Your ship, in "dazzle" paint. Did she still have that paint job in '49?
Posted on 05/27/2019 9:55:58 AM PDT by rktman
Memorial Day is a solemn holiday in which Americans should pay homage to the individuals who sacrificed their lives to protect their fellow citizens. Clint Johnson’s book Tin Cans and Greyhounds: The Destroyers That Won Two World Wars is a reminder that those serving on ships put their life at risk daily. This interview with Johnson reflects on Americans serving who sacrificed their lives to save others.
Johnson emphasizes in his book how destroyers were nicknamed “tin cans” because they had thin metal hulls that were useful for quickly navigating the seas but not a great protection for the men serving on those ships. Their quick speeds gave them their second nickname, “greyhounds.”
Survival on a destroyer was not guaranteed. Johnson quoted Lieutenant Commander Robert Copeland as he calmly told his crew as their tiny, unarmored destroyer escort rushed toward giant, armored Japanese battleships at the Battle off Samar on October 25, 1944 that they were fighting “against overwhelming odds from which survival could not be expected.” (Unbelievably, the Navy's scratch force of destroyers and escort carriers chased off the entire Japanese battle fleet, though at great cost.)
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
You guys had some very large testicles!
Fer shure, fer shure!
My Dad was an 18 yo RM2C on board the USS Melvin (DD 680), a Fletcher Class destroyer, and part of Desron 54 with McDermut (DD 677), McGowan (DD 678), McNair (DD 679) the destroyers engaged the Japanese in the Surigao Straits, Oct 1945...
The Melvin was credited with the torpedo attack that sunk the Japanese battleship Fuso...
Her skipper, CDR Barry Atkins received the Navy Cross for that action...
That battle saw the crossing of the Tee by the US big boys while The tin cans and PT boats drilled in hard. The Japanese force fled battered an beat. It’s all covered in the Last Stand of The Tin Can Sailors. He’ll of a battle with some of the US’ finest men. IMO
Great posting and summary. I have read the story as well. A considerably impressive man indeed.
Men during the war were made of what has become unobtainum these days. So many exceptional men and stories.
Little Ship, Big War, OUTSTANDING saga of a DE in WWII, Signed a Navy Vet.
Member of Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club 1968-69
I had no idea. Sure, I knew he was a famous ace, a racer driver, and the head of Eastern, but...I didn’t know the details.
We still have men like that, but there are elements of our country who are trying to eliminate that and rub it out.
One of the great things about that movie is that scene.
Really makes the skin crawl.
Johnston badly damaged Kumano but didn’t sink her. The ship managed to hang on for another month. Halsey supposedly said that if he could have felt sorry for a Japanese ship it would be the Kumano.
My father always said that the torpedo was a main weapon of the destroyer, despite its primary association with submarines.
I don’t recall the name of the ship or the skipper, and no longer have the book, but recall from reading in With Utmost Savagery (the battle for Betio Island (Tarawa)...
There was a small rag tag group of “raggity a**ed Marines” that had made it in from the shoreline and were hard pressed by inter-lapping machine gun fire from several pill boxes close to their front.
A destroyer on the lagoon side could see the action, but with even the light wave action, couldn’t consistently put his 5” rounds that close “20 yards” to the Marines with any confidence.
So, he nosed his ship into the shore to stabilize it.
Purposely grounded his ship so he could provide the accurate direct gunfire support that small group of Marines needed to survive the fight for awhile longer.
And it worked. The bunkers were defeated. A beach head was established at that place and Marines gathered and made it through the night.
And keep in mind there was no guarantee that the rather significant Japanese Naval forces at anchor up in the Marshal Islands weren’t gonna come steaming over the horizon at any moment.
That destroyer crew would have been as screwed as the Marines ashore.
And the skipper could well have been courts martial’d for grounding his ship. Navy boards can be rather unforgiving of such things.
I believe we still do have men like that though sometimes I think they have all but disappeared these days. You actually can’t beat them down but they do become quiet and pick their battles. Some just withdraw to their own little corner of the world. Gault’s Valley? Where they wait until someone breaks the glass or someone finds them and won’t let them alone. Problem is. Such men are smart enough to know that they can’t do any good alone though. Better to not make a foolish sacrifice.
Here is an interesting story.
Ernest Evans and his sailors are among the greatest men who ever existed. Opinions vary.
Very good. All was info I’d never heard or read before.
That seems to happen every time I read the threads on FR!
I served in Catapults on FDR (CVA-42), ‘60-’62. On the Atlantic crossings and on the Med Cruise, we often hit rough weather that caused high seas.
From the flight deck, I would see our strike force DDs just disappear under the high waves and marveled at how the ships would reappear like a submarine surfacing. ...Felt horrible for the men aboard the DDs and how seasick they must have been.
We followed her (FDR) around in winter/spring of 68 around the Med and North Atlantic. I was on the Lester which was a DE so even the DDs had it “better” when we got into heavy weather near the arctic circle. Pucker factor for sure.
I feel much the same way. If there is any issue that arises, I always come to Free Republic first. I always find it interesting to hear the viewpoint of another conservative that contrasts with my own.
I can’t begin to count the times I have thought “Huh. I wouldn’t have looked at it that way, but I see the point.
For nearly everything, there is someone on FR who is either a bonafide expert or who has had 1st hand exposure to it.
I find that very valuable.
Your ship, in "dazzle" paint. Did she still have that paint job in '49?
My father and two cousins on my mother's side had served in the Navy during WWII, So that was my preference. When I got to college I tried t join Navy ROTC. Flunked the eye test (I wear glasses). AFROTC was willing to take with glasses, but I was barred from flight training. Spent 22 years as an engineer in Air Force R+D. Very good career, including a tour in Thailand during the Vietnam war. Did spend some time in Vietnam studying the conditions in which our gear would have to operate. Spent most of my career, though, working on missile guidance systems.
Fluent VN...I am impressed!
Sounds like you might have been in country later...I was in the group of the first 20-crews to deploy.
Good job, Buff!
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