NORTH KOREAN SHORE BATTERIES:
HAZARDOUS TO THE HEALTH OF U. S. MINESWEEP
SAILORS
PERILOUS DUTY IN WONSON BAY IN 1951-1952
By Burl E. Gilliland,
CAPT, USNR-Retired
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Ens Gilliland off North Korean coast |
The 3 ships of Mine Division 54, early 1951 |
The fury of the war for minesweeping personnel in
Korea reached its apex during 1951. It was particularly risky
for sailors aboard the wood hulled minesweepers of the AMS class
ships. The AMS ships were really refurbished YMS type ships of
the World War II era. (For instance, the USS HERON (AMS-18) had
been YMS 369 during WWII, had been "mothballed," and
then had been recommissioned as an AMS at the start of the Korean
War).
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| Day after day these minesweepers would
sweep the sea lanes and harbors to make safe passageways for each
of the four U. S. battleships and their entourage of several cruisers
and destroyers to gain access to fire on enemy gun emplacements,
supply dumps, and rail and highway routes. We routinely swept
beneath the umbrella of firing from 16-inch gun mounts of the
USS MISSOURI, USS IOWA, |
Wonsan is 6 miles away. New Jersey BB-63 fired at will |
Interdicting fire from USS Ney Jersey, BB-64 |
USS NEW JERSERY, and USS WISCONSIN
and the 8-inch and 5-inch guns of their accompanying battle groups.
(Only four U. S. battleships of the USS IOWA class were in commission
at that time). Each of these surface warfare groups came, at different
times to take up their positions and deal misery to the enemy.
They took turns, meaning that at no time that I ever observed
did more than one battleship group simultaneously occupy a firing
station in a particular locale. |
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I was on the USS HERON (AMS-18). The group of AMS's, AM's, and
DMS's were routinely busy--amid the noise, fury, and confusion—doing
sweeping duty by day and patrol duty by night. The year of 1951
was characterized by a great deal of shore battery activity
directed toward minesweepers that were often working close in
to shore. Sister ships that I readily remember that were regularly
subjected to shelling from enemy shore batteries included the
|
The ship ahead of us, USS Redstart, being shelled by the enemy |
The enemy shore batteries on Kalma Gak Point, just east of Wonsan,
is firing on the ship ahead of us. We got hit on the next pass
through |
wood
hulled USS FIRECREST (AMS-10), USS WAXBILL (AMS 39), USS REDHEAD
(AMS-34), and USS KITE (AMS-22). Steel hulled minesweeping types
that we operated with included the USS REDSTART (AM-378), USS
MURRELETE (AM-372), USS ENDICOTT (DMS-35), USS DOYLE (DMS-34),
and several others.
On one occasion we were sweeping
close in to the inner harbor at Wonsan. Our sister ship, USS
FIRECREST (AMS-10) was in the lead and we were second in a
line of several ships.
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| Enemy shore battery firing was
particularly intense that morning in 1951. As enemy shells burst
all around us, getting closer and closer by the second, I feared
that we were going to get hit. I could see that the FIRECREST,
just ahead of us, was also being "zeroed in upon." At
that moment, someone yelled, "the FIRECREST has been hit."
And within a second or two, I felt the jolt of our own ship, the
HERON, taking a hit. We had, indeed, ventured much too close to
shore. According to our bridge |
A ship and the mainland viewed through "the Hole" |
USS Heron, AMS-18 hit by North Korean shore batteries in Wonsan
Harbor, 1951 |
personnel, the enemy shelling
that hit the FIRECREST and the HERON came from Kalma Gak Point,
a peninsular location just east of the city of Wonsan, North Korea.
All the minesweepers in the line cut their cables to their minesweep
gear, left all gear in the brink, and retreated, in previously
swept waters, as fast as our engines could carry us. Only the
FIRECREST and the HERON were hit that day. And both hits were
above water line, which was a lucky blessing. Not a single person
on either ship was injured: not even by a flying splinter.
The shore munitions shells were said to be approximately 75mm's.
The one that hit the FIRECREST did not explode, but, instead bored
all the way through the ship at the main deck level. It went right
through the forward part of the ship, starting at the starboard
side, through the plywood deck of |
|
the
galley, out the port side hull, and splashed some 50 yards away
into the bay. Later that morning, I could see clear through
the bored hole that the big bullet had reamed.
The bullet that hit the HERON entered the wooden hull on the
forward starboard side, struck and exploded in the Handy Billy
(an emergency gasoline powered pump that was stowed on the inside
bulkhead). The explosion, above the water level, blew a huge
gash in the side of the ship and the shells detonator deflected
through the bulkhead, into the galley
|
Sin Do Island, in the Wonsan arbor as seen through the shell
hole in our side, 1951H |
From front to back: ENS Vaughn; LTJG Vermilya, XO (with "Little
Stinker helmet); ENS Gilliland; LTJG Roth, CO; LCDR Janeckey,
COMINDIV54, aboard USS HERON (AMS-18) |
and down through the galley deck, through
the crew's quarters and deck below, and into the ship's magazine.
It landed harmlessly on the deck of the magazine compartment.
In addition to my primary duty as engineering officer, one of
my collateral assignments was damage control officer. The damage
control party, using the port side Handy Billy (the one that
was not destroyed) to hose down the explosion area to prevent
the vessel from catching on fire. The whole event was fast paced
and scary.
Following
protocol, the shore batteries were
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|
immediately plastered by U.S. surface warfare ships and by
rocket firings from carrier based aircraft. Our minesweep ships
quickly made rendezvous with our tender, some 5 or 6 miles out
near the mouth of the bay. I believe that our tender ship at
that time was the USS COMSTOCK (LSD-19). Anyway, shipfitters
from the tender applied patches over the shell damages, caulked,
painted over the patched areas, and within an hour or so we
were back streaming new minesweep gear and going about our regular
routine.
The shore battery shelling occurred a few miles further in
Wonsan harbor from where four other minesweepers had, a few
months prior, been sunk by enemy mines. These
|
CO, LTJG E.S. Roth; EO, Ens. B.E. Gilliland on USS Heron, 1952
Yokosuka, Japan |
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sinkings included two, steel
hulled, AM's, [the USS PIRATE and the USS PLEDGE] with heavy
loss of the lives of a majority of their crews. One of our sister
AMS's, the USS PARTRIDGE, was also sunk and, as I recall, almost
all personnel aboard were lost. I believe that only 4 or 5 people
survived the PARTRIDGE's sinking. We lost four minesweepers
that year. I believe I recall that the fourth vessel that was
lost was also an AMS, the USS MOCKING BIRD. Considering the
frequency and intensity of shelling by shore battteries during
the entire year of 1951, we were fortunate, indeed, to incur
so few hits from North Korean shore gunners.
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Photographs by Burl Gilliland, Ens,
USNR
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