“A cluster of cruisers moored in Pearl Harbor, on 12 December 1943, after returning from the Tarawa invasion. The berths shown, near to far, are C-3, C-4, C-5, and C-6 for the cruisers, plus X-6, X-7, X-8, and X-9 in the background.
Photo from the Admiral Furlong Collection in the Hawaiʻi State Archives
At berth C-3 are a trio of New Orleans-class cruisers, with USS Minneapolis (CA-36) nearest, New Orleans (CA-32) in the middle, and San Francisco (CA-38) outboard in the distance. Berth C-4 serves USS Indianapolis (CA-35) with Baltimore (CA-68) along her port side. Santa Fe (CL-60) and Mobile (CL-63), the original “Mighty Mo,” are at C-5. The Atlanta-class cruiser Oakland (CL-95) has C-6 entirely to herself. – USS Phelps (DD-360) is at berth X-6, with the destroyer tender Prairie (AD-15) next at X-7. Though not readily visible, the destroyers MacDonough (DD-351), Maury (DD-401), and Mullany (DD-528) are nested alongside. Morris (DD-417) and Bache (DD-407) populate berth X-8. The assault transport Gemini (APA-75) rounds out the photo at the upper left, sitting at berth X-9. – It’s interesting to note the anti-torpedo protection in this section of the anchorage. Nets surround berths C-3, C-4, C-5, and X-7 – basically any cruiser berth with multiple ships, and the destroyer tender nest. By the lack of netting at C-6, Oakland was apparently not deemed to be as inviting of a target as the more versatile heavy and light cruisers to starboard.” –
Some 80 years ago today: Poncho, the mascot of USS White Plains (CVE 66), 11 December 1943 as the ship conducts her shakedown cruise between Astoria and San Diego. In the background, note the jeep carrier’s sole 5″/38 open-mount gun.
NARA 80-G-384069
The Casablanca-class escort carrier was a “Kaiser Coffin” built in Vancouver in just 277 days from laydown (11 February 1943) to commissioning (15 November 1943).
Before the end of the year, she had wrapped up her shakedown and was back at sea, bound for Kiribati with 333 passengers from VC-66, Marine Air Warning Squadron (AWS) 1, and Marine Night Fighter Squadron (VMF (N) 531. She then picked up 39 aircraft of VMF-113 and VMF (N)-532, and 398 Marines bound for Tarawa, where she launched her first aircraft: Vought F4U-1 and F4U-2 Corsairs bound for shore.
USS White Plains (CVE-66) in San Diego harbor, California, circa April 1944. She is being assisted by the harbor tug Wenonah (YT-148). White Plains is painted in Camouflage Measure 33, Design 10A. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) collections, #80-G-302258.
It wasn’t until April that White Plains shipped to the war proper with an airwing of FM-2 Wildcats and TBM-1Cs to take part in Operation Forager– the landings in the Marianas Islands. She would continue her service in the Phippilipines– serving with Taffy 3’s CarDiv 25 at Samar, as well as Operation Iceberg—the invasion of Okinawa.
White Plains received five battle stars during World War II and the Presidential Unit Citation for her part in the Battle off Samar.
Postwar, White Plains was decommissioned on 10 July 1946 and, after a dozen years in the reserve fleet, was sold for scrapping.
Warship Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023: One Hearty Brazilian
Photo by LT CH Parnall, Royal Navy official photographer, IWM A 20897
Above we see a scene from the life of the modified H-class destroyer HMS Hesperus (H57), some 80 years ago today on 6 December 1943, with Ordinary Seaman P. S. Buckingham, of Norwich, freshening up the ship’s record of U-boat kills on the side of the wheelhouse as the greyhound was docked at Liverpool.
While many ships would see their scoreboard whittled down greatly following post-war analysis, Hesperus went down in the books as going five for five.
The H-class
The British Royal Navy would order some 27 assorted “G”, “H” and “I” Class destroyers between 1934 and 1936 as part of the rearmament to safeguard against the growing German, Italian, and Japanese fleets in the uneasy peace leading up to WWII. They were slight ships, of just 1,800 tons and 323 feet overall length with a narrow 33-foot beam, giving them a dagger-like 1:10 length-to-beam ratio. With a speed of 35 knots and a 5,000 nm range at half that, they could keep up with the fleet or operate independently and had long enough legs for North Atlantic convoy work, should such a thing ever be needed in the future.
The differences between the three classes were primarily in engineering fit, minor superstructure changes, and armament. They were typically fitted with a quartet of QF 4.7-inch (120 mm) Mk IX guns, a few AAA mounts, between 8 and 10 anti-ship torpedo tubes, and depth charges for ASW work.
HMS Grenade (H86), a G-class destroyer. Note her layout which was like all her sisters. Grenade would be sunk in May 1940 off Dunkirk by German Stukas.
The 27th and last of the type delivered to the RN from the ships the Admiralty ordered was HMS Ivanhoe (D16) on 24 August 1937, completing the classes built out in just four years, which is not bad for peacetime production.
The G/H/Is would prove so successful of a design that the British exported it, accepting prewar orders for 19 ships for overseas allies: Argentina (seven Buenos Aires class ships delivered in 1938), Greece (two Georgios class delivered in 1939), Turkey (four desperately needed Inconstant class delivered in 1942, largely to keep Istanbul friendly at a crucial time in the war) and a half-dozen Jurua-class tin cans for the Brazilian Navy…that’s where Hesperus comes in.
Meet Hesperus
The Brazilian Navy in early 1938 ordered six modified H-class destroyers, spread across the Vickers, White, and Thornycroft yards. They would be named Jurua, Javary, Jutahy, Juruena, Jaguaribe, and Japura after rivers and towns in Brazil. Construction proceeded along nicely, and all were christened with their intended names by visiting dignitaries from the Latin American country and afloat in the summer of 1939.
Rather than a fit for four 4.7-inch guns, these six former Brazilian destroyers in British service would carry only three with the extra deck space freed up to be used for more depth charges– capable of toting as many as 110 ash cans across three rails and eight throwers. They would enter service between December 1939 and June 1940 as the Havant class (Havant, Handy, Havelock, Hearty, Highlander, and Hurricane) keeping with the “H” class naming sequence.
Our subject, the former Brazilian Juruena, was at first dubbed HMS Hearty on 15 January 1940 and then became the first of HM’s warships to be named Hesperus on 27 February 1940 in honor of the Greek name for the planet Venus in the evening, son of the dawn goddess Eos, and half-brother of Phosphorus– the latter the name for the same planet in the morning. This latter name change came to avoid confusing HMS Hearty with near-sister HMS Hardy (H87) in signals.
War!
In March 1940, after a rushed shakedown, Hesperus was assigned to convoy escort duty in the Northwest Approaches, a duty that would take up most of her wartime experience. In all, she would serve on no less than 74 crossings from Convoy AP 001/3 in April 1940 to Convoy MKF 042 in April 1945.
Hesperus underway at sea, resplendent in her war paint. IWM A 7101
In this work, Hesperus made five (two shared) high-profile confirmed “kills” on Donitz’s steel sharks inside of 18 months:
Type VIIC U-208(Oblt. Alfred Schlieper) on 7 December 1941, west of Gibraltar, shared with sister HMS Harvester.
Type VIIC U-93 (Oblt. Horst Elfe) on 15 January 1942 north-east of Madeira
Type VIIC U-357 (Kptlt. Adolf Kellner) on 26 December 1942, north-west of Ireland, shared with HMS Vanessa
Type IXC/40 U-191(Kptlt. Helmut Fiehn) on 23 April 1943, south-east of Cape Farewell, Greenland
Type IXC/40 U-186(KrvKpt. Siegfried Hesemann) on 14 May 1943, northwest of the Azores.
She plucked Oblt. Elfe and 40 survivors from U-93 out of the water and delivered them ashore at Gibraltar to finish their war in a POW camp, providing useful intelligence when interrogated. U-357 went down with only six survivors fished from the drink by the British. Meanwhile, U-208, U-191, and U-186 went down with all hands.
Waterlogged survivors of U-93 leaving HMS Hesperus at Gibraltar on 16 January 1942. IWM A 8116
Prisoners from the U-boat, likely U-357, disembarking from HMS Hesperus at Liverpool. Note the rope stays used by the guards as clubs. IWM A 13978
The fight with U-357 was particularly rough, ending on the surface with the boat electing to fight it out after depth charges and Hesperus finishing her off by ramming– the oldest of ASW techniques.
HMS Hesperus entering Liverpool harbor, on 28 December 1942, showing damage to her bows caused by ramming U-357. IWM A 13987
Same as the above, IWM A 13986
In addition to her ASW work, Hesperus also took breaks from her convoy work to escort HMs battlewagons and carriers including HMS Resolution and HMS Ark Royal to Norway (in a campaign that also saw Hesperus ferry men of the Scots Guards ashore at Bodo in May 1940).
She would again team up with Ark Royal for the Malta relief convoys in 1941 (Operations Tiger and Splice) and as a screen for the battlecruiser HMS Renown during the hunt for the Bismarck. She screened the Churchill-carrying HMS Prince of Wales to Newfoundland for him to meet with FDR in August 1941.
Kodachrome of HMS Hesperus H57 in Canadian waters, circa 1942. Library and Archives Canada MIKAN 4821059
Aerial photo of HMS Hesperus, September 1942. Note her extensive depth charge fit. IWM A 20376
In May 1945, with the endgame in Europe, she escorted surrendered U-boats from Lochalsh to Loch Foyle for disposal as part of Operation Deadlight then, on the 29th, headed back to Norway to assist with the demobilization of German troops there.
By mid-June 1945, she was tasked with supporting aircrew training, a role that meant she was an OPFOR for coastal command bombers and patrol planes. She endured this until May 1946 when she was reduced to Reserve status at Rosyth.
Hesperus, post-war, sans camouflage and most of her depth charges. IWM A 30688.
Nominated for sale and, after removal of equipment and stores, laid up at Grangemouth awaiting demolition, ex-Hesperus was broken up there in May 1947 by G W Brunton.
End of a U-boat by Norman Wilkinson via Royal Museums Greenwich, depicting a GHI-type destroyer next to a German U-boat in its death throes amid a convoy– a sight seen by Hesperus and her sisters many times.
As for her 27 British, two Greek, and six British via Brazil sisters that saw combat, a whopping 25 were lost during the war to assorted causes, most in direct combat with the Germans.
The 10 battle-scarred survivors were either, like Hesperus, scrapped almost immediately post-war or transferred abroad for further service (Garland to the Dutch, Hotspur to the Dominican Navy).
The last G/H/I afloat were the Buenos Aires-class destroyers in Argentine service, scrapped in 1973, with their Turkish sisters preceding them. None of the class members endure or are maintained as museums.
Epilogue
At the helm of Hesperus for three of her U-boat kills was CDR Donald George Frederick Wyville MacIntyre, DSO, RN. He would add two Bars to his DSO and a DSC to his coat before his tour on Hesperus was over. He had been her plank owner skipper and commanded her for the first year of her war, including the Norway campaign, but had taken a break from the ship to command HMS Walker (D 27) in 1941– during which he was responsible for sinking two of Germany’s foremost U-boat aces, Otto Kretschmer and Joachim Schepkle aboard U-100.
MacIntyre would retire from the RN in 1955 after a 33-year career, and pass in 1981, aged 77.
Oh yes, remember Kapitänleutnant Horst Elfe, of U-93? He was the sole U-boat skipper to survive a brush with Hesperus, and survived the war as well by nature of his time as a POW in Canada which only ended in 1947 and included the “Battle of Bowmanville.” He died in Berlin in 2008, aged 91.
Elfe went on eight patrols, four as a skipper, without sinking a ship. He became a noted steel executive in Germany after the war.
HMS Hesperus had been “adopted” by Yeovil and District in its National Savings “Warship Week” that began on 28 February 1942, in which the building cost, more than £300,000 was raised.
The town has a plaque carried aboard the ship during the war as well as her final white ensign in the tower of St John’s church.
War artist William Dring visited Hesperus during the war and painted several pastels of her crew at work.
Engine Room Artificer W Wakefield wearing overalls, turning a large wheel in the engine room. Behind him are two other colleagues at work. IWM ART LD 3536
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Official caption: Navajo Code Talkers on Bougainville, December 1943 (left to right, front row): Pvt Earl Johnny, Pvt Kee Etsicitty, Pvt John V. Goodluck, and PFC David Jordan. Rear row, left to right: Pvt Jack C. Morgan, Pvt George H. Kirk, Pvt Tom H. Jones, Cpl Henry Bake, Jr.
Note the H&R-made Reising M50 HR submachine gun and newly-issued M1 Garands, two with 1907 bayonets affixed. From the Photograph Collection (COLL/3948) at the Marine Corps Archives and Special Collections
USMC Navajo Code Talkers, Bougainville, December 1943, Note the compact Reising Model 55 SMG
Corporal Henry Bahe, Jr., left, and Pvt. First Class George H. Kirk, Navajo code talkers
While an estimated 420 members of the Navajo nation served in the Marines as Code Talkers, at the same time there were other members of the tribe in USMC units in other roles, while, elsewhere in the theatre, the Army’s 158th Infantry Regiment-– the “Bushmasters” — an Arizona National Guard unit that held members from at least 20 tribes, also had a sizable contingent of Navajo who were photographed at the same time.
Dec. 1943: American Navajo Indians from the Southwest United States, members of the 158th U.S. Infantry, are seen on a beach in the Solomon Islands. They are in their traditional dress for a tribal ceremony at Christmastime. From left to right are, Pfc. Dale Winney, Gallup, N.M; Pvt. Perry Toney, Holbrook, Ariz.; Pfc. Joe Gishi, Holbrook; and Pfc. Joe Taraha, Gallup. (AP Photo/U.S. Army Signal Corps)
How about this amazing 80-year-old original Kodachrome.
Official caption: Essex-class fleet carrier USS Lexington (CV-18). Aviation mechanics work on the Pratt and Whitney R-2800 engine of a Grumman F6F-3 “Hellcat” fighter, during a lull between strikes on Mili and Kwajalein, circa early December 1943. [Note: Bill Surgi says this man is AMM 1/c Brannam, of VF-16. (18 May 1993 data)]
Photographed by Commander Edward Steichen, USNR. National Archives Catalog #: 80-G-K-15560
People forget just how big the R-2800 Double Wasp was.
America’s first 18-cylinder radial engine, with water injection and (later) turbo-supercharging, the R-2800 produced more than 46 kW/L (1-horsepower/cubic inch) and, in the R-2800-10 variant as used in the above Hellcat, could cough up a whopping 2,250 hp just before the red line.
Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp at the Ford Aircraft Engine Plant Dearborn, Michigan, 1942. LIFE Gordon Coster
Boxed Ford-made Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp at Brisbane Australia’s 81st Air Depot
Some 125,000 R-2800s were made between 1936 and 1960 and, besides powering all the best Navy/Marine piston aircraft of WWII and Korea (Goodyear FG-1, Vought F4U-1 and F4U-2, F6F, and the F8F Bearcat) also powered the massive P-47 Thunderbolt and was paired up to give the B-26 Marauder, AJ Savage, F7F Tigercat, and P-61 Black Widow their speed advantage.
Two R-2800s were enough to heave the behemoth Martin PBM-5 Mariner flying boat, which had a takeoff weight of 60,000 pounds, out of the water.
Commercially, it was used after the war in the Douglas DC-6A/-6B, Martin 202A, Martin 404, and Convair 340 airliners
1948 Grumman F8F-2P Bearcat BuNo 121710 in her Air Group 19 CAG bird livery at the National Naval Aviation Museum, with her massive R-2800-30W on a stand next to her. (Photo: Chris Eger)
Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph NH 109514
Above we see Wickes-class tin can USS Gamble (Destroyer No. 123)steaming into after the review of Pacific Fleet, 13 September 1919, with her sister USS Radford (DD-120) trailing behind.
Brand new and beautiful in this image, she was commissioned 105 years ago today. Gamble would give her last full measure off Iwo Jima and be deep-sixed a month before the end of World War II but don’t worry, she rolled the dice and took a few of the Emperor’s ships with her.
The Wickes
Gamble was one of the iconic first flights of “Four Piper” destroyers that were designed in 1915-16 with input from no less an authority as Captain (later Admiral) W.S. Sims. Beamy ships with a flush deck and a quartet of boilers (with a smokestack for each) were coupled to a pair of Parsons geared turbines to provide 35.3 knots designed speed– which is still considered fast today, more than a century later.
The teeth of these 314-foot, 1,250-ton greyhounds were four 4-inch/50 cal MK 9 guns and a full dozen 21-inch torpedo tubes.
They reportedly had short legs and were very wet, which made long-range operations a problem, but they gave a good account of themselves. Originally a class of 50 was authorized in 1916, but once the U.S. entered WWI in April 1917, this was soon increased and increased again to some 111 ships built by 1920.
Wickes class USS Yarnall (DD-143): Booklet of General Plans – Inboard Profile / Outboard Profile, June 10, 1918, NARA NAID: 158704871
Wickes class USS Yarnall (DD-143): Booklet of General Plans – Main Deck / 1st Platform Deck / S’ch L’t P’f’m, S’ch L’t Control P’f’m, Fire Control P’f’m Bridge, Galley Top, After Dk. House and 2nd Platform Deck. / June 10, 1918, Hold NARA NAID: 158704873
Wickes class. A close-up of her stern top-down view of plans shows the Wickes class’s primary armament– a dozen torpedo tubes in four turnstiles and stern depth charges.
Meet Gamble
Our subject is the first Navy ship to be named in honor of at least two of the quartet of Gamble brothers who served in the War of 1812. The four brothers including Capt. Thomas Gamble (USN) who served aboard USS Onedia during the war and perished while in command of the sloop USS Erie of the Navy’s Mediterranean Squadron in 1818; 1st Lt. Peter Gamble (USN) killed on the USS Saratoga during the Battle of Lake Champlain in 1814; Lt. Francis B. Gamble (USN) who died of yellow fever in 1824 while in command of the USS Decoy of the navy’s West Indies Squadron; and U.S. Marine hero Lt. Col. (Brvt) John Marshall Gamble, the only member of the Corps to command an American warship in battle– the prize ship USS Greenwich in her combat with the British armed whaler Seringapatam in 1813. Only John lived into the 1830s, passing at age 44, still on active duty.
Two of the four brothers Gamble. Midshipman Thomas Gamble, USN (L) via Analectic magazine. Painted by Waldo, and engraved by J.B. Longacre. NH 49483 and Lt. John M. Gamble, USMC (R). Photo from a portrait in possession of his grandson. (Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph NH 49482)
Gamble (Destroyer No. 123) was laid down on 12 November 1917 at Newport News, launched on 11 May 1918 sponsored by a dour relative of SECNAV Josephus “Cup of Joe” Daniels; and commissioned at Norfolk 18 days after the Armistice on 29 November 1918.
Wickes class sisters USS Breese (DD-122) and USS Gamble (DD-123) on the ways at Newport News between November 1917 and May 1918. NH 43018
USS Gamble (DD-123) launched at Newport News, Virginia, on 11 May 1918. Her sistership USS Breese (DD-122) is next to her and launched the same day in a dual ceremony. NH 53813
Same as above, NH 53812
Entering a crowded and rapidly demobilizing fleet that was just coming off the Great War, Gamble would spend the next several months in a series of shakedowns and trials up and down the East Coast from Maine to Cuba but notably was one of the ships escorting the troop transport George Washington, which was carrying President Woodrow Wilson back to the U.S. from peace negotiations in Paris to Boston in February 1919 and again in July.
In May 1919, she was one of the support ships for the legendary first transatlantic flight by the Navy’s Curtiss NC flying boats, helping spot NC-4through the Azores.
In mid-July 1919, Gamble, along with sisters Breese, Lamberton (Destroyer No. 119), and Montgomery (Destroyer No. 121), were shifted to the Pacific Fleet to join Destroyer Division 12 and made their way to San Diego via the Panama Canal.
USS Gamble (DD-123) and USS Breese (DD-122) photographed circa 1919, probably at Balboa, Panama, Canal zone. Courtesy of Jack Howland, 1983. NH 94956
Once on the West Coast, she would spend most of the next three years haze gray and underway, so to speak, steaming from up and down the West Coast from San Diego to Seattle and out to Pearl and back in a series of tests, maneuvers, and reviews.
Gamble photographed about 1919. NH 53815
Gamble at San Diego, California, circa 1919. NH 53816
USS Gamble (DD-123) photographed on 23 April 1919 with extensive tropical awnings covering her decks. Sister USS Breese (DD-122) is in the background. NH 53814
Gamble with her original DD-123 hull numbers. NH 67684
Destroyers at the Mare Island Navy Yard, 1919 (from left to right): USS Tarbell (Destroyer # 142); USS Thatcher (Destroyer # 162); USS Rizal (Destroyer # 174); USS Hart (Destroyer # 110); USS Hogan (Destroyer # 178); USS Gamble (Destroyer # 123); USS Ramsay (Destroyer # 124); and USS Williams (Destroyer # 108). Donation of Rear Admiral Ammen Farenholt, USN (Medical Corps). NH 42537
USS Gamble (DD-123) at anchor and dressed with flags, circa 1921, following the relocation of her after 4″/50 cal gun to the top of the after deckhouse. NH 59648
Battleship USS Mississippi (BB-41) at sea for maneuvers, during the early 1920s. Wickes class destroyers in the background include USS Radford (DD-120) and USS Gamble (DD-123). NH 46051
Destroyer tender USS Prairie (AD-5) in San Diego Harbor, California, with USS Gamble (DD-123) alongside, circa 1920-1922. NH 105775
U.S. fleet in Balboa, Panama, early 1920s. The center of the photo is the battleship USS New Mexico BB-40, then a cluster of flush deck destroyers including USS Ramsey DD-124, USS Montgomery DD-121, USS Breese DD-122, USS Lamberton DD-119, and USS Gamble DD-123. In the background are the battleship USS Mississippi BB-41, the tin cans USS O’Bannon DD-177, USS MacKenzie DD-175, USS Hugan DD-178, USS Anthony DD-172, and several other destroyers and another battleship in the far distance.
With budget cuts, Gamble was tapped to begin inactivation procedures and was decommissioned on 17 June 1922 and was held in reserve at San Diego.
Recall, and a job change
After nearly a decade on red lead row, Gamble was taken out of mothballs and redesignated a fast destroyer minelayer (DM-15) on 24 May 1930. This saw her head to Mare Island for a general overhaul and conversion.
The Navy had previously converted 14 Wickes and Clemson class ships to this designation in 1920, with the simple swap out of having their torpedo tubes replaced with a set of two 140-foot tracks that could carry approximately 85 1,400-pound Mark VI moored antenna mines (of which the Navy had 50,000 left over from the Great War) to drop over the stern.
The Navy ordered 100,000 Mark VI (MK 6) mines in 1917, carrying a 300-pound charge, and had so many left that even after using thousands during WWII they remained in U.S. service into the 1980s. Gamble and her sisters could carry as many as 85 of these on a pair of rails that ran, port and starboard, down the aft half of the ship.
Among the lessons World War I offered the US Navy was the possibility that fast ships could be effective in laying minefields to disrupt enemy operations. The surplus of flush-deckers at the end of the war provided an opportunity to experiment.
The original 14 circa 1920 rated destroyer-minelayers were slowly replaced throughout the 1930s by a smaller group of eight converted flush-deckers taken from mothballs– USS Gamble (DM-15)(DD-123), USS Ramsey (DM-16)(DD-124), USS Montgomery (DM-17)(DD-121), USS Breese (DM-18)(DD-122), USS Tracy (DM-19)(DD-214), USS Preble (DM-20)(DD-345), USS Sicard (DM-21)(DD-346) and USS Pruitt (DM-22)(DD-347).
Jane’s 1931 entry on the type. Note Breese is misspelled as “Breeze.”
Curiously, these ships would retain their white DD-hull numbers but wore Mine Force insignia on their bow, outwardly looking much more destroyer than minelayer.
Wickes-class destroyer USS Ramsey (DM-16)(DD-124) view was taken by Tai Sing Loo, at Pearl Harbor, T. H., circa 1930. Note that she is fitted out as a minelayer (DM) and retains her DD-hull number while wearing a mine-force insignia on her bow. NH 49953
In addition to these minelayers, several Wickes/Clemson class flush deckers were converted during the WWII era to other tasks including eighteen fast minesweepers (DMS), fourteen seaplane tenders (AVD), and six fast “Green Dragon” transports (APD) plus test ship Semmes (AG 24, ex-DD 189) at the Key West Sound School and damage control hulk Walker (DCH 1, ex-YW 57, ex-DD 163) which was reclaimed from commercial service as a dockside restaurant at San Diego.
All eight of the active destroyer-minelayers were formed into Mine Squadron 1 headed up by the old minelayer USS Oglala (CM 4), flagship of Rear Admiral William R. Furlong, commander of Minecraft for the Battle Force of the Pacific Fleet, and forward-based with “The Pineapple Fleet” at Pearl Harbor, where a new conflict would soon find them.
USS Oglala (CM-4); USS Gamble (DD-123/DM-15); USS Ramsay (DD-124/DM-16). (listed L-R) anchored off Cocoanut Island, Hilo Harbor, Hawaii, T.H., 12 December 1931. Mauna Kea Volcano is in the distance. Note that the DMs are still wearing their destroyer hull numbers but with Mine Force insignias. 80-G-409991
Gamble and her crew were busy while in Hawaiian waters in the 1930s, and often helped in search and rescue cases including that of the missing aircraft Stella Australis, the disabled steamer President Lincoln, and the yacht Lanikai.
She was also something of a public relations boat and was tapped to carry Territorial Governor Lawrence M. Judd from Honolulu to Hilo in 1931 then hosted the six-year-old singing and dancing wonder, Ms. Shirley Temple, in 1935.
Besides spending the day on Gamble, Temple was declared a Colonel of the Hawaiian National Guard, inducted as a Waikiki Beach lifeguard, and given a surfboard by Duke Kahanamoku during her 1935 Hawaiian trip.
Gamble (DM-15) dressed with flags while tied up in port, circa 1940 at the Golden Gate International Exposition (World’s Fair) in San Francisco. Note the circular Mine Force insignia, red/blue/white with a black center and outline, on her bow. In the distance is a USCG 240-foot Lake class cutter. Courtesy of the Mariners Museum, Newport News, Virginia. Ted Stone Collection. NH 66812
War!
All MineRon1’s ships were swaying at their berths at Pearl’s Middle Loch on 7 December 1941 when the Japanese attack came in. The squadron was divided into two divisions, with MinDiv2 consisting of Gamble, Montgomery, Breese, and Ramsay.
The response by Gamble, among others, was immediate, opening fire just two minutes after her lookouts saw enemy planes.
0745 Heard explosions on Ford Island. 0756 Wave of about 50 Japanese planes attacked battleships and Naval Air Station, Ford Island, planes flying at low altitudes about 500 feet over battleships from the direction of Diamond Head, about 700 feet over Ford Island. Five successive waves of the attack of about 10 planes each. 0758 Went to General Quarters, opened fire with .50 cal. machine guns on planes passing over nest at about 800 feet altitude. Set material condition afirm except for certain protected ammunition passages. 0759 Opened fire with 3″/23 cal. AA guns, firing as planes came within range, fuses set 3 to 8 secs. 0805 Mounted and commenced firing with .30 cal. machine guns on galley deck house. 0810 Commenced making preparations to get underway. Lighted off four boilers. 0925 One Japanese plane shot down by A.A. fire, falling in water on port beam about 1000 yards away from ship. Believed shot down by ROBERTS, W.L., BM2c, U.S.S. Gamble, port machine gunner (#2 machine gun) .50 cal., and JOOS, H.W., GM3c, U.S.S. Gamble (#1 machine gun) starboard. 0930 Division commenced getting underway. U.S.S. Breese underway. 0930U.S.S. Gamble got underway and cleared mooring buoy. 0937 Japanese planes attacked near main channel entrance. 0955 Temporarily anchored, astern of U.S.S. Medusa. 1005 Underway proceeding out of channel. 1015 Shifted .30 cal. A.A. machine guns to top of pilot house on fire control platform. 1021 Cleared channel entrance. Eight depth charges were armed and the ship commenced off-shore anti-submarine patrol off Pearl Harbor entrance. 1204 Established sound contact with submarine and dropped three depth charges. Position bearing 162° T from Diamond Head Light, distant 2.5 miles. 1255 Proceeded on course 270° T at 20 knots to join friendly forces upon receipt of orders from CinCPac. 1412 Sighted sampan bearing 320° T. 1435 Slowed to investigate but did not search. Sampan position approximately 4 miles south of Barbers point. 1628 Sighted smoke bomb off port bow. 1631 Submarine surfaced.* 1632 Fired one shot 4″ gun and missed, short and to the left. Submarine displayed U.S. colors, and ceased firing. Submarine submerged and fired recognition red smoke bomb. 1647 Proceeded west. 1732 Sighted Enterprise and exchanged calls. Instructed by Commander Aircraft, Battle Force to join Enterprise. 1744 Joined Enterprise and took station as third ship with two other plane guard destroyers.
*The friendly submarine turned out to be the Tambor class boat USS Thresher (SS-200), which was unharmed although a critically ill member of her crew– the reason for her surfacing and heading to port– passed. She again tried to enter the harbor on 8 December but was driven off by depth bombs from a patrol plane and only made it into Pearl under escort from a seaplane tender. Thresher went on to become the most decorated submarine of the war with 15 battle stars and a Navy Unit Commendation.
Gamble would remain off Pearl for the rest of the month, dropping depth charges on at least two further underwater sound contacts, and continue her ASW mission into 1942 when she expanded her operations to Samoa and Fiji, sowing defensive minefields in the waters of both. She also picked up some much-needed extra AAA in the form of a couple of 20mm Oerlikons.
Escorting a convoy to Midway in June, Gamble returned with a high-profile enemy POW, CDR Kunizo Aiso, the former chief engineering officer of the Japanese carrier Hiryu which had been sunk in the pivotal battle.
Carrier flagship Hiryu: Last Moments of Admiral Yamaguchi at the Battle of Midway. oil painting by Renzo Kita, 1943. Most of the ship’s officers chose to ride her to the bottom or were evacuated. Aiso, forgotten in the engineering spaces with a small group of snipes, surfaced after the ship had been left to the sea and managed to take to lifeboats.
Aiso was the senior Japanese naval officer imprisoned in the U.S. at the time and would be until 1944. Picked up at sea in a crowded lifeboat with 34 other survivors of his carrier after 12 days bobbing around the Pacific some 250 miles west of Midway, the English-speaking officer reportedly did not wish to return to Japan, nor wish his government be informed of his capture, preferring to be recorded as lost with his ship. For the trip to Hawaii, CDR Aiso was issued USN officer khakis and barricaded inside Gamble’s captain’s cabin with the wings cut off the wingnuts of the battle ports.
Finally, picking up 85 Mark VI mines at Pearl for points West, Gamble set off for Espíritu Santo in August 1942 and, from there, Guadalcanal.
DD-123, meet I-123
When it comes to pennant numbers, the meeting that Gamble had on the morning of 29 August some 60 miles east of Savo Island was curious. She came across I-123, a big Japanese I-121-class minelaying submarine, operating on the surface. On her fifth war patrol, she had left Rabaul two weeks prior under the command of LCDR Nakai Makoto and had already given the Marines on Lungga Point heartburn with her deck gun.
Type I-121 Submarine I-23 pictured at Kobe Naval Arsenal on April 28th, 1928
The rolling ship vs submarine combat between DM-15 (formerly DD-123) and I-123 over the course of four hours ended with Makoto and his 71 crewmembers receiving a promotion, posthumously.
Gamble’s report:
While the Japanese lost 131 seagoing Ro- and I-class submarines during World War II (100 by Allied action including mines, 3 in accidents, and 28 by unknown causes) I-123 was only the 12th boat sent to the bottom in the conflict and was one of the Empire’s first early losses.
Gamble was soon back to work.
The very afternoon after she sank I-123, she sped to Nura Island to pick up four shot-down TBF-1 Avenger (Bu. No. 00396) aviators of Torpedo 8 from the Saratoga (LT JG EL Fayle, ARM3c W Velogquz, S1C RL Minning and ARM3c JR Moncarrow), retrieved via her whaleboat from the surf line. She would rescue two more lost Airedales from Palikulo Bay two weeks later, picking up 2nd LT EN Railsbach, USMC, and Ens. EF Grant, USNR, after their SBD burned in.
Gamble was pressed into service at Guadalcanal as a fast troop transport, on the morning of 31 August carrying 158 Marines from Guadalcanal to Tulagi in company with sisters USS Gregory and USS Little, who were equally loaded down with Devil Dogs.
Gamble also was soon performing her primary role once again, that of sowing minefields around the area, planting 42 in a defensive belt in Segond Channel in December 1942.
Speaking of which…
Stopping the “Tokyo Express”
On 7 May 1943, Gamble and sisters Breese and Preble laid mines in the Ferguson Passage/Blackett Strait between Gizo and Wanawana Islands in the Solomons southwest of Rendova. Hidden by a rain squall and with enemy attention diverted by a supporting cruiser-destroyer group, the old four pipers were able to sow 250 sea mines in three rough lines across the strait in just 17 minutes.
Hours later, these mines were stumbled upon by a passing column of first-class Japanese tin cans of DesDiv 15 on an overnight fast troop transport run and sank the Kagero-class destroyer Kuroshio, with 83 lives, and crippled two sisterships– Oyashio and Kagero– which, barely able to maneuver and full of seawater, would be sunk the next day after being spotted by Navy dive bombers from Guadalcanal.
IJN First-class destroyer Hamakaze of the Kagerō-class. Three of her sisters were killed due to mines laid by Gamble and company.
As noted by Allyn D. Nevitt over at Combined Fleet, “The loss of even one such modern destroyer was fast becoming intolerable to the Japanese; having a crack unit of three erased in one blow was pure catastrophe. American daring and ingenuity in the Blackett Strait had reaped a substantial reward indeed.”
After further service– including supporting the invasion of New Georgia and planting more mines– Gamble was sent to San Francisco in July 1943 for a three-month overhaul at Hunter’s Point Navy Yard. Arriving back in the South Pacific, Gamble spent November 1943 conducting several mining runs off Bougainville in the Solomon Islands in support of the Allied offensive there.
Then, as noted by DANFS:
Through late 1943 and much of 1944, Gamble generally served as convoy escort ship screening for enemy submarines while operating between Guadalcanal and Florida Island in the Solomons; Espíritu Santo; and Noumea, with additional runs to Suva, Fiji; Finschhaven and New Britain Island, New Guinea; Sydney; and Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands.
Overhaul
In September 1944, Gamble was sent back to the West Coast for four months at the Bethlehem Steel Repair Yard at Alameda. This led to a serious overhaul of her guns, landing all her old 3″/23s and 4-inchers in favor of a homogenized set of 3″/50s and 20mm Oerlikons.
According to her December 1944 plans, her WWII topside armament was mostly emplaced on a series of superstructure platforms except for a forward 3″/50 DP above the CPO quarters just 20 feet from the bow and a 20mm Oerlikon directly behind it in front of the wheelhouse. The ammo magazine was three decks down on the keel amidships and another on astern near the shafts, meaning a chain gang had to be established to hump it up top. The main gun platform was over the galley between the three remaining funnels and held two 3″/50 DPs (port and starboard) with hinged sponsons for the gun crew and two Oerlikons. A small gun tub with two single 20mm Oerlikons (port and starboard) was above Radio 3 next to the stub mast. The stern superstructure gun platform was built atop the crew’s washhouse and armory and held a single 3″/50 DP installed just 22 feet from the stern. Two portable .50 cals were set up midship atop the pilot house and on the main deck at frame 117 (of 177 frames).
She also only had three stacks by this point.
All told, this fit gave her four 3″/50 DPs, five 20mm Oerlikons, and two .50 cals. She would also be fitted with a twin 40mm Bofors gun, although I am not sure of its placement. Not a lot of throw weight there, but then of course her main armament was in her mine rails and projectors for Mark VI depth charges.
Eight breakaway Carely float-type life rafts were installed to augment the ship’s 26-foot whaleboat and punt. The crew at this time was a skipper (LCDR/CDR) and 8 wardroom officers along with a mix of 132 rates and enlisted (62 Seamans branch, 57 Artificer branch, 4 Special branch, 4 Commissary branch, 5 Messman branch). By this time, she carried SF and SC radar sets and QCL sonar.
She also picked up a new camo scheme.
Camouflage Measure 32, Design 7D drawings prepared by the Bureau of Ships for a camouflage scheme intended for light minelayers of the DM-15 (Gamble) class. This plan, approved by Captain Torvald A. Solberg, USN, is dated 14 June 1944. 80-G-173486 and 80-G-173487.
This readied her for the “Big Show,” the push to Iwo Jima, Operation Detachment, in February 1945.
Back in the thick of it
On D+3, 17 February, Gamble closed into the beach close enough to cover the small minesweepers (YMS) and UDT teams of Sweep 5 and 6 clearing a path in the shoaling waters, shelling Japanese coastal emplacements and positions with her 3-inch and 40mm guns to silence them from harassing the cleaners via the application of 204 rounds of 3-inch AA Common and 254 of 40mm HETSD over seven hours. There, roughly six miles off Mt. Suribachi, she scored a hit on a large ammo dump with secondary explosions as well as silencing several enemy guns and bird-dogging other emplacements for the battlewagons.
Her NGFS report:
Taking position off the old battlewagon Nevada the next night, she was hit by two small 250-pound bombs dropped by a Japanese Kawasaki Ki-45 Toryu (Nick) twin-engine bomber that came in low and fast while she was silhouetted by star shells ashore. The bombs effectively wrecked our Gamble.
From her report:
Her crew was removed, and the shattered Gamble was towed to Saipan where she was decommissioned on 1 June 1945, and her name was stricken from the Navy Register three weeks later.
Stripped of anything thought useful, a series of images and videos were captured of her scuttling process, which took place off Guam on 16 July.
“Down Went the Gamble (DM 15).” Gamble was scuttled in June 1945. She was previously hit by Japanese enemy bombs in Feb 1945. Artist: Standish Backus, No.9. U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 428-GX-KN 18978
Gamble received seven battle stars for service in World War II.
Epilogue
As Gamble was scuttled off Guam in deep water, few relics of her remain topside.
The wooden mold for her D Sharp ship’s bell, cast at Mare Island, resurfaced in 1991.
As for Shirley Temple, a bosun whistle presented to her by Gamble’s crew in 1935 remained a treasured possession for years. After all, she would meet her future husband, Charles Alden Black, a former Naval intelligence officer, in Hawaii in 1950 so perhaps those long-ago Pearl Harbor USN memories were prized. The whistle remained part of Ms. Temple’s estate and archives until it was sold at a 2015 auction by Theriault’s in New York.
It is undoubtedly in some collector’s display as this is written and perhaps will resurface one day.
Thus far, the Navy has chosen to not reissue the name “Gamble” to a second ship, which is a pity.
Ships are more than steel and wood And heart of burning coal, For those who sail upon them know That some ships have a soul.
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International
The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.
With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO, has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.
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Marcus Edin and friends recently got a chance to check out an ~almost~ fully working 1941 Bofors M/24 12cm/50 cal gun and some surrounding bunkers in quite good condition in Sweden.
Apparently, the last service was performed on these in 1988 as the Swedes kept these low-tech but still effective coastal guns in operation through the end of the Cold War. After all, it would track that these were still capable of zapping an interloping Soviet destroyer or amphib that came in close enough and they were immune to EMP in the worst-case scenario.
Warship Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2023: From Midway to Trafalgar
Above we see a great bow-on shot of the FRAM’d Gearing class destroyer USS Eugene A. Greene (DD/DDR-711)with a bone in her teeth in her second life as the Spanish Navy’s Churruca (D61) in the 1980s, the country’s traditional crimson and gold Rojigualda ensign on her mast, a twin 5″/38 hood ornament and two forward-facing Mk.32 triple torpedo tubes under the bridge wings. Her original moniker comes from naval aviator Eugene Allen Green, born 98 years ago this week.
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 mass, 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 Eugene A. Greene
Our subject is the first Navy ship to be named in honor of Eugene Allen Green, born in Smithtown, New York on 21 November 1921. A 1940 graduate of Rhode Island State College, he attended ROTC while in school and promptly enlisted in the U.S. Navy Reserve’s air cadet program, earning his ensign bar along with his wings of gold by August 1941.
Assigned to Bombing (VB) Six aboard USS Enterprise (CV-6) in March 1942, he gave his last full measure behind the controls of his SBD (6-B-9) at the ripe old age of 21 during the Battle of Midway when, following the attack by VB-6 against the aircraft carrier Kaga on 4 June, he was one of 14 of the “Big E’s” pilots that had to ditch their planes on the way back home, out of fuel. Greene and his gunner, RM3c SA Mutane, along with the crews of eight other ditched aircraft from Enterprise that day, would never be seen again.
Greene was granted a posthumous Navy Cross in December 1942 and his widow, Mrs. Anita M. Greene, would sponsor the destroyer named in his honor.
The second of 16 Gearings contracted via Federal Shipbuilding, Kearny, New Jersey, the future USS Eugene A. Greene (DD-711) was laid down on 17 August 1944, launched the following March, and commissioned on 8 June 1945.
War!
While 98 Gearings would eventually be completed, most of these arrived too late to take part in WWII, with Greene joining a club that only included 44 sisters who arrived very late in the war. Although some were present in the final push to Tokyo, none were damaged or lost. Three of the class– USS Frank Knox, Southerland, and Perkins— entered Tokyo Bay in time to be present at the Japanese surrender, on 2 September 1945.
As for Greene, her WWII service, as detailed by her War History, consisted primarily of a shakedown cruise ranging from Penobscot Bay, Maine to Guantanamo Bay then, in mid-August following the news of the Japanese surrender, was assigned to the Atlantic fleet to serve as a school ship in Norfolk and Casco Bay, then to Pensacola to assist as a plane guard for aviation cadets– a task she would be well-versed in over her career.
USS Eugene A. Greene (DD-711) off New York City on 29 May 1946. She is still painted in wartime Camouflage Measure 22. NH 66345
A Chilly Peace
As the Navy’s newest destroyers, none of the new Gearings were mothballed after the war.
On 13 February 1947, Greene sailed south in a task group bound for Montevideo, Uruguay, to participate in the festivities accompanying the inauguration of the country’s new president, Tomás Berreta. The group also paid a goodwill visit to Rio de Janeiro before returning to Norfolk on 31 March.
Light cruiser USS Fresno (CL-121) on port call at Rio De Janeiro, March 1947, alongside her Gearing class consorts, USS Gearing, USS Gyatt, and USS Eugene A. Greene. Note the stern depth charge racks. The quartet was returning from Uruguay where they represented the U.S. at the inauguration of the new Uruguayan president. The Fresno was launched in 1946, too late to serve in WWII, so she took part in good-will diplomatic missions like this. She was sold for scrap in 1966. Photo attributed to Robert Norville, from NavSource.
As detailed by DANFS, the Norfolk-based Greene then became a staple of the 6th Fleet until 1960:
On 10 November 1947, Eugene A. Greene sailed on the first of 9 Mediterranean cruises made over the next 13 years. During those years, she and her sisters of the U.S. 6th Fleet have guarded the interests of peace and order in that sea which was the cradle of democratic government. Voyages to northern Europe and the Arctic varied the routine of overseas deployment for Eugene A. Greene.
What was skipped by DANFS was the fact that Greene was on hand in the region for five months through the 1956 Suez Crisis just in case she was needed.
It should be noted that, by this stage, she was significantly modernized, picking up a new tripod mast with AN/SPS-6 L-band radar (later augmented by an SPS-8A S-band capable of spotting aircraft 60nm away) and lightened her topside by landing most of her WWII AAA suite, torpedoes, and depth charges. This resulted in a change to a destroyer radar picket (DDR-711) that she held from July 1952 until she reverted to the simpler DD-711 in March 1963.
USS Eugene A. Greene (DD-711) underway at sea on 19 September 1950. Note that she has received a new tripod mast with AN/SPS-6 radar and has landed much of her WWII AAA suite, torpedoes, and depth charges. National Archives Identifier 24743125
At sea, October 1951. 80-G-442191
USS Eugene A. Greene (DDR-711) off the Norfolk Naval Shipyard on 18 December 1952. National Archives Identifier 24743145
Same as the above, bow on 24743147
Same as the above, stb profile. Note the newly installed AN/SPS-8 air search radar aft for her role as a DDR picket. 24743143
The Frostiest Part of the Cold War
Greene experienced the life that came with all the classic 1960s naval adventures in the Atlantic.
Greene is on the list of U.S. Navy ships that received the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal for participating in the Cuban quarantine, from 24 October through 20 November 1962.
Roger Powell missed ship’s movement of the destroyer USS Rush (DD-714) — along with 44 other shipmates as she sortied out over the weekend on little notice– and was tacked on to help fill out Greene’s crew, similarly, headed for Cuba to be a plane guard alongside the USS Enterprise.
Greene would undergo a nearly year-long FRAM I reconstruction at Boston NSY, completed in October 1963. Meant to add 8 years to the ship’s life via a complete rehabilitation of all shipboard components, it also fundamentally changed the destroyer to a modern sub-buster. The 5″/38 Mount 52 forward was removed during the rebuild while a hangar and platform for the QH-50C DASH ASW drone was added in place of the SPS-8A radar house.
Also new was an 8-cell ASROC matchbox launcher amidships, SQS-23 SONAR, VDS, and a six-pack of Mark 32 torpedo tubes. She added Mk 44 ASW torps to her magazine, for use by her own Mk32s as well as DASH, which theoretically could drop them some 20 miles away from the destroyer.
When she left Boston, she became first the flag of Destroyer Squadron 28, then DESRON 32.
Like most East Coast-based Navy ships in the era, Greene participated in several NASA recovery missions between other assignments, logging two (Mercury-Atlas 2 and 3) in early 1961 and Gemini-Titan 2 (GT-2) in 1965, supporting the primary recovery ship, USS Lake Champlain (CVS-39).
A great view of the post-FRAM’d USS Eugene A. Greene (DD-711) steaming past USS Lake Champlain (CVS-39) during operations on 23 September 1964. Note her ASROC amidships and her big DASH hangar aft in place of the deleted Mount 52. She still carries her aft mount (Mount 53) and forward (51). One of the carrier’s big Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King ASW helicopters is flying by in the right foreground, and another destroyer is in the left distance. Photographer: AN Thomas J. Parrett. NH 107007
Speaking of the Med, Greene would make another four deployments there between 1968 and 1972– and on two of them job into the Persian Gulf/Indian Ocean to show the flag in the increasingly important region. This included a seven-month goodwill cruise with the U.S. Middle East Force in 1968 during which she was the first U.S. ship to enter the new Iranian port of Bander Abbas, doing the Shah’s Navy the courtesy of charting the harbor from end to end with her advanced sonar.
Earning “blue noses” for her crew, she also took part in Operation Deep Freeze ’69 in the Antarctic and two North Atlantic cruises that crossed the Arctic Circle. Warming up, she went to Latin America once again in UNITAS ’68.
War! (This time for real)
Greene, being a top-of-the-line ASW boat post FRAM mods, also sailed to the Pacific to take part in a West Pac deployment (June-December 1966) to Vietnamese waters, shipping via the Panama Canal, Pearl Harbor, Guam, Subic Bay, and Hong Kong to take up station as a plane guard alongside the carrier USS Constellation (CVA-64) on 28 July.
There she remained for a month at sea, every day closing to within 4,000 yards with a rescue detail at the ready in case one of Conny’s birds went into the drink, all the while her sonar techs kept an ear out for anything funny in the depths.
USS Constellation (CVA-64), the third ship named for the configuration of 15 stars on the original United States Flag shows an A-4 Skyhawk given landing instructions by a technical crewman using the Landing Signal Officer’s (LSO) console as the LSO watches, October 1966. Greene was her primary plane guard during a good part of Conny’s 1966 Far East Cruise (12 May–3 December) with CVW-15 on board during which 16 aircrewmen and 15 aircraft were lost in operations. K-33638
This lifeguard work paused on 21 August when Greene was dispatched to close to the South Vietnam littoral under control of Task Unit 70.8.9 where she stood by in the Republic of Vietnam’s I Corps area on call for naval gunfire support missions. Over the next five days, her gunners got in lots of work as she steamed as close as 2,000 yards from shore answering NGFS calls with 311 rounds of HE and WP and providing 90 nighttime star shell illumination for friendly outposts. She was credited with annihilating an enemy base camp, wiping out a platoon-sized element of infiltrators in the open, and destroying several enemy supply buildings.
A sampling from her deck log:
Headed back to Yankee Station after rearming while underway, she worked alongside the carrier USS Coral Sea for the rest of her deployment until she slipped her port shaft in October and had to limp into Tse Ying, Taiwan, for a quick fix that would get her to Subic Bay. Returning to Norfolk in December via the Suez and the Med, Greene ended up circumnavigating the globe in a 205-day around-the-world deployment.
In short, her 27-year career with the U.S. Navy was diverse and, well, just remarkably busy. It was little surprise one of her lasting nicknames was “The Steamin’ Greene.”
But all good things must come to an end and on 31 August 1971, with Greene almost eight promised years to the dot past her FRAM I service life extension, she was decommissioned.
A second life
With the general post-WWII rapprochement between a still very fascist Franco and the Western allies, the 1953 Madrid agreements thawed the chill between the U.S. and the country, opening it to military aid in return for basing.
In many ways, the Spanish fleet by the late 1960s, was very American.
These were soon joined by five FRAM I Gearing class destroyers, starting with USS Eugene A. Greene (DD/DDR-711) in 1972. By this time, the Spanish were also slated to get five new-made Baleares-class frigates, variants of the Knox class destroyer escort/fast frigates updated with Standard SAM suites.
Greene, still on the Navy List, was loaned to Spain the same day she was decommissioned. Renamed Churruca (D61) she honored RADM Cosme Damián Churruca y Elorza, who was lost on his ship-of-the-line San Juan Nepomuceno at Trafalgar in 1805.
Muerte de Cosme Damián Churruca (detalle), Eugenio Álvarez Dumont
Stricken from the U.S. Navy List on 2 June 1975 three years after she joined the Spanish Navy, Greene was sold to Spain for a token fee and remained in service with the force through the 1980s, class leader of her 11th Destroyer Division sisters. To be fair, although they were 30 years old, these FRAM I Gearings in the 1970s and 80s were still capable against Russki Whiskey, Romeo and Foxtrot-type smoke boats and their guns still worked enough for old-school NGFS should the large Spanish naval infantry need fire missions.
Period photos of Churruca show her still very much in her prime.
With the Cold War ending, so did the Gearings worldwide. Churruca was stricken by Spain on 15 September 1989, and disposed of in a SINKEX in 1991.
Sent to the bottom by a mixture of ordnance from Spanish Air Force F-18s and Spanish Navy AV-8 Matadors as well as some Standard missiles and Harpoons, her death was captured on grainy video, much like a snuff film.
Her four sisters in Spanish service (Gravina, ex-USS Furse; Méndez Núñez, ex-USS O’Hare; Lángara, ex-USS Leary; and Blas de Lezo, ex-USS Noa) were all disposed of within another year.
Of her massive armada of 98 Gearing-class sisterships that were completed, 10 survive above water in one form or another including three largely inactive hulls in the navies of Mexico and Taiwan. The others are museum ships overseas except for USS Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. (DD-850) in Fall River, Massachusetts; and the USS Orleck (DD-886) in Jacksonville. Please visit these vital floating maritime relics.
Orleck, fresh out of dry dock, being towed to her new home in Jacksonville
Ships are more than steel and wood And heart of burning coal, For those who sail upon them know That some ships have a soul.
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International
The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.
With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO, has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.
PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.
The new Boeing–Saab T-7 Red Hawk, which has admittedly had some serious teething problems (what weapon doesn’t?), is described by the company as “a low-risk, leading-edge, live, virtual and constructive fifth-generation aircrew training system that delivers a multi-generational leap in capability to revolutionize and reinvigorate fighter pilot training.”
First delivered T-7, Boeing image 230914-F-F3456-1001
There is a long history of simple yet very aerobatic trainers turned into fine combat aircraft and low-cost exports for cash-poor allies. For instance, the two-seat Northrop T-38 Talon — which the Red Hawk is replacing after a storied 60-year run– was developed into the single-seat F-5A the year after the first T-38 was delivered and began shipping to overseas allies two years after that. The Soviets inherited a few post the fall of Saigon and in tests found that it beat the MiG-21 and 23 almost every single time.
But it doesn’t always work out like that.
Take the case of the CW-21.
Curtiss Wright developed the single-seat CW-21 Interceptor (often mistakenly called the CW-21 Demon) in the late 1930s from Carl W. Scott’s two-seater CW-19 utility/advanced trainer aircraft which had some limited export success to Caribbean and Latin American countries.
Keeping almost the exact same length, wing area, and span as the CW-19, the CW-21 was given better aerodynamics and a huge boost in power (from 350 hp to 850 hp) that, combined with its low weight, meant it was optimized for climb and speed, capable of 314 mph (roughly the same as the Morane-Saulnier MS.410 and the Hawker Hurricane and superior to both the Oscar and Zero).
The armament was nose-heavy with a pair of Colt .50 caliber machine guns above the massive engine inside the cowling and another pair of Colt .30 caliber machine guns below it, synchronized to fire through the propeller disc, keeping the thin swept wings light.
It looked great and got some good press as being able to climb a “mile in a minute and one half.”
The thing is, it was criticized by pilots as being difficult to handle, with one U.S. Army Air Corps officer famously saying that it “took a genius to land it.”
Nevertheless, the KMT Chinese and the Free Dutch East Indies governments, to whom it was pitched as just the thing to zap roaming Japanese bombers, were hungry for just about anything they could get and Curtiss was already selling them lots of other types as well.
In “Curtiss Aircraft 1907-1947″ by Peter M. Bowers, he details just four CW-21s were built by the company (NX19431, 19941-19943. C/ns: 21-1/21-4) and a further 51 sold as kits in two types to be assembled by the host country.
The completed aircraft and 27 kits were sold to China to be built by CAMCO at Loiwing, near the Burma border for use by the Flying Tigers. This ended in failure with the original demonstrator crashing in China, and the three production aircraft crashing into a mountain while being ferried from Rangoon to Kunming two weeks after Pearl Harbor. None of the kits made it out of Loiwing, being abandoned and destroyed in place when the Japanese rushed in the spring of 1942.
It seems some of the kit remnants were still there when the Allies came back to Loiwing in 1945.
The rest of the kits (24 Type B aircraft with a billed top speed of 333 mph) made it to Andir airfield in Java and to the hands of the military aviation branch of the Royal Dutch East Indies Army (ML-KNIL) where they were assembled locally starting in February 1941 and equipped the Vliegtuiggroep IV, Afdeling 2 (“Air Group IV, No. 2 Squadron”; 2-VLG IV). under 1/Lt. R.A.D. Anemaet. However, the combination of a big engine on a light aircraft at the hands of green pilots led to almost immediate structural problems and only nine were still in service by that December.
Still, they certainly looked fast and capable on the ground in 1941 in Java, with several images surviving today of 2-VLG IV and their newly assembled and camouflaged CW-21Bs in the NIMH archives, captured at the time by one Jan B. van der Kolk.
Curtiss Wright CW-21 Interceptor van ML-KNIL. AKL023173
Curtiss Wright CW-21 Interceptor van ML-KNIL AKL082371a
Curtiss Wright CW-21 Interceptor van ML-KNIL 2039-001-087-009
Curtiss Wright CW-21 Interceptor van ML-KNIL AKL082365
Curtiss Wright CW-21 Interceptor van ML-KNIL AKL082371b
Curtiss Wright CW-21 Interceptor van ML-KNIL AKL082370
They reportedly had a few limited victories against the Japanese but by 3 March 1942, the final CW-21 combat sortie had been flown.
ML-KNIL Curtiss Wright CW-21 Interceptor #CW-357 piloted by Sgt. Hermann depicted shooting down a Japanese Mitsubishi F1M2 (Pete) as seen on MPM models box art by painter Stan Hayek
