Monday, July 29, 2019

Stewart--Not Jimmy

I had a decidedly humorous event happen last Friday.  I visited the school district's central office to drop off a birthday card for a very good friend who is in durance vile there.  She was one of the first persons I met when I started working for the district.  So, I've known her for a very long time.  I had bought one of those musical cards that play an annoying version of "Happy Birthday" in the hopes that she would play it regularly, possibly over the PA.  I'd also included two lottery tickets, just because....  That was something we did for each other's birthday for the past 20 years.  I don't know if she's EVER played the song.

But I have! :-)

In any case, I went early as the number of people that I wanted to interact with in that building is minimal.  She wasn't in yet, so I put it on her keyboard.  As I was walking out, one of the other people I enjoyed working with was walking in, so I stopped and asked about kids, husband, vacations.  In short, a quick "how ya doin?".  While this is going on, the door opens and in walks one of the assistant superintendents.  I believe he should have been named Peter.

 As in principle.  Or as in the way he acts, which is another name for peter and a shorter version of Richard.

In any case, I continue the conversation with my friend and watch out of the corner of my eye as he approached.  I really wish I could have taken out life insurance on him, payable to me.

When he saw us talking and recognized me, I think he came very close to breaking his neck, looking away as he passed.  My friend and I exchanged a glance and a chuckle.  That was good for a laugh and lowering of the blood pressure all day long.

But that filled the requirement to visit until this time next year.

On a different note, it's a good thing that Sargento de la Fuerza Aérea muy, muy viejo y de solo un ojo, declared this to be "Destroyer Week" on the Chant du Départ Channel as I had already visited one (well...sort of), and had pictures.

In addition to SS-244, USS Cavalla, Seawolf Park has USS Stewart (DE-238),  an Edsall class Destroyer Escort


 
USS Stewart would be the fine ship on the far side of USS Cavalla.  The vessels on the near side are NOT ships.  (In case anyone was asking......)  I thought this an artistic shot.  Two combatants that fought the Japanese.  Two Japanese vehicles.  Hmmm!
In any case, I had exited, (do you disembark a decommissioned ship stuck in cement?) and boarded the Stewart.  As I did so, I racked my brain trying to remember who had that name and might have been worthy of naming a ship after.  


The only one I could think of was this one.


Jimmy!
Source
Or as we like to call him Jimmy Stewart, of Hollywood fame.  He is a legitimate hero.  Two Distinguished Flying Crosses and a Croix de Guerre. He enlisted in the US Army Air Corps in March of 1941, before that became mandatory fashionable and rose to the rank of Colonel in 4 years.  Flew numerous bomber missions against Germany, including missions during "Big Week" where the US 8th Air Force came dangerously close to non-existence.  But...

He's Army Air Corps.  Heck, even the Army didn't like them, much less the Navy, so nope USS Stewart wasn't named after him.


Source

She was named after Charles Stewart (1778-1869).  Stewart entered the Navy at the ripe old age of 13.  During his career, he commanded the USS Constitution, along with several other ships, fought in the Barbary wars and the War of 1812 as well as the undeclared war with France from 1798-1800 known as the Quasi War.  This war was an "unintended consequence" of the French Revolution and was fought because the US did not recognize the post revolution French government and decided that they were not legitimate and therefore, the US's debt to the French for their support in our Revolution was null and void.  I'm sure the fact that we had no money to pay that debt had no bearing on the decision.

C'est le guerre

In any case, Capt Stewart served for 63 years retiring in December of 1861 at the age of 83 years, 4 months and 24 days.  (Yes, Beans, that means he was older even than OldNFO...by a day, maybe two).

It also turns out that DE-238 wasn't the only ship named after Charles Stewart.  USS Stewart (DD-224) was a Clemson class destroyer that was sunk early in WWII, raised and refitted by the Japanese and placed in service by the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN).  That would be an interesting post for Destroyer Week, wouldn't it?

So, enough about that History stuff, what was the ship like, juvat?




Well, It was roughly the same size as USS Cavalla, had about 25% more crew than her, and seemed way more spacious on the inside than Cavalla.  Still having sailed in some rough seas aboard ships WAY bigger than either, I think she might have moved around a touch.




That having been said, I did learn a few things about anti-Submarine warfare that I didn't know.  The Destroyer Escort was a smaller, thereby less expensive, ship that was designed to escort merchant ship convoys and provide them with anti-submarine protection.  This freed up Destroyers to escort combatant capital ships and provide them anti-submarine protection.

After making my way through the Cavalla, the bottom sign was unnecessary.

With a top speed of 20 Knots, the DE's could keep up with the merchant ships, have enough speed to run down a sub and weapons to kill the sub when found.


 
Not a very sophisticated gun, but would probably hurt a surfaced sub if it hit.



This I didn't recognize so I spent a bit of time reading the placard for it.  Seems this weapon was called a Hedgehog.  The ship would fire these as they made a pass on a detected sub.  It was different than a depth charge as it had to hit a target to explode.  While that may seem to be a shortcoming, apparently it was not.  With a depth charge, the weapon always explodes when it reaches the specified depth and since multiple weapons were usually employed, contact could/would be lost with the target because of the resultant noise.  This took time to reacquire, allowing the enemy to potentially escape.  Since the Hedghog only exploded when it hit the target, no explosion...no hit, reattack was quicker since reacquisition was, usually, not required.
Who knew that a miss might be a good thing? Because of this, hedgehogs had a higher kill rate than depth charges.




Which they did have.




USS Stewart spent most of the war in the Atlantic escorting convoys. Therefore,just in case the bad guys had long range search airplanes, and the Germans did, there were several AAA batteries aboard.




With ammo quite handy.

 

I don't know if this was a long term storage location, of just to keep them handy when battle seemed eminent, but, Skip or someone will know.  It was on the aft side of the bulkhead less than 10' from the gun above and 30' from the one above that one.


 This was the Combat Information center, where the ship was fought.  It was off limits, so couldn't get much detail.  Even Murphy couldn't have sounded battle stations.............I think.



This was the Wheel House, where whomever was driving the boat worked.





The view of the Bow from directly in front of the Wheel House.



Officer's Mess





Passageway.  Wider than on Cavalla, but by no means....wide.


Galley

Enlisted Head
And just because Skip had, at one time, shared a favorite pastime involving this facility and lighted toilet paper.



Privacy at it's finest!

This next one was a bit of a puzzlement.  I suspect it also is an anti-submarine weapon, but the explanation on the placard was not very helpful.





However, this site provided more illumination.  A "K" gun would be used to propel depth charges to either side of the ship, thereby increasing the dispersal pattern of the depth charges.  4 could be mounted on either side so that 8 depth charges could be launched at once along with others being rolled off the stern.

So I guess, depth charges were fairly effective against their target.







An interesting day in Galveston.

51 comments:

  1. There are reasons the German U-Boat forces suffered a 75% loss rate over the course of the war...

    By late war, the combination of aircraft that could detect surfaced subs, sonar to detect the submerged ones, hedgehogs, k-guns, etc... submarining was a decidedly dicey proposition.

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    1. Someone (I think Stalin) once said "Quantity has a quality all of its own". There's a lot to be said for that. Of course, even better is quantity AND quality. We seem to be marching away from both sides of that equation, however.

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  2. Hmmmm...... seems to be "Little Boys" week here on the Chant, OK with me. Always like the photos Sarge and you post. Not a very big ship to be on during a winter storm in the North Atlantic, that 300 feet shrinks considerably when tossed by big waves.

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  3. The DEs did yeoman work in the North Atlantic. Great pics, great post!

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  4. Well done with this post, juvat, and also the one previous, Sarge - always interesting history. Reminds me that I haven't been aboard the North Carolina (BB55) for quite some time. Will have to pay her a visit soon. First time I went, I thought the signs saying, "don't feed the alligators" were just to keep the kids from taking a swim. But when I got aboard, there was a small gaggle of folks forward on the main deck looking overboard. I wandered up to see what was going on, and danged if there wasn't a big old mossback gator about 10-12 feet long just hanging out on the surface. Discouraged me from swimming across the Cape Fear to downtown Wilmington!

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    1. Yeah, I'm not a big fan of swimming with something that's barely evolved from a dinosaur either. I prefer to be at the TOP of the food chain.

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  5. About the most I can tell anyone about DEs is they’re small, compared to DDS.
    The ones I was familiar with had been converted to radar pickets and ran on diesel.
    The seemed to spen a lot of time sailing alone and going to Antarctica, so their sailors got some really colorful fruit salad.

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    1. Interesting Skip. I wouldn't have thought they had enough punch to operate alone. Ref my first comment above, I thought they'd be used to provide quantity to protect convoys and such.

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    2. The 3" /50 was more of an AA gun. The rounds could not penetrate a pressure hull, but they could make a mess of the conning tower, and the guns mounted there, as well as making the subs deck gun untenable.
      It was the RUDDEROW and JOHN C BUTLER CLASS DEs, that had 5" /38s that could go toe to toe on the surface with a sub.
      All DEs were intended to have two 5" /38s as their main battery, and we're constructed with the hull and deck set up for the five incher's ring mount. But give inch production couldn't keep up, and most DEs a got three inchers.

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    3. Well, It might not have been effective, but it does give them something to do and keep their minds off of things.

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    4. USS ENGLAND did exceedingly well.

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    5. It would seem so. 6 sub kills in 12 days is impressive.

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  6. Great post. Keep them up! The "Ready Service" rounds you illustrate look to be for the 3"/50 main battery vice the Bofors 40mm AA mount. I had the 3"/50 as my main armament on my first command--USS Elkhorn (AOG-7). Very reliable if a a bit long in the tooth.

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    1. So, is the 3"/50 the weapon pictured directly above the rounds? I recognized the Bofors further aft and thought those rounds were a little too big. But, given that those two weapons were the only ones close, I would think they were used in one or the other, it wouldn't make sense to store them there for a forward battery. The forward gun looked bigger than the one pictured above the rounds, but given that it had been 45 minutes or so between looking at the two, that might have been a perception issue.

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    2. Those sure look to be rounds for the 3”/50.

      http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_3-50_mk10-22.php

      Bofors rounds are typically stored in a clip of four, which get loaded in the top of the gun. (They may not be stored that way in the magazine, but any ready rounds on deck would be clipped.)

      https://images.app.goo.gl/eJYzYoZNAnEKcGg86

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    3. I'm sure you're right. It wouldn't make much sense to store them even 30' away from where they're needed. An adaptation of the pistol analogy is appropriate here. You don't need ammunition until you need ammunition and then you need it BAD!

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  7. The reason the HedgeHog was so effective is, though the individual charges were much smaller than a depth charge, the spread of the weapon as all the bombs fired created a wide pattern, thus allowing for better hit ratios. And it really doesn't take a lot to crack a pressure hull at pressure, especially when common escape practice was to dive near to the max safe depth capability of the sub. (Much like planes which have a minimum altitude of Zero feet, subs have a theoretical depth capability of, oh, potentially 7 miles or so, just not safely, or in one piece.)

    The Germans used the superb Folke-Wulf FW-200 Condor for maritime patrol. A really beautiful 4-engine passenger plane either modified or built straight-up as a maritime bomber. So, surprisingly, AAA was needed rather far from the coast. And then there were a surprising variety of float or sea planes available to the Germans, also, either French or German manufacture. Primary purpose of all the aircraft was, of course, to scout for the subs and few surface elements the Jerry had, like destroyers and schnellboots (fast torpedo boats)(commonly called the E-Boat by the Allies.)

    Amazing little ships. Did yeoman work, radar picket, crew recovery, escort, firefighting, even some shore bombardment, but as soon as possible Big Navy struck them.

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    1. Big Navy was not alone. "The Bomber will always get through" was resurrected almost immediately after the War, despite the hard lessons learned during that war.

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  8. While we’re talking about ships...

    Has anyone (on staff, or in the commentariat) managed to tour the USS Salem? I always fail to get it on the itinerary, or it’s closed when I’m in the area.

    I’m curious whether they let you tour the gun house to see the autoloader equipment... (90 rounds of 8” per minute... I do not desire to be on the recieving end of that.)

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    1. Quincy Mass is a little too far for a day trip for me. 3 rounds every two seconds, that might ruin someone's day.

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    2. The North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong really hated Salem and Des Moines. Literally hosing down targets with 8" goodness.

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    3. They hated a lot of things. FACs, Napalm, AC-130's, ARC Lights, Fighter Pilots, River Boats, Non-Communist South Vietnamese, Freedom. The list goes on and on. AND NOTHINGS CHANGED. Commies gonna hate.

      Sorry, I'm a bit cranky. Mrs J and I just completed MOVE-EX 2019-1 with MBD and SIL. This two day exercise Objective: Move out of her 3rd floor apartment and transport "STUFF" to SIL's Parents. Moscow on the Colorado was 101 today, but at least it was humid. MOVE-EX 2019-2 is scheduled late August. Mission Scenario "Retrograde STUFF into new apartment. Forecasted WX "Hey, it's Texas in August!" But...it's a first floor apartment....So we got that going for us, which is nice!

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  9. A couple of DEs were being decommissioned nearby when I was on the Hawkins at Destroyer & Submarine Piers in Norfolk in 1973.
    I got a chance to walk through one of them, but time has erased the details.
    A later class DE was one of the stars of, "The Enemy Below." She was the USS Whitehurst (DE0634).
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Whitehurst_(DE-634)

    Good photos and a good post. Thank you.

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    1. Thanks, Whitehurst made it all the way to 1989 before decommissioning.

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    2. Hi juvat. Whitehurst was sunk as a torpedo target for the first war shot test of the Mk 48 torpedo on April 28, 1971.

      - Victor

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    3. Well, at least they tested the torpedoes and they worked. Which is more than could be said in 1941.

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  10. The ammo in the rack is 3"/50 INERT Dummy loaded (bronze color projectile paint code) unless someone just painted over the original colors. The projectiles are actually the Armor Piercing Mark 29 Mod 0 or Mod 1, with the ballistic cap crimped to the hardened body.
    USS SLATER (DE-766) in Albany, NY is the last WW2 DE left afloat and is superbly restored to WW2 configuration, well worth a visit by anyone in that region.
    Their website is: https://www.ussslater.org/
    Facebook is: https://www.facebook.com/USS.Slater/

    My first underway period was on a DE, and I have the binnacle from secondary conn in my den which was pilfered from a DE shortly before it was used as a SINKEX target in 1971.
    John Blackshoe

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    1. Pilfered is such a pejorative term, John. I think "Preserved" is a better one.

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  11. Having talked to former DE sailors working on the USS Laffey, you're right, they DID 'move around a bit', according to the sailors. Something to the effect of spending "half our f**king lives underwater when the storms hit, and trying to chase down @#$%( subs. One note on the K gun, they were 'range limited', due to overpressure and exploding the depth charge on the ship...

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    1. Yeah, I can see how that might be a bit risky. Using something that explodes by pressure from the outside being launched by pressure from the outside.

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  12. ...There were two epic old time naval fights in WW2, one between USS Borie (DD215) and U405, and another between USS Buckley (DE51) and U66...one on one, with the range zero...

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    1. Wow....You're right USS Borie's story is here and USS Buckley's is here. I guess "Stand by to repel boarders" was still appropriate at least through WWII.

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    2. ...There was another WW2 destroyer (USS William D. Porter, DD579)… a "hard luck" destroyer that almost torpedoed battleship USS Iowa with President Roosevelt aboard...afterwards they had the distinction of having Iowa's 16 inch main guns trained on her, then was detached to Bermuda where armed Marines lined the dock and arrested the entire crew.. https://www.historynet.com/uss-william-d-porter-the-us-navy-destroyers-service-in-world-war-ii.htm

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    3. MAN! Talk about bad luck aided and abetted by lack of training. Thanks for the link.

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  13. The SLATER was an FMR DE, with Fairbanks Morse opposed diesels, driving a reduction gear final drive. An extraordinarily reliable power plant, made by Badgers, in Beliot, WI. They were the preferred diesel for USN subs.

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    1. Been to Beloit. Pretty town down near the river. I didn't see any industrial plants though. Course we were there for Mrs J's Aunt's funeral, so scouting about was a bit limited. "An extraordinarily reliable power plant" is always a good thing regardless of what it's used to propel.

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    2. The Fairbanks-Morse plant is on the north side of the town.

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    3. That probably explains it. We were down South. Not that Beloit is all that big, but more that we were otherwise occupied.

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  14. The late Lt. Col. Jeff Cooper, well known in gun guy circles--

    https://www.gunsite.com/about/

    --served with the USMC detachment aboard the USS Pennsylvania. In one of his books he recalled that "Blasting Jap pill boxes at point blank range with 5"/38's beat shooting tin cans with a .22 all hollow".

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    1. I can see that. 14" rounds would be fun also. Unless you were on the receiving end, of course.

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  15. The hedgehog is a spigot mortar. Really an interesting concept.

    They rigged those up in Syria as I recall with a truck tired, trailer mounted "barrel" and 30 lb propane cylinders for warheads. If I remember right, they filled the cylinders with explosives taken from UXO or appropriated ordinance. Living in the danger zone, right there... wow. I can't imagine "recycling" explosives by heating it up to pour it out of a shell.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGKXXk_ekvc Not very neighborly.....

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  16. Sportsfans/FYI probably the best book (a classic fiction about a British convoy based on a true event) written about DE ops in the N, Atlantic in WWII is entitled The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat. WELL worth the read...

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    1. I've read that, albeit a while (long while) ago. I agree with your assessment, VX.

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    2. ...Nicholas Monsarrat also wrote three non-fiction books during WW2 about his experiences (H.M. Corvette, East Coast Corvette, and Corvette Command) that were later combined into a single book Three Corvettes. Lacking some of the drama of his novel, it gives a good account of what he saw and felt...

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  17. If my memory is correct, the DD/DEs using Hedgehog did lose contact. They'd pass over the sub very soon after firing. Really skillful skippers pinged their fathometers off the sub's hull. There was a reference to that in an old Proceedings article about the USS England that was, I believe, written by the then-XO.

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    1. I'm not a Navy guy, so not an expert, so you're probably right. That info was off the placard beside the Hedgehog pad. I would think they'd go off when they hit the bottom at the very least, but I don't know.

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