The intro copy of this epic 20-minute original 1944-era Jack Warner technicolor film on PT-boats, dubbed Devil Boats, is just great.
She’s a patrol torpedo– a PT to the Navy and I guess only another boat to a landlubber. But to the guys who take her out, she is a high-stepping sweet-singing lulu. She’s built for speed and rough weather and dangerous far waters. She’s a power-packin’ mama with a thunderbolt punch in either hand and her foaming wake has marked the grave of many an enemy ship. She’s got the temperament of a tornado and the personality of a wildcat. And boy, do we love her!
It also includes amazing period footage of the Elco factory in Bayonne, New Jersey– where CDR John D. Bulkley’s 77-year-old dad is a QC guy!– and the Packard line in Detriot before finishing with an overview of the eight-week training course for PT boat officers and some dramatized action.
From the Artifact Collection, Naval History, and Heritage Command:
NHHC 1960-45-C
One double-action Colt “New Navy” [ Model 1892 Army and Navy Colt] Revolver. The revolver shows extensive damage and loss of material due to exposure to water. The trigger guard, cylinder center pin and the muzzle, including the front sight, are all missing. The trigger and hammer spur are thin and weak as are major portions of the frame. The revolver is completely non-functional due to corrosion and loss of material. The hard rubber grips are present and in relatively good condition aside from some discoloration. The grips both carry the Colt assembly number of 310 hand engraved on the reverse side. The Colt serial numbers for the Navy Model 1895 revolvers fall in the 16XXX to 18XXX range. Based on information available from Colt, the serial numbers 16310, 17310 and 18310 were all assigned to Model 1895 revolvers manufactured in 1895. This would indicate that the grips are at least appropriate to this revolver, if not original.
The heavily corroded condition of this revolver is attributed to the approximately thirteen years it spent underwater aboard the wreck of the USS Maine (ACR-1). In 1898, an explosion caused the Maine to sink in Havana Harbor, Cuba. The ship was raised and salvaged from 1910 to 1912, at which time material was removed as souvenirs and for memorials. It is assumed that the revolver was recovered at this time as the ship was subsequently towed out to sea, scuttled and sunk.
When the USS Maine (ACR-1) was fitted out in 1895 it was provided with the latest design in small arms, including the Colt “New Navy” revolvers. Small arms were carried aboard ship primarily for the use of the US Marine detachment and the ship’s company when engaged in landing party operations. Officers, Petty Officers and personnel such as signalmen, buglers and color bearers would be armed with revolvers while part of a landing force. The Officer of the Deck and the Master at Arms would also carry a sidearm while performing their duties aboard ship.
Notably, the A-SECNAV when Maine went down, Teddy Roosevelt, resigned his post and, with the help of a few of his hard-charging (although horseless) cowboy friends, climbed San Juan Hill (actually Kettle Hill) during the resulting Span-Am War, with one of Maine’s recovered Colts in his holster, brought away to Key West by a survivor.
(U.S. Marine Corps photos by Sgt. Audrey M. C. Rampton)
Notably, there are some rare detailed shots of Ohio’s lockout chamber, converted Trident SLBM tubes, being used to store the CRRCs and their outboards.
In honor of President’s Day, here is a beautiful pen and ink circa 1802 drawing by artist Antoine Roux of the 44-gun “Original Six” frigate, USS President.
NHHC 76-327-a
One of only two American warships named for the office of the United State’s Chief Executive, USS President was ordered on 27 March 1794 during the administration of General Washington. Completed in 1800, the vessel was heavily involved in the Barbary Wars, helped spark the War of 1812 with the “Little Bent” affair, and was captured after tangling with a much stronger four-frigate British squadron– ironically after the end of hostilities– in that conflict. The Brits would rename her HMS President for a time and scrap the vessel in 1817.
The only other USS President was a sloop constructed on Lake Champlain in 1812 and, like the first, was captured by the British.
Probably a good thing the Navy hasn’t suggested the name a third time.
Warship Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2021: Savior of the Sea of Marmora
Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection
Here we see the Clemson-class “four-piper” destroyer USS Bainbridge (DD-246) with her flags flying at Boston Navy Yard in March 1930, possibly in a nod to the city’s often epic St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.
Let’s take a closer look at those flags, courtesy of Mr. Jones.
Bainbridge, when these great images were taken, was only nine years with the fleet– commissioned 100 years ago this week as a matter of fact– but she had already written a worthy page in maritime history and still had another 15 years of service ahead of her.
One of the massive fleets of Clemson-class flush decker destroyers, like most of her sisters, Bainbridge came too late to help lick the Kaiser. An expansion of the almost identical Wickes-class destroyers with a third more fuel capacity to enable them to escort a convoy across the Atlantic without refueling, the Clemsons were sorely needed to combat the pressing German submarine threat of the Great War. At 1,200-tons and with a top speed of 35 knots, they were brisk vessels ready for the task.
Living up to the legacy
The subject of our story today was the third warship named in honor of the Navy’s legendary Commodore William Bainbridge, who, fought in the Barbary Wars and, as commander of the frigate Constitution, destroyed the British 38-gun frigate HMS Java (ex-Renommée) in a three-hour-long single-ship broadside battle off Brazil on 29 December 1812.
Action between U.S. Frigate Constitution and HMS Java, 29 December 1812. Painting in oils by Charles Robert Patterson./Commodore William Bainbridge, USN (1774-1833). Oil on wood, 30″ by 21″, by John Wesley Jarvis (1780-1840). Painted circa 1814. Paintings in the U.S. Naval Academy Museum Collection.
The first USS Bainbridge was a 12-gun brigantine built at Boston Navy Yard in 1842 and named in honor of the old, and at that time recently passed Commodore. She would serve in the Civil War, capturing three Confederate blockade runners before being lost in 1863 during a severe storm off Cape Hatteras, taking all but one member of her crew to the bottom with her.
The second Bainbridge was the Navy’s first “Torpedo-boat Destroyer,” laid down in 1899. Of note, one of her skippers was a young LT Raymond A. Spruance. After service in the Great War, she was sold for conversion to a banana boat.
How about that beam-to-length ratio! Some 250-feet long and 23 at the beam, she could make 28.13 knots. The second USS Bainbridge (Destroyer # 1). Fitting out at the Neafie & Levy Ship & Engine Building Company shipyard, circa June-November 1902. USS Denver (Cruiser # 14) is at right, also fitting out. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives. 19-N-13135
The Third Bainbridge
Our ship was laid down on 27 May 1919 at New York Shipbuilding Corporation shipyard, Camden, New Jersey, and commissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 9 February 1921, just missing out on WWI.
USS Bainbridge (DD-246) Launching, at the New York Shipbuilding Corporation shipyard, Camden, New Jersey, 12 June 1920. NH 56312
USS Bainbridge (DD-246) Underway, circa 1921. NH 56317
As noted by DANFS, “Going into service in a Navy suffering the effects of manpower shortages caused by postwar demobilization and magnified by the completion of the massive shipbuilding program begun during the war, Bainbridge spent her first 10 months of active duty almost becalmed in her assignment to the Atlantic Fleet’s Destroyer Squadrons.”
However, by 1922, her crew would finally be fleshed out and she would engage on a series of shakedown and training cruises along the east coast. Then, in response to the boiling unrest in Europe between Greece and Turkey– at the time engaged in open combat in Anatolia– Bainbridge sailed from Hampton Roads on 2 October 1922, for the Mediterranean Sea along with 11 other Squadron 14 destroyers to protect American interests and lend muscle to the High Commission overseeing the end of the old Ottoman Empire.
In the early 1920s, the Black Sea was an American lake, as the Russian, Bulgarian, Romanian and Ottoman fleets had largely ceased to exist while the British and French fleets, facing near bankruptcy and mutinous crews, respectively, were keen to send only a few vessels to Constantinople and Odesa and withdraw them as soon as possible. At its height, the U.S. fleet in Constantinople included over 26 warships including the battleships Arizona and Utah, a dozen destroyers, heavy and light cruisers, floating repair shops, and transport ships.
482 Souls
Besides American forces, those of the European Great Powers were highly visible in the Eastern Med and its related seas at the time. One of these was the old 5,500-ton French military transport/hospital ship Vinh-Long, packed with almost 500 soldiers, sailors, and their families– along with a cargo of munitions.
On 16 December while in the Eastern Sea of Marmora off San Stefano Point, Vinh-Long caught fire and burned furiously, fueled by years of old varnish and oil, not to mention shells, powder, and cartridges. With time of the essence, Bainbridge, who was nearby, raced in to help.
Vinh-Long aflame from stem to stern in the Sea of Marmora near Constantinople, Turkey, in the morning of 16 December 1922. This view was taken from USS Bainbridge (DD-246), soon after she had removed Vinh-Long’s survivors. Note that the transport’s mainmast has fallen overboard, the result of a series of explosions that spread flames into the forward part of the ship. Donation of Frank A. Downey, 1973. NH 78333
Securing to the flaming troopship’s sides under a rain of fiery debris, Bainbridge began transferring personnel side to side, while her boat crews worked the waves to rescue jumpers. Then, as the Frenchman’s forward magazine was beginning to catch, the destroyer’s skipper, LCDR Walter Atlee Edwards (USNA 1910), ordered the warship to gently ram the vessel to lessen the exposure should it go.
USS Bainbridge (DD-246) noses into Vinh-Long’s port bow to remove her survivors, in the Sea of Marmora near Constantinople, Turkey, on the morning of 16 December 1922. This view was taken shortly before the series of explosions that spread flames into the forward part of the ship. 19-N-11575
In the end, before pulling away from the blazing vessel, Bainbridge rescued 482 of the 495 people aboard Vinh-Long.
Vinh-Long aflame from stem to stern in the Sea of Marmora near Constantinople, Turkey, in the morning of 16 December 1922. This view was taken from USS Bainbridge (DD-246), soon after she had removed Vinh-Long’s survivors. Note that the transport’s mainmast has fallen overboard, the result of a series of explosions that spread flames into the forward part of the ship. Catalog #: 19-N-11576
Badly overloaded, she would make for Constantinople and transfer the troopship’s survivors to the French Edgar Quinet class armored cruiser, Waldeck Rousseau.
USS Bainbridge (DD-246) Off Constantinople, Turkey, on 16 December 1922, with 482 survivors of the French transport Vinh-Long on board. Bainbridge is flying her ensign at half-mast height, in mourning for the victims of the disaster. Donation of Frank A. Downey, 1973. NH 78344
The story flashed around the globe.
For his part in the rescue operations, Edwards, who had already earned a Navy Cross during the Great War, would receive a rare peacetime Medal of Honor, the French Legion of Honour, and the British Distinguished Service Order.
LCDR Walter Atlee Edwards, in full dress including fringed epaulets and sword, receives the Medal of Honor from President Calvin Coolidge, in ceremonies on the White House lawn, Washington, D.C., on 2 February 1924. NH 52667
His MOH citation:
For heroism in rescuing 482 men, women and children from the French military transport Vinh-Long, destroyed by fire in the Sea of Marmora, Turkey, on 16 December 1922. Lt. Comdr. Edwards, commanding the U.S.S. Bainbridge, placed his vessel alongside the bow of the transport and, in spite of several violent explosions which occurred on the burning vessel, maintained his ship in that position until all who were alive were taken on board. Of a total of 495 on board, 482 were rescued by his coolness, judgment and professional skill, which were combined with a degree of heroism that must reflect new glory on the U.S. Navy.
No rest
Remaining in Turkish waters until after the Lausanne Conference wrapped, Bainbridge returned home from her epic first deployment in June 1923, a month before the Lausanne Treaty was finally signed. She would spend the next two decades heavily involved in a series of exercises, fleet problems, training cycles, protecting American interests “during Latin American political turmoil” as noted by DANFS, and supporting the Marines during the various Banana Wars in Central America. In this myriad of taskings, she ranged not only across the Caribbean and South Atlantic but into the Pacific as far north as Alaska.
USS Bainbridge (DD-246) Underway at sea, March 1924. NH 56314
USS Bainbridge (DD-246) (outboard), and USS Childs (DD-241) Backing out of drydock at the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard, Hawaii, on 6 June 1925. Note the stern depth charge racks and extensive awnings. 80-G-451211
Another of Mr. Jones’ March 1930 Boston Navy Yard snaps
One more Leslie Jones shot, this time of Bainbridge’s stern. Note the covered 5″/51 and the hanging laundry. Compared to the flags on her mast, it is definitely “party in the front, business in the back.”
USS Bainbridge (DD-246) Leaving the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Pennsylvania, 5 May 1932. Donation of Franklin Moran, 1967. NH 64555
The same day, NH 64556
Then, to free up crew for new and more modern destroyers, on 20 November 1937, Bainbridge was placed out of commission at San Diego and entered mothballs after a very hard 16-year career.
Laid up Clemson-class destroyers Barry, Bainbridge, Reuben James, Williamson, Fox, Lawrence, and Howie in San Diego before WWII
The Balloon Goes Up
Pulled out of retirement and obsolete by even 1930s standards, Bainbridge recommissioned 26 September 1939– some three weeks after Hitler’s legions marched into Poland. By early 1940, she was part of Roosevelt’s tense Neutrality Patrol in the Atlantic with an eye peeled for U-boats. This included joining in the American occupation of Iceland, escorting USS Mississippi (BB-41) and USS Wasp (CV-7) as part of TF16, and plying the hazardous waters between that Danish possession and New England.
Once the U.S. entered the war officially, Bainbridge served with TF 4, running coastwise convoys during the German Drumbeat U-boat offensive, a mission that kept her busy for the next 15 months.
USS Bainbridge (DD-246) highlines Ensign Thomas Edward Jamson to USS Santee (CVE-29), at sea in the Atlantic on 29 July 1943. He had been rescued by Bainbridge after a flight deck crash on the previous day. Note the convoy in the background. 80-G-74807
In this work, she had been extensively updated with radar, advanced listening gear, Hedgehog ASW devices, and the like.
USS Bainbridge (DD-246) view on deck, looking aft from the bow, showing the pilothouse face and foremast. Photographed at the New York Navy Yard on 17 August 1943. Note 20mm gun installed atop the pilothouse; searchlight; and radar antennas on the foremast. 19-N-50558
USS Bainbridge (DD-246) in New York Harbor, 19 August 1943. 19-N-50552
USS Bainbridge (DD-246) In New York Harbor, 19 August 1943, with the Manhattan skyline in the right distance to include the Empire State Building. Note that the ship carries a Hedgehog launcher just aft of her forward 3/50 gun. 19-N-50553
She would remain with Santee’s group until the year-end of 1943, escorting four cross-Atlantic convoys. She would also be part of the screen for the fast battleship USS Iowa (BB-61), carrying President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Allied conferences at Cairo and Teheran.
By 1944, she had returned to her role in coastal escort, roving as far south as Galveston and Gulfport, and would go on to serve as close escort/plane guard for new capital ships that were constructed on the East Coast during their shakedown cruises to the relatively safe grounds of the Caribbean before they, in turn, shipped out for the Pacific. This included work with the battleship USS Wisconsin (BB-64), the “heavy cruiser that’s not a battlecruiser” USS Alaska (CB-1), and the Essex-class fleet carriers USS Hancock (CV-19) and USS Bon Homme Richard (CV-31).
USS Bainbridge (DD-246) refueling from USS Hancock (CV-19), during the carrier’s shakedown cruise in the western Atlantic and Caribbean areas, 14 June 1944. Can you imagine what the new bluejackets on “Hanna” that had only been carrier sailors thought looking down on the swaying WWI-era tin can below? 80-G-235276
USS Bainbridge (DD-246) steaming in the Atlantic area, 23 July 1944. Note her newly applied pattern camouflage, which appears to be Measure 32, Design 3d. 80-G-237711
Finally, in mid-1945, with the Navy having literally hundreds of modern new Fletcher, Gearing, and Sumner-class destroyers, it increasingly made less and less sense to waste trained crews and resources on elderly greyhounds like Bainbridge. Therefore, on 21 July 1945, she was decommissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. Stricken before the war ended, she was scrapped by the Northern Metal Co. in November 1947.
Bainbridge earned one battle star during World War II.
The rest of the class
As for her sisters, seven Clemsons were lost at the disaster at Honda Point in 1923, and 18 (including six used by the British) were lost in WWII including one, USS Stewart (DD-224), which was famously raised by the Japanese and used in their Navy only to be recaptured by the USN and given a watery grave after the war.
The final Clemson afloat, USS Aulick (DD-258), joined the Royal Navy as HMS Burnham (H82) in 1940 as part of the “Destroyers for Bases” deal. Laid up in 1944, she was allocated for scrapping on 3 December 1948.
None are preserved and only the scattered wrecks in the Western Pacific, Honda Point, the Med and Atlantic endure.
USS Bainbridge (CGN-25) Underway in the Suez Canal on 27 February 1992, while en route to the Mediterranean Sea with the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) battle group. Photographed by CWO2 A.A. Alleyne, USN. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the Collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command.
Today’s USS Bainbridge, DDG-96, is an Arleigh Burke Flight IIA-class guided-missile destroyer, here seen conducting a missile exercise in the Kennebec River, Maine, on June 14, 2005. Photo by Paul R. Shepard, Second Mate, TSV-1 Prevail. 889711-J-YNQ63-062
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.
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The Marines have been rubber boating around, a skill they are used to as each Battalion Landing Team for years has typically included a designated “Boat Company,” trained to run about on 15-foot Combat Rubber Raiding Craft (CRRC, or “Crick”).
PHILIPPINE SEA (Feb. 2, 2021) The Ohio-class guided-missile submarine USS Ohio (SSGN 726), deployed to the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations, rendezvous with a combat rubber raiding craft, attached to U.S. Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance Company, III Marine Expedition Force (MEF), for an integration exercise off the coast of Okinawa, Japan. The exercise was part of ongoing III MEF-U.S. 7th Fleet efforts to provide flexible, forward-postured, and quick response-options to regional commanders. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Audrey M. C. Rampton)
“This training demonstrates the ability of Force Reconnaissance Marines in III MEF to operate with strategic U.S. Navy assets,” said III MEF Force Reconnaissance Company Commanding Officer Maj. Daniel Romans. “As the stand-in force in the first island chain, it is critical that Force Reconnaissance Marines are capable of being employed across a myriad of U.S. Navy platforms in order to enhance the lethality of the fleet in the littoral environment. Reconnaissance Marines have a proud history of working with submarines and we look forward to sustaining these relationships in the future.”
It is not a dramatically new concept.
On 17 August 1942, just nine months after Pearl Harbor, 211 Marines of the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion embarked aboard the submarines USS Argonaut and Nautilus crept ashore at Makin Island and did what the Raiders were meant to do– hit hard in the most unexpected area they could find and jack up a small Japanese garrison.
Reconnaissance scouts of the 1st Provisional Marine Air-Ground Task Force load into a rubber boat from Greenfish, a submarine of the Pacific fleet as they leave on a night mission against “enemy” installations on the island of Maui. The training afforded the Marines of the Task Force, which is based at the Marine Corps Air Station, Kaneohe Bay, Oahu, Territory of Hawaii, is the most versatile offered to Marines anywhere October 7, 1954. Note the classic WWII “duck hunter” camo which had by 1954 been out of use for almost a decade except for special operations units. (Sgt D.E. Reyher DEFENSE DEPT PHOTO (MARINE CORPS) A290040.)
Spectators watch from a sea wall as seamanship training craft YP-678 passes in review on the Severn River during commissioning week activities at the US Naval Academy, 5/11/1987 Photo DNST8707228 by CWO4 Walter E. Hamler
Harry Milton Beal was born Aug. 16, 1930, in Meyersdale, Pennsylvania. Not wanting any part of the coal mines, he volunteered for the Navy in 1948 as a gunner’s mate, his first duty was aboard the destroyer tender USS Shenandoah (AD-26). Sounds boring, right? So much so that Harry, after his first three-year stint was up, tried to join the circus but in the end, remained working for Uncle Sam.
Soon volunteering for more exotic duty, Harry made the ranks of the Navy’s frogmen of Underwater Demolition Team 21 in 1955 where he had a chance to “run around in swim trunks and boondockers all day.”
“President Kennedy wanted some idiots who could see lightning, hear thunder, bounce a ball off their nose and has stupid written right there and I put my hand up,” said Harry.
After retiring from the Navy in 1968 after a couple turns in Vietnam, Harry went back home to the Keystone State, where he worked for PennDOT for another 20 years.
He pushed off from the beach for the last time on 26 January, striking out for his next assignment.
The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Porter (DDG 78) entered the Black Sea on a routine patrol, January 28, 2021, while conducting multi-domain operations with a U.S. Navy P-8A aircraft from Patrol Squadron VP-46 and NATO Air Command aircraft E-3A Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS).
Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Porter (DDG-78) transits the Black Sea, Jan 28, 2021
Porter joins USS Donald Cook (DDG 75) and the Henry J. Kaiser-class underway replenishment oiler, USNS Laramie (T-AO-203) in the Black Sea to maintain maritime security alongside other NATO Allies and partners. The ships’ combined operations further strengthen interoperability and demonstrate resolve to Black Sea peace and security.
“Porter is excited to be back in the Black Sea demonstrating our continued commitment to security and stability in the region with our NATO Allies and partners,” said Cmdr. Thomas Ralston, commanding officer of Porter. “The crew and I look forward to enhancing our combined readiness and naval capability.”
Time-limited to just a 21-day stint due to the Montreux Convention, which bars warships belonging to non-riparian states from longer visits even under the invitation of Black Sea nations, the Soviets Russians typically have a bit of indigestion about U.S. Navy ships bobbing around in what they regard largely as an inland sea of theirs, much akin to how we see Lake Superior. With that, expect Russian aircraft/vessels to come “unprofessionally” close to Porter and associates in the next couple of weeks.
Warship Wednesday, Jan.27, 2021: Of Kamikazes, Space Monkeys, and Exocets
Photo by Robert Huhardeaux via Wikicommons.
Here we see the Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer USS Borie (DD-704), in all her Cold War glory, anchored off Cannes, France, circa 1963. She would have a curious and extremely active 40-year career, bookending two eras of naval warfare with some stops in between.
The Sumners, an attempt to up the firepower on the previous and highly popular Fletcher-class destroyers, mounted a half-dozen 5″/38s in a trio of dual mounts, as well as 10 21-inch torpedo tubes in a pair of five-tube turntable stations. Going past this, they were packed full of sub-busting and plane-smoking weapons as well as some decent sonar and radar sets for the era.
Sumner class layout, 1944
With 336 men crammed into a 376-foot hull, they were cramped, slower than expected (but still capable of beating 33-knots all day), and overloaded, but they are fighting ships who earned good reputations.
Speaking of reputation, the subject of our tale today was named after Adolph Edward Borie, who appreciated bespoke top hats and served for a few months as Grant’s SECNAV in 1869.
Honorable Adolph E. Borie, Secretary of the Navy, and his top hat. Matthew Brady photograph via the LOC
The first ship to carry the former SECNAV’s name was the Clemson-class four-piper tin can, Destroyer No. 215, which joined the fleet in 1920, some 40 years after Mr. Borie’s passing. Earning three battle stars and a Presidential Unit Citation, on All Saints Day 1943, DD-215 rammed and sank the surfaced German submarine U-405 in the North Atlantic. With 27 men lost and too badly damaged by the collision to be towed to port, Borie was scuttled by USS Barry (DD-248) the next day.
Painting of the action between USS Borie (DD-215) and German submarine U-405 in the Atlantic, 1 November 1943. Borie rammed and sank the U-Boat but was so badly damaged that she had to be scuttled. Painting by US Coast Guard artist Hunter Wood, 1943. 80-G-43655
The second Borie, our Sumner-class destroyer, was constructed at Federal Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co., Kearny, N.J.; and commissioned 21 September 1944.
By 24 January 1945, she had completed shakedown trials and shipped to the Pacific, announcing her arrival with the fleet in a bombardment of Iwo Jima that day while part of DESRON 62’s Destroyer Division 124, a group of brand-new Sumners that besides Borie counted USS John W. Weeks (DD-701) and USS Hank (DD-702).
Joining Task Force 58, acting as an escort for the battleships USS New Jersey and South Dakota as well as the carriers Bunker Hill and Essex, they carried out a raid on the Tokyo area in February before switching to the push on Okinawa. This included a close-in destroyer raid on Japanese airstrips on the night of 27/28 March via shore bombardment and star shell illumination.
“After three minutes of rapid salvoes, fires were observed in the vicinity of the airstrips. March proved to be a fighting moth for the Borie with almost continual picket and screening duty with the powerful “58” that was striking Japan a blow from which she would never recover,” noted her war history.
However, she was soon sidelined after smashing into Essex on 2 April while transferring pilots and mail via breeches buoy in heavy seas, demolishing her aft stack, one of her 40mm mounts, and “bending the mast at a crazy angle.”
USS Borie (DD 704) collides with USS Essex (CV 9) while transferring the mail during a storm. Damage to Borie was light and the ship was still operational on 2 April 1945. Note damage to the smokestack. 80-G-373755
Sent to Ulithi for repairs, she returned to Spruance’s merry band on 1 May. Assigned to nearly perpetual radar picket duty against kamikazes, alternating with more shore bombardment runs on Minami Daito Jima, Borie also clocked in as needed for lifeguard duty, plucking one of the battleship USS Alabama‘s Kingfisher pilots from the drink on 23 June and returning him home. She would later pick up an F6F pilot as well as two crewmen of a downed SB2C while tagging along on a carrier air strike against Kyushu.
Then came the afternoon of 9 August– notably just six days before the Japanese surrender. On that day, the four tin cans of Destroyer Division 124 were on radar picket duty just off the Japanese port of Sendai, just hours after a USAAF B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, a force of five Imperial Navy Aichi B7A Grace torpedo bombers came out looking for some payback.
At 1454, somehow the first B7A Grace reached the picket group undetected and without being engaged by combat air patrol fighters. Despite the surprise, the destroyers opened fire and the Grace was hit multiple times but kept on coming. The damaged Grace flew right over Hank at low altitude as fuel pouring from perforated fuel tanks soaked the destroyer’s bridge crew in gasoline. The plane then went into a sharp bank and came in on Borie from the port quarter. The Grace released a large 1,764-pound bomb just before it crashed into Borie’s superstructure just aft of the bridge between the 5-inch gun director and the mast. This started a large fuel fire and blew many men over the side (most of whom were not recovered). Fortunately, the bomb passed clean through Borie and detonated off the starboard side, but the ship was sprayed with many bomb fragments that cut down even more men. All communications from the bridge were knocked out and control was transferred to after steering. Firefighting was complicated by 40-mm ready-use ammunition continuing to cook-off, but, finally, the fires were brought under control and, as the ship had suffered no below-the-waterline damage, she was not in danger of sinking.
Over the next hour, the other four Graces attacked the destroyers, and all were shot down without significant damage. Hank suffered one man missing and five wounded. Despite the fires and damage, Borie remained in her position in the formation and her guns continued to fire on the following Japanese aircraft. Borie’s casualties were high: 48 killed or missing and 66 wounded. Commander Adair was awarded a Silver Star for his actions in saving the ship and continuing to fight despite the severe damage.
This would also be the last battle damage suffered by the U.S. Fast Carrier Task Force.
As detailed in the destroyer’s after-action report, that afternoon alone she fired 191 5-inch, 810 40mm and 1,426 20mm shells at her attackers.
One of the first ships to respond to the stricken Borie, Alabama transferred a medical party to the destroyer in payback for her Kingfisher pilot.
Borie Kamikaze damage
Her men buried at sea were the last lost to the Divine Wind
USS Borie (DD-704) at Saipan in late August 1945, after being damaged by a kamikaze off Japan on August 9. Note wreckage at fore stack and bridge. It was after transferring her wounded to the hospital ship Rescue and while heading to Saipan for emergency repairs that her radio shack picked up the flash that Japan had surrendered. NH 74693
Heading to Hunter’s Point for more permanent repairs, by February 1946 peace had settled on the world, and Borie, made new again, was dispatched to join the Atlantic Fleet. She received three battle stars for her World War II services.
As a sobering aspect, she was luckier than several of her sisters. Between December 1944 and May 1945, USS Cooper, USS Mannert L. Abele, and USS Drexler were all sunk in the Pacific– the latter two by kamikazes.
Jane’s entry for the class in 1946.
The Cold (and sometimes hot) War
Shipping back to the Pacific in 1950, Borie earned four battle stars for her participation in the Korean conflict as part of TF 77, proving key in the Hungnam Evacuation of Chosin survivors. She also supported the Marines at Wonsan and was the only NGFS available to cover the U.S. Army landing at Iwon. Finally, Borie was near the beach for the second Inchon landing.
She was also a familiar sight in the Med, where she helped evacuate American citizens and UN truce teams from Israel and Egypt in 1956. It was then that she was the first U.S. warship through the Suez Canal after its nationalization by Nasser.
Borie, like many ships, also clocked in as a recovery vessel for NASA.
Before Alan Shepard lifted off on Freedom 7 in 1961 and became the first American astronaut in space, there were over 20 unmanned Program Mercury launches with boilerplate capsules and animals. The one most related to Borie was that of a seven-pound rhesus macaque named Sam who hailed from the U.S. Air Force School of Aviation Medicine at Brooks Air Force Base in Texas.
Sam was locked into a restraining couch then buckled into an erector-set-like cradle in the capsule of a boilerplate Mercury vehicle dubbed Little Joe 2 (LJ-2). Lit off from Wallops Island, Virginia on 4 December 1959, Sam flew 194 statute miles, reaching a suborbital altitude of 53 miles above ground, and did so in just 11 minutes, 6 seconds, which works out to a max speed of 4,466 miles per hour, grabbing over 14 G in the process.
The same type of rocket fired the next month: LITTLE JOE IV LAUNCH, 1/21/60, FROM WALLOPS ISLAND, VIRGINIA. LAUNCH VEHICLE-LITTLE JOE SUBORBITAL MERCURY CAPSULE TEST, MONKEY “MISS SAM” USED. REF: NASA HG LITTLE JOE 1/13. (MIX FILE)
And the little guy made it, landing in 20-foot seas while Borie made for the splashdown site, arriving “several hours later.”
“The monkey was inside in a large aluminum can, which was bolted down. We took the top off, and I crooked my finger and put it down in there. He took a hold of it. So, we got some [diagonal wire cutters] to cut him out of his contour couch. I set him down and told the chief petty officer to go get some apples and oranges. The monkey was hungry. He ate up most of the oranges.”
“After his ride in the Little Joe 2 Spacecraft, Sam the Monkey is safely aboard a U.S. Navy destroyer,” NASA photo via Johnson Space Center.
Other notable recoveries that Borie was a part of was Gemini VI-A in 1965– carrying Wally Schirra and Thomas Stafford– although our destroyer was in a supporting role to USS Wasp.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
FRAM!
Noting that their WWII-era destroyers were increasingly anachronistic against nuclear-powered submarines and jet aircraft, the Navy in the late 1950s/early 1960s embarked on a sweeping Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization program. As part of it, no less than 33 Sumners were given the FRAM II treatment while others received the less invasive FRAM I upgrade. Borie picked her modernization in 1961, just in time to take part in the Quarantine of Cuba during the Missile Crisis.
Gone were the myriad of anti-aircraft guns, 21-inch torpedo tubes, depth charges, and obsolete sensors. Added was an AN/SQS-29 fixed sonar dome on the bottom of the bow, an AN/SQR-10 variable depth towed sonar on the stern, Mk. 32 ASW torpedo tubes amidships, a stubby helicopter deck for QH-50 DASH drones in place of the aft torpedo tube station, lots of EQ antennas, and a big SPS-40 surface search radar.
1968 Charleston Naval Shipyard plans for USS Allen M. Sumner (DD-692), Borie’s FRAM II sister/class leader. Via DD692.com. Click to big up.
Borie post-FRAM underway at sea, June 1968. NH 107165
Borie at sea, pounding in hard, as the class was notorious for. Note the AS-1018/URC UHF antenna on the forward mount and broadband whip antenna receiver on the No. 2 mount.
USS Borie (DD-704), post FRAM
A Navy Memorial Interview with a radioman who was part of her crew at the time:
Showing up for her third war, the destroyer made for Vietnam where she worked as part of the Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club, delivering over 7,000 rounds of naval gunfire support against NVA and VC targets ashore in a repeat of her 1944-45 and 1950-51 days.
By 1969, she was back home from the gunline and placed in semi-retirement as an NRF training vessel for reservists, a role she maintained until 1972, at which point the Navy had tired of the class.
Entering Argentine service as the ARA Hipolito Bouchard (DD-26) in honor of the Latin American corsair of the same name, Borie was modernized in 1978 to include a four-pack of MM38 Exocet anti-ship missiles and a French-made Aerospatiale SA-319B Allouette III in place of a Sea Sprite/OH-50.
Argentine Sumners, 1978. Note the Exocets between the stacks of the closest destroyer. Photo via Histamar
During the Falklands conflict, at one point it was thought that the Bouchard and her sisters could close within 20 miles of the British fleet and ripple off their Exocets, then beat feet. Thankfully for their crews, this crash test dummy plan was not attempted. Photo Via Histarmar
Via Histamar
She was a proud vessel and served more than a solid decade on active service with the Argentine fleet.
When the Falklands conflict erupted, Borie/Bouchard and her sister Collett/Piedra Buena were assigned escort duty for the Argentine carrier Veinticinco de Mayo during the initial invasion of Port Stanley on 2 April 1982. Soon after, the two destroyers picked up screening duty for the pride of the fleet, the Brooklyn-class light cruiser ARA General Belgrano (ex-USS Phoenix).
What the two dated destroyers didn’t know was that a very quiet British hunter-killer, the Churchill-class SSN HMS Conqueror (S48), stalked Belgrano for three days before her skipper was cleared to splash the 12,500-ton Pearl Harbor veteran. Firing a trio of appropriately WWII-era Mk 8 mod 4 torpedoes rather than the new and unproved Mk 24 Tigerfish, two hit the Argentine cruiser and sent her to the bottom, making Conqueror the sole nuclear-powered submarine to have a combat kill (so far) in history.
By many accounts, Borie/Bouchard was hit by the third British Mk 8, which luckily for her did not explode, but did cause flooding and hull fissures. Together with Collett/Piedra Buena and a passing Chilean vessel, they stood by a rescued 772 men from the Belgrano.
Her fourth war over, Borie/Bouchard was deactivated in early 1984 at Puerto Belgrano and on 15 November 1988 was authorized to be used as a naval target for airstrikes.
While repeatedly mentioned as being scrapped in 1984 by U.S. sources, several images are circulating that contend the vessel, in hulked and holed condition, was still around in the shallows near Puerto Belgrano as late as 1992 and perhaps beyond.
Either way, she may have outlived her old foe Conqueror in usefulness, as the submarine was decommissioned in 1990.
The last two Sumners in foreign service– USS Stormes (DD-780) and USS Zellars (DD-777) — were used by the Shah until 1979 and then inherited by the modern Islamic Republic of Iran Navy who retained them in a semi-active state into the mid-1990s.
Of note, the only Sumner retained in the U.S. as a museum ship, USS Laffey (DD-724) located at Patriots Point in Charleston, South Carolina, is a FRAM II vessel like Borie.
USS Laffey, DD-724 as a museum ship today
As for Sam, the intrepid space monkey that Borie fished from the Atlantic during the Eisenhower administration, according to a 2017 story by Richard A. Marini published in the San Antonio Express-News:
Sam underwent 11 years of medical scrutiny by researchers at the School of Aerospace Medicine — formerly the School of Aviation Medicine — at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio. He retired to a quiet life at the San Antonio Zoo.
“Sam died Sept. 19, 1978, at 21, several years short of the expected rhesus monkey lifespan,” the Express-News reports. “Even after death, Sam served the cause. A necropsy performed at Brooks found no space-related abnormalities, only that Sam had signs of old age and arthritis.”
Specs: Displacement: 2610 tons standard displacement Length: 376’6″ Beam 40’10” Draft 14’2″ Machinery: 2-shaft G.E.C. geared turbines (60,000 shp), 4 Babcock & Wilcox boilers Maximum speed (designed) 36.5 knots, actual usually about 33. Range: 3300 nautical miles (5300 km) at 20 knots on 504 tons fuel oil Complement: 336 Sensors: SC air search radar, SG surface search radar, QGA sonar Post FRAM II: Variable Depth Sonar (VDS), SQS-20, SPS-40 Armament 3 x 2 5″/38 dual-purpose guns 2 x 4, 2×2 40mm Bofors AA guns 11 20mm Oerlikon AA guns 2 x 5 21″ torpedo tubes 6 depth charge throwers 2 depth charge tracks (56 depth charges) (1961, post-FRAM-II) 6 x 5 in/38 cal guns (127 mm) (in 3 × 2 Mk 38 DP mounts) 2 x triple Mark 32 torpedo tubes for Mark 44 torpedoes 2 x single 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes for Mark 37 torpedoes 1 x Drone Anti-Submarine Helicopter (DASH) (1982) 6 x 5 in/38 cal guns (127 mm) (in 3 × 2 Mk 38 DP mounts) 2 x triple Mark 32 torpedo tubes for Mark 44 torpedoes 4 x MM38 Exocet AShMs 1 x SA-319B helicopter
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