“December 1967. Nui Dat, South Vietnam. 15233 Sergeant Reg Matheson of Hammondville, NSW, a member of 103 Field Battery, 1st Field Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery (RAA), with his gun near a sandbagged area at the 1st Australian Task Force (1ATF) base.”
Photo by Michael Coleridge via the Australian War Memorial COL/66/0959/VN
Designed by 24-year-old Pvt. Evelyn Ernest Owen, with 2/17 Battalion of the Australian Army, the gun can generally be regarded as Australia’s STEN and was placed into wartime production in 1943 with some 40,000 produced.
Production Owen Mk 1 painted in green and yellow camouflage for use in jungle fighting. The pistol grips are black plastic and the butt is wood. The 33 round 9mm magazine didn’t last long at the guns ripping 700 rounds per minute rate of fire — but “Diggers” would carry lots of spare mags to keep it stoked.
Late model Owen Mk 1/43 SMG complete with canvas sling mounted on the left-hand side. The butt is the skeleton frame type with a clip for an oil bottle — similar to the one found on the U.S. M1A1 Carbine.
The WWII era guns were refurbished at the Australian Lithgow Small Arms factory in the 1950s, which included stripping away the camo and giving them new MkIII style barrels and a safety catch. This is a good example of the latter type of “improved” Mk2/3 Owen.
As well documented in images online at the AWM, the 9mm Owen continued to see much front-line use in Korea, augmenting the bolt-action .303 Enfield with the Diggers against the Norks and Chinese “volunteers.”
20 September 1952, Korea. Informal portrait of 2400799 Private Bruce Grattan Horgan, 3rd Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR), standing near a trench on Hill 187. Pte Horgan is armed to go on a summer night fighting patrol, which usually consists of 15 men. His armament consists of a 9mm Owen sub-machine gun, seven magazines each holding 33 bullets, and four M36 Mills bomb hand grenades. AWM P06251.002
Owens remained in service with the Australians well into the 1960s– with Vietnam being its last hurrah, serving alongside M16s and inch-pattern semi-auto FALs– then they were replaced by the very Owen-like F1 submachine gun, which was in turn replaced by the Steyr F88 in the 1990s.
AWM caption: “Nui Dat, South Vietnam. 1966. A Signal Corps linesman with a 9mm Owen Machine Carbine (Owen Gun) on his back, climbing a rubber tree at 1st Australian Task Force (1ATF) Base.”
Any fan of aviation or naval history is familiar with this incredible image, that of a monstrous hangar filled with 150~ fresh and brand new F4U Corsairs and at least another 100 F6F Hellcats, plus a few random Helldivers, likely heading for points Pacific in WWII.
The image was inside one of the two wooden blimp hangars at Naval Air Station Santa Anita in Tustin, Orange County, California. Built in 1942 for the U.S. Navy’s Lighter Than Air Program, they were constructed of Douglas Fir, with each some 1,072 feet long, 292 feet wide, and 192 feet high.
Hangar construction with blimp in the air, Lighter Than Air (LTA) Base, 1942
Hangar construction of the roof, Lighter Than Air (LTA) Base, 1942
Hangar construction, Lighter Than Air (LTA) Base Tustin
Hangar Number One under construction, Lighter Than Air (LTA) Base, Tustin, 1943
Each was large enough to store six fully inflated K-class blimps.
Keep in mind a K blimp had a 425,000 cu ft volume and went 251 feet in length.
Or seven in a pinch.
After the war, when the LTA program was put to bed, the base became Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Tustin and was an important cradle for USMC helicopter operations in the Korean and Vietnam eras.
Aerial view of the Tustin MCAS blimp hangar and Tustin area, ca. 1960. Note the H-34s on the ground around the hangar
It hosted rotor-wing elements of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing into the early 1990s when it was hit by BRAC and closed in 1999.
Meanwhile, Hangars 1 and 2 endured and had been designated in 1975 as National Landmarks and placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Since then, they have appeared as backdrops in dozens of movies and TV shows.
Sadly, historic Hangar 1 met its end this week due to a fire. It was quick and couldn’t be contained.
Via the Tustin Police Department
Via the Tustin Police Department
Anyone with general questions can call the Tustin Police Department/OC Fire Authority hotline at (714) 628-7085.
Hopefully, Hangar 2 will continue to stand for another 81 years to offset the loss of its sister.
Photographer: PHCM/AC Louis P. Bodine Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 107602
Above we see a great 1968 image of the Edsall-class destroyer escort-turned-radar picket, USS Vance (DER-387) underway off the coast of Oahu. At this time in the little tin can’s life, she had left her mark on the end of two German U-boats, frozen in polar expeditions, logged three very trying tours off coastal Vietnam, and survived a real-life Lt. Commander Queeg who, no shit, was named for a Roman emperor.
She was brought to life on this day in 1943.
The Edsall class
A total of 85 Edsall-class destroyer escorts were cranked out in four different yards in the heyday of World War II rapid production with class leader USS Edsall (DE-129) laid down 2 July 1942 and last of class USS Holder commissioned 18 January 1944– in all some four score ships built in 19 months. The Arsenal of Democracy at work–building tin cans faster than the U-boats and Kamikazes could send them to Davy Jones.
The U.S. Navy destroyer escort USS Edsall (DE-129) underway near Ambrose Light just outside New York Harbor on 25 February 1945. The photo was taken by a blimp from Squadron ZP-12. Edsall is painted in Camouflage Measure 32, Design 3D. U.S. Navy photo 80-G-306257
These 1,590-ton expendable escorts were based on their predecessors, the very successful Cannon-class boats but used an FMR type (Fairbanks-Morse reduction-geared diesel drive) propulsion suite whereas the only slightly less prolific Cannons used a DET (Diesel Electric Tandem) drive. Apples to oranges.
Armed with enough popguns (3×3″/50s, 2x40mm, 8x20mm) to keep aircraft and small craft at bay, they could plug a torpedo into a passing enemy cruiser from one of their trio of above-deck 21-inch tubes, or maul a submarine with any number of ASW weapons including depth charges and Hedgehogs. Too slow for active fleet operations (21 knots) they were designed for coastal patrol (could float in just 125 inches of seawater), sub-chasing, and convoy escorts.
Meet USS Vance
Our subject is the only U.S. Navy warship to carry the name of Joseph Williams Vance, Jr.. A mustang who volunteered for the Navy Reserve at age 21 in 1940, the young Seman Vance served aboard the old battlewagon USS Arkansas (BB-33) and, as he had university hours at Southwestern and Florida on his jacket, was appointed a midshipman in the rapidly expanding Navy after four months in the fleet. Joining the flush deck tin can USS Parrott (DD-218) in the Philippines on 16 April as an ensign in charge of the destroyer’s torpedo battery. Facing the Japanese onslaught in the Western Pacific, Ensign Vance picked up a Bronze Star at the Battle of Makassar Strait (24 January 1942)– the Navy’s first surface action victory in the Pacific– saw action in the Java sea and the Badoeng Strait, and, by Guadalcanal, had been promoted to lieutenant (junior grade). With the promotion came a transfer– to the ill-fated HMAS Canberra, as liaison officer with the Royal Australian Navy. He was aboard Canberra on that tragic night off Savo Island on 9 August 1942 when the Kent-class heavy cruiser was sent to the depths of “Ironbottom Sound” with 73 other members of her crew.
His body lost to sea at age 23, his family remembered Joe in a cenotaph at Bethlehem Cemetery in Memphis. He is also marked on the Tablet of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial. The paperwork for Makassar Strait caught up to him eventually and his family was presented his bronze star posthumously.
The future Vance (DE-387) was laid down on 30 April 1943 at Houston, Texas by the Brown Shipbuilding Co. and launched just 10 weeks later on 16 July 1943.
She was sponsored by the late Lt. (jg.) Vance’s grieving mother, Elizabeth Sarah “Beth” Harrison Vance, and Joe’s sister, Willie.
A Coast Guard-manned DE, Vance’s pre-commissioning crew was formed in August 1943 at the sub-chaser school in Miami while their ship was under construction on the other side of the Gulf of Mexico. Consisting of 40 officers and men drawn from across the USCG– most had seen war service chasing subs and escorting convoys across the Atlantic. This skilled cadre left Miami after two months of training and headed to Houston in early October, joining 30 newly minted techs and specialists direct from A schools and 130 assorted bluejackets right from basic.
All hands moved aboard USS Vance on 1 November 1943 when she was commissioned at the Tennessee Coal & Iron Docks in Houston, LCDR Eric Alvin Anderson, USCG, in command. As noted by her War History, “The shipyard orchestra played for the commissioning ceremonies and later sandwiches and coffee were served to all hands.”
Following outfitting and shakedown cruises off Bermuda, Vance became the flagship for the all-USCG Escort Division (CortDiv) 45, including the sequentially numbered sisters USS Lansing (DE-388), Durant (DE-389), Calcaterra (DE-390), Chambers (DE-391) and Merrill (DE-392) with Commodore E.J. Roland raising his command pennant aboard on 19 December.
The CNO, ADM Ernest J. King, had, in June 1943, ordered the Coast Guard to staff and operate 30 new (mostly Edsall-class) destroyer escorts on Atlantic ASW duties, trained especially at the Submarine Training Centers at Miami and Norfolk. Each would be crewed by 11 officers and 166 NCOs/enlisted, translating to a need for 5,310 men, all told.
By November 1943, it had been accomplished! Quite a feat.
The USCG-manned DEs would be grouped in five Escort Divisions of a half dozen ships each, 23 of which were Edsalls:
These ships were soon facing off with the Germans in the Atlantic and Mediterranean.
War!
Celebrating Christmas 1943 at sea “being tossed around like a matchstick,” Vance’s first escort job was to ride shotgun on a group of tankers running from Port Arthur, Texas to Norfolk just after the New Year, then escorting the jeep carrier USS Core (CVE-13) to New York City.
She crossed the Atlantic with her division to escort a large slow (7-10 knots) convoy, UGS.33, to Gibraltar in February then turned around to the return trip with a GUS convoy, returning to the Med with UGS 39 in May, where she would come face to face with the enemy. On 14 May 1944, the Type VIIC sub U-616 (Kplt. Siegfried Koitschka) torpedoed two Allied merchants– the British flagged G.S. Walden (7,127 tons) and Fort Fidler (10,627 tons).
From Vance’s war history:
Eight American destroyers and aircraft from five squadrons hunted U-616 until it was sunk on 17 May, lost with all hands.
1944 Palermo, Sicily – USS Vance (DE 387) via navsource
Following her battle with U-616, Vance would recycle and cross the Atlantic again with UGS.46 in June, UGS.53 in September, UGS.66 in January 1945, UGS.78 in March 1945, and UGS.90 in May 1945. The latter dispersed on 18 May as it wasn’t considered needed after the German surrender.
It was on this last convoy that the advanced Type IXD2 Schnorchel-fitted submarine, U-873 (Kptlt. Friedrich Steinhoff), was sighted on the surface at 0230 on 11 May off the Azores by Vance and her sister, Durant. Finding Steinhoff’s crew, illuminated by 24-inch searchlights and with every gun on two destroyers trained on them, ready to surrender and the boat making no offensive actions, Vance put a whaleboat with the ship’s XO, Lt. Carlton J. Schmidt, USCGR; Ensign Vance K. Randle, USCG; and 19 enlisted aboard to take U-873 as prize. They found seven Kriegsmarine officers and 52 enlisted, about half of whom had come from the gesunken U-604.
By 0410, a spare U.S. ensign was hoisted aboard the German boat, and Vance, departing the convoy with her prize, made for Bermuda, then was directed to Casco Bay to bring the sub to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, arriving there on the 17th.
U-873 is under her own power, manned by 2 officers and 19 crewmembers of USS Vance DE 387. Notably, U-873 carried a rare twin 3.7 cm Flakzwilling M43U on the DLM42 mount, seen stern. Photo courtesy of Joe Haberkern, son of Joseph W. Haberkern, Jr., MoMM2/C, Plankowner
Captain Friedrich Steinhoff (wearing white cap) and Officers and Crew of Surrendered German U-873 on Deck of Tug, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, May 17, 1945. Note the Marine to the right with a Reising SMG at the ready. NARA photo
Steinhoff under heavy Marine guard
Crewmembers of USS Vance DE 387. Showing items from their captured German U-boat, U-873. Photo courtesy of Joe Haberkern, son of Joseph W. Haberkern, Jr., MoMM2/C, Plankowner
Sadly, as detailed by U-boat.net, even though VE-Day was well past, post-war POW life would not be kind to U-873‘s crew.
Steinhoff and his men were taken, not to POW camp, but to Charles Street Jail, a Boston city jail where they were locked up with common criminals while awaiting disposition to a POW camp. There are many accounts of mistreatment of the U-boat men while they were held there.
After suffering harsh interrogation, Steinhoff- [brother of rocket scientist and future U.S> Army rocketry bright bulb Ernst Steinhoff] committed suicide on the morning of 19 May 1945, opening his arteries using broken glass from his sunglasses. U-873‘s doctor, Dr. Karl Steinke, attempted to give first aid but was too late.
Steinhoff was buried in the military cemetery at Fort Devens, age 35, while the rest of his crew were sent to warm their skin in a Mississippi POW camp until repatriated.
As for U-873, she was placed in dry dock for a design study of her type by Portsmouth Naval Shipyard engineers and then later transferred to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard for tests. After trials, the U-boat was scrapped in 1948, her lessons being rolled into the Navy’s GUPPY program.
For Vance, her war in the Atlantic and Med was over.
She put into Boston Naval Yard for additional AAA guns and departed on 2 July 1945 bound for the Pacific. Crossing through “The Ditch” and putting into San Diego then Pearl Harbor, she was there with orders to sail for the 5th Fleet in Philippine waters when news of the Japanese surrender overtook her.
Ordered to the Green Cove Springs, Florida reserve fleet, she was decommissioned on 27 February 1946. Her Coast Guard crew returned to their home service, with most being demobilized. Her skipper for five of her eight convoy runs and the capture of U-873, LCDR Frank Vincent Helmer, USCG (USCGA ’35), would go on to retire as a rear admiral during the 1960s.
The Edsall class, 1946 Janes.
Break out the White Paint
With the dramatic surge in air and maritime traffic across some downright vacant stretches of the Pacific that came with the Korean War, the USCG was again tapped to man a growing series of Ocean Stations. Two had been formed after WWII and the Navy added another three in 1950, bringing the total to five.
These stations would serve both a meteorological purpose– with U.S. Weather Bureau personnel embarked– as well as serve as floating checkpoints for military and commercial maritime and air traffic and communication “relay” stations for aircraft on transoceanic flights crisscrossing the Pacific. Further, they provided an emergency ditch option for aircraft (a concept that had already been proved by the Bermuda Sky Queen rescue in 1947, which saw all 69 passengers and crew rescued by the cutter Bibb.)
As detailed by Scott Price in The Forgotten Service in the Forgotten War, these stations were no picnic, with the average cutter logging 4,000 miles and as many as 320 radar fixes while serving upwards of 700 hours on station.
Ocean station duty could be monotonous at one moment and terrifying the next, as the vessels rode out storms that made the saltiest sailors green. 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.”
A typical tour was composed of arriving at Midway Island for three weeks on SAR standby, three weeks on Ocean Station Victor midway between Japan and the Aleutian Islands, three weeks on SAR standby at Guam, two weeks “R and R” in Japan, three weeks on Ocean Station Sugar, three weeks on SAR standby Adak, Alaska, and then back to home port.
To stand post on these new ocean stations and backfill for other cutters detailed to the role, the Navy lent the USCG 12 mothballed Edsalls (Newell, Falgout, Lowe, Finch, Koiner, Foster, Ramsden, Rickey, Vance, Lansing, Durant, and Chambers), nine of which the service had originally operated during WWII.
To man these extra vessels and fill other wartime roles such as establishing new LORAN stations and pulling port security, the USCG almost doubled in size from just over 18,000 to 35,082 in 1952.
The conversion to Coast Guard service included a white paint scheme, an aft weather balloon shelter (they would have to launch three balloons a day in all sea states), and the fitting of a 31-foot self-bailing motor surfboat for rescues in heavy weather. The USCG designator “W” was added to the hull number, as was the number 100.
This brings us to Vance, some seven years in Florida mothballs, being recommissioned as the white-painted USCGC Vance (WDE-487) on 9 May 1952. She was stationed at Honolulu, and, assigned to the Commander Philippine Section, served on Ocean Station Queen there from 2-23 August 1953, and again on 4-24 October 1953.
Coast Guard Cutter Vance WDE 487 working with a Sangley Point USCG-operated PBM-5G, one of two PBM-5Gs and a JRF that were assigned to augment the PBY-5As there in 1951-53. Importantly, one of the Sangley Point PBMs went to attempt the rescue of a VP-22 P2V-5 Neptune (BuNo 127744) crew shot down in the Formosa Strait while the aircraft was on a covert patrol along the Communist Chinese coast near Swatow. USCG photo 211103-G-G0000-002
Vance was decommissioned for a second time on 3 April 1954 and returned to the Navy.
DER
The DER program filled an early gap in the continental air defense system by placing a string of ships as sea-based radar platforms to provide a distant early warning line to possible attack from the Soviets. The Pacific had up to 11 picket stations while the Atlantic had as many as nine. A dozen DEs became DERs through the addition of SPS-6 and SPS-8 air search radars to help man these DEW lines as the Atlantic Barrier became fully operational in 1956 and the Pacific Barrier (which Vance took part in) by 1958.
To make room for the extra topside weight of the big radars, they gave up most of their WWII armament, keeping only their Hedgehog ASW device and two Mark 34 3-inch guns that would eventually be fitted with aluminum and fiberglass weather shields.
DER conversion of Edsall (FMR) class ships reproduced from Peter Elliot’s American Destroyer Escorts of WWII
Detail of masts. Note the WWII AAA suite, one of the 3″ guns, and centerline 21-inch tubes have been landed
Vance was towed to the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in November 1955 for conversion to a radar picket destroyer escort. Designated DER-378 as a result, she recommissioned for a second time on 5 October 1956, a 12-year-old Navy escort with its first Navy skipper, CDR Albert Martin Brouner (USNA ‘44).
USS Vance (DER-387) underway in San Francisco Bay, California (USA), on 1 November 1956. Note her 3-inch guns are open, which would change in the 1960s when they would get distinctive weather shields. Photo via Navsource
As detailed by DANFS:
Between March of 1957 and the end of the year, Vance was homeported at Seattle, Wash., as a unit of CortDiv 5 and completed eight patrols on various stations of the Radar Early Warning System in the northern Pacific. Each tour lasted approximately 17 days, and the ship maintained a round-the-clock vigil with air-search radars, tracking and reporting every aircraft entering or approaching the air space of the northwestern United States.
This continued into 1958 when she shifted homeports to Pearl Harbor; and she began operating with CortRon 7, the first ship working the DEW line in the newly organized Pacific barrier patrol. This would continue through early 1965, with a segway to join TF43 for Deepfreeze ’62, serving as the relay ship for aircraft bringing supplies to the Antarctic stations from Dunedin, New Zealand between August 1961 and March 1962. In this duty, she was called “The Loneliest Ship in the Navy.”
Then came Vietnam.
Market Time
With the DEW line service fading as far as the Navy was concerned at the same time the Navy established Operation Market Time (March 1965-1972) to prevent North Vietnamese ships from supplying enemy forces in South Vietnam, recycling the fleet’s increasingly idle shallow-draft DERs into what would be today called a littoral combat ship was an easy choice.
Vance would complete four WestPac cruises (March-Sept 1965, Jan.-August 1966, Dec. 1966- August 1967, Jan-Aug. 1968) with the 7th Fleet, detached to TF 115 for use in brown water. Of note, she was the first DER to take a Market Time station, reporting for duty to CTU 71.1.1 on 1 April 1965, and soon after was the first U.S. Navy ship to take aboard a Vietnamese Navy Liaison Officer while underway.
USS VANCE South China Sea 1966. Note the weather shields on her 3-inch mount
For example, during this time Task Force 115 consisted of an LST mothership, 70 Navy PCFs, 26 Coast Guard 82-foot patrol boats (WPBs), with the support of the “big boys” in the form of eight DERs (including Vance), and 16 smaller minesweepers (six MSCs, and 10 MSOs).
USS Vance (DER-387) – November 1967. Note her Hedgehog device uncovered and ready to rock
A typical breakdown of how one of these deployments would run can be had from Vance’s 220-day 1967 stint which included 62 days on Market Time operations in the Vietnam littoral, 24 days on the tense Taiwan Patrol, and 15 days in Hong Kong as SOPA Admin station ship. To illustrate just how busy a Market Time rotation could be, in her short 1965 deployment which included just 92 days under TF 115, Vance had 1,538 radar contacts, sighted visually 1,001, and investigated 185 vessels.
USS Vance (DER-387) underway at sea on 26 November 1967 NHHC
Among the more notable incidents while on Market Time was saving Capt. Leland D. Holcomb, USAF, who had ejected from a burning F-100 Super Sabre in 1965 while on a ferry mission from Danang to Clark AFB in the PI. Her 1966, 1967, and 1968 reports are on file in the NHHC and make interesting and sometimes entertaining reading.
Vance as radar picket 1960s with her glad rags flying. Note by this time the large EW “pod” on her aft mast.
Oh yeah, something else happened while off Vietnam as well.
The Arnheiter Affair
LCDR Marcus Aurelius Arnheiter entered West Point in 1946 but subsequently resigned, later obtaining an appointment to Annapolis where he passed out as 628th of 783 mids in 1952 and then saw Korean War service on the battleship USS Iowa (BB-61). He later saw much service on destroyers (USS Ingersoll– where he served as XO– Fiske, Coolbaugh, Abbot, and Worden), held a series of staff appointments in the Pentagon where he authored a novel (Shadow of Pearl) under a pseudonym before arriving on Vance’s quarterdeck as her 14th (7th Navy) skipper on 22 December 1965.
Just 99 days later, he was relieved of his first, and last, seagoing command.
The scandal over just what happened in those 99 days aboard Vance is lengthy, including a book by NYT writer Neil Sheehan that was the subject of a libel suit filed by Arnheiter. Suffice it to say, there are avenues to dig deeper if you are curious but among the (many) oddities seen on Vance during Arnheiter’s command was the purchase (through MWR funds!) of a 16-foot fiberglass speedboat that was armed with a .30 caliber M1919 machine gun and painted with a shark’s mouth.
The speedboat was supposed to be for interdiction and patrol work but ended up getting Vance’s crew into problems time after time.
Other oddities included the skipper’s insistence to blare the Hellcat Reveille over the 1MC while in port rather than a simple bosun call for reveille, follow gun line destroyers into no-go areas while they were performing NGFS ashore to the point that said destroyer’s skipper directed the radio traffic be recorded and incident logged, establishing a “boner box” in the wardroom with mandatory levies of 25-cents per perceived infraction, requiring non-religious personnel to attend services, cruising danger close to shore (like within small arms range) while only one engine was working, doubling the small arms locker from 15 authorized M1 Garands to 30 without permission then holding wild live-fire drills in congested waters (to include reportedly keeping a rifle on the bridge wing that the skipper would use to zip off rounds at random “sea snakes” while VBSS crews were away checking a sampan.)
Following a six-day non-judicial inquiry at Subic, Arnheiter was removed from his command quietly but not reprimanded or court-martialed, even though he repeatedly requested the latter to clear his name, even lobbying Congress. He ended up retiring from the service in 1971, still as an LCDR, and passed in 2009, aged 83. Sheehan died in 2021, likely closing the matter although both continue to be the subject of much conversation.
As for USS Vance, her usefulness ended following extensive Vietnam service, she was decommissioned on 10 October 1969.
Her fellow DERs shared a similar fate, either laid up in mothballs or transferred to overseas allies.
1973 Janes on the Edsall class DERs.
Stricken on June 1, 1975, Vance was used as a target for several years off the California coast until finally sent to the bottom in deep water in a 1985 SINKEX.
Vance in August 1983 when being used as a target ship off San Francisco. The sign amidships reads “Target Ship – Stand Clear.” Photo from Ozzie Henry who acquired them from a sailor at a DESA Convention. Via the USS Vance veterans’ group.
Vance received seven battle stars for USN service in Vietnam in addition to her USCG service in WWII and Korea.
The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to encouraging the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.
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70 years ago, the newly completed improved Essex-class attack carrier USS Oriskany (CVA-34) at Sasebo, Japan, on 27 October 1953. The Iowa class battlewagon USS Wisconsin (BB-64), fresh off her Korean War service, is hiding in the background.
National Archives photo 80-G-642739 via the NHHC
Oriskany has CVG-19 aboard– the historic old airwing carried by Lexington and Enterprise in the tail-end of WWII. Looking very different from the days of Hellcats, Helldivers, and Avengers, for Oriskany’s 14. September 1953 – 22. April 1954 deployment she carried an AD-6 Skyraider squadron (VA-195), another of F9F-5 Panthers (VF-192), one of F9F-6 Cougar (VF-191), and a third different jet fighter squadron of F2H-3/4 Banshees (VF-193) types– all seen arrayed on her deck above. To this crazy mix were added some photo Panthers, a HO3S-1 det, a few AD-4W airborne early warning birds, and a handful of AD-4NLs “Night Raiders” and F2H-3s “Night Banshees” of VC-3/35. These night fighters and strike aircraft are easy to spot from the rest of the airwing due to their dark livery.
Laid down on 1 May 1944 by the New York Naval Shipyard, owing to the end of WWII and shrinking budgets, Oriskany’s construction was suspended until after the outbreak of hostilities in Korea in June 1950, then rushed to completion, commissioning on 25 September and being rushed for a Mediterranean deployment with CVG-4 embarked in May 1951.
After conversion to operate jets, Oriskany would make it to Korea with CVG-102/CVG-12– a hybrid air group with piston-engine Corsairs and Skyraiders along with two fighter squadrons equipped with Grumman F9F Panther jets and a Sikorsky HO3S helicopter squadron– embarked on Halloween 1952. Her combat there wrapped up in April 1953 and she returned to the West Coast for some downtime before departing San Francisco on 14 September 1953 for her second cruise to the Far East, arriving at Yokosuka on 15 October, as seen above.
Oriskany received two battle stars for Korean service and ten for Vietnamese service, wrapping up her 15th and final Westpac deployment on 3 March 1976. Decommissioned later that year, she was in mothballs for the rest of the Cold War, with SECNAV John Lehman long considering bringing her back to active duty.
Eventually, Oriskany was turned into a reef in 2006 off the Florida panhandle, the largest American warship even utilized for such a purpose.
Warship Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023: Mud Hen Regulus Pitcher
Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-433460
Above we see, through the swirling smoke, the Baltimore-class heavy cruiser USS Toledo (CA 133) as she lets rip an 8-inch gun salvo into enemy installations at Wonsan in September 1951 during the Korean War. Note her Star-Spangled Banner and hull number identifiers on her turret tops, needed in the age of onboard helicopter detachments and fast-moving jets operating in a combined United Nations fleet.
Laid down 80 years ago today, our cruiser was too late to get in licks in World War II but as you can see, earned her keep in later conflicts.
The Baltimores
When the early shitstorm of 1939 World War II broke out, the U.S. Navy, realized that in the likely coming involvement with Germany in said war– and that country’s huge new 18,000-ton, 8x8inch gunned, 4.1-inches of armor Hipper-class super cruisers– it was outclassed in the big assed heavy cruiser department. When you add to the fire the fact that the Japanese had left all of the Washington and London Naval treaties behind and were building giant Mogami-class vessels (15,000 tons, 3.9 inches of armor), the writing was on the wall.
That’s where the Baltimore class came in.
These 24 envisioned ships of the class looked like an Iowa-class battleship in miniature with three triple turrets, twin stacks, a high central bridge, and two masts– and they were (almost) as powerful. Sheathed in a hefty 6 inches of armor belt (and 3 inches of deck armor), they could take a beating if they had to. They were fast, capable of over 30 knots, which meant they could keep pace with the fast new battlewagons they looked so much like, as well as the new fleet carriers that were on the drawing board.
Baltimore class ONI2 listing
While they were more heavily armored than Hipper and Mogami, they also had an extra 8-inch tube, mounting nine new model 8-inch/55 caliber guns, whereas the German and Japanese only had 155mm guns (though the Mogamis later picked up 10×8-inchers). A larger suite of AAA guns that included a dozen 5-inch/38 caliber guns in twin mounts and 70+ 40mm and 20mm guns rounded this out.
In short, these ships were deadly to incoming aircraft, could close to the shore as long as there were at least 27 feet of seawater for them to float in and hammer coastal beaches and emplacements for amphibious landings, then take out any enemy surface combatant short of a modern battleship in a one-on-one fight. They were tough nuts to crack, and of the 14 hulls that took to the sea, none were lost in combat.
Meet Toledo
Our subject was the first U.S. Navy ship named for “The Glass City” in Ohio, home off and on since 1896 to the famous Toledo Mud Hens.
Laid down on 13 September 1943 by the New York Shipbuilding Corp. at Camden, New Jersey, she was launched two days shy of VE-Day on 6 May 1945.
Bow view of the USS Toledo leaving drydock 6 May 1945. Temple University Libraries, Special Collections Research Center
Her “hometown” was so impressed by the warship that the Navy League of Toledo was able to raise $12,500 for a beautiful 204-piece silver service worthy of a battleship and commissioned through the Gorham Silver Company of Rhode Island and engraved with local landmarks that were presented to the ship.
With WWII over and no rush to get Toledo into the fight anymore, she wasn’t commissioned at the nearby Philadelphia Naval Shipyard across the river until 27 October 1946. Her first of 17 skippers– all Annapolis grads– was Capt. August Jackson Detzer, Jr. (USNA ’21), who started his career as a midshipman during the Great War on the old battleship USS Maine (BB-10).
1946 Jane’s for the Baltimore class heavy cruisers, including the new Toledo
While many members of her class had to fight for their lives shortly after being commissioned, Toledo was much luckier, and she spent 1947 enjoying the life of a peacetime heavy cruiser in the world’s largest Navy. She ranged across the West Indies on a shakedown cruise, then was sent to the Far East to assist in Japan/Korea Occupation duties via the Mediterranean and Suez Canal, remaining in the West Pac until November of that year when she made sunny California, calling at her homeport of Long Beach for the first time, just in time for Thanksgiving. A nice first year afloat!
Toledo made two more peacetime deployments to the West Pac in 1948-49, notably calling on newly independent India and Pakistan on a goodwill cruise and standing by during the evacuation of Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist KMT forces from mainland China to Taiwan.
It was during this period that Toledo saw her first of several major overhauls, done at Puget Sound NSY from 5 October 1948 to 18 February 1949, which included landing her 20mm Oerlikons and seaplane catapults/handling gear.
Moving forward, she would carry helicopters as needed.
USS Helena (CA-75) and sister USS Toledo (CA-133) at Pier 15, Balboa, Canal Zone, July 1, 1949. National Archives Identifier 202801697
USS Toledo (CA-133) at anchor, circa 1949. Note her glad rags flying and the small WWII-style hull numbers.
War!
At rest in Long Beach on 25 June 1950, having just returned home from her third West Pac cruise only 13 days prior, news came that the North Korean military rushed across the 38th parallel, sparking an international response.
Recalling her crew and fixing what deficiencies they could, Toledo arrived off the Korean coast on 25 July, running her first of many, many naval gunfire bombardment missions just two days later, hitting Nork positions near Yongdok on 27 July.
USS Toledo’s forward 8-inch guns. They would get a lot of work off Korea. Kodachrome by Charles L Patterson, who served on her Marine Det in the 1950s
Perhaps one of the most beautiful images of a cruiser ever taken. USS Toledo (CA-133) Off the east coast of Korea while operating with Task Force 77. Photographed from a USS Essex (CV-9) aircraft. The original photo is dated 6 September 1951. NH 96901
USS Toledo (CA 133) blasts shore installations as her main battery sends a salvo into Communist transportation facilities in Korea. Operating with United Nations Forces, this was the first target upon reporting for duty, as a detached element of Task Force 77. Note the twin 5″/38 DP mounts in action at near max elevation, a depressed 8″/55 mount seen belching fire to the top right, and lifejacket/helmeted gun crews in the 40mm quad Bofors tub. 330-PS-2115 (USN 432090)
With Marine ANGLICO teams in short supply in this early stage of the war– busy operating in support of ROK and U.S. Army forces– the ship landed shore parties to provide direct naval gunfire support and correction of shot the old-fashioned way.
USS Toledo (CA-133) Shore fire control party from Toledo in an observation post overlooking the Han River, Korea, circa late April, or May 1951. They are ready to spot and correct the cruiser’s gunfire should the enemy appear. 80-G-432346
A shore fire control party from Toledo moves up past Korean tombs to man an observation post overlooking the Han River, circa late April, or May 1951. 80-G-432355
The smoke ring is formed by the escape gases and smoke as USS Toledo (CA 133) fires a 5” salvo at enemy installations in Wonsan, Korea. Photograph received September 23, 1951. 80-G-433428
USS Toledo (CA-133) Underway in Korean waters, with a battleship and a destroyer in the right distance. The original photo is dated 2 November 1952. NH 96902
USS Toledo (CA-133) The cruiser’s shells hit enemy installations in the Wonsan Harbor area, Korea, during a bombardment in early 1953. 80-G-478496
USS Toledo (CA-133) firing her forward 203 mm guns
She completed three wartime cruises off Korea during the conflict, in all conditions.
USS Toledo (CA-133). Official caption: “In Seas that Smoke with the wind and cold, the USS Toledo (CA-133) fights the elements as well as the enemy off the coast of North Korea. The heavy cruiser, now on her third tour of duty in the war zone, is due to return to the States for overhaul this coming spring.” Photograph and caption were released circa Winter 1952-53. The view was taken from Toledo’s icy forecastle, looking out over the cold Sea of Japan toward an aircraft carrier. The carrier is either the Essex-class Valley Forge (CVA-45) or the Philippine Sea (CVA-47). From the All-Hands collection at the Naval History and Heritage Command. NH 97171
In all, Toledo was authorized six (of a possible 10) Korean Service Medals, with the breaks in dates often due to leaving the gun line to get more shells:
K1 – North Korean Aggression: 26 Jul-12 Sep 50 and 18 Sep-23 Oct 50
K3 – Inchon Landing: 13-17 Sep 50
K5 – Communist China Spring Offensive: 26 Apr-30 May 51 and 12 Jun-8 Jul 51
K6 – UN Summer-Fall Offensive: 9-Jul-51, 25 Jul-7 Aug 51, 10-22 Aug 51, 5-9 Sep 51, 11-14 Sep 51, 17 Sep-4 Oct 51, 18-30 Oct 51, and 1-12 Nov 51
K8 – Korean Defense Summer-Fall 1952: 13-29 Sep 52, 9-18 Oct 52, and 30 Oct- 30 Nov 52
K9 – Third Korean Winter: 1-Dec-52, 17 Dec 52-16 Jan 53, and 28 Jan-24 Feb 53
Besides her Korean battle stars (five listed in DANFS, six authorized according to NHHC) Toledo earned a Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation for her service.
Needless to say, her gunners and deck division guys humped a lot of shells and charges during the war.
USS Toledo (CA-133) Crewmen bring eight-inch powder charges aboard from a barge alongside, at Sasebo, Japan, circa July-October 1950, while Toledo was engaged in Korean War combat operations. Note the ship’s after eight-inch triple gun turret trained on the starboard beam, and aircraft crane and hangar hatch cover at the stern. NH 96903
USS Toledo (CA-133) Eight-inch shells and powder charges on a barge alongside the starboard quarter, as Toledo replenished her ammunition supply in Sasebo Harbor, Japan, after combat operations off Korea, circa July-October 1950. Crewmen are carrying the powder cans into position to be hoisted aboard the cruiser. NH 96905
USS Toledo (CA-133) Crewmen loading ammunition from a barge in Inchon Harbor, Korea, before Toledo’s moving into position to support United Nations ground forces, as they attempt to stop the enemy’s spring offensive, circa late April 1951. The original photo is dated 14 April 1951, which is nearly two weeks before Toledo arrived in the combat zone to begin her second Korean War tour. Men in the center are carrying eight-inch powder cans, while those at right have hand trucks to move the heavy main battery projectiles. NH 96904
In return, on several occasions, she sorrowed through Chinese/Nork counterfire from the shore including some close calls where shells straddled our cruiser, but in the end, suffered no hits.
Toledo was also a lifesaver, with her helicopters and boats plucking several downed pilots from the water, including one, from the carrier USS Boxer (CV-21), twice.
Peace again
Arriving back in California from her third combat deployment on St. Patrick’s Day 1953, she was sidelined at Hunter’s Point NSY for a five-month overhaul when the truce was worked out on 27 July. So far, it has held.
Our recently refitted cruiser had a series of snapshots captured during this refit. Importantly, she shipped her 40mm guns ashore for 10 twin 3″/50 (7.62 cm) Mark 33 Mounts and new Mk 56 FC radar fits.
USS Toledo (CA 133), sometime after her 1953 refit. Note the forward port 5″/38 DP mount at maximum elevation, 3″/50 mounts, and the Commencement Bay-class escort carrier in the background. NH 67806
Following her refit and the outbreak of an uneasy peace on the Korean peninsula, Toledo completed her seventh and eighth West Pac deployments (November 1953- May 1954 and September 1954- March 1955), spending lots of time ranging from Japan to Korea and Taiwan where she once again supported a KMT evacuation, this time from the Tachen Islands in January 1955 where her guns rang out once again against the Red Chinese.
USS Toledo (CA-133) (left) and sister USS Helena (CA-75) (right) moored at Yokosuka, Japan, 1955
Missile days
Four Baltimores were refitted for the nuclear deterrent role, USS Helena, Los Angeles, Macon, and our own Toledo. This saw them pick up the ability to carry as many as three nuclear-capable SSM-N-8A Regulus I cruise missiles on the stern and a distinctive 8-foot diameter AN/SPQ-2 S-Band mesh symmetrical parabolic antenna’d missile guidance radar to control them. Of course, Regulus had an over-the-horizon operational range of some 500 nm while the SPQ-2 was limited to just 50 under ideal conditions, but hey.
The Regulus was a big boy, 32 feet long with a 21-foot wingspan and a launch weight of 13,685 pounds. Essentially the same size as an F-86 Sabre. Capable of using first the W5 (120 kT) then the W27 (1,900 kT) thermonuclear warheads.
Sailors aboard the USS Helena (CA 75) inspect a Regulus missile mounted on the stern of the ship. The Helena is moored at an unknown Far East port in early 1956. Note the old seaplane service hatch open. LIFE Magazine Archives, Hank Walker photographer.
To accommodate the installation, the aircraft catapults were removed as were any remaining 40mm guns and the stern 3″/50 mount.
October 1959, heavy cruiser Helena gets her Regulus I missiles maintenance done before she departs for Japan
It was a hell of a thing to see one launch from one of these cruisers.
Official caption: “Nuclear Assault A Regulus I boils white smoke from booster charges as it roars away from its launcher aboard the heavy cruiser USS Los Angeles off San Diego. The launch, a routine evaluation ‘shoot’, was conducted during the time that 600 members of the Institute of Aeronautical Science were embarked aboard the attack carrier USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14), right. The demonstration, which included a ‘Terrier’ guided missile interception of the Regulus, power exhibition, carrier operations, and a HUK exercise, was highlighted by the Regulus launching. The Terrier was fired at the Regulus from the USS Norton Sound (AVM-1), background, on August 7, 1957.” NH 97391
A U.S. Navy Regulus missile is launched from the USS Helena in February 1957. K-21731
Toledo received her missile fit during a four-month overhaul at the Puget Sound NSY in the summer of 1955.
C.1955. Starboard-bow view of the cruiser USS Toledo (CA-133) firing a Regulus I surface-to-surface guided missile. The missile is controlled by the SPQ-2 radar trained to starboard at the head of the mainmast. Other radars visible include the SPS-4 Zenith surface search at the head of the foremast and the SPS-6 air search below it. A Mark 25 fire control radar is fitted on the Mark 37 secondary armament director, which is trained to port and partially obscured by the Mark 13 fire control radar on the main armament director. Note the twin 3-inch/50 AA guns on the main deck forward and the raised platforms amidships abaft the twin 5-inch/38 gun turret. They are controlled by the Mark 56 directors mounted on either side of the forward superstructure and amidships.
Original Kodachrome of an SSM-N-8 Regulus cruise missile on USS Toledo (CA-133) in 1958. Note she still has her seaplane crane, a common feature. U.S. Navy photo from her 1958 cruise book available at Navysite.de
Between early 1956 and November 1959, Toledo remained very active when it came to keeping up appearances in the West Pac, making no less than four more deployments to the region in that period.
USS Toledo (CA 133) at Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada on 4 August 1956. City of Vancouver archives.
USS Toledo (CA-133). Port bow view while underway in 1957. Note her extensive twin 3″/50 DP fits, including one forward and aft as well as three on each broadside, and multiple AN/SPG-35 (Mk56) GFCS AAA fire controls. A big-gun cruiser to the max!
USS Toledo (CA-133) seen turning away from USS Columbus (CA-74) after a highline transfer. Photo taken from USS Columbus during her 1956 WESTPAC cruise. Note the helicopter on deck. From the collection of Domenic S. Terranova, USS Columbus Fire Control Officer. Via Navsource.
USS Toledo underway Kodachrome by Charles L Patterson
On board the heavy cruiser Toledo during her visit to Sydney in May 1958 for the commemoration of the Battle of the Coral Sea.
Bluejackets hanging out with some local ladies during Toledo’s visit to Sydney in May 1958 for the commemoration of the Battle of the Coral Sea. Note the Regulus
USS Toledo (CA-133) anchoring in Tokyo Bay, in 1959.
End game
With the Navy converting five Baltimore and Oregon City-class heavy cruisers into guided missile cruisers, scraping off most of their guns in favor of batteries of Talos and Tartar missile launchers while the nuclear-powered USS Long Beach (CLGN-16) was slated to commission in 1961, keeping a bunch of (almost) all-gun cruisers in commission in the age of the atom seemed increasingly antiquated.
This led the Navy to mothball just about every unconverted heavy and light cruiser in the inventory, including the mighty 20,000-ton USS Des Moines (CA-134) and sister Salem (CA-139), only keeping the newest of that class, USS Newport News (CA-148) around to fill in as the last active all-gun heavy cruiser in the fleet, lingering until 1975.
Dovetailing into this retirement program, Toledo was placed out of commission at Long Beach on 21 May 1960, then moved to the reserve basin at San Diego and remained there for the next 14 years.
In 1973, the 7 remaining unconverted Baltimores, Toledo included, made their final appearance in Jane’s.
Long laid up, these were listed as “fire support ships.”
On 1 January 1974, Toledo’s name was struck from the Navy list, and then she was sold to the National Metal & Scrap Corp. on 30 October 1974. Her sisters had either already been disposed of or were soon to follow except for USS Chicago (CA-136/CG-11), which somehow was not decommissioned until 1980 and scrapped until 1991.
And of Regulus?
Besides the four Regulus-equipped cruisers, the Navy fielded the early cruise missile on two converted WWII diesel submarines and three purpose-built boats. Meanwhile, 10 Essex and Midway-class carriers were equipped to fire the missile as well.
By 1961, Regulus and its SPQ-2 control radar were replaced by the Polaris A1 SLBM carried by a new generation of Fleet Ballistic Missile submarines, largely ending the strategic nuke role by the U.S. Navy surface fleet. Tactical nukes, however, endured in the form of the 40-mile ranged RIM-2D Terrier BT-3A(N) with its W30/W45 1kT nuclear warhead, the TLAM-N (capable of carrying a W80 200 kT nuclear warhead 1,200nm), nuclear depth charges, and the Mk 23 “Katie” 16-inch nuclear shell used on the Iowas.
While the Army developed assorted nuclear shells (Mark 33/T317/M422/M454) designed for use in various 8-inch howitzers in land combat, first fielding them in 1957 and keeping them in the arsenal until 1992, I can’t find anything where the Navy did the same for its 8-inch gunned cruisers, which remained in service until
Epilogue
The National Museum of the Pacific War has a plaque, installed by her veterans’ association in 2000, in Toledo’s honor.
Speaking of her veteran’s association, I cannot find a listing for them any longer with what appears to be their website going offline in 2018. The archive is great.
Most of the cruiser’s ornate circa 1945 silver service is on display aboard the museum ship USS Midway (CV-41), having been returned to the city of Toledo briefly after USS Toledo was decommissioned, then, in 1961, being loaned to the USS Spiegel Grove (LSD-32) — named after an Ohio town near the city. From there, the service was then transferred (missing a martini pitcher) to the new supercarrier USS Kitty Hawk (CVA-63) in 1963 with the blessing of the Toledo City Council, due to the Ohio connection with the Wright Brothers. After the “Battle Cat” was decommissioned in 2009, the service was sent by the NHHC to live aboard Midway.
Toledo/Kitty Hawk silver service aboard USS Midway
As for the name, “Toledo” was recycled by the Navy for the 58th Los Angeles-class hunter-killer (SSN-769) a late VLS-equipped 688(i) variant commissioned in 1995. Among other claims to fame, she was observing the ill-fated Russian cruise missile submarine Kursk when the boat suffered its catastrophic incident then took part in the 2003 Iraq War where she launched TLAMs from a station in the eastern Mediterranean.
She is still on active duty, assigned to Portsmouth, Virginia and, since commissioning, has carried two of the old cruiser’s silver platters aboard for special occasions.
USS Toledo (SSN-769) aerial view of the nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Toledo (SSN-769) underway on the surface. Catalog #: L45-284.05.01
Ships are more than steel and wood And heart of burning coal, For those who sail upon them know That some ships have a soul.
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USN photo by LCDR John Leenhouts. DN-SC-88-08301. National Archives Identifier 6430231
Above we see an air-to-air front view of a Spanish AV-8S Matador (Harrier) in flight over the Spanish aircraft carrier Dedalo (R01), below, in the Mediterranean Sea in the summer of 1988. If you think Dedalo looks much like a WWII light carrier, your hunch is correct, and she entered service under a different name and flag some 80 years ago this week.
“30/30” Ships
In 1942, the Navy had its ass in a bind.
Starting the war with just six large-deck fleet carriers, within the first six months of combat was down to just four, and by the end of the year; just a single one of these (Enterprise) was still afloat and operational.
While the first huge and ultra-modern 34,000-ton Essex-class carriers were building as fast as the riveters could rivet and the welders could chip slag, they would not be able to arrive in numbers until 1944. This put the Big Blue behind the Japanese 8-ball in naval warfare.
FDR, himself always a Navy man (he won a naval warfare essay contest while a teenager and slept with Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power upon History on his nightstand before being appointed Asst. Scty of the Navy during World War One), came up with the idea to convert a bunch of cruisers that were already partially complete at the New York Navy Yard over to flat-tops. Although the Navy balked, FDR was the commander and chief, so guess who won?
USS Cleveland CL-55 1942. The Navy wanted between 40-50 of these hardy little cruisers. They settled for much less, and nine of those became aircraft carriers while still under construction
The 14,000-ton Cleveland class light cruisers were designed after the gloves came off in 1940 and the U.S. no longer had to abide by the Washington and London Naval treaties of the 1920s and 30s. As such, these were very large cruisers, at just a hair over 600 feet long, and very fast (33 knots). Designed to carry a dozen 6-inch and a supplemental dozen 5-inch guns, they were also heavily armed.
In all the Navy wanted something on the order of 40 of these cruisers to lead destroyer groups, escort convoys, scout ahead of battle groups, and screen carriers and battleships. Well, FDR carved nine whose hulls were nearing completion but did not have decks, guns, or superstructures installed yet.
A scale model of the Independence-class light carriers and the Cleveland-class light cruiser. Note the hulls.
It was not that hard of a concept. Many of the first carriers were auxiliaries, cruisers, and battleships that had their topside removed and covered with a flat top. Langley, the first U.S. carrier, was a collier. Lexington and Saratoga, the country’s second and third carriers respectively, were originally laid down as battlecruisers.
The first of the class of FDR’s “cruiser carriers,” laid down originally as the cruiser Amsterdam but commissioned instead as the USS Independence, was commissioned on 14 January 1943 and rushed to the fleet. Over the next nine months, eight sisters would join her, roughly one every 45 days on average. They were all constructed in the same yard to keep the program streamlined.
A “30/30” ship, they could make 30+ knots and carry 30+ aircraft while having legs long enough to cross the Pacific and operate on their own for a few weeks before she needed to find an oiler. While they were still much smaller than a regular fleet carrier such as the Enterprise that could carry 80-90 aircraft, they could still put a few squadrons in the air and fill lots of needs.
From U.S. Navy manual FM 30-50: Recognition Pictorial Manual of Naval Vessels, showing U.S. ship silhouettes showing the relative size of the various classes of aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers, and destroyers. Note the big difference between the size of the large fleet carrier classes (top center), the assorted escort carriers (center to bottom) and the Independence class CVLs, which are right in the middle
Side-by-side comparisons show the principal fleet carriers of the Pacific War compared to an Independence-class CVL. Outside left are the prewar USS Saratoga (CV-3) and USS Enterprise (CV-6), moored near the short-hulled Essex-class USS Hornet (CV-12). Beyond the Hornet is moored the Independence-class USS San Jacinto (CVL-30). U.S. Navy photo 80-G-701512
Worth, in his Fleets of World War II, described the Indys as such:
These were not attractive ships. They had no deck edge elevator, just one catapult, and a small air group (usually 33 planes). Though meant to carry one or two 5-inch DP guns, they never received them. The armor layout provided modest protection, though the first two ships scrambled into service so hurriedly they never got their side armor. In spite of all of this, the design was a success. Not a war winner, it augmented the fleet’s main strength, having sufficient size and speed to bring modern aircraft into battle.
Meet Cabot
The name “Cabot,” after the English-employed Venetian explorer John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto), was one of the oldest in the Navy.
As far back as 5 January 1776, the first Continental Navy squadron under Commodore Esek Hopkins was ordered to sea by Congress to seek the British off coasts of the Carolinas and Rhode Island and in the Chesapeake Bay. The ships under Hopkins’s flag were Alfred, Columbus, Andrea Doria, Cabot, Providence, Hornet, Wasp, and Fly. Sadly, Cabot was also the first Continental naval ship captured by the British, which may be why the Navy waited until 1943 to reissue it.
The second Cabot was laid down as light cruiser USS Wilmington (CL-79) on 16 March 1942, by New York Shipbuilding Co. in Camden, then was reclassified to an aircraft carrier (CV-28) and renamed Cabot during her conversion.
USS Cabot (CV 28), launching at Camden, New Jersey. Photographed April 4, 1943. 80-G-41832
Launched on 4 April 1943, she was reclassified as a small aircraft carrier (CVL-28) just before her commissioning on 24 July 1943 —some 80 years ago this week.
Her first airwing was Carrier Air Group 31, made up of the “Flying Meataxers” of Fighter Squadron 31 (VF-31) and Torpedo Squadron 31 (VT-31), which came aboard in November 1943. CAG 31 would remain on Cabot until 4 October 1944, when CAG 29 (VF-29 and VT-29), late of the USS Santee, came aboard. In general, these CAGs would ship out with 9 TBM/TBF Avengers and 24 F6F-3/5 Hellcats, for a total of 33 aircraft.
They were good at their job.
VF-31 would end up with the highest kill ratio per pilot of any squadron in the US Navy, credited with 165.6 Japanese airplanes destroyed in aerial combat.
For a much deeper dive into her war record, please refer to the extensive 120-page War History completed in late 1945 and available in the National Archives.
We’ll get into the high points below.
Shipping out for the Pacific on 15 January 1944, she joined Task Force 58 and got into the fight for real.
USS Cabot, CVL-28 off Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. 27 AUG 43
Task Force 58 raids in the Carolines, July 1944. RADM J.J. Clark’s task group 58.1 reverses course during attacks on Yap, 28 July 1944. USS HORNET (CV-12) is in the center, with USS CABOT (CVL-28) in the left middle distance and USS YORKTOWN (CV-10) on the right. Six F6F fighters are overhead. Photographed with a K-17 camera from a HORNET plane. 80-G-367247
Crossing the line ceremony on USS Cabot, CVL-28
U.S. Marines drilling on the flight deck of USS Cabot (CVL 28). Photographed by the crew of USS Cabot, July 3, 1944. 80-G-263276
Hitting Truk, the Marshalls, raids on the Palaus, Yap, Ulithi, and Woleai; the Hollandia landings, the famous “Marianas Turkey Shoot,” the liberation of the Philippines, raiding Formosa, Indochina, Hong Kong, Kyushu, and Okinawa, Cabot and her airwing were hard at work.
Just look at this fighting chart chronicling her actions off Formosa, 13-18 October 1944.
Divine Wind
The class would take quite a beating from Japanese aircraft. Sister USS Princeton (CV/CVL-23) was destroyed following a bomb hit during the Battle of Leyte Gulf that sparked fires that got out of hand. Likewise, both sisters USS Belleau Wood (CV/CVL-24) and USS Independence (CV/CVL-22) endured significant damage but pulled through.
Cabot had her own turn in the barrel on 25 November 1944, two days after Thanksgiving.
USS Cabot (CVL-28) is hit by a Kamikaze while operating with Task Force 38 off Luzon, 25 November 1944. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, 80-G-289608
As detailed by DANFS
Cabot had fought off several kamikazes when one, already flaming from hits, crashed the flight deck on the port side, destroying the still-firing 20-millimeter gun platform, disabling the 40-millimeter mounts and a gun director. Another of Cabot’s victims crashed close aboard and showered the port side with fragments and burning debris. Cabot lost 62 men killed and wounded, but careful training had produced a crew that handled damage control smoothly and coolly. While she continued to maintain her station in formation and operate effectively, temporary repairs were made.
Damage to the catapult room of USS Cabot (CVL 28) caused by a crash dive by a Japanese plane. The hole through to the catapult room. The area formerly contained a generator station and crew shelters. 80-G-270879
From her war history:
Back in the fight
Patched up, Cabot returned to action on 11 December 1944, steaming with the force in support of the Luzon operations.
Ernie Pyle shipped out on the Cabot for three weeks and filed reports from her decks on the push to Tokyo.
Pyle, right, on the bridge of Cabot with the skipper –CAPT (later RADM) Walton Wiley Smith (USNA 1920)–during strikes in the North Pacific against Tokyo, February 1945. 80-G-262854-001
The only aircraft carrier he ever visited, Pyle publicized the nickname of the “Iron Woman.”
One of his reports from Cabot:
In the Western Pacific–An aircraft carrier is a noble thing. It lacks almost everything that seems to denote nobility, yet deep nobility is there….It doesn’t cut through the water like a destroyer. It just plows…
Yet a carrier is a ferocious thing, and out of its heritage of action has grown nobility. I believe that today every navy in the world has its No. 1 priority, the destruction of enemy carriers.
That’s a precarious honor, but it’s a proud one.
My Carrier is a proud one. She’s small, and you have never heard of her unless you have a son or husband on her, but still she’s proud, and deservedly so.
She has been at sea, without returning home, longer than any other carrier in the Pacific, with one exception. She left home in November of 1943.
She is a little thing, yet her planes have shot down 228 of the enemy out of the sky in air battles, and her guns have knocked down five Japanese planes in defending herself.
She is too proud to keep track of the little ships she destroys, but she has sent to the bottom 29 big Japanese ships.
She has weathered five typhoons. Her men have not set foot on any soil bigger than a farm-sized uninhabited atoll for a solid year.
They have not seen a woman for nearly ten months. In a year and a quarter out of America, she has steamed a total of 149,000 miles!
Four different air squadrons have used her as their flying field, flown their allotted missions, and returned to America. But the ship’s crew stays on– and on and on.
She is known in the fleet as “The Iron Woman”, because she has fought in every battle in the Pacific in the years 1944 and 1945.
Her battle record sounds like a train caller on the Lackawanna railroad. Listen— Kwajalein, Eniwetok, Truk, Palau, Hollandia, Saipan, Chichi Jima, Mindanao, Luzon, Formosa, Nansei Shoto, Hong Kong, Iwo Jima, Tokyo…and many others.
She has known disaster. Her fliers who have perished cannot be counted on both hands..She has been hit twice by Kamikaze bombs. She has had mass burial at sea..with dry-eyed crew sewing forty-millimeter shells to the corpses of their friends as weights to take them to the bottom of the sea.
Yet she has never even returned to Pearl Harbor to patch her wounds. She slaps on some patches on the run and is ready for the next battle.
My Carrier, even though classed as “light”, is still a very large ship. More than 1,000 men dwell upon her. She is more than 700 feet long…
She has been out so long that her men put their ship above their captain. They have seen captains come and go, but they and the ship stay on forever.
They aren’t romantic about their long stay out here. They hate it, and their gripes are long and loud. They yearn pathetically to go home. But down beneath, they are proud— proud of their ship and proud of themselves.
And you would be too.
Pyle left Cabot at the end of February 1945 and just six weeks later was killed on Ie Shima with the Marines when a bullet from a Japanese machine gun hit him in the left temple below the rim of his helmet.
Cabot would remain on the line until April 1945, when she was sent to Mare Island for a much-needed overhaul.
USS Cabot (CVL-28) flies a long Homeward Bound pennant as she departs the Western Pacific for overhaul in San Francisco, California, on 13 April 1945. She had been operating in the combat zone since January 1944. The view looks aft from the ship’s island, with her SK-1 radar antenna at the left and other shipping in the distance. Aircraft on Cabot’s deck include (from right front): OS2U, SOC, TBM, SB2C, F4U, and F6F types. NH 96958
Sailing back to the front lines, her last combat missions were flown against Japanese-occupied Wake Island on 1 August while en route to Eniwetok.
USS Cabot (CVL-28) Underway at sea, 26 July 1945. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-262768
She then joined Task Group 38.3 to support the landings of occupation troops in the Yellow Sea area in September and October.
Embarking homeward-bound men at Guam, Cabot arrived at San Diego on 9 November, then sailed for the East Coast.
Cabot earned a Presidential Unit Citation and nine battle stars for service during WWII.
Her end of the war tally sheet, via her War History.
USS Cabot (CVL-28) close-up view of the ship’s port side bridge wing, showing her insignia, circa 1943-44. The design is based on the slogan of Cabot’s first Commanding Officer, Captain Malcolm F. Schoeffel: Up Mohawks, At ‘Em!. Mohawk was the ship’s voice radio call sign at the time. 80-G-263253
Cabot was placed out of commission in reserve at Philadelphia, Pa., on 11 February 1947.
Korean War Service
Independence class light carriers, Janes 1946
Recommissioned on 27 October 1948 after spending just 20 months in mothballs, Cabot was assigned to the nascent Naval Air Reserve training program. Operating first out of Pensacola, then NAS Quonset Point, she would embark NAR squadrons on summer cruises to the Caribbean and make herself available to the training command for carrier deck quals.
SNJ-5B Bu51927, coming to grief on the USS Cabot (CVL-28) sometime before late 1951
It was around this time that Cabot was given a series of quiet upgrades and strengthened flight deck supports that made her both suitable for helicopters and for the weight of larger aircraft such as the F8F Bearcat. The electronics fit was also updated.
Assistant Sec. of the Navy for Aviation, John F. Floberg, does a solo pass USS Cabot CVL-28 on April 18, 1952, in an SNJ Texan. Floberg would get his carrier quals. The cover is the June 1952 edition of Navy Aviation News
F8F-2 Bearcat Naval Air Training Command carrier qual on USS Cabot CVL 28 June 20, 1952
USMC H-19 Chickasaw on an elevator aboard the refit USS Cabot 1952
One of the young budding Naval Aviators she would qual would be the first man on the moon. Before transitioning to the F-9F Panther jet, which he would fly with VF-51 for 78 combat missions over Korea, Neil Armstrong, flying an F8F Bearcat, would make his first six carrier traps on Cabot in March 1950. By August, he had aced his carrier quals.
Armstrong, shown left on Cabot after his first trap. note the 40mm Bofors behind him.
Cabot even made an operational deployment of sorts, embarking COMCARDIV 14 in January 1952, loading a squadron of short-lived AF-2S/AF-2W Grumman Guardians from the “Duty Cats” of VS-24, adding a det of HUP-1 helicopters from the “Fleet Angels” of HU-2 for liaison work and plane guard roles, then setting out for a Med cruise.
USS Cabot (CVL-28) underway, circa 1951–1952, with what appear to be two AF-2 Guardians from Antisubmarine Squadron (VS) 24 “Duty Cats.” NARA image.
same as above
same as above
She returned stateside on 26 March 1952 and went back into the training pipeline for a few more years.
Newly-delivered PA-tail coded T-28B Trojan and T-34 Mentor over Pensacola NAS, note the CVL training carrier below, likely USS Monterey but possibly Cabot or USS Saipan– the latter one of two light carriers built on a Brooklyn-class heavy cruiser hull. The photo is likely from 1955-56.
Cabot was again placed out of commission, in reserve, on 21 January 1955, and was later reclassified to an auxiliary aircraft transport (AVT-3) while mothballed.
Her career in the U.S. Navy had concluded.
A new flag
The Navy had previously transferred two of the remaining eight Indys to France in the 1950s– USS Langley (CVL-27) and USS Belleau Wood (CVL-24), which became La Fayette and Bois Belleau, respectively.
Meanwhile, the Spanish Navy had been chasing the dream of an aircraft carrier, going back to their seaplane tender and balloon carrier, Deadalo, which was active from 1921 through 1934, even getting in some carrier air raids during the Rif War.
With the general post-WWII rapprochement between a still very fascist Franco and the Western allies, the 1953 Madrid agreements thawed the chill between the U.S. and the country, opening it to military aid in return for basing.
Soon, the country would receive its first modern submarine, the snorkel-equipped USS Kraken (SS-370) (taken in service as Almirante García de los Reyes, E-1), later joined by three Guppy’d Balao-class smoke boats. Five Lepanto-class destroyers– WWII Fletcher-class tin cans– starting with USS Capps (DD-550) in 1957, were transferred. These were soon joined by five more FRAM I Gearing class destroyers, starting with USS Eugene A. Greene (DD/DDR-711) in 1972, as the Churruca class. By this time, the Spanish were also getting five new-made Baleares-class frigates, variants of the Knox class destroyer escort/fast frigates updated with Standard SAM suites.
In many ways, the Spanish fleet by the late 1960s was very American.
Looking for a helicopter carrier/amphibious assault ship and being rebuffed when they wanted the converted escort carrier USS Thetis Bay (LPH-6), and after taking a look at the laid-up USS San Jacinto (CVL-30) and passing, the Spanish went with Cabot as she had embarked and supported helicopters in the 1950s and had a better sensor and radio fit than just about any other mothballed flattop on the menu.
Cabot was loaned to the Spanish Navy on 30 August 1967, which renamed her Dédalo (R.01). She was then stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 1 August 1972, and sold to the Spaniards.
In Spanish operations, she would embark 16-24 helicopters in 4-packs starting with H-13 Sioux, H-19 Chickasaws, and Agusta-Bell 204s, then evolving to SH-3 Sea Kings, torpedo-carrying Hughes 500ASW variants, Agusta-Bell AB.212s, and AH-1 Cobras.
Ever thought you’d see a blue Cobra gunship on a WWII light carrier?
Look at how cute the Hughes 500ASWs are!
Spanish Marina ordered eight AH-1G Cobras and flew them in blue livery from Delado. They were the only country besides the US to operate the model
Dédalo, far right, and hospital ship Esperanza del Mar– the ex-4,000-ton WWII coastal minelayer USS Monadnock (ACM-10)– with one of the carrier’s SH-3D Sea King hanging out on her helideck– a tight fit!. Also, note the stacks of a Descubierta-class corvette to the left
Spanish Arma Aérea de la Armada SH-3D Sea King of Quinta Escuadrilla on Dédalo/Cabot with AS-12 missiles and a torpedo rigged for carry
Entry in Janes, 1973
By 1972, Spain bought eight British-built Harriers. Designated VA.1 Matadors in Spanish service, they were essentially modified variants of the USMC AV8A/B series and were classified as AV-8S/TAV-8S models.
Spanish Dédalo/Cabot with Harrier and helicopters
By 1976, the jump jets were active on Dedalo, providing both air defense and strike capabilities for the Spanish fleet, ultimately buying 13 of the type.
An aerial port bow view of the Spanish aircraft carrier DEDALO (R01) underway. Note the mix of Matadors, AB-212s, and Sea Kings. DN-SC-88-08303
Check out this amazing footage of Dedalo operating with her Matadors off the Canary Islands in 1978, “Defensa de las Canarias,” which simulated the repulsion of a Soviet amphibious assault on the chain.
However, with Spain’s WWII-era fleet beginning to show its age in the early 1980s, a refresh was soon underway that saw the Guppy boats traded in for a quartet of new French Agosta-class submarines, the Fletchers and Gearings replaced by a half dozen Santa Maria-class frigates (a Spanish version of the Oliver Hazard Perry-class), and a plan to replace Dedalo.
A port beam view of the Spanish amphibious assault ship DEDALO (PA-01), formerly the USS CABOT (AVT-3), in the foreground and the frigate BALEARES (F-71) participating in exercise Ocean Venture ’81.
The planned Almirante Carrero Blanco, built to a modified U.S. Navy Sea Control Ship study, entered service in 1988 as the 16,700-ton Príncipe de Asturias. Equipped with a 12-degree ski jump and powered by GE LM2500 gas turbines that could push the carrier along at 26 knots, the new Spanish carrier would embark and launch the larger and more advanced AV-8B Harrier II, which was produced locally at CASA’s facility in Seville, Spain, as the EAV-8B Matador.
Príncipe de Asturias (R11)
The old Dedalo, unneeded, was headed to the breakers, and her old AV-8As were soon resold to Thailand for use with that country’s building HTMS Chakri Naruebet, which was based on the design of Príncipe de Asturias and constructed in Spain.
On 12 July 1989, Dédalo was decommissioned, capping a 46-year career.
A brief reprise
Rushing in to save the day was a group of WWII U.S. Navy vets and their supporters. At the time that Cabot was retired, she was by far the only member of her class still around. In addition to her nine battle stars and Presidential Unit Citation for WWII, there was also her Korean War service, her connections to Neil Armstrong and Ernie Pyle, and her Cold War journey that made her worthy of preservation.
Ultimately, she was brought to New Orleans triumphantly in August 1989 when she still looked amazing– having only left Spanish naval service the month prior. Within months, she was designated a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service.
Then, sadly, the successive efforts to preserve her all tanked for one reason or another, typically money-related (or lack thereof), and she sat along one dock or another in the Crescent City for eight years, suffering marine collisions, looting, and neglect.
Being a warship nerd in my 20s at the time, I snuck through a series of fences to get a snapshot of her tied up on a foggy morning near the Mandeville docks.
USS Cabot/Spanish Dédalo, tied up in New Orleans. Photo by Chris Eger
By 1997, with her time all but gone, she was towed to Texas, where she would soon be involved in a confusing series of lawsuits and seizures by the U.S. Marshals for debts owed. Slowly scrapped there over the next several years, she disappeared by August 2001.
As summed up by WWII After WII, who covers her tragedy in detail:
The USS Cabot fiasco was a sad, but in some ways foretelling, end to the boom of WWII warship museums in the United States. From the late 1970s to the early 1990s, these seemed to proliferate – however, with a few exceptions (USS Intrepid in NYC being particularly successful) they were extremely difficult to keep financially sound after opening. To display a P-51 Mustang fighter or M4 Sherman tank ashore doesn’t take a whole lot beyond the purchase cost, but afloat decommissioned ships are “financial zombies” in that even when dead, they require constant money just to stay above the waterline, let alone be profitable, and this only increases as the ship continues to age – the USS Texas saga being a good example. Often visitor admission fees just aren’t enough.
Anger was directed at the original Foundation, who were portrayed in veteran’s circles as idiots, grifters, or both. This is not fair as the original intentions were good; and in fact, much of the early fundraising was done by veterans at a VFW post in Louisiana on their own time. It might be better to say that they had no idea what they were getting into and quickly found themselves in way over their head.
At the National Naval Aviation Museum, the center floor display includes a replica of the wooden flight deck and island superstructure of Cabot. Assisted by his son, the same sailor who painted the original scoreboard highlighting the combat record of the ship and its embarked air groups duplicated his work for the museum.
(Photo: Chris Eger)
(Photo: Chris Eger)
One of her screws and some of her WWII-vintage Bofors mounts went to USS Lexington, which is preserved in Corpus Christi, just a couple of hours away from where she was scrapped.
Meanwhile, the Spanish Navy’s AH-1G Cobras that flew from Dedalo proved to be a time capsule for the U.S. Army and are now gems in the collection of the Army Aviation Museum in Alabama, as most of their type in U.S. service were either scrapped or converted to updated models.
This toothy G-model Cobra served with the Spanish Navy and was recently returned to the U.S. Note the early 7.62mm minigun and 40mm grenade launcher in the chin. (Photo: Chris Eger)
A few years ago, scale model maker Amo released an AV-8S Matador kit (AMO-8505) that features box art by Valery Petelin that includes Cabot/Dedalo cruising below.
AV-8S Matador AMO box art by Valery Petelin, with Delado/Cabot below
Of Cabot’s sisters, besides USS Princeton (CV/CVL-23), which was lost in 1944, USS Independence was extensively damaged in the Crossroads tests and then, filled with radioactive material, was scuttled off the coast of California in deep water in 1951.
Langly/ La Fayette and Belleau Wood/Bois Belleau, after operating with the French off Indochina and Algeria, were returned to the Navy in the 1960s and scrapped, replaced in French service by the new domestically built Clemenceau-class carrier,s which were twice as large and were built from the keel up to operate jets.
USS Bataan (CVL-29), which added seven Korean War battle stars to the six she earned in WWII, was scrapped in 1961.
USS Bataan (CVL-29) was photographed on 22 May 1953, as she was en route to Naval Air Station San Diego, California, following a deployment to Korean waters. Note crew paraded on the flight deck spelling out the word “HOME” and an arrow pointing over her bow. Aircraft on deck include 19 Grumman AF “Guardian” anti-submarine planes and a solitary Vought F4U “Corsair” fighter (parked amidships on the starboard side. NH 95808
USS Cowpens (CVL-25), laid up after the war, was reclassified as an auxiliary aircraft transport (AVT-1) while in mothballs and was scrapped in 1960.
USS Monterey (CVL-26), on which the future president Gerald Ford served aboard in WWII, served as a training carrier (AVT-2) during the Korean War, then was decommissioned in 1956 and scrapped in early 1971.
USS San Jacinto (CVL-30) would be the last in U.S. Navy possession, sold to the breakers in December 1971 after sitting on red lead row for 24 long and unkind years.
The Indys earned a total of 81 WWII battle stars, and it is a crying shame that none remain.
Ships are more than steel and wood And heart of burning coal, For those who sail upon them know That some ships have a soul.
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Above we see a fantastic original Kodachrome from 80 years ago of a female shipyard worker at Electric Boat in New London with an acetylene torch near the forward escape hatch of a building Gato-class submarine. Inscribed on the hatch is the hull number SS-243, making this the future USS Bream.
A couple of other great shots from that day, seemingly centered on the rear hatch:
About the Gatos
One of the 77 Gatos cranked out by four shipyards from 1940 to 1944 for the U.S. Navy, they were impressive 311-foot long fleet boats, diesel-electric submarines capable of extended operations in the far reaches of the Pacific.
Able to swim an impressive 11,000 nautical miles on their economical power plant while still having room for 24 (often cranky) torpedoes. A 3-inch deck gun served for surface action in poking holes in vessels deemed not worth a torpedo while a few .50 and .30-cal machine guns provided the illusion of an anti-aircraft armament.
A development of the Tambor-class submarines, they were the first fleet boats able to plumb to 300 feet test depth, then the deepest that U.S. Navy submersibles were rated.
Meet Bream
Our subject, Bream, was the only U.S. Navy ship to carry the name of the “A common food and game fish of the carp family typically found in lakes and slow rivers,” as noted by DANFS.
USS Bream (SS 243), insignia, showing a fish nipping a horned Japanese admiral. Photographed by Lieutenant Commander Charles Jacobs, USN, on 14 August 1943, at her builder’s yard, the Electric Boat Company, Groton, Connecticut. National Archives photograph: 80-G-468313.
Built by Electric Boat Co. of Groton, Connecticut, she commissioned on 24 January 1944, one of the staggering 74 submarines and 398 PT boats EB made for Uncle during WWII.
Her first skipper was LCDR Wreford Goss “Moon” Chapple (USNA 1930), a former heavyweight boxing champion at Annapolis who had already earned two Navy Crosses and two Silver Stars in command of the submarines USS S-38 and USS Permit.
To tell you a bit about Chapple, he was officially reprimanded in February 1942 for bringing 40 officers and men out of besieged Corregidor, pulled on the carpet because of the gross overcrowding on his little boat. Here, he is seen with his wife, Mrs. Chapple, who was the boat’s sponsor, and son, at Bream’s christening. (EBCo Photo)
Following shakedown and exercises on the East Coast and off Panama, Bream crossed “The Ditch” into the Pacific in April 1944 then made for Seeadler Harbor in the Admiralties by way of Australia.
From Seeadler, she put to sea on 29 May for her 1st War Patrol, loaded with Mark 23 torpedoes for the Morotai Strait.
Chasing down contacts and avoiding Japanese sub busters, she made two unsuccessful attacks on passing convoys in early June before hitting paydirt on 16 June when she torpedoed and sank the Japanese army cargo ships Yuki Maru (5704 GRT) and Hinode Maru (1916 GRT) off Halmahera Island. Bream promptly got 25 depth charges dropped on her roof in exchange.
From her patrol report:
Bream ended her 1st War Patrol at Manus on 29 June then put back out for an unsuccessful 2nd War Patrol, south of the Philippines, three weeks later that ended in early September with a return to Australia.
Her 3rd War Patrol would be much more fruitful.
Heading out on 2 October, Moon, besides his command on Bream, was commander for a submarine “search and attack group” (Yankee wolfpack) consisting of USS Raton (SS-270) and USS Guitarro (SS-363), bound for a patrol in the central Philippines, where they would be joined briefly by USS Ray (SS-271).
On the 23rd, Bream torpedoed and damaged the 9,000-ton Japanese heavy cruiser Aoba off Manila Bay, with one of six torpedoes hitting the warship’s No. 2 engine room. In return, the cruiser’s escorts dropped 32 depth charges on our boat.
From Bream’s patrol report:
The heavily damaged Japanese cruiser Aoba
Aoba limped into Cavite Navy Yard near Manila for emergency repairs. She would eventually make it back, slowly, to Kure but her damage was deemed irreparable and she never sailed again. Related to a floating AAA battery, Aoba was later sent to the bottom there at the hands of TF 38 carrier aircraft.
On 24 October, Bream ran across floating debris that included several dead bodies (listed by Moon as “non-survivors”) and six Japanese who they took prisoner after one sailor, White, “showed unusual solicitude in diving overboard to retrieve one who slipped back into the water.”
From her patrol report:
These EPOWs were quartered in the forward torpedo room and then transferred to Australia-bound sister USS Cod (SS-224) five days later, with Moon noting in his ship’s log “Cod was not too crazy about the Japs.”
Then, on 4 November, the Bream-Guitarro-Ray wolfpack shared the sinking of the Japanese seaplane tender/transport Kagu Maru (6806 GRT), picked off from convoy TAMA-31A off Dasol Bay, Philippines. The poor Kagu Maru, carrying troops of the 218th Naval Construction Unit, had no chance, being hit by one of four torpedoes from Bream, then one of eight torpedoes from Guitarro, and finally two of two from Ray in a third attack.
During the November 4 attack, Bream was also attacked by a Japanese plane, which dropped two bombs that resulted in a near miss that nonetheless caused some flooding and damage to our boat.
From her patrol report:
Two days later, on 6 November, the pack found the Japanese heavy cruiser Kumano west of Lingayen.
From her patrol report:
Japanese heavy cruiser Kumano anchored at Rabaul, with a Mitsubishi F1M Pete reconnaissance seaplane in the foreground, December 4-5, 1942
Part of the cover force for convoy MATA-31, Kumano had narrowly avoided the submarine USS Batfish the day prior but, out of a staggering 23 torpedoes fired from the Bream-Guitarro-Ray-Raton wolfpack, two made good, blowing off the cruiser’s bow section and flooding all her engine rooms. Dead in the water, Kumano had to be towed into Dasol Bay with an 11-degree list. Towed from there to Santa Cruz harbor, she was found still under repair on 25 November by aircraft from the carrier USS Ticonderoga and bombed to the bottom of the harbor.
By that time, Bream’s submariners were already throwing back a cold one in Australia and returned home early.
Her third patrol ended after just 52 days (35 submerged), with Bream traveling 10,833 miles. Her primary reason for calling it quits early was that she only had three torpedoes left. It would be her most successful patrol.
There, plankowner skipper Moon Chapple was pulled from his boat, given a Gold Star in lieu of the Second Silver Star Medal, and sent back to New London to become a tactics instructor at the Submarine School, replaced by LCDR James Lowell Page McCallum.
Targets thinned out notably by this stage of the war, with most subs managing only to bag the occasional coaster or trawler via surface action as the small fry wasn’t worth wasting a torpedo on. For instance, Bream on 14 March 1945 bagged the auxiliary submarine chaser Keihin Maru (76 GRT) in a surface action in the Java Sea, while on her 5th War Patrol, after adding no tonnage on her 4th Patrol in early 1945.
An extensive depth charging in March that cut her 5th Patrol short led to the submarine’s periscopes, her starboard shaft, and both of her screws being replaced in Freemantle, a patch job that was done in three weeks. She was thought capable of another patrol and sortied out on 20 April.
On her 6th War Patrol, Bream came across the German minesweeper/submarine depot ship Quito (1230 GRT) off Borneo’s Tanjong Puttion on 29 April, just a week away from VE Day. Loaded with fuel for Monsoon U-boats, she had been steaming from the oil fields of Balikpapan for Jakarta, and, with her daily position reports intercepted by the Navy’s FRUMEL unit in Melbourne, she was never going to make it.
From her patrol report:
The next day, a severely burned survivor from Quito, picked up by the submarine USS Besugo (SS-321), passed on the identity of the fireball that Bream had sent to the bottom.
Later on the same patrol, Bream was given orders to recon the anchorage at Miri in Japanese-occupied Borneo, where she found no shipping but was spotted by a passing American B-24 who got overly excited. As noted in her war history, “USS Bream made the big time on the 22nd when a U.S. Army plane reported her as a carrier, but still no targets. No flight pay either.”
She was also pressed into duty as a minelayer, sowing 23 Mark 12 mines off Pulo Ob in the Gulf of Siam on 8-9 May. Ironically, she would have to get really involved in navigating such fields directly after.
While on lifeguard duty in the Philippines in late May, she picked up the pilot of a downed USAAF P-51 Mustang on the 19th “after barreling through a minefield at four main engine speed,” then negotiated a different minefield on the 26th to pluck four survivors of a downed B-25 bomber from the water. The patrol report noted, “We are mighty ready to get these boys but wish they wouldn’t pick the minefields to ditch in.”
After 18 months and six hard charging patrols, during which she received rail cars full of depth charges and at least two air-dropped bombs, Bream was in need of refit and left Saipan in June 1945 for Bethlehem Steel Company shipyard at San Francisco.
She stopped off at Pearl on the way and a series of photos, taken by Photographer’s Mate First Class L. Strawger, likely stationed ashore rather than part of her crew, were taken. It is rare that images of wartime Gatos exist, and these are some of the best, despite their poor condition.
USS Bream (SS 243) entering Pearl Harbor after a successful war patrol. Photographed by Photographer’s Mate First Class L. Strawger, 15 June 1945. 80-G-325193
USS Bream (SS 243) entering Pearl Harbor after a successful war patrol. Photographed by Photographer’s Mate First Class L. Strawger, 15 June 1945. 80-G-325192
Note her rough appearance. Hard to believe she is only been in the fleet for 18 months at the time this image was snapped. This is a fighting submarine! USS Bream (SS 243) entering Pearl Harbor after a successful war patrol. Photographed by Photographer’s Mate First Class L. Strawger, 15 June 1945. The two large ships directly behind the sub at the center of the photo are both later Baltimore class cruisers.
USS Bream (SS 243) entering Pearl Harbor after a successful war patrol. View of the conning tower. Note her homeward-bound pennant and mounted Oerlikons. Photographed by Photographer’s Mate First Class L. Strawger, 15 June 1945. 80-G-325197
At the Pearl Harbor submarine base, crew members touch up the rusted areas on USS Bream (SS 243), which has just completed a successful war patrol. Note her 5″/25. Photographed by Photographer’s Mate First Class L. Strawger, 15 June 1945. 80-G-325172
Another great view of the 5″/25. At the Pearl Harbor submarine base, crew members touch up the rusted areas on USS Bream (SS 243), which has just completed a successful war patrol. Photographed by Photographer’s Mate First Class L. Strawger, 15 June 1945. 80-G-325173
USS Bream (SS 243). Crew members inside torpedo tube. Photographed by Photographer’s Mate First Class L. Strawger, 15 June 1945. 80-G-325176
USS Bream (SS 243). Crew members in engine room spaces. Note the “patrol beard” and the snipe chewing a cigar. Talk about old-school Navy! Photographed by Photographer’s Mate First Class L. Strawger, 15 June 1945. 80-G-325181
In true Navy tradition, shipmates of John O. Tibs toss him overboard from USS Bream (SS 243) at Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, on his promotion to Chief Machinist’s Mate. Photographed by Photographer’s Mate First Class L. Strawger, 15 June 1945. 80-G-495544
Bream was in San Francisco on VJ Day. Following her refit, she was decommissioned there on 31 January 1946 and was placed in reserve.
Bream earned four battle stars for her World War II service.
Cold War
After five years in mothballs, war came again and Bream was dusted off for Korea, then, along with six other sisters– USS Angler (SS-240), USS Grouper (SS-214), USS Bashaw (SS-241), USS Bluegill (SS-242), USS Cavalla (SS-244), and USS Croaker (SS-246), she was selected to become a submarine hunter-killer (SSK) via an SCB 58 conversion, sometimes called a “Grouper conversion” after the first boat that underwent the transition from fleet boat to SSK.
Comparing Fleet Boat Gato to SSK Gato. Forgive the bend in the page. The SSK conversion did not have that crazy hull deformity
As noted by DANFS:
As a part of the Navy’s fleet expansion program in response to the communist invasion of the Republic of Korea, Bream was recommissioned on 5 June 1951 and reported to Submarine Squadron 3, Pacific Fleet. From June 1951 until August 1952, she was engaged in type training and provided services to the Fleet Sonar School at San Diego. She was decommissioned once again on 10 September 1952 to undergo conversion to an antisubmarine “killer” submarine at the San Francisco Naval Shipyard.
The conversion included the installation of a snorkel, which enabled her to take in air and operate her diesel engines while submerged. In addition, her conning tower was streamlined, the habitability of the crew’s living spaces was improved, and special sonar listening equipment was installed. The warship was redesignated SSK-243 in February 1953. Bream was placed back in commission on 20 June 1953.
USS Bream (SSK-243) photographed during the 1950s. Description: Courtesy of Commander Donald J. Robinson, USN (MSC), 1974. Catalog #: NH 78980
USS Bream (SS-243) USN 1042361
Our new SSK would spend the next decade on a series of training, exercises, antisubmarine warfare tactical development duty, and West Pac cruises. Shifting her homeport to Pearl Harbor in 1956, she roamed the largest ocean Pacific spanning from Adak, Alaska to Aukland, New Zealand, and from Hong Kong to Pago Pago, notably spending both Christmas Day 1957 and 1962 in Yokosuka.
Bream (SS-243) is seen here on 1 January 1962 off the coast of Hawaii. The fairwater has been streamlined and all guns removed. Also, she has been fitted with an enlarged sonar dome on her bow. USN Archives photo # USN-1039531 courtesy of All Hands magazine by the Naval Historical Center, April 2002, pg. 47 & submitted by Bill Gonyo. Text courtesy of The Floating Drydock, Fleet Subs of WW II” by Thomas F. Walkowiak.
In April 1964, Bream was reclassified as an auxiliary submarine (AGSS-243), as were most of her remaining sisters still in U.S. Navy in service, and switched primarily from duty as a warfighting submarine to a training boat, largely in conjunction with ASW assets such as destroyers and patrol aircraft as an OPFOR. This included a trip to Vietnam in late 1965 as well as three extended WestPac deployments to perform the same services to allies in the South Korean, Taiwanese, and Philippine fleets.
Bream (AGSS-243) underway in the Pacific in the late 1960s, via Navsource.
With time not kind to these old WWII-era diesel boats, and the Navy desperately wanting to be SSN-only, Bream was slated to decommission in 1969. On 28 June, she and four sisters– USS Bluegill (AGSS 242), 1944 Wolfpack pal USS Raton (AGSS 270), USS Tunny (AGSS 282), and USS Charr (AGSS 328), were decommissioned on the same day.
Raton (AGSS-270) and Bluegill (AGSS-242) during the decommissioning ceremony at Mare Island on 28 June 1969. Bream (AGSS-243), Tunny (AGS-282) and Charr (AGSS-328) are forward of Raton and Bluegill. Chara (AE-31) is in the background. Photo courtesy of the Vallejo Naval and Historical Museum via Darryl L. Baker. Via Navsource.
In a fitting allegory that there would be no going back for these old “smoke boats,” Bream was struck from the Naval Register and sunk as a target, on 7 November 1969, sent to the bottom in tests of the new Mk48 heavyweight torpedo by the Skipjack-class nuclear-powered submarine USS Sculpin (SSN 590).
Her battle flag is one of 49 preserved in the Submarine Force Library and Museum and is certainly colorful.
Note her six service stripes for her patrols, the minelaying flag, the Swazi for the German ship Quito, two rising suns for the two Japanese cruisers she accounted for, and the lifeguard flag for the five Army aviators she plucked from the Japanese minefields off Takao in the PI. Note that she is seen sailing into the setting sun. She had a busy 18 months.
As for her WWII skipper, “Moon” Chapple commanded the heavy cruiser USS Pittsburgh in the Korean War and would go on to retire as a rear admiral in 1959. He died in 1991, aged 83.
USS Bream, docked at Pearl Harbor, photo by Bob Droke
As for her sisters, other Gatos lived on, although an amazing 20 were lost in the Pacific during WWII. The last two Gato-class boats active in the US Navy were USS Rock (SS-274) and Bashaw (SS-241), which were both decommissioned on 13 September 1969 and sold for scrap. Nine went to overseas allies with the last, USS Guitarro (SS-363) serving the Turkish Navy as TCG Preveze (S 340) in one form or another until 1983.
A full half-dozen Gatos are preserved in the U.S. so please visit them when you can:
USS Cavalla is at Seawolf Park near Galveston, Texas
USS Cobia is at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc, Wisconsin
USS Cod is on display in Cleveland
USS Croaker is on display in Buffalo, New York
USS Drum is on display on shore at Battleship Memorial Park in Mobile, Alabama
USS Silversides is on display in Muskegon, Michigan
Two of these, Cavalla and Croaker, are rare SSK Gato conversions, like Bream, while Cod and our boat were liked via the POW incident.
Ships are more than steel and wood And heart of burning coal, For those who sail upon them know That some ships have a soul.
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The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.
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Above we see a great 1968 image of the Edsall-class destroyer escort-turned-radar picket, USS Falgout (DER-324) with a bone in her teeth during a Westpac deployment. Some 25 years old at the time, of note her christening occurred 80 years ago this week.
A vessel that saw combat against the Germans while on convoy duty during WWII, she would continue to serve in Korea and as a Cold Warrior, seeing the atomic starburst no less than nine times.
The Edsall class
A total of 85 Edsall-class destroyer escorts were cranked out in four different yards in the heyday of World War II rapid production with class leader USS Edsall (DE-129) laid down 2 July 1942 and last of class USS Holder (DE-401) commissioned 18 January 1944– in all some four score ships built in 19 months. The Arsenal of Democracy at work–building tin cans faster than the U-boats and Kamikazes could send them to Davy Jones.
The U.S. Navy destroyer escort USS Edsall (DE-129) underway near Ambrose Light just outside New York Harbor on 25 February 1945. The photo was taken by a blimp from squadron ZP-12. Edsall is painted in Camouflage Measure 32, Design 3D. U.S. Navy photo 80-G-306257
These 1,590-ton expendable escorts were based on their predecessors, the very successful Cannon-class boats but used an FMR type (Fairbanks-Morse reduction-geared diesel drive) propulsion suite whereas the only slightly less prolific Cannons used a DET (Diesel Electric Tandem) drive. Apples to oranges.
Armed with enough popguns (3×3″/50s, 2x40mm, 8x20mm) to keep aircraft and small craft at bay, they could plug a torpedo into a passing enemy cruiser from one of their trio of above-deck 21-inch tubes, or maul a submarine with any number of ASW weapons including depth charges and Hedgehogs. Too slow for active fleet operations (21 knots) they were designed for coastal patrol (could float in just 125 inches of seawater), sub-chasing, and convoy escorts.
Meet Falgout
The hero of our story, USS Falgout, is the only ship named for Seaman 2c George Irvin Falgout, a resident of Raceland, Louisiana who was a posthumous recipient of the Navy Cros for his actions while serving on the heavily damaged cruiser, USS San Francisco (CA-38) at Guadalcanal in November 1942. Falgout reportedly “remained at his gun, blazing away at a Japanese aircraft until it crashed his station.”
His citation:
The only ship named in his honor was constructed by Consolidated Steel Corp, Ltd., Orange, Texas (all the Edsalls were built at one of two Texas Gulf Coast yards) and sponsored at launch by his sister, Mrs. H. J. Guidry. She was commissioned on 15 November 1943 with an all-Coast Guard crew under CDR Henry A Meyer, a Coast Guard regular who earned his first thin gold stripe in 1931.
The CNO, ADM Ernest J. King, had, in June 1943, ordered the Coast Guard to staff and operate 30 new (mostly Edsall-class) destroyer escorts on Atlantic ASW duties, trained especially at the Submarine Training Centers at Miami and Norfolk. Each would be crewed by 11 officers and 166 NCOs/enlisted, translating to a need for 5,310 men, all told.
By November 1943, it had been accomplished! Quite a feat.
The USCG-manned DEs would be grouped in five Escort Divisions of a half dozen ships each, 23 of which were Edsalls:
These ships were soon facing off with the Germans in the Atlantic and Mediterranean.
Following shakedown along the East Coast and the Caribbean– where Falgout picked up 11 survivors from the American tanker Touchet that was torpedoed and sunk on 3 December 1943 by German U-boat U-193— our new destroyer escort was bound for the Med in February 1944 as part of the escort of Convoy UGS 32 to Casablanca, and returned to New York with GUS 31.
Then came Convoy UGS 38 out of Hampton Roads to Bizerte in Tunisia in April. This crossing proved much more contentious and suffered from German air attacks by waves of Junkers and Heinkel bombers with the Benson-class destroyer USS Landsdale (DD-426) sunk after hits from torpedo-carrying Ju 88s on the night of the 20th. Falgout expended no less than 600 rounds of 20mm and 16 rounds of 40mm on bombers that came close enough to swat.
While on the next homeward bound convoy, GUS 39, Falgout’s sistership USS Menges (DE 320), was hit by a G7es acoustic torpedo from U-371 on 3 May. The German fish destroyed a third of the tin can, and created casualties of a third of the ship’s crew but would amazingly survive the war. Just two nights later, the Buckley-class destroyer escort USS Fechteler (DE-157), would be sunk near Falgout by German submarine U-967, with the bulk of the crew rescued.
Not all the Coast Guard-manned DEs would come through to VE-Day. USS Leopold (DE-319) of CortDiv 22 was torpedoed by U-255 and later sank in the North Atlantic, 400 miles south of Iceland on 10 March 1944, with a loss of 13 officers and 158 men. Two other classmates with Navy crews, USS Frederick C. Davis (DE-136) and USS Fiske (DE-143), would also be lost in the Atlantic to U-boats.
Falgout would make two further roundtrips to Bizerte and back followed by three to Oran and back, although not coming as close to death as on UGS 38/GUS 39. Notably, however, she did pluck four Ju88 crewmembers from the water following a raid on GUS 45 in July 1944.
USS HAMUL (AD-20) Caption: At Bermuda in early 1944, while serving as flagship of the DD-DE shakedown group (CTG-23.1). Alongside are: CALCATERA (DE-390), PRIDE (DE-323), FALGOUT (DE-324), ALGER (DE-101), and EICHENBERGER (DE-202). Description: Collection of Captain D.L. Madeira, 1978. Catalog #: NH 86271
She was in Oran when the news of the German surrender was received.
Her final WWII skipper was a young LCDR Henry C Keene, Jr.,(USCGA 1941), who had been aboard the Treasury-class cutter USCGC Bibb (WPG-31) earlier in the war when that vessel plucked 235 survivors (and a dog) from U-boat-infested waters in the North Atlantic. Keene would later retire in 1965 as commander of Ketchikan CG Base and go on to be a noted Superior Court judge in Alaska. Meanwhile, the good CDR Meyer, who was the greyhound’s first commander, would continue his career with the Coast Guard for at least until 1956, retiring sometime later as a full captain.
For her 14 convoys, Falgout received one battle star for her wartime service, her only casualty being EM3c James G. O’Brien who died in a 1944 accident while on libo in Casablanca, falling from a second-story window.
After limited post-war service, during which she spent most of 1946 “in commission, in reserve” in Charleston with a caretaker crew (the USCG was returned to the Treasury Department in December 1945, and most of its wartime personnel discharged and Navy-owned ships returned) Falgout was classified “out of commission, in reserve” 18 April 1947 and lowered her flag.
The Edsall class, 1946 Janes.
Break out the white paint.
With the dramatic surge in air and maritime traffic across some downright vacant stretches of the Pacific that came with the Korean War, the USCG was again tapped to man a growing series of Ocean Stations. Two had been formed after WWII and the Navy added another three in 1950, bringing the total to five.
These stations would serve both a meteorological purpose– with U.S. Weather Bureau personnel embarked– as well as serve as floating checkpoints for military and commercial maritime and air traffic and communication “relay” stations for aircraft on transoceanic flights crisscrossing the Pacific. Further, they provided an emergency ditch option for aircraft (a concept that had already been proved by the Bermuda Sky Queen rescue in 1947, which saw all 69 passengers and crew rescued by the cutter Bibb.)
As detailed by Scott Price in The Forgotten Service in the Forgotten War, these stations were no picnic, with the average cutter logging 4,000 miles and as many as 320 radar fixes while serving upwards of 700 hours on station.
Ocean station duty could be monotonous at one moment and terrifying the next, as the vessels rode out storms that made the saltiest sailors green. 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.”
A typical tour was composed of arriving at Midway Island for three weeks on SAR standby, three weeks on Ocean Station Victor midway between Japan and the Aleutian Islands, three weeks on SAR standby at Guam, two weeks “R and R” in Japan, three weeks on Ocean Station Sugar, three weeks on SAR standby Adak, Alaska, and then back to home port.
To stand post on these new ocean stations and backfill for other cutters detailed to the role, the Navy lent the USCG 12 mothballed Edsalls (Newell, Falgout, Lowe, Finch, Koiner, Foster, Ramsden, Rickey, Vance, Lansing, Durant, and Chambers), nine of which the service had originally operated during WWII.
To man these extra vessels and fill other wartime roles such as establishing new LORAN stations and pulling port security, the USCG almost doubled in size from just over 18,000 to 35,082 in 1952.
The conversion to Coast Guard service included a white paint scheme, an aft weather balloon shelter (they would have to launch three balloons a day in all sea states), and the fitting of a 31-foot self-bailing motor surfboat for rescues in heavy weather. The USCG designator “W” was added to the hull number, as was the number 100, therefore, our vessel went from USS Falgout (DE-324) to USCGC Falgout (WDE-424).
Falgout’s sister, the Edsall-class USS Durant (DE-389/WDE-489/DER-389) in her Coast Guard livery. Note the WWII AAA suite is still intact. Falgout carried the same white and buff scheme.
Falgout was on loan to the Coast Guard between 24 August 1951– the second Edsall so converted– and 21 May 1954, in commission for duty as an ocean station vessel out of Tacoma, Washington.
Schenia notes that she pulled eight patrols in this period including two on OS Queen, two on OS Sugar, one on OS Nan, and two on OS Victor in addition to serving as the policing cutter for the International Cruiser Race Regatta in British Columbia in 1952 and the Lake Washington Gold Cup Race in 1953.
Besides nine Edsalls, two similarly loaned ex-Navy seaplane tenders, two 180-foot buoy tenders, and nine existing 255-foot/327-foot Coast Guard cutters also clocked in on Pacific Ocean station detail, with a total of 22 vessels and their crews earning the Korean Service Medal during the conflict. The Pacific Ocean station cutters in all assisted over 20 merchant and Navy vessels in distress, including one transoceanic airliner during the war.
The USCG-manned Edsalls were all retrograded to the Navy in 1954, with the last, Chambers, striking 30 July. It turned out that the Navy had other plans for these humble vessels, now double war vets.
DER
Falgout, laid back up after her 32 months of USCG service during Korea, was picked to become a radar picket ship, and given a new lease on life, reclassified into the Navy at Mare Island on 28 October 1954 as DER-324.
The DER program filled an early gap in the continental air defense system by placing a string of ships as sea-based radar platforms to provide a distant early warning line to possible attack from the Soviets. The Pacific had up to 11 picket stations while the Atlantic had as many as nine. A dozen DEs became DERs (including Falgout) through the addition of SPS-6 and SPS-8 air search radars to help man these DEW lines as the Atlantic Barrier became fully operational in 1956 and the Pacific Barrier (which Falgout took part in) by 1958.
To make room for the extra topside weight of the big radars, they gave up most of their WWII armament, keeping only their Hedgehog ASW device and two Mark 34 3-inch guns with aluminum and fiberglass weather shields.
DER conversion of Edsall (FMR) class ships reproduced from Peter Elliot’s American Destroyer Escorts of WWII
Detail of masts. Note the WWII AAA suite, one of the 3″ guns, and centerline 21-inch tubes have been landed
Her conversion complete, Falgout was recommissioned on 30 June 1955.
30 June 1955: Mare Island NSY, Vallejo, Cal. – Radm. Frederick L. Entwistle, USN (Commander, Mare Island Naval Shipyard) is commissioning speaker at the ceremony marking USS Falgout’s re-commissioning. Lcdr. Walter P. Smiley is on the far right of the photo. (U.S. Navy photo #DER-324-063055-1TH) via Darryl Baker, Vallejo Naval & Historical Museum, via Navsource.
30 June 1955: Mare Island NSY, Vallejo, Cal. – Colors are raised aboard USS Falgout at Mare Island after her conversion at the shipyard. (U.S. Navy photo #DER-324-063055-3TH) via Darryl Baker, Vallejo Naval & Historical Museum, via Navsource.
She was assigned to Seattle as a homeport, with orders coming from the Continental Air Defense Command, heading out to serve regular radar picket in the Early Warning System.
USS Falgout (DER 324) underway
In March 1959, this changed to duty out of Pearl Harbor.
On 31 January 1961, she received her 10th skipper, LCDR Samuel Lee Gravely Jr., a mustang who enlisted in 1942 and went through NROTC in 1944 to earn his commission. Gravely had previously served on USS PC-1264 in WWII, then aboard the battleship USS Iowa during Korea and the cruiser USS Toledo (CA-133), and served as executive officer and acting commander of the destroyer USS Theodore E. Chandler (DD-717) immediately before taking command of Falgout. This act, noted by the NHHC, put Gravely as the first African-American to command a combat ship.
Dominic
In late 1962, Falgout, with Gravely as skipper, was detailed to Joint Task Force 8, operating out of Pearl Harbor, for Operation Dominic.
Sparked by the Soviet resumption of nuclear testing after the 1958–1961 moratorium, Dominic would see no less than 31 air dropped, high-altitude rocket, parachuted, and underwater tests of prototype and existing weapons (including the first Polaris SLBM war shot) carried out over the Eastern Pacific spanning from the coast of California to Christmas and Johnston Island.
Falgout would closely participate (sometimes within 90 miles of the detonation) in at least nine of these tests, all off Johnston Island as part of TU 8.3.6, while she would be a more distant weather ship (over 500 miles away) for much of the remainder of the other tests, in the latter tasked with chasing off Soviet spy trawlers.
The Defense Nuclear Agency’s 432-page report on Operation Dominic I compiled in 1983, has the below rundown of Falgout’s nine hottest experiences:
Notably, of the more than 80 Army, Navy, and Coast Guard vessels that took part in or supported Dominic I, only 16, Falgout included, had personnel with “suspect” radiological film badges.
And the detonation maps for Tightrope (Operation Fishbowl, less than 20 kt), Housatonic (9.96 Mt), Calamity (800 Kt), Chama (1.6 Mt), and Bumping (11.3 Kt):
Dominic Chama blast, 18 October. B-52 Airdrop; 11,970 Feet detonation. This was a free-fall LASL test of the Thumbelina device in an Mk-36 drop case.
Another shot of Chama. This was a test of a lightweight small-diameter device, possibly a replacement for the W-38 (the 2-4 Mt warhead for the Atlas and Titan I missiles). The results are variously described as “thoroughly successful” while the yield was reported to be below the predicted value.
Tightrope. Nike Hercules Missile Airburst; 69,000 Feet. Carrying the LASL-designed W-31 air defense warhead.
Continued service
Brushing the dust off Dominic off her decks, Falgout would continue to be based out of Pearl for the rest of the decade.
USS Falgout (DER 324) at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, June 1963
DE-397 Wilhoite Feb 1966 Pearl Harbor with Falgout DER 324
From 1966 to 1969 Falgout rotated to service along the coast of Vietnam where she served in Operation Market Time, attempting to interdict Viet Cong maritime traffic. This would include the TEE SHOT V operation which saw our tin can serve as a mother ship in Qui Nhon Bay to two 50-foot PCFs including berthing for two spare PCF crews.
A stalwart of the Brown Water Navy in Vietnam: the PCF. Here, PCF-94 of Coastal Division 11in the Gulf of Thailand, March 1968. USN 1130655
As detailed by NHHC, TEE SHOT V “was established in the coastal area from Dong Phu village south to Chanh Oai village to detect and capture or destroy any hostile craft attempting to exfiltrate the area…During the operation a total of 2,448 junks were detected, 1,210 inspected and 484 boarded. Twenty-three persons and six junks with a total of seventeen tons of salt were apprehended and delivered to VNN authorities.”
On 10 October 1969, Falgout was decommissioned at Mare Island after just over 14 years of service to the Navy and four to the USCG under Navy orders. Her fellow DERs shared a similar fate, either laid up in mothballs or transferred to overseas allies.
USS Falgout and Canberra laid up at Stockton, California on 20 May 1972. The bow of USS Canberra (CA-70) is visible astern. Probably photographed by Ted Stone. Courtesy of Ted Stone, 1980. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 90588
1973 Janes on the Edsall class DERs.
On 1 June 1975, Falgout was struck from the NVR then in early 1977 was towed out to sea off the coast of California and sunk as a target.
Epilogue
Few relics of Falgout remain, although much of her deck logs and WWII war history is digitized in the National Archives.
As for LCDR Gravely, once he left Falgout in 1963, he went on to complete 38 years of service, command USS Taussig (DD-746), USS Jouett (DLG-29), Naval Communications Command, Cruiser-Destroyer Group Two, the Eleventh Naval District, Third Fleet, and the Defense Communications Agency.
In 1976, while serving as commander of the Third Fleet, he was promoted to Vice Admiral. He passed away in 2004 and is buried in Arlington.
The Flight II Burke, USS Gravely (DDG 107), is named for him. Here seen Oct. 26, 2013, with an MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter from the “Swamp Foxes” of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 74 overhead. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Billy Ho/Released) 131026-N-QL471-333
As for the rest of the Edsalls, the former Coast Guard-manned USS Forster (DE/DER-334/WDE-434) may possibly still be afloat in Vietnam as the pier side trainer Dai Ky, while ex-USS Hurst (DE-250) which has been in the Mexican Navy since 1973, is still in use limited use as the training ship ARM Commodore Manuel Azueta (D111).
The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.
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.
You may have previously heard that ARSOF legend, Retired SGM Billy Waugh, recently packed his duffle for the last time at the age of 93. His military career spanned 30 years from Korea to Vietnam, joining the Army in 1948 (after an unsuccessful attempt to join the Marines at 15 during WWII to make the final push on Japan).
Once retired, in 1977 he joined the CIA’s paramilitary guys and, among other places, took part in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom– in his 70s. While most of his agency work is lost to history, he for sure took part in operations against Quadaffi’s Libya, the Soviets, and in chasing Carlos the Jackal.
In noting his death, the 1st Special Forces Command said Waugh had “inspired a generation of special operations.”
There are three services planned:
12 May: Fairview Cemetery, Bastrop, Texas: There will be a small, private, gathering of family and close friends to spread a small amount of BIlly’s ashes at the Waugh family plot. Billy’s parents, infant brother, and sister are buried there.
27 June: A large memorial, organized by SOCOM, will be held at MacDill AFB. Location and time not provided yet.
22 July, 11:00: Jumping of the ashes. Billy requested that his ashes be HALO jumped and scattered by the HALO team. The time is not known yet, but it will be at Raeford Drop Zone, Raeford, North Carolina.
Armed with six . 50 caliber machine guns in the nose with 200 rpg, the P-80 Shooting Star was one of “Kelly” Johnson’s kids and, with its first flight in 1944, only barely missed mixing it up with Luftwaffe Me-262s in combat over Germany. In fact, the prototype aircraft was developed by Johnson’s team in just 143 days, with the 262 as the goal to match/beat.
It nonetheless made a lot of “firsts.”
In addition to making the first U.S. transcontinental jet flight, the Shooting Star was the first American aircraft to exceed 500 mph in level flight, the first American jet airplane manufactured in large quantities, and the first U.S. Air Force jet used in combat. It was in an F-80C of the 16th FIS that the first American claim for a jet-versus-jet aerial kill was made when 1st Lt. Russell J. Brown reported that he downed a MiG-15 over Korea in November 1950– just six years after the type’s first flight.
In all, some 1,700 P/F/RF-80s were produced, along with over 6,500 of its dopey T-33 Shooting Star younger brothers, and the type remained in at least limited USAF and U.S. Navy service well into the 1980s.
Well, some 50 years or so since the type left U.S. martial service, an Iowa Air National Guard F-80 just took a flight, of sorts.
S/N 47-0171, a P-80C-1-LO built in Burbank in 1947, is the sole example constructed almost entirely of magnesium (talk about a nightmare if it ever caught fire!).
After service at the Wright Air Development Center as the only NF-80C model, she was later sent to the Air Force Museum and preserved on static display in Canton, Ohio, wearing Ohio ANG livery in the 1990s.
She was then restored and has been on display in the livery of the Iowa ANG’s 174th Fighter Interceptor Squadron (which flew F-80Cs from 1953 to 1955), at the Iowa Gold Star Military Museum aboard Camp Dodge since 2012.
Well, after a decade of outside display, she needed a new paint job and was taken to an ANG paint facility in Sioux City last September.
To get the aircraft back to the state headquarters last week after the refresh, she was carried via sling lift under an Iowa ARNG CH-47 Chinook of the Davenport-based B/171 Aviation Regiment.
Air National Guard photo Senior Master Sgt. Vincent De Groot
Air National Guard photo Senior Master Sgt. Vincent De Groot
Air National Guard photo Senior Master Sgt. Vincent De Groot
