Saluting AB Clark, late of HMAS Sydney

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From the office of the Australian Defense Minister:

Eighty years after the Australian warship HMAS Sydney (II) sunk off the West Australian coast, the only body recovered from the tragedy has now been identified.

New DNA evidence has confirmed Able Seaman (AB) Thomas Welsby Clark from New Farm in Brisbane as the previously unidentified sailor.

The Sydney sank on 19 November, 1941 following an intense battle with the disguised German merchant raider HSK Kormoran, about 120 nautical miles (222 km) west of Steep Point, WA.

AB Clark is believed to be the only sailor to have made it to a life raft after the ship went down.

Despite surviving the battle and the sinking, he tragically died at sea in the life raft. His remains were found near Rocky Point on Christmas Island nearly three months later.

DNA samples collected from his body in 2006 have been extensively tested over the past 15 years and revealed both mitochondrial DNA, passed from mother to child, and Y chromosome DNA passed from father to son.

Research facilitated by the Sea Power Centre – Australia has successfully identified two living direct relatives.

Minister for Veterans Affairs and Minister for Defence Personnel Andrew Gee said the formal identification was a significant development in Sydney’s story and an historic moment for Australia.

“To finally learn Tom’s name, rank, service number and home town, 80 years after he was lost is truly remarkable”, Minister Gee said.

“It is says a lot about Australia that, despite the decades that have passed, our nation is still working so hard to identify those lost in war and ensuring we honour the sacred commitment to remember them.

“I know this is a terribly sad time for Tom’s family. Like his brave shipmates, he died defending Australia, our values and way of life. His family should be immensely proud.

“The Office of Australian War Graves has agreed that next year Tom’s grave in Geraldton War Cemetery will be marked by a new headstone bearing his name. He will be ‘unknown’ no longer.

“By identifying Tom, our nation honours all those who lost their lives in HMAS Sydney (II).

“His story helps Australia understand the immense sacrifice made for our country and also the loss and grief that is still felt by the descendants of those who perished on that day.

“Today our nation also extends its deepest sympathies to the descendants of the 644 other crew members who were sadly never recovered after that infamous battle.

“They gave their lives protecting our nation and fighting tyranny, and by ending the threat posed by the Kormoran they undoubtedly saved many other Australian lives.

“At this time we remember them and all of the 39,000 Australians who lost their lives in the Second World War.”

Chief of Navy Vice Admiral Mike Noonan said AB Clark was just 21 years old when he died and was representative of the many young lives lost in the battle.

“Of Sydney’s total complement of 645 men no one survived. This included six Royal Australian Air Force members, eight Royal Navy personnel and four civilian canteen staff. Eighty-two officers and sailors were killed in Kormoran,” said Vice Admiral Noonan.

“We revere the service and sacrifice of all who perished.

“Solving this World War II case involved specialists in DNA analysis, forensic pathology and dentistry, ballistics, anthropology, archaeology and naval history. I commend the combined effort spearheaded by the Sea Power Centre to confirm AB Clark’s identity.

“The Australian Federal Police National DNA Program for Unidentified and Missing Persons was instrumental, as were the Australian National University, Australian War Memorial, University of Adelaide and University of Sydney, not to mention Able Seaman Thomas Clark’s family.”

“His long voyage is complete, may he Rest in Peace.”

Dr Leigh Lehane, (a retired academic) was surprised and saddened to learn her Uncle Tom was the unknown sailor.

“To be quite honest it was a bit upsetting,” she said.

However, she said establishing the truth was important.

“I am so grateful for the many, many people, well over a hundred, who helped ascertain the truth about his identity,” Dr Lehane said.

She was born in July 1941, the month before her Uncle Tom joined Sydney. According to a family story he met his new niece on a final visit to Brisbane.

“He came and held me as a little baby. That’s a very pleasurable thought because I don’t think anyone else is alive now who knew Tom sort of eye to eye,” Dr Lehane said.

One of Mr. Clark’s Long Slides

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James E. Clark was one of the great American competition shooters and pistolsmiths of the 20th Century. Full stop.

In 1953, Clark won the National Championship for .22 caliber with a Ruger Mark I fitted with one of his muzzle brakes. Five years later, he became the first and only full-time civilian to win the U.S. National Pistol Championships, a title normally earned by a military service member or LE competitor. In all, he would rack up no less than 64 national pistol records, including the national championship a full half-dozen times, before he retired from the competition circuit in 1975.

As a smith, he pioneered the Bowling Pin model of 1911, created the first ramped 1911 barrel, customized Ruger Mk Is and High Standard .22s, and did combat revolver work. All this is on top of making some exquisite National Match and Long Slide 1911s. In 1983, he was one of the first people to make an aluminum M1911 mount for Aimpoints, an optic that at the time was about the size of a soup can.

“Clark guns are not loaded down with gadgets nor are they prettied up just to look fancy. They are built with one purpose: to shoot with supreme accuracy and dependability,” wrote George Wessinger in the Nov./Dec. 1985 issue of American Handgunner.

And I recently had a chance to check out one of these guns:

More in my column over at Guns.com. 

160 years ago: Just some guys from Mass

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Members of Mess 3, Co. C, 13th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry taken at Williamsport, Maryland, on a cool fall morning of November 21st, 1861. Note their mix of kepis and Hardee hats, as well as a personal toboggan cap and what looks like a fez with a tassel. Two are wearing their cartridge pouches but only one is armed, with what looks like a Springfield 1855 rifle, or similar.

Organized at Fort Independence June 16, 1861, at the time of the above image the 13th Mass was part of Abercrombie’s Brigade, Banks’ Division, Army of the Potomac. Before they were mustered out on August 1, 1864, they would fight at Hancock, Cedar Mountain, Bull Run, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredricksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, The Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, and the Siege of Petersburg.

The Center for Civil War Photography’s Craig Heberton IV has the following breakdown of the men shown in the above photo, captured in time and place. 

This high-quality reproduction print of a very well-focused and executed early war photograph of nine members of Company “C” of the Thirteenth Massachusetts Regiment, taken at Williamsport, Maryland, does just that. It also reveals that these guys all “messed” together. And what a variety of headwear! It is unlikely that these men, as of November 21, 1861, had any inkling of what lay in store for themselves and their mates at unusually bloody large-scale battles in which they later would be actively engaged, such as Second Manassas and Gettysburg, where their unit suffered around 200 casualties at each.

Randomly picking one of the men, Garry Adelman notes that soldier #5, Albert Sheafe, “was a 21-year-old carver from Boston [who was] wounded at Antietam on the north end of the field, [constituting] one of [the] 130+ casualties [of the 13th Mass.] at that battle. He served till August 1864 and later lived in Roxbury, Mass.”

Expanding thereupon, Tom Boyce writes that: “Albert A. Sheafe was born in Lynn, Mass. in 1840… [In the 1860 Federal Census,] Albert Sheafe is listed as a [carver’s apprentice, living with many other unrelated people in the residence of 50-year-old] Anne M. Cushing [and her two children] in [Boston’s 4th Ward]. He enlisted as a private in Company “C” of the 13th Massachusetts Infantry, 16 Jul 1861. Quickly, he attained the rank of Corporal, although curiously his rank was back-dated to 01 June 1861. He was severely wounded during the Battle of Antietam (Sharpsburg), 17 Sep. 1862… He attained the rank of Sergeant during the first day’s Battle of Gettysburg. His rank was, again, upgraded during the 2nd day’s battle of Gettysburg, where the 13th Massachusetts suffered many casualties. He was mustered out of service, 01 Aug 1864 and died in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 25 Mar. 1916.”

I decided to dig a little deeper to learn that on Jan. 5, 1865, Albert A. Scheafe married Clara A. Rand in Portsmouth, N.H. By May 1, 1865, Albert and Clara lived in Newburyport, Mass. in the the home of George F. Smith (aged 25, an engineer) & Frank M. Smith (aged 24). I’d bet a dollar that “George F. Smith” is the same fellow as soldier #6, “Geo. H. Smith,” seen in the Nov. 21, 1861 photograph. Scheafe’s occupation, then, was described as “cabinet maker.”

By 1870, the Sheafes were the parents of a 4-year-old daughter and living in South Boston, Mass. Albert still “work[ed] as a carver.” The family lived in the home of his wife’s uncle (a 49-year-old Canadian-born policeman named Emery Dresser) and aunt Mary Francis R. Dresser.

It appears that the Sheafes lost their daughter before 1880, at which time they and Albert’s mother, Rhoda (a nurse), apparently rented space in the residence of Abram Wolfsen (a dealer in watchmaker’s tools) on Sharon St. in Boston. Albert’s occupation remained a “carver” as of 1880.

Skipping ahead to 1910, the Scheafes are found living in Portsmouth, N.H., where they would have celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary. At the age of 69, Albert (or his wife) told the census taker that he still engaged in furniture cabinetry work. From 1907 until his death on March 25, 1916, Albert received a military pension. He was buried in Portsmouth’s South Street Cemetery. After her husband died, Clara received an army widow’s pension up until 1924. She lived to the age of 98 or 99, dying in 1941. Clara A. Rand Scheafe is buried in the same plot with her husband.

Fly By Night Outfit: Spooky does it

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Official caption: “Air War In Vietnam, 1966: Crew of US AC-47 plane firing 7.62 mm GE miniguns during a night mission in Vietnam.”

The trio of General Electric GAU-2/M134 miniguns carried by the gunship was able to lay down a total of 6,000 rounds of 7.62 NATO per minute, or 100 per second.

The night attack of a U.S. Air Force Douglas AC-47D Spooky gunship over Saigon in 1968. This time-lapse photo shows the tracer round trajectories. National Museum of the U.S. Air Force photo 120517-F-DW547-001

Going well beyond the “whole nine yards”

AC-47 Spooky by Stu Shepherd

With less than 40 AC-47s of all types used by the USAF’s 3rd and 4th Air Commando Squadrons between 1964-69, few remained in U.S. inventory as most flyable examples were passed on to Southeast Asian allies (i.e. Cambodia, Laos, RVN, Thailand) after the much more capable AC-130 gunship entered service.

However, there is one that I happen to visit every time I head to Destin, located at the USAF Armament Museum, although it is actually just a modded C-47K Goony Bird (S/N 44-76486).

The AC-47D depicted emulates SN 43-49010 which was one of the first 20 C-47Ds converted to its AC-47D configuration by Air International at Miami, FL. The original was assigned to the 4th Special Operations Squadron, 14th Special Operations Wing, flying out of Udorn RTAFB, Thailand during the Vietnam War from 1969-1970.

Gun Show Woes

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I used to love gun shows. Like a six-year-old on Christmas morning kinda love. 

Now pushing a half-century under my keel, I remember the “good old days,” if you will, of the early 1990s when a mad rush of surplus from post-Cold War Eastern Europe was flooding in coupled with the liquidation of stocks long-held in NATO arsenals for the same reasons. You know, $99 Russian SKSs, $49 Turkish Mausers and Russian Nagant revolvers, $79 Spanish Mausers and M91 Mosins (with bayonets and accessories!), $125 SMLEs, $200 Walther P-1s, $150 Makarovs, Bavarian-marked M1 Carbines for $300, etc, etc. ad nauseam.

However, sometime around 2014 or so, after the great panic buys and skyrocketing prices of everything gun that came post-Newtown, I stopped going to shows as I found that 99 percent of items were just way, way overpriced and the “I know what I got, son,” guys were just so tiring when you tried to point it out. Carpetbaggers. Opportunists. In-authentic bottom feeders of the gun community. Gross. 

Just as I was thinking about dipping my toe back into the water, I got this in the “new stuff” email from Empire Arms this week. If you don’t know, Dennis over there is the man, hitting the road like 200 days a year to scour the country for milsurp deals and passing them on to the people on his list.

Anyway, Dennis’s feedback on the huge recent Wanenmacher’s gun show, one of the largest and historically best in the country:

Our recent visit to the TULSA ARMS SHOW was pitiful, as virtually everything I wanted to purchase at tables was priced at two to five TIMES what we would sell them for (and few, if any, items were actually moving at those obscene asking prices). There has to be a lesson there somewhere, as this “top-dollar” attitude is not doing anyone any good. I am certain that these dealers and table-holders actually didn’t feel that their prices were too high at all, it was just that literally everyone coming through the door of the show was a “cheap bastard” (including me, I guess).

Of course, any public entering the show with anything decent for sale got “low-balled” by these same self-righteous idiots. We purchased almost every one of the measly twenty guns we were able to buy from walk-ins (who commented bitterly on the ridiculous cheap offers they were given by folks who often had the very same stuff at three or five times what they were offering). Very discouraging!

Sigh. You can never go home again, right?

HK Won’t so CMMG Will

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Missouri-based CMMG on Tuesday announced the first firearm made for the American consumer market chambered in 4.6×30– the FourSix.

Designed originally by Heckler & Koch in the 1990s for a low-recoiling NATO Personal Defense Weapon program– competing against FN’s 5.7×28 for the same purpose– the 4.6x30mm is a rimless bottlenecked cartridge that performs well under 150 yards whose small size allows guns chambered for it to carry a lot of rounds.

Who doesn’t like a legit HK MP7? The thing is, they are unobtainium.

Fast forward 20+ years and, while both cartridges have been adopted by NATO and standardized, only the 5.7×28 has been utilized by other firearms makers (e.g., Ruger 57, Diamondback DBX57) outside of its original designer. In short, the 4.6 NATO has only been used by the select-fire (and very Post-1986) HK MP7, putting it off-limits for those without a SOT or a CAC card.

CMMG’s FourSix, offered as a short-barreled rifle with NFA strings attached as well as a pistol format– both with 8-inch barrels– are developed from the company’s Banshee Mk4 platform.

Tweaks to the Banshee needed to run the 4.6 include a patent-pending Micro Gas Block and a proprietary 40-round magazine that fits an AR-style magwell and standard mag pouches. The latter part is key as it means users can also choose to pair their existing AR15 lower receiver with a CMMG FourSix upper, when they become available. 

17th Century Musketeer Drill

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While speaking of Colonial-era militias, much emphasis is placed on the use of firelocks with their related “12 Apostles” but to be sure, many 17th Century town militia forces had to fall back on the old staple of the Hundred Years’ War and Burgundian Wars– the pike. There was good reason for this as firearms of any type from this period were expert’s weapons.

And the drill for these weapons was serious, as demonstrated by this superb reenactment video courtesy of the Massachusetts National Guard, featuring the Salem Trayned Band:

Smith goes 10!

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Smith & Wesson used to make really good semi-auto 10mm pistols, the 1000-series of third-gen autoloaders.

The S&W 1006, along with variants to include the 1026, 1046, 1066, 1076/FBI model (shown above), and 1086, were produced in the 1990s and left behind as the popularity of 10mm declined for a generation.

However, the company on Tuesday announced a return to the caliber with a new series of M&P M2.0 pistols chambered in 10mm Auto.

The centimeter M&Ps will be available in both 4-inch and 4.6-inch barreled formats with optics-ready slides and optional thumb safety variants. Further, the pistols boast a 15+1 capacity and use Smith’s brand new M2.0 flat-face trigger design, which the company says is designed to optimize trigger finger placement to allow for more consistent and accurate shooting. All models include an optics cut slide using Smith’s C.O.R.E. system and have optic/suppressor height white dot sights in addition to the optics plate.

They ship with two 15-round double-stack magazines and have an MSRP between $654 and $665 depending on the model, setting the new Smith up to challenge the 4.6-inch Glock 20 and 3.78-inch Glock 29 directly.

Glock should probably be worried.

More in my column at Guns.com. 

The Mighty B Comes Home for a Visit

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Official caption: “The Almirante Didiez Burgos (PA-301), a Dominican Republic navy’s Cutter, sails into Museum Park Marina in Miami, Florida, Nov. 10, 2021. The Dominican Republic’s navy visited Miami to enable the next generation of Dominican commissioned officers to learn about U.S. Coast Guard.”

Not too shabby for being 78 years in service. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Ryan Estrada)

If you are a fan of WWII USCG vessels, Burgos is immediately recognizable as a 180-foot seagoing buoy tender of the Balsam/Mesquite-class.

We’ve covered them before in past Warship Wednesdays and they gave lots of service during not only the war but well into the 1990s. 

Built as USCGC Buttonwood (WAGL-306/WLB-306) in Duluth, Minnesota on the Great Lakes, she commissioned 24 September 1943– heading almost immediately for the Pacific.

USCGC Buttonwood tied up after her commissioning- 27 September 1943. Her wartime armament included a 3″/50, two Oerlikons, depth charge tracks, two Mousetraps, four Y-guns, an SL-2 radar, and WEA-2 sonar. Not bad for a 900-ton auxiliary that had a top speed of 13 knots. USCG Historian’s Office photo

She arrived at Guadalcanal in May 1944 and alternated her aids-to-navigation duty with salvage and survey work, often under fire as she moved forward with the fleet. “Mighty B” endured a reported 269 attacks by Japanese aircraft, including 11 air raids in one day, being credited with downing two enemy aircraft with her AAA guns.

On Christmas 1944, she went to the assistance of the burning Dutch troopship Sommeisdijk, which had been hit by a Japanese torpedo, and rescued 182 men.

M.V. SOMMELSDIJK. Built for the Holland America Line and used as a Troopship, the SOMMELSDIJK is shown arriving at San Francisco, California, about 1943. After the war, she returned to commercial service for the line until her scrapping in 1965. Description: Catalog #: NH 89834

Other than her WWII service, Buttonwood had a very active Cold War– providing aids to navigation for military tests sites throughout the Pacific– and the War on Drugs.

USCGC Buttonwood underway in 1960. Note she still has her 3″/50 over the stern but now has a black hull, a common feature of ATON ships in USCG service even today. USCG Historian’s Office photo

For instance, during Korea:

At the outbreak of the Korean War, Buttonwood was re-equipped with sonar gear, guns, and depth charges. Though she was never directly involved with combat, Buttonwood was prepared and trained with the Navy by participating in “war games”. These games often seemed like “cat and mouse” where Buttonwood was tracked by Navy submarines and she, in turn, tried to detect the submarines with sonar equipment. The K-guns and depth charges were subsequently removed in the mid-1950s.

Buttonwood served with the Coast Guard until 2001, and was extensively surveyed for posterity before she was turned over to the Dominicans, who seem to have taken good care of her over the past two decades.

Warship Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2021: From Casablanca to Taipei

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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

Warship Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2021: From Casablanca to Taipei

U.S. Navy Photo #80-G-219560 from the United States National Archives

Here we see the future Cannon/Bostwick-class destroyer escort USS Carter (DE 112) launching at the Dravo Corporation yard in Wilmington, Delaware, 29 February 1944.

Named for a 20-year-old TBF gunner, AOM3 Jack Carter (2686624), who was lost at sea during the Torch Landings after searching for a Vichy French submarine, Mrs. Evelyn Carter Patterson sponsored the new tin can, the late aircrewman’s aunt.

Carter was a TBF Avenger gunner flying from VGS-27 on the escort carrier USS Suwannee (ACV/CVE-27), which has spent the preceding days raining 325-pound depth charges on French cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and even ground targets between Fedala and Casablanca in Morocco. The carrier’s report from the accident on the morning of 10 November 1942, via NARA. 

What were the Cannons?

USS Cannon (DE-99) Dravo builder’s photo. USN CP-DE-99-19-N-51457

The Cannon class, ordered in 1942 to help stem the tide of the terrible U-boat menace in the Atlantic, was also known as the DET type from their Diesel Electric Tandem drive. The DET’s substitution for a turbo-electric propulsion plant was the primary difference with the predecessor Buckley (“TE”) class. The DET was in turn replaced with a direct drive diesel plant to yield the design of the successor Edsall (“FMR”) class.

Besides a heavy ASW armament, these humble ships carried a trio of Mk.22 3″/50s, some deck-mounted torpedo tubes to be effective against larger surface combatants in a pinch, and a smattering of Bofors/Oerlikon AAA mounts.

In all, although 116 Cannon-class destroyer escorts were planned, only 72 were completed. Some of her more well-known sisters included the USS Eldridge, the ship claimed to be a part of the infamous Philadelphia Experiment. The vessels were all cranked out in blocks by four yards with Carter— along with class leaders Cannon and Bostwick— among the nine produced by Dravo.

Getting into the war

Commissioned 3 May 1944, with LCDR Francis John Torrence Baker, USNR (Sewickley, Pa.) as her only wartime skipper, Carter reported to the Atlantic Fleet. After two months of shakedowns to Bermuda and back, her first turn in the barrel was, appropriately for her namesake, shepherding Convoy UGS 50 bound for North Africa as the flagship of Escort Division (CortDiv) 79, a task she would repeat before the year was out with Convoy UGS 63 from Norfolk to Gibraltar, arriving at Oran to have Christmas dinner there three days late due to heavy storms.

On her way back through the Med returning home, she had a close brush with one of Donitz’s wolves when U-870 (KrvKpt. Ernst Hechler) pumped a torpedo into the Liberty ship SS Henry Miller on 3 January 1945.

From Carter’s War History, in the National Archives:

While Miller was a constructive loss with no injuries to her crew and managed to unload her cargo once towed to port, this was balanced out three months later when U-870 was herself sunk by Allied bombs while dockside at Bremen. 

Notably, with the likelihood of engaging a German cruiser or surface raider slim to none by this stage of the war, Carter landed her torpedo tubes at Philadelphia Navy Yard.

She was then assigned to regular antisubmarine patrols from Casco Bay in early 1945 as part of an all-DE submarine Killer Group, a tasking she would conduct for the remainder of the war in the Atlantic. It was with this that she was part of the endgame, moving against the last U-boat offensive against the Eastern Seaboard, one that the brass thought (falsely) might contain V1/V2 rocket carrying subs.

The rumors, mixed with intel that seven advanced U-boats, assigned to Gruppe Seewolf, the last Atlantic Wolfpack, were headed across the Atlantic, sparked Operation Teardrop, an extensive barrier program of ASW assets that ranged the East Coast in early 1945. In the end, Gruppe Seewolf was a dismal failure and the German rocket submarine program never got off the drawing board.

From Carter’s War History, on the engagement she shared with USS Neal A. Scott (DE 769) west of the Azores against U-518, an experienced and successful Type IXC under Oblt. Hans-Werner Offermann, on her seventh patrol. The submarine would not have an eighth:

In May, Carter and her group oversaw the surrender of two U-boats– U-234 (Kptlt. Johann-Heinrich Fehler) and U-858 (Kptlt. Thilo Bode), the latter a Type IXC/40 that had never successfully fired a torpedo in anger, and, true to form, was the first German warship to surrender to U.S. forces without a shot.

U-234, on the other hand, was a big Type XB U-boat built as a long-range cargo submarine with missions to Japan in mind. Commissioned 2 March 1944, she left Germany in the last days of the war in Europe with a mysterious cargo that included dozen high-level officers and advisors, technical drawings, examples of the newest electric torpedoes, one crated Me 262 jet aircraft, a Henschel Hs 293 glide bomb, and 1,210 lbs. of uranium oxide. She never made it to Japan as her skipper decided to make it for Canada instead after the fall of Germany. Two Japanese officers on board committed suicide and were buried at sea while the sub– packed with her particularly important glow-in-the-dark stuff– surrendered south of the Grand Banks, Newfoundland on 14 May, a week after VE Day.

Former U-234 is torpedoed by USS Greenfish (SS-542), in a test, on 20 November 1947, 40 miles northeast of Cape Cod.

Former U-234 is torpedoed by USS Greenfish (SS-542), in a test, on 20 November 1947, 40 miles northeast of Cape Cod.

Speaking of Japan, after three weeks in New York City, during which the veteran destroyer escort saw “an almost complete turnover in personnel” as it was thought “the Carter would be readied for Pacific duty,” instead the tin can was dispatched to Florida to clock in for lifeguard work on plane guard duty for new aircraft carriers working up in the warm waters down south, carrying 64 members of the USNA’s Class of 1946 with her on their Mid cruise.

Post-VJ Day saw Carter make for the big round of victory celebrations including “Nimitz Day” in Washington, D.C. (where 10,000 locals visited the ship), followed by Navy Day in Pensacola anchored alongside with USS Guadalcanal (CVE 60), Floyd B. Parks (DD 884), and Gunnel (SS 253) where the tiny warship, her glad rags flying, was “open for inspection with myriads of people getting the thrill of being on a warship.”

With the fighting over, at least for now, Carter continued her role as a plane guard in Florida into April 1946, where she was placed “out of commission in reserve” at NAS Green Cove Springs in the St. Johns River and added to the 500-strong mothball fleet that swayed at a series of 13 piers built there just for the purpose.

Carter received one battle star for World War II service.

Jane’s 1946 listing for the 57 strong semi-active Bostwick class, including Carter and noting numerous transfers to overseas allies.

A long second life

While Carter’s initial service would last 23 and ¾ months, others could desperately put the low-mileage destroyer escort to good use.

Ultimately 14 of the Cannon/Bostwick class went to France and Brazil during the war, followed by another eight to the French– who apparently really liked the type– four to Greece (including USS Slater which returned home in the 1990s to become the only destroyer escort afloat in the United States), three to Italy, two to Japan, six to the Dutch, three to Peru, five to the Philippines, two to South Korea, one to Thailand, and two to Uruguay.

When it comes to Carter, she and three sisters: Bostwick, Thomas (DE-102), and Breeman (DE-112), in a short ceremony on 14 December 1948, were transferred to Nationalist (Chiang Kai-shek’s KMT) China. Carter became Tài zhāo (also seen transliterated as Taizhao, T’ai Chao, and Tai Chao) after the capital city in central Jiangsu province in eastern China, with the hull/pennant number DE-26.

The four destroyer escorts were soon put into emergency use. During the last phase of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, the 26 loyal ships of the ROCN engaged in the protection of supply convoys and the withdrawal of the Nationalist government and over 1 million refugees to Taiwan.

Carter/Tài zhāo was captured in great detail during this time period in Nationalist use by LIFE magazine.

In this image, she still has her 3″/50 Mk22s up front

Fuzing 40mm Bofors rounds. Note the traditional crackerjack and flat cap used by the Nationalists

Crackerjacks combined with M1 helmets and US Navy Mk II talker helmets

The No. 3 mount now has an additional 3″/50 rather than the 40mm Bofors it held as Carter. Also, that is A LOT of depth charges for those 8 throwers and two rails! Ash cans a-go-go

Needing bigger guns for the work envisioned of them, the Chinese quickly upgraded their two forward 3-inchers to a pair of 5″/38 singles in open mounts, as well as substituting the stern 40mm mount for one of the same which gave the ships a 2+2 format with twin 5-inchers over the bow and a 5-inch over a 3-inch over the stern. 

The 1950s saw the fleet heavily involved in the pitched and tense engagements around Kinmen (Quemoy), Matsu (where Carter/Tài zhāo fired 160 5-inch shells against a Red artillery battery ashore), and the Yijiangshan and Dachen Islands in the Taiwan Straits as well as the clandestine Guoguang operations in which the KMT tried to retake the mainland by landing would-be guerilla organization teams in Red territory.

Propaganda shells fired into Red-controlled areas. By John Dominis LIFE

In all, Carter and her three sisters continued to hold the front lines of the Taiwan Straits for 25 years and, for the first decade of that, were the most powerful assets available to the ROCN, a title they held until two Benson-class destroyers (USS Benson and USS Hilary P. Jones) were transferred in 1954. They were also later fitted in the 1960s with Mk.32 12.75-inch ASW torpedo tubes for Mk 44s– which were a lot more effective than depth charges.

Taizhao anchored at the Kaohsiung Xinbin Wharf, late 1940s.

Jane’s 1973-4 listing for the Taiwan Bostwicks, including Carter.

As part of the pressure on Communist China in the tail end of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, the Nixon administration transferred a huge flotilla of more advanced warships to Taiwan between late 1970 and early 1973 that included two GUPPY’d Tench-class submarines (one of which is still active), five Gearing-class destroyers, six Sumner-class destroyers, four Fletchers, and USS McComb (DD-458)— a late Gleaves-class destroyer that had been converted to a fast minesweeper. With all these “new-to-you” hulls, the long-serving destroyer escorts could be retired and, by the end of 1973, Carter and her three sisters in Formosan service had been disposed of for scrap.

While Tài zhāo’s name was not recycled by the ROCN– probably as it is the name of a 4-million person city on the mainland– the ChiCom People’s Liberation Army Navy has had two Taizhous including a Type 053 frigate commissioned in 1982 and a Russian-built Sovremenny-class destroyer (ex-Vnushitelnyy) commissioned in 2005.

PLAN destroyer Tài zhāo, photographed by the Japanese in 2015.

Epilogue

A number of Carter’s WWII war diaries, as well as her war history and plans, are in the National Archives.

Besides the museum ship USS Slater (DE-766), now sitting dockside in Albany New York, and the pier side training ship USS Hemminger (DE-746) (now HTMS Pin Klao DE-1) in Thailand, there are no Cannon-class destroyer escorts still afloat.

USS Slater is the only destroyer escort preserved in North America– and is Carter’s sistership

The Destroyer Escort Sailors Association honors the men of all the DEs, regardless of class. Sadly, their 45th annual convention last year was their last as their numbers are rapidly declining.

In 1967, Revelle released a 1:248 scale model of “Nationalist Chinese frigate Tai Chao,” complete with box art that showed her racing among bracketed ChiCom shell plumes, no doubt a fitting tribute to those years of the warship’s life spent fighting an undeclared shadow war in the Taiwan Straits.

Specs:

Cannon class DE’s via USS Slater.com

Displacement: 1,240 tons standard, 1,620 tons full load
Length: 306.1 ft
Beam: 36.1 ft
Draft: 11.5 ft full load
Propulsion: 4 GM Mod. 16-278A diesel engines with electric drive 4.5 MW (6000 shp), two screws
Speed: 21 knots
Range: 10,800 nm at 12 knots
Complement: 15 officers 201 enlisted men
Armament:
(1944)
3 × single Mk.22 3″/50 caliber guns
3 × twin 40 mm Mk.1 AA gun
8 × 20 mm Mk.4 AA guns
3 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
1 × Hedgehog Mk.10 anti-submarine mortar (144 rounds)
8 × Mk.6 depth charge projectors
2 × Mk.9 depth charge tracks

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