. But most of the other wartime functions still remained. Following this action, KIDDalong with the other ships of DESRON 48sailed for Mare Island Naval Shipyard in California for a major overhaul and refitting. Jenkins was placed in reserve following the end of the war, until 1951, when the ship was reactivated for the Korean War. Initially it was a 300-mile-wide strip of ocean bounded on the north by Canadian territorial waters then running south through the Caribbean. The ship had to approach very carefully directly into the current and hold itself in position during this process. As we parsed out theGreyhound true story from the movie, we learned that Commander Ernest Krause is a fictional character based on Commander George Krause from C. S. Forester's book The Good Shepherd. . The engine room and fire room supervisors would man their stations. During the attack on Rabaul, KIDD stopped to pick up the crew of a downed plane from the ESSEX, falling behind the main force of the fleet, and came under attack from a group of eight Japanese dive bombers. Fletcher -class destroyers boasted ten torpedo tubes, depth charge projectors, and five radar-guided 5" dual-purpose guns allowing them to ably combat aircraft, submarines and surface. The edition of TIME magazine that week carried a photo of KIDD, announcing that it had been one hundred years since the Jolly Roger had flown in New York Harbor. At 0420 the next day, the wrecked and scuttled U-606 disappeared beneath the waves. In January, 1952, DESDIV 152 returned to San Diego for overhaul and repair. The Alexander Hamilton was one of the first cutters actively engaged in convoy escort duty. USS The Sullivans (DD-537) The USS Sullivans was a long-range, large destroyer used for anti-submarine warfare, anti-aircraft warfare, and surface action. By February, organization of the ocean escorts had been formalized into American, British, and Canadian groups. One of the shells entered the compartment and crossed just above the chest of the pretended casualty. This action won her skipper at the time, Cdr. Allan B. Roby, the destroyer moved across New York Harbor for delivery to the Brooklyn Naval Shipyards . However, when KIDD arrived at the Brooklyn yards, the official message sent back to the yards in Kearny read: The WAVE delivered The Kidd at 2:30 today.. The 2,050-ton Fletcher -Class destroyer was considered one of the best destroyers of the period. Fully repaired and ready for action in the eminent invasion of Japans home islands, KIDD was en route to Japan via Pearl Harbor just days after the first atomic bomb struck Hiroshima, heralding the end of World War II. I also served aboard USS CORAL SEA (CVA43) for 2 years before joining the submarine force, which I spent 26 years in. From there we were ready to go. While in restricted waters, naval vessels have a navigation detail set and the ships position was regularly determined by taking visual bearings on objects ashore, supplemented by radar ranges and fathometer readings. That call to action came in 1951 during the Korean War. Two days earlier, while helping escort eight ships from Iceland to a rendezvous with westbound ONS-152, the cutter had dropped a single 600-pound depth charge on a sound contact. Heres how to join! Robert L. Scheina, U.S. Coast Guard Cutters & Craft of World War II (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1982). Six 25-man balsa life rafts were located in Seal Beach, California. The first ship to moor had to place a boat in the water which carried the mooring party. Subscribe now and never hit a limit. USS The Sullivans served with . On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland, and only two days later, the German submarine U-30 sank the British ocean liner SS Athenia off the Irish coast. She saw her first duty covering the North Atlantic sea lanes near Argentia, Newfoundland. Pacific deployment, USS Halsey Powell, taken from the 1958 cruise book. KIDDs 20mm and 40mm gunners took the plane under fire, scoring several hits, to no avail. At this point, we were underway. All five 5/38-cal. By 1971, all ships remaining in the US Navy had decommissioned but not until 2001 was Mexicos Cuitlhuac, the former John Rodgers and the last active Fletcher, retired. The Fletcher class destroyers had a wartime complement of 329 personnel. The U.S. destroyer was trying to ram the U-boat when a wave cause its bow to come down on top of the U-boat, trapping both in a deadly dance. At several points in the film, a German U-boat uses Greyhound's transmitting frequency and broadcasts threatening messages over the ship's loudspeakers. At 14:09, KIDDs crew observed a dogfight between Japanese aircraft and the fighters of the combat air patrol. There were also fueling stops at Midway and sometimes Guam. Sign up to get updates about new releases and event invitations. A sister ship of the Fletcher-class, USS CAPERTON (DD-650), provided the quintuple Mk-14 21-inch torpedo tubes that were missing, as well as a Mk-27 torpedo director, two Mk-63 gun directors, and her boat boom. Next we will describe the process for getting underway from alongside another ship or a pier. The date was Wednesday, April 11, 1945. My own ship, the USS Halsey Powell (DD 686) had been struck by a Kamikaze while escorting the carrier USS Hancock (CV 19) off Okinawa in 1945. In fact, U-606 had torpedoed three of the convoy's ships, but the Polish destroyer Berza counterattacked with depth charges, driving her down to dangerous depths, more than 750 feet, and causing extensive external and internal damage. Laid down beginning in 1941, all 175 Fletchers were completed between June 1942 and February 1945, launched an average of 212 days after keel laying and commissioned after an average of 152 days more or 364 days totalnearly 10 per cent faster than the repeat Bensons and Gleaves that preceded them. The Fletcher design permitted significant increases over preceding classes in hull, armament, machinery, ammunition, stores and fuel bunkerage. On July 03, 1997, KIDDs torpedo tubes were reloaded for the first time since 1964, finishing out her full armament. The pace of US destroyer construction accelerated with the wartime Fletcher class. Destroyers, dubbed "tin cans" because of their lack of armor . After the yard period there would be a stint at the Fleet Training Group in San Diego (Guantanemo for East Coast Ships) for refresher training followed by a work up for deployment to the Far East (WESTPAC). He is a 1956 graduate of the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Naval Historical Foundation 1306 Dahlgren Avenue, SE Washington Navy Yard, DC 20374 1-202-678-4333 info@navyhistory.org. Consequently, later that day, Roosevelt signed an order transferring the entire Coast Guard to the Navy. [2] They were also the first US destroyers fitted with radar as built. By the time her gun crews saw U-606 to starboard, the submarine was so close the 5-inch guns could not be depressed enough to fire at her. The valuable wartime contributions of the Bibb, Campbell, Duane, Ingham, and Spencer, however, did not end when they were relieved of North Atlantic convoy duty. ), Bloody Winter, rev. The pre-war classes of destroyer had been constrained by the London Naval Treaty of 1930 and by the country's reluctance to invest in a stronger Navy, but they did advance destroyer design in a number of ways. (DESDIV 96) within Destroyer Squadron 48 (DESRON 48), KIDD functioned in the many roles demanded of the U.S. Navys destroyers: anti-submarine picket duty, picking up downed pilots, shore bombardment, and anti-aircraft platform. The CO, XO, Officer of the Deck (OOD), Junior Officer of the Deck (JOOD) and appropriate enlisted personnel would proceed to the bridge. . Mrs. Inez Kidd, widow of RADM Kidd, served as the ships sponsor, christening her and presenting her crew with a handsome wardroom guest book in which she wrote: May the destiny of the USS KIDD be glorious! In May 1942, before the first Fletcher was even commissioned, it approved a six-gun ship in which the Fletchers five 5-inch single mounts were replaced with three 5-inch twinsthe 2,200-ton Allen M. Sumner class, with 20 per cent more firepower on a Fletcher hull widened by 14 inches. Some 2,100-tonners served off Korea in the 1950s and some even off Vietnam in the 60s. Arnold Hague, The Allied Convoy System 1939-1945 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000). On 4 January 1945, Fletcher sortied from San Pedro Bay to provide close cover for the Luzon Attack Force as it sailed toward its objective. No. Next. There, the earliest ones saw action in the nighttime surface battles in the Solomon Islands, many fought at Leyte and all completed in time for fleet screening and shore bombardment assignments and the notorious anti-kamikaze radar picket duty at Okinawa. "The tower was a mass of twisted steel. The days of surface to surface torpedo attacks had pretty well gone away, although we still retained that capability. Suddenly, at 2315, Sasso heard the screw beats of a U-boat only 1,200 yards ahead. The Sullivans played a large role in World War II and the . The skipper reported to the task force commander: KIDD claims to be the best prepared ship in the Navy. Both pilots were recovered and three enemy planes were shot down, with one more kill probable and hits scored on several of the remaining aircraft. This article describes destroyer operations as I remember them during the late 1950s. Is this Fire Controlman? Commissioned into service two months later on April 23, KIDD commenced her shakedown cruise at Casco Bay, Maine. She continued rescue operations all the while maneuvering to avoid bombs and airborne torpedoes while simultaneously engaging the enemy. Instead, the party began picking up German survivors. USS Jenkins (DD-447) was a Fletcher-class destroyer in the service of the United States Navy, the second ship named after Rear Admiral Thornton A. Jenkins.Beginning service during World War II, the destroyer saw action in the Pacific theatre. Upon departing Pusan, she rounded the southern tip of the Korean peninsula and almost ran headlong into Typhoon Marge. I loved the country so much that I did not want to leave. She participated in the bombardments of Roi and Kotje through February of that year, guarded construction of airfields at Emirau from March through April, and then supported the occupation of Aitape and Hollandia in New Guinea in May. This meant passing a second bight around the bollard on the pier or the ship alongside. By the time it reached the submarine, she was quickly sinking and boarding her was too dangerous. KIDD was in the vanguard position with BULLARD the following morning when they steamed to within eleven miles of the Japanese shoreline, her navigator taking bearings on enemy lighthouses. She was first launched in 1943 and went in and out of commission during the Korean War and the Cold War. A. Randle, omitting any mention of her gender. The crew buried their dead at sea along the way on April 12. Tying up alongside the destroyer tender HAMUL (AD-20), the crew began to make temporary repairs. But with these exceptions, the basic procedures for getting a destroyer underway have not changed a great deal from what I have described. She returned fire on and silenced several batteries successfully. This would be followed by Now Set Material Condition Yoke Throughout the Ship followed by The Officer of the Deck is Shifting his Watch from the Quarterdeck to the Bridge. She was dispatched to relieve the destroyer BROWN (DD-546), bombarding targets of opportunity on the eastern coastline of Korea from Nan-Do Island southward below Kansong. While Commander McCabe was certain he had sunk a U-boat, the Navy was not convinced. Commissioned back into service on March 28 of that year under the command of Cdr. Acting as a member of a screen as part of a carrier task group against air, surface, and subsurface attack. Early that summer, President Roosevelt agreed to protect Iceland, and U.S. Marines replaced a British occupying force on the island. Germany lost roughly 28,000 to 30,000 U-boat crewmen, roughly 70 percent of the 41,000 German seamen who took part in the lengthy battle. The USS Borie was badly damaged and scuttled the following day.Most of the encounters that happened between warships and U-boats unfolded at a distance with depth charges and torpedoes. Yes. Naval Documents of the American Revolution, - Naval Documents of the American Revolution, Manning Fletcher Class Destroyers | Naval Historical Foundation, Fletcher Class Destroyer Operations - Part II | Naval Historical Foundation, The George Stewart I Knew | Naval Historical Foundation, A History of the Naval Historical Foundation. Percentage-wise, it was the most severe loss of any of Germany's armed forces. The entire process of raising steam was started by making up a burner, igniting the torch with a match, inserting it into the furnace, and opening the fuel valve. She is a Fletcher-class destroyer and is named after Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, the first US flag officer to die during the Second World War. Finally, the third Fletcher selected was KIDD, largely due to the efforts of Harold Monning, who served aboard her during World War II, and the shipmates of the DESRON 48 Reunion Association. The KIDDs first voyage was one of some notoriety. In addition, the Coast Guard ships' commissioning pennants were replaced with the Navy flags. With that change came the order to paint the gleaming white cutter hulls regulation Navy haze gray. With the outbreak of the Korean Conflict, many destroyers were recalled to service and also served in Atlantic . Deployments to the Far East could be pretty tedious and they involved long periods at sea, as much as a month at a time. Rescuing downed pilots, fighting off suicidal attacks, destroying floating mines, and giving early warning to the fleet of approaching enemy aircraft, KIDD participated in a naval siege which would see the greatest losses ever suffered by the United States Navy. Preparations would start several hours before getting underway, primarily down in the engineering spaces. ed. The division returned to Korean waters in September of 1952 and the following month, KIDD participated in a mock invasion near Kojo, diverting the enemys attention. The Chief Engineer would be in the Forward Engine Room and the Main Propulsion Assistant would be in the After Engine Room. The WWII battle focused on Germany's effort to cut off transatlantic supply lines by gaining control of the Atlantic Ocean. At that time, there was still an uneasy tradition that having a woman aboard a naval ship was to invite bad luck. Simultaneously, Armed Guard gunners on merchant vessels in the rear columns of the convoy also opened fire. Jurgen Rohwer and Gerhard Hummelchen, The Chronology of the War at Sea, 1939-1945, rev. Jeffery was reassigned, with Cdr. The first 25 ships were ordered 28 June and 1 July 1940 (the first day of the 1941 fiscal year), with DD 445 actually belonging to the 1 July group. The 327s were later converted to amphibious-force flagships and served in the Pacific theater. Arch A. Mercey and Lee Grove, eds., Sea, Surf and Hell (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1946). It was here, just ninety miles east of Okinawa, that KIDD suffered her most severe damage of the war. Non-subscribers can read five free Naval History articles per month. This is how I met my wife. Serving as part of Destroyer Division 96 (DESDIV 96) within Destroyer Squadron 48 (DESRON 48), KIDD functioned in the many roles demanded of the U.S. Navys destroyers: anti-submarine picket duty, picking up downed pilots, shore bombardment, and anti-aircraft platform. During his 30 year naval career he held two ship commands and served a total of 8 years on naval material inspection boards, during which he conducted trials and inspections aboard over 200 naval vessels. During this time, KIDD was credited with having rescued a total of 35 carrier personnel. In 1941, the US Navy began building a fleet of large destroyers, its first design to rival the Japanese "special type" destroyers that had first entered service more than a decade before. Thus far during the war, she had suffered no major damage, the starshells fired by NORTH CAROLINA over a year and a half earlier being the most severe. 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