January 24th, 1994 Richmond, MA

To my former shipmates and others who were crew members of the Ernest G. Small (DD/DDR 838);

On October 7th, 1951, at 1801 in the evening, the Small struck a mine while engaged in protecting minesweepers that were performing their dangerous job in Hungnam harbor on the east coast of the Korean peninsula (the Pirate, Pledge, and Magpie had already been sunk in Korea doing this work). The ship was at General Quarters (GQ) at the time, and in an exchange of gunfire with the North Korean Army. Nine men lost their lives in the explosion, and many men were wounded. Of the nine men lost, six were sonarmen, two were assigned to the forward damage control party in the crews mess, and one was a gunner’s mate striker. I was good friends with eight of them and, in their memory; I will tell you what I know of them.

I have also included my whereabouts on this occasion, and some of my personal history in later years for my surviving friends. It is possible that my memory of these events has been somewhat distorted over the past forty three years. Forgive me for misspellings of names, lapses in memory, and distortions of events. They are unintentional, I assure you. I did not sleep for several days after the explosion, and this wreaks havoc with the memory. Those portions of the story of which I have only confused memories, and those portions that I considered not to be in good taste, have been left out.

First, a little history.

I reported aboard the Small on a Friday in May 1950 as a Sonarman 3rd Class. The following Monday morning the ship left for the Panama Canal and San Diego. While sailing down the East coast, the Korean War started, very unexpectedly and very abruptly. We were reassigned immediately to go directly from Panama to Hawaii, refuel, and sail north to meet the 1st Marine Division, enroute from Camp Pendleton, California. They were embarked on amphibious ships. We met them and escorted them to Pusan, South Korea. At this time, the North Korean army had marched down the Korean peninsula and taken all of South Korea except the area around Pusan. We would spend the next several months in fast carrier groups around Korea, and participating in the invasion of Inchon. The Small returned to the U.S. around March of 1951.

During our stay in the U.S. we entered the shipyard in South San Francisco for a three month overhaul. The sonar room, which was on the 01 level (one deck above the main deck) was removed to enlarge Combat Information Center (CIC), and new sonar was installed in a sonar room built into the after, port corner of the 1st Division berthing compartment, under the crews mess, two decks below the main deck.

The ship then went to San Diego for training and to get our manning level back to a wartime complement. Many of the crew had been transferred while we were in the shipyard.

We returned to Korea again, leaving the U.S. in September. Upon our arrival in Korean waters, we were assigned to a shore bombardment group and commenced shooting everything that moved (or looked like it could) up and down the east coast of North Korea. We are now at October 7th, 1951.

I was 20 years old. Two other men with sonar experience were on board this day, and that survived the explosion; Quentin Saylor, a member of the Naval Reserve and a veteran of WWII, and Mardon, a Regular Navy sonar striker seaman who had already survived the sinking of the minesweeper Pirate earlier in this war. Mardon was not used as a sonarman while on the Small, but was assigned to the deck force, despite our efforts to gain his services in the sonar gang. Our failure may have saved his life.

Saylor was a second class harbor defense sonarman (SOH2) and had served at the Little Creek, Virginia Harbor Entrance Control Post during WWII. My guess is that he was about 30 years old in 1951. Saylor was assigned to assist the radar crew in Combat Information Center (CIC) during GQ only because we already had enough sonarmen to provide for sustained operations during General Quarters. This assignment was to save his life. He came aboard the Small during the summer of 1951 after the Small had completed her first trip to Korea. I believe he was a forklift truck operator in a warehouse in Cleveland or Cincinnati at the time he was called back to active duty (considerably under-employed in my opinion). He was to return to the U.S. on the Small. I do not know what became of him.

Mardon was involved in the mine blast, being somewhere in the vicinity of the crews mess, or forward of the mess near the upper handling room for 5" gun mount #1, when the blast occurred. I would guess Mardon to be about 19 years old at the time. He had been assigned to the First Division as I recall. He did not return to Long Beach Shipyard with the Small, but was transferred to another ship while Small was undergoing temporary repairs in Japan. I do not know what became of him

Of the Sonarmen that were lost, only Middleton SOIL was a reserve. Like Saylor, and Mardon, he had boarded the Small during the summer of 1951. Middleton was about 36 years old, was a veteran of the Murmansk convoy runs during WWII as a crewmember of destroyers or destroyer escorts, and had survived German U-boat and aircraft attacks on the convoys of which he was a part. He became a successful insurance salesman in (I believe) Seattle, WA. He was a most likeable man, and was sitting on the locker tops in the berthing space, just outside of the sonar room, the last time I saw him.

Obee (S02) was regular Navy and had also come aboard the Small during the summer of '51. He had, just previous to reporting aboard Small, been an instructor at the Fleet Sonar School in San Diego and was very much up to date in the sonar field. I do not know much of his personal history, but he was smart and we all appreciated his help in keeping the equipment going. He was in the doorway to the sonar room the last time I saw him, engaged in conversation with Middleton.

Keith Manning (S03) was a crewmember of the Small when I came aboard in late May of 1950 when the ship was stationed in Newport, RI. My guess was that he was around 20 years old. He was from North Carolina I believe, and was, for the most part, very quiet. He attended sonar school in Key West and the Small was his first sea duty. I do not know much of his personal history. He was engaged in conversation with Middleton and Obee the last time I saw him.

Eddy Kravetz (SO3) was also aboard when I reported to the Small. He was from Brooklyn, NY. He attended sonar school in Key West and I believe the Small was his first sea duty. I would guess that he was also around 20 years old. Short (5' 6"?), handsome, curly brown hair, an extrovert, he was a funny guy. He was sitting at the sonar operating console when the explosion occurred.

Ronnie Porter (SO3) was also aboard when I reported to the Small. Also an extrovert, he was from New Jersey and he and Kravetz had many friendly arguments about life on either side of the Hudson River. It was worth it just to listen to the two of them jabbing at each other over which place was the better in which to live, New York or New Jersey. I think he was a year or so older than Kravetz, blond, wavy hair, and around 6' tall. He was in the berthing space outside of the sonar room when the explosion occurred.

Grubb (SOSN) came aboard during the summer of '51 from being a student at the San Diego Fleet Sonar School. He was about 18 years old, heavyset, a very likeable guy. He never said much, but listened intently when engaged in helping one of us fix a problem with the equipment. He was in the sonar room the last time I saw him

Joe Munier, a Sheet Metal man, was an usher at my wedding just three months (to the day) before the explosion. We had flown up to San Francisco from San Diego together for that occasion. He was assigned to the damage control party forward. They took up their station in the crews mess.

Al Schlueter was a Damage Control man, good friend of Joe Munier and I, and was also in the mess deck with Joe during General Quarters. They would sometimes drop down into the sonar room if nothing was going on, and we would shoot the bull about everything in general. Both Joe and Al were in the crews mess when the explosion occurred.

I did not know the gunner that was lost. He was a member of the handling room crew of gun mount #2. The gun crew had been secured because the mount had run out of ammunition. He had stayed below, in the 1st Division compartment, to write a letter.

I had been in the sonar room all day. In fact, most of the sonarmen rarely left the area of the Operations Division berthing compartment (which was just forward of, and below the crews mess), the mess itself, or the sonar room, under the crews mess. All of these spaces were destroyed in the explosion.

Sometime around 1645 or 1700 on that day, with the ship at General Quarters, Middleton asked me to go up to the Charthouse and take a sounding on the fathometer there. The Charthouse was on the 01 level, to port of where the sonar room was located before the yard overhaul. The sonar had been picking up a lot of bottom echoes and reverberations and we suspected that the water was quite shallow beneath us. We (the sonarmen) did not know that we were in a harbor. We slept, ate, and stood watch below decks.

I was somewhat unenthusiastic about this trip as it meant opening and shutting all the hatches and watertight doors between sonar and the main deck because of being at GQ. I was, however, getting tired of just sitting around all day, so made the trip. I went up through the double hatch into the mess, aft through the watertight door on the after bulkhead of the crews mess, and up the ladder and through the main deck hatch that was in the after end of the steam line. I then ascended to the 01 level passageway on the inside ladder.

Arriving at the Charthouse I turned on the fathometer and obtained a reading of 7 fathoms (42 feet). The 21MC intercom system box was right there above the chart table so I called down to sonar and reported the depth. I also asked permission to remain topside as it looked like they were getting ready to secure from General Quarters. Middleton agreed that it would not be necessary for me to descend to the sonar room again. A sonar search in such shallow water was of no value. It was getting near sunset.

NOTE: The scanning sonar aboard Small was not able to pick up mines, operating on far too low a frequency (25 kilocycles) for this job. Its resolution was not nearly fine enough to show something as small as a mine. The addition of the reverberations from the harbor floor, so close by, aggravated this limitation. It was designed strictly for anti-submarine work, or to assist in navigating around reefs and shoal waters. Later in my career I would teach mine locating sonar at Key West Sonar School. It operated on 100 kilocycles, could detect a mine at several hundred yards, but was installed, exclusively, on minesweepers.

Somewhat later, the 1MC (ship’s PA system) announced that the mess cooks were to be secured from GQ to prepare for the evening meal. We had not fired our guns for some hours and everything was quiet on the enemy shore.

Shortly thereafter, the Small started firing her 5" mounts and I went out on the port side of the torpedo (01) deck, behind the bridge, to see what all the shooting was about. It was the first time I had been outside all day. Apparently a North Korean artillery piece had been rolled out of a cave in the coastal hills nearby, and was firing at us. We were returning the fire. This exchange of gunfire had been going on sporadically during the morning hours, but I had seen nothing of this, being down in the sonar room.

I was soon joined at the torpedo tubes by several electronics technicians and radiomen who also wanted to see what was going on. The North Korean gunners aim was quite poor, so I don't think any of us gave any thought to the fact that we had no helmets on. The minesweepers were between us and the shore, and a cruiser was to seaward of us. The cruiser also started shelling the shore. We were headed on a northerly course, barely making steerageway, the shore on our port side about three or four miles away.

Suddenly, the forward end of the Small leaped straight up about ten feet, accompanied by a heavy, muffled explosion. A fountain of sea water and black oil shot skyward up the port side around the area between Mount #1 or #2. I could not pinpoint the spot because a twin 40mm gun mount on the port side of the 01 deck, Just aft of the bridge, blocked my view. The foremast whipped back and forth, radio antennas of all descriptions falling from it to the area where we were standing. Everyone there dived under the torpedo tubes as a rain of metal, paint chips, oil, and sea water descended on us. The large TDY radar jamming antenna, mounted on its own mast just behind the foremast, left its perch and bounced off the torpedo tubes, then went through the life lines to crash down onto the main deck. The expansion joint on the 01 level was opening and closing about a foot as the ship rebounded again and again from the shock of the explosion. The debris eventually stopped falling, the ship settled down. A sudden quiet calm fell on the scene. Small was without electrical power. All the ventilation blowers were off. The ship was dead in the water (it had only been making steerageway anyway). Shortly thereafter, the gun mounts started firing again. I was to learn later that the gunners were training and pointing the guns manually during this period when the electrical power was off.

We crawled out from under the torpedo tubes and had a short discussion as to the cause of the explosion. It was generally agreed that it had been too big to have been caused bythe artillery on shore. My immediate guess was that we had struck a mine and that it had occurred in the vicinity of the sonar room. I went forward through the 01 level door to the inside passageway, and went forward to CIC. Entering CIC I found Saylor on the sound powered phones there. All the radar equipment was dead, everyone just standing around, the only light coming from battle lanterns. I asked him if his phone circuit was connected to sonar. He either replied "Yes" or switched to the sonar circuit, but he could not raise anyone in sonar. I tried the 21MC intercom unit in CIC (power was already being restored by the electricians) but could not get any answer from sonar either. I told Saylor where I had been when the explosion occurred, what I had seen, and that it did not look good for those who were below. I also told him that I would try to get down to the sonar room and see what the story was down there.

I left CIC and went aft to the torpedo deck again, went across it to the starboard side, then down to the main deck on the outside, starboard side ladder. I went forward through the door to the ladder that lead down to the crews mess, went down the ladder, and found myself in semi-darkness and in the passageway to the scullery. The passageway was filled with steam from- the overhead to about four feet from the deck. I had to duck down to see where I was going. I turned on the battle lantern I had in my hand (I cannot remember where I got it???) Men were coming out of the I.C. Plot room to my left, where the ships gyro compass, fire, control computer, forward electrical switchboard, and internal communications switchboards were. They were in shock, but appeared to be uninjured. I went to the watertight door on the after bulkhead of the crews mess on the starboard side. The interior of the crews mess was unrecognizable. The deck was flowered up against the overhead. Mess tables and benches were piled to the overhead. Oil soaked rags (probably laundry from the 'laundry bags in the berthing space below) hung over everything. The double width hatch in the middle of the mess deck, and that lead down a double ladder to the 1st Division berthing space and sonar, was facing the rear bulkhead of the mess. Everything was dripping water and black oil. I could hear men working on the other side of the crews mess, but could not see anything but the flickering of battle lanterns over there. I heard fire extinguishers being discharged, but saw no fire. Apparently they were engaged in extricating someone from the wreckage. I left and came back to the main deck again and stood near the rail behind the break on the starboard side. I knew that no one had survived in sonar.

I did not know the whereabouts of Joe Munier or Al Schlueter, but I knew that they time probably badly injured at the least.  About this time, I saw a sailor helping another oil soaked sailor walk aft from the area of the foc'sle. It was Mardon. I asked him if he had seen any of the sonarmen but he could not hear me, being temporarily deafened by the blast and obviously in shock.

Apparently several of the mess cooks had been down in the crews mess or in the steam line just aft of the mess on the port side, for they were now stumbling topside out of the port side door, obviously in shock. Some were being helped by other crewmembers that had appeared from back aft somewhere.

About this time I saw a party of men carrying another oil soaked sailor into the Wardroom (the ships operating room under battle conditions, and directly above IC Plot). I could not see who it was that they were carrying because they were entering the Wardroom on the port side, some distance away from me and in poor light. I asked a Chief that was departing the wardroom a few minutes later who the patient was. It was Joe Munier, whom they had extricated from the crews mess. He had died within a few minutes and without regaining consciousness. Schlueter was still in the crews mess, having been killed instantly.

Word soon spread that a ninth man was missing. He had been a member of the handling room crew of mount #2. This mount had run out of ammunition except for star shells, so the gun crew had been secured. He had stayed below in the 1st Division compartment to write letters.

We were able to see daylight coming up through the jagged edges of the deck in the crews mess. It was coming through the large opening on the port side, made by the explosion.

The next morning, a burial at sea was conducted on the fantail for Joe and Al. All those not on watch attended. We had lost our refrigerators which were near the mess deck and had no other choice.

Later still, on our way back to Yokosuka, Japan, we ran into heavy seas preceding a storm that was descending on us. The bow broke off and was sunk by gunfire from an ocean going Navy tug boat, the Hitchiti, assigned as our escort. Unable to move forward or aft (Because of the bent-in hull plating up forward, we went in an uncontrollable circle when going astern.), the Hitchiti towed us to Kure, Japan. There we would ride out the storm.

A destroyer from New Zealand was across the pier from us. It was the Rotoiti (Row tow ee tee). She had suffered numerous shell hits from the North Korean army artillery in a brazen attempt to rescue prisoners of war from a camp near an enemy held river. I am unsure whether the attempt was successful, but the ship was now leaking badly and in some danger of sinking at the pier. We supplied her with our portable pumps and enough fuel to keep them running all night. She was dry-docked the next morning.

When we finally entered the dry-dock in Kure, and the water had been drained from the dock, we saw the true extent of the damage. Apparently the mine had exploded very close to the forward bulkhead of the crews mess; perhaps ten feet lower than the mess deck, and to port of the centerline. The Operations Division berthing space, one deck lower than the mess and forward of it, had vanished with the bow section, the after bulkhead of this compartment now being the front of the ship. The lower, port quarter of this bulkhead was missing, torn out by the explosion. The 1st Division berthing space under the mess was unrecognizable, no decks existing between the bottom of the ship and the ripped up mess deck. The port side hull plating was pushed into the space that had been the 1st Division compartment and was wrapped around the sonar room.

Several days were spent cleaning off the oil soaked wreckage with steam hoses and lifting debris out of the dry-dock. Girders were welded in place across and along the void that had been the crews mess and the 1st Division compartment. Simultaneously, the Japanese yard workers were constructing the temporary bow over on the shipyard. The bow was eventually lowered into the dock and the girders welded to it. New hull plating was installed to replace the bent plating that had been cut away. When finished, you could enter the starboard, after door to the mess deck, but the deck was only about 7 feet square with a railing around it so you wouldn't fall off it into the bottom of the ship. A drop light was hung from one of the steel beams welded across the void, to provide lighting near the bottom so a check could be made on water leakage while we were in transit (it did not leak).

It was an eerie place to be, looking down into this darkened void with the drop light gently swinging back and forth, moving the shadows of the girders to and fro. This void was once the crew’s mess, crews berthing space, ammunition handling room, and the sonar room. I avoided the place unless others were present.

My only jobs while in Kure were to escort the caskets to the Yokosuka Naval Hospital, an overnight train trip from Kure, and to destroy the sonar equipment as it was hauled out of the ship. This was done with a sledgehammer, a set of cutting pliers to remove the wiring, some kerosene and a little gasoline to get things going. I tried to make it unreconstructable, but it was tough going. The wreckage was hauled away in big trucks.

When the temporary repairs were completed, the Small made a test run in the Inland Sea. The blunt bow left a furious wake behind the ship, but it could make 25 knots. Adding more turns to the screws after reaching 25 knots did not increase our speed.

We returned to the U.S. by way of Pearl Harbor (escorted by an LSD), departing Pearl Harbor on the tenth anniversary of the attack by Japan on December 7th, 1941. When we left our berth, preparations were being made over at the Arizona memorial for services to be held later in the morning. We arrived in Long Beach Naval Shipyard on the 19th of December. Our trip from Pearl was frustrated by our escort, three LSMRs that struggled to make nine knots. The Captain released them a couple of hundred miles from Long Beach and they went south to Camp Pendleton. We immediately went on up to 20 knots, looking for the entire world like a giant snow plow. After this, the story is pretty well known (I think).

The game plan was to transfer everyone from the Small to other ships that required their skills while the ship was rebuilt. We realized that this would probably be the last time we would see each other. A first class radar man, Larson, invited some of us up to his apartment for Christmas dinner. His wife had arrived from Wisconsin to meet the ship and had rented an apartment on the third floor of a brick apartment house there in Long Beach. Mywife had arrived from San Francisco and we were in a motel not far away. Just before sitting down to dinner a rolling earthquake struck Long Beach and we found the whole city, and the apartment building, rocking back and forth. It was an awesome experience to look out over the heaving city. From this altitude it looked like long ocean swells were passing under the buildings. It was as though the Gods were not quite finished with us yet.<> I was transferred from the Small to another destroyer in San Diego on the 1st of January 1952. It sailed the next day for Newport, RI. When I left the Small, a destroyer hull that had never been completed at the end of WWII, was brought alongside. The intent was to cut off its bow and weld it onto the Small. This hull was to have been the Seymour D. Owens (DD 767) if it had been completed in 1945 when WWII ended.

The years went by and I went to instructor duty at the Fleet Sonar School in Key West, teaching mine locating sonar. I guess the administrators thought I was more qualified than anyone else at the school to teach this subject. I then went to submarine school and submarine duty, seldom seeing a destroyer again (although I was to listen to them pass nearby on submarine listening sonar many times).

Around 1961 or 1962, while stationed on the guided missile submarine Growler (SSG 577) in Pearl Harbor, I was on the after superstructure deck one morning and saw a destroyer entering the basin opposite the submarine base. Her bow carried the numbers '838'. It was the Small, but configured as a DDR now. It was the first time I had seen her since I left her back in Long Beach, ten years before.

Late that afternoon, I walked around the basin and went aboard her. I remember the quarterdeck watch asking me if I needed any help in finding my way around. (It is uncommon to have a submarine Senior Chief visit a destroyer, most submariners getting lost very easily on 'large' surface craft.) I told him "No, but thanks anyway," and headed forward. I went down to the mess deck, but could not bring-myself to go down below it to where sonar had been. The mess was no longer the jumble of steel or the empty void I had seen ten years before. The wreckage was still there, but only in my mind. It was just a typical destroyer crew’s mess. I then went up to the 01 level. The torpedo tubes were a hazy memory, an ASROC launcher or some other apparatus kept blurring my vision of the spot where they were. I knew they were still there, but it was hard to see them. I returned to the quarterdeck and saw the plaque-there.  It listed all the men who had been lost on her ten years before. I left the Small and walked back to the Growler.

Growler left the next morning on one of her endless three month patrols into the Western Pacific. My station for leaving port was up forward on top of the missile hangars, checking the ('rig for dive') deck wrench operated valves. Going down the ladder through the forward torpedo room hatch I got one last look at the Small. It was the last time I would ever see her. The guided missile boats were seldom in port, always cruising in waters well clear of shipping lanes, and rarely engaged in ASW exercises. If a destroyer passed nearby while we were at sea, I would track it on our listening sonar, but I generally had no knowledge of its identity. I was to track-destroyers at long range, on several occasions, transiting the Pacific or on exercises with aircraft carriers north of the Hawaiian chain. Again, I had no knowledge of their identity. They did not know Growler was there. One of them could have been the Small.

I retired from the Navy in November 1967 as a LT JG and was employed by General Electric in Pittsfield, MA. We were building the geo-ballistic computer system for the Poseidon FBM submarines.

Later (1971) I went to Erie, PA, employed at the GE Transportation Systems Products Department. I was sent to New Haven as Director of Field Training for the new commuter cars we had delivered there. This assignment lasted two years.

I then left GE (1973) and became Chief Transportation Inspector for the Metropolitan Region of, first Penn Central, then Conrail, at Grand Central Terminal in New York City. Over 540 trains a day run on these tracks, presenting another type of peril. I would lose my best friend there, struck by a train.

I retired from the railroad in 1982, bought a plane and spent the next two years flying around the country. Even got to look down into Mount St Helens, still smoking away and belching rocks on occasion. My wife and I still fly everywhere together.

Arriving back in Pittsfield, GE asked me to return to work so I left mywanderings and, for seven years, toiled on the computer system for the Trident

II submarine launched ballistic missile.

I am presently employed at Turbo Power & Marine, a subsidiary of Pratt & Whitney in Middletown, CT, and in the power plant, aero-derivative, and turbo-generator field. I fly home whenever weather permits. It is only a 30 minute trip.
NOTE: Could not fly to this reunion as the plane has no seats in it, the interior being replaced. Not so good timing, but this trip was on short notice.

My Navy past continues to haunt me.

Last summer (1993), while engaged in light conversation with a fellow employee (non-veteran), he mentioned that he had been to New York City that past weekend. He had visited the Intrepid Sea, Air, & Space Museum and visited a very different looking submarine there, - the U.S.S. Growler. He did not know that I was her Senior Chief Sonarman for three years. I thought she had been scrapped many years ago. Mywife and I went to New York to see her. She is perfectly preserved there, a Regulus missile perched on her launcher. I had not seen her since 1962, thirty one years before! It was like a trip back in time. Growler had been decommissioned in 1965 and laid in the backwaters of Philadelphia Naval Shipyard for 25 years in 'reserve status', forgotten by everyone. Her service life only lasted from 1958 to 1965, made obsolete by the Fleet Ballistic Missile submarines.
A couple of weeks ago I received the invitation to attend this reunion of the Ernest G. Small. I have not seen the Small, nor heard anything about her, since I last saw her in Pearl Harbor in 1961, 33 years ago. Like the Growler, this ship will not go away. Both of them contain my most vivid memories of the Navy.

Growler was to catch fire at sea while we were preparing to launch a practice Regulus missile (Growler carried 4400 gallons of aviation gasoline for her nuclear armed missiles). From the launcher area on her foredeck, back into her wake, the boat was engulfed in flaming gasoline. The 7-ton, 35 foot long missile on the launcher carried 800 gallons of gas, and there it was, perched in an inferno. Fortunately, submarines are well equipped to fight topside fires. We quickly submerged a bit, washing the fire into the Pacific. The missile was scorched and partially flooded, but it did not explode (or you would not be reading this). We worked under her superstructure deck for two weeks, night and day, to replace all the cables thathad burned up.

Earlier, Growler had partially flooded while at deep submergence. But that is another story.

After leaving the Small I could not smell the pungent odor of grade C bunker fuel oil that ships burn in their fire rooms without thinking of the events of October 7th, 1951. That day, and for most of the next two weeks, Small was engulfed in the smell of this oil leaking from her wreckage.
The Small is gone now, - but only to those who never rode her. She is out there somewhere, cruising along the North Korean coast, as long as any of us are still here.

I wish you all the same good luck I have had over the years.
Bob Von Allmen (USN Ret.)

-NOTE: Other destroyers that struck mines in Korean waters included the Brush 9/27/50, Mansfield (DO 728) 9/30/50, and later, the Walke. The latter ship experienced heavy loss of life (I think 28 men) in her engineering department berthing space back aft.