USS Saufley (DD-465)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
USS Saufley
USS Saufley
Overview
Type destroyer
Shipyard

Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Company

Keel laying January 27, 1942
Launch July 19, 1942
1. Period of service flag
period of service

August 29, 1942 -
January 29, 1965

Whereabouts Sunk as a target ship on February 20, 1968
Technical specifications
displacement

2,100  ts

length

114.7 meters

width

12.2 meters

Draft

5.4 meters

crew

329

drive
speed

35 kn

Range

6,500  nautical miles (11,700 km) at 15 knots

Armament

When commissioning:

The USS Saufley (DD-465) was a destroyer in the United States Navy . The Fletcher-class ship was in service from 1942 to 1964 and took part in World War II and the naval blockade of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1968 she was sunk as a target ship.

Namesake

Richard Caswell Saufley (1884-1916) was a US Navy officer and a pioneer in naval aviation.

Saufley was the 14th pilot in the US Navy. He dealt with the technical development of naval aviation . One focus was the development of seaplanes . Saufley set several height and range records. While trying to break his own record, he died on June 6, 1916 when his Curtiss Model E AH-8 plane crashed over Santa Flora Island .

technology

Hull and drive

The hull of the USS Saufley was 114.7 m long and 12.2 m wide. The draft was 5.4 m, the displacement was 2,100 tons . The ship was powered by two General Electric steam turbines, and the steam was generated in four Babcock & Wilcox boilers. The power was 60,000 shaft horsepower, the top speed was 35 knots .

Armament and Electronics

The main armament of the USS Saufley when it was commissioned was its five 5-inch / 127-mm Mark 30 individual turrets. There were also various anti-aircraft guns , which were reinforced in the course of the war. In 1948/49 the ship was converted into a submarine destroyer and received increased anti-submarine armament, including a Mk. 108 anti-submarine rocket launcher in front of the bridge.

The USS Saufley was equipped with radar . An SG and an SC radar were mounted on the mast above the bridge, with which aircraft could be located at distances between 15 and 30 nautical miles and ships between 10 and 22 nautical miles.

history

USS Saufley was laid down on January 27, 1942 at the Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Company , Kearny , New Jersey . The launch took place on July 19, 1942. Godmother to the destroyer was Richard C. Saufley's widow, Helen O'R. Scruggs. The ship entered service on August 29, 1942 under the command of Lieutenant Commander Bert F. Brown.

1942

After the test drive off New England , the USS Saufley was used for escort service in the coastal waters before she ran to Norfolk to be equipped for use in the Pacific . She left Norfolk on September 9, 1942 and reached Nouméa , New Caledonia on December 2. Three days later, USS Saufley took part in the Battle of Guadalcanal .

1943

USS Saufley mainly escorted reinforcements from Espiritu Santo to Lunga Point . The escort service was interrupted by operations against enemy shipping in the waters north and west of Guadalcanal and fired at targets on the island. During the Japanese evacuation of the island in late January to early February, the destroyer was part of Task Force (TF) 11 . On February 19, 1943, she ran to Lunga Roads to rally with other units for Operation Cleanslate , the occupation of the Russell Islands .

In March, the USS Saufley again conducted escort service and submarine hunting patrols in the sea area between the southern Solomon Islands , New Caledonia and the New Hebrides . After a short stay in Sydney she returned to Nouméa and was used in the escort service until the end of June. When the Allied forces attacked Rendova on June 30, 1943 , they shelled Japanese facilities on the coast. The USS Saufley was involved in the fighting for New Georgia in July and August and escorted convoys to the New Hebrides and Vella Lavella . On August 31, 1943, it was slightly damaged by a Japanese gun battery during a mission in the strait called The Slot between the island chains of the northern and southern Solomon Islands.

On September 15, the USS Saufley, along with the USS Montgomery and two merchant ships, was en route to Espiritu Santo when a torpedo track was sighted at 10:11 a.m. USS Saufley resumed the search for the submarine . It ran five depth charges on the submarine over a period of three and a half hours. At 14:43 the Japanese submarine RO-101 appeared. The destroyer's five cannons and machine guns opened fire. A PBY Catalina airboat arrived and dropped two depth charges on RO-101. The first missed the boat by about twelve meters. The second bomb hit the boat. When the water column collapsed, RO-101 disappeared from the surface. An underwater explosion was perceived and around 5:35 p.m. an oil carpet of approx. 2.6 km² was discovered. The rest of September, the USS Saufley was used against night shipping between Kolombangara and Choiseul . During this time she sank four barges. On October 1, she received a bomb hit that killed two crew members and wounded eleven. After repairing the damage, USS Saufley escorted reinforcements to Bougainville from November 1943 to January 1944 .

1944

In February 1944, the USS Saufley took part in the attacks on the Green Islands , which disrupted the Japanese supply routes between Rabaul and Buka . With the capture of the islands, the Allies gained another airfield near Rabaul. After anti-submarine missions, the destroyer supported the landing on Emirau with its artillery in early April . She ran into the sea area between Emirau and Massau , where she located a submerged submarine (probably I-2 ) on the morning of April 7th . The attack on the submarine with 18 depth charges lasted 45 minutes until two underwater explosions were heard. Within the next few hours an oil film formed on the water.

After escorting to the Admiralty Islands , she took part in exercises with the TF 38 from April 18, 1944 to May . On May 4th, USS Saufley set course for Pearl Harbor , where she entered on May 12th. On June 1, she set sail again as a unit of Task Group 51.18 , the reserve for Operation Forager , the landing in the Mariana Islands . The day after the landings began, USS Saufley and the other escort ships escorted the transport ships to the unloading area west of Saipan . During the following month it was used to bombard land targets on Saipan and Tinian . On July 20, she took part in the invasion of Guam and again used her guns in support of the landing forces. She returned to Tinian on July 23 and assisted the landings on July 24. The following week it served as fire support and as a radar outpost. She stayed in the Mariana Islands until August 12, before heading for California . At the end of the month she reached San Francisco with the other ships of DestroyerSquadron (DesRon) 22 . The overhaul of the destroyer lasted until October. It ran out again on October 26, 1944.

USS Saufley reached Ulithi on November 17th. On the way to the Gulf of Leyte , the destroyer in the Camotes Sea received orders to search for a submarine suspected in this area. On November 28, the surface Japanese submarine I-46 was sighted off Pilar Point , Ponson Island . USS Saufley and her sister ships USS Renshaw , USS Waller and USS Pringle sank the submarine by artillery fire.

On November 29, the hull of the USS Saufley was damaged in a kamikaze attack in the Leyte Gulf and lost a man.

1945

After repairs on the Admiralty Islands, she ran out on January 2, 1945 to join the Lingayen Assault Force. On January 7th, she ran into the Sulu Sea and shot down an attacking aircraft on July 8th. On the morning of January 9th, the association was in the Gulf of Lingayen . During the landing, the USS Saufley protected the landing troops. An Aichi D3A Val fell on the ship on the morning of July 10, but could be shot down. On January 12, she set course again for the Gulf of Leyte to bring a convoy to Morotai from there. On January 31, the destroyer arrived off Nasugbu to support the landing there for the next four days. An attacking Japanese boat was sunk by her on February 1st. On February 4th, she moved to Subic Bay .

She was deployed in February and March to support operations in Manila Bay and the Mindoro area. USS Saufley participated in the landings on Sanga Sanga in the Sulu Archipelago (March 31 - April 4) and Jolo (April 8 - 11), where she served as the flagship.

For the next few months she was on escort. She took part in the attacks on Balikpapan , Borneo on July 1, 1945. On July 22nd, the destroyer returned to Morotai. She escorted convoys between the Gulf of Leyte and Ulithi until the end of the hostilities in mid-August.

post war period

On June 12, 1946, the Saufley was decommissioned and assigned to the reserve fleet, in which it remained for three years. After conversion and reclassification to escort destroyer (ID DDE-465 ), it was returned to service on 15 December 1949 and the Escort Destroyer Squadron (CortDesRon) 2 of the Atlantic Fleet assigned. Within a year she participated in two search and rescue operations. In June 1950 she rescued 36 passengers from a plane that crashed on the Puerto Rico - New York route and in October a TBM Avenger pilot of the escort aircraft carrier USS Palau .

On January 1, 1951, the ship was reclassified again. She is now used as the Experimental Escort Destroyer EDDE-465 for experimental and test purposes. She was subordinate to the Commander, Operational Development Force and was assigned to the Destroyer Division (DesDiv) 601 with home base Key West . For the next twelve years, USS Saufley was used primarily for testing and evaluating sonar equipment and anti -submarine weapons.

The new reclassification back to the multipurpose destroyer took place on July 1, 1962 and she received her original identification DD-465 back. At the end of the month she was involved in the shooting of the feature film Patrol Boat PT 109 . In September 1962 it was used again for tests and evaluations. The destroyer was made ready at the end of October and after the sea ​​blockade during the Cuban Missile Crisis, known as quarantine , the destroyer patrolled Florida until November 20th . On November 26th, she attended President John F. Kennedy's tour of the blockade units.

USS Saufley continued to be used for trial and test purposes for the next two years, interrupted by exercises and services for the Fleet Sonar School . In the spring of 1963 she took part in the search for the submarine USS Thresher .

In the fall of 1964 she was ordered to Norfolk, where USS Saufley was decommissioned on January 29, 1965. On September 1, 1966, she was deleted from the fleet list. In 1967 instruments were installed on board for the subsequent blast tests.

Whereabouts

As part of the blast attempts, USS Saufley sank off Key West on February 20, 1968.

Awards

USS Saufley received 16 Battle Stars during World War II .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c R. Cressman chap. VI: 1944
  2. ↑ [1]