Posted: 5/5/2014 7:30:47 AM EDT
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http://www.usskidd.com/ If you ever get to Baton Rouge, this is a must visit. Fletcher class destroyer, the only one left that wasn't modernized after WW2. When I was growing up, a family friend had been medical officer on the Kidd at Okinawa. He was topside taking pictures of a Japanese aircraft approaching. Everyone else ran to the other side of the ship as it approached, but Dr. Garrett stayed there taking pictures. The kamikaze hit below where he was standing. Broke both of his legs, and he lost an eye. The bomb that had been on board the kamikaze travelled thrugh the ship, exploding on the other side where it killed those who had run there to get away. Here's one of the pictures Dr. Garrett took that day.  Dr. Broox Garrett was one of those who worked to aquire the Kidd for preservation. I'm proud to have known him and heard his stories.
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There was another in modified Fletcher stuck in political limbo a few years ago. Some guys were trying to save it. But I think the couldn't afford the taxes and the Mexican govt took it for scrap.
I managed to find it sitting pair side on Google maps at the time. |
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During a simulated torpedo attack in September of that year, KIDD was struck by two star-shells fired from the NORTHCAROLINA (BB-55). As fortune had it, her forward damage control party was exercising in the immediate vicinity with a make-believe casualty strapped into a stretcher. One of the shells entered the compartment and crossed just above the chest of the pretended casualty. The sailor suffered a minor abrasion from a fleck of debris. The skipper reported to the task force commander: "KIDD claims to be the best prepared ship in the Navy. We had a victim already strapped in the stretcher when he was wounded."
My uncles name is on the corsair. 
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Quoted:
There was another in modified Fletcher stuck in political limbo a few years ago. Some guys were trying to save it. But I think the couldn't afford the taxes and the Mexican govt took it for scrap. I managed to find it sitting pair side on Google maps at the time. It was the BAM Cuitlahuac, ex-John Rodgers. I can't remember if they got it into the U.S., either. I remember seeing pictures of her laid up with other recently decommissioned WWII era destroyers a couple of years after she was decommissioned. I think the others have all since been scrapped. According to Jane's, as late as the 1990s she still had a bank of 21" torpedo tubes, which was unusual post-war (they were typically removed, even on unmodernized destroyers). Mexico still has a Gearing-class DD in active service, making Mexico one of about a dozen countries left in the world to still operate any quantity of destroyers. |