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n 1958 the Navy decided to
transfer ships to the Surface Reserve. Prior
to that time, as in the Korean conflict, ships were taken out of mothballs and
staffed with a combination of active duty and Reserve personnel.
There were 9 DE’s transferred in this program and four DD’s, on the
West coast and a similar program for the East Coast.
In the 13TH Naval District we had the DE’s Whitehurst and
Charles E Brannon in Seattle, The Mcginty and Edmunds is Portland, Oregon and
the DD USS Watts in Tacoma.
The DE’s were decommissioned
and Commanded by a Reserve officer, and placed in Group II status.
Reserve compliment was 140 enlisted and 8 officers. Active duty was 45
enlisted, an officer in charge and an engineering officer.
The DD’s remained in commission and were commanded by an Active duty
officer. Compliment was a 50/50 mix.
The Whitehurst was the flagship of the 13th
Naval District ships under the command of a Reserve Captain and staff as the
division commander. The staff
planned the weekend training exercises and the group sail every summer,
conducted necessary inspections etc. Normal
weekend for the Puget Sound vessels was a group training exercise for the two
DE’s and the Tacoma DD , sometimes exercises with the Canadian Navy, sometimes
with ASW exercises with the Naval Reserve ASW air group from NAS
Seattle
.
This routine started in 1958 when a group of Officers
were recruited to form a Reserve Crew for the Whitehurst.
At that time the Naval Surface
Reserve in
Seattle
was organized into training divisions that met one night a week for classroom
training. I was in one of those
divisions when recruited for the
Whitehurst crew as Operations Officer. During my last active duty I was the
Operations officer on a DD the USS Brown and had been released from active duty
in 1955. Other officers were
recruited with similar backgrounds, and we proceeded to scour the training units
for qualified enlisted members. Among
our first recruits was
GMC
Tim
Lake
, a
Pearl Harbor
veteran.
In 1961 after returning from a summer cruise to San
Diego (where we were doing our annual work with the Fleet Training Group), we
received word that President Kennedy had decided to recall all ASW units both
Surface and Air as a show of strength for the building of the Berlin Wall.
On October 2 we reported for Active duty, a commissioning ceremony was
held, and Whitehurst rejoined the Pacific Fleet.
Our commanding officer at that time was CDR Donald L. Maclane.
The De’s were home ported in Pearl Harbor and in early 1962 41 families
moved to
Pearl
.
We were soon sent on a WESTPAC deployment to Subic Bay
in the
Philippines
. From there we went on deployment
to
Viet Nam
to train and operate with their Navy. We
would have a Vietnamese liaison officer embarked so we could communicate with
their ships, mainly a PC and one other small type, and vector them to intercept
suspected North Vietnamese fishing vessels and others trying to enter the South.
In mid year 1962 we
got word that were going home and August 1 1962 were discharged in
Seattle
. The Whitehurst was again
decommissioned and back in NRF status, with the same command structure, and the
Destroyer Division 13ND staff embarked. October 1964
I relieved CDR Maclane as Commanding Officer. In October 1966 I was
relieved by CDR Charles Bryant USNR, and
became the Chief of Staff for the Division.
About 1968 the Whitehurst and Brannon were replaced by
newer DE’s the Bridget and Evans. The
status was changed to Group I and the crew was
commanded by an active duty officer. The
reserve crew commanding officer was called prospective Commanding officer and
when activated would assume command of the ship.
Destroyer Divisions were also done away in the fleet ant DESRON 27 was
formed. This staff was based in
Seattle
and had command of the 13th ND ships.
The DE’s were replaced in the early 70’s by FRAM II destroyers.
In 1972 as a Captain I was assigned the billet as
DESPACDET 422
Seattle
. In that capacity I was responsible
for all of the former Division Commander duties, and I had a staff to support
me. We also had formed our own
Underway Training Unit (under my command). For
one weekend per month and two weeks every summer my staff supplemented with RUTU
conducted the training and inspections required.
After 1968 the only ships in the Surface Reserve in
Group II status were the coastal minesweepers.
This program lasted until the first Gulf War when they were all sent to
the
Persian Gulf
.
Members of the Whitehurst and Brannon Reserve crews hold
a reunion every year in December at a
Seattle
restaurant. For information contact
Capt KK Krummeck USNR-RET at kkrumek@cs.com.
CAPT Richard P.
Rising USNR-RET
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