USS HAYNSWORTH

  • Name: USS HAYNSWORTH
  • Ship Class: Unknown
  • Ship Number:
  • Date Commissioned:
  • Status:

Ship History:

September 1944

. Escorted Churchill aboard Queen Mary to Halifax 23 Returned to New York 25 Left 35th Street Pier 26 Delaware Bay. Joined the Pasadena and Wisconsin along with four other destroyers. 27 Left Delaware Bay as lead destroyer escorting Wisconsin and Pasadena.

October 1944

Arrived Christobal, Panama Passed through canal to Balboa Left Balboa. Several liberties are mercifully not recorded here. On the 4-8 watch at 1625 I picked up contact on what sounded like a school of fish. I kept checking it until I turned it over to"Chollie" Gruber SoM3/c. I asked if he wanted to report it but he said no but after listening for a while I asked Mr. Berk to check it. He said to report it and then investigate it. We lost it on the 14kc stack and picked it up on the 30kc stack at a range of about 1200 yards. It was only about 15 degrees off the bow and had a definite submarine echo. General Quarters was sounded and I had to go to the fantail where I was the gun captain on the three twin 20mm guns. We made four runs dropping depth charges each time.The first time was only two charges because the racks jammed. The second was nine charges and the third and fourth were eleven each. After we dropped the last pattern, screw noisedswere heard but they said it was the “foxer gear” (a device to distract sound directed torpedoes which might be fired at the ship) but I was on the fantail and the foxer gear had never been streamed. There was no evidence of having gotten the submarine. 12 Came into San Pedro, California 14ÄLeft San Pedro 20 Came into Pearl Harbor on Oahu Island in the Hawaiian Islands.

December 1944

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16 Left Hawaiian Islands after completion of qualification tests.Destination—Eniwetok atoll in the Marshall Islands. 19 Crossed the International Date Line 23 Arrived Eniwetok – stayed overnight 24 Shoved off from Eniwetok for Guam 25 Christmas Day. Full holiday routine. Passed 300 miles from Jap held Truk Island. Spotted Jap plane 17 miles from us 27 Passed Guam early this morning. Did not stop but dropped offtransport that was with us. At midnight we passed 87 miles from aipan and 7:00 am we were 26 miles from Jap held Rota Island. 28 Arrived at Ulithi Island to join the Third Fleet. There are acouple of hundred ships here. We expect to shove off in the morning but don’t know, as yet, where to. We are topping off provisions and ammunition refueling. 30 Left Ulithi with Task Force 38 — Task Group 38.2 for fast carrier attacks on several points unknown at present. Expect to be under weigh approximately 20 days.

January 1945

2 Refueled several hundred miles off Formosa, our objective. It is said the Japanese know we are coming and are ready. What they are going to do about it I don’t know. We’ll probably find out tomorrow. Word was passed about 1700 we were to make our first attack early tomorrow morning. 3 Very poor weather for dive bombing attacks. Altitude visibility only about 1500 feet. We are reported to have lost 20 planes butnothing official. We sent 6 TBF’s after three Jap transports. One of the planes had it’s landing gear shot up and had to land in the water near us. We picked up the survivor. They said one of the transports was low in the water and the other two were burning badly. Large fires and explosions were seen over our target. As yet Task Force has encountered no attacks from planes or enemy task forces. I hope our luck holds. We do expect it tonight or tomorrow morning. 4 Set over two more strikes this morning. The weather all night had been clear and would have made a perfect day for bombing but when morning came, it clouded up. Visibility closed in to 500 feet and below that over the target. It varied from 0 to 2,000 around us. We secured from GQ about 9:30 am. I slept till 11:15 then got up for chow. I was nearly in the mess hall when the general alarm sounded. A Japanese twin engine bomber had been sighted. Several other groups of planes (unidentified) were reported ranging from 5 miles to 78 miles. Evidently none of them could find us because not a shot was fired. Several mines were sighted and exploded that had evidently been laid by mine laying aircraft or subs during thenight. It was definitely confirmed that we lost only 7 planes yesterday/ We secured about 1430. We are supposed to retire to the fueling rendezvous tonight. We refuel tomorrow but after that, what? I don’t know. 5 Fueled ship today. It was revealed today that we are moving down to Luzon for neutralizing strikes on her airfields. It is rumored that it is to be a softening up of it for an invasion by the 7thFleet. Then, it is said, we will move back to Formosa on the inside next to China to try and keep her planes on the ground. The weather has cleared up and we are going within 35 miles off the coast of Luzon so I figure we will catch Hell but good. 6 Started our attacks on Luzon this morning with a pre-dawn attack.The attack continued throughout the day. We received no attack from the Japs because they were too busy with the 7th Fleet. Started back to Formosa but the weather was extremely rough and several cans split seams and had to turn back to a repair group since they were taking on water and were unable to maintain the pace. Finally we got the word the entire task force was turning back to Luzon as we were needed badly 7 Continued our air strike on Luzon with minor losses. Still no airattack from the Japs. 8 Retired our position the refueling rendezvous. Word was passed to get plenty of sleep because we would need it the next few days because we would meet the enemy for sure. It’s a funny thing because I’m not too nervous. Perhaps it is because I don’t allow myself to think about it too much. I’ve got to live through it. I saw Admiral Halsey when we refueled from the New Jersey. 9 At 3:45 this morning they called “stand by for submarine attack.”Everyone promptly went to GQ only to find out another ship had had a contact and lost it so we went back to bed with the GQ team of Sonar and the depth charges remaining on alert. As we rejoined at 1345 they called GQ for air attacks but it proved to be a false alarm. The weather was rough and tons of water were cascadingacross the lower decks. Spray was coming over the bridge at each wave. It was whipped by a high wind that made it feel like sleet.It looks to me like Admiral Halsey is trying to bait the Japanese Navy out for a final battle. At present we are going to meet a convoy of Japanese reinforcements. I hope we get them. Bombed Formosa again. 10 Entered into the north end of the South China Sea. We are now bottled up, more or less, with the Japanese on four sides of us. Weare supposedly going after a 100 ship Jap convoy that is bringing up reinforcements to Luzon. They say the biggest ships of the convoy are cans so it ought to be duck soup for us since we have cans, cruisers, wagons, and aircraft carriers. We expect to meet them day after tomorrow. This morning our planes shot down to Jap planes. One of the ships hit another one (plane) but it came on for about 15 miles. When it burst through the clouds it was a ball of fire. It tried to crash dive on a carrier and the pilot bailed out. It was, at first, thought to be one of ours but they found a Jap life raft and chute so it was confirmed as definitely Japanese. No raids on anything today. 11 We had regular morning general quarters this morning. At 0900 westarted refueling and finished at 1000. We kept going deeper into the South China Sea and were designated as a picket ship for the rest of the day. About 1630 two Zekes were reported to our CAP coming in low and fast on one of our pickets. The general alarm was sounded and when I arrived at my GQ station they had been downed all ready and you could see where they were burning on the water at the horizon’s edge. We secured in about 45 minutes and were told to expect a raid in about and hour and to be on the alert. We hade vening GQ because of this at 1915 and secured at 2000. No raids. 12 GQ was scheduled for 0530 this morning as we had arrived at Camranh Bay where the Jap force was supposed to be. At 0525 two bogeys were reported and the general alarm was sounded. These were reported later as friendly. One of the ships on our starboard side had radar contact on a small vessel and decided it to be a sailing vessel. Received orders to destroy it. We could see both the firing and the shells in the air. We saw lights on our starboard side and found they were flares dropped by planes over an airfield but no planes were on it. Two flares were fired in the air atapproximately the same bearing and ascertained to be from one of oursubs that submerged afterward. Evidently our prize chicken has flown the coop. The force has now split. Part of it going in tobombard the beach. This consists of cruisers and BB’s. The CV’s and most of the DD’s stay out and send in planes. They also send them after the ships that escaped. The sailing vessel that was fired on turned out to be the sub that fired the flares. The total number of ships sank by our planes was 27…2 cruisers, 5 cans, 3 destroyer escorts and 8 unidentified. The rest were cargo vessels. 13 Refueled today. Heard the scuttlebutt that we are going to HongKong now. The seas were very rough today making refueling difficult. A man from another ship washed overboard during the operation and we picked him up. We were driving into the wind all night which batters the devil out of a ship. One of the other ships lost mount #1 (5" .38) over the side. All we got was the guard around a couple of 40 mm guns smashed. It was so rough they didn’t even have the routine GQ this morning. 14 Struck Formosa again 15 Struck Hong Kong 17 Refueled today. Weather extremely rough. One can lost two men. We had several injuries. seas on the edge of a hurricane. High winds and swells 40 to 50 feet high. Took a 56 degree roll last night (she was only built to take 61.) Didn’t get much sleep because it was so rough. Do not know where we are going now. This was not in the diary: the Haynsworth lost its motor whaleboat and all the life line stanchions were ripped from the deck perimeter. It was rumored three destroyers turned turtle with all hands lost. We started splitting with a break from the main deck aft of the quarter deck extending across the first superstructure deck and down to the main deck. After the storm had subsided a bit I walked out there and when we would plow into a wave it would gap at least six inches. For several days you ate standing up in the mess hall with your arm around a stanchion and a cup of coffee in one hand and a sandwich in the other. If you were lucky enough to have a bunk against the bulkhead you could shorten the chain so it formed a “V” with it. Then you could slide the mattress in that area a get some rest. At that time I was in 205L and every time thes crews came out of the water I thought we would shake apart. We were lucky though…we came out alive. 19 Refueled today. Still unknown as to where we are going. 20 We leave the China Sea today via Balintang Channel at the northern end of Luzon. Went to GQ early in the afternoon but it only lasted about a half hour. GQ was sounded at 1600 and 2230 when we cleared Balintang Channel. Today was my birthday (20 years old) and I said the Japs couldn’t miss showing me some fireworks. Sure enough, about 1930 some planes came over the after part of the Task Force. The firing was beautiful to see with the 40 mm going into the air in almost a solid stream. It was like the sentence of death punctuated with the flash of larger guns. The planes got away. We didn’t fire because it wasn’t in our clear fire bearings. 21 Made strikes (by planes) on Luzon. I had just finished eating when we were called to GQ. This was about 1145 and lasted until 2030. One of the other task groups was under air attack. Three ships were hit. Two carriers (Langley and Ticonderoga) and one can (Mattox). All were hit by Japanese kamikaze planes. About 1830 -1900 a plane approached on our starboard side and we started firing on it. It burst into flame and tried a suicide dive on a tin can but couldn’t make it and crashed into the water. 22 Topped off fuel today. We were assigned as picket again today.Outside of that, nothing happened. 23 We were to finish fueling this morning or early afternoon but couldn’t find the tankers. We were assigned as mail ship again until 1500. The whole forward torpedo deck is stacked three deep with mail bags. There is about the same amount on the quarterdeck. There was only one good bag out of all this for the Haynsworth crew.

Battle History:

The date--23 December 1953. The place--just south of Pusan, Korea. Just before 2000 hours, the Haynsworth and Ault were engaged in ASW exercises with a U.S. sub as the target. Ault was the attack ship and the Haynsworth was the back-up. The Ault lost contact and pulled out. Haynsworth had contace and started an attack run. In the meantime February 16, 1945 - A Day to Remember The following is from a diary written by Bill Morton (SoM3/c) written the day we sank the picket ships off the coast of Japan. It is not from memory. It will probably bring back some memories many of you have long forgotten. The feelings expressed at the end were the true feelings I had at the time and which were recorded then, not something I added upon reflection. What a day today was! We are a virgin no more since we fired ourfirst shots in this war today. I had the four to eight watch this morning so when the time came for our regular GQ in the mornings, I was ready. Today we strike Tokyo. If the people at home only knew this was about to happen, I thought as I put on my heavy clothes to go topside to my GQ station on the bridge. At 0620 it was called.What a dreary day it was cold, cloudy and a choppy sea. Good cover for the fleet but it also hampers our attacks on the target since it may be obscured from any altitude. For a short while it sleeted, but it stopped almost immediately. The first strike left the carriers at 0645 and shortly afterward we were secured for chow with a warning to man our stations on the double if the alarm sounded, so, I returned to my watch. I was right in the middle of removing my heavy clothes when the General Alarm sounded. I am sure, had someone timed me, I would have been up to the bridge in a matter of something less than a minute. That includes putting on the heavy clothes, dashing to the bridge and getting my phones on. (1JW phone talker). The cause of our alarm was a small fishing vessel on the horizon off our port bow. The essential thing was to destroy it as soon as possible in case they had seen us and were radioing our position. We opened fire almost immediately and at the first salvo she started running away.Then both forward five inch mounts opened up and the shells were dropping all around it, then, it turned into the wind,stopped, and dropped anchor and they abandoned ship. We pulled along side them to pick up any survivors. The boat was a funny looking thing with its forward part stacked high with barrels. It looked like an old time galley with the bridge slightly aft. The starboard side had been blown out by a five inch shell and barrels were floating around in the water. The after mast was shot off and the whole bridge (if you can call it that) was shattered and shrapnel scarred. For a good while there were no signs of life until we saw one survivor clinging to a piece of wood. Everyone started waving and motioning him to come over to the ship but he didn't seem to trust us and made no effort to come aboard.The captain had swung us around to the leeward side and he slowly drifted down on us. Once a wave flipped his board over and we thought he was done for, but he finally came up and just to make sure we didn't think he had drowned, he grinned and waved. When he came alongside, they threw him a heaving line and motioned him to put it around his body but instead he put it around his neck and clamped it in his teeth. At first, everyone thought he was going to try and hang himself but finally he made an effort to come aboard and didn't have the strength so he was hauled aboard and frisked for any weapon he might have. When they stood him up to take him into sick bay, I heard him suck in his breath through his gritted teeth and wince in pain. That is when we saw the wound in his leg--a big gaping gash that looked as though someone had sliced his leg clear to the bone and then let the meat hang down.It was not bleeding and it had probably been stopped by the saltwater. We backed off from his boat and proceeded to slap some 5" shells in to sink it. We couldn't get the dammed thing to sink because it was made of wood. Then, as we started to pull away they noticed two more survivors but the Captain said "To Hell with them. We have to rejoin the formation" so, we leftthem. It was a damned hard thing to do but the safety of the fleet comes before two enemy lives. At last we were secured from GQ and sent below so they could finish feeding the crew but I was just half through my meal when they called us to GQ for the return of the strikes. It wasn't long before they started telling the officers all of the men hadn't eaten so I stuck my bid in and got below for some nice hot flapjacks and coffee, then returned to my GQ station. About fifteen minutes later two of our planes circled us at an extremely low altitude and as they went by the second time they waved and signalled for us to follow them. It was then we noticed some planes on our starboard side bombing and strafing some target below the horizon and thin spirals of smoke rising from that direction. Immediately all engines went ahead flank to 25 knots and we headed out there. As our range closed and the target came into view we made out two small craft about the size of our sub chasers and by now they were burning fiercely amidships. As our planes swooped in on dive bombingruns, the ship on the left was returning fire from what appeared to be a 50 caliber machine gun mounted forward. This is the one that had aerial wires strung between the masts. As soon as we came into sight, our planes left and we opened fire with the forward mounts. After two or three salvos, we pulled alongside to pick up survivors. When we did, one man swam around to the other side,evidently to protect himself from any machine gun fire we might direct toward them. One man was hanging on the rudder which was under water most of the time and another man was acting like he was dead but we picked him up anyhow and in perfectly good condition.The other two made no effort to come aboard at all and I don't blame them because one of the men had a Thompson sub-machine gun and opened up when he thought he had the word from the bridge. If they had any desire at all to come aboard, that soon changed their minds. When she floated down our starboard side, you could see two or three Japanese in the very forward part of the bow that had either committed harikiri or caught some shrapnel because you could see their guts hanging out and blood was running down the deck. One was thrashing his arms about in the last throes of death and it reminded me of the times we butchered hogs and cut their throats while they were still kicking. It was really a sickening mess. We shot a few shells into the second one that sent smoke and flames skyward and then moved in for prisoners. There wasn't a sign oflife aboard her or in the water around her. We sent several more salvos into her and she began to sink rapidly, her stern going under first from the weight of the engines and then her nose slid under and all kinds of debris included in which were charts, half burned books, life preservers, a flag and lots of wood. Then, as the bow went under and had already disappeared, a large piece of the side came up and on it was four Japs. Then out of the wreckage and debris came more bobbing up and grabbing wood to help them afloat. The total count was ten. Where they were or how they lived through the firing, I don't know, but they were in the water and we began the job of pulling them out. At first they wouldn't take the line heaved to them but pushed it away. Finally, they thought better of it and six of them came aboard. The first four that we spotted wouldn't come aboard but let themselves drift right on by. Two of them were Japanese Naval officers so evidently these two ships were patrol ships or training ships. I think two of them wanted to come aboard but one of the officers kept holding up his finger and telling them they couldn't.(this is an assumption) Finally when they had drifted well past our stern they signalled they wanted to come aboard. Two of them had pretty severe injuries. One had half his face shotaway and the other had a bit of his side and rump well shot up. We transferred the three most seriously wounded to the carrier Bunker Hill this evening for better medical facilities along with two of the most intelligent for interrogation by intelligence officers. Westill have seven aboard with minor wounds. They found out tonight through a book of terms in Japanese, that one of the fellows was only 13 years old. He is nice looking and seems to be very intelligent when we use sign language. It is funny to watch them eat because they do not know some of our foods but they really get it down in a hurry. Every time you hand them food, or refill their cups with coffee, they give you two or three half bows from a sitting position. I have never seen them ask each other for the cream or sugar or anything. When they want something, they merely get up and reach for it. We had cigarettes on the table for them and one handed the other one of them and that is the first time I had seen them do it. The youngest one really likes coffee. He drank four cups. They hardly seem human when you are around them, but are more like well trained monkeys than anything because they go by your sign language and everything they say is in Japanese which is more like the chattering of a monkey than anything else when they talk fast. When they brought them aboard, all the fellows were standing around and pulling that "hero stuff"--"Kill the bastards!", "Throw them back in the water.", "What are you carrying him for? If he can't walk, to Hell with him!" Even though they are our enemies they are human, wounded and thoroughly beaten. I cannot feel the enmity toward them that some of the other fellows show or, at least, they put on a show of it.What they need is rest, medical attention, food and clothing and I think we should give it to them now even though we might not have been so fortunate as they have been had we been in the same position. I can understand why we would have had to shoot them if they would have refused to come aboard. It would have endangered our fleet if we hadn't and a plane might rescue them with the information. After all, this is still total war and will be until the day the last Jap and German have surrendered. We saw there was nothing we could do so we backed off and blasted again and again. The second and third salvos hit her oil tank so we left her all ablaze and turned to the other one. As we turned away the Jap that had been on the rudder climbed aboard the fantail. Ault had regained contact and came around to start another attack run. It was a clear night, with a full moon. The sea was smooth as glass. I was on the Signal Bridge for a coffee with a shipmate. We could see the Ault coming right at us, so I left. I just got to the 01 deck, next to the torpedo tube and turned to look forward. All I saw was part of a 9 and the 8. I said, "Oh! S____! grabbed the torpedo tubes then we got hit. All you could hear was the tearing of steel. The Ault slid down our starboard side, taking out part of Mt 43 back to the screw guard. Later we were underway to Yokosuka, Japan at about 8 knots and the Ault came in stern first at about 2 knots on Christmas day.
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