Piedmont (AD 17) - Naval Cruise Book

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shipyard. While in Eniwetok, however, PIEDMONT personnel performed underwater repairs to ships while they were in a floating drydock, or, in many cases, while they were waterborne. PIEDMONT's repair and supply departments were always open for business. Day and night, destroyers, destroyer escorts, patrol craft and other ships returning from Saipan were repaired and provisioned. After the first week, the ship was like a conveyor belt with stores being loaded on the starboard side and the requirements for the combatants being unloaded on the port side. During the month of July, 99 ships were provisioned with 888 tons of stores. The month of August turned out much the same, with ships returning from the invasion of Guam. PIEDMONT Sails into the Southwestern Pacific In September 1944, with the Central Pacific Campaign virtually completed, PIEDMONT sailed into the southwestern Pacific with the rest of the fleet in preparation for the Philippines Campaign. By early December, damaged ships began returning to the island haven of Manua. USS SAUFLY IDD 4051 and USS KILLEN IDD 5931 were both severely damaged by japanese suicide planes and were assigned to PIEDMONT for repairs. A shipcheck showed KILLEN's hull damage to be too extensive to be repaired by PIEDMONT. SAUFLY's hull damage was repairable but she needed a replacement barrel, slide and housing for the number one five-inch gun, which were not available in the area. Quick to respond, PIEDMONT's repair department set to work and stripped USS KILLEN. SAUFLY's hull damage, extending from her weather deck davits to her third platform deck, was repaired, as were her main 5 4 battery director and radar. The ship was then returned to the fleet ready for sea. Temporary repairs made KILLEN seaworthy, and SAUFLY's damaged five-inch gun was placed aboard as cargo. She then sailed for the West Coast for permanent repairs. Seeadler Harbor: The MOUNT HOOD Tragedy On the morning of 10 November 1944, while anchored in Seeadler Harbor in the Admiralty Islands chain, two explosions were heard to port. USS MOUNT HOOD IAE 1 11, lying about 3500 yards away, had blown up. No trace of MOUNT HOOD remained. Between MOUNT HOOD and PIEDMONT, USS MINDANAO IARG 31 was' ' anchored and suffered terrible punishment from the explosions. Fire and rescue parties were immediately dispatched from PIEDMONT to MINDANAO, and other ships alongside her, where the First Lieutenant of PIEDMONT took charge of the rescue operations. The doctors and corpsmen gave first aid treatment to the injured and those dazed by the explosions. Motor launches brought the seriously injured to PIEDMONT's sick bay, which soon overflowed to cots set up onthe weather decks. In the operating rooms the doctors worked until the last casualty had been tended. It was some time before the sick list dropped to normal from the high figure of 72. 'V . Though PIEDMONT suffered only superficial damage from the explosions, numerous five-inch projectiles and steel fragments flew over MINDANO and landed on PIEDMONT's decks and superstructures most of them ricocheting off. One man, a signalman, was: killed by the base of a five-inch shell. N One 250-pound aerial bomb penetrated the movie locker on the boat deck while another plowed through a Below left, this sign in 1944 proudly proclaimed Honolulu Crossroads of the Pacific. Below, USS PIEDMONT in Pearl Harbor, 1944. i wx 952, ,, 5 A--1 .J... . m

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., gs Y. fb ,Commissioned S S .Izmuarv 5 0 ' 1 PIEDMONT was commissioned at a time when the Navy was rapidly expanding and most of the ship's personnel were as new to salt water as was the ship. Early in February 1944, PIEDMONT departed Tampa on a shakedown cruise to Norfolk, Virginia. While in the Norfolk Naval Ship Yard, PIEDMONT was painted in a camouflage design, a scheme to delude the enemy as to the size of the ship. On 6 March 1944, PIEDMONT sailed for the Panama Canal en route to the war in the Pacific. After a brief stop in Panama, PIEDMONT sailed on to San Diego to refuel and replenish supplies. On 21 March, he was underway for Hawaii. Less than 24 hours after arrival in Pearl Harbor, PIEDMONT had taken his first Pacific Fleet destroyer alongside. PIEDMONT remained in Pearl throughout the 12 'K A 1? USS PIEDMONT COMMISSIONED: This original collage honoring PIEDMONT's 1944 commissioning ceremony was actually created some 38 years ago. months of April and May during the feverish preparations for the Marianas Campaign. During the month of May, the crew set what was then a record in expending a total of 110,000 man-hours on repairs to other ships. At one time PIEDMONT had seven destroyers alongside while at the same time working on jobs for more than 30 other destroyers moored in the harbor. Having served this comprehensive apprenticeship, PIEDMONT sailed from Pearl to join the fleet in the Marshall Islands in mid-June. July and August were months of great fleet activity at the distant Pacific atoll called Eniwetok. Periodically, task group units supporting the Marianas Campaign would pull into Eniwetok for rest, replenishment and repairs. Unlike duty at Pearl, all jobs were a race against the clock, without the availability of shore facilities. In Pearl most underwater repairs to other ships were done by the

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'4'.. . lb 1 1 1 r 1 1 1 1 xr i 1 I 1 Ii E tier of bunks. Fortunately, neither bomb .exploded and personnel in both compartments escaped injury. I Operations sched- . uled for. early 1945 demanded the presence 1 of all available tender strength at Ulithi in the Caroline Islands. Early in january PIEDMONT departed the Manus Islands for Ulithi with Service Squadron Ten. The months of january through April demanded of Doc PIEDMONT his most sustained affort. Those same months witnessed the seaborne invasion of Lingayen, Iwo Jima and Okinawa and found the repair department averaging more than 1,000 completed job orders and almost 100,000 man-hours of work each month. In the peak period extending from 23 January to 19 February, a period of 18 days, more than 1400 job orders were completed for the 18 ships tended. During that period, PIEDMONT again became a pipeline in order to meet the replenishment demands of ships alongside. Due to the demands of fleet operations, for 18 days all hands worked continually supplying the 45 ships at the atoll with a gross tonnage of 686 tons of fresh and dry provisions. I I I I During the long, bitter weeks of ,the , Iwo Jima-Okinawa operations, the United States ,Fleet suffered more damage than at any. other time in its history. USS CANSEVCORT IDD 6081, beached and abandoned after being hit by a suicide plane during the Mindoro landings of November 1944, was patched, refloated, and towed to Ulithi for temporary repairs which would permit her to return to the United States under her own power. It was found that the explosion of the number four boiler had completely destroyed her after engine room. Extensive damage had been inflicted upon her bilge web frames and she had been pumping 500 to 1000 gallons of water per hour in order to remain afloat. First, she was drydocked at Mindaro and the concrete which had been used in patching her hull was chipped out and metal patches were substituted. Then, following 30 days of availability alongside PIEDMONT, she returned to the States under her own power, weathering a typhoon en route. Mission: Keep Destroyers Fit to Fight On 20 April 1945, USS MCDERMUT IDD 6771 made port with a three-foot by five-foot hole in her port side. In addition she suffered a damaged downcomer tube in her number three boiler, a smashed 24-inch search light, a damaged 40mm gun and a faulty torpedo tube. Ten days later, MCDERMUT was underway from alongside PIEDMONT ready for sea. USS HALE IDD 6421, having suffered extensive damage to her port side bridge structure during a collision with a carrier during refueling, came alongside on 1 May 1945. just 22 days later she stood out of Ulithi to rejoin 14 -4115. PIEDMONT pollywogs are transformed into shellbacks, 1944. the fleet fully repaired. - I Q ' .- The most badly battered of the battle-damaged ships serviced by ,PIEDMONT at Ulithi was USS HAZEL- WOOD IDD 5311 which came alongsideon 4 May 1945. Her entire bridge superstructure was amass of tangled wreckage, the forward stack had been ,completely destroyed, extensive bomb damage extended downto her I 1 1 1 1 interior spaces and the radio room had been destroyed.. Numerous Ndead were still to be removed from the wreckage. In the 20 days that HAZELWOQD remained alongside, the following repairs were completed: The wreckage of her bridge was cleared away down to the level of her main deck, and temporary patches were welded on the main deck to insure watertight integrity. The 40mm gun director platform and the after steering platform were remodeled into a navigating bridge. A 12-inch searchlight, a standard compass and three sound-powered phones were installed. A canvas awning was fabricated and installed over the rebuilt bridge structure as protection against the weather. Finally, emergency cabling was run and on 24 May 1945 HAZELWOOD sailed for a Navy yard in the States. USS STERETT IDD 4071 was taken alongside on 25 April 1945 after having suffered serious hull damage off Okinawa as a result of a kamikaze attack. Temporary repairs were made in only five days to enable her to return to the States safely. With the cessation of all organized resistance on Okinawa in June, PIEDMONT moved to the naval base at Leyte, Philippines, for much-needed rest and repairs. However, the stay was short and on 30 June 1945 PIEDMONT sailed for Eniwetok. At Eniwetok the repair department was ,occupied chiefly with the construction and development of fleet recreation facilities ashore in anticipation of the fleet turn-around scheduled for late August. The fleet did not 3 1 1 1 r 1