U.S.S. BOOTH
AND
U.S.S. CARROLL
LAUNCHING
JUNE 20, 1943

THE WHITEHEAD & HOAG CO.
NEWARK, N.J.
BUTTONS, BADGES, NOVELTIES AND SIGNS

U.S.S. Booth (DE-170)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Career

Laid down: 30 January 1943
Launched: 21 June 1943
Commissioned: 19 September 1943
Decommissioned: Not Indicated
Struck: 15 July 1978
Fate: Transferred to the Philippines, then lost in a typhoon.

General characteristics

Class: Cannon class destroyer escort
Type: DET (diesel electric tandem motor drive, long hull)
Displacement: 1,240 tons (std) 1,620 tons (full)
Dimensions: 306' (oa), 300' (wl) x 36' 10'' x 11' 8'' (max)
Range: 10,800 nm at 12 knots
Speed: 21 knots
Complement: 15 officers, 201 enlisted men
Armament: 3 x 3''/50 Mk22 (1x3), 1 twin 40mm Mk1 AA, 8 x 20mm Mk 4 AA, 3 x 21'' Mk15 TT (3x1), 1 Hedgehog Projector Mk10 (144 rounds), 8 Mk6 depth charge projectors, 2 Mk9 depth charge tracks.
Propulsion: 4 GM Mod. 16-278A diesel engines with electric drive, 6000 shp, 2 screws.

U.S.S. Booth (DE-170) was a Cannon class destroyer escort built for the U.S. Navy during World War II. She served in the Atlantic Ocean and then the Pacific Ocean and provided escort service against submarine and air attack for Navy vessels and convoys. She was laid down on 30 January 1943 at Newark, New Jersey, by the Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Co.; launched on 21 June 1943; sponsored by Mrs. Annie L. Booth; towed by ocean going tug U.S.S. Sagamore (AT-20) from her building yard to Norfolk, Virginia, via the Cape Cod Canal (24 - 26 June 1943), completed at the Norfolk Navy Yard; and commissioned there on 18 September 1943, Lt. Comdr. Donald W. Todd in command.

World War II Atlantic Ocean operations
After fitting out, Booth put to sea from Hampton Roads, Virginia, on 14 October 1943 for her shakedown. The destroyer escort returned to Norfolk from the Bermuda area on 13 November and entered the navy yard for post shakedown availability. From 1 December to the 17th, she was at Washington, D.C., taking part in experimental work at the Naval Research Laboratory at Bellevue and the Washington Navy Yard. During the latter part of the month, Booth helped to train prospective destroyer escort crews in the Hampton Roads area.

At the beginning of 1944, the warship's division, Escort Division (CortDiv) 15, became a part of Task Force (TF 62). Over the next 16 months, Booth and her division mates completed eight round trip voyages to the Mediterranean and back escorting UGS and GUS convoys, and she logged Gibraltar, Casablanca, Bizerte, Palermo, and Oran, as eastern termini. Though she investigated a number of sound contacts for possible enemy submarines, her only verifiable scrape with the Germans came from the air when planes attacked convoy UGS-48 off Cape Bengut, Algeria, on the night of 1 August 1944. The convoy's antiaircraft gunners repulsed the attack quickly, and none of the ships in the convoy suffered any damage.

World War II Pacific Theatre operations
With the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, Booth began preparations for service in the Pacific theater. After a week of training near Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the destroyer escort set course for the Panama Canal. She transited the isthmian waterway on 10 June and, after visiting San Diego and San Francisco, California, departed the latter port on 26 June. The warship escorted motor vessel MV Permanente to Pearl Harbor, arriving there on 2 July. Booth then trained in the Hawaiian Islands for almost two weeks before getting underway on the 15th to proceed Eniwetok, in the Marshall Islands, for the Marianas. She arrived at Saipan on 26 July. After making one round trip convoy escort mission between Saipan and Iwo Jima with convoys SIW-62 and IWS-54, Booth put to sea on 9 August for Ulithi Atoll, Caroline Islands. She reported in at Ulithi the following day and, on the 12th, embarked upon the first of two convoy runs to Okinawa, beginning with convoy UOK-47 and returning with OKU-20. On the same day the surrender document was being executed on board the U.S.S. Missouri (BB-63) in Tokyo Bay (2 September), Booth was getting underway at Okinawa to return to Ulithi with convoy OKU-25 (her Okinawa bound leg having been with UOK-52) from the second of those convoy screening missions.

End of War Occupation Duties
During the autumn of 1945, Booth assisted occupation forces in accepting the surrender of bypassed islands and in repatriating their garrisons. On 8 September 1945, she set out from Ulithi with Lt. Kumura Fumio and Cpl. Kanichi Suzuki, representatives of the Imperial Japanese Army, embarked, to investigate Japanese installations and activities on Sorol Island, in the Western Carolines. Manning her 3 inch and 40 millimeter guns, Booth put ashore a landing party under Comdr. J.W. Buxton later that day, recovering the men a little over two hours later. The destroyer escort put the landing party ashore on Sorol again the following morning, recovering them soon thereafter and moving on to proceed toward Eauripik Island, arriving there the following day to put a force ashore to reconnoiter the island. After recovering her men shortly before noon, Booth arrived off Ifalik Island that afternoon. Her landing party visited that island during the day on 11 September, and then returned to Ulithi the following day (12 September).

On 11 October, Booth put to sea with Lt. Col. Lyman D. Spurlock, U.S.M.C. (who was relieved by Maj. Robert J. J. Picardi on 30 October), and party, on a four week assignment evacuating Japanese forces from Truk, Nomoi, and Puluwat atolls and preparing those places for the arrival of U.S. occupation forces. The warship arrived at Guam on 7 November but returned to sea the following day bound for the United States with 2 officers and 45 enlisted marines for transportation.

Post War Decommissioning
Steaming via Pearl Harbor, San Diego, and the Panama Canal, the destroyer escort arrived in Green Cove Springs, Florida, on 28 January 1946, where she was decommissioned on 14 June 1946. Towed from Mayport, Florida, to Charleston, South Carolina, by the auxiliary ocean tug U.S.S. ATA-178 (10 - 11 April 1947) Booth was placed in ''deferred disposal status pending possible transfer to a foreign government'' on 7 July 1947, and two days later was towed back to Mayport by ATA-209, where the former convoy escort was inactivated on 28 July 1947.

Booth Converted to the Datu Kalantiaw (PS-76)
Booth's ''possible transfer to a foreign government'' ultimately came to pass. Reconditioned by the Brewer Dry Dock Co., Staten Island, New York, the ship was loaned to the Republic of the Philippines under the Military Assistance Program on 15 December 1967. The Philippine Navy commissioned her on that day at the Philadelphia Navy Yard as Datu Kalantiaw (PS-76). On 30 June 1975, while she was still operating on loan under a foreign flag, the destroyer escort was redesignated a frigate, FF-170. Subsequently, given the Philippine Navy's continuing need for the ship ''in the interest of National Defense Requirements and in the furtherance of the Security Alliance between the [Philippines] and the United States,'' the U.S. Navy disposed of her by Foreign Military Sale and Booth was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 15 July 1978.

Datu Kalantiaw continued to serve under the Philippine flag until Typhoon Clara drove her aground on 21 September 1981 on the rocky northern shore of Calayan Island, in the northern Philippines. Ammunition ship U.S.S. Mount Hood (AE-29), as she neared Subic Bay that day, slated for a period of upkeep, received orders to ''get underway again that evening to coordinate rescue operations'' at the scene of the tragedy. Consequently, Mount Hood, working in concert with Philippine Navy units ''in a most adverse weather environment,'' retrieved 49 bodies in two days of operations, and ultimately sailed for Manila to turn them over to Philippine authorities, rescuers no longer hearing tapping from inside the ship that lay on her beam ends where Clara had cast her. Soon thereafter, Rear Admiral Simeon Alejandro, Flag Officer in Command of the Philippine Navy, ''made an emotional address to the officers and men of Mount Hood upon the ship's arrival on Manila,'' the auxiliary's historian records, ''thanking each man for his part in the mission and offering the gratitude of the Philippine nation to the Captain and crew.'' One contemporary account called the loss of Datu Kalantiaw ''one of the worst disasters in the history of the Philippine Navy,'' 79 of the 97 man crew perishing.

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U.S.S. Carroll (DE-171)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Career

Laid down: 30 January 1943
Launched: 21 June 1943
Commissioned: 24 October 1943
Decommissioned: 19 June 1946
Struck: 1 August 1965
Fate: Sold 29 December 1966, scrapped

General characteristics

Class: Cannon class destroyer escort
Type: DET (diesel electric tandem motor drive, long hull)
Displacement: 1,240 tons (std) 1,620 tons (full)
Dimensions: 306' (oa), 300' (wl) x 36' 10'' x 11' 8'' (max)
Range: 10,800 nm at 12 knots
Speed: 21 knots
Complement: 15 officers, 201 enlisted men
Armament: 3 x 3''/50 Mk22 (1x3), 1 twin 40mm Mk1 AA, 8 x 20mm Mk 4 AA, 3 x 21'' Mk15 TT (3x1), 1 Hedgehog Projector Mk10 (144 rounds), 8 Mk6 depth charge projectors, 2 Mk9 depth charge tracks.
Propulsion: 4 GM Mod. 16-278A diesel engines with electric drive, 6000 shp, 2 screws.

U.S.S. Carroll (DE-171) was a Cannon class destroyer escort built for the U.S. Navy during World War II. She served in the Atlantic Ocean and then the Pacific Ocean and provided escort service against submarine and air attack for Navy vessels and convoys. She was launched 21 June 1943 by Norfolk Navy Yard; sponsored by Mrs. H. F. Carroll, Sr.; commissioned 24 October 1943, Lieutenant Commander F. W. Kuhn in command; and reported to the Atlantic Fleet.

World War II North Atlantic operations
Carroll was assigned to convoy escort duty, with its heavy demands for vigilance, ability to steam in all weather, and optimum readiness for duty at all times. Between 1 January 1944 and 9 May 1945, she made eight voyages between Norfolk, Virginia, and Gibraltar, Casablanca, Bizerte, and Algeria, guarding the men and supplies destined to carry the war through southern Europe. Between convoys, Carroll received necessary attention at east coast shipyards, and sharpened her training with exercises in Casco Bay.

World War II Pacific Theatre operations
With the coming to the European theater of the victory in which she had played a significant part, Carroll was reassigned to the Pacific Fleet, to which she reported at Cristobal, Canal Zone, 9 June 1945. She sailed to San Diego, California, and Pearl Harbor for exercises through 15 July, when she sailed for Eniwetok, Saipan, and Ulithi, arriving 17 August. Until 3 November 1945, Carroll patrolled the smaller islands of the Palau group searching for by passed Japanese garrisons and prisoners of war. On 6 October, the surrender of Sonsorol, Fanna, Merir, and Tobi Islands was signed on her decks. She then furnished supplies, and supervised the evacuation of the islands by the Japanese.

Post War decommissioning
She was homeward bound on 3 November, and arrived at Jacksonville, Florida, 14 December. Here she was decommissioned and placed in reserve 19 June 1946. She was struck from the Navy List on 1 August 1965, sold on 29 December 1966 and scrapped.