Destroyer minesweeper
The type is now obsolete, its function having been taken over by purpose-built ships, designated as "minesweeper (high-speed)" with the hull classification symbol MMD.
When they were fully converted from destroyers to destroyer minesweepers, the number 4 boiler, the fourth stack from the bow, and the torpedo tubes were removed, the depth charge racks repositioned forward from the stern and angled outboard, and the stern modified to support sweep gear: davits, winch, paravanes, and kites.
Their dual purpose 3 inch guns could be used against enemy shore batteries, to fire on surfaced submarines, and as effective anti-aircraft weapons.
[1] The USS Wasmuth, after spending much of her WWII career sweeping and escorting ships in the Aleutians, was sunk when a gale in Alaskan waters dislodged two of her depth charges that exploded by her hull in December 1942.
The threat of a depth charge dislodging and exploding during a storm was a topic covered by Herman Wouk in the climax to his novel The Caine Mutiny.
[2] The Perry, a Wickes-class destroyer in the list above, was sunk by naval mines on September 13, 1944, off Palau while she was involved in sweeping duties.
Around fifty American naval vessels, five destroyer minesweepers among them, were lost or damaged at Lingayen Gulf in the first two weeks of 1945.
As the Naval historian Samuel Eliot Morison noted with respect to the destroyer minesweepers at the Battle of Lingayen Gulf, the “Japanese seemed to pick on minecraft because they were usually isolated and had no good antiaircraft support”.
[4] Nonetheless, only one destroyer minesweeper, the highly upgraded Gleaves-class Emmons, was sunk in combat by kamikazes after Lingayen Gulf, and she was struck a remarkable total of five times at the Battle of Okinawa before sinking.
[5][6][circular reference] The Navy itself acknowledged the daunting task faced by minesweepers in defending against enemy aircraft with relatively light armament, as the commendation for the Emmons presented by the Secretary of the Navy acknowledged that she was "lightly armed and highly vulnerable while operating in dangerous mined waters".
The Emmons had significantly more anti-aircraft guns than the Wickes and Clemson-class destroyer minesweepers that battled kamikazes and Japanese escort planes at Lingayen Gulf only three months earlier.
The Battle of Okinawa would prove to be even more disastrous for the destroyer minesweeper fleet than Lingayen Gulf, with roughly seven times more Japanese aircraft engaged as kamikazes.
The sonar had a Plan Position Indicator, similar to those on high quality modern radar, which showed mines as bright green "pears".
Markers in the form of buoys were often used to mark mineswept lanes where transport ships or landing craft could find safe passage to beach heads or other destinations.
[11] Viewing the table below, an argument could be made that even the increased firepower and accuracy of the antiaircraft guns on the Gleaves-class destroyers did not adequately protect them from the wide scale attack by kamikazes at Okinawa, but one might assert that if Clemson-class destroyers had been used more widely at Okinawa, they might have suffered greater damage and experienced more sinkings.
Note the large number of fully shielded and more modern antiaircraft guns, a major improvement over converted Clemson-class sweepers, and the stern crane or davits used to haul minesweeping equipment.
[11] The Forrest, Hobson, Macomb, Dorsey, Hopkins, Ellyson, Hambleton, Rodman, Emmons, Butler, Gherardi, Jeffers, and Harding served in Okinawa in April 1945.
