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Warship Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025: Go Long

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

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Warship Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025: Go Long

Naval History and Heritage Command photo NH 51351

Above we see the Clemson-class “flush decker” USS Long (Destroyer No. 209), taking water over the bow, during her squadron’s experimental Alaska cruise, in 1937.

Don’t let her Great War-era good looks fool you, Long would go on to earn nine battle stars in the Pacific in WWII and be lost some 80 years ago this month.

The Clemsons

One of the massive fleets of 156 Clemson-class flush-decker destroyers, like most of her sisters, Long came too late to help lick the Kaiser. An expansion of the almost identical Wickes-class destroyers with a third more fuel capacity to enable them to escort a convoy across the Atlantic without refueling, the Clemsons were sorely needed to combat the pressing German submarine threat of the Great War.

At 1,200 tons and with a top speed of 35 knots, they were brisk vessels ready for the task.

Inboard and outboard profiles for a U.S. Navy Clemson-class destroyer, in this case, USS Doyen (DD-280)

Meet Long

Our subject is the only warship named for the Secretary of the Navy during the Spanish-American War, John Davis Long, one of the fathers of the “New American Navy.”

Laid down by William Cramp & Sons at Philadelphia on 23 September 1918– just Pershing’s Doughboys came out on top in the Battle of Saint-Mihiel– Long was just too late for the Great War. Launched on 26 April 1919, she was commissioned on 20 October 1919.

Of note, Long was a bit different from the rest of her Clemson-class sisters. While they were mostly completed with four single 4″/50s as a main battery, Long and her sister USS Hovey (DD 208) were completed with four twin 4″/50 mounts, doubling their guns.

Besides Long and Hovey, only the old (Caldwell-class) destroyer USS Stockton (DD 73) carried this Mk 14 mount, and she only did as a single experimental model mounted forward.

Stockton with her twin 4″/50 Mk 14

Hovey and Long carried four of these mounts, one forward and aft and two amidships.

USS Hovey (DD-208) view looking down from the foremast, showing the twin 4/50 gun mounts atop her midships deckhouse, along with a loading practice machine (in the lower left), ready service ammunition stowage, and three of the ship’s smokestacks. Taken during the mid-1930s. Collection of Rear Admiral Elmer E. Duval, Sr., who was Hovey’s Commanding Officer at the time. NH 99573

Postbellum service and a decade-long nap

While she didn’t get a chance to fire her guns in anger during the war itself, Long was nonetheless sent “Over There” following her East Coast shakedown cruise, assigned to DesDiv 26, she was assigned to the war-torn Adriatic and Mediterranean in the tense post-war era and served in the region as a station ship.

USS Long (DD-209) dressed in her glad rags next to one of her sisters in the Mediterranean, and two other dressed warships to the rear, circa 1919-1920. Courtesy of Jack Howland, 1982. NH 93979

Remaining overseas, she was sent to the exotic climes of the Asiatic Fleet in late 1920, based at Cavite.

USS Long (DD-209) and another destroyer of the Asiatic Fleet, c 1920s. Note the local vessel traffic– junks etc.– and extensive awning fits, common in the Pacific inter-war. Courtesy of Capt. G. F. Swainson, USN, 1969 NH 67244

Ordered back home after her globetrotting overseas service, Long was mothballed due to peacetime budget cuts– the Navy shrank from 752 ships in 1919 to just 379 by the end of 1922.

With that, Long decommissioned at San Diego on 30 December 1922, but she was kept on emergency standby if needed.

The 62 mothballed Clemsons at San Diego in the 1920s were, under Special Plan Orange (a Pacific war against the Empire of Japan), considered able to reactivate within 30 days as Category B assets after receiving an officer and 13 men from as a “nucleus” crew from an active duty sister– Long would get hers from USS Henshaw (DD 278) while Hovey would get her baker’s dozen from USS Moody (DD 277).
 
Another 21 rates would come from the Fleet Reserve pool. The balance of the recommissioning crew, 3 officers and 80 men, would be recalled reservists in the Third Naval District (New York). In all, this would give these tin cans an authorized 4 officers and 114 men, a force that could be fleshed out by a truckload of new recruits right from the depot if it fell short. 
The rates drawn for the nucleus crew and Fleet Reserve:

Thirty-four mothballed destroyers of the U.S. Navy decommissioned in 1921 and tied up at the San Diego Naval Base, being hauled from their berths by tugs to replace ships of the 11th and 12th squadrons that were being laid up. USS Long (DD-209) can be seen as tugs prepare to move her out, on 21 September 1929. Courtesy of the San Francisco Maritime Museum, San Francisco, California, 1969. NH 69123

Salad days

Between 1930-31, 60 Navy high mileage active duty flush-deckers with worn-out Yarrow boilers were decommissioned and disposed of– it was cheaper to scrap them than rebuild them. This required a dip into the reserve fleet to reactivate 60 of the low-mileage tin cans that had been growing algae on their hulls to take their place.

That meant Long, which recommissioned at San Diego on 29 March 1930, had her hull cleaned and was brought back to life, this time assigned to the Pacific Fleet.

A circa 1930s photo of USS Long, note her giant hull numbers, which were typical of the period. NARA 80-G-1025957

She maintained the standard peacetime operational tempo common to the fleet in the 1930s, alternating between training cruises and large fleet problems.

Battleship USS Maryland (BB-46) and escorting destroyers USS Hovey (DD-208), and USS Long (DD-209) (ships listed left to right) In the Miraflores Locks, while transiting the Panama Canal during the annual inter-ocean movement of the U.S. Fleet, 24 April 1931. Note the distinctive twin 4″/50 Mk 14 gun mountings carried by Hovey and Long. 80-G-455918

Part of the combined U.S. fleet moored in Balboa harbor on 25 October 1934. Ships present include two battleships at dock, three cruisers, while the leviathan destroyer tenders USS Whitney (AD-4) and Dobbin (AD-3) nurse more than 40 destroyers. Among the latter are McFarland (DD-237), Goff (DD-247), and Long (DD-209). 80-G-455966

In the summers of 1936 and 1937, the Navy sent destroyer squadrons (along with the carrier USS Ranger) into Alaskan waters to get a feel for fleet operations in that increasingly valuable territory. As Alaska was far removed from the CONUS, and its Aleutians chain rather close to Northern Japan– with Attu island just 1,300 miles from Hokkaido while some 2,800 miles from Seattle– the writing was on the wall that the territory could find itself a difficult battleground should war come between the U.S. and the Empire.

Following these deployments, at the urging of a report by RADM Arthur J. Hepburn’s board, the Navy in 1938 recommended the construction of a naval base on sprawling Amaknak Island, at Dutch Harbor, with the first troops arriving there in June 1941.

Long and her direct sister Hovey, accompanied by half-sisters USS Dallas (DD-199), Wasmuth (DD-338), Zane (DD-337), and Trever (DD-339), made the 1937 sortie.

The photos from the cruise show an idyllic window into what would be an interbellum period.

Talk about a recruiting poster! USS Long (DD-209) underway during an Alaskan cruise, circa 1937. Note her twin 4/50 gun mountings. She was one of two ships of her class to carry these weapons and would trade them in during WWII for a quartet of 3″/50s. NH 63243

Destroyers USS Long (DD-209) and USS Wasmuth (DD-338) in Chelkate Inlet with the Kakuhau Range Mountains in the background during an Alaska cruise, 1937. NH 109579

USS Long (DD-209) leading USS Wasmuth (DD338), during the Alaskan cruise of 1937. NH 51845

Clemson class destroyers maneuvering at sea during an Alaska cruise. Left to right: USS Wasmuth (DD-338), Long (DD-209), USS Zane (DD-337), and USS Trever (DD-339), 1937. NH 109560

Destroyers in Wrangell Narrows, after view of USS Dallas (DD-199), USS Wasmuth (DD-338), and USS Long (DD-209) following North Flat South end lights in Wrangell Narrows during an Alaska cruise, 1937. NH 109578

Destroyers USS Long (DD-209) in front with USS Trever (DD339) and USS Zane (DD-337) in the rear during an Alaska cruise, 1937. NH 109581

Destroyers USS Wasmuth (DD-338) and USS Long (DD-209) maneuvering while flying their flag signals during an Alaska cruise, 1937. NH 109582

During the 1937 Alaska cruise, destroyer USS Dallas (DD-199) noses her bow toward the city of Juneau, the capital of the Alaska Territory, situated on the Gastineau Channel with a population of about 4,500 people. USS Long (DD-209) and USS Wasmuth (DD-338) are already docked in the foreground, with a 250-foot Lake class Coast Guard cutter of the Bering Sea Patrol to the right. NH 109568

Now that is MWR! Sailors from USS Dallas, Long, and Wasmuth fishing in Auan Creep Hump Back Bay, Alaska NH 118928

Destroyers docked at Skagway, Alaska: USS Dallas (DD-199), USS Long (DD-209), and USS Wasmuth (DD-338) as they dock side by side at Skagway, Alaska, with snow-covered mountains in the background, 1937. NH 109565

The cruise would also see some dramatic images captured, with Long leading the pack of greyhounds.

USS Long (DD-209) leading other destroyers in a change of course, during the Alaska cruise, in 1937. NH 51353

USS Long (DD-209) leading sister USS Wasmuth (DD 338) through Fitzhugh Sound, British Columbia, during the Alaskan cruise of 1937. NH 51847

Long rolling, during the Alaska cruise, in 1937. NH 51350

Destroyer tender USS Dixie (AD-14), was photographed in early 1940 with USS Long (DD-209) alongside. NH 89401

DMS Conversion

With the class having so many hulls, and the Navy steadily building more advanced classes of destroyers, the Clemsons saw many of these aging greyhounds converted to other uses including as “green dragon” fast troop transports (ADP) able to put a battalion ashore via davit-carried LCVPs, fast minelayers (DMs) carrying 80 mines, small seaplane tenders (AVD) capable of supporting a squadron of flying boats such as PBYs, and fast minesweepers (DMS).

In late 1940, nine of the class– Chandler, Southard, Hovey, Hopkins, Zane, Wasmuth, Trever, Perry, and Long, became ersatz minesweepers. Long became DMS-12 on 19 November 1940.

The DMS conversion meant the installation of mechanical sweep gear, primarily a pair of paravane cranes on the stern (port and starboard), along with large deck-mounted cable winches, and space for four vanes and kites.

They still had their depth charge racks (repositioned forward and angled outboard), guns (which were downgraded), and two Y-gun depth charge throwers to continue to work as escorts, as well as (eventually) an SC radar. Gone were the torpedo tubes and, as they didn’t need to be too fast, they landed the No.4 boiler and had their exhaust vented into three shortened funnels, with the fourth removed. Generator sets were upgraded to provide 120kw vs the original 75kw. This still allowed a 25-knot speed.

From Long’s 29 October 1943 plans at Mare Island, detailing her crew at the time as well as her battery (four 3″50 Mk 20 DPs, five 20mm Oerlikons) and powerplant:

Her profile, 29 October 1943, as DMS-12, note the shadow of her original four tall stacks now replaced by three smaller ones:

Compare the difference between her 1930s four-piper profile and the one seen during WWII:

NH 67630 compared to NH 81358

It was in this configuration that Long found herself when Pearl Harbor was attacked.

War!

Based at Pearl Harbor with several of her sisters as part of Mine Squadron 2, Long escaped the Japanese attack on 7 December 1941 due to the fact she and four DMS sisters were at sea as escort for the heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis (CA‑35) at the time some 800 miles southwest conducting a simulated naval bombardment of remote Johnson Island.

From Indy’s War Diary:

Returning to Pearl with the cruiser-DMS force on 9 December, Long steamed into the still-smoking harbor, then soon after began a series of antisubmarine patrols around the islands.

Long alternated this duty over the past six months with running coastal escorts among the Hawaiian Islands and with runs to Midway, Palmyra, and far-off Canton, where the Navy was building an airstrip.

Then came a stint in Alaskan waters following the Japanese attack on Dutch Harbor and the occupation of Attu and Kiska. Serving in the familiar old territory for the next 15 months, she narrowly avoided destruction in a collision with the destroyer USS Monaghan (DD‑354) in heavy fog, and fired her first shots in anger, on 31 January 1943 against Japanese air attacks on Amchitka’s Constantine Harbor with three fellow Clemsons.

In May 1943, she was assigned to TG 51.3 of RADM Francis Rockwell’s TF 51, the Attu Assault Force. Standing out of Cold Harbor as part of the screen for Rockwell’s flag on the battlewagon USS Pennsylvania on 4 May, seven days later she and the fellow fast minesweepers USS Elliot (DMS-4) and USS Chandler (DMS 9) broke off from the main force and swept the lanes to the landing beaches on Japanese-held Attu.

The 12th saw a repeat, this time in Massacre Bay.

The rest of the month saw Long revert back to her destroyer DNA and provide escort and ASW patrol around the island, including the spirited pursuit of a sonar contact on the 15th.

While there were known Japanese midget submarines based in the Aleutians, and larger subs passing through, post-war records didn’t support a “kill” claim for this incident.

Then came the Kiska and Adak operations until, finally, Long was dispatched back to Pearl Harbor in September 1943 for some warmer service.

USS Long (DMS-12) photographed during World War II. Courtesy of D. M. McPherson, 1974. NH 81358

Following a refit and escort and patrol operations in Hawaiian waters, Long was dispatched to the Southwest Pacific to join in the New Guinea operations in February 1944. Operating as part of TF 76, she supported the landings there and in the Admiralties and Hollandia, (Operations Reckless and Persecution) both sweeping mines and escorting.

It was at Humboldt Bay on 22 April 1944 that she was able to both run her paravanes and get hits on shore targets, firing 253 rounds of 3″/50 and 660 of 20mm on the landing beaches of Cape Tjeweri, Cape Djar, and Cape Kassoe, just prior to the LVTs and LSTs carrying the 162nd and 186th Regiments of the 41st “Jungleers” Division hitting the beach.

Switching gears and sailing north to the Marianas, Long was on hand for the occupation of Saipan in June and the liberation of Guam in July, in each cases conducting preinvasion mine sweeps to clear lanes, then providing radar picket and guard ship duties, followed by convoy work.

Similar operations in the Palaus in September and October included a very hectic week during the landings during which Long, Hovey, and fellow DMS vessels were zapping mines left and right. In all, Long destroyed at least 45 Japanese mines during the Palau operation, all via 3-inch gunfire– some as close as 100 yards– following sweeping.

A sample day: 

This brought Long into the drive to liberate the Philippines after nearly three years of Japanese occupation.

Sailing under orders with Minesweeping Unit 1 in early October, she spearheaded the invasion of the PI at Leyte Gulf, successfully clearing Japanese mines off Dinagat and Hibuson, as well as in the Dulag‑Tacloban approach channel and the soon-to-be-infamous Surigao Strait, all while fighting off Japanese air attacks.

A sample of these operations, that of 19 October 1944:

She spent the Battle of the Surigao Strait guarding empty transports bound in convoy for Manus, narrowly avoiding contact with the Japanese surface.

Late December saw her return to the PI to sweep for the landings at Lingayen Gulf. Just after the New Year, while in the Mindanao Sea, she survived a series of furious Japanese air attacks, continuing her yeoman job of sweeping.

Long’s luck ran out on 6 January.

Two Japanese Zeke 52s approached from low over the beach, dropping down to just 25 feet of the deck, with one strafing and crashing into (DD-232/APD-10) and the other coming fast at Long broadside on her port side. Although LT Stanley David Caplan, Long’s 16th and final skipper, rang up 25 knots and ordered everything on board to fire on the incoming planes. Despite three 3″/50s and three 20mm Oerlikons opening up and hits being observed, it was already over.

As detailed in an 11-page report by Caplan, who survived the maelstrom:

Her old twin, Hovey, was on hand and immediately stood by to help, as did her sister Chandler, and the fleet tug USS Apache (AT-67).

Caplan observed a five-foot hole in Long’s side, penetrating to the officer’s wardroom and the forward living compartment, with fire observed just over the No. 1. magazine. Nonetheless, 26 men responded to Caplan’s call for volunteers to attempt to reboard and save their faithful old tin can.

While organizing the return from Apache’s deck, disaster struck.

Waiting overnight, by the next morning, Long’s main deck, just after the forecastle about midships, was underwater, while her screws were showing on the stern. Her back was broken. There was nothing left to save. Landing on the sinking ship with 12 volunteers to make sure the ship’s sensitive gear was wrecked, Caplan and party soon departed after just five minutes, leaving just “30 seconds to a minute to the good” before the destroyer capsized then went down in two pieces at 1115 on 7 January.

Six men were killed in the attack on Long, with two others later passing from their injuries.

Sadly, Hovey would perish a few hours before her sister took her final dive, hit by a Japanese Kate torpedo bomber, carrying a fish, around 0455 on the 7th. By dawn, she was lost, and the men she had taken off Long, some 120 survivors, went back into the water. The Chandler and Apache moved in to make their second extended rescue in 24 hours.

Some 35 bluejackets injured in Long’s initial kamikaze strike and another 28 from her that picked up wounds while on Hovey were transferred to the large sick bay on the battleships USS California and USS West Virginia. Two dozen men from Brooks and Long who were aboard Hovey when she sank were never found.

Both Hovey and Long earned Navy Unit Commendations for their service, both for action at Palau.

Besides the NUC, Long earned at least night battle stars during her WWII service including:

  • 11 May 43 – 31 May 43 Attu occupation
  • 2 Feb 44 – 8 Feb 44 Western New Guinea operations
  • 29 Feb 44 – 4 Mar 44 and 7 Mar 44 – 11 Mar 44 Admiralty Island landings
  • 18 Apr 44 – 25 Apr 44 and 2 May 44 Hollandia operation (Aitape Humbolt Bay-Tanahmerah Bay)
  • 13 Jun 44 – 18 Jul 44 Capture and Occupation of Saipan
  • 12 Jul 44 – 25 Jul 44 Capture and Occupation of Guam
  • 6 Sep 44 – 14 Oct 44 Capture and occupation of southern Palau Islands
  • 12 Oct 44 – 20 Oct 44 Leyte landings (as well as 4 Jan 45 – 18 Jan 45), and Battle of Surigao Strait

Epilogue

Long’s war diaries are in the National Archives along with her circa 1943 plans. 

The Navy never saw fit to recycle the name, despite her nine battlestars and NUC. The same goes for Hovey.

The twins rest somewhere in the Lingayen Gulf, very close to each other, near position 16º12’N, 120º11’E.

LT Caplan, born in 1915 in Elmira, New York, and commissioned via ROTC in 1940, had already survived Pearl Harbor with a commendation for his actions that day. He likewise survived the war and passed in 1999 on dry land in Florida, aged 84.

There are no Clemsons preserved. No less than 16 sisters in addition to Long and Hovey were lost during WWII.

For more information on the Clemsons and their like, read CDR John Alden’s book, “Flush Decks and Four Pipes” and/or check out the Destroyer History Foundation’s section on Flushdeckers. 

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

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Warship Wednesday, July 22, 2020: A Hard 73 Days

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Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1946 time 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, July 22, 2020: A Hard 73 Days

U.S. Navy Department Photograph. Catalog #: NH 42868

Here we see the Clemson-class “four-piper” destroyer USS Peary (DD-226) sometime during the early 1920s. This humble flush-decker was completed too late for one World War but made up for it in her brief 10-week career in a second.

One of the massive fleets of Clemson-class flush decker destroyers, like most of her sisters, Peary came too late to help lick the Kaiser. An expansion of the almost identical Wickes-class destroyers with a third more fuel capacity to enable them to escort a convoy across the Atlantic without refueling, the Clemsons were sorely needed to combat the pressing German submarine threat of the Great War. At 1,200-tons and with a top speed of 35 knots, they were brisk vessels ready for the task.

The subject of our story today was the first warship named after RADM Robert Edwin Peary, famed for his Arctic explorations in which he went down in the history books as being in the first successful dash to the North Pole.

This guy.

Peary died in February 1920, and his crossing of the bar gave natural inspiration to the naming of a new destroyer in his honor. USS Peary (DD-226) was constructed at William Cramp and Sons, Philadelphia, and launched 6 April 1920– two months after the famed explorer’s passing– sponsored by his daughter, Mrs. Edward Stafford. The new tin can was commissioned on 22 October 1920.

USS Peary (DD-226) at anchor, circa 1921.NH 50902

After shakedown, Peary passed through the ditch and kept going, assigned to the Asiatic Fleet for the rest of her service. With her shallow draft, she spent most of that period providing the muscle to the exotic “Sand Pebbles” Yangtze Patrol Force.

See the world! View at Amoy, China taken from Kulangsoo showing the port and U.S. destroyers anchored there, circa 1928. Two of the ships identifiable are USS PEARY (DD-226), on right, and USS PRUITT (DD-347) on left. Sightseeing Sailors in crackerjacks and Marines in dress blues are on the foreground. NH 50709

This sometimes-tense peacetime service, which saw lots of bumping up against increasingly cold Japanese forces in the region during the latter’s undeclared war with China, turned very hot after 7 December 1941.

Less than 48 hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Peary was caught in Cavite Naval Yard in the Philippines during a Japanese high-altitude bomber strike on the yard.

As noted by her damage report of the incident her foremast caught a 250-pound bomb dropped from about 25,000 feet. The bomb detonated on impact with the mast and rained the vessel’s decks with a deadly storm of shrapnel which in turn started a fire that was quickly extinguished.

The effect was to destroy her gun director, torpedo director, degaussing girdle, sound gear, radio receivers, bridge overheads, charts, sextants, and navigational equipment– so possibly the most devastating 250-pound bomb in naval history!

The ship’s skipper and Engineer Officer were severely injured and sent ashore for hospitalization. Her XO was dead. Just two days later, her torpedo officer, the most senior afloat, was steaming her around the harbor without defenses to avoid another Japanese attack.

On 14 December, LCDR John Michael Bermingham (USNA 1929), the former XO of the Peary’s sister ship, USS Stewart (DD-224), who had completed his tour on 1 December and was in Manila waiting for transportation home., became Peary’s new skipper. The plan– displace and live to fight another day.

Escape and Regroup

As the Japanese poured into the Philippines, the Asiatic Fleet increasingly was pressured out of the islands. Ordered to proceed to Australia for repair, Peary’s masts were removed and the ship camouflaged with green paint and palm fronds in an effort to avoid Japanese bombardiers on the way. LT. William J. Catlett, Jr. a Mississippian and the ship’s First Lieutenant, held on to her original commissioning pennant.

In such a manner, the damaged Peary managed to survive very close air attacks on both the 26th and 27th of December. In both incidents, she reportedly only avoided enemy bombs and torpedoes which passed as close as 10 yards.

By New Year’s 1942, she was safe in Darwin. Well, reasonably safe anyway.

Patched up, she soon joined in an ill-fated effort by way of Tjilatjap and Koepang in the Dutch East Indies to resupply Australian forces on Timor in early February. The force consisted of the Northampton-class “medium” cruiser USS Houston (CA-30) and the two Australian sloops, HMAS Warrego and HMAS Swan.

C 1942-02. The Timor Sea. USS Peary. The photograph was taken from HMAS Swan by a member of the crew probably during the abortive Koepang voyage. AWM P01214.008

Darwin, Nt. C.1942-02. USS Peary and USS Houston (CA-30) in the Harbor. These Ships, together with HMAS Swan and HMAS Warrego Formed the Naval Escort of the Convoy Which Made an Unsuccessful Attempt to Reinforce the Timor Garrison. Houston was sunk in the Battle of the Java Sea less than a month after this image was taken. AWM 134952

Looking from the Australian Bathurst Class Corvette, HMAS Warrnambool (J202), towards the American Northampton class heavy cruiser, USS Houston (CA30) (right), with the Destroyer USS Peary (DD226) alongside. AWM P05303.011

Houston and Peary sailed back towards Tjilatjap on 18 February, but Peary soon broke off her escort to chase a suspected submarine, and burned up so much oil in doing so that she was diverted back to Darwin instead of continuing with Houston back to Java.

The hard-working tin can arrived in Australia late that evening, with her crew no doubt eager to have a quiet morning the next day after being at sea since the 10th.

The Attack on Darwin

The Japanese air raid on Darwin on 19 February 1942, by artist Keith Swain. Japanese aircraft fly overhead, while the focus of the painting is the Royal Australian Navy corvette HMAS Katoomba, in dry dock, fighting off the aerial attacks. Peary can be seen in the distance to the right. AWM ART28075

Commander Mitsuo Fuchida, who had also led the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor, was in the air over Darwin 73 days after.

As noted by the Australian War Memorial:

Early on the morning of 19 February, 188 aircraft were sighted by observers on Bathurst and Melville islands to Darwin’s north. The attack on Darwin began when Zero fighters began strafing an auxiliary minesweeper, HMAS Gunbar, as it passed through the boom protecting the entrance to Darwin harbor. Soon, ships in the harbor and buildings and installations ashore came under attack. For 40 minutes the aircraft bombed and machine-gunned the harbor and town. They shot down nine of the 10 United States Army Air Force P-40E Warhawks over the town and sank eight of the 47 ships in the harbor, including the motor vessel Neptuna. Its cargo included 200 depth charges which exploded as the ship lay beside the Darwin wharf. Another victim was the US Navy destroyer USS Peary which sunk with great loss of life.

LCDR Bermingham, aboard Peary at the time, managed to slip anchor and get his ship underway. The four-piper tried to build up steam and maneuver in the restricted water of the harbor while her crew filled the air with as much lead as they could, but Peary was hit with at least five bombs. Incredibly, her stern may have been blown off very early in the action, as recently it was discovered that her props and shafts are several kilometers from where she rests today on the seafloor.

Nonetheless, by all accounts, the doomed ship kept fighting.

USS PEARY (DD-226) afire shortly after being attacked. Courtesy of Arthur W. Thomas NH 43644

Darwin Raid, 19 February 1942 Wharf and SS NEPTUNIA burning at left. USS PEARY (DD-226) and SS ZEALANDIA can be seen faintly at right. Courtesy of Arthur W. Thomas NH 43657

USS PEARY (DD-226) afire and beginning to drift from where she was moored at the time of the attack. Australian hospital ship MANUNDA is at right. Courtesy of Arthur W. Thomas NH 43651

The description from DANFS tells the tale as:

At about 10:45 a.m. on 19 February Peary was attacked by single-motored Japanese dive bombers and suffered 80 men killed and 13 wounded. The first bomb exploded on the fantail, the second, an incendiary, on the galley deckhouse; the third did not explode; the fourth hit forward and set off the forward ammunition magazines; the fifth, another incendiary, exploded in the after engine room. A .30 caliber machine gun on the after-deck house and a .50 caliber machine gun on the galley deck house fired until the last enemy plane flew away. Peary sank stern first at about 1:00 p.m.

A .30-06 Lewis gun, recovered from the wreckage and now in the collection of the NHHC, may very well have been the above-mentioned machine gun.

In a two-page war diary held in the collection of the National Archives, Peary’s crew’s actions were described by doctors on the nearby Australian hospital ship Manuda as being heroic, speaking of “gun crews who remained at the stations firing their anti-aircraft guns until the water came up around them, and then swam away as the ship went down. No men abandoned ship until the ship sank completely under them.”

The Aftermath

Of the more than 60 Japanese air raids on Darwin in 1942-43, the 19 February strike went down in history as the most deadly, credited as the largest single attack ever mounted by a foreign power on Australia.

A third of the dead were American.

Kaname Harada, a Zero pilot who saw the attack on Peary, later said, “It was a dive-bomb attack from 5000m and the plume of smoke went up 200m in the air. When the smoke was gone, there was nothing left.” Harada would be shot down over Guadalcanal and died in 2016, aged 99. The four Japanese carriers that participated in the attack on Darwin whose planes sent Peary to the bottom– Akagi, Kaga, Hiryū, and Sōryū— were later “scratched” at Midway.

Bermingham and at least 80 of Peary’s crew went down with the ship, reportedly leaving just 54, mostly injured survivors, struggling in her oil slick. The late skipper’s family was posthumously presented his Navy Cross and an Evarts-class destroyer escort was named in his honor the next year.

John Bermingham. Of note, the Navy Cross recipient was in the same class at Annapolis with Robert A. Heinlein.

Speaking of legacies, Peary’s name was soon installed on a new Edsall-class destroyer escort (DE-132) with LT. Catlett providing the old destroyer’s pennant and the departed explorer’s widow breaking the bottle. After an active career, DE-132 was scrapped in 1966.

In 1972, a Knox-class destroyer escort/fast frigate, DE-1073/FF-1073, became the third USS Richard E. Peary and served two decades with the Pacific fleets then another quarter-century with the navy of Taiwan, only being expended in a submarine exercise last week.

In 2008, an MSC-crewed 40,000-ton Lewis and Clark-class dry cargo ship, USNS Robert E. Peary (T-AKE-5), received the name fit for a destroyer.

As for her sisters, seven Clemsons were lost at the disaster at Honda Point in 1923, and 18 (including six used by the British) were lost in WWII including one, USS Stewart (DD-224), which was famously raised by the Japanese and used in their Navy only to be recaptured by the USN and given a watery grave after the war.

Those Clemsons not sold off in the 1930s or otherwise sent to Davy Jones were scrapped wholesale in the months immediately after WWII. Sister USS Hatfield (DD-231) decommissioned 13 December 1946 and was sold for scrap 9 May 1947 to NASSCO, the last of her kind in the Navy.

The final Clemson afloat, USS Aulick (DD-258), joined the Royal Navy as HMS Burnham (H82) in 1940 as part of the “Destroyers for Bases” deal. Laid up in 1944, she was allocated for scrapping on 3 December 1948.

None are preserved and only the scattered wrecks in the Western Pacific, Honda Point, the Med and Atlantic endure.

For more information on the Clemsons and their like, read CDR John Alden’s book, “Flush Decks and Four Pipes” and/or check out the Destroyer History Foundation’s section on Flushdeckers. 

In memoriam

Resting in just 87 feet of water on a silty seabed, Peary was extensively salvaged– ironically by a Japanese firm– in 1959 and 1960. Today, however, the remains are protected by Australia’s Heritage Conservation Act which brings heavy fines ($50,000) and threats of jail time to souvenir-seeking skin divers.

In Darwin, an extensive memorial in the city’s Bicentennial Park– centered around one of the Peary’s 4-inch guns pointing towards the site where she remains as a war grave– was erected in 1992. The event was attended by an honor guard provided from FF-1073.

Further, in 2012 on the 70th anniversary of her loss, a plaque was lowered to the seabed over her hull.

The Peary memorial is frequented by both U.S. and Australian forces.

Commanding Officer HMAS Coonawarra, Commander Richard Donnelly, lays a wreath at the USS Peary Memorial Ceremony. Defense personnel joins local dignitaries in Darwin to commemorate the Japanese air raids on the city on 19 February 1942, the largest single attack by a foreign force on Australia. RAN Photo

Lt. Col. Matthew Puglisi, the officer in charge, Marine Rotational Force – Darwin, Marine Corps Forces Pacific, places a wreath at the USS Peary monument. The USS Peary lost 89 of its crewmembers after an air raid by Japanese forces at Darwin Harbor, Feb. 19, 1942. USMC Photo by Sgt. Sarah Fiocco

Specs:

Inboard and outboard profiles for a U.S. Navy Clemson-class destroyer, in this case, USS Doyen (DD-280)

Displacement:
1,215 tons (normal)
1,308 tons (full load)
Length: 314 ft. 4.5 in
Beam: 30 ft. 11.5 in
Draft: 9 ft. 4 in
Propulsion:
4 × boilers, 300 psi (2,100 kPa) saturated steam
2 geared steam turbines
27,600 hp (20,600 kW)
2 shafts
Speed: 35.5 knots
Range: 4,900 nmi (9,100 km) @ 15 knots
Crew: (USN as commissioned)
8 officers
8 chief petty officers
106 enlisted
Armament:
(1920)
4- 4″/51 cal guns
1 x 3″/23 cal AAA
12 × 21-inch torpedo tubes (4 × 3) (533 mm)

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

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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.

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Warship Wednesday, Sep 25, 2019: The Unsung Hero of Dutch Harbor at 100

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Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1946 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, Sep 25, 2019: The Unsung Hero of Dutch Harbor at 100

3 US Navy PT-boats Aleutians in June 1943 eaplane tender GILLIS AVD12 PBY Catalina Higgins boats Mk 19 torpedo tubes.

Official USN Photographs (National Archives) 80-G-K-9454 (Color).

Here we see three, in a beautiful original color photograph, a trio of Higgins-type PT-boats belonging to Motor Torpedo Squadron 13, moored alongside the old seaplane tender destroyer, USS Gillis (AVD12, ex-DD260) in Casco Cove, Massacre Bay, Attu Island, Aleutians, 21  June 1943. Note the PBY-5 Catalina flying-boat astern of our aging tin can.

One of the massive fleets of Clemson-class flush decker destroyers, like most of her sisters, Gillis came too late for the Great War. An expansion of the almost identical Wickes-class destroyers with a third more fuel capacity to enable them to escort a convoy across the Atlantic without refueling, the Clemsons were sorely needed to combat the pressing German submarine threat of the Great War. At 1,200-tons and with a top speed of 35 knots, they were brisk vessels ready for the task.

USS Gillis is the only ship named for Commodore John P. Gillis and RADM James Henry Gillis.

Commodore John P. Gillis was a native of Wilmington, Delaware. He fought in the Mexican-American War where he was captured at Tuxpan. Subsequently, between 1853 and 1854, he sailed with Perry to open Japan to the West. Gilles later served in the Civil War by providing support to the Union blockade effort, commanding the warships Seminole, Monticello, and Ossipee, in turn.

RADM James Henry Gillis (USMA 1854), a Pennsylvania native, during the Civil War, commanded Michigan, Franklin, the flagship of the European Squadron, Lackawanna, Minnesota, and Hartford, the flagship of the Pacific Squadron before retiring from the Navy in 1893 “having never lost a man at sea.”

USS Gillis was built by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp., Quincy, Mass. and commissioned 3 September 1919, LCDR Webb Trammell in command– some 100 years ago this month.

Destroyer USS Gillis (DD-260), 29 May 1919, Fore River Shipyard, Quincy, Massachusetts.

Her peacetime service was brief. Gillis sailed from Newport, R.I., 17 December 1919 and moored at San Diego 20 January 1920. She joined the Pacific Fleet Destroyer Force in tactics and maneuvers along the West Coast until decommissioned at San Diego 26 May 1922.

NH 53731

In all, Gillis spent just under two years with the fleet in her first stint on active duty.

Gillis (DD-260) Laid up at San Diego, California, circa 1929 in rusty and crusty condition. Photographed by Lieutenant Commander Don P. Moon, USN. Note the ship’s rusty condition. Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1973. NH 78286

When the drums of war started beating in Europe and Asia in the late 1930s, Gillis was recommissioned in ordinary 28 June 1940, then soon reclassified as seaplane tender destroyer AVD-12, a mission that importantly saw her fitted with an early radar set. Following conversion, which included swapping out her torpedo tubes for aviation store space and some extra AAA guns and depth charges, she was placed in full commission at San Francisco, 25 March 1941.

USS Gillis (AVD-12) Photograph dated 14 February 1941. The ship appears to be painted in Camouflage Measure One. Catalog #: 80-G-13141

As noted by DANFS:

Gillis was assigned as tender to Patrol Wing 4, Aircraft Scouting Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet. In the following months she performed plane guard patrol between San Diego and Seattle with time out for aircraft tending duties at Sitka, Alaska (14-17 June); Dutch Harbor and Kodiak (15-31 July). After overhaul in the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard she returned to Kodiak 16 October 1941 to resume tending of amphibious patrol planes in Alaskan waters. She was serving at Kodiak when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

Just six months later, she was at rest in Dutch Harbor on the morning of 3 June 1942. Almost simultaneously with their attack on Midway, a strong task force under Japanese RADM Kakuji Kakuta, comprising the carriers Ryujo (10,000 tons) and Jun’yo (25,000 tons) as well as their escorts and a naval landing force, attacked the Aleutians in Alaska.

But Gillis had the upper hand.

In the harbor that morning with the two old flush-deck destroyers King and Talbot, the submarine S-27, Coast Guard cutter Onondaga, and the U.S. Army transports President Fillmore and Morlen, Gillis had the advantage of radar and her operator picked up the incoming Japanese airstrike at 0540. With that, she and the other ships weighed anchor and stood out with all hands at battle stations. Likewise, the Army detachment at nearby Fort Mears was alerted.

Had they been sunk at their moorings and Dutch Harbor more badly damaged, the effort to keep/hold/retake the Aleutians would have surely been a tougher task, diverting key U.S. assets from other theaters– such as Guadalcanal.

Further, the Japanese, in turn, got a bloody nose that morning from the old school 3-inch M1918 AAA guns and .50 cal water-cooled Browning of Arkansas National Guard’s 206th Coast Artillery (Anti-Aircraft), which splashed a few Japanese planes. Meanwhile, a PBY that Gillis was tending stitched up 19-year-old PO Tadayoshi Koga’s Zero (which crashed and was recovered in remarkable condition– an intelligence coup) and a group of Army Col. John Chennault’s P-40s out of Unamak accounted for a few more. The Gillis claimed two planes shot down. No ship was damaged.

Koga’s Zero

Not a bad day’s work for an isolated outpost.

Three days later, while on air-sea rescue patrol, Gillis made three depth charge runs on an underwater sound contact.

DANFS= “A Japanese submarine violently broached the surface revealing its conning tower and propeller, then disappeared. Gillis was unable to regain contact. She was credited with damaging this underseas raider in the combat area off Umak Island.”

Starting on June 9, PBYs of VP-41, operating from Dutch Harbor, initiated what became known as the “Kiska Blitz,” a series of extreme long-range shuttle attack bombing missions by the flying boats of PatWing Four to plaster the Japanese ships at that occupied Aleutian island, using Gillis, which had forward-deployed closer to the action, at Nazan Bay off Atka island. This took amazing 48-hour sorties with the old tender providing fuel, hot meals and extra 250-pound bombs to the Catalinas until she was out of bombs to give. This lasted for several days, with Catalinas of VPB-42 and 43, until a Japanese scout plane discovered the seaplane tender and her position was compromised.

At least one PBY of VB-135 on occasion dropped 92 empty beer bottles on the Japanese at Kiska. The aircrew had discovered the bottles made a disconcerting whistling noise as they fell through the air.

This drawing was made by the intelligence units of the U.S. 11th Air Force, showing a dual Imperial Japanese Navy Type 11 Early Warning Radar site on the captured Alaskan island of Kiska in Oct 1942. It was built by the Japanese in response to the PBY blitz.

On June 13, before retiring from Atka, Gillis was ordered to carry out a “scorched earth” policy, setting fire to all buildings and a local Aleut village to leave nothing of use to the Japanese. She later fought off a sortie from three four-engine Mavis bombers from Kiska while in Kuluk Bay, Adak. To her brood, she added the plywood PT-boats of MTBRon 13.

Higgins 78-foot torpedo boats of Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron 13 (MTBRon 13) moored in Attu, Alaska, Jul 1943. Note PT-75 and PT-78 nested outboard of their squadron-mate and a PBY Catalina patrol plane taking off. 80-G-475727

After that, joined by four other tenders, Gillis formed the mothership backbone of Patrol Squadrons 41, 43, 51, 62; consisting of 11 PBY flying boats and 20 PBY-5As. By October 1943, however, the other tenders were withdrawn, and she was the only one in operative condition forward deployed to the Aleutians.

USS Gillis (AVD-12) leaving ARD-6 Dutch Harbor, Alaska 80-G-386650

With the theatre dying down, by April 1944 Gillis departed Dutch Harbor for the West Coast where she was given an overhaul and served as a plane guard off San Diego. She was then ordered forward into the Pacific to rejoin the shooting war.

She then sailed with RADM M. L. Deyo’s Gunfire and Covering Force, en route via the Marshalls, Marianas, and Ulithi for the Invasion of Okinawa, arriving off Kerama Retto 25 March 1945. There, Gillis guarded minesweepers and stood by UDT teams clearing approaches to the western beaches of Okinawa. After invasion forces stormed ashore 1 April, she tended observation and patrol planes at Kerama Retto and performed air-sea rescue patrol.

USS Relief -AH-1 In a Western Pacific Harbor, probably at the time of the Okinawa Campaign, circa April 1945. USS Gillis -AVD-12- is in the left background Catalog #: 80-G-K-3707

On 28 April, Gillis departed Okinawa in the screen of USS Makassar Strait, bound via Guam to San Pedro Bay, Philippine Islands. She returned by the same route in the escort screen of Wake Island (CVE-65). That carrier-launched planes 29 June to land bases on Okinawa and Gillis helped escort her back to Guam 3 July 1945.

Gillis won two battle stars, for escort and antisubmarine operations in the American area (1941-44) and Okinawa.

Gillis departed Guam for home 8 July 1945. She arrived at San Pedro, Calif., 28 July and decommissioned there 15 October 1945. Her name was struck from the Navy List 1 November 1945. She was sold to NASSCO, Treasure Island, CA, for scrapping 29 January 1946.

As for her sisters, seven Clemsons were lost at the disaster at Honda Point in 1923, and 18 (including six used by the British) were lost in WWII including one, USS Stewart (DD-224), which was famously raised by the Japanese and used in their Navy only to be recaptured by the USN and given a watery grave after the war. Those four-pipers not sold off in the 1930s or otherwise sent to Davy Jones were scrapped wholesale in the months immediately after WWII. Sister USS Hatfield (DD-231) decommissioned 13 December 1946 and was sold for scrap 9 May 1947 to NASSCO, the last of her kind in the Navy.

The final Clemson afloat, USS Aulick (DD-258), joined the Royal Navy as HMS Burnham (H82) in 1940 as part of the “Destroyers for Bases” deal. Laid up in 1944, she was allocated for scrapping on 3 December 1948.

None are preserved and only the scattered wrecks in the Western Pacific, Honda Point, the Med and Atlantic endure.

Specs:

USS Gillis (DD-260/AVD-12): Outboard profile from Booklet of General Plans (NARA) 117877196

Displacement:
1,215 tons (normal)
1,308 tons (full load)
Length: 314 ft. 4.5 in
Beam: 30 ft. 11.5 in
Draft: 9 ft. 4 in
Propulsion:
4 × boilers, 300 psi (2,100 kPa) saturated steam
2 geared steam turbines
27,600 hp (20,600 kW)
2 shafts
Speed: 35.5 knots (65.7 km/h)
Range: 4,900 nmi (9,100 km) @ 15 kn (28 km/h)
Crew: (USN as commissioned)
8 officers
8 chief petty officers
106 enlisted
Armament:
(1920)
4 x 4?/50cal guns
1 x 3″/23AA
12 × 21-inch torpedo tubes (4 × 3) (533 mm)

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find. http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

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.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2019: The final Four-Piper

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Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1946 time 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, Feb. 6, 2019: The final Four-Piper

NH 64543

Here we see the Clemson-class “four-piper” flush-decker torpedo boat destroyer USS Hatfield (DD-231) in dry dock at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on May 23, 1932, with a newly-fitted bow. One of a tremendous class of vessels some 156-strong, she had a long and varied career, ending it as the very last of her type in U.S. service.

An expansion of the almost identical Wickes-class destroyers with a third more fuel capacity to enable them to escort a convoy across the Atlantic without refueling, the Clemson’s were sorely needed to combat the pressing German submarine threat of the Great War. At 1,200-tons and with a top speed of 35 knots, they were brisk vessels ready for the task.

“They kept the sea lanes open” – Invest in the Victory Liberty Loan WWI, poster from 1918 by LA Shafer, Niagara Litho Co. Buffalo, NY, showing a four-piper destroyer armed with 5-inch guns dressed in dazzleflauge jumping between a merchantman and a dastardly German U-boat, the latter sent by the Kaiser to send passenger liners to the bottom.

However, they were was built too late for the war.

The hero of our story was named after naval hero John Hatfield, a young man who volunteered for service and, appointed Midshipman 18 June 1812, served on the small armed schooner USS Lady of the Lake as part of the force commanded by Lt. Isaac Chauncey on Lake Ontario. During the assault on York (now Toronto) in April 1813, Hatfield was killed while leading his ships small boats in a combined arms attack that netted the giant British Royal Standard taken from the Parliament House (and currently in the USNA collection).

Laid down 10 June 1918 at New York Shipbuilding Corp., Camden, N.J, Hatfield just missed her Great War and commissioned 16 April 1920. Her early career included a fleet review by President Harding at Hampton Roads and training cruises in the Caribbean. Interestingly, although almost every four-piper carried a battery of five 4″/50 cal singles, she was one of a handful (DD-231 through DD-235) that were commissioned instead with four 5″/51 cal guns. Due to the extra weight, no depth charge racks were installed on these more heavily gunned sisters

Hatfield Launching at The New York Shipbuilding Corporation, Camden, New Jersey. NH 53688

With the Allied High Commission in the former Ottoman Empire needing muscle, on 2 October 1922, Destroyer Division 40, composed of the destroyers Bainbridge (DD-246), Fox (DD-234), Gilmer (DD-233), Hatfield (DD-231), Hopkins (DD-249), and Kane (DD-235), and Destroyer Division 41, composed of the destroyers Barry (DD-248), Goff (DD-247), King (DD-242), McFarland (DD-237), Overton (DD-239), and Sturtevant (DD-240), sailed from Hampton Roads, Virginia, for Constantinople.

The destroyers arrived there on 22 October, under the command of RADM Mark Lambert Bristol, who had his flag on the humble station ship USS Scorpion, a Warship Wednesday alum, who spent years in the Bosporus moored to the quay and connected by telephone with the Embassy. Hatfield remained in the region until 31 July 1923, when she was given orders to proceed back to the West Coast.

In the early 1920s, the Black Sea was an American lake, as the Russian, Bulgarian, Romanian and Ottoman fleets had largely ceased to exist while the British and French fleets, facing near bankruptcy and mutinous crews, respectively, were keen to send only a few vessels to Constantinople and Odesa and withdraw them as soon as possible. At its height, the U.S. fleet in Constantinople included over 26 warships including the battleships Arizona and Utah, a dozen destroyers, heavy and light cruisers, floating repair shops, and transport ships.

NH 803

Assigned to the U.S. Scouting Fleet, her stomping ground ranged from New York to Panama including a tour of gunboat diplomacy off the coast of Nicaragua throughout February and March 1927, during the civil war in that country in which the U.S. backed the conservative Solórzano government. For this, Hatfield picked up the Second Nicaraguan Campaign Medal.

The next year, Hatfield was part of the squadron that carried President Coolidge to Cuba and Haiti for the Pan-American Conference.

U.S. Navy destroyers moored side-by-side after a day’s maneuvers in Haitian Waters, circa the later 1920s or the 1930s. These ships are (from front to rear): USS Kane (DD-235); USS Hatfield (DD-231); USS Brooks (DD-232); and USS Lawrence (DD-250). The first three destroyers carry 5″/51 cal guns mounted on their sterns, while Lawrence has the more typical four-piper popgun, a 4″/50 cal, mounted atop her after deckhouse, with a 3″/23 anti-aircraft gun on her stern. Note bedding airing on the ships’ lifelines. NH 52227

USS Hatfield (DD-231) In San Diego Harbor, California, during the early 1930s. She was one of only five flush-deck destroyers to carry 5/51 guns. Donation of Franklin Moran, 1967. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. NH 64542

USS Hatfield (DD-231) and sister USS Humphreys (DD-236) circa 1928

Hatfield had a crack up with the USS Sands (DD-243), a sistership, during maneuvers 40 miles off Newport, Rhode Island, 13 September 1930. Damage control was quick and she was towed to Brooklyn Navy Yard by tugs Sagamore (AT-20) and Penobscot (YT-42) for repairs.

Photo via Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection. 08_06_006245

Transferred to San Diego in 1932 after a brief stint in ordinary, by April 1936 she was deployed to friction points once again, serving off Spain in the neutrality patrol during the Spanish Civil War as part of Squadron Forty-T commanded by RADM Arthur P. Fairfield. This special task force, initially comprising the old cruiser Raleigh, fellow four-piper USS Kane, Hatfield, and the Coast Guard cutter USCGC Cayuga, saved hundreds of U.S. and foreign nationals during the conflict. In all, she would spend 19 months there, returning to the U.S. at the tail end of 1937, returning to mothballs for a few months.

USS HATFIELD (DD-231). (1920-1947). Collection of Gustave Maurer. NH 2216

When WWII erupted in Europe, Hatfield was dusted off once more and recommissioned 25 September 1939 for assignment to FDR’s East Coast Neutrality Patrol looking for U-Boats, a mission she would continue through August 1940 when she was sent to the West Coast, arriving at Bremerton for operations in the Northern Pacific as part of the rusty old tin cans of DESDIV 82.

In the days immediately after Pearl Harbor, the obsolete flush decker was sent to sparsely defended Alaska, where she spent her “shooting days” of WWII. Even equipped with sonar, radar, and a smattering of machine guns for AAA use, destroyer technology had passed her by.

Destroyer evolution, 1920-1944: USS HATFIELD (DD-231), USS MAHAN (DD-364), USS FLETCHER (DD-445). NH 109593

Hatfield 26 May 1942, at Puget Sound, Navy Yard, Bremerton, Washington. Note rafts, torpedo tubes, boat, radar at mainmast. Also, note barrage balloons 19-N-30086

Hatfield on 26 May 1942, at Puget Sound, Washington 19-N-30085

As noted by DANFS: “In the uncertain early months of the Pacific war, Hatfield convoyed merchant ships to Alaskan ports, helping to carry the supplies necessary to establish bases in the North. She continued this vital duty in the bleak and dangerous northern waters until 13 March 1944, when she returned to Seattle.”

Relegated to work as an auxiliary (AG-84) in October 1944, she finished her military service towing targets and assisting with underway training. Hatfield decommissioned 13 December 1946 and was sold for scrap 9 May 1947 to National Metal & Steel Corp., Terminal Island, Calif, the last of her kind in the Navy. Only spending about 36 months of her 26 years out of commission — a rarity for her class– Hatfield had some 22 skippers in her long career.

Some of her original builder’s plaques are on display at the Los Angeles Maritime Museum.

And of course, there are a number of postal cancelations from this far-traveled greyhound.

Destroyer USS HATFIELD DD-231 Villefranche France Naval Cover MhCachets 1 MADE

As for her sisters, seven Clemson’s were lost at the disaster at Honda Point in 1923, and 18 (including six used by the British) were lost in WWII including one, USS Stewart (DD-224), which was famously raised by the Japanese and used in their Navy only to be recaptured by the USN and given a watery grave after the war. Those four-pipers not sold off in the 1930s or otherwise sent to Davy Jones were scrapped wholesale in the months immediately after WWII. Besides Hatfield, the penultimate Clemson in US service was USS Williamson (DD-244) which was decommissioned 8 November 1945 and sold to the breakers on 4 November 1948.

The final Clemson afloat, USS Aulick (DD-258), joined the Royal Navy as HMS Burnham (H82) in 1940 as part of the “Destroyers for Bases” deal. Laid up in 1944, she was allocated for scrapping on 3 December 1948.

None are preserved and only the scattered wrecks in the Western Pacific, Honda Point, the Med and Atlantic endure.

Specs:


Displacement:
1,215 tons (normal)
1,308 tons (full load)
Length: 314 ft. 4.5 in
Beam: 30 ft. 11.5 in
Draft: 9 ft. 4 in
Propulsion:
4 × boilers, 300 psi (2,100 kPa) saturated steam
2 geared steam turbines
27,600 hp (20,600 kW)
2 shafts
Speed: 35.5 knots (65.7 km/h)
Range: 4,900 nmi (9,100 km) @ 15 kn (28 km/h)
Crew: (USN as commissioned)
8 officers
8 chief petty officers
106 enlisted
Armament:
(1920)
4- 5″/51cal guns
12 × 21 inch torpedo tubes (4 × 3) (533 mm)

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find. http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

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. I’m a member, so should you be!