Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!cbnews!military From: budden@trout.nosc.mil (Rex A. Buddenberg) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: where are they now? Summary: some others Message-ID: <1990Oct1.022059.3143@cbnews.att.com> Date: 1 Oct 90 02:20:59 GMT References: <1990Sep24.001114.22188@cbnews.att.com> <1990Sep27.031313.6610@cbnews.att.com> <1990Sep29.155016.7108@cbnews.att.com> Sender: military-request@att.att.com Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego Lines: 57 Approved: military@att.att.com From: budden@trout.nosc.mil (Rex A. Buddenberg) USCGC Ingham has just been added to the Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum collection on north shore, Charleston, SC harbor. She joins USS Yorktown, USS Laffey, USS Clangamore and SS(N) Savannah. Museum has a phone: 1-800-327-5723. Ingham exhibit formally opens with a reunion 15-19 October. 327s. The Coast Guard built seven cutters of 327 feet length in 1936. The Alexander Hamilton was the lead ship; she was torpedoed and sunk off Iceland in early 1942 so the class has been known as the Campbell class since. Spencer was decomissioned in the mid-70s (?), but the remaining five cutters remained on continuous active duty in Coast Guard service until into the 80s with Ingham last to go at age 52. The ships had 400 pound steam turbine propulsion plants which were fairly bulky compared to the more modern 600 and 1200 pounders common in Navy service, but they were dependable. Campbell's turbines had been opened exactly once between commissioning in 1936 and decommissioning in 1982 and she never failed to answer bells for me (1977-79). All the 327s except Taney were on the Atlantic coast at beginning of US involvement in WWII. Campbell was the first of the cutters to be 'chopped' to the Navy for convoy escort service -- several months before Pearl Harbor. Taney was tied up in downtown Honolulu when the Japanese arrived 7 December. Ingham, Duane, Spencer and Campbell all sank at least one submarine during WWII. Campbell's submarine attack occurred in spring 1943 -- caught one making a night surface approach -- visual detection. XO had the conn, attempted to ram, caught the submarine's bow in engine room (who's ramming whom??). U-boat sank although several prisoners were taken in the process. Campbell was dead in the water and nearly sank herself. Polish corvette Pozna towed her in to Londonderry. Everything got patched up and the ship lasted for 40 more years. Ship construction has changed in the intervening years. Personal anecdote. We pulled back into Port Angeles, Wa about Thanksgiving 1977 and the Radar Installation Team showed up a few days later to install a brand new SPS-64 surface search radar. Last job before Christmas break so the guys had incentive. We needed to install one of the indicators on the bridge and didn't have a lot of room to work with. So the DC in the party quickly made up a bracket to mount the indicator on the forward bulkhead -- about as space-economical as we were likely to get. When he went to arc-weld the bracket to the bulkhead frames, the gent got something of a surprise: welder just wouldn't work ... at any power setting. Finally scraped away enough paint to discover that the entire forward bulhead on the bridge was made out of brass! The Campbell class went through a lot of evolution in installed equipment over the years, but never quite ran out of space. And they were the nicest riding cutters we've ever had in the inventory. Rex Buddenberg