Category Archives: World War Two

Warship Wednesday Nov. 13, 2024: One Busy Bug

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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, Nov. 13, 2024: One Busy Bug

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-684905

Above we see the Balao-class fleet submarine USS Bugara (SS-331), in her gun-less Fleet Snorkel configuration, off Oahu on the 14th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Commissioned some 80 years ago this week on 15 November 1944, you wouldn’t think she’d even have a chance to get in the Big Show before the war ended.

You’d be very wrong about that.

The Balaos

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. U.S. subs, unlike those of many navies of the day, 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 Spikefish and USS Greenfish, the rocket mail-slinging USS Barbero, the carrier-slaying USS Archerfish, the long-serving USS Catfish, the U-boat scuttling USS Atule, and the frogman Cadillac USS Perch —but don’t complain, they have lots of great stories.

Meet Bugara

Our subject was the first (and only) U.S. warship named for the common label for the Rainbow surfperch (Hypsurus caryi), a multicolored little guy found along the coast of California. Laid down on 21 October 1943 at Groton, Connecticut by the Electric Boat Co, she was launched on 2 July 1944, and sponsored by Mrs. Anna A. Perry, the wife of Annapolis All-American football legend Capt. Lyman Spencer “Pop” Perry (USNA ’19), who at the time was serving as a Commodore of training operations on the West Coast.

80-G-448203

Commissioned at the U.S. Submarine Base, New London, on 15 November 1944, Bugara’s plankowner skipper was T/CDR Arnold Frederic Schade (USNA ’33). He was the youngest submarine commander in the Navy for a time and started the war on the training boat USS R-12 (SS 89), then was XO on the famed USS Growler (SS 215) when his commander in February 1943, CDR Howard Walter Gilmore, earned the MOH the hardest way.

In all, the 32-year-old Schade was the veteran of eight previous war patrols, including the last two as Growler’s skipper. He already had a Navy Cross and Silver Star on his jacket for sinking a trio of Japanese destroyer leaders on the 4th of July 1942 and for five other ships on the second patrol.

Bugara’s crew was one of veterans, no surprise as the Navy had been at war for three hard years when it was formed. Of the sub’s nine officers that made up her wardroom and seven chiefs in her goat locker, they counted no less than 73 war patrols among them, including one LT (j.g) with the unintentionally ironic last name of “Sinks” who had nine patrols on his own.

After abbreviated shakedowns and post-delivery maintenance, Bugara left New London for the Pacific via Panama on Christmas Day 1944. After all, there was a war on.

First Patrol

This overhead view of the Bugara (SS-331) was taken during torpedo practice firings off Panama Bay in January 1945 while heading to the Pacific. The torpedo retrieving davits are rigged, which are used for hauling the practice torpedo out of the water. Note at this point she only has one 5″/25, forward, as well as a twin 40mm Bofors aft. USN Archive photo # 19-N-76588.

Bugara cleared Pearl Harbor on 21 February 1945 on her 1st War Patrol and steamed directly to recently secured Saipan, ordered to patrol north of Luzon, Philippines in support of the Iwo Jima campaign.

A snooze fest with Japanese shipping already largely sanitized from the area, she fought off a typhoon and had to crash dive for several enemy aircraft while on the surface. In fact, she encountered far more fellow Allied submarines on patrol– American (USS Perch, Besugo, Blueback, Tuna, Tigrone, Puffer, Spot, Sea Fox, Hake, and Pargo), British (HMS P-248) and Dutch (Hr.Ms. K-14)– than she did anything else.

Disappointingly, the only Japanese vessels she spotted that were large enough to warrant a torpedo were marked as hospital ships. The only “action” her crew saw was in destroying a floating mine via gunfire.

It was essentially a qualifying cruise, with 29 of the 36 crewmembers who lacked their “Dolphins” earning them while underway.

On 21 April 1945, Bugara ended her inaugural patrol at the big Allied sub base at Fremantle, Australia after steaming 13,724 miles in 59 days.

Award of a Combat Insignia was not authorized for the patrol by COMSUBPAC.

Schade noted, “Morale of all hands is high despite the lack of combat opportunity.”

Second Patrol

After a three-week turnaround that included installing a second 5″/25 on her aft deck– the so-called gunboat submarine configuration— and director antennae for her APR, on 16 May 1945 Bugara sailed out of Fremantle for her 2nd War Patrol, ordered to hunt in the South China Sea off Hainan and serve as a floating “Log Joint” lifeguard station for aircrews downed at sea during the Okinawa campaign.

As on her first patrol, Bugara met or operated with other Allied subs on just about every day she was underway, and only a few local native craft– Chinese junks from which she would barter cigarettes for fresh fish– were spotted. Likewise, while on her first patrol, she often had to cope with Japanese aircraft, they too were scarce and instead, she typically logged voice contacts with passing four-engine Navy PB4Y Privateers.

On 20 June 1945, Bugara ended her monotonous 36-day patrol at recently liberated Subic Bay, where, in a twist of fate, she tied up next to the new Fulton-class sub tender USS Howard W. Gilmore (AS-16), named after Schade’s old boss on Growler.

Bugara logged zero enemy contacts despite the fact she steamed 10,118 miles across the Western Pacific, waters that the Empire had owned just a year prior.

Award of a Combat Insignia was not authorized for the patrol by COMSUBPAC.

Such boring late-war patrols often drove eager submarine skippers to think out of the box to find a fight.

For instance, in April 1945, USS Bluegill under LCDR Eric Barr landed some Australian Commandos followed by a short party of his own on the deserted low-lying reef of Pratas, some 160 miles southeast of Hong Kong, and “captured it.” 

57 Sunk!

Shifting operations further south where the Japanese may still have some naval and merchant assets and with the new Loran navigation system installed, on 14 July 1945 Bugara departed Subic Bay to begin her 3rd War Patrol, ordered to the relative backwater of the Gulf of Siam where the Japanese had been unabated since early 1942.

The 29-day patrol report makes absolutely great reading and I cannot recommend it strongly enough.

On the night of 23 July, she put a “Commando Party ashore north of Lem Chong Pra– armed to the teeth with demolition equipment,” but had to take them back off the next morning just before dawn “highly embarrassed as the jungle had been so thick they couldn’t get off the beach.”

While a six torpedo spread against a small Japanese convoy on the early morning of 20 July yielded no hits– all of the fish running deeper than their settings– she had much better luck with her guns. In fact, while a normal load of “fish” was 24 torpedoes, Bugara had instead left Subic with just 12 (apparently worthless) torpedoes but with a full 240 rounds for her 5-inchers including 60 rounds of VT, stowing four racks full of ammo in her torpedo room instead.

In all, she made contact with 62 small surface vessels and, after finding them to be under Japanese control, sent at least 57 to the bottom in a series of one-sided gun actions over the fortnight between 24 July and 7 August, many in the dark.

From her War Patrol report:

She even ran into a batch of canoe-borne Malay pirates while in mid-attack on a Chinese schooner and performed actions worthy of the days of Stephen Decatur and Edward Preble.

In all, she fired 201 rounds of 5-inch, 291 of 40mm, and 400 of 20mm, finding in fact that the VT fuzed shells were not ideal as they were fired typically too close (within 600 yards on average) to arm.

Realizing that many of the crews on these wooden coasters and schooners were natives working under threat of death, Bugara’s crew went to great lengths to save them, even though on one occasion she had to submerge when a strange aircraft approached and left her rescues bobbing in the Gulf of Siam for a few minutes until she surfaced again after it had passed. Keep in mind that during this period she was working in typically just 10 fathoms (60 feet) of water, almost bottoming when completely submerged.

This also allowed her to glean some good old-fashioned HUMINT, with one particularly friendly Chinese who spoke pidgin English kept aboard for a couple of weeks as a translator. Schade included it with a wish list of items should he be sent back to the area:

On 17 August 1945, Bugara ended her final patrol of WWII at Fremantle, two days after Japan announced its unconditional surrender. Bugara and her crew were finally awarded the Submarine Combat Insignia for a patrol.

Few late-war subs could beat her record of “bunny bashing” in gun actions. The only one I can think of was Bill Hazzard in USS Blenny (SS-324) which bagged 62 mischievous Japanese vessels.

Bugara’s 3rd Patrol was the subject of at least one patch by her crew, emblazoned with a “57” on a hapless skull.

Bugara’s WWII patches. NHHC 2017.001.020 and NHHC 2017.001.021.

Sent with SubRon 5 to Subic Bay in September, she patrolled local waters there into mid-November when her squadron was ordered to clear Japanese-held islands in the South China Sea. This included Bugara sending large and heavily armed landing forces ashore at Tizard Bank and Itu Aba, where all they found were destroyed weather and radio stations.

Arriving back at San Diego in February 1946, three months later, she was back in Pearl Harbor, SubRon 5’s next home port.

There, as part of Operation Road’s End, on 28 May 1946, Bugara successfully sank her only Japanese ship via torpedo– the captured Type AM (I-13-class) submarine I-14 in a test of the new Mark 10-3 exploder– which worked.

A huge aircraft-carrying submarine (the largest submarines ever built until U.S. Poseidon SSBNs of the 1960s), I-14 was sent to the bottom in deep water off Barber’s Point at deliberately unrecorded locations along with four other captured enemy boats (I-400, I-401, I-201, and I-203) to keep their technology out of Soviet hands.

I-14 and I-400 alongside USS Proteus (AS-19), in Japanese home waters, after WWII. Note: the crew of deck and another sub (unidentified) along in the background. NH 50387

These boats, had the war gone on long enough, were part of a Japanese plan to wage biological warfare against cities in Southern California, in retaliation for the U.S. firebombing of Japanese cities, or alternatively an attack on the Panama Canal– keep that in mind the next time someone says the A-Bombs didn’t have to be dropped.

To prove to Stalin that these went to Davy Jones, the Navy filmed the sinking of all these big I boats– in beautiful color.

Bugara received three battle stars for her service in World War II, one for taking part in the Iwo Jima campaign (12-16 March 1945), one for Okinawa (17 March to 4 April 1945, and one for her third patrol (14 July 45 – 17 Aug 45) as well as an Occupation Service clasp for July- August 1948 when she returned to the area on a West Pac patrol.

Korea

Stationed at Pearl Harbor when the Norks crossed the 38th Parallel into South Korea in June 1950, she was soon sent forward on a series of war patrols off the embattled peninsula that was broken up by a five-month Fleet Snorkel conversion at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard in late 1951 that saw her guns landed, a snorkel fitted along with better sensors, and a new, streamlined fairwater that covered her scopes installed.

Compare these two silhouttes.

Bugara received two Korean War battle stars during the conflict, logging four periods in theatre (5 Oct-28 Nov 50, 20 Jan-18 Jun 51, 20 Apr-4 Jun 54, and 14-27 Jul 54).

She also survived a crack-up during the conflict with the escort USS Whitehurst (DE-634) that left both vessels damaged but gratefully without any casualties, and each soon returned to work.

That’s not going to buff out

By August 1955, she was transferred to San Diego as part of SubRon 3.

USS Bugara (SS-331), May 1956. Shown while operating off San Diego. 80-G-696504

Same as above. 80-G-696503

USS Bugara (SS-331) off Oahu, Territory of Hawaii, December 7, 1955. 80-G-684904

She would fall into a decade of drills training evolutions, shipyard availabilities, and regular WestPac deployments and SEATO exercises where she would typically interact with the growing Japanese, Filipino, Australian, and Taiwanese fleets.

USS Bugara with an S-2 Tracker overhead, likely in an ASW exercise. Submarine Forces Museum

She also got a bit of payback against tin cans for her Whitehurst damage.

In April 1958 while using a practice torpedo against USS Yarnall (DD-541), which was set to run at 30 or 40 feet, it actually ran at 10 and smacked the Fletcher class destroyer on the port bow.

Yarnall’s skipper radioed, “We’ve been hit and are taking on water.”

Bugara’s skipper offered assistance.

Yarnall’s captain replied, “You can go to hell!”

Then came…

Vietnam

During the U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia, no less than 60 different submarines were operational off Vietnam at some time between 1964 and 1975, many staying long enough to earn campaign stars. Most, 42, were old “smoke boats,” such as Bugara, including many of her sisters. Eighteen others were modern SSNs which were utilized more sparingly.

Vietnam War. June 1969. Sailors aboard the guided missile frigate USS Brooke (DEG 1) watch as the Gato-class submarine USS Bluegill (AGSS 242) travels on the surface. Official U.S. Navy photo (K-74080)

Most of these boats would be tasked with providing “special” undersea reconnaissance and surveillance.

In 1968, at the request of COMNAVFORV RADM Kenneth L. Veth, the Seventh Fleet deployed a submarine just off the coast of Sihanoukville (Kampong Saom) Cambodia to monitor shipping traffic. COMNAVFORV and 7th Fleet later pioneered tracking inbound gun-carrying trawlers passing through the strait between the Chinese mainland and Hainan with submarines working with over-the-horizon P-3s. The result was the ability to track a trawler’s passage, sight unseen, with the final act being an interception by surface assets and destruction. Sculpin in one known 1972 incident, tracked a Chinese trawler from its homeport across some 2,500 miles to the Southern coasts of South Vietnam, where it was sent to the bottom by the RVN Navy.
 
 
Communications intelligence personnel on board the submarine intercepted a message from the trawler that made clear the enemy was unaware of the submarine trailing her until the last hours of the mission. During the passage from Hainan, the submarine’s sonarmen became intimately familiar with the trawler’s distinctive shaft and propeller sounds. Periscope photographs of the white-colored trawler confirmed their analysis.

They also performed submerged lifeguard duty for downed aviators between Hanoi and Haiphong and the carriers on Yankee Station.

A U.S. Navy Sikorsky SH-3A Sea King from Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron 2 (HS-2) “Golden Falcons” sits on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Hornet (CVS-12) for a deployment to the Western Pacific and Vietnam from 12 August 1965 to 23 March 1966. In the background is the Fleet Snorkel Balao-class submarine USS Segundo (SS-398).

Others, such as Perch and Tunny, would carry out commando raids near shore. Submarines carried UDT 11 and UDT 12 frogmen to their dangerous missions in Operations Starlite, Jackstay, Dagger Thrust, Blue Marlin, and scores of other amphibious operations during the war.

Some, such as USS Salmon (SSR-573), would lay mines off North Vietnamese harbors. 

They also served as an OPFOR “tame wolf” for the carriers’ escorts, embarked SH-2/3s, and land-based P-3 Orions to keep their ASW skills sharp should a Russki boat come poking too close.

A U.S. Navy Sikorsky SH-3A Sea King from Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron 8 (HS-8) “Eightballers” from USS Bennington (CVS-20) is seen flying over an unidentified Fleet Snorkel conversion submarine during the carrier’s deployment to the Western Pacific and Vietnam from 30 April to 9 November 1968.

Many of these submarines still have the exact details of their Vietnam service classified. They don’t call it the “Silent Service” for nothing. 

Those who tallied up multiple Vietnam campaign stars included USS Grayback (8 stars), Razorback (5), Tunny (5), Barbel (4), Bluegill (4), Bonefish (4), Sea Fox (4), Swordfish (4), Tang (4), Salmon (3), Scamp (3), Tiru (3), Wahoo (3), Barb (2), Blueback (2), Bonefish (2), Carbonero (2), Pomfret (2), and Rasher (2).

Our girl Bugara beat out all but Grayback and received an Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal and seven campaign stars for her service during the Vietnam War.

Bugara was, by most accounts, the first submarine ordered into Vietnamese waters with a war face on since WWII, assigned to Task Force 77 for operations in the South China Sea as a result of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in August 1964.

In 1965, Bugara passed her 6,000th dive on her 21st birthday.

Steaming cross-Pacific in 1966 allowed her the rare treat of “Tying the Knot” by doing surfaced and submerged 360-degree turns at both the Equator and the 180th meridian.

She appeared in several films and broadcasts highlighting the American Navy in Vietnam as she was one of the few subs to make port calls in Thailand (Bangkok, Ko Sumui, and Satahib) and Vietnam (DaNang) in addition to her regular WestPac calls at Subic Bay, Australia (Perth and Geraldton), Yokosuka, Hong Kong, and Taiwan (Kaohsiung and Keelung).

On 7 July 1967, she loaded and fired four exercise torpedoes. She also carried one war shot torpedo, serial #63813 which she would use on the 11th to send the stricken Buckley-class destroyer escort ex-USS Currier (DE-700) to the bottom in deep water off California.

ex-USS Currier (DE-700) SINKEX by USS Bugara, 1967. (Photo: Bugara Veterans’ Group)

Close up. (Photo: Bugara Veterans’ Group)

Currier, who had received two battle stars for WWII service and one for Korea, had been with the Fleet Sonar School since 1954 and was sent to mothballs for seven years before her SINKEX.

Part of Bugara’s 1968 enlisted crew with non-reg black berets of the type commonly available in Vietnamese markets, complete with embroidered Dolphin insignias. (Photo: Bugara Veteran’s Site)

Bugara’s 1969 Bangkok mooring, complete with locals. (Photo: Bugara Veteran’s Site)

With the ASW vendetta between The Bug and the 7th Fleet’s escorts continuing, in 1969 she was hit by a practice MK 44 torpedo shot by an American destroyer. The torpedo failed to shut down as it was expected to, causing a big hole in Bugara’s aft superstructure. While the exercise torp was never recovered, months later its transducer and nose of the torpedo were found in a space outside of the pressure hull below the aft torpedo tubes.

Her 12th and final post-Korea WestPac cruise was capped in August 1969 when she arrived home in San Diego. She logged her 7,000th dive later that year.

Despite a year-end yard period and battery renewal that would have bought Bugara another half-decade of service, the first week of January 1970 instead brought a flash from the CNO that the five remaining Fleet Snorkel boats (our girl plus USS Medregal, Segundo, Carbonero, and Sabalo), considered too obsolete to transfer overseas much less to keep in service, were to be prepped for use as mobile targets for Mk. 48 torpedo service weapon tests.

Bugara (SS-331) possibly off San Diego, 11 June 1970. Note the four-man MK 7 Mod 6 swimmer delivery vehicle (SDV) on her pressure hull. Photo courtesy of Cole Smith and atlanticfleetsales.smugmug.com. Via Navsource

Bugara in the end cheated to torpedo its meal and made her final dive on her own terms.

Decommissioned and Stuck from the Naval Register on 1 October 1970, ex-Bugara was slated to be expended in a SINKEX off the Washington coast.

However, in the tow from Mare Island to her death ground, our girl sank in a towing accident in the Strait of Juan de Fuca about 4 miles NW of Cape Flattery on 1 June 1971, with no injuries or lives lost. The next day, the Navy sent an NRF reserve ship out from Tacoma, USS Uhlmann (DD-687), to find the sunken hulk with sonar, and later DevGroupOne sent out an early deep-diving robot to film Bugara upright on the ocean floor.

In all, she stacked up a full dozen battle/campaign stars– three for WWII, two for Korea, and seven in Vietnam. In addition to the 57 “little boys” she sent to the bottom in 1945 in gun actions, she also deep-sixed a big Japanese I boat postwar and a tin can that was past its prime. All in all, not a bad run in 26 years.

Epilogue

Little remains of Bugara on dry land. Her WWII Jolly Roger-style battle flag has faded into history and I believe her bell was still aboard when she sank.

Her records are in the National Archives.

She rests 800 feet below the surface of what is now the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary.

In September 2008 ex-USS Bugara was surveyed by NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer as part of that oceanographic vessel’s shakedown cruise in a test of her state-of-the-art multibeam sonar system (Survey ID EX0801).

In 2017, she was surveyed as part of a larger expedition by NautilusLive.

She had a fairly active veteran’s group that, from what I can tell, had their last reunion in 2017 and has been offline for the past several years (archived here). They still maintain a group of images on Flickr, heavy on those released by NautilusLive.

She had 16 skippers between 1944 and 1970, the most noteworthy of which was Arnold Schade. Once he left Bugara in February 1946 he went on to other submarine commands, including SUBCOMLANT, a role in which he advised President John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. As Commander Middle East Force in 1963-64, he earned the Legion of Merit and later pinned a Gold Star to his Distinguished Service Medal. VADM Schade retired in 1971 after 38 years of service– ironically the same year as Bugara.

Schade passed at the age of 91 in San Diego and is buried at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, Section CBEE, Row 2, Site 121.

She also had the deepest-dived Navy man in history as part of her wardroom during the Cold War. Bugara’s XO in 1962-63 was LCDR Don Walsh. Two years before being piped aboard the sub, he and Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard, while aboard the bathyscaphe Trieste (DSV-1), made the record maximum descent in the Challenger Deep, dropping into the darkness to 35,813 feet.

The world’s record descent, man’s deepest dive, had taken nine hours.

Krupp Sphere to Bathyscaph Trieste, 1960. Jacques Piccard center left and Lieutenant Don Walsh stand next to the sphere alongside an unidentified naval officer and civilian. National Museum of the U.S. Navy Photograph. NMUSN-4764

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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Second-Hand Hi-Power

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80 years ago this week. Original wartime caption passed as censored: “Moostdijk, Netherlands, 11 November 1944. Sgt. Laughlin, of Motherwell, is the section leader of the advance section of the Royal Scots and is a dead shot with the German revolver he has “collected” for self-defense since his arrival in Holland.”

Photo by Sgt. Laing, No. 5 Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit. IWM B 11761

Of course, the “revolver” is a latter production FN (Browning) Hi-Power with a more basic rear sight rather than the adjustable tangent sight. As the typical sidearm for most of the Commonwealth’s foot soldiers was the S&W Victory model, Enfield No. 2, or Webley Mk IV, all of which offered just six rounds of anemic .38/200 lead heads, the 13+1 shot 9mm Hi-Power was an upgrade for sure, especially if it had a couple of extra magazines on hand.

Gratefully for all involved due to the good sergeant’s trigger discipline, the hammer is down so NDs aren’t on the immediate menu.

Navy Revisiting Heritage and Tradition this week

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Two ship commissionings in the news show some decent salutes to those who have sailed into history in days prior.

In New York on Saturday– one day shy of the USMC’s 249th birthday– the Navy commissioned the second destroyer to carry the name of GySgt John Basilone, DDG-122.

Why New York? Basilone was born in Buffalo and grew up in Raritan, New Jersey, just 45 minutes away from the Big Apple.

During Basilone’s service on Guadalcanal, he led two machine gun sections of the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, where he used his detachment’s M1917 water-cooled Browning machine guns and an M1911 .45 Government Issue pistol to great effect to break up a Japanese charge of some 3,000 Japanese against his emplacement. The feat earned him the nation’s highest military decoration and was depicted in 2010’s “The Pacific.”

His Medal of Honor citation, from his public file in the National Archives:

Basilone. He was posthumously honored with a Navy Cross for his actions on Iwo Jima, making him the only enlisted Marine in WWII to earn both of the service’s two highest honors.

In 1945, the Navy named a destroyer after Basilone, and in 1948, a life-sized statue of him was installed in his enlistment hometown of Raritan, New Jersey.

The new USS John Basilone’s battle flag includes a pair of crossed M1917s inside the Blue Diamond shoulder patch of the 1st Marine Division.

The Battle Flag is on the portside yardarm. (Photo: General Dynamics)

As detailed by the Navy, “These words characterize the life and service of Gunnery Sergeant Basilone, honor his legacy, and charge future generations of Selfless Warriors to sharpen their spears, take a stand, and move forward.” (Photo: General Dynamics)

Once commissioned, the USS Basilone will be part of the Atlantic Fleet. If she has anything like the service life shown in the rest of her class, she will only retire around 2064.

‘Old Ironsides’ Assist

Meanwhile, up the coast from NYC in Boston, the 27th Littoral Combat Ship, the future USS Nantucket (LCS-27) is set to commission on 16 November at the historic Charlestown Navy Yard. The 14th Freedom-variant is the fifth navy warship to honor “the rich heritage of the people of Nantucket and the maritime legacy that the island represents.”

The first was a Civil War-era Passaic-class monitor known for giving hard service at Charleston and Morris Island while the second and third served in the Great War on coastal service.

The monitor USS Nantucket, seen in her post-war configuration. Loaned to the North Carolina Naval Militia in 1895, she was somewhat fancifully recommissioned for Spanish-American War service and only sold for scrapping in 1900. NH 66760-A.

The fourth, a 177-foot steel-hulled Alert-class gunboat (PG-23) commissioned in 1876, carried the name Nantucket as a training ship for the Massachusetts Maritime Academy from 1918 through 1942.

USS Nantucket (PG-23), formerly USS Ranger and USS Rockport, was then loaned to the State of Massachusetts for use at Massachusetts Nautical School. Courtesy of Mr. Gershone Bradford. NH 500

Fittingly, PCU Nantucket (LCS-27) is tied up near the USS Constitution this week as she awaits entrance to the fleet.

Remember to thank your Veterans and wear your poppies today

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No further posts today.

Official wartime caption: “Pvt. James L. Poust, Hughesville, Pa., displays a mud-covered face after having carried wounded men over mired and muddy roads of eastern France, 13 November 1944.”

U.S. Army photo SC 196551-S.

Island Hopping

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80 years ago this week. 9 November 1944. Official wartime caption: “Jet-Propelled Take-off for Mariner, South Pacific – As the massive, bi-motored Martin mariner rises into the air, streams of smoke are ejected from the rockets situated under the wings. Jet propulsion is being more and more widely used to assist in speedy take-offs for more cumbersome planes. This picture was taken at a Pacific base by the new power-driven, portable K-25 camera.”

Official US Navy photo via the James Allison Collection, MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History

Keep in mind just the immense size of the PBM Mariner: 118-foot wingspan, 79 feet in length, 27 feet in height, and 25 tons in weight. Only one is left in the U.S., BuNo. 122071, located at the Pima Air & Space Museum.

I was able to take a peek at her last year and she is just… gigantic.

About the closest thing I can equivalate the above JATO shot to is seeing “Fat Albert,” the USMC KC-130 support Hercules attached to the Blue Angles, doing its dramatic JATO-STO maneuver, in which the 70-ton aircraft hops 500 feet up in about three seconds.

Roosevelt Wins!

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Some 80 years ago today, 7 November 1944, outside of recently occupied Aachen, Germany. 3rd Armored Division men Sgt. Arnold J. Wethingston, of Indianapolis, Ind (left) and S/Sgt. Kenneth R. Peterson, of Barron, Wis., posted the highlights of the recent election results on a highway intersection.

Army Signal Corps photo SC 196293, Photographer: Sgt. Joseph A. Demarco, 165th Signal Photo Co., NARA Archives

For the record, FDR’s tough fourth presidential campaign, fought against Republican candidate Thomas E. Dewey, saw Roosevelt gaining 53 percent of the popular vote, some 25 million votes, against Dewey’s 46 percent, 22 million tally. At the Electoral College, FDR secured 432 votes to Dewey’s 99.

Of course, Dewey would return to challenge FDR’s successor, Harry Truman, during the tense times of the Berlin Airlift in 1948, with similar results, despite what the papers said.

Bandstand Ambush

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Official caption, November 1944, Holland: “The Germans installed this gun in the bandstand at Nieuland [Nieuwland], near Middelburg, to cover the crossroads in the town.”

Goodchild A (P/O), Royal Air Force official photographer IWM CL 1519

The gun appears to be an 8.8 cm Pak 43/41 anti-tank gun, the famed “German 88,” likely of the newly formed Artillerie-Regiment 170 (Oberst Franz A.M. Lex). Nieuwland was liberated by the 52 (L) Reconnaissance Regiment, of the 52nd (Lowland) Infantry Division, as part of Anglo-Canadian joint Operation Infatuate, the amphibious landing that gave Allies shipping access to Antwerp docks. 

Since you came this far, below is a period USAAF training film on the 88, at least in its AAA role. 

Dress Up Time: SC-449 Kamikaze Bait

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Happy Halloween.

This seems like a great time to mention when a 110-foot subchaser dressed up like a 495-foot Bogue-class escort carrier some 80 years ago.

Yup, we are talking about Operation Swiss Navy’s USS SC-449. 

Submarine chaser SC-449 disguised as the escort carrier USS Bogue (CVE-9), February 1945. Note the relative size of the men on the stern., via Navsource

As detailed by Navsource: 

SC-449 was one of three Submarine Chasers built in a design competition. Built as an experimental SC design she had 50 percent more stability than the production models that were built. In early 1945, she was selected by the Navy to be converted into a mock Escort Carrier (CVE) to be used in the invasion of the Japanese homelands (Operation Swiss Navy). Her deck was stripped and rebuilt with plywood to look like a CVE. The Navy liked what they saw but she was very top-heavy, so they shelved that idea, plus the atom bomb put an end to these plans.

Christopher C. Wright wrote about this in Warship International, Vol. 45, No. 1 (2008).

SC-449 was converted at Ocracoke, North Carolina, into a “deception ship” in a 1:46 scale CVE 9 configuration in November 1944. After a few months of testing, the vessel was reconverted in March 1945 at Norfolk Navy Yard back to its original configuration.

This series of photos is of the modified SC-449, part of a classified deception project by Amphibious Force Atlantic Fleet.

These photographs were taken on 18 November 1944. The aerial views are a few samples of those taken at 200 ft, 500 ft, 1000 ft, and 2000 ft. NARA collection. 

Her entire War Diary for November 1944:

Decommissioned after the war, she went on to work for Texas A&M’s Marine Department, served as a quarters boat for dredge crews, and finally as a yacht before she was scrapped in 1974.

Warship Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024: Floating Powerhouse

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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

Warship Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024: Floating Powerhouse

Photograph by Walter E. Frost, City of Vancouver Archives, CVA 447-8946.1

Above we see the Buckley-class destroyer escort USS Whitehurst (DE-634) of ResDesDiv 273 as she makes a port call in Vancouver on 31 July 1965.

At just over 300 feet long, she doesn’t look like much, but by this time in her career, she had already fought in WWII– sinking a Japanese submarine some 80 years ago this week– earned battle stars during Korea, cruised off Vietnam, and would go on to live forever on the silver screen.

The Buckleys

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

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

Buckley-class-destroyer-escort-1944 USS England by Dr. Dan Saranga via Blueprints

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

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

Class-leader, USS Buckley (DE-51), cutting a 20-knot, 1,000-foot circle on trials off Rockland Maine, 3 July 1943, 80-G-269442

Meet Whitehurst

Our subject carries the name of Ensign Henry Purefoy Whitehurst, Jr. who, originally scheduled to graduate in February 1942, was matriculated early from Annapolis with the rest of his class 12 days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, becoming the second Class of 1941.

Rushed to the Pacific, Henry was lost along with 233 shipmates aboard the heavy cruiser USS Astoria (CA 34) when “Nasty Asty” was sunk early in the morning of 9 August 1942 by Japanese surface forces at the Battle of Savo Island. The young officer was 22.

Ensign Henry Purefoy Whitehurst, Jr. 16 Feb 1920-9 Aug 1942. He is remembered on the Tablets of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial.

Laid down on 21 March 1943 at San Francisco by the Bethlehem Steel Co and launched on 5 September 1943, USS Whitehurst (DE-634) was sponsored by Ensign Whitehurst’s grieving mother, Mrs. Robie S. Whitehurst, and commissioned on 19 November 1943.

Her plankowner skipper was T/LCDR James Robert Gray, USN, 78836, (USNA ‘37). As a young LT(jg), he was the officer of the deck on duty aboard the high-speed minesweeper USS Wasmuth (DD-338/DMS-15) at Pearl Harbor and got the ship underway and fighting, claiming one plane downed. He then served as Damage Control Officer on the heavy cruiser USS New Orleans (CA-32) at Coral Sea and Midway. Whitehurst was his first command.

Headed to War!

Following sea trials, calibration tests, and shakedown off the West Coast, Whitehurst arrived at Pearl Harbor on 4 February 1944 and then got underway for the Solomons three days later as part of a small convoy.

Such work, riding shotgun for troop transports, LCIs, and LSTs on slow and steady (8-9 knot) runs, would be her bread and butter.

She took part in the Palau, Yap, Ulithi, Woleai raid (30 Mar 44 – 1 Apr 44), and, from 26 April through 7 June, she was upfront for the Hollandia operations followed closely by Toem-Wakde-Sarmi and Biak landings, including a very close brush with Japanese shore batteries off the latter.

From her War Diary:

She then joined in the operations to clear out the Northern Solomons from 22 June into early October, which for our tin can meant escorting the PT-boat mothership USS Mobjack (AGP-7) as she shifted ports, patrolling for Japanese submarines and surface contacts, conducting exercises and drills as part of Escort Division 40.

By this stage of the war, the Solomons had become a backwater.

It was there, at Blanche Harbor on Treasury Island on 1 September, that LCDR Grey was relieved by LT Jack Carter Horton, DE-V(G), USNR, 96845. Grey was being sent on to command USS Lawrence C. Taylor (DE 415). Horton, who had gone through the wartime midshipman school with 738 fellow “90-day wonders” at Northwestern University in Chicago, knew Whitehurst well– he had been her XO since commissioning.

The death of I-45

On 12 October, Whitehurst got underway from Humboldt Bay with orders to escort Task Unit 77.7.1, the fueling force for the 7th Fleet for the upcoming invasion of the Philippines. This included four oilers (Ashtabula, Saranac, Salamonie, and Chepachet), the civilian tanker Pueblo, and three fellow Buckleys: the sequential sisters USS Witter (DE-636), Bowers (DE-637), and Willmarth (DE-638).

Nearing the Philippines, Japanese activity increased and folks got jumpy. Just after 0200 on 17 October, a sharp echo underwater led to a radical course change, and a pattern of 13 depth charges dropped over the side as a precaution. Whitehurst’s War Diary notes, “The contact was evaluated as a large fish due to its erratic movements and narrow width.”

Creeping through the Ngaruangl Passage on 20 October, three days later they steamed through the Surigao Straits into the Leyte Gulf, anchoring off Homonhon Island, with her log taking care to note, “This part of the island in Japanese hands.”

Starting the next morning, at 0826 on 24 October, Whitehurst’s tanker group began a four-day running fight with Japanese ground-based aircraft, fending off a series of air attacks by Betty twin-engine and Val single-engine bombers as they repeatedly shifted positions. This included making emergency turns, burning both chemical and oil smoke, and filling the air with 3″/50 and 20mm shells whenever planes came within range. All the while the force managed to conduct underway refueling and escape the battleships and cruisers of Nishimura’s “Southern Force,” although they observed the flashes in the distance of the Battle of Surigao Strait over the night of 24/25 October.

Just when things started quieting down, at 0325 on 29 October Whitehurst observed a strong underwater explosion “some distance away” and received word via TBS that the Butler-class destroyer escort USS Eversole (DE-404) had been torpedoed and sunk by the Japanese Type B2 submarine I-45, taking 80 of her crew to the bottom.

Japanese submarine I-45 (B-class new type-1), on speed trial run off Sasebo, 1943

Whitehurst was detached from her task unit to screen the sistership USS Bull (DE-402) which was picking up what would be 136 survivors from the lost greyhound.

Picking up a sonar contact as she closed with the scene, Whitehurst delivered a series of four barrages of 7.2-inch Mk.10 Hedgehog charges and was rewarded with a series of secondary underwater explosions.

Just after dawn, a large (500-yard by 2,000-yard) oil slick was observed, filled with debris.

From her War Diary:

Japanese Sixth Fleet HQ had no further contact with I-45 and she is presumed lost with LCDR (promoted CDR posthumously) Kawashima Mamoru and his 103-member crew, removed from the Imperial Navy List on 10 March 1945.

Back to work

Continuing her involvement in the Philippines through the end of the month, a role that included blowing up random floating mines with rifle fire, on 2 November Whitehurst was dispatched to escort the damaged oiler Ashtabula to Hollandia for repairs. There, she witnessed the horrific disintegration of the USS Mount Hood (AE-11), packed with 4,500 tons of high explosives, in Seeadler Harbor.

Ordered to leave the harbor with a force of small LSMs and LCTs for Humboldt Bay the same day, by 12 November Whitehurst headed back to the Philippines as escort for Echelon L-13, a mix of 23 LSTs in four columns and 11 merchants in another four columns.

Entering the Surigao Strait by the 19th, enemy planes were sighted off and on over the next few days, cumulating with an attack on the 21st by two Kawasaki Ki-48 “Lily,” with one of the twin-engine light bombers shot down in flames. Whitehurst’s gunners contributed 382 rounds to the effort.

Sent back to Manus in December, she remained in the Admiralty Islands on interisland convoy runs and training duties, drydocking in January 1945, and then escorting the destroyer tender USS Sierra (AD-18) and repair ship USS Briareus (AR-12) to Purvis Bay in the Solomons in February.

Then came a well-earned 10-day R&R period in Australia, reporting to Ulithi afterward for the next big show.

Okinawa

Assigned to TF-51 along with two destroyers, USS McDermut (DD-667) and Leutz (DD-481), and the escort USS England (DE-635), Whitehurst and company formed the anti-submarine screen around the light cruisers USS Mobile and Miami for the assault and occupation of Okinawa Gunto, leaving Ulithi at the end of March.

By 6 April, the first Japanese aircraft out of Okinawa were engaged by Whitehurst, whose gunners fired 263 rounds that day.

At 1500 on 12 April the Divine Wind came to Whitehurst.

Three Japanese Vals closed with the destroyer escort and two were shot down by the ship’s gunners. The third, in a steep 40-degree angle dive, smoking from 20mm hits, crashed into the ship’s bridge at 1502.

The entire bridge structure was enveloped in flames– with all the pilothouse and CIC personnel killed outright– and all control and communications lost. By 1507, with secondary control restored, with gun control conducted by voice, the ship’s force was fighting the fires that were under control by 1515.

The minesweeper USS Vigilance (AM-324) and assault transport USS Crosley (APD-87) came alongside the smoking warship to render medical assistance and rescue.

All of the men in the ship’s radio room as well as those in the forward gun crews had been either killed or seriously wounded by bomb fragments. In all, Whitehurst suffered 31 deaths and 37 wounded while six men were missing in action, presumed blown overboard. Overall, the casualties amounted to a third of the crew. 

With Vigilance leading the way and a signalman from the minesweeper on Whitehurst’s deck passing commands back and forth via semaphore flag and handheld blinker lamp, the damaged escort made the protection of the Kerama Retto anchorage by 1830.

Four days later, patched up enough to make for the sea once again, Whitehurst joined a slow convoy bound for recently occupied Saipan and arrived there on the 20th. On the 22nd, she received a dispatch ordering her back to Pearl Harbor for battle damage repairs and alterations. Arriving in Hawaii via Eniwetok on 10 May, where she unloaded munitions and entered the Naval Yard two days later.

P.I. Powerhouse

The brutal month-long campaign to Liberate Japanese-occupied Manila, once considered one of the most beautiful of cities in the Far East, had left the Philippines’s capital a pile of rubble amid destruction perhaps only surpassed by Warsaw.

Manila, Philippine Islands, Feb. 1945. (U.S. Air Force Number 59680AC)

According to post-combat accounting, the fighting destroyed 11,000 of the city’s buildings, leaving 200,000 Filipinos homeless in addition to the 100,000 killed when the smoke cleared in early February 1945. Survivors had no running water, sewage treatment, or electricity.

That’s where Whitehurst and her sisters came in.

Gen. Kruger’s Sixth Army engineer train, tasked with helping to stand Manila back up in addition to pursuing the Japanese into northern Luzon, was soon operating two floating diesel powerplants to provide the city with a trickle of power.

Responding to the call, USS Wiseman (DE-667), one of Whitehurst’s sisters, was given a set of ship-to-shore power reels and transformers, allowing her to send juice into the Manila Electric Service by using the destroyer escort’s main propulsion plant.

Two large cable reels and a transformer were added between the X-position director and the smokestack. The transformers installed as part of the conversion provided electricity in six different voltages ranging from 2,400 and 37,500 volts using the ship’s GE generators

Photo of a power cable reels on the USS Wiseman (DE-667) from the open bridge. The Wiseman helped provide power to Manila for a time in 1945. U.S. Navy Memorial Foundation Collection: Frank M. Frazitta Papers. 0677-048-b1-fi-i6. East Carolina University Digital Collections. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/24920. Accessed 29 Oct. 2024

As detailed by DANFS on Wiseman’s mission:

Arriving at Manila on [March] 23d, she commenced furnishing power to that nearly demolished city on 13 April and, over the next five and one-half months, provided some 5,806,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity. In addition, Wiseman’s evaporators furnished 150,000 gallons of drinking water to Army facilities in the harbor area and to many small craft. Her radios were also utilized to a great extent. Placed at the disposal of the Navy’s port director, the ship’s communication outfit was used to handle harbor radio traffic until the director’s equipment arrived and was installed ashore.

As part of her yard period in Pearl Harbor following her kamikaze strike, Whitehurst received a similar set of ship-to-shore transmission reels, which she tested on 1 July 1945 by illuminating a test grid ashore at the Navy Yard.

3 July 1945: Whitehurst at Pearl Harbor, undergoing Inclining tests, note her TEG conversion reels are visible behind her stack. (U.S. Navy photo, National Archives #19LCM-DE634-3)

Receiving munitions, provisions, and new crew members (including a new skipper), she spent three weeks on a series of speed and maneuvering trials, augmented by gunnery and ASW exercises then shoved off on 25 July bound for the Philippines.

On 14 August 1945, Whitehurst, which had just escorted the jeep carrier USS Core (CVE-13) from Ulithi to Leyte, arrived at Manila’s inner harbor and tied up, reporting to Sixth Army to relive Wiseman.

She soon after started lighting up the P.I. at a regular 13,200 volts (5.8746E-25 MWh), 24×7.

She would continue this unsung yet vital post-war recovery service for more than two months until relieved on 26 October.

Her services were needed in Guam, and Whitehurst steamed there in early November where she tied up and supplied electrical power to the dredge YM-25, in support of the 301st Naval Construction Bn, into 1946.

No less than six other destroyer escorts– all Buckley class ships– were at some point converted into floating Turbo-Electric Generators (TEG) in such a manner: USS Donnell (DE-56), Foss (DE-59), Marsh (DE-699), Maloy (DE-791), HMS Spragge (K-572, ex-DE-563) and HMS Hotham (K-583 ex-DE-574). Notably, Donnell, which had been extensively damaged by a torpedo from U-473 in May 1944, was reclassified IX-182 and used to supply shore power off Omaha immediately after D-Day.

This allowed them to operate in important expeditionary and humanitarian roles if and when needed, a trick some of them would be called to do in later conflicts. For example, Foss and Maloy went to the aid of blacked-out Portland Maine in 1947 while Wiseman and Marsh powered the respective Korean ports of Masan and Pusan in 1950 during the Korean War.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Korea

Finally returning to CONUS in April 1946 after more than nine months of service as a floating generator, Whitehurst was decommissioned six months later and placed in the Atlantic Reserve Fleet at Green Cove Springs, Florida. She earned six battle stars for her World War II service.

Not all of her sisters were as lucky. Four had been lost during the war: USS Fechteler, sunk by U-967 northwest of Oran, Algeria 5 May 1944; Rich; lost to mines off Utah Beach 8 June 1944 just months after joining the fleet; Bates, sunk by kamikazes off Okinawa 25 May 1945; and Underhill, sunk by a Japanese Kaiten human torpedo northeast of Luzon 24 July 1945. Meanwhile, England, like Whitehurst, was damaged by suicide planes off Okinawa, but unlike our subject was not repaired following the war.

The truth was that the peacetime Navy had little use for slow DEs with their open gun mounts when so many modern, fast, and well-armed new destroyers were just leaving the shipyards.

Port broadside aerial view of destroyer escort USS Whitehurst (DE-634) November 30 1949 USN 200669

When the Norks crossed the 38th Parallel during the summer of 1950 into South Korea, Whitehurst was dusted off and recommissioned on 1 September 1950. Sent to the Far East as part of Escort Squadron 11 (CortDiv 112), she earned three battle stars (First UN Counter Offensive, Communist China Spring Offensive, and UN Summer-Fall Offensive) for her activities during the Korean War in the seven months between 25 February and 19 September 1951.

She reportedly added a 13-year-old war orphan, one Jimmie Pon Son, to her crew. 

Gilligan patrol…and movie star

Remaining in the Westpac until 1955, she transferred to Pearl Harbor for another year of service that included poking around the remote islands and atolls of the U.S. Trust Territories for the Pacific, winning hearts and minds by providing aid and medical care for the locals while enforcing fishing regulations and low-key looking for Japanese hold outs.

With an 11-foot draft and the ability to easily launch rubber rafts due to her low freeboard, littoral surveillance came easy.

For instance, take this deck log note from March 1957 into account:

By June 1957, she was one of the last destroyer escorts remaining on active duty in her WWII configuration (if you disregard her TEG equipment).

This led to the ship and her crew being placed at the disposal of 20th Century Fox for six weeks for Dick Powell to film The Enemy Below.

Dubbed the fictional USS Haynes in the film, Whitehurst appears in several significant passages, all filmed in amazing DeLuxe Color.

Reserve Days, and her final mission

Once filming wrapped, Whitehurst was sent to the 13th Naval District at Seattle, Washington in October 1957 to serve with Reserve Escort Squadron 1 (ResCortDiv 112) as a Naval Reserve Training ship, used for weekend cruises one weekend per month and a two-week summer cruise per year.

Decommissioned a second time on 6 December 1958, Whitehurst remained “in service” as a training asset, keeping up her regular drill work.

USS Whitehurst (DE634), note the post-war hull numbers

This continued until October 1961 when she was recommissioned a second time during the Berlin Wall crisis, manned by activated reservists, and sent to Pearl Harbor to join Escort Squadron 7 for 10 months.

Buckley class USS Whitehurst (DE-634)

It was during this time that she was sent to Vietnam in March 1962 along with Escort Division 71. Operating in the South China Sea and the Gulf of Siam, she conducted training of South Vietnamese naval officers out of Danang.

Postwar view of Whitehurst, with her distinctive cable reels on the 01 level amidships

Decommissioned a third time on 1 August 1962, she returned to her weekend warrior NRT job in Seattle as part of Destroyer Squadron 27 (ResDesDiv 273) where, during a 1963 refit, she landed much of her WWII armament and her TEG reels.

Her summer cruises, longer two-week affairs, often ranged as far as Canada and Mexico.

Whitehurst, City of Vancouver Archives. 31 July 1965.

This quiet reserve life continued into October 1968 when she was shifted to Swan Island outside of Portland, Oregon, becoming an NRT vessel there.

On 12 July 1969, Whitehurst was struck from the Navy List as the likelihood of her offering anything as a training asset was slim. By that time, she was one of the final members of her “disposable” class still in the Navy’s hands, a record only surpassed by a handful of fellow NRT ships which lingered into the early 1970s.

Stripped, she was towed to sea by USS Tawasa (ATF-92) and sunk as a target by the submarine USS Trigger (SS-564) on 28 April 1971 in deep water off Vancouver Island, during the development of the MK 48 torpedo– its first live warshot test.

28 April 1971 ex-Whitehurst quickly slides beneath the waves. This photo was taken by the Trigger’s Periscope Photographer, Tom Boyer.

In her ending, she served the Navy one last time by helping to test new weapons and train new bluejackets in their use.

Likewise, 11 of her class were disposed of in similar SINKEXs between 1967 and 1973: ex-USS Lovelace, ex-James E. Craig, ex-Otter, ex-Darby, ex-J. Douglas Blackwood, ex-Alexander J. Luke, ex-Vammen, ex-Loeser, ex-Currier, ex-Cronin, and ex-Gunason.

Epilogue

Few relics remain of Whitehurst.

Her war diaries and deck logs are in the National Archives. 

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

A website DE634.org, endures to keep her memory alive. Their last reunion listed, combined with veterans of USS Silverstein, Walton, and Foss, was in 2020.

As for her first skipper, James Grey, went on to command two other destroyer escorts and a troopship, including sea time during Korea, then served in several high-level shore assignments until he retired in 1960, capping 23 years with the Navy. He passed in Sunnyvale, California in 2002, aged 87.

Her first XO and second skipper, 90-day wonder Jack Horton, who commanded the ship during the battle against I-45 and somehow survived the kamikaze his ship took to the bridge six months later, mustered out in December 1945 and, settling in Houston, passed in a sailing accident on the Gulf of Mexico in 1970. Life is funny like that.

The Navy has not seen fit to commission a second USS Whitehurst.

However, The Enemy Below endures, and she is still beautiful in rich DeLuxe Color.

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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Curious Hummingbird

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France Oct 1944. Official wartime caption: “Flettner helicopter with counter-rotating, intermeshing blades, once landed on the deck of a submarine which was moving at 18 knots.”

Published 5 Sept. 1945 issue of “Air Force” magazine. U.S. Air Force Number B58561AC. NARA 342-FH-3A16591-B58561AC

The Flettner Fl 282 Kolibri (Hummingbird) was an unrealized program of the Kriegsmarine that showed lots of potential.

As detailed by the Smithsonian, which has a collection of wartime engineers’ drawings for the Kolibri on hand:

In 1940, the German Navy made a request for a naval helicopter, and the FL 282 deliveries began in 1942; by the next year, 20 prototypes were in service. The prototypes were built in different variants, one or two-seater, closed or open cockpit, and other modifications. Based on the prototypes’ success, plans to manufacture 1,000 helicopters were approved; however, because the Kolibri was a Navy aircraft, they had little claim on production facilities, and the plans to manufacture them were finally aborted due to the Allied bombing of the Flettner factories. Only three Kolibri survived the war; the rest were destroyed to prevent capture

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