Arch A. Mercey and Lee Grove, eds., Sea, Surf and Hell (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1946). Starting on April 24, 1962, KIDD was assigned to the Naval Destroyer School at Newport, Rhode Island. They would pick up an eastbound convoy from a Canadian escort group, protect it through storms and U-boats, and then turn it over to a British escort group off Ireland. The Admirals nickname at the Naval Academy had been Cap (as in Captain Kidd) and he had gone by this nickname his entire life. During World War II, the Atlantic Coast destroyers would probably be at battle stations with Material Condition Zebra set by the time that they cleared the submarine net. The U.S. and Canada needed to maintain the vital flow of supplies and men to Europe in order to keep up the fight. From tax deductible donations to your time and skills, there are many ways you can contribute! There were also fueling stops at Midway and sometimes Guam. In 1975, KIDD was deemed unfit for further service and was stricken from the naval list of vessels. Being 376 feet, 6 inches, in length meant that they could carry five five-inch dual-purpose guns, ten torpedoes, depth charges and antiaircraft guns. We had a victim already strapped in the stretcher when he was wounded.. 7. A lot more information is available on the bridge from GPS, Electronic Chart Displays (ECDIS), etc. The Fletcher class was a class of destroyers built by the United States during World War II. David W. Taylor, attached to a task force striking the Bonin Islands meanwhile, sustained an underwater explosion, probably a mine, and also went home. Is this Fire Controlman? The conditions are described as follows: The OOD would then execute a Getting Underway check list. To emphasize the importance of the battle, Winston Churchill coined the name "Battle of the Atlantic," intentionally alluding to the Battle of Britain. Commissioned back into service on March 28 of that year under the command of Cdr. Just before 1100, one of the Spencer's sonarmen detected a U-boat attempting to slip past the convoy's escort screen. I am a retired Navy Chief. Having transferred steam to both engine rooms from her only remaining boiler room, KIDD now made approximately 20 knots as she headed south toward Ulithi Atoll. The mid-ocean U.S. escort groups were built around either the Campbell or Spencer, supported by a few U.S. Navy destroyers and corvettes from the Canadian, Free Polish, and/or Free French navies. World War II Operations. Morale among the crew soared. Previous. Not wishing to dishonor RADM Kidd, however, the crew obtained permission from Mrs. Kidd first. Since 1975 all new destroyer, cruiser, and frigate types have been powered by aircraft derivative gas turbine engines. A Pacific Fleet destroyer operated on a two year cycle in those days. . Commissioned back into service on March 28 of that year under the command of Cdr. USS John D. Henley (DD 553) Destroyer Squadron 51 in World War II was a squadron whose 2,100-ton Fletcher -class destroyers were deployed in thirteen diverse operations in both the Atlantic and Pacific. Percentage-wise, it was the most severe loss of any of Germany's armed forces. Regardless of who it was, it was very important for him to announce I have the Conn so that all bridge personnel would know who to take their orders from. At this point, we were underway. Upon departing Pusan, she rounded the southern tip of the Korean peninsula and almost ran headlong into Typhoon Marge. 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 Coast Guard would man 30 DEs, organized in five escort divisions, and 74 PFs, primarily assigned to weather-station duty. The winter of 1942-43 would be the Battle of the Atlantic's most bitterly fought season. Introduced in 1942, the 2,100-ton Fletcher -class destroyers formed the core of the US Navy's destroyer force from 1943. NHF members are being converted to members of the Naval Institute. The ship's CO, Commander George McCabe, knew from hard experience that the sonar's pinging could be heard by a U-boat beyond the range an escort could detect the sub. Eventually, eleven shipyards launched 175 ships over the next 32 monthsthe most numerous class of destroyer completed by any navy. The lone suicide bomber crashed into her forward boiler room killing everyone inside. On March 19, 1945, the carrier USS FRANKLIN (CV-13) suffered a devastating hit which touched off gasoline and ammunition explosions and claimed 724 lives. While this rarely happened, such destroyer-vs-submarine duels did take place on one or two real-life occasions. In addition, the Coast Guard ships' commissioning pennants were replaced with the Navy flags. Fittings marked with a Red Z, Black Y, and Black Z are all closed. Ships' logs, war diaries, and after-action reports for the Coast Guard cutters: USS Bibb, Campbell, Duane, Alexander Hamilton, Ingham, and Spencer; National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD (hereinafter cited as NARA). When thinking about it at a later date, you wonder how a human can cheer at the sight of another person being killed. Four B&W three-drum boilers (565 psi @ 850 F), Two sets of General Electric geared turbines (60,000 hp total), five 5"/38-cal. A member of the Duane's crew, Victor Bogard, remembered that "Whenever a shell exploded on the German submarine, many crew members would shout and cheer. As the first big ships to appear and because there were so many of them, however, the Fletchers are remembered as the signature US Navy destroyer class of the Pacific war. Twiggs also operated in the Atlantic early in her career, from Norfolk as a training ship until May 1944. Slow but reliable, the Coast Guard's Secretary-class cutters were the backbone of the United States' North Atlantic escort force during World War II. ZEBRA is the highest level of protection. 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. Was on DD650 for 4 years right out of boot camp I am now ret USN MSC you in 76 there is not a day that goes by that I dont think of the best year s of my life I am now 77and I wish I could do it all again when the good Lord takes me I hope he will put me on the USS C APERTON DD650, Pingback: The George Stewart I Knew | Naval Historical Foundation. May her victories be triumphant and conclusive!. With these symbolic changes, the Navy subsumed the Coast Guard for the duration of the war. Ordered to take a training tour of the Kearny Shipyards, her name was placed on the list of personnel that were scheduled to report on board KIDD for the purpose of accompanying the destroyer across the harbor to the Brooklyn Naval Shipyards. Bennett (DD 473) lays stack and chemical smoke in the Shortland Islands, 1944. off Korea in the 1950s and some even off Vietnam in the 60s, she was condemned in 2010 as a derelict and hazard to navigation and scrapped in 20102011. (read it here). During Operation War Dance in December of that year, KIDD cruised at 10 knots around the harbor at Wonsan, drawing the fire of enemy shore batteries in order to reveal their positions. Some went on to serve during the Korean War and into the Vietnam War. She was my first, and my favorite ship. Along with the Duane, the Spencer rescued 41 of U-175's 54-man crew. Not wishing to dishonor RADM Kidd, however, the crew obtained permission from Mrs. Kidd first. 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. Over the next 3?? From there, they picked up an outbound convoy and battered their way west to Newfoundland. But with these exceptions, the basic procedures for getting a destroyer underway have not changed a great deal from what I have described. Following this action, KIDDalong with the other ships of DESRON 48sailed for Mare Island Naval Shipyard in California for a major overhaul and refitting. She was a fine destroyer and served in WWII as a real war ship. 27 2023 . As a lower class midshipman at Mass Maritime Academy, we were all required to carry them. The gunfire continued for about 10 minutes until a German sailor flashed a distress signal. In the traditional system of naming destroyers after Naval heroes, she was named after Rear Admiral Isaac Campbell Kidd, Sr. who was killed aboard his flagship, USS ARIZONA (BB-39) during the surprise attack by the Japanese on the American fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The search for hard-to-find World War II vintage equipment has gone around the world. Germany knew that stopping the supply line would essentially give them victory in Britain and the rest of Europe, as well as the Soviet Union, thus ending the war. The peacetime manning was 14 officers and 236 enlisted men. But while the Mahans were all in service before World War II, the first Fletcher class vessels was not introduced into service until the middle of 1942, which is after the February 1942 date in which the movie is set. (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 Allies had yet to set up a convoy system, and according to the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary, between January and July 1942, 86 ships sank off the coast of North Carolina, claiming the lives of more than 1,100 merchant seamen. KIDD was chosen, in part, due to her condition after years of sitting idle: she had escaped the cannibalization common to ships of the inactive fleet. These conditions refer to degrees of closure to minimize the effects of potential damage. 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. The Spencer and five of her 327-foot Secretary-class sisters helped keep the supply lifeline between North America and Britain open during the Battle of the Atlantic. 10. With that change came the order to paint the gleaming white cutter hulls regulation Navy haze gray. The torch was kept in a small pot filled with diesel oil. In those days there was no bridge to bridge radio. Initially it was a 300-mile-wide strip of ocean bounded on the north by Canadian territorial waters then running south through the Caribbean. 9. At that time, there was still an uneasy tradition that having a woman aboard a naval ship was to invite bad luck. Under the command of Cdr. 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. The real-life clash that may have inspired the duel in the book happened on November 1, 1943 between the USS Borie and U-boat U-405. 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