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N7KTP > NAVNET 01.11.04 05:36l 64 Lines 3671 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 26241_N7FSP
Read: GUEST
Subj: USS AUSTIN (DE-15)
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Sent: 041030/2045z @:N7FSP.#SEA.#WWA.WA.USA.NOAM West Seattle, WA. on 145.010
Austin escorted convoys throughout Pacific Islands in World War II \
By FRED MILES WATSON - Managing Editor - Northwest Navigator
Named after Carpenter Chief Petty Officer John Arnold Austin, the
Evarts class ship was built for the United Kingdom at the Mare Island
Navy Yard as HMS Blackwood (BDE-IS) under the terms of a lend-lease
agreement.
She was taken over by the United States Navy on Jan. 2S, 1943 and
redesignated DE-15; and commissioned on Feb. 13, 1943, with Lt. Cmdr.
H. G. Claudius, USNR, in command. The escort was commissioned as simply
DE-15. The name Austin was not assigned until Feb.19, 1943, six days
after she went into commission.
Austin was equipped with three, 3-inch gunmounts, six, 40mm and
five 20mm antiaircraft gunmounts. She was also outfitted with eight,
depth charge projectors, one hedgehog projector and two, depth charge
tracks. She could attain a top speed of 20 knots and was nearly 290
feet in length. Austin displaced 1,140-tons and her draw was nine feet,
11-inches. A total of 199 Sailors served in Austin.
Assigned to Escort Division 14, the ship conducted shakedown
training out of San Diego between March 23 and April 23. On that final
day of shakedown training, she split off to escort a convoy to Cold
Bay, Alaska. She returned to San Diego on May 11, and began convoy
escort missions between the West Coast and the Hawaiian Islands.
Between mid-May and early September, Austin made two round-trip voyages
between San Diego and Oahu and then a single, one-way run from the West
Coast back to Pearl Harbor. On the second day of September she stood
out of that base and sailed for the Aleutian Islands and, on Sept. 14,
joined the Alaskan Sea Frontier. For a little more than a year, Austin
sailed the cold waters of the north Pacific escorting ships between
Alaskan ports, conducting patrols, performing weather ship duties, and
serving as a homing point for aircraft.
The destroyer escort departed Alaska on Sept. 23, arrived in San
Francisco a week later, and received a regular overhaul which lasted
until Nov. 17. On Dec. 3, she once more weighed anchor for Hawaii.
Austin operated out of Pearl Harbor as a training vessel with the
Pacific Fleet Submarine Training Command until March 20, when she set
out for the Central Pacific.
On April 1, the destroyer escort reported for duty with forces
assigned to the Commander, Forward Areas, and, for about two months,
conducted antisubmarine patrols and air/sea rescue missions out of
Ulithi Atoll in the Western Caroline Islands. She finished that
assignment on June 10, when she shaped a course for the Mariana
Islands. For the next four months, Austin operated out of Guam and
Saipan. In addition to antisubmarine Patrols and air/sea rescue
missions, she escorted convoys to such places as Iwo Jima, Eniwetok,
and Okinawa. Following the cessation of hostilities in mid-August, she
conducted search missions in the northern Marianas for enemy holdouts
and for survivors of downed B-29 aircraft. The warship also patrolled
Truk Atoll briefly before occupation forces arrived there in strength.
On Oct. 12, she departed Guam in company with the other ships of
CortDiv 14, bound for San Pedro, Calif., and inactivation. On Nov. 17,
she reported to the Commander, Western Sea Frontier, to prepare for
decommissioning and, on Dec. 21, 1945, was placed out of commission at
Terminal Island Naval Shipyard. Austin was berthed with the Pacific
Reserve Fleet. On Jan. 8, 1946, her name was struck from the Navy List
and the Terminal Island Naval Shipyard completed scrapping her on Jan.
9,1947.
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