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Warship Wednesday, September 17, 2025: ‘A Good Record, and a Proud Ship’

Posted on September 17, 2025 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

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

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Warship Wednesday, September 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.

Overnight of 22/23 July 1945, Desron 61, De Haven included, swept Sagami Bay– lower Tokyo Bay.

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.

From her seven-page War History, a good recap:

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.

ROKS Inchon (DD-918)

Epilogue

Little remains of our subject.

Her logs and plans are in the National Archives.

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.

The USS DeHaven Sailors Association remembers both tin cans today and is very active on social media.

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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Strongpoint

Posted on September 15, 2025 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

Talk about pucker factor. It happened 75 years ago. 15 September 1950, “Somewhere in Korea,” but we know now it is in the newly established Inchon enclave.

Original Caption: “Marines with a bazooka and a protecting machine gun set up a security post against a possible tank counter-attack. 1st MarDiv. Korea.”

Photog: Sgt. Frank Kerr. 127-N-A2747. National Archives Identifier 5891325

Note the M20 3.5-inch “Super Bazooka” with a rocket loaded and at least four more on standby, as well as the M1919 air-cooled Browning .30 cal with three cans of belted ammo ready to go. All in all, at least a few minutes’ worth of “tough resistance” before these Devils had to be reinforced or fall back. Their jute bag protection, however, is more concealment than cover.

Rushed to Korea in July 1950, the Marines quickly fell in love with the new Super Bazooka, which replaced their smaller and much less effective 2.36-inch M9 Bazookas. Besides putting the T-34 on the menu, at least at close range, it proved useful in knocking out enemy bunkers and clumps of positions.

“Marine riflemen in the background stand by while their 3.5 bazooka man puts a round into a Communist position down the hill. This action took place in mopping-up operations in Korea.” 18 September 1950. From the Photograph Collection (COLL/3948), Marine Corps Archives & Special Collections

Warship Wednesday, September 10, 2025: Scots, East!

Posted on September 10, 2025 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

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

Warship Wednesday, September 10, 2025: Scots, East!

Imperial War Museum photo GOV 2739

Above we see, almost exactly 75 years ago, a Balmoral capped and STEN-gun toting CPL John MacDonald of the 1st Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, waiting to embark on the modified Fiji (Uganda)-class light cruiser HMS Ceylon (C 30) in Hong Kong on 25 August 1950 for an emergency sealift to help defend the embattled enclave of Pusan, South Korea.

MacDonald’s war chariot made sense. Despite her name, Ceylon was built in Scotland and “paid for” by its residents. Korea was her second major Pacific war.

The Ugandas

A borderline “treaty” cruiser of interwar design, the Fijis amounted to a class that was one short of a dozen with an 8,500-ton standard displacement. In WWII service, this would balloon to a very top-heavy weight of over 11,000. Some 15 percent of the standard displacement was armor.

As described by Richard Worth in his Fleets of World War II, the design was much better off than the previous Leander-class cruisers, and essentially “the Admiralty resolved to squeeze a Town [the immediately preceding 9,100-ton light cruiser class] into 8,000 tons.”

With a fine transom stern, they were able to achieve over 32 knots on a plant that included four Admiralty 3-drum boilers driving four Parsons steam turbines, their main armament amounted to nine 6″/50 (15.2 cm) BL Mark XXIII guns in three triple Mark XXI mountings in the case of our cruiser and her two immediate full sisters (HMS Uganda and HMS Newfoundland).

A strong secondary battery of eight QF HA 4″/45 Mark XVIs in four twin mountings gave excellent DP capabilities.

The standard Fiji/Colony-class cruiser had four Mark XXI turrets, as shown in the top layout, while the “Improved Fijis/Ceylon-variants of the class mounted three, as in the bottom layout. Not originally designed to carry torpedo tubes, two triple sets were quickly added, along with more AAA guns, once the treaty gloves came off. (Jane’s 1946)

Meet Ceylon

Our vessel is at least the fourth (and surely the last) Royal Navy warship to carry the name of the British colony of Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, which was under Crown rule from 1796 to 1948.

The first was an ex-East Indiaman that served as a 38-gun fifth rate and then as a 40-gun frigate from 1793 through 1857. She is perhaps best known for her stirring overnight action off the island of Bourbon in 1810 against two French ships.

“Naval Combat Between The Frigate La Venus And The British Frigate HMS Ceylon” by Pierre-Julien Gilbert. On the night of September 16/17, 1810, the 40-gun Junon-class frigate Vénus, along with the 20-gun privateer corvette Victor, encountered and captured Ceylon off the coast of the island of Bourbon, now the island of Réunion, losing her fore-mast and her topgallant masts in the process. The next day, a British squadron composed of HMS Boadicea, HMS Otter, and the brig HMS Staunch in turn captured Vénus and recaptured Ceylon and her surviving crew. Victor managed to escape.

The second and third were private craft taken up from service in the Great War (ex-Seaton, 149grt, and ex-Lady Ina, 311grt). The latter, serving as a group leader in the special yacht squadrons in the Mediterranean, earned a battle honor for the Dardanelles from June 1915 to May 1916.

Our subject cruiser was built by Stephen and Sons, Ltd., Govan, in Scotland, under the Admiralty’s 1938 Build Programme. Laid down four months before WWII on 27 April 1939 as Job No. 1469, the same yard had previously built her sister, HMS Kenya (C14), as Job No. 566.

Ceylon was launched on 30 July 1942, christened by Lady Dorothy Macmillan, and, after 11 months of fitting out, commissioned on 29 June 1943, with Capt. Guy Beresford Amery-Parkes, RN, in command.

Left to right: July 1943. Capt. Guy Beresford Amery-Parkes, Commanding Officer of HMS Ceylon, and his XO, CDR Frank Reginald Woodbine Parish, DSO. Parish earned his DSO in 1940 as skipper of the destroyer HMS Vivacious. Photo by Beadell, S J (Lt), IWM (A 17715)

A regular with 32 years’ service on his jacket, Amery-Parks had entered the RN as a cadet at Dartmouth at age 13, shipped out for his first war as a 16-year-old midshipman in August 1914 on the cruiser HMS Amphitrite, and saw service at Jutland on the Bellerophon-class dreadnought HMS Superb as an acting sub-lieutenant. During the 1930s, he had served as XO on two cruisers, HMS Delhi and Frobisher, before a stint as gunnery officer on the battleship Warspite. Fast forward to WWII, he had almost gone down with the minesweeping sloop HMS Sphinx (J69) when she was sunk in 1940 and had previously commanded the net layer HMS Guardian (T 89) during the invasion of Vichy-held Madagascar in 1942.

After an amazingly successful “Warship Week” National Savings campaign in February 1942, the future HMS Ceylon was adopted by the civil corporation of the city of Dundee in Scotland, with a population of 164,000. The city had raised a whopping £3,782,775 in loans to the Exchequer between 31 January and 7 February 1942, about twice as much as the cost of HMS Ceylon, so the Admiralty got a good deal on that one.

City representatives swapped out plaques and other items on the stern of “their” cruiser on 2 July, before an assembled crew under the watchful bores of Ceylon’s big guns.

The Lord Provost (center) addressing the ship’s company at the presentation ceremony. Photo by Beadell, S J (Lt), IWM (A 17712)

Dundee’s plaque for the cruiser Ceylon, 2 July 1943, Glasgow. The Lord Provost of Dundee, Lord Provost Garnet Wilson, accompanied by Bailie Colin Baird, Bailie Caldwell, and other members of the Corporation, presented a plaque to the British Cruiser HMS Ceylon to commemorate her adoption by the citizens of Dundee. The Captain of the Ceylon made a return presentation to the citizens; a plaque replica of the crest of the Ceylon, which was handed over on behalf of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. Photo by Beadell, S J (Lt), IWM A 17713.

The Lord Provost of Dundee and members of the Corporation inspect the ship. Photo by Beadell, S J (Lt), IWM (A 17714)

HMS Ceylon at anchor in the Clyde, July 1943. IWM (FL 7789)

HMS Ceylon at anchor in the Clyde. IWM (FL 7788)

Ceylon was girded and ready for war, spending most of August in large-scale tactical exercises off Scapa Flow.

It Ain’t Half Hot Mum

Nominated for service with the British Eastern Fleet based in Ceylon, her namesake colony, our cruiser was given extra 20mm Oerlikon mounts for added AAA defense against Japanese aircraft.

On 30 October 1943, she shoved off for parts East via the Bay of Biscay, Gibraltar, Port Said, and Aden, arriving in Bombay on 27 November. She was assigned to RADM A.D. Read’s 4th Cruiser Squadron at Trincomalee, joining the Town-class light cruiser HMS Newcastle and sister HMS Kenya.

She was feted upon arrival in Colombo, the hometown ship sorts, at least by name.

“A” Turret of HMS Ceylon fires a broadside while at sea off Colombo, 5 January 1944. Photo by Trusler, C (Lt), IWM (A 21901)

Royal Naval gunners on board HMS Ceylon explain the workings of a twin Oerlikon gun to Mr. A. Mamujee. On the right are Mr. J.A. Martensz and the Editor of the Ceylon Observer. Photo by Trusler, C (Lt), IWM (A 21891).

Pith helmets all-round! Admiral Sir Geoffrey Layton and a group of Ceylon personalities watch the gunnery practice on board HMS Ceylon during her visit to Colombo. Note the beret-clad RM officer in the distance and the slouch hat in the foreground. Photo by Trusler, C (Lt), IWM (A 21900)

The Bishop of Colombo preaching at Morning Service on board HMS Ceylon as she swings at anchor in the colony, 5 January 1944. Note the flags of Allies KMT China, Belgium, and France behind the pulpit. Photo by Trusler, C (Lt), IWM (A 21907)

After morning service on board HMS Ceylon. Left to right: The Bishop’s Curate; HMS Ceylon’s Chaplain; The Bishop of Colombo, Right Revd Cecil D Horsley; Commanding Officer of HMS Ceylon, Captain G B Amery-Parkes, RN. Photo by Trusler, C (Lt), IWM (A 21906)

Ceylon spent the first part of 1944 on a series of exercises with her squadron, culminating with a sweep into the Bay of Bengal, Operation Initial, in March, centered around the battlecruiser HMS Renown, battleship HMS Valiant, and aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious.

April 1944 saw our cruiser as part of Task Force 69, built around the battleships HMS Queen Elizabeth (flying the flag of Admiral J.F. Somerville, KCB, KBE, DSO, RN, C-in-C Eastern Fleet), Valiant, and the Free French Richelieu.

The force was an over-the-horizon screen during Operation Cockpit, a carrier raid by the Eastern Fleet (TF 70 and the carriers Illustrious and USS Saratoga) against Sabang in the Japanese-held Dutch East Indies.

Operation Transom in May 1944 was a near repeat, swapping out Sabang for occupied Surabaya, with Ceylon this time screening the carriers themselves.

Richelieu, HMS Valiant, and HMS Renown Cruising About the Indian Ocean On 12 May 1944, Operation Transom

The next month would see Operation Councillor, another carrier raid on Sabang (June 10-13), followed by Operation Pedal, a series of strikes in the Andaman Islands.

July 1944 would see another run at Sabang (Operation Crimson), this time screening the battlewagons Queen Elizabeth, Valiant, and Richelieu, along with the battlecruiser HMS Renown, and the carriers Illustrious and HMS Victorious. Our cruiser fired in anger for the first time, hitting enemy positions in shore bombardment during the operation, her 6-inch guns accompanied by Queen Elizabeth’s 15s. In all, the light cruiser sisters HMS Nigeria, Kenya, Ceylon, and HMNZS Gambia fired 324 6-inch shells during the raid, along with a similar number of 4-inchers.

More of the same came in August with Operation Banquet, striking Padang with the battlewagon Howe now riding shotgun with the flattops HMS Indomitable and Victorious. Following the end of a very hectic five months of operations and a year deployed, Ceylon made for Durban, South Africa, in September, where she spent the rest of the year in refit.

January 1945 saw Ceylon back with the armored carriers Illustrious, Indomitable, and Victorious for strikes against oil refineries in Sumatra at Pangkalan-Brandan (Operation Lentil) and Palembang (Operation Meridian).

April 1945 saw Ceylon again bring her big guns into action with Operation Bishop, a surface bombardment of Burma’s Car Nicobar to provide cover for Operation Dracula– the amphibious landings off Rangoon. Ceylon and the cruiser HMS Suffolk of Bismarck fame were tasked to soak enemy AA positions just before sunrise on 30 April, clearing the way for later air strikes. HMS Cumberland of Graf Spee fame and Ceylon shifted to ruining Japanese airstrips with 8-inch and 6-inch shells the next morning.

This capped the run of Capt. Amery-Parkes, who was relieved by the incoming Capt. Kenneth Lanyon Harkness, DSC, RN, on 12 May.

August 1945 saw Ceylon steaming as part of Force 11, centered on the battleship HMS Nelson and four escort carriers, under Operation Beecham, the occupying amphibious landings at Penang. For this, her RM detachment was paired with those from three other cruisers and Nelson to form a light battalion (400 men), dubbed Force Roma, which was going to take the surrender of 3,000 emplaced Japanese defenders.

In the end, Force Roma was kept on their ships as, on 28 August, Japanese VADM Sueto Hirose arrived aboard Nelson to negotiate the formal surrender of the Japanese forces in Penang. The Indian 26th Division would instead arrive for occupation duty in mid-October, with the Japanese tasked informally with keeping order until then.

Penang conference on board HMS Nelson. 28 August to 2 September 1945, on board the British battleship HMS Nelson, flagship of Vice Admiral H T C Walker. During the Penang surrender and re-occupation negotiations. Rear Admiral Uzuni and the Japanese governor of Penang signed for the Japanese, after which the documents of agreement were signed by Vice Admiral H T C Walker at 2115 hours on 1 September 1945. Royal Marines of the British East Indies fleet formally took over the island on 3 September 1945. Photo by Hales, G (Lt), IWM (A 30472)

By 9 September, Ceylon was covering the planned Operation Zipper landings of Allied troops on the Malayan coast, which were a whole lot less bloody than originally envisioned.

During the Japanese surrender ceremony at Singapore on 12 September, selected members of her ship’s company formed part of the guard of honor for the ceremony.

The Union Jack being hoisted over Singapore after the signing ceremony, 12 September 1945. The honor guard was provided by Force W, including HMS Ceylon, and the Indian 5th Division. Photo by Trusler, C (Lt), IWM (A 30489)

Following the liberation of Malaya and Singapore, Ceylon was ordered home, which meant she *had* to stop off at Colombo on the way for a week-long port call.

“Men of HMS Ceylon. 30 September 1945, Colombo, on board HMS Ceylon, the day before she sailed for home at the end of her commission with the British East Indies fleet. The men are grouped by area: Dundee interest. Front to back: Able Seaman J Ramsay, Dundee; Able Seaman D Dallas, Kirkadly, Fife; Able Seaman E Mollison, Dundee; Engine Room Mechanic G Mekkinson, Cupar, Fife.” Photo by Cochrane, R W (Sub Lt), IWM (A 30708)

Ceylon arrived at Portsmouth on 25 October 1945, having steamed 115,000 nm during the war, and was promptly paid off into the Reserve fleet. She had earned the battle honors Sabang (1944) and Burma (1945) during her service.

Uganda class cruisers Ceylon, Newfoundland, Jane’s 1946

Korea!

After four years of slumber, Ceylon was brought out of mothballs in Portsmouth in early 1950 to relieve the cruiser HMS Birmingham with the 4th Cruiser Squadron of the East Indies Fleet. Her skipper would be Capt. Cromwell Felix Justin Lloyd-Davies DSC, RN, who had commanded the light cruiser HMS Glasgow (21) in the latter months of WWII.

While the old Birmingham was slated for an in-depth two-year refit, Ceylon was given a much more modest refresh and left for the Far East on 15 April 1950, with the intention of her crew to “work up” along the way. She arrived at Trincomalee on 22 June.

In a desperate response to the invasion of South Korea on 25 June 1950 and the subsequent United Nations Security Council Resolutions (UNSCRs) 82, 83, 84, and 85, Great Britain became one of 22 countries contributing either combat forces or medical assistance to support South Korea under the UN flag. That muscle, besides the British Far East Fleet, required some boots on the ground. In response, Ceylon was dispatched to the Far East on a “temporary secondment of about three months”

With that, 27 Brigade, which had garrisoned Hong Kong since 1949, would dispatch its Brigade Headquarters and two battalions– 1st Bn, Argyll and Sutherland and 1st Bn, Middlesex Regiment– to the desperately holding Pusan Perimeter immediately. Rather than schlep them there in slow troopships, it was decided that Ceylon– transferred to the Far East Fleet– would carry the Argylls while the carrier HMS Unicorn would tote the “Die Hards” of the Middlesex.

Severely under strength (as was every other UN battalion sent to Korea in 1950), the Argylls rapidly absorbed 17 men from the Royal Leicesters, 25 from the King’s Own Scottish Borderers, 38 from the South Staffordshire Regiment, and 53 from the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, all volunteers, to bring the Battalion up to its 600-strong Korean war establishment.

General Sir John Harding, the Commander-in-Chief of the Far East Forces, and Mr. Malcolm MacDonald, the High Commissioner for South East Asia, came down to the docks to see the two battalions off to war while the band of the Scottish Borderers played them out while the Argylls own band, augmented by Ceylon’s RM band, matched them from the cruiser’s quarterdeck.

From the deck of HMS Ceylon, Mr. Malcolm MacDonald, the High Commissioner for Southeast Asia, addresses men of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders paraded on the dock below, before they board the cruiser for the journey to Pusan, South Korea. IWM (GOV 2741)

Men of the 1st Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, boarding the cruiser HMS Ceylon for the journey to Pusan, South Korea. In the background, the band of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers plays on. IWM (GOV 2738)

As detailed in Lt.Col. G I Malcolm’s “The Argylls in Korea,” the “Jocks” were crammed in every space the cruiser would allow for the short yet almost enjoyable 1,200 nm sprint to Pusan, one that involved not only running through notorious late summer China Sea rain squalls but the also a darkened ship run past Formosa (Taiwan) at night, just in case the Red Chinese were on alert in those waters.

Almost as soon as the Battalion had reached Holt’s Wharf, officers and men found themselves stowed away in the ship’s interior, allotted to wardroom, gunroom, petty officers’ mess, and mess decks, and made to feel they were the welcome guests of the ship’s company. Thus, laid the foundation of a very happy comradeship. The ordinary sailors, knowing from their experience on the China station that a feeling of insecurity is engendered in ‘Pongos’ who find themselves with neither land nor whitewash in sight, made all the necessary allowances for their passengers. Certainly, no soldiers had better hosts, and once they understood (‘hauled in’) the basic English of naval vocabulary and timekeeping, they all felt that a life on the ocean wave, at any rate in decent weather, had much to commend it.

They shoved off at 1830 on 25 August and docked at Pusan at noon on the 29th, an elapsed time of about 90 hours, with a Korean Army band welcoming them to a hastily learned “God Save the King.”

A well mustachioed Sergeant of the 1st Battalion, The Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders supervises the disembarkation of British troops for HMS Ceylon at Pusan. IWM (MH 32736)

Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders line the decks of HMS Ceylon as she comes alongside at Pusan, Korea, Aug 29 1950 LIFE Carl Maydans

The kilt-clad Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders band from HMS Ceylon, Pusan, Korea, Aug 29 1950 LIFE Carl Maydans

Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders land from HMS Ceylon as she comes alongside at Pusan, Korea, Aug 29 1950 LIFE Carl Maydans

By the evening of 30 August, the Argylls would be on the move to the front and would suffer their first of 171 casualties in their first eight-month tour of Korea while deployed along the Naktong river south-west of Taegu on 6 September.

With her Jocks landed, Ceylon was soon made part of the Inchon landing force (Operation Chromite), taking part in diversionary shore bombardment. Ceylon put a landing party ashore on the island of Taechong Do, where they reported that a previously observed North Korean troop concentration had departed.

“We were off the North Korean coast, not a light anywhere. We felt the malevolent force of the Chinese ashore there. Morale was rock bottom,” recalled 18-year-old Midshipman (later RADM) Ian Mclean Crawford, AO, AM.

As she had sailed from Portsmouth in April with a “peacetime” complement, it wasn’t until October 1950 that augmentees from Europe arrived to bring her crew to strength. As noted by her reunion association, “Her first two patrols had been carried out with a much reduced company, which made the duty of Defence Stations hard going, as it had meant that the close-range guns crews were closed up from dawn to dusk each day.”

She continued her Korean service until she was relieved by HMS Belfast in February 1951.

While in Kure for a quick hull scraping, she hosted a family reunion between a subaltern with The Duke of Wellington’s Regiment (West Riding)– a unit soon to be famous for holding off 6,000 Chinese at the Battle of the Hook– and his brother-in-law, an RM on Ceylon. The pair captured some great images of the vessel.

Kure, 10 July 1951. An unidentified petty officer ringing the bell of the Royal Navy cruiser HMS Ceylon as an RM bugler sounds a call over the ship’s tannoy (intercom) system. Photo by Harold Vaughan Dunkley AWM DUKJ4559

Kure, 10 July 1951. “Pointing out the opened breech of a gun aboard HMS Ceylon, is Marine F N Barker (far right) to his brother-in-law Lt P Dooks (Duke of Wellington Regiment), both of Bridlington, Yorkshire, England, who chanced to meet 11,000 miles from home, when Ceylon was in dry dock after a spell of duty off Korea.” Photo by Harold Vaughan Dunkley AWM DUKJ4557

Kure, 10 July 1951. “Dwarfed by one of the props of HMS Ceylon are brothers-in-law Marine F N Barker (right) and Lt P Dooks (Duke of Wellington Regiment), both of Bridlington, Yorkshire, England, who chanced to meet 11,000 miles from home, when Ceylon was in dry dock after a spell of duty off Korea.” Photo by Harold Vaughan Dunkley AWM DUKJ4558

On 26 August 1951, a seven-man raiding party made up of sailors from HMNZS Rotoiti and Royal Marine Commandos from Ceylon departed from Rotoiti and landed at Sogon-ni in North Korea to take prisoners for intelligence purposes. They were joined on the mission by a fire support team and US observers who would stay by the boats to provide cover if necessary. The party made contact with a Nork gun emplacement, and Able Seaman Robert Marchioni, RNZN, was killed in the exchange; body not recovered. Marchioni was the last New Zealand sailor to die in combat.

Sent to refit in Singapore, she arrived back off Korea in May and continued to serve regular stints on the gun line until July 1952, when HMS Newcastle arrived in theatre to relieve her.

On 4 February 1952, Ceylon and the destroyer HMS Cockade covered the landings by South Korean raiders on the Mudo Islands from LST-516 and 692.
On 26 June 1952, Ceylon was only narrowly missed by enemy coastal batteries near Popkyo-ri, in which two shells came within 1,000 yards of the cruiser. She responded with 24 rounds of 6-inch, smothering the observed gun flash positions and received no return fire.
On 29 June 1952, Ceylon supported a raid on Yongmae-do with the destroyer HMS Comus and frigate HMS Amethyst, in which the raiders returned at daylight with two prisoners.

During her Korean deployments (August ’50 – July ’52), Ceylon spent 458 days at sea, steaming some 77,800 miles, discharging 6,877 rounds of 6-inch, as well as 1,965 of 4-inch, plus large quantities of 20mm and 40mm close-range ammunition.

Capt. Lloyd-Davies would add a DSO to his WWII-era DSC for his command of Ceylon during the “police action.”

Salad Days

Following six months in ordinary in Singapore, Ceylon returned to service with a new crew (her old one returning to England on HMS Vengeance) and managed a series of peacetime ceremonial engagements over the next few years including being present at the birth of the Maldive Islands Republic in January 1953, the 150th anniversary of the first settlement in Tasmania in February 1954 (she would later also be on hand for Ghana’s Independence), and escorting the steamer SS Gothic during the Royal Tour of Australasia in April 1954, which included a visit to the ship by the Queen.

HMS Ceylon, dressed in Freemantle for the 1954 Queen’s visit

Modified Crown Colony-class light cruiser HMS Ceylon (C30), deliberately listing for an exercise. 14 August 1953. IWM (HU 129765)

HMS Ceylon escorts the Royal yacht SS Gothic along with HMAS Bataan (I91), HMAS Anzac (D59), and HMS Vengeance (R71), April 1954

9 April 1954. Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh with the Captain, Officers and Ship’s Company of HMS Ceylon. Seated on the Fo`c’sle, left to right: Midshipman Grassby, RNVR, Tunbridge Wells; Midshipman A Khan, RPN, Pakistan; Midshipman Chitham, London; Midshipman Malek, RPN, Pakistan; Midshipman Z Khan, RPN, Pakistan; Midshipman Allen, Wimborne; Midshipman Day, Lydney, Glas; Midshipman Snow, S Africa; Midshipman Broomfield, Catterwick; Midshipman Steil, Uganda; Midshipman Suanders, Uganda. Seated front row: Lieut Bannister, Reigate; Lieut (S) North, Doncaster; Inst Lieut Cottam, London; Lieut Cdr Stewart, Ceylon; Lieut Cdr Cheetham. Hatch End, Middx; Captain R M Harris, Bickley, Kent; Commander (S) Mellor, Withington; Commander (E) Grill, Blechingly, Surrey; Captain Foster Brown, Liss; HM The Queen; HRH The Duke of Edinburgh; Cdr Steiner, London; Surg Cdr Hovendon, London; Cdr (L) Webber, Henfield; Lieut Cdr Haley, Bexhill on Sea; Lieut Cdr Leak, Liverpool. IWM (A 32922)

She was then ordered back to England, arriving at Portsmouth on 1 October 1954.

As tradition has it, she again stopped off in Ceylon for a port call on the way back to Europe.

“Homecoming” of HMS Ceylon. September 1954, Trincomalee, Ceylon, as HMS Ceylon left Ceylon for Britain after serving in the Far East Station for four years. Note her homeward-bound pennant flying as she steams out of Trincomalee. IWM (A 33009)

Given an extended 22-month refit at Portsmouth, she emerged much more modern, landing her torpedo tubes and dated sensors for a newer Type 960 long-range air warning radar and picking up American Mark 63 radar FCS for her 4-inch guns. Emerging in July 1956, she was rushed to the Eastern Mediterranean to participate in the Suez operations (Operation Musketeer Revise), where she once again provided NGFS ashore.

She made another trip to Ceylon, visiting Trincomalee in October 1957 on the occasion of the base being handed over to the newly independent Ceylon Navy.

In Toulon

Her 1956-58 deployment

HMS Ceylon with HMS Royalist to her port side MOD 45140251

In 1958, she was once again pressed into service as a troop transport, carrying Jocks– 1st Battalion, The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles)– out of Jordan.

The last British soldiers, members of the Cameronians, to leave Jordan, 3 November 1958, where they had been since August to defend against a possible Iraqi invasion. NAM. 2008-07-34-19

After one last trip to Ceylon, as part of Exercise Jet in September 1959 as the flagship of RADM Sir Varyl Cargill Begg, HMS Ceylon returned to Portsmouth, where she was paid off on 1 January 1960, capping a hectic 14-year career that saw the sun set on much of the British Empire.

HMS Ceylon C30, refueling from an RFA, 1959

South America Bound

Just five weeks after she was stricken from the Royal Navy, ex-Ceylon was sold to the government of Peru and handed over on 9 February 1960.

Renamed BAP Coronel Bolognesi (CL-82) in honor of the heroic Peruvian Coronel Francisco Bolognesi, she would serve alongside her old sister ex-Newfoundland (BAP Almirante Grau, later Capitan Quinones), which had been transferred two months prior.

Ceylon/Bolognesi arrived at her new home port of Callao on 19 March 1960, fully dressed in her glad rags.

These are via the Peruvian Naval archives:

HMS Ceylon, Newfoundland, Peru, Janes 1960 Almirante Grau Coronel Bolognesi

She provided sterling work in humanitarian assistance during the 1970 Ancash earthquake, served in regular UNITAS exercises, and was later modified to operate a Bell 47G (H-13 Sioux) from her stern.

Sister Newfoundland/Almirante Grau/Capitan Quinones was reduced to a pier-side training hulk in 1979 and subsequently scrapped, leaving Ceylon/Bolognesi as the next to last of her class (other than ex-HMS Nigeria, which continued to serve with the Indian Navy until 1985 as INS Mysore) in service.

Ceylon/Bolognesi was decommissioned in May 1982 and then towed to Taiwan to be scrapped in 1985. She had made it 42 years.

Epilogue

Little remains of our subject.

I suspect her 1943 plaque presented to the City of Dundee may still be in a place of honor there. If anyone has seen it, please drop an image.

She is remembered in maritime art.

Watercolour HMS Ceylon by Jim Rae

British cruiser HMS Ceylon seen from Royal Australian Navy destroyer HMAS Warramunga (I). The ship is off Sok-To island in the Yellow Sea, Korea, weighing anchor, to facilitate the return of the ship’s Captain from Ceylon. From 29th June to 9th July, HMAS Warramunga (I) joined the Chodo-Sokto Unit (TU 95.12.1) code-named CIGARRET (patrol area from Sokto to Choppeki Point) in the defence of the islands of Sokto and Chodo. Official war artist Frank Norton described the operations in a letter to the Memorial’s Director ‘”Warramunga’s patrol was very quiet as far as action – the group of ships were anti invasion force – protecting some islands off the North Korean Coast – patrolling between islands and mainland (a matter of a few miles) at night – firing star shells and checking any junks that might attempt to pass from one to the other…During the day, the groups of ships, British, American, Australian, and Korean, lay at anchor just off the coast.’ AWM ART40019

An HMS Ceylon Association exists with an online presence, although its last reunion was in 2018.

One of her 6-inch guns tampions, adorned with her elephant crest, recently surfaced on a Trinity Marine auction, which probably means the other eight are floating around the UK as well, perhaps saved before the cruiser went to Peru under a different name.

Ceylon’s first skipper, Capt. Guy Beresford Amery-Parkes, who had commanded her throughout WWII, post-war moves ashore as the Deputy Superintendent, Captain of the Dockyard & King’s Harbour Master, at HM Dockyard Portsmouth aboard HMS Victory. He left the service due to ill health in 1947, capping a 36-year career. He passed in October 1955 in Hurstpierpoint, Sussex.

Capt. Cromwell Felix Justin Lloyd-Davies, her impeccably named Korean War skipper, would retire in 1955 and pass in 1998 in Buckinghamshire, at a ripe old age of 95.

The last flag officer to fly his flag from her mast, Sir Varyl Begg– who was in charge of Warspite’s guns at Cape Matapan– went on to become a full admiral and talked the RN into the “through deck cruiser” concept that led to the Invincible class Harrier carriers, arguably Britain’s final cruisers.

As for the Jocks that Ceylon carried, the Argylls served with the British Army until 2006, when the historic regiment was amalgamated into The Royal Regiment of Scotland and today make up its Balaklava Company.

The Cameronians served with the British Army until 1968, when the regiment made the rare yet respectable choice to disband rather than be amalgamated.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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

Posted on September 3, 2025 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

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

National Archives photo 19-N-66007

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

Then things got a little weird.

The Tacomas

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

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

River Class – Booklet of General Plans, 1941, profile

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

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

USS Asheville (PF-1) plans

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

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

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

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

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

Meet Bisbee

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Same as above, 19-N-66006.

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

Semper Paratus!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then came the Philippines

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Caviar Dreams and Bolshevik Screams

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

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

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

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

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

A quick rundown:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In the Navy!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

South America Bound

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Same as above, NH 81516

Bow on, NH 81515

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

Epilogue

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

If you like this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International.

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

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

PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships, you should belong.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday, August 20, 2025: Sortie Queen

Posted on August 20, 2025 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Warship Wednesday, August 20, 2025: Sortie Queen

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

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

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

And she was just getting started.

Meet the Philippine Sea

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amazing High Jump Antics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Back to our carrier, in warmer climes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then came…

Korea

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

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

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

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

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

They dropped no less than 3,094 bombs:

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

And so it went, day after day.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And into January..

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A sample of one week:

Philippine Sea returned to San Diego on 8 August 1952.

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

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

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

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

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

She kept fighting right up to the ceasefire.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Continued service

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Epilogue

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perhaps a new LHA could carry the name forward.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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Holding the pocket

Posted on August 19, 2025 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

It happened 75 years ago today.

Defense of the Pusan Perimeter, 1950. Men of the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade on the line after arriving in country just days prior.

Description: PFC Harold R. Bates and PFC Richard N. Martin rest atop the third objective that U.S. Marines seized overlooking the Naktong River, South Korea, 19 August 1950. Note: Canteen in use, M1 Rifle carried by one Marine and M1 Carbine with fixed bayonet carried by the other, who has a bayonet scabbard attached to his leg.

Photographed by Sgt. Frank C. Kerr, USMC. Official U.S. Marine Corps Photograph, from the All Hands collection at the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 96991

The assorted 90,000 UN troops– roughly half ROK, and the other half U.S., with a few Brits– that had been pushed back into the defensive line along the Naktong River with the city of Pusan and the Sea of Japan at their back in August 1950 were at the end of their rope.

When the 6,500-odd men of the “fire brigade” of the 1st Provisional Marines pulled in, they were met with a band– then rushed to the line.

Marines Arrive in Pusan, Korea, 2 August 1950 “Arrival of U.S. Marines at Pusan, Korea. Band music on the dock greets this loaded transport.” From the Official Marine Corps Photograph Collection (COLL/3948)

However, with the might of the fleet carriers USS Valley Forge and the Philippine Sea offshore and dozens of fighter-bomber squadrons of the Fifth Air Force plastering already overextended Nork supply lines, the first counter-offensive of the Korean war soon kicked off and began pushing the invaders almost back to the Yalu River– when a totally new war began.

Super Zook!

Posted on July 31, 2025 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Men of the 304th Army Cavalry Group perform night firing exercises with the 3.5-inch M20 “Super Bazooka,” 31 July 1952. A Boston-based Reserve unit, the image was likely taken at Pine Camp (Fort Drum) during summer training before the unit became the short-lived 57th Tank Battalion.

Signal Corps photo SC 405194-S

Designed after learning from the captured German 8.8 cm RPzB 43 and RPzB 54 Panzerschrecks during WWII, the Super Bazooka was slow walked into service but rushed to Korea in July 1950 when the smaller M9 2.36-inch ‘zook proved ineffective against North Korean T-34s.

By August 1950, some 900 Super Bazookas were holding the line during the Battle of Pusan Perimeter, and ROK forces used them to knock out enemy tanks the same month.

The Superbazooka even appeared in Army recruiting posters during the Korean War

Warship Wednesday, July 30, 2025: Ocean Station Savior

Posted on July 30, 2025 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Warship Wednesday, July 30, 2025: Ocean Station Savior

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

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

The 255s

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As detailed by the USCG Historian’s Office:

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

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

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

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

Meet “Raunchy Paunchy”

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

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

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

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

Eight of her 12 sisters were completed after VJ Day.

USCGC Pontchartrain (WHEC-70) Aug 1945

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

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

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

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

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

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

Atlantic, while stationed at Boston and Norfolk:

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

Pacific, while stationed at Long Beach:

*During the Korean War:

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

During this service, her appearance changed significantly.

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

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

Pan American Flight 6

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

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

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

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

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

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

As noted by This Day in Aviation:

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

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

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

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

A USCG film about the incident, including original footage.

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

She was a lifesaver.

She was also a fighter.

War!

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

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

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

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

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

Jane’s 1965 entry for the 255s

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

Pontchartrain NGFS Vietnam 1970 Photo by LeRoy Reinburg

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Epilogue

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

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

Sadly, there has not been a third USCGC Pontchartrain.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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Cooling heels

Posted on July 29, 2025 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

It happened 75 years ago today.

“Two North Koreans captured by men of F Co., 19th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division, south of Chinju, Korea, are being searched and interrogated by a South Korean G-2 officer. 29 July 1950.”

Note the M1 Carbine-armed ROK officer’s rather unorthodox uniform capped by what could be a second-hand Australian bush (slouch) hat. Also, the Joe to the left has a muzzle cover on his carbine while the Soldier to the right is missing his canteen, which may have been loaned to the new EPOWs. Photographer: Butler. Signal Corps Archive SC 348779

After the armistice was signed in 1953, UN Command repatriated 70,183 North Korean prisoners of war as part of Operation Big Switch, which also included the return of 12,773 UN POWs to their respective countries; the latter figure contained just 7,862 South Korean POWs.

Another 22,959 Chinese/North Korean POWs elected to be sent anywhere else than home (mainly Chinese to Taiwan), with an Indian custodial force set to guard those defectors until they could be transferred abroad into 1954.

Some 7,614 Chinese and North Korean POWs died in UN custody during the war, mostly from tuberculosis and dysentery/diarrhea.

The ledger that recounts the number of Allied POWs that died in Chinese/Nork camps during the war has been forever lost to history.

Panthers on the Prowl

Posted on July 29, 2025 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

It happened 75 years ago this month.

The Navy’s new F9F Panther jet fighter saw its first combat in July 1950, flying strikes from USS Valley Forge (CV-45) with the “Screaming Eagles” of VF-51 and “Sealancers” of VF-52.

Carrying four forward-firing Mk 3 20mm cannons, Panthers could also carry 3,000 pounds of bombs or eight 5-inch rockets. They chalked up some of the first Navy air-to-air kills in the Korean War (a Yak-9 by VF-51’s LTJG. Leonard H. Plog on 3 July and a MiG-15 by VF-52’s LCDR William E. Lamb) in the process.

A Grumman F9F-2 Panther of fighter squadron VF-52 aboard the Essex-class fleet carrier USS Valley Forge (CV-45) on 4 July 1950. NARA 111-SC-343067

Grumman F9F-3 “Panther”, of Fighter Squadron 52 (VF-52). Taxies forward on USS Valley Forge (CV-45) to be catapulted for strikes on targets along the east coast of Korea, 19 July 1950. Note details of the ship’s island, including scoreboard at left. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-428152

USS Valley Forge (CV-45) Flight deck tractors tow Grumman F9F “Panther” fighters forward on the carrier’s flight deck, in preparation for catapulting them off to attack North Korean targets, July 1950. This photograph was released for publication on 21 July 1950. Valley Forge had launched air strikes on 3-4 July and 18-19 July. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the “All Hands” collection at the Naval History and Heritage Command. NH 96978

VF-51 and VF-52 were assigned to Carrier Air Group 5 (CVG-5) for a deployment to the Western Pacific from 1 May to 1 December 1950. The hybrid group included two other squadrons, VF-53 and VF-54, with F4U-4B Corsairs, augmented by a couple of F4U-5N night fighters of VC-3 and F4U-4Ps photo birds of H&MS-11, and a squadron of AD Skyraiders, VA-55.

USS Valley Forge (CV-45) Flight deck crewmen wheel carts of rockets past a Vought F4U-4B fighter, while arming planes for strikes against North Korean targets in July 1950. This plane is Bureau # 97503. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the “All Hands” collection at the Naval History and Heritage Command. NH 96976

USS Valley Forge (CV-45). A Vought F4U-4B fighter is fueled and armed with 5-inch rockets, before strikes against targets on the Korean east coast, 19 July 1950. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the All Hands collection at the Naval History and Heritage Command. NH 96979

Douglas AD Skyraider attack planes of VA-55 from USS Valley Forge (CV-45), fire 5-inch rockets at a North Korean field position. 80-G-422387

In the hectic two weeks between 16 July and 31 July, the wing dropped 141 tons of GP bombs, 106 tons of napalm, fired 1,865 rockets, and 160,662 rounds of 20mm cannon shells. CVG-5’s two dozen jets (of VF-51/52) flew 260 hours while its three dozen piston planes covered another 1,344, showing which had a higher availability and longer endurance.

A fuel or ammunition train burns near Kumchon, North Korea, after being hit by planes from USS Valley Forge (CV-45). Photographed on the morning of 22 July 1950. NH 96977

Burning after being struck by USS Valley Forge (CV-45) aircraft on 18 July 1950. The photograph may have been taken on 19 July, when smoke from these fires was visible from the carrier, operating at sea off the Korean east coast. 80-G-418592

Under attack by aircraft from Valley Forge (CV-45) on 18 July 1950. Smoke from this attack, which reportedly destroyed some 12,000 tons of refined petroleum products and much of the plant, could be seen sixty miles out at sea. 80-G-707876

CAG-5’s scorecard for those two weeks in July:

For the record, the F9F Panther was retired from Navy service just a half-decade after Korea, while the Sealancers of VF-52 hung up their helmets for the last time in 1959. Valley Forge, at the time re-rated as an LPH, was laid up in 1970. Meanwhile, the Screaming Eagles of VF-51 transitioned through F-8 Crusaders, F-4 Phantoms, and F-14 Tomcats before they closed shop in 1995.

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Category Archives: Korean War

Warship Wednesday, September 17, 2025: ‘A Good Record, and a Proud Ship’

The Sumners

Meet De Haven

War!

Korea!

Test bed and space support

FRAM’d

Vietnam

Back to Korea (under a different flag)

Epilogue

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Warship Wednesday, September 10, 2025: Scots, East!

The Ugandas

Meet Ceylon

It Ain’t Half Hot Mum

Korea!

Salad Days

South America Bound

Epilogue

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

The Tacomas

Meet Bisbee

Semper Paratus!

Then came the Philippines

Caviar Dreams and Bolshevik Screams

In the Navy!

South America Bound

Epilogue

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Warship Wednesday, August 20, 2025: Sortie Queen

Meet the Philippine Sea

Amazing High Jump Antics

Back to our carrier, in warmer climes

Korea

Continued service

Epilogue

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Warship Wednesday, July 30, 2025: Ocean Station Savior

The 255s

Meet “Raunchy Paunchy”

Pan American Flight 6

War!

Epilogue

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