A Douglas A-1 Skyraider piloted by 26-year-old LT(j.g.) William T. Patton from the “Thunderbolts” of Attack Squadron 176 (VA-176) off USS Intrepid (CVS 11)bagged an NVAF MiG-17 over Vietnam. It was at least the second victory scored by a propeller-driven Skyraider against a MiG, following a 1965 dogfight between MiGs and Spads from VA-25 off USS Midway.
U.S. Navy Douglas A-1J Skyraider (BuNo 142028) of VA-176 “Thunderbolts” with the AK tail flash tagging it to Attack Carrier Air Wing 10 (CVW-10) aboard the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid (CVS-11), during her 4 April to 21 November 1966 Vietnam deployment. U.S. Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation photo No. 1996.253.2886
Though officially an ASW carrier, Intrepid carried out three Vietnam cruises as a fairly conventional attack carrier, with nary a S-2 Tracker or SH-3 Sea King in sight.
1966, Intrepid (CVS 11) off Vietnam with an A-1 on cat
Besides the 1966 stint mentioned above with CVW-10, she clocked in 11 May– 30 December 1967 and 4 June 1968–8 February 1969.
While the first used two squadrons of Skyraiders (VA-165 and VA-175), balanced by two of A-4B Skyhawks (VA-15 and VA-95), Intrepid’s 1967 tour saw CVW with three Skyhawk squadrons (including Sidewinder-carrying “fighter hawks” of VSF-3), one of Skyraiders, and a det of F-8C Crusaders from VF-111.
By 1968-69, the Spads had been left behind with just A-4C/E Skyhawks (three squadrons), F-8C/RF-8G Crusaders (two dets), and VAQ/VAW dets of EA-1Fs and E-1Bs.
CVW-10 was disestablished on 20 November 1969 when Intrepid went back to carrying Trackers and Sea Kings of CVSG-52 and 58 until she was decommissioned in 1974.
As for the young Lt Patton, he earned a Silver Star for the confirmed 1966 MiG shootdown and, after leaving the Navy, went into finance. He passed in 2014, aged 74, leaving two sons and a daughter behind. His family requested donations in lieu of flowers to the Intrepid Sea Air and Space Museum.
Men of the 7th Infantry Division head for the beaches of Okinawa in LVTs. 1 April, 1945. SC 205191
Marine LVTP-5 in Vietnam. From the Kenneth W. Koldys Collection (COLL/5791) at the Marine Corps History Division
The legacy AAVP7. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Jacqueline C. Arre)
The AAV, or assault amphibious vehicle, Model 7, has served with the U.S. Marine Corps since 1972, replacing the mammoth LVTP-5, adopted just after Korea and used in Vietnam. And, naturally, it continued the legacy of the 18,000 WWII-era Amtrac LVT “gators” that began entering service in July 1941.
Now the age of the amtracker has ended, as the AAV7 made its final operational employment during Exercise Sea Breeze 26 in the Black Sea.
Check out this somber requiem as the age of the tracked vehicle comes to an end in the Marines, with their tanks disbanded along with the assorted M1150 Assault Breacher Vehicle (ABV), M9 Armored Combat Earthmovers, and Armored Vehicle Launched Bridges of the Marines’ engineer battalions. The AAV7 has been replaced by just over 600 of the 8×8 Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV), which will have several roles in addition to toting Marines over the beach.
Following up on Tuesday’s post on USCG Grumman (G-38) JRF-5G Goose amphibians, what’s the rest of the story of the type’s journey in Indochina?
Twelve ex-USN JRF-5s were sold to France in 1952 and delivered to Escadrille 8.S, based at Cat-Lai (later a major Brown Water Navy base) near Saigon (Indochina).
Viet Minh War, 1954, a French Grumman Goose (JRF-5) aids the gunboats patrolling the inland waters of Indo-China. NH 79370
They were mainly used for medevac, transport, and liaison, but in a pinch were equipped with bombs and gun pods to operate in coastal and riverine interdiction.
Five additional ex-USN JRF-5s were delivered in 1954 and fielded at Tan Son Nhut, still under E 8.S.
JRF-5 Goose French Navy Aéronautique navale l’Escadrille 8.S Indochina
Once the French withdrew, four still-flyable JRF-5s were sent to the South Pacific colony of New Caledonia, while the rest were shipped to African colonies.
Goose dets endured at Alger-Maison Blanche (Algeria), where E 8.S was relocated, as well as with 27F in Senegal, flying from Ouakam and Dakar Bel-Air until 1961, when they were finally withdrawn after a Goose making a connection between Dakar and Simti crashed on take-off and caught fire at Tambacounda, Senegal, where it had stopped over, killing six, including two crew, VADM Pierre Ponchardier and his wife, and another married couple. Ponchardier was the famed founder of the French SAS B Commando in 1945 and Dinassaut 8, both of which went on to lots of sneaky para and frogmen things in Indochina.
JRF-5 Goose, French Navy 27 Flotte, F-12, in Dakar, late 1950s. This is USN BuNo 34078, which flew with Escadrille 8S as 8S-7, and was lost with Ponchardier and five others on 27 Jan 1961.
JRF-5 Goose French Navy Aéronavale l’Escadrille 8.S in Algeria late 1950s
JRF-5 Goose, French Navy, Aéronautique navale Dakar 1960
These 12 ex-USN aircraft are confirmed to Aéronautique Navale Escadrille 8S, Indochina:
Some 52 years ago this month, a high speed formation off the coast of southern California. August 1974.
We see the front runner, the Interdiction Craft Experimental (CPIC-X), in the center, flanked closely by the experimental hydrofoil USS Flagstaff (PGH-1) at the top and the Osprey class PTF (Fast Patrol Boat) 24 at the bottom.
NHHC Catalog #: K-104584
For reference, CPIC-X was a 100-foot high-performance turbine powered prototype combatant built in 1974 by Tacoma Boatbuilding Company and used as a test bed for the Emerlec 30mm mount among other installations. She was loaned to the ROK Navy for a few years then returned.
The Grumman-built Rolls Royce turbine-powered 73-foot Flagstaff entered service in 1968, was loaned to the USCG from November 1974 to March 1977, then returned with a blown engine and abandoned, fading into history around 1999.
The 95-foot Osprey class PTF-24 was among the Navy’s last PT boats and was disposed of in the 1980s, although some of her sisters have been poking around in civilian hands.
Loading a 6th Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery Regiment M107 175mm self-propelled howitzers onto USNS LST-546. Photos by David D. Lozano, B Battery 6/32ed Artillery. Cam Ranh Bay for a move to the DMZ 1971. Hattip Big Guns of the Vietnam War group on FB.
The gator, a 328-foot 1,600-ton LST-542-class tank landing ship, was a war baby, built at the Missouri Valley Bridge and Iron Company, Evansville, Indiana, and commissioned on 27 March 1944, serving in the Pacific with LST Flotilla Thirty-Seven.
In mothballs from 1946 to 1952, she was transferred to the Military Sea Transportation Service (today’s Military Sealift Command), where she served in a non-commissioned status as USNS LST-546 until 15 July 1972. With the Vietnam drawdown, she was transferred to the Philippines as BRP Surigao del Sur, first leased then sold, and served until 1988 when she was sold, presumably for breaking.
As for the 6/32ed, known as the “Proud Americans,” they constituted in July 1918 as part of the 11th Infantry Division but didn’t make it “over there” in the Great War. By 1940, as part of the 1st Infantry Division, they were back in the fray and were credited with the first artillery round fired by U.S. Artillery against an enemy in the European-African, Middle Eastern Theater in World War II: a 105mm round kicked off in Algeria at 1020 on 8 November 1942. Fighting through the rest of the war, including El Guettar and Omaha Beach, they picked up two Croix de Guerre and two Presidential Unit Citations.
The 6/32nd Artillery was deployed to Vietnam in July 1967 and provided heavy fire support throughout the conflict with its 175s and 8-inchers, earning the Meritorious Unit Citation in Vietnam while supporting 85 operations.
After returning from Vietnam in 1971, the 6th Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery was deactivated at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and remained dormant for 15 years until reactivated in 1987 when the unit converted from tubes to rocketry, equipped with the MGM-52 Lance.
In 1991, the 6-32 FA (MLRS) “Proud Americans” were the first active ATACMS-capable MLRS Battalion on the Army’s books before casing their colors in December 1993.
And, as the grandson of a Vietnam-era Fort Gordon Regular Army Signals Corps instructor (MOS 31Z5H, 31W50) with two tours in Vietnam and the two Bronze Stars and 7-starred-VSM on his DD-214 to show for it, big salute to those unsung RTOs with the PRC-25s and PRC-77s on their back, up to their chins in the rice paddies and river marsh, who were still able to smile about it.
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Warship Wednesday 19 August 2026: Ward? Is that you?
Above we see the Edsall-class destroyer escort USS Finch (DER-328), carrying another tin can’s hull numbers and still outfitted with very real depth charges, getting ready to fire her forward 3″/50 Mark 34 mount for the cameras, circa 1969. You could say she is ready for her close up.
A WWII Atlantic Convoy veteran, Finch would later serve on the big screen in the Pacific Fleet’s first battle (as well as actual occupation duty in Chinese waters).
She also had a brief Korean War career– in Coast Guard service– recommissioned from mothballs some 75 years ago this week.
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.
This all brings us to…
Meet Finch
Our subject is only the second U.S. Navy warship to carry the name of the small bird, following a small minesweeper/auxiliary seaplane tender (AM-9) built for the Great War and lost off Corregidor in the Philippines in 1942.
USS Finch (AM-9) taken in the summer of 1934, off Tsingtao, China, while serving in the U.S. Asiatic Fleet. 80-G-1025944
Speaking of lost in 1942, LT(j.g.) Joseph Warren Finch, Jr.,USNR, gave his last measure aboard the destroyer USS Laffey (DD-459) off Guadalcanal, aged just 22, when his ship was sunk in an action that earned it the Presidential Unit Citation. A Northwestern grad, LT Finch had just 17 months in the colors and Laffey was his first ship. The next Finch would be dedicated to him.
Our subject, the USS Finch (DE-328) was one of 66 Edsall-class destroyer escorts block ordered from the Consolidated Steel Corp of Orange, Texas on 7 August 1942. She was laid down on 29 June 1943, with sister USS Kretchmer (DE-329) laid down beside her the next day.
The future USS USS Finch side-launched on 28 August 1943, by sponsored by Miss Grace Gushing, the grieving fiancée of the late Lt. Finch.
Our greyhound was commissioned 13 December 1943, her construction spanning just 168 days. Her plankowner crew was commanded by LCDR Albert Henry Nienau, USNR (University of Washington, NROTC).
In all, Consolidated Steel had been contracted to build 111 DEs during the war, of which only nine were canceled. The last delivered by the Texas Gulf Coast yard was USS Jack W. Wilke (DE-800) on 7 March 1944.
War
Finchwas assigned to Escort Division 57 for convoy duty and arrived at Curacao in the Dutch West Indies the same day Wilke was delivered. She spent the next three months there, escorting large tankers from the Caribbean to Casablanca and Algiers on two convoys (OT.13 and OT.14) and back (TO.13/TO.14).
It was during this time that LCDR Nienau got orders to take over the newly commissioned sistership, USS Dufilho (DE 423), which was headed to the Pacific. Her new skipper was LCDR Clement D. LeHardy, who formerly commanded the USS PC-483 (PC-483) and USS SC-499 (SC-499).
Returning stateside in June 1944, Finch then spent three weeks at the Fleet Sound School in Key West in ASW exercises, followed by a two week overhaul at Boston Navy Yard and two more weeks of gunnery drills in Casco Bay, Maine, preparing for invasion work in Europe.
USS Finch (DE-328) off the Boston Navy Yard, 14 July 1944. Courtesy of A.D. Baker III NH 91575
Same as above NH 91574
Same as above NH 91573
She then took part in the periphery of the August 1944 Dragoon Landings in Southern France, screening troopships carrying 13,597 GIs as part of Convoy UGF.13 from Hampton Roads passed Gibraltar for the invasion, returning to the East Coast with empties in Convoy GUF.13.
Then came more cross Atlantic convoy work for the rest of the war in Europe.
This included four outbound CU convoys and five returning UC Convoys:
Convoy CU.41 (Sep 1944: NYC – Liverpool)
Convoy UC.41A (Oct 1944: Liverpool – NYC)
Convoy UC.47A (Dec 1944: Liverpool – NYC)
Convoy CU.47 (Nov 1944: NYC – Liverpool)
Convoy UC.53B (Jan 1945: Liverpool – NYC)
Convoy CU.59 (Feb 1945: NYC – Liverpool)
Convoy UC.59A (Mar 1945: Liverpool – NYC)
Convoy CU.65 (Apr 1945: NYC – Liverpool)
Convoy UC.65B (Apr 1945: Liverpool – NYC)
USS Brister (DE-327), Unknown DE, USS Finch (DE-328), USS Kretchmer (DE-329), USS Thomas J. Gary (DE-326). Marseille, France V.E. Day. No 2007.34.13, USS Slater collection.
Headed to the Pacific
After VE Day, our proven little escort ship prepared for Pacific Fleet duty, and arrived at Pearl Harbor 12 July 1945. She then sailed on to Guam, where on 13 August she joined a jeep carrier task force (CarDiv 27, with baby flattops USS Block Island, Gilbert Island, Kula Gulf and Salerno Bay), which upon the cessation of hostilities was ordered into Leyte 17 August.
On VJ+3, sisters USS Kretchmer (DE-329) and Thomas J. Gary (DE-326) arrived in Keelung (Chilung or Jilong, Formosa, now Taiwan) to pick up American POWs, joined the following day, the USS Brister (DE-327) and Finch, the low-draft tin cans being the largest vessels able to pull alongside the damaged piers. Finch would take aboard at least 221 former prisoners of war, 171 of which were later transferred to Santee. She carried the remaining 50 to Manila herself.
In all, the four ships took away about 1,200 prisoners of war and transferred most them to Block Island (CVE-106) and Santee (CVE-29) to be sent to Manila to prepare for their return home.
Finch remained in the Far East until 1 April 1946, carrying mail and inspection teams, sinking floating mines (29 Sept ’45), surviving typhoons (October), supported the landing of occupation forces on Formosa, rescuing crashed aviators while on plane guard duty (LT Jack E. Perry USMCR, off Salerno Bay, 15 October), swapping out her second skipper (LeHardy) for her third (LCDR Eugene Taylor MacDonald), and spending lots of time steaming between Guam and China.
USS Finch (DE-328) at Whangpoo River, Shanghai, China, 11 February 1946. Courtesy of Richard L. Hawkins. NH 92325
She finally returned stateside, the long way round, via the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean, completing a 10 month circumnavigation at Charleston, South Carolina on 29 May 1946.
Finch was decommissioned and placed in mothballs at Green Cove Springs, Florida on 4 October 1946, having made port calls at 63 harbors around the world in her 27 months of global service.
Finch did not earn any battle stars for her WWII service despite her 15 convoys, but was listed as eligible for the Occupation Service medal, with China service listed from 2-7 Sep 45, 12-22 Dec 45, and 1 Jan – 2 Apr 46.
Korean USCG service
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 so they wouldn’t be confused with Barnegat class AVPs in CG servcie.
Thus, USS Finch (DE-328) became USCGC Finch (WDE-428), under the command of CDR G. R. Boyce, Jr., USCG, on 24 August 1951.
USCG Finch (WDE 428) at Mare Island. She was in overhaul at the yard from 07 January to 16 April 1954. (U.S. Navy photo #DE 328 20362-3-54)
Stationed at Alameda, Finch served on all six Pacific Ocean Stations during the war: OS Uncle; 21 Jul-9 Aug 52, on OS Victor, on OS Sugar 30 Aug-18 Sep 52, on OS Queen 3 Nov-14 Dec 52; back on OS Uncle 15 Feb-8 Mar 53; on OS Nan 10-31 May 53. back to OS Victor 4-25 Aug 53; and finally on OS Sugar 4-25 Oct 53.
It was during this lonely service that, Finch, while taking a break from on Ocean Station Nan on SAR standby at Midway, unsuccessfully searched for “The Royal Hawaiian,” a downed Transocean Air Lines Flight 512 (N90806) DC-6A in July 1953.
Of the 12 DEs loaned to the Coast Guard during Korea, nine earned Korean Service Medals between 1951 and 1954, including our Finch:
USCGC Durant; WDE 489
USCGC Falgout; WDE 424
USCGC Finch; WDE 428
USCGC Forster; WDE 434
USCGC Koiner; WDE 431
USCGC Lowe; WDE 425
USCGC Newell; WDE 442
USCGC Ramsden; WDE 482
USCGC Richey; WDE 485
Finch was decommissioned the second time (the first from the USCG) on 23 April 1954, having served 32 months in CG white during the Korean era vs 27 with the Navy in WWII. She was handed over to the Navy at Mare Island Naval Shipyard.
DER days
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 Finch 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
Finch’s conversion began at Mare Island on 1 October 1955 and 10 months later, on 17 August 1956, reclassified as DER 328, recommissioned.
17 August 1956: Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, Cal. – Commissioning ceremonies for USS Finch (DER 328) at Mare Island. She was converted to her DER configuration at the yard from 01 October 1955, to 12 October 1956.
(U.S. Navy photo #DER 328 30746-8-56)
Finch as DER
With her eight skipper (sixth Navy), LCDR James Keith Athow, in command, she was assigned to Escort Squadron 5 at Seattle.
The next two years consisted of quiet seaborne radar early warning duty, shifting to Pearl Harbor in September 1958, and to Treasure Island (San Francisco) in May 1960.
The 1960 Jane’s entry for her class:
Upon the disestablishment of the floating radar barriers in 1965, when the seaward extension of early warning lines was discontinued, Finch and her sisters would have probably been decommissioned but instead the Navy found another, new, mission for them.
Vietnam
Finch made five tours off the coast of Vietnam, in support of Operation Market Time, between January 1966 and October 1968, often working alongside her DER sisters. During these deployments, the ship’s primary mission was coastal interdiction, to prevent the seaborne infiltration of weapons and supplies to enemy forces. It was lonely stints of halting and searching junks, interspersed with UNREPs every few days.
She often served as a “mother ship” for up to a half dozen U.S. Navy Swift Boats (PCFs), providing logistical and personnel support for “brown water navy” operations in the Mekong River Delta.
A typical log entry from the period:
She also occasionally provided naval gunfire support ashore with her 3-inch guns. CONGA lists 16 gunfire support records for her, mostly bunched in July 1968 off Nin Thuan, and in October 1968 off Quang Ngai. During the former she was working in conjunction with the USCGC Point Young (WPB 82303).
From her October ’68 log:
Gearing-class destroyer USS Leary (DD-879) and Edsall-class destroyer escort USS Finch (DE-328) “during a Nam cruise.” Finch was a very old girl by that time….
Finch earned six campaign stars and a Vietnam Gallantry Cross Unit Citation for her tours in Southeast Asia.
Movie Star
Shifting port to Pearl Harbor on 15 January 1969, Finch, a three-war veteran, was tapped by the company filming Tora, Tora, Tora! to portray the Wickes-class Great War-era four-piper destroyer USS Ward (DD-139), which had famously sank a Japanese midget submarine just prior to the general attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December. This included picking up the old Ward’s hull numbers, although the two ships had little else in common other than size (1,600 t /306 feet oal vs 1,300 t/314 feet).
She had previously appeared in the 1960 film, The Wackiest Ship in the Army, moored outboard of sistership USS Durant (DE-389/WDE-489/DER-389) while at Pearl.
Finch’s role in Tora, Tora, Tora!, which was released in September 1970, came while she was in her fourth (and final) stint in mothballs.
She had been decommissioned at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard on 3 October 1969 and placed in reserve where she swayed until September 1974 when, stricken seven months prior she was sold to the Levin Metals Corp. of San Jose for breaking.
Epilogue
All in all, Finch accumulated 18 years and 8 months in commission across her two Navy and one Coast Guard service stints, alternating with about 12 years in mothballs, which isn’t bad for an expendable war baby designed to survive a few convoys.
She had 18 skippers, including two who were USCG regulars. Among the most notable was her first, Al Nienau, who, as commander of the DE USS Dufilho, was one of the first rescue ships to reach the site of the USS Indianapolis survivors– ordering his men to turn on their 24-inch searchlights to facilitate the search in the inky darkness. He passed in 2004, aged 88, survived by at least “eight devoted grandchildren and eighteen loving great grandchildren.”
The Navy has not had a third USS Finch, which is a shame.
The USCG does have a cutter named Finch these days, though it recalls S2/c Florence Ebersole Smith Finch, USCGR, a WWII SPAR who clocked in on intelligence efforts in the occupied Philippines who was later captured and tortured by the Japanese.
U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Florence Finch (WPC 1157), a 154-foot Fast Response Cutter (FRC) commissioned in 2024 and based in Astoria, Oregon, and Military Sealift Command submarine support vessel USNS Eagleview (T-AGSE 3) sail alongside the Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarine USS Maine (SSBN 741) as it transits the Strait of Juan de Fuca, March 18, 2025. PA1 Steve Strohmaier
Thanks for reading!
Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive
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Some 50 years ago this month, two sister sluggers, the 8-inch-gunned heavy cruisers USS Des Moines (CA-134)and Newport News (CA-148), rest on red lead row in Philadelphia, August 1976
USN Photo K-117046.
The massive Des Moines, tipping the scales at 21,000 tons, entered the fleet in November 1948 and was laid up just 13 years later, her nine 8″/55 RF Mk 16 guns quiet after a spate of Cold War service in the Mediterranean and Europe.
Sister Newport News, commissioned 1949, had a longer career and was only laid up in June 1975, a bit over a year prior to the above image. While Des Moines served in quiet strength, Newport News raised a racket in three tours on the gunline off Vietnam, earning six battle stars, two Navy Unit Commendations, one Meritorious Unit Citation, and the Republic of Viet Nam’s Gallantry Cross.
She fired more than 50,000 major-caliber rounds on 525 missions against nearly 4,000 targets and avoided at least 1,924 enemy counter-battery rounds in 46 separate incidents.
Both ships were kept in mothballs until the Cold War ended, just in case, and were only sold for scrap in the early 1990s.
Some 60 years ago this week. A well-traveled paratrooper with good reason to wonder why.
Official caption: “14 August 1966. SP4 Ruediger Richter (Columbus, Georgia), 4th Bn., 503 Inf., 173 Abn Bde (Separate), lifts his battle-weary eyes to the heavens, as if to ask why? SGT. Daniel E. Spencer (Bend, Oregon) stares down at their fallen comrade. The day’s battle ended, they silently await the helicopter which will evacuate their comrade from the jungle-covered hills in Long Khanh Province.”
By Pfc. L. Paul Epley, 1966 National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer (111-SC-635974)
Richter, 25 years old at the time, had a long and winding history before the above image was captured. One that had included surviving Allied bombers in WWII as a youth, running away to the sea at age 14, then accepting a “join or go to prison” stint in the French Foreign Legion under a new name, before heading to America.
From a 2014 article, by which time he was a 73-year-old grandpa in Georgia, finally in a quiet time.
Born in Berlin in February 1941, when Hitler’s Nazi troops already had been marauding across Europe for years, Richter’s earliest memories are of bodies outside bombed-out bunkers and bright flares dropped by Allied bombers.
“We called them Christmas trees. They were beautiful,” he said. “You could hear the sirens going off all over Berlin.”
Richter said when the war ended in 1945 and the Allies sliced the city into sectors, he was fortunate enough to live in the American district, where GIs were a soft touch for a young German boy begging for food. With few options in Berlin, Richter said, he joined the German merchant marine at age 14. That three-year stint ended when his ship docked in Calais, France, where he and other sailors were arrested after a bar fight.
“They put us in a dungeon with water dropping down, just like in a movie. There was just a little window with bars,” he said.
After three days in lockup, a judge gave the penniless Richter a choice: Stay in prison or join the French Foreign Legion, which was battling rebels in French-controlled North Africa. He was too young to join legally at age 17, Richter said, so he was given a new name — Horst Timm — and allowed to enlist.
Richter does not know how many men he killed with the Legion, or how many night-long marches he made through Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. But after five years, he left the Legion and regained his true name. An aunt and uncle living in Columbus suggested he come to America to restart his life, so he did in 1964.
Richter grew bored with his job constructing helicopter landing pads, so he enlisted in the Army in 1965.
Sent “down south” during the height of the Cuban Revolution, their 24 FJ-2 Furies flew 1,300 flight hours of diplomacy and fired over 110,743 rounds in air-to-air target quals from their Colt Mk 12 cannons– that’s a lot of 20 Mike Mike!
VMF-312 hung up their FJ-2/3s for the F8U-1 Crusader in 1959, then became VMFA-312 when they moved to the monstrous F-4B Phantom in 1966, which they took to Vietnam.
In 1987, they became F-18C/Ds drivers, which they took to Bosnia and Iraq.
A U.S. Marine Corps F/A-18C Hornet aircraft with Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 312 flies loaded with six AIM-120D advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles and two AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles over the Pacific Ocean Oct. 27, 2022. (U.S. Marine Corps courtesy photo by Capt. Ryan Fronczek).
Currently, they are set to transition to the STOVL F-35B.
Word is, they are still a whizz with the 20mm. Some things never change.
