The U.S. Navy in the Korean War by Edward Marolda

Author:Edward Marolda [Marolda, Edward J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781612515137
Publisher: Naval Institute Press

A PBM Mariner patrol plane of Fleet Air Wing 6 returns to Curtiss (AV-4) from mine-hunting patrols off North Korea. The Navy also used helicopters to spot enemy minefields at Wonsan. (Naval Historical Center)

News of these losses alarmed the Sailors throughout the blockade and escort forces.

James E. Alexander, a petty officer on the destroyer John A. Bole (DD-755), recalled his uneasiness after seeing Mansfield with her bow blown off: “My bunk was in the forward crew’s quarters. That’s where a mine would hit. If it happened in the predawn hours, casualties would be horrendous—a dozen dead chiefs and fifty dead crewmen. Assuming they were able to find and identify our remains.”

Admiral Struble understood these unspoken concerns. His own operational background included experience in nerve-wracking minesweeping operations. After the Japanese surrender he had assumed command of Minecraft, Pacific Fleet with the responsibility for clearing mines throughout the Western Pacific.

Struble assumed the North Koreans would mine their prime harbor at Wonsan. If they had done as ragged a job as they did at Inchon, perhaps his few minesweepers could clear sufficient lanes by D-day, originally set for 15 October. He also had great confidence in his Advance Force commander, Admiral Hoke Smith.

Smith, Commander Task Force 95, the Blockading and Escort Force, was assigned the additional duty of commanding the Advance Force for Wonsan. Smith was fifty-eight years old at the time of Wonsan, the oldest of the senior line officers waging the war at sea that autumn. A Naval Academy graduate with the Class of 1915, he had been a battleship Sailor in both world wars. He served as a junior officer on board New York (BB-34) in the North Atlantic in 1918 and commanded South Dakota (BB-57) in the Central Pacific in 1944. More appropriately for the task awaiting at Wonsan, Smith had commanded a mine division and a 1,160-ton light minelayer. A man of uncommon courage well suited by temperament and experience for the responsibility, Smith would distinguish himself by his personal leadership of the minesweeping missions at Wonsan and Chinnampo.

The North Koreans began the war without a mine capability of their own. So as soon as the United States intervened, the Soviets wasted no time shipping thousands of mines across their Siberian border with North Korea. Some of the weapons arrived without the proper arming gear as at Inchon; others were laid hastily by inadequately trained North Koreans. But the Soviets took their time at Wonsan, creating multiple minefields, showing the North Koreans how to lay contact mines in patterns from open-decked barges, and emplacing the magnetic mines themselves. The Soviet advisors departed Wonsan the first week of October, their job done, just before Admiral Smith’s Advance Force arrived. By 10 October Smith realized he faced the monumental task of clearing more than four thousand mines covering four hundred square miles.

Smith already knew that minesweeping would be decidedly more difficult in the Sea of Japan than in the Yellow Sea. Most Korean rivers flow into the Yellow Sea, accounting

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.