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

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Warship Wednesday, August 27, 2025: A Tour of the Bay

Photo by Sub-Lieutenant E R Jones, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, Imperial War Museum catalog # A 30447

Above we see the “battle bowler” clad Lt. R M Howe, DSC, RN, explaining the plan of landing to his platoon of armed sailors and Royal Marines drawn from British Pacific Fleet warships before they disembark from the Buckley-class destroyer escort turned high-speed transport USS Sims (APD-50) into waiting LCVP landing craft to occupy the Japanese Coastal Forts at the entrance to Tokyo Bay on the morning of 30 August 1945, some 80 years ago this month. The item over Howe’s shoulder is one of Sim’s davits.

Knowing the background of the escort’s namesake, the joint operation should be of no surprise.

The Buckleys

With some 154 hulls ordered, the Buckleys were intended to be cranked out in bulk to counter the swarms of Axis submarines prowling the seas.

Just 306 feet overall, they were about the size of a medium-ish Coast Guard cutter today but packed a lot more armament, namely three 3″/50 DP guns in open mounts, a secondary battery of 1.1-inch (or 40mm), and 20mm AAA guns, and three 21-inch torpedo tubes in a triple mount for taking out enemy surface ships.

Then there was the formidable ASW suite to include stern depth charge racks, eight depth charge throwers, and a Hedgehog system.

Powered by responsive electric motors fed by steam turbines, they could make 24 knots and were extremely maneuverable.

Meet Sims

Our ship was the second greyhound named after ADM William Sowden Sims (USNA 1880), the Canadian-born officer who commanded all United States naval forces operating in Europe during the Great War.

He was the epitome of a “joint warrior” before such a thing was in vogue, often bending over backwards to keep his British and French allies happy.

Our humble ship followed the path blazed by a pre-war destroyer, the Bath-built USS Sims (DD-409), which commissioned on 1 August 1939.

USS Sims (DD-409) Off the Kennebec River, Maine, during her builder’s trials, 6 July 1939. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives. 19-N-20822

After neutrality patrols, DD-409 was sent to the Pacific and became part of TF 17, the screen for the famed carrier USS Yorktown. She was with Yorktown at the Battle of the Coral Sea and took seven bomb hits and a dived Japanese plane to the stern, sent to the bottom after a magazine explosion that left but 13 survivors.

The second Sims was laid down on 7 September 1942 at the Norfolk Navy Yard and launched five months later, sponsored by Mrs. Anne Erwin Sims (nee Hitchcock), the widow of the late Admiral Sims. She had also sponsored the DD-409 four years prior.

Sims and her sister USS Reuben James (DE-153) were the only members of their class to carry the same armament as Buckley, to include a quad 28mm/75 Mk 1 “Chicago Piano” instead of a more effective twin or quad 40mm Bofors mount. The rest of the armament included the same triple 3″/50 DP singles in open, largely unprotected mounts, six 20mm Oerlikons, three 21-inch torpedo tubes, a Hedgehog Mk 10 ASWRL, and an impressive depth charge array.

Sims was commissioned on 24 April 1943 and was soon put to work.

Fighting U-boats across the Atlantic

4 October 1943, USS Sims moored at Pier C of the Brooklyn Navy Yard with the newly commissioned USS Reybold (DE 177) tied up on her port side. Sims had arrived in the Navy Yard on 28 September for scheduled maintenance and repair between convoys. 19LCM-dd68

USS Sims (DE 154) in New York Harbor, 17 April 1944, with a commercial barge and harbor tug alongside. 19-N-64416

USS Sims (DE 154) in New York Harbor, 17 April 1944, with a commercial barge and harbor tug alongside. 19-N-64418

A great stern shot at the same location and date as above, showing off the details of her ASW gear to include two chock-full Mk9 depth charge racks and eight Mk6 K-gun projectors. 19-N-64419

USS Sims (DE-154) in New York Harbor, 17 April 1944. Note the quad 1.1-inch “Chicago Piano” AAA mount just past her stern, No. 3, 3″/50, and her triple Mk15 torpedo tube turnstile amidships. 19-N-64417

After fitting out, Sims completed her shakedown cruise off Bermuda and then was assigned to Task Group (TG) 21.6, tasked with escorting vital tankers in large “CU” convoys from Curacao in the Dutch East Indies (later New York), across the Atlantic to Londonderry/Liverpool, with the return reverse runs being dubbed “UC” convoys.

She made 20 of these runs between July 1943 and September 1944, typically with at least five other DD/DEs:

• CU 003 (11/07/43-24/07/43)
• UC 003A (30/07/43-10/08/43)
• CU 004 (26/08/43 09/09/43)
• UC 004 (15/09/43-27/09/43)
• CU 005 (13/10/43-24/10/43)
• UC 005 (30/10/43-09/11/43)
• CU 008 (02/12/43-13/12/43)
• UC 008 (18/12/43-02/01/44)
• CU 012 (19/01/44-30/01/44)
• UC 012 (07/02/44-18/02/44)
• CU 017 (10/03/44-20/03/44)
• UC 017 (27/03/44-07/04/44)
• CU 022 (24/04/44 06/05/44)
• UC 022 (10/05/44-20/05/44)
• CU 027 (08/06/44-18/06/44)
• UC 027 (23/06/44-04/07/44)
• CU 032 (19/07/44-29/07/44)
• UC 032 (03/08/44-14/08/44)
• CU 037 (27/08/44-07/09/44)
• UC 037 (12/09/44-23/09/44)

The toughest of these was CU-17, a ten-day West-East slog from New York to Liverpool in March 1944. Shipping out with 22 merchantmen, mostly tankers but with the addition of the troop-filled U.S. Army Transport George S. Simonds, six tin cans, and the Bouge/Attacker class jeep carrier HMS Premier (D23), escorted the convoy.

The only convoy that Sims rode shotgun on that lost a ship, on 19 March, just West of Lands’ End, the German Type VIIC submarine U-311 (Kptlt. Joachim Zander) somehow found itself among the convoy and fired fish into the armed American tanker SS Seakay (10,342 tons), with one of her Navy Guard members killed. Wallowing, she was evacuated and later sent to the bottom with 14,000 tons of vapor oil and 14 aircraft (stored on deck).

Sims and her fellow greyhound pursued Zander and his U-boat relentlessly, but to no avail.

From Sim’s report:

Instead, Zander was boxed in by the Canadian frigates HMCS Matane and HMCS Swansea southwest of Ireland a few weeks later, and U-311 was sent to the bottom, with all hands. Seakay had been the sub’s (and Zander’s) only victim.

USS Sims (DE-154) Underway at sea, circa 1944. NH 107614

Sent to take on the Emperor

Sims became one of the most well-traveled of her class. Whereas most either served in the Atlantic or the Pacific during WWII, Sims got plenty of both.

On 23 September 1944, Sims entered the Boston Navy Yard for conversion into a high-speed transport, or APD. This resulted in her landing all her 3-inch guns, her torpedo tubes, her Hedgehogs, and her K-guns (leaving the stern depth charge racks). She gained a single 5″/38 Mk 12 mount forward as well as two twin 40mm Bofors. Also added were large davits supporting four 36-foot LCVP Higgins boats, and her crew berthing was modified to carry 162 troops in cramped, temporary conditions, even for the 1940s.

Clad in mottled green Measure 31 camouflage, she became a “Green Dragon.” The Navy wanted to convert 50 Buckleys to this spec, but only managed 37 before the end of the war.

The work completed, Sims (now APD-50) departed Boston on 6 December 1944 for Norfolk, where she was used as an amphibious training ship near Little Creek for the next seven weeks.

Shipping out for the Pacific, she arrived at Pearl Harbor on 20 February 1945.

U.S. Navy high-speed transport USS Sims (APD-50) at anchor, circa 1945. She is painted in Camouflage Measure 31, Design 20L. Note her davits and single 5-inch gun. Photo via Navsource

Moving forward for the Okinawa landings, Sims was assigned to TF 51 (CTG 51.5) and on 27 March 1945 sailed from Leyte as an escort for Transport Group Dog. She spent most of the next month supporting the landings, performing ASW patrols, scanning for frequent enemy air attacks, sinking floating mines with gunfire, and rescuing souls at sea (Ensign E.G. Johnson, blown off the cargo ship USS Tyrell on 2 April). During this period, Sims fired 64 rounds of 5-inch, 731 of 40mm, and 1,002 of 20mm, claiming two enemy aircraft downed.

In May, she became the flagship of Capt. J.M. Kennaday, USN, Commander of Transport Division 105, continued more of the same.

The work was hazardous in the extreme.

During a six-week stint off Okinawa, no less than 10 Buckleys were damaged by Japanese aircraft and kamikazes, including one, USS England, which was so heavily damaged that she was never repaired. An 11th, USS Gendreau, was severely damaged by Japanese coastal guns during the same period. Sims was one of these 11, having fought off two kamikazes on 24 May whose near misses remarkably left her with only some popped seams, an oil leak, and 11 injured, four seriously.

A 12th Buckley, USS Bates, was sunk when she was hit by a cluster of three kamikazes at Okinawa on 25 May 1945.

The same day that Bates sank, Sims went to the aid of the damaged, burning, and abandoned USS Barry (APD-29), an old Clemson-class destroyer turned Green Dragon. A volunteer DC boarding party of two officers and 10 men from Sims went aboard and extinguished the blaze in a little over two hours. Later towed to Kerama Retto to be used as a decoy for the kamikazes, the unmanned Barry was sunk there on June 21 by suicide planes.

Meanwhile, Sims returned to Leyte via Saipan in early June to effect repairs, then was back on the line off Okinawa on the 26th, returning to service as Kennaday’s flag. In her stint off Okinawa in May, she fired 32 rounds of 5-inch, 575 rounds of 40mm, and 516 rounds of 20mm in anti-air operations.

Kennaday provided the following accolades:

Tokyo Bay

On 13 August, Sims, with Kennaday aboard, proceeded to Buckner Bay for supplies, then the next morning left with five other APDs– USS Barr, Pavlic, Bass, Wantuck, and Runels, to form Task Unit 30.3.6, shifting to Third Fleet command. The task: prepare for the Tokyo Bay Occupation. 

British Pacific Fleet elements attached to the Third Fleet organized a light company-sized landing force– of 22 officers and 120 enlisted, mixed Royal Marines and Tars– to occupy the coastal forts and batteries ringing Sagami Bay, located south of Tokyo Bay, and the island of Azuma.

Sims was detailed as their chariot, and on 20 August, she dispatched her landing craft alongside the battleship HMS King George V, and the Australian destroyers HMAS Nizam and HMAS Napier. The men collected from KGV included a contingent of Kiwi sailors from the cruiser HMNZS Gambia that had been cross-decked to the battlewagon. The force also included a team of Commonwealth war correspondents, which means the images of the event made it into the Imperial War Museum and the Australian War Memorial.

HMS King George V, with LCVPs headed to USS Sims

At sea off Japan, 20 August 1945. Members of the British Landing Force embarking from HMS King George V for USS Sims, which was to ferry them ashore. Sub Lieutenant Leary of HMAS Nizam is in the foreground. (Photographer Capt. J. C. Goodchild). AWM 121207

Sagami Bay, Japan. c. September 1945. LCDR George R. Davis-Goff RNZN, from the cruiser  HMNZS Gambia, is addressing men of the British Landing Force on the quarterdeck of their transport USS Sims, only a few hundred yards from the shores of Sagami Bay. The white flag flying on the point in the background denotes the position of a gun emplacement surrendered by the enemy. AWM 019231

A chow line on Sims. Note the beret-clad Royal Marines contrasting against the assorted Commonwealth sailors

The enlisted Commonwealth contingents were excited about the landing as the tars escaped an all-hands call to paint their ships’ upperworks in an effort to remove the signs that the ships had been at sea for a long time. Plus, they were the tip of the occupation force.

Sagami Bay, Japan. Australian Naval personnel took the first snapshots of the Japanese mainland as seen from the decks of their transport USS Sims. There was a rush for cameras to record souvenirs of their first glimpse of the enemy’s territory, as the ship drew near the shores of Sagami Bay. Pictured, left to right: Leading Seaman Ken Edgerton of Orange, NSW; Able Seaman (Ab) Bob Skinner of Underdale, SA; AB Cliff Howard of Alberton East, SA; AB Colin Llewellyn of Cooroy, Qld; AB Bill Ives of Bathurst, NSW, and kneeling, AB Bruce Hazard of Caulfield, Vic. All are members of the destroyer HMAS Napier. AWM 019429

At sea off Japan, 1945-08-27. British landing force personnel on the forecastle of the destroyer USS Sims. Note her new 5″/38. (Photographer, Captain J. C. Goodchild) AWM 121192

New Zealand sailors, comprising part of the British Landing Force, lined up on the quarterdeck of their transport USS Sims before landing on Yokosuka, the largest naval base in Japan, situated in Tokyo Bay. In the background can be seen the gutted Japanese battleship Nagato, once a powerful flagship of the Japanese Navy. A carrier-based plane can also be seen flying overhead. AWM 019233

Capt. Herbert James Buchanan, DSO, RAN, who oversaw the British landing force, watching the party preparing to disembark from Sims. Buchannan, an Australian who joined the Navy as a cadet in 1915, earned his DSO at Dunkirk after his command, the destroyer HMS Valentine, was bombed and sunk by Junkers 87 Stuka dive bombers, leaving him and his crew ashore to organize beach control parties during the evacuation. He had later commanded the destroyers HMS Vanity and HMAS Norman and Napier, the latter of which brought him to Tokyo Bay, IWM (A 30445)

British platoons on the deck of the Sims are preparing to go ashore. IWM (A 30446)

Landing party disembarking from USS Sims to LCVPs IWM (A 30448).

And in the Higgins boats. IWM (A 30449)

The British landing party from USS Sims is taking over one of the Japanese forts. IWM A 30450

Continuing her work with the Occupation Forces, on 30 August, working with fellow APD USS Pavlic, Sims embarked Love Company, 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines Regiment, under Major Wallace L. Crawford, and landed them first on Green Beach in Tokyo Bay then, reembarking them on 1 September, took them to Tateyama Naval Air Station on the northeastern shore of Sagami Wan to accept its surrender, reconnoiter the beach approaches for follow-on Army troops, and to make sure the Japanese aircraft there were disabled. Importantly, the “Old Fourth” had been chosen for this task by MacArthur as the regiment had been part of the 1942 Bataan Campaign.

Following the official surrender ceremony on 2 September, Sims brought L/3/4 back to Green Beach on 3 September once they were relieved at Tateyama by the Eighth Army’s 112th Cavalry Regiment.

Sims continued to operate in Japanese waters for the next three months before being ordered stateside, arriving at San Diego with 208 assorted GI and Navy passengers on 17 December, just in time for Christmas.

For her 20 convoys, pursuit of U-317, Okinawa actions, and Tokyo Bay mission, she earned a grand total of one battle star.

Cold War mothballs

Sims was sent through the Panama Canal, destined to be decommissioned at Green Cove Springs, Florida, on 24 April 1946, and was then placed in the Atlantic Reserve Fleet.

Beyond the 37 APD conversions, the Navy converted others of the class, including USS Foss, Marsh, Wiseman, and Whitehurst, which were rigged as power supply ships with two large reels for power cables amidships.

Seven others became radar pickets (DER) with the addition of large air search radar sets on a second mast, while USS Cronin, Frybarger, and Raby were redesignated DEC (escort vessels, control) to guide landing craft to beaches. USS Vammen was converted to a DE (A/S) for testing new anti-submarine warfare sensors and weapons, while USS Francis M. Robinson, Jack W. Wilke, and Malay became EDEs (experimental destroyer escorts) for a time for much the same purpose.

Of the 46 Buckleys loaned to the Royal Navy during the war as the Captain-class, six were lost. Of the USN-operated vessels, USS Fechteler and Underhill were lost in action, as was one wartime APD conversion, USS Bates (APD 47, ex-DE 68).

The Navy retained nearly 100 Buckleys of all types on the Navy List into the early 1960s– but most were in mothballs– and then began whittling them down, with some transferred and the rest scrapped or sunk (12) as targets.

Jane’s 1960 APDs converted destroyer escorts, of both the Buckley and other classes, with Sims listed as a 1960 disposal.

The final Buckley on active duty with the Navy was Wiseman, decommissioned in 1965, while some were retained as pier-side naval reserve training ships as late as 1969. The last five members of the class were removed from Navy custody in 1974– not a bad run for “disposable” ships.

The Navy deleted the “DE” classification in 1975.

Sims, hulked, was sold to the North American Smelting Co. of Wilmington, Delaware, on 14 April 1961 and scrapped.

In a perhaps poignant touch, ADM Sims’ widow, Anne, passed in 1960, the year before the second destroyer to carry his name was sold for scrap. She was 85 and was buried next to her husband at Arlington National Cemetery. The U.S. Naval War College Archives maintain the Sims’ papers.

Epilogue

Today, little remains of Sims other than her logs and reports in the National Archives. 

Lt Howe, pictured in the first photo, became a regular and retired from the Royal Navy in April 1958 as an LCDR.

Capt. Buchanan, the Dunkirk hero who commanded the Commonwealth landing force that occupied Yokosuka and the Tokyo Bay coastal forts from the deck of Sims, joined the staff of Admiral Sir Louis Hamilton. He then later commanded the cruisers HMAS Shropshire and Australia. He received a CBE and retired as a rear admiral in 1957 and passed in Sydney in 1965, aged 63.

Post-war, the Navy recycled our ship’s name for the new Knox-class destroyer escort USS W. S. Sims (DE-1059, later FF-1059), commissioned in 1970. She served 21 honorable years and was decommissioned in 1991, then later transferred to Turkey for use as a floating spare parts platform for that NATO ally’s surplus Knoxes.

USS W.S. Sims (FF-1059) underway in the Mediterranean Sea, June 1987. Photographer: PH2 Hensley. DNSC8709254. National Archives Identifier 6418455

It is beyond past time for a new destroyer, the fourth, to carry the name Sims.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

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