DE-151 - Tin Can Sailors

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Hull Number: DE-151

Launch Date: 05/08/1943

Commissioned Date: 09/29/1943

Call Sign: NPGP

Class: EDSALL

EDSALL Class

Namesake: MINOR BUTLER POOLE

MINOR BUTLER POOLE

Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, April 2016

Minor Butler Poole, born at Brandon, Miss., 2 February 1920, enlisted in the Navy 15 February 1938. Gunners Mate First Class Poole was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for extraordinary heroism and courageous devotion to duty while in charge of the Forward Magazine Flooding Control Station aboard Boise during the Battle of Cape Esperance, Guadalcanal, on the night of 11-12 October 1942. He gave up his life in an attempt to reach the flooding panel through overpowering gas fumes, 12 October 1942.

Disposition:

Stricken 2 January 1971. She was sold 30 January 1974 and scrapped

Ship History

USS POOLE DE-151 Ship History

Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, April 2016

Poole (DE-151) was laid down by the Consolidated Steel Co., Orange, Tex. 13 February 1943; launched 8 May 1943; sponsored by Mrs. Minor Herndon Poole, mother of Minor Butler Poole; and commissioned 29 September 1943, Comdr. R. D. Dean, USCG, in command.

Following shakedown off Bermuda, Poole took on coastwise escort duties, and toward the end of the year extended her escort services to transatlantic runs. She departed New York to escort a convoy to Casablanca, arriving 11 January 1944. Returning to New York 5 February, she shifted to the North Atlantic sea lanes and for the next 15 months escorted high speed convoys (tankers and transports) to ports in the United Kingdom and, after June 1944, on the European Continent.

On 4 June 1945, Escort Division 22, led by Poole, departed New York for the Pacific theater. Arriving at Pearl Harbor 14 July, she conducted patrols there for the remainder of the war. On 4 September she departed Pearl Harbor and proceeded to Saipan, thence to Honshu, where she joined the occupation forces.

After a month of occupation patrol duty off Wakayama, Poole was underway 29 October for San Diego, whence she steamed to the East Coast, reaching Charleston 10 December. Later shifted to Green Cove Springs, she decommissioned in January 1947 and entered the Atlantic Reserve Fleet where she remains into 1970.