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By George Joseph, Jr.
Certain ships seem destined to mirror the
lives of the people for which they were named, laboring long and
valiantly in the service of their country. Ships named AMMEN are of that
mold.
Daniel Ammen was "old-Navy".
Born in 1820, he became prominent as a captain during the Civil War. The
crush of a rapidly expanding Union Navy catapulted Lieutenant Ammen from
a junior’s berth on the ROANOKE to command the iron clad monitor
PATAPSCO, a capital ship of the day. His exploits as captain of the
SENECA at Fort Royal and MOHICAN during the bombardment of Fort Fisher
earned him the recognition and advancement to carry him through the end
of the war and into the post-Civil War demobilization as a career
officer.
He served as Chief of the Bureau of
Navigation in 1871 and retired as a Rear Admiral in 1878, after
forty-two years of continuous service. Daniel Ammen passed away near
Washington, D.C. on July 11, 1898.
One of the first "true"
destroyers in the United States Navy, launched in 1910, was named for
the admiral. USS AMMEN, DD 35, was a member of the MONAHAN class--a
raised-forecastle, THREE-STACKER. She served throughout World War I as
an escort on the North Atlantic run, operating out of Queenstown,
Ireland. Like all of her contemporaries, she was mothballed for many
years, only to be recommissioned as a Coast Guard anti-rumrunner patrol
craft. AMMEN was finally scrapped in 1934.
Just as her namesake gained rank and
recognition due to war, USS AMMEN was created because of the threat of
war. The "new" AMMEN, a FLETCHER-class destroyer, was laid
down at the Bethlehem Steel Company’s San Francisco yard on November
29, 1941. Less than ten months later, she slid down the ways, christened
by the Admiral’s daughter. The spring of 1943 saw the commissioning of
the new "square bridge FLETCHER".
By the summer, DD-527 was on her way to
the Aleutians. Although the Japanese capture of Attu and Kiska early in
the war proved to be of little strategic value, the islands’ loss
represented a potential threat to America’s right flank. AMMEN
supported Allied landings on Attu and Kiska, assisting in Task Force
94’s frigid sweep of the Pribilofs in October. Charles Vanderbosch, a
Tin Can Sailor from Maryland, remembered a particularly eventful liberty
at the force’s only liberty port, Dutch Harbor. The entire
cruiser-destroyer force was sent ashore at the same time. "So many
people had jammed the floating dock that it began to sink. Those who did
not scramble back on the pier found themselves in several inches of cold
water .... Everyone eventually returned aboard, some drier than others,
some somewhat more bruised than others, and in general all were a much
happier lot." After five months of operations in the bleak island
chain off Alaska, AMMEN received a Christmas present, of sorts.
AMMEN was transferred in December 1943,
to the Southwest Pacific. The Navy had begun its "island hopping
campaign" with a push from Guadalcanal into the Solomons and the
Admiralties, northeast of Australia. On the day before Christmas, AMMEN
found herself supporting the First Marine Division’s landing at Cape
Gloucester on New Britain. To AMMEN, "close support" meant
operating "within spitting distance" from shore; the ship’s
20 mm’s were often answered by Japanese mortar and rifle fire. For the
next eight months, AMMEN protected task groups and bombarded enemy
shores through the Admiralties and New Guinea, toward the final approach
to the Philippines.
DD-527 found herself at center stage as a
part of a vast array of fighting power aimed at the Philippines. AMMEN
saw action at the Leyte landings and screened the first forces to land
in the Philippines.
She maintained the watch later in October
1944, when a serious threat to the allied landings could have swept
MacArthur from the western Pacific.
The Japanese Imperial Navy saw the Leyte
landings as the beginning of the end for their empire. Since the
beginning, they had visualized American bases in the Philippines as a
threat to natural resources Japanese industry needed in Southeast Asia.
The remnants of the Japanese fleet were marshalled for a counterattack;
a complex action involving a feint to draw off Admiral William
Halsey’s Third Fleet in a wild goose chase, while striking forces were
to sweep through San Bernadino and Surigao Straits and attack American
amphibious shipping around Leyte.
The battle of Surigao Strait found AMMEN
supporting Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf’s force of battleships,
cruisers, destroyers, and patrol torpedo boats. The Seventh Fleet was
lying in wait for the Japanese. The results were dramatic. In all, two
Japanese battleships, one cruiser, and three destroyers were obliterated
by Oldendorf’s force, clearly a major victory for the United States
Navy.
November 1 marked a turning point for the
AMMEN and the Philippines campaign as well. The Japanese had initiated
Kamikaze attacks. Vanderbosch wrote, "A short time later, we were
in a fight for our lives-- planes were everywhere. The ship was
operating at flank speed, turning, twisting; guns were firing. I was
cussing and praying at the same time." A twin-engined suicide
bomber had crashed AMMEN between her two stacks.
The victory did not mark the end of the
Japanese threat; AMMEN had been struck by a dive bomber while screening
her charges in Leyte Gulf. Five men were killed and twenty-one w ounded.
The extensive above-water damage meant a return to a major yard for
repair. By December 1944, AMMEN was at Mare Island and the crew enjoyed
Christmas stateside. The brief respite proved all too short. By February
1945, AMMEN, her wounds repaired, headed for the cauldron around
Okinawa. For three months, DD-527 again demonstrated her skills on
picket duty and as a superb aircraft director off the hotly contested
island. The several aircraft she splashed during the campaign cost her a
near miss by a hundred pound bomb, which wounded eight. A short return
to Leyte, by this time relatively quiet, marked a respite for the crew.
The war had reached its final stages, and AMMEN was once again at the
center of the action. Now attached to Task Force 98, AMMEN made the
final sweeps of the East China Sea, which helped to demonstrate our
command of the sea to the Japanese high command. Her next major duty was
to screen troops in the occupation of Japan. AMMEN returned to the
United States again, this time for deactivation. DD-527 was placed out
of commission at Charleston, South Carolina, on April 15, 1946. Her rest
was to be brief. The Cold War and a "police action" caused the
reactivation of AMMEN. By 1951, the United States faced the twin threat
of a resurgent Russian sea power in the Atlantic and a war in Korea that
seemed destined to involve Red China. AMMEN’s recommissioning in the
spring of 1951 was followed by an eensive refit and modernization to
meet the twin threats on the world scene. By February 1952, AMMEN,
replete with modern anti- submarine equipment and a finely honed crew,
reported to DESDIV 182 at Newport, RI. Through 1953, she served with the
Sixth Fleet.
DD-527 shuttled between the Pacific and
the Atlantic for the next several months. A tour in the Pacific,
followed by a short visit to Fall River, MA, marked a change in
AMMEN’s future. In November 1954, AMMEN, along with the rest of her
squadron, transferred to the Pacific; her homeport was to be San Diego.
For the remainder of the decade, AMMEN alternated between Far East
cruises and training operations off California.
AMMEN was now more than twelve years old
and approaching obsolescence. She was not to be included in the planned
modernization project to be made famous as the FRAM program. Her eight
battle stars and unit commendation for World War II could not counter
her growing age. On route to her second decommissioning, she collided
with USS COLLETT (DD-730), suffering sufficient damage to forestall any
lingering thoughts of a long sleep in Red Lead Row. She was stricken on
September 1, 1960.
AMMEN, like her sisters in the gallant
FLETCHER class, had "fought the good fight", serving whenever
and wherever her country needed her. In war, both cold and hot, and in
the long peace she helped to win, AMMEN’s proud record serves as an
inspiration to both the Navy and the nation.
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