The Royal Marines were founded on 28 October 1664, under Charles II, as the Duke of York and Albany’s Maritime Regiment of Foot. Some 5,820 strong (authorized) they are one of the most professional and pound-for-pound elite amphibious forces on the planet, despite the fact they have been in steady decline when it comes to sea lift for the past 40 years.
Happy 360th! Of note, the Admiralty got Henry Cavill to narrate the birthday recruiting ad, which is very motivational.
And in a show of support from their junior “brother corps” across the Atlantic, the USMC issued a congratulations message.
The Marines will celebrate their 249th on 10 November.
And, since you came this far, be sure to check out this great short doc from NATO showing off Marines at play in Norway, their home away from home since 1940. The Finns and Swedes joined in this year.
The terms “silencer” and “suppressor” are used interchangeably in the firearms community, and we are here (hear?) to tell you the story of how this came about and which term is more correct.
Going back to the 19th century, “devices for the lessening the noise of firearms” were patented as far back as 1894. However, it wasn’t until Hiram Percy Maxim, a man uniquely obsessed with making loud things quiet for the sake of hearing protection, that the first trademarked “Silencer” (big S) came about in 1909.
Dr. Shush
Why was Maxim interested in hearing protection? A big part of this was because his father, Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim, generally regarded as the inventor of the modern belt-fed machine gun, went quite deaf after long periods of exhibiting his guns for interested clients sans ear protection.
Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim seen showing Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales and future King Edward VII, around his gun, and depicted in a 1904 caricature.
The junior Maxim began working on his acoustical mufflers in 1902 and by 1909 started securing a series of patents on “Silencer” and “Silent firearm” devices. His Connecticut-based company first was branded as the Maxim Silent Firearms Company, and later the Maxim Silencer Co.
Maxim, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, even marketed himself as “Dr. Shush.” Following in his father’s footsteps, he was his own best spokesman for his products and stressed how they made shooting safer and more enjoyable.
Maxim was a showman. (Photos: SilencerCo)
He successfully landed a series of large newspaper interviews in 1909.
The allure of a “noiseless gun” was sure to draw headlines. (Photos: Library of Congress, Chronicling America newspaper archive)
The company sold not only a series of Silencers but also couplings to attach them to barrels and instructions for gunsmiths and hardware shops to thread barrels for the screw-on devices, interestingly advocating a rather fat (by today’s standards) 20-thread pattern. Silencers could be purchased by mail order for $5, about $160 in today’s inflated dollars.
Were Maxim’s designs truly silent? Not at all, but it was great branding, especially when he had to fight for market share against a crowded field of contemporary competitors. Matthew Moss, writing for Small Arms Review, notes at least nine inventors at the time (Harry Craven, Anthony Fiala, Charles H. Kenney, Herbert Moore, Robert A. Moore, Eugene Thurle, R.M. Towson, Andy Shipley, James Stinson, et. al) were seeking patents for similar devices, with several ultimately going on to market them with mixed success.
There are few period tests between these 1910s-era firearm mufflers. The Army’s Ordnance Bureau, which ordered 100 of Maxim’s devices and 100 from Robert A. Moore’s firm for tests on the M1903 Springfield, preferred the former, noting that “it was possible to give perfectly audible instructions when the Silencer was used.” It was estimated to have reduced noise by as much as two-thirds. Given the technology of the era, that had to be what could best be described as a wild guess.
World War I era cutting edge: M1903 Springfield with the M1913 Warner & Swasey Musket Sight mounted. It also mounts a Maxim Model 15 “Government Silencer,” October 1918. The Army maintained its stocks of Silencers until 1925. (U.S. Army photo via National Archives)
Common Vernacular
In the end, Maxim’s Silencer (which wasn’t silent), won the marketing war and emerged as the Dr. Pepper among a crowd of Mr. Pibbs. Teddy Roosevelt used one to quietly zap tin cans around the yard without disturbing the neighbors and exchanged personal correspondence with the inventor. Period cartoons even gagged about noisy diners being offered “Maxim Soup Silencers.”
Maxim’s company went on to market Silencers for motorboats and automobiles on much the same principle.
Maxim upsized his Silencers for other applications.
The public had so associated the Silencer with firearm report moderators by 1934 that the National Firearms Act hearings – which largely started as an effort to ban most guns in the country, including all common pistols and revolvers – used the term no less than eight times. While handguns escaped the government regulation, silencers (little “s”) did not. Never being banned outright on the federal level, they were instead hit with a $200 tax, which adjusts out to $4,800 in today’s terms. The silencer term, enshrined in 1934, is still on the books in the U.S. Code, retained in the 1968 Gun Control Act, and used by the ATF today – an organization that was only established in 1972.
In the meantime, the repressive tax largely killed the American suppressor industry until the 1970s, when companies like Mitch Wer-Bell’s SIONICS and Dr. Phil Dater’s AWC (now Gemtech) began quietly (see what we did there?) operating. By then the stifling NFA tax, frozen at $200 since the Depression, had been whittled down to a more manageable outlay thanks to the federal government’s habit of printing fiat currency in an economic pinch after Nixon ended the gold standard.
What About the Term Suppressor?
In today’s terms, “suppressor” has largely supplanted and replaced “silencer” in use, starting with patents filed in the 1980s. The term is more correct as, while the devices moderate and reduce the sound signature of a muzzle report, they do not remove it. In most cases, despite what Hollywood would lead us to believe, while suppressors paired with subsonic ammunition that removes the “crack” of a projectile breaking the sound barrier can be made hearing safe, you can still hear the gunshot, albeit muted.
As detailed by the American Suppressor Association, suppressors typically “reduce the noise of a gunshot by an average of 20 to 35 decibels, which is roughly the same as earplugs or earmuffs.”
Even the most effective suppressors, on the smallest and quietest calibers (.22 LR), reduce the peak sound level of a gunshot to between 110-120 dB. To put that in perspective, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), that is as loud as a jackhammer (110 dB) or an ambulance siren (120 dB). For normal caliber handguns and rifles, suppressed sound levels routinely exceed 130 dB, just shy of OSHA’s “hearing safe” threshold of 140 dB.
For reference, check out this Taurus TX22 with a SilencerCo Switchback, one of the better rimfire cans on the market, firing standard velocity .22 LR ammunition.
It’s quieter, but you can still hear it.
In addition to noise abatement and hearing protection, the use of a suppressor can also help with firearms training, especially as it curbs the traditional “crack” to a more manageable “pop.”
Is it a “silencer?” Not really.
Is it a “Silencer?” Only if made by Mr. Hiram Percey Maxim’s Silencer Company.
Is it a suppressor? Yup.
So in other words, to turn a phrase, a Silencer is a suppressor but a suppressor is not a silencer, despite what the media says about potatoes.
200304-N-NK931-1001 PHILIPPINE SEA (Mar. 4, 2020) Landing Signalmen Enlisted (LSE), assigned to the Arleigh-Burke class guided-missile destroyer USS Barry (DDG 52), directs night flight operations of an MH-60 Sea Hawk helicopter, assigned to the “Saberhawks” of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 77, during the U.S.-Japan Bilateral Advanced Warfighting Training exercise (BAWT). (U.S. Navy photo by Ensign Samuel Hardgrove)
The SECNAV this week announced he has given the green light to keep operating yesterday’s destroyer tomorrow.
The idea is to squeeze another 48 ship years out of 12 early Flight I Arleigh Burke-class (DDG 51) destroyers, pushing each beyond their 35-year expected service life.
The oldest hull, the Ingalls-built USS Barry (DDG-52), left Pascagoula in 1992 and was set to retire in FY28 at age 36, and will instead be stretched out to FY31. The newest, USS The Sullivans (DDG-68), which left Bath in 1997 and was scheduled to head to mothballs in FY32, will instead linger until FY35.
There will be no extensive service life extension program for these ships, just the determination “to maximize the service life of each ship before it required another extensive and costly docking availability.”
The feeling is that this is a move that had to happen, rather than a move that the Navy wanted to happen. After all, these early short-hull Burkes are really nowhere near the same capability as their recent Flight IIA and Flight III sisters, which really should have been designated different classes.
While not addressed, you can be sure this early raiding of the future mothball fleet is due to the inexcusable delays in the Constellation-class multi-mission guided-missile frigates, which was supposed to take a proven off-the-shelf (Italian FREMM) program and make it here in the states to speed up the acquisition process, at least until Big Navy got involved and wanted to change every compartment. The program is currently at least three years behind schedule and you can bet that will lapse even further as the first ships have to be rebuilt after initial trials.
The CNO rubber-stamped the DDG 52-68 extension as one would expect of a good CNO, saying:
“Today’s budget-constrained environment requires the Navy to make prioritized investments to keep more ready players on the field,” said Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti. “The Navy is actively pulling the right levers to maintain and grow its Battle Force Inventory to support the United States’s global interests in peace and to win decisively in conflict.”
As detailed by Breaking Defense, the ships and their associated life extensions included in the announcement are:
USS Barry (DDG-52) – three years – FY28 to FY31
USS John Paul Jones (DDG-53) – five years – FY28 to FY33
USS Curtis Wilbur (DDG-54) – five years – FY29 to FY34
USS Stout (DDG-55) – five years – FY29 to FY34
USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) – five years – FY29 to FY34
USS Laboon (DDG-58) – five years – FY30 to FY35
USS Paul Hamilton (DDG-60) – five years – FY30 to FY35
USS Stethem (DDG 63) – one year – FY30 to FY31
USS Carney (DDG-64) – one year – FY31 to FY32
USS Gonzalez (DDG-66) – five years – FY31 to FY36
USS Cole (DDG-67) – five years – FY31 to FY36
USS The Sullivans (DDG-68) – three years – FY32 to FY35
Official caption, November 1944, Holland: “The Germans installed this gun in the bandstand at Nieuland [Nieuwland], near Middelburg, to cover the crossroads in the town.”
Goodchild A (P/O), Royal Air Force official photographer IWM CL 1519
The gun appears to be an 8.8 cm Pak 43/41 anti-tank gun, the famed “German 88,” likely of the newly formed Artillerie-Regiment 170 (Oberst Franz A.M. Lex). Nieuwland was liberated by the 52 (L) Reconnaissance Regiment, of the 52nd (Lowland) Infantry Division, as part of Anglo-Canadian joint Operation Infatuate, the amphibious landing that gave Allies shipping access to Antwerp docks.
Since you came this far, below is a period USAAF training film on the 88, at least in its AAA role.
Much like the long-discontinued Taurus Model 80 and Rossi Model 68, guns now some 30 years out of production, the Heritage Roscoe is a simple and rugged .38 revolver that looks good and doesn’t break the bank.
It has the look and feel of a vintage S&W J-frame but without the cost – and, unlike a classic Smith or Colt Dick, you can take it to the range and beat on it without losing any collector value. Plus, it has some modern features you didn’t find in those guns such as the transfer bar and heavy barrel profile.
The 3-inch variant runs an inch or so longer than a snub gun, giving a longer (4.97-inch) sight radius while wringing more velocity from the ammo used – all while being very concealable.
You can always get one and turn it into a budget Fitz Special, which seems like a great choice if looking for that.
Is it the best .38 for concealed carry or personal defense compared to more modern designs with shrouded hammers, better triggers, options for adding optics, and weight savings via the inclusion of aluminum and polymer? Not even close, but it can still clock in when needed.
It is no slouch in terms of practical accuracy and is rated to run .38 +P on occasion.
It’s nice to see the Heritage time travel with the Roscoe, which is a bit of fresh air, albeit with a twinge of cigar smoke to it.
This seems like a great time to mention when a 110-foot subchaser dressed up like a 495-foot Bogue-class escort carrier some 80 years ago.
Yup, we are talking about Operation Swiss Navy’s USS SC-449.
Submarine chaser SC-449 disguised as the escort carrier USS Bogue (CVE-9), February 1945. Note the relative size of the men on the stern., via Navsource
SC-449 was one of three Submarine Chasers built in a design competition. Built as an experimental SC design she had 50 percent more stability than the production models that were built. In early 1945, she was selected by the Navy to be converted into a mock Escort Carrier (CVE) to be used in the invasion of the Japanese homelands (Operation Swiss Navy). Her deck was stripped and rebuilt with plywood to look like a CVE. The Navy liked what they saw but she was very top-heavy, so they shelved that idea, plus the atom bomb put an end to these plans.
Christopher C. Wright wrote about this in Warship International, Vol. 45, No. 1 (2008).
SC-449 was converted at Ocracoke, North Carolina, into a “deception ship” in a 1:46 scale CVE 9 configuration in November 1944. After a few months of testing, the vessel was reconverted in March 1945 at Norfolk Navy Yard back to its original configuration.
This series of photos is of the modified SC-449, part of a classified deception project by Amphibious Force Atlantic Fleet.
These photographs were taken on 18 November 1944. The aerial views are a few samples of those taken at 200 ft, 500 ft, 1000 ft, and 2000 ft. NARA collection.
Decommissioned after the war, she went on to work for Texas A&M’s Marine Department, served as a quarters boat for dredge crews, and finally as a yacht before she was scrapped in 1974.
I need to forget where my Amex is as I saw this over at Apex:
Yup, 7.62 NATO M60D parts kits complete with spade grips for helicopter/pintel use. Of course, they are pushing $5K, but still, this would be an epic project build.
Keep in mind the 1st AB alone had upwards of some 25,000 guys– average age 20– in Vietnam to run its 4,000 birds. That’s a hell of a brigade!
They saw use with the Marines and Navy as well
Plus, keep in mind that the Sixty Delta remained in use with Army Aviation all through the Cold War and well into the Sandbox, despite the rest of the Army moving to M240 models.
Dark Mountain Arms may be a new firearms maker, but they come with a history of innovation, and their first product, the Stowaway, keeps that track record intact.
We’ve been following this incredibly light takedown rifle since it popped up on the radar earlier this year and actively testing one for the past couple of months.
A simple new platform from Fletcher, North Carolina’s veteran-owned Dark Mountain Arms, the Stowaway system is a single-shot, bolt-action takedown firearm initially being offered in 5.7 NATO, but as it is multi-caliber via an easy swap of a bolt face and barrel, future options on the table include 9mm, 4.6×30, .22 LR, .22 WMR, .17 Mach2, and .17 HMR.
An easily packable design with a weight of less than 3 pounds (2.8 pounds for the 16-inch threaded barreled rifle and 2 pounds flat for the 5-inch barreled pistol), the gun can be stowed in two primary pieces and then easily reassembled.
Photograph by Walter E. Frost, City of Vancouver Archives, CVA 447-8946.1
Above we see the Buckley-class destroyer escort USS Whitehurst (DE-634) of ResDesDiv 273 as she makes a port call in Vancouver on 31 July 1965.
At just over 300 feet long, she doesn’t look like much, but by this time in her career, she had already fought in WWII– sinking a Japanese submarine some 80 years ago this week– earned battle stars during Korea, cruised off Vietnam, and would go on to live forever on the silver screen.
The Buckleys
With some 154 hulls ordered, the Buckleys were intended to be cranked out in bulk to counter the swarms of Axis submarines prowling the seas.
Just 306 feet overall, they were about the size of a medium-ish Coast Guard cutter today but packed a lot more armament, namely three 3″/50 DP guns in open mounts, a secondary battery of 1.1-inch (or 40mm), and 20mm AAA guns, and three 21-inch torpedo tubes in a triple mount for taking out enemy surface ships.
Buckley-class-destroyer-escort-1944 USS England by Dr. Dan Saranga via Blueprints
Then there was the formidable ASW suite to include stern depth charge racks, eight depth charge throwers, and a Hedgehog system.
Powered by responsive electric motors fed by steam turbines, they could make 24 knots and were extremely maneuverable.
Class-leader, USS Buckley (DE-51), cutting a 20-knot, 1,000-foot circle on trials off Rockland Maine, 3 July 1943, 80-G-269442
Meet Whitehurst
Our subject carries the name of Ensign Henry Purefoy Whitehurst, Jr. who, originally scheduled to graduate in February 1942, was matriculated early from Annapolis with the rest of his class 12 days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, becoming the second Class of 1941.
Rushed to the Pacific, Henry was lost along with 233 shipmates aboard the heavy cruiser USS Astoria (CA 34)when “Nasty Asty” was sunk early in the morning of 9 August 1942 by Japanese surface forces at the Battle of Savo Island. The young officer was 22.
Ensign Henry Purefoy Whitehurst, Jr. 16 Feb 1920-9 Aug 1942. He is remembered on the Tablets of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial.
Laid down on 21 March 1943 at San Francisco by the Bethlehem Steel Co and launched on 5 September 1943, USS Whitehurst (DE-634) was sponsored by Ensign Whitehurst’s grieving mother, Mrs. Robie S. Whitehurst, and commissioned on 19 November 1943.
Her plankowner skipper was T/LCDR James Robert Gray, USN, 78836, (USNA ‘37). As a young LT(jg), he was the officer of the deck on duty aboard the high-speed minesweeper USS Wasmuth (DD-338/DMS-15) at Pearl Harbor and got the ship underway and fighting, claiming one plane downed. He then served as Damage Control Officer on the heavy cruiser USS New Orleans (CA-32) at Coral Sea and Midway. Whitehurst was his first command.
Headed to War!
Following sea trials, calibration tests, and shakedown off the West Coast, Whitehurst arrived at Pearl Harbor on 4 February 1944 and then got underway for the Solomons three days later as part of a small convoy.
Such work, riding shotgun for troop transports, LCIs, and LSTs on slow and steady (8-9 knot) runs, would be her bread and butter.
She took part in the Palau, Yap, Ulithi, Woleai raid (30 Mar 44 – 1 Apr 44), and, from 26 April through 7 June, she was upfront for the Hollandia operations followed closely by Toem-Wakde-Sarmi and Biak landings, including a very close brush with Japanese shore batteries off the latter.
From her War Diary:
She then joined in the operations to clear out the Northern Solomons from 22 June into early October, which for our tin can meant escorting the PT-boat mothership USS Mobjack (AGP-7) as she shifted ports, patrolling for Japanese submarines and surface contacts, conducting exercises and drills as part of Escort Division 40.
By this stage of the war, the Solomons had become a backwater.
It was there, at Blanche Harbor on Treasury Island on 1 September, that LCDR Grey was relieved by LT Jack Carter Horton, DE-V(G), USNR, 96845. Grey was being sent on to command USS Lawrence C. Taylor (DE 415). Horton, who had gone through the wartime midshipman school with 738 fellow “90-day wonders” at Northwestern University in Chicago, knew Whitehurst well– he had been her XO since commissioning.
The death of I-45
On 12 October, Whitehurst got underway from Humboldt Bay with orders to escort Task Unit 77.7.1, the fueling force for the 7th Fleet for the upcoming invasion of the Philippines. This included four oilers (Ashtabula, Saranac, Salamonie, and Chepachet), the civilian tanker Pueblo, and three fellow Buckleys: the sequential sisters USS Witter (DE-636), Bowers (DE-637), and Willmarth (DE-638).
Nearing the Philippines, Japanese activity increased and folks got jumpy. Just after 0200 on 17 October, a sharp echo underwater led to a radical course change, and a pattern of 13 depth charges dropped over the side as a precaution. Whitehurst’s War Diary notes, “The contact was evaluated as a large fish due to its erratic movements and narrow width.”
Creeping through the Ngaruangl Passage on 20 October, three days later they steamed through the Surigao Straits into the Leyte Gulf, anchoring off Homonhon Island, with her log taking care to note, “This part of the island in Japanese hands.”
Starting the next morning, at 0826 on 24 October, Whitehurst’s tanker group began a four-day running fight with Japanese ground-based aircraft, fending off a series of air attacks by Betty twin-engine and Val single-engine bombers as they repeatedly shifted positions. This included making emergency turns, burning both chemical and oil smoke, and filling the air with 3″/50 and 20mm shells whenever planes came within range. All the while the force managed to conduct underway refueling and escape the battleships and cruisers of Nishimura’s “Southern Force,” although they observed the flashes in the distance of the Battle of Surigao Strait over the night of 24/25 October.
Just when things started quieting down, at 0325 on 29 October Whitehurst observed a strong underwater explosion “some distance away” and received word via TBS that the Butler-class destroyer escort USS Eversole (DE-404) had been torpedoed and sunk by the Japanese Type B2 submarine I-45, taking 80 of her crew to the bottom.
Japanese submarine I-45 (B-class new type-1), on speed trial run off Sasebo, 1943
Whitehurst was detached from her task unit to screen the sistership USS Bull (DE-402) which was picking up what would be 136 survivors from the lost greyhound.
Picking up a sonar contact as she closed with the scene, Whitehurst delivered a series of four barrages of 7.2-inch Mk.10 Hedgehog charges and was rewarded with a series of secondary underwater explosions.
Just after dawn, a large (500-yard by 2,000-yard) oil slick was observed, filled with debris.
From her War Diary:
Japanese Sixth Fleet HQ had no further contact with I-45 and she is presumed lost with LCDR (promoted CDR posthumously) Kawashima Mamoru and his 103-member crew, removed from the Imperial Navy List on 10 March 1945.
Back to work
Continuing her involvement in the Philippines through the end of the month, a role that included blowing up random floating mines with rifle fire, on 2 November Whitehurst was dispatched to escort the damaged oiler Ashtabula to Hollandia for repairs. There, she witnessed the horrific disintegration of the USS Mount Hood (AE-11), packed with 4,500 tons of high explosives, in Seeadler Harbor.
Ordered to leave the harbor with a force of small LSMs and LCTs for Humboldt Bay the same day, by 12 November Whitehurst headed back to the Philippines as escort for Echelon L-13, a mix of 23 LSTs in four columns and 11 merchants in another four columns.
Entering the Surigao Strait by the 19th, enemy planes were sighted off and on over the next few days, cumulating with an attack on the 21st by two Kawasaki Ki-48 “Lily,” with one of the twin-engine light bombers shot down in flames. Whitehurst’s gunners contributed 382 rounds to the effort.
Sent back to Manus in December, she remained in the Admiralty Islands on interisland convoy runs and training duties, drydocking in January 1945, and then escorting the destroyer tender USS Sierra (AD-18) and repair ship USS Briareus (AR-12) to Purvis Bay in the Solomons in February.
Then came a well-earned 10-day R&R period in Australia, reporting to Ulithi afterward for the next big show.
Okinawa
Assigned to TF-51 along with two destroyers, USS McDermut (DD-667) and Leutz (DD-481), and the escort USS England (DE-635),Whitehurst and company formed the anti-submarine screen around the light cruisers USS Mobile and Miami for the assault and occupation of Okinawa Gunto, leaving Ulithi at the end of March.
By 6 April, the first Japanese aircraft out of Okinawa were engaged by Whitehurst, whose gunners fired 263 rounds that day.
Three Japanese Vals closed with the destroyer escort and two were shot down by the ship’s gunners. The third, in a steep 40-degree angle dive, smoking from 20mm hits, crashed into the ship’s bridge at 1502.
The entire bridge structure was enveloped in flames– with all the pilothouse and CIC personnel killed outright– and all control and communications lost. By 1507, with secondary control restored, with gun control conducted by voice, the ship’s force was fighting the fires that were under control by 1515.
The minesweeper USS Vigilance (AM-324) and assault transport USS Crosley (APD-87) came alongside the smoking warship to render medical assistance and rescue.
All of the men in the ship’s radio room as well as those in the forward gun crews had been either killed or seriously wounded by bomb fragments. In all, Whitehurst suffered 31 deaths and 37 wounded while six men were missing in action, presumed blown overboard. Overall, the casualties amounted to a third of the crew.
With Vigilance leading the way and a signalman from the minesweeper on Whitehurst’s deck passing commands back and forth via semaphore flag and handheld blinker lamp, the damaged escort made the protection of the Kerama Retto anchorage by 1830.
Four days later, patched up enough to make for the sea once again, Whitehurst joined a slow convoy bound for recently occupied Saipan and arrived there on the 20th. On the 22nd, she received a dispatch ordering her back to Pearl Harbor for battle damage repairs and alterations. Arriving in Hawaii via Eniwetok on 10 May, where she unloaded munitions and entered the Naval Yard two days later.
P.I. Powerhouse
The brutal month-long campaign to Liberate Japanese-occupied Manila, once considered one of the most beautiful of cities in the Far East, had left the Philippines’s capital a pile of rubble amid destruction perhaps only surpassed by Warsaw.
Manila, Philippine Islands, Feb. 1945. (U.S. Air Force Number 59680AC)
According to post-combat accounting, the fighting destroyed 11,000 of the city’s buildings, leaving 200,000 Filipinos homeless in addition to the 100,000 killed when the smoke cleared in early February 1945. Survivors had no running water, sewage treatment, or electricity.
That’s where Whitehurst and her sisters came in.
Gen. Kruger’s Sixth Army engineer train, tasked with helping to stand Manila back up in addition to pursuing the Japanese into northern Luzon, was soon operating two floating diesel powerplants to provide the city with a trickle of power.
Responding to the call, USS Wiseman (DE-667), one of Whitehurst’s sisters, was given a set of ship-to-shore power reels and transformers, allowing her to send juice into the Manila Electric Service by using the destroyer escort’s main propulsion plant.
Two large cable reels and a transformer were added between the X-position director and the smokestack. The transformers installed as part of the conversion provided electricity in six different voltages ranging from 2,400 and 37,500 volts using the ship’s GE generators
Photo of a power cable reels on the USS Wiseman (DE-667) from the open bridge. The Wiseman helped provide power to Manila for a time in 1945. U.S. Navy Memorial Foundation Collection: Frank M. Frazitta Papers. 0677-048-b1-fi-i6. East Carolina University Digital Collections. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/24920. Accessed 29 Oct. 2024
As detailed by DANFS on Wiseman’s mission:
Arriving at Manila on [March] 23d, she commenced furnishing power to that nearly demolished city on 13 April and, over the next five and one-half months, provided some 5,806,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity. In addition, Wiseman’s evaporators furnished 150,000 gallons of drinking water to Army facilities in the harbor area and to many small craft. Her radios were also utilized to a great extent. Placed at the disposal of the Navy’s port director, the ship’s communication outfit was used to handle harbor radio traffic until the director’s equipment arrived and was installed ashore.
As part of her yard period in Pearl Harbor following her kamikaze strike, Whitehurst received a similar set of ship-to-shore transmission reels, which she tested on 1 July 1945 by illuminating a test grid ashore at the Navy Yard.
3 July 1945: Whitehurst at Pearl Harbor, undergoing Inclining tests, note her TEG conversion reels are visible behind her stack. (U.S. Navy photo, National Archives #19LCM-DE634-3)
Receiving munitions, provisions, and new crew members (including a new skipper), she spent three weeks on a series of speed and maneuvering trials, augmented by gunnery and ASW exercises then shoved off on 25 July bound for the Philippines.
On 14 August 1945, Whitehurst, which had just escorted the jeep carrier USS Core (CVE-13) from Ulithi to Leyte, arrived at Manila’s inner harbor and tied up, reporting to Sixth Army to relive Wiseman.
She soon after started lighting up the P.I. at a regular 13,200 volts (5.8746E-25 MWh), 24×7.
She would continue this unsung yet vital post-war recovery service for more than two months until relieved on 26 October.
Her services were needed in Guam, and Whitehurst steamed there in early November where she tied up and supplied electrical power to the dredge YM-25, in support of the 301st Naval Construction Bn, into 1946.
No less than six other destroyer escorts– all Buckley class ships– were at some point converted into floating Turbo-Electric Generators (TEG) in such a manner: USS Donnell (DE-56), Foss (DE-59), Marsh (DE-699), Maloy (DE-791), HMS Spragge (K-572, ex-DE-563) and HMS Hotham (K-583 ex-DE-574). Notably, Donnell, which had been extensively damaged by a torpedo from U-473 in May 1944, was reclassified IX-182 and used to supply shore power off Omaha immediately after D-Day.
This allowed them to operate in important expeditionary and humanitarian roles if and when needed, a trick some of them would be called to do in later conflicts. For example, Foss and Maloy went to the aid of blacked-out Portland Maine in 1947 while Wiseman and Marsh powered the respective Korean ports of Masan and Pusan in 1950 during the Korean War.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
Korea
Finally returning to CONUS in April 1946 after more than nine months of service as a floating generator, Whitehurst was decommissioned six months later and placed in the Atlantic Reserve Fleet at Green Cove Springs, Florida. She earned six battle stars for her World War II service.
Not all of her sisters were as lucky. Four had been lost during the war: USS Fechteler, sunk by U-967 northwest of Oran, Algeria 5 May 1944; Rich; lost to mines off Utah Beach 8 June 1944 just months after joining the fleet; Bates, sunk by kamikazes off Okinawa 25 May 1945; and Underhill, sunk by a Japanese Kaiten human torpedo northeast of Luzon 24 July 1945. Meanwhile, England, like Whitehurst, was damaged by suicide planes off Okinawa, but unlike our subject was not repaired following the war.
The truth was that the peacetime Navy had little use for slow DEs with their open gun mounts when so many modern, fast, and well-armed new destroyers were just leaving the shipyards.
Port broadside aerial view of destroyer escort USS Whitehurst (DE-634) November 30 1949 USN 200669
When the Norks crossed the 38th Parallel during the summer of 1950 into South Korea, Whitehurst was dusted off and recommissioned on 1 September 1950. Sent to the Far East as part of Escort Squadron 11 (CortDiv 112), she earned three battle stars (First UN Counter Offensive, Communist China Spring Offensive, and UN Summer-Fall Offensive) for her activities during the Korean War in the seven months between 25 February and 19 September 1951.
Remaining in the Westpac until 1955, she transferred to Pearl Harbor for another year of service that included poking around the remote islands and atolls of the U.S. Trust Territories for the Pacific, winning hearts and minds by providing aid and medical care for the locals while enforcing fishing regulations and low-key looking for Japanese hold outs.
With an 11-foot draft and the ability to easily launch rubber rafts due to her low freeboard, littoral surveillance came easy.
For instance, take this deck log note from March 1957 into account:
By June 1957, she was one of the last destroyer escorts remaining on active duty in her WWII configuration (if you disregard her TEG equipment).
This led to the ship and her crew being placed at the disposal of 20th Century Fox for six weeks for Dick Powell to film The Enemy Below.
Dubbed the fictional USS Haynes in the film, Whitehurst appears in several significant passages, all filmed in amazing DeLuxe Color.
Reserve Days, and her final mission
Once filming wrapped, Whitehurst was sent to the 13th Naval District at Seattle, Washington in October 1957 to serve with Reserve Escort Squadron 1 (ResCortDiv 112) as a Naval Reserve Training ship, used for weekend cruises one weekend per month and a two-week summer cruise per year.
Decommissioned a second time on 6 December 1958, Whitehurst remained “in service” as a training asset, keeping up her regular drill work.
USS Whitehurst (DE634), note the post-war hull numbers
This continued until October 1961 when she was recommissioned a second time during the Berlin Wall crisis, manned by activated reservists, and sent to Pearl Harbor to join Escort Squadron 7 for 10 months.
Buckley class USS Whitehurst (DE-634)
It was during this time that she was sent to Vietnam in March 1962 along with Escort Division 71. Operating in the South China Sea and the Gulf of Siam, she conducted training of South Vietnamese naval officers out of Danang.
Postwar view of Whitehurst, with her distinctive cable reels on the 01 level amidships
Decommissioned a third time on 1 August 1962, she returned to her weekend warrior NRT job in Seattle as part of Destroyer Squadron 27 (ResDesDiv 273) where, during a 1963 refit, she landed much of her WWII armament and her TEG reels.
Her summer cruises, longer two-week affairs, often ranged as far as Canada and Mexico.
Whitehurst, City of Vancouver Archives. 31 July 1965.
This quiet reserve life continued into October 1968 when she was shifted to Swan Island outside of Portland, Oregon, becoming an NRT vessel there.
On 12 July 1969, Whitehurst was struck from the Navy List as the likelihood of her offering anything as a training asset was slim. By that time, she was one of the final members of her “disposable” class still in the Navy’s hands, a record only surpassed by a handful of fellow NRT ships which lingered into the early 1970s.
Stripped, she was towed to sea by USS Tawasa (ATF-92) and sunk as a target by the submarine USS Trigger (SS-564) on 28 April 1971 in deep water off Vancouver Island, during the development of the MK 48 torpedo– its first live warshot test.
28 April 1971 ex-Whitehurst quickly slides beneath the waves. This photo was taken by the Trigger’s Periscope Photographer, Tom Boyer.
In her ending, she served the Navy one last time by helping to test new weapons and train new bluejackets in their use.
Likewise, 11 of her class were disposed of in similar SINKEXs between 1967 and 1973: ex-USS Lovelace, ex-James E. Craig, ex-Otter, ex-Darby, ex-J. Douglas Blackwood, ex-Alexander J. Luke, ex-Vammen, ex-Loeser, ex-Currier, ex-Cronin, and ex-Gunason.
She has a memorial at the Museum of the Pacific War in Texas.
A website DE634.org, endures to keep her memory alive. Their last reunion listed, combined with veterans of USS Silverstein, Walton, and Foss, was in 2020.
As for her first skipper, James Grey, went on to command two other destroyer escorts and a troopship, including sea time during Korea, then served in several high-level shore assignments until he retired in 1960, capping 23 years with the Navy. He passed in Sunnyvale, California in 2002, aged 87.
Her first XO and second skipper, 90-day wonder Jack Horton, who commanded the ship during the battle against I-45 and somehow survived the kamikaze his ship took to the bridge six months later, mustered out in December 1945 and, settling in Houston, passed in a sailing accident on the Gulf of Mexico in 1970. Life is funny like that.
The Navy has not seen fit to commission a second USS Whitehurst.
However, The Enemy Below endures, and she is still beautiful in rich DeLuxe Color.
Ships are more than steel and wood And heart of burning coal, For those who sail upon them know That some ships have a soul.
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Signal boost for CAPT Greg Thomas (Ret) who is placing plaques in the Doherty HS Navy JROTC’s “Hall of Honor.” They have currently saved 90 unwanted plaques, many bought by Thomas off eBay. They have room for 50 more. Thanks in advance.
