Category Archives: World War Two

Warship Wednesday, April 30, 2025: Pride of Puget Sound

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

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Warship Wednesday, April 30, 2025: Pride of Puget Sound

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the Naval History and Heritage Command collections. Catalog: L45-35.04.01

Above we see the Baltimore-class heavy cruiser USS Bremerton (CA-130) all aglow in Sydney, in town to celebrate the 17th anniversary of the historic Battle of the Coral Sea in December 1959. While she didn’t get any licks during WWII, Bremerton was nonetheless a “war baby,” commissioned some 80 years ago this week. And she did manage to get some serious combat time during another conflict.

The Baltimores

When the early shitstorm of 1939 World War II broke out, the U.S. Navy, realized that in the likely coming involvement with Germany in said war– and that country’s huge new 18,000-ton, 8x8inch gunned, 4.1-inches of armor Hipper-class super cruisers– it was outclassed in the big assed heavy cruiser department. When you add to the fire the fact that the Japanese had left all of the Washington and London Naval treaties behind and were building giant Mogami-class vessels (15,000 tons, 3.9 inches of armor), the writing was on the wall. That’s where the Baltimore class came in.

These 24 envisioned ships of the class looked like an Iowa-class battleship in miniature with three triple turrets, twin stacks, a high central bridge, and two masts– and they were (almost) as powerful. Sheathed in a hefty 6 inches of armor belt (and 3 inches of deck armor), they could take a beating if they had to.

They were fast, capable of over 30 knots, which meant they could keep pace with the fast new battlewagons they looked so much like, as well as the new fleet carriers that were on the drawing board.

Baltimore class ONI2 listing

While they were more heavily armored than Hipper and Mogami, they also had an extra 8-inch tube, mounting nine new model 8-inch/55 caliber guns, whereas the German and Japanese only had 155mm guns (though the Mogamis later picked up 10×8-inchers). A larger suite of AAA guns that included a dozen 5-inch/38 caliber guns in twin mounts and 70+ 40mm and 20mm guns rounded this out.

In short, these ships were deadly to incoming aircraft, could close to the shore as long as there were at least 27 feet of seawater for them to float in and hammer coastal beaches and emplacements for amphibious landings, then take out any enemy surface combatant short of a modern battleship in a one-on-one fight.

They were tough nuts to crack, and of the 14 hulls that took to the sea, none were lost in combat.

Meet Bremerton

Our subject is the first warship named for the Washington city home to Puget Sound Navy Yard, which dates back to 1891. As explained by the Puget Sound Navy Museum, the Navy held a war bond competition in 1943 between the workers at Puget and those at California’s Mare Island NSY with the winner earning the naming rights to a new heavy cruiser whose keel had been laid on 1 February (as Yard No. 449) at New York Shipbuilding Corps. in Camden, New Jersey.

Puget won the competition– with the yard’s workers pledging an amazing 15 percent of their wages for six months– and earned the right to send a delegate to the East Coast to sponsor the vessel. The worker sent had been with the yard since 1917. As detailed by the museum:

Betty McGowan, representing the Rigger and Shipwright Shop, was chosen to christen the cruiser in New Jersey on July 2, 1944. She broke the ceremonial bottle of champagne across the ship’s bow with a single swing. In Bremerton, residents marked the occasion with a baseball game, a flag raising ceremony, and the sale of more than $11,000 in war bonds.

Bremerton was commissioned on 29 April 1945, with her first of 15 skippers being Capt. (later RADM) John Boyd Mallard (USNA 1920) of Savannah, Georgia. Mallard had seen the elephant previously as skipper of the oiler USS Rapidan (AO 18), dodging U-boats in the Atlantic, and earned the Legion of Merit as commander of a task group of LSTs during the assaults on Lae and Finschhafen in September 1943.

USS Bremerton (CA-130) off Portland, Maine, 6 August 1945, just nine days before the Empire of Japan would signal that they were quitting the war. 80-G-332946

Bremerton’s WWII service was brief, with her Official War History encompassing a half-dozen short paragraphs. The new cruiser left Norfolk for her shakedown cruise in the waters off  Cuba on 29 May 1945.

Three weeks later, having wrapped up gunnery trials off Culebra Island, she sailed for Rio de Janeiro to serve as flagship for Admiral Jonas Ingram, Commander-in-Chief of the Atlantic Fleet, during his South American inspection tour. Bremerton returned to the States and engaged in early July, arriving at Boston Navy Yard on 18 July, then became part of TF 69 for experimental work at Casco Bay, Maine, until 2 October.

Spending the next five weeks in post-shakedown overhauls at Philadelphia, she cleared that port on 7 November for Guantanamo and, after passing inspection, sailed through the Panama Canal to join the Pacific Fleet on 29 November 1945 with orders to report to Shanghai via Pearl Harbor under the 7th Fleet for occupation duties.

Arriving at Inchon, Korea on 4 January 1946, she would spend the next 11 months in the Far East– earning an Occupation Medal and China Service Medal– before making for San Pedro, California.

Homeported there, Bremerton managed to get in a training cruise along the West Coast in 1947 before her discharge papers hit.

13 February 1948. “USS Bremerton (CA-130) (foreground) and USS Los Angeles (CA-135) are towed from the Nation’s largest drydock, at San Francisco Naval Shipyard, while being prepared for inactivation and addition to the Pacific Reserve Fleet. Constructed during the war, the 1100-foot drydock is capable of handling the largest ships afloat. Besides handling these two cruisers at one time, the huge dock has accommodated four attack transports in one operation. World’s largest crane at right.” Note that many other laid-up ships are in the area. Among them, on the right, are USS Rockwall (APA-230) and USS Bottineau (APA-235). NH 97453

Bremerton was placed out of commission, in reserve, at San Francisco on 9 April 1948, capping just under three years of service.

No less than nine of 14 Baltimore-class heavy cruisers were mothballed after WWII as the Navy’s budget nosedived. With each needing a 1,100+ member crew (not counting the Marine det), they had an almost prohibitive cost to keep them in service even if they were pierside. A deployment, requiring 2,250 tons of fuel oil and a trainload of provisions just to get started, could be better spent on a half-squadron of 3-4 destroyers that could make triple the port calls– and in more diverse locations.

The Baltimores were seen as quaint in the new Atomic Age, and, with a couple of battlewagons and newer heavy cruisers (of the Oregon City and Des Moines class) on tap for fire support missions should they ever be needed (and nobody thought they would), the six remaining class members on active service were mostly used as flagships and high-profile training vessels for midshipmen’s and reservist cruises.

War!

With the Soviet-backed North Korean Army rushing over the 38th Parallel to invade their neighbors to the south on 25 June 1950, the Navy rushed units from Japan to the embattled peninsula and things soon got very old school in a conflict heavy with minefields, amphibious landings and raids, and an active naval gunline just off shore.

This, naturally, led to a call for more naval fire support. Ultimately, 10 of 14 Baltimores (all except USS Boston, Canberra, Chicago, and Fall River) were in commission or reactivated for the Korean War.

Bremerton was pulled from mothballs at San Francisco and, after a short overhaul at Hunters Point and giving her crew some refresher training, she was bound for the gunline, arriving in theatre under 7th Fleet command on 7 May 1952.

USS Bremerton (CA-130) at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, San Francisco, California, on 21 November 1951. She was recommissioned for Korean War service on 23 November after having been in reserve since April 1948. 80-G-436084

USS Bremerton (CA-130) underway on 14 February 1952. 80-G-439986

Same as the above, 80-G-439985

Her first tour off Korea, which wrapped up in September 1952, and she let her 8-inchers sing at Wonsan, Kojo, Chongjin, and Changjon Hang.

USS Bremerton (CA-130) loading ammunition at Mare Island Ammunition Depot. October 1952

USS Bremerton (CA-130) in San Diego harbor, California, circa 1951-52, with her crew manning the rails. NH 97454

After an overhaul, she returned to Korea in April 1953, remaining through November.

Forecastle of the heavy cruiser USS Bremerton (CA-130) in heavy seas, in 1953, likely during her second Korean tour. Note the awash gun tub forward.

On this second tour, she repeatedly dueled with Nork/ChiCom coastal artillery batteries.

From Korean War: Chronology of U.S. Pacific Fleet Operations: 

  • 5 May 1953: During a heavy gun strike in the Wonsan Harbor area, USS Bremerton (CA 130) was fired upon by 18 rounds of 76 to 105 mm shells. One near miss caused two minor personnel casualties and superficial top-side damage.
  • 24 May 1953: During a heavy gun strike in Wonsan Harbor, USS Bremerton (CA 130) received 10 rounds of well-directed enemy artillery fire. Although all shells landed close aboard, Bremerton escaped unscathed.
  • 14 June 1953: USS Bremerton (CA 130) received four rounds of 90 mm counterbattery fire while blasting the enemy shore gun positions on the Wonsan perimeter. The enemy fire was ineffective.
  • 19 June 1953: In Wonsan Harbor, USS Bremerton (CA 130) was the target for four rounds of 90 mm shore fire but was not hit.

USS Bremerton (CA-130) under fire from North Korean shore batteries, in 1953

Besides Bremerton, the Navy deployed no less than six Baltimores for escort missions and coastal bombardment in Korea.

Heavy cruisers USS Saint Paul (CA-73) and USS Bremerton (CA-130) and the light cruiser USS Manchester (CL-83) are underway off Korea. Saint Paul and Bremerton were deployed to Korea and the Western Pacific between April and September 1953.

While I cannot find how many shells our girl let fly off Korea, all told, the Navy expended over 414,000 rounds and 24,000 missions against shore targets between just May 1951 and March 1952. While most of those rounds (381,750) were from 5-inch guns, at least 22,538 came from 8-inch pipes on heavy cruisers, so distill from that what you will.

In all, Bremerton was authorized two (of a possible 10) Korean Service Medals (battle stars), with the breaks in dates often due to leaving the gun line to get more shells:

  • K8 – Korean Defense Summer-Fall 1952: 12-28 May 52, 11-26 Jun 52, 9 Jul-6 Aug 52, and 20 Aug-6 Sep 52.
  • K10 – Korea, Summer-Fall 1953: 1-30 May 53, 13 Jun-8 Jul 53, 23-27 Jul 53.

She also served in Korean waters post-cease fire on two stints, 26 Sep-8 Nov 53 and 8 Jun-27 Jul 54, the latter on a May-October West Pac cruise. On top of her two battle stars, she also earned a Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation, the United Nations Korea Service Medal, and the Republic of Korea War Service Medal.

USS Bremerton (CA-130) In Drydock Number 5 at Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan, in July 1954 during a West Pac deployment. Note her side armor, and men painting her hull. 80-G-644556

Cold War swan song

She would spend the first half of 1955 at Mare Island undergoing an overhaul and modernization. Her armament and fire control were updated. Importantly, she shipped her 40mm guns ashore for 10 twin 3″/50 (7.62 cm) Mark 33 Mounts and new Mk 56 FC radar fits.

April 1955. San Francisco. Port bow view of the heavy cruiser USS Bremerton (CA 130). Her original close-range armament of 20 mm and 40 mm guns has been replaced by twin 3-inch/50 Mark 26 guns controlled by Mark 56 directors, two of which may be seen abreast the forward superstructure. Her catapults have been removed, although the crane for handling aircraft remains for use with the boats now stowed in the former aircraft hangar under the quarterdeck. Note the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. Period caption: “The USS Bremerton, heavy cruiser, which will be berthed at Pier 46-B Saturday, April 21 and 22, will be open for public inspection from 1 to 4 p. m. each day, as a part of the civic observance of the 50th anniversary of the 1906 fire. The U. S. Navy played a vitally important role in bringing aid to the stricken city.” (Naval Historical Collection)

Then came a second post-Korea West Pac cruise, from July 1955 to February 1956, during which she earned a second China Service Medal for operations off Chinese-threatened Formosa/Taiwan.

Great period Kodachrome by of USS Bremerton by Charles W. Cushman showing the cruiser steaming into San Francisco Bay under the Golden Gate Bridge, 8 May 1956. Bloomington – University Archives P08766

Her third post-Korea West Pac deployment, from November 1956 to May 1957, saw her make port calls from Vancouver to Yokosuka to Manila, Hong Kong, and Melbourne, where her crew was on hand to support the XVI Olympiad.

USS Bremerton (CA-130) photographed on 4 November 1957 while at Puget Sound before heading to Bangor. 80-G-1027859

Same as the above 80-G-1027857

Same as the above 80-G-1027858

USS Bremerton (CA-130) at Pearl Harbor while en route to Asia, circa 1957. The original photograph bears the rubber-stamp date 3 December 1957. NH 97455

Around this time, the Navy decided to reconstruct Bremerton into an Albany-class guided missile cruiser.

This extensive (three-to-four year) SCB 172 conversion involved removing almost everything topside including all armament and superstructure, then installing a huge SPS-48 3D air search radar, a twin Mk 12 Talos launcher (with its magazine, Mk 77 missile fire-control system, and SPG-49 fire control radars), a twin Mk 11 Tartar launcher (along with its magazine, Mk 74 missile fire-control system, and SPG-51 fire control radars), a huge CIC and tall navigation bridge, a bow mounted sonar, a helicopter deck, etc. et. al.

Only three CAs (USS Albany, Chicago, and Columbus) completed the conversion, and it left them unrecognizable from their original form.

Two views of the U.S. Navy cruiser USS Chicago, as built and after her conversion to a guided missile cruiser. Upper view: USS Chicago (CA-136) as a Baltimore-class heavy cruiser off the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, Pennsylvania (USA), on 7 May 1945. Between 1959 and 1964, Chicago was rebuilt at the San Francisco Naval Shipyard, California (USA), leaving virtually only the hull. The complete superstructure and armament were replaced. Lower view: USS Chicago (CG-11) as an Albany-class guided missile cruiser underway in the Pacific Ocean during exercise “Valiant Heritage” on 2 February 1976. NH 95867 and K-112891

However, as the Albany class conversion still required a massive nearly 1,300 man crew to run the 17,000 ton CG with 180 assorted missiles aboard, and the bean counters realized the new 8,000-ton Leahy-class DLGs (later re-rated as cruisers in 1975) could carry 80 missiles on a hull optimized to run with a 400-man crew, the choice was clear.

With that, Bremerton never did get that conversion, instead being used increasingly to hold the line in the Far East for the next couple of years.

She started 1958 at anchor in Long Beach, preparing for yet another Westpac deployment (from March to August) under TF 77 orders that would take her to the Philippines, Singapore, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and the like.

From her log:

She repeated another Westpac cruise from January to May 1959 and yet another abbreviated sortie from November 1959 to February 1960. It was on New Year’s Day 1960, while deployed, that her mournful log entry told her looming fate– that of an early (second) decommissioning at the ripe old age of 15, bound once again for mothballs.

Assigned to the Pacific Reserve Fleet, while moored at Naval Station Long Beach’s Pier 15, at 0900 on 29 July 1960, USS Bremerton was decommissioned and then towed to the reserve basin first at Mare Island and then, fittingly, at Puget Sound.

1960 Jane’s entry for the Baltimore class.

USS Bremerton (CA-130) and USS Baltimore (CA-68) lay up at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, early 1970s. Photograph by Melvin Fredeen of Seattle. This picture was likely taken shortly before the two cruisers were sold for scrap in 1973. At the right of the picture, one will note several civilians on the pier, next to the gangplank leading to USS Missouri (BB-63), which is moored just outside the frame. During the three decades the battleship spent laid up at Bremerton before her 1980s reactivation, she would often be opened to the public for walking tours of her weather decks, particularly of the spot where the surrender of Japan took place. Several other decommissioned ships are visible, including a destroyer, a carrier, and in the far background, a third Baltimore-class heavy cruiser out in Sinclair Inlet. NH89317

Bremerton languished for 13 years in mothballs, and, once the war in Vietnam had drawn down, was stricken from the Naval List on 1 October 1973. She was subsequently sold for scrap to the Zidell Explorations Corporation of Portland, Oregon, and broken up.

Epilogue

Several relics of the cruiser remain in the Kitsap area.

Her bell, presented to the city of Bremerton in 1974, is on display at the Norm Dicks Government Center building downtown.

Her anchor and part of her mast are also preserved in the region, with the hook at Hal’s Corner (guarded by 40mm guns from the old battlewagon USS West Virginia) and the yardarm at Miller-Woodlawn Memorial Park.

Both are often visited by Navy working parties to keep them in good shape.

The Navy recycled the name for an early Los Angeles-class hunter-killer, SSN-698, which was in commission from 1981 to 2021.

Los Angeles-class hunter-killer USS Bremerton (SSN-698) underway 1 February 1991. DN-ST-91-05712

A veterans’ group for the latter Bremerton, which also keeps CA-130’s memory alive, is active. 

x

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.

 

***

 

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The Everlasting Jiggs

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It happened 95 years ago today.

Rockwell Field, near Coronado, California, 29 April 1930. Hollywood actresses Winnie Lightner, 31, and Irene Delroy, 29, clown for the camera as Lt. (later Maj. Gen.) William C. Kingsbury of the U.S. Army Air Corps’ 11th Bombardment Squadron looks down from the forward navigator/bombadier position of a rare Keystone LB-7 light bomber.

Of note, Winnie Lightner was known as Broadway’s “Song a Minute Girl” at the time because she could belt out a song in less than 60 seconds.

A sample of her work:

The Keystone LB-6/LB-7, dubbed the “Panther” by its maker, was never made in great numbers, with just 35 production models delivered to the Army for use by its six bomber squadrons in the late 1920s.

Armed with five light machine guns in assorted mounts, it could carry up to a ton of bombs out to 600 miles, lumbering along with its open crew compartments at a canvas-flapping 95 mph. They were replaced by monoplane bombers by 1934.

Keystone LB-7 aircraft at Patterson Field, Ohio, in September 1929. (U.S. Air Force photo)

They were also stars of the silver screen, appearing in Howard Hughes’ 1927 aviation epic, Wings, filling in as German Gotha bombers.

The insignia seen on the side of the LB-7 at the top is “Jiggs” of Sunday newspaper comics fame. Drawn by George McManus, Jiggs is a wealthy top-hatted rogue who attempts repeatedly to escape his dish-hurling and bread-pin-wielding wife, Maggie.

The unit adopted a bomb-toting Jiggs as the 11th Aero Squadron when it was flying DH-4s over the Western Front out of Maulan Aerodrome in France in 1918.

The 11th is still active today and flies B-52Hs out of Barksdale.

And Jiggs is still on their insignia, spats and all. .

Aitape Triple Canopy

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80 years ago this week: 26-year-old Australian Army Private Rosslyn Frederick Gaudry (Service Number: NX94822) of 2/3rd Infantry Battalion, 16th Brigade, 6th Division “watches his sector with his Owen submachine gun in a forward observation pit at Kalimboa Village” in Aitape, Wewak, New Guinea, 26 April 1945.

Australian War Memorial AWM 091259

Raised for WWII at Victoria Barracks, Sydney on 24 October 1939, 2/3 Aust. Inf. Battalion A.I.F. sailed from Sydney just 11 weeks later for North Africa and disembarked in Egypt on 14 February 1940. Fighting first against the Italians in Libya in early 1941, they were sent to the fiasco in Greece then evacuated to Palestine where they fought the French in July 1941 then remained here until March 1942 as a garrison force. Returned to Australia, they were soon fighting along the Kokoda Trail and would remain in and around the green hell of New Guinea until the end of the war. The battalion left 207 of its men on the Roll of Honour, earned boxes of decorations (4 DSO; 16 MC; 12 DCM; 30 MM; 2 BEM; 73 MID), and 16 battle honours stretching from Tobruk to Mount Olympus to Damascus and Kokoda.

As for the very haggard Pte. Gaudry shown above, he was born in Gulgong, New South Wales in 1918 the son of George Henry Gaudry and Maude Gaudry (nee: Lyons). He enlisted in the Australian Army on 10 April 1942 in Paddington, Kandos, NSW and served in 2/3 Bn across New Guinea from the Owen Stanley Mountain Range along the Kokoda Track to the Aitape-Wewak Campaign.

Discharged from service on 4 October 1946, he returned to NSW and became a salesman. Married to Joan May Gloede in 1953, Gaudry passed at age 61 on New Year’s Eve 1979 in Homebush, Australia.

He is buried in the New South Wales Garden of Remembrance in Rookwood.

Mindanao Doughboys

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It happened 80 years ago today.

Infantry troops of Company B, 19th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry “Victory” Division, marching towards the Mindanao River in pursuit of Japanese forces retreating near the Fort Pikit Ferry, Mindanao Island, Philippines. 22 April 1945. During the PI campaign, the 19th carried the radio call sign “Doughboy.”

Photographer: Pfc. Mack Gould. Signal Corps SC 270579

A closer look at the above image shows that every third or fourth man in the columns are local Philippine guerrilla force, often barefoot and very ill-clad, serving apparently as porters. Make no mistake, though, the Filipino forces got plenty of action in 1945 and were increasingly better outfitted.

As for the 19th Infantry (Regulars who earned the title “Rock of Chickamauga” during the Civil War), they had fought at Hollandia for months before landing at Leyte with as part of  X Corps of the Sixth Army in October 1944, with the regiment’s 2nd battalion the unsung “Lost Battalion” of WWII.

As the rest of their division moved up the Leyte valley, the 19th was carved off and assigned to the Western Visayan Task Force, landing at San Jose on Mindoro on 15 December 1944. They then assaulted Romblon Island and Simara Island in March 1945 before moving onto Mindanao in April.

Following a half-decade of garrison duty in the PI, in 1950, they would see much service in Korea during that war, keeping their “Doughboy” call sign.

19 September 1950. L-R: M/Sgt. Albert R. Charleton, Salem, Ill., and 1st Lt. Harry J. Lumani, Cumberland, Md., both of the 19th Inf. Regt., 24th Div., put up welcome sign for the newly-arrived Philippines combat troops at Pusan, Korea. SC 348885

Part of TRADOC today at Fort Benning, the colors of the 19th Infantry are decorated with the streamers of 30 campaigns, and the regiment has participated with distinction in 86 battles and engagements. Eight of those streamers are for Korea, while nine are from the Philippines including three for WWII (Leyte, Luzon, Southern Philippines) and six for the 1899-1901 Insurrection.

So long, Ernie

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Indiana-born Ernest Taylor “Ernie” Pyle in 1945 was one of the best-known and most well-liked American war correspondents. His syndicated column was published in 400 daily and 300 weekly newspapers nationwide. Along the way, he had earned a Pulitzer Prize in 1944 for his first-person coverage of “dogface” grunts in the mud and the blood.

He had such a universal appeal that crews named their guns after him. Try to get that kind of love for a modern reporter.

Sailors aboard USS LST 392, discussing D-Day, when Ernie Pyle was their passenger and left his signature on their guns. Shown, left to right: SM3 Chas T. Repik, USNR; SC2c James F. Reardon, USNR; S1c Edward T. Wholley. (Bottom) BM2c Martin A. Reilly, USNR, and RM2C Gint Middleton, USNR. Photograph released December 4, 1944. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-289953

Born in 1900, he wore a Navy uniform in the Great War, although only briefly. After covering WWII in England before the U.S. entered the war, then on the ground in North Africa, Italy and France, he shipped out for the Pacific in January 1945 aboard the light carrier USS Cabot (CVL-28) and landed on Ie Shima with the Army’s 77th “Liberty” Division on 17 April to cover the Okinawa campaign.

Pyle, right, on the bridge of Cabot with the skipper –CAPT (later RADM) Walton Wiley Smith (USNA 1920)–during strikes in the North Pacific against Tokyo, February 1945. 80-G-262854-001

Ernie Pyle watches the invasion of Okinawa from a Navy warship, little realizing the death lay in wait in a gully on Ie Shima. 80-G-49872

The next day, Pyle was hit by a Japanese machine-gun bullet to the left temple just under his helmet, killing him instantly. He was one of 69 War Correspondents killed during the conflict.

His remains were later moved to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu in 1949. A memorial to him endures on Iejima.

It reads, “At this spot the 77th Infantry Division lost a buddy, Ernie Pyle, 18 April 1945.”

Suribachi Good Friday

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80 years ago.

A sobering service following a five-week campaign that had left 6,800 Marines and Sailors dead or missing and another 20,000 wounded. All this with the prospect that the fight was only just getting into the outskirts of the Japanese Home Islands and probably wouldn’t be this “easy” again.

Caption: “U.S. servicemen attended Good Friday services on Iwo Jima, March 1945. Men attended Good Friday services in the only ‘Chapel’ Iwo Jima offers. Their camp is situated at the foot of Mount Suribachi.”

National Archives 80-G-412530

80-G-412519

Joker’s Wild

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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

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

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.
 
***

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

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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

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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.
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