Continually in Harm’s Way
Captain William Manthorpe, U.S. Navy (Retired)
Robert Cressman’s “Historic Fleets” column “‘Prepared for the Work of War’” (August, pp. 14–15) was an excellent tribute to the Navy’s little-known force of Eagle boats. Having missed most of the antisubmarine warfare action in World War I, they stayed on as developmental and training platforms and saw plenty of action in World War II.
The Eagle 56 (SP-56) had long been in harm’s way. Based at Cape May, New Jersey, she was part of the feeble defenses of the approaches to Delaware Bay during the German “Operation Drumroll” between January and June 1942. The War History of the Fourth Naval District describes the boat, then commanded by Commander F. W. Parsons, U.S. Naval Reserve, as “Unlovely to look at, so slow that every time she dropped depth charges, she had a hard time getting out of the way, nonetheless, she was the best we had.”
As a result, the Eagle 56 remained almost constantly at sea during the first months of the war. She made a number of submarine contacts but had no credited sinkings. When her depth charges were expended, a boat from Cape May would bring out a new supply. Meanwhile, she was engaged in rescuing survivors from the 18 ships sunk in or approaching 4th Naval District waters, including the few survivors from the destroyer USS Jacob Jones (DD-131), sunk off the Cape on 28 February.
But German subs were not all that the Eagle 56 had to worry about. As the War History relates, “On 18 April an Army bomber dropped a depth bomb on Eagle 56 and the skipper sent the message ‘Saw plane and splash close aboard, he missed us!’”
When German submarine operations moved south, the Eagle 56 was transferred to Key West. After returning to northern waters, she met her end while patrolling on the edges of the Battle of the Atlantic, as Cressman describes.
It’s All in the Cards
Richard Paul Smyers
I’m a bit puzzled by the “Pieces of the Past” department in the August issue (p. 72). The title card for the “White Squadron” game does have a copyright date of 1896, but of the seven ships seen on the cards that are shown, only one—the battleship Iowa (BB-4)—had been launched by 1896. Of the other six cards included on the page, one shows the battleship Kearsarge (BB-5), which was launched in 1898, as was her sister ship Kentucky (BB-6). The remaining five cards all depict battleships launched from 1901 to 1905. Perhaps this game was first issued in 1896, and the set in the Naval Institute collection is a later reissue dating from about 1906?
Editor’s note: We looked at the 1896 copyright date on the card deck and clearly should have been scrutinizing the cards themselves more closely as well; the information contained there on tonnage and ship’s length should have been a dead giveaway—not to mention the images of the vessels. Above is a photo of the 1890-launched Maine (ACR-1), and at left is the 1901-launched Maine (BB-10) featured in the card deck. Thank you for bringing this oversight to our attention. If any readers have more information on the history of the “White Squadron” game, in all of its various editions, please contact us at [email protected].
Memories from Vietnam
Lieutenant (junior grade) Bill Shepard U.S. Naval Reserve (Retired)
Edward Marolda aptly conveyed the history of the U.S. Navy in Vietnam in his article “Forged in Battle” (August, pp. 32–37). In 1970 I served as an assistant officer-in-charge at the U.S. Naval Support Facility–Chu Lai, Vietnam Detachment, which was located on the South China Sea approximately 60 miles south of Danang. During my tour, it was a relatively small outpost of approximately 60 U.S. Navy sailors and officers. Our role was providing coastal weapons interdiction and port security for the active Chu Lai LST off-loading ramp. We hoped to have our detachment and naval assets relieved by the Republic of Vietnam Navy, which did not occur during my tour.
Two U.S. Navy 45-foot harbor-entrance picket boats, a vessel described in the article, were our primary naval assets there. While swift boats and river patrol boats are depicted as the primary U.S. Navy naval assets in Vietnam, many of us made due with much older and less sexy wooden picket boats (at least some of which I suspect were converted admiral’s barges with twin .50-caliber machine guns mounted), Mike 8 boats (LCM-8s), and Boston Whalers.
Our Chu Lai detachment did not require the formality and “spit and polish” of larger naval bases, so we thrived on getting our job done with informality, hard work, some fun, and common sense—sort of a mixture of Apocalypse Now, McHale’s Navy, and Gilligan’s Island. This mentality so sufficiently contributed to our achieving our overall mission that the Navy awarded a number of us with achievement decorations, including the Combat V.
Commander Harold H. Sacks, U.S. Navy (Retired)
Edward Marolda’s excellent article “Grand Delusion: U.S. Strategy and the Tonkin Gulf Incident” (August, pp. 24–31) awakened memories of the days in 1964 leading up to the escalation in Vietnam. The “delusion” dated back to General Paul Harkins’ time as head of the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (1962–64). In the summer of 1963 General Harkins suggested to President Ngô ?ình Diem that U.S. forces would be home by Christmas. Diem laughed and said that his family had been governing provinces in Vietnam for over two decades and the war would not be over for at least two decades more. Diem was dead before Christmas.
Despite the administration’s desire to forestall Chinese or Soviet involvement, our modest retaliation to the attacks on Desoto patrol ships resulted in an almost immediate Soviet response. Within 90 days of the bombings in the city of Vinh, Pacific Command’s Electronic Intelligence Center reported intercepts of the acquisition radars confirming the installation of Russian surface-to-air missile sites in North Vietnam. The Soviet hat was clearly in the ring.
A Strange Building’s Important Purpose
Henry J. Rausch Jr., Master Chief Master-at-Arms (Amphibious Corps) U.S. Navy (Retired)
I was particularly interested in Craig L. Symonds’ June article, “Normandy’s Crucial Component” (pp. 16–23). Some years ago, I was visiting my Army son at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Consulting a roadmap in boredom, I saw that Fort Knox was only a few hours away. After driving to the base, I came across a sign that said “LST Building.” As a former LSD crewman, the only LST I knew about was the ship—how could there be a ship at Fort Knox?
But the LST Building wasn’t a ship. It was a full-scale model of a Navy LST, which the Army built to train truck and tank drivers how to back up into a real one. This way, they would be facing the correct direction for beach offloading when they encountered an LST for the first time. It’s a fascinating structure.
The Navy Saved Our Hides
Thomas Chirillo
I’d like to add some further insight to the June article “Lost to Enemy Action” (pp. 30–31). The USS Butler (DD-636) was one of three destroyers that picked up survivors from the USS Corry (DD-463) when she quickly sank off Utah Beach on D-Day. (Whether her sinking was attributable to a mine, artillery, or both, is subject to debate.) Even though the Corry was perilously close to the beach, the commanding officer of the Butler positioned his ship between the beach and the sinking ship; survivors were already in the water and being targeted by machine-gun fire from ashore. Hollywood couldn’t write better stuff.
The enclosed photo of the survivors on board the Butler is one of many shots my father, the late Lieutenant Commander August R. Chirillo, then an engineering officer in the Butler, brought back from that historic day.