102 MINESWEEPERS

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MINESWEEPERS

MINE WARFARE HALL OF VALOR

Dave Bruhn as created a Mine Warfare Hall of Valor at his website to honor the recipients of Navy Cross, Silver Star, Bronze Star, and Navy & Marine Corps Medals for heroism (and also Prisoner of War Medals) from World War II through the present.

It is Dave's hope that this action will help to preserve the collective legacy of these past and present members of the Mine Warfare Community.

SHIP CLASSES

THE FINAL VOYAGE

BMI, Jan 15, 2001

As you descend the ladder into the Hold, and walk past the moored mine in the on-board Museum, look past the Engine from the San Pablo (From the movie 'Sand Pebbles') and there in all its 'snipe' glory is an actual Packard V-12 diesel engine, as used as the main propulsion and Minesweep generator engines on most MSOs. The engine is intact, and identified by a small sign.

If you, or any other former 'sweep sailors are in the Southern California area, you should pay the Lane Victory a visit. She is a fully-functional ship which gets underway three times in the summer on fund-raising cruises to Catalina.

Courtesy of Denis King - USS Dynamic MSO 432.

 

Navy MSO Association

 

Of and for all MSO sailors, in any Navy around the world.

NMSOA 2009 REUNION
October 23 - 25, 2009

Battleship Cove, Fall River, MA

JOIN the NMSOA

 

Click on the caption to go to the story of the sea battle ,

Richard DeRosset's painting of the battle between the Endurance and a VC Trawler "Sea Battle off the Cua Co Chien River Mouth (off the Mekong River Delta) November 21, 1970. In the spirit of John Paul Jones, iron men in a small wooden ship engage in a fierce sea battle with a better-armed larger steel ship and, through great courage and skill and with God's speed, they were victorious with no casualties."

Richard DeRosset's "Sea Battle off the Cua Co Chien River Mouth" depicts the heroic sea battle in 1970 between the USS Endurance (MSO 435) and a larger, faster and more heavily armed Viet Cong steel-hulled vessel. A copy of it will be used for the dust jacket of Cdr. David Bruhn's forth coming book "Wooden Ships and Iron Men: The U.S. Navy's Ocean Minesweepers, 1953-1994" Persons interested in obtaining a reproduction of the painting may contact the artist at the below address for details:

Richard DeRosset

1914 El Prado Ave

Lemon Grove, CA 91945-3921

Richard DeRosset is a maritime and aviation historian and is one of the nation's foremost marine and aviation artists. Mr. DeRosset has been named the official artist for the San Diego Maritime Museum. He was also selected to paint murals for the President George Bush Memorial Gallery. The official U.S. Coast Guard artist; Mr. DeRosset spends hours of intensive research from his studio near the seaport city of San Diego, California, into the preliminary background and detail of each of his works. All of which results in paintings of sensitive coloration and unmatched accuracy of execution.

A copy of the painting "Hidden Death at Wonsan" by Richard DeRosset will be used as the cover art for David Bruhn's forthcoming book "Wooden Ships and Iron Men: The U.S. Navy's Coastal & Motor Minesweepers, 1941-1953"

Although it may appear unusual for an image of two steel-hulled minesweepers to be displayed at a wooden-hulled ocean minesweeper site, the loss of Pirate and Pledge along with ROK YMS-516 and Japanese minesweeper No. 14 at Wansan was the impetus for the Navy to construct the post-Korean War mine force. These two ships are a part of the heritage of the subsequent ocean, coastal and inshore minesweeper sailors.

Wooden Ships and Iron Men: The U.S. Navy's Coastal & Motor Minesweepers, 1941-1953
		Possessing insufficient minesweepers to protect U.S. harbors and bays as the threat of war in Europe spread, in the winter of 1939-40 the Navy began purchasing fishing vessels and modifying them to combat mines. One of them, Condor (AMc-14), first sighted the Japanese Type-A midget submarine that destroyer Ward (DD-139) sank on December 7, 1941 with the first shots fired by American forces during World War II. She would be one of six coastal minesweepers to receive a battle star. From boat- and shipyards across America came the largest production run of any World War II warship, 561 scrappy little 136-foot wooden-hulled vessels characterized by Arnold Lott in Most Dangerous Sea as "belligerent-looking yachts wearing grey paint." Although their designers envisioned that they would operate primarily in the vicinity of yards or bases, the YMSs (too numerous to be given names) would see action in every theater of war, earning almost 700 battle stars, 21 Presidential Unit Citations, and 15 Navy Unit Commendations. YMSs were present in the North African campaign, in Sicily, at Anzio, Salerno, and elsewhere in Italy, and swept ahead of invasion forces at Normandy and in Southern France. In the Pacific, they operated in the Marshall Islands, New Guinea, Solomons, Treasury Island, Gilbert Islands, New Britain, Admiralty Islands, Guam, Palau, Leyte, Luzon, Manila Bay, Iwo Jima, Southern Philippines, Okinawa, and Borneo.
Following the war, they cleared mines from the East China Sea, Yangtze River approaches, and throughout Japanese waters, and their activities gave rise to the proud slogan of the mine force: "Where the Fleet Goes, We've Been." During the Korean War, a mere 16 auxiliary motor minesweepers (former YMSs) performed the bulk of mine clearance, often while inside the range of enemy coastal artillery, necessary for larger naval vessels to close the coast to support operations ashore. Garnering collectively 124 battle stars, 7 Presidential Unit Citations, and 7 Navy Unit Commendations, the men aboard these ships were then, and remain to date, the most highly decorated crews of minesweepers in the history of the U.S Navy.

Click Image to order book
Naval Accidents Since 1945
By
Malcolm Maclean

Peacetime accidents over the past sixty years have resulted in hundreds of naval vessels being lost or stricken from active service. This book aims to explain why and how these accidents have occurred, being categorized by their primary cause, and covers some of the lessons that have been learned.

The account of the fire on USS Stalwart is contained on pages 79-82 of my book, which also contains details of other MSO tragedies.

Click Image to order book
Wooden Ships and Iron Men
By
David D. Bruhn

Wooden Ships and Iron Men David D. Bruhn Home Page

From 1953 to 1994, sixty-five U.S. Navy ocean minesweepers (MSOs) swept mines; searched the seafloor for downed aircraft, sunken ships, and lost munitions; “showed the flag” throughout the world, even sailing up the Congo and Mekong Rivers, calling at dozens of the world's seaports; and carried out patrols and special tasks off strife-torn or hostile countries. Some participated in the 1962 nuclear test program in the Pacific and in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space programs. Others, as part of a U.S. armada of military and civilian research ships at Palomares, located a nuclear bomb lost on the seafloor off Spain as a result of a midair collision between two U.S. Air Force aircraft. Iron men in wooden ships were with the Fleet in hotspots around the world, including Lebanon and the Quemoy-Matsu islands of Taiwan in 1958; the Dominican Republic in 1961 and 1965; and the Cuban Missile Crisis and Haiti in 1962. During the Vietnam War, minesweepers participated in Operation MARKET TIME to prevent the infiltration of North Vietnamese soldiers and munitions into South Vietnam. Leader received the Presidential Unit Citation for extraordinary heroism in Operation SEA LORDS; Endurance engaged in close gun action with and helped destroy an enemy armed trawler in a sea battle; and MSOs cleared mines in Haiphong Harbor, which aided in the negotiations in progress for the return of U.S. prisoners of war. During the twilight of their service in the late 1980s and early 1990s, aging sweeps cleared Iranian- and Iraqi-laid mines in the Persian Gulf.

'Sweeps
By
Stephen Haywood Brown

'Sweeps Stephen Haywood Brown

As the Vietnam War continued with no end in sight, America sought to pressure Hanoi into signing the Paris Peace Accord and releasing all American prisoners of war. But Hanoi continued to stall until May 1972 when exhausted carrier pilots sealed North Vietnam’s harbors with advanced mines. Days later Ensign Samuel Vincent Wallace reports aboard USS Vengeance conducting anti-infiltration patrols along the Vietnamese coast. On New Year’s Day 1973, the ship sails with her unsophisticated gadgets on a secret mission to Haiphong to sweep the port in exchange for Hanoi releasing American POWs. Based on actual events in which the author played a major role, ’Sweeps tells how iron men manning wooden ships bring home 591 POWs.

I felt a strange alacrity; you know that energy you get when you engage in implicit skill along with the ability and vigor to become aggressive enough and agile in your own right to affray with sufficient force having no esteem for that gallant yet illusive leader that you have shown loyalty and fidelity too; along with that pledge that became vital to the stalwart sagacity that allowed you to fortify your fearless exploit and not just become an observer and pluck any valor out of that direct conflict without a bold yet massive bulwark to enhance your firm and persistent venture with that constant dash of endurance that has allowed you to excel as a notable guide without a prime rival to keep you on the pinnacle of lucid thoughts as your friends become impervious to the prestige that you seem to inflict on those around you with a somewhat dynamic, if not exultant advance towards that adroit goal with the assurance that you can avenge that dominant but nimble salute that you give with that sturdy handshake as you swerve and pivot to dodge that grim reaper that will embattle your conquest to the acme of your success as you struggle through the metal detector of life.
Author Unknown

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Dick Lewis
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2 Chronicles, Chapter 7, verse 14.

Medal Of Honor
August 9, 1945

Arlington National Cemetery

God Bless you and have a Merry Christmas
Love,
Angela (Murphy) Hunt

make up

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