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History | |
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Name | USS Gandy |
Namesake | Andrew Jackson Gandy |
Builder | Tampa Shipbuilding Company, Tampa, Florida |
Laid down | 1 March 1943 |
Launched | 12 December 1943 |
Commissioned | 7 February 1944 |
Decommissioned | 17 June 1946 |
Stricken | 26 March 1951 |
Honors and awards | 1 battle star (World War II) |
Fate | Transferred to Italy, 10 January 1951 |
History | |
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Name | Altair (F 591) |
Acquired | 10 January 1951 |
Stricken | 1971 |
Fate | Sunk as target ship, 1971 |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | Cannon-class destroyer escort |
Displacement |
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Length | |
Beam | 36 ft 10 in (11.23 m) |
Draft | 11 ft 8 in (3.56 m) |
Propulsion | 4 × GM Mod. 16-278A diesel engines with electric drive, 6,000 shp (4,474 kW), 2 screws |
Speed | 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph) |
Range | 10,800 nmi (20,000 km) at 12 kn (22 km/h; 14 mph) |
Complement | 15 officers and 201 enlisted |
Armament |
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USS Gandy (DE-764) was a Cannon-class destroyer escort in service with the United States Navy from 1944 to 1946. In 1951, she was transferred to Italy, where she served as Altair (F 591) until she was stricken and sunk as a target in 1971.
Andrew Jackson Gandy was born on 20 October 1924 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. While serving on board the cruiser USS San Francisco Seaman Second Class Gandy was killed defending the ship against Japanese torpedo planes during the Battle of Guadalcanal. He was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross.
Gandy was launched on 12 December 1943 by the Tampa Shipbuilding Co., Tampa, Florida; sponsored by Miss Ruby Gandy, sister of Seaman Gandy; and commissioned at Tampa on 7 February 1944.
Gandy, following shakedown training in Bermuda waters, joined Escort Division 22 at New York. After escorting Yukon (AF-9) to Norfolk, Virginia, she departed New York on 15 April 1944 as part of the escort for fast tanker Convoy CU-21 bound for Northern Ireland. The second day of the voyage at 0806, on 16 April, U-550 torpedoed and sank tanker SS Pan-Pennsylvania. During recovery of survivors by Joyce (DE-317), Gandy and Peterson (DE-152) at 0950, Joyce made sound contact with the U-boat and delivered a depth charge attack. When U-550 surfaced about 600 yards (550 m) on Gandy's starboard bow, Comdr. Sessions ordered "Right full rudder, come to 320, open fire and stand by to ram."
Gandy headed for the submarine's conning tower but the U-boat's deft maneuvers caused the escort destroyer to hit it 30 feet (9 m) from the stern. Gandy hauled clear, silenced the submarine's machine gun battery with a short burst of gunfire, then observed the Germans abandoning ship. Joyce recovered twelve survivors as Gandy, with nearly four feet of her bow strake gone and several plates buckled, assessed her damage. U-550 was shaken by a muffled explosion and sank. Four of Gandy's men were injured in the fight.
Gandy continued with the convoy which reached Lisahally, Northern Ireland, on 26 April 1944. She returned to New York on 12 May and helped escort nine more convoys safely out of New York to Lisahally and Liverpool by 24 May 1945 when she returned from the last of these voyages.
The sunken German U-boat was found on 23 July 2012 in deep water about 70 miles south of Nantucket, Massachusetts. [1]
After repairs in the New York Naval Shipyard, she sailed on 8 June for brief training in Cuban waters before proceeding to Hawaii. She departed Pearl Harbor on 6 August 1945 en route to the Philippines via the Marshalls and the Carolines, then sailed from Leyte on the 24th in the escort of an occupation force convoy which entered Tokyo Bay on 1 September.
Following the formal signing of the surrender of Japan, the next day she escorted a convoy from Okinawa to Yokohama, Japan, and then departed on 16 November to serve the Philippine Sea Frontier on weather patrol between Manila, Samar, and Manicani. She departed Samar on 1 February 1946 and reached Norfolk, Virginia, via Hawaii, San Pedro, California, and the Panama Canal, on 26 March 1946.
Gandy decommissioned at Green Cove Springs, Florida, on 17 June 1946. She was in reserve status until 10 January 1951 when she was transferred to Italy under the Military Assistance Program. She served the Italian Navy under the name of Altair (F 591) until she was stricken and sunk as a target in 1971. [2]
Gandy received one battle star for service in World War II.
USS Edsall (DE-129) was the lead ship of her class of destroyer escort in the United States Navy. She was the second Navy ship named in honor of Seaman Norman Edsall (1873–1899).
USS Peterson (DE–152) was an Edsall class destroyer escort, the first United States Navy ship so named. This ship was named for Chief Water Tender Oscar V. Peterson (1899–1942), who was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously for his actions during the Battle of the Coral Sea.
German submarine U-550 was a Type IXC/40 German Navy U-boat built during World War II. She was laid down on 2 October 1942 by Deutsche Werft in Hamburg as yard number 371, launched on 12 May 1943 and commissioned on 28 July under the command of Kapitänleutnant Klaus Hänert.
USS Hayter (DE-212/APD-80) was a Buckley-class destroyer escort in service with the United States Navy from 1943 to 1946. In 1967, she was transferred to South Korea where she served as ROKS Jonnam until 1986.
USS Robert I. Paine (DE/DER-578), a Buckley-class destroyer escort of the United States Navy, was named in honor of Marine Corps Private Robert I. Paine (1923–1942), who was killed in action during the attack on Tulagi on 7 August 1942. He was posthumously awarded the Silver Star.
USS Laning (DE-159/APD-55) was a Buckley-class destroyer escort in service with the United States Navy from 1943 to 1946 and from 1951 to 1957. She was scrapped in 1975.
USS Menges (DE-320) was an Edsall-class destroyer escort built for the United States Navy during World War II.
USS Gustafson (DE-182) was a Cannon-class destroyer escort in service with the United States Navy from 1943 to 1946. In 1950, she was transferred to the Royal Netherlands Navy where she served as Hr.Ms. Van Ewijck (F808) until 1967. She was scrapped in 1968.
USS Cates (DE-763) was a Cannon-class destroyer escort built for the United States Navy during World War II. She served in the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and provided escort service against submarine and air attack for Navy vessels and convoys.
USS Muir (DE-770) was a Cannon-class destroyer escort in service with the United States Navy from 1943 to 1947. In 1956, she was transferred to South Korea, where she served as Kyongki (F-71) until 1977. The ship was then cannibalized for spare parts in the Philippines.
USS J.R.Y. Blakely (DE-140) was an Edsall-class destroyer escort in service with the United States Navy from 1943 to 1946. She was scrapped in 1973.
USS Joyce (DE-317) was originally commissioned as a US Coast Guard Edsall-class destroyer escort built for the U.S. Navy during World War II. She served in the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and provided destroyer escort protection against submarine and air attack for Navy vessels and convoys. During its World War II service, on two different engagements with enemy submarines, the Joyce rescued survivors of the tanker SS Pan- Pennsylvania and its sister ship USS Leopold. Joyce received one battle star for its service during World War II.
USS Kirkpatrick (DE-318) was an Edsall-class destroyer escort built for the U.S. Navy during World War II. She served in the Atlantic Ocean the Pacific Ocean and provided destroyer escort protection against submarine and air attack for Navy vessels and convoys. Post-war, she was converted to a radar picket ship to support the DEW Line.
USS Keith (DE-241) was an Edsall-class destroyer escort in service with the United States Navy from 1943 to 1946. She was scrapped in 1974.
Convoy SC 118 was the 118th of the numbered series of World War II slow convoys of merchant ships from Sydney, Cape Breton Island, to Liverpool. The ships departed New York City on 24 January 1943 and were met by Mid-Ocean Escort Force Group B-2 consisting of V-class destroyers Vanessa and Vimy, the Treasury-class cutter Bibb, the Town-class destroyer Beverley, Flower-class corvettes Campanula, Mignonette, Abelia and Lobelia, and the convoy rescue ship Toward.
HMS Begonia was a Flower-class corvette that served in the Royal Navy during World War II. In 1942 she was lent to the United States Navy and commissioned as USS Impulse. Returned to the Royal Navy in 1945, Begonia was stricken and sold into merchant service. She was wrecked off the coast of Spain in 1970.
HMS Mahratta was an M-class destroyer of the Royal Navy which served during World War II. Begun as Marksman, she was damaged while under construction, and dismantled to be rebuilt on a new slipway. She was launched as Mahratta in 1942, completed in 1943, and quickly pressed into service. After a short but busy career in the North Atlantic and Arctic, largely guarding merchant convoys, she was torpedoed and sunk on 25 February 1944.
The CU convoys were a World War II series of fast trans-Atlantic convoys to the British Isles. The earliest convoys of the series were tankers sailing directly from petroleum refineries at Curaçao to the United Kingdom. Most convoys of the series assembled in New York City and included fast freighters and troopships, with tankers arriving from Aruba via TAG convoys to Guantánamo Bay and GN convoys from Guantánamo to New York.
SS Pan-Pennsylvania was a Type T3-S-BF1 tanker of the United States, which was sunk by German U-boat U-550 in April 1944.
USS Tollberg (APD-103) was a United States Navy high-speed transport in commission from 1945 to 1946. In 1965, Tollberg was transferred to Colombia and served as ARC Almirante Padilla (DT-03) until being stricken and scrapped in 1973.
This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships .The entry can be found here.