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Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

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Warship Wednesday, June 18, 2025: Death of a Destroyer

Above we see a Fletcher-class destroyer, almost certainly USS Twiggs (DD-591), resplendent in her late war Camouflage Measure 32, Design 6D, as she plasters Iwo Jima’s West Beach with 5-inch Willy Pete shells at 1600, 17 February 1945, during the pre-invasion bombardment of the island. Screening UDT Team 14 divers clearing obstacles in the water, the effect was dramatic, and she fired a mix of over 700 5-inch shells ashore that day, closing to within just 300 yards of the beach.

As detailed by Twigg’s report of the action: A fast ship sent in harm’s way, Twiggs‘ career from commissioning to loss– some 80 years ago this week– was a scant 620 days.

The Fletchers

The Fletchers were the WWII equivalent of the Burke class, constructed in a massive 175-strong class from 11 builders that proved the backbone of the fleet for generations. Coming after the interwar “treaty” destroyers such as the Benson- and Gleaves classes, they were good-sized (376 feet oal, 2,500 tons full load, 5×5″ guns, 10 torpedo tubes) and could have passed as unprotected cruisers in 1914.

Powered by a quartet of oil-fired Babcock & Wilcox boilers and two Westinghouse or GE steam turbines, they had 60,000 shp on tap– half of what today’s Burkes have on a hull 25 percent as heavy– enabling them to reach 38 knots, a speed that is still fast for destroyers today.

LCDR Fred Edwards, Destroyer Type Desk, Bureau of Ships, famously said of the class, “I always felt it was the Fletcher class that won the war… they were the heart and soul of the small-ship Navy.”

Meet Twiggs

Our subject was the second warship to carry the name of Georgia-born Major Levi Twiggs, USMC. The son of Major General John Twiggs, the “Savior of Georgia” of Revolutionary War fame, the younger Twiggs was commissioned a Marine second louie at the ripe old age of 19 on 10 November 1813, the young Corps’ 38th birthday. He fought against the British and was captured on the 44-gun heavy frigate USS President in 1815 after a fantastic sea battle against the frigate HMS Endymion.

Returning to American service after the Treaty of Ghent, he continued to serve for another 32 years until he fell in combat– along with almost every other officer and NCO of the Marine Battalion– whilst leading a storming party in the assault on Chapultepec Castle before Mexico City on 13 September 1847.

The first USS Twiggs was a Wickes-class four-piper destroyer laid down but not completed during the Great War. The hardy warship (Destroyer No. 127) was mothballed on the West Coast from 1922-1930, and 1937-39, but was eagerly accepted by the Admiralty in 1940 as part of the “destroyers for bases” agreement with Britain.

Put into RN service as the Town-class destroyer HMS Leamington (G 19), she helped scratch at least two German submarines (U-207 and U-587) while on convoy duty in the Atlantic. Later loaned to the Canadians as HMCS Leamington (G49), she was used in a decent war film and further loaned to the Soviets as the destroyer Zhguchi. She was only scrapped in 1950, ironically outliving the second USS Twiggs.

Speaking of which, our subject, USS Twiggs (DD-591), was built side by side at the Charleston Navy Yard with her sister, the future USS Paul Hamilton (DD-590), laid down on 20 January 1943. The keels were officially laid by striking three arcs simultaneously on the keel of each vessel by the wives of the crews’ junior officers, assisted by their husbands.

With resplendent red and haze grey hulls, the two sisters launched side-by-side on 7 April 1943. Twiggs was sponsored by Mrs. Roland S. Morris (Augusta Twiggs Shippen West), the great-granddaughter of the late Maj. Twiggs, whose husband had served as a diplomat under Woodrow Wilson.

Commissioned on 4 November 1943, Twiggs was built in just 288 days. Her plank owner crew was led by CDR John Benjamin Fellows, Jr. (USNA 1931).

A career surface warfare man, he had learned his trade on the old cruiser USS Chester, then served on the cruiser USS Chicago. His first XO stint was on the humble “Old Bird” minesweeper USS Sandpiper doing survey work in the Aleutians. Then came work on a string of tin cans, earning his first command on the Gleaves-class destroyer USS Gwin (DD-433) from whose deck he picked up both a Navy Cross and a Silver Star off Savo Island and in the Kula Gulf, respectively.

The young CDR Fellows led Twiggs on her shakedown cruise to Bermuda in December 1943. On her way down the East Coast, she was photographed by a Navy blimp from Naval Air Station Weeksville in North Carolina.

She had post-shakedown availability in January 1944 back in Charleston. In April 1944, CDR Fellows was pulled from his command. Bumped upstairs to a crash course at the Army-Navy Staff College in D.C., she was then sent on to the CBI command in India and soon after assigned to the G3 shop in the U.S. 10th Army.

Twigg’s second and final skipper would be CDR George “Geordie” Philip, Jr. (USNA 1935). A former student of the South Dakota School of Mines in Rapid City before going to Annapolis, Philip had served on the battlewagons Mississippi and California as well as the destroyer USS Ellet (DD-398) before the war. Once the big show started, he served as the XO and navigator on the early Fletcher-class tin can O’Bannon (DD 450)— the Navy’s most decorated destroyer during the war– off Guadalcanal, earning a Silver Star. Twiggs would be his first command.

She then escorted “Big Ben,” the new (and ill-fated) Essex-class carrier USS Franklin (CV-13) to Hawaii via the Panama Canal and San Diego, arriving at Pearl Harbor on 6 June 1944.

War!

After exercises and drills in Hawaiian waters and escorted convoys operating between Oahu and Eniwetok, Twiggs was added to DESRON 49, which was busy rehearsing with TF 79 for the liberation of the Philippines. Her baptism of fire would be in support of the amphibious assault on Leyte Island in October 1944, providing antiaircraft protection for the transports during the landings.

This included popping star shells every 30 minutes at night over target areas, delivering fire support ashore, sinking floating mines, and engaging numerous air contacts. In doing so, our destroyer expended 345 5-inch, 800 40mm, and 1,600 20mm shells in just five days.

While off Leyte, she also plucked two downed FM-2 Wildcat pilots of Taffy 2’s jeep carriers from the drink: Ensign A.F. Uthoff of VC-27 from USS Savo Island (CVE-78) and LT Abe Forsythe of VC-76 from USS Petrof Bay (CVE-80).

Next, following escort duty back and forth between the PI and Papua New Guinea, came the Mindoro operation in mid-December. This time, she sailed with 14 other destroyers of DESRON 54 as a screen for RADM Ruddock’s TG 77.12 (battleships USS West Virginia, New Mexico, and Colorado; cruisers Montpelier and Minneapolis, escort carriers Natoma Bay (CVE-62), Kadashan Bay (CVE-76), Marcus Island (CVE-77), Savo Island (CVE-78), Ommaney Bay (CVE-79), and Manila Bay (CVE-61) which was to provide heavy cover and air support for Operation Love III, the invasion of Mindoro Island.

Twiggs stood by her Boston-built sistership USS Haraden (DD-585) after that destroyer had been hit by a suicide plane on 13 December and picked up two survivors from the ship that had been tossed into the sea. Notably, one of those waterlogged bluejackets had already survived a hit from a Japanese Kate torpedo plane on the destroyer USS Smith (DD-378) during the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands and rated the impact on Haraden to be more violent. Due to the proximity of other ships, Twiggs had only been able to get off 96 rounds of AAA fire at the enemy planes, mostly 40mm.

As Haraden lay dead in the water, Twiggs came alongside to help with DC and casualty care. Haraden was soon underway on her own power, making 20 knots, after suffering 14 killed and 24 wounded, with seven men transferred to Twiggs for treatment, one of whom later expired from multiple wounds. With the damaged ship having no radio, Twiggs escorted her back out of the area until Haraden linked up with a tow convoy, then returned to the TF.

Then came the Luzon/Lingayen operation in early January 1945, with Twiggs acting as an escort for VADM Oldendorf’s TG 77.2 as it sortied toward the PI from Kossol Roads.

Entering the Mindanao Sea on 3 January, late on the afternoon of the next day, she was standing by the jeep carrier Ommaney Bay at 1714 when the latter was zapped by a kamikaze that sparked uncontrollable fires and an order to abandon ship, with all survivors in the water picked up by 1834.

Twiggs, accompanied by Charleston-built sisters USS Bell (DD-587) and Burns (DD-588), stood by while Ommaney Bay slipped below the waves and transferred the survivors they collected later that night to the battlewagon West Virginia. Twiggs had picked up 26 officers and 185 enlisted from the carrier and its air group, VC-75.

Twiggs continued fighting the Divine Wind off and on during the operation, and also clocked in as a lifeguard once more, picking up a group of downed American aviators just before sunset on 13 January, the crews of a Navy PBY and an Army F-6 (photo P-51 Mustang).

The next morning, she grabbed three more when the crew of an Avenger off another jeep carrier crashed near them, bringing her lifeguard count to a full 224 in less than a fortnight. Twiggs then chopped to TF 54, which sortied from Ulithi on 10 February for rehearsals that brought them as a fighting force off Iwo Jima by 16 February. Using the callsign “Gabriel,” Twiggs was ready to deliver fire ashore as needed.

While supporting the invasion of Iwo with NGFS in the three weeks between 16 February and 10 March 1945, she expended almost 5,000 5-inch shells as well as another 5,000 40mm. Past the initial beach landings, during much of the gunfire support work, she was heaving two 5-inch salvos a minute at targets unseen by the ship, 5,000-6,000 yards inland, spotted by aircraft in real time.

After a short break to rest and restock her magazines, she popped up two weeks later off Okinawa to take part in the preinvasion bombardment, alternating with anti-air picket duty and ASW patrols.

This work grew even more deadly serious on 28 April when a downed kamikaze crashed just feet abreast of Twiggs and exploded, delivering a “glancing lick.” The force carried away much of the destroyer’s running lines and radio antennas, blew in her hull plating along the starboard side from frames 46 to 60, wrecked most of “officer’s country,” and curled back her starboard prop.

This required her to fall out of the operation and retire to Kerama Retto, a safer harbor (though still subject to near continuous air attacks) in the forward area, where she could tie up next to the LST-turned-repair ship USS Nestor (ARB-6) for two weeks in “the boneyard” and get back in the fight.

Just 20 days after her destructive near-miss, Twiggs was back on radar picket duties in the western fire support area off Okinawa, providing NGFS on Iheya Shima and Iheya-Aguni.

The end came on 16 June, while, on radar picket duty some 5,000 yards off Senaga Shima, Okinawa’s southern tip, that observers on Twiggs around 2030 observed a single, low-flying enemy aircraft moments before it dropped a torpedo into her port side, adjacent to the destroyer’s number 2 magazine.

Very few men stationed forward survived, in particular, most of the destroyer’s bridge crew, including CDR Philip, were lost in the conflagration.

As told by the ship’s assistant communications officer, LT Oscar N. Pederson. He was one of just three officers to live– all wounded– to tell his story: Not content with just hitting Twiggs with a fish and living to fight another day, the same torpedo bomber circled back around sharply and onto the starboard side of the stricken destroyer, then crashed between her No. 3 and No. 4 guns, starting a whole new set of fires and secondary explosions.

As illustrated in a press release by the Navy entitled “Death of a Destroyer.” The senior NCO still alive, CMM Charles F. Schmidt, one of just five surviving chiefs, led the fire-fighting efforts as best he could, but the hoses had no pressure, and the hand pumps just weren’t making headway. Arriving on deck to find fuel oil spread over the water on both sides of the ship and on fire, and 40mm ready ammo cooking off in all directions, it was Chief Schmidt who ordered Twiggs abandoned.

Directing the efforts to offload the crew astern safely, the last five men trying to get off confessed they couldn’t swim.

Schmidt did what chiefs do: give up his lifejacket, help them as best he could, and then later attribute any lives saved to two other chiefs who were working amidships: Most of those recovered from the water, including Lt Pedersen and Chief Schmidt, were picked up by the destroyer USS Putnam (DD 757), which reported:

Twiggs was burning furiously, particularly around the bridge structure and forward torpedo tubes, midship machine guns, and after deck house, including 5″ mounts three and four. Almost continuous minor explosions were observed, which were believed to be 40mm, 20mm, and 5″ ammunition. Burning fragments were thrown short distances about the ship, around the rescue boats, and further igniting the thick, heavy oil layer on the water. Attempts to close the surface oil fires with the ship at this time to extinguish flames were prevented by the survivors in the water and about the stern, and propellers. At 2129, there was a tremendous explosion on the Twiggs, followed by a momentary inferno of fire throughout the ship, and she sank in less than a minute, leaving a large burning oil fire on the surface, which gradually disappeared.

Speaking of burning fragments, as noted by Navsource, the only known surviving piece of the exploding Twiggs was later found by Earl Bauer, a signalman aboard Putnam who observed this jagged piece of the exploding destroyer land red hot into the Putnam’s flag bag.

Today, Twiggs is believed to rest in deep water near 26º08’N, 127º35’E, while 193 of her crew of 314 lost with the ship remain on duty.

As noted by the NHHC, Twiggs was one of five American destroyers to have more than half their crew killed and wounded in suicide attacks during the battle for Okinawa– the others being Halligan (DD-584), Luce (DD-522), Morrison (DD-560), and Drexler (DD-741).

Epilogue

Twiggs was officially struck from the Navy list on 11 July 1945. She earned four battle stars for her war.

In 1957, her wreck was donated to the government of the Ryukyu Islands.

As you may surmise, NARA has most of her deck logs and reports digitized.

A few of her crew who survived managed to leave behind oral history interviews. CDR Philip’s family was presented a posthumous Navy Cross. One of 57 members of the Annapolis Class of 1935 in Memorial Hall, the Navy in 1978 named a frigate in his honor, USS George Philip (FFG 12). The greyhound was sponsored by his daughter, Margaret.

I can’t find out anything post-war about Chief Schmidt. It seems time has done what the Japanese never could.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

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