Submariners think of the low-noise pump-jet propulsors being fitted in place of propellers on the new Virginia (SSN-774) class nuclear-powered attack submarines as a recent technology, but the first U.S. Navy use of pump jets for propulsion was on a modified World War II-era destroyer nearly half a century ago.
Laid down in Bath, Maine, at the Bath Iron Works, on 16 July 1945 and christened on 2 February 1946 by the mother of the deceased Marine Medal- of-Honor recipient, Private First Class Frank Peter Witek, for whom the ship was named, the USS Witek (DD-848) was commissioned on 25 April 1946 as a standard unit of the Gearing (DD-710) class. During October 1946, while the ship was undergoing post-shakedown alterations at the Boston Naval Shipyard, she and her sister, the Sarsfield (DD- 837), were reclassified as experimental destroyers (EDD) to test antisubmarine equipment to be fitted to other Gearings being modified to escort destroyer (DDE) configuration. On 7 December 1946, the Witek arrived at her homeport, New London, Connecticut, to begin a two-decade career as a trials ship for the Operational Test Force.
The first external hint of her new career came with the removal of her Mount 52 twin 5-inch/38-caliber gun mount in 1947. While it had been intended to replace the guns with a Weapon Alfa antisubmarine rocket launcher, and later with a Mark 15 stabilized and trainable Hedgehog spigot mortar, the ship instead was sent early in 1948 on her one brief deployment to the Pacific, en route making her one and only call at a foreign port, in Venezuela.
At San Diego, a temporary deckhouse was installed forward of the bridge to accommodate the display equipment for the extensive hull-mounted passive hydrophone array removed from the former German heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, which had been sunk in the Bikini nuclear explosive trials in 1946. The hydrophone array remained on the Witek until the fall of 1950 when the Hedgehog was finally installed.
During the early 1950s, the Witek continued to operate from New London, her presence so well known in Long Island Sound that she was known as the “Galloping Ghost of the Long Island Coast.” Several deployments were made into the Atlantic, however, with the Task Force Alfa antisubmarine aircraft carrier group to test and evaluate new equipment and tactics, and in 1955, the Witek worked with the Navy’s first nuclear-powered submarine, the Nautilus (SSN-571).
On 2 July 1958, the experimental destroyer entered Dry Dock No. 4 at the Boston Naval Shipyard to have her propellers replaced by two pump-jet propulsors, each housed in a strut- mounted 10-foot diameter, 15-foot-long streamlined shroud. Emerging from the yard on 18 December, Witek retained her full armament and sensor suite and, after extensive trials with the pump-jet system, operated once again with Task Force Alfa in 1960.
The Navy had originally intended to modernize the Witek with fiscal 1960 funds under the Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization (FRAM) program to full FRAM-I configuration, but the added expense to replace the pump jets and the need for further FRAM-II modifications to other destroyers caused the Witek to remain one of the only two Gearings not “FRAMed.” The other was the Gyatt (DD-712, ex-DDG-1, ex-DD- 712), which had served as the Navy’s first guided-missile destroyer and then been converted as an electronics trials ship. Instead, in 1961 the Witek received a further experimental modification when her after twin 5-inch mount and depth charge racks and launchers were replaced by a unique large variable-depth sonar hoist system; the associated towed “fish” housed the transducer for an SQS-23, and another SQS-23 transducer was mounted in an outsized dome beneath the forward hull.
The Witek also had a large air compressor mounted in place of her three quadruple 40-mm antiaircraft gun mounts abaft the second funnel, with the compressor providing air to the underwater “Prairie” ship’s noise suppression system. The ship’s armament was now reduced to two triple Mark 32 antisubmarine torpedo tubes (which replaced the original quintuple 21- inch torpedo tube mount between the funnels), two twin 40-mm gun mounts abreast the forward funnel, the Mark 15 Hedgehog, and the remaining twin 5- inch mount on the bow.
Her trials completed, the aging, unmodernized Witek was decommissioned on 19 August 1968. Stricken from the Naval Vessel Registry on 17 September 1968, the destroyer was expended as a target on 4 June 1969. Although the homebody Witek had never made a Mediterranean or WestPac deployment or even called at a European port during her 22 years in commission, the ship had nonetheless made an invaluable contribution to the nation’s defense.