LST 333's Rendezvous with War: Loss of a Norfolk Ship

By CAPT Alexander Monroe, USN (Ret.)
HRNM Docent and Contributing Writer

On October 15, 1942, at 7:30 AM, Mrs. Cornelius Kneeburg, wife of the Master of the Shipfitters and Welders Shop of the Norfolk Naval Shipyard (NNSY), smashed a bottle of champagne across the bow of the newly-constructed Tank Landing Ship LST 333, and the ship slid down the ways of NNSY, into the Elizabeth River in Portsmouth, Virginia. Towed to the St. Helena Annex of the yard for outfitting and receiving its first crew, it was the first of twenty of such “curious appearing ships” built and sent to war by the yard. Barely eight months later, it was the first of the novel ships lost to enemy action.[1] They sailed to landing beaches in the Atlantic, Mediterranean Sea, and Pacific, where their crews performed admirably, contributing significantly to Allied victory.

Mrs. Cornelius Kneeburg, wife of the Master of the Shipfitters and Welders Shops of Norfolk Naval Shipyard, smashes a bottle of champagne of the bow of LST 333 on October 15, 1942, as the Flag Lieutenant of the yard watches. (NNSY photo 3994/42)

The LST was a new class of ship “of which there was no counterpart in the U.S. Navy.” It was developed hurriedly and put into service to meet the exigencies of a new type of operations: Amphibious Warfare.[2] Amphibious warfare required that “landings on enemy beaches have to be made if the war was to be taken to our foes.” These shallow draft vessels would be “capable of running up on a beach, opening bow doors and depositing men and machines directly on the land.” After an early 1942 meeting of various shipyard staffs wherein allocation of construction tasking was formulated, the Secretary of the Navy ordered twenty ships from NNSY on May 19, 1942. Over 1,000 were built, many at sites on inland rivers known as “cornfield shipyards.” Transit to open sea along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers provided initial training for life at sea.[3]

LST 333 is launched from Builder’s way 1 at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard on October 15, 1942, with a tug standing by in the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River. (NNSY photo 4003)

LST 333 was towed to the yard annex to be outfitted for sea and receive a crew for intense training. Following various trials, the ship was delivered to the fleet. On November 20, 1942, it was commissioned USS LST 333, under the command of Lieutenant Paul O. Krahenbuhl, a former Chief Boatswain’s Mate. Four days after commencement of the invasion of North Africa known as Operation Torch and shakedown at Camp Bradford (a part of what is now Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek/Fort Story), the ship left for Africa. Its crew would prepare for Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily. By May 6, 1943, the ship was berthed at the Advanced Amphibious Training Base Arzew, Algeria. Motor Machinist’s Mate Harvey R. Alexander recalled that, “we met practically no resistance and set up a naval repair and supply base in preparation for the later invasion of Sicily.”[4] Taking the island would provide a foothold for later operations in continental Europe.

LST 333 underway for pre-commissioning trials in the Elizabeth River near Norfolk, Virginia, on November 17, 1942.  (NNSY photo 4173/42)

In mid-June 1943, LST 333 joined Convoy Elastic from Arzew to Bizerte, Tunisia. It had been modified to enable carrying pontoons on either side of the ship, permitting the transfer ashore of equipment when the area inshore of the beaching point was too deep. U-593, built at the Blohm and Voss shipyard in Hamburg, Germany, and commanded by Oberleutnant Gerd Kelbling, concurrently left Italy on June 13, 1943, for its eleventh war patrol. The skipper had destroyed 43,216 tons of allied shipping since March 1942.

Lieutenant Paul O. Krahenbuhl reads orders placing USS LST 333 in commission on November 20, 1942, with Rear Admiral Felix Gygax, Norfolk Naval Shipyard, standing behind him. (NNSY)

The U-593 CO reported in his ship’s war diary that at 9:30 PM on June 22, 1943, near Cape Corbelin, Algeria, he fired three torpedoes at two targets that he assumed were merchant tankers.[5] These torpedoes hit both LST 333 and 387, and LT Krahenbuhl’s subsequent letter reported the time of the attack as 7:19 PM, just after sunset and under clear skies. The ship was steaming on course 080 (T), 6 ½ knots and was hit in the starboard quarter.[6] Blown back to the bridge frame and dazed by the explosion’s force, Krahenbuhl understood the serious injuries to his ship that had rendered it powerless and rudderless. Though holed and taking on water, it was beached. When the dead and wounded had been evacuated, an unsuccessful attempt to salvage it was made, and Krahenbuhl brought his crew ashore.[7] Oberleutnant Kelbling and his boat escaped by evasive maneuvering and ended his 11th patrol in Toulon, France, ten days later. His crew used all torpedoes and 9,408 additional tons of shipping were added to his record. Kelbling was awarded the Knight’s Cross on August 19th, 1943.[8]

Gerd Kelbling’s success as a U-boat commander ended on December 13, 1943, northeast of Bougie, Algeria. His boat had torpedoed HMS Holcombe (L 56) and HMS Tynedale (L 96) on the 12th. It was sighted and attacked by a Wellington aircraft from RAF 36 Squadron B, whose pilot radioed USS Wainwright (DD 419) and HMS Calpe (L 71). They successfully forced Kelbling and his entire crew to surface, abandon, and scuttle the boat. The U-boat’s crew spent the remainder of the war in a Canadian POW camp and returned to Germany in 1947.[9]

Nineteen LSTs followed USS LST 333 from the builder’s ways at NNSY. They served in all areas of hostilities. Four were transferred to the United Kingdom. Two more were lost to enemy action and one to grounding. Two were lost in the Mediterranean and one in the Pacific near New Georgia Island. Ten were involved in Operation Overlord, the invasion of Normandy. The LST, more than any class of U.S. Navy ship, performed well in a variety of operations, from transporting enemy prisoners of war away from the battlefield to transporting medical surgical units to invasion sites.[10] Most were decommissioned and broken up at the war’s end. Only one NNSY-built LST survived, USS LST 344, later named USS Blanco County. It sailed to Vietnam from its Norfolk home port and was sold for scrapping on July 1, 1975. In the Second World War, these ships played a central role in winning the war and brought great credit on those who built them.


*Many thanks to Marcus Robbins, Captain Jerry Mason, and Zach Smyers for their help with the research and writing of this blog.

Notes:
[1] “Four Tank Landing ships will be launched Thursday,” Norfolk Naval Shipyard DEFENDER, October 14, 1942, p.1. ; “4 Landing Craft Launched At Norfolk Navy Yard,” Norfolk LEDGER STAR, October 15, 1942, p.2.
[2] “Six more landing ships are launched, a tribute to the Yard’s Speedy War Production,” Norfolk Naval Shipyard’s DEFENDER, Vol. 1, #19, November 11, 1942, p.2.
[3] “History of the Norfolk Navy Yard in World War Two,” Lieutenant Commander Arthur Sydnor Barksdale, USNR, November 1945, p. 158.
[4] Harv’s site.info, at Interview page 1. This is a series of his recollections of service aboard LST 333
[5] U-593 11th War Patrol War Diary, Admiralty Registry Number 30625/12, Uboatarchive.net, Captain Jerry Mason, USN (Ret.) Translator
[6] Ltr, CO, USS LST 333 to Commander-in-Chief, United States Fleet, “LST 333-Final Report of Torpedoing and Beaching of,” 29 June 1943.
[7] Idem.
[8] Ibid., U-593 War Patrol Diary
[9] U-boat.net, U-593, the pilot of the aircraft was F/O C.F. Parker. Though struck by AA fire from U-593, the plane landed safely at Bone, Algeria.
[10] History, Company B, 48th Armored Medical Battalion, landed at Normandy, June 12, 1944.

Fifty Years Ago: A Barracks Ship from Newport News Becomes a Flagship in Vietnam

Consider the barracks ship. Boxy and somewhat nondescript, they are fixtures along the waterfronts of shipyards that service US Navy vessels around the world. They provide berthing, messing, and other miscellaneous functions for the crews of vessels being commissioned, decommissioned, or undergoing major overhaul or rehab work during their life cycle. While this isn't exactly a Cinderella story, fifty years ago a self-propelled barracks ship, a variety of Landing Ship, Tank (LST) built too late to take part in World War II, was plucked from obscurity in Newport News, Virginia, to become an unusual kind of flagship nearly 9,000 miles away.

Somewhere in the Mekong Delta, Riverine Amphibious Assault Force (Task Force 117) flagship USS Benewah (APB-35) of the Mobile Riverine Force supports combat operations led by Armored Troop Carriers (ATCs) passing to her starboard. Both Benewah and the smaller ATCs used during the war in Vietnam were modified from vessels and landing craft built for the Second World War two decades before. (US Navy Photo by Chief Journalist R.D. Moeser/ NHHC image)

As the US Navy became more deeply involved in defending the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, also known as South Vietnam) from its communist northern neighbor fifty years ago, Naval Forces Vietnam had to contend with a riverine type of combat environment on a scale not seen since the Civil War. While the Navy’s research and development emphasis had been going into defeating an increasingly sophisticated Soviet blue water threat, a decidedly low-tech brown water infiltration of the RVN by communist guerrillas was continuing apace, complicating American efforts to bring stability to the country.

The Mekong Delta, situated south of South Vietnam's capital, Saigon, comprised most of the southernmost portion of the country. (Vietnamveteransmemorial.homestead.com)

By 1966, after several years of a enforcing a blockade and patrolling the main waterways along the RVN’s 1,200-mile coastline, it was becoming clear that this approach was insufficient in defeating enemy National Liberation Front (Viet Cong, or VC) insurgents, who were using the Mekong Delta, home to over a third of the country's population, as a base of operations. A more integrated approach between the US Army and Navy was called for, and coordination would begin at the top. Gen. William Westmoreland, Commander of the US Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) and Rear Adm. (Upper Half) Norvell G. Ward, Commander, US Naval Forces Vietnam (COMNAVFORV), conceived of a strike force to take the fight to the VC in their innumerable hiding places within the delta: the Mobile Riverine Force (MRF). Within the MRF, the 2nd and 3rd Brigades of the Army’s 9th Infantry Division would work hand-in-glove with the Sailors of the Riverine Assault Force manning hundreds of small riverine craft.  

In his book War in the Shallows: U.S. Navy Coastal and Riverine Warfare in Vietnam, 1965-1968 (2015), historian Robert Sherwood of the Naval History and Heritage Command wrote:

The MRF kept enemy forces in the [Mekong] delta on the defensive and allowed MACV to focus forces in other areas of the country, secured the vital and populous “bread basket” of South Vietnam, and provided essential backup to the three ARVN divisions there. In many respects, it served as the cornerstone for General William Westmoreland’s southern flank.

Although a shore base called Dong Tam (which roughly translated into “united hearts and minds” in Vietnamese) was created for the MRF from land dredged from the delta, the joint operation’s emphasis on mobility necessitated forming mobile bases closer to the action, where front lines were constantly in flux.  As during the Civil War a century before and the First World War 50 years later, the Navy would have to press whatever vessels were on hand into action. Unlike both earlier wars, during which civilian vessels were modified for dangerous war deployments, there was a ready resource for the MRF at depots and shipyards around the country. Ships originally built to support amphibious landings during World War II were pressed into service as the massive counterinsurgency effort in the Mekong Delta got underway, involving up to 30,000 Sailors at its height.  

The Landing Ship, Tank (LST), first produced in 1942, with the last decommissioned in 2002, could deliver much more than tanks. All manner of vehicles, even railroad cars, were delivered by the lumbering, flat-bottomed marvels. Some of the over 1,000 LSTs built during the 1940s were modified during construction to such an extent that their classification changed. Becoming anything from battle damage repair ships (ARBs) and landing craft repair ships (ARLs) to even mini aircraft carriers, LSTs and their derivatives were some of the most versatile ships ever built for naval service. Built too late to see any action during WWII, the self-propelled floating barracks ship USS Benewah (APB-35), named for a county in Northwest Idaho, more than made up for it after arriving fifty years ago in Vietnam to become a flagship in the Navy’s first “great green fleet.”  

After two decades of serving miscellaneous support roles for the Navy Reserve and the Seabees, Benewah could be found serving as a barracks ship, temporarily housing the crews of new ships being built at Newport News Shipbuilding, near the mouth of the James River in Hampton Roads. In July 1966, as the MRF was in its formative stages, Benewah was reacquired by the Navy and sent to Philadelphia Naval Shipyard for conversion to a brigade command ship. In addition to new quad-40 mm cannons and 3-inch guns, along with .50 caliber and 7.62mm machine gun mounts, her onboard medical facilities were greatly enlarged, and as a finishing touch, a large helicopter platform was installed above it. She was recommissioned on January 28, 1967, and sent to Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek, Virginia, for training.

The chief's lounge aboard USS Benewah (APB-35) was a place for senior Navy NCOs to relax between operations against communist insurgents in the Mekong Delta, and sported a rather large television (for its time). (NHHC image) 

Although she emerged in fighting shape, Benewah’s haze gray finish did not exactly befit her role in a venture that would place Soldiers and Sailors on equal footing. This would be remedied during a stopover in Pearl Harbor en route to Vietnam, where she was painted olive green. The  MRF’s new 328-foot long flagship arrived on April 23, 1967, and immediately began operations as a mobile support base for over 1,000 Soldiers, Sailors, and a variety of assault craft belonging to the Riverine Amphibious Assault Force (TF-117).  Benewah was far from just a place for MRF members to shower, sleep, and get a bowl of ice cream. Her Joint Tactical Operations Center monitored and jammed enemy communications while directing assault operations along the delta's 3,000 nautical miles of waterways.    

 

Benewah is shown here with an assortment of assault craft including ATCs, with one, an ATC(H) equipped with a helicopter pad, and river monitors on the Soi Rap River in October 1967. (US Navy Photo by Photographer's mate 2nd Class C.B. Hall/ NHHC image) 

Benewah was ultimately joined by several other self-propelled barracks ships modified for MRF service such as USS Colleton (APB-36), USS Mercer (APB-39), and USS Neuces (APB-40). They served as the core of a formidable Mobile Riverine Base fielding 3,600 Soldiers and Sailors and their heavily-armored monitors, Armored Troop Carriers (ATCs), and river patrol boats (PBRs) as they fought to stem the insurgency.  

By late 1970, the war in Vietnam, which saw that the reemergence of monitors in riverine combat operations for the first time since the Civil War, and the reappearance of trench (or immersion) foot as an endemic condition for the first time since the First World War, was over for Benewah. After roughly three and a half years of frontline combat service, earning 11 battle stars in the waters of both Vietnam and Cambodia, the former flagship, one of the most decorated of the entire war, was transferred to Naval Base Subic Bay.  Benewah was decommissioned there in 1971 and subsequently transferred to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), which made an unsuccessful attempt to convert her into a hospital ship. She now rests on the sea floor somewhere off the archipelago after being sunk as part of an artificial reef.

The Navy at Inchon

Today marks the 64th anniversary of the Inchon landings, which helped turn the tide of the Korean War. By late August 1950, the allied forces were pushed back towards the city of Pusan (now Busan) near the southeastern tip of the peninsula. The situation was desperate as U.N. and Republic of Korea forces tried to hold back the communist NKPA's assault. Gen. MacArthur's bold yet risky plan was set in motion, and a huge naval armada headed toward the city of Inchon, near Seoul, on the west coast. Inchon was notorious for its extreme tides and expansive mudflats. Any amphibious operation there had to be planned very carefully.

A Navy F-4U "Corsair" from USS Philippine Sea (CV 47)  flies over part of the armada assembled for the Inchon landing. USS Missouri (BB 63) is visible directly below.  

On the morning of September 15, 1950, Navy ships headed up the channel at Inchon and shelled targets on Wolmi-do and in Inchon as landing craft full of Marines headed ashore. The operation was a huge success and soon the US forces were heading toward Seoul to cut off the supply route of the NKPA troops attacking the Pusan Perimeter. 

In addition to the importance of the Navy fleet's role in this amphibious operation, one particular individual is worth noting. Prior to the invasion, Lt. Eugene Clark and two ROK officers were sent to a small island near Inchon to gather intelligence. With the help of some locals, Clark's team pinpointed gun emplacements, noted troop concentrations, swept for mines, checked tidal patterns, measured sea walls, and evaluated possible landing sites. His intelligence was invaluable to making the landings a success.  

Lt. Clark at right with part of his team.

USS LST-342 Ship Model

Shown here is a ship model of USS LST-342.  Currently on display in our World War II gallery, the model was constructed for the museum by Howard E. Pierson in 1979.

LST-342 was one of fifty LST-1-class landing ships, tanks built by Norfolk Naval Shipyard during World War II.  Displacing 1,600 tons (empty), the Navy's amphibious forces used these ships to carry men and supplies into contested beachheads.  Capable of carrying about 3,000 tons of cargo, these ships were "blue-water"-capable.  That means they were able to sail independently and not have to be carried into combat by a larger cargo ship.  The Navy deemed these ships so important that they ordered Norfolk Naval Shipyard to stop construction on large surface warships such the battleship Kentucky (BB-66) and get to work on building LSTs. 

The Navy commissioned LST-342 in Norfolk on December 31, 1942, just six weeks after launching with a ship's company trained entirely at Hampton Roads naval installations.  She immediately set sail from Hampton Roads for the Pacific Theater, specifically Guadalcanal.  Loaded up with combat supplies, she then proceed to Rendova, New Georgia, in the Solomon Islands.  At the time, American ground and naval forces had begun Operation Toenails and were engaged in heavy fighting on and around New Georgia.  Unfortunately for LST-342, the Japaneses submarine RO-106 spotted the landing ship at 1:30 a.m. on July 18, 1943, and fired several torpedoes at her.

The torpedoes found their mark and struck LST-342 near the berthing section. Several dozen American causalities resulted from this action.  Notable losses included the entire mess division and its five African American stewards and cooks, and accomplished Navy combat artist McCelland Barclay.  During the war, Barclay designed recruitment posters for the Navy and several types of camouflage patterns.  Read more about him at our command's website.

The wrecked ship was towed to Florida Island for salvage.  The wreck of the ship can still be seen today and has become a minor tourist attraction.  As a postscript, it is worth noting that the legendary sub killer USS England (DE-635) sank RO-106 a year later.

Thanks to Paulo Soukup via navsource.org for the images of LST-342's wreck.

Omaha Beach Landing Map

A map used by a U.S. Navy coxswain named Hardy W. Wilbank for the Omaha Beach landings has been donated to the museum. Wilbank used the map while piloting an LCI (landing craft, infantry) during the first assault wave on June 6, 1944. The map specifically covers Omaha Beach "East," near the village of Colleville-sur-Mer. Notice that the map is labeled "Fox Red," "Fox Green," "Easy Red," and "Easy Green."  These are the names of the landing areas.  Each of the five code named beaches (Omaha, Utah, Sword, Gold, and Juno) were organized into smaller sectors to serve as guides for the assault.

 This is a picture of Hardy Wilbank as a second class boatswain's mate.

A picture the coxswain took of his ship, USS Boone County (LST-389), a Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company-built LST, alongside USS Bernalillo County (LST-306) at Omaha Beach.