Plankowners

By Stuart Landersman

The information about the book is not available as of this time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669807056

Stuart Landersman

Stuart Landersman is a retired Navy Captain with thirty years of service. He grew up in Poughkeepsie, New York. He was an Eagle scout, president of his high school class and active in sports, particularly basketball which he played also in college. After college he went into the Navy and served in destroyers, frigates, cruisers and amphibious warfare ships and commanded a number of destroyers. He had thirty months of combat action in the Viet Nam conflict including duty on the staff of Commander Seventh Fleet. He had a tour of duty as aide to Superintendent of the Naval Academy, attended the Naval Postgraduate School, Naval War College and National War College and has a Masters degree and a Master Mariners license. After retiring from the Navy he worked for the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University, served as a Convoy Commodore and taught shiphandling in simulators. He has written a number of articles on naval matters and has published a novel, SHELLBACK, and an autobiography, STU’S SEA STORIES.

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Copyright © 2022 by Stuart D. Landersman.

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Rev. date: 02/10/2022

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INTRODUCTION

I live in Coronado Cays, which is part of the City of Coronado, California, which is part of San Diego County. People who live in the Cays come from all parts of the country and include many retirees, many vacationers, some dual home owners and a few employed in the San Diego area. A significant number of Cays residents are retired military like me, Stu Landersman, your humble author. I’m a retired Navy captain who spent most of my thirty years of Navy service in destroyers. I retired from the Navy in 1983. My wife Martha and I moved to Coronado Cays from Rancho Bernardo in 1997 and Martha passed away in 2009. So, since then I’ve been living by myself.

I have two sons; David, who is married to Viki, and Mark, who is married to Jil. David and Viki have a son, Killian Clifford Landersman, my only grandchild. All the family call him KC and I often refer to KC as my favorite grandson.

David, Viki and KC live in Maryland. Mark and Jil live in Temecula, California which is about 50 miles from Coronado, so I’m fortunate to see Mark and Jil most Sundays, when Mark is not involved in his favorite hobby, off-road racing.

I was living in Coronado Cays, retired from the Navy and employed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory as their Pacific Fleet Representative, when I wrote my novel Shellback, published in 2012. Later, I wrote my auto-biography Stu’s Sea Stories, published in 2018. The novel, Shellback, was actually enjoyable to write because it was fiction, not true. I could take a real situation, experience or operation that I had actually participated in and make it much more interesting, much more dramatic, even exciting. Or I could make one up, use my imagination. That’s fiction.

Stu’s Sea Stories was not fiction. An auto-biography is supposed to be true and memory of an octogenarian ain’t what it used to be. So, writing my auto-biography was not as enjoyable as was my novel. Still, I labored through and surely put more into that book than I should have.

What I call The second phase of Stu’s life in Stu’s Sea Stories is covered in Chapter Fifteen through Chapter Forty of that book. Those chapters cover my 30 years of Navy service. Chapter Thirty One is USS HEPBURN (DE 1055) covering the years 1969 through 1971. It’s 18 pages long. Seems like one should be able to say a great deal in 18 pages, shouldn’t they? Well, sons and daughters-in-law didn’t think so. All harassed me, claiming that I could not possibly put all of my HEPBURN experiences into one chapter, even with 18 pages. They insisted that my time as the Plankowner Skipper of HEPBURN had to be more than a chapter, it should be a book.

So, here it is, Shipmates. Here is a book about my perspectives as Captain as to the origin of USS HEPBURN (DE 1055).

We were all Plankowners. What’s a Plankowner, you may ask? Perhaps a quote from Stu’s Sea Stories says it best:

Among sailormen it is considered an honor to be part of the first crew of a brand new ship; to be among those that put the ship in commission; to breath life into the steel hull so that she can perform her mission as part of the United States Navy. Those that have that honor; those that put a Navy ship in commission are known forever after as Plankowners of that ship.

And to be the Commanding Officer, the Captain, the Skipper of a brand new ship was another honor that is best described by a famous author:

Only a seaman realizes to what extent an entire ship reflects the personality and ability of one individual, her commanding officer. To a landsman this is not understandable, and sometimes it is even difficult for us to comprehend, but it is so.

A ship at sea is a distant world in herself and in consideration of the protracted and distant operations of the fleet units, the Navy must place great power, responsibility and trust in the hands of those leaders chosen for command. In each ship, there is one man who, in the hour of emergency or peril at sea, can turn to no other man. There is one who alone is ultimately responsible for the safe navigation, engineering performance, accurate gunfiring and morale of his ship. He is the commanding officer. He is the ship. This is the most difficult and demanding assignment in the Navy. There is not an instant during his tour as commanding officer that he can escape the grasp of command responsibility. His privileges in view of his obligations are almost ludicrously small; nevertheless, command is the spur which has given the Navy its great leaders.

It is the duty which most richly deserves the highest, time honored title of the seafaring world; CAPTAIN.

Joseph Conrad

CONTENTS

Chapter

INTRODUCTION

1 USS ENGLAND DLG 22

2 THE SHIP

3 ADMIRAL ARTHUR J. HEPBURN, USN

4 COMMANDING OFFICER COMMENTS: THE NEW USS HEPBURN DE-1055

5 THE COMMISSIONING CEREMONY

6 FIRST DAYS COMMISSIONED

7 THE CAPTAIN

8 CAPTAIN’S NAVY TIME

9 THE EXECUTIVE OFFICER

10 THE ENGINEERING OFFICER

11 THE OIL KING

12 FAVORITES

13 FITTING OUT

14 SHIPHANDLING THE DE 1052 CLASS

15 INTRODUCTION TO SHIPHANDLING

16 SOME BASIC CONSIDERATIONS

17 EPILOGUE

18 THE CASE FOR SINGLE BOILER OPERATION

19 GOING OPERATIONAL

20 FAMILIES AND FRIENDS

21 THE CAPTAIN’S CHAIR

22 A BIT OF WARMTH IN THE COLD WAR

23 FROM DESTROYER ESCORT TO FRIGATE

24 ONCE I WAS A HEPBURNER

25 USS HEPBURN DE 1055

26 A PROPER FAREWELL

If I’m going to tell you the story of my time as Commanding Officer of USS HEPBURN (DE 1055), I’ll have to start with what came just before, what set me up for that duty. We’ll have to look at where I was and what I was doing when I received orders to HEPBURN. I think it’s valuable to hear about what came just before, let’s say what set the stage for the HEPBURN story.

I was serving as Executive Officer of USS ENGLAND ---.

CHAPTER ONE

USS ENGLAND DLG 22

1967 - 1969

Navy ships are named according to a set of rules. Well, maybe not really rules but perhaps precedence. And just like precedence the established pattern is not always followed. For instance, the early aircraft carriers were named for the earliest of battles like Lexington, Saratoga, Bunker Hill. Later carriers were named for later battles like Midway and Coral Sea. Then came carriers named for people who had done a great deal for the nation or the Navy like Kennedy, Forrestal and Eisenhower.

Battleships had always been named for states, cruisers for cities, and destroyers for those that had given their lives for the naval service. These, of course, included Marines. USS ENGLAND was not named for the country, as many expected. The ship was named for John Charles England, an ensign who was killed on board USS ARIZONA at Pearl Harbor on that fateful day, December 7, 1941.

Submarines were named for denizens of the deep until leaders of the submarine community realized that they could get real public support if they used names to which the public could relate. The earliest Fleet Ballistic Missile submarines were of the George Washington Class and included submarines named Patrick Henry, Daniel Boone, George Washington Carver and Will Rogers.

With the introduction of guided missiles, some surface combatant ships were modified to have the missile capability. These ships were equipped with surface-to-air guided missiles. At first there were two families of surface-to-air guided missiles, Talos and Terrier, and a few years later came a third, Tartar. They were known as The Three T’s.

The largest of these missiles had the longest range and was named Talos, and Talos was so big that it could be accommodated only on large ships, so a number of World War Two gun cruisers were converted to Guided Missile Cruisers and equipped with Talos.

Terrier was the next smaller sized surface-to-air guided missile. After a short-lived experiment on a destroyer it was determined that a larger ship, larger than a destroyer, would be needed to carry Terrier. A new class of ship was authorized by congress and was built; the Guided Missile Destroyer Leader, designated DLG.

With a number of minor variations and class changes, thirty of these ships were built. Although the class name changed from Guided Missile Destroyer Leader to Guided Missile Frigate, the class designation DLG remained.

The first ten DLG’s had a 5inch54 gun mount forward and a Terrier missile system aft. The next nine DLG’s had two Terrier missile systems, one forward and one aft. The only guns on these double enders were small guns; two 3inch50 twin mounts.

USS ENGLAND (DLG 22) was a double ender with two Terrier missile systems, one forward and one aft. As part of the destroyer community she was considered to have capabilities in three warfare areas; anti-surface, anti-submarine and anti-air. Clearly, though, ENGLAND was an anti-air-warfare (AAW) ship. Her missile systems also included some of the best radars, communications and plotting facilities of the Navy.

Careful attention by experienced leadership had seen that USS ENGLAND was properly manned and trained so that upon deployment to WESTPAC, to the Seventh Fleet and to the Gulf of Tonkin, her taskings would be accomplished with appropriate performance.

Through all the years of the Viet Nam conflict, DLG’s filled three duties in the Gulf of Tonkin. These were called North SAR, South SAR and PIRAZ. The three stations were located generally between the ships firing naval gunfire support on the gun line and the aircraft carriers operating further out to sea in Xray, Yankee and Zulu Stations.

PIRAZ stood for Positive Identification Radar Advisory Zone. This station was between North SAR and South SAR. It was the most demanding job of the three, requiring continuous monitoring/counting of carrier aircraft going in over the beach and those coming back. This to preclude a stranger from following the carrier aircraft to attack the carrier.

The three DLG’s were tasked to be ready to pickup any flight crew that had to ditch in the Gulf; hence SAR; Search and Rescue. In her previous WESTPAC deployment USS ENGLAND had set the unofficial record by making fourteen rescues; fourteen air crewmen taken from the Gulf waters and returned safely to their carrier wearing an ENGLAND ball cap.

In her 1968 deployment Captain George Mitchell was Commanding Officer of USS ENGLAND; the Captain. He was a Naval Academy graduate and had seen action in World War Two, Korea and now Viet Nam. His hometown was Albuquerque, New Mexico. Where someone was from really didn’t matter much to career Navy people but the USS ENGLAND executive officer, Commander Stu Landersman, would soon learn that his Captain’s home town was indeed important.

Long ago the State Department started the Sister City Program in which U.S. cities were matched with foreign cities for visits and cultural exchanges. Now here was George Mitchell, a favorite native son from Albuquerque, commanding a U.S. warship making a port visit to Sasebo, Japan, the Sister City of his hometown.

Sasebo was always considered a good liberty port by Navy men, but the visit of George Mitchell in USS ENGLAND exceeded all expectations. It was all arranged in advance.

As the ship approached the pier, there was the mayor of Sasebo, smiling and wearing the big ten gallon cowboy hat he had been given on his visit to Albuquerque. There were the city council, a traditional Japanese band and geisha girls, all bowing and smiling. Sasebo rolled out the welcome carpet. There were tours and parties for the crew. There were formal Japanese dinners for the captain and his officers.

After three days of being royally hosted it was time to leave Sasebo and return to the Gulf of Tonkin. On the pier to bid farewell was the same as the smiling welcoming group but now there was also on the bridge of USS ENGLAND, Captain George Mitchell, wearing a beautiful Japanese kimono and bowing to those on the pier.

Back in the Gulf of Tonkin this time it was to North SAR station. USS ENGLAND had served in all three of the DLG stations in the past months and so it was nothing new to the well trained and experienced USS ENGLAND crew. North SAR was, as the name implies, in the northern part of the Gulf which put USS ENGLAND closest to North Viet Nam. Attack aircraft from the carriers often flew over or nearly over the North SAR station as they made their way to targets and on their way back to their carriers.

At 0430 one dark morning USS ENGLAND picked up, on her radar, three high speed surface contacts coming out of North Viet Nam and heading for the North SAR station. The ship went to General Quarters while trying to identify the approaching contacts. The shotgun, a destroyer paired with the DLG to provide naval gun support on the SAR station, moved between USS ENGLAND and the approaching boats.

In CIC, Operations Officer George Fitzgibbons exchanged some gibberish by radio with the boats then looked at the Captain. They nodded to each other and the Captain gave orders to stand down and be ready to receive the approaching boats alongside.

USS ENGLAND people learned that these were South Vietnamese Navy attack boats that conducted highly classified raids into North Vietnam on special missions to capture specific North Vietnam personnel. These boats had been instructed to approach ships on North SAR station only if they were in an emergency situation and these boats were indeed in trouble. So sensitive were these operations that in ships that were to serve on North SAR, only the CO and one other officer were to know of these operations. USS ENGLAND remained at a modified General Quarters the entire time these boats were alongside so as to limit the crew from seeing the boats and what went on.

In destroyer-type ships the only hospital-type facility is a closet-sized sick bay run by the ship’s Doc; a chief hospital corpsman cleared for independent duty. Little known by most destroyermen; the ship’s mess deck, where the enlisted men ate, was designated as the emergency battle dressing station. There were 20 tables in the mess deck and in an emergency situation each of these tables could be used for a patient. The ships on SAR stations in the Gulf of Tonkin each carried a doctor for just such rescue situations.

USS ENGLAND stretcher bearers carried 21 badly wounded Vietnamese from their boats to tables on the mess deck, putting one on the sick bay examining table. Doctor Ted Grandolfo functioned in a triage mode, seeking out and giving care to the most needy in sequence. Every table with every wounded patient had an IV suspended from the overhead. There were also some walking wounded seeking care. The doctor was assisted by the ship’s chief corpsman and the chief corpsman from the shotgun destroyer. Five dead were placed in body bags.

Tiger Chang was commodore of the attack boats. He was walking with a bloody flesh wound on his shoulder and, most significant; his left eye-ball was out of its eye socket, hanging just above his left cheek. The doctor determined that he could not replace the eye-ball so he fashioned a basket-like sling of moist bandage and adhesive tape that held the eye-ball in position just above the left cheek. This was done with hope that a hospital facility might be able to save the eye. With his eye-ball hanging in the sling and a bloody bandage on his shoulder, Tiger Chang kept moving among his wounded men giving them encouragement.

All the while these medical procedures were ongoing the three attack boats were moored to the fantail of USS ENGLAND. Soon it was learned that the mission of these boats had been to bring back to Danang three specific prisoners. Clearly the boats had encountered significant opposition. They were severely shot-up and there were dead and wounded. The inboard boat, the one directly alongside USS ENGLAND, was the flagship of the commodore; Tiger Chang. On that boat were three prisoners sitting on the deck with backs against a deck house. All three were bound, gagged and blindfolded. They didn’t move or make a sound the entire time the boats were alongside. Sitting on the deck with their backs against a deck house directly across from the prisoners were three of Tiger Chang’s men, each one holding an automatic weapon pointed directly at the prisoner in front of him. These guards also never moved or said a word. Each never took his eyes from his prisoner and each kept his weapon pointed directly at his prisoner; finger on trigger.

Aircraft carriers have small hospitals on board and with daylight helicopters from the carriers started to arrive and by 0900 the airlift of wounded was completed. Doctor Grandolfo had tried convincing Tiger Chang to go to the carrier and try to save that dangled eye but the commodore refused. Clearly, Commodore Tiger Chang wanted to be seen coming back into Danang, himself wounded, his boats all shot-up, having successfully completed his mission despite suffering heavy losses.

In USS ENGLAND it was well past breakfast time, the crew had not eaten and they were still at a modified General Quarters. The mess deck was indeed a mess with lots of bloody dressings and IV remains. It had to be picked-up, hosed down, mopped up and disinfected before it could serve as a dining room. There was no breakfast in USS ENGLAND that day, there was maybe something closer to brunch.

As part of the normal daily routine in the ship, when it was quiet with no search or rescue at hand, Captain Mitchell liked to have a bridge game after dinner and it fell upon the executive officer to have three bridge players at the captain’s cabin each evening. Early-on the exec had learned that Doctor Grandolfo was a bridge player and could be relied upon as one of the three, and the exec often joked that the doctor’s most valuable contribution to the deployment was to be one of the bridge players for the Captain. Then along came Tiger Chang and his three boats that put the doctor in triage mode. Stu Landersman never again joked that Doctor Grandolfo was only on board to play bridge.

Remember back in her previous deployment USS ENGLAND had set the unofficial record for search and rescue with 14 aviators pulled from the drink? Well, on this deployment USS ENGLAND filled more than that on her mess deck with 21 and a few more walking wounded.

Toward the end of the WESTPAC deployment, Stu Landersman received a planning letter from the officer in the Bureau of Naval Personnel who made duty assignments. Stu could expect orders to his next duty assignment shortly after he returned from deployment. Those orders would probably be to new construction, to be Prospective Commanding Officer of a KNOX Class DE being built at Todd Shipyard, San Pedro, California. This sounded real good to Stu. New construction! Commanding Officer of a brand new ship! And San Pedro was where the ship was being built which means the family could continue to live in nearby Huntington Beach.

New construction meant that he would be the commissioning CO, that he would ever after be a Plankowner of that ship.

Commander Stu Landersman had come aboard USS ENGLAND for duty as executive officer in Long Beach, California, many months before this current deployment. The ship had just returned from deployment and had then gone through long periods of training and maintenance including a time in the Long Beach Naval Shipyard to upgrade some combat and information systems. Then there was more training time.

Soon after Stu came aboard he had noticed two beautiful paintings fixed to the wardroom bulkhead. He had not seen pictures like these in other ships. His limited knowledge of such art work suggested that these were water colors, one showing USS ENGLAND underway slowly in the calm water of Long Beach Harbor, the other showing the ship in heavy seas.

Stu asked some of the other officers; those who had been on board longer than he had, if they knew anything about these paintings. No one knew anything other than the artist’s name which was in the lower right hand corner of each painting; Arthur Beaumont.

Years before, when USS ENGLAND had come to make her home port in Long Beach, a local chapter of the Navy League had adopted the ship. Ever since, when-ever the ship was in her home port, members of that Navy League chapter would do good things for the ship. The Sailor of the Month, with his lady, had a weekend in a very fine resort hotel. Others had blimp rides over Los Angeles and a few such designated sailors were taken to baseball and football games.

Often the president of the Navy League