Category Archives: World War Two

Joker’s Wild

Posted on by Leave a comment

It happened 80 years ago today.

Mindanao Operations, Philippines, 1945. Original period Kodachrome. Official caption: “PT boats speed through Polloc Harbor, Mindanao, while supporting landings there, 17 April 1945.”

The boat in the background appears to be PT-150. Note the twin .50cal machine gun in the foreground and 40mm/60 Bofors single over the stern.

NARA 80-G-K-4342 via NHHC

An 80-foot Elco boat, PT-150 (dubbed at various times by her crew as Lady Lucifer, Princessr, and Joker) was built by EB in Bayonne in 1942 and shipped to the Southwest Pacific to join Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron EIGHT (MTBRon 8). After seeing action in New Guinea- they fired a torpedo that missed the Japanese submarine I-17 but managed to strafe the conning tower with .50 cal before it submerged- the mosquito boat became part of MTBRon 12, a squadron that earned a Presidential Unit Citation.

Following operations in the Philippines, she was burned along with dozens of her type there in Samar in October 1945.

Warship Wednesday, April 16, 2025: Missile Can Number One

Posted on by Leave a comment

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

If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi . As Henk says, “Warship Coffee – no sugar, just a pinch of salt!”

Warship Wednesday, April 16, 2025: Missile Can Number One

Original Kodachrome by Hank Walker, Life Magazine Archives

Above we see the world’s first guided missile destroyer, USS Gyatt (DD-712), launching one of her precious 14 stern-carried Convair SAM-N-7 Terrier two-stage medium-range naval surface-to-air missiles to port, circa early 1957 during her trials. Gyatt, the only Gearing-class tin can to pick up this budget DDG conversion, blazed a path now well-traveled.

The Gearings

In July 1942, the U.S. Navy, fighting a U-boat horde in the Atlantic and the Combined Fleet in the Pacific, was losing ships faster than any admiral ever feared in his worst nightmare. With that in mind, the Navy needed a lot of destroyers. While the Fletcher and Allen M. Sumner classes were being built en masse, the go-ahead for some 156 new and improved Sumners— stretched some 14 feet to allow for more fuel and thus longer legs to get to those far-off battlegrounds– was given. This simple mod led to these ships originally being considered “long hull Sumners.”

These hardy 3,500-ton/390-foot-long tin cans, the Gearing class, were soon being laid down in nine different yards across the country.

Designed to carry three twin 5-inch/38 cal DP mounts, two dozen 40mm and 20mm AAA guns, depth charge racks and projectors for submarine work, and an impressive battery of 10 21-inch torpedo tubes (downgraded to just 5 tubes) capable of blowing the bottom out of a battleship provided they could get close enough, they were well-armed. Fast at over 36 knots, they could race into and away from danger when needed.

Meet Gyatt

Our subject is the only warship commissioned into the U.S. Navy in honor of Pvt. Edward Earl Gyatt, a 21-year-old Marine who earned a posthumous Silver Star with the 1st Marine Raider Battalion during the Guadalcanal campaign in 1942. The Navy remembered nearly two dozen Raiders in similar ways. The future USS Gyatt (DD-712) was laid down on 7 September 1944 by the Federal Shipbuilding & Drydock Co., Kearney, New Jersey. She was launched on 15 April 1945, sponsored by Mrs. Hilda Morrell, the mother of the late Private Gyatt. The festivities were muted due to FDR’s recent passing. Gyatt was commissioned on 2 July 1945 at the New York Navy Yard. The total time required to build the new destroyer was nine months, three weeks, and four days.

The cost in 1945 dollars was $8,947,809. USS Gyatt’s first skipper was CDR Albert David Kaplan (USNA ’32), the former XO and skipper of the destroyer USS Mayo (DD 422).

Her WWII history was brief, covering just an abbreviated page in the National Archives.

After a shakedown in the Caribbean and post-shakedown availability back in New York, Gyatt was visited by over 5,000 sightseers in Baltimore for Navy Day 1945 in October.

She then reported to Pensacola for plane guard duties and was then shifted to Norfolk as part of the peacetime Navy. She became part of DesRon 4, an outfit she would call home for the next 14 years alongside sisters USS Gearing, Greene, Bailey, Vogelsang, Steinaker, Ellison, and Ware.

As described by her Veterans’ association, she was a speedy girl.

It is understood that the Gyatt in late 1945 set a long-distance speed record for destroyers of its class. The Gyatt maintained, for an extended period, a speed of 31.8 knots per hour. In 1946, on a run from Norfolk to Boston, the Gyatt was the only ship in Destroyer Squadron Four (DesRon 4) to sustain a speed of 38 knots that had been reached by the Gearing (DD 710), Greene (DD 711), and Bailey (DD 713).

A three-month goodwill trip to Latin America in early 1947 saw her represent the U.S. at the inauguration of Uruguayan President Tomas Berreta at Montevideo and call on a variety of other ports.

Gearing (DD-710) and Gyatt moored at Montevideo, Uruguay, January 1947. Marcus Hill via Navsource

She then began a series of five lengthy deployments with the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean and Europe at a time when the region was adrift in post-war intrigue as part of the general cool down into the Cold War.

This included spending New Years 1948 at Salonika among sunken ships sent to the bottom during the war, marking the 5th anniversary of the Normandy Landings off Omaha Beach in 1949, assisting the old USS Twiggs in the filming of the tin can movie Gift Horse at Plymouth (released in the U.S. as Glory at Sea) in 1951, escorting the carrier USS Wright (CVL-49) in the Med in 1952, and attending the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.

Gyatt, 1954, escorting an Essex-class carrier

Stateside, she participated in two-week naval reserve cruises and annual trips to the Caribbean for exercises and gunnery practice.

In October-November 1949, Gyatt escorted the super carrier USS Midway to the frigid waters of the Davis Strait for appropriately named Operation Frostbite, her crew earning Blue Noses in the process.

By this phase of her career, in a refit at Boston Navy Yard in the summer of 1950, she landed her 20mm guns and picked up Hedgehog ASW rockets in their place. She also had her single mast replaced with a tripod mast and her starboard motor whaleboat deleted.

Gyatt (DD-712) 27 September 1950, NARA 24743163

USS Gyatt (DD-712) at anchor on 10 June 1953 with her glad rags aloft. Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1969. NH 67696

Cold War Missile Slinger

Gyatt entered the Boston Naval Shipyard on 26 September 1955 and was decommissioned on Halloween. The Navy had plans to make her the third operational U.S. warship– and the first destroyer– to carry guided missiles.

The Terrier program, an offshoot of Operation Bumblebee going back to 1948, was moving fast.

A big 27-foot 1.5-ton beam-riding SAM that could hit Mach 1.8 and engage targets as high as 80,000 feet, Terrier had been successfully fired from the converted seaplane tender USS Norton Sound (AV-11/AVM-1) in 1951, then the old battlewagon USS Mississippi in January 1953.

USS Mississippi (EAG-128). Fires a “Terrier” surface-to-air missile from early Mk 1 GMLS launchers during at-sea tests, circa 1953-55. 80-G-K-17878 (Color) and 80-G-659359 (B&W)

The missiles were first deployed on the converted cruisers USS Boston (CA-69/CAG-1) and Canberra (CA-70/CAG-2) in 1956. The cruisers used massive twin-arm Mark 4 GMLS missile launchers fed by bottom-loaded 72-round magazine houses, with the vertically loaded Terriers launched and guided by a pair of Mark 25 Mod 7 (later SPQ-5) radars. To make room, the after 8-inch turret (Turret III) was deleted on each.

USS Boston (CAG-1) fires a Terrier guided missile from her after launcher, during a training cruise in August 1956. Note that she and her sister Canberra carried two launchers over the stern, directed by big Mk 25 radars, in place of their third 8″/55 mount. It was originally planned to extend the conversion to the front of the cruisers as well, but this never happened. NH 98281

For Gyatt, which had a compact 390-foot-long hull compared to the cruisers’ 673 feet oal, she would receive the one-off Mk 8 launcher, which used two rings that held seven missiles each, contained inside a small deckhouse just forward of the launcher. The system was only about a fifth the weight of the larger Mk 9 launchers that would go on to be used on the Providence-class cruisers.

This required the removal of Gyatt’s aft armament to allow for the addition of Terrier missiles, a move that coincided with the landing of most of her WWII-era AAA guns and ASW gear, replaced with more contemporary systems. This saw her billets reduced from 360 officers and men to just 272. As detailed by her Veterans’ association, spanning her 13-month conversion:

The weaponry aft of the number one stack was removed including all depth charges, the number three five-inch gun mount, three quad 40mm guns and the two twin 40 mm guns aft of the bridge and the torpedoes. The Terrier Missile Battery consisted of two missiles, each approximately 27 feet in length, 13.5 inches in diameter, and weighing 2,760 pounds. The magazine that stored fourteen additional missiles was located directly forward of the missile battery. The missiles had a speed in excess of Mach 2. and a range in the order of 20 miles. The missiles had an altitude sufficient enough to engage jet aircraft, and the warhead was of sufficient size that it could destroy other planes flying in the same formation. The missiles’ guidance system was called ‘Radar Beamrider.” Missile targets were tracked by a modified Mark 25 Model 8 gunfire-control radar located atop the original gun battery director forward; the Mark 72 weapons control system provided only a single fire-control channel for both the missile system and 5-inch gun mounts. The ship retained the two forward 5-inch twin gun mounts. Four 3-inch 50-caliber twin mounts replaced the 40 millimeter guns, and the five-tube torpedo spread was replaced by two stacked triple-tube groupings. The Mark 56 fire-control system was set up abaft the stacks for the 3-inch weapons. In addition, there were radar improvements to the SPS-6 air search and the SPS-10 surface search radars. The radar at high altitude had a range of 220 miles, and at low altitude the range was twenty miles. The AN/SPS-6C radar handled the location of aerial targets,; there was no height finding radar, and given the constant changes and alterations in the earlier Terrier system, only the most cooperative targets were in danger. Two Mark 2 Hedgehog Spigot Mortars and two Mark 2 Torpedo Launchers were available to deal with submarines. The ship was also the first warship in the Navy to have a stabilization system added to the hull. The Denny-Brown Stabilization System, pioneered in Great Britain, had been installed to eliminate much of the rolling that is characteristic of destroyers and other small ships. The system had two retractable fins, each with an area of approximately 45 square feet; the fins extended amidships and were well below the waterline. In addition to all this hi-tech equipment the Gyatt was one of the first Navy ships to use solar power when the after emergency diesel generator was replaced with a Solar Gas Turbine Generator, On many occasions, especially in rough weather, this stabilization allowed the Gyatt to stay on station during plane guard detail and refueling operations.

She emerged much different, recommissioned 3 December 1956 at Boston NSY, and reclassified as DDG-1, although she was spotted with her DD-712 hull number for a while. From her deck log:

USS Gyatt (DDG-712) 3 December 1956. NH 67687

USS Gyatt (DDG-1) underway at sea, circa the late 1950s or early 1960s. NH 106723

USS Gyatt (DDG-1) launching Terrier missile, photograph released April 9, 1958. Following her conversion, she was the first Guided-Missile Destroyer. 330-PS-8876 (USN 1015613)

She was widely celebrated, and the Old Man himself, ADM Arleigh “33 Knot” Burke, at the time the CNO, visited Gyatt in March 1959 to personally observe Terrier tests. Transferring to DesRon 6, Gyatt was then sent to Europe on a deployment with the 6th Fleet for a sixth time, 28 January 1960, and as such was the first guided missile destroyer to deploy overseas fleet. Returning to Charleston, her new home port, on 31 August 1960, she had “participated in fleet readiness and training operations throughout the Mediterranean.” It was during this deployment, while on the Riveria, that she hosted Prince Rainer and Princess Grace of Monaco, escorted by 6th Fleet commander, VADM GW Anderson, for a demonstration.

The U.S. Navy guided missile destroyer USS Gyatt (DDG-1) comes alongside of the guided missile cruiser USS Boston (CAG-1), in 1960. Gyatt had sailed to join the U.S. 6th Fleet on 28 January 1960 and was the first guided missile destroyer to deploy with an overseas fleet. Note the Radioplane BTT target drone in the foreground.

In 1960, the rest of the world rushed their DDGs into service, with the Soviets building the Kanin-class (Project 57A), the British ordering the County class, and the French moving forward with the Suffren class. The fix was in.

On stateside operations, Gyatt was on loan to NASA for Mercury Program unmanned nosecone recovery details off the East Coast on at least two occasions (5-10 November 1960 for Mercury-Redstone 1 and 24-26 April 1961 for Mercury Atlas-3).

USS Gyatt (DDG-1) on 30 June 1961. USN 1056266

Gyatt as DDG, 1960 Janes

USS Gyatt (DDG-1) approaching USS Waccamaw (AO-109) from USS Boston (CAG-1) June 1961, Atlantic, via Navsource

She would return to the Med for a seventh deployment from 3 August 1961 to  3 March 1962, spanning 213 days and 39,197 miles.

When she came back home, she was already obsolete.

While the possible Gyatt-style conversion was wishful thinking to turn still-young all-gun Gearings into DDGs– and one that freed up funds for more Big Navy ideas like nuclear-powered submarines and giant aircraft carriers– tests with our subject’s Mk 8 launcher proved less than ideal, and it was decided in 1957, only a year after Gyatt recommissioned, to order a purpose-built class of 16 (eventually 29) new Adams class DDGs, which were 47 feet longer, seven feet wider, and 1,100 tons heavier. Adams (DDG-2) would carry a pair of Mk 11 twin-armed launchers for the new General Dynamics RIM-24 Tartar, which, although it was only 15.5 feet long and weighed half as much as Terrier, offered arguably better performance than the early models of that missile.

Adams class, DDG 1960 Janes

Technologically arcane, just six years after she had been the tip of the spear, Gyatt entered the Charleston Naval Shipyard on 29 June 1962 for an overhaul that removed her short-lived missile system. Installed in its place was equipment for “specialized service” with the Operational Test and Evaluation Force (OPTEVOR). As such, her hull number reverted to DD-712.

USS Gyatt (DD-712) underway in Hampton Roads, Virginia, on 21 November 1966, while serving as an experimental test ship. Note the large mast installed atop her former guided missile magazine and the large object carried on her after main deck. Photographer: PH2 M.L. Ritter. NH 107008

She would spend the next three years in a series of tests and training evolutions between the Caribbean and Maine, typically running evaluations on prototype radio and radar-jamming and anti-jamming (ECM/EW) equipment.

Although she was included on regular refresher training each year and even scheduled to go to the gun line off Vietnam in 1968, her primary job was to set out with a dozen or so subject matter experts from Westinghouse, the NRF, the NSRDC, or the NRL aboard to see how some new gee-whiz black box worked while underway.

At one point, an elaborate water wash-down system was installed topside to experiment with heat-seeking missiles and diversionary flares, a forerunner of SRBOC.

Keeping the memory of her namesake alive, the ship’s sponsor, the mother of the late Pvt Gyatt, visited our destroyer while on a port call to New York City in September 1965.

Worse, surveys had found that Gyatt’s hull began to crack from stress caused by the missile launches.

In October 1968, her work with OPTEVOR finished, she was sent to Key West and then the Washington Navy Yard, relegated to the Select Reserve with her crew reduced to just 120, tasked with training 20-40 USNR personnel, two weeks at a time.

In September 1969, following a material inspection and survey, it was recommended that Gyatt be decommissioned and disposed of as the cost to modernize her was estimated to be $9.8 million, and even a less extensive repair and refit for further service was estimated to run $3.7 million.

On 22 October 1969, she was decommissioned for the second and final time, with the Navy estimating her scrap value to be just $105,000.

From her log that day: 

Stricken shortly after, all useable equipment was removed, and she was expended as a target ship off Virginia on 11 June 1970, capping a 25-year career.

The end page, from her Veterans’ group:

On the 11th day of June, the ex-Gyatt, as the decommissioned hull was referred, was towed to her final resting-place in the Virginia Capes Operating Area. The ship rendezvoused with surface units under the command of Commander Naval Reserve Destroyer Division Third Naval District, who was embarked in the USS John R. Pierce (DD-753). The ex-Gyatt was the designated target ship for surface gunnery exercises for the division, consisting of the Pierce and three other destroyers. After several hours of five-inch salvos, the Gyatt was listing badly, but still afloat. Air units from the Oceana Naval Air Station joined the exercise with air-to-surface missiles, and shortly thereafter, the Gyatt slid beneath the surface to her final resting place at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The coordinates of the USS Gyatt’s final resting-place are as follows: Latitude. 37 Degrees 20 Minutes North and Longitude, 73 Degrees 52 Minutes West.

Epilogue

Little remains of Gyatt that I can find.

Her logs and some footage are in the National Archives.

Some additional Terrier footage is in the University of South Carolina archives.

Her Veterans organization doesn’t seem to have been updated online since about 2015, and most of its content has slipped away. However, a good bit of history is archived. 

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

As far as legacy is concerned, missile-armed destroyers are the backbone of the fleet these days, with no less than 73 active Arleigh Burke-class DDGs in the Navy.

The future USS Harvey C. Barnum Jr. (DDG-124), named after Medal of Honor recipient Col. Harvey C. Barnum Jr., USMC Ret., is set to commission in the coming months, bringing that number to 74. Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

*** 
 
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.
 
***

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

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find.

http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

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. I’m a member, so should you be!

City of Music at the foot of Uncle Joe, courtesy of Lend Lease

Posted on by Leave a comment

The 6th Guards (Order of Red Banner) Tank Army of Colonel General of Tank Troops Andrei Grigorievich Kravchenko– who had earned a Hero of the Soviet Union title after Kursk as head of the 5th Guards Tank Corps– was formed in Ukraine in early 1944 and, earning its “Guards” title after suppressing the the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket and smashing West during the follow-on Iassy-Kishinev Offensive, entered Hungary on the Debrecen Offensive on the 2nd Ukrainian Front by the end of that year. Still pushing as part of Stalin’s steamroller, it helped smash the last German offensive in the East (Frühlingserwachen under Sepp Dietrich’s 6th SS Panzer Army) along the shores of Lake Balaton in March 1945 and, after brutal street-to-street fighting, by 11 April had outflanked and entered Vienna, which was fully captured by the 15th.

There, in all its majesty, the great 6th Tank Army showed off all of its fine Detroit muscle, courtesy of Lend Lease, M4A2(76)W Shermans in the lead.

Going on to capture Prague by 12 May, the 6th Tank Army was pulled from Central Europe and shipped 11,000 km across Siberia to the Transbaikal. There, the 1,100 armored vehicles of the 6th Tank Army were ready to take on the Japanese Kwantung Army in Manchuria by 9 August 1945 and would fight the last armored battle of WWII, famously racing 150km across the Gobi Desert in the first day of the offensive against the Japanese, seizing the passes of the Greater Khingan mountains and effectively bottling up toughest remaining Japanese units in its wake on the Manchurian plain.

Soviet Japanese Defeat of the Kwantung Army, 1945

Kravchenko was made a Twice Hero of the Soviet Union and, surviving Stalin, would retire from the military in 1955 and pass in 1963.

Rolling Bones

Posted on by Leave a comment
80 years ago. Awaiting removal of a roadblock on the road to Eisfeld, Germany, a 90mm GMC M36 tank destroyer crew whiles away the time shooting craps. 28th Infantry Division (“Keystone”), U.S. Third Army, 12 April 1945.

Signal Corps Photo 111-SC-204555, National Archives Identifier 6927819

The men are likely “Cossacks” of the 630th TD Battalion, Battle of the Bulge vets who passed from temporary XVIII Airborne Corps control back to the 28th near Wolfstein around this time.
Among the camp gear accumulated on the back of the M36 is a case of “10-in-1” rations, Menu 3, which would include bulk-packed K rations in two 5-serving packs, the first in packages and the second in cans. Of key importance, a 10-in-1 also held ten packages of cigarettes– each holding 10 Chesterfields, Luckies, or Pall Malls– along with ten GI matchbooks and 250 sheets of GI toilet paper. Tough but fair.

Harpoons Away!

Posted on by One comment

Some 80 years ago today, “somewhere in the Western Aleutians,” 10 April 1945, we get a good look at the bristling nose of the new Lockheed PV-2 Harpoon maritime patrol bomber of the “Vee-Gees” of VPB-139 as it gets ready for a sortie, showing off five forward-firing M2 .50 caliber Brownings. The type had another two .50 cals in a dorsal turret and two in the tail.

Official caption: “Loading machine gun ammunition in Lockheed Harpoon PV in their strikes against the Northern Kuril Islands. Inside the plane. R.W. Medlock, AOMM2, receives a load of ammunition from D.A. Tarkington, AOM2, as they prepare one of the bombers for a strike.”

U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-32266

Just over 500 PV-2s were built in 1944-45 and were rushed out as replacements for war-weary PV-1 Venturas.

As noted in Curacao-based VPB-147’s official history for April 1945: “All of the squadron pilots were checked out in the aircraft before bringing in PV-2s from the States to replace the worn-out Venturas. The old PV-1s were self-destructing as time went on. In May, one Ventura was written off when its landing gear collapsed on landing. A second Ventura lost power on takeoff, settling back onto the runway with its gear up.”

Here is another Aleutians’ Harpoon snap, from the same day and place, showing off not only her gun armament but her underwing rocket hardpoints for 5-inch HVARs as well. They could also carry as many as six 1,000-pound bombs.

Lockheed Harpoon PVs at an advanced Aleutian air base waiting for action against the Kuril Islands, April 10, 1945. Note the caterpillar tractor as it tows a Harpoon medium bomber along a taxiway. U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-322695

The above photos are from VPB-139, who were on their second tour on the Alaskan front, the first being with Venturas in 1943. Now, the first Harpoon squadron to see combat, they were flying out of Casco Field, NAS Attu, and had just gone aloft on the type’s inaugural attack sorties.

Detailed by DANS:

6 Apr–Jun 1945: Four VPB-139 Harpoons attacked Kokutan Zaki, Kuriles, with rockets and machine guns. On 6 May, attacks against ground targets were stopped on the order of BuAer. Problems with the strength of the wings and stabilizers on high-G pullouts over the targets confined Harpoon squadrons thereafter to patrols and occasional attacks on surface vessels until the HEDRONs and PATSUs made repairs. Throughout May, searches and photographic runs were made over Minami Zaki and the Okhotsk areas in the Kuriles. Little enemy fighter opposition was ever encountered on these missions. AA fire, however, was always present.

On 22 April, Lieutenant William D. See and his crew of five failed to return from a patrol and were listed as missing in action.

On 10 May, a group of eight aircraft attacked radar installations at Minami Zaki, Shimushu, and five of the eight were hit by AA fire. All returned to base with no casualties. In June, the squadron made several strikes on Shimushu and numerous ships in the harbors. Although fighter opposition was often present, few attacks were ever pressed home.

“Returning from a mission, Lieutenant R.E. Garnett found that the port engine of his Harpoon was losing oil rapidly, possibly because of damage from debris thrown up by his rockets in an attack on a Japanese installation. The oil loss became so heavy that he had to feather the prop on this engine and depend on the other to bring him back 400 miles across the North Pacific to his advanced Aleutian base. He got back – as seen here making a successful one-engine landing, April 10, 1945. U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-322668

According to the Dictionary of American Naval Aviation Squadrons, Harpoons only shipped out with 24 units (VPB-100, VPB-130, VPB-131, VPB-135, VPB-136, VB-138, VPB-139, VPB-142, VPB-144, VPB-146, VPB-147, VPB-148, VPB-150, VPB-153, VPB-198, VP-199, VP-900, VP-905, VP-906, VP-911, VP-907, VP-914, VP-916, and VP-917) mostly in 1945-46. With many of these squadrons soon afterward being disestablished as part of the peacetime drawdown, and the new and much superior Lockheed P-2 Neptune entering service in 1947, the lifespan of the Harpoon was limited indeed.

The final squadron to report the PV-2 in inventory was VP-ML-3 (formerly VP-136, soon after VP-3) in August 1948.

Lockheed Harpoon with Radar Guided ‘Bat’ Bombs

Keepers of the Sparks

Posted on by Leave a comment

Original caption: “Signal Corps activities at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. Field telephone and switchboard operators in action during maneuvers, 1930.” Note the badge of the 51st Signal Battalion on the men’s campaign hats.

Signal Corps photo 111-SC-100576. National Archives Identifier 329585448

Before the days of Fort Eisenhower (Gordon), the U.S. Army Signal School from 1924-1947, tasked with all land forces’ meteorological, photographic, and communications training, as well as running the Signal Corps Laboratory, was in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.

The post’s two tactical units in the 1930s, the 16 officers and 437 enlisted men (authorized billets) of the 51st Signal Battalion and the 1st Signal Company, provided enlisted instructors for the school while at the same time preserving the Army’s sole provisional GHQ signals group and signals intelligence company. The 51st, which had served the role in the AEF in 1918 as the 55th Telegraph Battalion, had some experience with the matter.

They often took their show on the road.

Original Caption: National Rifle Matches, Camp Perry, Ohio, Aug. 25 – Sept. 14, 1930 Signal Corps Detachment Lt Lubbe, S.C. National Archives Identifier 405231336. Local Identifier 111-SC-95390-128

Note the badge of the 51st Signal Battalion in the above photo.

Original caption: Signal Corps activities at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. Telephone Operator at message center, in operation during maneuvers. Night scene. National Archives Identifier 329585451. Local Identifier 111-SC-100577

Field Printer. Fort Monmouth, NJ, December 1932 111-SC-098285

Fort Monmouth Signal Corps field radio set in operation during maneuvers 1930. 111-SC-100578

Fort Monmouth Telephone Linemen in action during maneuvers. 1930 111-SC-100574

Fort Monmouth Message Center in operation during maneuvers 1930 111-SC-100575

Fort Monmouth Field telephone switchboard in operation during maneuvers. 1930 111-SC-100573

Original Caption: A One-Horse Power Radio Set. A mobile transmitter and receiver for mounting on horseback has been developed at the Signal Corps radio laboratories at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. The hand generator shown at the left furnishes the power for the set, which is SCR-189. October, 1932. National Archives Identifier 329578433, Local Identifier 111-SC-98102

In 1935, the battalion took part in the Pine Camp Maneuvers in New York, which at the time were the largest peacetime exercises, with some 35,000 Army and National Guard personnel. The 51st was solely responsible for the installation of all communications during this exercise; in this capacity, it employed 177 miles of bare copper wire, 126 miles of twisted pair field wire, and 8,260 feet of lead-covered overhead cable. This set the stage for the larger Louisiana Maneuvers in 1941, which began the lessons learned for the Army in WWII.

The 51st shipped out for its second World War in 1943 and would earn a Meritorious Unit Commendation and five campaign streamers supporting the invasion of Sicily and the Italian Campaign.

Following post-war operations in Korea and the Sandbox, the 51st earned three additional MUCs and the Presidential Unit Citation. Today, as the oldest continuously serving active-duty signal unit (formed in 1916 and often renamed but never disbanded), the now 51st Expeditionary Signal Battalion is part of the 22nd Corps Signal Brigade and is based at Joint Base Lewis McChord, tasked with distributing enhanced comms throughout the Pacific.

Their motto is Semper Constans (Always Constant).

Red Stars over Niagara

Posted on by Leave a comment

Just call it Operation Honeymoon.

The curious, but very normal, 1944-45 sight of Lend-Leased Bell P-63 Kingcobras flying over Niagara Falls, clad in the Red Stars and tactical dark green livery of the Soviet Air Force.
Bell assembled the P-63 at the company’s factory in Wheatfield, New York.

P-63A-10-BE at Bell’s Wheatfield, New York factory

From there, after passing inspections by first an American and the Soviet AF officer, these P-63s would be immediately attached to twin 285-liter drop tanks, flown by USAAF Air Transport Command ferry pilots across the Dakotas to Great Falls, Montana, then to RCAF Station Edmonton, Alberta, and finally to Ladd Field at Fairbanks Alaska– a trip of over 4,000 miles– where the “Reds” picked them up and flew them on to Siberia and points west.
Notably, on both the American and Soviet ends of the Alaska-Siberia route, a predominance of ferry pilots was female.

WASP “skippers” on Wheatfield P-39s and P-63s

Besides the P-63s and the earlier P-39s, P-40s, A-20s, C-47s, and B-25s were also ferried from CONUS and then across the Bering Sea, with 7,983 aircraft successfully delivered to the Russians, and only 133 of all types were lost to weather or pilot error.

Warming pre-flight

P-63 Kingcobra fighters in flight during a ferry flight along the Alaska-Siberia air route, with Avachinskaya Sopka in Kamchatka in the background

Being slow compared to the P-38 and P-51 and less of a brute than the P-47, the Kingcobra saw negligible service with the USAAF. However, the Russkis loved the tough, heavily-armed, and reliable aircraft, which was well-suited to their particular brand of tactical aviation.

Of the 3,303 production aircraft, some three-quarters, at least 2,397 airframes, were delivered new to Uncle Joe and the gang, with only the hours racked up in the ferry flights from Niagara. They endured in Soviet service so long that they picked up a NATO F-code (fighter) reporting name in the 1950s (Fred).

Ace pilots of the 9th Guard Aviation Division at the Bell P-39 fighter Airacobra by GA Rechkalova. From left to right: Alexander Fedorovich Klubov (twice Hero of the Union, shot down 31 airplanes personally, 19 in a group), Grigory Andreevich Rechkalov (twice a Hero, shot down 56 airplanes personally and 6 in a group), Andrei Ivanovich Trud (Hero of the USSR, shot down 25 airplanes individually and 1 in a group) and commander of the 16th Guards Fighter Squad Air Regiment Boris Borisovich Glinka (Hero of the Soviet Union, shot down 30 airplanes personally and 1 in a group). The 2nd Ukrainian Front. The photo was taken in June 1944 – the number of stars on Rechkalov’s plane corresponds to his achievements at that time (46 planes shot down personally, 6 in a group).

Soviet Red Air Force ace Alexander Pokryshkin chalked up 65 victories on the Eastern Front, almost all in P-39 Aircobras and P-63 Kings

Soviet P-63 Kingcobra of the VVS. Artist Vladimir Voronin.

Traveling light

Posted on by Leave a comment

Some 80 years ago, “backpacking around Europe,” a GI takes a breather along the Rhine in increasingly Allied-occupied Germany, April 1945.

LIFE Magazine Archives – William Vandivert Photographer

Besides his M1 Garand cane (muzzle awareness be damned), he is lightly equipped with his M1936 khaki webbed belt and suspenders complete with E-tool, while two extra 80-round bandoliers for said Garand are carried bandito style. A pair of cardboard K-ration “Supper” boxes are tied together. As a party favor, he has what looks like an M1 pineapple grenade on his left shoulder. 

Warship Wednesday, April 2, 2025: Jeezy Breezy, We Hit Em!

Posted on by 7 comments

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

If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi As Henk says: “Warship Coffee – no sugar, just a pinch of salt!”

Warship Wednesday, April 2, 2025: Jeezy Breezy, We Hit Em!

Naval History and Heritage Command photo NH 90825

Above, we see the Balao-class fleet boat USS Charr (SS-328), off Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Mare Island, California, 16 September 1946, just after the war.

Although she got into the war late, only starting her first war patrol in December 1944, Charr has the distinction of sinking the last enemy cruiser sent to the bottom by a U.S. submarine, a feat accomplished after a four-day chase some 80 years ago this week.

The Balao Class

A member of the 180+-ship Balao class, she was one of the most mature U.S. Navy diesel designs of the World War Two era, constructed with knowledge gained from the earlier Gato class. Unlike those of many navies of the day, U.S. subs were “fleet” boats, capable of unsupported operations in deep water far from home. The Balao class was deeper diving (400 ft. test depth) than the Gato class (300 feet) due to the use of high-yield strength steel in the pressure hull.

Able to range 11,000 nautical miles on their reliable diesel engines, they could undertake 75-day patrols that could span the immensity of the Pacific. Carrying 24 (often unreliable) Mk14 Torpedoes, these subs often sank anything short of a 5,000-ton Maru or warship by surfacing and using their deck guns. They also served as the firetrucks of the fleet, rescuing downed naval aviators from right under the noses of Japanese warships.

Some 311 feet long overall, they were all-welded construction to facilitate rapid building. Best yet, they could be made for the bargain price of about $7 million in 1944 dollars (just $100 million when adjusted for today’s inflation) and completed from keel laying to commissioning in about nine months.

An amazing 121 Balaos were completed through five yards at the same time, with the following pennant numbers completed by each:

  • Cramp: SS-292, 293, 295-303, 425, 426 (12 boats)
  • Electric Boat: 308-313, 315, 317-331, 332-352 (42)
  • Manitowoc on the Great Lakes: 362-368, 370, 372-378 (15)
  • Mare Island on the West Coast: 304, 305, 307, 411-416 (9)
  • Portsmouth Navy Yard: 285-288, 291, 381-410, 417-424 (43)

We have covered a number of this class before, such as the sub-killing USS Greenfish, the UDT-10 carrying USS Burrfish, the rocket mail slinger USS Barbero, the carrier-slaying USS Archerfish, the long-serving USS Catfish, the U-boat scuttling USS Atule, Spain’s “30-one-and-only,” and the frogman Cadillac USS Perch —but don’t complain, they have lots of great stories

Meet Charr

Originally to be the first warship named after the Bocaccio, a type of West Coast rock fish, our subject was laid down, 26 August 1943, at Electric Boat in Groton. The powers that be swapped this tough to spell marine creature for the much easier Charr, a type of trout common to the Pacific Northwest, a month later.

As such, the future USS Charr- the only warship to carry the name-  was launched on 28 May 1944, sponsored by the wife of a no doubt upstanding citizen of Groton, and commissioned on 23 September 1944, her construction spanning a scant 394 days. At the time, EB was building them so fast that it was a dual commissioning ceremony– the first at New London- with sistership USS Boarfish (SS-327), who had been laid down just a fortnight before Charr.

Charr’s plank owner skipper was CDR Francis Dennis Boyle (USNA ’34). It was his first command, having gone out as a junior officer and XO on three previous war patrols on other fleet boats.

Sailing for the West Pac on 5 November to join the Big Show after six weeks of shakedowns, she arrived at Pearl Harbor via the Ditch in early December and spent Christmas of 1944 at Pearl Harbor.

She had a fairly green crew, with her wardroom averaging out to about two patrols per officer (although her two most junior ensigns were mustangs with 14 patrols between them). Meanwhile, her goat locker had a similar average with three of her chiefs counting zero patrols between them. Overall, only 43 of her 80 men aboard had earned their dolphins.

War!

On 30 December 1944, Charr was escorted out of Pearl Harbor along with the veteran boat, USS Batfish, to begin her first war patrol, ordered to roam the South China Sea by way of Saipan. Clearing that occupied former Japanese possession on 13 January 1945 with a full load of diesel oil and provisions topped off from the sub-tender USS Fulton, Charr made for her patrol area and spent the next several weeks fighting heavy seas while hiding from Japanese patrol aircraft.

Carr in the distinctive late-war fleet “gunboat submarine” configuration with forward and aft 5″/25s augmented with matching 40mm and 20mm mounts. Photo by Lt. Herb Hanson via Navsource.

She dodged a couple of floating mines and made a rendezvous at sea with her commissioning mate Boarfish on 27 January off Pulo Kambir, some 8,500 miles away from New London. Small world!

The next day, she was dispatched to close with the coast of Japanese-occupied French Indochina to search for downed fliers. Anchoring just 2,700 yards offshore, a landing team recovered the radioman of a downed aircraft in broad daylight on the 29th, then had to return after dark for the rest of the aircrew but found herself in the middle of Japanese convoy HI-88-B (Singapore to Moji).

From Charr’s patrol report:

While Boarfish was lucky enough to sink the Japanese tanker Enki Maru (6968 GRT) and force the tanker Daietsu Maru (6890 GRT) aground, Charr came away from the encounter empty-handed, never able to get close enough to make an attack. Transferring her navy radioman aboard her sistership, which was Fremantle-bound, Charr remained on fruitless patrol, working off and on with the fellow fleet boats USS Tuna and Blackfin.

On 21 February, while Boarfish’s crew was enjoying the bars and beaches of Western Australia, Charr crossed the equator and was ordered to go to the rescue of the imperiled Dutch T-class submarine HrMs Zwaardvisch (P 322), which she did on the 22nd. She would spend the next four days on a risky southbound passage to Lombok Strait on the surface.

Charr ended her 1st patrol at Fremantle on 3 March, having not fired any torpedoes, dodged over 20 enemy air contacts, and only fired her guns (20mm) at enemy mines. Despite the risky rescue of the downed Navy radioman, and boldly escorting Zwaardvisch back to safety, the patrol was not deemed by COMSUBPAC to be successful.

On the bright side, she ran 13,799 miles across 63 days on her first patrol with no casualties, and 75 of 80 men aboard had dolphins at the end of it. She was ready.

Second Patrol

Charr sailed out of Freemantle again on 27 March after refit, ordered, in part, to comb the Flores, Java, and South China Seas in coordination with USS Gabilan (SS-252) and Besugo (SS-321) while HM Submarine Spark was nearby but not attached. Charr celebrated Easter submerged on 1 April entering the Lombok Strait.

Soon, this Yankee wolfpack would sniff out one of the Empire’s last operational cruisers outside of Japan’s home waters.

The Nagara class light cruiser Isuzu had helped seize Hong Kong from the British and survived the Solomons and the hellfire of the Leyte Gulf, but her days had run out.

Nagara Class Light Cruiser Isuzu pictured on completion off Uraga on August 20th, 1923

Nagara Class Light Cruiser Isuzu pictured underway in Tokyo Bay on September 14th, 1944

Tasked with collecting isolated Japanese troops from Kupang and taking them to Sumbawa Island with an escort of a torpedo boat and two minesweepers, Boyle’s wolfpack (he was SOPA) sighted the little convoy off Paternoster Island at 1125 on 4 April but were forced to submerge due to Japanese air cover. Meanwhile, Gabilan sank a small Japanese vessel with gunfire in a surface action.

Besugo got close enough in the predawn of 5 April to fire six torpedoes at Isuzu and one, throat down, at her escorts, all of which missed.

The pursuit continued with RAAF Mosquitos of No. 87 Squadron and FRUMEL intercepts, pointing the way for B-25s of the Free Dutch No. 18 Squadron to attack the force on the morning of 6 April, dropping 60 500-pound bombs without result.

Meanwhile, Isuzu picked up her assigned marooned troops and deposited them that afternoon at Sumbawa, unharmed. A second attack by B-24s of the RAAF’s Nos. 21 and 24 Squadrons later that day left Isuzu limping and on manual steering.

It was in the afternoon of 6th April, between Sumbawa and Komodo islands is the Sape Strait, that Boyle’s wolfpack caught up to the Isuzu group again. Besugo fired another 11 torpedoes in two attacks and bagged the escorting Japanese minesweeper W 12 (630 tons) for her effort, then was forced back to Freemantle as she was out of fish. She surfaced and saw survivors in the water after the Japanese had moved on “but all refused to be picked up.”

At 0255 on 7 April, Charr made radar contact with Isuzu and her two remaining escorts at 14,700 yards, making their way out of Sumbawa’s Bima Bay. “Bingo, this may be the jackpot,” noted Boyle.

Radioing the contact to Gabilan, who was in the path of the Isuzu group, that submarine made an attack on the cruiser with five torpedoes, one of which hit below the bridge, causing flooding forward and cutting her speed to 10 knots.

Meanwhile, Charr moved in for the kill. From her patrol report:

Isuzu was the last of her class in Japanese service remaining and the final Axis cruiser sunk by an American submarine.

The next day, the wolfpack broke up, with Gabilan and Spark heading on their ways as Charr was detailed to complete a Special Mission (planting a minefield off Pulo Island) while sinking a 500-ton Japanese coaster on 10 April via gunfire. On the 13th, they received word of FDR’s death (“All hands are deeply saddened”), then on the 16th fired six torpedoes at two Japanese escorts in the Gulf of Siam without luck.

Stopping in at Subic Bay briefly on 20-24 April, she then headed to Formosa for lifeguard duty, saving USAAF Lt. Hugo Casciola, a Fifth Air Force P-51 pilot (likely of the 3rd Air Commando Group), on 6 May.

Ending her 56-day patrol at Subic on 21 May, Charr sailed 11,688 miles. Her patrol was deemed a success and a Submarine Combat Insignia was authorized, with Charr credited for 5,670 tons of Japanese shipping sunk.

Third Patrol

On 14 June 1945, Charr left Subic Bay for her 3rd war patrol, ordered to the Gulf of Siam, one of the few areas with a significant Japanese presence afloat, even if it was in the form of coastal traffic. By the end of the month, she formed an Allied wolfpack with HMS Selene (P 254) and Sea Scout (P 253), later joined by Supreme (P 252). They chased down a small Japanese convoy not worth the torpedoes to sink but could never get close enough to engage it with gunfire.

On 5 July at 0042 while on the surface alone, Charr’s lookouts spotted an incoming torpedo that only missed them by 25 yards, with Boyle noting “Evidence of the torpedo from its wake is unmistakable” as Charr left the area at flank speed.

With the three luckless British S-boats returning to Freemantle, Boyle, on 11 Jul,y inherited an all-American pack built around USS Hammerhead, Blower, and Bluefish. Four days later, Bluefish, birddogged by reports from Blower, who fired four torpedoes at a Japanese I-class submarine contact, found I-351 on the surface 100 miles out of Natuna Besar, Borneo with a cargo of 42 irreplaceable naval aircrewmen. Bluefish sent I-351 and 110 of her 113 crew and passengers to the bottom with a four-torpedo spread.

Charr ended her 43-day 3rd war patrol at Fremantle on 26 July. Although her group bagged a big Japanese sub, that was Bluefish’s kill, and, thus, the patrol was not deemed worthy of an SCI.

As WWII ended before Charr could begin a fourth patrol, she ended the conflict with just one battle star for her second patrol. She was then dispatched to Guam to join SUBRON5.

Fleet boats USS Sea Cat (SS-399), USS Redfish (SS-395), and USS Charr (SS-328) alongside a tender at Apra Harbor, Guam, in 1945. Photographed by John R. Huggard. NH 93824

Submarine Squadron 5 boats of the squadron nested together in 1945. Photographed by Lieutenant Herb Hanson. Ships are (from left to right): Segundo (SS-398), Sea Cat (SS-399), Blenny (SS-324), Blower (SS-325), Blueback (SS-326), and Charr (SS-328). NH 86621

Charr then returned to the West Coast on 27 January 1946, capping 15 months deployed out of CONUS. A refit at Mare Island and a new skipper followed.

USS Charr (SS-328) off the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Mare Island, California, 16 September 1946. NH 90826

Cold War Snorkel Days

With the Navy rapidly demobilizing, there still had to be somebody on watch, especially with conflict boiling around the suddenly post-colonial West Pac, and Charr was one of several subs tasked with making what were termed simulated war patrols. One 115-day training patrol, departing San Francisco on the 4 October 1946, included visits to Pearl, Subic Bay, Shanghai, and Tsingtao China, as well as Yokosuka Japan, and was concluded at San Diego on 27 January 1947. A second one followed soon after.

She then fell into a quiet peacetime period of drilling naval reservists on two-week coastal deployments along the California and Mexican coasts with two dozen reservists aboard, serving as a training boat to the Submarine Training Facilities San Diego, participating in exercises, and earning a series of Battle Es including the Marjorie Sterrett Battleship Fund Prize in 1948, the first for a Pacific sub.

TBM-3E Avenger attack planes of VS-25 in flight over USS Charr (SS-328), 15 March 1950, under deployment to Fleet Air Wing Four, Whidbey Island. Note that she is still in her original configuration. 80-G-443900

On 10 July 1951, she entered Mare Island to be converted to a “Four-engine Fleet-type Snorkel” submarine, emerging four months later with a radically different topside appearance.

Caiman, SS-323 and Charr at Mare Island conversion to Guppy IA and Fleet Snork

USS Charr at Mare Island 9 Nov 1951

Would you look at that snorter! USS Charr at Mare Island 9 Nov 1951

Besides the obvious snorkel installation and sensor updates, the conversion gave her a new streamlined sail and removed her deck guns. She also sported a two-tone scheme.

USS Charr (SS-328) off the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Mare Island, California, November 1951. Following conversion to “fleet-Snorkel” configuration. Note her experimental paint scheme. NH 90830

Same as above. NH 90828

Same as above. NH 90829

Same as above.

Then came the Korean War, which included a six-month war patrol (26 March -2 October 1952) in the region under the orders of Commander Naval Forces, Far East.

Sent to the West Pac again after the cease fire, she left San Diego on 13 June 1954.

USS Charr at speed

She visited Formosa, Taiwan, and met the 7th Fleet boss and the inaugural commander of the U.S. Taiwan Defense Command, VADM Alfred M. Pride, who appeared on hand with exiled Generallisimo Chiang Kei-Shek himself. The 67-year-old first president of the Republic of China toured Charr extensively and got underway briefly on 9 November. Most Americans forget today, but the U.S. had upwards of 20,000 troops deployed at any given time to Taiwan through 1979, when the USTDC was disbanded under the Carter administration.

General Chiang Kai Shek on board USS Charr (SS 328) at Keelung, Formosa. General Shek peers through the periscope as Commander Whitman, Commanding Officer of the submarine, looks on, November 9, 1954. 330-PS-7025 (USN 649238)

General Chiang Kai Shek on board USS Charr (SS 328) at Keelung, Formosa. General Shek with Vice Admiral Alfred H. Pride on the navigation bridge, November 9, 1954. 330-PS-7025 (USN 649236)

General Chiang Kai Shek on board USS Charr (SS 328) at Keelung, Formosa. General Shek with Vice Admiral Alfred H. Pride on the weather deck, November 9, 1954. 330-PS-7025 (USN 649237)

Then followed a decade of West Coast operations, ranging from Vancouver to Acapulco with naval reservists and participating in public events such as the Seattle Sea Fair and supporting Girl Scout Marine Ship 36 of Pasadena with tiger cruises.

She was in 12,000 feet of water off San Diego on 26 September 1961 when, while rigged for deep submergence, a main motor circulating water hose ruptured at 150 feet, flooding the Maneuvering Room, a situation saved after two ratings sealed themselves in the engine room and maintained power to rapidly bring the Charr to the surface. Living to fight another day, she was towed to San Francisco Naval Shipyard for repairs. John McGee, EM1, received the Navy Commendation Medal, while Douglass Webster, EM3, received a Letter of Commendation for their efforts to save their ship that day.

Operationally, she drilled in PACTRAEX and completed active West Pac deployments with Seventh Fleet in 1957, 1959, 1961, and 1963.

USS Tilefish, USS Razorback, and USS Charr moored in Vancouver in 1957. Note the difference in sail types

Balao-class submarine USS Charr (SS-328) in drydock at Yokosuka, Japan, 1963

USS Charr (SS-328) underway, 14 December 1963. USN 1094488

Same as above USN 1094493

USS Charr (SS-328) underway off San Diego, California, 8 January 1965. USN 1110922

Balao class, 1965 Janes, at which point the Navy still had a whopping 80 of these boats on hand

With U.S. involvement in Vietnam ramping up in 1965, Charr was deployed to those waters as a sideshow to SEATO Exercise Sea Horse and, along with a half-dozen other diesel boats, would soon be laying off the North Vietnam littoral on secret observation and lifeguard missions for Rolling Thunder air strikes.

It was during these support operations that Charr recovered CDR Jack H. Harris, commanding officer of VA-155, from the Gulf of Tonkin on 29 March.

Harris, flying from the USS Coral Sea, had ejected from his damaged A-4E Skyhawk (BuNo 150078) after an Alpha strike against North Vietnamese air search radar facilities on Bach Long Vi Island, which is located about 70 miles offshore roughly midway between Haiphong and the Chinese island of Hainan. He was the last pilot to be rescued CSAR style by a lifeguard submarine, almost 20 years to the date from Charr’s WWII lifeguard service. The waterlogged pilot remained on Charr for several days and was eventually high-lined to a destroyer for return to Coral Sea. Sadly, he died in the fire on Oriskany in 1966.

Charr almost got a second rescue from Coral Sea off Bach Long Vi Island as well.

As noted by EM3(SS) Sid Anderson of the old USS Charr Association:

CDR William N. Donnelly, CO of Fighter Squadron 154, flying F-8D BuNo 148642, had his controls shot out while in a dive-bombing run against an AAA site. He ejected while inverted at 450 knots and 1,000 feet altitude, landing about 4 miles from the island. On the night of March 30th, upon becoming aware that transmissions from CDR Donnelly’s emergency radio were being received, the USS Charr surfaced and conducted a grid search but was unsuccessful in finding him. Later that day, during the mid-watch (12 noon to 4 p.m.) CDR Donnelly was sighted floating in his survival raft by aircraft that were en route to another bombing raid. His location was about 14 miles from the Charr, which was submerged at the time. Once in receipt of this information, LCDR John M. Draddy, CO of the Charr, surfaced and proceeded to CDR Donnelly’s location. Upon arrival at the site, a fleet of Chinese junks were already there, with no sight of CDR Donnelly or his raft. With the belief that the junks had gotten to him first, LCDR Draddy quickly assembled an armed boarding party intending to rescue him. However, before any action was taken, LCDR Draddy received word that CDR Donnelly had already been picked up by a U.S. Air Force HU-16 amphibian, and the boarding party was dismissed. In his raft, CDR Donnelly had successfully evaded North Vietnamese patrol boats for some 45 hours.

Entering the twilight of her career, Charr would be redesignated an Auxiliary Submarine (SGSS) in July 1966, and make her seventh West Pac deployment from May to December 1967 that included SEATO Exercise Sea Dog and service as a “tame” Military Assistance Program submarine on loan to the navies of the Philippines, South Korea and China for use in ASW training.

She made her 7,000th dive on 20 July 1968. Not bad work considering most of her constructors were war-hires and “Rosies.”

Charr’s (SS-328) 7000th dive, 20 July 1968. (L to R): TMSN Don McClain (IC Electrician watch), HMC(SS) “Doc” Taft(standing by just in case), TM1(SS) Vince Solari (OOD/Diving Officer), LCDR Jim Callan (port lookout), CS1(SS) Jake Wade (Chief of the Watch), EN1(SS) Harley Rackley (trim manifold watch), EM2(SS) Lin Marvil (starboard lookout).    Photo by J.D. Decrevel EM2(SS), via Navsource.

Spending the rest of her career stateside, Charr was decommissioned on 28 June 1969 in a mass five-way ceremony with the old fleet boats Bream, Tunny, Bluegill, and Raton.

Bream (AGSS-243), Tunny (AGS-282), and Charr (AGSS-328), during the decommissioning ceremony at Mare Island on 28 June 1969. Photo courtesy of the Vallejo Naval and Historical Museum via Darryl L. Baker, via Navsource.

Charr continued “In Service, In Reserve” for another 18 months until 20 December 1971, at which time she was struck from the Navy List. She was sold to Nicolai Joffe, Beverly Hills, for $105,381 on 17 August 1972, then subsequently scrapped in Kearny. New Jersey

Charr earned an Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal for her Vietnam cruise, added to two for Korea, and her sole WWII battle star.

Epilogue

Little remains of Charr.

Her Cold War deck logs, WWII patrol reports, and war history are digitized in the National Archives. 

She had an active veteran’s group that was online until about 2020.

Post-WWII, Charr’s only wartime skipper CDR Boyle, who earned a Navy Cross for sinking Isuzu, did a stint at JPL then got heavily into guided missile research, rising to head White Sands in the late 1950s. He earned his surface warfare badge as commander of the USS Springfield (CLG-7) just after her conversion to a guided missile cruiser and then later broke his flag over Cruiser Destroyer Flotilla 7 as a rear admiral. He retired in 1968 and passed a decade later at age 68. His papers are in the Hoover Institution.

RADM Doyle, Charr’s WWII skipper

Her Vietnam-era skipper, LCDR John Draddy, the man who was ready to fight off a fleet of Chinese junks on the surface with Tommy guns and M1 Carbines to save a downed naval aviator, earned a Bronze Star for that cruise. He retired from the Navy as a captain, 29 years a submariner. He passed in 2005, aged 76, with a host of grandkids, and is buried at Arlington.

The P-51 pilot that Charr plucked from the drink off Formosa in May 1945, Hugo Casciola, survived the war and passed in Pennsylvania in 1976 at age 60. During WWII, U.S. submarines rescued no less than 504 downed airmen from all services.

It would be almost two decades after Chiang Kai-shek rode on Charr that the Republic of China obtained its first submarines, receiving the Balao-class ex-USS Tusk (SS-426) and Tench-class ex-USS Cutlass (SS-478) in 1973, recommissioning them as the “unarmed” training boats Hai Po and Hai Shih respectively. They were later augmented by a pair of Dutch-built SSKs.

Taiwan’s first Indigenous Defense Submarine (IDS), Hai Kun (SS-711), was launched last February at the CSBC shipyard in Kaohsiung. She is set to wrap up sea trials this month.

Taiwan IDS submarine, the future Hai Kun, departing for sea trials. CSBC picture.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

 

***

 

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.

 

***

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

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

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.

I’m a member, so you should be!

The Double Edge of Simple Weapons

Posted on by Leave a comment

One of the most oft-retold tales of military equipment is that the spear used by the Roman Legions, the two-part composite pilum, was easy for a legionnaire to master as a thrusting weapon and, if thrown, the soft iron shank would warp and deform on impact, preventing its further use by the enemy.

Panzerfausts were no pila.

Easy to make in quantity and even easier to use, the Germans dutifully included with each crate a two-page instruction sheet that you didn’t need to know German to grasp.

They even distilled the knowledge to a simpler pictograph on the side of the Fausts themselves.

Vorsicht!

This allowed last-ditch Volkssturm to field the disposable anti-tank rocket with about five minutes of instruction.

“The Volkssturm” Painting by Franz Kleinmayer, showing the typical make up and arms of the doomed militia.

And, as seen in these images from recently Soviet-occupied Danzig in March 1945, it was just as easily translated to Red Army inheritors.

« Older Entries Recent Entries »