The smallest things are often the most easily overlooked. That also applies to some of the most diminutive surface ships, PCE(R)s-patrol craft, escort rescue. Only 13 of the vessels were built, and their role in World War II has been largely forgotten. At the Battle of Leyte Gulf, however, one of the rescue ships valiantly fought off Japanese air attacks to save the lives of wounded Sailors.
The PCE(R)-853 was laid down on 16 November 1943 at Chicago, Illinois, by the Pullman-Standard Car Manufacturing Co. Launched on 18 March 1944, she was placed in service on 31 May for the ferry trip down the Mississippi River and commissioned at New Orleans, Louisiana, on 16 June. After leaving Mobile, Alabama, the ship transitted the Panama Canal and headed for Pearl Harbor. En route she exercised her guns, which proved disappointing. After one particular "badly needed" evolution, 29-year old Lieutenant William W. Boynton, her commanding officer, noted that while the gunnery had improved, it was still, in his candid opinion, "not . . . up to standard." Wartime experience demanded good shooting, no matter what the type of ship.
After arrival in Pearl Harbor on 19 September, the skipper soon learned that his ship needed to leave port in two days. "All hands," he observed proudly, "turned to with excellent spirit to obtain needed supplies and stores, to make minor repairs, and to do necessary overhaul work in the engine room." The next day, six pharmacists' mates and corpsmen, part of the increased medical complement fitting her out for her mission, reported on board. Under way on 21 September as scheduled for the Ellice Islands in company with sister ship PCE(R)-851, the escort conducted another firing exercise that showed "considerable improvements in gunnery discipline and accuracy." While the 3-inch gun crew "performed excellently," the Oerlikon gunners "still need[ed] considerable training."
Fair weather near the equator permitted ceremonies on 27 September that "introduced 77 men to the ancient order of the deep." The PCE(R)-853 reached Funafuti, where she received onward routing orders. She soon sailed for the Philippines, arriving in Leyte Gulf on 20 October, the same day as Army General Douglas MacArthur's famous return. She dropped anchor in the transport area and operated off Dulag and Tacloban. Effective smoke screens prevented her from firing at enemy planes for the first several days, while beachhead facilities and hospital ships easily handled the relatively few casualties incurred during the initial landings.
The rescue escort embarked her first 15 casualties for treatment during the midwatch on 24 October, transferring them to the tank landing ship LST-464 the next morning. The next day, the patrol craft observed the crew of the submarine chaser SC-1004 abandoning ship. Seeing no cause for the precipitate flight, the rescue ship got under way and lay alongside to investigate, while small craft in the vicinity rescued the men in the water. The SC-1004's commanding officer reported a magazine fire, prompting the PCE(R)-853 to run out hoses from her forecastle and across to the imperiled submarine chaser. Two of the SC's remaining crewmen opened an access hatch forward of her bridge and trained a stream of water into the magazine, extinguishing the blaze.
"Members of this ship's damage control party showed coolness and courage in a situation which might have been extremely hazardous," Lieutenant Boynton noted. He also lauded the men at her 3-inch gun, "who showed equal courage in remaining at their station." While their shipmates had been helping to save the subchaser, the gunners splashed a D3A Type 99 Val carrier bomber attempting a run on the nearby LST-464. The rescue ship embarked one Navy casualty that night.
On 27 October, however, the PCE(R)-853 took aboard 33 wounded Soldiers, hospital and ambulatory cases, and the mortally wounded 41-year old John B. Terry, a Chicago Daily News war correspondent on his first assignment. That evening, antiaircraft fire from nearby ships shot down a Japanese plane that crashed into the freighter Benjamin Ide Wheeler, igniting the Liberty ship's high-octane gasoline cargo. The PCE(R)-853, with only one firefighting pump unequal to coping with the conflagration, nevertheless went alongside and offered to take off some of the freighter's crew. The merchant crew and armed guard detachment, however, aided by rescue tugs that had come to her assistance, doggedly remained on board, battling the blaze and saving their ship.
Later, during the night of 27-28 October, the escort embarked 28 men from the infantry landing craft LCI-34, survivors from the destroyer escort Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413) and the escort carrier Gambier Bay (CVE-73), two of the ships sunk in the Battle off Samar two days earlier. During the 1600-2000 watch on 29 October, the PCE(R )-853 transferred her embarked wounded, 61 in all, to the hospital ship Comfort (AH-6). The move to the larger vessel proved providential as a typhoon swept through that night.
During the storm, the PCE(R)-853's 26-foot motor whaleboat, tied up astern of the ship, came adrift. Her men attempted to recover the boat when the eye of the typhoon passed through the area, but the lull proved too brief, and concern for the safety of the ship prompted her to get under way and proceed farther off shore.
Loss of the boat, however, proved beneficial. Unable to secure a replacement, Lieutenant Boynton approved the removal and stowage of the empty boat chocks on the starboard side, while the crew installed an awning. This provided a large sheltered area where casualties could be placed topside that, Boynton noted, "for 'short haul' work is eminently more desirable that the excessive handling formerly required to move patients below decks." Seriously wounded men could remain on stretchers "when it is known they will be aboard only a short time," thus enabling "speedy and more efficient handling."
The PCE(R)-853 went on to provide essential services during the 1945 Lingayen Gulf and Okinawa campaigns. During the latter, Rear Admiral Ingolf N. Kiland, Task Group 51.15's commander and senior officer present afloat at the landings on Kerama Retto, lauded the little ship: "The prompt and seamanlike performances of PCE(R)-853 on numerous difficult missions have been splendid and a source of great satisfaction." The ferocity of the fighting ashore and the incessant kamikaze attacks meant much rescue work for her, but the PCE(R)-853 operated from Kerama Retto from 26 March through 30 June. In much need of an overhaul, she arrived at Pearl Harbor on 19 July and was still undergoing repairs when Japan surrendered.
Decommissioned at Norfolk, Virginia, on 26 June 1946, the PCE(R)-853 was again placed in service on 6 March 1947. Assigned the homeport of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she trained reservists in the 4th Naval District for the next decade, during which time, on 15 February 1956, she was named Amherst for towns in Massachusetts and Ohio. After performing similar training on the Great Lakes, within the 9th Naval District, the Amherst was placed in "out of service, special" status on 6 February 1970. Stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 3 June, the ship was transferred to the Republic of Vietnam. She served as the Van Kiep II until the collapse of South Vietnam in the spring of 1975 compelled her to escape, ironically, to the Philippines, where, as the PCE(R)-853, she had first proved her worth a little over three decades before.