demolitions, field craft and patrolling, map reading, escape and evasion, and intelligence collection.”
In all, five of the new airborne Ranger companies—the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th—saw the elephant in the Korean War besides the EARC during the concept’s 15-month run, while the 6th Rangers were deployed to Europe, attached to the 8th Infantry Division, should the Cold War turn hot there.
The Korean War combat Ranger tabs, via AFSOF History
One of the Eighth Army Ranger Company’s founders, 1st Lt. Ralph Puckett Jr., earned a MoH during the conflict during a raid just three months after the unit was formed.
Then-1st Lt. Ralph Puckett Jr. led fellow Rangers and Korean Augmentation to the United States Army soldiers across frozen terrain under enemy fire to seize and defend Hill 205 in Unsan, North Korea. Puckett will receive the Medal of Honor on May 21, 2021, for going above and beyond the call of duty as the Eighth Army Ranger Company’s commanding officer during a multiday operation that started on Nov. 25, 1950. (Courtesy photo via DVIDS)
While these units proved a godsend in many instances, ideal for deep recon and raids, the Army deemed them a waste of the best sort of men who would be better suited to strengthen the sometimes faltering line units and disbanded all 18 Ranger companies by November 1951. Many of the in-theatre Rangers were folded into the 187th, which seemed a perfect fit.
However, better minds swept in and, with the small unit Rangers showing the way, when Col. Aaron Bank started standing up the 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) in Colorado the following June, many ex-Rangers, especially those with combat experience, were “called up to the big leagues.”
The budding Ranger Training Center at the U.S. Army Infantry School, where Companies Able and Baker were formed and soon after disbanded, was converted into the Ranger Department in December 1951. The first class of individual Ranger candidates, drawn from across the Army with men returning to their units afterward, graduated on 1 March 1952, following an expanded 59-day training period. Then, as today, they are all volunteer.
Today, Army Ranger School is of course still around, with dedicated full-time Ranger units re-established in 1974. Ranger School now runs for 61-62 days and notoriously has a completion rate of only about 50 percent.
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Warship Wednesday, September 17, 2025: ‘A Good Record, and a Proud Ship’
Courtesy of Colonel Robert D. Heinl, USMC. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. (NH 42351)
Above we see the Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer USS De Haven (DD-727) as she supports the first and second waves of landing craft moving toward Red Beach at burning Inchon at 0700 on 15 September 1950, some 75 years ago this week, as photographed from a Marine Air Group Twelve (MAG-12) aircraft, from either VMF-214 or VMF-215.
In more ways than one, despite her service in three real-life shooting wars and a long-running tasking as a guinea pig, the “Ravin’ D” would become the poster child for Inchon, and for good reason.
The Sumners
The Sumners, an attempt to up the firepower on the previous and highly popular Fletcher-class destroyers, mounted a half-dozen 5″/38s in a trio of dual mounts, as well as 10 21-inch torpedo tubes in a pair of five-tube turntable stations. Going past this, they were packed full of sub-busting and plane-smoking weapons as well as some decent sonar and radar sets for the era.
Sumner class layout, 1944
With 336 men crammed into a 376-foot hull, they were cramped, slower than expected (but still capable of beating 33 knots all day), and overloaded (although they reportedly rode wildly when in light conditions). Still, they are fighting ships that earned good reputations for being almost indestructible.
Cost per hull, in 1944 dollars, was about $8 million, excluding armament, compared to the $6 million price for a Fletcher, a big jump.
Meet De Haven
Our vessel was the second Navy ship named in honor of LT Edwin Jess De Haven.
Born in Philadelphia in 1816, joined up with the fleet age the ripe old age of 10 as a midshipman and made his name as an early polar explorer, shipping out with the Wilkes Expedition (1839-42), and looking for Sir John Franklin’s lost polar expedition as skipper of the humble 81-foot brigantine USS Advance in 1850 as part of the Grinnell expedition. Placed on the retired list in 1862 due to failing eyesight, he passed in 1865.
His aging granddaughter, Mrs. Helen N. De Haven, made the trip to Maine’s Bath Iron Works from her home in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, in 1942 to participate in the launching ceremony for the first ship to carry his name, the Fletcher-class destroyer DD-469. Commissioned on 21 September 1942, that valiant greyhound was sunk just 133 days later, the 15th American destroyer lost in the Guadalcanal campaign.
The U.S. Navy destroyer USS De Haven (DD-469) off Savo Island, viewed from USS Fletcher, 30 January 1943, two days before she was lost. NARA image 80-G-284578
The second De Haven was a member of the much-improved Sumner class. Laid down once again at Bath Works on 9 August 1943 (just two days after the contract, NOBs-309, was issued), she was BIW Hull #228.
The late LT De Haven’s granddaughter, then 56, dutifully came to christen this second destroyer as well on a chilly 9 January 1944, sending the hull into the embrace of the Kennebec River. We all pitch in where we can in wartime.
As detailed by the Bath Independent:
Helen N. De Haven, Sponsor of USS DeHaven Photograph, January 9, 1944. Via Maine Maritime Museum 81_029/81_031
Launching of USS DeHaven DD-727, January 9, 1944 via Maine Maritime Museum D_DE_031
Commissioned 31 March 1944, her construction ran just 235 days.
Her plank owner crew was led by CDR John Bagley Dimmick (USNA 38), who would be De Haven’s skipper through the following June. Before joining De Haven, Dimmick had earned a Legion of Merit while on the staff of Commander Destroyers, Atlantic Fleet, on the team to improve the effective operation of the 5-inch gun batteries in destroyers.
On 9 July, she became the flagship of Desron 61 (Desdiv 121 and 122), the second squadron of Sumners, made up of USS Mansfield (DD 728), Lyman K. Swenson (DD 729), Collett (DD 730), Maddox (DD 731), Blue (DD 744), Brush (DD 745), Taussig (DD 746), and Samuel N. Moore (DD 747), with Capt. Jesse H. Carter moving aboard with his staff for the duration of the war.
De Haven making knots off Race Point, July 1944, via USS DeHaven.org
War!
USS De Haven (DD-727) underway in 1944. NH 52484
After shakedowns in Bermuda, De Haven pulled the mission to escort the small old flattop USS Ranger (CV 4) from Norfolk– capping the carrier’s Atlantic service– to the Pacific, where the Torch veteran would be tasked with preparing air groups out of Pearl Harbor for combat operations on the sharp end.
Dropping off Ranger in Hawaii on 3 August 1944, De Haven continued onward, escorting west-bound convoys including the carriers USS Enterprise, Intrepid, and Independence to Eniwetok before joining the fast carriers of TF 38 at Ulithi for operations in the Philippines, arriving just off Luzon as an escort with these carriers of TU 38.1.3 on 4 November.
She would continue such screens through January 1945, including raids along the Indochina coast and Formosa, with notable incidents including the rescue of a downed VF-7 Hellcat pilot from USS Hancock on 14 December and steaming through Typhoon Cobra on 17/18 December, coming to within about 35nm of the storm’s center while registering sustained 55 knot winds and mountainous seas.
Typhoon Cobra, as observed by radar. NOAA photo
De Haven spent the next several days combing the debris scattered seas for survivors from three other destroyers that were not as lucky. No less than 718 souls perished at sea during the typhoon. Nimitz noted later that “It was the greatest loss that we have taken in the Pacific without compensatory return since the First Battle of Savo.”
February 1945 brought the Iwo Jima landings and more carrier screening. It was during plane guard duties for USS Bennington on 12 February that a TBF of VT-82 was struck by a rocket accidentally fired from a Hellcat of VF-82, causing the death of two of the three men aboard the Avenger. One of De Haven’s crew, PhM2c Edward Price, dove into the open sea and rescued the pilot, Ensign Paul F. Cochran, who was being dragged under the hull by the weight of his sinking parachute. Price was recommended for the Navy and Marine Corps Medal.
On the 16th, she stood by her carriers as they made the first attacks on the coasts of the Japanese main islands since the Doolittle Raid. While the Doolittle carriers never made it closer than 650 miles from Japan, De Haven logged her position as only 150.
1/2 March saw her engage in some good old-fashioned naval bombardment, soaking Okino Daito Jima from close offshore with other destroyers overnight. She expended 14 rounds of 5″/38 Common, 432 of 40mm, and 815 of 20mm.
This dovetailed into the Okinawa landings and near constant anti-air watches for weeks, continuing this task through 13 June, including firing on at least three bogeys that came in close, counting a “sure assist” kill on an Emily. She proved a worthy lifeguard for a second time, pulling 1LT H.F. Pfremmer, USMCR, a member of Bennington’s fighter group, from the sea on 14 May.
She once again was allowed a break from plane guard and air defense duties for another fire mission, hitting Minami Daito Jima on 10 June with 104 5″/38 Common, including 23 two-gun salvos, seven four-gun salvos, and five satisfying six-gun salvos. She had hit the island on 21 April already, firing 90 rounds at its airstrip just before sunset.
Oh yeah, and she survived a second maelstrom, Typhoon Connie, during which she saved a third aviator, a pilot from USS Hornet. The “half-drowned” pilot, Lt (j.g.) John David Loeffler, USNR, was plucked from the water just eight minutes after he hit the drink, rescued by PhM2c Robert Wayne Simmons, who swam to the aviator to buckle a chest strap around him so that he could be lifted aboard with a whip hoist. Simmons was recommended for the Navy and Marine Corps medal.
Then came operations directly against the Japanese home islands proper.
On 9 July, she assumed a radar picket station some 20 miles (later 50 miles) West of the center of her task force. There, she was a control ship for inbound U.S. and RN strikes, as well as an early warning tripwire for rarely seen Japanese aircraft headed out to sea, and as a floating life guard station. She and her DesRon 61 sisters would remain on this duty through 15 August, with De Haven sinking over a dozen floating Japanese mines with 20mm cannon fire, and rescuing several downed aviators (including Lt CW Moore, USS Shangri La, 15 July; Ensign Frank Kopf, Bennington, 25 July; and Ensign J.A. Lungren, Bennington, 13 August).
She also took part in an epic littoral raid from the sea.
With each of the Sumners mounting six 5″/38s, they could get off a tremendous amount of fire when needed.
Detecting a Japanese convoy of four vessels at 2305 while still 33,000 yards away, the chase was on. Closing to within 11,000 yards by 2353, the engagement took just 16 minutes and saw the DDs fire 3,291 5-inch shells and let fly some 18 torpedoes.
The score? One Japanese merchant ship was sunk– the freighter No.5 Hakutetsu Maru (810 t), and the other, Enbun Maru (7,030 t), was damaged. The escorting IJN minesweeper (No. 1) and subchaser (No. 42) were unharmed. The little convoy was carrying a disassembled aircraft factory and was headed to Korea to set up shop, a trip that was aborted after the battle.
The American losses were zero.
As noted by the National WWII Museum, the engagement, termed today the Battle of Sagami Bay, was “the first time U.S. Navy ships entered the outer reaches of Tokyo Bay since April 1939.”
While DesRon 61 never received a commendation for the action, Halsey himself signaled afterward, pointing out that the force rode heavy post-typhoon seas into the Bay with great effect:
“Commander Third Fleet notes with great satisfaction the success of this well-planned and executed attack.
Commander Destroyer Squadron 61 is to be congratulated on the sound judgment, initiative and aggressive spirit displayed in ‘beating the weather’ to drive this attack home at the very door of the Empire.
You are unpopular with the Emperor. Well done”
When the war ended on 15 August, De Haven and her squadron were stationed closer to the Japanese mainland than any other Allied surface ships in Halsey’s Third Fleet.
She was one of just 48 Allied (37 American) destroyers at anchor in Tokyo Bay during the Surrender Ceremony on 2 September 1945, with the ghost of the old DD-409, lost at Guadalcanal, no doubt present alongside.
There, she flew the two-star flag of RADM John F. Shafroth, ComBatRonTwo. De Haven anchored just 1,000 yards off Missouri, close enough to almost smell the ink on the documents.
De Haven sailed on 20 September for the States with four battleships and two other destroyers, loaded with “stateside” bound passengers, and arriving at San Francisco on 15 October after a brief stopover at Pearl Harbor.
USS Lyman K. Swenson (DD-729) moored at San Diego, California, with two other destroyers, circa 1945-46. The middle ship is USS De Haven (DD-727). Courtesy of John Hummel, NH 89289
Between 1 February 1946 and 3 February 1947, De Haven served in the Western Pacific, joining the 7th Fleet in operations off the coast of China and patrolling off the Japanese coast.
De Haven received five battle stars for World War II service:
*Leyte Operation, Luzon attacks: 5-6, 13-14, 19-22 November and 14-16 December 1944 *Luzon Operation
-Luzon attacks — 6-7 January 1945
-Formosa attacks — 3-4, 9, 15, 21 January 1945
-China Coast attacks — 12 and 16 January 1945
-Nansei Shoto attacks — 22 January 1945 *Iwo Jima Operation
-Assault and occupation of Iwo Jima — 15 February – 4 March 1945
-Fifth Fleet raids against Honshu and the Nansei Shoto —15-16, 25 February, 1 March 1945 *Okinawa Gunto Operation
-Fifth and Third Fleet raids in support of Okinawa Gunto operations — 17 March – 11 June 1945 *Third Fleet Operations against Japan — 10 July – 15 August 1945
Four of the class were lost to enemy action during the war:
USS Meredith (DD-726) struck a mine on D-Day Plus 1, following supporting the landing at Omaha Beach, then was attacked and sunk on the way back to England.
USS Cooper (DD-695) was torpedoed and sunk on 3 December 1944 by the Japanese destroyer Take at Ormoc Bay.
On 12 April 1945, USS Mannert L. Abele (DD-733) was sunk by an Ohka (Baka) bomb during the Okinawa Campaign
USS Drexler (DD-741) met the same fate when she was sunk by a Japanese Kamikaze on 28 May 1945.
Korea!
NKPA (North Korean People’s Army) gains, 30 June–1 August 1950. Map from The Inchon-Seoul Operation, U.S. Marine Operations in Korea, 1950–53, Vol. II (NH 97052).
Based in Japan, on 26 June 1950, De Haven and her sister USS Mansfield (DD-728) were tasked to assist in the emergency evacuation of some 700 U.S. citizens and foreign nationals from Seoul, which would fall two days later.
Just four days after the North Korean People’s Army crossed the 38th Parallel, on 29 June, the light cruiser USS Juneau (CLAA 119), packing a dozen 5″38s, in company with De Haven, fired the first naval shore bombardment of the Korean War, hitting North Korean troop concentrations at Bokuku Ko. She then performed plane guard duties for the carrier USS Valley Forge and served as the commo link between the Pusan Perimeter and the tug USS Arikara (AT-98), the inshore landing control vessel.
Tasked with blockade work along the coast, De Haven bombarded an enemy battery near Pohang on 20 August, where, working with the heavy cruiser USS Toledo, they broke up a tank attack and destroyed artillery positions. De Haven then encountered a medium vessel and three small boats on 7 September, sinking all.
Soon, De Haven was tasked to support the amphibious counterpunch to Pusan, the Inchon Landings. The beach and Wolmi-do island were held by 2,000 Norks, including the 226th Marine Regiment, to which two companies of the 2d Battalion, 918th Coast Artillery Regiment were attached with their Soviet-manufactured 76mm guns.
Task Force Group Element 90.62, consisting of De Haven and her fellow DesRon 9 Sumner sisterships USS Gurke (DD-783), Mansfield, Lyman K. Swenson (DD-729), Collett (DD-730), and Henderson (DD-785), was tasked with a high-risk mission to support the Inchon Landing.
The tin cans were ordered to steam up the 30-mile-long, treacherous, and poorly charted Flying Fish (So Sudo) Channel at high tide to bombard enemy positions at Wolmi-do and the waterfront of Inchon. They did this among floating mines (the destroyers sank 12 mines), the 918th’s 76mm field guns, and strafing runs from enemy Yaks.
While the destroyers were supported by a four-ship cruiser force filled with 8- and 6-inch guns — USS Rochester (CA-124), Toledo, HMS Jamaica (44), and HMS Kenya (14)— the deep draft cruisers could only go as far as Inchon’s outer harbor, some 14,000 yards offshore. All were provided with top cover by the planes of TF-77.
Inchon Invasion, September 1950. Wolmi-Do island under bombardment on 13 September 1950, two days before the landings at Inchon. Photographed from USS Lyman K. Swenson (DD-729), one of whose 40mm gun mounts is in the foreground. Sowolmi-Do island, connected to Wolmi-Do by a causeway, is at the right, with Inchon beyond. 80-G-420044
Five U.S. Navy destroyers steam up the Inchon channel to bombard Wolmi-Do island on 13 September 1950, two days before the Inchon landings. Wolmi-Do is in the right center background, with smoke rising from air strikes. The ships are USS Mansfield (DD-728); USS DeHaven (DD-727); USS Lyman K. Swenson (DD-729); USS Collett (DD-730), and USS Gurke (DD-783). Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-419905
Wolmi-do and Inchon. Drawing, colored pencil on paper, by Herbert C. Hahn, ca. 1951 (88-191-BB).
Derided as a “sitting duck” operation as it was to be done in daylight hours due to the tide pattern and in close proximity (within 800 yards) to shore (Collett, Gurke, and Swenson took hits from Korean 76mm batteries while De Haven got close enough to have received several .50 caliber hits but without serious damage), the destroyers nonetheless accomplished their mission and make it back out to sea before the tide plummeted and left them stranded on the mud.
As noted in the Marine Corps history of the landing:
It had been long since the Navy issued the historic order “Prepare to repel boarders!” But Admiral Higgins did not overlook the possibility of NKPA infantry swarming out over the mud flats to attack a disabled and grounded destroyer. And though he did not issue pikes and cutlasses, the crews of the Gurke, Henderson, Swanson, Collett, De Haven, and Mansfield were armed with grenades and Tommy guns for action at close quarters.
The total damage to the destroyers was structurally insignificant, however, and the combined casualties amounted to one man killed and eight wounded.
The force steamed back in on the 15th to land the Marines, following three squat LSMR rocket ships (No. 401, 403, and 404) that fired 1,000 of their fiery 5-inch bombardment salvos into the NKPA positions.
Soon, the destroyers were following up with everything they had. From L-minus 45 to L-minus 2, the four cruisers and six destroyers would dump no less than 2,845 8, 6, and 5-inch shells on Inchon and its outlying island, each ship concentrating on specifically assigned target areas.
From H-minus 180 to H-minus 5, the cruisers and destroyers were scheduled to blast their assigned targets with another 2,875 big gun shells, “smashing every landmark of tactical importance and starting fires that blazed across the whole waterfront.”
The Devil Dog-filled LCVPs and LSUs followed behind, covered by the 5-inch and 40mm fire from the destroyers. It was a resounding success, and by 0745, 3 bn/5th Marines radioed “Captured 45 prisoners. Meeting light resistance.”
The destroyers fired so many 5-inch shells in three days (1,700 on 13 September alone) that they needed to be re-barreled.
A worn-out 5″/38 gun barrel of the U.S. Navy destroyer USS De Haven (DD-727) is replaced by the destroyer tender USS Piedmont (AD-17), probably at Sasebo, Japan, circa 1951. All Hands archives.
The six “Sitting Ducks” destroyers of TE 90.62 that gave such yeoman service at Inchon, De Haven included, earned a collective Navy Unit Commendation:
“For outstanding heroism in action against enemy aggressor forces in Korea from 13 to 15 September 1950. Skillfully navigating the extremely difficult and hazardous approaches to enemy-held Inchon in advance of the initial assault against that fortress, Task Element 90.62 coolly entered the strongly fortified harbor and anchored within close range of hostile gun positions. Defying the deadly barrage of heavy enemy shore-battery fire delivered from a myriad of hidden gun emplacements scattered along the coastline, the gallant destroyers of this Element courageously proceeded to launch an accurate and crushing fire attack in the first of a series of well planned and brilliantly executed bombardments which culminated in the reduction of the port’s defenses and in successful landing of friendly forces at Inchon on 15 September 1950. Although sustaining several casualties and numerous hits from the roaring enemy shore batteries, these ships repeatedly refused to leave their assigned stations and boldly continued to return the heavy counter-fire of hostile guns until their scheduled time of withdrawal. Fully aware that with each successive entry into the treacherous channel, the peril of meeting increased resistance was greatly intensified, they braved the hazards of a hostile mine field, passed dangerously close to the enemy’s shore fortifications, and unleashed a furious bombardment which eventually neutralized the port defenses sufficiently to permit the successful amphibious landings. An aggressive and intrepid fighting unit, the daring officers and men of Task Element 90.62 achieved a splendid combat record which attests the teamwork, courage, and skill of the entire Destroyer Element and enhances the finest traditions of the United States Naval Service.”
“Teamwork, Courage, and Skill “Men of Destroyer Division 91 crowd the foc’sle and superstructure of their ships in Sasebo, Japan, to receive their Navy Unit Commendations. During the presentation on the Mansfield, a crane crew in the background continues its task of installing new gun barrels on the De Haven. Streaks of red lead on the Collett and the Swenson in the foreground show the work that has occupied all the crews while in port. By coincidence, the famed ‘Sitting Duck’ destroyers are berthed in their numerical order: USS De Haven (DD-727), Mansfield (DD-728), Lyman K. Swenson (DD-729), and Collett (DD-730).” Photograph and caption released by Commander Naval Forces, Far East, under date of 18 December 1951. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the “All Hands” collection at the Naval History and Heritage Command. NH 97090.
Moving past Inchon, on 26 September, De Haven used her guns to disperse a North Korean unit ambushing ROK troops before going to assist the sister destroyer USS Brush (DD-745), which had struck a mine. She escorted the damaged ship back to Sasebo, arriving on the 30th.
On 6/7 October, De Haven provided NGFS for a raid by British Royal Marines from 41 (Independent) Commando on enemy railway tunnels and bridges on the east coast of Korea. The Commandos blew the railway tunnel at Kyongsong Man, less than 20 miles south of Chongjin.
Royal Marines of 41 Independent Commandos plant demolition charges on a railway line in Korea. NARA – 520790
De Haven was ordered back to Yokosuka and Pearl Harbor for refit on 23 October, wrapping her first very hectic Korean tour.
By 12 July 1951, she was back on the gunline/blockade duty off Korea, which she maintained until 1 February 1952.
Her third Korean tour ran from October 1952, when she clocked in as the flagship for patrols in the Chongjin-Songjin-Chaho area, through 20 March 1953, the latter stint including exchanging gunfire with Chinese batteries while supporting minesweeping operations off Wonsan. In 16 days off Wonson, De Haven and her partner destroyer, USS Moore, observed the impact of 316 incoming Chinese shells, some as close as 400 yards, and provided counterbattery fire in return.
De Haven earned a Navy Unit Commendation and six battle stars for Korean War service, bringing her constellation to 11 stars with her WWII service included.
North Korean Aggression — 27 June – 12 September 1950, and 18 September – 23 October 1950
Inchon Landing — 13-17 September 1950
U.S. Summer-Fall Offensive — 18 July – 2 November 1951 and 3-27 November 1951
U.S. Summer-Fall Offensive — 28 November 1951 – 25 January 1952
Korean Defense, Summer-Fall 1952 — 21 October – 30 November 1952
Third Korean Winter — 26 January 1953 – 20 March 1953
Test bed and space support
By the early 1950s, the Navy had decided that 21-inch anti-ship torpedo tubes as well as 40mm and 20mm guns were obsolete, so conversions to the Sumners saw these deleted and replaced with six twin 3″/50 radar-controlled DP mounts and a Hedgehog ASW system.
Post-Korea, De Haven spent the next 15 years in a much more peaceful Pacific than she had known in her first decade of service as a permanently deployed Yokosuka-based destroyer. Between alternating fleet exercises, “hearts and minds” port calls, and West Pac deployments (making six voyages to the Far East from 1953 through 1959 alone), she also had some out-of-the-ordinary taskings.
In 1958, she served as an experimental vessel for the budding Rocket Assist Torpedo program, which would later become ASROC. The idea at the time was that the RATs would launch from a platform built into a destroyer’s stern twin 5″/38 gun house.
USS De Haven (DD 727) is shown with the Rocket Assist Torpedo (RAT) launching system installed on the aft five-inch gun mount. Released July 25, 1958. 330-PS-9056 (USN 710203)
Close-up view of the Rocket Assist Torpedo (RAT) launching system installed on board USS De Haven (DD 727). “An added weapon to the anti-submarine warfare forces, the rocket-assisted torpedo weapon system consists of a rocket-propelled anti-submarine torpedo 13 ½ feet in length and weighing 450 pounds. The missile is propelled through the air by a powerful rocket. The spent rocket drops away, and the torpedo continues on its way. It deploys a parachute, which stabilizes its flight and carries it down to the water. On entering the water, the torpedo releases the parachute, sheds its nose cap, and starts to search for and attack the submarine. Released July 25, 1958.” 330-PS-9056 (USN 710204)
Then came Operation Hardtack I, a series of nearly three dozen nuclear tests from 28 April to 18 August 1958 at the Marshall Islands testing grounds (Bikini Atoll, Enewetak Atoll, etc). Besides testing a variety of devices and delivery methods, Hardtack also tested how close Navy ships and aircraft could be to these “tactical nukes” and, following washdown procedures, still operate.
De Haven was on hand for 27 of 35 blasts, some as close as 5,900 yards away. The highest TLD badge reading on De Haven was 1.76 R. In that blast, Hardtack Wahoo, De Haven suffered the following damage:
Engineering Spaces–Personnel were generally calm, though they considered it violent. In some cases, personnel were frightened.
Lower Sound Room–The shockwave sounded like water rushing by the ship. A shock wave shook the ship violently with a loud cracking noise. Personnel were somewhat frightened.
Bos’n Locker– Ship vibrated violently, first fast, then slow. Sounded like water pouring into the ship. Personnel were considerably frightened
From the 476-page Hardtack case file, declassified in 1984, De Haven’s participation in the project:
The test footage from Hardtack was only cleared and released by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 2017.
FRAM’d
In the early 1960s, the remaining Sumners were ordered converted under the Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization II (FRAM II) program to make them more capable for Cold War threats. For these ships, most pushing 15 years on their hulls, it was an eight-month mid-life overhaul, with a $7 million per hull price tag.
Sumner class destroyer FRAM II profile, circa 1968. Click to big up
FRAM II included new radars (SPS-10 2D surface-search and SPS-40 long range air search), a fixed SQS-29 sonar dome on the keel under frame 25, which increased her depth by 6 feet, the installation of a Gyrodyne QH-50 DASH ASW drone system and hangar, and the addition of a winched SQA-8 variable depth sonar on her fantail.
Because the 369-foot Sumners did not have sufficient hull length, they did not receive the ASROC system, which was part of the more extensive FRAM I program that was applied to the longer (and slightly younger) 380-foot Gearing-class destroyers. Instead, they had to make do with two triple Mark 32 torpedo tubes for Mark 44 torpedoes and two single 21-inch tubes for Mark 37 torpedoes installed between the funnels. In exchange, they lost their legacy ASW gear (Hedgehog and depth charges) as well as their 3″/50 DP gun mounts.
On 1 February 1960, De Haven began her FRAM II modernization at San Francisco, which was completed in September.
USS De Haven (DD-727) underway in an undated photograph, circa 1960s. UA 466.02
Sumner class, 1960 Janes
Newly converted, De Haven left Long Beach on 3 October 1961 for a 985-day forward deployment to 7th Fleet at Yokosuka that saw her return to California 33 months later after steaming 213,576 miles. This included 325 days in Yokosuka, 18 port calls in seven other countries, five exercises (Red Wheel, Yellowbird, Big Dipper, Lone Eagle, and Mercury), four patrols along the line of contact between China and Taiwan, the ship’s first deployment to Vietnam providing support to ready amphibious assault force, an exotic five week tour as station ship Hong Kong, and working as a plane guard for 11 different carriers.
And that’s just the stuff that’s on the record.
In 1962, she was the first ship to take on the Navy’s DESOTO patrols. This was a response to the expanded claims on territorial waters made by China on Taiwan, a geopolitical dispute from the Cold War that is still relevant nowadays. Operating with a SIGINT team aboard under the classified and direct control of ComSeventhFleet, she earned the 197th, 198th, and 199th Serious Warnings from Red China over penetration of what Peking considered its territorial waters near the old German treaty port of Tsingtao. While eight later Desoto patrols took place along east and north China and up the/Korean coast as far as the Soviet. Gulf of Tartary, and then switched to the Gulf of Tonkin ala USS Maddox, the original code name was for “DEhaven Special Operations off TsingtaO.”
She also served on the NASA recovery squadron for Mercury-Atlas MA-9 (“Faith 7,” Major Gordon Cooper, USAF) in May 1963.
In July 1966, she was once again detailed to assist NASA as part of the Gemini-Titan 10 (GT-10) recovery crew, one of the secondary splashdown zone (No. 3, off Okinawa) vessels, should the spacecraft not make the primary recovery ship, the newly commissioned USS Guadalcanal (LPH-7). As it turned out, Guadalcanal easily recovered the record-setting Gemini X, the 16th crewed American flight, including Command Pilot, LCDR John W. Young, USN, and Pilot, Col. Michael Collins, USAF, as the capsule landed just 3 miles from the ‘phib, just off the Virginia coast.
A Navy frogman assists the Gemini 10 astronauts following splashdown at 4:07 p.m., 21 July 1966. Astronaut John W. Young (climbing from spacecraft), command pilot, is the only crew member seen in this view (NASA Photo ID: S66-42772); Astronaut John Young is hoisted from the water by a recovery helicopter from the prime recovery ship. Navy frogmen wait in life rafts below. (NASA Photo ID: S66-42773)
After weeks of training to recover a splashdown space ship on a mock-up “boilerplate,” and with an Army commo sergeant and a NASA tech aboard, but Gemini X landing as planned on the other side of the globe, De Haven instead had a 1911 shoot-ex off the helicopter hangar and returned to port.
Vietnam
No destroyer based in the Pacific in the 1960s got out of deployments to Southeast Asia.
We know that De Haven went at least five times, including April-December 1963, October 1966- March 1967, April-August 1968, October 1969-March 1970, and November 1970- April 1971.
This included inland brown water service on the Mekong River in September 1963 and on the Saigon River during early March 1967, as noted by the VA Agent Orange list.
As noted by her Veterans page:
During this period of time, De Haven served as a naval gunfire support unit in I, II, III, and IV corps and Rung Sat special areas, firing over 22,000 rounds in support of these operations and other noteworthy campaigns, including direct combat engagement with North Vietnamese artillery units on multiple occasions. De Haven’s assignments included search and rescue, radar picket duty, electronic countermeasures, Snoopy Drone operations, shore bombardment, and attack carrier operations from both the “Yankee” and “Dixie” Station staging areas. De Haven participated in the rescue of four downed pilots off the coast of North Vietnam.
6×5! USS DeHaven DD 727 giving fire support near DMZ, 1966
USS DeHaven, DD 727, 1967, Tonkin Gulf, Vietnam. “The U.S. Navy destroyer USS De Haven (DD-727) is returning to the U.S. after two months of gunfire support off South Vietnam.” McLean County Museum of History, Paul Purnell Collection
QH-50 Snoopy Drone operations aboard De Haven in the Gulf of Tonkin; August 14, 1967:
She earned a Navy Unit Commendation and Republic of Vietnam Meritorious Unit Citation in August 1968.
USS De Haven (DD-727) underway off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii, on 19 November 1970. Photographer: PH3 C.P. Weston. NH 107136
With the drawdown in Vietnam, De Haven was decommissioned and stricken on 3 December 1973, capping a very active 29-year career.
Back to Korea (under a different flag)
Transferred to the South Korean Navy two days after she was stricken from the NVR, De Haven was appropriately renamed ROKS Incheon (DD-98/918) and served under the flag of that country until 1993.
The battered 48-star ensign that flew from her mast during Typhoon Cobra in 1945 is at the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath, Maine.
A plaque in the ship’s memory is at the Museum of the Pacific (Nimitz Museum) in Fredericksburg, Texas, dedicated by several veteran members of her crew. For the record, she suffered no casualties in WWII.
Her first skipper, John Dimmick, retired in 1959 as a rear admiral after 21 years of service and later became a high school history teacher in Arizona for almost two decades. He passed in 1987 at age 80.
Of De Haven’s 19 other commanders, at least two others earned stars, including her CDR William Heald Groverman Jr. (USNA ’32), who stood on her bridge on VJ Day, and CDR James Ward Montgomery (USNA ’44), who was her skipper during most of the 985-day West Pac deployment in 1961-63. Of note, Groverman had earned two Silver Stars in destroyers before he came to De Haven and only retired in 1971 after 43 years in the Navy. He had characterized De Haven as having a “good record” and being “a proud ship” in her WWII War History. He seemed like a man who would have known. They passed in 2011 and 1997, respectively.
She is remembered in a variety of maritime art.
De Haven. United States Destroyer at Wonsan. Drawing, Pencil on Paper; by Hugh Cabot; 1952; Framed Dimensions 25H X 30W. (88-187-W)
“Sudden Squall” Painting, Oil on Canvas; by R. G. Smith; 1969; “The USS de Haven (DD-727) provides anti-aircraft and anti-submarine protection for the carrier USS Coral Sea (CVA-43) while on Yankee Station, an operational staging area just off the coast of North Vietnam. The winter monsoon in that region is characterized by consistent heavy clouds and rainfall that make operations difficult.” Framed Dimensions 52 1/2H X 64 1/2W. Accession #: 88-160-FI.
Finally, German scale model maker Wolfgang Wurm crafted a 1:192 diorama of De Haven in her 1945 livery at sea during Typhoon Cobra. It is on display on level 5 of the Internationales Maritimes Museum Hamburg.
The Navy, in its infinite wisdom, has not elected to name a third destroyer De Haven, which is a shame.
Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive
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